"MUDBLOOD"
Someone carved it into her skin with a knife. It was ugly, red, and scabbed over as though it only had a few days to heal. Draco pulled the sleeve down because he could not bear to look at the word any longer.
Granger was a Mudblood.
Everything made more sense; her visceral reaction to that word was clear. How could the universe do this? How could a Malfoy end up with such a failure of a Reaper? Father would say it was because Draco was a failure of a Malfoy. Father would say it was because Draco could do nothing right, because he is weak and powerless and a disgrace to his name.
A Muggle-born Reaper with that much power? Draco refused to see Granger as a failure. She understood Draco better than anyone. Her world continuously forced her to prove herself worthy of being who she was. Granger was here with him because she had proven herself worthy, and the universe wanted her to help Draco do the same. What had she said to him?
Blood is blood. Where would the Malfoy line be without our money? Draco wondered. Where would they be without a network and all the resources at their disposal? If pure blood is integral to the highest abilities of magical people, then how could a family like the Weasleys be so poor?
Nothing made sense!
All those questions made Draco's head ache, but they would not stop coming. The Weasleys were blood traitors, but Draco thought back to the first Ministry raid at the manor. Arthur Weasley refused to raise his wand at a defenseless child, though he had every reason to hate Draco. He might be stupid, but he wasn't all bad. Draco clutched his head in pain and bolted for the door. When Professor McGonagall asked where he was headed, Draco did not know.
"I cannot look at her," was all he said before heading to his dormitory, which was all the way down in the damn dungeon because this school actively tried to make Draco miserable.
.oOo.
Once Draco hit his bed, he did not move for two days except to go to the bathroom. He had finished all his coursework anyway, and the same questions would not stop threading their way through his synapses. Blaise brought him some pumpkin juice from the Great Hall, but Draco ignored it.
He was not surprised when Pansy forced her way into the second-year boys' dormitory. She announced herself with an obnoxious toe tap.
"Should you not be in class?" he mumbled.
"History of Magic is a glorified nap," she replied. "Are you not going to say good-bye before I leave tomorrow?"
Draco did not answer so she pulled the covers off him.
"I asked if you were going to say good-bye to me!" Draco curled into himself. "What is wrong with you?" The concern in Pansy's voice was genuine and it caught Draco off-guard.
"Do not pretend to care, Pans."
"I care! I might not be Blaise, but I am your friend. Friends tell each other bye when they leave. Friends tell each other when bad shit happens, Draco, and you never even bothered to tell me what went on after Transfiguration! Not that you need an excuse to hit Harry Potter, just signal for backup next time."
"I have a Reaper," Draco muttered into his pillow.
"A what?"
"A Reaper!" Draco unfolded himself and sighed heavily. It felt good to tell Pansy, even if it meant she would look at him differently. Draco couldn't continue to let Blaise support him alone.
Pansy stood at the end of his bed and blinked several times before sputtering out, "Those are a myth."
"Does that make me a legend, then?" he quipped.
"You're serious?"
Draco nodded and shuffled to one side of the bed so Pansy could squeeze onto the other.
"Her name is Granger."
"Ugh, I hate her already."
"Shut up, Pans. She was, is really, she is, um, petrified."
Pansy narrowed her eyes and leaned on Draco's shoulder.
"Only Mudbloods get petrified. What a waste of a—" Draco kicked her off the bed and Pansy hit the ground with a loud thud.
"Do not speak of her that way," he demanded.
"What good is she to you?" Pansy asked, disgusted. "She is an angel of death, Draco. You should count your blessings she is cooped up in the hospital wing!"
Draco shook his head.
"She saved my life, Pans. She helps me. In a weird way,I need her. Without her, I have so many questions and no answers. It feels like someone dug a hole in my stomach and froze half of my soul. I am empty! Granger has always been here! I trust her, Pans, and I do not exist without her."
Pansy got off the floor and sat on top of the covers.
"How can you accept her? What I know of Reapers is that they are at your side all the time. How can you live with a Mudblood that close?"
Draco took a shaky breath in.
"Try not to judge me Pans, okay?" When she nodded, he continued.
"Part of me does not care. It did not stop her from saving my life, or from helping me learn to trust my wand. And I hate myself for thinking it. I hate that I have to question everything my parents taught me and fought for. I hate myself because this makes me less of a Malfoy."
