The halls were silent as Malfoy and Hermione finished their patrol for students out past curfew. Hermione turned over the night's events as she walked, interrupted only by the sound of their combined footsteps on the flagstone. She had more important things to worry about, she knew. Namely, the chapters of her advanced potions text that she hadn't been able to read yet. But, the prospect of having to dance a dance she had never heard of in front of everyone was at the forefront of her mind. She hated being the center of attention, was much better suited to running things from behind the scenes. Organization and following or giving directions were her strong suits. Not performance.
And it wasn't as if she could ask Malfoy about the dance. He would only take the chance to gloat over the fact that she was a muggleborn with a painfully lacking education on old wizarding society. He, on the other hand, probably knew every stuffy pureblood custom from the time he could talk. And she was still waiting for him to inevitably rub it in her face that he was right. McGonagall's hands were tied where the treatment of Slytherin students was concerned.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. They were in an interior corridor in the belly of the castle where the moonlight could not penetrate. The shadows between each mounted candelabra seemed to get caught on his sharp angles, pooling under his cheekbones and in his eye sockets. She decided to beat him to it.
"Okay, even though the headmistress can't figure out who cursed that bludger, it was still necessary to inform her of what happened," she said.
"I'm sure you would think that, Granger."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He scoffed. "Everyone scrambles to protect the golden trio isn't that right?" Hermione fisted her hands at her sides. Yes, they had people try to protect them. They had the order and their professors. But why wouldn't they? They were on the side of good.
"You sound very ignorant right now. Harry, Ron, and I suffered a great deal. There wasn't always someone to protect us. And you could have had protection too. You know that."
He stopped walking and leaned against the wall. She took a few faltering steps past him before she realized. She turned to face him. He was looking at her with an expression of contempt.
"And how exactly would I have known that?" His voice was calm, but there was something underneath it that made her palms sweat. She knew they were both thinking of the night he nearly murdered Dumbledore. When the old wizard offered him a way out, a way out that he refused to take. Had spat on and turned his back to. But she didn't want to talk about that night. Not now. Not with him.
"You had all the same opportunities to do good that we had, and you squandered them. That's not our fault, Malfoy." He laughed, short and cruel.
"You seem to think you know a lot about my choices. Have you ever thought that maybe this shit is already decided? We were doing what we were meant to do. All of us. From the start. I was always going to be in the wrong and you were always going to be in the right. And we'll keep on going that way. That's why we don't ask for help from witches like McGonagall."
"What are you saying, Malfoy? That you can't be a good person because you're not supposed to be? That's ridiculous."
"What I'm saying is that we can't all be the heroes. Some of us have to be bad. And when you grow up like I have, like Nott and Blaise and all of us have, it's obvious what you're going to become. We're not like you. We don't have bleeding hearts and the idiocy to think that the light always wins."
That stung. Because her bleeding heart and faith in the light had gotten her into trouble. It had gotten her on the run, starving and bleeding, trying to keep Harry alive long enough for the light to prevail. It had gotten her crucio'd so many times the mind healers considered her a medical anomaly because she hadn't been mentally and emotionally shattered. But it had been worth it. It was called sacrifice and courage. And how dare he mock it this way.
"Believe me, I know you don't. I know, maybe better than anyone, just how rotten your heart is." She lowered her voice to a cold, deadly whisper. Like before, she was struck by the urge to make him hurt. To make him see how bad things got for her. She couldn't voice these feelings to her friends. But he, her enemy, was fair game.
"I watched you turn on everyone you knew. I watched you look at me like I was nothing as your aunt tortured me. Like I was nothing." Her voice ramped up, words tumbling out of her before she could stop them. Not that she wanted to stop them. "You're a cold, unfeeling bastard."
"Yeah, that's it, Granger. Fight me. Fight me like you used to." He took two steps towards her, nearly breathing the same air she was. "I'm so sick of you walking around like you don't even see the rest of us," his words were a snarl now. She could see the ash grey of his eyes, even in the darkness. He was wrong. She saw him all the time. Her enemy, the face that haunted her. She saw its indifference in her nightmares. Her heart was racing, her face was hot.
"I'm sick of fighting you. I'm sick of living with you. I'm sick of having to prove I'm better than you. When you don't even have the moral high ground. I do. You're sick. You're cruel. You won't ever have my forgiveness, Malfoy."
His hand came up between them. His left arm, the marked arm. He grabbed her chin with his cold hand. They were so close. Too close. She froze, staring into his burning eyes. His next words were a hot, angry whisper against her lips. "I don't fucking want it."
