Flashback 12
August 2002
“Find each person's “handle,” his weak point. The art of moving people's wills involves more skill than determination. You must know how to get inside the other person...First size up someone's character and then touch on his weak point. ”
Hermione stayed up half the night re-analysing Draco. She scrapped her entire notebook and started a new one.
She felt as though she were brimming with new theories about him. She wasn't sure if any of them were based on reality or merely brought on by her sleep deprivation, but she felt as though she had hit upon something. As though she were breaking into a muggle vault and finally heard the first tumbler click into place. A warm sense of elation made her smile to herself while she brewed potions that day.
Her heart felt almost light.
This could work. She could win. She could bring him to heel. Seal his loyalty.
She hadn't realized how much the belief that he was simply a monster with a moral code had convinced her that she could never succeed. She'd had a sense of certainty that eventually he'd turn and kill her along with everyone else; it had been entrenched. Despite her heavy reliance upon occlumency the conviction had bled into how she thought and treated him as a whole.
Despite the game they played. He'd kissed her and taught her occlumency. He'd told her she could say no. And she healed him and followed his instructions about dueling and exercising. Beneath the learning and the partial niceties, it always felt like they were two vipers waiting for the other to finally strike.
Now she was reconsidering.
He was not a monster. Not entirely. He was trying to fix something. There were some sort of amends that he was trying to make. Not for killing Dumbledore or anyone else, but for something.
He knew he was fallen. Somewhere along the way something had happened that he was willing to suffer for, even die because of. Something he was trying to make right. He wasn't a spy out of ambition. He wasn't just playing the Order and the Death Eaters against each other in order to come out on top. He was trying to fix something.
Not the war. Not the killing. But there was something he was trying to make amends for.
Her initial assessment had been right. Draco Malfoy wasn't all ice. Under the death, rage and darkness there was more to him. She could use it.
Hermione doubted he'd tell her what was driving him. He was clearly determined not to reveal it. Playing a game of misdirection until her head spun. But she could be patient. Now that she had figured out that spying was some sort of penance for — something. If she refused to really hate him now; if she continued to be kind and comforting and interesting and clever to him. She could find a way in.
She could win.
As evening drew on and she got ready to go tend to his back, she took a moment to pause and steady herself.
She'd have to start over again.
There was something between them that — that she had difficulty letting herself think about too carefully. A tension between them that she'd likely wrecked with her outburst.
She'd have to begin cultivating it again carefully.
She had to be subtle.
Subtle as poison.
Hermione closed her eyes and shifted through her memories; winnowing out her strongest feelings and setting them aside.
Tamping down on her elation, on her bubbly sense of inner-confidence; stifling them until she was clear-headed. Focused.
She apparated to the shack one minute before eight.
When Malfoy appeared, she stared at him for a moment before dropping her eyes, biting her lip and awkwardly fidgeting with her cuticles.
“Sorry…” she mumbled. “You were right. I was careless last night. It won't happen again.”
She looked up through her lashes to see if Malfoy was even remotely convinced by the apology.
“Good,” he said, staring across the room. “I'm not your keeper. I'm not interested in having to monitor you in order to keep you alive.”
“It won't happen again,” she reiterated.
He eyed her for a moment and then looked away, summoning a chair from across the room and straddling it while starting to unbutton his shirt. Hermione drew it off his shoulders and surveyed the runes.
She rested her fingers lightly on the top of his shoulder as she leaned forward to get a better look. Malfoy didn't flinch when she touched him. He tensed though, slightly.
“Do you have a time when you want me to close the incisions?” she asked in a low voice as she used her fingers and wand to ease the salve out and inspected the raw edges of the cuts.
It still looked unbearably painful. She wasn't sure how Malfoy was even functioning, much less apparating, much less dueling. Every time she saw the wounds it made her cringe.
He didn't say anything.
She rested her hand on his spine. “I'm going to use the cleansing charm now.”
She felt Malfoy tense under her hand and saw his knuckles whiten slightly. She counted to three and cast.
His whole body shook faintly.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “If there were any way for me to repair this faster or at least relieve the pain, I would.”
“I am aware,” he said in a tight voice.
She applied the salve as lightly as she could.
“Would Monday work?” she asked, drawing her fingertips along his bare shoulders trying to get him to release the pained tension that radiated through him. “I can skip dinner if you need me to come earlier.”
“Monday,” he said after a pause. “Eight is fine.”
“Alright.”
She recast the protective spells. Then she studied the runes again, brushing her fingers near them. She could barely feel the magic in them. It had sunk in; become a part of him.
She could barely feel any Dark Magic around him at all. Not anymore. Not for weeks.
“Do you — feel the runes?” she asked. “Can you tell if they're affecting you?”
He seemed to be considering.
“Yes,” he said after a moment, straightening. “They don't countermand my own behavior, but it's as though new elements have been written in. It's easier to be ruthless. Somewhat harder to dissuade myself from impulses. Not that I had much distracting me before, but now everything else feels even less consequential.”
Hermione read the vow again.
“Did you know when he was cutting them which runes he was choosing?” she asked.
“I chose them,” he said, pulling his shirt up and rebuttoning it.
Hermione looked at him stunned.
“It was my penance. I already had to grovel. If I chose them I was able to ensure he wasn't going to insert anything problematic. That's why there are so many, I didn't want to leave any room for additional promises. He had to be convinced of my remorse,” he said as he stood up. His eyes reminded Hermione of a storm.
“Although,” he said, and his lip curled faintly, the rage in his eyes becoming obvious, “he failed to mention that they would take so long to heal until after the fact. In retrospect, I should have anticipated that additional punishment.”
“When I close them, it will take a while in order to ensure the scar tissue won't restrict your movement. You'll have to stay awake to tell me. You — may want to bring something to drink.”
Malfoy's eyes narrowed and he stared at Hermione for several seconds.
“I'm not going to drink around you, Granger.”
She shrugged.
“It's just a suggestion. I'll bring something in case you change your mind. But I imagine the alcohol I can afford is more inexpensive than you'll appreciate.”
He snorted.
“I'll keep it in mind.”
He vanished without another word.
The following night he was in a tetchy mood, and Hermione refrained from speaking to him as she treated him. However, she noticed that he had begun relaxing slightly into her touch. She doubted he was even conscious of it.