December 2002

The house at Spinner's End was crammed with bubbling potions.

Hermione turned around the room slowly and paused in surprise as she noticed a cauldron shimmering in the corner. She stepped over and watched the spiraling steam rising from the surface. She sniffed it surreptitiously—spicy, earthy scent of oakmoss, smoky undertones of cedar and parchment—no. She sniffed again. Papyrus.

It felt like receiving a diagnosis she'd expected but still hoped to be wrong about. Her stomach dropped sharply. She stepped abruptly away and glanced at the other surrounding cauldrons. There was a aching sensation inside her chest that she tried to ignore.

"This is quite a variety of love potions you're brewing," she said, looking over to where Severus was stooped over a simmering cauldron.

"A new project for the Dark Lord. He's suddenly developed an interest in trying to weaponise it," Severus said, sneering down at the murky, lumescent liquid he was working over.

Hermione felt her blood run cold. "Is that a possibility?"

Severus shrugged with a faint smile. "I am both skeptical and unmotivated, so most likely not. I believe it was more of a passing notion than anything he has a sincere interest in. I'm drawing up a comprehensive report to present in case he asks about it. And I'm doing it in my home rather than in the lab to ensure no one offers any groundbreaking ideas."

Hermione surveyed the room. There were ten varieties of love potion and a few aphrodisiacs she recognised, as well as an additional fifteen that appeared experimental.

"What would constitute as a weaponised love potion?"

"Something of exceptional power that doesn't require redosage. I believe he imagines himself using it for interrogations."

"That's—obscene," Hermione finally said.

"Indeed. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, he has other matters he regards as more urgent for Sussex to focus on."

Hermione stood, watching Severus crush ashwinder eggs for several minutes in silence.

"Draco says that Sussex is trying to develop a way to prevent further rescues."

There was a pause before Severus turned and looked at her thoughtfully.

"I didn't realise he was aware of that."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "An excellent spy. Isn't that what you said?"

"So it would seem," Severus muttered, turning back to his mortar and pestle. "Do you know why he's spying yet?

Hermione's eyes dropped to her shoes. "No," she admitted. "He says things that seem true, but I can't make out the motive behind them."

There was a pause, filled with the hiss of simmering liquid and grinding stone.

"Are you aware he's climbing rank?" Severus said, turning to his cauldron and pouring the powdered ashwinder shells into the liquid in a gradual figure eight across the surface.

Hermione was quiet for several seconds. "I hadn't heard that."

"I mentioned it to Kingsley a few weeks ago. Climbing higher. Consolidating power. I don't pretend to know all you do together during your weekly—meetings... but I sometimes wonder if you even remember that when he's not with you, he spends his time killing people."

Hermione's breath caught in her throat while Severus continued in an unsettlingly conversational tone. "I've rarely seen anyone who used Dark Magic as unsparingly as he has recently. The Dark Lord is thrilled by the exceptional tool he has crafted for himself. Those who make the mistake of getting in Draco's way have a habit of dying from suspiciously ingenious uses of 'Resistance' spells. A few weeks ago, one of the marked Death Eaters, Gibbon, was found with his limbs flayed and dismembered. I helped analyse the corpse; there was an exceptional web of Dark Magic used to force Gibbon to stay alive for nearly a day before he finally died."

Hermione froze and shook her head sharply. "That's not—Draco wouldn't—you said yourself he's not a sadist."

Severus looked over at her from the corner of his eye. "Did you think not being a sadist means he's never tortured anyone to death?" His expression was contemptuous. "I'm sure you read his runes. What manner of things do you suppose he does ruthlessly and without fail?"

Hermione stiffened until her body shook and her jaw twitched. "You kill people too and I've never questioned your loyalty because of it, Severus."

