Ember and Thorn

The train lurched, and I caught myself on the window frame before my forehead could crack against the glass. Outside, the Scottish moors rolled past in shades of bruise and heather, the sky a low grey lid pressing down on everything. I'd been staring at it for three hours. My reflection stared back, hollow-eyed, black hair hanging in my face like a curtain I couldn't be bothered to draw.

The compartment door slid open.

"If you're going to sulk the entire journey, Potter, at least have the decency to do it somewhere I don't have to smell it."

I didn't turn around. I knew the voice. Everyone knew the voice. It had been following me since the Sorting, since fourth year, since the day I'd watched her across the Great Hall and felt something I still couldn't name twist in my chest.

"Go away, Malfoid."

"Charming as ever." She stepped inside anyway. The door clicked shut behind her, and the compartment shrank by half. "I'm not sitting with the first-years. They keep asking me about my mother."

I finally looked at her.

Draco Malfoid. Five foot ten in her bare feet, which she never went without shoes long enough for anyone to confirm. White-blonde hair pulled back in a knot so tight it looked painful, the kind of knot that said don't touch. Grey eyes that could cut glass. And a mouth that had been ruining my life since the moment she'd first opened it.

She was wearing black robes with silver trim, the Malfoy crest embroidered on the breast pocket like a warning label. Her tie was loosened, top button undone, collar bones catching the weak light from the window. I hated how I noticed that. I hated how I always noticed.

"There's room in the back," I said. "With the luggage."

"Funny." She dropped into the seat across from me, crossing one leg over the other. The movement was fluid, practiced, the kind of grace that came from years of being watched. "I heard you got into another fight. Third one this term."

"Fourth."

"Fourth." She tilted her head. "You're collecting them like Chocolate Frog cards. What was it this time? Someone looked at you wrong? Someone breathed in your direction?"

"Someone called Hermione a mudblood."

The amusement flickered, just for a second. Then it was gone, smoothed over like water closing over a stone. "And you felt the need to defend her honor. How noble. How utterly predictable."

"Better predictable than a coward."

The word hung between us. I watched her jaw tighten, the muscle jumping beneath that pale skin. Good. I wanted her angry. Angry was easier than whatever else this was, whatever this thing was that happened whenever she got too close.

"I'm not a coward," she said quietly.

"Could've fooled me."

She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and suddenly there was nowhere else to look but at her. That was the thing about Malfoid. She didn't let you look away. She didn't let you do anything except see her, whether you wanted to or not.

"You don't know anything about me, Potter."

"I know enough."

"Do you." It wasn't a question. She reached up and pulled the tie from her hair, letting it fall in a pale curtain around her shoulders. The gesture was deliberate. Everything she did was deliberate. "You know what I let you see. You know what everyone sees. The Malfoy heir, the pureblood princess, the girl who has everything and deserves none of it."

I didn't say anything. The train rattled on, and somewhere down the corridor someone laughed, high and bright and far away from this compartment and whatever was happening in it.

"Go on," she said. "Say something cutting. You're good at that."

"I'm not going to fight with you."

"No?" She smiled, and it wasn't a nice smile. "Then what are you going to do?"

The question sat there, heavy with things neither of us was saying. I thought about fourth year, about the Yule Ball, about the way she'd looked in that silver dress with her hand on some Durmstrang boy's arm. I thought about the way I'd wanted to break his fingers. I thought about the way she'd looked at me across the dance floor, just once, and then looked away like I was nothing.

"I'm going to ignore you," I said. "Like I always do."

"Liar."

She stood up. Three steps brought her across the compartment, and then she was sitting next to me, close enough that I could smell her perfume, something floral and sharp, like winter jasmine. Her thigh pressed against mine. The contact was casual, accidental, the kind of thing that happened a hundred times a day in crowded corridors. Except it wasn't. Except nothing about this was accidental.

"You've never ignored me," she said. "Not once. Not for a single second."

"Get off."

"Make me."

