Efferati
Efferati (Latin – Ferocious) is my first Draco/Hermione fanfiction. In fact, it's only my second Harry Potter fanfiction ever. I only got into Harry Potter about three months ago and have been enjoying the world so here is my little dabble. I own nothing. I make no money from it. I just enjoy writing.
I entitled this piece Efferati as I believe both Draco and Hermione are ferocious people. Not necessarily in a negative way, but in the way they approach life. They do it full heartedly, without limit and with passion. I have set this story in a small town on the East Coast of Ireland called Cahore. I have never been to Cahore and what I know is from Google Earth so please forgive anything that is incorrect.
The story takes place three years after the Battle of Hogwarts. Hermione has left England and the Wizarding World to try and piece back the broken shards of her life. She is lost and adrift and it takes an unlikely soul to help her find her way once more.
Rated M for later chapters (although I think Americans call it NC17 -I'm Australian so no idea). This IS Draco/Hermione so if you're not into that don't read! I love to get reviews (who doesn't?) so please tell me what you think! More chapters to come!
It was a grey day. There was no other way to describe it but as grey. Thick grey clouds blanketed the sky, growing increasingly darker as they reached the horizon. They threatened rain. The waves were grey as they broke against the rocky shore. The sand looked grey. The sparse leaves and the patchy trunks of the beach scrub was grey. Even the light seemed grey.
A young woman stood on the breaker wall, gazing out at the swelling waters. The wind whipped up her riot of curls and they blustered around her face. Her eyes were unblinking, fixated on the horizon. It was clear that she was somewhere else, in spirit if not in body. An onlooker would describe her as melancholy. Sad even.
Hermione Granger was melancholy. Her heart longed for something that she would never have again. Something that, if she were honest with herself, had been taken from her at a very young age. For Hermione Granger wasn't your average 20-year-old woman. In fact, she was so far from average that anyone who was not of her world, and some who were, would be shocked to know the things she had seen and experienced.
You see, Hermione Granger was a witch. The brightest witch of her age. A witch who had actively helped to defeat the worst dark wizard her world had ever known. A witch whose best friend had been the Chosen One. A witch who, at the age of 11, had faced evil in the face and defeated it. All of this sounds wonderfully adventurous and exciting but it had left Hermione Granger feeling empty and at a loss as to what to do with her life. The brightest witch of her age with all the wizarding world at her fingertips and she had absolutely no idea what to do with it.
After the Battle of Hogwarts and the defeat of Voldemort Hermione, along with Harry and Ron, had spent the summer teetering between childhood and adulthood. They were still only 17. They hadn't finished school. They were teenagers with their whole lives ahead of them. And yet, they had seen far more than many adults had seen in their entire lives. They had enjoyed a summer free of responsibility, free of danger, free of anything more than sleeping late, eating copious amounts of Molly Weasley's cooking and mucking about. But the summer was tinged with sadness. The loss of Fred, of many others, had left a darkness that could not be lifted or ignored entirely. George Weasley spent untold hours in solitude. Harry, suddenly realising he was no longer destined to die at the hands of the Dark Lord had boomeranged between youthful recklessness and bouts of depression so severe that he left his friends seriously concerned for him. Only Ginny could calm him when he got like that.
Hermione and Ron had explored their blossoming romance. So many years in the making it had been almost awkward to begin with. Neither of them had known what to do, what to say, how to act. Eventually they found their rhythm and that summer allowed them to at long last be together. It had been bittersweet. If Hermione had known that it wouldn't last she might not have given herself to Ron that summer. But hindsight is a wonderful thing.
The summer ended all too quickly for all of them. Molly Weasley had struggled immensely with letting them return to Hogwarts, even though she knew the danger had passed. And for all of them it was difficult to return to the place that had once been home. Everywhere they looked there were memories of loved ones now dead. They were celebrities; more than they had ever been. Not a single student didn't know what had happened, even the first years. Hermione and Ron finally had a full understanding of what Harry had gone through all those years. The stares. The whispers. It was exasperating to say the least.
It had been wonderful to see some of their old teachers. McGonagall, Flitwick, Hagrid. But even Hermione could not deny how hard it was to settle into the role of a student once more. Their year searching for Horcruxes; not having to answer to anyone, no rules, no curfew – these things were hard to obey once back inside the walls of Hogwarts. Of course, none of them had obeyed those rules in their first 6 years of school so it was little wonder that many a blind eye was turned their way. Harder still had been the distance that had grown between Ron and Hermione. Whether it was the memory of his brother's death, or the pressure he now felt to grow up, study and find a future in the wizarding world Ron began to pull away and sink inside himself. He pulled away from both Hermione and Harry. Even Ginny. When finally, he had admitted to Hermione that he didn't want to hurt her anymore. He needed to find himself and be there for his family. Hermione had been heartbroken but understood. And in a way she was relieved.
And so it had been that they had graduated. They had been thrown out into the adult world with knowledge, experience and more ability than many others their age. Harry had immediately started Auror training which had always sat wrong with Hermione. After years of dealing with evil she would have thought he'd want something a bit less stressful. Ron had spent a time working with George at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes before joining Harry in Auror training. Ginny had pursued a Quidditch career. Neville had gone on to become a Professor at Hogwarts.
And then there was Hermione. The brightest witch of her age. A girl with so much potential. A witch with the world at her fingertips. And she had no idea what to do. Seeing her friends happy sparked a small flame inside her. She was glad for them. Glad that they were picking up the pieces and moving on. But she simply couldn't. She didn't have any inkling as to a career she would enjoy. She didn't know if she could stand the tedium of a job that she had to go to every day. Not after all of her adventures. She also wanted to find her parents.
