Chapter Fourteen


Duty

The next couple of weeks were very strange for Hermione and her friends. All of a sudden, Draco Malfoy was being friendly. He joined Hermione whenever he could, walking her to classes and stopping to chat to her in the Great Hall. And, unfortunately for Hermione, this odd new behaviour wasn't going unnoticed by her classmates. Shortly after it began, Harry and Ron had sat down with Hermione to have what Harry tactfully called, 'a little chat'.

"We're not saying we think you've done anything to make him turn all friendly," Harry said in an infuriatingly calm tone of voice. "We just wanted to know if there's any light you can shed on the situation."

Hermione took a deep breath and counted to ten before answering. "I've told already; I don't know what game he's playing. For all I know this could just be some bizarre kind of Slytherin dare."

Ron sat up, as a thought suddenly occurred to him. "Do you think maybe he's trying to spy on you, mate?" He looked at Harry with wide eyes. "Like, he hopes that you'll give something away to do with our preparations for battle?"

"Maybe," Harry said thoughtfully. "His father is a death eater, after all."

"For God's sake, don't be so ridiculous. He knows we would never let anything slip about V-Voldemort while he's around. He's just playing a weird little game that only he understands. That's all." Hermione was feeling flushed and unhappy. It was bad enough that her own mind was in turmoil over Draco's new behaviour. It made it ten times worse to hear her best friends talking it over constantly as well.

After a pause, Ron opened his mouth again. "Are you certain that you didn't do anything to him?"

Hermione turned to him, frustration written across her face, but before she could respond, Harry stepped into the opening. "He doesn't mean anything really bad, just... maybe a Confundus?"

"Imperius Curse?"

"Maybe you slipped him some love potion to make him less of a threat to the cause?"

"Oh God, you didn't shag him did you?" Ron asked, horror etched across his features.

Hermione flushed, and stood up forcefully. "No, I didn't shag him, Ronald. Neither did I slip him a love potion or Confund him," she snapped at Harry. "And believe it or not, I'm not generally in the habit of going around performing Unforgiveables either, not even on people you're not particularly fond of." This last was to Ron again. She glared at the both before turning on her heel and storming out of the portrait hole.

Ginny took one look at Hermione's angry expression as she raged passed her, and glanced over at Ron and Harry. With a sigh, she made her way over to them. "What did you do?" she asked them matter-of-factly, as she flopped onto the sofa beside Harry.

"Nothing," Ron said defensively. "We just asked her why Malfoy was hanging around her so much."

Ginny raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Harry, who shrank a little under her gaze. "S'all we did," he mumbled. Under Ginny's imperious glare, he shrugged. "Maybe we asked her if she'd put him under the imperious curse or slipped him a love potion," he admitted pathetically.

"You didn't?" Harry nodded, looking ashamed. "You idiots," Ginny said violently, hitting each of them on the arm for good measure. "Don't you think she's as confused as you two are by his behaviour?" Or even more so, she silently added to herself. "You can't go around accusing your best friend of that kind of thing."

"Still," Ron muttered mutinously, "we were only asking."

Ginny turned her glare onto her brother, and he stared into the fire, avoiding eye-contact with her. "Sorry? I didn't quite catch that."

Ron shrugged, but didn't repeat himself. Ginny rolled her eyes at his insensitivity, but didn't push any further. She supposed it wasn't entirely their fault, since they didn't know everything that was going on in Hermione's life right now.

Meanwhile, Hermione had started to cool down. She was coming to the same conclusion as Ginny was up in the common room, and she knew it wasn't fair of her to get so upset with them when they didn't know the whole story. The more reasonable side of her knew that, if she was honest with herself, she had actually been so angry with them because Ron had hit on exactly the right thing, and she was worried that she might give something away.

With a sigh, she turned and started making her way back to the common room. But at the end of the corridor, Draco Malfoy popped out and started walking with her. "This is getting really old, Malfoy," she said without looking at him.

"I know," he admitted with a grin. "But you can't ignore me forever."

"You're starting to cause problems between me and my friends," she told him plaintively.

"Why? I'm just being friendly." He reminded her of a particularly energetic puppy, and she couldn't help but smile slightly at the thought. "A grin! I knew I'd get one eventually," he said triumphantly.

