A/N Alright, so I know I really shouldn't be starting a new fiction with Ab Initio floating out there, ends untied (don't worry, dear readers, it will be updated! There will be no abandoning occurring, just be...patient?) But I love the idea of Draco and Hermione, black and white, hate and love, two sides of the same coin. Enjoy and review :)
Salvat Sperantes
Fleeting glances across the Great Hall. Hurried brushes of cloaks in the corridors.
A tilt of the head.
A slant of the eye.
It might not seem like much, but this was the love story of one Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger.
Chapter 1
The War was imminent. The dark knowledge of it hung as a miasma over Hogwarts. Sunlight filtered weakly through the cracks in the clouds. The screech of forks against plates, of benches along polished floors, scraped against raw senses. What minimal chatter that stemmed mostly from the younger years, stopped, as the heavy oaken doors of the Great Hall inched open, creaking slowly.
A lone figure stood there.
Soulless eyes stared out of deep sockets – Seamus Finnegan. Countless pitying eyes followed his as he stumbled blindly to the Gryffindor table. Yesterday his parents had bled out in the streets of Muggle London, the deep, dark red intermingling with the dirt, the filth, dripping slowly down the drains. 'Teen gangs run riot' ran the headlines of Muggle news – if only that blessing had been true.
Teen gangs couldn't have subjected his parents pitilessly to the myriad of curses designed simply for excruciating pain.
Teen gangs wouldn't have gouged out their eyes and fed it to them as they vomited bile and blood.
Teen gangs wouldn't have painstakingly carved the Dark Mark into the pliant, white flesh of their agonised, writhing bodies. No. But Death Eaters would. Just for the fun of it. And Voldemort was allowing free reign to his minions, to indulge, to pillage and to rape. A reward, was his sibilant hiss.
And this was a reward? Hermione's heart lurched as she reached out a gentle hand to Seamus and he shied away like a hurt animal. Blank eyes met hers' as she proffered a plate. His hands were trembling so she took it upon herself to load the plate with scrambled egg piles and a sausage, arranging the face food into a smiley face. She smiled tentatively and offered the plate again.
Automatically he thanked her and said, "Me mum does that." A broken pause. Something in his shuttered eyes cracked with new pain and his voice broke as he corrected – almost involuntarily, it seemed, "Me mum...did that".
Her eyes welled with compassion and a lump rose in her throat. Maybe her sympathy was going to get her killed, perhaps her soft heart had no place in a war, but Merlin damn it, if there was one thing that was going to come out of this War unscathed, she prayed for it to be her humanity.
She was going to be there for them. She had to be strong. Her friends needed her, the big heart, the rationality, the shoulder to cry on.
"Come on", she whispered, voice thick as she ushered him down beside her. Tears filled his big, lost eyes, and he brushed them away with callous hands, desperate to appear strong. Her small hands stilled the motion. She cupped his lean cheeks.
"Crying doesn't make you weak, Seamus. You loved them, and you'll find strength in you love for them." A lingering eternity passed and the first tear was allowed to roll down his cheek.
The first gut wrenching, sob tore silently through his body. His fingers crushed hers' and yet she held on tight. He trembled, mourning his loss into the soft woollen fabric of Hermione's cloak, her arms about his shoulder like a barrier, like a mother as he gave in to the grief.
Others watched on in silence. Many knew what it was like. The dead were innumerable – mothers, father, brothers, sisters...and unerringly the bereft had sought comfort from Hermione Granger. Her well of empathy seemed to never run dry, her strength unflagging. Her pain was masked too well. She was there for everyone, and yet no one was there for her.
And this was how it was.
It really didn't feel like the first day of school, she contemplated, curled up in the resplendent crimson velvet of her armchair.
She'd drawn back the heavy drapes from the massive Head Boy and Girl common room windows, embracing whatever light the grey sky could spare. She fiddled with her badge and wondered who the Head Boy was – an uncharacteristically late Head Boy but Dumbledore had refused to divulge – but she'd find out soon enough at the Sorting Feast tonight when the rest of the school arrived.
