Disclaimer: I neither own nor make a profit off of the characters, settings, and events of the Harry Potter universe.
A/N: I'm not dead.
This is a fic I've had dancing around in my head since last year (?) when Half-Blood Prince came out in theaters. It's been a long time. Even longer if you're counting by the last time I uploaded anything on this site. My writing has changed a bit, and probably not for the better. If you find this to be melodramatic and stale, I wouldn't, in the end, be very surprised, but I hope you DO read it at any rate. And please give me feedback about that stuff if you didn't like it.
See, a while ago, I asked for a beta, and I got one, and she was so annoyed with my sentence structure that she never focused on how much anyone would ever actually like it. So feedback. please. Also, please note that while I do have the ending all planned out, the beginning is completely fuzzy to me and I actually have nothing written beyond this chapter and a couple abandoned scraps that don't really fit in anywhere. So if I get the encouragement and inspiration to finish the first few chapters, the last should come very easily.
As for the pairing, just don't ask, and go watch A Very Potter Musical again. I now present:
Lost Until Found: Capter One
When Hermione's curiosity is piqued, she will not stop thinking until she knows all the answers.
She will obsess and chew over something until it is beaten and dead by anyone else's standards, and if there's something she hasn't seen from the beginning, that makes it all the more exciting. Hermione likes puzzles. And that Draco Malfoy is now quickly becoming one.
For five years, he had done all in his power to become the bane of her existence and had only succeeded in becoming the fly on her proverbial windshield—a constant minor annoyance. And that first encounter should have been nothing more or less than that. Their roles had been played for five long years but that didn't stop Hermione from mercilessly beating them down, not when there was a puzzle to be solved.
It is the night before their Christmas holiday when Draco Malfoy catches her alone in a dungeon corridor.
She is closing the door behind her silently, thanking God, Merlin, and all known deities below the muffled sounds of Slughorn's party when she hears footsteps echo through the hall.
He is angry. She sees that much in his stride and in his scowl. He is angry and wants someone to take it out on. His eyes rest on her with a menacing gleam, and purposefully, as though this is perfectly normal (and for them, she supposes it probably is), he waltzes right up to her and gives a sadistic look.
Hermione understands the challenge before he even says anything. And already, she knows she will accept.
Normally she would have done no more than sidestep him and walk away, with her head held high. But Hermione has been tried to her limits once already this evening, and the impending argument makes her blood run hot and her knees shake with nervous, anticipating fury. She is a reasonable and coolheaded young woman, but she needs some catharsis (and she should have seen it then; so did he). Who better to unleash it all upon than the one boy absolutely hell-bent on getting a rise from her? The one so obviously asking for it?
They would quarrel, she decides. And she would win.
"Get out of my way, Mudblood."
"Are your motor skills really so underdeveloped that you can't walk around a standing obstacle?" Her smile is dripping with sarcasm at this point. "You're more incompetent than I thought."
His expression goes from smug to decidedly un-amused in response. She enjoys watching his stately, elitist mask fall to the ground. Times like these are the only ones he puts his real emotions on the surface. Some people see that as a weakness: Hermione knows he is one of those people, and the thought gives her a sick kind of pleasure.
He forces out his reply through barred teeth. "Sooner or later, you know, you're going to have to surrender to your betters, little muggleborn."
She quirks an eyebrow in response, fury rising. "You really are unoriginal, Malfoy, or do you have such a terrible crush on your father that you have to imitate everything he says?" She feels a smirk pulling at her lips as she says it. The insult isn't too eloquently worded, but she knows it will infuriate him more than anything.
Sure enough, she gets a rise out of him, easy. The color rising in his cheeks is faint but there. She watches as his mouth curls into a sneer, and his eyes narrow.
"Well, aren't we witty? But you heard our dear headmaster, didn't you? Ever since the beginning?" his tone changes from sarcastic to malicious, and Hermione looks him in the eye. The sadistic gleam in his eye is gone and in its place is a dark, hooded, tired kind of frustration she has never seen in him before. The smirk falls from her face, and she regards him seriously, cautiously. "The Dark Lord's followers will get into this castle, and when they do, your little comebacks aren't going to save you."
His voice trembles almost imperceptibly on the last word, but Hermione hears it as clearly as if it were yelled in her ear. Her eyes widen as she looks at him, really looks at him and takes it all in: he is shaking. His skin is pale, more pale than she had seen anyone before. his eyes are gaunt, with dark circles underneath, and his pristine, black, tailored clothes are wrinkled, loosely covering his trembling form.
It is almost no surprise to her that Draco Malfoy is scared. But for him to fear his own people, his own family-
He turns up his nose at her when he realizes she is not making any response and moves to leave, shouldering her roughly as he walked past her.
But her next words make him stop. "You're scared." Her voice betrays both amusement and confusion, but it is not a question. Hermione gives a short laugh. "The death eaters are coming to Hogwarts, and you're scared."
