Chapter 7: The Hollow Hours
The silence in the flat was a physical thing. It pressed against Draco’s eardrums, a thick, woolly absence that was worse than any noise. He’d charmed the windows days ago. Not just the blackout seals, but a layered series of silencing spells so potent they muffled the entire city. He couldn’t hear the hum of traffic, the shouts from the pubs, the distant chime of the church bell. He especially couldn’t hear the soft, tell-tale sounds from across the courtyard: the latch of a window, the rustle of pages, a murmured spell.
He’d thought it would help. It was a tactical retreat. Caspian’s words about spectacles and hungry eyes had scraped his nerves raw. The safest thing for her was his absence. A clean severance before the thread between them could be spotted, measured, and cut by someone with far crueler instruments.
It was driving him mad.
Three nights. Seventy-two hours of unnatural quiet in a space that had always been a sanctuary. Now it was a tomb. He paced from the sitting room to the library to the bedroom, his movements a silent, restless pattern on the Persian rug. He’d tried to work. Department memos on cursed Egyptian artifacts lay scattered on his desk, the words swimming into meaningless shapes. His mind kept looping back to the dream. The exact pressure of her hip under his hand. The startled, warm puff of her breath. The blinding gold of the connection, more addictive than any blood.
He’d resorted to the bagged blood from the cold-enchanted cabinet in his kitchen. It was a clinical, modern convenience, used mostly by vampires who wanted to integrate, to pretend. The first swallow had been revolting. Cold, flat, devoid of life or magic or emotion. It was like drinking stale water. He’d drained it out of necessity, a mechanic topping up a failing engine, and the ash-like aftertaste still clung to the back of his tongue.
He was standing in the middle of the darkened sitting room, staring at a single frayed thread in the velvet drapes, when the wards pinged.
He knew it was Pansy. Her magical signature was like chilled champagne and black pepper. He didn’t move to greet her. A moment later, the lock clicked and she swept in, a swirl of expensive wool and the night’s damp air.
“Merlin’s beard, it’s like a cave in here,” she announced, her heels tapping sharply. With a flick of her wand, one of the low silver lamps flared to life, casting a dim pool of light.
It illuminated Draco, still in yesterday’s rumpled black shirt, his hair uncharacteristically disarranged from where he’d been running his hands through it. He didn’t turn.
Pansy stopped, taking him in. Her sharp eyes missed nothing. The empty blood bag on the side table, the untouched work, the deliberate, stifling quiet. “Oh, for Circe’s sake. You look like hell.”
“Thank you. You look short.” His retort was automatic, devoid of its usual bite.
She ignored it, moving to the cabinet and pouring two fingers of firewhiskey. She thrust one glass toward him. He finally turned and looked at it as if it were a foreign object. “I don’t drink that anymore.”
“You do tonight.” She pushed it into his hand. Her fingers brushed his, and she frowned. “You’re freezing. And not your usual composed frost. You’re a mess.” She took a sip, studying him. “Is this the tragic self-denial phase? Because it’s a terrible look on you. All brooding and no tailoring.”
Draco finally took a swallow. The whiskey did nothing, no burn, no warmth, just a smoky note in his mouth. “I’m not brooding. I’m strategizing.”
“You’re sulking. There’s a difference. One involves maps and cunning. The other involves you staring at walls and not feeding properly.” She gestured with her glass toward the empty bag. “That stuff is for emergencies. You need the real thing. Go out. Find a pretty idiot. Be done with it.”
“I don’t want a pretty idiot.” The words were out, low and gravelly, before he could stop them.
Pansy’s expression softened a fraction, then hardened into pragmatism. “I know. You want the complicated, brilliant, terrifyingly perceptive witch who smells like a library and could probably figure out what you are with a good sniff and a bit of logic. Which is exactly why this is a catastrophe waiting to happen.”
“I’m aware,” he snapped, setting the glass down with a sharp click. “I had a chat with Caspian.”
Her dark eyes widened. “The dusty one from the crypts? Wonderful. I’m sure that was a barrel of laughs. What did the harbinger of doom have to say?”
“That this… connection isn’t just about blood. It’s a pre-existing thread. And that older, bored parties might find the idea of snipping it to be entertaining sport.”
All the color drained from Pansy’s face. The fashion witch vanished, replaced by the pure-blood daughter who understood the hidden, vicious games of powerful beings. “Oh, Draco.”
“Indeed.” He resumed pacing, a shorter, tighter path. “So my options, as presented, are to fight the pull and exhaust myself, or follow it and lead every predator in the city right to her doorstep.”
“Or leave,” Pansy said quietly.
He stopped dead. “What?”
“London isn’t the only city with a Department of Mysteries. You could transfer. Go to Paris. New York. Sydney. Vanish. If the thread is stretched far enough, maybe it frays. Maybe she just becomes a strange dream she had one time.” Her voice was gentle, which was more unsettling than her sarcasm. “It’s the cleanest option.”