His mouth pressed to hers the second her lips parted. He was not gentle, not kind. But she hadn't expected him to be. Didn't want him to be. She just wanted to feel. She didn't realize how badly the war robbed her of the intensity of her emotions. Everything had begun to feel muted, lukewarm. But not this. His mouth was hot and urgent against hers. Something cracked in her chest and she grabbed the front of his shirt before she could stop to think.
She pulled at the collar he was always undoing and brought him closer to her. He didn't hesitate, his strong hands wrapping around her waist, half tugging her blouse out of her skirt. His mouth moved on hers, slow and practiced now. She gasped into his mouth, overwhelmed. He bit her lip like the snake he was and she tasted blood. The realization struck her then. Who he was and what they were doing.
She was letting Malfoy kiss her. She was returning the kiss. The shock of it was akin to a bucket of ice water dousing her head to toe. Her fist in his shirt went from pulling him closer to pushing him away, violently. He stepped back, face still angry. They were both breathing hard and for a moment, all she could do was stare at him, gooseflesh prickling her skin. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, eyes still locked on hers.
She drew in a breath. "That was a mistake. I didn't know what I was doing," she stuttered.
"You were kissing me back. That's what you were doing."
"You kissed me, Malfoy. Don't forget that."
He shook his head. "A momentary lapse." She was confused about what just happened. What led them there. And it wasn't that she wanted him to have wanted it, but his comment brought a hot flush of shame to her anyway.
"You must be so disgusted with yourself for kissing a mudblood. Is that it?"
"Something like that." His face was unreadable but his voice was cruel. She was disgusted with him. Disgusted with herself.
"I don't want to speak about it. Ever." He said absolutely nothing in reply and so she turned her back on him and walked straight back to their dorm.
She climbed into bed that night fully prepared to lie awake, mentally flogging herself for her lack of control. That wasn't what happened. Instead, she pulled the covers up to her chin and felt a bone deep exhaustion claim her. It was as if the outpouring of anger she felt towards Malfoy served as a kind of catharsis.
The next morning she found herself staring into her porridge, still trying to figure out why she let Malfoy kiss her. And why she returned that kiss. She hated him. She knew that. And he hated her, but still he tipped her chin up and pressed his lips to hers. He said he didn't want her forgiveness. And in a way, that resolved her from having to decide whether he was worthy of it.
The mind healer she saw and all the self help books she read said the same thing. That sometimes forgiving the people who wronged you was necessary for your own healing, your own sanity. But what if you didn't want to forgive? What if those who hurt you didn't deserve forgiveness? She was so tired of being the bigger person. Lashing out at Malfoy let her release the anger and pain in a way she couldn't with her friends. Because she could hurt them, but she couldn't hurt him. He didn't care if she forgave, if she moved on, if she was their good little, bookish Hermione again.
"Morning," a bright voice spoke near her elbow. Hermione turned to find Ginny standing next to her seat. She put down her spoon and let the book she was levitating over her breakfast drift back down to the table.
"Ginny! Hi." She tried not to show her awkwardness. It had been days since she spoke to Ginny, Ron, or Harry and she wasn't quite sure where they all stood.
"So they announced the all hallows eve ball. I thought maybe we could go down to Hogsmeade this weekend and buy dresses. Just the two of us." Ginny smiled and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. She badly wanted things to get back to normal with her friends. Maybe this could be the start of that. She missed them and she found herself so very lonely without them.
"Yeah, that would be great. I definitely need your help picking something out."
"Ha, you know that's not true. You managed just fine without me at the Yule ball. But I will certainly give you my opinion anyway."
They spoke a little longer about the formal robes shop that just opened in Hogsmeade and what time to meet that Saturday. By the time Ginny left her table, Hermione was feeling more optimistic than she had all week. It didn't even hurt to look at Harry and Ron talking to their other friends merrily without her. Her mood didn't sour until her last class of the day when she realized that she was supposed to work on her project in the library with Malfoy that night.
The library was cozy despite the chill of the first week of October, the lamps burning brightly over the shelves. Hermione narrowly dodged two stacks of floating books as she rounded the corner to the last row of study desks where her and Malfoy had met the last time they worked on their project. He wasn't there yet and there was really no telling whether he would show up at all. Not with the way they left things the night before. Her cheeks suffused with warmth at the thought of what had transpired. What she had let him do. Her only consolation was that he was surely regretting it as much as she was.
The chair creaked as she sat and dropped her things on the table. Their table was tucked into a corner at the end of an aisle of shelves, right next to one of the huge, gothic windows. A light rain ticked against the glass pain, the foggy night near impossible to see through. She stared out at the grounds anyway.
