Nighthawk

Why was it that his charm revealed
Somehow the surface of a shield?
What was it that we never caught?
What was he, and what was he not?
-- Excerpt from "Flammonde," by E.A.R

Chapter Six

Somehow, it didn't come as a complete surprise to her when she woke in the dead of night to see a cloaked figure slip past her still form on the sofa bed. She'd given over her room to Ginny and Dante, Transfiguring the couch into as comfortable a bed as she could. Still, she found she slept fitfully and the invader's soft footfalls had penetrated her light dozing despite any precautions he might have taken.

As he passed the kitchen doorway, a shaft of moonlight showed his fine profile and the gleaming stray lock of hair that curved over his cheek. "Malfoy," she called softly, slipping from her bed.

He froze. Then turned to face her fully, his eyes shuttered of emotion and his lips drawn into a thin line. He waited quietly for her to reach him and then, if possible, stood even more silent as she stared up at him, her fingers clutching her wand in a tight fist.

"I don't care what you're doing here, Malfoy. Or how, even," she said in a low, controlled voice, knowing as she said them that her words were a lie. She was intensely curious as to how he was alive and obviously well, standing before her, when she knew he'd been magically identified and pronounced dead so many years ago. "But I want you to leave. Now."

He glanced at the closed bedroom doors and then back down at her, his mouth twisted in a grim smirk. "No."

Aware that she couldn't make him leave, not without causing a ruckus and alerting her flat mates, she lashed out at him verbally. "Do you think she's going to forgive you, then? Or were you just planning on snatching Dante and leaving?" she spat out with contempt.

His face crumpled minutely before he caught himself. "I didn't know," he said simply.

"So?" Hermione queried bluntly.

He looked surprised and flinched perceptively. "What?"

"I said, 'So?'" she emphasized, poking his chest with her wand. "Would it have made any sort of difference?"

"I would have--"

"What?" she taunted in a hush. "Taken her with you? Torn her away from her family? Made them think she was dead, too?"

"I..." He trailed off, looking more angry than repentant.

The floor creaked and Hermione spun around, dismay clenching her throat. Dante, sock footed and shirt buttons askew, shuffled slightly in the hallway as he gazed at them, his eyes wide.

"Auntie?" he whispered.

Hermione forced a smile. "What's the matter, sweetheart?"

The boy took a tentative step forward and cocked his head to the side. "Who's dat?" he asked, lifting a thumb to his mouth.

"No one, Dante," she said hastily, feeling Malfoy stiffen beside her. She placed a hand on his arm, effectively stopping him from moving forward without a struggle. "Is everything okay?"

His thumb slipped to the corner of his mouth. "Thirsty."

Glancing sideways at the hooded man beside her, his attention fastened on the small child, she sighed and beckoned them both into the kitchen. She didn't miss the slight anticipation on Malfoy's face and hoped to Merlin that she was doing the right thing.

"Who're you?" Dante asked Malfoy directly as the man lowered himself into a kitchen chair.

"Er..." He shot Hermione a quick look. "John," he said after a moment and Hermione felt relief course through her body as well as a twinge of disappointment.

"Here you go, buddy," Hermione placed a half-full plastic cup in his hands, curling his small fingers around it so he could get a steady hold.

His smile was slow and smug - as smug as a five-year-old's smile could be, anyway - and Hermione wondered briefly if he hadn't gone to her because his mum probably knew better than to fetch him things in the middle of the night. She sighed. Oh well, she didn't mind spoiling him a bit while he was there.

She crouched down, and Dante gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek, then said softly, "Bye, John," and padded from the room, the cup held tightly between both hands.

She shifted to look at Malfoy and caught a hint of longing in his eyes before he narrowed them and scowled at her. "He's mine," he said roughly. "I've a right to him."

"I'm not arguing the fact, Malfoy," she hissed. "I'm arguing your methods. You are going to leave."

He snorted and crossed his arms, arching a pale brow that dared her to try and physically remove him from the flat.

Dropping down into the chair across from him she twirled her wand between her fingers. "You could have told him the truth, Malfoy. I wouldn't have stopped you, because you're right: he's yours. Yours and Ginny's, whom you chose to abandon, for whatever reasons."