He snorted faintly and his lips curled. "I have only one loyalty; to the purpose of the Order. The horrors I am obliged to commit, I commit out of necessity. Do you think I enjoy feeling my soul slowly tear itself apart and poison me? All while being derided and doubted by those who would never be willing to make a similar sacrifice?" He shook his head slightly. "However, that is irrelevant. Gibbon was not a necessity. He was not important. He was not powerful. There was nothing strategic or in the interests of the Order about killing him. Certainly not anything to necessitate dismembering him while keeping him alive in the process."

Hermione kept steadily shaking her head. "It might have been someone else. You don't know it was Draco."

Severus froze and turned slowly to face Hermione. "It was Draco. I know it was Draco. The reason I know it is because while dissecting the spellwork I came across the signature of an interesting enchantment. One that I personally invented. A containment enchantment I only ever taught one person. You. You were using it to treat his runes, weren't you?"

The whole room wobbled in Hermione's vision, and she caught the edge of the table to keep from falling.

Severus stared down at her, his expression menacing. "I have been a spy for almost as long as you have been alive, Miss Granger. Now stop defending him and listen."

Hermione stilled.

Severus pursed his lips as he studied her. "He has gone rogue. If he ever was loyal, he certainly is not now. Whatever he is in the process of doing, it is not solely on behalf of the Order. He is one of the most powerful Generals in the army now. He reports only to the Dark Lord. He has his own web of informants throughout the army, and he has used that information to make the Order heavily reliant on him; likely to prevent us from ever betraying him."

Hermione felt as though she couldn't breathe. Her fingertips were tingling faintly. She gave a shaky nod.

"I believe I know why he killed Gibbon," Severus added after a moment. "He concealed it and made the process look like a torture, but once I noticed the enchantment, there were several clues that made what he had been attempting obvious. Draco is trying to find a means of removing his Dark Mark without dying from it."

"Dying?"

"If the mark was possible flense or remove by chopping off the arm, Igor Karkaroff would be alive today. There were a few who tried to run or become turncoats during both wars and discovered to their detriment what happens. The mark is a connection between the Dark Lord and his servants; severing it results in a cursed wound. The person bleeds to death, unstoppably. There are no spells or potions to prevent it. Yet it seems Draco is determined to find a way, if he possibly can."

A horrifying detail struck Hermione. "He was left handed. But now he's ambidextrous."

Severus quirked an eyebrow thoughtfully. "That would be the logical thing to do, for a man intending to eventually cut off his own arm. Do you know how long he's been that way?"

"As long as I've been going to him. I've rarely seen him use his left hand." There was a burning sensation in the pit of her stomach.

Severus looked pensive. "So he's been planning this for years then."

Hermione was reeling; trying to reevaluate everything she thought she knew. Draco was playing a long game. She was merely a ripple in it, or a tool. She didn't even know.

Severus stared at her, his expression more tense than Hermione had ever seen. "He would be quite deadly for everyone involved if the manacles of his servitude were ever removed."

Hermione nodded. Without the Dark Mark restricting Draco, it would no longer be necessary for him to appease the Order into maintaining his cover. If he was vying for power, getting his mark off was the next step.

Especially since Hermione had admitted that Harry didn't intend to kill Voldemort.

Severus gave a faint sigh and suddenly seemed old as he stared down at Hermione. "I'll admit, I expected the June attack to be the beginning of the end for him. With the punishment he submitted to, I assumed he'd be on borrowed time." He eyed her carefully. "That it wasn't, I suppose, must be attributed to your exceptional care."

There was a pause. For a moment it felt as though the world had frozen around her, then it shattered.

"You knew he'd take the fall for the attack in June," Hermione said slowly, staring at Severus wide-eyed. "You, Kingsley and Moody. That's why you were willing to make the attack so elaborate and use so much intelligence. You weren't concerned about exposing him. You expected he'd be killed for it."

Severus said nothing.

"Why—why didn't you tell me?" she finally said. Her voice shook faintly with rage.

