'cause when i'd fight you used to tell me i was brave

Liars, for the most part, had the tendency to avoid eye contact when misconstruing the truth.

Hermione had seen this often: offenders fidgeting in their seats, eyes focusing anywhere inside the interrogation room but at her or the evidence in front of them, Miles Bulstrode looking at her hair when asked if he filed his paperwork according to her own effective system, George Weasley rolling his eyes way too often when questioned if the newest explosion in Diagon Alley was a direct consequence of one of his experiments, and her own gaze drifting to the left, anywhere except the glistening blue of Ron's eyes when, years ago, he pleaded just...tell me why,'Mione. Why him? (she never turned to him when she said I don't know why ).

In the years since their childhood, Hermione had discovered that Harry, because of his own learned survival skills when living with the Dursleys, kept eye contact when he was lying through his teeth.

Hermione had seen this often: eleven years old, telling her he wasn't still looking for the Mirror of Erised, thirteen years old, promising he'd still choose not to kill Pettigrew if they turned back time once more, fifteen years old, chanting over and over again that he was fine, and yes, he was sleeping well, too, seventeen years old, fury in his emerald eyes when he told Ron to leave, and, now, at twenty-three years old, staring unmoved into her brown gaze when her unexpected question made him look up from the mountain of legal documents and victims the Greybacks had left behind.

And yet, despite knowing this tell, she believed him. For years she believed Harry when he looked her in the eye.

For a moment, Hermione had assumed she was imagining things. Although infrequent, her repressed memories had managed to break free from the dark, occluded parts of her mind before—a consequence of an overworked one, especially when now triggered by the violent, unforeseen passing of Phillipa Hugh, someone whom Hermione, no matter how hard she fought against it, connected to someone else. She would, of course, manage to stop her walls from shaking, tucking those memories back where they belonged, buried and neglected, but, if even for an unwilling second, she remembered.

Vividly, achingly so, she remembered Draco Malfoy.

On the way back to the Ministry, her favorite coffee growing cold and forgotten in her hands, she allowed herself to ponder the opposite. What if she had not imagined him there, sat in Señora Herrera's shop, scattered scars across the right side of his face? White-blond hair longer, silkier, and definitely devoid of the grime and blood she had once felt under her bruised hands? Silver eyes bright and enthralling as the treacherous moon, calling out to her the same way they had long ago, only this time there had been no trace of his loathing, fury, and grief.

If she had the courage to shatter the concrete barriers she set up around the most vulnerable pieces of herself, Hermione would pull out every fragment of time where Malfoy appeared and lay them out in front of herself. She'd take a magnifying glass, hoping sunlight would soak in through the lens, turning each recollection into ash so she could finally be free of him.

But she never would. She knew that all too well.

Not when his colors were what her nightmares built themselves around.

Not when his colors were the same shades as her most cherished possession, too.

"Granger," Miles scrambled out from behind his desk when he saw her enter the bullpen, his eyes wide in panic. "I can't find the fucking werewolf registration of September 2001. I thought we had it filed with all the other Atlas Greyback shit, but it's not—"

"None of the werewolf registrations are filed under the DMLE. The DRCMC archives those. Is Harry in his office?"

Miles reached an arm around Hermione's shoulders, pressing a kiss on the tender, stinging side of her face. "You're a lifesaver, Granger. You know that, right? Potter, Robards, and the Minister would all have my head if I didn't have my share of the case ready."

"Is that from Herrera's Cafe?" Ron wheeled his chair across to Miles' side, nose high as he sniffed in the direction of her paper bag. "Did Lucinda send anything for me? Sweet bread? Chips?"

"You know Señora Herrera doesn't like you using her first name," Hermione told him, no reprimand underlining the words as she handed him her food and coffee. "Is Harry in his office?"

"Should be. He's got ten minutes before he's expected to meet Robards so they can greet MACUSA's Head Twat together," scoffed Ron, but one bite into her portobello panini replaced his annoyance with a grin.