The thought was a physical pain, a blade twisting behind his ribs. Leaving. Never seeing the light go on in her flat at dusk. Never catching that scent on the night air. Letting her life continue, sunny and normal and completely untouched by his darkness. It was the right thing. The noble, martyrish thing Caspian probably expected.
He looked at Pansy, his grey eyes flat. “No.”
She threw her hands up. “Of course not. Because why choose sanity? Why choose her safety, when you can choose this glorious, self-flagellating vigil? You’re not protecting her by lurking here, Draco. You’re just making yourself weak. And a weak you is no good to anyone, least of all her.”
Her words hit their mark. He was weak. The bagged blood was proof. The silence was proof. He was a predator denying its nature, and it was making him erratic, less than what he was. Less capable of being any kind of shield.
“What would you have me do?” The question was barely a whisper.
“What you’re physically incapable of, apparently: make a decision. Either go to her. Properly. With words. Or remove yourself from the equation entirely. This middle ground?” She swept a hand around the silent, tomblike flat. “This is just slow decay.”
She finished her whiskey, set the glass down, and patted his cheek. Her hand was warm. “I love you. You’re a idiot. Fix it. Or I’ll start inviting over werewolves to cheer you up.”
She left, the door closing with a definitive click. The silence rushed back in, but now it felt different. Charged. Pansy was right. This wasn’t strategy. It was paralysis.
Across the courtyard, in her bright, book-choked sitting room, Hermione was also restless.
She’d noticed his curtains had been drawn for three days straight. No sliver of lamplight, no silhouette moving past the glass. It felt wrong. The courtyard had developed a lopsided emptiness. She found herself glancing over during her evening tea, expecting the familiar shadow, and feeling a peculiar hollow ache when it wasn’t there.
It was ridiculous. He was a stranger. A beautiful, unsettling, probably-dangerous stranger who had starred in an alarmingly vivid dream. His absence should be a relief.
To prove it, she’d Floo-called Theo Nott. Sweet, uncomplicated Theo, who worked in magical botany and whose biggest obsession was the cross-breeding of dirigible plums. They’d dated amiably for a few months last year. It had been pleasant. Undemanding.
Tonight, he sat on her sofa, laughing at something she’d said about a patient who’d tried to graft a billywig sting onto their finger for ‘extra reach.’ Theo had a nice laugh. His hand was warm where it rested on her knee.
But when he leaned in to kiss her, the scent of him—grass and potting soil and a mild, floral cologne—was all wrong. It wasn’t parchment and night-flowers and cold, clean air. The kiss was pleasant. It sparked nothing.
She pulled back gently, offering a smile that felt tight on her face. “I’m sorry, Theo. I’m just… a bit distracted with work.”
He was understanding, because Theo was always understanding. He stayed for another half hour, talking about a new subspecies of venomous tentacula, and then left with a friendly peck on her cheek.
The moment the green Floo flames died down, her smile vanished. She hugged herself, standing in the center of her quiet flat. The hollowness was back, sharper now. It wasn’t about Theo. It was about the silence from across the way. It was about the way her skin still tingled sometimes, remembering a dream-touch from a man she’d never actually met.
It felt like grief. But that was insane.
Back in his flat, Draco stood at the sealed window. He placed his palm flat against the cold, enchanted glass. He could, with a word, dissolve all the spells. He could listen. He could look.
Pansy’s voice echoed. Make a decision.
He was a curse-breaker. His profession was built on understanding dangerous, intricate magic and navigating it without setting off catastrophes. This bond, this thread, was the most complex enchantment he’d ever encountered. Hiding from it was causing a catastrophic failure in his own systems.
Retreat wasn’t working. A full, reckless approach was unthinkable.
But there was a third path. A controlled engagement. To study the magic, he needed proximity. To gauge the threat, he needed to observe. Not from a stifling distance, but from within the field.
A plan, cold and clear, began to form in his mind. The Department of Mysteries had protocols. Contamination checks after field work. He’d been near a volatile soul-energy curse last week in Bristol. It was standard, after such a thing, for a Healer from the Magical Ailments ward to do a routine scan. To ensure no residual harmful magic clung to the curse-breaker.
It was a stretch. A transparent one.
He didn’t care.
He turned from the window, movement returning to his limbs, the predatory grace snapping back into place. The silence was no longer a weight. It was a backdrop. He went to his desk, quill in hand, and began drafting an internal memo. His script was sharp, precise.
To: The Office of Magical Health & Safety, St. Mungo’s. Regarding: Post-Mission Contamination Screening. Request for Healer on duty, H. Granger…
He would bring her into his world on his terms. A professional context. A safe, explainable reason for contact. He would see her, speak to her, read her reactions in the light of day—or at least, in the fluorescent glare of a Ministry examination room.
It was a decision. It was action. And it would, for better or worse, snap the tense, silent stalemate that was slowly strangling them both.