The Gallows Chapter 9

 “Knock, knock,” a voice called, pulling Hermione from the pile of parchment in front of her.

Hermione groaned, ready to tell whoever it was coming to ask her again about her marriage to Malfoy to sod off, only to find Pansy and Theo standing in the doorway.

“It seems they’ll let just about any old riff raff in here.” Theo’s face split into a smile while he surveyed her mess of an office.

They were so close to cracking the dragon trading case, especially based on the pile of parchment scattered across her desk and over the walls. But unlike most cases, it hadn’t consumed her — not like it would have in the past. Now she found herself preoccupied with Malfoy and the strange routine they’d found. Since Tuesday when she’d come into find him sitting up, the last two evenings had been well… not enjoyable, but far better than before.

Last night she’d finally witnessed him eat. It was heartbreaking and a little horrifying the way he’d hunched over his bowl like a dog with scraps, choking on the broth for how quickly he tried to shove it into his mouth. She resisted the urge to slow him or to pat his back when he choked. Instead, she’d focused on her own plate, blinking back burning tears that a person could be reduced to this.  

They did not speak much — well, Malfoy didn’t. Hermione continued to read and fill him in on her day, leaving out the increasingly alarming attention she was receiving or the fact that she’d started using the private floo in the back of the auror’s office instead of using the ones in the atrium. But she could have sworn his lips twitched when she told him about Harry. He’d had a fumble with a pair of cursed mittens out in the field and had to go to St. Mungos to have his nose regrown.

Hermione shook herself, refocusing on the two standing in her door. “Is everything okay? Is M—”

“He’s fine,” Pansy soothed, walking through the door as if it was her office and perching on the edge of Hermione’s desk.

Those dark green eyes flicked over Hermione’s mussed blouse and trouser ensemble and she could have sworn a flash of nausea passed over Pansy’s face before she smoothed it. Theo followed close behind, hands in the pockets of his perfectly pressed slacks.

“We’ve come to whisk you away for lunch,” he explained, gesturing grandly towards the open door.

Hermione was shaking her head before the words had finished leaving his mouth. “Thank you so much, both of you, but no—”

Pansy wrenched her out of her seat, linking arms a bit too tightly for her liking. “Theo, grab her sad excuse for a coat, will you?”

“Pansy I said—”

“It’s this gorgeous little Italian bistro Theo found,” she said loudly, tugging Hermione towards the lifts.

“—I have so much—"

“Their tiramisu is some of the best I’ve had and I spent half my childhood in Rome.” Pansy nodded towards the golden grates. “Theo, would you, love?”

Theo grinned, bounding forward to draw open the grate of the lift so Pansy could maneuver them in.

“Really, I appreciate it so much—”

“You are so welcome, Granger, really,” Pansy answered.

When Hermione turned to Theo, it was to see him biting back his laughter and mouthing resistance is futile at her. The lift door came to a stop and Theo exited first, waiting for Pansy to tug her through and towards the floo.

“That’s Hermione Granger,” a witch hissed to her friend.

“Did you read how she married that Death Eater?” her friend answered in a voice far too loud.

“Did you bit—” Pansy’s words were cut off by Theo’s hand wrapping around her mouth and nodding to the two witches.

“Good afternoon, ladies. Might want to get to your destination before you find yourself hexed six ways to Sunday.”

The witches gaped at Theo before scuttling off towards the cafeteria. But Hermione’s name, tangled with Malfoy’s, followed them through the atrium. With each step Theo slid closer until she was flanked by the pair, his hand curling protectively around her shoulder and Pansy’s wrapped around her elbow.

They were settled in the quaint Italian bistro before the Slytherins broached the subject.

“How long has this been going on?” Theo asked, stirring his coffee slowly.

“My love affair with espresso?” Hermione clarified, lowering the cup she’d all but devoured.

Pansy snorted, but for once Theo didn’t smile. “The attention. It was a madhouse in there.”

Hermione waved the worry away. “It’s nothing, it’ll pass,”

Theo reached across the small table to grab onto her hand, thumb resting over her knuckles. “Hermione, there were people following us to the floo.”

She grimaced. “I didn’t see anyone…”

A cup landed on its saucer with a clink and Pansy huffed, running a hand through her bob before smoothing it. “How long has it been going on?”

The waitress returned with their orders. Silence fell while the plates were distributed and coffees were refilled. She tried to use that time to put together an argument for why it wasn’t important but all she could manage was:

“Since I came back to work last week.” Pansy opened her mouth but Hermione cut across her. “I’m no stranger to gossip, Pansy. People will talk for the next week and then something else will come along and everyone will forget about it.”

“I don’t know if that’s quite true…” Theo murmured, cutting pieces of his chicken into smaller bites.

“Look just drop it, okay? What is it you needed to talk to me about?” Hermione’s tone was sharp, a small door cracking to show just a little of the mess behind the wall of her mind.

