Song Suggestion: Jessie Reyes- "Figures"

A/N: I'll have another chapter up next Sunday! Now that I'm basically done writing the story, I'll try to push updates closer together.

Parallel Choices

Draco

Hermione screamed in pain, the fire in the center arced up, and the wind picked up.

And then it ended as quick as it began. She closed her eyes and wouldn't open them back up again, no matter how hard Draco shook her. Giving up, Draco raced her back to the castle, straddling her over his broom, regretting the whole night. He just wanted a single night before things got hard, and he managed to fuck it up somehow.

Nothing made sense because he drank the same potion as her. He'd never heard of a reaction to Beltane magic like that.

Madam Pomfrey didn't ask questions when Draco came in with an unconscious Hermione cradled in his arms, only giving the barest explanation. She got straight to work, having him lay her on a bed. She checked her vitals and then tried to determine if she was under any curses or spells.

Pomfrey determined that whatever happened to her was now out of her system. She was just asleep—a deep sleep that she would come out of in the morning. She sent Draco to bed with a shooing motion.

However, when Pomfrey pulled aside the curtains in the morning and found Draco curled against Hermione's side she certainly had questions. He could tell by her raised eyebrow. Draco woke up, rubbing his eyes.

"I trust you won't say anything," he said.

Out of everyone in Hogwarts, Pomfrey knew the most secrets. She'd kept several of his before.

She pursed her lips as if thinking and then shook her head.

"I feared something like this would happen," she said. "Emotions are high. The trauma fresh. People like to forget in whatever way possible." She paused and then clucked her tongue. "I found your father in the same position many years ago with a witch named Kadilila. Except, I escorted him out by his ear, the rogue."

Draco sat up straighter, allowing his feet to fall off the bed. He reached a hand in his coat pocket, extracting a letter. It weighed heavy in his hand, and he gave a great sigh, placing it on her bedside table.

The parallel story of him and his father caused something inside him to tense up. According to rumors, his father kept his mistress up until Draco was born, and then she left him without warning and without goodbye. Since then, he'd never taken another. At least, none as serious. Draco always believed his father loved the muggleborn, maybe even more than his mother. Maybe more than anyone. When she left, something broke inside him.

Pomfrey hovered by the curtain as if she wanted to say something but kept stopping herself.

"Well, get on with it. I don't have all day," Draco snapped. It came out sharper than he intended. He suspected he'd be in a tense, foul mood until tonight.

"Is your father happy?"

What an odd question.

"He's about to go on trial for war crimes. I would say no."

"Not with the war," she said. "That makes everyone wounded. But… without that was he happy?"

Draco humored her and considered.

"Not really," he admitted. He'd always been miserable, hard to love, and hard to give love. Draco had given up a long time ago for any real fatherly affection. He received more than other Death Eater children, like Theo, but it had been a cold home.

He stood up, stretching his legs. He still wore the clothes from Beltane, wrinkled and smelling of smoke.

But Pomfrey didn't move. Her face became sharper.

"And your aunt? How happy is she?"

"Bellatrix? She's dead."

"Not her." Pomfrey looked exasperated. "Your other one."

Andromeda.

"I don't know. I've never met her. But her daughter is dead. I'm assuming right now she's wretched."

"Yes, she's grieving," she said. "But I know her well, and she was happy for years. Love and joy bloomed around her."

Draco understood what she tried to say. His face hardened, wishing people stopped meddling. There was enough to think about without adding more.

"Good day, Pomfrey."

But she wasn't done. When he walked past her, she touched his arm.

"Both made their choices. Your father made his. Do you think he regretted it?"

Maybe. Draco had once caught his father staring at Kadilila's photograph. It had been just the two of them, his arm around her shoulders walking near Hogwart's lake. In it his father looked so young and carefree, smiling and waving. A separate person than the one he knew.

Pomfrey's grip tightened.

"Do you think Andromeda regrets hers?"

No, she didn't. Despite the trauma, she probably would choose the same. He knew the point she tried to make, but he didn't appreciate it.

Draco was not his father. And Hermione wasn't Kadilila. It wouldn't flare out with the challenge, and she wouldn't leave him. She promised him she wouldn't. Hermione might be hurt, angry, and distant for a time. He'd take it, wait patient. But in the end, she'd come back to him. Because she needed him the same way he needed her.

Don't you see I've fallen for you?

Draco tipped his head at Pomfrey, gave one last look at a sleepy Hermione, and exited the room.