"We didn't think you needed to know." Severus shrugged. Hermione felt so enraged she thought she might incinerate the room around her. "We expected you to realise it eventually. When it became clear that you hadn't realised it—that you had formed some kind of attachment, or felt obligated to him—we concluded it would be advisable to let you try to heal him, given you seemed to want to. We thought it was the least we could do, after what was asked from you."

"You expected I'd fail. That he'd be too far gone by the time I got there."

Severus pulled a jar of fairy wings from a shelf. Hermione couldn't breathe. Every sound seemed suddenly a hundred times louder. The bubbling of the potions. Her own quiet, horrified gasps. She could hear her rising heart rate.

"You can imagine our surprise to find that he is instead even more dangerous than before. Our spy of dubious loyalty. So tell me, what did you do to Draco Malfoy?"

Hermione pressed her lips together for several seconds.

"Is that why Moody sent me? So you could ask me that?" she finally asked.

Severus said nothing.

Hermione looked away and twitched at the hem of her sleeve. "You helped poison him, right down into his soul. Runic magic is corrupting, always; it doesn't wear off. If I'd gotten there sooner—if you'd mentioned what had happened—I might have been able to treat him less drastically. But by the time I found out, I didn't have those options. My assignment was to hold him for as long as possible. When I spoke to Moody, he cleared me to do whatever I could. If you hadn't wanted me to heal him, you should have told me."

"And what, precisely, is it that you did?"

Hermione swallowed hard. "I saved his soul."

"What. Did. You. Do?" Severus said slowly.

Hermione was quiet and then she reached up and fidgeted with the empty chain around her neck.

"When—when I was studying in Egypt—before I left—the hospital head gave me a Heart of Isis. He thought I might need it for Harry."

There was a deafening silence as Severus froze mid-motion over his cauldron.

"You didn't," he said, his voice nearly vibrating with disbelief. "Do you know the value? If you'd sold it, you could have fed the Resistance for a decade. The closest thing to a Philosopher's Stone and you used it on Draco Malfoy?"

Hermione didn't blink. "I made a calculated decision. I couldn't have put it on the black market. Can you imagine if Tom got his hands on one? In less than four months, Draco saved hundreds of people. Hundreds. And hundreds more he at least spared a horrific death. He saved Caithness, and there was nothing strategic about it. He's not a monster." Her voice grew bitter. "You helped poison him, and you didn't even give me a chance to try to save him. The rescues weren't enough. It wasn't enough to give us a victory. We were dying by inches until he came along."

Severus' rage felt nearly explosive. His sallow features paled further and his eyes were glittering. "He played you for a fool, and more deftly than I would have thought possible. One orphanage and a set of runes on his back and you were convinced he was worth giving a Heart of Isis to. You are more a fool than Harry Potter." He sneered at her contemptuously.

Hermione flinched. "He hasn't cut his arm off yet."

"Do you think he'll inform you before he does? He is deadly. He is not loyal to anyone, and you have empowered him to become a Dark wizard capable of reducing the Dark Lord into obscurity."

"There is more to him," Hermione said, jutting her chin up as she met Severus's eyes. "It's not as though he knew I had it when he asked for me. Or planned his punishment. You should have seen him, Severus; he knew he was going to die from them. He was resigned to it."

"Are you sure? It never occurred to you that he may have been manipulating you this entire time? After all, what exactly is he getting from having you? You aren't sleeping with him. He's teaching you to duel; he taught you occlumency. What benefit are you providing him?"

Hermione paled slightly, but she remained obstinate. "He's lonely. He doesn't have anyone. I am the closest thing to intimacy he has. I'm not the one who keeps extending our practice sessions. He knows I'm becoming a vulnerability for him, and he still can't help himself. That's how the runes work."

"You have run out of time," Severus said, his expression dismissive. "You have until the end of next month to demonstrate you have some kind of control over him. If you can't, you will turn over the most incriminating memories you have of him to Kingsley."