She was still staring out at the night when she felt him drop into the seat next to her. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she turned to face him. His heavy robes were missing as usual, his white hair gleaming in the lamplight. He turned to face her with the same bored look she recognized as his typical expression.
"What?" He snapped.
"Nothing," she muttered, wanting to maintain a little bit of civility, for the sake of their project. At the end of their last session, they were both about a third of the way through interpreting each other's future based on the arithmantic principles of the spelling of their names. She just wanted to focus on her part and turn in this project. It would be one last thing she had to do with him. "How far have you gotten since last time?"
"How far have you gotten?" He was always so quick to turn the tables back on her. She didn't like it.
"I did two more letters but I wanted to cross reference with the latin text. Can I have the book back?"
"I don't have that book."
"Well neither do I."
"Okay. What the fuck am I supposed to do about that?" He stared at her blankly and she fought the urge to scream.
"You had it last, so where did it go?" She prompted him. She knew he was being difficult on purpose, probably trying to deflect after last night. That was fine with her.
"I probably put it back then." He spoke slowly, like she was an idiot.
"Then can you go get it back since I didn't get to use it yet?"
"Go get it yourself," he said calmly. She sighed and stood from the table, her chair screeching on the floor. By the time she got back with the book, he was already rolling up his parchment. If he thought he was going to bail on her that fast, he was wrong. So very wrong.
"What are you doing? You can't be finished," she demanded.
"I don't feel like doing this tonight, Granger. There's really no reason we can't do this separately. And I have a match tomorrow. So." He capped his inkwell.
"No, no, no. Malfoy. We were supposed to make progress tonight. You are not leaving me with all the work. We are supposed to collaborate on this." She squeezed any uncertainty out of her voice, leaving him no room to refuse her.
"Did I say I was leaving you with my share of the work? I'll do it, just not may be hard for you to understand, but not all of us need to use you. In fact, without Potter and Weasley, you're effectively useless." He looked right into her eyes when he said it, delivering his little barbed comments with a voice that intended to hurt.
"You vile-"
"Besides, I'm getting kind of bored looking into your future. It's not telling me anything I couldn't already figure out," he seethed. "A successful career, an overachieving mindset that will lead to a stress related breakdown, et cetera. Who would have guessed?"
"Oh, well that's rich. Really. Because your future is just fascinating. In fact, the interpretation I wanted to cross reference says that your truth is going to come to light. What could that mean? It sounds nefarious. Which isn't surprising in the least."
He laughed humorlessly. "Whatever you say, Granger."
"If you leave now, you'll just have to come back to do rounds anyway. I want to be halfway done by the end of tonight. Our potions exam is coming up and I'll need to dedicate my free time to it."
He rolled his eyes and sat back down. "It's going to be easy. Half of our class are idiots. Slughorn will dumb it down for them." He stretched his arms behind his head.
"You don't know that." He picked his quill back up and flipped the page on the book between them. She made the mistake of looking at his hand. It was pale and smooth, his fingers long and graceful. She found that she had developed a sick preoccupation with them over the last twenty four hours. Remembering what they felt like gripping her chin and her waist, the cold metal of his signet ring pressed to her skin. She shook her head, trying to clear it from her mind.
They worked for nearly an hour longer before setting off on their rounds through the castle. As usual, the halls were empty, leaving her and Malfoy alone in the shadowed corridors. In a lot of ways, it was kind of creepy to wander the corridors at night. It reminded her of Harry and Ron and their midnight escapades over the years. She missed them.
Malfoy had mentioned there was a quidditch match the following night. She was so uninterested in quidditch, she had no idea who was playing. It could be Gryffindor. If it was, she decided, she would go watch. To support her friends from the stands. Just like she always had.
"Who is the match against tomorrow?"
He looked at her funny, like she had done something incredibly out of character. She supposed she had.
"Didn't think you were one for quidditch, Granger."
"I'm not. I wanted to know if...forget it."
"Gryffindor."
"I knew that. I was just making conversation,"she lied. She hated that he knew she was on the outs with her friends.
"No you didn't. The Gryffindors finally realized you were fucking annoying and dropped you."
"They didn't drop me and it's not all the Gryffindors." She was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince him.
"Right, just your little boyfriend. The weasel. I wonder if he'll be pissed off when you show up to the ball with someone else. Probably, huh?" That was a whole other issue. She hadn't been asked by anyone and wasn't sure if she wanted a date. Would Ron consider it another snub? And would she look completely pathetic if showed up alone?
