Again with the disclaimers: Really don't own it people, do you think I'd be posting it here if I did? UM, NO, I'd be rolling around in my filthy smut money right now if I did own it. And it would be glorious. Or so I imagine .
That's right, I'm apparently spinning out fics lately. This one I'd meant to turn in on time to Granger Enchanted's Death Eater Challenge, but naturally, as I am a huge procrastinator, I missed the deadline. Still, since it's written, I thought it might be fun to put it up anyways. I'd written it as a one shot, but it turned out to be over 10k words, so I'm breaking it up into about four chapters or so. We'll see. Also this is not beta'd but if you beta, and would like to have a crack at it, by all means, e-mail me .
Time Out From The World
His eyes are glistening pale and dangerous. He looks clean cut, despite the dust and coal that swirl around him, flecks of green floo fire lash about him before fading out of existence. This is how he reenters her life again. She recoils in his presence, and yet her posture seems defiant. Little does he know she's seen him, she knows what he can and can't do, better so than himself. Still she worries.
Harry was sore with her. He hadn't wanted to part with the memory, but she insisted, she pleaded with both he and Ron to let her see. She needed to know that even evil had it's own side to goodness too, that for her, Hermione Granger, to say she deserved to live compared to a certain wizard who now stood before her, that's what she needed to know - who belonged truly, who didn't, who she could kill, and who she couldn't.
To see him now, so soon after watching those silvery wisps, those of moments of revelation, she hollowly noted the irony. Even his name should have given her warning that it would be like this, harsh and gutting, but she desperately held on to the knowledge that even names could be deceiving. The night atop the tower showed what he was capable of, and what he wasn't. She just had to believe hard enough, she'd already decided hadn't she?
What Harry didn't know, was how she swayed for a moment before finally deciding that they both were worthy of living, that a boy like she'd known would turn into a man like him – it was utterly mad, but she didn't think he could kill her. She almost believed in that as much as she knew she couldn't kill him.
Ignoring the silent captive, Draco was worried as he paced in front of the silent witch, his the enemy. The Dark Lord had thought him too kind for showing some consideration as to the care of the Mudblood. Potter and Weasley had escaped, leaving her behind. It was too cruel a twist. They had chosen to torture her first, and now she was the first prisoner of the trio. Rotten luck is what it was.
Without saying a word to her still, he moved to his mantel to remind himself of why he had to go through with it. Why he had to duel her to the death. A picture of his mother smiling and waving, an infant in her arms, an innocent version of his earlier self. This is what he needed to remind himself of the dangers in letting Granger live. He had to take her out. He tried to spare her, and he failed.
Only earlier he'd decided he couldn't watch Granger die in front of him, not her. He'd been too weak. He had been outnumbered, not crafty enough, and much too slow to prevent the deaths of those he had to watch crumple into lifelessness, nothing remaining of the person that once was, but a splayed heap of limbs, and limp eye-lids, unseeing whites rolled back in empty heads. That was what they all were reduced to before him. The memory of a Hogwarts teacher being eaten slowly still fresh in his mind. This is what it meant to eat death, and yet he found it stomach turning, hardly mouth-watering. He would never be rabid for the pain and suffering a normal Death Eater would salivate over. Hard as he tried, nothing but revulsion gripped him.
He had to acknowledge that if seeing this particular Mudblood tortured was horrible as it was, it did not compare to the fear of seeing her snuffed right out of existence, to see her a tangled splayed body with no life in it, it was too much. He wasn't ready to see that. Her death would be the signal that the world would actually end with Voldemort steering at the helm.
And for merely suggesting that rather than dispatching her quickly as his Lord wanted to do, but instead planting a seed that she could be used to draw Harry Potter out of hiding, to have him come charging back for her - for that calculated yet neutral suggestion, Draco Malfoy now found himself in duel to the death with the very same Muggle Born. He supposed she deserved to know their fate.
"Thought I'd come see what I was up against, Granger." He said casually, as if life and death were not suspending themselves in the air, intertwining and coiling with the certainty that the two people below them would separate just as violently. One would be the victor, and the other would just become a lifeless corpse, just another of many who had died on Malfoy grounds.
Walking away from the mantel he gave her a once over in the moonlight. She seemed calm if not pained from her earlier injuries. Still he was sure she knew what he meant, she hadn't actually passed out until it was time to move her too his room. The dungeon was out, there had already been a mass exodus there tonight, it would be too easy for them to assume she'd been placed there, assuming they still thought she was alive.
She didn't say a thing. She'd heard before the world went black, before she found herself in what she presumed to be his room, she knew that they were to duel. She remembered hearing Malfoy attempt to bargain her way out of death, and then a faint hiss of the Master as the he proclaimed the terms of the duel.
Since the Malfoy family had failed in the Dark Lord's service twice, but triumphed twice as well, Draco was to now duel with her, to nudge the score in his family's favor if he could best her. If she died before Harry came to rescue her, then her body would be used to send a message. If the she killed Draco then his body would be used to send a message, and Voldemort would hang on to her a little longer, tempting Harry to rescue her from the snake's lair.
