Disclaimer: Harry Potter is property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. This story is not written for profit and no copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: A special thank you to Nicole Zollos and itsraa for betaing this chapter. They are both amazing, and I am eternally grateful for their guidance.
Part I: A Lonely Heart Cannot Atone
Chapter 9
Hermione tilted her head back against the stone rim of the gigantic bath in the Prefects' Bathroom. Lilac, pink, and blue bubbles piled up around her like little candy-coloured mountains, and steam rose off of the water like autumn mist. The heat seeped into her bones, untying the knots of a stressful week, melting through the aches of old injuries and sore joints. And at least the aroma of the bath had overpowered the smell of the Gobstone stink-juice.
Everyone was at dinner, her homework was done, and she was more relaxed than she had been for ages, but Hermione still couldn't shake her encounter with Malfoy in the Owlery.
"Hufflepuff doesn't think of me that way," he'd told her. "They like me. And not because I'm rich or because I'm a pure-blood. They like me."
How did Hufflepuff not find Malfoy's sudden appearance among them, as she'd said, odd? They accepted him. Of course they had. Hufflepuffs were known for being accepting. But they weren't pushovers. They weren't gullible or stupid. Only Slytherins thought that way about Hufflepuffs. So what did they see in Malfoy that she didn't?
She remembered him laughing and throwing the Quaffle around at breakfast that morning. He hadn't even looked himself without his patented Malfoy sneer. Was he really so desperate for a break from the bullying, or was it something else?
A voice whispered in her head that maybe Malfoy had just been waiting for a chance to get out from under the thumb of all of those expectations. And there were expectations—she knew there were. His family expected him to uphold their pure-blood traditions. Slytherin expected him to... what? They seemed to want him to slither off to Azkaban without a word in his defence.
And she expected him to hate her, to ridicule her and strut around with his nose in the air like he'd done when they were children. But, so far, at least, he'd defied all expectations. Maybe he wasn't just trying to look good for the press. Maybe he was trying to make a new start. Could that be true? Did he deserve it?
She spent a lot of time thinking about Malfoy lately. It made her feel slightly petty to judge him so harshly when she knew much more about him than just the evil, conniving things he'd done. He hadn't actually killed Dumbledore, had he? He'd tried, yes. But Dumbledore himself had said, "Forgive me, Draco, but they have been feeble attempts. So feeble, to be honest, that I wonder whether you heart has been really in it."
Whether his heart was really in it. Had it been? How could she find out?
Dumbledore had tried to persuade Malfoy to join the Order. He'd wanted to help Malfoy. He thought Malfoy was worth saving.
Kingsley Shacklebolt said it best in that secret radio program, Potter Watch. "We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving."
Should Malfoy be afforded the same courtesy, or should they condemn him? No one was going to save him now. Maybe he was trying to save himself.
Hermione slipped under the water and tried to block out the world. She stayed under for a full minute before breaking the surface through a massive heap of bubbles. Her giggles echoed off of the stone walls, but their sound had been joined by something else. Someone else was laughing, too.
"Myrtle!" Hermione shrieked. The ghost of a spotty, bespectacled girl hovered around the stack of towels, her face contorted with cackling laughter. Hermione gathered up all the bubbles she could reach and stacked them around her naked body. "What are you doing here, Myrtle?"
"I'm visiting," Myrtle said simply.
"Visiting?" Hermione knew Myrtle could go anywhere in the castle, but she usually confined herself to her bathroom, thus making it much easier to avoid her. She wasn't exactly good company.
"Yes. It's boring in my bathroom, you know. No one ever goes in there."
Hermione knew all too well why Moaning Myrtle's bathroom was always deserted. It was an ideal place to hide because nobody would ever choose to go in there. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had once brewed Polyjuice Potion in Myrtle's bathroom for a whole month without detection, and no one had found the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets since Tom Riddle had been at school, presumably owing to the fact that every single person who came into contact with Moaning Myrtle immediately wished they hadn't.
