Breath Mints / Battle Scars
XXIX
January 4th, 1999
"Get a load of this rubbish."
She shoots up off her back with a gasp and knees Draco in the thigh, and then he's awake and cursing, and they're both rushing to do up buttons. Both trying to make sense of Theodore Nott taking a seat on the couch between the two of them.
Hermione quickly charms herself — banishes her matted hair and any evidence of their inappropriate behavior. She hadn't meant to fall back asleep, and she's glancing around nervously for any onlookers in the common room.
But it's just Nott, and he seems completely uninterested in their indecent state. He's got the Daily Prophet in hand — throws it down on the table in front of them — and Hermione catches a glimpse of one of the lower headlines.
LETTING BYGONES BE BYGONES?
Witch Weekly's Theories on Hermione Granger's Tryst with Former Death Eater
She sighs, reaching out to turn to the corresponding article, but Nott slaps her hand away.
"Not that one," he snaps, annoyed, then yanks open the Prophet with such force it tears about an inch on both bottom and top. "This shite."
There's a moving photograph of Draco and Narcissa Malfoy exiting the Ministry with their solicitor on the day of their appeal. It then switches to Pansy Parkinson walking through Diagon Alley with a hand in front of her face, warding off the press. Then to Nott with his solicitor, at some point during his appeal, showing him massaging his temples. Then to Blaise Zabini shoving his way through other members of the press while trying to enter King's Cross Station.
The headline reads:
SIX MONTHS & WAR CRIMINALS STILL WALK FREE
"Have you ever even heard of this fucking organization? Or at least that's what they're fucking calling it?" Nott is asking Draco. "Crusaders For Justice?"
Draco shakes his head and rubs his tired eyes, squinting as he leans forward to get a better look at it. "Reckon they want us all in Azkaban."
"No, mate." Nott jabs his finger angrily into the paper. "They want us fucking dead. I read the bloody article. Here. Read this line." He tears it some more ripping it back off the table, handing it to Draco and stabbing at the sentence in question. "Read it. Read that."
Draco yawns and sleepily reads it aloud. "Since October of last year, the organization has been amassing major support and growing in numbers, advocating a zero-tolerance policy for accused Death Eaters and their allies. Dawlish, former Auror, founder of C.F.J. and champion of the cause, calls for a re-evaluation of sentencing, arguing offenders should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
"Read his fucking quote." Nott jabs the paper some more.
Draco's lazy intonation fades as he speaks. "What use is a Ministry of Magic that cannot carry out justice where justice is due? These are witches and wizards responsible for the torture and murder of hundreds — whether they decided to get their hands dirty or not — and they are being protected by respectable institutions such as Hogwarts, Durmstrang and St. Mungo's. Protection they do not and will never deserve. C.F.J. will be submitting a motion to reopen all closed cases against these individuals, citing an infringement upon the rights and safety of wizarding society. We intend to place a particular emphasis on what we and countless members of this community consider to be true justice: the Dementor's Kiss."
His voice is unsteady as he reads the last sentence, and Hermione glances up to see he's gone pale. Sees him try to laugh it off.
He tosses the Prophet back to the table. "They're just trying to sell papers. Next week it'll be buried beneath another compilation of Potter's best Quidditch maneuvers." And he massages the nape of his neck, sitting back against the clammy leather. "It's illegal, anyhow."
"No, it isn't," Hermione murmurs, and for a moment she doesn't realize she's said it aloud. But both of them turn to stare at her, and she wishes she could bite her tongue. She sighs. Looks away, talks to the black marble table instead. "Muggles are protected by a law that prevents them from being tried for the same crime twice. Wizarding society is not. Because the safety and secrecy of this world is paramount, anyone can be retried on the basis that their current sentence allows them to pose a threat."
There's a drawn out silence.
Then Nott huffs. Blurts out, "Well, fuck," and yanks a bottle of Firewhiskey toward him. It's seven in the morning. "See? We're all going to die."
"I'm not saying it will be easy for them to prove it. I'm only saying it's…well, it's possible," she adds feebly. Something thick and poisonous slithers into her gut. She isn't sure what it is.
In her peripheral, she sees Draco snatch the Firewhiskey out of Nott's hands. He takes a deep swig, and she wonders if any of them are ever truly sober.
"What do we do, then?" he asks. She hates that he asks. Hates that she's expected to have an answer for everything. Hates that, in this moment, she wishes more than anything she had a better one. A different one.
"There's nothing you can do. Not until—" She breaks off. Feels an intense and painful pang of guilt and quickly corrects herself. "Unless. Not unless you're called to trial."
They sit in more silence, all staring straight ahead. The dappled early morning light is tinged teal by the Black Lake against the windows. A pair of Second Year girls clamber noisily down the dormitory stairs, though none of them turn to look.
She catches broken pieces of what they whisper as they make their way out of the common room, tripping over one another and gawking at them. " — Granger doing in Slytherin — " and "— Malfoy's shirt's all rumpled — " and " — do you think they… — " and then " — all three of them?"
Their giggles fade away as they disappear through the false wall, and all she can think is, Marvelous. More gossip.
"Give me that bottle, please," she says.
She waits until breakfast is half over before sneaking into Gryffindor to change into her robes —
Sneaking into Gryffindor.
What a perfectly horrible and utterly ridiculous concept.
