Docile and Dangerous
BY: Kibou32
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Summary: AU Draco Malfoy met Helena Potter at the Hogwarts Express, the Girl-Who-Lived made such an impression on him that baffles him all through his first three years at Hogwarts. It is in the summer of his fifth year that he realizes why he's so enamored with a half-blood like her.
Warnings: Female Harry. Mentions of Lust, passion, etc.
Author's Notes: There is no pairing as of yet. I'm still not sure
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Dramatic Operations
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Helena Potter was young and so unsurprisingly Slytherin that even his godfather wondered why the girl hadn't become one. He was Draco Malfoy and at the not so tender age of fifteen, he realized he was deeply enamored with her. He had met her first on the Hogwarts train – and even from afar he could tell she was gorgeous. Sure, she wore glasses that didn't go with her face quite well and her hair was black, disheveled and short; something that no girl wanted to have, in his opinion at least.
It was interesting to find out though, that even though every instinct in him recognized her as his equal, she went not to Slytherin as he expected – and not to Gryffindor as he had wanted not to happen – but to Ravenclaw. The whole student body of Hogwarts – including the professors – went quiet.
Later on, he'd wonder why she didn't become Slytherin.
:-:
Helena Potter was fifteen today. Sirius had told her that for her safety she was required to stay at the Dursley's for a week. She understood it to mean that despite the whole debacle of the Tri-wizard tournament, she was probably safer in a non-magical place. That didn't mean that she was alone. Whilst her muggle relatives hated anything to do with magic, her aunt was forgiving enough that she would not hesitate to make her niece happy even at the cost of her husband's disapproval. So this was why, her Ravenclaw friend Patil Padma and her Slytherin friend Millicent Bullstrode came over to stay for the week with her.
"Why is your cousin so ugly?" – Millicent said sneering at the blond teenager making google eyes at Padma.
Helena rolled her eyes.
"They spoiled him rotten when he was a child and now he's like this due to that." – She explained.
"Hey… I was wondering something…" – Padma said.
"Yeah?" – Helena asked suddenly suspicious. Padma wasn't giggly like her twin Parvati, but she did like boys in a non-giggly way, so she knew this new tactic of hers was meant to make her admit something.
"Well… It's about Granger. She looked really good out there at the Yule Ball? And I was wondering why does she act more civilized towards you now than before?"
Helena relaxed momentarily.
"I helped her out with her make-up. After that, we have spent time at the library talking and then… well you know the rest."
"No, we don't know the rest. That's why we're asking you. But suit yourself; we'll get the answers sooner or later."
"Are we doing it at the summer's end or not?" – Millicent asked looking quite crossed that Helena was getting 'soft' around Hermione Granger.
Helena immediately perked up and said…
"Yes! I've already picked up the necessary materials and have gotten – albeit an illegally made one – portkey to Avalon."
Padma grinned and said:
"So? What are we waiting for? Let's get to the brewing part already."
Millicent just scowled at her.
"What?" – Padma said as she looked at the scowling girl sitting up in front of her.
"There's a problem." – Helena said.
"Well? What is it?"
"As we tested ourselves on the last week of class – even before that horrid development in June – our magic isn't as compatible as we thought. Due to having that stupid horcrux in me, we need another person with light magic to balance the ritual."
"Oh no!" – Padma cried out as she made sense of what her petite friend was telling her.
"Yes. It can't be your sister because your energy is alike and will not work. It can't be bloody Pansy Parkinson because she's a dark witch and will only unbalance the ritual even more." – Millicent pointed out whilst cracking her knuckles one by one. Anyone who knew her, knew she only did this when she was agitated.
"It's Granger. You buttered her up so that you'd use her sometime soon. Clever little snake, you are." – Millicent said looking pensive now that she knew Helena hadn't gotten chummy with the know-it-all Gryffindor girl for virtually any reason.
Helena blew a raspberry at her comment and said…
"I got her phone number and I called her before you two arrived here. But of course I haven't told her about the ritual. If she says no, we'll have to talk to Fleur Delacour. She might do it if only because I saved her little sister on the second task."
Padma grimaced at that.
"Hopefully it won't come to that."
"Hopefully" – both Millicent and Helena echoed softly.
:-:
Hermione Granger was ecstatic to find a studious and very smart girl friend in Helena Potter – the girl who lived – and was bursting at the seams when she called through the telephone to ask her if she could spend the weekend at her place. She gave her the directions – in code and only because of Voldemort's return (which she did understand and believe her) – to her aunt's house and her mother drove her over in silence.