Hermione stared at Severus, stunned.

"You can't expose him." Her voice was shaking. "We need him. The Resistance thinks we're winning and it's because of him. Harry thinks we're winning. If we lose the intelligence, the Order won't be able to recover."

Severus was unmoved. "Fortunately for the Resistance, Draco has made himself into quite a crucial figure within the Dark Lord's army. His death will destabilise things dramatically."

"You can't—do that to him."

"Why? Because he's your—? What would you even say you are to him?"

Hermione swallowed bitterly and refused to answer the question. "He will be tortured to death in the most horrific way possible, and you know that. The curse division victims would be lucky compared to what will be done to Draco. You—can't—"

Severus turned and stared coldly down at her. "Are you refusing orders, Miss Granger? Choosing Draco Malfoy over Mr Potter and the Order?"

Hermione froze and it seemed like time stopped as she struggled to breathe. She was collapsing inward. There was nothing left inside her.

"No." Her voice was defeated. "No. I am loyal to the Order."

Severus turned away. "If he hadn't been so overconfident, he could have protected himself with a Vow from you. Ego always is a Dark Wizard's downfall." He sneered faintly as he stirred the potion.

Hermione shook her head.

" Go ahead. You're already more than capable of getting me killed any time you happen to feel like it."

"You're wrong. It wasn't some ego-based oversight. He's known. He's known this whole time that my memories could get him killed. He knew the Order set him up in June, even though I was too naive to. There's something else to all this, and we're missing it," she said, gripping her hands into fists until she felt her nails cut into her palms.

Severus glanced back over at her, looking saddened. "You are compromised by him. Your opinion on the matter is no longer reliable."

Hermione snarled. "It is not! Moody said I should do whatever I could to heal Draco. I followed my orders and healed him." She drew a sharp breath. "Draco wants me to stay alive. My life is, for whatever reason, important to him. Whatever else he's doing, my well-being has become an obsession for him and he resents it. He's furious about it half the time because it's interfering with whatever original plans he had, but he can't stop himself. He knows he's reaching a tipping point. I can do this. Just give me more time. Please—"

Severus was unmoved. "You've been given time. You have until the end of next month."

Hermione felt as though she were dying. Her lungs were shriveling, atrophying inside of her. "You're putting his death on my shoulders, Severus."

"You made this bed for yourself. I did everything I could to give you an exit six months ago," Severus said, looking away from her.

Hermione gave a ragged gasp.

Severus paused and added in a gentler voice. "If and when Kingsley and Moody expose Draco, we'll give you an hour to warn him; an opportunity for a more humane exit, if you wish to offer him one."

Hermione balled her hands into fists and glared at Severus. "If you think that counts as consolation, you don't know me very well." Her voice was shaking.

Severus gave no response.

A sob rose in her throat, choking her as she tried to force it down. She drew a rasping breath and turned to flee from Spinner's End.

As soon as she got past Severus' wards, she apparated.

She reappeared in Whitecroft. She always ended up there. She stood at the road and looked wistfully down the lane toward the shack that slowly bled into view.

She went and stared at the door. It was Thursday. There was no reason for her to be there on a Thursday. It would be suspicious and illogical. Draco would probably be enraged if she activated his wards on a Thursday for no reason.

She pushed the door open.

Draco appeared before she had stepped into the room.

He looked her up and down carefully, and she stared at him. She had felt as though she'd been starving until she saw him.

"What are you doing here?" he finally asked.

She blinked.

"I—," she flailed for an excuse. "The skirmish on Christmas Eve. I—was worried."

He raised an eyebrow. "That was two days ago, Granger."

"I couldn't get away. We lost a lot of fighters," she said. "I had to stay in the hospital wing."

"So you came at the first opportunity." He was eyeing her with a dubious expression.

Hermione gave a small nod and walked toward him. She stared up at him, studying him, trying to find a sign of something in him. Anything. She just wanted to know what he was. "Are you alright, Draco?"

