April 2002

The next time she arrived at the shack, she had barely gotten through the door before Malfoy abruptly apparated in, nearly on top of her.

He grabbed her firmly, and backed her up against a wall as his lips crashed into hers.

Hermione barely had time to think or react. Her eyes widened in astonishment and as they did, his eyes met hers and he abruptly invaded her mind.

She had been so startled, her occlumency walls had fallen. The terrifying distraction of his body pressed against hers while he kissed her made it difficult to focus solely on the sensation of his mind tearing its way through her consciousness.

He skimmed through her recent memories; brewing an invisibility potion for the ring he'd given her, taking Lee Jordan and dropping him at St Mungo's. He found her memory of their previous meeting.

She could feel him experiencing it, even while she was also keenly aware of his lips moving away from hers and kissing along her jaw, while his hands slid along her body.

He started moving toward the memory of her conversation with Snape. No. She didn't want him to see that one. Even though she was confident he would know what she was trying to do, she didn't want him to have confirmation of it.

She forced herself not to pull the memory away or hide it. Instead she grabbed onto the first thing she could think of and jerked it forcefully back further into her memories. Malfoy had to have known it was a feint, but he gamely chased after it. After keeping it away from him for a few seconds, she let him catch it.

Third year Malfoy stood in front of her, sneering.

"Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic?" said Malfoy. "And he's supposed to be our teacher!"

Harry and Ron moved angrily toward him, but Hermione was the quickest—SMACK!

She slapped Malfoy across the face with all the strength she could muster. Her hand felt aflame from the force, and his pale skin immediately bloomed scarlet where she struck him. He staggered, looking at her with a mixture of pain and astonishment.

"Don't you dare call Hagrid pathetic, you foul—you evil—" she roared.

Malfoy abruptly jerked out of her mind and stepped away, shaking.

Hermione stared at him, expecting him to be enraged that she'd tricked him with that memory. Then she realized after a moment that he was laughing.

That felt more terrifying.

"Well done," he said, still chuckling after a minute. "I expected it would take you longer before you'd be able to do it."

Hermione was slumped against the wall, trying to recover herself from his combined mental and physical assault. A migraine was already steadily beginning to creep up on her.

"Is this the way you usually teach occlumency?" she said after a moment.

His lips quirked faintly.

"Only with you," he said with a thin smile. "I can't have you doubting my sincerity, now can I? I needed to do something to catch you off guard. So—" he shrugged. "Two gnomes, one kneazle. I'm sure you didn't expect me to keep my hands entirely to myself."

Hermione fought back the urge to sneer at him.

"Should I wear stockings the next time I come?" she asked, her voice caustic.

His eyes seemed to darken.

"Hmm. No. I rather like you like this. Being dirty and bedraggled in muggle clothing suits you. And I intend to savour you. You needn't start wearing them—yet."

Hermione felt a shiver go through her; of fear, but also from the tension between them, a strain of animosity and calculation filled the air.

He stepped closer to her and caught hold of her left hand, lifting it as he slid his thumb across the ring that reappeared on her hand when he stared down at it.

"How does this work?"

"The potion is based on Magical principles similar to the Fidelius," she said, slipping her hand free. "It's only visible if you know to look for it. Otherwise it's undetectable. Only you and I can see it."

Malfoy quirked an approving eyebrow.

"I don't believe I've heard of that potion."

"It's new," she said stiffly.

"Yours?"

Hermione gave a reluctant nod. "It's not actually that useful. It only works on metals."

"Interesting," he murmured, stepping closer.

Every time he drew near, she felt a renewed awareness of how dangerous he was. The dark magic came off of him in waves; it clung to his clothes and his hair and almost emanated from his skin. It was as though he wore a cloak of darkness and rage that he was simply keeping in check around her.

There was so much darkness. All the deaths he was responsible for.

He was drenched in them.

"Let's try again. And see how long you can keep it up." His lips pulled into brief smirk. "I won't kiss you—this time."

He drove into her mind again. She kept him out with her walls for a minute while she organised her mind and memories. Then she pretended to have the shield give away.

She wasn't sure she was actually good at it, or if he was having the decency to restrict himself from rifling through all her memories. He allowed her strong attempts at distracting him to succeed. After she'd successfully done it a dozen times, he withdrew.

Hermione felt as though her head were about to crack open; as though the pain were a form of pressure that threatened to break through her skull. The pain was agonising. Her eyes were welling up with tears, and she bit down on her lip to try to keep from crying.