She smirks at him when he turns to glare in reply. It falls flat when she notices how the combination of gaunt skin, hollowed eyes, and the creeping hint of a blush make him look more feverish than anything else. She rolls her eyes.
"We'll see who's scared later, Granger." He says it with a barely distinguishable quiver in his voice and stomps off down the corridor, leaving her to bask in her victory, and in the sickening aftershock of her own adrenaline rush. She watches him leave, pulse racing from the conflict and head swimming in what she just learned: the death eaters are coming to Hogwarts, and Draco Malfoy, stuck-up, pure-blooded, pristine Draco Malfoy, is afraid of his own family.
The war weighs heavy on her mind the next morning when Hermione carries her trunk down the steps from gryffindor tower.
She is sluggish and distracted this morning, due to a long night spent contemplating a war she had, for several months, been able to delude herself about. At Hogwarts, she thinks as she takes a break, leaning on her trunk, it is far too easy to believe you are safe. Even with a consistent stream of news from recent attacks in the real world, the castle has the tendency to distract you with books and essays and quidditch and gossip and make you feel sheltered with thick, stone walls and overgrown, dark forests. But Malfoy's admission the night before brought her to a harsh reality. If he had been telling the truth, then the war would not only come straight to them, but soon. As she lay staring out windows the night before, she remembered Katie Bell with a heavy conscience. She had forgotten about what was happening around her.
Taking in a breath, she continues to drag her things down the steps to the entrance hall, to join the hundreds of other students going back to their homes for the holiday break.
The death eaters are coming to Hogwarts. She remembers his face as he said it. Really, she thinks, it was a bit stupid to tell her that just as a threat, to warn her of what he's going to do. If he's even going to do it, she thinks, remembering with a mixture of delight and anxiety exactly how he looked when he said it
...he could have been bluffing, she reminds herself, vaguely, as she tugs her things into a carriage.
But no, Draco has never been that tactful, and always been to prideful, to fake being scared. With that thought, Hermione looks around her, to watch a group of younger students she has never met before join her in her carriage without even a glance towards her. She leans back in her seat, giving a sigh, letting the conversation around her wash over her like water, and letting snowflakes fall on her cheeks and make her shake from the chill.
She looks up at the sky, wondering how soon it will be until the dark mark is stained into the overcast skies above the castle, and frowns. Maybe it was best to let herself doze off than to think like that right now. The people around her don't seem to mind as she closes her eyes.
Fifteen minutes later, she is roused by the abrupt stop of the carriage and opens her eyes slowly to the four students around her getting up out of the carriage, casting half-concerned looks back at her.
"Erm...Herm-eye-knee?" one of the younger girl, says, forcing it out awkwardly. She seemed to be in between, rolling her eyes at her or asking if she was quite alright, and Hermione almost laughed.
Instead, she sits up, looking at the girl, feigning oblivion to her (admittedly) odd behavior. "...What?"
The girl looks around, a bit confused, and then nods and leaves to catch up with her friends. Hermione hops out of her seat just to let them know she's alive, tucking hair behind her ear and taking the handle of her trunk in the other hand, following them slowly past the gates.
They ignore her again. Good.
Hermione smiles. There was something oddly humorous about confused underclassmen, and she was feeling more cheerful as she made her way onto the platform. Hermione took her time, enjoying the silence as another carriage followed further behind with the last couple of students, turning back to look up at the castle, letting the nostalgia fill her up for a moment-
This is when she hears a sigh come from somewhere down the platform. She would not have heard it had it not been near silent outside of the train, but sure enough, one car down, there is another student, standing in front of the train as if to psych himself into it. She unwittingly takes in a breath and holds it as she realizes just who is standing across the platform, and Draco turns his head to look at her.
She is staring. It is awkward. After the previous night, when she had almost cut him open with her last biting insult, she had not expected nor hoped to see him for another two weeks at least. In a single moment, she takes an inventory of every one thing she had noticed the night before: loose clothes, gaunt cheeks, and shadowed eyes with dark circles. He is slouching, good posture thrown to the wind, his hair is ruffled out of its normal flawlessness, and he has a look about him that looks tired in any way someone this young can be tired. She takes it all in with her mouth open, half-heartedly wanting to say something, say sorry, maybe, and whole-heartedly shocked that he is here, even though it is a perfectly normal place for a Hogwarts student to be.
Draco, on the other hand, has the decency to look shocked and embarrassed for a split second before giving her a fierce glare. She averts her eyes, quickly, blushing at the thick tension, coughs awkwardly, watching him retreat into the train.
There is something most-definitely going on with that boy, she decides. Hermione rubs her forehead, sharing a look with the castle one last time, before getting onto the train herself, to look for an empty compartment.
Just as a side note, does anyone else realize how awkwardly this fic abbreviates? I'll try not to use it that often. I LUF you all.
I'll also try not to make bad puns that often either.
-Fishy (aka SoulxConspiracy)