1994 Quidditch World Cup
Quidditch was easily a great love of his life. The game would always set his heart racing, playing or not, enthralling him with the fast paced manoeuvres and sly tactics utilised by both sides. The World Cup almost made him giddy with anticipation, getting to experience first hand the crème de la crème of the sporting elite.
His absolute devotion to the game was almost enough to excuse his current predicament. The key word there being almost; for what fourteen-year-old man wished to be sitting sandwiched between his two overbearing parents? They weren't even watching the blasted game, too busy rubbing shoulders with the other social butterflies in the Minister's highly selective private box.
What compounded matters further was the unfortunate placement of the pride of Gryffindors currently seated in front of him. The whole rowdy lot of them were too close, too loud, and too green, making the pile of red mounted to their heads bloody glow in the most distracting way. He could practically smell the poverty leaching from their ridiculous, tatty, second rate clothes. Disgusting.
How anyone could smile and revel with gaiety whilst looking that bad was beyond him.
How Hermione Granger could be happily joining in was also perplexing.
She was sitting next to 'The Chosen Dunce', berating him for focussing on his Omnioculars rather than watching the game live. It made perfect sense to him that Potter wouldn't be able to keep up, even through four lenses he couldn't keep his attention on the lightening speed of national level Quidditch. How the fuck he actually played the game didn't bear any more analysis. It'd been years, he still had nothing to answer that anomaly.
He had to forcibly draw his thoughts away from a well versed Potter rant and instead focussed back on Granger. An anomaly he had indeed pondered for years with admittedly more insight.
He watched her animatedly discussing things to a half attentive Potter. It didn't even matter what she was saying, the way her eyes lit up and the subtle changes to her expression were endearing. It annoyed him that Potter's responses to her were lacking. He nodded absentmindedly every now and then and continued fiddling with the dials of the Omnioculars instead. Would it kill the bastard to appreciate anything this girl did for him? He knew she had only a slight interest in Quidditch, yet here she was trying to engage with her so called 'best friend' and getting nothing back.
Potter, in his opinion, was a dick.
When he had her attention he appreciated it for what it was. Hermione Granger wasn't the type of girl you brushed off. She glanced back at him every now and then and the timing seemed perfect, for he caught her gaze every time. It became a game, like usual, and he was ridiculously comforted by how some things just didn't change.
Once again, the Irish scored and the crowd leaped to its feet, including the ginger army in front of him and their hangers on. He saw a window and jerked his arm forward, quickly tugging at her hair, just to make it clear that he'd won this round.
She didn't look back at him but he definitely saw the smirk imprinted on her face. He knew it was just for him.
~0~
The chaos in the camping grounds had already started when he found a chance to speak to her. As luck would have it, Potter was wandless and stuck drooling over Veela with his ginger growth. Sometimes, just sometimes, fate was kind to him.
It was Granger who approached him first.
"You seem awfully relaxed there Malfoy, not swayed by the Veela charms, too? Hmm?"
"Can't say that bestiality is my thing, Granger," he scoffed, still leaning heavily against the tree. "And why are you so calm yourself? You know what they're after out there, I'd be keeping that bushy head down if I was you."
"Huh, I didn't think about the beast aspect, interesting," her forehead creased just slightly before continuing, "We're pretty deep in the woods here, Malfoy, plus I know what I'm doing...you're parents aren't out there are they?"
"No, they're busy chatting with their alibi's, give them some credit there bookworm." He smirked trying to hide his discomfort, stupid really, as he knew she'd see through it.
She gave a bit of chuckle but stared at him in that analytical way that made him feel transparent.
"Of course, always the Malfoy way," she conceded, "What about you though? The way I see it you are either doing one of two things. Hiding in plain sight, lots of witnesses to see you here, not being involved. Or, your blatant complacency by still being here could be interpreted as a show of passive support. So which is it?"
He couldn't meet her eyes.
"How about you try a third option there, Granger? Maybe It's something else entirely."
"Maybe," she said quietly, looking back over his head as shouts and more spell fire could be heard.
