TSP hit 1300 followers last chapter! Wow, thank you all so much for the support.
A lot is in the process of happening for our dear characters. I'm asking you all to wait a few chapters to make judgements. This chapter was originally supposed to be 10000+ words, but I found that splitting it made more sense. This whole 3000 chapter would probably last 5-7 minutes. It's not over. It's only just started.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
The realization of his change in loyalty came far too late for anyone's liking, including his.
Standing next to his father, Draco stared forward at the people who had taken him in on good faith alone. He clutched his wand tightly between in his fist. The familiarity of the wood at his fingertips did nothing to calm his beating heart, to steady his hallowed breath. His eyes danced over the faces of the Order members who had stormed into his childhood home under the mistaken impression that he had been captured. And now, the extent of his betrayal, the reality of their error lay before them.
On all but one face, he saw rage.
He looked at her, her green eyes wide, her mouth popped open in shock, and he knew she understood what he had done to them. What he had done to her.
However, unlike the pure unadulterated anger coming off her companions in drove, her eyes were…well, they were empty. He had become so accustomed to seeing something in them; annoyance, curiosity, lust…not this. He had never seen this before. They were blank, empty, as if she had given everything and had nothing else left.
Next to her frozen form, he watched his old best friend reach over and place his hand on her lower back – why? As a gesture of comfort, to return her to the moment they all were trapped in, something more? Regardless of intent, Blaise's movement snapped her to attention, and caused Draco's mouth to go dry.
"Why Miss Granger," his father drawled, smirking at the brigade before him, and bringing attention back to himself. "How lovely to see you again."
At his father's use of her name, her eyes snapped to Lucius. The emptiness in her eyes quickly filled with anger.
"You worthless wizard," she snarled, raising her wand and pointing it at him. She looked like sheer electricity. "You pathetic excuse of a human being, fucking draconian monster…"
"She doesn't mince words, does she?" Nott Sr said, his eyes open in shock at seeing his niece for the first time in two decades.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Blaise snarled at his best friend's father, now flanking Hermione fully.
Nott Sr raised an eyebrow. "Why Mr. Zabini, I must admit I'm surprised to see you. I was under the impression you were dead."
"Sorry to disappoint, Nott. I was hoping you were as well."
Nott. At Blaise's words, Draco watched Hermione pale slightly as her eyes shifted to Theo's father. He raised an eyebrow at her reaction. Why would she care about Nott? Why would anything he said matter to her…
Then, as if doused in water, the implications hit him in a half second.
Merlin. She knew. She knew everything.
Draco couldn't help the small gasp he let out at the realization. She wouldn't care about Nott, wouldn't give half a damn about his presence. She didn't know Theo, the two had never spoken.
No. She reacted because she knew who he was to her. Which meant, she knew who she was.
How long had it been since he had seen her? Two days? Three? And in that time she had discovered her heritage. There was no way that she had simply stumbled onto the right page in a library book after a month of searching. There was no way that an Order member had remembered the meaning of her mark after weeks of it being the only subject of discussion in Grimmauld Place.
Which left only one option.
Blaise.
His flanking position held more significance now.
"She knows," Draco whispered into the room. Eyes from both sides snapped to him. He only gave a damn about one pair though.
"Draco?" Lucius asked, not understanding the implication.
He kept his eyes forward on her, until she eventually returned his gaze.
The sight of her hurt him more than a wand ever could.
"What your son means, Malfoy," Hermione said, her cold eyes still on him. "Is that I know who I am. I don't think Granger really applies anymore, does it?"
She didn't use his name anymore. What had he expected?
If there was one thing Lucius hadn't been expecting, it was this. He pursed his lips. "I hadn't realized the Order had any information about the Le Fays."
"They didn't," Draco said, his eyes shifting to his childhood best friend, who looked on the brink of murder. "Zabini did."
Blaise scoffed. "Zabini now? You're a real bastard, Drake."
He didn't need Blaise to tell him that.
Lucius nearly growled. "We should've killed you when we had the chance, Zabini."
His father's words confirmed what he had been gnawing at him for several weeks. He closed his eyes as the realization swept over him. The Zabini Raid. Blaise's death hadn't been a possible consequence. No, Blaise's execution had been planned from the start. It hadn't mattered that he was neutral, or a pureblood.
Merlin, how had it taken him this fucking long to realize how drastically wrong he had been?
"You aren't getting anywhere near Blaise," Hermione hissed back, her wand still raised. The protectiveness in her voice was obvious to anyone in the room. Draco couldn't help the jealousy that erupted in his stomach.
Not that he had a right to feel jealous. Not that he had the right to feel anything towards her.
But he did. Merlin almighty he did.
