Secrets and Masks

38. All felt worth it, before

5th June

Hermione let Malfoy cool down for about an hour before she went searching for him, and despite the size of his estate, she could easily narrow down his hiding place. The walls of the manor were dark and cold, and there were only a handful of places that would give him comfort.

First, she checked his bedroom. Her reasoning was simple, logical. His entire world had been flipped on its axis, so he'd want familiarity. It made sense that he'd seek solace in his own room, with his own belongings and comforts, where everything felt grounded and known and safe. She was almost sure he would be there, but instead she found it empty, bed still made and undisturbed, so she moved on.

Next, she tried the small drawing-room on the same wing. After discovering that half of his family had betrayed him - and another's loyalty to his wife had coerced his betrayal as well - Malfoy would feel angry and hurt, and he would want to numb that pain with his father's secret stash of potent whiskeys. Again, she found the room vacant, but her assumption wasn't too far off. The false wall that hid his father's hoard was on show, the secret door left open to reveal the dust-covered bottles inside.

He'd been in here, so only two potential hiding places remained.

The portraits on the walls tutted and hissed as Hermione walked past them on her way to the kitchens, muttering under their breath that Malfoy's foul mood was probably her fault, that she'd caused him to storm through the halls like a raging bull not an hour earlier.

She ignored most of them, like she usually did, but when one portrait - an elderly Malfoy who was at least five generations deceased and looked an awful lot like Lucius - made a particularly vile remark, Hermione threatened to deface him with her own paints, and his mouth quickly snapped shut.

Cold air whirled around her as she pushed the kitchen doors open and stepped into the gardens. The moon was full and bright and high in the sky, giving her a clear view of the estate and casting silver lights on the lawn and flowers in bloom.

She checked the bench under the cherry blossom tree, unsurprised when she found it vacant. She was already sure that he wasn't going to be there, almost positive that he was going to be in the graveyard instead, in the very last fucking place she wanted to be, but she still had to tick it off her list before she carried on.

She shivered when the graveyard fence came into view, but when she reached the entrance, she ran into a difficulty she hadn't expected. Because curled into a ball and sleeping soundly, guarding the gates, was Malfoy's dragon.

Hermione paused when she saw Narcissa, she couldn't help it. It was simple biology. Her body's natural reaction was fear, and her instincts were screaming at her to run, to hide, to get as far away from the colossal beast and her mouth as soon as humanly possible.

Even with her tail curled around her body and her wings tucked in tightly at her side, she still blocked the entire entrance to the graveyard. There was no way that Hermione would be able to enter without getting extremely close to the beast, almost skin to scale, and that thought alone sent a shivering wave of terror up her spine like someone was walking on her future grave.

Because Narcissa was huge and lethal and breathed fucking fire.

Hermione had seen her obliterate people with a single breath. She'd heard stories of the beast ripping metal tanks apart like they were nothing and knocking helicopters out of the sky.

And one day - if the vision Voldemort showed her was correct - she was going to kill Hermione.

Narcissa opened her eyes as Hermione approached. She shook her head, waking herself up, and two thick streams of smoke whistled out of her nostrils as she raised her head off the ground. She stayed lying down, and although her stance didn't relax, head still standing tall and body defensive, she watched Hermione for a moment.