"Drink this," he ordered, slipping a vial of pain relief potion into her hand. "Otherwise you may black out when you try to apparate. I wouldn't recommend it."

She swallowed it, fairly certain he wasn't going to poison her.

"Did that happen to you?" she asked when the pain began easing so she could speak again and her vision was no longer littered with flashing black spots.

"More than once," Malfoy said shortly. "My training was—rigorous."

She nodded. It still seemed hard to believe he was the same school bully she had known.

Coldness and harshness were built up around him like the walls of a castle. All that scarcely subdued rage.

The boy who got boxes of sweets and had a spot bought for him on a quidditch team, who cried and whined over a scratched arm, was gone. Everything soft and indolent and pampered about him was carved away by the war. He hadn't bought his way through Voldemort's ranks with galleons. He'd paid in blood.

Everything was so hard and exacting. His smirking and leering, and the vagaries of his courtesy all felt like an act. Like a mask he was wearing to disguise just how cold he was.

If she wanted to succeed, she needed to get past his mask and coldness and rage. He might be intending to use her just as a form of vindictive or amusing stress relief, but she was still determined to become more.

She needed to draw out his confidence until she could understand his motivation—until she found a vulnerability she could slip through.

No one was pure ice. Not even Malfoy.

There was something about him. In his eyes. Something that looked like fire hidden deep within. She needed to find a way to reach it and then fuel it into something she could utilise.

He expected her to hate him and try to manipulate him with false kindness and sympathy. She had to be clever about it. More clever than him.

"Was that after fifth year?"

He looked at her somewhat sharply.

"Yes," he said it in a clipped tone.

"Your aunt?"

"Hmm," he hummed in confirmation.

They were both staring at each other intently.

"Not the only thing you learned that summer," she said.

"Are you needing a confession for something, Granger? Should I tell you everything I've done?" He drew closer so that he towered above her, and sneered down in her face.

She forced herself not to shrink or cower back. She stared up into his eyes.

"Do you want to?" she asked.

There was the faintest flash of surprise in his expression. He seemed caught off guard by the question.

He was lonely. She'd suspected as much, but now she felt certain. Dead mother, insane father. He was high up in Voldemort's ranks and they were notoriously filled with backstabbing. If he ever had any regrets, he'd never told anyone.

"No," he said, voice sharp as he stepped away from her.

She didn't push. If he thought she were pushing, he'd shut up like a clam. She didn't need to know. She just needed him to realize he wanted to tell someone—

—that he wanted to tell her .

It would make her emotionally valuable to him. It would be a hook. An opening.

It would make her interesting.

"Did you want to go again?" she asked after a moment.

He stared at her, silver eyes flat. "When I was trained, she'd have someone crucio me while she was trying to break into my mind. That's probably what will happen to you, if you're ever caught."

He didn't give her time to react to the information before he slammed his way in. When he stopped, he didn't wait for her to regain her breath before dropping a new scroll of information next to her and vanishing.

That week Hermione went back to Waterstones. She bought books on the psychological effects of loneliness. Books on orphans. Research of the psychology of child soldiers.

She didn't hesitate as she underlined sections on their vulnerabilities; the ways by which they were prone to being taken advantage of and manipulated.

In a notebook upon which she placed a rather nasty security curse she began to draw up a psychological sketch of Draco Malfoy. What she'd noticed about him. Questions and theories she had.

The center of him—his motivation—remained a mysterious blank. But she felt as though she were beginning to get a sense of his edges.

The following Tuesday, he did not start by forcing his attentions on her. He set himself to provoking her in other ways.

He did not restrain himself at all when he invaded her mind for another round of occlumency training. He scrabbled into the back of it, and then meandered through the memories he happened to come across. Forcing her to relive some of the deaths she tried hardest not to dwell on. Then, quite by accident, he came across the memory immediately following her conversation with Snape. She flinched when he drew near it, and he immediately pounced.

He watched her examine her facial features critically before stepping into the shower. And when she stepped out and appraised her naked body in the mirror, he stopped and stared, following her mental fault finding. She could feel his condescending amusement as he took her in. She writhed with embarrassment, and he felt that too.

He stayed in the memory for far longer than it lasted and then withdrew entirely from her mind.

"Well," he said, looking as though he were about to start laughing. "That certainly is one way to distract a legilimens."

She glared up at him. She was sorely tempted to kick him in the groin and then try to stomp his teeth out.

"Pleased with your purchase?" Her tone was corrosive.

He gave a short laugh under his breath. "You're rather scrawny. If you'd sent me the memory beforehand, I might have asked for someone else," he said as he stepped back to look her over in person.

