Chapter Text

BOOK I: IGNITION

01 Where Vanished Objects Go

He did it. Harry defeated Voldemort.

Hermione had been braced to flee the Great Hall. If Harry failed, she’d already be dragged to the center by Voldemort’s supporters as a war trophy.

Disbelieving tears started to cut through the grime on her cheeks. She covered her mouth with trembling fingers as a laugh broke loose before she could stop it. The sound felt distanced from her body after hours of fighting.

The stone walls of the Great Hall were slowly warming with the sunrise; a glowing haze of spell-residue and smoke enveloped the crowd that rushed toward the Boy Who Lived.

The warmth from the dawn dissipated before it reached Hermione.

As the cheers started, she felt like she’d fallen into a Pensieve. The hall warped mutely around her, like a memory she was never in.

Luna spun in slow circles, humming an unfamiliar tune. A crown of freshly picked dirigible plums bounced atop her head.

Neville and Dean whooped like Gryffindor had just won the House Cup. Sparks erupted from their wands.

Without realizing it, Hermione had been edging toward the doors. Her calf brushed against her jeans, and pain flared where she’d gotten burned earlier.

Across the hall, Hagrid howled and blew his nose into a ratty floral tea towel. Absurd, what survived when people didn’t. The noise grated horribly against her nerves.

Her body was so rigid she shivered—a bowstring pulled past its limit.

Several feet past the giant, Professor Firenze gazed up at a patch of ceiling torn open to the sky, tracing the unseen stars. A dark liquid pulsed between the fingers clutching his torso, yet his expression stayed oddly serene.

The centaur must have sensed her watching. His gaze dropped to almost look through her before it rose back to the heavens. Firenze’s lips settled in a downturn, as if he just read her a bad omen. She didn’t believe in such things.

Logic told her to celebrate beside Harry and be grateful she survived. Yet Hermione felt dragged out the open doors like the dissipating smoke from the final duel.

The stench of blood and dark magic still scraped her throat. It tasted bitter and violating.

She needed to leave.

Hermione felt silly. Her muscles were primed to run even when the threat was gone. As soon as Voldemort fell, his supporters vanished. Most wand-holders took advantage of the fallen castle wards and Disapparated. The rest retreated to the Forbidden Forest.

No one was stupid enough to voluntarily turn themselves like they did after the First War. Some families like the Malfoys escaped imprisonment by claiming they were bewitched into joining the dark side. That argument was laughable now.

Aurors from the Ministry would already be scrambling to catch people, eager for the press and promotions that came with it. Death Eater families like the Malfoys or Lestranges would be front-page news.

Part of her wasn’t convinced the war had ended—that what she saw now was no more than an illusion. The Death Eaters were waiting in the shadows for their next opening.

Maybe they’d keep fighting and fighting until the wizarding world was nothing but blackened ruins…

All the deaths in the past twenty-four hours flipped through Hermione’s head unbidden.

Fred. Remus. Tonks. Crabbe. Colin. Snape. Lavender.

High up in the Clock Tower, the bell tolled to signal the hour. It sounded distorted from the jubilated chaos inside the hall. She wouldn’t have heard it if she hadn’t been standing by the door.

When did she start moving again?

“Miss Granger!”

She halted at the sight of her former Gryffindor Head of House.

Professor McGonagall’s sooty tartan robes swirled through the glowing dust motes around her.

Seeing McGonagall alive loosened something tight in her chest. 

“How are you, child, are you all right?” asked McGonagall, peering over her curved spectacles. One lens was cracked.

“I—I'm alright!” Hermione said quickly.

A fresh sting in her calf proved it was a lie as her weight shifted under the professor’s observation. She’d been injured escaping the Room of Requirement and only had time to seal the wound with a clumsy Healing Charm. The pain warned that the fragile skin was beginning to split back open; she wasn’t all right.

If McGonagall noticed her injury, she’d send Hermione straight to the infirmary. That’s where the bodies were moved.

