Not Quite Dark Magic

The Awakening

Chapter Text
Zabini gained consciousness exactly one week after the initial raid. Hermione was on watch when it happened.

He awoke with a gasp. He took in his surroundings with the gracefulness of a cat that just had a bucket of ice water poured on it. When his eyes landed on her form, sitting cross legged in the corner with parchment in one hand and a quill in the other, he legitimately hissed.

"Ah, Zabini," she greeted with a nod of her head.

"What the fuck, mudblood." His voice was gravelly and, in other circumstances, Hermione would have handed him the pitcher of water that was on the bedside table, right out of his reach.

"Now now, Zabini. That's no way to speak to your comrades." Hermione, truly, knew better than to antagonize someone that had just woken up in an unfamiliar setting.

She just didn't care.

Blaise's eyes flashed. Hermione could practically feel the anger coming off him in harsh waves that rivaled the ones she had built a sea wall against in her mind. Clearly he had never specialized in Occlumency.

"The first thing the Order will do after your ceremony is teach you how to control your emotions. Can't have you running about angry and tossing harsh words like Malfoy in second year."

Zabini was up, charging towards Hermione as if his bed had just caught fire. It hadn't, but if that had been the case it would have been because Hermione chose to, not because she couldn't reign in her emotions like the man in front of her. She used legilimency to probe out to him.

No walls. Not even a speed bump. She could take his mind and tear it into pieces before he even knew what was happening. It wouldn't even take three minutes.

Hermione watched as he stumbled and fell to the floor as she pressed against his most recent memories. She hadn't moved, hadn't even uncrossed her legs. If this was intimidation, she was starting to wonder how he'd made it this far into the war.

"Draco will destroy you once he finds out where I am."

Ah, that's right.

"Malfoy's going to come save you, then? Big, bad Zabini is so quick with his silver tongue but can't fight his own battles?"

His index finger came up and prodded the air in front of him. He let out a small yelp when the wards that protected her from him zapped out with blue magic.

"Can't put up much of a fight when you've taken the cowards way out."

Hermione scoffed before picking back up the documents she was working on. Ron had asked for these by sundown and Hermione always turned in her assignments on time.

"Your insults have no nuance. You'll have to try harder than that to get to me."

Zabini opened his mouth to retort, but Hermione held up her hand to stop him.

"You should just save it," she snapped, charming the quill to write on its own. "Malfoy will be here momentarily."

His brows furrowed in confusion. "Draco? Coming here?"

Hermione watched the quill as it slid across the parchment, finding peace in the scratching sound. "Isn't that what you said would happen?"

"I said Draco would destroy you. Not that he'd come to this shack and do it."

Hermione waved her hand dismissively. "Semantics. What does destroy even mean?"

It took Zabini five minutes to describe all the different ways Draco would tear her limbs apart, six minutes for Malfoy to appear in the doorway, and ten minutes for Blaise to figure out Hermione had been stalling.