I turned to look at her, and she was right there, inches away, those grey eyes steady on mine. Up close I could see the faint dusting of freckles across her nose, the kind of detail you'd never notice from across a room. I could see the slight chapped patch on her lower lip where she'd been biting it. I could see everything, and I wanted to see more, and I hated myself for it.

"You're a nightmare," I said.

"Probably." She didn't move. "But I'm your nightmare."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you can pretend to hate me all you want. You can glare at me in the corridors. You can hex my friends and break my cousin's nose. But at the end of the day, Potter, you're still going to think about me when you're alone in your bed."

My mouth went dry. "You don't know that."

"Don't I?"

She reached out and touched my face. Just her fingertips, just barely, tracing the line of my jaw. The touch was electric, shocking, and I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything except sit there like a statue while she explored the shape of me like she had every right.

"You've got a bruise," she murmured. "Here."

"From the fight."

"I know." Her thumb brushed the corner of my mouth, and I felt it everywhere, a heat that spread down my neck and pooled somewhere low in my stomach. "Does it hurt?"

"No."

"Liar."

She said it softly this time, almost fondly, and then she pulled her hand back and stood up. The absence of her touch was a physical thing, a coldness that rushed in to fill the space she'd left.

"We'll be at Hogsmeade in twenty minutes," she said, straightening her robes. "You should probably do something about your hair. You look like you've been sleeping in a ditch."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." She paused at the door, hand on the frame, and looked back at me. Something flickered in her expression, something I couldn't read. "Potter."

"What?"

"Try not to get into any more fights before term starts. I'd hate to have to visit you in the hospital wing."

"Is that concern?"

"Don't be ridiculous." The door slid open. "It's aesthetic. You're much more interesting to look at when your face isn't swollen."

She was gone before I could respond. The door clicked shut, and I was alone again with the moors and the grey sky and the echo of her perfume still hanging in the air.

I sat there for a long time. The train rattled on, and the countryside changed, and I didn't see any of it. I was too busy thinking about the way her fingers had felt against my skin. The way she'd looked at me. The way she'd said my name, Potter, like it was a secret she was tired of keeping.

I'd known her for seven years. Seven years of insults and hexes and cold looks across crowded rooms. Seven years of watching her from a distance, telling myself I hated her, telling myself she was just another pureblood princess with too much money and not enough soul.

But that wasn't true. It had never been true.

The truth was simpler and worse. The truth was that Draco Malfoid had been living in my head since I was eleven years old, and I had no idea how to get her out.

---

Hogsmeade was a blur of cobblestones and gas lamps and students dragging trunks toward the castle. The air smelled like woodsmoke and wet leaves, autumn settling in like it planned to stay. I kept my head down, hood up, the way I always did when I didn't want to be seen.

It didn't work.

"Potter! Hey, Potter!"

Ron came barreling through the crowd, red hair bright as a beacon, freckled face split in a grin. He looked happy. He always looked happy. It was one of the things I liked about him, and one of the things that exhausted me.

"Where've you been? We saved you a seat in the carriage."

"Train compartment."

"Yeah, but which one? I looked for you."

I shrugged. "End of the line."

Ron's grin faltered, just for a second. He knew me well enough to know when I was lying, but he was also smart enough not to push. That was the deal with Ron. He let me have my silences.

"Alright," he said. "Well, come on. Hermione's already at the castle. She's been in the library since we got here, something about a new restricted section."

"Of course she has."

We walked together through the village, past the Three Broomsticks and Honeydukes and the little shops that sold quills and parchment and other things no one really needed. The castle loomed ahead, lit up against the darkening sky, and I felt the familiar weight of it settle on my shoulders. Hogwarts. University of Witchcraft and Wizardry. My home for seven years, and still the place where I felt most like a stranger.

The entrance hall was chaos. Students everywhere, first-years gaping at the ceiling, upperclassmen greeting friends they hadn't seen all summer. I pushed through it all, Ron at my side, and tried not to look for blonde hair in the crowd.

I looked anyway.

