Work Text:
The nights are cold despite the bright autumn weather beyond the towering stone walls. Even during the day, when the small rectangular window near the top of her cell lets in bright, taunting shafts of daylight, a chill permeates the cracks.
Hermione wraps herself in the threadbare blanket she's been provided, tucking it tightly beneath her sides as though she might fill the aching gaps that now comprise her. It does little to stave off the cold.
Although Azkaban no longer hosts the Dementors―the last of them fled after the war ended―she doesn't imagine the prison has improved in their absence.
The cruel, soul-feasting wraiths have been replaced by a collective of repugnant, amoral guards. It's all she can do to keep her head down and ignore their jeers.
She marks the days with a fingernail in the rotten wood of her cot―or her best approximation of them, anyway.
Early on, after her sentence was passed and she found herself tossed in Azkaban, she learned to track the cycle of days by the arrival of meals―but she spent much of the early weeks in a fevered state, and she suspects her count is wrong.
In an effort to reduce costs and to placate those outside who seek claims of poor living conditions, the guards cast basic hygiene spells on the inmates. They keep her hair from matting and her body otherwise maintained.
Hermione can no longer remember the last time she felt truly clean.
Some time after her sentence began, an occupant arrives in the empty cell beside hers. The event is enough to draw her attention, when so little happens in her quiet cell block of any consequence. Hermione sits in the corner of her small space, wrapping her blanket around her shoulders like a shawl, and attempts to listen in on the soft conversation taking place.
The only beneficial part of being a prisoner is that no one cares if she overhears anything.
But whoever is now sequestered next to her doesn't put up a fight.
When the metal cage clangs shut with a great reverberating echo, she releases a tight breath. The guards stomp away, their boots heavy on the dirty stone floor, and the cell block falls quiet once more.
The man in the cell across from her scarcely moves from bed, and he never speaks. She expects little more of the one now beside her.
Trailing a finger through the thin layer of dust that coats the floor of her cell, she offers a wry smile into the darkness and muses next to the bars, "Welcome."
Her own voice sounds foreign, hoarse with disuse and softer than she remembers.
A long beat of silence follows.
Then a gruff male voice drawls, "Thanks, I think."
Despite that she spoke first, she jolts at receiving a response. She presses her cheek against the cold metal of the bars, pondering whether she'll say anything else.
Before she can make a decision, the low voice speaks again. "The accommodations leave something to be desired."
Although the words are light enough, his tone is the opposite, cold and defeated. Even so, a huff of laughter escapes her, surprising herself with the unfamiliar sound.
"They certainly do," she allows, then hesitates. Something in his voice sounds oddly familiar. "If you're hoping for the food to be any better, relinquish the thought now and you'll save yourself the disappointment."
Another long pause.
"Granger?"
Her heart plummets into the pit of her stomach at the cool intonation of her name. She suspects she didn't instantly identify his voice only because it lacked the usual disdain. His name falls from her lips as a breath. "Malfoy."
She isn't certain what to do now. Any more efforts at camaraderie die on the tip of her tongue, nausea swirling in the pit of her stomach, and her shoulders slump back against the wall.
"Merlin," he says after a long moment. "The Ministry really has gone fucked."
Hermione doesn't need his affirmation, but for some reason it helps. Her own trial and subsequent sentencing were a surreal nightmare, and in the days that followed she couldn't believe any of it.
That for all her contributions in ending the war, this is how she finds her spoils.
It's as disheartening as it was weeks and months ago, when the first hints at how her trial would play out floated in on a fell wind. And now she's found herself behind bars.
An example.
The rules don't bend for anyone, not even Hermione Granger. The thought makes her sick. Almost as sick as the reasoning for it.
Belatedly, she whispers, "Yeah."
She doesn't know what she expects from Malfoy. She hasn't seen him up close since the Battle of Hogwarts. The trials began shortly after the end of the war; the list went on and on. Apparently, Malfoy was later on the list than her. Or maybe his had stretched on longer.
It feels in poor form to ask after his sentence. Maybe he'll be as antagonistic and disdainful as ever.
