"Do you think I wanted this?! Do you think I wanted to be ridiculed for something I can't controll!? Do you really fucking think I wanted this stupid magic?! Because I didn't ask for it. I sure as hell did NOT ask for this."
This was a scene that nobody wanted to walk in on. The final straw snapping. The girl with the frizzy hair yelling at the boy with a vicious smirk. There was no holding back this time.
"All of you stupid wizards are the same! You all call me a fucking know it all but I work my ass off to cast these spells! Did you know that I fainted after the first day? Because my body IS weaker than yours. Because my blood isn't strong enough to handle the magic. I am fucking inferior to you. But I'll be damned if I let you win."
The blonde man tried to say something, anything to make her stop. He was seriously regretting calling her a mudblood again. All he had wanted was some fun. Not a psychotic break.
"You want my blood to be muddy? You want to see how inferior I really am!? I've been taking potions since first fucking year, all so that I can cast Wingardium Leviosa. I have been deteriorating, every fucking muggle born has! Because our blood isn't good enough for magic. You want to know where mudblood came from?"
Had the frizzy haired girl been facing the boy, she would have seen him shake his head, his eyes wide.
"All those potions we take, it messes with us. They make our blood thicker. More like the mud you believe it really is. But trust me. My blood is as red as yours. I can show you if you want. I've proven it to myself before. Oh yes. Since the first time you called me a mudblood, I've been proving it to myself. Your dear old Auntie proved it too. She spilt my bright red blood all over your floor didn't she."
The frizzy haired girl had a new tone of voice. Taunting, something she had picked from years of listening to the smirking boy. Those years had given her the only shield she had left. Sarcasm and spite.
"I bet you were devastated. Seeing that my blood is red. Not brown like you must have actually thought. Did you go and sit on the floor. Did you cry like a little boy? Did you question what daddy told you? I bet you did. I bet you moped around for a day. You asked dear old Daddy why he lied. Why wasn't my blood the mud you thought it was?"
Any other day, the smirking boy would have attacked the girl. But today, he was scared. He was questioning his ideas. He had come up the Astronomy tower with the goal of antagonizing this girl. Now, she was standing on the rail of the balcony. Walking back and forth, wobbeling. Her wand was out, and her arms were flying, emphasizing her point.
"Let me tell you something. I do not want to be a witch. I do not want these powers. I hate them. They control me. I had to give up my parents because of these powers! MY PARENTS! I TOOK THEIR MEMORIES BECAUSE MY POWERS WOULD KILL THEM! And here I stand, living with that, while they are off, living with out knowing that they had a daughter. A daughter they were proud of. They knew how fucking hard this was on me. And not once did they tell me I had to stay here. They supported me, told me they would love me no matter what. They cared. They took me to see muggle doctors when I had break downs. Because as much as you don't want to admit it, they could help me. They could tell me how to cope with the pressure of having to help save YOUR world. A world that even now, I don't belong in. A world I will never belong in."
The smirking boy smirked no more. He was scared, scared for the girl who he hated. No, he was not having a sudden change of heart. He still hated this girl. But he was scared because it is human nature. Human nature to be scared for someone who looks crazy. To fear for their life when they look and see another human being walking on a literal edge. A misstep from falling to their death. That's all this boy could see. He may have gone through the same war as the frizzy haired girl, but he had never seen someone die.
"You want to know something else? I hate everything about this life I'm living. I hate how the words jump off the pages at me when I read. I hate how the spells I cast to be part of your world drain me. I hate how people see me as the disgusting mudblood or the best friend of the wizarding saviour. Well guess what!? He couldn't have done it alone. But me? I'll never get that credit. I'll never be given any credit for saving Harry all those times. For helping him. I don't get that. Because I'm a FUCKING MUDBLOOD!"
That was the breaking point for him. He spoke up for the first time since calling her a mudblood. He looked at her, and he acted seriously for the first time in his years of knowing her. He looked at this girl, who fought one of the strongest wizards in history when she was still legally a child. She went on the run, and apparently, erased her parents memories of her. No matter how cold hearted he was, he was still human.
"Come off the ledge Hermione. You need to come off the ledge and then, I don't know, punch me again. You need to think. Even if you don't want to be the smartest witch of our age, you are. You are smart. You are not the girl who gets mad, gets upset and falls off the astronomy tower. So you need to relax. And please get off the ledge."