She was standing by the staircase, surrounded by her usual court. Blaise Zabini on one side, Pansy Parkinson on the other, both of them hanging on her every word. She was laughing at something, head tilted back, throat exposed, and I felt that twist in my chest again, the one that had been there since fourth year.

"Potter."

I turned. Hermione was coming toward me, a stack of books balanced in her arms, her bushy hair escaping from a hasty braid. She looked tired. She always looked tired these days.

"You're staring," she said.

"I'm not."

"You are. You've been doing it since fourth year."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Hermione sighed, the kind of sigh that said she was too smart to be lied to and too tired to argue. "Fine. Be mysterious. But we need to talk. Dumbledore's called a meeting. Tonight, after the feast."

"What kind of meeting?"

"The kind he doesn't want to talk about in public." She shifted the books, and I caught a glimpse of the title on the top one. *The Rise and Fall of Dark Magic*. "Something's happening, Harry. Something big."

I felt a cold prickle at the back of my neck. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know yet. But I've been doing some research, and there are things about this school, about its history, that don't add up. Things that have been hidden for centuries."

"Hermione, you always think things don't add up."

"Because they usually don't." She glanced over my shoulder, and her expression shifted, hardening. "Speaking of things that don't add up."

I didn't have to turn around. I knew who she was looking at. I could feel her, the way you feel a storm coming, the pressure change in the air.

"Potter."

I turned.

Malfoid stood a few feet away, arms crossed, expression unreadable. The crowd seemed to part around her, the way it always did, like even the air knew to get out of her way.

"Hermione," she said, without looking at her. "Nice hair. Did you style it with a fork?"

"Did you style your personality with a curse?" Hermione shot back.

"Clever. Did you come up with that yourself, or did you have to look it up?"

"Ladies," Ron said, stepping between them. "Can we not do this right now? It's the first day."

"Stay out of it, Weasley." Malfoid's eyes were on me, grey and steady and infuriating. "I need to talk to Potter."

"About what?"

"About things that don't concern you."

"Everything concerns me."

"Not this."

I sighed. "Ron, it's fine. I'll catch up with you later."

Ron looked at me like I'd grown a second head. "You're joking."

"I'm not."

"But she's..."

"I know what she is." I met Malfoid's eyes. "Go on. I'll find you at the feast."

Ron hesitated, then shook his head and walked away, Hermione trailing after him with a look that promised a very long conversation later. The crowd closed around them, and then it was just me and Malfoid, standing in the middle of the entrance hall like we were the only two people in the world.

"What do you want?"

"To talk." She uncrossed her arms and started walking, not toward me but past me, toward the doors that led to the grounds. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere we won't be interrupted."

I should have said no. I should have walked away, gone to the feast, sat with my friends and pretended she didn't exist. That was the smart thing to do. That was the thing I always told myself I would do.

I followed her anyway.

---

The grounds were dark, the lake a black mirror reflecting the stars. Malfoid walked ahead of me, silent, her robes trailing over the grass. She didn't stop until we reached the edge of the water, far enough from the castle that the lights were just a glow behind us.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" she said.

"The lake?"

"All of it." She turned to face me, and in the starlight she looked different. Softer, somehow. Less like a weapon and more like a person. "I used to come here when I was younger. First year, second year. When things got too loud inside."

"I didn't know that."

"There's a lot you don't know." She sat down on the grass, not caring about her robes, and after a moment I sat down next to her. Close but not touching. The space between us felt charged, electric, like the air before a lightning strike.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"Because I need to tell you something, and I didn't want to do it in front of your little friends."

"What?"

She was quiet for a long moment. The lake lapped against the shore, gentle and steady, and somewhere in the distance an owl hooted.

"My father's been meeting with people," she said finally. "Secret meetings. Late at night, in the manor. I don't know who they are, but I know what they talk about."

"What do they talk about?"

"Dark things. Old things. Things that should have stayed buried." She looked at me, and for the first time I saw something in her eyes that I'd never seen before. Fear. "There's something in this castle, Potter. Something my father wants. And I think you're the only one who can stop him."

