Disclaimer: Anything you recognize from JKR is obviously not mine.
HAVEN
-
Chapter 10: Over the Edge
-
In the common room several floors below, a fire crackled merrily as if to applaud the Weasley for his contribution of several wooden chess pieces to the bright blaze. Around him, black and white chessmen bearing the Black crest had fallen untidily, the board overturned in a fit of anger.
"Bloody hell," Ron muttered savagely to himself, kicking viciously at the scattered chessmen. "Bloody, bloody…"
"That time of the month again?" sniped a voice from the far end of the room.
Ron spun around so quickly his neck hurt. "Who's there?" he called out warily, unconsciously adopting a rather violent stance.
"Weasley, I understand your weakness, but some of us like to work in relative peace…"
A large armchair that had been facing away was turned towards him, and Ron caught a flash of golden curls. Pansy Parkinson gave him long stare, then tucked her slippered feet into the side of the seat cushion and turned back to the roll of parchment before her.
Ron blinked for a second, surprised, then quickly recovered himself.
"Well, tough luck, Parkinson, because you're in the parlor - the Common Room and you don't own it – "
" – any more than you do. Why don't you go steal a chicken now, like a good little weasel?" Pansy sniffed delicately and began to write determinedly on her scroll.
She had gotten through two sentences when she felt a gust stir her hair, and looked up to find a furious Ron Weasley towering over her chair, breathing far too hard for comfort. Worriedly, she watched his hands clench and unclench, the knuckles a mix of white and bright flushed pink.
"What, Weasley – going to hit a girl now?" she mocked, hoping that her mounting apprehension didn't show.
He didn't say anything for a moment but his glare grew, and Pansy felt something in herself quail. She began to hope fervently for someone else to enter the room.
"It's not like your Malfoy would hesitate to do that," he spat at her finally, shaking with anger. Clench. Unclench.
Her blue eyes widened and then narrowed. "You know nothing about Draco Malfoy," she hissed back at him, her own anger rising over the wariness.
"Oh, and you think you do?" Clench.
Pansy flew from the armchair. "Out!" she shrieked, pointing furiously at the door to his dormitory. "I mean it – out!"
"I'm not your house-elf, Parkinson. There's as big a chance of me leaving as there is of you beating me in wizards' chess," sneered Ron, uncharacteristically rude, his eyes squinting up in fury and ears flushing to a shocking shade of pink.
Pansy gave him a last nasty glare and walked out around him, doing her best not to show her surprise at how disconcertingly close they'd gotten in their shouting. "You'd be surprised, Weasley," she replied evenly over her shoulder, tone painfully patronizing, "at what you don't know about wizard's chess."
Ron gaped as she swept past him, settling down in a seat opposite the one he'd abandoned at the chess board. She drew out her wand and waved it at the pieces scattered over the floor, drawing her mouth into a thin line as she watched them settle onto the board.
"You – what – what are you doing?" A pointing finger was jabbed towards her face.
Pansy fixed the sputtering redhead with an expression of contempt. "When I win, Weasley, you take back what you said about Draco, and you leave me to my peace."
Ron made a heroic effort to pull himself together. "You're not going to win, Parkinson," he gritted out. "And you're missing the white queen anyway."
"Yes. You threw it in the fire." Pansy smirked slightly. "Symbolic, yes? I wonder why?" She noted that Weasel's fists had balled again at her implication. She wisely refrained from pushing that line of thought, instead pulling out her wand and producing her own chess piece. It was delicately wrought silver, a tall, skeletal horse crowned by a thin circlet, the head thrust imperiously into the air. "Do you yield to the white, as usual, or must I go second to prove myself?"
Ron ignored her question. Instead, he stared at the board for a second, and then snorted loudly. "Prissy Parkinson has a thestral queen? What, have you seen more darkness perilous than we can imagine under that curly blonde façade of yours?" His face was a sneer of mocking disbelief as he continued to lash out. "Got some nasty little 'inner demons,' have you?" he goaded, "who'd have thought it, Parkinso - "
Pansy put back her wand, noting with satisfaction that her silencing charm had worked perfectly even without the spoken word. "Since you were otherwise occupied, I'll take the first move," she sniffed. "Though I believe it was mine anyway." She avoided the Weasley's eyes as she ordered the white pawn forward.
