Ch 36
Mudblood Mannerisms
Ink, it had stained her hands liberally, such that she had long since shoved her sleeves up to her elbows. She had several lists going. As Draco had predicted his aunt was rather careless in her warding, and almost never left the territory of the watcher spells except to return to her home. She was still flipping through the rather substantial file marking down any names that she felt were pertinent, whilst Draco did the grunt work.
Gentlemanly of him to do it, she acknowledged. His disposition toward her was actually halfway friendly, strange as it was to say. She glanced up as he reentered their "room" several hefty looking file boxes balanced before him. He looked no better than she. The tie had long since been removed and the vest opened. It amused her that their security measures (i.e. files that could not be summoned) forced the little lord to do manual labor, just like the muggles his family so despised. Still, she was very glad not to do it. He could make her, and he knew it, but with the passing excuse that she did not understand the organization of the files, he had shouldered the task. Probably best, she was not at what one might call optimum physical condition.
He set them down with a grunt and she snickered, "How're you holding up?"
"Fine," he muttered.
To conceal their hand from the Malfoys Hermione was recording a lot more information than they were currently interested in, under the not so outlandish claim that Bellatrix had crossed Snape. Neither doubted that any information learned would prove useful in the long run. Surprising that the Malfoys were willing to aid Snape against blood, but Bella being so out of favor with Voldemort it was not really a surprise even her blood was willing to side against her. After all, she had never been particularly loyal to blood herself, Severus, at least, could claim to be loyal to his friends.
"Hey…Snape, he's going to go after her isn't he?" Draco suddenly asked.
Hermione shrugged, noncommittally, "It's mostly insurance."
"Liar."
She smirked.
"You know, even if you didn't know how to ward against the watcher spells, you could still basically do whatever you wanted.I mean, there's just not the manpower to manually go through all of this information to catch them," Hermione commented.
From the ground surrounded by at least twelve boxes and thirty open files Draco responded, "Flaw in the system, but it's not really necessary, so long as it's known we have the information, and use it occasionally in a few highly publicized trials, just to prove nothing is private… you get the picture."
"What about people whom there aren't files for?" she was fishing, but hopped he would pass it off as her know-it-all curiosity.
"The wards automatically start files for any witch or wizard who enters their territory," He brandished a file, "You said Clawtre? Morris Clawtre?"
She scanned a list, "Yes, set it aside." Silence reigned save for rustling papers and the soft scritch of her quill , "So, would the ward detect a polyjuicer?"
He laughed, "Best kept records secret that. If you have entered the charms territory in a magically unadulterated form they will always be able to pair your magical signature with your file."
"Animagi, and polymorphs must drive you lot batty."
He sobered, "Not many of those left… not nowadays."
A large pile of files were suddenly dropped in front of her. Hermione jumped her hand straying to close over her wand.
"No need to get twitchy," Draco remarked, "These are the next five names on your list. I've marked the sections denoting interactions with Bellatrix."
She mumbled an absent minded apology, opening them and looking first at the basic profile before shifting them to several different stacks, denoting priority. Then she went back to studying Dubrovnik's file. Important tidbits were marked down, but the vast majority she simply remembered.
"Hey, Granger?"
"Yes."
"Why're you being so damn civil?"
Hermione snickered and looked over at Draco who was shooting her a puzzled look over the barricade of boxes surrounding him.
"Why're you?"
"You don't act like a blood marked."
Hermione almost revealed her hand with just a second's pause of surprise. Then she shrugged and said nonchalantly, "How so?"
"I hate working with them. Not for the reasons you think either. They seem normal, sorta, but if you spend too much time… you'll notice they sort of repeat the same patterns of motions. Like small children, simple. And if not simple, then sullenly belligerent, not that I blame them, but… it's also sort of simple. They're angry, but not at anyone or anything in particular… it's like they got stuck where they were when they were marked."
Hermione tried to control the bone deep shudder that seized her limbs at this blunt assessment.
He was still talking, "I didn't really notice it earlier… but I sort of wanted you to still be…well the Granger I remembered."
"Well I'm not." she interrupted suddenly, "I'm not the girl you remember."
He stuttered to a halt and met her hard gaze, "No… no you're not… but you are….all there."
"Yes,I suppose I am, but it is only because my master desires it to be so."
His pale face colored slightly with some emotion and he growled out, "Snape! Stop doing that, you aren't all…" he made an aborted motion with his hand, "Hollow like they are, his name is Snape. Say it." he ordered.
Hermione stared at him for a long moment, slowly she bowed her head, "As you will Master Malfoy, I belong to Severus Snape. Have I satisfied you?"
She heard a dull crunch and wondered what he had broken, "Damn you," he hissed.
Her eyes did not lift to his until she heard him come suddenly to his feet, and then they flashed, with conditioned quickness, to him even as her hand had already closed on her wand. He laughed, it was a bright, almost carefree, sound, "Yes, that's right," Then he sobered, "Don't DO that," he implored.