The professor looked at her with misty eyes. “I didn’t see you at first and I thought–Oh, never mind it now. I’m just glad you’re safe, dear,” she said.

Hermione’s heart dropped with a chill. She realized if she went missing now, everyone would assume she was injured or dead.

“Thank you, Professor,” she replied faintly.

McGonagall grabbed her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. The warmth lingered on her clammy palms after she swept away.

It cooled quickly, but Hermione felt steadied.

She resolved to brave the crowd.

Harry's familiar mess of black hair was easy for Hermione to spot. He stood near the front beside Ron with a group of Order members.

A swell of noise from dozens of people pushed back—an invisible barrier she had to force herself through.

She took a step forward despite her nerves screaming in protest.

Cool air hissed from the doorway.

“Granger!” a hoarse voice called behind her.

The voice was familiar.

Instinct moved her before her mind could intervene. She crossed into the Entrance Hall, where only empty shadows waited.

Another round of cheers broke out in the Great Hall.

Hermione’s eyes caught a subtle shift by the door. She squinted into the shadow cast behind it, and her wand was up before she realized she drew it. The noise of celebration dropped away.

The vine wood hummed in her fingers, a warning as her surroundings stilled.

The quiet grew predatory the farther she got from the Great Hall; her heartbeat staggered off-beat.

"Much more perceptive this time I see," the shadow laughed.

Hermione jumped. “Finite Incantatem!”

Within the shadow, a Disillusionment Charm melted off its owner.

She found the tip of her wand inches away from a pointed nose.

Draco Malfoy.

She bristled. Of course it was him.

“Malfoy,” Hermione hissed. “What in Godric’s name are you—” Her wand stayed raised. There was no reason for him to still be here.

His usual aristocratic posture was broken by raspy breaths, his ribs folding forward from the effort.

“Not here,” Malfoy snapped, his voice low. The panic under his tone cut through her confusion, and her mind clicked into focus.

His eyes flicked toward the Great Hall doors, as if expecting someone to follow her.

Hermione weighed the cost of not hexing Malfoy outright. She could Stun him and be done with it. Anyone else would. Her instincts always ran the other direction. Understanding needed to come before action.

Before she could ask more questions, he caught her elbow.

“What—get off!” She tried to swat Malfoy’s hand away.

He leveled with her face, close enough for her to see soot settled into the lines of his skin. “You can Stun or Body Bind me in a minute—tie me up even—if it makes you feel better,” he said through his teeth, already moving her away from the door.

Every reflex told her to wrench free, but he was clearly letting her keep the upper hand. His grip wasn’t cruel, and he was towing her along in a position that kept her wand in his face. Logic—faster than fear—decided that if Malfoy meant harm, he’d have done it earlier, when her guard was down.

They trod over shards of glass and scattered gemstones from the shattered House Point hourglasses. The crunch under their feet was swallowed by the cavernous space. Her leg ached in protest as she kept pace with Malfoy.

The Entrance Hall had welcomed her into the castle for years, but the battle had hollowed it into a stone tomb. The laughter in the other room belonged to another world entirely.

A bead of wax fell from the central chandelier, striking her cheek. The fixture loomed above, drooping with spent candles. She found herself envious of their fate, to melt and be done.

Sunrise spilled from the Great Hall behind them, carrying the voices of her friends still inside. Hermione couldn’t stop herself from watching the door more than where Malfoy led her.

The noise followed them across the stone floor, filling her with the foreboding sense that someone might wander out at random. Would they notice she was missing?

Malfoy stopped near the marble staircase, in the shadow cast by the morning light. He released her arm and began casting wordlessly. Hermione moved without thinking. He didn’t have to tell her what he was casting; she already knew how to fill the gaps with Deterrent Charms, Muffliato, Salvio Hexia, habits ingrained from a year on the run. Distrust made them thorough. Merlin knew what could happen if someone saw a Malfoy still lingering in the castle.

