A/N: before we begin, I would like to give a huge thank you to Tre, ShadowXMoonlight, ForsakenKalika and jzraael for reviewing last chapter! It received the largest number of reviews so far and made me very happy! I am glad you enjoyed it and I must confess I really loved writing that scene. Though sorted into Gryffindor myself, I like Slytherin House quite a lot and most of my friends think I am actually a Slytherin. Anyway, it was very fun writing that and you can expect a lot more of Daphne, Theo, Blaise and, of course, Draco. I hope you enjoy this chapter too and let me know what you think of this story so far.
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"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
Draco spent the following weeks trying to come up with theories to understand why Granger had befriended Daphne, Blaise and Theo, and all of them revolved around desperation or deceit. At first, he supposed it was a prank pulled by Nott and Zabini on the Gryffindor girl. Nevertheless, as the quarter kept meeting every Thursday afternoon, he then changed his mind and decided that they were pulling a prank on him. However, that was a very narcissistic thought – even for someone like him. Against his better judgment, the only possible and desperate explanation was that Daphne had somehow become friends with Hermione during those ridiculous Potions assignments and had brought her almost boyfriend and best friend to that stupid weekly gathering.
She was a Gryffindor bleeding heart, but they did not seem to care. She was friends with Potty and the Weasel, but they did not seem to care. She was a a muggleb- mudblood, but they did not seem to care. They did not seem to care about anything other than her brains, her generosity, her wittiness.
But Draco had arrived first. He had been the one with whom bushy-haired Hermione Granger had traveled in the Hogwarts Express. He had been the one with whom she had first practiced that stupid levitation charm. He had been the one to whom she had given first those ridiculous bluebell flames. Why did she have to be who she was, then?
He wanted that answer on a dessert spoon, but all he got was empty cabinets.
The weather these days seemed to be trying to prove a point outside and was mimicking Draco's mood: gloomy, dark, with angry showers, and short-tempered thunderstorms. And as it always happens when we are desperate, confused and perturbed, he kept going to that library every Thursday afternoon just to press the wound a little tougher, just to drown a little deeper in his misery, just so that maybe this time he would find out why they were doing that. He had been making a point to arrive fifteen minutes before the unlike quartet bid their goodbyes – if he was going to be that pathetic, he could at least do it with some dignity. That was about the amount of time he could stomach their funny looks and sniggers.
Potter and Weasley were always there as well – not in the same table, of course. They kept glowering at the four students and making remarks in hissed tones while the brunette simply huffed impatiently and ignored them – she was never the one to be intimidated by stares. In that thundering afternoon, however, Draco was feeling a small spark of satisfaction as he witnessed Hermione telling off the ginger tumor as he yet again threatened to stop talking to her if she did not quit hanging out with the Slytherins.
"Dear Merlin, Ron. How old are you again?" she asked in a bored tone, drumming her fingers on the table, absentmindedly.
"They are Slytherins! No good witch or wizard has ever come out of there!"
"You really don't read, do you?" she placed the hand over her mouth to muffle a yawn.
"Hermione, you can't possibly think they like you!"
"Why not?" Hermione countered, eyebrows creased. She closed the book with a thud and eyed the boy pointedly. Draco could see from behind the bookshelves how she went from casual indifference to anger in just a millisecond.
"Because!" the Weasel was saying, his face red in obvious effort to find words to describe her crime, unaware of how Hermione had puffed up her chest and was glaring at him in such a patronizing way that Draco felt a smirk playing on his lips. For some reason, that was getting more entertaining than he had anticipated.
"Because of what, Ronald?" she insisted in a slow, but dangerously high-pitched tone. Her arms were folded indignantly like she was not going to leave that argument any soon.
"Ron, maybe we should go. Hermione apparently knows what she's doing." Potter tried, gulping at the venomous expression in Granger's otherwise kind-looking face. Even from a distance, it was very obvious that she was on the verge of hexing the ginger into the next century. However, Weasley was dumber than Draco anticipated and ignored the cue – just like one ignores an elephant waltzing into Diagon Alley's cobblestoned streets.
"You bloody well know why!" he seethed, fuming.
"Do us a favor, alright? Just stop talking before you say something you'll regret. Or rather, stop talking before you say something that'll make me regret ever befriending you," the girl said through gritted teeth. Weasley stepped back and bumped into a chair, swallowing hard. He had finally realized the way Granger was looking at him and perhaps wondering if he wanted to revive the howler his mother had sent him weeks before. "Just leave me alone."
Draco, who was eavesdropping the entire conversation, muffled a chuckle. He had to admit that watching Hermione Granger scold those two twats was absolutely amusing and strangely Slytherin-esque. In the middle of his amusement, however, he did not realize her sudden change in demeanor: her shoulders dropped and she hid her face on her hands, sniffing. When Draco finally averted his eyes back to her, his smile dropped at once.
