ATONEMENT
Six days from the end of her final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry found Pansy Parkinson sitting demurely in the stands of the Quidditch pitch, watching the Gryffindors and Slytherins fight it out one last time for the House Cup. Neither the beautiful, breezy summer's day nor the impending freedom of a whole summer, and then a whole life, ahead of her could bring her out of her mild depression. Actually, she thought, staring at the green and scarlet blurs zipping hither and thither in the air, it was more like mild antipathy. She found the prospect of an unblemished, carefree summer break boring, and the task of living her life was suddenly daunting, but not quite real. She felt out of sorts recently.
She was fairly certain her boyfriend was cheating on her.
He had been very careful not to show any hint of a hint, of course, of his infidelity. There were no footprints, so to speak; no hard evidence of his treachery, but she knew. She could just tell, when he was sitting next to her, casually lifting his forkful of steak to his mouth and chewing, swallowing, and repeating that he was thinking of someone, and that it wasn't her. In the nearly three years they'd been together, she had never seen him direct that slightly wistful, brooding look at her, or seen it grace his features because of her. No, she was more and more sure every day that he had someone else.
She glanced to her right, surreptitiously. In the next section sat – somehow completely visible through the throngs of people, easily the largest crowd of the year, seeing as this was the last match and all – the insufferably kind-hearted, pretty (if one liked the innocent-and-natural look), bookworm, Gryffindor princess, and Head Girl extraordinaire, Hermione Granger. There had been something different about her recently, too. No longer did she scold first years for talking too loudly in the halls, or give students detentions for running. Somehow the uptight, tempestuous girl had evolved, and in her place sat a woman, worrying her lip as she scanned the skies, fingers twisting the scarlet and gold scarf in her lap.
Pansy wanted to hate her. She truly wished that she could disregard Granger as nothing more than filth, not worthy to be stuck to the bottom of the gummiest, grimiest boot. As much as she was loathe to admit it, however, Pansy held a grudging respect for the other girl. She was too pure to hate, and too kind to sneer at. Pansy had never been one for lying to herself; she knew that she was jealous of Hermione Granger. Jealous of the fact that she had a whole life to live, her own, with endless possibilities ahead of her at every juncture. She was jealous of the fact that her boyfriend was utterly devoted to her; her friends loyal and accepting; her parents loving. Hermione Granger had it all.
And she, Pansy Parkinson? She had nothing.
Suddenly, the crowd roared as one, thunderously breaking the Slytherin's silent reverie. Everyone was standing, cheering, screaming. Pansy stood too, peeking on tip toes over Blaise Zabini's head to see what was happening. It seemed that two players had gone into a long dive, flying neck-and-neck at a ninety degree angle to the ground, clearly chasing after the game-ending Snitch. She wanted to care that Draco Malfoy seemed to be a fraction ahead of Harry Potter in the race for the tiny golden ball, but she couldn't find it within herself.
She looked at Granger again. The girl had gone stark white, her freckles almost comically bright in contrast to the paleness of her face. Her hands had ceased their twisting; now, they were gripping the scarf so hard it appeared as if she would make a rip any moment. She leaned forward on the railing then, the scarf falling forgotten, as she clutched the metal and continued to look horrified as the boys soared nearer and nearer to the hard ground below.
Pansy shifted her gaze back to the air, only to find that the match was over. The Slytherins around her were celebrating wildly, hugging each other with a most undignified manner as they whooped their appreciation for their Seeker, gleefully chanting his name with elated gusto.
She wanted to scream. Didn't they see that this insipid Quidditch game didn't matter? Did they not realize that in less than a week's time they would be back in the real world, with a war, and Voldemort, and familial responsibilities to uphold? They were stuck on the losing side, no matter the outcome, and Pansy couldn't see how anybody managed to forget that.
She envied those poor sods that, though.
Again, almost eerily at the same time, the crowd fell silent, staring down at something on the pitch that Pansy, in the midst of her mental rant, had not noticed. Apparently Draco Malfoy had caught the Snitch, but hadn't moved since.
