Welcome back to the second half of Draconian!

Please note that the playlist for this story (and all of Universe #4) is available on my spotify (). And aesthetic boards for Draconian is also available on my pinterest (). You'll probably be able to figure out who the last book in the Draconian series is about once you follow me there... And kudos to those of you who've already guessed!

That being said, thank you all for your patience and support. I hope you're ready for a ride, because it's going to get wild.

x Noelle

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Blasting spell.

Andromeda had prepared for them was in Godric's Hollow.

"Some say this place is haunted," Luna remarked, as they trudged along the empty street. "We have to be careful with the ghosts we see here. I don't think all of them are nice."

"So let me get something straight here," Theo interjected, "you're saying that you'd befriend the ghosts if they were fucking nice?"

"Of course. Most ghosts are just lonely and I think they'd like a friend."

Hermione chuckled under her breath as she heard the conversation in front. Blaise was the one leading the group, while she and Draco lingered behind. She was thoroughly fascinated as Draco covered up their footprints with the same spell over and over, and made sure to leave deeper imprints each time she took a step forward.

Draco soon noticed and shot her an irritated look, to which she simply grinned. "Never played in the snow before, Malfoy?"

He raised his eyebrows. "If you mean making footprints in the snow just for fun, then no."

She looked up at him, noticing for a brief moment how he seemed to fit in perfectly with the snowy landscape. Her eyes flickered to his lips and she thought about the delightful, hungry way he'd kissed her earlier. A shiver raced down her spine and it wasn't because of the cold.

"Granger," he said, with thinly-veiled amusement in his tone as he clearly noticed the way she was looking at him, "you're staring."

Hermione blushed and trudged on, trying to stop her heart from racing when he placed a gentle hand against the small of her back. She wasn't so sure if the gesture was just to guide her - the road ahead was flat and not quite slippery; she didn't need much guiding to begin with.

They soon arrived at the safe-house - an old building that seemed steady enough to have survived the war. Draco made Hermione wait outside with Luna, while he and Theo went in to scout the place.

Blaise was placing charms to conceal the building from the outside. Pansy left him, wandering over to Hermione and Luna. "It's awfully quiet," she murmured, "too quiet."

Hermione couldn't agree more. There was nothing as frightening as the calm before the storm, and the louder the silence, the more deadly the consequence. She took an instinctive step closer to Pansy, who automatically slipped her arm through Hermione's.

After what seemed like forever, Draco stepped out. "Come on, it's safe."

Safe. She didn't think she could ever hear that word enough. She slipped her fingers through Draco's as she passed him by the doorway.

But he didn't seem willing to let her go. After he'd shut the door, he pulled her close, resting his hands gently on her hips and staring down at her with unfiltered concern in his eyes. "You alright?"

He was here, wasn't he? She pushed herself up on the tips of her toes, pressing her lips dangerously close to his, her smile widening when he let out a low sound from the back of his throat.

"I've never been better."

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It was time to make this new place their temporary home. After Draco had left with Theo to the Black Market, Hermione found herself wandering around the place.

She paused when she stepped into the kitchen. Something seemed familiar, too familiar. She dragged in a shaky breath. Bile rose in her throat as her heart hammered in her chest.

This place wasn't safe. Terror swept through her and she fell back, glancing around with wide eyes. Her skin crawled. Crawl? No.

Slither.

It all came back in flashes. And her head hurt. Her mind conjured shadows of an empty, broken house. Creaky stairs. Stained walls. Screaming. A woman, more dead than living, what was her name again? Bathilda Bagshot. And from the darkness, there it was: slithering towards her, closer, closer, closer -

A snake.

Nagini.

Somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind, she heard screaming. It wasn't until the patters of feet became louder that she realised she was the one screaming. Blaise, Pansy and Luna appeared - matching horror on their faces.

But they were blocked by the snake. Was it even real?

Hermione screamed when the snake lashed out towards her. She slammed back against the wall. She had to get away. They all had to get away.

"Hermione, snap out of it! You're having a panic attack!"

She shrieked when something gripped her. Merlin, the snake had wrapped itself around her. She would be choked to death.

"Pansy, get away from her - "

"No, you have to hold her. Luna, give me a hand - "

And Hermione screamed even louder when she felt something else grip her other arm. She was trapped, she was dying, and where was Draco when she needed him? Merlin, Draco was going to be killed by Nagini too. Her eyes widened and she whipped out her wand from her coat, holding it out protectively in front of her as she scanned her surroundings, because where was Draco, where was Draco, where was -

"Pansy, just step away from her, you're making it worse - "

The grip on her arms tightened. Nagini was right in front of her again. Mouth wide and teeth bared and slithering towards her.

Kill or be killed?

