Midnight

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I hope you enjoy reading.

Midnight

And when all the world came back

And the light crept up between the shutters

And you heard the sparrows in the gutters

You had such a vision of the street

As the street hardly understands

- Preludes, T.S. Eliot

The world slowed until time was thick and glutinous. The Felix burned in the back of her throat and the pit of her stomach, and her body obeyed it thoughtlessly. Her legs folded; she prostrated herself upon the steps of 13 Grimmauld Place as if Bellatrix Lestrange was a goddess.

"Dark Lady," she breathed, as if overawed by her mere presence. Felix crafted the words for her. "Is it truly you?"

Bellatrix's laughter was smoke and promises. "You train your pets so well, Draco."

In Hermione's mind, the future stretched out taut as a tightrope, and she edged along it, knowing that to misstep would be fatal.

Lay still, oh lay still and submit. Be a coward, and bore her; safety is tedium, is fear, is submission absolute.

She reached out a hand to the hem of Bellatrix's robes. The scent of gardenias wafted from them, oddly feminine for a woman so strong and so cruel. There was no need to fake her tremors. "Great Lady..."

"Show some respect," snarled Draco, and kicked her hand away. It only stung; but she clutched her fingers to her chest as if it had been mortal. "You do not touch the Dark Lord's chosen ones."

She kept her head down, hunched in upon herself. She could not stop the humiliation that swept her as she quivered at their feet, but with luck coating her tongue and teeth like honey, she knew it was the wisest course of action.

"Sorry..." she whispered, careful to keep her voice high and girlish. "So sorry..."

Nails dug into her scalp, a languid caress. "How obedient she is," Bellatrix murmured. "Where did you find this one, Draco?"

"Quaking on a street corner, covered in glamours and charms. Not much ability, you understand, but enough to make herself marketable." He snorted. "Her mother's gone and her father doesn't care. Same old song. Whatever she earns goes on potions that make it all better."

"Pure?"

"Hardly." He oozed contempt. "Practically a Squib. Good enough to practice on."

She dared not think what that might mean.

Bellatrix leaned over her; Hermione felt the darkness close in with the heavy scent of gardenias, and something sharper, wilder beneath. The sickly-sweet of blood, perhaps, of rotting things. She slid a hand along Hermione's spine, as if she examined a dog.

"The Dark Lord praises your little experiments," Bellatrix mused. "Perhaps I should try for myself. Broken things are so...beautiful. All shiny pieces, all warm in your hands, all warm and wet and still..."

"Eventually," remarked Draco.

"I could break her," Bellatrix said reflectively, and her fingers fluttered like rain on the back of Hermione's neck, then closed about it. "I could make even this drab little insect beautiful. She'd shine in the end, like they all do, shine and be silent and hollow as him...red and white, that's what beauty is, my darling, red and white and broken things..."

Her fingers were a choker on the back of Hermione's neck, spreading and squeezing.

She knew what to do; she turned, all slow and sluggish, let her mouth hang, her face empty of anything except adoration. She prayed that three years and luck were enough of a mask to fool Bellatrix Lestrange.

That face had not changed; she saw echoes of Draco in the scornful droop of her lips, the arctic edge of her beauty which even madness could not obliterate. Only the eyes were different, dark and cryptic as a tomb, empty of anything human.

Behind her, Draco was staring with something close to disbelief.

"Great Mistress..." she whispered, and tilted back her head so that her neck was as stretched and bared as her nerves. She offered herself, a scrawny sacrifice on the altar of his home. "Make me beautiful, please."

Bellatrix drew back as if repelled, and the morning light replaced her. "So obedient," she said with a sneer in her voice. "So dull. I thought you had better taste, Draco."

"I do," he said, his composure recovered. "But the Dark Lord demands, and I gladly obey him."

The mere mention of Voldemort was enough to soften her; something stirred in her eyes, dreamy. "As you should. Your father never learned to bend his stubborn neck. I warned Cissy..."

"My father is a fool," he said in words that had the sound of rote to them.