She caught herself turning full this time, staring hard at Hermione Granger. The girl looked petrified and close to tears. Or in tears. Pansy couldn't be sure. All she knew, with a resounding, almost epiphianic (was that a word? If it wasn't, it should be, she thought) sense of knowing that she had found the reason for the wistful looks and muted sighs.
Hermione Granger was petrified. And terrified. And horrified. All kinds of words ending with '-ified.' Her heart was in her throat, pulsing a rapid beat.
Draco draco draco. Draco draco draco. Draco draco draco.
She felt like she had never been more frightened in her life; her life where she had battled a giant three-headed dog, faced Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and confronted a (she had thought at the time) murderer. She had been sick with a fearful anticipation of the match for days; she had just had this feeling that something bad was going to happen. Something bigger than a few broken bones or injured pride, bigger than anybody could know at the time. It was a queasy presence hidden in her stomach, whispering things to her anxious mind.
She wanted to throw up. Turning to a disappointed Neville and Seamus, she offered a small empathetic smile. "I'm going to, um, go see how Harry is, okay?"
They nodded glumly, but she was already gone, pushing through the people as politely but quickly as possible. Once she was clear of the students who still had not thought to leave the stands now that the match was over, she raced down the rickety stairs, and dashed out to a corner of the field. It was obvious where Draco was: it seemed that the whole Hogwarts faculty was on the field surrounding him in a large circle. She was panting, but close enough to catch snippets of the anxious conversation between the teachers.
"- don't know, he -"
"No, not responding..."
"... Potter-"
She spun around, eyes searching frantically for the other Seeker. Almost immediatey she spotted him, slumped against the entrance to the Gryffindor locker rooms, with the rest of the team huddled around him. A wave of relief crashed over her; some of it was at the fact that he, at least, was unharmed, but most, she was slightly chagrined to note, was for the fact that he could tell her what had happened to Draco. She ran over to him quickly, pausing when she was level with him. He looked battered and worn up close, but she couldn't find it in herself to care overly much.
"Harry," she panted, collapsing against his arm. "What happened?" She tried to make it look like she was worried for him, turning her tear-filled eyes up at him. It appeared to work; his hardened expression softened as he turned to her.
"Dunno," he said softly, obviously not wanting to upset her. "I'm fine, though, Hermione, really. We were, you know, racing for the Snitch, the next thing I know that bastard reaches forward more than I thought was possible and grabs the thing, but he fell off his broom when we were about ten feet from the ground. And then I, er-" He shuffled his feet, looking down. "I tried to stop it, honestly, but I accidentally flew into him, sort of landed on his head, and he's out cold, apparently..."
She was horrified. "Harry, how could you?" She felt tears renew the dripping down her face, overcome with fear and appalled at Harry. She knew he would've been able to swerve out of the way; she had seen him do it with less than five feet to the ground- it was because it was Malfoy that he allowed himself to crash into the ground, possibly further injuring the blond.
"Hermione," he protested weakly, "I couldn't stop-" But she was shaking her head disgustedly and turned away, towards the increasing throng of people surrounding Draco. "Where are you going?" Harry asked quickly, snatching at her arm.
She glanced back at him frostily. "I am going to check on the Head Boy, Harry," she said, her voice strangely devoid of deflection or emotion. He flinched. She shook his grip off and jogged over to join the crowd of worried onlookers. "Professor," she said, tapping McGonagall on the shoulder. The older witch turned, grim-faced, to Hermione, whose heart nearly stopped beating at the expression. "P-professor, Draco Malfoy, is he-?"
"He is being looked at by Madam Pomfrey," Professor McGonagall said crisply, glancing back to where, Hermione could see through a gap, Madam Pomfrey was kneeling beside an unconscious Draco, waving her wand over him and frowning. Seeing the girl's crumpled expression, she kindly patted her shoulder. "There's nothing we can do but wait, Miss Granger," she offered sympathetically.