But here, if nowhere else, they're on a level ground.
Her eyelids flutter with the first hints of fatigue, and a glance at the narrow window high above reveals a gleaming shaft of silver moonlight. She wants to say something more, wants to ask him about the outside world from which she's been so utterly cut off, but Malfoy's fallen silent.
Many of her initial days and nights were spent in a state of shock, and she wonders how he will acclimate.
Hermione doesn't have anything to offer him. Not material goods and certainly not any useless platitudes.
So she rises from the hard floor, rolls out her tired muscles, and settles herself onto her narrow cot instead. She marks another day on the rotten wood. Allowing her eyes to slide shut, she prepares to welcome the oblivion of darkness, another day gone with nothing to show for it.
"Granger?"
Malfoy's voice drifts towards her from the next cell, and her eyes snap open again.
"Yes?"
Following a long silence, he murmurs, "Good night."
Hermione swallows, staring at the ceiling, at the narrow window inset high on the wall. "Good night, Malfoy."
Days pass, and though she isn't certain what to make of her new neighbour, he doesn't speak. A part of her wishes she could see him, but the stone that separates them is impenetrable. They all adjust differently, or so she was told when she first arrived.
Malfoy, she assumes, is in shock.
Or maybe he's fallen into despair.
He's still in the cell beside hers, she knows, because she can hear the brief rustle of occasional movement. But he doesn't say anything, and it feels like all she can offer him is to respect the silence. A small gift of privacy to mourn his old life when the new one lacks any such thing.
Early on, once the panic settled and she began to view her circumstances with some semblance of rationality, Hermione imposed routine into her prison life.
After breakfast, she performs a series of stretches. She does the handful of exercises she can manage within the confines of her cell in a bleak effort to keep her body active and responsive. Following lunch, she takes a nap―there's only so much she can do to keep herself occupied.
The afternoons and evenings are spent keeping her mind sharp. She practises affirmations, guides her brain through the situation, reminds herself of the day when she will once again walk free.
The contents of her mind have been relegated to a series of lists.
Her former classmates. School text books. Potions ingredients. Mundane fixtures from a life she now longs for, grasping for the small things lest she forget. She recites them inside her head, sorting them and alphabetising them. She sifts through her memories, taking special care to track the details.
The uses of dragon's blood. The methodology to brew a sleeping draught.
These are the things that will get her through. The things that will keep her sane.
Some days, that's all she can hope for.
As the quiet days and the stifling nights slip past, she has nothing else.
"Granger."
Malfoy's voice sounds strained, and she suspects it's for greater reasons than self-imposed silence for a week.
"Hello," she muses, sitting up on her cot. A pale beam of moonlight leers down from the high window above. The air is filled with the tense silence that characterises every night in Azkaban.
She waits for a moment. And then, "Are you awake?"
A sarcastic retort catches on the tip of her tongue at the slight tremble in Malfoy's voice. She hasn't heard a word from him since the day he arrived, and her curiosity burns like an ember deep within her. "Yes. What is it?"
Wrapping her thin blanket around herself, she shifts to the floor and folds her legs beneath herself beside the metal bars. They're imbued with every sort of magical ward she can detect without a wand―and plenty more, she's sure―but the guards taunt the prisoners by allowing them to touch. She rests her brow on the cold metal, somehow sensing he's just on the other side of the wall.
"Don't they ever let us out?" Malfoy bites out, his tone terse. But she can hear, just below, the fear. "Surely they should let us out. We need to be able to walk or something."
"They do sometimes." Hermione tucks her knees tight into her chest, unable to find comfort on the stone floor. "They're supposed to give us common time twice a week but they don't usually follow any sort of schedule as far as I can tell."
She hears a loud sigh through the bars, frustration and anger. "That's bullshit."
Despite herself, she laughs. "That's one word for it."
"I'm not―" he says, cutting himself off. She tries to picture him, the anguish she remembers from those lonely, early days. When he speaks again, there's a true note of panic in his voice. "Granger, I'm going to go fucking mad in here."