When they were about three blocks away from Helena's house, Mrs. Granger stopped the car and parked.
"Mom?"
"Hermione… this girl… she isn't going to hurt you is she?"
Hermione bit her lip and thought long and hard about it. Helena Jamie Potter was shrewd and sly like a snake. She was soft and warm like a kitten purring away at its loved one and she was tricky and mischievous as a fox. She remembered the tears that swam in her green eyes when she came back from the third task carrying Cedric Diggory's dead body to the rest of them. Her robes were ragged and torn in so many different places that it almost seemed indecent. Her face was tired and there was so much sorrow on the way her lips wobbled and the way her eyes shone with the effort not to let the tears fall.
Hermione knew that she knew next to nothing about her, except what she heard from the Weasley twins and Ginny Weasley say about her. Or what Parvati always said about how she was such a snob.
But she also knew that when Helena had saved her from the troll on her first year, Hermione was enchanted with her. That they didn't become friends easily, she hated it. But that she now had the option of being one made her elated and excited. And she reasoned that there was the possibility that she might get hurt, but that she had to try at least once to see if they could be friends. And besides… she was a Gryffindor not a quitter.
"She might. But I can't base my life on might have beens mom. I have to accept that to get something worthwhile – like her friendship – I have to give a little to get some back."
She looked at her mother and was surprised to see her smiling back at her instead of frowning as she thought she'd be.
"Just as long as you understand that everyone is human and can make mistakes, then I'm happy enough to take you there. You know that if you feel bad at any given point in time, you can call me through the phone and I'll come pick you up, right?"
Hermione nodded and smiled when her mom finally got the car moving again.
:-:
She didn't know what to expect when she met the Dursleys. The son was obese and leering at her, even if she wasn't even supposed to notice that. The husband was as obese as the son and the wife was as skinny as the two men in her family were not. She wondered why Helena wasn't like them at all.
"Thank you for letting me stay over, Mrs. Dursley." – she said quietly.
Petunia Dursley smiled gently and led her to Helena's room where she proceeded to knock and said when the door opened to Helena's green probing eyes.
"We're going to go out for dinner, Vernon has left you money for pizza, ok? Don't go to sleep so late."
"Thanks Auntie."
It was surreal.
When she noticed the other occupants of the room she whipped her wand out only to have it been taken away by Helena herself.
"Now now, there's no need to be hasty. Millicent here isn't going to hurt you. Right?"
"But… but…" – she stuttered.
"Don't be an idiot Granger. We can't do magic in this house. Your parents may let you do as you please at your own place, but you can't do anything like that here. This house is warded against wand waving."
Hermione blushed at the sermon coming from one Padma Patil's mouth.
"Padma, please." – Helena pleaded.
"Oh… I knew I was right in jinxing it." – she heard Padma say and she was confused.
"Wait. Let's wait until the Dursleys' leave. Then we'll talk." – Helena said because she knew Hermione could very well answer in their favor if they didn't rush the situation at hand.
They waited ten minutes before they heard the car rolling away from Privet drive.
"Ok. Granger, I'm calling a truce. Neither of us here will hex you if you don't try to do so either. Helena has all of our wands in custody, so if you are violent toward us, let it be known we'll retaliate just as fiercely as you'd do to us if we'd start first."
"Agreed." – she said once she had time to reason the conditions of the truce. It was only fair.
"I invited you over for the weekend – not to do homework as we'd already done it long before I called you over – but for another different issue. I'd like us to be friends."
Hermione was floored.
"I want us to be friends too!" – she babbled outright and blushed when Millicent snorted at the eager tone in her voice.
"Then please grant me an unbreakable vow of silence."
Hermione thought about it long and hard and then said she'd agree to at least that.
"You know of the stories circulating Helena's popularity, right?" – Padma said starting the roll.
"Yeah?"
"They commended her to be the girl-who-lived because she survived the killing curse given to her by Voldemort and in the process – somehow and we don't know why – killed him out of a body." – Padma went on although she had some difficulty in speaking the Dark Lord's name now that he was back.
Hermione nodded. This was the story circulating in every sort of book there was about the end of Voldemort.
"The things that they don't tell you are that there's a bloody prophecy going on that stirred old Moldypants into trying to kill Helena here." – Millicent said.
"Moldypants?" – Padma said looking incredulous at her friend.
"What? Do you know how dangerous it is to invoke his name now that he's alive again?"