When Pansy saw the Muggleborn witch run down from the Gryffindor stands, she was furious. When she found the bushy headed witch threading her way over to Potter, then creating a path through, likely, all the teachers, she was beyond furious; she was livid. Suddenly, all of her previous apathy was gone, to be replaced by insurmountable anger. How dare Granger steal her boyfriend, her best friend, her future husband, for God's sake? Throughout her whole life, Draco Malfoy had been the one person who was always there for her. Not always willingly, and not as much as she might've wanted, but he had been there. Dependable in the fact that she coudn't depend on him for anything except his being ever-present wherever she went. He was comforting. He was steadying. And no, apparently, he was fucking the person she had always felt, somehow, less than. He had betrayed her. He had shown her that she would never be enough.
And, although none of them knew it, this was the beginning.
The night after the tumultuous Quidditch match that ended in the unconsciousness of one Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Seeker and ferret arsehole, Hermione Granger could be found seated next to a small bed at the very end of the Hospital Wing, at two thirty-seven in the morning, after Madam Pomfrey completed her night rounds at one and plenty before the nurse roused herself promptly at five thirty.
She lightly fingered the stark white, thin sheets as a prostrate boy snored on as if completely unaware that she was hovering not six inches to his immediate right. Hermione's fingers felt as if they were itching to smooth the blond fringe from his forehead, but she restrained herself with the knowledge that if she did so, he would awaken, and really, she thought with a small smile, he needed as much sleep as possible. People healing from injuries always did; she knew from experience: her own, Harry's, and Ron's injuries and accidents throughout the years had taught her a few things. She shifted her legs underneath the practical nightgown she wore.
Thinking about Harry and Ron always made her uncomfortable, nowadays. She scratched behind her ear, and then moved about on her stool for a more soothing arrangement. They still didn't know, and it tore at her on a daily basis. It wasn't that she felt what she was doing was wrong; rather, she understood with grim reality that the knowledge that she was cheating on Ronald Weasley with Draco Malfoy was something that neither boy, not to mention the whole Wizarding world, would be met with anything by shock and disgust.
Look at that Hermione Granger, they would whisper, that slag. Slept with Draco Malfoy while she was dating Ron Weasley, Harry Potter's best friend. What an ugly cow, I can't see what either saw in her. I hope she knows what a horrible thing she did...
Gods, she did. She does. But still, like an addiction, she can't stop craving Draco Malfoy. She felt imprisoned when stuck in a classroom with him, unable to run her fingers through his silvery hair, or kiss him, or even talk to him. She knew it was wrong to need someone, especially him, this badly but she simply didn't have the will or the courage to stop herself from sneaking out of the Gryffindor Common Room late at night to sit at his bedside while he slept off his injury in the Hospital Wing. There was something about Draco Malfoy that made her mind, usually so adept and staunchly practical, stop working. Perhaps it was just that he made her feel so much more than anyone, and especially Ron, ever could hope to. If wanting that feeling and the person that created it was wrong, then tie her up, because she honestly couldn't ever see giving it up. Either of them.
Although, her haggard mind ruthlessly taunted, she would have to, eventually. Did she actually think that this thing between Draco and herself was something that she could keep? Was she under the very mistaken impression that she wouldn't have to give him up, soon, because um, yeah, Hermione, he's a fucking Death Eater and you're a member of the Order of the Phoenix and dating one of his archenemies. Who cares that he's the most amazing person you've ever met, and that you adore him more completely than you ever thought possible? Certainly not the Wizarding public, certainly not the Order, certainly not Harry and Ron.
Four minutes passed and she did nothing more than uncross and recross her legs and rub at a spot in the crook of her arm and gaze sadly at the sleeping Draco Malfoy. Next thing she knew, her fingers as of their own volition were reaching out, gingerly, to stroke strands of his soft hair from his eyes, which snapped open and a whirlwind of a moment later, he lunged up and caught her wrist.
"Who the fuck-?"
Hermione's heart, which had launched itself somewhere in her esophagus, was slowly calming while she snapped, "I just wanted to make sure your fever had gone down. Honestly, you needn't attack me, Draco."