"Does it?" Pansy asked. Draco looked at her in shock. "Don't get me wrong, I think they're disgusting because that's what Grandmum says. But one day Grandmum will die and the Muggle-borns will still be here. Why would there be so many of them if they were not meant to be here?"
"Pans, did you just make sense?"
"Draco Malfoy, you know you're my best friend. Not my grandmother. She doesn't get to choose who I am, and you don't have to be your father to be a good Malfoy. For all you know, your father is the shitty one in the line."
"I used to want to be just like him," Draco admitted. "But what kind of man doesn't ask questions about what he does not know?"
"A scared one."
They said nothing for several minutes, just laid next to each other on Draco's bed. That had gone much better than he anticipated. When did Pansy get so smart, anyway? Draco thought she would hate him for even asking questions. So he turned toward her and wrapped her in a hug.
"Bye, Pans."
.oOo.
"Muggle books?"
All Draco's friends left for the holiday, leaving him only Crabbe, Goyle, and a petrified Reaper for company. Granger was preferable even if she could not talk. In some ways, Draco found that to be a blessing.
Being away from Granger made him ill. It was nothing physical, no grand conspiracy by the universe to force them together. But she had been at Draco side as long as he was alive and losing her felt like someone had stolen his reflection. As though Draco couldn't see himself, or how to become the best version of himself, without her. Because she saved his life, Draco felt he owed her the effort to understand.
"Are you feeling alright, boy?" Madam Pince asked as Draco stood in front her librarian's desk.
"No, thank Merlin you asked! All my friends are gone, the dorm is so cold my Aguamenti charm accidentally froze a house-elf to a teacup, and I think I might be about to do something to disgrace my family name."
Madam Pince looked down at Draco over her spectacles, regretting she asked at all.
"Muggle books can be found in the Muggle Studies section. Head straight this way," she pointed, "then make a left at the legal section."
There were books, alright. Too many of them, each one less interesting than the last. In the real ones, the pictures didn't even move! Draco shouted in frustration as he shoved, ironically, Pride and Prejudice back onto the shelf.
"Are you okay?" a voice asked. He didn't turn to look at her but saw her blonde pigtails in his peripheral vision and knew it must be Hannah Abbott. Draco rolled his eyes and leaned against the shelves.
"No! I am not okay!"
"I figured as much," Hannah smiled. "No way would you be in the Muggle Studies section otherwise." When Draco didn't respond she continued.
"Thank you, by the way, for what you did at the Dueling Club. Getting that awful Millicent off me was kind of you."
Draco shrugged.
"It has been known to happen."
"It really hasn't," Hannah retorted. Before Draco could respond, she asked, "What are you looking for?"
"You're a half-blood, what do you think I am doing back here? I am trying to … I am trying to see what Muggles are like. I want something to read that helps me understand them. I am going mental, Hannah! Mental!"
"You don't say?" she asked facetiously, but Draco plowed on.
"I think that my parents might be wrong and Mud—Muggle-borns are not actually less magical or less worthy of anything and it is making my brain hurt. I just feel like maybe if I read something, I would understand. How can I know my parents are right if I know nothing about what they taught me to hate?
"This one." Hannah pulled a large but thin book from the lower shelf and handed it to Draco. "This is exactly what you need. It's perfect for you."
"It looks like a children's book," Draco said, carefully balancing it on his palms as though at any moment it might open up like a mouth and bite off one of his hands.
"It is a children's book," Hannah responded. "Start small." Her face got serious then. "Why did you attack Harry Potter? Did you know Justin?"
Draco scoffed.
"Finch-Fletchley once confused a house-elf with a garden gnome. No, I thought I lost someone I care about and I wanted to blame him."
"I'm so sorry. I didn't hear about a death in the Malfoy family."
"She is not someone you would hear about, and we work hard to keep it that way."
"I see."
Hannah did not see, did not know what he was talking about, but Draco did feel the slightest bit better getting that off his chest.
"But she is not gone, not yet, and I am just trying to figure out how much I should do to help her. I want to be angry at her for leaving me, but she never told me she was a Muggle-born and I have to look at myself and ask why. I was a shitty person, Hannah," she gasped at the use of a curse word, "and I do not want to be like that anymore."
"But why Harry Potter then? Why go after Harry?'
"Because the world likes him better than it likes me."
"For the record," Hannah offered her hand, "I don't."
