Okay
I couldn't sleep. I stared into the fire of the Slytherin common room as if it would manifest into something other than the flames that were steadily burning the firewood into a dusty charcoal. The rich embers glowed in the warm air, sparking like tiny supernovas before shimmering out into the darkness.
I glanced noncommittally at the clock on the wall.
3:01am.
It was the kind of sleeplessness where I'd tossed and turned, rising at a time when even insomniacs could sleep, a thin sheen of odorless sweat coating my nightshirt. I leaned against the side of an armchair, the light from the cloudless night spilling into the room, dwindling over my arm, intermingling with the glow of the fire until I was illuminated dully in the pre-dawn luster.
3:02am.
I groaned unintelligibly and stood, unable to stay immobile any longer. I wandered out into the corridor; glad I'd had the sense to bring my cloak, and shivered momentarily in the startling cold emanating from the cobblestone walls.
I drifted with no destination through the halls until I found myself unerringly in front of the library doors, one slightly cracked open in invitation. The thought of reading was mildly inviting, more appealing than going back to the common room and waiting unsuccessfully for sleep to envelop me with unconsciousness.
Slipping soundlessly through the door I made my way through the aisles, fingers unthinkingly skimming against various books until my unfocussed eyes were drawn to an unmistakably brighter light gleaming visibly through the shelves of the aisle closest to me.
Irresistibly curious I peered around the corner and found myself staring at a figure sitting cross-legged on the ground, wand lit with a Lumos charm, hair pouring around the pages of an unidentifiable text.
"Granger," I murmured with some semblance of surprise, God knows why, the girl might as well drag her bunk into the library and use a textbook for a pillow.
She looked up from where she was perched on the floor, a pile of books teetering precariously at her feet. I spared a cursory glance at one of the titles and smirked. 'Avada Kedavra: A History of Dark Curses' glinted ominously in gilded font against a black leather cover. The little witch had raided the restricted section and was sitting with a hand-caught-in-the-chocolate-frogs-jar expression on her face.
"Well, well," my voice, still pitched in that same half-surprised, now half-smug murmur, brushed up against her.
"Malfoy…" she quietly hissed, slamming the book shut and practically dropping her wand in an effort to hide her loot of dark and forbidden literature.
"Now, now Granger, no need to look so frazzled, the expression is quite unbecoming on your already plain face," I articulated plainly, unable to keep the grin from sluicing dangerously over my lips, "but it seems you have been up to some after hours reading. What would people say, Hermione Granger, unable to keep her sticky fingers out of the dark arts," I finished tauntingly.
The dull, uneventful evening was suddenly looking up. I almost blessed the insomnia, and then quickly scolded myself internally for my uncensored stupidity. Running into Granger, regardless of how fleetingly amusing it was to make fun of her, was a terrible inconvenience.
"Shut up Malfoy, it's academic curiosity, not research to aid me in the assassination of the Minister of Magic," she grumbled, no longer caught off guard.
"Those are your words Granger, not mine, and tsk, tsk, for you to mention assassination with no prompting whatsoever is quite curious," I baited her relentlessly.
I noted with some internal glee that she looked like she wanted to hit me square in the face. Truthfully, I wouldn't be surprised if she did, it wouldn't have been the first time. More startlingly, I admired that given the chance, she probably would.
Caught by surprise by my own wretched musings, – and attributing the fleeting mixture of admiration and amusement down to sleep deprivation – I leant against the nearest bookcase, watching as she stood up, brushing off the skirt of her uniform, which had visibly creased from her extended position curled on the floor.
"What are you even doing here?" she asked suspiciously and watched in dismay as I took a step closer to her hoard of research, prodding the pile with the toe of my shoe.
Not wanting to give her a truthful answer, I simply ignored her and sat against the opposite shelf that she'd been resting against, pulling an inconspicuous looking book from the rest and noting it had no title.
"No! Don't!" she exclaimed furiously, but it was too late – I probably would have ignored her anyway – and I flipped through it experimentally. The pages let out an almighty screech, shockingly human, a cold wind hurtling at my face from the depths of the spine, and a vague feeling of dread lodged in my throat and seized my voice just before I slammed the thing shut, dropping it, where it lay innocently in my lap, inconspicuous once more.