"A pity for us both then," she said, her mouth twisting as she folded her arms defensively.

"Perhaps... But then again, if I hadn't gotten you I would never have had a chance to encounter a brain organized like a filing cabinet." His voice was light and casual, but his quicksilver eyes abruptly hardened. He cocked his head slightly to the side. "Moody didn't train you. You're a natural occlumens."

Hermione nodded resignedly. She had assumed he'd realise it eventually. When she'd invented the lie, she hadn't expected him to spend so much time poking around in her head.

"Self-taught, then?"

"I had a book," she said stiffly.

He gave a barking laugh. "Of course."

He was staring at her with an expression she couldn't place. As though he were reassessing her. The realisation seemed to be making him to re-evaluate something about her.

Hermione didn't want him to re-evaluate. If he did, he might decide to change his strategy. She liked the current way in which she was not having sex with him.

"What?" she snapped at him impatiently, hoping to break his train of thought. It seemed to work, the narrowed expression of his eyes eased slightly.

"Nothing," he waved her off. "I've just never encountered one before."

He smirked.

She stared at him with her own eyes narrowed.

"You're one too," she said with rising horror. She was trying to slip past the defenses of someone who could also shutter and isolate their emotions and desires.

He gave a mocking bow.

"What are the odds?" he mused with a faint shrug.

There was a long silence.

They were both re-evaluating.

"Are you still going to teach me occlumency then?" she asked at length.

"Yes..." he said slowly. "It would be an oversight to only do it halfway. You'll be able to learn quicker than I had expected."

"Right." She nodded and braced herself.

He drew closer to her. Her heart stuttered.

The movement reminded her of an animal stalking prey. Slow, subtle, gradual and then suddenly—too close.

She stared at his face so she wouldn't focus on the physicality of him, on how easily he could break her with his bare hands.

His fingers came up and touched her chin lightly, tilting her head further back so that her throat felt bared.

"You are so full of surprises," he said, his gaze dragging across her face before locking on her eyes.

Hermione rolled her eyes briefly.

"Do you say that to every girl?" she said in a sarcastically sweet tone.

She didn't bother with the outer walls as he dived into her consciousness. It was the process of having them breached that made her head ache the most. She already felt reasonably confident in her ability to feign that they were easily cracked.

He didn't make the invasion painful. Which startled her. She had assumed that legilimency was inherently painful. Instead it felt like her mind was a pensive he was simply dropping into. Her consciousness and his merged.

He seemed to be taking in her natural mental state.

Without the pain of the legilimency attack, Hermione was able to be more nuanced and intentional in her strategy. She shuffled her memories about with false carelessness, drawing his attention and then slipping certain ones off into further corners of her mind.

It—was like learning to dance. Or perhaps learning martial arts. All the movement was done slowly. Without force.

He gave her time to learn the technique. Feel what it was like to do it properly. Going over the forms. Drilling it again and again until she could do it instinctively, without needing to think.

At length he withdrew and glanced down at his wrist. "We've gone overtime."

"Oh," she said quietly, still mentally preoccupied by the technique she'd been trying to get right.

He stared down at her until she straightened and looked up at him.

"Do you have any information this week?"

"Not really. There are more vampires arriving from Romania this month. No specific details yet."

"If—" Hermione hesitated.

He quirked an eyebrow at her, staring down and waiting.

"If—we needed something. Would you be able to get it for us?" she asked.

"It would depend on what it is."

"A book."

He snorted.

"It's called Secrets of the Darkest Art. I've tried everything I can to find it. But the Order's resources are limited."

"I'll see what I can do." He gave an irritated sigh.

"Be careful," she found herself saying.

He looked surprised.

"You won't want Voldemort to know you're looking for it."

"How important is this book?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

"I don't know. It might be nothing. Or it might be very important. But—don't blow your cover for it."

He rolled his eyes.

"As if I would," he muttered before eying her sharply. "You should go. I'm sure Potter will be pining for you."

Hermione gathered up her satchel of potion ingredients and slipped out of the shack.

Malfoy was staring after her contemplatively as she closed the door and apparated away.

When she got back to Grimmauld Place, she was pensive as she bottled and prepped ingredients.

Malfoy was not what she had expected.

He was far less cruel than she had anticipated. She kept expecting his malice to suddenly cut through his facade. But either he was less malicious than she'd thought, or he wanted something more complex and nuanced from her interactions with him. She already felt almost certain he didn't have any particular inclination towards hurting her.

She couldn't place what he wanted.