Swiping an archive from the messy, tall pile on Miles' desk, Hermione made way towards Harry's office. She could see him through the thick glass walls encasing him, a file of his own practically plastered flat against his face. The Head Auror's office came with a nifty one-way charm, allowing him to look out at his team without them being able to do so in return. It put most of the other Aurors on edge, thinking their superior was scrutinizing every move they made, but those with rank knew Harry hardly used it. He wanted everyone (arrogant, ancient Heads of Departments mostly) to see him neck-deep in his work, fighting for justice with a quill or wand in hand, earning his title despite his age or fame.

Hermione had spent most of their Hogwarts years trying to get him to sit still at a desk, buckling down on his assignments without getting distracted by Ron's whining, Fred and George's pranks, quidditch matters, or, worse, the latest plot to have him killed. So when he made it to that office, she often stopped at his door, growing misty-eyed and proud at what the scrawny little boy she had met on the train had accomplished. This time, before bringing up her knuckles against the glass, all she could think was please don't look at me, Harry.

"Robards wants me to present Jasper with the extradition proposal again," he told her when a wave of his wrist allowed her in. His eyes were still glued on his paperwork. "He forgets that Jasper doesn't have the kind of power to approve any terms. And that MACUSA runs on its own jurisdiction."

"And bitter history," Hermione said, each word slow and brittle. "They never forgave or trusted our Ministry after what happened with Grindelwald."

Harry snorted, placing the file back onto his desk. He removed his quill from its inkpot, aggressively scratching out a line before scribbling something in. "Maybe if the International Confederation of Wizards agreed on a proper law that benefited every government—"

"No independent government likes to be told how to run its country. Especially MACUSA," she reminded him as she closed the door, taking a step forward. "Harry, listen, about this Greyback case—"

"Fucking Head Auror Jasper," he said with a grunt, his left hand coming up to his temple, rubbing clockwise. "Yeah, I know. I hate the dickhead, too. But what other option do we have?"

She took a step closer toward his desk, her fingers grasping the back of one of the vacant chairs across from him. "What if we consulted outside the DMLE? Fenrir Greyback won't talk, we know that. We've tried that. And even I can agree we've exhausted the records we do have. So what if we questioned someone else who has intel on his original pack?"

"You have sway with some werewolves, Hermione, but not the ones that used to belong to him."

"I'm not talking about werewolves." She watched him raise a brow without looking up, flipping through another page. "Let's talk to a Death Eater who served alongside Fenrir Greyback."

"The only Death Eater who's always willing to talk for a chance at a sentence reduction is Crabbe Sr.," he said with a snort. "And we both know he's as useless as—"

"Not him. Malfoy ." His hand stilled, the thin, fragile spine of his quill suffering a firm grip. "I want to consult with Draco Malfoy."

Please don't look at me, Harry.

He released his quill, bringing both hands to his face. They slipped beneath his glasses, rubbing at his eyes before they opened and stared right at her.

"Hermione," Harry said her name the same way he had back in their Sixth Year, back when he assured her he wasn't stealing tips and unknown spells from the Half-Blood Prince. "Draco Malfoy is serving a life sentence in solitary confinement. Just like his father is. You know that."

"Yes," she swallowed the bitter, sharp taste pooling in her mouth. "For war crimes committed in Voldemort's name. I know. But they were both privy to other Death Eaters and Greyback was one of them."

He didn't blink when her nails dug into the leather of his chair. "Even if I had the level of clearance to get a meeting with either of them, can we really trust the words of two convicted murderers?"

"What about Mrs. Malfoy, then? We could find her and—"

"Listen," Harry cleared his throat, closing the file with angry ink still wet on the page. His right hand snaked to the back of his neck, fingertips pressing hard into the base. "Robards and the Minister think it would be a liability to have you on this case."

" Excuse me? "

Just as Hermione was well-versed in Harry's mannerisms and emotional state, he could write a novel on her, too. While she had surveyed him the same way she used to watch the plants her mother once grew, jotting down every new detail, every centimeter of growth to better understand them, Harry had picked up his information through experience. He sometimes still complained about a tender spot on his shoulder where she often swatted him with a textbook; he knew what signs to look out for when Hermione was going in for the kill.

Still, he carried on. Never looking away.

"The last time we encountered Atlas Greyback...Fuck, I don't even want to think about it, Hermione. I don't want to think about what could've happened to you."

"Did you agree to pull me out of this case, Harry Potter?"