Ron fell back onto his seat, shaking in fury for a long moment before he gave her a last glare and tapped a black knight, directing it silently with his wand. Just you watch, Parkinson, he fumed, you disgusting Slytherin chit – you'll learn something yet; even Hermione has something left to learn...
-
Hermione stopped dead as she looked into the room. One window was ajar, revealing what could only be a midnight sky over a too-familiar castle. Oh gods, she thought, as she recognized the tower in the background, noticed the green smoke marring the sky. The Gryffindor prefect took an inadvertent step forward towards the blond boy crumpled in a quiet heap at the corner of the room.
As she came closer, she realized that he was crying, gasping, mumbling to himself through his tears. He could not have known she was there.
Her mind racing, Hermione took in her surroundings. The room was very old, thrumming with a peculiar kind of magic. The windows were pitch-dark, though outside London was only hinting at sunset; the glass rippled strangely, as if flowing in constant motion; a cold breeze blew steadily through the room from the open window in the middle.
There was an illusion charm here, she realized, and walked slowly to the window. An illusion charm, probably combined with Erised's famous Algorithm of Desire, although the magical matrix itself suggested more pensieve than anything... It was like Moody's chest in reverse, she thought, rationalizing furiously: the outside was infinite and changeable, but the inside was the part that stayed the same. Carefully leaning over the boy, she closed the glass panes, noting that they were very old and indeed looked different on the side facing outwards. His mumbling stopped. His shaking didn't.
Nervously Hermione bit her lip, pausing to consider her next move.
She bent down next to him. "Malfoy?" she whispered. "…Malfoy? Draco?"
The blond head stirred and lifted. Hermione shuddered at the terror and abject wretchedness that she read in his unfocused gaze.
"Draco Malfoy has no choice," he croaked, staring through her with haunted eyes, and Hermione shuddered again. Then he hissed suddenly, a shrill, harsh sound that made her skin crawl. "I will be honored to," he whispered, and his expression was wild, frightened; Hermione wondered what it was that she'd missed. He was far, far away from her, off in the distance as he battled himself. She felt a cold tingle spread over her skin as she realized what had just happened.
"Oh lord," she murmured to herself, "Merlin, no – not now." If Malfoy lost his mind, who knew what he would do? Even if he recovered, he could still relapse at any moment and kill them all in their sleep, or betray their position, or lose them the war.
Hermione blinked and shook her head, then grabbed the blond by his shoulders. "Malfoy, Draco – can you hear me? You can't do this now," she whispered, commanding, to those flat grey eyes. "You can't. You've got to pull together, for – oh I don't know – for your family, Draco! For your mother, at least! For all the students, for the professors, for, oh, um…" she fumbled for something, anything, that might get through to him. "For Pansy! Right, no. For – for Blaise, Slughorn… Harry, Malfo -Draco. For Harry, for Dumbledore!"
At that he straightened up. Hermione jerked back her hands.
"I've got to kill him," he whispered before she even finished, slightly manic. "I've got to. He made me. He'll kill us all if I don't."
A wave of anguish swept over the girl who crouched near him. So it was true, thought Hermione – he really did regret that night on the tower. She'd even stumbled into him in Myrtle's bathroom once during sixth year, and she supposed later that it had something to do with his terrible task. But she had never been sure of his true feelings on the matter. Now she understood, she thought. He was hateful, and cowardly, and filled with a burning, pathetic, miserable ambition for something. But he did not want to kill. Hermione felt some part of her settle and gladden even as she felt her fear grow. Malfoy had a conscience.
She would later condemn herself for being so sure of the explanation - for never even considering that perhaps, Malfoy was speaking in the present tense on purpose - responding not to Dumbledore's name, but to Harry's.
"I've got to kill him. He knows about us, he'll kill us all if I don't," Malfoy rasped again, eyes wide, desperate, and slightly bloodshot under a fine screen of his hair as he clutched at her sleeve.
Hermione blinked. For a moment, it sounded as though Draco was saying that… that Voldemort knew about the Grimmauld Place School?