Although her heart clenches, she knows there isn't any sense in offering meaningless platitudes, so she only asks, "How long are you in for?"
"Five years."
Hermione hums, dropping her chin to rest on her bent knees. "What was the sentence?"
When Malfoy doesn't instantly respond, she doubts he intends to.
But then he drawls, "Death Eater activity, conspiracy to attempt murder, endangerment of minors. It's a laundry list, to be honest."
"And your father?"
Malfoy releases a breath. "Life."
She suspected as much, but the word still rattles through her, cold and jarring. Lucius Malfoy's case had been one of the more high profile ones; most of the senior level Death Eaters were in on a life sentence, or at least the ones she'd read about before her own case went to trial."
"I still find it hard to believe you're in here," Malfoy comments, dry and disinterested, but she hears the question beneath it. He's been honest enough with her, and she sighs.
"The Ministry now isn't exactly lenient." A cold, humourless chuckle falls from her lips. "One week they're calling you a hero, and the next they're reading a list of minor charges that might never have stuck had things gone differently. Most of what I did during the war was about survival."
As she speaks the words, surprising herself with the level tone of her voice, the memories haunt her, creeping into the dark corners of her cell. And before Malfoy can respond, before she can lose her nerve, she adds, "Unauthorised usage of memory modification on Muggles... that was their favourite charge."
"Fuck," Malfoy huffs.
She wonders whether he heard about her parents. She thinks about them, punishes herself with it, every night when the optimism of the day slithers away beneath the cracks in her cell.
He only says, "How long?"
"Eighteen months."
"It's bullshit," he mutters. "You saved all of them."
She notes his wording with careful consideration. They were far from allies during the war, but she always suspected he was never fully convicted as a Death Eater. And from what she remembers from after the war, most of his actions had been cited as under duress.
"Didn't mean anything in the end," she replies softly.
Malfoy doesn't respond for a long moment, and she wonders whether their temporary rapport has all been used up. But then he says, "Can't Potter pull some strings or something?"
Hermione doesn't want to talk about this, but he's the first person she's spoken to in months who hasn't eyed her like dung on the bottom of their shoe.
"He tried," she admits with a careful exhalation. It takes real effort to banish her parents' faces from the front of her mind. "There's so much red tape involved, and the Ministry doesn't want to be seen offering favours. I think the only reason they didn't try to charge him for anything is because they didn't want the public backlash."
"That's absurd," Malfoy mutters. She can hear the rustle of fabric, as though he's shifted against the other side of the wall that separates them.
She never thought Malfoy's presence would offer some small measure of comfort.
"Five fucking years of staring at this bloody wall," he says, some of his discontent replaced with bitter resignation. "Trapped in this tiny fucking cage. How do you do it, Granger?"
She ponders the question once her surprise passes. "I suppose I just..." she trails off, shaking her head despite the fact that he can't see her. "I try to remember it's temporary. That I'll be out one day, and I'll have a chance at some sort of fresh start, however that looks."
Eventually, he grits out, "I don't know if I can do that. I can't―"
Whatever he meant to say cuts off, stifled, and again, she wishes she could see him. Her heart thunders in her chest as a new silence descends, one that prickles at the backs of her eyes. Despair threatens at the edges of her mind, and she can't grapple for the willpower to push it back.
"I'm not so good at it either, sometimes."
The admission falls as a whisper, bleak and icy cold. The warmth of her intrigue when they started speaking has all but burnt out, and a great shiver wracks her form.
They both fall silent, and Hermione desperately longs to succumb to the tears that spike at the corners of her eyes. Despite her best efforts, the way she prefers to keep her days orderly and her mind distracted, sometimes the reality of it all crashes over her.
She's locked up, kept away from society because of things she did in an effort to help, not harm.
It's one of the loneliest thoughts that nags at her. And as long as she's locked up, she can't even try to find a way to reverse the spell on her parents.
Her former classmates are back at Hogwarts, taking classes and preparing for the NEWTs they all missed. Even when she gets out, she doesn't know what sort of future might be afforded a former convict.
