Author Name: creamtea-from-FAP
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, HBP.
Genre: Book 7. Adventure, thriller.
Main Character(s): H. D. Beta: Anise. Some test-reading by SUM.
Ship(s): Ships are touched on as part of the narrative, but the story isn't about the ships. Ships are: H/L, D/Hr. These ships: H/G, R/Hr, D/G are included – but not in a good way!
Summary: ALT BOOK 7: STORY ALREADY WRITTEN AND BEING PUBLISHED WITH FREQUENT UPDATES. FORTY CHAPTERS. What's it about? Love potions; emotional shoot-outs, expulsions, hex-fights, fist-fights, kidnappings, bank-jobs, secret weapons and castle-battles. And … DRACO!
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Chapter 26
As they stood in the church, Malfoy smirked. "Clearly the grand-daughter of a Bletchley Park code-breaker. I knew you wouldn't stay hidden for too much longer."
Hermione started and Harry realised she did not know that Malfoy had been at the wedding-reception in disguise and so had heard of 'Bletchley Park'.
Ron, astonished at the sight of Hermione, could only manage a rusty croak but even so Harry interjected to cut him off in case he was going to throw one about the love-potioning and Confundusing. "Where the -" he lurched back to Hermione, "where the hell have you been?"
Asking the question, he suddenly realised how angry he felt: angry from having been under the continual, subliminal worry at her unexplained disappearance.
It had only been a few days, but it had felt like forever.
"I've been at Hogwarts," she replied, promptly.
"Not just now! I mean – where since you got expel – er … since you got … since you left school!"
Hermione's eyes flashed, angry at Harry's tone, but before she could speak -
"She just told you, idiot." That was Malfoy. "Hogwarts. Be sensible. If she wasn't at home and she wasn't with the Death Eaters and she wasn't with your Order and it was never confirmed that she took a place at Durmstrang – then where else was there?" He turned to Hermione, raising an eyebrow and curling a lip, "Grubbing around in the library were you, like a good, inky-fingered little swot?"
Hermione ignored his question and sniffed. "Thank you for explaining my whereabouts, Malfoy, but I think you'll find I can speak for myself."
"After six years of putting up with you bouncing up and down on the balls of your feet and waving your hand in the air, I know you can speak for yourself. The point is, can you ever shut up?"
Hermione bristled and turned to Harry, "I was lurking, Concealed, outside Professor Lupin's office door when the Professors were talking to you. I followed Professor McGonagall. I couldn't see you, but I could hear you. I knew perfectly well you were going to sneak off on some hare-brained scheme or other over Neville, so I followed you."
"You were - ? God, is that castle a sieve when it comes to security?" Harry was aghast. "Probably you and everyone's uncle were secretly out in that corridor!"
"Hermione …? It's you …?" Ron was finally managing to croak out words.
"Oh try to keep up, Weasel," Malfoy was exasperated, "I think we've established that it's her." He turned to Hermione, "How did you get away with hiding at Hogwarts? Or was McGonagall in the know?"
Hermione opened her mouth, became annoyed, and then closed it. "Well I'm not telling you!"
"So she was in the know – otherwise you wouldn't mind telling me."
"Oh - !" Hermione gave an exasperated little cry. "Professor McGonagall knew. She never let me leave the grounds, it wasn't safe. I stayed in the Room of Requirement," she flicked a dismissive look at both Harry and Ron, "– reading." She then flicked a particularly hard look, "Professor McGonagall and the Head of Durmstrang cooked up that whole 'Durmstrang' diversion to fool the Ministry." She raised her arm and examined the seemingly roughly-hewn stick in her hand, "I did go there though, I secretly Floo'd to Budapest in the company of Madame Pince – a vampire -"
"Wha -?"
"Oh stop wasting the world's oxygen supply on stupid questions, Weasel-smell. Of course Pince was a vampire!" That was Malfoy. "Never went out in the sun? Always sallow? Scrawny, as though her body was continually using up more energy than it could take in as food? Always got that pinched, hungry look about her? Didn't anyone even consider the possibility, even after they'd seen that Sanguini character, and he looked just the same?"
Hermione continued, shooting sharp looks at both Ron and Malfoy.
"- at Durmstrang I read the Great Secret Books -"
"Secret no longer, of course, because you've just told us about them," droned Malfoy.
"- and then Viktor arranged for me to be fitted for a new Gregorovich wand!"
At the mention of Viktor, Harry flung a look at Ron who stood there, blinking dumbly at Hermione, looking hurt.