The thought of her parents had been with her for a long time. Her final year at Hogwarts had been haunted by it. It had been her first step after graduating. Apparating to Melbourne, Australia where her parents had moved and starting the lengthy process of restoring their memories. It had been painfully upsetting, seeing her parents and them having no recollection of her. Hermione had had to force herself to go through with it. The temptation to let them be was overwhelming. The Obliviate spell had been powerful. Far too powerful to remove on her own. She had taken her parents back to England, with much persuasion, and had them admitted to St Mungo's. Two years later they were still there, slowly mending.
How she had now found herself in Ireland was another story entirely. The pain of being near her parents was too much to bear. The pain of seeing her friends happily moving on without her was too much to bear. The pain of people's confusion at her impasse in life was too much to bear. So she had sought out somewhere that would bring peace to her troubled mind. Somewhere that only happy memories existed.
So it was that she had found her way to Ireland. She had visited Seamus and met his infamous mother. It had been nice, in a bittersweet sort of way, to see someone she had gone to school with. But her reputation had preceded her and Seamus' mother's innocent questions as to what she was doing with her life soon started to become too much. She'd left them only a few short days after arriving and continued on her way.
Although apparating would have been a far easier means of transport Hermione felt the need to abstain from magic as much as possible. She needed to clear her head and distance herself from that world for a time. She would settle herself to catching busses and trains to get there.
And that was how she found herself in the small town of Cahore. She had come there with her parents as a young child and had fond memories of staying in the holiday park. She could recall walks on the wintery beach; dipping her toes into the Irish Sea. Her father had been more carefree than she'd ever seen him. Her memories were warm and happy. That was why she had been drawn there. It was a place untouched by magic. Untouched by darkness. And she needed that.
Renting a cottage had been easy. She had money and because it was a holiday town and Hermione had arrived in winter the land lord had been desperate to find a tenant. It was a quaint cottage several miles from the town and quite near the beach. Filling her days became the hard part. Although her adventures with Harry and Ron had only been some 3 years prior Hermione was accustomed to being around people. Whether at Hogwarts, or the Burrow there were always people around and very little solitude. Even when you wanted it most. And despite the fact that she had come there specifically for solitude she still craved the companionship of friends. She really was a mess.
She found ways to fill her time. She read; although not at all like she used to. She weeded the small garden and got it ready for finer weather. She went for walks. She spent a lot of time staring out to sea, her mind in another time, another place.
The beach was quaint; as most things in Cahore were. She avoided the main tourist beach and spent considerable time walking along the small patch of sand not far from her doorstep. The waves often swallowed the small strip and she had to settle for standing on the breaker wall as they sprayed her with salty water.
That was where she found herself that day. Watching the tide and the storm roll in. It was hard for her to stop thinking about the fact that England, and home, was not that far over the Irish Sea. She was so close and so far. The icy wind was stinging her ears and she resigned herself to the oncoming storm. She'd have to leave shortly if she wanted to make it back to the cottage dry. Wrapping her coat tightly around her and brushing her curls from her eyes Hermione was about to turn to leave when something caught her eye.
Down on the rocks a black figure was walking. They were too far away for her to make them out clearly but she could tell they were tall and lanky simply by the way they moved. The figure appeared to be throwing rocks into the swelling waves. They didn't seem aware, or to care, that a storm was brewing or that storms came on quickly in these parts. The person was in a dangerous place and one strong wave would knock them clear off the rocks and into the angry seas.
Deciding she had better warn them of danger Hermione quickly walked along the shoreline. The waves were really kicking up and creating a thick mist in the air. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Stopping at the stone wall not 100m from the person Hermione squinted through the misty fog towards them. It appeared to be a young man, although it was hard to tell.
"Be careful!" She called out as a large wave broke on the rocks nearby. The young man, startled, spun around to face her. Although she couldn't make out his face she could tell she had surprised him.
"Sorry to startle you," she yelled over the worsening weather. "But there's a storm coming and you might get knocked in by the waves!" She pointed to the rocks and the growing waves, hoping he understood what she was trying to say. "Storms come in quickly." She finished lamely. There was an awkward silence where the man made no move out of harm's way. She wondered if he had heard her properly. Finally, the young man appeared to nod and turned to walk in the other direction. Hermione sighed knowing that she had done all she could. It was time for her to get home and out of the brewing storm.
It was with great relief that she made it back to her cottage just as the storm really hit. Her clothes were soaked and her hair a tangled mess but at least she hadn't been blown away. Weather like this always reminded her of Quidditch and she smiled at the memory of one particularly nasty Gryffindor/Slytherin match. Stripping out of her soaked clothing she climbed into the shower and turned the heat up high. She lathered her bushy hair with shampoo and conditioner and let the warm water heat her bones. She was finally starting to relax when she heard a banging at the front door. Startled, she shut off the water and listened. There it was again, more urgent this time.
Grabbing a towel and wrapping it around her dripping hair before wrapping another around her body Hermione quickly moved through the cottage towards the front door. She grabbed her wand from the hall stand and held it subtly at her side. Although she had not used much magic since leaving England she was still a witch at heart. And after everything she had gone through she was on alert for danger much of the time.
Another pound on the door brought her to her senses and she swung it open just enough to see through. What, or rather who, she saw there made her mouth drop open in shock.