She blinked calmly at him, "If you dislike being obeyed in such a manner, you should not issue orders when you know well I must obey."
"Oh…sorry. I forget," this soft admission made more sense than it did not, so she accepted it with a nod.
"How could you trust him? After— after Dumbledore."
The words startled her, for she had not thought he would speak… but since he was… slowly she sat up facing him, trying to gather the words she needed for this confrontation.
"Oh, Harry, I didn't. God knows I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. He came to me in that cell… and he took me away from that place, and he said he'd help me," She gave a funny little smile, "Though not in so many words, but I wasn't particularly in a position to argue. For weeks, weeks, I was just waiting for him to snap. To hurt me like everyone else. But Harry, he didn't. He could have, nothing and no one was protecting me."
"But he did hurt you. Bad, Hermione…I… it was real bad. How can you say he didn't do that?"
Reaching out, tentatively, she touched his hand. It was late, late at night. She'd woken up to see Harry sitting up on his cot staring at her in the gloom, looking so sad, and confused… she'd been unfair to him. He didn't know Severus as she did. He only knew the vitriolic traitor who had tormented him for seven years, and killed the one man who'd guided him when it mattered most.
"I'm not saying he didn't. I'm saying before, before any of that… Snape, he healed me. I was dying of starvation and worse. He took the time to nurse me back to health. He clothed me. He fed me. He didn't lock me up, it's true I could not have left, but he did not try to control me in any way, as was his right. Harry, he treated me like… like I was a human being again. Spoke to me, gave me books. You weren't here. You didn't know what it was like. I was nothing, less than an animal. I hardly could remember what my own name sounded like… Then Snape came, he found me in the dark hidden place in my mind I had concealed myself, and he reminded me I was human. He woke me up."
"That's not what I said."
"I know it's not… but I don't know if you're ready to hear what I have to say about that," she said it gently and when he grit his teeth and got that pained little crinkle between his brows, that he always got when he was worried.
She hugged him. She held him close and tight just as she had every other time she'd seen that pain in his face. The helpless, someone I love's been hurt, and I'm so damnably powerless, look he wore all too often.
She rocked him, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. She nearly shivered at the reminder of his youth, in his gangling frame, a youth she knew she no longer possessed.
"Harry, I want you to listen to me. Just listen. I want you to promise me you'll listen to the end… even if you don't like what I have to say," They were so close his breath mingled with hers, since he had curled down into the circle of her arms, his bowed head resting on her shoulder. She waited for him to nod before she spoke, "Harry, I forgive him, because I would have forgiven anything if it would have brought you, and Ron, and Sirius, and Fred, and George, and Molly, and Minerva…all of you… back to me. After murder and torture, rape would have been a trifle to forgive. But Harry, I didn't have to. You know why? Because even to bring back Dumbledore. Even to erase his sin, Snape refused to use me like that. I trust him, because when he realized what we had to do… he was sick. I know. I know what lust looks like in a man's eyes. And he looked at me that night, the night we knew what had to be done and he was afraid. He was utterly terrified that somehow, someway he would hurt me like he had sworn he would not. And then, when he saw what I was…I was breaking. I was scared, and hurting and wanting to die before I let him touch me. He came to me. He swore that I had nothing to fear from him. Swore to me that he would leave the choice in my hands. Even if I chose to throw away our only chance. Harry, he kept his word. Not once did he hold me to my decision. Not once did he tell me, this was what I had to do, for you, or Dumbledore, or the greater good."
Harry was gripping her tightly, and she let him. They both needed it.
"Shhh… Harry, you cannot blame a man for doing nothing more than I asked him to do. You cannot blame him for being gentle, and treating me kindly, though I am nothing to him. Please, I know how awful he was to you. Truly I do. I don't begin to think you ought to forgive him for it… But, at the worst that makes him an angry, bitter man, a soldier who's seen too much war, not a murderer or a rapist, not by choice, not by intent."
"And you trust him? Truly? He looks at you sometimes…"
"Perhaps he does, but he is a man, my husband, and he would never hurt me. That night, it changed us… I need him now, just like he needs me, in some unexplainable way because we were bound up in each other's magic and don't know how to untangle ourselves, couldn't untangle it if we tried. But he knows everything, and he would never, never take from me anything I didn't want to give."
He straightened and released her, "So you're really ok?"
"I always was," she assured him, and then gently reminded, "Will you think about it?"
Harry sighed heavily, "Yes… I'll think about it."
"Do not touch your eyes, or mouth. Don't touch your skin at all in fact," Snape admonished.
She nodded eyeing her hands skeptically as the gleaming ointment he had spread over her hands and up her forearms dried into a barely noticeable film over her skin. In theory it would protect her from the pale yellow oil Snape now painted carefully over her palms and the backs of her hands. They both waited patiently for the oil to bond with the polymer 'gloves', leaving no trace on her skin.
"That should do it… give it about two days after contact."
"You sure it will work?"
"Yes."
"What will it do to the people who contact it?"
Snape didn't respond.