"What in the name of Merlin was that," I exhaled gruffly, looking warily at the thin novel with weathered looking pages, picking it up and forcing my hands not to shake as I looked at the spine again, taking note this time of what I hadn't seen before, the diminutive title wedged right at the bottom, deceptively blending with the cover.
The words 'Tom Riddle's Victims' stared me blatantly in the face. I hadn't even known such a book existed. I looked to Hermione's face, my own expression a carefully blank mask, an unspoken question.
She said nothing, simply sank to the ground opposite me where I'd found her originally, her appearance irritatingly unapologetic. She'd dropped her wand when I'd opened the book, the light first going dim, then off completely without the touch of her magic igniting it. We sat, nothing but the transiting firelight of the glass-enclosed candles hanging from the shelves above us lighting the expressions on our faces. Her hair fell in wild curls around her face and her eyes staring unnervingly into mine.
"Curiosity, Granger?" I questioned directly, my voice flat, the book still lying in my lap.
She took a deep breath, and I watched her throat convulse, wondering what she would say, finding myself anticipating her response, needing an answer.
I wasn't tired anymore.
"We're in the middle of a war Malfoy," she whispered, then closed her lips resolutely, as if her answer wasn't vague and even more intriguing than her choice of reading.
"Many would disagree with you," I kept my gaze on her face as I spoke, my voice the one cadence, unassuming and flat.
She snorted unattractively.
"Don't be ambivalent you toad, I'm not one of your simpering Slytherin followers," she continued haughtily.
"And I'm not your chubby red head or mister self-righteous King of Gryffindor. I'm not going to give you your desired response just because you expend some of your distasteful bossiness in my presence," I countered starkly.
I watched in satisfaction as my barb caused her to twitch angrily. Riling her up was far more entertaining than sleep. I considered it blind luck that I'd stumbled upon her. Verbally sparring with her was even more therapeutically amusing than watching Crabbe and Goyle flail around the Great Hall for food after they had overslept.
"Careful Granger, you're letting your anger show. Not that I'm not enjoying the steam coming out of your ears, kind of reminiscent of the Hogwarts train actually," I snickered.
"Oh shove it Malfoy, it's not like I don't know what side you're on. The Death Eaters practically have their symbol tattooed on your backside," she huffed heatedly.
I paused, anger seeping through the layers of enjoyment that had been deceptively coating the moment.
"I see you aren't denying it," she concluded triumphantly.
I wondered if she was so sure of herself, why she didn't look more scared. I imagine sitting alone in a room with a Death Eater in the middle of the night wasn't one's first choice of a leisure activity.
She was either ridiculously brave or astoundingly stupid.
I had the unfortunate feeling that it was a combination of both.
"You have no idea what you're talking about Granger, or what my motives are," I sneered.
"So tell me then," she insisted stubbornly.
I paused again for a brief moment. How could I explain it to her? It came down to blood. But it wasn't even blood in my veins, it was a thick, oppressive liquid that denoted a responsibility, a fathomless duty, a legacy.
Why would I even want to explain it to her? I found myself replying regardless.
"Blood," I stated confidently, "of the pure variety," I tacked on at the end, unable to help myself. I watched her face morph from stubbornness to complete disbelief to barely concealed wrath in a matter of seconds. The utter speed in which her face warped and twisted would have been practically comical if I wasn't so impatient to hear her response.
"Blood? That's why you're fighting on his side? You think that constitutes as a worthy reason? I don't know why I was surprised or why I expected any different. That was my mistake. It's just so like you. You're more unintelligent than I first assumed Draco," she whispered fiercely.
Perhaps it was the way she used my name – for the first time that evening – so disdainfully, that incited a cold rage that started in my head and weaved its way through me till it centered, a cold stone in my chest.
Draco.
Part of me, the worst part, wondered what it would sound like if she'd said it in a different tone.