"And your mother is a fool for him," Bellatrix answered swiftly. "Make her see reason. She angers the Dark Lord, Draco, and only his great mercy has stopped him so far."

Hermione had to admire his control. He did not so much as twitch. "Maybe you should talk to her, Aunt Bella."

"I have talked. She stares and she cries and she screams prettily if I tell her to, but she will not stop...her love for me is not what it was."

He swallowed. All else was stillness, and silence, the heavy hush of a grave.

"I see," he said softly.

"Make her see," Bellatrix snapped. "The Dark Lord sent me to tell you that his patience grows thin. They have a fortnight to tell him what they know, and then he will send them the way of all the other traitors. And they will deserve it!"

Her cloak whirled about her - perfume billowed from its voluminous folds, flowers and death, and Bellatrix was gone in a swish of magic.

Hermione let out a breath she didn't know had been trapped in her throat. The cold of the stone steps sank into her, or maybe it was shock: she stared at Draco, who was the same listless grey as the city smog.

"She tortured her own sister?" she said.

"I didn't know."

She felt a stab of unexpected pity for him. It was quickly overriden by other concerns. "Did you know she'd be here?"

"No. But she doesn't believe in warnings."

"Looks like it runs in the family!" she pointed out. "If she'd recognised me-"

"She didn't."

"Because of the Felix," she threw back at him.

His smile was vicious and, she felt, designed to annoy her. "I make my own luck. Literally."

"And when it runs out?" she said tautly.

Some of the mockery faded; he looked her at her with something close to puzzlement, as if the harsh light revealed something in her that he had not suspected. "That's why you're here."

X - X - X - X - X

Inside, the house was much as she remembered. The grime was thicker, the dust shifting in clouds under her feet, but other sets of footprints showed that Grimmauld Place had not been abandoned after the Order left. She felt a strange sense of duality stepping through it, as the Hermione of now and the Hermione of then met and meshed in its walls.

She knew it had never meant anything but pain to Sirius, but she had good memories of this place. Harry and Ron bantering; the Weasley twins concocting their endless pranks, comfortable meals with the Order full of hope and plans.

Everything and nothing had changed.

Draco moved in front of her, spells lighting up the place one by one. With a touch here, a whisper there, he threw back the shadows. It did not reassure her. Adrenaline thundered in her veins, driven by uncertainty.

She watched and waited, and when she judged he had relaxed a little, said, "Tell me about these experiments."

He froze. Then said in a cool voice, "No."

"Is that what you do?" she pressed on, relentless. "Pick out girls and give them hope, then hand them over to You-Know-Who? Were there others like me?"

The face he turned to her was blank as an eggshell. "No - they were quieter. Do you practice being a shrew, or does it just come naturally?"

"Don't try and brush me off with insults. What happened to all your 'little pets'?"

He was close suddenly, and she was startled by the heat of his body, mere promise of the fury that filled his eyes. "What do you think happened, Granger? What do you want to hear?"

"The truth."

"Here's the truth, then, and I hope it's music to your bloody ears. They died. One by one by one they died, and they died so the Dark Lord could see how loyal I am. That's how he measures our loyalty - in blood, in bones, in the people we sacrifice to him. And if I can't find a way to save my family, he'll ask me to sacrifice them too."

The silence was immense. Inches away, she saw him suddenly with the same duality as herself; he was a killer and a threat, and a boy stood alone in a world of dust, his only luck a drug in his veins.

His whisper was like a knife.

"And I might just do it."

He left her stood in the middle of the corridor, suddenly glad of the glimmering lights and all that they held back.

One by one by one they died.

X - X - X - X - X

In the thunder of the club, they love her. These are the things she knows: the beat and her body and the wonders that no one else believes.

She dreams of mermaids in the sea as her hips curl like breaking waves; she knows their language, knows their siren songs too. Her head is full of Crumpled Hornsnacks and cheap beer; her arms are loaded with bracelets that jangle as she dances. She's silver and cream, long hair and long legs that shimmer in the dim lights.