"Maybe..." Malfoy says, his low voice interrupting the dark shadows that encroach. "Maybe it's enough for now to know that I'm not here alone."
A great sniffle breaks free before she can stop it, and the tears begin to slide down her cheeks. "You aren't alone," she whispers.
In that moment, she can feel all the rest of it sweep away. The ugly past that hangs between them, the harsh words and the insults and the cruel circumstances that would have ever prevented them from knowing one another outside of these grim walls.
"I know I'm not much," Malfoy huffs, and she can almost detect a hint of dry humour in the words. "But... you aren't either."
Hermione draws in a deep, shuddering breath, one arm wrapped around her knees as though she might possibly hold herself together. Through the blur of her tears, she shoves her other hand through the bars.
She can't see him, doesn't even know what she thinks to achieve.
They don't know each other, not beyond any of this.
But moments later, fingers brush her own, and his hand wraps around her smaller one with a squeeze. Another ragged sob slips from her lips as she drops her head against the stone wall.
Malfoy's hand is warm, rougher than she expected, but as she allows the darkness to fully seep in, the contact is enough to keep her tethered to the fragile shreds of her hope.
Without any preamble to the matter, they fall into a sort of routine. During the day they go about their business―or as much business as either of them has, confined within a small square cell. In the evenings, they convene by the bars against the wall that separates them.
It's the closest they can get to one another, so they can speak softly without disturbing the rest of the block.
Sometimes they speak; other times they sit in silence.
At first, it's awkward. They don't know each other now, and Hermione wonders if they ever really did. As her old memories of the boy he once was begin to fade, she allows herself to break free of the divisions that kept them apart.
House, blood, and privilege don't matter on this plane, where each of them has no more or less than the other.
Hermione suspects he's making the same efforts at cordiality as she is, and at first it feels stilted and forced, two people making the best of a situation that neither of them would choose but recognising that they're all each other has.
But then, things begin to shift.
They fall one evening into easy chatter, meaningless nothings from the day that's passed. Hermione drops her head back against the stone wall, a faint smile curling her lips as he tells her of the mad ramblings of the man in the cell on his other side.
Hermione shares a thought that drifts through her mind―an odd recollection that stirred from her daily mental habits of an incident in fourth year where Seamus had blown up five cauldrons in one poorly contrived attempt at brewing a healing draught.
And the chaos that had ensued when three students grew feathers.
When Malfoy laughs―actually laughs―she jolts, startled, and glances around the block.
She can still remember the feel of his hand on hers, the first night they spoke, the desperation in his grasp. It was the emotion she felt from him that night that stays her shame about the way she cried, abandoning herself to her grief in the charged air between them.
As the days slide past, she hears him moving about his cell, an effort to keep himself active.
A week passes from their first honest conversation before a guard stomps through the corridor, releasing the locks on each of their cells. The guards are delinquent at best, but this is the longest she can remember going without a chance to stretch her legs away from her cell.
The wards keep them from going any farther than the cell block's common space, but she blinks several times in surprise when faced with the open door.
Something else niggles at her, and something like nerves swell along her spine.
She hasn't seen Malfoy in person since he arrived in Azkaban, and the semi-easy rapport they've developed has been blind. A part of her wonders how that might shift when faced with each other. With the blatant physical reminder that they were never meant to get along.
Rising to her feet, Hermione stretches out her stiff muscles before vacating her cell. She takes her time, casting a brief glance towards his cell, but he's already gone.
It's odd to stare at the space where he lives. It's identical to hers but for odd discrepancies.
A different crack along the wall. The wood of his cot is slightly less rotted than her own.
She averts her eyes as though in an effort to give him privacy, despite that all of their cells are open for anyone else to see. Despite that the guards don't allow any of them privacy at all.
The air always feels fresher, a little less stale, in the common area compared to the cells.
Their cell block contains twenty-eight cells―she once counted―and though most of them are occupied, she spots Malfoy easily.
