Song Suggestion: Rag'n'Bone Man— "Human"

A/N: This story will flipflop in time for the first half until I reach the point where the events of the first five years of war converge with the present.

Lessons of Hate

Present Day

Draco

The room was quiet. It was the first time Draco was completely alone since his display of wandless magic. Too bad he hadn't been able to do it since.

Granger's voice rose and fell in the opposite room. Terrance and the Golden Girl argued over if he should live or die. Whether Granger was winning the argument didn't matter. No doubt Terrence was trying to talk some sense into her.

Do your best, mudblood, he thought, but they'll still blow my brains out. If they had their way, that is. Draco wasn't too eager for death. He survived the battle of Hogwarts; he survived Voldemort living in his house; he survived his awful sixth year… he refused to die as a captive by such a primitive muggle weapon. They wouldn't give him the decency of a wizard death, wand to temple, and Terrence would volunteer to hold the gun.

If nothing else, Draco Malfoy was resourceful when backed into a corner.

In the end, wards were only as powerful as their loophole.

As he sat, he planned. And he waited.

Draco

Granger walked in and rubbed a hand under her nose. Her once golden skin turned blotchy and red. Hermione Granger wasn't a pretty crier. Her hair took on the negative energy, flying skyward.

"Wonders never cease. Are those tears for me?" Draco leaned back, feeling better than he had in months.

Hermione's eyes shot up and met his. She didn't attempt to hide her misery. That fact alone would make her unsuitable for Slytherin. He expected her to make a defensive remark back to him. What he didn't expect was what came out of her mouth.

"I can't help that I care." Hermione sniffled again and sat down next to the stack of books she left outside his cell. Her shoulders slumped. "I don't think you understand the seriousness of your situation."

Draco attempted to speak at first but couldn't. The thought that she, Hermione Granger, cared for him, Draco Malfoy, was so out of the realm of possibility it took a moment for him to digest the information.

"I know, I know," he finally recovered, rolling his eyes. "They want to kill me... sooner rather than later. Honestly Granger, I'm not incapable like Potter and Weasel. I have a high-functioning brain that can analyze a situation. You don't need to explain it to me."

Granger looked up. She was a mess. With streaks down her face, her nose looked twice its normal size. In all honesty, he should capitalize on her brief ugliness and allow it to repulse him. But the only thing he wanted to do was brush the underside of her eyes with the pads of his thumbs.

"How can you not care?" Her face scrunched. "You're going to die. After all the work... after all the hope that..." She slumped, drained of passion. "Did you even read the book?" She stared at the floor, unable to meet his eyes.

"Twice, and I found it unbearable. I'm not sure it got across the message you intended."

Hermione's eyes widened in disbelief and then narrowed.

"And what, if I may ask, is so unbearable about it?"

"Let me summarize," he sneered. "A man named Hitler rounds up a bunch of people to kill their families and work them to death for inane reasons. It was during some sort of war. But from what I understand, there was little point to the whole operation, just blatant cruelty. If you're trying to convince me muggles deserve my sympathy, I'm not sure this is the right place to start."

Hermione traced her fingers on the spines of the books. He followed the path or her finger up and down, up and down as she took a moment to think.

"The muggle world is complex," she said quietly. Draco snorted and crossed his arms on his chest. "No, really, it is. Much more so than the wizarding world. There are thousands of cultures, sub-cultures, religions, ethnicities. Each one hates the other a little, is a little afraid of what's different. Though the world now attempts stop the evolution of hate, it still happens on a frequent basis. What Hitler did is called genocide: the deliberate killing of a large group of people. Some of the genocides in the muggle world are based on skin color. They—"

"Hold the fuck up," Draco stopped her. "So you're telling me muggles actually kill each other based on the color of their skin?"

The whole idea was unbelievable.

"Well, yes, but the holocaust—"

"Is this supposed to endear me to your race of insects?"

"I think you're missing the point." Hermione gained some color into her cheeks again. Her eyes sparkled. Draco preferred on fire, as if she could melt the ice from the world. "I'm not trying to convince you to like muggles. I'm trying to convince you we're all the same. You can substitute race for anything. Genocide doesn't have a reason; it has placeholders. Replace it with religion. Replace it with nationality. Replace it with—

"Blood purity," Draco finished. He understood what she was getting at long ago. He just liked getting under her skin.