He hadn't realized that he had started shaking. Hermione's gaze had returned to his father, but he couldn't tear his from her. He didn't care that Finnigan looked one comment away from blasting him with fire, or that the look on his old professor's face was oscillating between anger and disappointment, or that his best friend of seven years looked like he was going to draw and quarter him without regret.
The only thing he gave a damn about in that whole room, in that whole manor, on this whole wretched planet was the beautiful woman standing in front of him, her wand moments away from cursing down his father.
He had known for years that his devotion to the Dark Lord involved tepid enthusiasm at best. He had known that when he shot down another person, his body filled with such bile that he could barely stand for days following. He had known that the pureblood supremacy he had heard touted, and touted himself, which had once made him feel like he was better than those around him, made him more tired with every scream he heard echoing from the Manor dungeon.
He had known all this.
And yet, he had stayed, hadn't he? He had made no real effort to leave, to escape, to join the Order. He was no turncoat, he was no angel, he was no reformed Death Eater who had seen the error of his ways. He had taken the mission, hadn't he? He had gone into the Order of the Phoenix with the full intention of returning to Voldemort with Hermione Le Fay on his arm? Hadn't he?
Even as he felt his ability to complete the mission disappear, he hadn't fessed up, had he?
When the Dark Lord had said that Hermione would hand herself over, he hadn't fought for her, had he?
He had let her and him, whatever they were, lovers, others, continue while knowing full damn well that he was lying to her. Every kiss, every touch, every word was tainted. He had known that. But he had continued, hadn't he?
Why?
Because he bloody well wanted to.
He watched Hermione glare down his father, her magical aura suffocating him. She may be the most powerful witch he had ever seen, but she was also good. Hermione did not feel tepid enthusiasm for her side. She believed in her mission with every fibre of her being, with every piece of her soul.
Did he believe in anything, what was left of his conscience whispered in his ear. Did he believe in his side, the side of the room he was standing on? Surely the fuck not. But did he believe in her side either? More so than before, absolutely, but not enough to lay down his life, as Hermione surely would.
Draco Malfoy stood in the drawing room of his childhood home, the Malfoy ancestral home, the last of generations of pureblood supremacists, and found that he no longer gave much of a damn about it. The stuck-up child who once wanted fame and glory because he felt he was owed it was nowhere close to the tired man he felt like today The pillars of an ideology to which he had been beholden for over a decade crumbled beneath him.
They weren't replaced by an affinity for the Order of the Phoenix either. Did he believe in the holier than thou attitude touted by some members of the group? Not particularly. Did he think that sometimes they viewed things too starkly in black or white? Absolutely. Would they all be better off if the Light won the war? Only this he was sure of. But was he really ready to die for their side?
He didn't even to think the answer to know what it would be.
No. Draco Malfoy was not a good person. He may not have been the evillest in the room, but he was not good. He was selfish. He was self-serving, he was a Slytherin through and through, and he didn't care about much in the whole world.
But, he did care about the woman standing in front of him.
Draco felt all the pillars that had once held him up disappear, replaced by one and one alone. It was as if every cord holding him to this cursed earth had been cut, with only one remaining. As his earth's center shifted, he felt magic shoot through his veins, revitalizing his mind, putting his position in stark clarity.
Did Hermione know that he was her other? Could she pinpoint the moment when her magic, her body, her heart had chosen him? Had she known when her ancestry, her heritage, her very self had connected itself inextricably to him.
He didn't know. He couldn't say.
But he could pinpoint the moment when he had chosen her.
And that moment, as unhelpfully as possible, was exactly right now, as they stood on opposite sides of the Malfoy drawing room.
Fuck.
The whole realization, the shifting of his gravitational centre, his magic's othering of Hermione, took less than five seconds. When he blinked back into reality, Hermione was still glaring at his father, standing protectively in front of Blaise.
"You aren't touching Blaise," Hermione spat out. "Our side needs at least one reformed snake, since that position was recently vacated."
Double fuck.
He flinched at her comment. "Hermione…" he started, before the words died in his mouth.
What would he ever say to redeem himself? He was irredeemable.
"Don't, Draco," she hissed, her eyes snapping back to him. "Don't even fucking try with me."
"I always knew you were a rat bastard, Malfoy," said a voice from the Order side. Draco didn't even have to look to know who it was.
"Oh shut the fuck up, Finnigan," he snarled back at the Irishman, who had moved forward to flank his Princess with Blaise.
"Don't you dare bring Seamus into this," Hermione said angrily. "He is not the one who lied to us. He is not the one who infiltrated our home. He is not the one who took advantage of m…us. He is not the one who allowed himself to be mutilated for what? A mission? Was this all this fucking was to you, Draco? A bloody mission? To what? Get our secrets? Ruin the Order? Report back to your Lord with as much dirt as possible?"
The venom in her voice shook him to his core. What could he say? What could he possibly say to assuage her? She was right. And he was wrong.
