Lunar Cost - Dramione

2

When she wakes in the morning, her wand is on the bedside table and she wastes no time refamiliarising herself with it. A set of fresh clothes rest on the edge of the bed. Looking around to make sure no one is in the room, she dresses.

Hermione's head is throbbing and her eyes feel incredibly strained, as if she'd stared into the sun for hours without blinking. Probably from the crying. She slowly pulls her legs out from under the blankets and tip toes over to the window closest to the bathroom and nudges her head in between the curtains. She grossly underestimated how dark Draco keeps his room, because she almost flinches from the brightness of the sky.

Squinting her eyes almost completely closed, she slowly works her way up to half lidded and looks at the grounds one story below her. Rows and rows of flower garden seem to ripple from a dark wood gazebo in the centre that was closely surrounded by quartered rings of rose bushes. Only they are almost black in colour. In between each quarter ring of bushes, there is space enough to walk and a small stone fountain that depicted a different magical creature each.

Where flower gardens stop, short hedges make a small, uncomplicated maze that leads to what looks like a large pond a bit further from the property. There is a small dock, and Hermione can see white water lilies floating on the surface toward the centre of the pond.

She wonders if Malfoy had learned to swim in that pond when he was a boy. Or if, during the summer, on a particularly hot day, he made a habit of "falling in" much like she had when she was younger. It is a distant memory, but Hermione would never forget the summers her parents would take her to the lake. Hermione would beg to stay in the water, even when it got dark and cold, and her mother would bribe her with books and tea to finally come out.

She smiles at the memory until it hits her that although she will never forget, her parents hadn't had a choice not to. She looks up through her eyelashes, hoping the tears gathering at the bottom of her eyes would dry up before they fell.

Suddenly she feels sick. The scent of her clothes is much too strong and a headache clouds her mind.

"I see you've found the grounds."

Hermione curses, startled, whipping around pointing her wand at Draco with a lethal grip, almost knocking the bedside lamp onto the carpeted floor and ripping the curtain off the rod. She is about ready to relay a string of profanities when he starts to speak.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he raises his hands in surrender. "I'm sorry, I thought you heard me. Or smelled me or something."

And now she scolds herself for not noticing his presence sooner. The war had allowed her to hone in her skills. Nothing got past her. No sound. No scent. No trick of the light. She needed to be more careful. The war is over. But the skills it brought on were nothing less than necessary.

She nods at him, lowering her wand arm to her side and straightening out the lamp.

"Are you ready to try out the brew?"

Draco leads her out of the room and Hermione doesn't catch which book he pulls to open the bookshelf despite her effort.

Although her visible annoyance shines through on her face, it changes once she sees the corridor outside his room. No doubt designed to make someone feel incredibly small and insignificant, she has to will herself not to crumple her posture. After a long walk down multiple hallways, they finally arrive at a grand staircase that ascends to another story of the manor, but once they reach the top Hermione realises it isn't the whole floor, but a single room. The staircase opens up to a small lobby-like area that isn't lit at all, not even around the next set of double doors they come across. Over the doors is a plaque that reads "Moonlight Main."