Time and Tide

Chapter 4

They followed the A9 south, walking through the night and into the next morning.

Hermione hardly noticed the physical strain of it. As a wartime courier, she'd experienced the full spectrum of bodily pain: blistered toes, chafed heels, chapped lips, and sunburned skin. The emotional strain was likewise familiar. Most of Hermione's missions were undertaken alone. She ferried messages across the Isles and had no home base. No bed save for what she could borrow or bastardize from her surroundings. She ate meals cold or smoked over a campfire and slept without shelter beneath the sky.

Draco, on the other hand, looked uncomfortable, misplaced among Scotland's hills and heaths. He had developed a limp, which worsened as they walked. On their rare water breaks, his hands would shake from exhaustion. Water dripped from the corners of his mouth as he drank from their shared canteen, and he nearly dropped the tin of beans when she passed it over.

But he pressed on, only stopping after the full 18 hours had elapsed, timed precisely by his wristwatch. They made camp off the road in the wilds of Cairngorms National Park. Afternoon light filtered through the thinning canopy, and Draco dropped her pack at the foot of a large tree. A dip in its roots created a crescent big enough to curl into. It might have been a comfortable place to stop, but it was far from secure.

"We should keep looking," Hermione suggested, glancing back over her shoulder. She'd been checking behind them all morning, unable to shake the feeling of being followed. And even though she'd yet to see anything, her paranoia hadn't abated. If anything, it was growing worse.

Draco didn't share her concern. "We stop here," he said, eyelids drooping. His words ran together as he spoke. "We'll take it in shifts. Three and three. You first."

If he were more alert, if Hermione thought he had enough energy to cast even a simple hex, she would've suppressed her laugh. "There's no way you're going to stay up for three hours."

She wouldn't either, honestly. But then, she didn't need to. Hermione only needed to stay awake longer than Draco did. Long enough to steal back her bag, her wand, her sealskin, and Apparate away from him.

"Fair point. Come here." He held an arm out to her.

She glared. "I'm not sleeping with you."

"Don't flatter yourself," he said with a scowl. "And don't bother thinking of escape."

"I wasn't—"

"For a spy, you're a shite liar." He tossed her drawstring pack over. "Here. Try it."

She narrowed her eyes, ready for the trap. He just waited, gaze steady, patient for the proof of her nerve. Hermione set her chin and pulled the bag apart. She reached inside and found nothing, stomach dropping as her fingertips brushed the pack's empty bottom.

She looked back up at him, eyes wide. "You lied to me," she said, dread curling in her stomach. Her livelihood, her identity, and her only source of power in this world... Gone. She should've known not to trust him. Should've fought harder to escape. Heat pricked the back of her eyes. "You said you brought it. My seal—My cloak. My wand."

"All there," Draco assured her. "It's Handfast. Only I can access the pack. Leave me or kill me, and you'll never see your wand or that ratty cloak again."

Hermione paled and tossed the bag back over to him, careless and angry. That must have been the spell she hadn't recognized. "You're an arsehole."

The tug of a grin. "And you're arrogant. You're not the only clever person on the planet, you know. Not the only one with foresight." He set the pack beside him and reached out for her again. She didn't move.