"Not that it's any of your business, but I don't even know if I'm going with anyone yet."
"So no one's asked you. What a shame." The sarcasm dripped from his voice. His observation, while accurate, left her feeling incredibly exposed.
"And I suppose you have witches falling at your feet already." She cringed inwardly right after she said it because knowing his reputation, he probably did.
"You're not wrong."
"Well don't forget McGonagall has one request from us. You have to leave your date for the traditional waltz.
"Yeah, I know. I was there too, Granger."
"I'm just making sure." She figured now would be a good time to find out if he knew this dance or if they were both in the dark together. "And I hope you know how to do it."
He scoffed. "Of course I know it. I had ballroom dancing lessons as soon as I could walk. It was drilled into us."
"Good." She figured as much. She would have to find a book on old wizarding dances and try to teach herself. They finally reached their dormitory. The end of their rounds. She whispered their weekly password, Hippocampi, to Eve and passed into their dorm. Malfoy was close behind her. Before he could make it to his room, she asked him one more question. One she hadn't been able to get off her mind.
"Malfoy."
"What?"
"What does it mean? Your truth will come to light?" He seemed to actually think for a moment. His head slightly tilted as he looked at her.
"I don't know, Granger. All my crimes were already bared to the Wizengamot. There's nothing left." His eyes were glacial.
"You were hardly forthcoming about your motivations. What you were thinking." This was dangerous territory for them. The war. His actions. There was still so much pain there. Volatile.
"And I would hardly share them with you. So don't fucking bother asking."
"It was just a question, Mal-"
"What about your motivations? You never said why you testified...for me. Just me. Did you need another charitable act on your resume?" She stiffened. They had never spoken about this. She didn't even like examining her reasons too closely. She set her bag down and focused on Crookshanks winding his way through her legs.
"I don't know." She looked away from his eyes, but she could still feel them boring into her. "I guess I...I never thought you were good. But I also didn't think you were evil beyond repair. I thought maybe...you could find redemption."
She looked at him then. He was still leaning against the wall. What she said was the truth. She thought him rotten to the core, but not too far gone that Azkaban was the only answer left. In her mind, he wasn't on the same level as most of the other Death Eaters. As Greyback or Yaxley or his father. But that still left a terrifyingly large grey area. And a very dark grey, at that.
He turned to the stairs leading to his room. "Maybe you were wrong."
The brisk wind of October swept through the quidditch pitch stands, dragging fiery orange leaves along in its wake. Hermione pulled her red and gold scarf tight around her neck, trying to hold onto the potions book half open in her lap. It was the first quidditch match of the season and the first quidditch match she didn't get to wish Harry and Ron and Ginny good luck at the breakfast table.
Out on the field, the three of them hovered high above the dying grass, waiting for the sound of the whistle to kick off the action. She spotted Harry, the reigning captain, by his messy dark hair. He sat easy and relaxed on his firebolt over the center of the field. Helpless to stop them, her eyes drifted a few paces farther to the left to find Malfoy lazily leaning back against his dark broom, seemingly unbothered by being meters off the ground. She didn't for a moment believe he was as tranquil as he first appeared. When she looked closer, she could see the tension in his lean frame, like a viper coiled to strike.
"I'd be happy to offer you my omnioculars if you would like to get a better look at Draco Malfoy," said a serene voice near her ear. Hermione startled, whirling around to look at Luna. The Ravenclaw had kindly accompanied Hermione to the game, sporting her giant lion hat in support of the Gryffindors.
"Oh, no. That's fine, Luna. Thank you." Hermione flushed at being caught looking at Malfoy. "I was just trying to see if Harry remembered his goggles to protect his glasses."
"Of course, Hermione. I believe Harry is wearing them. Which is a shame, really. It's so difficult to see tiny magical creatures with goggles over your eyes."
Hermione refrained from informing Luna that a cracked lens would be even worse. She was grateful to the blonde for being here with her, even if she was peculiar.
Hooch's whistle sounded over the music blaring on speakers and she watched as the green and red figures transformed into a blur of movement. Quidditch had always bored her and so she snuck her head into her book and waited for the announcer to declare something important. But the roar of the crowd, starved of quidditch for the past year, was so loud she couldn't concentrate. She found herself watching as Ginny, marked by her fiery mane of hair, grabbed the quaffle out of the wind and flew with it under her arm all the way to the far side of the pitch. Two Slytherin chasers bullied their way into her space, but she dodged them with a daring maneuver. Harry and Malfoy both circled restlessly, trying to spot the snitch.
