HOPE WILL OUT

By Cedari

A/n written for bestskeptic for the dmhgficexchange

Huge thanx go out to my fab betas sandi wandi and derryere!!!!

PART 1

PRESENT: Week beginning the 1st of December

4.10pm

The history of the Gullywarps is complicated, yet at the same time easy. Interesting, yet at the same time stunningly boring. Never-ending but at the same time the shortest read in your life time.

Hermione closed the book in frustration. What a load of claptrap. She picked up the spine of the latest book that had found its way into her tray. Wilfred Ribaldi the third was an idiotic author yet at the same time a completely idiotic author. As she placed it in the bin next to her feet she chuckled at her own joke.

Then he sighed.

And whatever humour she had left in her tired body evaporated at the reminder of his presence. She looked up. He had his right leg crossed over his left with his right arm resting in the junction, in that typical position all men adopted, as if to say, "I'm the king of the castle, bow down and honour me." His face wore a bored expression as he stared at the calendar on the wall. His picture was one of many under the date of December the 1st, but it was the only one that was circled in red pen. She knew what he was waiting for, for that little red line to disappear and transfer itself onto another poor sod. All her charges did that, but he was more awkward than most. He was Draco Malfoy. She didn't know what he did after fleeing the tower that night and she didn't really care. Actually no, cross that. She hoped that he had been thrashed and beaten a couple of times, bashed into a wall and then got his head shoved down a toilet. But then she remembered who she was, "Chief carer of the misguided," the head of all that is fair and understanding. Misguided, the word made her angry every time she saw the gold letters on her door. They weren't misguided. They were cowards of a war long gone, people who didn't have the guts to be one of those really bad guys, but just flirted with it. Dipped one toe in the pool, decided it was too cold and that they were too scared to jump in. The ones the ministry couldn't lock away technically, but kept tabs on, so that people like her had to waste four hours of their life every day making sure that they were okay, and were fully redeemed and so forth. If Hermione had her way she would have placed Malfoy and his ilk into some cold, dank cell and thrown away the key. Had war made her hard, unfeeling? No. But she was hit by its grim reality and it knocked all that sense of idealism and optimism clear out of her head and squashed it under its great, enormous, filthy foot. She was a realist now and proud of it. That's why people like Malfoy made her right eye twitch and her neck tense.

4.30pm

"How's Potter?"

She hadn't heard him speak before. His voice was a notch lower than what she had expected to leave his girly mouth. He was staring at the photo of Harry, Ron and herself that lay in the pride of place on top of her book shelf. Pointing her wand at it, it fell flat on the wood so he couldn't see their smiling faces.

She could practically see the smirk forming on his face.

"Hope he's well."

He was replied with stony silence.

5.00pm

And so an hour passed and that moment that he had been waiting for had finally come. There it was, that red circle had gone and he was free. Without even paying her any attention he got up and made to leave her office. He was barely one foot out when she asked him...

"So how's your flat?"

He had considered lying. But why bother? She had probably handpicked it herself.

"It's a shit hole."

She hadn't looked up to face him and yet he could still see the small smile.

"Excellent."

And then he slammed her office door. Hard.

PAST: 6 years ago

Time seemed to crawl by in his life. One second slowed down to an hour. He remembered a past where it would fly by in a blur of laughs and fun, but that all seemed so long ago. He supposed it was.

He looked up into the grubby mirror that had been haphazardly placed on the wall. His face was barely visible among the smears of grime and god knows what else in this dump. The pub had been his haven for the last couple of hours ever since the weather had turned nasty. He was surprised the bartender had not chucked him out, but checking out the rest of the clientele he supposed he fit in with the pimps touting their prostitutes and the mindless scum who were only to happy to give away their benefit money for the instant gratification on hand.

This was the fifth bathroom visit of the day. He had been alternating between throwing up the entire contents of his stomach and trying to keep it all down. Fuck knows what he had eaten, fucking cheap muggle food. Turning the tap on, he grimaced as yellow-brown water hit the basin. Closing his eyes he cupped the foul liquid in his hands and rinsed his mouth with it, anything to get rid of the bitter taste that coated every surface in his mouth. He nearly gagged when some of it went down his throat by accident. Still spluttering, he slipped down to the floor.

"Run." Snape had said. "Run! I'll be right behind you," he had screamed. So he did. Stumbling over rocks, falling on his hands and knees, picking himself up, doing it again and again. Then when his calf muscles were beginning to burn and his heart on the verge of exploding, he stopped. Then turned around. And then saw that he was alone. Snape wasn't behind him. He was by himself and he didn't know where. He had never been this far out from Hogwarts, not even with his friends. And he had fallen to the ground and cried as he realised how badly his world had cracked around him. Bam. It was like a ton of bricks landing on him. The past year had been terrifying but at the same time exciting, thrilling even. He had been part of the man's game that his father had never really given him an invite to join. But then Voldemort had and he was on a high, initially. Then it waned and ebbed every time something went wrong and then those rare times when everything was going right. But when he came to it, the wand pointing at his headmaster, all he felt was pressure and strain. Heavy and hot, constricting his chest and suffocating his heart with its insistence. Pressure was a cold, hard bitch. And that's all he remembered. The next thing he knew he was running and his life was screwed.

And now here he was crying like a girl on some filthy floor, with the guy pissing in the urinal across the way giving him a queer look.

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