Written for the first round of the iron throne challenge on HPFC by Cheeky Slytherin Lass.
The rules were:-
Must use 5 of the following prompts in a oneshot of 1000 - 2000 words.
1. Character: Padma Patil
2. Pairing: Draco/Astoria
3. Genre: Angst √
4. Word: hollow √
5. Object: telescope √
6. AU: Royalty! AU
7. Rare Pair: Lee/Oliver
8. Dialogue: "I promise, it's important."
9. Emotion: afraid √
10. Quote: "It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope."-Gertrude Stein √
[The ones I have used have been ticked.]
A/N: Based on one of my older oneshots which I have lost somewhere in this mess of papers at home. 'Istina' means 'truth' in Croatian.
Istina
This is the truth.
Hermione doesn't love Malfoy. She is alone and hollow, and maybe she is going through her stash of hidden firewhiskey more quickly than she should but she doesn't love the Slytherin.
The two of them rattle around in the empty hallways of Hogwarts, tapping shoes on the cold stone floor and not looking on the numerous hanging potraits on the walls.
This is the truth.
Ron roams around with Lavender. She watches them with hateful eyes. She doesn't like them. Her rosy lips are always stuck to his freckled chin. Hermione inwardly gags at the sight of them and hates herself for feeling so. It's awkward. It's terrible.
Malfoy is mysterious. He patrols with her, keeps quiet and generally avoids speaking to her. She wonders why. It's too quiet.
This is the truth.
She can't taste food anymore. The only thing that registers on her taste buds is the firewhiskey. It burns.
She never grimaces.
This is the truth.
Hermione is bored. She is afraid, as well, but she has been afraid for so long that she barely even recognises the emotion anymore.
She tries not to think about it anyway. (About how helpless she is - she isn't doing anything.) It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope.
So she is bored, and that is it. She finished reading her textbooks six months ago, and now all that is left for her to do is to patrol the empty corridors, watch Ron and Lavender snogging and throw back endless shots of Firewhiskey.
She starts watching Malfoy.
He looks a little paler than usual. Oh, but Hermione is sure that Malfoy has a few scars under those tailored clothes of his, but he is just as perfectly groomed and coldly lovely as ever.
In fact, she likes to think about finding his scars at night when she is in her bed in the dormitory (with it's oddly glorious red and golden wallpaper). This is the truth.
Hermione does not love Malfoy. She thinks he is attractive, and she really only has one use for him. When she closes her eyes and slides her delicate fingers down-down-down at night, she just as easily thinks of Ron's handsome face, of Viktor's ugly/beautiful body (she associates the gothic monasteries and cathedrals of Rome and France with Viktor - so ugly that he's gorgeous, and that kind of beauty tastes different). Desire is what she makes of it, and desire is not love.
This is the truth.
Desperate people determined not to focus on the circumstances of their lives do strange things.
One night she goes to the Astronomy Tower since she has nothing better to do. She watches the stars through her telescope but grows bored yet again. Hermione brings up her firewhiskey. Malfoy comes up after some time. She hasn't invited him, he has simply followed her after the patrols. He transfigures a quill into a shot glass, slams it on the window sill and stands across from her and her whiskey languidly.
The look in his eyes is anything but languid. It's resigned and bitter, and Hermione knows that he does not love her, either. She is just a Mudblood. But she has grown into a beautiful woman - short, curly hair and pronounced curves, all delicate hands and bony wrists.
So Malfoy wants an excuse, and she will give it to him because she doesn't really care if either of them remembers this in the morning.
She pours him a shot.
Desperate people determined not to focus on the circumstances of their lives do strange things.
This is the truth.
They both remember the night before. They awake in separate beds, and Hermione remembers how he bruised her bony wrists and that he has several scars, one on his hip that she traced with her tongue.
She doesn't know what he thinks about the experience, but they do it again and again and again, until Hermione can draw a map of his scars and connect the dots with a knife.
They're both rather kinky.
This is the truth.
Hermione doesn't love Malfoy. She is seventeen years old, and she never dreamed of love and weddings the way other little girls did - romance and wooing by candlelight. She never thought she would turn out like this, but she would rather guzzle whiskey like water and have drunken sex against the stony walls of the astronomy tower with their clothes still on, with her skirt rucked up and his trousers unzipped and her knickers torn enough for easy access but not enough to fall in separate pieces to her ankles until after. She knows that it is just sex, just fucking - and she likes it that way. She doesn't want Malfoy to love her, and she doesn't want to love him. Loving him would be an exercise in heartbreak.
She's just a Mudblood, after all.
This is the truth.
He is using her for sex. She is using him, too, though, so it never bothers her. They are using each other.
She never stays, after. She never stays and never wants to, and Malfoy never asks her to. She goes to her own room, satisfied and tired, and lies on her back as she sleeps.
She does not curl against the form of a phantom body.
This is the truth.
On nights when she doesn't feel like riding Malfoy's broomstick, she lies in bed and pulls up images of Viktor's ugly/beautiful body, his nimble Seeker's hands and dark eyes. She thinks of movie stars, that boy who lives next door to her parents and one of the waiters at her favourite restsurant . She thinks of Ron's long, deft fingers and the lead singer of her favourite band.
Desire is what she makes it, and sex is not love.
This is the truth.
Hermione does not love Malfoy. She is alone and hollow, and maybe she's going through her stash of Firewhiskey more quickly than she should, but she does not love the Slytherin.
The two of them rattle around in the empty hallways of Hogwarts, tapping shoes on the cold stone floor and not looking on the numerous hanging potraits on the walls.
They lick scars and cunts and cocks at night and sometimes in the middle of the day, and they fuck - they don't make love or sleep together, they fuck.
Hermione does not love Malfoy, and his hiss of "Mudblood" when she sucks him off does not mean anything to her - she knows she is the best he has ever had.
Hermione does not love Malfoy.
This is the truth.