"It doesn't have to be this way." The voice the greeted his ear was low and soft. It purred into his ear, and made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The heat from her breath made him shiver and he wished more than anything that he could see who it was. The only comfort he had was that it was someone familiar. Her voice sounded like someone he had heard a thousand times, but was unsure of who. No matter the repeated amount of times he searched his brain for the answer, it never came to him. It was pointless anyway, anyone it may have been he hadn't spoken to in over a year since he left school. "You aren't in a position to resist. Just work with us. With me."
"C-can…Can you uncover my eyes?" He licked his bottom lip, still swollen from the beating he had taken earlier. He heard a shift in fabric and then a sigh.
"No. I don't think that would be a good idea. You might get angry, you might start fighting us again." She sighed again and shifted from foot to foot, feeling awkward standing in front of him.
"I won't, I swear. Anything, please." He hated to result to begging, but without his sight, he felt vulnerable and uneasy. Not that he wouldn't feel that way anyway, but this heightened the feeling.
"I..I don't think.." There was a huff of air. "You'll be unhappy if I touch you. But I'm the only one who was willing to come in here and talk to you, Malfoy."
"What do you mean?" His breath caught as he tried even harder to figure out who it was.
"No one wanted to speak with you. No one wanted you to be given a chance, or a way out, or anything like that. Everyone just wanted you dead. Bu-but, I couldn't live with that. I couldn't live anyone doing the exact thing we're fighting. I don't like you, Malfoy, but I wasn't willing to let anyone murder you. If I hadn't said anything…" She was quiet and the sadness was thick in her voice. Not as though she was going to cry, but like she had been awake for a very long time thinking about very sad things. She sounded exhausted.
It hit him like a ton of bricks, the air in his lungs was trapped and he started to panic. She could do whatever she wanted to him. Hit him, kick him, spit on him, and here she was, apparently having spoken for him, keeping him safe. Something he hadn't even attempted for her. Something he hadn't even given her the dignity of having. Instead he had cringed and looked away.
"Granger." He breathed. Her silence confirmed it. He grew even more uncomfortable, and started breathing harder. "Take the blindfold off." There was no movement in front of him, and he began to pull against his restraints, thrashing his head side to side. "Take it off, take it off! Fuck, just take the stupid thing off of me."
"You have to stop thrashing around. I won't do anything if I think you're going to trying something." Immediately all of his movements stopped. He felt her hands shake as she reached around him, the heat radiating off her body, and it stilled him even more. And then suddenly, she was gone, but it was still dark. He realized that his eyes were clenched close, scared of her and what the sight would bring and he felt the want for her to put the blindfold back on, hoping to protect himself from the blow he was about to receive. Slowly he opened his eyes, it took a minute for them to adjust to light that now flooded them.
She looked worse than he remembered. Hermione was covered in a layer of grime, her lips split, swollen and red. She was sporting a black eye, and her hair was singed. Her pants were ripped in the knees (which were just as dirty as her face), and her shirt hung loosely from her tiny frame. Her left arm was wrapped in a bandage and held close to her stomach. It hurt just to look at her, and then he found he could look at her no longer. Her chestnut eyes had pierced his grey ones in a death stare as he took her in and he felt uncomfortable. He had to look away from her, just as he had the last time when she had given him that sad pleading look, begging for him to save her, Hermione Granger, top of their year, kind to everyone, made the enemy because of her blood. The exception this time was that her eyes held no feeling. He felt sick, he felt disgusted, and most of all disgusting.
"You're going to have to work with us. If not, then you get taken into custody, held until the end of all this and into a cell at Azkaban." Hermione spoke. The thought that he could see her was unnerving both of them. He refused to look back at her, instead focusing his eyes on a tiny window on the side wall.
"No." He muttered. "I won't."
"You don't have a choice." She spat. "We'll make you help us one way or another, hexes and curses might be your lot's specialty, but we have ways of persuasion too."
His head hung, eyelids feeling heavy. He just wanted her to leave him alone, tied to the chair and have Harry or Ron come in and teach him a lesson. He wanted anyone but her.
"I can't." It was almost whined. Exasperated and annoyed and sick of this fucking war. "I can't even help the side I'm supposed to be on, let alone all of you. Nor would I want to." His temper flared suddenly. He had grown tired of people always trying to tell him what to do, when to do it and how. Sick of being everyone's fall boy. He didn't want this anymore, he wanted none of it.
"I'm offering you an out." She snapped. "Malfoy, if you did this...if you just bloody sit around and pretend you're helping, they'll spare you, you'll be seen as an asset, not a threat."
"I am a threat, Granger! That's all they'll ever see me as. Before…before, I was just some stupid kid up to his knees in boiling water, and now? Now, I've proven that I am bad, proven that…I…can't even…. ARGH!" He threw his head back and fought the ropes again, swaying from side trying to free himself. "Just let them off me. Just let them have me, put me out of my fucking misery."
Their eyes met again, watching each other attentively. Her jaw set and her eyes grew cold.