The Jack O'Lanterns grin down on her, filled with captive fairies that shine until they die. No less grotesque are the grins of her customers, flicking Galleons onto the stage as she sways. Whatever is bitten behind their teeth, it's nothing of starshine or wishes or wings.

In the bawdy atmosphere of Magic Touch, even her name is an asset.

Lovegood.

It doesn't take much skill, what she does. The dancing isn't so bad - it's all curves and angles, like Fibonacci spirals. Hips and hands and shoulders, she trusts her own motion as she trusts her belief. The music is part of her now, familiar as the place where her mother used to be. She doesn't mind much - there's even a kind of peace in it, in losing herself in the rhythm.

As for the rest, when the music stops and it's all dark rooms and urgent whispers, well, there's rhythm there too, and when it gets too bad, she drifts deep inside herself. She stops feeling, and instead she reflects on all the wonderful things that are still out there, hiding, hardly-known. Tarnished Junebugs and Schrodinger Cats and pots of gold sparkling at the end of the rainbow.

Summer sun and friends and coins that send you secret messages of hope.

There's one coin that never leaves her, hanging in the spot above her heart. She waits for it to burn again, waits for the things that are strange and true. While she waits, she occupies herself. There are meetings in corners, disguised as trysts; she squirrels away information and sends it where it's useful, inscribed on the inside gaudy jewellery she flings to her favoured few. Safe places, safe people; she fights as best she can, and keeps them safe while the music drowns out the world.

One day the coin will burn again. The message will change. And Luna will go to join them, because she loves them still, and because they are the cornerstone of her dizzying, imagined world, the unbelievable and the fantastic:

Jabberwockys and Vampire Bunnies and we can still win.

She dances in the glow of dying creatures, her hair a stream of silver, and she takes their money and she takes their time, and when she's ready, she'll take her leave, because these are the things she knows: the beat and her body and the wonders that no one else believes.

X - X - X - X - X

A host of noises came from the kitchen - bangs, clatters, the unmistakable sound of glass on glass. When she ventured in, Draco was methodically searching the cupboards. She caught glimpses of strange and arcane objects within them. Instead of tins or mugs or plates, the Black kitchen was crammed with magical paraphernalia.

A grinning skull leaned against a heap of half-burned wax candles; Boomslang skin was unmistakable next to jars of what looked like insects preserved in chemicals. Herbs and spices were surprisingly innocuous, but the hanks of hair that hung on hooks like clumps of basil were anything but.

Ingredients were lined up on the table. She recognised the Sopophorous Bean, the pale petals of Forget-Me-Not, and a reddish powder that might be iron or blood or powdered butterflies. Over the hearth, a small cauldron was already heating.

"What are you looking for?" she said.

He didn't look up. His voice was curt but civil. "Valerian root. I spent an entire week organising these cupboards when I moved in, only to have Aunt Bella-"

"You live here?" she squeaked. "But I thought your family had a manor house..."

He stilled. "Had. Past tense. Voldemort seized the house when he seized my parents. Grimmauld Place was the consolation prize. I'm the only male of the Black family left. They don't tend to live long."

"If they're all like you, I can see why," she noted.

To her surprise, instead of annoying him, her comment earned her a quick, brilliant smile. "There's no one like me, Granger. Ah..."

He pulled out a cluster of small, shrunken roots. When he laid them on the table next to the other ingredients, she had a sudden, vivid flashback of sixth year and that first lesson in Slughorn's class.

"You're making a Draught of Living Death," she said slowly.

He didn't look up from chopping the roots, fast and efficient. "Took you a while."

"Why?"

And then he did look up: his eyes were hard and grey as slate. "I want that Vow. I want you to stop questioning my every move. I want you to stop poking and prying and meddling in things that are none of your damn business."

"You've killed people! That's my business. You want Voldemort gone so people will stop dying-"

"No, I want him gone so my family will stop dying," he snapped. "The rest of the world can burn."