She feels distinctly unwelcome, even in the emptiness of the dormitory, as she does up the buttons on her blouse. Ties her tie with trembling fingers, the red and gold almost taunting her — feeling like a sick joke.
And when she reaches the Great Hall, with perhaps twenty minutes left of breakfast, she has no notion of what to do.
Her gaze shifts nervously to the Gryffindor table, finding Harry, Ron, Ginny and the others in their usual spot, though the typically high-spirited conversation is nowhere to be found. They're talking in low tones to one another, expressions minimal. Measured. It seems obvious they know where she slept last night. The mood of their little section is dark. Divisive.
She can tell even from where she hesitates in the entryway.
And she can't sit there.
She can't. She can't.
Her eyes slide desperately in the other direction when Harry catches sight of her, and maybe it's those few sips of Firewhiskey swirling around in her otherwise empty stomach, but she finds herself walking towards the Slytherin table, legs numb. Gelatinous.
Nott and Zabini are arguing about that same article in the Prophet over pumpkin juice. Pansy is leaning against Zabini, bored as she braids her hair, plate untouched. And Draco is scribbling in the diary, as usual.
She ignores the absurd, almost audible thudding of her pulse as she shakily swings her legs over the bench. Takes the seat across from Draco. Next to Nott.
And every pair of Slytherin eyes at that table zeroes in on her instantly. She thinks she hears Ron's voice kick up above the morning chatter, tumultuous — "…got to be joking…" although perhaps she's imagining it.
Pansy is the first to manage a reaction.
"Oh, wonderful," she hisses, rolling her eyes and dropping her braid to stab into her egg whites. She chews them furiously and doesn't make eye contact again for the rest of those twenty minutes.
Nott raises an eyebrow at Hermione. "Fully committing to this traitor thing, then, are you?" he asks, and his voice is wry. Mocking. It isn't friendly. But it isn't exactly unfriendly, either.
And Draco…
Draco says nothing as he looks up from the journal.
But the expression on his face — the look in his eyes — is the clearest and most obvious one he's ever displayed to her.
A look of pure, vicious satisfaction. Victorious, as though he's just won some long-winded competition. The way his lip pulls crookedly up over his teeth is — it's evil, it's evil, that's what it is.
Because he knows now, for certain, that he's destroyed all her friendships. Ruined her reputation for good.
And he is ever so pleased.
She wants so deeply to hate him for it, too. Part of her does. The same part of her that has been and always will be against this — this thing between them, whatever it is.
But another part of her cannot help but see the honesty in that expression.
Because Draco will never be good. He knows that. He sees to it.
He will never try to be good.
And she's sort of fine with that. She almost needs that. Almost…almost craves it.
And she doesn't think she'll ever understand why.
Over the course of the day, she has scalding hot Pepper-up Potion spilled down her shirtfront by Parvati — "Sorry, you know me. So clumsy…" — which continues to sting even after a cooling charm; she watches Neville bite back on a question in Defense Against the Dark Arts, as though he's been specifically instructed not to speak to her and has only just remembered; someone hexes her with something rather creative that prevents her joints from bending for a half hour, and someone else actually pulls her hair.
It's petty. Juvenile. All of it.
And she convinces herself that it's not worth worrying over. After all, it's Ginny who casts the cooling charm and Ginny who unlocks her limbs and even though she remains at Harry and Ron's side throughout the day, she repeatedly sends reassuring glances her way.
Glances that suggest she intends to help her through this, even if just now isn't the right time.
But it still feels like a wrench in Hermione's gut when she feels the need to cast protective wards around her four-poster before crawling into bed.
And she doesn't think she sleeps at all.
January 7th, 1999
Diary,
Seeing as it is now a distinct possibility that I might die anyway, I'm no longer going to answer your asinine fucking prompts. You can report me to whomever you bloody like, but I fucking refuse, yeah? I'm done.
I'm going to write whatever I damn well please.
My solicitor sent me an owl yesterday — he's been contacted by Dawlish's fucking people. Minions, more like. Says he's trying to pursue every loophole that might allow me to avoid a retrial.
But he's a fucking rubbish solicitor, yeah? So I figure I'm going to fucking trial, and then eventually I'm going to fucking die.
And you'll probably be glad you don't have to read this filthy handwriting anymore.
Happy for you.
In the interim, I can tell you it's still immensely gratifying to watch Granger's life fall apart. Practically fucking orgasmic.
I did warn her I wasn't her type.
Or maybe I just warned you.
Still, every time I see her fight back tears, I feel fucking vindicated. I think back to all of those beatings I took from Father after we lost the fucking House Cup or I lost to fucking Potter in Quidditch — the ones that ended with him hexing my mouth shut for two days, sometimes three, until I ran the risk of starving to death — and I'm so fucking glad she's getting a fucking taste of it. I hope it's sour as vinegar.
But I also want to stop those tears before they fall. Want to kiss her eyes dry. Want to fuck away the pain until the only hurt she feels is that ache between her legs after I've had her again, and again, and again, and a-fucking-gain.
I don't care if she doesn't trust me.
I don't trust her.
But I love that it's hurting her so much to earn me.
No one's ever had to fucking earn me before.
It's also become quite clear that there's no need to cut Weaselby into little ginger strips. The way his face screws up when she so much as speaks to me is so fucking hilarious — looks like it hurts so much — that maybe there's very little I have to do.
Very, very little.
Draco
