Marked

The Defense

Chapter 18: The Defense

Ron frowned. "You're sure that's all he said?"

"Yes," Hermione said adamantly. She leaned back against Malfoy's chest and he put his arm across her torso, possessive as always. "I've already told you, that's it. All Greyback said was that I'd called him."

"Did you say anything out loud?" Harry asked, vaguely amused. They seemed to be enjoying the highly redundant question-and-answer period she'd unwisely indulged.

"You mean was I talking to myself?" she asked crossly. "No, obviously. And I highly doubt I managed to call him in any sort of magical way, either. I hadn't done anything."

"Maybe he didn't mean you specifically," Malfoy postulated, his fingers drumming absently against her collarbone.

She twisted around to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Malfoy said, leaning his head back against the wall, "maybe it was something more like trace magic. With the trace, the Ministry only knows where magic took place, not who cast it."

"That's true," Harry said, sitting up. "That's what happened to me when Dobby used magic at the Dursleys' before second year."

Hermione frowned thoughtfully. "Okay," she ventured hesitantly. "Let's say for argument's sake that that's true. Then could one of you have called him? What were you all talking about?"

The three boys looked at each other.

Harry sighed. "We were talking about Volde- "

"Don't!" Ron shouted, scrambling forward onto his hands and knees to forcibly knock Harry sideways. "Don't say it!"

"Ronald!" Hermione admonished him, scowling. "Dumbledore always said, 'fear of a name - "

"No, he's right," Malfoy interrupted, nodding slowly. He looked sharply at Harry. "I agree with him. I wouldn't say it, if I were you."

Ron looked relieved, and Hermione caught a shockingly sympathetic glance between him and Malfoy. A very rare alliance, she thought curiously, waiting to see how the situation played out.

"You think it's his name?" Harry asked incredulously, his green eyes wide. "Did we somehow call Greyback by saying it?"

"I obviously don't know for sure," Malfoy said shortly, shrugging - with difficulty, of course, since Hermione was leaning on him. "I know that it's certainly possible. There's a spell for that."

"It's called a taboo," Ron said quickly. "You put a type of trace magic on a word." At their surprised glance, he rolled his eyes. "You don't need to look so bloody shocked that I know something!" he said, disgruntled.

They looked at him skeptically.

"Fine," Ron conceded. "It's another thing Fred and George tried to do to me as a child. They tried to put a taboo on 'Ron'," he explained grumpily, and Harry smothered a laugh.

"Taboo," Hermione repeated, considering the concept. "Interesting. Muggles use that word."

"Makes sense, I guess," Harry commented. "I mean, nobody but people in the Order actually say his name."

"It's ingenious, really," Hermione admitted reluctantly. "That could certainly be a possibility."

"If that's what the Dark Lord has done, then Greyback wouldn't have known it wasn't you that said his name," Malfoy commented academically, pushing his glasses up from where they'd slipped down his nose. She knew perfectly well that he hated them, but he seemed to be quite amused by - and unfortunately, highly aware of - the rousing effect they had on her. "He would have assumed it was you, because you were the only person in sight."