"It already has," she said softly, and they stared at one another while the knife rattled on the table, his eyes familiar in their contempt. Yet he himself was strange, alien, the distance between them more than the table and the tiles: she could not comprehend how he could care so little, how his world could be nothing more than the nucleus of his parents and himself.

Her mind was crowded with people, as her life had been crowded with ghosts in Hogwarts. She thought of Harry, of course, and of Ron and Ginny and Luna and Neville, beyond them the ranks of the DA, forever seventeen in her memories, some missing, some forgotten. Beyond them were her classmates and her housemates; her own family, safe at least, but distant as the stars through her own devices, the Weasleys and the teachers, the house elves, the goblins, the likeable and the repellent. All people. All important.

Suddenly he swore, and she saw specks of blood on the table, dribbling from the hand he had clutched against his chest.

She moved quickly, whipping out her wand. "Give me your hand."

There was a moment when she thought he'd refuse, though she couldn't comprehend why. Then he held out his maimed hand, and she saw how deeply the knife had scored into the tips of his fingers.

"It's fixable," she said. "You're lucky."

His smile was mirthless. "For now."

As she cast the spells, he didn't flinch. His flesh knitted smoothly; she was quite proud of her handiwork.

If only she had known these spells earlier. It might have made a difference.

He wriggled his fingers then went to wash off the blood. She expected something - thanks, a nod - but all he did was turn back to the table to examine the roots.

"They're clean," he announced. "I can still use them."

"Aren't you going to thank me?"

He gave her a startled look, and she realised it hadn't even occurred to him. "What for? I could have done the job myself, Granger, you just got there first."

She didn't know what to say, then words came to her in a blistering torrent. "You ungrateful, arrogant, unethical toad!"

"Don't hold back," he said, sounding amused. "Tell me what you really think."

"I think you don't have a shred of courtesy in you! I don't expect you to behave like a saint, Malfoy - let's face it, there's mould under rocks with more moral fibre than you - but if you want my help, you can treat me like a human being, not like one of your endless parade of slaves." The bitterness bit deep. "Or pets."

His eyes were narrow and glittering. "All this because I didn't fall at your feet and vomit gratitude?"

She struggled for control. It came to her with air; deep forced breaths that gave her at least the illusion of calm. "I need some sign that there's a person inside you, Malfoy, because it's not looking good. Right now, I don't believe you want the Dark Lord gone. I think this is just another diversion for you. And for all I know, I might just be another of your little pets. Another experiment."

"And if I say please and thank you and good day, how you are you, Miss Granger, you'll be miraculously convinced that the pit of evil festering inside me has vanished?"

"No. But I might be convinced that you can care about a cause enough to fight for it."

"I know how to fight. Which, for the record, is where I have some reservations about you. Oh, you care about this cause, Granger, like you cared about your silly petition for house-elves. But I'm just not convinced that you care enough. I'd kill for my family, and I'd kill to be free. Would you?"

The challenge lingered like a noose.

She looked back at him, this boy who knew what it meant to drive home the knife, to whisper the curse, to be left victorious and breathing and alone in a space which had held two and had room for only one. Could she be like him?

No. Never.

But could she kill...? It was a different question. And the answer frightened her.

"I...don't know," she said finally.

He nodded, as if it was what he had expected. "That's why you need me, Granger. So don't think you're doing this to help me out. You get something too. You get to keep your conscience."

She had to swallow hard to free her throat of the lump there.

X - X - X - X - X

The message is nonsense to anyone who doesn't know their secrets.

First star on the left, straight on till morning.

It takes Luna long hours to etch in such tiny truths. She does it between dances, lying on her stomach on her uncomfortable bed with her wand moving in increments. The coin around her neck dangles over the edge, turning and gleaming in the dim light.

It hides another message that she whispers into the etchings. No one can reach it unless they know the key, and only her sacred few do.

"Clear out Chapel Weston. A Death Eater has caught its Secret-Keeper."

The Death Eater in question breathed that into her ear, weight pressing her flat to the wall. He paid his price, and now he has paid hers; the door slams shut, and she is theirs for a given value of time. Such dances are intensely private, conducted behind locked doors because she is known to be loyal. After all, her father is withering away in the deep, silent parts of Azkaban. Voldemort holds her to ransom.

