Chapter 220b: The Elder Wand
So she stared nervously into his bright, jewel-pale grey eyes, and before he could kiss her again, she forced out a question.
"Draco, do you know the story of the Elder Wand? From The Tales of Beedle the Bard—the Tale of the Three Brothers."
Draco stopped kissing her. "I know it," he said, momentarily blank.
He was thoroughly puzzled by the sudden change of subject.
He studied her expression and noticed a flicker of eagerness in her eyes—and something like smug satisfaction, as though she'd discovered something and could hardly wait to show it off.
"So, Draco—do you believe the Deathly Hallows are real?"
Draco's tone turned cautious. "Shh. Most wizards think it's just a legend," he said briefly.
His mind cleared a little, and he stopped thinking only about kissing her; he slowly lowered his hand, his grey eyes searching her face uncertainly.
He'd never told anyone about the Deathly Hallows—had never even had the chance to bring it up with Hermione.
How could he possibly explain it? The subject inevitably led back to Dumbledore's death in his previous life.
His reasoning, plausible as it seemed, rested entirely on the fact that Dumbledore had died.
Under the circumstances, he couldn't tell anyone about the Hallows, nor could he set aside that foundation and still hope to convince her of anything.
"At first, I thought it was just a legend too," Hermione said slowly, walking to the bedside table and picking up a book—Born Noble: The Wizarding Genealogy.
She skillfully flipped to a page and handed the book to Draco.
"But I found the Peverell family's name and crest in here. It's a real family, isn't it, if it's listed in this book? Doesn't that mean they—"
"They might really exist. Quite possibly," Draco replied.
The page looked so familiar; he'd seen it two years ago.
His gaze shifted from the book to Hermione's face.
She'd actually worked it out herself, this clever girl. He couldn't help but smile.
Hermione couldn't help but smile back at his smile.
"That's not all!" she said cheerfully, pointing to a design of vertical lines, a triangle, and a circle. "Look at this mark. Does it look familiar?"
Draco traced the illustration on the page, still smiling, tilting his head to watch her, curious what else she'd found.
"I think," she said, taking a deep breath as though bracing herself, "that the stone set in the ring in Professor Dumbledore's drawer—the one that's been split—might be the Resurrection Stone!"
She'd actually worked that out too? Draco's pupils widened slightly.
He was used to her occasional flashes of brilliance by now, and still, he couldn't help being amazed.
After a long pause, he found his voice. "Hermione, you're not just clever. You're sharp. Frighteningly sharp."
"So you agree with me?" She idly spun his wand between her slender fingers, letting it turn and tumble smoothly.
"Completely." He looked at her as though she were some rare treasure.
"Then I can't help wondering—if the Resurrection Stone really exists, where are the other two Hallows?" Her cheeks flushed again under the weight of his admiring gaze.
She forced herself to push past the shyness and explain her thinking.
"What I mean is—every wand has its own unique pattern and shape, doesn't it? Ollivander said no two wands in the world are exactly alike. If that's true, then the Elder Wand should have a shape that's distinctive—not too hard to recognize, going by the story."
"Yes, you're right," Draco said, his heart pounding.
Had she really guessed that far?
"A few days ago, while I was looking up some Muggle currency at the British Library, I happened to look up what an elder tree looked like, and it struck me as strangely familiar. I'm sure I've seen something like it before," Hermione said.
She turned the smooth, simply carved hawthorn wand over in her hands, trying to gather her thoughts. "I remember Professor Dumbledore used something of a similar shape when he set the Age Line around the Goblet of Fire. Could his wand be made of elder wood?"
"It could." Draco decided there was no point hiding it anymore.
He gave in. There was nothing left to hide from her; she'd already guessed everything.
"I'll admit, I've had similar suspicions myself. But it's only a rumor—I can't be certain," he told her, his eyes agreeing with her guess even as his words stayed cautious.
"Why didn't you talk to me about this sooner?" Hermione seized on the point at once.