"You shouldn't waste your time on those two morons," he remarked, stopping by at her desk and looking down on the girl. She placed a hand over her heart, clearly startled at his sudden apparition.
"As if you don't agree with them," she scoffed, raising her glistening eyes and giving him a cool expression. How she managed to summon that fiercely determined attitude every time was puzzling to say the least – not that he would ever admit it, of course.
"At least I've got the balls to say it," retorted Malfoy, stoically.
"Is that supposed to comfort me?"
"I am just making an observation. I wouldn't read too much into this if I were you."
"You're right, Malfoy. Why would I insist on making assumptions about you?
They stared at each other with measuring looks, each of them pondering the meaning of that question. But Hermione did not seem to wait for an answer for she quickly added:
"And by the way, why the hell were you eavesdropping?"
"Just looking for a book," he clarified with his typical drawled voice, shaking a book nonchalantly as if to prove his point and eager to avoid any serious conversation with that know-it-all bookworm. "Why are you hanging out with my friends?"
"Your friends?" Hermione snickered and raised her brows, patronizingly. Draco flushed and chastised himself; that was a very moronic thing to say. That conversation seemed to be going downhill but he strangely did not feel like stepping back just yet. "And we're not hanging out, Malfoy, we're studying. Does that make them less worthy of being your friends when they spend so much time with scum like me?"
"Always the know-it-all, aren't you?" his eyes scanned her up and down and he folded his arms with a presumptuous grin.
"Maybe you should join Harry and Ron. They seem to loathe me as much as you do nowadays."
There was obvious a hint of disappointment and sadness in her remark in spite of her stubborn and defiant tone. Realization dawned upon him for the briefest of seconds and it crossed Draco's mind to tell her that he in fact did not loathe her, but that thought made him cringe on the inside. But then her words at Diagon Alley clouded his mind and as quick as wisps of smoke, the tendrils of sympathy washed away.
"Not even that would make me associate with them, Granger."
"Granger? I thought you had another word to address me nowadays. But I suppose it is more fun to say it aloud when there's an audience to entertain."
Hermione studied him silently and Draco reciprocated the gaze just as fiercely, ignoring her insightful comment.
"What are you doing here, then?"
"I told you, Granger, looking for a book. You aren't the only one who's got Transfiguration homework, you know?" he added, peering at the essay she had been working on before Weasley's dramatic interruption and realizing she had obviously added eight more inches that McGonagall had asked.
"Really?" she gave him a knowing look, curling her lips and leaning back into her chair, a roguish expression forming in her face. "Then you should return that book back to the shelves, Malfoy. Unless you suddenly decided to venture yourself in the world of house cleaning transfiguration, of course."
Draco glanced at book in his hands. 'Taming your household in twenty-five lessons'. Fucking hell! Feeling embarrassed at his own stupidity, Malfoy sneered at the girl, who gave him a mischievous smirk that rivalled even his. Fuming and ignoring how he much preferred that stupid Gryffindor girl mocking him than being so downcast, he smashed the book over her desk and stormed off the library.
He wished that was the last time he would ever think of that bushy-haired, bucktoothed, know-it-all. But seeing her working in harmony every Potions class with Daphne, or listening to Blaise and Theo mentioning how much they had improved thanks to her help was like having needles crawling under his skin. At Hallowe'en's eve, Draco realized he had had enough of that and decided to have a serious conversation with his friends.
"What are you up to with Granger?" he blurted out, arms folded and lips pressed together so thinly that they were outdoing McGonagall's.
Blaise and Theo exchanged meaningful glances and smirks as though they had anticipated that moment for some time. Daphne, who was writing a letter to her family, raised her green eyes, gaped at them for some seconds and lowered her head, shaking it in disbelief.
"It was Daph's idea," Blaise answered, slowly, glancing at his nails, matter-of-factly "But it was a great idea, as far as I'm concerned. Snape's not hissing in our necks anymore, Finnigan and Thomas let us do all work and don't screw up anything. Besides, we are in very good terms with other Houses, just like Dumbledore's always preached," he added with a half-smile that made Draco close his fists at once.
"As if you do anything without any ulterior motives," Draco barked, squinting his eyes and crisping his lips. There was a slight flush to his face as he scanned their expressions and tried to control the urge to give both of them a shove.
"Maybe you don't know us that well, Draco," Zabini suggested, eyebrows raised.
"Listen here, you two pricks, just tell me why the hell you're doing that," he threatened in a hiss.
"Or what?" Theo snapped, fed up with that pointless conversation. He tilted his chin up in the air and then lowered his tone to nothing more than a whisper. "Are you gonna owl my Father? Quit talking to us?"
"I would not sink that lower," the blonde one retorted, dryly, clearly offended at the accusation. "I'm not like those two bloody morons."
"Then leave us alone," Theo shrugged, impatiently, as if that decided the matter.