"If I have to suffer through this, so do you. I won't, and I wouldn't, give you the dignity of allowing you to die." She turned on her heel and headed out the door, pausing at the doorway. "When you change your mind, just yell." The door clicked closed after her. Draco could hear quiet arguing outside of it, and then a thump and the house went quiet.
Draco stared at the ceiling, replaying all the events trying to figure out where he went wrong, and what had led to this. His arms ached from being pinned behind him, and he desperately wanted to stretch his legs. The only inclination he had of passing time was because of the window as it started to grow dark. He closed his eyes and tried to figure a way out, the last thing he remembered was how empty she had looked.
He inhaled sharply and jerked at the slamming of a door. Hermione was leaning against the wall, frowning at him.
"Sleep well?" She asked politely. He shrugged the best he could. She breathed in deeply, and he watched the rise and fall of her chest. And then she was walking over to him. "I'm willing to work with you, if you're willing to work with me, Malfoy. But you have to meet me halfway."
"What are you doing?" He asked, alarmed and if not a bit frantically as she stepped behind him. He tried to turn his head to look at her, cricking it in the process.
"Taking the first step." There was a distinct loosening around his wrists and he realized that she had cut him loose. She knelt in front of him, and fidgeted with the knots, unsteady hands trying to untie them.
"Here, let me." He muttered leaning down, relaxing as he was able to stretch his back. She sat back on her heels and watched him deftly untie the knots, before she stood. He looked up at her suspiciously as she held out her hand. He grasp it, taking note of how rough it felt, and allowed her to pull him up. He instantly knew why she had offered the hand, as his knees tried to give out and he was forced to grab her for support. Her arm snaked around his waist, helping him find his feet. As soon as she was sure he wouldn't collapse to the ground, she pulled away from him and took three steps back, putting a safe amount of distance from him. Her hand rested where he assumed her wand was sitting for quick access.
"So." Hermione frowned again, trying to decide best what to say. "Will you help us? Or at least humor me, and say you will?"
Draco sighed. "I don't want to, Granger. I don't want any part of this anymore."
"You don't have a choice."
"You keep fucking saying that. I deserve a choice!" He snapped.
"You got one once! Remember? When you had Dumbledore killed? Or did you not choose that, Malfoy?"
"You have no idea what you're on about or what I've had to do. Don't you dare for one second think you have any idea!" He roared. Her wand was out in a heartbeat and he shrunk back from it.
"I know that a stupid boy got a power trip and did some horrible things, and didn't try to correct them no matter his chances to do so."
"No one asked me if it was what I wanted! No one said to me, 'Draco would you like to do this?' It was always 'Do it or we'll kill you, we'll kill your family and anyone who is close to you'. That's not a choice, Granger. But you wouldn't understand because you've never been in that position. Your stupid, muggle family has never been in any danger!" His breathing had increased and he was fighting the desire to scream at her. He tried to level his thinking, and figure out what to say next. Figure out what was right to say next.
"That's bollocks and you know it!" Hermione yelled. "My family has been in just as much threat as yours. You think it's safe running round with the chosen one and his best mate? You think we aren't threatened every single second of everyday? Well you're bloody wrong, Draco Malfoy. And you want to whine about choices? We're giving you a chance to make a choice, to help yourself out, and you won't take it.
"You're so proud of yourself, Malfoy. So bloody proud of the blood that runs through your body that you don't care what happens as long as you're safe. You don't care about anyone but yourself. You've made choices. You can't say you haven't, and you've picked whatever was easiest even if it was at other's expense. "
"There is nothing easy about this war. You know it and I know it. You're bloody right I protected myself, because I'm the only person I can depend on. You think my father would do the things I've done for this family? No! He cares only about himself. Not my mother, nor I. I have to take care of us. I have to make sure we get out alive. Does it make me happy to do the things I've done? Of course not. If things could be different, I would have done them differently, I would have tried to save other people, and I wouldn't have stood around waiting for the change to happen."
"And pray tell Malfoy, would you have tried to save me? Would you have jinxed your Auntie, and stop her from torturing me? Or would you have pretended, it wasn't happing in the middle of your sitting room and stared out the window again?" Her voice dripped heavy with anger and loathing, and just barely, a desperation for him to say what she wanted to hear. They were both breathing heavy, her wand still pointing at him, though her arm was no longer as rigid as it had first been. He found himself so continually struck by how much this wasn't the girl he used to know.
"I don't know what I would have done." It hung harshly in the air.
"I think that…" she seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "I think, you would always be okay with that. Me knowing my place in the world. And now I have a lovely inscription on my arm to remind me of it for the rest of my life. I think that will always be okay with you." She huffed out a laugh. "You know what. I don't even care anymore. I am past having the ability to care, about this, about you, about this goddamn battle we've always been in. I'm tired of everything, and tired of trying to make you see reason. " She pushed a loose piece of hair out of her eyes. "I'm going to leave this room, tell Harry you wouldn't speak to me, and they can fucking deal with you. I tried, and you bit the hand that fed you. I'd say I'm sorry but I'm not."
And once again, he watched the brunette abandon him in the dark room.