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"So you're going to leave here quietly and without seeing Ginny, because right now you don't deserve to see her. And until you can look her straight in the eye, until you can look your son in the eye and come clean, you're not welcome anywhere near them."

"Are you their keeper now?" Malfoy sneered.

Hermione eyed him quietly for a few moments, and then said with deadly calm, "It's been six years, Malfoy. If you want to see Ginny again, it has to be forever. Otherwise, you have to let her move on."

His gray eyes were dark and storm-ridden, but he nodded silently and rose from the chair. She watched him leave slowly, her gaze following him to the door as she moved to stand in the kitchen doorway, hoping, for Ginny's sake, that it wasn't the last she saw of him.

She'd never been particularly keen on the blond man, obviously, but she was acutely aware of the fact that Ginny had loved him completely once, and she couldn't imagine the girl ever giving her heart to someone undeserving. Perhaps there was a smidgen of something more, something worthy in the autocratic pureblood. He hadn't fought in the war, of course, for either side. But then, neither had Zabini and, surprisingly enough, most of the residents of Slytherin at the time, so she really couldn't hold it against him.

She yawned and shook her head. She didn't know why Malfoy was back, or why Zabini was acting covertly, or why Colin was seemingly stalking her, or why she was receiving... Her rambling thoughts abruptly halted as her eyes fell on a white envelope lying on the counter. She didn't know how she could have missed it earlier, and thought that perhaps Alice had found it and set it out after Hermione had gone to bed.

She reached for it cautiously, recognizing the red script with a strange flip in her stomach. Opening it quickly, she read over the words, the broken phrase different from the others, yet oddly familiar: and Death will restore it.

Her mind now wide awake, despite the pulling exhaustion of her body, she lugged out her briefcase and retrieved the slips of paper she'd copied the previous messages on, having given the original notes to Charlie as promised. It didn't take long, really, to fit the new words into the whole, and she rubbed a hand over her forehead as she murmured the phrases aloud, noting that while they certainly made some sort of sense, she wasn't quite sure what that sense exactly was...

"The living are the waiting dead, the dead mere animated shadows. The body is a vessel, the skin breathes independently from the Soul. The Soul is fragile and easily torn from the confines of the mortal plane. Death will rip the light from their eyes, and Death will restore it. The mortal frame will break and the heart will pause, then beat again."

It wasn't poetry, but it was something very, very wrong. She knew that instinctively.

A shiver ran through the length of her body and she felt her heart contract and then pound painfully in her chest. Shaking, her fingers stiff with sudden cold, she managed to shred the papers into unreadable pieces, scattering them across the counter as she collapsed against it, her sock feet scrambling for purchase on the slippery floor.

Breath faltering, throat constricting painfully, she heaved dry, soundless sobs, and she grasped at her neck, doubling over in her effort to draw air into her lungs...

When she woke in the morning, sprawled diagonally across her makeshift bed, her throat was sore and her neck stung, and she couldn't quite imagine why. She stumbled into the bathroom, muscles aching and her legs unsteady, and then let out a soft gasp as she gazed at her reflection.

"My, those are some nasty cuts there, dear." The mirror clucked with concern as Hermione studied the raw scratches encircling her throat, a few of the gauges deep enough to have bled and dried rusty brown overnight. She touched one with a light finger, hissing at the pain.

Hastily retrieving her wand, she pressed the tip to the angriest looking gash and murmured a Healing Charm, but it merely managed to soothe the stinging a bit, leaving the marks to mar her skin. Another spell proved just as useless.

Rattled and pale, she dressed quickly, pulling a high collared jumper on to cover the cuts. She hadn't remembered clawing her throat, but she'd remembered the notes and the sudden panic and the overwhelming fear. And her one overriding thought at the moment was to get to work; to Floo straight to the office and bury herself in case files and wait for Zabini to show up because somehow, inexplicably, she knew this all had to be tied up with him.

But later that morning, when he appeared at her office doorway, a great welling lump formed in her throat and she couldn't do anything but shake her head 'no' when he asked if she'd picked up his coffee.

He cocked his head to the side. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," she managed thickly.