None of them understand that all they have done is ensure that she has nothing to lose and everything to gain by his downfall.

So they come into her arms, and hide their smiles at the turns of the lock (for its key is only a word), and they think her as easy to open, empty and pleasure-filled, treasure-filled as Ali Baba's cave. She takes care to cultivate it, telling them of wonders and nonsense, and when they need her to laugh, she thinks of her friends, and it comes easily.

They lay their hands on her like explorers planting a flag into some uncharted, exotic territory, and thinking her conquered, never look for danger.

When she plucks her wand from its hiding place (counterfeit, not quite as good as her first wand which they confiscated because we protect our loyal subjects so well you'll never need magic again, sweet little Luna), they're so surprised.

Imperio, she whispers, and her will is always greater than theirs. She's known pain at the bottom of a pit, and it ended. She's seen a war lost, and she survived. And she will not be broken.

She's always gentle with them, because there's no need for violence.

So they pay her price, and she pays theirs, and then she etches what remains into her bracelets.

"There are Immolating Fireflies there too," she whispers to the bracelet. "They're only native to Chapel Weston and Atlantis, so I think it'd be nice if you could save them too."

Her message completed, she seals off the spell. Now no one can find it unless they know the secret: that if you run your finger over the words and whisper I believe in fairies, and clap your hands three times, you'll hear her voice, speaking of modern miracles. Using Muggle fairytales to hide their secrets seems a neat sort of balance to her.

And tonight, when Ernie Macmillan squeezes into the crowd, she'll wend her way to him, distributing touches and glances on her way like confetti. She'll toss him a bracelet, one of a multitude that the crowd clutch, and only he and she will know that this one will keep a few more people from Azkaban, or from lurking just out of sight.

She slips the bangle back onto her wrist.

And then as she does each day, she practices her sleight of hand: Luna the rebel vanishes under make-up, stowed beneath corsets and veils and exotica. No one knows that her wand has replaced a bone in her corset. No one knows that she has Transfigured the coin around her neck into costume jewellery.

Finished, she reaches under her bed and draws out a dog-eared copy of The Quibbler, which is ridiculous enough to have survived the censors.

She thumbs through and reads about mermaids off the coast of Scotland and gremlins in Durmstrang's attics, and a dreamy smile curves over her mouth, because the wonder's gleaming on her wrist: we can still win.

X - X - X - X - X

Draco made the potion in silence. She had to admire his deftness: the natural ability he'd had in school had been honed into artistry. At last the Draught of Living Death was ready, pale pink and smelling of myrrh and mildew.

Hermione couldn't help but feel uneasy, even though they had discussed it in Hogwarts. "You're sure this is the only way I can get into Azkaban?"

"Certain. They've put up all kinds of extra defences now. Polyjuice Potion and Animagi are useless now. No one alive can pass through unless they're tested and approved by the Dark Lord. He doesn't want an escape." His lip curled into a sneer. "As if Potter was even capable of it."

"Have you seen him?" she said.

"Of course. Everyone goes to see The Boy Who Lived To Regret It." He filled a cup from the cauldron. "Here."

She didn't want to ask the next question, but could not stop herself. "Do they...do they hurt him?"

He watched her for a long time, and she knew what he thought: weak. In the shimmering fumes from the cauldron, his face was obscured, blurs and ripples. "It's not as if there's any point. He's beyond this world."

Her shoulders sagged with relief.

"He'd be better off dead," Draco added matter-of-factly. "At least he'd be a martyr then. He certainly managed to act the part when he was compos mentis. Now he's mental compost, he might as well get the lamenting hordes he wanted."

"Harry wasn't like that," she snapped.

Draco only raised his eyebrows in answer. "You got to see the Boy Wonder, Granger. The rest of us saw the Boy Wan-"

"Oh, shut up!" She slammed her hand on the table. "Let's get on with this. Give me the potion."