"Why does he not dress you as a blood marked?" Came the question, as all the others this one was without preface or embarrassment. It simply was.
"Because he does not desire to," Came the standard answer, blank and just slightly tinted with amusement at the open… almost naïve character of his questions.
He snorted, "More likely nothing that belongs to the great and powerful Snape should ever appear to tarnish his image," he paused, and in that tone of honest, open reflection she had grown familiar with over the last few days said, "But that's not what he's like. Not really, that's just what they say. He does it because it discomfits everyone else."
"Why do you speak of him so? If memory serves he has always held your family in high regard… has something changed?"
Draco shrugged, as a horse will at times to rid itself of a fly, "That was before. He does things…"
"So does your father. So do you."
"No… not what he does. I have never done those things. And my father would not do them except to keep mother safe. He is… he does it for the power, for the sake of blood sport."
"What position are you in to throw rocks at another?" She asked.
"You of all people defend him?"
The comment was without heat, only simple curiosity. She wondered what made him open up to her. perhaps he was simply craving a familiar face.
She looked back down at the papers before her and said, "Unlike your aunt, he is not mad. I assure you there are far worse things to enjoy than blood sport. Under his protection I do not live in constant fear of death… or worse. I am fed, and clothed, and allowed to live as person rather than some ill used dog in a kennel. I would hazard to say he treats me a good deal better than you treat your house elves."
Draco waved this off, "They are not human, nor can they live any other way… it's how they're bred. Besides, surely you realize he only treats you so because you are of use to him?"
Hermione looked him straight in the eye and said unflinchingly, "And I thank all the listening gods that I am of value as something other than a body capable of bleeding, screaming, and fucking."
He flinched, looking sick, "Forgive me, I—"
"Forget," she filled in, silencing another pointless plea for…something. Something she was not sure she was in a position to offer. Hermione looked at the boy turned man curiously, "You have become a strange thing. Do not look to me for justification, for understanding. If anything I pity you. I knew, I always knew what losing would mean. You were fooled, and now you are just as much a slave as I, only your chains are ones of obligation, loyalty, and fear, rather than magic."
"You fear him. Why?" she asked carefully.
She was testing the waters. She did not know how he would react to her probing, but he had been looking drawn for several days, she figured it was time to start nudging him.
"Snape?"
She said nothing.
"I don't… but he's unpredictable."
"Why don't any of you people trust one another?" Hermione mused, "I mean, I understand not trusting most people… but among the top tier…"
He took the bait, "No, it's among the upper level death eaters you can't trust anyone. It will get you killed."
"No honor among thieves?"
He gave a bark of laughter, "None whatsoever. Trust blood."
"You're all fools. You realize He does this so you will never even think you can do without Him? He keeps all the upper ranks, those who might challenge Him living in fear, of one another as much as Him."
Draco was quiet, "That's a dangerous statement."
"What? I might be killed?" she snorted, "It would be a blessing."
He pursed his lips looking worried and pale.
Hermione laughed, "Your fear allows you to be manipulated."
It was a step too far and she saw the instant he suspected her.
Draco looked shrewdly at her, "Are you insinuating I should trust Snape? What does he want from us? Did he send you to convince me?"
She looked at him silently and he frowned, "I have been foolishly open with you. You probably have to take everything you hear back to him. Shit… You've got to hand it to him for pegging me after one slip up."
Hermione rubbed her hand across her brow, "To what purpose Draco? So Snape turns you over HIM. Fine and good, then what? He's just killed off his godson. How spectacularly productive."
He was still eyeing her suspiciously. She glared right back, "Fine. Keep on living afraid of everything."
"Don't you?" was the snide retort.
Her hands curled into fists, her wand leaping to her hand, "No. I don't," she growled watching his face pale with satisfaction, "I could kill you now and you know it."
He shook his head vehemently, and forced out, "No, no you couldn't, your wand would prevent you."
"Then why are you afraid?" she sneered.
He had pushed to his feet gripping his own wand in white knuckled hands, "Instinct. I forget you're helpless," he challenged her bluff.
She tucked her wand away and said levelly, "Do you really forget, or do you know that I am not? I think it is the latter."
"Not possible. You just seem more real than the others, but you're the same."
"You sound like you're trying to convince yourself of that," she drawled.
He looked more confused than angry now, "Fuck, you even sound like him. What are you here to get out of me?"
Hermione shrugged, "Not everyone is waiting around to stab you in the back."
"Granger?"
She looked up in surprise. He hadn't spoken to her in two days.
"Yes, Malfoy?"
"Tell Snape, my father and I request to speak to him."
"As you will, Master Malfoy."
"And Granger?"
"Yes."
"Kindly shove it. I get the point."
Hermione nodded slightly at the other, "I'm glad."
Hello all, may I just say I am liking Draco more than I thought I would? Seriously, he's so much fun to write. Anyway. Thank you so much to those who reviewed, you have no idea how motivating your words of encouragement are. Much love to all my readers, I hope you're making good on your new year's resolutions. This is mine, to write more and update in a timely manner. Wish me luck.