He stared at her with calm, unreadable eyes and she relaxed minutely into her desk chair, the effect of his steady gaze strangely soothing, even with all her suspicions about him whispering at the back of her mind. She swallowed and said much clearer, "I'm fine, really. Bad morning." She smiled at him and was surprised to find it was a genuine curve of her mouth.

He nodded once and turned to leave.

"Zabini," she called after him, suddenly bold. "Why were you here so late last night?"

He eyed her quizzically. "Work."

She bit her lip, weighing her options. Last night she hadn't wanted to push, but now Alice was in the outer office, rays of sun were poking in between the blinds on her window, and there really wasn't anything he could do to her, was there? Still, she choked back her curiosity and shook her head, watching him walk from the room.

Absently, she rubbed the thick material covering her neck and sighed.

She worked almost mechanically through the day, skipping lunch and keeping her door closed, barely listening to her two afternoon appointments, and scribbling notes that would no doubt prove illegible when she glanced over them later.

For once, she didn't particularly care.

Zabini looked in on her a few times, giving her a strange gaze that almost seemed concerned, but was probably just a trick of the fluorescent office lighting.

If Alice thought she seemed a bit off, she didn't say.

By the time five o'clock rolled around Hermione forced herself to acknowledge that she was being silly. She'd just had a panic attack - albeit a rather severe one - built on fear and anxiety that'd been bottled up inside her. And the wounds... well, she wasn't exactly a Medi-witch, was she? Besides, they were almost completely healed, the skin having knit itself back together throughout the course of the day.

Still, the next few nights proved almost entirely sleepless for her, finding that she could hardly breathe when stretched out on her back.

She spent all her extra waking hours at the Public Library in Diagon Alley, scouring the books for any reference to the ominous phrases - she might have destroyed the papers, but the words themselves were burned into her memory. Her research proved ultimately fruitless, though, since they were hardly going to stock the place with Dark Arts texts. She longed for the days when she had easy access to the Restricted Section of Hogwarts' Library, for once regretting her decision to step down as Librarian, and made tentative plans to visit Seamus and Neville.

When Alice finally commented on her lack of focus one morning, asking curiously if she was all right, Hermione snapped, "No. No, damn it, I'm not all right! I'm overtired and overworked, I haven't eaten a decent meal in days, Zabini's plotting against me, people who should be dead aren't, Bufford's been hounding me about his stupid car, the coffee boy's giving me creepy looks, I think my hair's falling out, Colin just might be stalking me, I'm having trouble breathing and, and... and..." She finally lost steam, slumping against Alice's desk.

After a few moments of stunned silence, Alice finally asked gently, "Remember we have that little get-together at Ron and Estelle's tonight?"

"Yes," Hermione said on a weary sigh.

"Well," Alice bit her lip. "I sort of invited Blaise."

"Oh, so it's Blaise now-- Wait. What? You invited Zabini? To Ron's?"

The blonde nodded guiltily.

"Well, un-invite him."

"I can't," Alice said, affronted. "It'd be rude."

"You do realize that Ron hates his guts, right? And I do believe I just mentioned that Zabini's most likely up to something evil."

"Oh, I doubt it's something evil--" She broke off at Hermione's glare.

Hermione bent forward and knocked her head on Alice's desk. "I'll handle Ron if you can keep Zabini at a safe distance, all right?" she muttered without lifting her head.

"It'll be fine," Alice said soothingly. "There's not much they can do to each other in a room full of people now, is there?"

"No," Hermione grumbled, at the same time thinking, famous last words.

******

Hermione showed up at the Weasley townhouse early, hoping to get in some quality time with Ron and Estelle before the other guests arrived, enabling her to slip out later without much fuss. She was exhausted beyond belief and hoped she would finally be able to get a good night's sleep.

She'd barely knocked when the door swung open and Hermione was pulled into a bustle of strong, slender arms and flowery perfume. "Herms, you made it!" the tall brunette cried, practically lifting the smaller woman off her feet.

Hermione inwardly cringed at the horrible nickname, but hugged her friend back and gave her a sincere smile. "Estelle."

"Oh, we haven't seen you in ages; just wait till Dart and Aimsley get a look at you."

Oh no. "It's only been a few weeks, you know. I don't think you need to--" She broke off as Estelle shouted for her 'boys' and sighed resignedly as the flurry of barks and yips grew closer and louder. Dart and Aimsley just loved their Aunt Herms.