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "Replace it with blood purity. The underlying thread of genocide is power. Nothing more or less. There is no other reason. Your Dark Lord could care less about blood purity. He manipulates the fear that exists-"

"And how would you know this?" Draco allowed himself to get indignant. He hated her most when she tried to tear down his foundations, the structures he built his life on. He had no real hatred towards mudbloods or muggles. Draco just believed they should keep to their own for the most part. "There have been centuries of studies proving Pureblood magic has been diluted due to integration. We are a fraction of what we used to be, and the only way we can regain what we lost is if the mudbloods—"

"Oh, please," Hermione said, standing up. "Don't tell me you believe that hogwash. The studies were stacked with biased researches intent on finding points to prove their argument. In fact, they deliberately fudged some of the—"

"You may have a brain the size of a hippogriff, but you stuff it so full of useless facts you wouldn't know common sense if it hit you—"

"I can tell you exactly why your Dark Lord is a fraud on a greedy power grab to—"

"Oh, this is enlightening. Are you going to tell me the inner thoughts of the Dark Lord now? It would be better if you shut up—"

"Your Dark Lord is a bloody half-blood! His father was a muggle. That's how I know, you blind imbecile."

Draco sucked in a breath at the accusation.

"How dare you!" He stood up as well, pressing his nose against the glass and glaring. "You filthy little liar."

When I get my hands on you... Draco's thoughts took a steep dive towards darkness. Yes, he hated the Dark Lord, and yes, he was a manic psychopath. But Draco had always comforted himself that in the end, the Dark Lord was the epitome of pureblood values. His agenda would be worth it in the end, despite all the sacrifice and terror. Draco's whole life had been built and shaped around this principle. It was who he was.

He wanted to dismiss her, but the look in her eyes was sure and confident. It caused him to ease up on the glass.

Not that it was true... but how could she know such thing, especially when he didn't? Would his father know?

"I don't believe you," Draco said. "Mudbloods are inferior creatures. Their only value is in their use to us, and those are few and far between. Their magic is a joke, a pale shade compared to a Pureblood. Nothing you can say or do will make me believe otherwise."

"Inferior!" Hermione shook with rage. The fingers of her right hand trembled next to the pocket where she kept her wand. "Inferior! I can't believe what I'm hearing. If muggleborns are so inferior, then what does that make me? Not only did I outwit your supposed Dark Lord multiple times, but I beat you in every class for six straight years in a row. In fact, if you're supposed to be the embodiment of blood purity... when have you won at anything?"

Draco concentrated on his breathing, on his lungs filling and then releasing. If he didn't, he'd lose all reason. Something about the bint made him go mad! And Merlin, she had a point. She always had a fucking point.

"You're just a freak," he said finally. "A side-show attraction. Like a monkey doing sign language. It wouldn't happen in nature, but if you take an animal out early enough, you can teach it to do tricks. Dumbledore taught you—"

"Rot and die, Malfoy," Hermione cut him off. "I was the only person in this facility who gave a flying fig, and now I might not even cry at your execution."

Hermione twisted and walked out, slamming the door so hard it rattled behind her. After Draco calmed himself down enough to think rationally, he regretted the argument. He wasn't sure how much of it he meant or not.

But it didn't matter.

Either way, escape or die, his time behind these bars was mercifully ending soon.

Draco

Hermione came in later with a tray of food. The action gave her away. She could have ordered someone lower on the totem pole to bring him the food, but she did it herself. Malfoy was starting to believe her—she did care. He wasn't sure how he felt about the whole idea.

"Can't seem to stay away, can you? Admit it Granger, I've got a certain magnetism." He leaned back against the bed with lazy confidence.

Hermione was no longer crying. Her face turned to stone, lips in rigid lines. The hardness made her look off. He'd do just about anything to crack it.

"Go on then, fling my food away at the last moment. It's what your type have been known to do."

Hermione glared at him before lifting the latch and sliding the food through the small door. She began to walk away, but half-way to the door, changed her mind. She pivoted, still glaring.

"You always make me out to be cruel. But I'm not. Not like—"

"It seems you are forgetting how kind of a jailer I was to you."

Granger pulled back a little.

There was a point during the war where their situations had been reversed. It made Draco's gut tighten just thinking about it. The whole time she was sequestered at the top of Gryffindor tower like a princess guarded by her very own Draco, just waiting for the evil king to come home. He would lie awake every night plotting and scheming, trying to find a way to keep them both alive and get what he wanted.

He would never forgive her for escaping him. Not in a million years. The number couldn't even soothe him this time. The consequences had been too high.

"I was going to say like your Dark Lord. But since you brought up the subject, I'm under no illusions. If I had gone along with what you wanted, on the fraction of a chance surviving the homecoming of your Dark Lord, I would have been miserable."

Draco's face tightened. He clenched his hands in his sheets.

"Miserable? Is that the way you see it?"

Granger opened her mouth as if to say something but shook her head.

"I'm sorry it had to end this way. You have been in my life since I turned eleven. I will shed a few tears... and then I'll try to never think of you again."

Not a bloody chance in hell, bitch! I will not be some footnote to your life.

It was time to show Hermione Granger that even in a cage a snake is dangerous.

A/N: So it's unclear whether the Death Eaters knew of Voldemort's blood status. In this story, unlike my other one, only a few do.