Harry sort of knew how Ron felt. She'd been at Hogwarts, safe? But she and McGonagall hadn't told them anything? They'd been worried about her. And now she just turns up and just starts bossing them about again?
Hermione flicked Ron a glance that was simultaneously defensive, cross, distrustful and somehow guilt-ridden.
The part of Harry that wasn't angry recollected that the last time they had met, a furious row had been cut off practically in mid-shout. He knew now that he had partly hoped that when they, all three, met again it would all be forgotten – but maybe it hadn't been, by any of them?
"Yes," she said, mouth small and determined, chin in the air, "Madame Pince is a Vampire and when I went out there, I took the opportunity to gain access to the Vampire arcana in the Great Repository at Durmstrang - I became a neophyte to the Brethren."
Neither Harry nor Ron knew what she meant, but Malfoy started.
"I haven't spent my time moping about and feeling sorry for myself, you know," she announced, school-marmishly. "To gain access to the society of Vampires, I had to undergo the Exsanguination of Karsh, in which I lost half my blood supply, I undertook the Challenge of Gore, in which I had to battle a blood-demon, I suffered the Trials of Haemoglobus in which I fought -"
"Oh, do get on with it woman."
Hermione glared at Malfoy for a second and then went back to pronouncing. "I think that you will find that I am now a Novitiate in the Order of the Brethren of the Blood – one of those dedicated to guarding the Dark Road and the Devil's Door!"
Ron stared, mouth dropping open. Hermione shot him a look which was half-angry and half shame-faced, "Well it was very useful!" she snapped, as though she felt she had to justify herself. "I now know an awful lot about -"
Harry caught up.
"What?" he screeched. "You mean you're now part-Vampire?"
"Oh, for heaven sakes, of course not. But – well - I mean, in some ways, I'm apart now." She sounded slightly sad, "In a way, the dark is now my home."
"Oh, stop showing off," sneered Malfoy.
Hermione couldn't quite suppress an eye-roll, even whilst keeping half an angry eye on Ron.
"But – now we're on it - how do Vampires see in the dark?" Malfoy persisted, curious despite himself.
Hermione looked at him as though weighing up if it were some kind of trick-question, and then decided to answer anyway. "It's infra-red," she sniffed, "they see by heat-signature."
"Heat what?"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Malfoy! I don't know, mention Muggle technology to any wizard …" She forcibly took a calming breath, "Your 'heat-signature', Malfoy. You know, glow-in-the-dark? Infra-red?" She closed her eyes, exasperated. "I know I'm going to regret this next bit, but … you're 'hot' Malfoy." Her voice rose in a spiral of mild hysteria. "And if you've got anything whatsoever of a smutty nature to say about that - !"
Harry cut across her, feeling somehow hurt, angry and aggrieved all in one. "Look, I know you feel guilty -"
Hermione rounded on him, hands on hips.
"GUILTY ABOUT WHAT?"
Harry almost jumped.
Because at the back of his mind he had thought she was going to go for Ron, but in the end she had struck at the first person she saw as making a move to strike at her.
Having now started, she ran on as though too panicked to stop.
"Don't try to tell me what to think or do or feel, Harry! Because when it comes to thinking, you've not had the practice – you've been too busy leaving it all to me!" Her voice was high. "And I'm not going to apologise for what I did!" – Harry realised she meant potioning him – "because I'm not going to apologise for trying to save us all!"
None of them had gotten over that last unfinished row after all.
Harry's words leapt out, "Why didn't you just turn around and say how you felt!"
"Because you weren't listening to me! You were too busy yelling at me!"
"Because if you'd just spoken to me -!"
"Punch or slap?" queried Malfoy.
"Spoken to you?" screeched Hermione, "I tried nothing else for most of the year and – punch or slap? Malfoy, what on earth are you blathering on about? If that's some strange, perverted game you play with that cow Parkinson, I'm going to -"
"But no, you couldn't be bothered speaking to me," Harry roared on, "you just decided you knew what was best and -"
"Oh, please, Granger. Perverted game? Your honour's safe with me. With me and anyone else who can read the foot-high letters on the top row of the St. Mungo's eyesight chart. The question was: in our third-year, did you punch me or slap me?"
"Oh for God's sake - you punched him!" exploded Harry.
"I did not! I slapped him!" she screeched.
Malfoy's grin was pure 'I told you so' and he leant back against a wall, content to fold his arms and watch the 'trio' spat it out.
"Do not try to tell me what happened!" Hermione was rounding on Harry. "Do not tell me to re-write History just to suit you! I was there, it was my hand, I should know! I slapped him! Punched him? That nonsense only happens in Muggle Movies!"
