Vanilla Lace (Dramione)

- A Dramione Fanfiction

During Eighth Year, Hogwarts begins experiencing strange magical disturbances.

Objects move on their own. Students hear whispers in empty corridors. Rooms appear where they shouldn't.

Then the memories begin surfacing.

Not visual memories.

Emotional ones.

Someone breaks down crying in Charms and doesn't know why. Someone panics in the corridors after feeling fear that does not belong to them. Hogwarts itself seems restless.

Professor McGonagall quietly assigns Hermione Granger to investigate before the Ministry gets involved.

Unfortunately, the investigation also requires Draco Malfoy.

"You lived on the side that spent months sneaking around this castle doing suspicious things."

"Lovely. Nice to see your bedside manner survived the war."

"I don't have a bedside manner."

"Tragic."

Forced partnership follows naturally: late-night patrols, secret passages, ridiculous arguments, and an alarming amount of time spent together in the library.

Meanwhile, Hermione becomes obsessed with fixing the castle before it falls apart completely, slowly running herself into the ground in the process.

And Draco notices before anyone else.

Because Draco Malfoy knows exactly what barely-functioning looks like.

But Hogwarts is hiding more than grief within its walls, and some things buried after the war were never meant to wake again.