Draco took it without hesitation.
.oOo.
Malfoy waited a couple more days before he visited Granger again. He shoved the picture book beneath his bed so no one would spot it. (Something he was sure Madam Pince would balk at.) Draco was rather lonely without Pansy and Blaise, though that Hannah girl did smile at him in the hallway.
In the hospital wing, Granger hadn't moved. Draco's parents sent him Christmas presents, but all he wanted was for Granger to move again. He would prefer her hovering over his shoulder all the time to the lifeless statue she had become. His parents, it turned out, could not give him everything.
"Suppose the Malfoy name cannot buy me the world, after all," he said aloud.
Draco sat in a chair at Granger's bedside, book in hand. Still unable to look at her, his chair was angled more toward her feet. Madam Pomfrey said, "There's no point in talking to a petrified person!" Draco shot back, "Have they studied petrified Reapers?" He felt awkward because it was an act of rebellion to merely hold a Muggle-written book.
"You said that I would not need you to tell me what is right," Draco said as he flipped the book open. "I wish I was as confident in myself."
The book creaked, its spine unforgiving as Draco turned through the copyright pages. It was obviously the first time it was opened. He sighed deeply and thought of Hannah, who insisted this book was the one he needed. Part of him was offended because he was years past picture books. Maybe Muggles needed picture books for everything? Father did say they were rather stupid.
"Where the Wild Things Are."
Draco hated the protagonist immediately. He watched this boy forsake his family over a bad meal. Family comes first. Family always comes first! Draco paused frequently to make comments aloud to his Reaper. Each time, his heart sank when she did not respond.
The boy ran away to a place he could be king. Draco understood that goal, at least, but did not understand how the boy could ever leave his mother. He appeared to have what Muggles considered a normal life, but he left.
As he read aloud, Draco was drawn into the picture world. They didn't move, but he understood how they intended for him to feel. It was wilderness, an unknown world whose creatures were untamed and listened only to the boy. Control? Now that was a desire Draco could relate to.
Then the boy began to miss the parts of his life he had not appreciated before.
"I knew it!" Draco shouted in triumph. (Madam Pomfrey shot him a disapproving glare as he'd stayed well past visiting hours.) "I knew he would come around," he told Granger. He looked at her excitedly, but her expression was just as blank as when he first opened the book. Her sleeve was pulled down to her wrist, but it did not assuage Draco's displeasure and confusion knowing what was there.
He flipped the page to continue reading, only to stumble through a passage.
"I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more … What I dread is the isolation. There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready."
Draco slammed the book shut.
"I am not ready!"
He stood and practically ran out of the hospital wing. Draco ran into Crabbe and Goyle on the first floor. He sniffed and asked, "What are you doing here?"
They murmured some indistinct reply Draco did not listen to, but he motioned for them to follow. (The ends of Crabbe's hair looked orange. A spell gone wrong, probably. How two such blithering idiots were ever chosen by wands was a mystery.)
Once they descended to the dungeon and approached the wall panel where they knew the Slytherin dorm to be, Draco asked,
"What is the new password?"
They grumbled again. Truly, what were those two good for?
"Oh, right, pure-blood," Draco said, though the word made him a little queasy. They stepped through to the common room when Goyle noticed the book.
"Why are you reading that?"
Draco was taken aback. Goyle never asked him direct questions.
"What does it matter to you what I read?" he shot back.
"Because that's a Mug—" Crabbe elbowed him. "Never, uh, never mind."
Draco raised an eyebrow.
"I do not know what is going on with you two, but I am going to pretend whatever this is did not happen and you are going to forget about what I am not reading."
They both nodded. That's more like it.
Draco loved the Slytherin common room. The walls were made of rough stone and round greenish lamps hung from the ceiling. A fire crackled in an elaborately-carved mantelpiece; several Slytherin students were silhouetted by firelight in high-backed chairs.
"Are you any closer to figuring out who the heir is?" Crabbe asked.
Malfoy told them to sod off, but they were unusually persistent.
"No, I do now know who it is, and I am not looking for them. My mind is…on other things right now."
"Other things?" Goyle asked.
"I wonder why the Prophet has not reported on these attacks. I suppose Dumbledore is trying to hush it all up. Father always said he was the worst thing to happen to this school. He refuses to tell me anything about the Chamber of Secrets, though. Just always, 'keep your head down,' whatever that means.