"And you - I wasn't yelling at you all year!" yelled Harry.
"You were yelling at me!"
"But it was the drugs!"
"So I'm responsible for that too now, am I? It's all my fault because my drugs made you angry?"
"No! I mean … I know you were dosing me in fifth-form -"
"What?" yelped Ron.
Malfoy howled with laughter.
"– I know you were using stuff like Draught of Peace and Elixir of Euphoria, stuff like that -"
"Are you kidding me?" Ron yelped at Harry. "How much stuff have you been hiding from me?"
"– but it was Trelawney!" continued Harry. "She was dosing up her classes with Befuddlement Potion -"
Malfoy cackled with a sudden, sharp, glee.
" – and she's just been sacked for it! If you hadn't been so busy hiding in the Room of Requirement, you'd know that! Befuddlement Potion 'inflames the braine' – no wonder I was up the wall half that year! That stuff makes you rash! It wasn't my fault! If you'd had more faith in me, then all that dosing you did, it needn't have happened!"
Hermione's expression shifted.
"It wasn't your - ? Typical! Go on, make excuses!" She choked off a screech to mimic a whiny voice, "'I was drugged! It was Trelawney's fault. Dragging us all to the DoM and nearly getting us all killed had nothing to do with me!' So it's my fault for not waiting long enough before acting to distract you with a girlfriend, was it? My fault that I wasn't prepared to take risks with all our lives, betting them on your bad temper!"
"I was being drugged!" yelled Harry. "My bad temper was because of Trelawney!"
"Because of - ? How! You were like that before! You were in a strop at me before we even got to school that year!"
"Our lives weren't at risk because of my temper!"
"They were! You practically got us all killed at the Ministry!"
Malfoy stirred up off the wall somewhat – he hadn't known that whole part of Hermione's motivations.
"I NEVER GOT ANYONE KILLED! AND WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME BECAUSE -"
Hermione took a shocked step back from Harry's roaring: she was blinking now, mouth moving but nothing coming out.
Malfoy got up off the wall.
"Pull yourself together, Potter! If it was all the fault of Trelawney's potion, then how come the whole class wasn't running amok? She was potioning everyone stupid enough to take that idiotic subject, and no-one else flew off the handle! It was all you!"
"I -" Harry scrabbled for an explanation. "It was Voldemort! It was the extra pressure on me – he – he was trying to push into my mind!"
"Oh stop making excuses, you little prat!" Malfoy was fully up now. "Why can't you just take responsibility for what you've done? Why can't any of it ever be your fault? Sure, Frizzy-knickers dosed you," he waved an arm in Hermione's direction, "but even I saw how you treated her all fifth-year. Couldn't miss it. You were yelling your head off half the time." His tone heated, "Lunging into that Ministry like a prat - why don't you just stop blaming everyone else for everything and just take responsibility!"
There was a pause.
It was Harry's turn to blink and step back.
But Ron simply stepped forward, his voice trembling with indignation and hurt.
"So, you don't even try to tell us where you are," his voice shook – it was hard to say whether he was going to cry or shout, "you and McGonagall don't tell us anything -"
"How? In case you've forgotten, you were on the run!" Hermione's voice was high and quavering.
"- you run off and worry us sick!" Ron wasn't going to listen. "And that's after having dosed Harry with love potion and then McLaggan with the same -"
Hermione started, she didn't know Ron knew about McLaggan.
"McLaggan?" laughed Malfoy.
"– so you could have some 'cool' boy take you to Slughorn's party -"
"Should've asked me," snorted Malfoy.
"- and no, I don't care that it was supposed to be to get my attention," Ron went on, voice shaking now. "And then Confundusing McLaggan during the Quidditch try-outs, because you didn't think I could get a proper place on the Gryffindor Quidditch team without your 'helping hand' -"
Hermione gasped, horrified.
"- then you just turn up and you're not even going to apologise?" Ron's voice was strained now. "You dosed McLaggan just because it was convenient. You just treated him like cattle. And you had absolutely no belief in me. I was good at Quidditch – I was one of the best goalies at Hogwarts but even then you didn't think I was good enough! It was actually the thing I was good at and -"
"I did think you were good enough! I – it was just that -"
"You Confundused McLaggan because you didn't think I could beat him. What's 'good enough' about that!"
"But I only did it because -"
"Because you never thought I could make it by myself!"
Hermione closed her mouth.
