Disclaimer: All J.K. Rowling's
SHADOWS OF OURSELVES
Chapter 12: Refute
Refute: Demonstrate that a strategy, move, or opening is not as good as previously thought.
Sunday, October 12, 2003-Monday, October 13, 2003
It was near midday several weeks later when Hermione gingerly crept to the library, settled herself down on a couch, and placed a cool cloth on her forehead in an attempt to assuage the vicious pounding of her head. Just when she was getting some relief, the door opened, hitting the side of the nearest bookshelf with a loud bang.
"Strong coffee, Headache Antidote, and for goodness sake don't let that door make a sound when you leave!" Hermione ordered, thinking it was a house-elf.
Instead of leaving, the footsteps (much heavier and louder than they should have been) approached, and Hermione barely had time to whip the cloth off her head before a glass of amber liquid was placed in her hand. Draco carelessly flicked his wand at the door, which shut with another bang before she could object. She threw a glance heavenward before looking down at the glass in her hand.
"Sunday. The help's day off," he reminded her as he settled himself in the armchair opposite her sofa and idly picked up a book. "It's the Headache Antidote you so kindly asked for, the most popular treatment for the hungover." He scoffed, "Surely, you—"
"I know what it is, Malfoy," Hermione sighed, tipping the entire contents down her throat. Her shoulder and neck muscles instantly relaxed as the headache disappeared. She lay back with a sigh and re-placed the cloth on her head.
Draco snapped the book shut. "You're not planning on making these excursions with Pansy nightly occurrences, are you?" he asked, abandoning all pretense.
"I thought you, of all people, would encourage them," she said sharply.
"I do. Congratulations on winning Pansy's superficial affection. I just hope you understand that no matter how much of a 'friendship' you forge with Pansy and her entourage, it will all go to waste if you let something slip when you're wasted."
Hermione simmered beneath the cool cloth for a moment before she whipped it off again and sat up. "You know, Malfoy, I'm not a complete idiot, and I can hold my liquor far better than you give me credit for. I'm perfectly aware that Pansy and I are as good friends as Harry and Voldemort are. That's why I can't understand why she keeps inviting me to things when she so obviously hates me. If I didn't know better, I would think she's trying to find out why I'm suddenly loyal to the Dark Lord. But she's too petty for that."
"You're right, Pansy is petty. Evil, but in a different way than the other Death Eaters. She doesn't hate you because you're in Voldemort's favor, she hates you because..." Draco seemed suddenly interested in a small tear in the leather of his chair. "... you see, Pansy expected to marry me."
This did not surprise Hermione. It had been apparent at school that Pansy and Draco were something of an item.
"We'd been unofficially betrothed since we were three. Our mothers were inseparable, and my father could find nothing objectionable about the Parkinsons. Their blood is not as pure as ours, of course, but they had enough connections to the other old families to make it nearly so. And I was more indifferent than against it.
"But then my father fell out of favor, and the Parkinsons distanced themselves, putting off the official announcement of our betrothal. Then I went into hiding after ... after our sixth year. And by the time I returned, Pansy had married Blaise. Financial problems on her family's part, I heard." He shrugged. "It worked out for the best. Being married to Pansy only would have complicated matters, working for the Order."
"You know, it's sad," Hermione said thoughtfully. "Pansy and all those other silly girls spend their nights drowning themselves in drink and running from party to party. But really, they're running from the fear of staying in one place too long, being swallowed by the boredom that threatens every minute of their existence. They try putting off the cold, empty lives they wake up to in the morning by filling every second with parties and intrigue and affairs."
Draco gave her a hard look. "Listen, Granger, I know you're committing yourself completely to this masquerade, but there is a fine line between pretending to live it and actually living it. You think you're putting the blindfold on everyone else, but you're actually placing it over your own eyes."
He was only half speaking to her. The slight frown on his face, the reflective tone of his voice—he was talking about himself, too, she realized.