They finished at the same instant. Neither appeared pleased about it. Hermione’s breaths came broken. She couldn’t tell if it was fear of why Malfoy sought her out or of being seen with him minutes after his old master fell.

He turned toward her, boots grinding through the rubble.

His offer to let her Stun him popped into her head.

She wanted to laugh. Or scream. Maybe both.

Hermione glanced back, half-expecting Ron or Harry to burst through the doorway. The Entrance Hall stayed empty. Then she regarded the boy in front of her.

The enchantment perimeter compressed the space around them, the air humming with their combined spellwork.

Of all the versions Hermione had seen of Draco Malfoy, none suited his namesake more than the one before her now.

Remnants of smoke and dark magic clung to him like a second skin. Soot streaked across his high cheekbones and settled into the hollows like bruises. His signature white hair glinted in small patches where the charcoal hadn’t dusted it. If he blinked, he might blend into the shadow of the stairs.

Malfoy’s eyes, though, were molten silver and fixed on Hermione. He studied her, like he was confirming something he already knew. The intensity was unnerving.

“When did you get back?” His voice was cutting, deliberate.

Hermione tried to look anywhere but into the eyes of the dragon.

“You’ll have to be more specific.” She let irritation, her oldest defense against Malfoy, mask her unease.

His gaze hovered on her throat. “When did you leave the Room of Hidden Things last?”

“I left hours ago. The same time you did,” she said slowly. It crossed her mind that Malfoy might have been hit by a rebounded curse and was confused.

He straightened; a sneer ghosted across his face.

“Don’t act daft. You know I saw you.”

“Saw me what?”

The sneer deepened. “Relax, Granger. I’m not running to the Ministry about it. Not yet.”

Malfoy looked every inch the villain. A pity for him that she thought him pathetic.

She gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “Run to the Ministry about what exactly? If anything, I should be reporting you.” A sick part of her—contained but festering—wanted him crucified for fighting on the side that killed her friends.

“What did you do, Granger?” His voice lost its edge.

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Malfoy’s eyes gleamed in the dim lighting, and something in the air between them shifted.

The smell of smoke still on him was arresting, heavy and acrid. Her mind wanted to chase the memory before she could control it.

She insisted it was post-battle stress—that her shallow breaths and tightening chest weren’t a rising panic at the memory. The lie crumbled under the roaring in her head.

Her vision overlapped like misaligned frames. The memory pressed forward.

The Fiendfyre. Click. The Room of Hidden Things.

⁂

Hermione, Harry, and Ron left the Great Hall to find and destroy the diadem. Harry was certain Voldemort hid it in the same place he’d stashed his Potions book their Sixth Year.

The last of the castle evacuations finished before the trio reached the Seventh Floor. On Harry’s third pace down the corridor where the Room was concealed, the doorway to the Room of Hidden Things materialized.

Hermione had never been inside this version of the Room of Requirement.

As Harry led them through the doorway, she took in the cathedral-sized space. The smell of must and varnish filled her nose, dust catching in the back of her throat.

Hermione didn’t have much of a religious upbringing, though her parents made a point of attending the Christmas service each year. They stopped attending the year she went to Hogwarts; it had seemed somehow inappropriate after they learned their daughter was a witch. Stepping into the Room, vast and hushed, filled with centuries of magical objects and preserved knowledge, felt uniquely spiritual. If given the chance, she would have loved to wander the aisles and study every hidden artefact.

Harry led her and Ron through the room as it unfolded like an endless, forgotten archive. He stopped once they reached the Vanishing Cabinet Malfoy obsessively worked on during Sixth Year.

Hermione impulsively brushed her fingers along the peeling edge of black paint. A faint thrum of dark magic pulsed against her skin. The sensation jolted through her like ice water. She snatched her hand back with a shudder.

She looked up, and Harry’s expression told her everything: he was lost. If he couldn’t remember where he’d seen the diadem, finding it in this labyrinth would be impossible.