Hermione didn't miss a beat. "Confringo!"

The dining table exploded in a burst of flames. Shouts and swears rang in her head, but Nagini was still here. She sobbed as she aimed her wand again.

"Confrin - " Something clamped down hard on her mouth.

"Get Draco!" Blaise shouted. "Pansy, extinguish the fire and light the phials. Luna, I need a silencing charm everywhere and the calming potion...it's in Hermione's bag! Hurry up, I can't hold her for long - "

Hermione bit him. Blaise swore, falling off balance for a moment as she shoved him with all her might. She screamed and held her wand out again.

"Hurry up!" Blaise roared, throwing himself out of the way as Hermione blindly aimed and fired another blasting curse his way, this time obliterating two chairs completely. In another situation, perhaps, he'd pause to admire how proficient she could really be at magic.

Because it turned out that when pushed to her limits, Hermione Granger could actually aim to kill.

Blaise swore on Salazar's grave that he hadn't even taught her that bloody blasting spell.

Luna raced back with the calming potions. "What's wrong with your hand?" she asked.

"She bit me. Take away her bloody wand."

But the moment Luna reached for it, Hermione screamed even harder, her voice muffled by Blaise's hand pressed firmly over her mouth. She shot another spell - a silent one, when had she even learnt silent magic? - and Luna barely evaded it, the ends of her blonde hair getting singed in the process.

"Shit," Blaise swore again as Hermione thrashed in his grip. "Pansy, where the hell is Draco?"

"I just called him!" Pansy hastily put out the new burst of flames. "Baby, get away from her, she's not safe!"

"And leave her to blow up the rest of the building?"

"Better than getting yourself blown up! Careful, Luna!" Pansy grabbed the blonde witch away. "I'm going to stun her, just give me - "

"What the hell is going on?"

Pansy whirled around, only to see Draco and Theo. The expression on Draco's face was tight as he heard Hermione's screams. He tried to brace himself for the worst, but the moment he saw her on the floor, the air left his lungs.

"Shit." He swore under his breath and waved the others out. Ignoring their advice to be careful, he stood by the doorway and took a deep breath. "Granger."

Hermione paused. Her grip on her wand faltered as the scream froze on her lips. Her eyes were still glazed and her shoulders still wracked with uncontrollable sobs. But she had heard him and that was good enough.

He took several steps closer. "Hermione, it's me."

A flicker of realisation. Then she lowered her wand. After what seemed like forever, she blinked and looked at him. "Draco?"

He let out a sigh of relief. "Yes, it's me. You're safe now, Hermione."

With a shaky hand, she reached for him. He gripped her hand and she immediately reacted to his touch, allowing him to wrap his arms around her. Her shoulders hunched as a strangled sob left her throat.

"I-I - " she choked out, burying her face against his neck. "I didn't mean to - " She dissolved into another fit of sobbing, clinging to him like he was her only lifeline.

He didn't reply; simply pressed his lips gently to her forehead and held her through the aftermath.

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Hermione woke the next morning to find that the other half of the bed was empty. But her panic was swiftly quelled when she spotted the familiar bags by the wardrobe. Two were hers and the other belonged to Draco - which meant that he had shifted their belongings into the room.

She retrieved a set of clothes, towel, toothbrush and her wand. But the moment she stepped out of the room, the five people in the kitchen turned to her. Pansy, Blaise and Luna stared at her with clear concern, while Theo grinned by way of greeting.

Only Draco seemed calm as ever and he was the first to ease the tension in the room. "Bathroom's over there." He gestured to the door down the decrepit hallway past the kitchen.

Hermione faltered. The previous day's memory was fresh as ever, and she fought the chill that raced down her spine. She forced herself to head down the hallway, only to pause when she saw how dark it was.

That snake still haunted her.

"Granger." Draco's voice pulled her back to reality. He was standing behind her. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, fine," she threw an unsure glance at the bathroom, feeling her throat tighten at the confined space within. If she had a panic attack in there and imagined Nagini launching its unhinged jaws right into her face, she was certain that she'd blast this place into oblivion. "I just - "

"Do you need me to wait outside?"

She bit her lip. "If it's not too much to ask, could you - "

But the implication of her words was clear, and his eyebrows shot up. "Granger, you are aware that there's no shower curtain inside, right?" His lips were tugged up in a brief smirk, his eyes gleaming with thinly-veiled amusement.

"It'll be just like that night you found me!" She pleaded, in spite of the blush colouring her cheeks. "You could keep your back turned and not look."

"You're asking a hell lot from me," he grumbled, but stepped into the bathroom with her nonetheless, locking the door behind simply with a wave of his hand. Then they found themselves faced with a new problem when the saw the full-length mirror against the wall, large enough to reflect Hermione if she stood under the shower.