"Quidditch goalie was the best I had! Do you know how much guts it takes to be a goalie? To choose to stand out there, alone, and be the last line of defense? To know that it's you or no-one? And I was pretty good at it. I was good, but it still turned out to be not good enough for you. You had no faith in me. The best I had still wasn't good enough for you. I was never going to be good enough for you!"
Ron was desperately upset. Harry stared at him – he had known it would be awful when Ron found out, but he hadn't realised just how bad it would be, that the whole thing would undermine Ron's entire sense of self.
"Oh, come on, Ron," Harry joshed, nervous. "It was once, it -"
"STOP IT!" Ron turned and shouted at him. "Just stop justifying it! You knew about that Confundus thing, and you never told me!"
"Well you never told me about Hedwig!"
"What about Hed -?"
"She'd dead!" Harry snapped at Hermione.
"And when exactly was I supposed to just 'slip it into the conversation'? 'Want extra ketchup on that next kebab, Harry – oh, and by the way, your owl's dead'? When was I supposed to do that? After you'd seen Hermione expelled? After you'd found out about the tragedy of R.A.B.? After you'd seen Snape grubbing about in your mum's grave?"
Hermione's mouth was a perfect, round 'O' at that.
"Look, Ron, I would have told you about that Confundusing stuff but I just didn't feel comfy -"
"You didn't feel comfy? What's that supposed to mean? That you knew she had no faith in me, that you knew she saw me as some faintly exasperating project – but you didn't tell me because you didn't feel comfy? Me and Hermione were supposed to stay together for the sake of your comfort? What were you - scared of how difficult it might be if your friends split up for good? Do you know how selfish that is?"
Harry's mouth moved, but no sound came out.
"And don't say, 'it didn't matter'!" yelled Ron."Just don't! Because it did matter and it does matter. And now I'll never even know if I made Quidditch goalie for myself! Not even that! Even that's ruined for me now. She ruined it for me! And you knew it and you didn't tell me!"
Ron was flailing about now, so angry his eyes were actually screwed shut. "What was she going to be like in the rest of our lives - once we'd gotten out of school? Was she going to be nagging at me when she wasn't exasperatedly sighing? Treating me like I was just some retarded 'project'?" His eyes flicked open, uncontrollably shouting. "YOU KNEW AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME!"
Hermione was large-eyed, almost shrinking.
Harry remembered fearing that either Hermione would end up nagging Ron to the point where he was ground down, or out of psychological self-preservation, Ron would get his retaliation in first by exploding. It looked like Ron's choice was: exploding.
Harry did not know what to say.
"Oh, well boo-bloody-hoo," Malfoy's voice held an annoyed tone. "For God's sake," his manner hardened, "my mother is still stuck with You Know Who, the wizarding world is on a cliff edge, the whole world could come toppling down into barbarism – and you're pratting on about what your girlfriend did? Cut it out, Weasel-gob."
"Shut up, Malfoy," ground out Ron, eyes closed and breathing hard, "this is serious. This is emotional," Ron floundered for the term, "emotional - emotional issues!"
"Emotional issues? Oh don't be ridiculous. We're teenagers, we don't have 'emotional issues', we throw strops!"
"I'm telling you – it's serious."
"Fine. Okay, it's serious. So, come on, then: what colour are her eyes?"
Ron opened his and blinked in surprise.
"No, don't look to see, Big-gob. What colour are they? If she's that important to you, if it's all so 'serious', what colour are her eyes?"
"I - I don't have to answer you!"
"Stop ducking and dodging to try and get a look around me, Weasel. What colour?"
There was a long, long silence.
"Er … brown …?"
As it turned out, it was the correct answer but clearly a guess: it had taken far too long for Ron to reply and the 'er' did tend to give it away.
At it, Harry felt some weird sense of slippage within him, something abruptly come loose and slide from an artificial height to find its own level, because in truth, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had just broken up right then. Right then when, after six years, Ron still hadn't been sure about the colour of her eyes.
"So, it's all so 'serious', but you don't even really know the colour of her eyes?" sneered Malfoy, still pressing, as though he hadn't realised that the landslide had already happened. "Weasel, I could tell you the colour of Parkinson's eyes, and I care more about the lint in my pocket than I do about her."
"I don't care about you and your girlfriends!" snapped Ron.
"Oh just drop all the theatrics," spat Malfoy, finally angry, "you and Granger just don't fancy each other – just admit it!"
There was a pause.
Harry almost winced, because Ron wasn't going to stand still for that one and –
"That is complete -!"
Malfoy cut Ron off, "You only ever used her to do your homework. God – it was like she was your mum. The only time you showed any interest was when she started going out with Krum. Wanted to prove that you were up there with a world-class, sports-star by dating his ex-girlfriend, did you?"