She looked away from Draco, and out to the open window. She could do nothing but sit at there shackled to the edge of the bed. Her pain too great, and her soul too tired to do much of anything else. So she sat there silently, waiting for fate to hand her whatever lot she was to be dealt.
He waited a few moments before crossing back into Granger's line of sight. "You don't look fit to fight, so I guess there's very little for me to worry about." Said Draco grimly, his eyes glowing in the moonlight, it was unnerving her. "Pity."
She was annoyed, but sadden. That much was said by the tone of her sigh, the length in which it took her to breathe. It said many things, and yet she refused to utter a single word.
"I hope you'll fight well to the end then." He sighed. She seemed broken somehow, not like the feisty witch he knew her to be. He felt like shite. He hadn't prevented her death, just delayed it by a few measly hours. "I'd like to make a go of looking at least a little convincing. We're to put on a hell of a show you know."
His words were coming too easy from his mouth. As if he was trying to turn off her humanity, to make her into a thing instead of a person. She wouldn't let him; he wouldn't be let off so easy. Even if what he was saying was true, she wouldn't let him walk away from this, not when it could happen differently.
"I can't." She whispered, her voice strained and nearly came out as a hiss, "I'm not fighting you. If I get a wand– " she choked bitterly, tears brimming over to drip hotly into her collar soaking into the hooded jumper she was wearing, "I get a wand, and I'm fighting my way out of here."
He snorted, damn that Gryffindor courage. "And now why would you be wanting to do that, Granger?"
"Don't pretend." She whispered haltingly, "Please don't pretend. I saw you on the tower, in a pensieve." She looked at him with emotion, willing him to comprehend what she was saying, to let down the icy exterior, to know that she meant it. She wouldn't strike out at him.
"I'm glad I was never sorted into the house of the noble and stupid. Let's be real here a minute, shall we? Assume you make good on your promise to let me live, do you really think you'll be getting back a wand that will be allowed to do damage to anything but me?"
"I can override that. I'm really good." She reiterated, shaking her head as the tears fell freely now. "I've had practice making wands not my own work. I'm sure with the will to survive I can override whatever charm they have on it."
"And how do you get past all the Death Eaters alive?" He hissed, his eyes narrowing on hers. "And if you do, you must know I'll be killed anyways. If I don't strike at you I'll still be sentencing myself to death. Face it, Granger, one of us dies tonight."
"I don't believe you will hurt me." Hermione said, her sad eyes fixed on his. "I know you don't want to. I don't blame you for trying to make it simple. But you don't want to do this."
"We all can't play nice forever, Granger. Eventually someone's going to have to make the first move."
"You won't. I know it." Hermione sighed. "Let's not do this. We'll figure something out. There's always another way."
He studied her. She really believed she could walk out of here alive; denial was a powerful tool indeed. He didn't have the luxury. Someone had to handle this, and it fell to him.
"Aw, Mudblood, Granger pities the Death Eater." He mocked her, as if nothing she was saying mattered, because in the end it didn't. "Save yourself the energy of trying to be righteous and good. You'll take me out, believe me, once the instinct kicks in, you can't think of anything else but surviving."
"Is that how it feels, Draco?" Hermione asked quietly.
"Most of the time, yes." He replied, his eyes hard, and unfeeling. What was she playing at in this line of questioning? Was she feeling him out?
"Oh," was all she could say, her voice low – almost broken. The sound of the chains limply clinking only served to make him notice that she had now wrapped her arms around her middle. She was trying not to shake.
"You say that sadly, why is that, why do you sound so resigned?" Draco asked suspiciously. She wouldn't do it. He knew she wouldn't do it, and now he was shocked. He was going to fight an opponent he would do him no harm, she was trying to torment him, that was her plan.
"It just hurts is all." She sighed, another tear spilling over onto her smudge-marked cheek. It rolled down until it fell off her chin, a small pat could be heard throughout the room, such was the silence.
"Failing to comprehend here, Mudblood." Draco said finally, not wanting to believe she wouldn't fight him. "Care to state what you mean?"
"You don't have to use that tone, you know." Came her tired voice, as she resumed her study of the world beyond the window. A world where the moon shone brilliantly for all those condemned to die, as well as those living life happily, blissfully unaware of the events around them. Harry would be worried, and Ron would be blaming himself for not holding onto her more tightly when he had tried to Apparate away with her. Did they see the same skies she did? Clearing her throat she addressed her former classmate, "I'm really tired of hearing that particular name, and it doesn't sound convincing. Not from you." A frown tugging at the corner of her mouth now.
"But it's what you are, isn't it?" Draco snorted, annoyed that Potter and Weasley had managed to fail her so spectacularly.
"Yes, apparently. But don't pretend with me. It makes it worse, and I don't need your cruelty right now. Start thinking of ways to get out of this, we don't have a lot of time. "
"Pretend?" He scoffed outright, "You'd have me pretend you aren't who you are? Do you even get how badly this is going to end for one of us?"
