Chapter 3:
Hermione didn't want to do it. But she decided she had no other choice but to visit Professor Trelawney. For all of her faults, she was correct in her telling of the Prophesy between Harry and Voldemort. So, she must have had a little Seer in her. And the books were leaving Hermione with more questions than they answered (typical for such a flimsy subject as Divination, everything was a shade of grey, nothing black and white).
She began to climb the stairs leading up to the Divination classroom after the first class of the day had let out. The students filing past her were seventh year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs and a few smiled widely at her, a few whispered behind hands and a few moved dramatically out of her way. For her part, Hermione stared straight ahead and ignored their gawking.
Luna Lovegood was the last to descend the stairs and she stopped and gave the Gryffindor a genuinely friendly smile. "Hello, Hermione…I didn't know you were taking Divination again."
Hermione shook her head. "I'm not, I just had some questions for Professor Trelawney."
It was then that she noticed the blonde shuffling a deck of oversized cards. "Are those Tarot cards?" she asked curiously.
"We're beginning to move into cartomancy and Professor Trelawney wanted us to compare and contrast the difference between Telling with playing cards and with Tarot cards…they're quite pretty, aren't they?" Luna asked, holding out the deck to show Hermione.
Each card was brightly colored and featured a varying figure and title. They were lovely, she decided. If a bit useless. Luna shuffled them twice more. "Here, pull one and let's see which calls to you."
Hermione pursed her lips and when the deck was presented to her with the faces down and fanned out she went to grab one. "No, Hermione. Run your fingers over them until one speaks to you."
Hermione shuffled impatiently. She had only an hour between classes and Luna was eating up precious time. She humored her, though, as Luna was one of the few people still at Hogwarts that she considered a friend. She used the tips of her fingers to skim the deck, once, twice, thrice. On her third pass a card twitched beneath her touch and Luna smiled distantly. "Pull it and let's have a look."
Hermione slid the card out of the fanned deck and turned it over. VI The Lovers. The card was bathed in bright colors and sported a naked couple at the bottom half and an angel ascending from a cloud over them in the top half. She raised an eyebrow at Luna and shrugged.
"Are you a Gemini, Hermione?" Luna asked, peeking at the card in Hermione's hand.
"No…Virgo."
"Hmmm…is there a lad in your life?" she tried, looking at Hermione with her massive silvery-blue eyes.
Hermione's eyes shot up to hers and her mouth dropped open. Draco was a Gemini, born the fifth of June. Luna smiled a knowing, genuine upturn of the lips. "This is a powerful card…I'd suggest you read up on it a little more. I could lend you my textbook if you'd like."
Hermione nodded dumbly. "Sure…I'll have it to you tomorrow?"
Luna retrieved the book from her bag and tapped the card in her hand, duplicating it. She took the duplicate. "You keep that one. It called to you for a reason. Didn't change the energy of the deck too much."
She spoke of the cards as though they had emotion, as though they had a personality. Hermione scrunched her nose at the thought of something so fanciful. Luna shuffled her deck a few more times. "I've got to be going. I'm supposed to meet Neville in the greenhouses before class."
"Sure. Thank you, Luna," Hermione said as the blonde floated airily down the spiral staircase.
Hermione waited a beat before she nearly ran down the stairs to her room. She had killed half an hour giving into Luna's whimsies, so she tossed her bag down and sat at the desk. She found the page she was in search of quickly:
The Lovers
Card Six of the Major Arcana
Zodiac Correspondence: Gemini
Elemental Correspondence: Air
Planetary Correspondence: Mercury
Upright Presentation: Romantic relationship, harmony, soulmates and kindred spirits, desire, sexual compatibility, shared moral values, choices, attraction, mutual empowerment, [during retrograde] miscommunication
Reversed Presentation: Untrustworthy, imbalance, detachment, loss of love, conflict
Description: A naked couple, representative of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, occupy the bottom half of the card. A flaming tree, with twelve flames representing the twelve zodiacs and symbolic of the fiery passion needed to make a choice and cultivate a relationship, rests behind Adam. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, complete with serpent, rests behind Eve—humanity's greatest folly and a descent into the temptation of carnal pleasure and sensuality. The relationship will begin pure and a strong bond will be forged to withstand all hardships along the way. The Angel of the air is Raphael—symbolic of communication and the foundation of a relationship. The woven grapevines of the archangel's crown are a sign of fertility and sexual health. As with the twins of the zodiacal Gemini, he brings balance and harmony with his blessing over the couple. There will be a powerful marriage of two strongly opposing forces…
The excerpt went on to describe the meaning of the card's placement on a spread and Hermione snapped the book shut. Was this card symbolic of she and Draco? She had drawn it upright and every meaning behind an upright presentation appealed to her with regards to the blond wizard. Mercury was far from retrograde at that moment.