If she was being perfectly honest, the attention bothered her more than she would ever let on. It made her skin crawl to have so many eyes on her, to hear the whisper of her name. There had been a few headlines she’d caught from the Prophet, all centered around the golden girl aligning herself with the Death Eater prince or Voldemort’s soldier. As if Malfoy hadn’t been a child when he’d been marked under threat but You-Know-Who’s second in command.

Pansy and Theo froze in the perfect expression of confusion and table manners from the immaculate way they held their cutlery.

“Draco said—” Theo started.

“Malfoy said?” Hermione gaped.

Pansy pursed her lips, shaking out her hair before attacking her salad with gusto. “He’s spoken a bit more in the last few days. But this morning he mentioned you weren’t eating lunch and so we thought we’d come to make sure you do.”

She knew that Pansy and Theo arrived each morning to meet with Malfoy after she left for work. Blaise was a little more sporadic due to his job with the French vineyard he ran marketing for but he made sure to be there at least a few times during the week. It was Blaise that showed up early Saturday and Sunday, whose deep voice she could hear occasionally through the connecting door enthusiastically reading the Wizarding Paris newspaper aloud.

Hermione shook her head, refocusing on Theo. “He said, ‘Hermione’s not eating lunch you should go see her?’”The idea seemed to so far-fetched she struggled to even imagine it.  

“No…” Theo drew out the word. “We were discussing lunch and if he wanted us to bring him any. He said that he wasn’t hungry and then, after a pause, ‘she doesn’t eat lunch.’”

Hermione stared at her own plate, stomach twisting painfully. “I didn’t think he was really listening…”

She’d mentioned her afternoons holed up in her office without really thinking about it, how she had stopped going to the cafeteria — though she’d told him it was due to the noise than the constant attention surrounding her.

Pansy drained her water glass and patted her mouth primly with her napkin. “Well, darling, he is from the looks of it and your dear husband—”

“He’s not my husband,” she said quietly, fidgeting with the edge of her napkin. “He’s—he’s made that very clear.”

 “Traumatized within an inch of his life and yet he’s still the same prat we grew up with,” Pansy muttered.

Silence fell as the waitress retrieved their empty plates and set a large slice of tiramisu in front of them. Hermione was relieved when neither one brought Malfoy up again, though it was in favor of Pansy insisting on a shopping trip the following Saturday. But when she finally made her way back to the Ministry, popping through the auror floo, her shoulders felt just a little bit lighter.

She worked for the rest of the day with Dean and a few others in the main meeting room. They were so close, she could taste it, and when her wand buzzed at ten ‘til, she sighed.

“You think it’s something we’ll crack tonight?” she asked Dean, who was rhythmically rubbing his temples while humming the Chudley Cannons theme song under his breath.

“We’re close, there’s just something about that last crate…” he began rambling again about the quality of the wood, the wear on it.

Hermione nodded along with him, ambling towards the door and casting a patronus. In a quiet voice, she instructed her otter to deliver a message to Malfoy that she was running late. With a sigh, she turned back towards the meeting room, attention catching on the note pinned to the opposite wall describing the make of the wood.

“Norway…” she breathed.

“Huh?” Padma Patil looked up left cheek smeared with ink.

“This wood — it’s only found within the forests of Saltstraumen. It’s home to one of the largest populations of bowtruckles in the world.”

They cracked the case wide open an hour later but Hermione found the joy of solving the mystery was muted beneath the itching of her skin. She tapped her nails against the long table they used to piece together their evidence, glancing at her watch every now and then. It was only half past nine, but surely they didn’t need her anymore.

“I’m going to head out, great work everyone,” she called.

“We’ll be right behind you,” Dean answered, flicking his wand over the parchment to gather it neatly into a stack before starting the necessary security charms.

Hermione summoned her coat and purse, already halfway to the private floo. It wasn’t that she needed to go home, but gods, what if something happened? She had disrupted Malfoy’s routine and in all the reading she’d done on caring for those with PTSD, she knew that routine was vital.

The moment the manor spun into view she was out of the grate like a shot, taking the stairs two at a time, heels in hand. Shucking off her outer robes and purse, she sighed with relief when the tray appeared on the coffee table. Eggs, toast, and a bowl of fruit for Malfoy and a small pot pie for her.

She could change after she saw him, she told herself, once he knew she was there. Balancing the tray on her hip, she knocked quickly on the connecting door.

“Malfoy, it’s Hermione,” she swung it open quickly and turned to close it behind her, “I’m so sorry I’m late the—”

The tray slipped out of her grip, falling to the floor. A crash could have sounded through the room, but Hermione would have never known. All she could see was the man standing at the edge of the closet, taking slow, deep breaths, a mess of white-blonde hair around his face.

Then he took a step and crossed the threshold.