Severus had been right. Malfoy was already proving to be an excellent spy. All the information he'd given Moody had been high quality and useful. The Order had successfully raided a prison and gotten more than fifty people out.

However, his motive remained a mystery.

She couldn't understand what he could possibly get from spying. With his placement in Voldemort's army, he'd surely reap vast rewards with the Order's demise.

If the Order won, even with a pardon he'd undoubtedly become a pariah in the wizarding world for the rest of his life. Spies and traitors earned little respect, no matter how vital their contributions were.

Besides—Lucius Malfoy was a devoted follower of Voldemort. He blamed Narcissa's death on Ron and Harry, and directed almost all his energy to exacting revenge on them. While Draco might not share that sentiment—setting himself at odds with his father felt dubious. He'd modeled himself so carefully after his sire back in school, and had been incensed by his father's imprisonment in Azkaban at the end of fifth year.

Hermione laid out a tray full of dittany and cast a heat charm with the tip of her wand. Massaging her temple slightly with her other hand as she watched the leaves steadily dry.

Malfoy was not interested in her; not physically. At least no more than a man tended to be interested in any random woman. She'd studied the physiology of sexual attraction and he showed almost none of the signs, even after spending several minutes staring baldly at her naked reflection.

She flushed. The experience ranked unequivocally as the most embarrassing moment of her life.

So what was it all about? Why the kissing and groping? If it was all to provoke and anger her, the question of why still stood.

Why did he want to provoke her? What was driving the various tactics he was employing?

Initially he had clearly expected her to be so filled with hatred for him that she couldn't restrain it. Then, when he'd aggressively snogged her to break through her occlumency shields, he'd seemed to think he could use it to get her too consumed by emotions to think clearly. The way he'd appraised her in the mirror had also been clearly intended to sting.

He wanted her to hate him.

But when he'd realized she was an occlumens, he'd apparently decided to switch tactics again. He'd finally realized why he couldn't easily provoke her, and adapted once more.

But adapted for what? What was the point?

She couldn't understand it.

Hermione placed all the dry dittany leaves inside a large pestle, and began grinding them into powder.

"Mione?" Charlie popped his head into her potion supply closet.

"Yes?"

"Snape dropped by earlier looking for you."

"Oh. Did he say why?"

"Had a new recipe for you, I think. Gave it to Poppy. To heal some new curse he helped invent."

Charlie's expression was twisted with anger. Many of the Order members blamed Severus for every curse developed in Voldemort's curse division. They thought that if Severus were really on the Order's side, he'd find a way to sabotage the entire thing.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"You know if he weren't there, we'd lose dozens more people before we'd figure out the countercurses. His information is vital for giving me time to prepare."

"Yeah, and how many of our people do you reckon he's killed getting that information? Those are our people they're experimenting on to make the spells. He's murdering people, but it's alright 'cause he's sending us intelligence on countercurses. Does it really work that way?"

Hermione stilled from her dittany grinding.

"He's a spy, Charlie. Those are the kinds of things they have to do to maintain their cover. If he blew it to save a group of prisoners or tried to sabotage the place, Voldemort would just create a new one and we'd lose the intelligence. The loss would never pay off in the long run."

"So you say," Charlie said, his lips thin and his eyes hard, he turned and walked away.

Hermione ground the dittany for a few more minutes before funneling it into a jar.

Severus must have developed a potion for healing the acid curse. She hoped it was different from the one he'd been working on when she stopped by Spinner's End.

She had no acromantula venom. Ministry issued identification was required to buy from apothecaries. She would have try to find a source from the black market; it would probably cost several hundred gallons. The Order was low on funds.

The Goblins had taken a neutral position in the war, but while Gringotts remained open to the Order, getting into the bank for money without being arrested was a challenge. Not to mention that being a Muggle-born was an imprisonable offense.

Most members of the Resistance were unemployable, either by blood or association.

It was fortunate that Harry had a large vault, because they probably would have been starved out of existence otherwise.

If the potion required acromantula venom—well, hopefully Severus would be able to give her a few drops. If not, she doubted the Order would budget for her to buy any unless the curse was being used constantly.

She crossed her fingers and went to find Poppy.

The hospital ward was crowded again.

The rescue at the prison had been successful, but many of the prisoners had injuries from torture or were malnourished. There had been a firefight during the escape, and some brutal curses had been used.

Those with minor injuries had been sent to some of the other safe houses, but Grimmauld Place kept the most complex and difficult injuries for Hermione and Poppy to care for.