Running his hand through his disheveled hair, he brushed the fringe hanging over back behind his ear. Turning to get a chair behind him, he sat it in front of her. Giving her a scrutinizing once over, he guessed her to be trying to shake his resolve. She could smell his weakness, he was sure of it. He'd expected her to try to talk him into taking them to the Order, promising protection, and into other traitorous type activities that didn't involve killing her. But he wasn't ready for what she happened to be peddling. Mercy that went both ways, that was amusing. She ought to be afraid of him, and yet she wasn't.
"Granger, if your intention is to play a mind game with me, don't flatter yourself. I'm only here to make sure that you'll be ready for the duel. I'm to mend you, and later escort you to the main hall myself."
"That's a wicked twist, Malfoy." Hermione sighed lightly. Realizing how much he'd stuck his neck out for her the first time he'd opened his mouth, she woefully observed, "Didn't realize You-Know-Who still had doubts in your abilities, did you?"
"What, that the Dark Lord makes me feel your death to drive home his point, Granger, or that he thinks I'll end up letting you best me because I'm too weak?" Draco scoffed, grabbing her arm to heal the gash that had torn through her jumper, the white sleeve of her blouse now bloodied, and settled in the raw flesh that bore angry red lashes. He caused her to wince as the cool gush of air ordered the skin to knit itself back together.
"Sharp as ever I see." She sighed dejectedly. "I forgive you. I'm going to try my best to forgive you, and just fight until I'm taken out, if what you say is true."
"So you're really going to let me beat you?" He asked unbelievingly. She was starting to succeed, if it was her strategy to distract him that is. He worked on her shoulder next, mending it, and healing the swelling from being dislocated earlier. This and her ribs, her short shallow breaths only confirmed that they maybe broken, that or they were severely bruised and tender.
Sighing heavily, she whispered, "Make no mistake, I'm going to try to get out of here, but yes, essentially I have no intention of casting an Unforgivable, not at you at least."
Draco didn't say another word. He sat back in his chair to take in the broken young woman before him. Her hope wasn't all gone, but it may as well be. He didn't know what to tell her, but felt a sense of fair play was due her. She didn't seem to understand that if she didn't give it her all she really was going to die.
"Granger, you should know the wand you'll be given is enchanted to only to hurt me. Your magic doesn't harm, or do anything else unless it's directed at me. There's no hope, you have to fight." His voice came coldly, factually, without a hint of remorse. "You have to fight, or you die. It's really that simple."
"Then unless you kill me, I'll do nothing but fight you off." Hermione whispered. He ignored her comment, opting to hold her arm above her head as his wand killed the sharpest pains, dulling the ache in her ribs, healing the bruising he knew to be under her clothes. He didn't have to see them to know that they were there, her wince was more than enough to confirm what was damaged and where.
"You can't keep fighting forever." He said seriously, leaning in to address her again, "Then it will come down to who's the strongest. Are you saying your giving me the power to kill you, to wear you down until you can't duel any longer?"
"Who says I won't have done the same to you?" She droned looking at him unseeingly; the worst of it seemed to be subsiding, but was doing so slowly. He didn't think she was trying to read him, but nevertheless it was making him fidget uncomfortably.
"I mean, what if we save each other?" She asked tonelessly, "I don't think you've killed yet, and you can't want that burden," her voice deepening, stifling a sob, "I mean, not really. I saw you that night, in Harry's memory, in the pensieve, I know." Looking away from him again, her neck straining, she choked out, "You don't have to pretend, because I know! I'd heard the circumstances, but I saw as if I was there, and I know all of it now."
"Well, you'll find some of us have trained up since then, Granger." Draco murmured. He knew she meant to follow through. She'd only keep him at bay, the silly witch wasn't going to try to survive at his expense. Is this is what it was like, to feel helpless?
"You wouldn't even try?" He asked again. Her silence was all he was permitted to know.
She wouldn't look at him again. Checking her over, he healed what injuries plagued her, and left a vial of Pepper Up potion near her hand, she'd probably use it later when he wasn't around. Closing scrapes, healing tender spots that would effect how she moved, he was deliberately thorough.
She didn't say another word, but gazed through the window again. Only his silvery blond hair reflected every so often in the muted light, thus catching her eye. Seeing the glow of the moon unfurl into the room, she noted picture frames, and other reflective things. It seemed trite to notice such shallow surfaces.
Despite her fear, she also held onto her conviction. If she died tonight she was going to have a say, the last bit of her control would be tested, but she would have the last say. She wouldn't fail herself here. Her enemies wouldn't be gaining any satisfaction tonight. They wouldn't force her hand, if death was on her heels, so be it.
He could tell she was willing herself not to cry. Without another word spoken to each other, Draco got up, and left her to her thoughts.
He had a sinking feeling about what he had to do next. And by way of floo again he vanished from her sight. Leaving her to cry in peace, she didn't know if this would be the last time she would ever be able to do so.
Also since I'm working on a few not so angsty stories, I have to say I'm in the mood for angst, so this is my stab at being moody, and dark. lol. Look for the following chapters to be released soon.