"You can't just think that's normal! You bloody well know what she is!" the boy tried once more, throwing his hands up in the air, and ignoring that small voice in the back of his head that claimed he was acting just like Ronald Weasley.
"We do and we don't care," Daphne countered, sitting beside Theo and clutching his hand absentmindedly. The boy watched their clasped hands silently and inhaled deeply; Theo would not admit, but he still had some reservations about Granger, though they were getting smaller and smaller every Thursday afternoon. "And it'd do you well if you didn't care about it too," she then added in a muttered tone, locking eyes with Draco. The blonde one fidgeted uncomfortably and focused very hard on pulling his best sneer so that his cheeks did not flush at Daphne's suggestive tone. It was obvious that the girl was suspicious that something was askew.
"If that's bothering you so much, Draco, maybe you should be smarter and pluck up some courage," Blaise sentenced and it was clear that that conversation had ended.
Draco dragged himself back to the dorms without another word to the trio, who merely exchanged some silent glances before engaging in an Explosive Snap game. He ignored Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced and petty Slytherin girl who kept trying to get his attention all the time. He ignored Crabbe and Goyle, who were gesturing dumbly as though wanting to share the latest prank they had pulled on the first-year students. Rather than any of that, Draco sank his head onto the pillow and pulled the covers of his bed violently, almost ripping them apart with that gesture. Feeling more tired than ever and still without a clue as to what to do, he muffled a scream against his pillow and tried to ignore the nauseous feeling in his churning stomach.
What should I do?
What should I do?
What should I do?
Draco spent Hallowe'en in a quiet and sullen mood. His gaze involuntarily traveled to the Gryffindor table, searching for a certain bushy-haired brunette. He dismissed his friends and Quidditch practice, and barely touched any food; he suspected he might not be able to stomach even a glass of pumpkin juice. His head was cluttered, buzzing, pounding; and in the middle of that thunderstorm were pieces of his conversation with Hermione and Lucius Malfoy, both incessantly pestering the confines of his mind.
She's a mudblood. She's a mudblood. You know what they are, Draco, and you know they are not entitled of their magic, those treacherous thieves. You know your place and Granger should know hers. That little liar. She belongs in the mud, in the gutter, where all things are filthy just like her blood. She's a scum, she's an insolent abhorrence and a freak.
Everything Lucius had taught him over twelve years made his head throb painfully. Draco had never talked back to his Father about that. He had not even asked his Mother whether she believed that too, because Narcissa had never said a word about muggles, mudbloods, blood traitors and half-bloods back home. Draco knew that one of his aunts had eloped and married a mudblood, but no one talked about that. He had never asked his Father how he knew those things. He had never looked for evidence to support those claims about muggles, mudbloods, squibs and half-bloods. He had simply believed in Lucius. He had only wanted to please his Father. All he had done was listen and keep his head down.
But now there was someone challenging all of those preconceptions. Why did he suddenly want to argue everything he had learned? Why did he not believe in her inferiority as strongly as before? Why were his convictions being tested so mercilessly?
Why? Why? Why?
And as if that day had been designed to torment him, Draco saw himself after Hallowe'en Feast standing in the middle of a flooded corridor and staring at Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, petrified and hanging by her tail from a torch bracket. In the middle of that commotion were Potter, Weasley and Granger. The latter was rather pale as her amber eyes reflected the pool of water. When they locked their eyes, Draco saw something he had never seen in her defiant expression: fear.
He could see her chest go up and down as she watched the petrified cat and Draco realized he could not stomach that. When he averted his eyes, however, they landed in something even more disturbing. There, painted in a scarlet red tone that was remarkably similar to blood was a message. The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.
As the teachers rushed the students back to their Houses, Filch was pointing a stinky finger to the Gryffindor trio. Nonetheless, Draco's mind could not be farther from there.
It was back to the first day of his summer holidays, specifically to the threat seethed by his Father. Times have unfortunately changed and we are no longer entitled to voice this truth freely. But perhaps the good old times are coming back and justice will be done. And when justice is done, these creatures like this Hermione Granger will no longer be around us and they will know exactly where they belong. Mudbloods, blood traitors and muggle lovers. All of them will face justice – and they will face it soon. It traveled even farther to that one time many years ago when Lucius Malfoy had told him the tale of the chamber of Secrets and how a mudblood had been killed back them.
Draco swallowed hard and tasted bile.
The next second, his gaze landed on Granger once again.
You're just like your father, Malfoy.
You're just like your father, Malfoy.
You're just like your father, Malfoy.
And then it was back to that last conversation they had had.
I thought you had another word to address me nowadays.
Head spinning, lungs tight, Draco could no longer brace himself. Feeling as if he did not control his body and his words anymore, he blurted out.
"Enemies of the heir, beware! You should watch your back, Granger."
That was the best he could do. He only hoped she would understand.
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A/N: a lot of Draco and Hermione, right? He's still very confused and you can imagine how this whole Chamber of Secrets episode is going to make it even worse.