She picked the card up from the desktop and ran her fingers over the drawing, watching as the lovers walked to one another and caught each other in an embrace before retaking their positions and replaying the scene once more. Each aspect of the card held meaning and she knew nothing of it. She dropped her forehead into her hand as she stared at the bright yellows of the card.
The scrying mirror had been a disappointment—she'd placed her trust in it and it had gotten her nowhere. The visions were faulty and unreliable. But there was a reason this card—of the seventy-eight cards that comprised Luna's deck—jumped out at her. Hermione placed Luna's book on the desk and grabbed her Potions book, tucking the card into it like a bookmark as she strode from her room.
As Hermione made her way down to the dungeons for Potions, her head was clouded with thoughts of the meaning behind pulling the card. She wondered when she'd began placing hope into such dalliances. But it was present—a glimmer of hope in her heart.
She strode into the Potions classroom, making a bee line to sit next to Ginny at the table closest the window. In the back opposite corner of the room sat the object of her current dangerous obsession. He was stiff in his chair, his hands folded on the desk before him. Hermione caught Malfoy's eye and she raised the corner of her mouth. He had been exiting the Great Hall as she entered for breakfast, so she knew he had eaten breakfast at least.
Malfoy didn't smile in return, but he did bob one eyebrow in amused salutation. Hermione thought about the theme for the day: Why? Why, what? She had no idea yet what she was going to write about. She grabbed a handful of her hair and pushed it back over her head distractedly, unable to actually run her fingers through the mass. She could feel his eyes following her and she smiled toward the floor as she slid into the chair next to Ginny.
A few Slytherins filtered in and Theo took a seat next to Daphne, in front of Malfoy. Pansy was the last to enter and she huffed when she saw that the only seat left was next to him. "Fantastic, so I get to work alongside the cowardly murdering blood-traitor all year?" she said, her voice clearly indicating she wished to draw an audience.
Hermione turned in her chair to look at the scene unfolding. Malfoy withered slightly, his face pinkening. "Can you please keep your voice down?" he whispered forcefully, still audible in the near deafening silence of the room.
"Why she's only speaking the truth? Finally seen what everyone else has known for years, eh Parkinson?" a Gryffindor boy said from the back of the room.
"You're out of line, Parkinson," Theo barked and he pointed a finger at the boy, "And you, I don't need magic to beat your arse."
"So, Nott, you're on his side then? Have you forgotten that Crabbe's burned body rests only a few floors above your head?" Pansy said, crossing her arms.
"He didn't kill Crabbe," Theo retorted.
"That's not what Goyle said," Pansy spat, glaring at Malfoy.
"Crabbe," Hermione started, unable to watch the embarrassment paint Malfoy's face any longer, the defeated set of his shoulders as everyone in the classroom stared, "was a fool and cast Dark Magic he couldn't control."
Pansy rounded on her. "No one," she forced through clenched teeth, "was talking to you, Mudblood."
"Well, considering only two people currently sitting in this room were actually present, myself being the second person, perhaps you should only speak of what you know," Hermione replied, rising from her chair as her voice rose.
"Hermione," a Gryffindor girl she recognized as Carmella Gray began, "you don't have to take up for him. He's made his bed, now he needs to lie in it. He was a Death Eater!"
"Shut up," Hermione spat at her. "No one in this room has any idea what transpired in that room, but Draco and me. And it's no one's business."
Draco sat silent and looked to be hoping the floor would open up and swallow him whole. Why wasn't he fighting back? He had never shied away from a duel or a chance to assert himself before.
Theo rose from his chair and slammed the one next to Malfoy back. "You'd better watch your back, Parkinson."
Pansy sat next to a horrified looking Daphne. Professor Slughorn waddled in just as Ginny was pulling Hermione into a seated position. "What the hell was that all about?" she asked.
Hermione tugged her arm free. "That cow has no idea what she's talking about."
o-o-o
Malfoy strode out of the classroom before the bell had even stopped chiming. Hermione knew he wouldn't go to lunch after the embarrassing incident in Potions. She marched to his room and rapped in quick succession on the thick mahogany. He opened the door and stood, filling the doorway and towering over her short stature. "Yes, Granger?"
"A 'thank you' is too much to ask for, I suppose?" she said with a small, anxious chuckle.
He sighed and dropped his arms from his chest to shove his hands in his pockets. "I don't expect you to defend me every time someone decides to have a go at me."
She looked up at him and fought the urge to run her fingers along his jaw as she had in her visions. "Why didn't you fight back?" she asked softly.