Draco flicked his wand at the marble chess table that stood across the room and levitated it towards them. The pieces clutched at the board in terror, let out a sigh of relief when Draco let the board come to rest between himself and Hermione, and sent murderous looks toward their owner.
Hermione saw that white pieces were lined up on her side of the board. She sat up to see Draco more clearly.
"Don't you play?" he asked. He frowned, "It's a logic game, Granger. I thought you, of all people—"
"Er, no, not really," she confessed. "Ron's always—"
Draco rolled his eyes. "Oh, yes, Weasley, the master strategist. Well? White moves first, doesn't it?"
"What's this all about, Malfoy?" She hated the confusion and trepidation in her voice.
"Just play, Granger," he said with a hint of exasperation. "Does everything need to have a reason with you?"
"It usually does with you." When she continued to stare incomprehensibly down at the board, Draco opened his mouth again, but she interrupted. "Queenside knight to C-3."
A shadow of a smirk crossed his face. "Queenside pawn to D-5."
The smirk realized itself fully on Hermione's face. "Queenside knight to D-5."
"Queen to D-5." Her smile vanished. She looked up and saw Draco looking at her intently.
"Just because Weasley always keeps his queen on the sideline doesn't mean everyone does," he said. "Chess is a metaphor for life, Granger."
"That's giving it rather a lot of responsibility, isn't it?" she asked.
He did not answer. "Your move."
"Kingside pawn to E-3."
"Queen to D-2," Draco said.
A quizzical raise of her eyebrow indicated she was surprised he was sending his queen so deep into enemy territory where any of three pieces—her queen, her king, or her queenside bishop—could take the piece. Deciding to play his game against him, she sent in her queen.
"Queen to D-2."
With a satisfied smile, Hermione crossed her arms and sat back, waiting to hear the grinding scrape of stone as her queen moved forward, the vicious swipe of her own queen, and the dull thud of the pieces of Draco's queen falling on the board. When it did not come, her eyes shot back to the board.
There were two black queens.
"What's this, Malfoy?" she asked. "Cheating at chess? Cheating at life, then?"
He almost smiled. Almost. "Isn't that what we've been doing all these years? No, I just wanted you to see. If you're the queen, Hermione, you have to change your color to fit in. That's the whole point of what we're doing here. The trouble is that you become someone else, just like your queen here. Once its color changed, it no longer listened to you."
"Don't you trust me, Draco?" she demanded. "I trust you. I agreed to your plan, I've put my life in your hands—"
"Of course I trust you," he said. "You're the only one I trust."
They stared at each other with an odd mixture of awkwardness, defiance, confusion, and respect.
"How did you know I was going to play my queen, and not the king or the bishop?"
Even to her ears it sounded like a sad attempt to change the subject. She idly traced the edge of the board with her finger, anything to keep from looking at him. Draco decided to put her out of her misery.
"Because you wanted to play my game against me. Unadvisable, but that's exactly what we're doing with Voldemort. We're deep into enemy territory, Hermione. One false move, and the game is lost. Besides, you're the queen. You don't want to be sidelined anymore." He stood. "The photographer is coming at four, and Madam Malkin will be here at three to arrange your wardrobe."
"Right," she said, fumbling for something to say. "Draco, wait! I..." He stopped, one hand on the doorknob. "I... Thanks, Draco. For everything."
He raised his hand as if to wave away her thanks and slipped out the door. For Hermione, his gesture was more of a 'you're welcome' than if he had said the words.
The door of Grimmauld Place banged open, waking Mrs. Black and causing everyone in the kitchen to jump. Hands shot to wands faster than the blink of an eye.
"Hermione's on the front page of every goddamn paper and magazine in the wizarding world," Ron announced, throwing down a pile of papers on the kitchen table.
Everyone crowded around to look. On the front of the Daily Prophet was a photograph of Hermione and Draco arriving at Blaise and Pansy Zabini's party the previous night. The cover of Witch Weekly was only of Hermione. Unlike the Prophet's picture, this one was posed for.