"You know, it's a little unflattering that you'd rather be comatose and mostly dead than finish a conversation with me," he remarked. "But you'll have to hold off. If I throw you into my toolkit, it'll probably break a few bones, and I'm still feeling tender from the last time I annoyed you."

He went out for a few moments and came back with what looked like a black briefcase. He opened it onto a disturbing row of silver...implements encased up in foam. Draco murmured a series of spells that she recognised as increasingly complicated unlocking charms. When he finished, he lifted up the foam to reveal a narrow, black space dropping away.

"There's a ladder fixed into the wall," he said. "Climb in."

She felt intensely nervous at the thought of voluntary incarcerating herself in anything belonging to Draco Malfoy. But this was the last time she would need to trust him without any security, she reminded herself. After this, an Unbreakable Vow would tie them together.

"Do I need to take the potion?" she muttered as she scrambled into the tight space.

"Yes. Azkaban's wards will detect anything living. Technically, you'll be dead. You enjoy the rest: I'll enjoy the silence."

It was only a short climb down to the floor, which was made of stone. Lumos showed her a surprisingly cosy room: there was a chair and some books, and even a garish rug on the floor.

Draco floated the potion down to her. Despite the fact it was still steaming, the cup was ice-cold. She settled herself into the chair as comfortably as possible, then extinguished her spell.

She raised the potion to her lips, and drank.

It slid through her like ice, settling in her stomach and spreading outwards. She felt old and slow as a glacier; her thoughts dribbled to a halt, and there only darkness and cold and...and...

Nothing.

X - X - X - X - X

Somewhere, a clock was striking. The sounds seemed to drag at her, pulling her from oblivion. She rose through layers of grey as if she swam some strange and fathomless ocean.

She found herself stood in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, and she was not alone.

"So you came back to us," said Cho Chang, her arms wrapped about herself. The fatal gash across her throat was livid, beaded with blood like a ruby necklace. "We knew you would."

"You're one of us." Michael Corner spoke in a strangled hiss; his feet twitched as they dangled in the air. The Death Eaters had strung him up by a noose in front of the House banners; he was straight as the sword that the Slytherin snake curled so lovingly about. "You always were."

"You betrayed us," a new voice said, one she didn't recognise. The dead crowded in on her, missing eyes and broken limbs and ghastly wounds.

"...leaving us..."

"Malfoy is one of them."

"He'll betray you. It's in his blood, breeding and betrayal..."

"Didn't you hear them screaming in Grimmauld Place? All those girls, left in the cellars to die after he took the sunlight and the warmth and the hope from them. They break their nails trying to claw the locks of the doors, and they chew on their lips because there's nothing else, and we can hear them screaming in the bowels of the house..."

She turned around, trying to find the speakers. Insidious, their words twined about her like wire.

"And you'll come back to us too, dear girl, if you don't stop."

She whirled and found herself face to face with Lupin, kind and creased. His eyes seemed sad, dark as ink, a stain spread wide over his heart. It was the only colour in his greyed form, crimson and stark.

"You'll be red and white and broken, and he'll think you beautiful, because he only knows how to destroy. Go now, be safe. Leave this mad enterprise. Live. Remember us."

But the others overrode him, driving past him to surround her. "Avenge us."

They took up the call like a mantra.

Revenge...revenge...revenge...

X - X - X - X - X

"Granger!"

She stirred, a moan escaping her. Someone was shaking her. Breathing was hard, stifled...

She opened her eyes onto Draco, and realised it was his hand over her mouth. The light from his wand threw spooky shadows across his face, and for a moment the words resounded through her: it's in his blood, breeding and betrayal...

It had just been a dream. A horrific dream, but nothing more.

The moment he realised she was awake, he drew back.

She sat up, feeling groggy. "Is it time?"

"Yes," he said. "Ready to inextricably tie yourself to me?"

"Never," she said. "But let's get on with it."

Adrenaline shot through her. They had done. They were past the guards.

She was in Azkaban, and she had come to make the Unbreakable Vow.

X - X - X - X - X

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