"Everyone has made up their minds. What would be the point?" he shrugged. "Fighting back would only culminate in problems, and I am the easy scapegoat, whether or not I started the fight. I'd rather just keep my head down and ignore it."
"It bothers you," she observed, taking in the slump of his usually pin straight shoulders and guarded set of his jaw and eyes,
"I'll get over it," he shrugged once more.
She studied his features for a moment longer before she averted her eyes under his gaze. "Did you want to come in, Granger?" he asked, jabbing a finger over his shoulder uncertainly.
"Into—into your room?" she stuttered.
"Well…it's a small common room," he said, stepping out of the doorway to reveal the room behind him.
Hermione stepped around him and into a room not unlike her own in structure but opposite hers in every other way. While her sitting room was soft honey-colored oak furniture and cloth covered, cozy couches, his was dark mahogany and black leather. Her area was brightly lit with soft warm light, but his was dim and bathed in an eerie green being emitted from a large chandelier. But one thing was the same—he had bookshelves overflowing with books of all shapes, sizes and subjects.
He went to his small kitchen counter, black marble to her white, and retrieved a small jar of homemade peanut butter and a spoon. He brought her a spoon as well and sat on the end of his couch, drawing his legs up. He had removed his shoes to reveal emerald socks and Hermione was intrigued by the relaxed contrast of him here to him in front of others.
"I penned a few questions into your journal," he mentioned, scooping a spoon of peanut butter from the jar. "In response to your entry."
She sat on the chair and took some of the spread before he capped it and placed it on the table. "I put some in yours as well."
"I don't much like 'why' as a theme. Why don't we answer the questions tonight instead? I'll answer the 'why' when I'm ready," he suggested.
"Sounds good to me," she answered, her mind wandering to the card tucked into her Potions book.
"Can I ask you a question, now?" he looked at her.
She licked a bit of peanut butter from the corner of her mouth. "Okay," she said slowly, hesitantly.
"The peacocks."
"I didn't hear a question," she commented.
"You're avoiding an answer," he mused.
Hermione hadn't expected him to bring this up so soon. When she had seen a vision of him feeding the peacocks at Malfoy Manor, while the War raged around them, she'd wiped his tears. He had felt her presence, as he confirmed when he saw her at Easter when she'd been captured by Snatchers. What was she going to say to him? That she turned to Divination in a pathetic attempt at locating Ron Weasley and instead fell madly in love with him? Not likely.
"I'll tell you about the peacocks when I'm ready," she mirrored his earlier sentiment.
He sighed and closed his eyes, putting his head back against the couch. "Why are you being so…nice?"
Hermione stared at him as he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. "What do you mean?"
"Crabbe nearly killed you. I was horrible to you. My aunt…"
He didn't need to finish that statement. She knew instantly that he was thinking of her torture at the hands of his deranged relative. "But you lessened her assault on me. You kept me from experiencing how horrible it could have been."
Malfoy remained quiet for a few minutes and Hermione began to feel uncertain of whether he wanted her to be around anymore. She grabbed their two spoons and washed and put them away, nervous energy flowing through her. "We should get to class," his deep voice rumbled behind her.
o-o-o
What is it about the warm summer rain you enjoy so?
I don't understand your sentiments about the dark…how can you be afraid of the dark at your age?
Perhaps, if you had been sorted into Slytherin, things could have been different…
Those were the three entries Malfoy had written into her journal. Of everything she had written, those were the three points he chose to focus on. That concept peaked her curiosity in and of itself. Something joyous, something sad and something beyond comprehension.
4 Sept 1998
Malfoy,
I hope this reaches you in better spirits than the morning saw you in. I know things are difficult and I practically see you rolling your eyes at my Gryffindor optimism, but it will get better.
Summer rain…there's just nothing like it. The clouds battle and burst, releasing a refreshing shower upon the earth. Most children fear the moments when thunder rattles the windows, but I never did. I was always intrigued by the rumbles and flashes of light. It was the best time to read by flashlight under a blanket fort. When a sporadic shower would spring up and catch us off guard, my mother and I would skip through mud puddles and get absolutely filthy. But I had fun and the sound of my mother's laughter as we played was worth it.
It's not the dark I fear—it's what lurks in the dark. It started when I went with Harry to search for Horcruxes last summer. We feared being discovered every moment. There was a time, on Christmas Eve, when we nearly did get caught. We were nearly killed by Nagini and since that night, I cannot fall asleep without seeing the horrible decaying individual that he had used to lure us there. I suppose it would be different if I wasn't alone in the dark. If I had someone to help absorb a little of that darkness, perhaps it wouldn't seep in so readily.
What would have been different, Malfoy?
-Hermione
o-o-o
A/N: Thank you for the response to this story already shown! Y'all are amazing! Please review!
