Young Mr. Malfoy was having the worst day, ever. He was half way towards drinking away the memory of his father bragging about a raid in a muggle neighborhood. This was nothing new, but for some reason this particular telling of the 'sickeningly average muggle couple caught unaware while sorting through Australia travel guides' made Draco feel sick. Maybe it was something he heard in passing... He couldn't quite place why Australia struck a cord in the dark places in his mind, but the gut-wrenching feeling was there all the same. On this day of all days, not only was the rum gone; Pansy was unavailable. Permanently, apparently. The last thing she said to him was some crap about being 'reborn' and refusing to disgrace her new found 'purity'.

And since when did Pansy bloody Parkinson worry so much about her fucking bloody virtue anyway?

And it certainly didn't help that every room he entered had a copy of the Daily Prophet featuring stories about the twisted acts of his own twisted father. Draco Malfoy was a despicable person but that only went as far as bedding any girl he could flash a smile at and being at least partly drunk always. He didn't hold a candle to the insanity that was his father or his father's psychos in arms. And to be perfectly honest, he hated the legacy he'd been born into, thank you very much!

Draco held the empty rum bottle tightly in his hand and glared at the empty fireplace, which had been disconnected from Pansy's floo. He snorted and rolled his eyes at his own outlook on his life and threw the rum bottle at the brick of the fireplace wall. He tripped on the edge of his floor rug on his way to the large oak desk, smacking his nose on the edge of it, and was promptly knocked out for his efforts.

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Hermione Granger was girl who had everything, then nothing. She knew when she did it that there would be no turning back. Yet here she was; a rather large pile of ash at what should have been her door step, cinders still flying through the air, and half burnt beams still crashing through charred drywall. She wasn't interested in any of this though. She stared at the slumped, blackened figures on the smoking, unrecognizable couch. She couldn't see properly. Tears of guilt over leaving clouded her sight. She didn't need to see it though. She knew it was them. And she knew that no matter the outcome of this war, she would live to suffer her guilt. She turned from the little home for a second time, wiping away tears, and in need of something to destroy. Merlin help her, she wanted to be evil for once; see how they like it.