Except for…
A heady rush of excitement crashed over Hermione. Hadn't Malfoy confided in Myrtle once? Harry had seen Malfoy and Myrtle together on the Marauder's Map. Hadn't Malfoy been crying, and Myrtle been comforting him? Maybe the world's most annoying schoolgirl ghost could have some useful insight on Malfoy's strange behavior.
Myrtle had drifted closer while Hermione was lost in thought. "I see your tail's gone. That's a shame. I liked it," she said, suppressing another round of sniggering.
"Yeah," said Hermione vaguely. How should she begin? "Listen Myrtle, do you remember a boy named Draco Malfoy—"
"What about Draco?" Myrtle was looking curious and—could it be?—protective.
"He's back this year. Did you hear he's in Hufflepuff House now?"
Myrtle flipped over onto her back and pretended to swim through the bath (though, of course, her arms moved right through the water without disturbing its surface) and said nothing.
"What… Harry said that you and Malfoy were friends. Is that true?"
"Yes. We had so much in common."
Hermione's brow furrowed. "Like what?"
Turning onto her stomach, Myrtle propped her head up on her hands to glare at Hermione. "Why should I tell you?"
That was a tough one. As Hermione tried to come up with an answer, Myrtle twirled her finger through the water to no effect.
"I'm his friend, too," Hermione said finally.
A mischievous grin curled Myrtle's lips. It was as though she'd been waiting for Hermione to say something to that effect. "Then you can just ask him! Since you're such great friends and all."
"He wouldn't tell me something like that."
"That's because he doesn't trust you like he trusts me." Myrtle sat up, folding her arms over her chest. "Friends. Ha! He doesn't even like you," she scoffed.
"He told you that?"
Myrtle's cackle rang through the bathroom. "No one has to tell me that! It's obvious!"
"Okay, so we're not friends," Hermione admitted. "But that doesn't mean this isn't important. Myrtle, I need—"
Just then, the lock at the entrance of the Prefect's Bathroom clicked, and the door began to creak open.
Her wand, laid neatly on top of her clothes, was too far away to be of any help. Panicking, Hermione cried, "There's someone in here!" But it was too late. A tousle-haired Ravenclaw boy who Hermione recognized as Eli Cresswell had already come in and caught a glimpse of her in the bath and Myrtle hovering nearby.
To his credit, however, Eli immediately froze in place and shut his eyes tight. "Sorry! Sorry! I didn't know there was anyone in here. You didn't put the thing on the door!"
While Myrtle broke out into peals of laughter, Hermione stared at him in bewilderment. "What thing?" she demanded, scooping bubbles toward her.
"The thing! The thing, you know! The someone's-in-here-so-don't-just-barge-in thing!" Eli, eyes still closed, felt around the doorframe for a moment before producing a little doorknob sign which read, "Occupied".
Hermione could have kicked herself. How could she have forgotten the thing?!
"Well, I locked the door," she said in an effort to save face. "Wasn't that enough?"
"The door's always locked! It's password-protected, Hermione!"
"Myrtle, could you go? Just go. Please?" Hermione shouted over Myrtle's loud giggles.
"You want me to leave you alone?" Myrtle asked, her expression mock-scandalized. "In the bath? With a boy?"
"I'll be fine, Myrtle. Just… please go."
Myrtle took one last look between Hermione and Eli, broke out into a fresh gale of laughter, and dove into the drain of the bathroom sink, the sound of her nasal, high-pitched voice echoing into silence.
"You're on first-name terms with Moaning Myrtle?"
Hermione didn't think this was the moment for an explanation of her relationship with the ghost of the second floor girls' bathroom. "Do you think you could go, too?"
"Oh," Eli said as though the thought had only just occurred to him. "Yeah. I'll just—"
"Okay," Hermione said. She just wanted to drown. "Thanks, Eli."
"Yeah. So, I'm going to go now. And I'll come back in, say, ten minutes, and hopefully you'll be gone. Sound alright?"
"Yes. Thank you."
Eli backed towards the door and out of the bathroom, taking the little "Occupied" sign with him, presumably to hang it on the doorknob on his way out.
So much for a relaxing bath. Hermione got out of the bathtub, towelled off, and dressed as quickly as she could. As soon as she'd finished knotting her hair back into an unruly bun, she caught up her things and hurried out of the Prefects' Bathroom only to nearly run into Eli on the other side of the door.
