He stood silent for a moment before turning to continue on. Hermione followed him back to the staircase on the beach.
The prisoner was still under the heavy influence of veritaserum when she entered the room. He was slumped down in the chair with his head lolling to the side.
Hermione walked over and cast a diagnostic charm on him.
“We're going to win — going to win. You're gonna die. All of you are gonna die…” he was mumbling under his breath.
Hermione examined the diagnostic and found that Kingsley had administered some kind of hallucinogenic along with the truth potion. She looked over sharply at the desk where Kingsley was writing down notes.
“The chemical reaction of those potions can cause permanent mania and obsessive behavior,” she said in rebuke. “You should have consulted with me.”
Kingsley glanced up at her.
”I consulted with our other Potion master,” he said calmly. “Interrogation is not your specialty. This one knew occlumency. He required additional measures.”
Hermione bit her tongue and turned back to the prisoner. His brain showed signs of extreme inflammation. She cursed under her breath and rummaged through her bag for something that might neutralise the effects. It was an unusual reaction; without her full potion supply closet she had limited options for counteracting it.
A tincture of distilled billywig sting slime combined with a drop of syrup of hellebore would have a cooling effect on the brain, she concluded. She amalgamated them quickly in a vial and then tilted the prisoner's head back to administer it.
His eyes were rolled back in his head, and when she touched the vial the to his lips, he squeezed his eyes and mouth closed.
“Come on now,” Hermione said gently. “This will help your head.”
He cracked an eye open to peer at her for a moment before opening both. She watched as his pupils suddenly dilated, and his gaze fastened on her intently.
“I remember you,” he said, “you're Potter's bitch.”
“You need to take this or you're going to risk brain damage,” Hermione said, unfazed.
He parted his lips and downed the tincture and then hissed and shook his head slightly. Hermione recast a diagnostic and watched the inflammation rapidly fade away.
She looked back at his face and saw that his pupils had contracted into tiny dots in the center of his irises. His gaze was still fastened on Hermione in a way that grew quickly unnerving.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Cold...my brain feels cold. My brain is cold, but the sight of you is warming the rest of me right up,” he said in a vaguely singsong tone.
He suddenly lunged forward, and his teeth snapped closed on air as Hermione stepped quickly back. He laughed.
“What do you think you are, a werewolf?” she said sharply. The question was rhetorical; diagnostic readings would indicate lycanthropy.
He snickered. His expression was still dazed with veritaserum, but his eyes remained fastened on Hermione.
“I'm not a werewolf. But I'm going to remember you,” he said. “When you lose this war, I'm going to remember you. I'm going to kill that blonde bitch, but I think I'll ask the Dark Lord if I can have you. He might want to keep you alive. I'll keep you alive.”
His eyes crawled over Hermione, and she shivered. She was coming to regret healing the brain inflammation. Something about the rapid way she'd counteracted the hallucinogenic appeared to have locked the obsessive tendency she'd worried about directly upon herself.
“That's enough, Montague!” Kingsley said sharply, standing up and walking over.
Hermione glanced over, finally recognizing the prisoner. He'd been a few years above her at Hogwarts. Graham Montague.
“We have everything we needed from him,” Kingsley said, gathering up several rolls of parchment. “You can put him under.”
Hermione nodded and stunned Montague. His eyes were still fastened on her face as he slumped back.
As she finished prepping him for stasis, she consoled herself that even if the Order lost the war, it was unlikely that the cave would be discovered. She would never see him again.
When the Draught of Living Death was administered, Hermione handed Montague over to Bill and then headed back to Grimmauld Place.
Draco had left no scroll of information when Hermione returned to the shack that evening. She stood there for several minutes, wondering if he'd show up to have her check the scar tissue.
After ten minutes of waiting, she left.
She wasn't sure what it meant. It was possible there hadn't been any new intelligence, but she couldn't ease her fear that it was retribution for the morning. She tried not to let it stress her and reassured herself that if he'd had anything urgent, he would have mentioned it sooner.
No longer needing to heal Draco each evening made her progress feel stalled. She found herself thinking about him often. Not strategically. She wondered about how he was, whether the scars were irritating him.
She kept reevaluating and re-analysing their snog session and its aftermath until she felt as though she were a bit mad.
The inconclusiveness of it grated on her mind. She found it difficult to focus or sleep that week.
She had given up on using her room for sleeping. Harry and Ginny regularly occupied it for the entire night. Harry slept when he was with Ginny. He could actually sleep peacefully. The effect was dramatic. His mood stabilised in a way that it hadn't in years, and Hermione rarely encountered him in the sitting room at night. The stress that had been erroding him for years seemed to ease for the first time since Dumbledore's death.
Hermione took to sleeping in whatever empty bed she could find or in the training rooms. She kept exercising and building her stamina up dutifully.
The next Tuesday she was so stressed she took a Calming Draught before she apparated to the shack. She had no idea what Draco might do.
When she arrived in the shack, she bounced on the balls of her feet while she stood waiting. Then she realized there was a scroll laying on the table.
She stared at it for a moment before picking it up and unfurling it. Raids for the upcoming week. Counter-curses.
Nothing directed to Hermione.
— not that she'd expected him to leave her a personal note.
She sighed faintly and left.
She didn't see him for the entire month of August.
She fretted about it. The intentional silence between them gnawed at her. She kept reviewing what had happened, questioning her conclusions and drawing new ones. Maybe she'd ruined everything. Or maybe he was avoiding her because he was afraid of how she tempted him.
She kept vacillating. Was it a good sign or a bad sign?
The worst part was that she missed him. She hated to admit as much to herself, but she felt forced to acknowledge it. Treating his injury had become a significant aspect of her daily life. Interacting with him had become a significant aspect of her life. Having it so abruptly ended made her feel the absence keenly. She didn't have many people that she saw regularly.
She kept replaying all their past interactions. She kept reevaluating him and all his behavior. She was obsessing but she didn't know what else to do. She needed him for the Order.
She had to obsess over him. It was her job.
She didn't need to miss him though, she told herself firmly. That was a personal failing.
September rolled around and he continued to simply leave scrolls without appearing.
Hermione began to feel fractured.
She didn't know what she was supposed to do.
It was smart of him, of course. If she were in his shoes, it would probably be what she'd do. But it didn't solve the problem of what Hermione was supposed to do about it.
She kept foraging and visiting the shack with increasingly dwindling hope.