"Look, follow that path deeper into the woods, find the other gingers, you'll be able to spot them easily I should think. Just get out of here, yeah?"
They held gazes and he straightened himself up to his full height, tilting his chin to the path ahead.
"I know you've removed your trace from your wand already, just use a Lumos, grab the gits and get going. I'm leaving now too." He brushed some invisible lint from his robes, a gesture he felt was quite official as a symbol of importance.
The slight tilt to her lips showed she was still amused by it, making it somewhat less effective.
"How do you know I've already removed the trace?" she asked, tilting her head at him in that annoyingly adorable way.
"It's what I've done, and I know for a fact that you read that book last year."
She nodded. "It's what we do isn't it? Try to keep ahead of each other?"
"Something like that."
"Yeah, something like that." He heard a slight fondness in her tone and returned her apologetic smile.
Of course he watched her progress until she'd left, after a minor struggle to rescue her dopey eyed friends. He chose not to look back towards the chaos before summoning his house elf and going home. He had thoroughly convinced himself he wasn't involved. Yet.
~0~
The Slytherins around him were statue like in anticipation, watching the silent maze for any sign that the Portkey would return.
He was watching Granger, waiting for her reaction to Potter's death.
He'd known for months how this was going to play out after his father finally relented and filled him in on what was really happening during this farce of a Triwizard Tournament.
The ferret incident was the catalyst. He'd demanded his father intervene and get rid of the insane ex-Auror for the attack. He was honestly shocked and more than a little insulted when his father had instructed him to let it go and steer clear of the teacher in the future instead. It took quite a lot of tantrum-ing before he was told of the Death Eater in disguise. After that he heeded his father's words and kept an unusually low profile for the remainder of the games.
Now he wasn't sure if he should've done more with the information he had, after seeing the corpse of Cedric Diggory and a battered Harry Potter suddenly appear at the entrance of the maze.
A few seventh years behind him were muttering to one another and quickly rose to head back to the castle. The other houses mostly screamed and gasped in horror as teachers rushed to aid the hysterical boy next to the lifeless one on the ground.
"Shit," Greg whispered next to him, "What should we do now, Drake?"
"Nothing. Go back to the castle, wait for news," he answered in a sharp voice.
"But do you think he still-"
"Not here you idiot! Go, I'll be there soon." He rose quickly and started heading for the stairs of the stands.
It wasn't the best time for this, but he would physically grab her if he had to. The fake Moody was surely about to be exposed and he didn't want her in the crossfire when she inevitably went to Potter's aid.
He saw her running ahead with the Weasel and disillusioned himself before catching up. They slowed to a jog and eventually a fast paced walk as they meandered through the castle, heading towards the upper levels. He could hear them discussing something about a map and knew they were more than likely making their way to Gryffindor tower. Throwing caution to the wind, he placed his palm on her lower back and whispered in her ear, "I need to talk to you, now, it's important."
Her steps faltered for a second, but she quickly corrected herself and discreetly shook her head, obviously trying to dismiss him.
He didn't move his hand from her back as he kept up the pace beside her.
"Granger," he angrily whispered, "Now! Or I'll Imperio you if I have to!"
He saw the way her jaw clenched as she cut off the Weasel's ramblings. "Ron, go get the map, I need to go to the bathroom, I'll meet you outside the entrance to the common room."
Weasley spluttered slightly, but looked too uncomfortable to question her timing. He thankfully didn't argue and gave her a quick nod before running ahead.
She waited till he rounded the corner and then turned to where she had guessed his head was.
"You have two minutes," she practically spat at him, dragging him into a nearby classroom and then slamming the door.
He dropped the glamour.
"Granger, the Dark Lord is back."
Silence engulfed the dark room and she said nothing for quite a few moments. The moonlight that beamed across the room from the windows easily showed her face though. It seemed she didn't know what to say next.
"Potter was supposed to die, I don't know how he made it out and why the bloody fuck Diggory was there, too, although if I had to guess they touched the Portkeyed Cup at the same time," he stated in a drawl. He hadn't meant to be that blunt, but it seemed the adrenaline rush hadn't quite dissipated yet.
