Chapter 3: First Blood
The Ministry’s press hall was a study in polished intimidation. Mahogany panels drank the light from crystal chandeliers, and the marble floor shone like a frozen lake beneath the shuffling feet of journalists. Hermione Granger stood behind a lectern emblazoned with the Ministry seal, a small, solid island in a sea of eager faces and quills poised like stings.
Her voice, amplified by a quiet Sonorus charm, was clear and unwavering as she outlined her proposed amendments to the Werewolf Code of Conduct. “The current statute fails to distinguish between willful aggression and transformative affliction,” she said, her hands resting calmly on the polished wood. “My revision grants provisions for Wolfsbane compliance and secures employment protections, recognizing that a person’s worth is not defined by a single night each month.”
A ripple of murmurs went through the crowd. Some were nodding, thoughtful. Others wore masks of skepticism. From his post ten feet to her left, leaning against a pillar with practiced nonchalance, Draco Malfoy watched the room. His eyes didn’t scan the crowd; they dissected it. He parsed faces not for their reactions to her policies, but for the slightest twitch of a hand toward a wand, a gaze held a fraction too long, a posture that didn’t match the civilian discomfort around it.
He saw none of that. What he saw was the usual political zoo. He also saw the way Hermione’s knuckles were white where they gripped the lectern, the only sign of the tension thrumming beneath her tailored plum robes. She was performing flawlessly, just as she’d said she would.
Then, a shimmer. Like heat haze over a desert, but indoors, in the cool, climate-controlled hall. It was a distortion in the air five rows back, near the exit, a brief warping of the light from a chandelier. It lasted less than a second. Anyone else would have dismissed it as a trick of the eye.
Draco didn’t.
His body was moving before his mind had fully processed the threat. The disillusionment charm was good, but not perfect; the wielder was moving, and movement always betrayed the spell. He saw the faintest outline of an arm raising, the suggestion of a wand.
“Down!”
The command was a raw, guttural bark that tore through her measured speech. He lunged, not with a graceful shield charm, but with his full weight, tackling her away from the lectern. They hit the hard marble floor together, her breath leaving her in a shocked oof. A searing purple curse, thick as a cable and smelling of ozone and rotten eggs, cracked through the space where her head had been. It grazed the edge of Draco’s shoulder as he shielded her with his body—a line of white-hot pain that seared through his robes and into his flesh.
Chaos erupted. Screams. The scrambling of chairs. The distinctive whoosh of Aurors apparating into the room, their shouts overlapping. The purple curse splintered a section of the mahogany wall paneling into burning splinters.
Draco was already rolling, his wand in his hand, his eyes fixed on the shimmering space. “Finite Incantatem!”
The spell ripped through the air. The disillusionment charm shattered like glass, revealing a figure in dark, nondescript robes, their face obscured by a grey mask. The attacker twisted, apparating with a sharp crack just as a stunner from another Auror lanced through the space they’d occupied.
Silence, heavy and thick, followed the pop of disapparition. Then the hall descended into noise again—panicked shouts, cries for order. Draco pushed himself up, wincing as the pain in his shoulder flared. He turned, looking down at Hermione. She was on her back, her hair fanned out around her, staring at the ceiling with wide, furious eyes.
“Are you hit?” His voice was rough.
“No.” She sat up abruptly, smacking his probing hand away from her arm. “I’m fine.” Her gaze swept the hall, taking in the terrified reporters, the smoking wall, the Aurors securing the area. Her fury was a colder, more dangerous thing than the panic around them. “They attacked the Ministry. In front of everyone.”
“I told you they wouldn’t play fair,” Draco growled, getting to his feet. He offered her a hand. She ignored it, standing on her own, brushing fiercely at her robes. A long scorch mark grazed the sleeve.
Auror Davies approached, his face pale. “He got away, Malfoy. Clean slice. No trace.”
“I noticed,” Draco said dryly, clamping his left hand over his right shoulder. His fingers came away stained with blood.
Hermione’s eyes snapped to the injury. The fury in them shifted, just for a second, into something else. Concern, quickly buried. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s a graze.”
“It’s a wound.” She turned to Davies. “I want a full lockdown. No one enters or leaves the Atrium until they’ve been screened. Check for any magical residue, anything they may have left behind. And get a team to scan for any listening charms they might have planted before this started.” Her voice was all business again, but it was tighter, sharper. “And someone,” she added, glancing at the crowd of reporters who were now being shepherded out, “is going to have to manage that story.”
“Leave the story to me,” said a new voice. Harry Potter strode through the dispersing chaos, his expression grim. He took in the scene—the ruined wall, Draco’s bloodied shoulder, Hermione’s disheveled composure. “You’re both alright?”
“Peachy,” Draco muttered, examining his singered robes with disgust.
“They’re getting bolder,” Harry said, his eyes meeting Hermione’s. “A public strike. This is an escalation.”
“It’s a message,” Hermione corrected, her voice low. “They’re telling me, and everyone watching, that nowhere is safe. Not even the heart of the Ministry.” She looked at Draco’s shoulder again. “You need to see a Healer.”
“It can wait.”
“It can’t.” Her tone brooked no argument. “If that curse had been an inch to the left, you wouldn’t have a shoulder to complain with. Go. Now.”
The dismissal was clinical, but her hands were trembling slightly as she gathered her scattered notes from the floor. Draco saw it. He saw the way she wouldn’t quite meet his eyes now. The adrenaline was fading, leaving the cold shock of reality.
“Fine,” he conceded. “But you’re not staying here alone. Potter?”
“I’ve got her,” Harry said, nodding. “We’ll debrief in my office. Go get patched up.”
Draco gave a curt nod, his gaze lingering on Hermione for a moment longer than necessary. She was already turned away, issuing quiet, precise orders to Davies, rebuilding the fortress of her authority brick by brick. But he had seen the crack in the walls, the brief, terrifying glimpse of the woman who had just been a split-second from a curse to the face.
As he walked stiffly toward the exit, the thrum of pain in his shoulder a steady, grounding beat, he replayed the shimmer in the air, the angle of the spell. Professional, but not perfect. Ambitious. Reckless. It was a signature he was beginning to recognize.
The message had been received. Loud and clear. Now, he thought, as the cool air of the corridor hit his face, it was time to craft a reply.