A lump forms in her throat that she can't quite dislodge when his gaze slides to meet hers. He's standing alone by the wall, arms folded across his chest as though to guard himself.
She doesn't find any of the warmth she's learned from him on his face, only a flit of uncertainty in his brow.
Still, he pushes off from the wall and strides towards her, raking a hand through his hair as he approaches.
In all of their time speaking, it was easy to forget exactly who he was. And now, faced with Draco Malfoy, Hermione's stomach vaults and twists. His hair is as pale as she can remember, platinum blond fringe falling in his eyes, cloudy grey as they land on hers.
The air hangs, heavy and tense, and Hermione realises moments later she hasn't drawn breath since she saw him.
"Hi," she murmurs, keeping her voice low on instinct despite that it's the middle of the day. Across the room, several inmates are settling into a game of cards.
Malfoy stares at her a moment longer, a muscle working in his jaw, and she wonders if this is as surreal for him as it feels for her. But then his brows lift into something like relief and sadness and hurt, but the softest smile lifts one corner of his mouth.
"Granger," he says, and it sounds like an exhale, like sinking into bed at the end of a long, tiring day. His eyes latch on hers again, and she can see a hint of the emotion she's heard in his voice. The exhaustion and the fear and the desperation. He drawls, "It's good to see you."
And she knows, despite everything else, that theirs will never again be a relationship anyone would call conventional.
There's already too much.
"You too," she returns, sucking in a tight breath.
It feels like a meeting, an introduction, for the second or maybe third time, but it also feels as though they know one another so implicitly, rendering any such thing unnecessary. All at once, she can't make sense of any of it, of the way seeing him like this has left her speechless and overwhelmed.
In the cold darkness of the prison, he's the only spark of brightness that's slipped in, and she quashes a sudden surge of emotion.
Malfoy grimaces, yanking at his hair again. He gestures towards the closest table, and mutters, "Would you like to play cards?"
"Yes," she replies instantly, her gaze lingering on his hands, on his tall stature, on the sharp line of his jaw. "That sounds lovely."
They forgo the ritual of their evening meetings as the weeks trickle by and stretch into months.
"Granger," Malfoy says one afternoon, his voice low to keep from drawing attention. There's an unspoken agreement between them to stay quiet, lest one of the guards see them enjoying each other's company and break them apart. "I think I'm going to get a dog. One day."
Her eyes sting with tears, even as a broad grin stretches across her face. "You don't strike me as a dog person."
"A big dog," he only says. "A great slobbery one."
She claps a hand over her mouth to stifle the laugh that breaks free.
And there are days when he doesn't speak at all, nights when they only sit in silence with the knowledge of each other's presence, and she knows the prison is working against them both. She feels it too, the despair that's always one negative thought away from intruding, from taking over, from casting all of her hopes of the future into muted shadows of grey and black.
When they reminisce about Hogwarts, it's bittersweet to know that their friends are back at school.
Every time she thinks about what she might like to do, after, she wonders who would hire her with a permanent black stain on her record.
A part of her wonders, when she leaves, when he stays behind, what will come of this.
The thought is enough to dull the warmth he makes her feel, for great shudders to wrack her form. She draws her ragged blanket tighter.
When they're allowed to leave the cells and congregate in the common area, they meet without fail. Over an afternoon of cards, they fall into easy conversation with the benefit of facial expressions.
In the dead of night, shortly after her sentence passes six months, Malfoy doesn't speak at all. She can feel his presence on the other side of the wall, his soft, gentle breathing in the stifled silence of the block. Her eyes flutter with exhaustion but she can't force herself into her bed.
As long moments pass, his hand reaches through his bars and curls around her own, as though he wants to reach for her. As though he needs the physical contact she sometimes longs for as well.
Hermione snags her bottom lip between her teeth and shifts herself to reach through her own bars. Her hand meets his, a swell of warmth lingering within her at the touch.
Almost idly, his fingers lace between her own. His grip is soft, tentative, weak. As if he doesn't have the strength to hold any tighter.
Tears spike at her eyes.