Hermione didn't miss the amused smirk that stretched across his face. Without hesitation, she picked up her wand and pointed it at him.

"Obscuro."

A blindfold immediately materialised and wrapped itself tightly around his head. Hermione stepped back in satisfaction, placing her new change of clothes down on the sink. "I will punch you if you remove that," she warned him, even though it was difficult to keep a straight face. "And you know I have a mean right hook."

"Violence and a blindfold?" Draco shook his head, still sounding thoroughly entertained, "you've clearly been led astray by Slytherins."

Hermione laughed. She led him to the counter by the sink and smoothed the blindfold over his eyes. Acting on impulse, she pressed her lips to his cheek.

"Thank you for being here," she said quickly, feeling her stomach tighten deliciously when he let out a low sound from the back of his throat, as though having her so close was both delightful and agonising to him.

Pushing that thought aside, she discarded her clothes and stepped under the shower. But the moment she turned on the tap, a heavy torrent of ice-cold water chilled her to the bone.

"Merlin's sake, it's freezing," she gasped, reaching out to grab her wand.

But she didn't have to. A second later, she found that the water cascading down had heated up to a nice, warm temperature. She didn't have to look to know that Draco had warmed the water with magic, and a dulcet sigh escaped her as she felt the prickles on her skin ease off with the comfortable temperature.

A second sigh of content had just left her when she found herself unable to make a noise. She threw a glance over at Draco, only to see him still sitting there with the blindfold over his eyes. But a wand was directed at her, a half-distracted, half-aggravated look on his face.

He'd hit her with a Silencio.

"If I'm not allowed to see anything, you're not allowed to make sounds that'll fuck around with my head," he said flatly, "now hurry up and finish your bath, Granger."

Hermione laughed silently and reached over for the shampoo to lather up her hair. Things had just taken a turn for the interesting.

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"Can I tell you something?"

Hermione waited for Draco to finish his mouthful of food. The kitchen was empty now, save for the two of them. With the sunlight streaming through the windows and the delicious breakfast that Blaise had kept warm for them, she had almost forgotten that they were in the middle of a war.

Draco set down his fork and looked at her. "Go ahead."

She took a deep breath. "After that little episode yesterday, I've found that I'm scared, Draco. Terribly frightened. And - and if a snake can cause me to break down, I don't know what else will - "

"Granger, before you start diminishing your self-worth, let me cut you off there." Draco turned in his seat, his action trapping her knees between his. She felt protected in that position and automatically reached for him. He intertwined his fingers with hers and met her gaze. "Nagini wasn't just a snake. That bloody creature was un-killable. Believe me, I've seen what she could do. When I joined the Dark Lord's inner circle, that snake scared the hell out of me. I couldn't even look that bloody thing in the eye. She wasn't normal."

"She was a Horcrux?"

Draco's eyes widened. "How did you - "

"You told me, remember? When I first asked you about Neville?"

"Oh," the stormy expression in Draco's eyes seemed to clear. "Right. You're right, Nagini was a Horcrux and she couldn't be killed unless she was stabbed by a special weapon. I'll tell you more about that someday, Granger."

Hermione smiled. She was glad that she could at least remember all the events that happened after Draco had found her. But her smile soon faded and her grip on Draco's fingers tightened. "The thing is," she started haltingly, "I'm not sure if I can join the Order and fight alongside them. I'm not even sure if I want to."

His eyebrows rose.

"All the fight has gone out of me, Draco." She let out a forlorn sigh and shook her head. "I'm afraid I'm just not a tenacious Gryffindor anymore."

"That's because you've spent way too much time with us," came a familiar voice behind her. Theo strode into the room and summoned an apple from the nearby shelf. He took a hearty bite of the fruit and grinned at Hermione. "You're one of us now. A cowardly Slytherin. But you know, that's what keeps us alive during a war."

She raised her eyebrows and turned back to Draco, who had a smirk playing on his lips.

"Theo's right," Draco readily agreed. "Sometimes, clever cowardice supersedes dumb bravery."

"In other words, Slytherin trumps Gryffin-fucking-dor," Theo interjected merrily.

In spite of her worries, Hermione couldn't help but laugh. Theo left and the kitchen was silent again. She looked at Draco. There was an unusually soft expression in his eyes as he stared at her.

"You don't have to join the Order if you don't want to, Granger," he said simply, and she felt her lips tug up into a smile. "Even though the four of us are defecting, and even if it all goes well - I don't think we'll ever properly be part of the Order. And, if you want, you can just stay with us."

Hermione instantly felt all the fears that weighed down on her dissipate. "I'm staying with you," she breathed quickly, her smile widening and eyes crinkling at the corners as she stared up at him. "Definitely. No questions asked."