"Earlier, in the training room, you said you couldn't afford to—"

"Don't," she hissed, a nonverbal shoving the chair away. "Don't twist my words. You know exactly what I meant. Being unprepared, being reckless causes more injuries and fatalities than—"

"We need someone to finish up the Giles case. And you have a close connection with the key witness. If you worked with her, convinced her to testify in front of the wizengamot, we could finally—"

"That witness is seeking asylum in Japan , Harry! You're sending me away—"

"Damn it, Hermione, this isn't a punishment. Nor is it up for discussion. It's an order— "

Despite her skill and years of perfecting the control of her magic, Hermione was still susceptible to raw emotion. Not only did her blood simmer just beneath her skin, but the wild particles of her magic that refused to be tamed hummed out, their sound growing louder, louder, louder until it vibrated out of her for others to hear.

Fury fed these fragments, causing the glass walls to rattle.

"Where is Draco Malfoy? " The words cut the roof of her mouth as she let them out.

Harry didn't even look past her shoulder or to his sides. The walls of his office could disintegrate, Hermione knew, and he would still continue to look her in the eye like he was building monuments of truth.

"In Azkaban," he said, unwavering. "Serving a life sentence for war crimes and murder."

The other empty chair slid to the left, crashing into a bookcase Hermione kept filled. The third shelf broke, historical texts tumbling to the floor. Her magic whispered in her ear, telling her it wanted to hurl the chair right at Harry next, anything to get him to close his eyes. Rationality was rising like a wave, trying to overpower her fury, but Ron interfered quicker.

He had barged in, wand in hand; a Protego shot up between herself and Harry, forcing her back a step just as a silencing charm encircled the room.

"What the bloody hell's going on in here?" demanded Ron. "The walls are transparent, you know? Fuck sakes."

She ignored him, her eyes still glued on Harry's face. "I saw him," Hermione breathed. "He was sitting in Herrera's Cafe."

Harry didn't blink, didn't move. For a moment she thought he might give up, that he would realize that she knew him too well to continue lying, but then an exhausted noise spilled from between his clenched teeth. "Dark Magic has side-effects," he stated. "The Healer did say you might experience confusion or—"

"I saw him!"

"I don't know who you saw, Hermione, but it wasn't him. I told you, he's in Azkaban. And he's going to die there."

The scream that tore past her throat sounded foreign to her own ears. If she hadn't felt it form, travel, and burn from deep within her abdomen, Hermione wouldn't have known it belonged to her. She wouldn't have known it was what propelled her forward, ready to slice through the shield charm with her bare hands. Her best friends knew she was capable of it, too; because they did, Harry flinched and Ron managed to block her. Unlike their early sparring session, Ron caged her by wrapping his arms around her waist, yanking her back before she hurled a fist or wandless curse forward.

Remorse on Harry Potter looked a lot like pity.

And that's when he finally closed his eyes: when he couldn't stand recalling how she sounded, wounded and unfamiliar, when Draco Malfoy broke free from where she kept him hidden.

"What do you want me to say, Hermione?"

"The truth, you complete arsehole!"

His emerald eyes came back to life. The pity was gone; he looked fifteen again, vowing to kill Bellatrix Lestrange after she'd taken Sirius from him. "Then you should've given me the truth first. You should've told me why you gave what was left of yourself to a Death Eater."

Hermione stilled in Ron's arms.

After the war, she had to gather what was left of herself, fragments missing, scattered by the cold, unforgiving wind, or turned into irreversible, iridescent dust at the cruel hands of her enemies, and put it all back together. Except she did not fit inside herself the way she had before; her soul lived in a body it did not recognize, a mangled, disfigured heart pumping blood through astringent veins that no longer belonged to the intelligent, kind, warm little girl she had once been.

Maybe that was why she had thrust what remained into Draco Malfoy's hands; because what had made Hermione Granger up had been stolen, murdered, or sacrificed for a world he had foolishly believed he would reign over. So when she slid her aching, bruised fingers into his matted, bloodied hair, she did so thinking there was hardly anything left of him, either.

How was she supposed to know that, like Frankenstein, he had the ability to create something out of their mismatched, damaged pieces?

