Narcissa swallowed, glancing down at her knuckles as they turned white. She leaned forward.

"We need to leave. Lucius will join us when he can, but I know Draco won't leave without you." Narcissa's eyes filled, her lips trembling. "Hermione, I need you to make sure Draco comes with me."

The room spun as her heart beat in her fingertips, the words wrapping around her ribs and sinking into her skin. A thousand useless words formed on her tongue, but she bit them back.

She had to stay. And they had to go.

Her eyelids burned, and her voice rasped when she said, "When?"

Narcissa took a deep breath. "Tomorrow. You both should appear at Edinburgh this evening. But we need to be gone before the dawn."

Chapter End Notes

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Chapter 36

Chapter Notes

So much love and adoration to raven_maiden for her hours and hours of work on this chapter. And much of the same to SaintDionysus for her hours and hours of snark.

Content Warning for this chapter: Check all the tags please.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The sun was high over the Manor. A May wind danced in trees near the gazebo, and the peacocks were sunbathing on the bank of the pond.

And Draco still wasn't home.

Hermione stood on his balcony, watching the grounds with a sickness in her chest.

Narcissa had left the room hours ago, yet she still felt the weight of the tremor in her voice — the tears in her eyes.

The three of us won't survive it.

Her heart wanted to protest. Insist that her word and her memories would exonerate them.

Her logic whispered otherwise.

She tugged her dressing gown around her stomach as a chill ran deep through her bones. A blood-splattered volume drifted forward from her shelves, opening to a page with Viktor emerging from the shadows, his jaw hard and his wand trained on Draco. On the next page was Cho, her eyes burning with fury as she swung the sword at Draco's neck. The spine shivered, the pages flitting through green flashes and bodies tumbling down the stones—

It's Malfoy! I found him!

With a sharp breath, Hermione snapped the book closed.

The truth sunk through her as she steadied her breathing, like a stone dropping lower and lower into dark waters. The Malfoys had to leave. If the True Order came for her, there would be no time to explain — no guarantee they wouldn't shoot to kill. But if the Malfoys were safely hidden, Hermione could focus on the task at hand.

If there were Lots who needed freeing, she'd free them. If there were Death Eaters in hiding, she'd root them out. And when the dust settled, she could explain the great lengths all three Malfoys had gone through to keep her safe and unharmed — and in Draco and Narcissa's case, to help the True Order.