"Hello again," Eli said, a crooked grin turning up the corners of his mouth. With his eyes open now, Hermione could see that they were a shade of dark blue. Broad-shouldered with auburn hair, he looked very much like the pictures she'd seen of his father, Dirk Creswell, who she had once eavesdropped on while they were both on the run and who had died at the hands of Death Eaters during the war.
Had it only been last year?
Hermione blinked away these troubling thoughts and found that Eli was still watching her.
"Perfect timing, eh?" he said, still smiling.
"What?"
"You're leaving now. And here I am."
"Yeah," Hermione replied vaguely, looking anywhere but at Eli. On top of everything else, she'd now have to add him, the boy standing right in front of her, and Moaning Myrtle to the list of people who'd seen her naked, a list that, until very recently, had included her parents and a doctor or two. She felt like running down the the hallway or maybe hiding behind the statue of Boris the Bewildered for about a year.
After a strained moment, Eli made a noise that sounded like something between a sigh and a laugh and took a step back from her. "Look, I promise I'm not actually trying to make this awkward. So I'll just say again that I'm sorry about earlier—"
"It was my fault," Hermione said.
Eli gave a little shake of his head, and Hermione knew she was only making things more difficult by delaying their parting with more talk.
"All the same," he replied. He reached out and placed hand on the doorknob of the Prefects' Bathroom, a clear signal that the conversation was, mercifully, about to end. "Have a good night, alright?"
"You, too," Hermione said. "And—"
"I'm not going to tell anyone," he said, correctly guessing what she was going to ask him. "I mean, who am I to tattle on the great Hermione Granger?"
Hermione didn't know how to react when people said things like that. "Um. Thank you." She could only hope that the "anyone" he'd mentioned included Witch Weekly, because if he hadn't thought of it, she certainly wasn't going to bring it up.
Eli nodded, still smiling a little even after the intensely awkward few minutes she'd just put him through. His eyes caught hers, and she couldn't help but stare. He looked so much like his father. His father who had died. So much pointless death.
"See you in class, Miss Granger."
"Yeah." She turned and started off down the hall before he saw the tears in her eyes. What was wrong with her? Why was she like this? She needed to be strong, needed to focus.
Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing was simple or fair.
She heard Eli whispering the password to the door of the Prefects' Bathroom as she rounded the corner into the main fifth-floor corridor, looking forward to Monday and the distraction that her classes would bring.
It was nearly ten thirty on Monday morning, and James' potion was on fire. Not boiling, or else billowing smoke. On fire.
Coughing, the smoke choking his half-healed lungs, Draco brandished his wand and sputtered, "Aguamenti!" over and over to no avail. The rest of the Hufflepuffs had already given up and backed away from the table, trying to steer clear of the smoke and flames. James stripped out of his smoldering robes and yelled for Slughorn, who hurried over wearing thick dragonhide gloves.
"Out of the way, out of the way!" Slughorn shouted, popping the cork of a little potion bottle and dumping its contents straight into the cauldron. The potion fizzled and hissed then turned a placid shade of sea foam green. "Terwilleger!" he gasped, turning to face James, "do not—NOT!—add the dragon blood before the hyssop root. I was very clear on that point, Mr. Terwilleger! Were you trying to kill us all?"
"Sorry, Professor," James said, still distracted by his burned clothes. Draco could see angry red skin blistering under his charred shirt sleeve, but was too busy trying to control his own breathing to worry much about James. He didn't want to have to take a swig of his healing potion in front of a classroom full of students. It was humiliating enough to have to drink when he was by himself.
"Now, get that arm under some water. I'll find you a salve," Professor Slughorn way saying to James. He watched James make his way to the basin in the corner of the classroom, then directed his attention to the three other cauldrons at the table. "I'm sorry to say these are no good, boys," he said to Draco, Prescott and Ryan. "You can barely tell they were Fire-Breather Brews. Shall we say 'E' for effort?"
They all nodded. Prescott and Ryan were looking grateful and relieved, but Draco knew his own potion had been a solid Outstanding.