I stared at her. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I don't want to be like him." Her voice cracked, just a little, just enough. "Because I've spent seven years pretending to be something I'm not, and I'm tired. I'm so tired."

"Malfoid..."

"Don't." She held up a hand. "Don't do that. Don't be nice to me. I don't deserve it."

"You're warning me about something. That's not nothing."

"It's not enough." She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. The gesture was vulnerable, childlike, and it made something in my chest ache. "I've done terrible things, Potter. I've said terrible things. I've hurt people because it was easier than being hurt myself."

"I know."

"And you still followed me out here."

"I know."

She looked at me, really looked at me, and I saw the question in her eyes. The one she couldn't ask. The one I couldn't answer.

"Why?" she whispered.

I thought about it. I thought about all the reasons I should hate her, all the reasons I should walk away and never look back. I thought about fourth year, and the Yule Ball, and the way she'd looked at me across the dance floor. I thought about every insult, every sneer, every cold shoulder.

And I thought about the way she'd touched my face on the train. The way her fingers had felt against my skin. The way she'd said my name like it mattered.

"Because I don't know how to stop," I said.

She laughed, a broken little sound. "That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got."

She leaned into me. Just barely, just her shoulder against mine, but it was enough. It was everything. The warmth of her body seeped through my robes, and I felt something loosen in my chest, something I'd been holding onto for years.

"We can't do this," she said. "You know that, right? My father would kill me. Your friends would kill you. The whole school would..."

"I know."

"And you still..."

"I know."

She was quiet for a long time. The stars wheeled overhead, and the lake whispered against the shore, and I sat there with Draco Malfoid's shoulder against mine and tried to remember how to breathe.

"I don't want to be alone," she said finally. "Not tonight."

"You're not alone."

"I am. I've always been alone." She turned her head, and her lips were close to my ear, her breath warm against my skin. "Even when I'm surrounded by people. Even when I'm with my friends. I'm alone, Potter. I've been alone since I was a child."

I didn't know what to say. So I did the only thing I could think of.

I took her hand.

She flinched, just for a second, and then her fingers curled around mine. Her hand was cold, smaller than I expected, and I could feel the slight tremor in it. The great Draco Malfoid, trembling like a leaf.

"You're freezing," I said.

"I'm always cold."

"Why?"

She didn't answer. She just leaned closer, her head dropping onto my shoulder, her hair spilling across my chest. She smelled like winter jasmine and something else, something darker, like smoke and old books.

"I'm tired," she murmured. "I'm so tired of pretending."

"Then stop."

"I can't."

"You can. You just did."

She was quiet for a moment. Then she lifted her head and looked at me, and there was something in her eyes that I'd never seen before. Something raw and open and terrified.

"Potter," she said.

"Harry."

Her lips parted. She was going to say something, something important, something that would change everything. I could feel it building between us, the way pressure builds before a storm.

And then a voice rang out across the grounds.

"Harry! Harry, where are you?"

Ron. Of course it was Ron. His voice was distant but getting closer, and I felt Malfoid stiffen against me, her hand pulling away from mine.

"I have to go," she said, scrambling to her feet.

"Malfoid, wait."

"No." She was already backing away, her expression closing off, the walls going back up. "This was a mistake. Forget I said anything."

"I can't forget."

"You have to." She turned and started walking, fast, her robes billowing behind her. "Stay away from me, Potter. It's safer for both of us."

"Malfoid!"

She didn't stop. She didn't look back. She just disappeared into the darkness, and I was left alone by the lake with the stars and the silence and the echo of her hand in mine.

I sat there for a long time. Ron found me eventually, and I made up some excuse about needing air, and we walked back to the castle together. The feast was already starting, the Great Hall a blaze of light and noise and warmth.

I didn't see her at the Slytherin table. I didn't see her anywhere.

But I felt her. The way you feel a missing tooth. The way you feel a wound that hasn't healed.

Something had changed tonight. Something had shifted, some wall had come down. And I had no idea what came next.

All I knew was that Draco Malfoid had asked me not to leave her alone, and I had said I wouldn't.

And I meant it.