"Moldypants it is." – Helena said in the end bringing the argument to a close before it even began.
"A prophecy?" – Hermione asked confused.
"Yeah. So there is this part where it says that neither can die while the other one lives. We figured why he was trying so hard to make things go back to what they were before Helena eradicated his body. Why didn't he stay dead after being killed? It's because the stupid idiot meddled with very dark magic, called horcruxes. They are inanimate objects that hold a fragment of a soul. Helena here has one on her forehead." – Millicent said looking angry about the fact.
"Horcruxes? Are they not illegal? I read about them when Ginny told me of what happened in the Chamber of Secrets."
The other two girls looked at her weirdly.
"What? I'm not the only one who likes Helena a lot." – she said blushing a little at saying she liked Helena.
Millicent looked at Padma intently for a second. The silent communication going on gave Hermione the creeps. Padma finally nodded so Millicent sighed and then said to Helena.
"'Lena, tell her the rest."
"Professor Dumbledore is a snake."
"What?"
"I meant that in the figurative sense. When my parents' died, I was supposed to go live with any other people that mom and dad put up in their will – which was never read thanks to his manipulations."
Hermione tried to process this. On the one hand, she felt angry at her newly made friend for saying such lies about her favorite person, the headmaster of the school. On the other hand, she understood several things in the way the headmaster tried to use the girl in front of her. There was something fishy going on in here, more than just the idea that the headmaster was playing with the lives of several people at once.
"Go on. I'm all ears."
:-:
That night – after eating pizza and playing with things with the other three girls – Hermione wondered about things.
"So… onto more productive conversations…" – Padma started saying before she was elbowed by the taller and stockier girl.
"Ow! Milli!"
"Pad', don't." – Helena said.
"C'mon! I want to know 'bout her and Krum!"
"Viktor?" – Hermione asked confused as to what they would like to know about.
"Oh no! Don't encourage her Granger." – Millicent growled out.
"It's Hermione, Millicent." – Hermione said a bit exasperatedly.
"Nice! I knew you weren't just a bookworm after all." – Padma said.
"Hermione, Pad here wants to know if you're in a relationship with Krum." – Helena cleared the situation – again! – and Hermione wondered if she was always playing the peacemaker with them.
Hermione shook her head and decided to tell the truth about Viktor.
After awhile, she asked Helena if she had been in a relationship with Diggory before he died. She didn't regret asking since she thought it only fair if she did.
"No. He was dating Cho at the time. But he did tell me about the clue for the second task – even though I had already figured it out – and led me to the Prefects bathroom to try it out. Mind, he was rightfully handsome and I... I liked him a bit. But not to the extent that everyone seems to believe I did, which made me really angry, when Dumbledore said I couldn't go to his funeral. It really sucked."
Hermione nodded understanding the pain of not being in control of your own life. Then she thought, but there must have been some way in fixing things.
"You've found a way… haven't you? To be rid of both men's influence in your life?"
The trio of girls looked at one another and said…
"Yeah, we have. It's an old ritual made by Morgana Le Fay herself." – Padma said quietly.
"It invokes the rites of very old protective magic. It's the way covens of witches were made back then." – Millicent added.
"What does it entail?" – Hermione asked curious to know about it and thinking she knew that they'd be asking her to participate in it soon.
"It takes place in the hidden forest of Avalon. The ritual will force the horcrux in me to be expelled and kill it with protective magic. It has to be done at a point where it is between the equinox and the summer's solstice, which thankfully coincides with my fifteenth birthday."
"And?"
"We'd tell you the specifics, but…" – Padma drew it out.
"If you want me to agree to it, I've to know what it entails. All of it."
"Sensible." – Millicent said with a bit of awe in her voice.
"Thanks." – Hermione said not really understanding whether or not that was a compliment or a curse.
"One, you have to be naked. Two, the magical consequences of doing this the wrong way is tremendously dour. Three, we all have to trust each other equally. Four, you have to shave off all your pubic hair. And I mean all of it. Five, you may not have intercourse with a boy until I do – which will probably not happen until my sixteenth birthday if I've anything to do with it – and six, once you're part of our coven, you can't part from it unless you die." – Helena said in the end.
Hermione's mouth was a small surprised 'o'.
They went to sleep a little no more later than that. Hermione thought about the ritual more than anything else, and her sleep was troubled. But in the wee hours of the morning, her promise to her mother came back to her and she nodded decisively to herself. She'd do it. She was on the verge of something great and she'd be damned if she didn't take it now when it was being offered to her.