She rolled her eyes at him, but couldn't help laughing despite herself. She stopped, and turned to face him in the corridor. "What do you want? Just tell me what I have to do to get you to go away."

"Go flying with me," he said.

"Now?"

"Yes. Come on, it's a lovely day. Go flying with me," he persisted. "Then, I promise, if it's what you really want, I'll leave you alone."

Hermione sighed, but she knew she would agree to his request. It could have been much worse, after all. "Alright, let's get this over with."

Very shortly, they were outside, pulling brooms from the school shed. Draco kept his eyes on the clouds, saying nothing as they rose into the air together. He glanced furtively at her, and quickly looked away when she turned her head to meet his gaze. She allowed herself a small smile. Maybe Ginny had been right. Maybe he really did like her, after all.

"It's nice, being out here with you."

Hermione grunted noncommittally.

"It's been a while since it's been just us, together. It feels like the old days."

"You mean the ones where we were shagging behind our friends' backs, and we could barely exchange two words to each other without a hex or two thrown in for good measure?" Hermione raised an eyebrow as she stared at him doubtfully.

Draco tilted his head to the side and grinned slightly. "Well, yeah. You didn't find that just a little bit fun?"

Hermione shook her head. "I really didn't."

"Come on, it was invigorating. Admit it. You've never felt more alive than those few weeks when we were involved."

"A few weeks?" Hermione snorted. "As I recall it wasn't exactly a few weeks. We did it twice, Malfoy. The rest was just me making you jealous and you making me jealous, with a few really violent curses thrown in for good measure." Draco grinned at her, but he said nothing. She frowned, not understanding the reason for his expression. "What?" she asked finally. When he still didn't answer, she repeated her question more forcefully. "Tell me what you're smiling at me like that for."

Draco shrugged. "You just admitted you were trying to make me jealous," he said before speeding ahead of her on his Nimbus.

Huffing at his cockiness, she urged her own broom on. "That's not what I meant," she said defiantly when she finally caught up with him.

"If you say so," he said, raising an eyebrow. "And you still can't say it."

"Say what?" she asked, genuinely baffled.

"You know," he said, smiling suggestively. "We did 'it'. You still can't say it."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Fine. We fucked twice. Happy now?"

Draco's expression grew serious. "Not really," he admitted quietly. He took one hand off of his broom and reached out for hers. "I'd be happier if we'd made love." He looked intently into her eyes, and she stared back at him, hovering in mid-air.

After a moment she shook her head, trying to clear it. "Unfortunately, you have to be in love to do that though, right?" She pushed forwards again, resuming the forward-motion and forcing Draco to keep up with her if he wanted to continue the conversation.

"Aren't we?" Hermione didn't answer him. She kept her eyes focused on the horizon, and acted as though he hadn't even asked the question. "Alright, that was unfair," he acknowledged. "I was a total arsehole the night of the Christmas Ball; I know that. And before that I wasn't exactly in the running for any 'best boyfriend' award, either. But you've got to understand what was going through my mind. My father would have tortured me into oblivion if he'd found out that I was considering dating a mudblood." He quickly put his hand out to prevent an attack. "His words, not mine," he said defensively. "And that's if he'd got to me first. If the dark lord had found out, my life wouldn't have been worth living."

"And? Nothing's changed, right? So what's brought on this sudden about-face? What's with the bouncy, 'I just want to be best friends' routine?"

For the first time, Draco looked as though he didn't have an answer for her. She watched him out of the corner of her eye while she waited for a response, but he seemed to be completely at a loss. Finally, he just shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe I thought that if you saw me trying to be nice to your friends, you'd realise that I'm not the same person I was four months ago." He shrugged, helplessly. "Maybe I just realised that it doesn't matter if I'm safe from my father and the dark lord, if the price is being away from you. What's the point of living a life without you in it?"

For a moment, Hermione's resolve almost crumbled. For a moment, she almost clambered off her own broom and onto his so she could give him the most passionate kiss of his life. But his eyes flickered away from hers, and a feeling of dread filled her. For all she knew, this was a boy with the dark mark emblazoned on his arm. He was someone who referred to Voldemort as the dark lord, for God's sake.