Her mind wandered to poor Seamus and her eyes involuntarily welled at the memory of his stricken face. His large body helpless under the onslaught of grief. And it was in rare moments like this that she allowed herself the selfish indulgence of thinking of her parents, their blank eyes as she obliviated them and sent them to Australia.
Her hands grew cold and clammy as she realised that for all intents and purposes, she was an orphan too. No friends and no family.
Ron and Harry had left Hogwarts, searching for the Hallows. She didn't know how long they would last, her brash boys, but she prayed for them every day in the week since they'd left. They wouldn't let her go with them, she remembered. Her fights, her tantrums...she smiled weakly through her tears as she remembered their restraining arms, the palpable love as they explained over and over again that she was too trusting, too gentle – she wouldn't last a day.
It was true, but she'd never conceded to the point.
God, what was with these bloody tears? She had to be strong, she reminded herself, dragging air through her reddened nose. She slapped her cheek to bring herself back to reality and willed herself not to think about Harry, Ron...and her family. There were things to do, things to learn.
Plunging her hand into the pouch she'd enchanted to be bottomless, the rewards of a few moments' searching came to fruition as she struggled to extract a large tome from the confines of the pouch drawstrings. Wandless and Non-Verbal Magic scrolled fancifully across the luxurious leather cover. Yellowed pages wafted with the scent of knowledge as she engrossed herself in theories in the way only, well, Hermione Granger could.
Hours later, she stood before the bathroom mirror and waved her wand silently at her hair – to no discernible effect. Again and again she tried, pointing her wand at her hair, her clothes, and her shoes in turn. To no avail. Merlin, non-verbal magic was hard!
She'd give just about anything right now to blow up the unassuming plant sitting in the corner of the counter if she could do it silently. Failure was not her 'thing'. In frustration, she stowed the book away into her bag and stomped around the Head suite bad temperedly, getting ready for the Feast.
The portrait door opened, she stepped out – and then promptly ran into a much larger body. Her hands grasped the figure's robes as she sought to right her balance. A muffled curse. She glanced up.
"Malfoy?" His lean face was shadowed under the dim torchlight, but the bright, messy platinum of his hair was unmistakable.
"You're Head Boy?" Eyes wide as she breathed the question in shock.
"Surprise." His sardonic baritone twisted with wry inflection.
"Uhm..." she stuttered, her mind blank, lost for the correct words to say. Was it congratulations? Was it cool disdain? Was it –
"Great answer, Granger, but I really must change for the Feast, so kindly remove your hands from my robes". A blush stained her cheeks and she let go with alarming alacrity, over balancing herself in her zealousness. His hand shot out to catch her, the dark sleeve riding up his forearm. Something dark flashed in her peripherals before the sleeve rippled down once more.
She looked up at Malfoy. They'd moved directly under the torch, and the flame light flickered lovingly over his beautiful face, the sharp planes of his aristocratic face, his cruelly sensual lips...and his eyes...Blank. Eyes that were the kind of blank that expected recrimination, disgust, disappointment. The carefully guarded blank that beseeched silently to please just ignore it. Her hands lifted in the soft light.
Blood-red.
Slickly coating her fingers. Dripping down her soft, untainted flesh. She stared at her hands, "Oh, Merlin" she choked. She touched his chest again and it came away with yet more blood. Please no. Please, please no. Incoherent thoughts strung a tightrope across her mind. She grabbed his arm, sliding the soft material over his taut, corded forearm.
Black writhing on white flesh.
The serpentine Dark Mark burned into his pale, pale skin. "Malfoy..." her voice cracked on his name, mouth dry and her throat burning. She looked up, big eyes swimming in sympathy.
His long, long eyelashes swept down to shutter the mercurial silver. "Don't...just don't. Don't look at me like that. Don't bother trying, Granger. Some people just can't...be...fixed."
It's my first Hermione/Draco fic so I'm not sure if I want to continue (I'm not being insecure, I promise LOL)
REVIEW if you want another chapter!
Natalily~