Poppy was hovering over Rolanda Hooch's bed. A tiny pinprick incision in Hooch's trachea kept reappearing and slowly growing despite all their efforts to heal it. Whomever was on duty in the hospital ward had to keep a two minute timer running in a constant cycle to monitor it.

"Any change?" Hermione asked, leaning down and examining the injury alongside Poppy.

"Oh, Hermione, you're back," Poppy said in a sad voice. "Severus came and looked at it. He said it isn't one of Voldemort's new ones. So—it's likely a miscast curse."

Hermione sighed with relief before a sharp wave of guilt struck her. If it was a miscast curse, they were unlikely to encounter it again. But it also meant that they'd likely be unable to heal Rolanda. Hermione had tried without success to deconstruct the injury with spell analysis, trying to unravel it. The structure was so mangled and inconsistent it was impossible to neutralise.

"How much longer do you think the healing spells will work?" Pomfrey quietly asked, staring sadly at her longtime colleague.

Hermione mentally calculated the time that had passed since Madam Hooch had been brought in. It was an obscure piece of knowledge but eventually healing charms ceased working when used in too great a frequency. Even magic couldn't force a body to keep repairing itself beyond a certain point.

"If we keep healing it every two minutes the spells will probably continue working for another twenty hours," Hermione told her gently.

Poppy nodded and tucked the blankets gently around Rolanda's body.

"Severus left a new recipe for you," she told Hermione. "He said you should get a flagon ready."

Poppy reached into her pocket and withdrew a small roll of parchment and a vial.

Hermione lifted the vial up into the light.

Two drops of Acromantula venom. Probably worth more than fifty galleons.

She couldn't afford to make any mistakes. She slipped the vial into her pocket and unfurled the recipe to see what it would require to brew.

She had all the ingredients. Except fluxweed, which she had to harvest under a full moon. She calculated the next lunar cycle. She'd have to wait for a week before she'd have everything she needed to make a batch.

If the curse were as serious as Severus had indicated, she would have to hope that there would be no skirmishes before the full moon. Which was likely a delusional notion.

At the end of the recipe, Severus had included the counter spell for the acid curse in his spiky handwriting. She reviewed it. It was simple, as he had said.

Hermione copied the countercurse onto a fresh sheet of parchment. An injury involving acid would need to be countered immediately. Waiting a few extra seconds to call a healer or apparate the wounded could add days to the recovery. The countercurse was simple enough; every Resistance member could learn it.

She wrote a brief note of explanation, and with a flick of her wand folded the note into a paper aeroplane and sent it zooming through the house to find Harry.

"Would you be able to take your shift early?" Poppy said.

Hermione looked up and realised Poppy was looking grey with grief.

"Of course," Hermione said quickly.

"I want to write Filius, Pomona, and Minerva. They might want to come say their goodbyes," Poppy said, shoulders drooping. "The notes on what I've done are all in the logbook, and I just resealed the incision. So you can start a two minute count now."

Hermione watched Poppy Pomfrey as she walked with slow, heavy steps out of the hospital ward.

Hermione went over and glanced over the logbook. There were no surprises in it. She walked quietly from bed to bed. Everyone was still asleep, and a few were dosed with Draught of Living Death. It was a method of keeping them alive while certain, slow brewing potions were being made to cure them. She ran a precautionary diagnostic on each body, and ran through a mental checklist of which potions she needed to attend to. She needed to send out the first doses of wolfsbane potion to all the Lycanthropes in the Order.

It was a quiet day in the hospital ward. Aside from the constant recasting of the healing charm on Madam Hooch, most of the other injuries simply required careful supervision and time.

Hermione sat and speculated about what Malfoy might be like during their next meeting.

The fact he was also a natural occlumens was—problematic, to put it in the mildest of terms.

It meant his control ran deep. Trying to find her way in and make him loyal would be nearly impossible if he was able to winnow away and contain any effect she had on him.

If she wanted to have any chance of succeeding, she would have to be slow and insidious. To dig herself so deep into his psyche that he couldn't drag or filter her out. Find a way into his heart. The one place that no amount of occlumency could block or sequester.

She shivered slightly.

She had never felt cruel before. Cold. Unfeeling. She'd been called those things, and believed they might be true. But cruel was a line she had always considered herself above. But what she was contemplating was possibly one of the cruelest things she could conceive of.

She squashed the hesitation.

He was the one who had demanded her.

Now and after the war.

She was well within her rights to ensure he paid full price for his demands. If he didn't want her, he shouldn't have asked.

She steeled herself, and summoned a book from her bag.