She smiled sadly at him, and reached out to take his hand in hers. She felt horrible, knowing she was the one who was going to crush the hope that shone so clearly in his eyes. "Let's not beat around the bush, Draco. I love you, and I think you know that. But I can't trust you."

She pushed her broom into a dive, and flew away from him as quickly as she could. It was only when she reached the broom-shed that she realised that he hadn't followed her. Turning to look back the way she had come, she saw a tiny speck in the distance. He hadn't moved at all, but hung motionless in the air.

888

"I'm sorry, father. I just can't do it." Draco was flushed and angry, and he felt like stamping his foot like a toddler having a tantrum.

"Can't?" Lucius repeated threateningly. "That's not a word in the Malfoy vocabulary, boy."

Draco flinched involuntarily. He knew from painful experience that it was dangerous when his father used that quiet tone of voice. "It's not like I haven't tried. She doesn't trust me anymore. After everything that I've done over the past seven years, I don't blame her either," he muttered to himself as an afterthought.

Lucius took a step forward, his eyes boring into his son's. "Have you tried?" he asked silkily. "Tell me something honestly, Draco. If the dark lord were here right now, would he think that you had tried hard enough?"

Helplessly, Draco shook his head. "You don't know what it's like," he said miserably.

"What? You can't convince a pathetic little mudblood that you love her?" Draco stiffened at the word, but mercifully his father didn't seem to notice his reaction. "From what I hear, you convince girls that you love them all the time. You've got that Parkinson girl eating out of the palm of your hand, haven't you?" Draco shrugged. "Unless there's something you haven't told us," Lucius said suddenly, dangerously.

Draco looked up. "Like what?" he asked hesitantly.

"When I asked you about this, I seem to recall you telling me that this was all just a bit of fun. I distinctly remember you saying that you thought it would be 'cool' to get a Gryffindor into bed so that you could callously break her heart. I'll admit I wasn't best pleased that you'd chosen such an unorthodox way of going about it, but it was an ingenious method of torture all the same. Personally, I'm a member of the old school. I prefer to cause physical pain." Lucius took his wand out of his robes and laid it down on the table in front of him. Draco's gaze was drawn to it, and he was unable to look away or ignore the unspoken threat. "But now I'm starting to wonder whether that wasn't just a line to keep the old man happy. Now I'm starting to wonder whether there's not some small part of you that loves the little tramp."

"No it wasn't, sir. Of course I don't love her." Draco shook his head vehemently, eyes fixed to his father's wand. "I could never love someone like her. But she doesn't trust me. Of course I can get Slytherins and pure-bloods to trust me," he said angrily. "I'm a Slytherin and a pure-blood. Trusting me and believing me comes naturally to them. But she's a mudblood Gryffindor. It's amazing she trusted me so much in the first place."

"In that case, you will have to call on all your cunning to find a way to make her trust you again, won't you?" Lucius said decisively. "Unless you want to explain to the dark lord why his plan has failed?"

Draco said nothing for a long time, then. Finally, he looked defiantly into his father's eyes. "It's not exactly a great plan anyway, is it?" Lucius drew himself up to his full height and stared down menacingly at his son. Undaunted, Draco continued. "Let's get Draco to date one of Harry's friends so he can torture her and turn her to the dark side and Harry will be so devastated that he can't fight. Yeah, that's a lot of energy put wasted for nothing," he said petulantly. "Why don't you just kidnap her and have done with it? Better yet, kidnap the Weasley kid. He's more likely to come after her anyway."

His father had been advancing on him throughout this little speech, but he didn't notice until he finished, and looked up to see the older man towering above him. He was rewarded with a sharp slap across the face that made him dizzy. "You will never question our lord again," Lucius roared. "If I ever hear so much as a cross word from you in relation to his leadership, I will hex you so badly you'll be praying for death just to bring release from your pain. Do you understand me?" Draco, hands clutched to his face, said nothing. "Do you understand me?" his father repeated furiously.

"I understand," Draco replied dejectedly.

Lucius sank onto his knees and gently pulled Draco's hands away from his face. He pointed his wand at his son's cheek and muttered a healing charm, then rose and walked away. With his back to Draco, he sighed. "The price of disobedience is too high," he muttered.