How could he have been so bloody wrong?
"Now, Hermione," Lucius interrupted, looking between her and Draco quickly. "I wouldn't be so quick to assume Draco's intentions."
Hermione burst out laughing. It sounded nothing like the twinkle he had grown accustomed to. This laugh was dark, unhinged. She threw her head back, and her hair crackled with magic. Blaise and Seamus took a step back.
Merlin, she was going to explode.
"So if it wasn't to steal all our bloody secrets, what was it for?" she laughed, her voice now crackling. "I doubt he just wanted to expand his life experiences."
Draco was gaping openly at her now. What on earth was happening to her? The way she was laughing, the way her voice was shifting between octaves. It was as if she was about to burst into tears or burn someone at the stake.
Unsettled. Unhinged.
Un…Hermione.
Lucius seemed unperturbed by the quickly unravelling Order member in front of him. If anything, whatever was causing Hermione's normal demeanour to disintegrate spurred him forward.
"No, my son did not enter your headquarters for something as unremarkable as Order secrets or gossip. I'm disappointed in you, Hermione, you should have realized we are now playing a higher stakes game."
Her eyes flashed and to their right, a glass lamp on the wall exploded, sending shards of glass flying across the room.
"Don't say my name."
It was as if she was nine years old, unable to control her magic, the way the he had once exploded a cake at a family dinner when his father had yelled at him, or how Potter had infamously blown up his aunt.
Lucius raised his wand to cast a shield before any glass hit their side.
"Now, now, we are civilized people," Lucius drawled. "Surely, someone as intelligent as the Smartest Witch of Our Age must have figured out what we were looking for. What we wanted. Who Draco was there for."
As Lucius's words hit her, her eyes snapped to Draco. In the chaos he saw in those green eyes, he saw the one thing that sent a knife into his chest.
Understanding.
Apparently, Hermione was not the only one who understood the reason for his mission.
"God, you utter bastard," Finnigan growled, clutching his wand tighter, his eyes crazed.
And for the first time since he had re-met the Irishman, he agreed with his words.
"This was always about me, wasn't it," Hermione said, her voice smaller than before. "The whole reason you came, you stayed…you wanted me to come back with you, didn't you?"
As the pieces came together in her mind, the pieces of his heart came apart.
"Hermione, listen," he started desperately, uncaring of his father and Nott at his side. "That's how it started, yes, but things changed…"
"Oh don't bother, Draco," Hermione spat back. "Don't bother trying to convince me that anything that happened between us was a deceptive, manipulative mistake."
"You really are a twat if you thought that was going to work…"
"Oh SHUT UP Finnigan!" He exploded, before Lucius raised his hand in warning.
"Those may be the words coming out of your mouth, Miss Le Fay," Lucius said, ignoring Hermione's flinch at his use of her surname. "But something tells me the magic threatening to overcome you at any moment feels something different."
She flinched even harder.
"What do you know about my magic, Malfoy?" she spat, as her body started shaking again, her face going pale. The image sparked a memory in him, he had seen her like this before…
The image assaulted him. This is how Hermione had looked right before the magic transfer. When her mark had overloaded.
She was overloading.
Before Draco had a chance to speak, another voice spoke up.
"Lucius may not have much first-hand knowledge on the magic coursing through your veins, Hermione, but I do."
Hermione turned towards her uncle. "Do not assume to know me because we share a bloodline, Nott."
"I'm not presuming to know you, Hermione," Nott said, his voice low. "I have not seen you since you were a baby. I'm presuming to know your mother."
"Don't," Hermione hissed.
"Celia and I were never very close," Nott admitted, ignoring Hermione's word of warning. "But I knew who she was. What she was. My brother and I, before he foolishly decided to disobey the Dark Lord, shared everything. I am the only person left alive who has seen a Le Fay up close, and all the power that comes with it. Lucius knows the legends, he knows the stories. I know how Celia looked when she cast a spell. I know how Celia looked when she saw my brother."
"What on earth does the way my mum looked at my dad have to do with this?" Hermione said, probably going for exasperation, but the curiosity seeped through.
Nott Sr smirked. Draco felt shivers go down his back.
"It matters because the way that Celia looked at Tiberius is the same way that you're looking at young Draco, no matter how hard you are trying not to."
What was left of the blood in Hermione's cheeks drained at Nott's comment. Before she had a moment to speak, Finnigan snarled at her side.
"She isn't looking at him any other way than looking at a bastard traitor."
Nott smirked. "Not exactly."
Draco closed his eyes for a split second, desperately wishing for one moment of peace before the bomb dropped.
But he wouldn't get it.
There was no peace anymore.
"No," Nott continued. "She's looking at him like her Other."
Hermione's mouth popped open.
"What on earth is that?"
Nott smirked.
"That, dear Hermione, is your everything."
Review :)
