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.”