In These Silent Days

Chapter 4

Visiting Gringotts is never a fun errand. Especially these days, when she's regarded with open distrust by every goblin within. But it's a chore she can put off no longer if she wants to visit the Apothecary after work.

She's used to the extra scrutiny of her wand, the emptying of her pockets and purse. It's routine, just like the path the cart will take her to the vault. It's two lefts, one right, down a small hill, past a particularly jagged bit of wall, two rights, one steeper hill, then around a big bend to her vault.

Or at least it should be.

The cart goes left, then takes the first right. Now it's going down, down, down, and Hermione has frightening déjà vu.

"Where are we going?" she shouts to the goblin steering. "This isn't the way."

"We're going to your vault, Madam."

Her protests are lost to the wind as the cart speeds onward. She reaches for her wand, clutching it tightly in a clammy grip. She may not have polyjuice or an Invisibility Cloak as protection, but she won't hesitate to fight her way out of this trap.

The cart comes to a stop just before a terrifyingly familiar waterfall. The Thieves' Downfall. Hermione scrambles out on shaky legs.

"Where have you brought me?" she demands, but the goblin only calmly presses his palm to a vault door.

"To your vault, Mrs. Granger-Malfoy."

This is not her vault, she realizes as the door opens to reveal obscene piles of gold. Gold she hasn't earned. She grabs the fistful she needs, anger brewing in her veins at Draco's unwelcome gilded surprise.

The second Draco apparates into the flat, Hermione rounds on him.

"Why have you added me to your Gringotts vault?"

"Because it is our vault," he says in that infuriatingly measured tone.

"I neither want nor need your money. Couldn't have given me a warning? A little heads up would have been appreciated before I almost had a panic attack and hexed someone."

"Apologies," he says, voice affectless as ever, "I thought it was implied upon us signing the marriage certificate."

Hermione flinches. Most days, he makes it easy to forget the horrifying reality of a forced union. But when little reminders enter the air between them, her reaction is consistently despair while Draco remains unbothered. The disparity both confuses and irritates; it's a persistent vexation she can't shake.

"You're just so...accepting of all this. I don't understand. This isn't normal, Draco. People discuss huge financial matters they don't—don't just— "

She pauses, unwilling to let panic consume her for the second time in one day. "I don't understand you at all. This isn't right, what we are...what we've been ordered to be. And you go on about your life as if this hasn't affected you at all. Why aren't you angry?"

Why am I alone in this?

He sighs and settles on the sofa, as if he's been expecting this meltdown from her. It's maddening the way she can't even provoke him into a row over this. Frustrating impotence bludgeons her in a way it hasn't since the war.

"I suppose," he says, palms rubbing up and down his thighs, "when you are raised with the expectation that marriage is not with someone you choose, your perspective differs from the average person."

Hermione sinks into the armchair opposite him. "You were always comfortable marrying a stranger?"

"Not necessarily. I merely see marriage as a practical arrangement. You have the entirety of the relationship to then become better acquainted."