At her voice, he flopped down onto the pillow with his hands over his eyes and mumbled, "Christ, Granger, I thought you were my father..." He left the sentence hanging, as if the thought of Lucius standing over his bed was too horrible of one to finish. Hermione swallowed.
"How are you?" she asked instead of voicing her more feelings on the matter of his father, leaning forward on the stool.
He peeked an eye out. "Honestly?" Draco's mouth crooked into a smile. "I feel like shite." His visible eye softened as he looked at her. "But I'm getting better. Lay with me, please, love."
She tackled him. Instantly, all of the nerve endings in her body were – magically, it seemed – concentrated on him: the feeling of his taut but hidden muscles underneath her, the sound of his heartbeat pressed against her ear, and the sensation of this man, this man, with her, finally, was staggering. She felt as if she might cry, and pressed her face harder into the hollow where his neck and hard shoulder met.
Draco, too, breathed a long sigh of utter contentment as soon as he felt Hermione against him, despite the fact that she seemed to be resting most of her weight on his stomach. Immediately, instinctively, his arms came up to encircle her waist and pull her closer. A snippet of a song from a popular Muggle group ran through his head randomly, something fuzzy and soft and not at all like anything Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius, heir to the Malfoy fortunes, hater of Mudbloods and House Elves and future Death Eater, would ever be associated with. But that was merely his popular image. It was, in actual fact, the side of him that 99.9% of the Wizarding population saw; only the slender girl currently busy attempting not to cry into his neck saw the other, tiny, .1% of him that wasn't so evil, that enjoyed classic Muggle books and music, and that wasn't the bigoted arse he portrayed himself as to the unsuspecting public, and Pansy.
Hermione made a small choking noise from his collarbone, and his attention returned with a guilty snap. He could hear her muffled voice snivel, "I th—thought you were d, d, dead! Oh my god, Draco... I don't, I can't-" The rest of whatever she was saying dissolved as the dam broke and she burst into tears.
His heart, that long-dormant thing that he'd almost lost, felt a pang. He was fine, really. After he'd regained consciousness on the pitch, he heard dimly the professors around him, and although his eyes were strangely fuzzy and a little crossed, he saw Hermione standing next to McGonagall, and immediately passed back out again from pain. When he was roused the second time, he found himself in the hospital bed, feeling drained and achy, but overall much better than he had the first time. He tried to tell her all this, but she only sobbed louder. Draco cast a nervous look at Madam Pomfrey's office door, and wished he had his wand so he could cast the handy Muffliato spell that Hermione had once inadvertently informed him of when she was on one of her rants about Harry and the Half-Blood Ponce.
"Hermione," he murmured against her ear (he was sure she wouldn't hear him otherwise, over the sound of her crying), "darling, please. I'm quite fine, I was only having you on, now, shhh, love." Now, he knew, because he knew Hermione, that she was crying for a multitude of reasons. Number one, of course, were his injuries which he knew to be much less harmful than she had worked herself up to believe them to be, but she was probably also extremely stressed about other things of various subjects: Weasley, N.E.W.T.s, his, Draco's, future, Pansy, Weasley, the whole secrecy behind their whatever it was, Weasley, Potter, and the bloody Half-Blood Prince, for short.
"I'm alright, it's going to be alright, I'm here," he lulled softly, stroking her hair and the tense muscles of her back. After a few moments of his murmuring and soft touches, he felt her body relax, and the force of her cries subside slightly. After a minute, she was completely motionless, except for the rise and fall of her back.
Then, with a small sniff, she raised her head and looked at him. Her face was blotchy and red, the areas surrounding her eyes swollen. She frowned. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, um, let it all out, all over your shirt." She gestured down to his pajama shirt: a large wet stain was spread from the shoulder to the breast pocket. He stared down at it for a moment, and then looked back up at Hermione, who was worrying her lip, eyes still watery.
Draco wanted to grin at her expression, or kiss her. "That's what I'm here for, though, right?" At this, Hermione's tears began afresh.
"You, you, you- arse!" she said, her voice strained through her tears. "I absolutely hate you!" He reached down, gently, to lift her face. She was quietly whimpering, "I love you, I love you, I love you" as he kissed her eyelids.