She shook her head and pouted. "Draco Malfoy! You're doing it again! Keeping things from me."
Draco felt a flicker of guilt.
He'd known about it for too long. Back then, he hadn't been used to being honest with people. Later, as one complicated thing piled on another, he'd simply never found the opening to tell her.
He tossed the book onto the carpet and flopped back onto the bed with a wounded look.
"Ouch, my head hurts," he groaned.
Hermione stood over him, hands on her hips. "I don't believe you. You always play the victim."
"It's true, it's an enormous bump." He said it in a wheedling voice, doing his best to look sincere.
Hermione gave him a stern glare.
But faced with his puppy-dog eyes, her resolve crumbled, and she pounced on him anyway. "Let me see," she said firmly.
He suppressed a laugh and turned his head to show her.
"It does look a bit swollen," she said, softening. "I'm sorry—are you all right?"
"It's a little sore. Rubbing it might help." He turned his face to the side, breathing in the scent of her sheets, and hid a triumphant little smile.
Merlin, her sheets smelled wonderful—they smelled like her, Draco thought happily.
Hermione sighed, let his head settle in her lap, and rubbed it gently, her voice full of concern.
"Sorry. I got a bit carried away, I was just so happy."
"It's all right," Draco said quickly, taking full advantage of her guilt while she was too distracted to be cross with him.
"I wasn't trying to hide it from you on purpose. I just never found the right moment to talk about it properly." His voice took on a more serious note. "This can't get out, understand? It's far too sensitive. If the Dark Lord ever found out, he'd want it for himself. The fewer people who know, the better."
"I understand. I haven't told anyone—not even Harry." Hermione gently massaged his head, breathing softly over it. "His mind isn't safe yet."
"Is the Occlumency training still not going well?" Draco asked, frowning.
"It's slow going," Hermione said. "He just can't hold Sirius out. Sirius is practically turning his mind inside out looking for the weak spots. It isn't easy for Sirius either—he's a skilled Occlumens, but Harry's memories of his parents keep catching him off guard."
She lowered her voice. "Ginny told me quietly that one day, the two of them ended up hugging and crying for a long time over something they'd found."
"That sounds exhausting," Draco said evenly. "I don't think they can keep dragging it out much longer. School starts in a little over two weeks, and once Harry's back at Hogwarts, he won't be able to practice with Sirius anymore."
"That's what I told Harry too," Hermione said.
"Occlumency is difficult, but for his own safety, he has to learn it. Speaking of which—" Draco rummaged through his pouch and pulled out a book. "You mentioned a few days ago that you wanted to study Occlumency. My family library has a good book on it. I brought it for you."
The hand rubbing his head stopped mid-motion.
"Oh—!" the girl exclaimed joyfully, snatching up the thick volume and turning it over in her hands.
Draco looked up at her expression and decided Hermione Granger never looked lovelier than when she'd just discovered a new book.
Her eyes lit up, shining with a thirst for knowledge.
"Oh dear, what am I supposed to do?" He couldn't hide his amusement, his tone deliberately tinged with mock hurt. "Turns out I'm not as likable as a book."
"How could that be?" Hermione carefully set the book on the bedside table, then went back to stroking his hair, saying sweetly, "You're the most lovable person there is—I love you the most."
Her favorite boy, come to see her with her favorite book, lying obediently while she ran her fingers through his hair—could anything be more perfect than that?
"Now you're talking," Draco said lazily, as pleased as a tyrant on his throne.
He watched her happy, relaxed expression and thought to himself:
All this over a book?
If someone handed her the entire Malfoy library, would she fall for him on the spot?
Would she never want to leave him again? He smiled faintly, his eyes glinting with an odd fascination as he watched her.
Hermione was briefly caught off guard by his expression.
She bent down and pressed a light, sweet kiss to his forehead.
Who could resist that look of his?
Draco was overjoyed.
