A/N: I've had this challenge entry lying around in my documents for a while now and thought I'd finally post it. Can't remember the name of the challenge as it was a while ago. Enjoy and review!
I could feel it go down
Bittersweet, I could taste in my mouth
Silver lining the cloud
Oh and I
I wish that I could work it out
-Coldplay, The Hardest Part
i.
When she is sorted into Hufflepuff, in her first year, the only thing she feels is confusion. She had been certain that it would be Slytherin, like her mother and her mother's mother and all the Abbott women before her, so it is a shock when the badge on her robe turns yellow, not green.
She can't understand at first, and it takes her a moment before she can stand up and make her way to the cheering Hufflepuff table where she feels immediately out of place. She has no idea how on earth she is going to survive seven years like this.
Years later, when she watches her sometimes-classmates rub throbbing arms or curse her friends, she feels that maybe, if not belong, she understands.
ii.
If you had asked Draco what her name was, the fair hufflepuff with the whimsical face and the long blonde plaits, he wouldn't have been able to tell you. He would have laughed in your face, flexed his left arm menacingly and made a rude comment about your name, your house, or your blood. He still doesn't know who she is, even after the meeting where his Lord's next victims are decided. It's only afterwards, when he hears the half-blood Macmillan call her name, that he stops.
"Hannah?" he drawls, "You wouldn't be an Abbott, by any chance?"
She turns around and and gives him a curious half-smile.
"Yes," she says, "You wouldn't be a Malfoy, by any chance?"
He is left standing there as she runs laughingly after her friend, and despite knowing her name, he finds himself wondering who she is.
iii.
It is in the middle of Herbology that her life falls to pieces. She knows from the second she sees the professor's face what has happened, and by the time she reaches the Headmaster's office she is too numb to react when he says out loud what she has already heard (because although noone has said anything to her yet their looks speak a thousand words).
One week later, as she stands by her mother's grave amidst a storm of raindrops and hushed voices holding her Great Aunt Amelia's hand, people send her pitying looks and sympathetic smiles but she does not spare them a glance.
Instead, her eyes follow the familiar figure of a haughty Slytherin walk away, and she grips the chain around her neck tightly as waves of anger wash over her.
It is not until her Great Aunt gently touches her shoulder and asks iseverythingallrightdear? that she realises she is crying.
iv.
She does not approach him until two weeks after the attack. She barely acknowledges his existence all that time, and he forgets about her completely (or so he tells himself when he catches himself thinking about her) and he most definitely does not wonder how she is doing (especially not when he sees the obituary in the Daily Prophet the next day).
When she corners him in an empty corridor one night, half-asleep but wide awake (he doesn't know how that is, but she's an oxymoron if there ever was one) and catches his gaze unflinchingly, he stiffens and wills himself not to flinch.
"You knew," she states, as tears stream soundlessly down her face.
He watches her tug on her mother's necklace and cry and he kind of hates himself for it (he doesn't know why), but because he knows that she doesn't need his confirmation or denial (and anyway, Draco Malfoy doesn't do comfort) he turns away coldly and says "You shouldn''t be out after hours, Abbott."
He doesn't turn back until he is sure she is gone, and even then the spot where she stood doesn't seem empty enough.
v.
The next year, when the Carrow reign begins and the DA reassmbles, she feels that maybe there is hope after all. She is creeping around the school one night along with Ginny Weasley and Terry Boot, defacing the walls and floors with slogans and crude messages, when Ginny pauses mid-giggle and her eyes widen.
"Run! Run! Someone's coming!" she whispers frantically, and they set off in an almost silent sprint, tearing down the hallway in a frantic jumble of paint-stained limbs and fear-filled faces. She trips and falls, and even as her companions turn back to help her up, the loud screech of Alecto Carrow echoes down the passage.
Go, she mouths, and they don't think twice. Not a second later she is pulled up roughly by the arm, and a hand scrabbles in her pocket for her wand.
She can't help but think distastefully, as she is being tied and chained to the dungeon wall, that tomorrow's Defence against the Dark Art's lesson will be the most different (and painful) one she will ever attend.
vi.
He thought he knew fear, but when he is called up infront of the class one day and ordered to "teach the worthless rebel a lesson", Draco realises that he knows nothing at all. She stares up at him from the floor where magical ropes bind her and the only thing he can think is her name, overandover- Hannah.
He has no idea what to do, and like a drowning man fighting for air he sends an (almost, not quite- he is Draco Malfoy, after all) pleading look at the Carrow who stands sneering up at him.
"Go on, Malfoy. Or is little Draco too scared to torture the filthy blood traitor?"
She cackles triumphantly when he starts to turn away, and suddenly he knows what to do. Grey eyes meet blue and understanding hangs between them as he lifts his wand.
"Crucio," he says and watches expressionlessly as she writhes in pain, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that this is what victory must feel like.
The sweet taste stays in his mouth long after Alecto claps him on the back congratulatingly and his unhurt victim mouthes a silent Thanks as she is dragged away.
vii.
He is there at the end of the battle when she screams with joy, dancing ecstatically with her friends (the ones his side hasn't managed to kill, anyway). He watches blankly (because despite all that has transpired he is still Draco Malfoy, and he never feels anything- not even envy) as she is lifted up by Longbottom, who laughs as he spins her round and round, surrounded by victory cries.
She catches his eye over her spinner's shoulders and a fleeting look of regret (-and is that pity?) crosses her face, but he is soon forgotten when she is lifted up again, this time by Macmillan whose eyes water as he shouts happily-
"We did it, Hannah! We won!"
And Draco turns bitterly away and-
Yes, he thinks. You did.