A/N: hello, lovelies. I've decided to do a series of linked oneshots based on dramione. Frankly, I can't tell whether this is going to be a regular occurrence but there we have it. Starting with Chamber of Secrets, and going through the other books as I reread them. Can't say it won't continue on after the books and maybe into a fully-fledged and separate fanfiction but there we go. Title based on the song Granger Danger from A Very Potter Musical. Oneshot inspired by a tumblr post I had seen. Hope you enjoy!
Granger Danger – Fear of the Name…
Flourish and Blotts was filled to the back teeth, so to speak, with the common dirt that fixated themselves with the creepy survivalist explorer extravaganza that is Gilderoy Lockhart. They fawned over him, as if he were a gift to the world from Merlin himself, and he pandered to their need to be wooed and patronised because for some reason it seemed to make them feel special and exceptional. Draco stood bored beside his father, mirroring the expression on that freak Potter's face as he stood next to Lockhart, who was incidentally posing for the Daily Prophet.
As Potty backed away from him, he placed the books that the famous nitwit had dropped in his arms into a small redheaded girl's cauldron. Of course Draco, being who he was, couldn't keep his mouth shut, "Bet you loved that, Potter. Famous Harry Potter, can't even walk into a bookshop without making the front page!"
The small ginger girl spoke up, and what a high pitched voice she had too! "Leave him alone! He didn't want all that!" She frowned, making her pasty skin wrinkle in disgust.
Draco sneered, turning from her back to Potter. "Looks like you've got yourself a girlfriend, Potter!"
His father stepped forward, and immediately Draco zoned out. He respected his father a great deal but Merlin was he a bore sometimes. He suspected that, as usual when talking about Harry Potter, this would be one of those times. Idly, he picked up a book. Most Macabre Monstrosities. He thumbed through the pages, not really paying attention. Vodníci, Jikininki, Manananggal, Leshy… All sorts of weird creatures who's names Draco couldn't quite pronounce and nor did he want to. Something caught his eye, but he'd been going too fast through the book and he had to flick back a few pages to get to it again. Ah, there it is! Basilisk.
The Basilisk. He'd heard his father speak of it with his mother earlier this summer, a plan, something to do with a chamber of some sorts. And something about a diary? He wasn't quite sure, but as the page was in front of him, and his father was still droning on to Pottyhead with the Weasels standing by, on edge.
Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.
Interesting. Very interesting. He ripped the page from its place in the book and stuck it in his pocket, feeling it would be useful in the near future. A voice pulled him from his thoughts as he set the book back in its place.
"…only increases fear of the thing itself." Oh he should have known she'd be here with them. Muddy-bloody Granger. Though what she'd said was quite profound, he couldn't allow himself to admire it as it had come from the bucktoothed bookworm's mouth. Just the sight of her made his skin crawl, what with her too-bushy-to-tame mane and her… skin? Huh. Odd. He supposed he'd run out of things to scrutinize about her. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with her skin. It was smooth and clear, which was more than he could say for a great deal of the girls in their year, and even some from the years above him, but nevertheless because it was hers it was automatically horrific to look at. Fucking mudbloods. He was diffident to wonder how many of the scum that dwelled in this shop and currently fluttered around that crock of a man Lockhart were mudbloods and blood-traitors. Disgusting, the lot of them.
"You must be Miss Granger," Lucius uttered brashly towards her. "Draco's told me all about you…" At this, Draco involuntarily blushed, quickly ducking his head to avoid the now rosy colour of his face being seen. "…and your parents. Muggles, aren't you?" Draco's gaze lifted in time to see Granger's parents nod uncertainly. It then shifted to his father, where he could see the distaste on his face.
He zoned out again, unconsciously staring at a certain bushy-haired shouldn't-be though his thoughts were elsewhere. Before Draco knew it he was following his father out of the shop, smirking that Malfoy smirk. Hogwarts would maybe be eventful this year.
It was close to the next Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff that Draco decided enough was enough. It was scary, the risk that he was taking just by going to this school at a time like this. He could be killed! No, it was time that this whole giant snake thing stopped. No one who should get hurt was getting hurt, so what was the point anyway?
He'd been curious enough to already figure out how the basilisk was moving around the castle, and had therefore written it on the page he'd taken from that book in Flourish and Blotts months ago. Pipes. He knew what he had to do.
Draco followed that smart little know-it-all the whole way to the library, careful not to be seen. He slipped in silently after her. The library was empty, save for the two of them, with everyone away to support either one of the two most stupid houses in a pointless match that should have been Slytherin vs Hufflepuff. He slipped past the aisle Granger was currently in, dropping the page about the basilisk for her to find.
The rustle that the page had made when it had fallen to the floor was enough to catch her attention. He ducked behind the books in the next aisle and watched her between the shelves. She bent over to pick the page up and read it, eyes widening as she realised how significant the little scrunched up piece of paper was. Hermione looked around wildly, glancing in all directions to see if anyone had been there to drop it in the first place. Draco ducked out of the way of the gap in the shelf to avoid being seen and he breathed a few nervous sighs of relief. She'd take the page to Potty and together the stinking golden trio would save the day, like they had the year previous.
He left the library with a funny feeling in his stomach.
He hadn't meant for that to happen. In fact, he'd have been happy if he had never found out that it did happen, but word travels fast and eventually news of the Gryffindor's muddiest bookworm's petrification had reached the Slytherin common room. It was Blaise who had approached him, laughing his ass off. Of course Draco had to laugh along, but he couldn't help but feel just a little bit guilty.
Was this his fault? He didn't know, but he didn't want to feel this way. Why should he care? She was a dirty mudblood. She deserved this kind of treatment… But, did she?
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
He wasn't sure where that bit of Shakespeare had come from, he hadn't studied it since he had been tutored at home, but he saw its significance. The blood was all the same. Everyone was the same in the end.
Draco was torn between two different feelings; feeling that it's right to look down on anything but purebloods, and feeling that wrong to treat everyone differently because of something they can't help. He needed to lie down.
As he lay on the sofa at twelve in the morning, eyes closed, he couldn't escape the image of Granger lying in an infirmary bed, petrified as can be. Eyes open, mouth slightly ajar, a look of terror on her features. He wondered what it must have felt like and then chastised himself.
Where were these thoughts coming from? Stupid. Absolutely stupid.
He needed to push them away, needed to clear his thoughts of that eerily pretty but dirty-blooded freak.
He needed help.