"Mr. Terwilleger," Slughorn said, raising his voice so everyone could hear, "I'd say that was a 'T', wouldn't you?" Slughorn didn't wait for an answer. He swept back toward his desk to retrieve the salve for James with a scowl.
"Sorry, Draco," muttered James upon his return.
Draco glared back at him. "You should have let me help you." When James hung his head, cradling his burned arm against his chest, however, Draco's expression softened. He had recently acquired a certain sympathy for burns, and James' looked superficial, but painful. Finally, he shrugged. He couldn't afford to be angry with James even if he wanted to be. "Look, it's alright. How's your arm?"
"Oh, you know," said James with a small smile and a casual air, "on fire." They couldn't help it, they all laughed.
"The rest of you," Slughorn was saying from the front of the class, "take your cauldrons off of their fires and bring them to the cooling racks to congeal. We'll pick up from there on Wednesday." There was a flurry of movement as everyone did as Slughorn instructed.
Slughorn had never been cozy with Draco, but he'd almost completely dropped his jovial attitude with the rest of the student body when Headmistress McGonagall had shown the same distaste for his Slug Club meetings as Snape had the previous year. With so many students newly thrust in the limelight, Slughorn must have been foaming at the mouth to expand his collection of famous and influential young proteges. Alas, what a disappointment for him when the Headmistress had banned the Slug Club and all other society clubs. The poor man hadn't yet recovered.
Draco watched Slughorn talking with the Gryffindors as they packed up their things, the Weasley girl and Granger among them, and wondered whether the rumours were true that Slughorn had been allowed the consolation of a grand party over Halloween. Even if it was true, he thought bitterly, there was no way he'd ever receive an invitation.
A few minutes later, the bell rang to signal the end of class, and, with a huff that made his walrus mustache billow, Slughorn made his way back through the shuffling students and thrust a little bottle into James' hand. "Dittany," he said.
James murmured his thanks and tipped the bottle over his arm, gingerly rubbing the dittany on his skin. It looked better at once, now pink and slightly raised. "That was stupid," he said, returning his attention to packing up his blackened supplies.
Draco stopped himself from agreeing with James as he and the others joined the queue to leave the classroom. It had been a dangerous, idiotic mistake, and one James wouldn't have made had he been focusing on his work instead of messing about with Ryan and Prescott.
"What happened?" asked Rory, catching up to them with Susan Bones and Katarina Tildman, a heavy-set seventh year girl with short brown hair.
"Bam!" James said simply, miming an explosion with his hands.
"Yeah, we'd worked that much out for ourselves, thanks," said Katarina.
"He added the dragon blood before the hyssop root," Draco explained. They passed through the dungeon room door and headed off down the hall toward the stairs. Despite everything that had happened, Draco felt a small pang of sadness as they passed the corridor to the Slytherin common room. Why would his old House turn on him so completely? How could they just abandon him, torment him, without so much as giving a reason?
Had he made the right decision in leaving? Had there even been a reason to stay?
Draco pushed these thoughts from his mind. Never mind that Slytherin had disowned him. Never mind that, now he was there, his "cover" with Hufflepuff was starting to feel more real to him every day. There was surviving, and there was everything else, and he would just have to find a way to make the everything else wait.
Sighing, Draco returned his attention to James and the others just in time to hear Rory, Susan and Katarina making tutting noises and see James glowering at them, half embarrassed, half annoyed.
"You headed to Muggle Studies, Draco?" James asked, clearly hoping for a change of topic.
"Yes."
"Have fun," said Prescott. "We all know how much you adore it."
Draco pulled a face as Prescott smirked at him. "Thanks, mate. I appreciate your support."
At the Entrance Hall, Draco and Susan broke away from the rest of the group, who all had a free period before lunch, and continued up the marble staircase toward Muggle Studies.
"So, how is it that you can take N.E.W.T. level Muggle Studies when you never took the O.W.L.?" Susan asked as they climbed the stairs together.
"I'm not getting credit for it. I just have to take it."
"Oh." Susan seemed to mull that over. "Why?"
Why? This question irked Draco. He thought it should be clear why. "Do I really have to answer that?"