When Draco was released from the Hospital Wing two days later, Pansy Parkinson escorted him out and Hermione Granger was nowhere to be seen. Pansy held his hand as he walked, slowly, down the halls towards the Slytherin Common Room, as he was excused from all classes for the week. Apparently Madam Pomfrey thought he was not ill enough to need her care any more, and the only thing that would fully heal the effects of his concussion from the match was rest.
"Draco?"
It was the first thing she'd said to him except, "Good morning" and "How are you feeling?" since before the match. The minute she said his name, Draco Malfoy knew he was fucked.
And he was fucked because he knew that she knew. Somehow Pansy had found out about Hermione.
"I can explain," he said quickly, pausing to turn around.
She was cool, coy. "Explain what, darling?"
He winced. "I know you know about her?"
"About who?" She stood perfectly still, batting her eyelashes and appearing, for all the world, mystified as to what he was talking about. Draco knew her slightly better than the rest of the world, though.
"Don't give me that shite, we've been friends since we were babies, and I can read you like a goddamn book. You know. How?" He was glaring at her now. He had fallen in the trap that, if he'd been careful, he would have realized she'd set. But he had a soft spot for Pansy; he always had. Betrothed since infancy can do that to a person whether they liked it or not, and Draco Malfoy didn't realize how much he let his guard down around her until it was much too late.
Pansy sniffed, scuffing a polished Mary Jane lightly across the stone floor. "What a horrible phrase... Muggle, I assume?" At his misunderstanding look, she clarified. "'Goddamn.' Did Granger teach you that one?"
He looked away. "Fuck it all, Pansy, what do you want from me?"
She laughed then, lightly, and he returned his gaze to her unwillingly. "What do I want?" she repeated. "I want for you to tell me I'm mistaken, Draco. I want you to tell me she doesn't mean anything, and I want you to tell me why. Why Hermione Granger, hmm? Was it the hair?" she added, smirking slightly.
Draco was more still after her questioning, but did not look down. "Look, Pans, I-"
"Save it," she interred, her smirk growing with her hysteria at the situation she found herself in. "Don't fucking bother with the apologies now, Draco Malfoy. I know everything. I know about you and Granger and your pathetic little trysts" - Draco winced - "and I don't give a shit."
"You... don't. You don't?" He pursed his lips, not believing her whilst also feeling extremely guilty. Bugger everything. He and Hermione were truly and royally fucked now. He knew it couldn't continue, and he knew that this was the last day he would ever speak of or to Hermione Granger. For both their sakes.
Pansy smiled sweetly, unlinking her arm from his as they continued their way down to the dungeons. "No, Draco darling, I don't care about your little romp in the mud because soon enough she's going to get what she deserves, and then this mess will all be forgotten."
Draco's blood froze in his veins.
"Don't you dare-"
"Don't I dare? I'll do what I damn well please," Pansy snarled at him, shoving the still-injured and still-weak Draco away from her, cruelly watching as he stumbled and hit the unforgiving stone corridor hard.
He scrambled around on his bum, hands braced behind him as Pansy advanced, looking very much like the snake who finally has the mouse right where she wants him.
She crouched over his prone body, face inches from his as she whispered, "I used to be very ambivalent about my life, Draco. Just a few days ago I couldn't have given a flying arsefuck if I was Avada'd by the Dark Lord himself. But now, " she purred, "you've given me a reason to go on. I will make you regret ever having touched that dishrag bint, and I'll make sure you end up exactly where I used to be: empty."
Draco looked up at her, horror dawning in the pit of his stomach, knowing from the bottom of his gut that she meant every word she said tenfold. His vision was starting to cloud with panic. "D-do whatever you want to me," he spat finally, "but you touch her and I swear Pansy, you'll regret it."
The girl smiled. "I don't think I'm the one who will be regretting their actions at the end of all this, Draco."
She kicked him hard in the stomach and walked away calmly, headed towards the dungeons and the fireplace that would start her plan in motion.