"Granger..." His tone was a warning. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing..." Her eyes dropped down to his hands. He'd touched her with those hands. He'd run his fingers through her hair and over her skin. He'd wrapped his hand around her throat, and it had aroused her.

He'd dismembered a Death Eater with those hands, killed dozens and dozens—possibly hundreds—of people she knew, assassinated Dumbledore...

He was ambidextrous, because he'd been intending for years to cut off his own arm in order to become a free agent. Someone who wouldn't need the Order to fight Voldemort for him.

She tore her eyes away from his hands.

"I just... I wanted to know that you were alright," she said, staring down at her shoes.

He stepped closer, and she looked sharply up at him. His eyes were cold. She started to back away, but he caught hold of her wrist with his left hand and jerked her firmly toward him and then crowded her into the wall until she was trapped against him.

"Since when have you worried about me?" he said with a sneer. His eyes were hard and glinting like quicksilver.

"I don't know," Hermione felt tempted to cry at the admission. He scoffed.

"And now—? You suddenly can't help yourself?"

"I just wanted to see you."

His mouth twitched. "Why?"

"Because I'm afraid that someday I'll come and you won't—," her voice cracked faintly, and she twisted her captured wrist enough to wrap her fingers around his wrist.

His eyes flickered. His hand remained wrapped around her wrist, and his face was inches from hers.

He studied her for a moment, and his expression wavered; something indecipherable in it as she stared up at him.

He drew in a short breath and gave a low laugh. "Is this goodbye then, Granger?"

Her hold tightened. "No!"

Her breath caught. She stared at him and caught his robes in her other hand as she tried to breathe. She dropped her head and rested it against his chest. He smelled like oakmoss and cedar.

She shook. "I just—wanted to see you."

She felt his right hand come up to rest on her shoulder, and the heat of it slowly sank into her bones as his thumb lightly ran along her collarbone. She kept gripping his other wrist.

"Don't—die, Draco."

"What's wrong, Granger?"

"Nothing. I just—spent a lot of time making your healing kit. It would be really ungrateful of you to die now. So—don't."

He gave a hollow laugh, and his hold on her shoulder tightened. Then she felt his forehead drop against the top of her head for a split second before drawing away.

"Only because you asked," he said. The sharp edge of sarcasm seemed faint. He sounded almost bitter.

She held his wrist tighter. She wanted—

She wanted—

It didn't matter. It didn't matter what she wanted. It never mattered.

For Harry. For Ron. It will be worth it.

She had promised those words to herself a thousand times, but they suddenly sounded hollow.

Draco wasn't innocent, but he didn't deserve the penalty Voldemort would inflict for his betrayal. Easing her conscience and euthanising him would be a paltry form of reparation.

She'd be a hero then, she realised bitterly. She'd exonerate herself to the world and damn herself privately. She would never forgive herself. It would be unforgivable. The guilt would eat her alive.

She hissed through her teeth as she tried to think.

"What's wrong, Granger?" Draco asked again when she had been quiet for a minute.

"Nothing. It was just an unexpectedly bad Christmas," she said in a tight voice.

He snorted and twisted his hand free. Stepping away, he studied her. He gave a deep sigh.

"Activating the wards is for emergencies," he said. "Not because you're worried or having a bad day. You'll risk my cover, and I'll be forced to try to guess whether it's worth the risk of responding immediately."

Hermione felt herself pale. If and when Kingsley and Moody decide to expose Draco, we'll give you an hour to warn him.

"I'm sorry. I won't call you again unless it's urgent," Hermione said. He looked skeptical. "I swear it," she said forcefully, "If I ever activate them again, it will be legitimate."

He gave a sharp nod. "You've given your word, I'll trust you to keep it."

She gave a small nod back, and he vanished without a sound.

Hermione stayed in the shack; staring at the spot he'd disappeared from. Wondering what to do.