A sudden beeping sound jerked her from her thoughts, and she drew out her wand hurriedly. "We should go," she murmured, examining the red sparks jumping out of the end. "I charmed it to alert me whenever dinner is served, since the time varies by day," she explained quickly to not alarm the strange boy next to her, her mind automatically dismissing the strange-sounding words she'd heard from Malfoy. Her imagination was just running away with itself again.
"I can't. I've got to kill him," Malfoy whispered.
Hermione furrowed her brows, troubled. "Malfoy – Draco. You have to stop this," she pleaded. "It's all over now, don't you understand? Dumbledore… he's gone. You were pardoned, remember?" She looked doubtfully at his now-vacant eyes even as she felt her own desperation increase. If he truly was losing his mind… for all she knew, he was as good as a Mungo's case. And if so, then he was a terrible threat to everybody at McGonagall's makeshift school.
"Draco… do you think that perhaps you might want to, you know – I mean," she stopped. What did she mean? What could tell him to do?
"I mean… if you go on like this you'll put us all in danger," she finished lamely. "You'll – "
He cut her off as if he'd never heard her, his eyes growing wild, the dullness replaced by a mad, angry glint. "I've got to kill him. I killed, and now I've got to kill again. I have to. There is no way out," he ground out between clenched teeth, so terrifyingly close that she could feel his rasping breath, and suddenly he rose up in one fluid motion as Hermione tumbled backwards to avoid his knees.
She hastily scrambled up, fumbling for her wand. "Draco – " Hermione took another step backward and found, to her terror, that she was backed against the wall.
He reached forward and grabbed her shoulders. "Don't you understand?" he shouted, shaking her. "I have no fucking way out!"
Hermione squealed slightly as his fingernails dug painfully into her skin. "Dr - Draco - "
"I HAVE NO FUCKING WAY OUT, GRANGER! I'VE GOT TO KILL HIM OR WE ALL DIE ANYWAY! I'VE GOT TO KILL HA--" He slumped suddenly to the ground with a sickening thud.
Shaking violently, Hermione very, very slowly pocketed her wand again, thanking every god she knew of that Harry had made her learn the silent stupefication spell.
But as she stared at the boy - because that was all he was, really, a poor deluded coward of a boy - sprawled unnaturally at her feet, she shivered at the suddenness of it. One moment, he was shouting, screaming, shaking her - and now he looked frighteningly dead.
He wasn't, she knew. He was breathing. He would be fine when he woke up, though he would probably have a raging headache and might be as crazy as he was before. But in trauma, it's always a little detail that eats away at the mind, and for Hermione it was the suddenness of it. It seemed almost unfair, the spell, using it on one of their own, on a classmate, a fellow prefect... She just couldn't get past that suddenness of using it - the red flash, the abrupt stop to the sound - what had he been about to say? - the quick drop, the cruel mimicry of death -
How tainted she felt.
-
Hermione stood outside the portrait that led to the parlor - the "Common Room" - and gently lowered the unconscious boy to the ground. Outwardly she was still and steady, but she felt as though her bones were trembling with the task that lay before her.
She was not to make friends with Draco Malfoy, or to advise Draco Malfoy, or even convert Draco Malfoy. She was to repair him. And she had only the space of a few short minutes before dinner was over and the empty corridor was frequented by students and teachers again.
Quietly she took in a few deep breaths, stiffening her back as she reached hesitantly for her wand. She willed the dark wood to cease the shaking, and slowly, slowly lowered it until the tip hovered at his temple.
"Enervate," she whispered, praying to gods she didn't believe in that he would wake and be all right again.
Gray eyes flew open.
They stared at each other for a long, frozen moment.
"Why am I on the ground, Granger?" he asked at last in the slow, mocking drawl he had picked up since his appearance at Grimmauld Place. He raised an eyebrow at her intake of breath.
Her mind raced. What to tell him, what to say? She was already taking too long and she had no time to think...
"I - you - don't you - the tow -" She twisted her hands anxiously, the blood pooling in her cheeks under his cold, judging glare.
"...I brought you down here," she mumbled at last, lamely, unable to look away.
He stared in skepticism for a second longer before his face suddenly froze, as if he had suddenly remembered what she had so futilely been trying to explain. Hermione drew in another shaking breath, recognizing the wild light in his eyes, bracing for his next move.