The last sentence made the girl freeze. Why was this boy, this evil rotten boy, saying please. To her. Why was he asking her not to jump. What was wrong? She looked to him, and though she was not met with warm eyes that invited her down, she was met with steely resolution to not let her die. And she laughed. Oh, she laughed like the maniac who carved her burden into her arm. She laughed like the madman who escaped jail to save her best friend. She laughed like she had finally caved into all the potions in her body, and all the pressure on her shoulders. She laughed.
"You don't care. You just don't want people to think that you killed me, the girl you always hated. Not that I blame you, you are too young, too innocent to rot in jail. But you know what? I think its cute. You think that saying please will bring me down. You think that saying please will erase the memories I have of proving my blood isn't as muddy as you say it is? Because nothing will erase those memories. No spell, no kind words will EVER erase what you did to me. What I did to myself."
Her laughter died down, and suddenly, the grinning boy was looking at his Aunty, with a softer face, and brown curls, but the look in her eyes was the same. And before he knew it, her wand was on her arm, the skin exposed to the moon light, and the saw the faint glow of a spell being cast. And suddenly, it was red. A dripping red, slowly coating the arm of this girl. The girl who chose to repeat a year of school, because that was the only way she would get a good job in his world, saviour of said world or not. This girl, who started out seven years ago, so eager to learn a new way of life. So eager to make friends, and see the world anew. And here she was. Defiling her body, because her new world had defiled her mind, her innocence.
"I'm sorry Hermione. I'm sorry for how this world has treated you. I may hate you, but the rest of this world should love you. They should be falling at your feet. Worshiping you. You deserve that. No matter how much I hate you and your friends, I can't and won't deny you the credit you deserve. Now give me your wand, and get down from that fucking ledge. Because I will not have boy wonder coming up to me and accusing me of pushing you off. They don't deserve to lose you like this. Weasel-bee already lost his brother, and Potter still isn't over all of the friends he lost. So get off that fucking ledge before I make you."
He did not say it nicely. He did not handle the situation with care. Because he was fed up with her now. She was a hero dammit. And he would not let her die like this. He may not care about her. Hell, he hated her more than anything. But if she died, then his world would be turned upside down. This was the girl that everyone thought was stronger than nails. That everyone looked at and thought that nothing could ever break her. But they would never know just how wrong they were. They would never understand just how broken she was. And he didn't want to know. But he did. And he had to do something about it. Because the boy with the smirk is human. And he was watching another human kill herself.
She looked at him. And stopped. He was being normal again. Swearing at her. She dropped her wand. And went silent. It was eerily calm all of a sudden. Her laughter had died, and all you could hear was her blood dripping to the stones below her. Then it hit her. What she had just done. She looked down at her arm, and arm that had been clean for months, and started to cry. She stood, tears falling from her eyes without a sound. Then everything went blank.
The school wasn't sure what to do with the news. Draco Malfoy had brought Hermione Granger to the infirmary late at night, when the head boy had found the head girl on the the floor. Somehow, a mirror had broken, and the glass had cut her arm. Some people blamed the head boy. Said it was payback for sending his father to jail. But the head girl's friends sat in silence, and speculated their own theories. That Hermione Granger had been weak. And Draco Malfoy had, for one, been stronger than his family name.
Only the two of them knew what really happened. How the boy who smirked had followed the girl with the frizzy hair to the tower, and thrown insult after insult, until she broke. And how the smirking boy found out just how broken she was.
No, they did not start a friendship. He still insulted her. She still hated him.
No, they did not fall in love. She married Ron. He married Astoria.
But there were days, when the girl with frizzy hair would look at a knife, or her wand, with a gleam in her eye. A gleam that reminded the smirking boy of a crazy aunty. And she would feel a hand on her shoulder. Or eyes staring her down. Because in one simple night, she taught him to care as a human. And in one simple night, he taught her to listen to her self.
Because Hermione Granger may be a know it all, but she did not ask for it. She did not ask for magic in her life. And she did not ask to save the wizarding world. But she did it anyway.
Draco Malfoy did not ask to see a broken Granger. He did not ask to see what his world did to innocent children. He did not ask to save the girl who was never given credit for saving the wizarding world. But he did it anyway.
So when they see each other, 19 years later, they do not tell their children, nor their spouses, what they remembered from that night. Because they did not ask for it. But they got it anyway.