Taking himself to be dismissed, Draco got to his feet. To avoid being struck back by the anti-apparition wards on his father's home he made his way to the front door, but before he could step outside his mother's voice stopped him. "You know he doesn't mean to hurt you," she said softly as he passed her.

Draco didn't turn to look at Narcissa, but he nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said eventually.

"He doesn't want you to be hurting inside, either."

"Could've fooled me," Draco mumbled, not intending his mother to hear.

Narcissa rose from the chaise she had been sitting on, and crossed the entrance hall in long strides to stand beside her son. She touched his cheek gently, and pushed his hair back off his face. "He loves you so much," she said, intently looking into his eyes. "We both love you, Draco. I know this must feel like the end of the world right now, but trust me when I tell you it will get easier." Draco raised an eyebrow, and she shook her head passionately. "Don't dismiss me like that. I know from experience how hard this sort of thing can be. When Andromeda left to marry that mudblood, I had to cut her out of my life. Even though I knew she had done something unspeakably wrong, it broke me up inside to turn my back on her. She was my big sister, for God's sake." Draco glanced up, wondering at this outpour of emotion. His mother rarely talked about such things. "But I did what was best for the family. I haven't spoken to her in years, and although it hurt very much for a long time, it lessened. I did what was right, and I don't regret it. Now you must do the same."

Draco stared at the carpet in silence while a battle raged in his head. Finally, he met his mother's gaze with a hint of belligerence. "You just had to cut her out," he said. "You didn't lead her into horrible torture and a bloody death."

Narcissa looked at him with such compassion then that it made him want to cry. But he remained resolute, and stared back at her defiantly. She just stroked his hair gently again, and smiled sadly. "Our choices are always hard when we stand up for what we believe in," she said softly. "In the end, you have to do what's best for you. And, I hope, what's best for the family."

She turned and walked gracefully up the stairs, leaving him to eixt the house and disapparate back to the boundaries of Hogwarts alone. Despondently, he wandered the few miles back up to the castle. When he reached the Slytherin common room, Pansy Parkinson was waiting for him, pouting. "Draco, where were you earlier? We were desperately bored without you. You disappeared off the face of the planet." She ran up to throw her arms around him, and he pushed her away irritably.

"Not now, Pansy. I'm not in the mood." Ignoring her hurt expression, he stomped to his dorm and fell onto his bed, staring up, unseeing, at the ceiling.

He lay there for a long time. When Blaise Zabini finally walked in some time later, he had no idea how much time had passed. His friend said nothing, just came and sat on the next bed over. After a long silence, Blaise looked up at Draco. "Pansy's quite upset with you," he said softly.

"Pansy can go fuck herself with the dark lord's wand," Draco said heatedly.

Blaise laughed, and Draco couldn't help but smile slightly as well. "Is that his literal or figurative wand?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Either," Draco replied. "Both."

There was another pause before Blaise opened his mouth again. "What's up with you, recently? You've been acting really weird."

Draco shrugged. "Love's a funny thing."

"Can't argue with you there," Blaise said, nodding.

"Duty's even funnier," he expanded, his expression clearly saying he found his situation anything but amusing.

"I'm guessing this is something you can't really talk to me about?"

"Not unless you want us both to be strung up by our ankles for treachery," Draco admitted.

Blaise nodded, understanding what his friend meant. They tended to avoid talking about their fathers' master unless they really had to. No-one knew what might be considered acceptable and what might get you killed. He sat in silence with Draco for some time after that, hoping the other boy would be able to derive some comfort from his presence. Finally, he stood and moved over to Draco's bed. "Listen, mate. I can't really help you out with whatever you've got going on, but I can tell you that whatever it is, the dark lord knows what he's doing. It might seem hard right now, but it will be alright in the end. When we win, and everyone knows their place, it'll all be worth it."

Draco nodded, but he knew that deep down he just couldn't believe the rhetoric anymore. Blaise got up and started walking to the door. "But what if it isn't?" he asked softly. Blaise hesitated for a fraction of a second, but didn't reply. He left Draco alone in the dorm, closing the door quietly behind him. "What if it kills me?" Draco whispered.