Ron picked up the magazine and rifled through the pages until he got to the article on Hermione. Disregarding the words entirely, he flipped through the spread. In pictures that took up entire pages, she reclined on a green plush sofa while in a white dress, she strolled in a garden of magnificent white roses while dressed in blue, she posed halfway down a marble staircase in a gown of green.
"He's put her on display," Ron scorned in disgust. "Like an advertisement, she's out there for everyone to see."
"That's what's bothering you?" Ginny snapped, much to everyone's surprise. "You caged her, Ron!" Turning back to the magazine, she added softly, "We all did. Can't you all see how alive she looks? Can't you see it in her eyes?"
They all took a closer look. Though a few halfheartedly tried to deny it, Harry saw it. He lay his hand on Ginny's shoulder as they looked over the pictures again, one by one, to confirm what she had said. The light shining in Hermione's eyes was one that could not be replicated by any camera's flash. Ginny turned one more page past the staircase photo.
There was a picture of Draco and Hermione in a vast, high-ceilinged drawing room in Malfoy Manor. They were standing in front of a grand window, silhouettes against the light streaming through the curtains. They were standing a couple of feet away from each other, Draco leaning languidly against the wall, Hermione peering out the window. Then, the figures in the picture shifted. Draco held out his hand toward her. Without looking, she reached back and placed her hand in his.
With one sweep of his hand, Ron sent Witch Weekly flying from the table.
"That's why she's not with me," he pronounced. "Him. He wanted her, and now he has her, away from us."
Despite the glaring looks Ron was giving her, Ginny carefully picked up the magazine from the floor and placed it back onto the table, smoothing the pages. The picture of Hermione on the cover smiled slightly and angled her head to the left, exposing a white cheek to better advantage.
"I don't think it's Malfoy himself, Ron," Harry said frankly, watching Hermione turn her head to several different angles, smiling tolerantly at the photographer between takes. "But I think it's what Malfoy offers her."
"Hermione never seemed the superficial, material type, Harry," Kingsley noted.
"I'm not talking about dresses and gold," Harry said at once. "We did cage Hermione. We thought we were doing it for her own good, but we never gave a thought about what it must have done to her all these years. We never even brought a book for her to read!" He raked a hand through his hair in despair at the very thought. "And now she's out there, free to come and go as she pleases without anyone to stop her, free to twist all those people around her finger." He smiled slightly. "Hermione can be a very manipulative person when she tries. Freedom, it's what Malfoy's giving her."
"You mean how Malfoy's giving it to her?"
Harry slammed his hand down on the table, startling them all. "Don't you dare speak about Hermione like that! She is out there, risking her life every minute of every day just so she can give us more time to defeat Voldemort. Stop being so selfish, Ron. It's a miracle if she benefits in any way from this. This war stopped revolving around one person a long time ago, and that person was never you."
"No, it's always revolved around you!" Ron shot back, abashed but unwilling to show it. "Why don't you hurry up and finish this thing before she has to die to give you more time, like so many other people?"
"Ron!" Ginny yelled. Harry had gone very pale.
A look of dismay came over Ron's face as he realized what he had just said. "I-I didn't mean that, Harry. I-I don't know what I was saying."
"I know, Ron," Harry said quietly. "I understand."
"I'm sorry." Ron looked absolutely miserable. "I'm ... going to take guard duty over from Remus," he muttered. "Clear my head a bit."
Ginny caught his arm before he could leave. She looked up at him beseechingly, looking more like his little sister than she had in years. He smiled tightly and squeezed her hand with his much larger one.
"One of these days, we can try to find a way to break their Vows, but until then we need to focus all of our energy into finding the something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's and defeating Voldemort. Ron, we need to start thinking up of battle strategies for the end, all right?"
"Right," Ron said noncommittally. Harry reached over and placed his hand on Ron's shoulder, forced Ron to look him in the eye. "Right," the redhead said more firmly. "Of course."
"Good. We're not beaten yet, not by a long shot." Harry's eyes shone fiercely for a moment. "And I'll be damned if someone else, if anyone else dies for me."