In a half-hearted attempt, she lifted her wand. “Accio Diadem!” Nothing. Of course Voldemort covered his bases; the Horcrux was charmed against Summoning.

“It was worth a try,” Ron muttered.

“Let’s split up,” Harry announced decidedly. “Look for a stone bust of an old man wearing a wig and a tiara! It’s standing on a cupboard and it’s definitely somewhere near here…”

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look before nodding in silent agreement.

Each of them went off in separate directions, against her better judgment. They always operated best as a unit.

Hermione buried her unease in the search for a pattern in the clutter. If the Room followed any logic, she could reverse-engineer its order and trace where the diadem might be hidden.

The Room was loosely arranged into aisles, navigable only by the greenish glow of scattered Emeralite lamps. She searched through the maze of objects, mentally noting which piece of junk or artefact she passed so she wouldn’t double back by mistake.

She hunted for any flash of silver that might be the Ravenclaw diadem. She passed an ornate music box and a tarnished pocket watch, its hands moving in two different directions. A collection of celestial compasses lay scattered under a dented telescope, their glass obscured by a smoky film of patina. Nothing close to a diadem. She moved on, her mind concentrated on the next pile of objects and not how much time she was losing.

The Room was eerily silent save for the occasional echo of footsteps. The battle had already begun outside, yet none of it reached her here.

Something heavy crashed in the next aisle with a metallic clang. Hermione flinched and swallowed the cry that rose. Movement flickered in her periphery, but whichever boy caused the disturbance already moved on. A shiver ran through her, not from cold but from the strange awareness of being observed.

After what felt like hours of meaningless searching, shouting broke out in the distance. Hermione sprinted toward the sound, wand raised.

Someone else must have followed them into the Room of Requirement. It couldn’t have been an ally; Aberforth confirmed all of Dumbledore’s Army were inside the castle before Harry summoned the Room.

Hermione rounded the end of an aisle and froze. Harry and Ron stood across from Malfoy, Goyle, and Crabbe, the latter with his wand aimed squarely at Harry’s head.

They must have stayed behind instead of evacuating with the rest of their House. Malfoy, she could handle. He was cold and calculating; she could read his choices well enough to counter them. Crabbe and Goyle? Hermione wasn’t confident she could predict the kind of chaos that came from stupidity armed with wands and Dark Marks.

She saw Malfoy latch onto Crabbe’s arm, bracing his feet against the floor to hold him back. “STOP! The Dark Lord wants him alive—” he shouted, the command breaking under strain. It was a hopeless effort.

Their motive was clear. She sprinted from the aisle to join Harry. If the Slytherins meant to bring him to Voldemort, she would stop them by any means necessary.

Crabbe shoved Malfoy aside and raised his wand. Hermione moved faster.

She whipped a Stunning Spell straight at his head, but Malfoy yanked Crabbe clear before it could connect, sparing the idiot from learning what a proper Stunning Spell felt like. The spell missed by inches, splintering a pile of broken furniture instead.

Crabbe whipped his wand towards Hermione. “It’s that mudblood!” he bellowed.

She didn’t wait to hear the spell. She threw her body behind a stack of books before he could form the words.

“Avada Kedavra!” The green flash narrowly missed her shoulder.

Before she could regain her footing, Harry stepped in front of her, firing a Disarming Spell. To her left, Ron burst from cover and sent a Body-Binding Curse after it. Neither hit.

Crabbe charged after them, spitting every curse he knew—a shockingly short list, Hermione noted.

Goyle was distracted just long enough for Hermione to hit him with a Stunning Spell. His body went rigid and crashed to the floor with a thud.

Harry seized the opening, casting Expelliarmus and catching both Malfoy’s and Goyle’s wands as they flew into his hand.

She was just starting to exhale when the air collapsed inward, leaving a hollow thud in her ribcage.

Heat slammed against her skin.

Behind Ron, a cackle broke out as flames burst from Crabbe’s wand in vicious tendrils.

Hermione recognized the spell at once. Fiendfyre. It was so dangerous she’d never dared to attempt it.