"His last letter said that the school needs to be rid of all the 'Mudblood filth,' but that was all really. They raided the manor again last week." Draco shuddered. "I am so happy I stayed here. I do not even know why they bother. Do they think Mother lounges around in Ravenclaw's lost diadem or something? They have been raiding the manor since I was seven and have yet to actually turn up any shred of evidence.
"It is there, of course. There's the troublesome chamber beneath the drawing room and the space in Father's office. But it is like searching through your heads to find your brains. They have to be there but I can't seem to get to them."
They were so insulted, apparently, that they just dashed right out of the common room. Crabbe's hair looked even more orange on the way out, but Draco paid them no mind as he made his way to bed.
"I am not ready."
.oOo.
Draco returned Where the Wild Things Are to the library the following morning. He did not read the end. By the time Blaise arrived with the rest of the students in early January, Draco was exhausted. None of his questions had been answered and he ached to feel that familiar touch on his shoulder.
"Are you feeling okay?" Blaise asked as he slid onto the bench next to Draco. The Great Hall filled rapidly with returning students.
"I feel too many things," Draco replied and rested his forehead on Blaise's shoulder. "I am afraid because I could leave her there. Maybe I would live longer or maybe Granger is distracting me from being the best Malfoy I can be. She is a Mudblood, and my parents would say this is what she deserves."
"But you wouldn't leave her there," Blaise insisted. "I know you, and you wouldn't do it."
"I wish I could," Draco admitted. "I wish I could hate her and think she is the garbage witch my parents would accuse her to be. But she saved me even when she had no reason to. She saved me to help me become the best version of myself I can be. She wants me to be the Draco Malfoy her world never got to see. How could I argue with that? How could I hate her for it?"
"You have time to make a decision," Blaise said.
"Yeah."
"You already have."
"Yeah."
Draco rotated his head so he could look toward the other tables. Nearly everyone was seated then, but Hannah Abbot stood in conversation with one of her friends at the Hufflepuff table. Draco lifted himself out of the bench and Blaise shot him a curious glance as Draco headed toward Hannah. He shouted her name to get her attention, and the nearby Hufflepuffs turned to look at him with skeptical expressions.
"Malfoy!" she smiled as he approached. "Did you enjoy the book?"
Draco noticed she had replaced her pigtails with a braid. She looked much different, a little more confident than when she first sat on that stool to be sorted over a year earlier. Something about the way she spoke to people, to him, had changed.
"It was…" Draco trailed off. "It was what I needed to read," he admitted. "So thank you, I guess. For the recommendation." He was not quite sure why he was stumbling over his words all of a sudden. It likely had something to do with everyone's eyes locked on the pair of them and the not-so-quiet whispers of "What the hell is Malfoy doing at the Hufflepuff table?"
"You're welcome!" she squeaked and threw her arms around his neck in an excited hug.
The collective gasp from the student body did not have any effect on Hannah. She just stood there, aware everyone was staring but unconcerned because Draco was her friend. To Hannah, she was only hugging a friend. Draco glanced toward the Slytherin table where several students stared daggers at her. A Half-blood hugging their pureblood prince was against decorum and would not be tolerated.
Draco's initial reaction was to push her away to make them stop staring. He stood frozen in her embrace for a moment, unsure of what to do. If he rejected her, she would face retribution. Someone would do something to her for breaking the unwritten rules of their society, rules Hannah was unfamiliar with. His decision came more from his heart than his brain.
When he returned Hannah's hug, it was Granger's voice in his head. One day, you won't need me to tell you what is right. The Slytherin table whispered amongst themselves; even Blaise looked a little hurt. The Hufflepuff nearest them simply muttered, "Merlin's pants!"
As they broke apart, Hannah said, "I knew you would like it because he returns to his family in the end. Because that's what you do for the people you love. You come back for them."
The entire hall watched Draco walk around the table and back to his seat. Blaise did not make room for him, which was a little odd. The Slytherin to his right scooted away, like Draco had been contaminated. Perhaps he had been. Draco shrugged and reached for a chicken thigh.
.oOo.
Blaise ignored him for weeks. It was March before Draco cornered him after Transfiguration. Blaise had nearly reached the doorway when Draco pulled him back inside by his collar.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Draco accused.
"Nothing is wrong with me," Blaise replied and shrugged off Draco's grip.