"You lying -!"
"Home truths hurt, Weasel-gob." He turned to Hermione, "And you're not much better. Lurching about after the Weasel, behaving hysterically with those stupid birds – yes, we all heard about it – too stubborn to admit that it wasn't working for you. Not to mention there was probably a bit of fear there about being edged out of 'the trio' by the likes of Lavender Brown!"
He turned back to Ron as Hermione gasped.
"Out of me and you, Weasel, I bet I'm the only one who knows what Granger's undies look like." He slid a knowing, sideways glance at the shocked Hermione, "Grey, holey, and gussets the size of a top-sail."
Hermione let out a squeal.
Harry felt he should mumble some sort of explanation.
"He rooted through your – er … knicker drawer, at The Burrow. He – er… he came to the wedding Polyjuiced-up as Dashwood. He … er -"
"What?" Hermione screeched.
Malfoy kicked on, "You wouldn't have a clue what her scanties look like, Weasel, because you wouldn't dare have a grope: little boys never look in their mother's purses!"
Hermione's hand flew to her mouth, horrified. "My drawer? – My list! – Oh my God, my list!"
"Too late!" snorted Malfoy. And then slid her a hard look, "And I've had to tell the Death Eaters about it."
"You said you hadn't!" yelped Harry.
"That was before, you cretin. Things had to change." He looked hard at Hermione, "I told them it was McGonagall's list."
Hermione gasped.
Malfoy turned back on Harry and Ron, "And, by the way, has either of you even bothered to tell Hormones here to keep her guard up on ex-Death Eater, Slughorn?"
Clearly, from Hermione's even more strangulated gasp, neither had.
"Why do I suspect that's typical?" Malfoy spat. "You go on nagging about how she didn't contact you, about how she didn't behave like a proper doormat of a girlfriend – but no, don't bother telling her about the Killer Death Eater, will you?"
Malfoy sharpened to the topic, glaring at Hermione.
"And do not get all stubborn about how you luuurve the Weasel, Hormones, just because it was me who pointed out how stupid the whole thing was!"
Malfoy cleared his throat and surveyed the appalled Ron, the stunned Hermione and the slightly sheepish Harry. "Now! Can we all get past this girlfriend/boyfriend rubbish so that we can get onto what matters?" He imperiously held his hand out to Harry. "I want what I came for."
Harry stared down at Malfoy's hand. It was – they were – oh, what the hell, why not?
He rootled about in his knapsack, feeling for the hefty box.
"Wait!" Ron held up a desperate hand and glared hotly at Malfoy. "Before we swap, swear – swear before God – that this thing isn't some kind of secret Horcrux. Swear it!"
Malfoy gave a theatrical sigh, rolled his eyes, lazily held up his right hand as though were being deputised and droned, "I swear before God and all his multitudes of frolicking cherubs that it isn't some kind of Sekrit Horcrux." His gaze sharpened, "Oh for God's sake, Weasel, can we just get on with it now?"
"What?" yelped Ron, "Get on with it? You didn't even take that oath like you meant it!"
"I said it as much as I could mean it! What more do you want?"
"I want you to say it again and say it properly! You're giving your word before God!"
"Whom – in case you hadn't noticed – I'm not too bothered about!"
"Don't tell me you 'don't believe' Malfoy – 'cos you say his name often enough!"
Malfoy made a noise of utter exasperation, "Bloody typical! You really are 'black or white', 'all or nothing', aren't you! You either 'believe' so you must be a good little God-botherer, or you don't and you're a Minion of Satan! What about the rest of us – the one's who think there's probably something out there – but guess what? We don't care anyway!"
It was one of the few times Harry had ever seen Malfoy slide into genuine anger.
"I'm not going to go round God-bothering and bleating and genuflecting! Why should I? What's He ever done for me? What's He ever done for anyone! The world's crap! If He was doing his job properly, the world would be a lot better. It would be a nicer place. Horrible people just wouldn't exist. Cruel things just wouldn't happen. Dark Lords with red eyes wouldn't be allowed to hold people's mothers to ransom! I'm not going to waste my life hanging off some deity who might not bother to show! When I need something done, Weasel, I'll do it myself, I won't wait around for God! I don't care about God!"
"But it doesn't matter if you don't care about God, Draco, because he cares about you anyway."
Harry reeled about in the direction of the light voice, lurching for his wand even as his hand was half-trapped inside his knap-sack.
In the now-open doorway stood Tonks, Neville and the speaker, Luna - standing there with her long blond hair and her light silvery eyes.