Crabbe advanced towards the trio, abandoning a wandless Malfoy and a Stunned Goyle behind.

Her world collapsed into a single goal: reach the exit.

A slow rumble built, swallowing everything, even the sound of her pounding footsteps.

The Fiendfyre closed in, taking on a life of its own. It leapt wildly down the aisles and began hunting down every person in the room—including its caster.

Crabbe lost control of the spell.

She heard his pounding footsteps behind her stop, and the room was suddenly filled with screaming. She regretted looking back.

Crabbe’s body was replaced by a garish red ember. He was alive and dying at once, the fire melting the skin off his skull like wax. He was still taking steps after her.

A scream was stuck in Hermione’s throat. She couldn’t look away from his last seconds, watching his form collapse into charcoal.

Her mouth tasted like acid. Crabbe was vile, but no one deserved to die like that.

The residue smell of burning flesh hit her nostrils, and her stomach lurched.

Hermione was suddenly terrified that she, Harry and Ron would die the same way.

They kept sprinting toward what they hoped was the exit.

Why weren’t Malfoy and Goyle right behind them?

Piles disintegrated into charcoal. Towers collapsed. The fire closed in around them.

“What can we do? What can we do?” Hermione cried. She searched wildly for a gap they could escape through, but the rippling waves of heat locked her feet in place. She was trapped, frozen by the flames.

“Here!” shouted Harry.

Hermione followed his gaze to a table of junk that hadn’t yet gone up in flames. She thought she was hallucinating. There were two brooms.

Ron let out a disbelieving noise behind her, but Hermione just blinked. They might actually make it.

Harry grabbed one, threw the other to Ron, and shot up toward the ceiling.

Hermione spun around. What if Malfoy and Goyle needed help? If she abandoned them, it’d always haunt her.

A chimera made of Fiendfyre crouched on a shelf in front of them, its gaze locked on her. Ron was already astride the second broom and shouted, “HERMIONE–GET ON!”

Her feet ground in place.

Her eyes scanned the flames, desperate to find his figure. She couldn’t tell if the firelight blinded her or her vision was slipping.

Malfoy was going to burn alive just like Crabbe. She knew it as surely as she knew her wand—vine wood, dragon heartstring—gripped in her hand. She didn’t have to see it to know.

She could hear Ron shouting, but it was drowned out by the roar and a faint click, click, click.

The clicking grew louder. Her mind slid out of focus.

Reality thinned, edges fuzzing white.

There was an old slide viewer in the library near her house, its glass always warm from the bulb inside. She used to sit there for hours during summer holidays, consumed by the faded film squares—ancient ruins, the surface of the moon. Each image glowed for a moment before she clicked to the next, sending it back into blackness.

The images flipped through her mind before she could stop them.

Click. The Daily Prophet, pre-Hogwarts. Malfoy on the front page beside his parents.

Click. Hogwarts Express, First Year. Malfoy sneering at her from his compartment.

Click. Corridor, Third Year. Holding her Time Turner over her head.

Click. Corridor, Sixth Year. Voice shaking as he cornered her.

Click. Malfoy Manor Drawing Room, two months ago. His eyes turned away as she screamed.

Click. Room of Requirement. His body engulfed by flames, death twisting every feature.

Each slide flashed, then vanished. The final image came slower, hazy, as if her mind lagged. And she knew, without logic or proof, that the last frame was certain.

The roar of the Fiendfyre rushed back, crushing the silence.

Ron shouted again and yanked her toward the broom. She stumbled as the movement registered a beat behind.

The Chimera leapt into the air, and instinct took over. She jumped on behind him as he shot them straight up toward the ceiling.

The creature swiped. A flash of iron-hot claws raked her leg. Hermione remembered screaming. She twisted a hand into Ron’s robes, her other palm pressed to her calf. It should have hurt, but adrenaline swallowed the pain.

They were seconds from the door. Another scream split the air. She froze, because it wasn’t from her this time.