But he was silent and immobile. Hermione was sure that this frigid stasis could kill.
"Draco - " she paused and knelt hesitantly a little ways away from the boy still lying on the floor, reaching out a tentative hand as if to touch his shoulder. He turned his head slightly and she drew back in an instant. His gaze was cool and judging again, she noted with a twinge of relief.
"Granger." He sat up with an effort and, looking elsewhere, cast around for the words he meant to say. She had not immediately run to McGonagall to remove him from Grimmauld Place, for that alone he owed her an explanation for what had happened. But he could not apologize, all the same.
"Potter... said the room showed you whatever you wanted to see again," he said slowly, forcing out the words with difficulty. "I... lost control over it."
Eyes riveted to him, Hermione did not move or a make a sound. And then:
"Have a lemon drop, dear boy," came a too-familiar voice.
Draco whipped around, standing in one sudden, fluid motion. He found himself face-to-face with a smiling life-size portrait of the old man.
"There should be a bowl of them to my left," the old Headmaster said, reaching for his glasses and peering through them towards the pedestal there. "Really, I insist."
Hermione vaguely remembered raising both her hands to cover her mouth as she looked on agape. The portrait had been asleep since they arrived and had not once woken up. It only swung open and closed by the painted Fawkes' watchful vigilance.
The blond boy stared, wordless and shaken.
"Go on, Hermione," the old man said, gesturing her in.
"...Why - no," the Gryffindor sputtered. "I can't- Professor, he's - "
"I would like to speak to Draco alone," the portrait murmured kindly, smiling gently at the girl. Opening her mouth to protest, Hermione found herself walking through the now-open portrait hole regardless of her apprehension. With one last, worried glance, she left the blond boy transfixed before the portrait of the man he had not exactly killed.
-
-
AN
Wow. That was long... seven whopping pages. Be happy, peoples :)
Thank you for 300+ reviews! You guys (you reviewers, that is) are the BEST!
...on side characters
Don't worry, Dumbledore isn't going to dominate the story. He is very, very peripheral. Since JKR has so graciously thrust our characters into the world without Dumbledore's shelter, I'm def. not going to be the one to bring him back to life!
I realize that Slughorn and Blaise haven't made an appearance in a while. And the Harry/Ginny subplot has been all but buried. And Parvati and Seamus are basically nonexistent. And that the Ravenclaws are as faceless as ever... Argh. Someday, I will go back and fix this temporary blob in the story, but there's too much stuff and I can't fit all of it in right now... augh! Don't worry. I'll pick up the threads in the next few chapters. It's hard to get the fine line between too much jumping around and too little of the other characters.
...on Draco's memory
Draco doesn't choose to relive the tower scene. He wanted to see something vaguely calming, although it turned out to be rather bittersweet... The memory goes out of his control, however, and reverts to what is buzzing in his mental periphery the whole time. The attic sometimes seems to have a mind of its own - although mostly it only shifts around when the "viewer" is exceptionally distracted or preoccupied by a certain event, as in Draco's case.
Fic Rec:
Iron and Wine, by lepetitarsenic. Linked off of faves. ABSOLUTELY FREAKING BEAUTIFUL. It's the most perfect semi-angst oneshot I have ever, ever read... It never fails to reduce me to... I don't know. Incoherence. I've read it more times than I have any other Dramione, and it's worth it every time...
Optional Review Question:
What do you think has put Ron in his terrible mood? Hint: think of the missing chess piece(s)... And why does Pansy have a thestral Queen, anyways?
REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! Tell me how this is: I'm on the favs list of 130+ people, the alerts list of 100, and yet the last chapter barely scraped 20 reviews... ? Yes, I know it was short, but was it really that bad? ike. :(
Do you like this chapter? Then please review it! I mean, four-day weekend, really now! You guys have no idea how much it means to us poor slaving authors to find a review in our inboxes... It makes all of it worthwhile. :) Don't feel obligated to do a big long review (that's you, dizzy ;) ), even though I do adore those - sometimes, the one-liners are the ones that make me smile!
As always, concrit is appreciated. :)