The two brown and white Welsh Corgis, stubby legs pumping furiously, skidded around the kitchen doorway and ran full-tilt towards the foyer.

Estelle laughed and cooed at the dogs to behave themselves while Hermione did her best to keep their paws and tongues from coming in contact with her dress robes - which mainly consisted of her squatting down and doling out tummy rubs.

"Where's Ron?" Hermione asked, patting the dogs one last time before getting to her feet.

"Should be home any minute now." She paused and cocked her head with a grin as they heard a crash, followed by a curse, followed by a shout of, "Bloody dogs!"

"Right on time," Estelle giggled, and then flitted out of the front room, motioning for Hermione to follow.

In the den, Ron was just picking himself off the floor, muttering angrily and casting disgusted looks at a huge half-masticated rawhide bone. He dusted off his dark suit jacket with a sigh, his red mop of hair sticking up in all directions.

"Ron, guess who's here?" Estelle greeted him cheerily, pecking her husband on the cheek.

"Can we pawn two dogs off on them?" he grumbled as he gave Estelle an affectionate squeeze. Spotting Hermione over her shoulder, Ron's face split into a wide grin. "Finally visiting, eh?"

As Estelle excused herself to check on the hors d'oeuvres, Hermione gave him a hug and grinned up at him. "I wouldn't have missed this for the world. It's not everyday that my best friend gets elected Official Liaison to the Prime Minister."

Ron blushed. "Yes, well..." He rubbed the back of his neck and ducked his head. "It's not exactly the most prestigious--"

"Nonsense," Hermione interrupted. "I'm sure your Dad and Mum are ecstatic. Will they be here tonight?"

Ron shook his head. "They're taking the grandkids so Bill and Gin can come. Although they refused Dart and Aim," he added darkly.

"Oh, I would've liked to see them," she said, disappointed. "I'll have to stop by the Burrow soon. By the by, I came early to warn you."

"Warn me?" Ron asked warily.

Hermione nodded. "Alice is bringing Blaise Zabini along."

"Zabini?" Ron's eyebrows rose incredulously.

"Yes. So behave yourself."

Ron opened his mouth, but his predicable angry tirade was cut off by the doorbell ringing and the dogs barking their heads off and Estelle, thankfully, shouting at him to change into his dress robes. He grimaced and trudged up the stairs.

An hour later, the narrow house was packed with friends and family, joking and laughing loudly and toasting Ron with glad congratulations. Harry had been there for barely ten minutes when he'd been called away, grumbling about never getting any time off. Dean and Lavender showed up with a stack of photos of their six-month-old daughter, grinning proudly as they passed them around. Fred, recently wounded in an explosion - a WWW experiment gone wrong - happily displayed the scarlet scar running along his calf, while George recounted the incident with great exaggeration.

Hermione stifled several yawns, feeling her eyes prick with exhaustion. It was no where near an appropriate time for her to leave, unfortunately.

She hadn't realized she was dozing off until Neville shifted beside her and she jolted upright. Catching Zabini's eye from across the room, he gave her a searching glance and lifted his drink in mock solute. So far, he'd steered well clear of Ron, sitting in a corner with a grinning, talkative Ginny. Hermione frowned and hoped Gin wasn't divulging anything about her.

Shaking her head ruefully, she struggled out of the loveseat she'd been sharing with Neville, only to be grabbed roughly from behind. She panicked slightly and kicked out, then breathed a sigh of relief when she heard cursing in Seamus' familiar lilt as the arms about her loosened.

"Nice way to greet a friend," Seamus grumbled good-naturedly.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly, turning to meet his eyes, "but you shouldn't sneak up on a person like that."

He ruffled his sandy hair and grinned down at her. "Not much of a threat in a room full of friends, is there?"

Hermione reluctantly agreed. "Still..."

He held up a palm and said in a falsely-serious tone, "I solemnly swear that from now on I will greet you properly before grabbing you about the waist."

"Good enough, I suppose," Hermione chuckled.

"Could you swear that to me, too, then?" Neville piped in. "Near scared me out of my wits in Greenhouse Five last week."