She continued to stare at him, this time in disbelief.
"You knew about this? You knew and you didn't say anything?"
"What was I supposed to do? It wouldn't have changed anything!" He ran his hand over his face and looked over his shoulder before sitting on a desk and crossing his arms.
"Of course it could have changed everything! Why the hell didn't you go to Dumbledore? He could've-"
"Don't be daft! Of course he knew about it! Use your head, Granger! This all fits in perfectly with his plans for "the greater good". You can't stand there and honestly tell me that he doesn't know what happens in this castle every second. There are portraits on every damn surface of these walls, all reporting back to him. Plus ghosts. Plus that constant Legilimency when you sit in his presence eating the spiked Sherbet-fucking-Lemons on his desk. That famous "twinkle" in his eye is him raping your mind! The Death Eater who is posing as Mad Eye Moody is chugging Polyjuice constantly. Not to mention the fact that him and Dumbledore are very old friends and allies. As if he wouldn't have noticed the differences."
She listened to his rant with wide eyes and then crossed the floor to sit on the desk next to him with slumped shoulders.
"Firstly, what is this about the Sherbet Lemons? And Secondly, Moody's a fake? He just dragged Harry off! What's he going to do to him? I want to discuss this further but I have to go, he could do anything to Harry!" She practically shouted, that Gryffindor look of 'hero-rescue-time' firmly imprinted on her face.
"Calm down, Granger, Dumbledore followed him, the boy saviour will be rescued and Moody is probably being exposed right now. Leave it for the higher ups to deal with for once. And Snape warned us all in first year about the potion he infuses the sweets on his desk with, it lowers inhibitions enough that you don't notice the mind reading unless you're an Occlumens."
"Well fuck!" she shouted.
"Fuck indeed." He chuckled, but quickly grew sober again.
"What else do you know? What's going to happen now? Is he going to ambush the school?" She said in a rush, her leg jittering and she furiously tapped her foot on the ground.
"Just slow down a bit yeah?" He reached over and held her thigh down, the bouncing was distracting him.
"As far as I know, the plan was to send a dead Potter back with the Portkey, an attack won't happen on Hogwarts until the Ministry is taken. It will happen, just not yet."
She had been staring at his hand on her thigh as he said this, deep in thought. He wondered if she was actually aware of his grip now on her for comfort more than anything else.
"Draco, why are you being so open about all this? Cedric was just murdered, Voldemort is back, and you are talking to me in a vacant classroom. What's your play here? I'm understanding everyone else's role right now but I don't get what you're doing?" Her eyes drifted from his hand to look him in the eye, trying to read his face for any clue about his motivations.
"Honestly? Would you believe what I said even if I told you the truth?"
"I don't know, I don't think you even know what you're doing yet. Hell, at this point I'm actually surprised you didn't jump in the lake to rescue me yourself when I was down there. You seem to always have my back in some way or another, it confuses me."
He smirked and then raised his eyebrow. "Who do you think gave Krum the shark idea?"
Her mouth opened in a perfect imitation of a gaping fish before snapping shut. She prodded a finger quite roughly into his chest.
"See? This is what I'm talking about! Gods you're annoying! I don't get you!"
"Well this," his finger gestured back and forth between them, "is not just me. What about the things you have done for me? I don't like being in someone's debt, Granger, it's as simple as that."
"Simple as that my arse! Look, I have to go, Malfoy, you've killed enough time with this pow wow as it is." She stood to leave and he let his hand gently caress her thigh as it dropped away. She definitely noticed but didn't comment on it.
"I still don't get you." She stood directly in front of him, looking down into his eyes, waiting for something.
He reached up slowly and took a strand of hair from beside her face, gently tucking it behind her ear before standing, too.
"Go do your thing, Granger. I'll see you around," he sighed resignedly. Just keep walking, he chanted in his head, just get to the damned door.
"Will you though?" she asked his retreating back.
"Yeah, I will."
~0~