She watched Blaise Zabini dart to defend his ring, but Ginny was too fast, slinging the quaffle through it before he could smack it away. The score bell dinged, and the students around her cheered. She clapped for her friend as Luna exclaimed a delighted "Oh, excellent!"
She searched the field for the other players she knew. Cormac McLaggen swung his beater's bat at a bludger, spiraling it towards Malfoy. She watched with peeled eyes as he dropped out of its path at the last moment, sneering at McLaggen in return. The bludger continued towards a Slythrin chaser she didn't know. The boy wasn't looking, his eyes on the quaffle, but Theodore Nott was there in a flash, his bat sending it back towards the Gryffindors.
On the other side of the field, Ron guarded his rings, hands clasped tight to his broom. He shouted something at Harry, but it was impossible for her to hear.
The game dragged on until Luna had left her in search of hot cider and Hermione sat shivering on the bench, scarf tucked around her chin. The score sat at forty to forty until she saw Malfoy pause and sharply turn in the opposite direction. Harry was not a moment behind him.
"Potter and Malfoy are locked onto the snitch!" The announcer cried out the observation and both the Gryffindor and Slytherin stands stood and cheered in excitement. Hermione could barely see through the wall of bodies around her, but she was able to keep her eyes on the two young men, enemies for as long as she'd known them. She saw Malfoy knock his shoulder into Harry, sending him careening for a moment.
She gasped as Harry righted himself, overcorrecting himself into Malfoy with a harsh shove. It wasn't enough. Malfoy held on to his broom with one hand and grabbed the snitch out the air with his other, right out from under Harry's nose.
"Draco Malfoy catches the golden snitch! Slytherin wins the game!" She sighed her disappointment as the Gryffindor section deflated back to their seats. The Slytherin section, on the other hand, went rowdy with excitement. The beginnings of a chant struck up over the howling wind. Something about snakes and victory. Hermione rolled her eyes and stood. For the first time this year, she was glad that she had been distanced from her friends. They could be counted on to be in absolutely rotten moods when they lost a game of quidditch, especially to Slytherin.
She took the stairs down from the bleachers, pushing past grumbling Gryffindors. A boy who had likely ingested the illicit kind of butterbeer bumped into her and she grabbed the railing to keep from falling. Merlin, I hate quidditch.
She waited outside the Slytherin locker rooms for Malfoy, prepared to corner him and berate him into coming to the library after the game. They were nearly finished with their project and she wanted to be rid of him. She saw him more than she saw her own friends and his presence was becoming more familiar than she ever wanted it to be. They couldn't have a single conversation without arguing. He was exhausting.
Two Slytherin students left the locker rooms before Malfoy and Blaise exited in step with each other. They were carrying their brooms at their sides, hair still wet from the shower.
"Malfoy!" He turned and looked her up and down with a sneer.
"What?"
"Are we still on for tonight?" He gritted his teeth and she knew this was about to turn into a fight. Blaise snickered to Theo, who had just shown up behind them, dressed in only a Slytherin T-shirt despite the chill. His arms were unmarked, even though she knew the Nott's were deeply entrenched with the Death Eaters.
"What are you talking about?"
"The library. Our project. We're almost done and I don't want to have to wait for you to finish your part."
"You better do as she says, mate. She's got crazy eyes," Theo taunted lightly.
"I have better things to do tonight, Granger. I'm not sitting in the library listening to you whine about how latin isn't really a dead language while there's a party celebrating my victory in the dungeons."
She put her hands on her hips and prepared herself for the sparring match that was sure to follow. "Gods, you are such an insufferable asshole."
Blaise interrupted her before she could really get going. "You should come, Granger. We could use a chaperone."
She had no interest in attending a Slytherin party, or any party really. But Malfoy decided to insult her before she could decline politely. "I doubt Granger is any fun at parties, Blaise." He looked at her and she refused to be cowed. "If I had to guess, I would say she probably sits in the corner with her head in a book. Am I right?"
He was right, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. "Gods, I hate you. Just do your part of the project so we can be done with it. I can't wait until I don't have to spend my nights with you in the library."
He chuckled. "And how will you spend your nights then? In the library by yourself? Unless you have some social life I don't know about." It sucked that they lived together and he knew she spent most of her time alone. It really sucked.
"Shut up, Malfoy! Just get your work done before I do it myself and tell our professors you refused to help."
"Do it, Granger. See if I give a fuck."
"Fine."
"Fine." She stormed away from him ignoring the way she wanted to smack the arrogant look off his face. It was going to be a long night in the library.