When We Were Beasts

Linger

Hermione and Malfoy had good days and bad days.

He flowed easy into her routine. She now made meals for two, since Malfoy had absolutely no skill in the kitchen. He only seemed to burn things, and then curse at them. But Hermione didn't mind cooking. She liked using her hands, her wand, her magic. The room enjoyed giving her ingredients and spices. It kept her mind busy. After food they'd tear through every text available.

Malfoy had a theory that the BackRooms were similar to the maze used in the most recent TriWizard Tournament: a type of magic that took note of a witch or wizards personality and adjusted itself accordingly. But Hermione pushed back that it seemed unlikely, since the rooms were too alive, and felt unending where the maze was limited. They both agreed that it was possible it was the same magic that created the Room of Requirement, or possibly something in between.

Hermione used her wand and said the same words Yaxley yelled - "VITA SOMNIUM BREVE!"- each and every way possible, until Malfoy or her own exhaustion would force her to stop. Nothing worked. She felt no spark of magic, no semblance of the rooms whisking her away. Hermione knew the phrase had power, had meaning, and the room was hiding it. The room had changed her own mind to hide itself from her; she could not remember what the Latin meaning of those words meant. Malfoy didn't know what they meant, either, and he had studied latin before he ever attended Hogwarts. The next day, any texts on latin mysteriously disappeared. Hermione and Malfoy both cursed the room vividly, and it only apologized by materializing more FireWhiskey and books on healing.

Hermione was grateful that the room at least allowed her and Malfoy to work on potions.

The two of them would practice duel (him working on his wandless magic, her working on footwork and wand movement), and when she'd injure him (sometimes on purpose) she'd use that as a test to her skills in healing and potion making. It'd grate something academic in her when Malfoy knew something about potions and curses that she didn't.

Despite the pockets of odd peace, the two of them fought. Constantly. Over everything. Not just friendly banter, not just the push and pull of academic rivals challenging one another (though that happened regularly). When Malfoy and Hermione fought, it was war.

Everyday, Hermione renewed the Imperio curse. She could barely ignore that the knot of guilt in her stomach grew each day, or ignore the amount of magic it took to cast it. Some days, Malfoy would make a crude joke about it. Some days say nothing at all. But other days - bad days- he would curse Hermione's very existence until he was blue in the face. She didn't mind giving it back to him when he did that. It felt good to remember where they stood.

Because sometimes, it felt almost like they were friends.
Hermione wanted to hate herself for it, but she couldn't ignore the pull to be kind to him. Not a fake kindness to get what she wanted, but something real. On the nights when he held her through the night terrors, when he wrapped a curl behind her ear as she studied the words on a page, it was almost like they were back in school, Head Boy and Head Girl, and they had worked through their differences and became something more than merely aware of each other. He looked at her sometimes like a friend. She was no longer being kind to manipulate him; he was a star that she couldn't help but orbit, even if it burned her. Even if it had already burned her, to be this close.

But Malfoy could not seem to help himself, on the bad days, when he become absolutely vicious, a cornered dog that was tired of the hand that chained him. And she could no longer ignore him like she used to, not after what he did to her that day at the pool.

(This was a sum of what they'd scream at each other for hours:
"I will kill you, Granger, I swear on Salazar Slytherin I will watch the life fade from your fucking eyes!"