He felt light as a feather. He'd never known he could enjoy having his hair stroked this much, or that a gentle kiss on the forehead could make him feel so loved.
She seemed to cherish him so completely—as if she truly, deeply loved him.
She'd told him she loved him once, though she'd been drunk at the time.
He longed to hear it again—sober, this time—but she never said it.
Fortunately, she was never stingy about telling him she "liked" him.
Draco Malfoy was so easily satisfied that hearing her say "I like it" was enough to make him feel like he was floating.
That alone was enough to melt away every ounce of fatigue from the past few days.
Under her gentle touch, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
"Oh, Draco, you're always throwing things on the carpet. How can you just leave books lying around like that? You have no sense of order at all." He heard her softly scolding him.
He felt her stroking his hair with one hand, and heard her murmur a Summoning Charm, no doubt to fetch the book he'd tossed on the carpet—Born Noble: The Wizarding Family Tree.
It seemed to land on the bedside table.
It struck the book he'd brought her, and the two collided with a soft clatter.
"Mm," he said lazily, without even opening his eyes. "I'll be more careful next time."
Hermione shook her head, exasperated.
She twirled the wand in her hand, meaning to tuck it into her pocket, when she suddenly realized something was wrong.
This was his wand—not hers. Her own wand was still by the window.
And yet, oddly, for a moment, she'd genuinely thought it was hers.
It was so smooth.
So obedient to her.
It never seemed to resist her at all.
That was strange. She could cast any spell with it just as easily—the Summoning Charm a moment ago, or anything else.
She suddenly remembered that afternoon at the end of the school year, when she'd gone to him with the beetle Rita Skeeter had turned into. He'd Transfigured a squirrel, and she'd used the hawthorn wand to reverse it.
Reversing a Transfiguration was always difficult, requiring skill, precision, and a good deal of finesse.
It was hard to manage a clean reversal with a wand that wasn't suited to you.
Ron, for instance, could never quite satisfy Professor McGonagall using his brother Charlie's old wand, while Neville almost always turned the potion in his cauldron into a lump of leftover bubble gum when he tried using his father's old wand.
And reversing a spell was more difficult still than casting one.
That kind of smoothness—that seamless fluidity—was something she should only ever feel with her own wand.
Hermione had touched someone else's wand once before. The night before summer holidays, getting up to use the bathroom, she'd mistakenly picked up Lavender's wand from the bedside table in the girls' dormitory.
She'd tried the simplest Wand-Lighting Charm and hadn't managed it very well.
That was the moment she'd first understood what Draco meant about the feeling of "wearing shoes that don't fit."
So why didn't this feel wrong?
Hermione stared at Draco's hawthorn wand in surprise, suddenly looking a little lost.
She stopped stroking his hair.
"What's wrong?" he asked drowsily, mildly put out at being ignored.
"Draco, there's a small problem." Hermione's voice trembled slightly. "I think there might be something wrong with your wand. It—it seems to be too obedient to me."
"What do you mean?" He finally opened his eyes.
"It's so easy for me to use. It doesn't resist me at all. It's like it understands me—just like my vine wood wand," she said, unsettled. "It's every bit as obedient as the wand that chose me."
"Oh—" Draco sat up, surprised, and looked at his wand in Hermione's hand.
It did look strangely at home there.
But the implications of that troubled him.
Was it planning to switch allegiances? So much for a loyal wand—did it have no shame at all, trying to get close to Hermione like this?
It'll just have to wait its turn, Draco thought, glaring at his own wand.
"Is that normal? Didn't you once tell me, 'You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who can wield your magic as smoothly, or understand your wand as well as you do'?" Hermione said. "So what's happening now? Should we be worried?"
"I don't know," Draco said, puzzled.
He suddenly remembered the question of "winning" a wand, something he'd pondered not long after his rebirth.
Four years had passed, and the matter had stayed buried in the back of his mind.