Hermione's brows arched. "By grabbing you about the waist?"

Seamus laughed while Neville blushed furiously. "Well... um... not exactly," he mumbled.

Hermione's brows arched even further. "No?"

"Um..." Neville twisted his cocktail napkin in his lap.

"Oh, leave the poor boy alone," Seamus said, grinning from ear to ear. "I only jumped out at him when he was repotting mandrakes - earmuffs, you know."

"Yes," Neville agreed hastily. "Startled me."

Hermione eyed the men curiously, but refrained from commenting on Neville's remaining high color and Seamus' smug grin. "Well, if you two fellows don't mind, I need some air." She excused herself, a bit of an ache behind her eyes now from the noise of the crush, and, grabbing her cloak, headed back through the house to the kitchen door.

Dart and Aimsley greeted her happily, running up from the darkness of the backyard to snuggle against her legs as she sat down on the stoop. She sighed and scratched their heads, admitting a slight fondness for the two goofballs. Dart's tongue lolled out in ecstasy as he tilted his head back into her palm. Aim slid down the outside of her calf until he was sprawled on his side, doleful brown eyes imploring her for a tummy rub.

"Ah, you know exactly how to wrap your Aunt Herms around your little paws, don't you?"

"Herms?" a low voice laughed behind her.

She half turned and gazed up into Zabini's amused face. "Don't even think about it," she warned darkly.

The dogs, eager for more attention, clamored up the stoop and sat back on their haunches in front of Zabini, paws waving in the air. Hermione watched as Zabini hunkered down and rubbed their heads, a small smile playing about his lips. The dogs squirmed appreciatively and Hermione swore she saw the dark man's smile grow wider before he lifted his head to gaze at her. Their eyes were nearly level, and she could read the fleeting spark of good humor in his blue irises before the amusement leeched out of them, making his expression as unreadable as ever. Are you friend or foe, Zabini? She couldn't quite figure him out.

"You're not sleeping," he said finally.

She shook her head 'no' before she realized that she should have lied, or at the very least told him that it wasn't any of his business.

"Why?"

She shrugged - she couldn't very well tell him that her lungs felt like they were bent on collapsing every time she laid down - then turned her back to him, staring off into the wide expanse of dimly-lit backyard. "How long have you known about Malfoy?"

She felt Zabini move to sit beside her, the Corgis bounding past them to chase each other across the grass.

"So he got caught, then," he said, voice bland. "Told him it wasn't a good idea."

"How long?" she repeated, shifting to look at his profile. His elbows were resting on his bent knees, his hands dangling between his legs. The golden porch light curled around his cheek and neck, leaving the hollows of his eyes dark as he gazed out into the night.

"Since the beginning."

Hermione wasn't especially surprised by his admission, and persisted with a, "But why?"

She watched the corner of his lip twitch, whether from amusement or annoyance, she couldn't tell.

"Several factions wanted him dead," he replied bluntly. Before she could ask more, though, he turned to her with hard eyes and said, "I'm not at liberty to discuss this further."

Hermione blinked. "All right."

His expression softened minutely and he wrapped a hand around her upper arm. "Come on," he said, urging her to her feet.

"What?"

"You're exhausted. I'm taking you home."

Bemused, she let him clasp her hand and guide her through the house to the front foyer, stopping briefly to thank Estelle for her hospitality and nod tightly at Ron. Then they were out on the street, a taxi waiting for them at the curb.

"I asked Estelle to ring for a cab when I saw you stumble outside," he explained, and she realized he must have noted her exhaustion before their encounter on the back stoop. "You're in no condition to Apparate," he went on, "and I didn't think you'd want to Floo home in front of the entire party."

"Not especially, no," she agreed.

"Hang on a minute," a voice shouted behind them and Hermione glanced back to see Ron rushing down the front steps, wand out. Oh no. She'd thought they'd made it out clean.

Zabini, to his credit, kept his hands at his sides in a non-threatening stance.

"What do you think you're doing, Ron?" Hermione asked, exasperated.

He pulled her off to the side. "I wanted to talk to you earlier about this, but..." he started, voice hushed. "Do you trust him?" he asked, giving a small nod towards where Zabini stood leaning nonchalantly against the taxi door.