"That is a lie," Draco said. "You never lie to me."
"And you never hug people that aren't me and Pans, so I guess we're even."
Draco stepped back, appalled.
"That is what this is about? Hannah?"
"You never even told me you knew her."
"I only really met her over the holiday," Draco insisted. "What does it matter?"
"I don't know if you are trying to replace me or if you're just desperate to fill the void Granger left behind, but either way—"
"Fill the void? Do you think I can fill the emptiness with someone I hardly know? If you cannot help me, why would Hannah be able to?"
Blaise only tightened his grip on his bag. He tried to push past Draco and toward the doorway, but Draco forced him back.
"Tell me!" he whined. When Blaise did not respond, Draco switched to a commanding tone he swore to himself he would never use on his best friend. "Tell me, Zabini, why you believe I would go to Hannah Abbott."
"Because she's a girl," Blaise replied as though he was compelled by some unspoken magic. Draco tilted his head in confusion.
"So is Pansy."
"Pansy would never hurt me like that."
"Hurt you?" Draco asked. "How?"
Before Blaise could respond, Professor McGonagall interrupted them.
"Shouldn't you boys be heading to your next class?"
Draco never got an answer. Blaise bolted from the room immediately and Draco huffed.
"Why does everyone understand him but me?" Draco asked. Professor McGonagall sighed.
"One day, Mister Malfoy, you will have to make a decision that affects him very much," she said cryptically. "But I believe he would do anything you ask of him."
"I would do anything for him," Draco replied in earnest. Professor McGonagall gave his shoulder an affectionate pat and, for once, he did not shy away from the contact.
"You should tell him just that."
.oOo.
Blaise was right that Draco made his decision about Granger months earlier. They were on speaking terms again, but made up a few days prior to term when Draco hugged him and refused to let go until Blaise liked him again. Blaise blushed so hard even his chest went faintly pink but agreed he would let "such a pompous asshole" back into his life.
Of course, Potter and Weasley managed to save the day again. They found the Chamber of Secrets, rescued Ginny Weasley, and defeated Voldemort. Just how, exactly, Draco could not be bothered to ask. He was more concerned with how Voldemort kept getting into Hogwarts and infiltrating the lives of its students. But most everyone else just clapped for Potter.
Draco was summoned to the hospital wing after all the other patients were revived. McGonagall insisted Malfoy have a private moment. She, along with Professor Snape and Madam Pomfrey, departed to the far side of the room after Draco was presented with the Mandrake draught.
Draco's hands shook as he raised the cup to Granger's lips. What if it doesn't work? What if Reapers need more? What if she has been dead the entire time? The liquid was a disgusting brown colour, similar to Mandrakes themselves. Draco was careful not to let any splash outside her mouth. Once the glass was empty, he took her hand and waited. Seconds ticked by and Draco's anxiety ticked higher with each one.
Then her fingers moved.
Granger gripped his hand and Draco sobbed in relief.
"Oh my God," he exclaimed as her hair unfroze and she blinked several times in rapid succession. She coughed and her face crinkled unattractively at the taste in her mouth, but then she caught sight of Draco and smiled.
"Missed you," she said sleepily.
Draco flung himself overtop of Granger and attempted a hug. She laughed and Draco asked,
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She tensed underneath him. Her arms around him froze as though she went back to her petrified state and it terrified him.
"How do you know?" Before Draco could reply, she muttered, "Of course. I didn't think about that. Never thought you'd spot it."
"I would have stopped saying it."
"You would have rejected me and I would be alone." Draco shook his head but he knew she was right. He needed to come to terms with this on his own.
"I would never."
"But you knew?" she asked, tightening her arms around him. "You know what I am and you revived me anyway?"
"I wanted you back and that is what mattered. But you will never leave me again," he commanded.
Granger smiled and kissed the top of his head.
"I am by your side, now and always."
"Good." He smiled back at her and said, "I read to you."
"I heard you," she responded. "It's one of my favourites."
Draco smiled even wider and said, "I missed you, Granger." When he said that, tears appeared in the corners of her eyes and she couldn't blink them away fast enough. She let out a shaky breath and said,
"Hermione."
Draco tilted his head to one side and asked, "What's that?"
"It's my name," she replied hesitantly. "You never called me by it, but it's my first name."
Draco nuzzled his face into her shoulder.
"I missed you, Hermione."