He'd never found the right moment to ask Ollivander more about it.
"Hermione, there's a saying that a wand can be 'won,'" Draco said slowly, frowning. "Though I don't know exactly how it works."
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, startled. "Did I 'win' your wand somehow? Is it mine now? Won't it obey you anymore?"
"I'm not sure. May I?" Draco took the wand from her hand and waved it toward the ceiling, and a dazzling, intricate map of stars bloomed above them.
"But you see, it still answers to me, just as gently as before," he said.
"That's a relief." Hermione knew how much he treasured that wand.
"By the way, what does 'winning' a wand actually mean? Taking it straight from someone's hand? Or does it need magic—like a Disarming Charm?" she wondered.
"No, I think it has to be something more extreme," Draco said. "Do you know how the Elder Wand is supposed to change hands? Through killing. Some say you have to kill its previous owner to win it."
Not long ago, he'd accompanied his grandfather to visit a wandmaker in Paris. After a few drinks, the old man had loosened up and, in a joking tone, answered Draco's carefully placed questions.
"There's a rumor in the trade that Gregorovitch has the famous Elder Wand tucked away in his collection, though he'll never admit it. He always claims it was stolen. I don't believe a word of it—he's covering something up. I just wonder who he had to kill to get it…" the old man had said, his words slurred with drink.
Draco relayed the story to Hermione, drawing a gasp from her.
"That's barbaric!" she said, aghast. "It's just a wand—people would really kill for it?"
"The Elder Wand has plenty of blood on it. You don't have to look far to find that out," Draco said, unbothered.
Hermione sighed.
"But I didn't hurt you, did I?" she asked nervously. "You're perfectly fine."
"I am." He comforted her, pinching her scrunched-up cheek. "Don't look so gloomy. Smile. I'm fine."
"But what exactly did I do to it?" She eyed the wand warily, not daring to touch it again.
"That really is a mystery." Draco examined it over and over, finding it exactly as it had always been.
After a moment's thought, Hermione said, "It can't be the Disarming Charm—back in Dueling Club, everyone disarmed everyone else, and nobody's wand ever stopped working afterward."
"True," Draco agreed.
"And simply taking it doesn't seem right either," she said. "I've taken Lavender's wand by mistake before, remember—and it wasn't very easy to use at the time."
"I can imagine," Draco said.
"Try mine." Hermione dashed over to fetch her vine wood wand from the windowsill and pressed it into his hand. "Take my wand and see."
"Are you sure?" Draco hesitated. "What if—"
"Let's just try it. Call it an experiment," Hermione said eagerly.
Draco took the wand and ran his fingers along its vine-patterned grip, feeling an odd sense of familiarity.
"The pattern's lovely," he said, unable to help himself.
Hermione smiled, looking rather pleased with herself.
"Try a spell," she said, lifting her chin like a spoiled little queen.
"What spell?" he asked lazily.
"Any spell." A flicker of anticipation crossed her face.
Draco cast one, and a flock of chirping little robins burst into being, circling them both.
"How was it?" she asked softly.
"Very smooth." He hesitated a moment before adding, "Just like my own wand."
"Oh, so now you have two obedient wands?" Hermione's eyes widened. She took back her wand, waved it, and made the birds vanish.
No hesitation, no resistance—perfectly clean.
They looked at each other and saw the same word written in each other's eyes: impossible.
"This is far too strange." Hermione picked up both wands and studied them in the light from the window.
"Something's off. How can this be? It's as though our wands answer to both of us equally." She looked at him, puzzled. "Are they broken? Should we ask Ollivander when we get the chance? I don't want to take your wand for myself—I know how much you treasure it."
"That's one option. We can ask the wandmaker sometime," Draco said thoughtfully. "He can tell who a wand truly belongs to. Ask him, and we'll have our answer."
"That's really the only way." Hermione stared at the two wands, deeply puzzled.
Draco gazed at her in silence, his mind just as full of questions as hers.