"What gives you the right judge me Granger? I knew you were knee deep in your academic superiority complex, but for some reason I'd always taken for granted that your pervasive intelligence allowed you to take into account other people's perspectives. It has admittedly been my worst and most idiotic mistake. I cannot believe I didn't have the foresight to be intuitive enough to assume that you'd be as pigheaded as every other Gryffindor, with the same ignorant tunnel vision as Potter and Weasley," I verbalized furiously.
She was a muggle. A stupid, dirty blooded fool. What did her opinion matter to me?
"You're still that eleven year old first year boy, blindly following his father, too much of a coward to be his own person," she stated, her hands clenched and her brow furrowed, fury glinting in her eyes.
"And you're still that eleven year old first year girl, grasping desperately onto whatever detestable personality would have you as a friend, too spineless to stand by yourself," I shot back at her contemptuously.
We were at an impasse. The kind we reached constantly whenever we argued, but never quite like this. We stared at each other, unmoving, implacable in both our opinions and our resolve to despise one another. The fatigue that had plagued me earlier on in the common room hit me full force and I suddenly broke eye contact, my eyelids drifting closed as I leaned against the shelf supporting my weight behind me.
"For once Hermione, I'm too tired to fight with you," I said bluntly. I must have been too tired to keep addressing her by her last name too.
I could hear her soft inhale. Time slipped by in infinitesimal milliseconds, our argument hanging ambiguously in the air between us. Our every difference was laid bare in front of us, a perceptible wall I doubted anyone had the capacity to tear down.
"Okay," she whispered quietly.
I looked up, back into her perceptive gaze and for a brief moment, felt utterly defenseless.
"Okay," I replied, almost inaudibly.
Then there was silence.
It was dark and quiet in the library and I wondered fleetingly why neither of us had picked up a wand and lit the aisle more thoroughly.
Despite her claim that I was a coward, I knew I had my own reasons why my wand remained hidden in my cloak.
She just looked so strange in the transient candlelight. The intermittently placed lamps spread faded luminosity across her, sent a burnt red along her cheeks and splayed elusive shadows against her half parted lips.
She wasn't attractive. She wasn't attractive. She wasn't attractive. The mantra repeated itself in my mind, tempered occasionally with the words 'impure' and 'mudblood' and 'Gryffindor'.
She wasn't attractive. Except when she was.
And it made no sense to me that someone that disagreed with me on such an important level, that was so fundamentally different, made me feel so incomprehensible.
"I'm not used to seeing you without your sentries," I said abruptly, completely changing the subject, unable to handle her silence.
"It's late," she whispered simply, eyes clouded, "Ron and Harry are both asleep," she curled her legs beneath her, and I glanced at them, her skin almost translucent against the light of the flickering lamp directly above her head, her dark robe falling gently over her ankles.
Our attempts at civility had been short lived. There was another lengthy pause and I looked away, then back at her, then away again, unable to figure out what to say and rebuking myself for it.
Rendered speechless by a muggle. My father would skin me alive and then use the Cruciatus Curse on me until I could barely remember my own name. But despite all my feelings of discomfort, simply getting up and leaving never crossed my mind.
I glanced at her again and found her looking at me, an aggravated crease marring her smooth forehead. I watched her shift then lean unconsciously closer, her voice low and her breath shifting one of the stubborn curls falling haphazardly against her chin.
"You aren't like them you know," she stated then looked down at her hands, twisting them together, her first sign of nervousness that evening.
"Like who," I asked tiredly.
"The Death Eaters," she murmured.
I thought we had finished with this conversation. I wanted to sigh. Instead I scoffed, then frowned.
"What makes you say that Granger? You've done nothing but imply that we are one in the same," I snarled.
For a minute she stared blankly at me, then a look of resolve cemented onto her face and she stood up, walking forward and standing in front of me as portentously as she was able, suddenly reaching down and extracting the book from my lap. She stepped away and just as quickly tore the book open, releasing the blood curdling screams from within, cries of torture and grief and rage.
There was an instant of shock where the screams drove every sane thought from my mind and I was drowning in them, their pleas and desperation suffocating me. And then I was standing up as well, striding toward her purposefully.
"Damn it!" I practically yelled and tore the book from her hands, throwing it in disgust across the room until it hit a desk ten feet away, slamming shut and falling to the floor with a muted thud.