"You're going to get out soon," Malfoy says one day over cards, more conversational than the topic merits.
Hermione draws a card, her gaze flitting up to his. "In another three months."
Shrugging, he discards. "Three months isn't so bad."
Despite the quiet flippancy of the conversation, kept light in the presence of so many others, dread churns in her stomach. She hears exactly what he isn't saying.
That in three months all of this will end. She'll be free and forced to face the world. And he'll be left here to carry out the remaining years of his sentence alone.
She wants to cry but refuses to let the tears fall. "I'll come visit, you know."
The scepticism on his face stings, as though he doesn't believe her, but he doesn't speak. Maybe in a different life―were he not the one to chase away her darkest nights―she might never have given him a second thought. But now, she can't imagine her life without him in it.
"I will," she says, firmer. "I promise." She allows a smile to play at her lips. "You can't get rid of me quite that easily."
She's rewarded with a teasing smirk in return.
As the days tick down, drawn one by one in the rotten wood of her cot, Hermione's anticipation turns to trepidation, her once far off hopes grow into cold fear in the pit of her being as, with each day, their realisation grows close. It all felt vague and ambiguous before, like something she could dream of because it wouldn't come true.
Now, she doesn't know what life will look like outside.
With only days to go, they're afforded common time, but Malfoy is sombre and quiet. They forgo an effort at cards halfway through and simply sit together in silence.
The clock on the wall becomes her enemy, its cruel tick tick tock taunting her ears. Malfoy's grey eyes rest on her, a furrow of sadness in his brow, and his fingers drift along the table next to hers, brushing but not touching.
"I don't want to go," she blurts.
"Don't be stupid." Malfoy rolls his eyes. "If it were me, I'd run without looking back."
Although she can hear the humour in his voice, she can't manage a smile. She knows he wouldn't―knows he would think of her as much as her mind now lingers on him.
A thought's been brewing in the back of her mind for months, and even now she's cautious to voice it aloud. Harry's tried more than once to get her out. He's campaigned to Kingsley, to the Wizengamot, to the Auror's office. The Ministry is corrupt and strict, and she's sure the poison runs deeper than she knows.
But the spark in her core is insistent.
"I'm going to get you out," she breathes, keeping her voice as low as she can manage. His grey eyes slide up to land on hers. "I don't know how long it's going to take, or what it's going to cost, but I promise you, Draco, you aren't going to spend another four years here."
He doesn't immediately respond, lips parted in surprise, a myriad of emotions playing across his face. Doubt and frustration and, when she looks close, a shred of hope.
Hermione wraps her hand around his and gives a squeeze. She memorises the colour of his eyes as they sear into her own. The warmth of his grip in hers. The shape of his mouth.
"I promise," she says again, as the buzzer sounds and they're forced to return.
But Malfoy holds tight, refusing to release her hand as though it might keep her from leaving. Fear dances in his grey eyes as he stares at her, as she tugs him to his feet.
He draws her into an embrace, swift and, somehow, comforting despite the circumstances. When they separate, far too soon, he brushes a kiss to her cheek, her jaw.
Turning her face into him is the easiest thing she's ever done, and their lips meet for a brief, desperately short kiss. Warmth floods through her and she clings to him, forcing herself to draw back only when the room empties but for the two of them.
He stares at her, breathing heavily, eyes shining with moisture. "Goodbye, Granger."
With one last squeeze to his hand, she releases him. "I'll see you soon."
The smile he manages doesn't reach his eyes.
Tears stream down her cheeks by the time she makes it back to her cell.
She doesn't see him again before her sentence is up. She's released, forced to rely on recollections of his hand in hers in the dead of night, and of one searing kiss, potent enough to brand him upon her soul.
His final, hoarse, "Goodbye," haunts her as she leaves.
And now, she has a purpose. She said she would get him out and she will, no matter what it takes. The Ministry's corruption must be bled out, like poison from a wound, and all of her fears and doubts are extinguished in the face of her determination.
She breathes the fresh air, feels the sunshine on her face, and begins.