Author's Note: I started this fic a year ago next month. I wanted to finish it, release it chapter by chapter before the seventh book was released, for, as this is a DracoHermione fanfiction, I find the circumstances JK left for us at the end of book six displeasing.
Nemo Melior Est is Latin for 'no one is better,' more or less. Equally important, Nemo Melior Est has the mnemonic 'enemy.' (N.M.E.)
You may not understand just yet, but I tend to prove the significance in the fact that Hermione and Draco are enemies- maybe even better off that way.
Feel free to give me a review telling me how often to update.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, any of JK's characters, or the title of this chapter, which belongs to Joyce Carol Oates.
Where are you going, Where have you been?
Rougher than his pillow, for sure.
It was almost a game to him, to guess where he was waking up this morning.
Sometimes he could remember her name, sometimes he could guess her family's income due to the quality of the bedding that was supposed to comfort his promised hangover.
He was pretty sure there was a beetle scurrying through his hair, possibly a hyperactive cricket.
Rolling his back onto what he was now sure was grass, he opened his eyes to the sky, trying to guess the time.
He was below a rotten old tree, a point of impact no lower than fifteen feet above him.
His hand groped for a broom beside him, and sure enough he grasped it, invincibly more protected than the cataclysmic tree that now shadowed his awakening.
He sat up, absorbing his not-so-welcoming surroundings.
A final glance up perfected his anger, it was midday and he had been passed out on the sidewalk of a suburban neighborhood he knew well, not awoken by any nearby curious pedestrian.
Even that would have been better than waking up and discovering his folly alone, when there was no one else to blame.
If one were to hold the fingerprint of a Malfoy against the left griffin (of all the things) of the gate of the abandoned estate not even four meters to his left, one would feel the tumultuous tug at their navel and be immediately transported to the Malfoy manor.
Elaborate, even for a scantily used shortcut.
If his father was sober then he would be scolded for leaving his precious DNA so vulnerable, so close to an access point.
That he didn't even deserve his DNA, for all the pride that he was supposed to bring the family name.
As if hiding in your room is more honorable than crashing your broom into a tree at… three am?
No, the only shameful thing about Malfoy's accident was that this misfortune occurred because some drunken notion occurred to him that he should return home.
Walking in the opposite direction of the scolding griffins he discreetly miniaturized his broomstick and pocketed it, also giving a tug to his crotch, to which he did not care to be discreet. He could be arrested for carrying a fully functional flying broomstick but he had no reason to endure the itch of his balls.
He did not try to remember why he had been returning home at all, for this would prove him to be masochistic, a shameful identify of which he would not tolerate.
Where he had been last night should gladly remain another futile mystery.
What he had done, who he had been with, what kind of substance had he taken advantage of-for not even his father's own inhalants could take advantage of a Malfoy-were not be brought to mind, these acts so detrimental to his dignity.
It was his father that brought shame, and Draco would bring none to himself, should he help it.
For as long as he could retain his own dignity, Malfoy did not care for the pride he was supposed to inherit, for it was far more pleasantly arrogant to find pride in things he had actually accomplished.
The fact that he was a Malfoy should be seen as a hindrance, and his accomplishments should be seen as even more astonishing.
The number one girl in his class was from a middle class family, an only child, and a studious bookworm that had no life.
The fact that he, Draco Malfoy, a playboy whose image does not profit from being a bookworm, could advance himself without effort was all he needed.
He did not excel because he was of noble or pure blood, or because it would bring laudatory terms to his father's vocabulary, but because he simply was Draco, he existed in their fucking world and why not make himself the better man?
Why not take advantage of his potential and beat Granger at her silly game?
Because she tried, and he had other things to do, better things to absorb himself into.
Like the comforting throb of progressive nocturnalism, the ecstasy of good sex and the alcohol that, compromisingly, bored him.
He had no hope that, if he tried to live the way Granger did, he would stand a better chance at finding something, or superficially someone, that interested him.
Granger was passionate about studying, a pastime that Malfoy could never endure.
He was better off waiting for his life's purpose to strike him, while she was busy striking her head against a wall with too many studies.
Of course he was aware of the fact that Hermione had no life, that she had not chosen a career or an interest, for surely there were too many things she was interested in.
Of course he was to know, it was his business to be aware of her success and her distress.
For despite not caring that he was not number one in his studies, a personal vendetta against Hermione Granger was the most interest he even received from his Hogwarts education.
Being her formal enemy was the only identity Malfoy could be sure of that attracted him.
Coming to the end of the street, Malfoy wanted to forget where he could go and close his eyes, spin, and point a direction, if it could only be that immaturely easy, to define his behavior for just one day by the point of a finger.
Instead he turned around, back towards his surely intoxicated father and the sedatives that would welcome him, bond them, quiet their screaming disgust of each other and their reflectively shameful behavior.
He had no need to feel in control, for there was no where he would want to go, at least not sober.