"What the hell was that Granger," I ground out through clenched teeth.
"You can't listen to the screams, just like I couldn't, just like any good person couldn't," she proclaimed triumphantly, "you pledge your allegiance to him and insist you support his cause, would even fight his battles, but no matter how hard you try Draco, you are nothing like Voldemort," she asserted viciously, using the name of the Dark Lord like it was nothing but a harmless, useless word; using my name like it meant something.
Like I meant something.
I took a step towards her, not sure what the look on my face was, but feeling the swell of something dangerous in the pit of my stomach. However I came across, Hermione seemed unhindered, and took a step closer, bridging the space between us, her voice lowering to a mere thread of sound as she continued to berate me.
"You called me ignorant Malfoy, but you're the ignorant one. I could accept you if you were just Voldemort's arrogant pawn, propagating death and evil. But I hate you, because you're an intelligent young man, consumed with a false sense of duty based on something as uncontrollable as what lies beneath your skin. More, I pity the good part of you, the man you might be if you just stepped away from your father's hold, the non-existent hold of your blood, and opened your eyes," she finished, her eyes rock steady on mine.
She probably anticipated me pulling my wand out and trying to curse her. At the very least she probably expected me to yell, to throw something scathing back at her and walk out. And I'd even exhaled, entirely prepared to do what she expected of me.
But then I'd grabbed her hand and swallowed her gasp with my lips. It lasted for barely a second, and I refused to deign whatever this was as a 'kiss'. The exertion of pressure was nothing but a mechanism to shut her the hell up.
I broke the contact just as quickly as I had initiated it and we stared at each other cautiously as I tried to make myself give up possession of the fingers that were holding tightly onto mine.
"Damn it," I repeated, albeit more breathlessly.
Fear ran through me, all consuming and sharp. I'd heard a muggle saying once; 'blood is thicker than water'. It was one useless catchphrase I had grudgingly related to. Blood was everything to me, it was the reason for my choices, the reason why I had no choices.
The fear wrapped its poisonous fingers around my throat and for one minute, I inextricably felt like the ties blood had on me were overcome, overpowered, by much thicker ties, ties connected directly to her. To Hermione, the one person willing to see beyond what ran in my veins.
Oh God.
For a moment she looked completely unguarded, as unguarded as I felt. And then we simultaneously yanked our hands away and stepped back. Her cheeks were an unnatural shade of pink but she watched me unwaveringly. I resisted the urge to wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. We stood, completely motionless.
"I'm sorry I called you spineless Granger," I said spontaneously, unable to curb my impulse to speak.
I watched her surprise register and then dissipate.
"I'm sorry I called you a coward Malfoy, even though you are one," she smirked, a tempting curvature of her upper lip.
A laugh welled up from my chest, bursting from my lips before I could restrain it. A brief look of shock crossed her face before the blanket of quiet settled once more, her smirk falling away slowly.
Then there was seemingly nothing left to say. The necessity to leave crept up on me slowly, disappointment and excuses to stay hot on its heals. Finally I started edging towards the end of the aisle, trying not to glimpse back at her.
"Draco," she called out and I wouldn't have heard her if I hadn't been hoping she would stop me, "stay awhile?" she asked candidly in her plain, intelligent voice.
I turned around and watched her sink to the ground where I'd first found her as I'd entered the library, looking formidable despite her small stature. Nothing had changed. She was still Hermione Granger and I was still Draco Malfoy. An evening yelling at each other in the library wasn't going to change that.
The naïve git was looking at me like there was hope, like maybe her words had made sense to me. Maybe they had. But I'd rot in Azkaban before I'd admit it to her or anyone else.
It seemed she and I had reached another impossible impasse.
And despite everything, I felt myself nodding and walking back to where we'd spent the last hour. I sat next to her this time, rather than across from her, near enough to hear the sound of fabric brushing fabric and close enough to feel the warmth of her shoulder against mine.
"Okay," she said as if in response to my wordless nod, her head dropping to my shoulder, one of her riotous curls touching the side of my neck.
"Okay," I reiterated and grabbed her small hand again, holding it gently between both of mine.
And in that moment, it was.
End.