"The wizengamot wanted his soul," continued Harry. "There was nothing I could've said that would've pardoned him. He still followed Voldemort. He still let Death Eaters into Hogwarts. And he still murdered a man."

"And if Malfoy was capable of all that, Hermione, what guaranteed us he hadn't forced himself on you?"

The air in her lungs began to coagulate at the sound of Ron's voice, each word digging into her back like corroded knives.

It hurt more than the rebounding curse he had not protected her from.

"Exile," Harry said. "For twenty years, the Malfoys were forbidden from stepping back onto British soil. Unable to make contact with anyone here, let alone make their banishment known."

"They've only been gone for five," Ron grunted, his arms still wrapped tightly around Hermione. "What's Kingsley playing at here, mate? He negotiated those terms. Why bring them back now?"

"This isn't him," Harry huffed, his hands coming back under his glasses to rub at his eyelids. "This is—"

"Both of you lied to me," Hermione said slowly, like she had never known the feeling before and was trying not to choke on the aftertaste. Her fingers coiled around Ron's wrists, nails sinking into his flesh until he let out a hiss and pulled away from her. "You told me he'd never see the light of day again."

Harry pushed his palms deeper, fingertips now forming circles against his temples. When he peeled them away, the green in his eyes was the same shade as the Forbidden Forest at night. "We did what we had to do to protect you."

"You had no right—"

"Didn't we? " He stood now, the same hands that often squeezed her own in comfort, that playfully tugged at her curls when sharing a laugh, slammed against his desk. "Because you were coherent enough to testify in his defense? Because you hadn't just lost your parents to a memory charm? Because you weren't still recovering from the damage his aunt inflicted? You've never been a damsel in fucking distress, Hermione, we know that, but you weren't yourself then!"

Ron braved a hand on her shoulder. His jaw was rigid, but his gaze was soft, glimmering loyally, affectionately under the white lights of the Head Auror Office. "It was the right choice, 'Mione."

"It was the easy choice," she snarled, shoving his hand away. "For both of you. It was easier to send him away, to run a false conviction, to imprison a ghost in Azkaban, and hope that twenty years was enough time to stop him from haunting me. Well, how'd that work out for you?"

Ron kept his eyes on her, his remorse looking a lot like righteousness, before glancing over at Harry. While the latter had been on an individual track to becoming Head Auror when they joined the department, the three of them had a partnership that defied careers and coworkers. Everything they had acquired to succeed in this job they had learned from each other, fighting, surviving, and building together since they were children. That same indestructible bond Hermione had with Harry connected her to Ron, too. She knew how they communicated their silence and how to decipher every one of their shades, flickers, and lines.

"If Azkaban didn't claim his life, you hoped twenty years in exile might," Hermione murmured what they were not saying out loud. Tears distorted them and the hum of her magic silenced itself at once. "Did you truly think that's what I needed? Even now?"

Harry dropped back down to his seat. "No," he returned just as quietly, but he continued to look at her like he had after they escaped Malfoy Manor, terrified and guilty at what Bellatrix Lestrange had whittled away. "But it isn't about you anymore, Hermione."

She slid a trembling hand up to her heart, searching for its steady bray.

"We might've run a false conviction," said Ron, "but you made sure he became a ghost."

"It's why you won't say his name," Harry reminded her. "He could haunt you for the rest of your life, but you don't want the reputation of a war criminal tormenting your son."

Hermione sunk fingernails into her chest just as a knock echoed around the office. They turned to the noise; there, flanking Robards and Head Auror Jasper, was Draco Malfoy.

All silver eyes and white-blonde hair.

How could she ever be free of him when his colors were what her nightmares built themselves around? How could she ever be free of him when his colors were the same shades as her most cherished possession, too?

Scorpius—a life they created out of the mismatched, damaged pieces of their youth. 

______

[[A/N]]: Ahhhh, a little plot twist and cliffhanger for you! lol.  

I also wanted to mention that I'll be leaving some lyrics at the beginning of each chapter to a specific song that might've influenced that certain chapter in some way. This week's lyric is from Taylor Swift's "My Tears Ricochet", off her Folklore album (as is the title of this story, but from her song "Cardigan"). 

Thanks for reading, guys! x