"I work with him, Ron."

"Doesn't mean you have to trust him."

No, it certainly didn't. "I'm not really sure," she admitted reluctantly.

Ron nodded, his mouth a grim line. "Well, I never have, but Harry... Harry thinks something's up, and you know he always liked the bloke." They both sent a surreptitious glance towards the man in question and Zabini smirked.

"I know you're talking about me," he said loudly. "No need to be sneaky about it."

"Shut it, Zabini," Ron growled.

"Look," Hermione said softly, placing a hand on his arm. "I agree something's odd about him," definitely, "but I've got my guard up, okay? I'm fast with my wand and I've got a ruthless right hook." She managed to smile up at him.

"That you do," he grimaced, rubbing his jaw and clearly recalling the time she'd socked him for a particularly vicious and disparaging remark about McGonagall - granted he'd been sotted at the time. "Solid as a brick," he muttered.

Throwing one last warning glare at Zabini, he stalked back into the townhouse.

"Pleasant fellow, isn't he?" Zabini snarked, ushering her into the waiting vehicle.

"You bring out the worst in him... or, you know, Slytherin's in general."

He grinned maliciously. "Bet he just loved Ginny and Draco together."

"Minor heart palpitations," Hermione replied. "Insisted he was having a heart attack and ended up having to be forcibly removed from St. Mungo's."

Zabini snorted. "Sounds like Weasley, all right."

She gave him a sideways glance. "Best sort to have watching your back, though."

"I'll bet," Zabini muttered, slumping down comfortably into the seat and shutting his eyes.

Taking her cue from him, Hermione leant her head back and felt her eyes fall closed as well.

She dreamt of the lake, of the orange sun touching the surface and setting fire to the ripples. She dreamt that the water washed over her like a blanket, warm and soft and soothing...

She stared curiously at the black mist as it rose off the water's surface, the tendrils curling into a long-fingered hand, the arm as thick and tall as the old oak that's roots no doubt went as deep as the lake bottom. She welcomed the hand like a lover; arms spread as it wove about her body, as warm as the water and twice as satisfying. She inhaled deeply, the darkness slithering inside her, burning down the back of her throat, uncoiling in her lungs, exploding into her blood stream... And it felt wonderful; like nothing ever had before...

Zabini nudged her when the taxi came to a stop and she blinked awake, surprised that she had been able to sleep the entire ride.

She yawned and slid out of the car, too tired to care that Zabini curled his hand possessively around her arm and led her inside the three-story apartment building. She didn't even bother to wonder how he knew where she lived; he'd obviously known her address for a while, having told Malfoy where to find Ginny.

The flat was dark when they entered. Alice was notorious for overstaying her welcome at parties, and Hermione suspected she wouldn't be home until the wee small hours of the morning. Ginny, she knew, was staying overnight at her parents with Dante.

She shivered, not especially looking forward to the solitude despite her weariness, and said softly, "Goodnight, Zabini."

"Not so fast, Granger."

"What?" Hermione tilted her head to the side.

Without answering her, he stalked out of the room in the direction of the bathroom. Hermione sank down onto her sofa bed with a thump and stared off after him.

A few minutes later, he reappeared in front of her, a small vial pinched in his fingers. He held it up and wagged it back and forth. "Dreamless Sleep potion," he said gruffly. "Use it." He pushed the bottle into her hands, then leaned down and caught her face between his palms. "I mean it, Granger."

She nodded dumbly, feeling the roughened pads of his thumbs rub against her cheeks.

"Good." He gave her one last inscrutable look, and then pressed his warm lips to her forehead for a brief kiss, before releasing her and stepping back. Nodding a quick goodnight he strode out of the flat, his cloak billowing behind him.

Hermione sat stunned. What was that oddly affectionate kiss about? Zabini grew more and more enigmatic by the moment.

She took a measure of the sleeping draught, of course, despite her dislike of those kinds of crutches. She figured Zabini would know at a glance in the morning whether or not she'd followed his orders.

She couldn't, however, delude herself into believing that her sleeping problem was merely nightmares. Somehow, she felt the rearranged notes had affected her more than just mentally.

It wasn't just fear that stole her breath. She suspected it was something infinitely more tangible and dangerous.