Malfoy and Goyle were still alive! She tugged at Ron’s robes, shouting his name.

Harry dove downward in front of them. Ron cursed and veered their broom after his.

Hermione felt a fleeting moment of relief. She and Harry would never leave someone to die, not if there was still a chance to save them. That was what set them apart from the people they fought.

Their brooms flew toward the only break in the sea of fire. The flames encircled a stack of desks, and at the center, Malfoy clutched an unconscious Goyle.

They dove down. Harry reached them first, hauling Malfoy up onto his broom before shooting back up.

Hermione and Ron draped Goyle’s body across the back of theirs, and she cast a mild Sticking Charm on the unconscious boy. It wouldn’t hold him completely, but it would help.

Flames crawled up the stack of desks and the whole tower shuddered beneath them.

“IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I’LL KILL YOU, HARRY!” roared Ron. He kicked off, propelling the three of them back to safety.

Hermione gripped Goyle and Ron with all her strength until, thank Merlin, they crashed into the corridor. The Room of Requirement’s door vanished behind them, sealing in the Fiendfyre.

They crashed hard into the corridor. Hermione, Ron, and Goyle were thrown across the stone floor.

Her stomach lurched as gravity reclaimed her, stone biting into her palms. The roar of the Fiendfyre faded to the rasp of her own breath. Had they all made it out?

She disentangled herself from Ron and Goyle and took quick inventory. Harry was already pushing himself upright. Malfoy lay a few feet away, face-down.

Hermione let herself fall back against the floor, the cold stone soothing her pounding skull.

“C-Crabbe,” choked Malfoy as soon as he could speak. “C-Crabbe...”

“He’s dead,” said Ron harshly beside her.

Hermione sat back up and smacked his arm. They were all lucky not to have died the same way. If it had been Harry or Ron... she almost felt sorry for Malfoy.

Malfoy rolled onto his side away from them, coughing hard. He was alive—barely—but alive. She expected to feel some anger or satisfaction, but all that came was a hollow, shaking relief.

The corridor reeked of smoke and a burnt smell she was reluctant to name. Her calf seared with pain. She muttered a rudimentary Healing Charm over it, then glanced up, catching a glint of silver on Harry’s wrist.

“Harry, what’s that on your arm?”

“What? Oh yeah—” He held up the diadem, grinning despite everything. Hermione nearly whimpered in relief. She’d been so preoccupied with keeping them all alive that she hadn’t noticed he’d found the hidden Horcrux.

The castle boomed with an unseen blow, snapping them back to the present. Sounds of duelling and explosions echoed from both ends of the corridor. They had to move.

The three of them sprinted off to join the fight, leaving the last few minutes of horror sealed behind the vanished door.

She stole a glance back.

The last time Hermione saw Draco Malfoy, he was hunched over in a coughing fit beside Goyle’s unconscious body.

⁂

Hermione’s balance wavered on the stone floor, her feet unsure which moment she belonged in.

She shivered under the dark shadow of the marble staircase. The sudden chill of the Entrance Hall reminded her the fire was contained six floors away.

A sharp pain split behind her forehead like she had been reading by a candlelight for hours. The looped clicking in her head faded, replaced by the steady beat under her hand. When her vision steadied, she realized her fingers were locked around Malfoy’s wrist—like she’d been bracing to run.

Malfoy watched her, his expression unreadable. He didn’t move to pull his hand free; he was waiting for her to notice.

She flushed and jerked her hand back.

His eyes widened. “You haven’t gone back—” he rasped, then broke into a cough that doubled him over.

Hermione blinked, dazed. “There’s nothing left of it! Why would I go back?”

The smell of smoke clung to him more strongly than before, though that seemed impossible.

Malfoy’s expression was unfocused. “No—before, I saw—”

“Malfoy, you’re not—”

“I saw two of you,” he snapped, cutting her off.

Her pulse drummed in her ears at an impossible tempo.

Click, click.