Susan quelled under his annoyed glare. "No, I know why," she said in a strained whisper.
Of course she knew. Everyone knew. Because he was a Muggle-hating, Mudblood-smearing, evil evil git who needed a complete overhaul of his world view. That was why. Obviously.
Draco stuck his hands into his robes pockets and kept walking, the keys on the cord around his neck jostling against his chest. In his right pocket, he felt the smooth glass of the bottle of healing potion Madam Pomfrey had given him, and in his left, his fingers curled around the familiar folded newspaper with its list of the dead. Momentos to remind him of the things about him no one could possibly forget.
But really, it was stupid to carry on like this when Susan, someone who had lost family in the war just like him—well, not just like him—was trying to have a normal chat with him as if he were an actual human being instead of a rabid Grindylow or something. Draco made himself let go of the items in his pockets and checked the knot of his tie instead. It was, as usual, immaculately tied, though it still surprised him to look down and see the yellow and black stripes of Hufflepuff.
They'd started down another corridor before Susan tried make conversation with Draco again. "Do you like it so far? I know it's a lot of work but—"
"It's okay. Confusing. Like, how do airplanes stay up? Does anyone actually know? And how are televisions any different than wizarding portraits? Where do they keep all the electricity when they're not using it?" Draco ran his hands through his hair impatiently, thinking that he had the utmost sympathy for Muggles now that he knew how difficult their lives must be. But he still didn't see how taking Muggle Studies was supposed to somehow reform him.
At the very least, good marks in the class would look good on paper, and his dues could turn that into good will from the Wizengamot. That was the most important thing.
Thoughts of his upcoming trial froze into icicles in his stomach, jabbing at his insides with cold fear. Just keep walking, he told himself. Stay calm and walk.
"There's a lot to learn," Susan was saying, and Draco trained his attention on her words. "I think it's exciting. I want to work in the Muggle Liaison Office once I finish school. What about you?"
Draco swallowed, pushing away the panic he'd felt. He didn't know how to answer her question. What was he going to do after school, assuming he didn't get sent to Azkaban, of course? Calm down.
He shrugged. "I'm good at Potions. Maybe I'll do something with that."
Susan nodded, looking as if she knew he was thinking about the trial—it was all over the Daily Prophet, after all—but she didn't mention it. "Potion-making is an interesting profession," she said, then she launched into a story about her Uncle Edgar's youthful potion experimentation that lasted until they were seated in the Muggle Studies classroom.
The new Muggle Studies Professor, Hitchens, was an elderly but energetic woman. Though she was patient and explained things well, Draco was still nearly always lost. Luckily, not many students had continued to N.E.W.T. Muggle Studies, so Professor Hitchens had plenty of time to devote to each member of the class.
Ginny Weasley was already there, sitting with two Ravenclaws Draco didn't know. Professor Hitchens called for their essays and collected them before starting in on Chapter 2, The Modern British Politics of Muggles. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't exactly riveting stuff.
Draco caught the Wealsey girl staring at him during class more than once, but each time she looked away and busied herself with taking notes. Seeing her made Draco think of Granger, which made him think yet again of the day before in the Owlery. He sighed. He shouldn't have done that. It was foolish to snap at Granger. He just didn't know how to talk to her. His fellow Hufflepuffs were one thing; they accepted him without judgment (for the most part). He didn't have to win them over. They wanted to like him, so they did.
But Granger hated him. He knew that. And she was well within her rights to despise him. And there was nothing he could ever do to change that. No apology, no explanation, was going to change her mind.
Why should it? he thought bitterly. As much as he wanted to tell himself that the bushy-haired walking library could go hang herself and her opinions, he wanted, really wanted, to make her understand. Because, despite what he'd said to the contrary, it was a challenge that had been boiling in him since they'd met in the Owlery. Because if she could be convinced, if she could understand why he'd done the terrible things he'd done and, more importantly, if he could make her believe that he'd left that life behind, then maybe there was some meager hope.
The first step there was understanding all of it himself, and Draco wasn't sure if he ever really would.
A/N: Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter of Jury of Hearts, why not review it or even share it with a friend? Thank you so much for your continued support!
—Abbs