Hermione

Hermione woke up, feeling like she just ran a marathon. Every muscle in her body ached. Something inside her chest felt loosened, unlocked.

She pressed a hand to her head. That was a wild trip. Looking at her surroundings, she noticed the bed and linens of the medical ward. Draco must have dropped her off. Obviously, whatever she drank made her terribly ill.

The hallucinations seemed so real, so present. The faceless people, the voices… the dragon. When the fire engulfed her, her bones melted under her skin.

If she never looked at mandrake root again, it would be too soon.

Pomfrey came by, giving her a pepper up potion. Oddly, she didn't ask her any questions. And oddly, she kept shaking her head, looking at her in pity.

Hermione grabbed the note from the bedside table when she drew back the curtains. In it Draco asked her to meet him in the astronomy tower later that night.

She vanished the note and then lay back down, feeling much better.

Hermione

After Hermione entered her room, she sat at her desk, pulling out the grimoire. High or not, the book tugged her toward it. She couldn't stop thinking about it while resting in the medical ward.

She watched the golden dragon slithering around the edges. It seemed to watch her back, cognizant of her eyes following him.

She cracked open the book, and a sudden cold draft exited the pages.

"I've been waiting for you," a voice said. "You have finally claimed your title through the ancient rites."

Hermione startled. In the corner of her room, a male ghost stood. At least she thought it a ghost. It looked more… solid than normal, but less solid than a real body. The man wore a full sleeved linen shirt with matching collar and wrist ruffles. Over the shirt he wore a heavy doublet, and a sword rested by his hip. A goatee made his face seem long, framed by curly hair.

"Who are you?" She asked, still astonished.

"By the blood you fed me, you must be my descendant."

She felt staggered. She combed through her history, using her parents' last names, matching them to old wizarding families. In the end, she found nothing.

"A descendant? But I'm a muggleborn."

If it true, she must only contain a drop. Though, it didn't surprise her. If the ability to wield magic was a recessive trait, it had to be passed on from somewhere.

The man wrinkled his nose.

"My descendants must have lost their sense, mating with the villagers."

Hermione shouldn't be insulted by a memory, but her hands curled into fists. She'd heard of magic like this. Almost like Tom Riddle's diary, but it wasn't a piece of soul created with dark magic. More a shadow of consciousness like the portraits.

"Are there no other Kaiser wizards more suited?" He asked.

"Kaiser? Like the German emperor?"

The man looked at her as if he were disappointed in his whole lineage.

"No, girl. The greatest wizarding family in the known world."

"My last name is Granger. I don't think I've ever heard of that family."

The man looked staggered, gutted.

"What age is this?"

"1999, nearly the new millennium."

The man looked silent, contemplative.

"It's been five hundred years," he said in a sad voice. "No other descendants have claimed the family mantle since my son a year after I placed this enchantment on the book. Something must have happened to our family for it to have been lost for so long."

"How do you speak English so well?" She asked.

"I've embedded a translator spell in case any of my descendants didn't speak mine." He looked at the ground, and then he stood up straight. "You must discover what happened—"

Hermione snapped the book shut, and the memory vanished. The dragon gave a silent roar in protest, but she just placed it back in the drawer and shut it away.

Memory or not, when dead things started demanding things, it was always a red flag of caution. Despite wanting to know everything, she also knew she messed with magic bigger and deeper than she understood.

The next time she opened the book, she'd have research at her fingertips.

An extinct German family with her as the only descendant left with magic? It sounded too outlandish to be true.

Hermione

At exactly midnight, Hermione entered the astronomy tower. The wind whistled and blew her long robes around her ankles as she walked across the wooden floorboards, tempting her to the edge. It gave her visions of plummeting to her death, of Dumbledore's body gracefully falling like a bird pushed too soon from its nest. During the day, she could handle it, but nighttime made horrors real again.

They had a tryst up here earlier in the year. She was surprised Draco suggested the spot in the first place, given the part he had in the whole thing.

"Doesn't it make you… remember?" She had asked him.

"That part of my life is over," he said. "I'd rather make new memories."

She agreed, but a shiver still traveled through when she ascended. It was beautiful. She'd admit that. The distant forest shivered in the breeze like a beast's fur, the lake rippled with movement, and stars dotted the endless sky.

Draco waited for her. He had his hands clasped behind his back, standing near the edge with only a low stone wall preventing him from tipping forward. It made her feel queasy with the sight.

Or maybe it was more than that?

"Have you looked at the prophet today?" He asked, never turning to look at her.

She never read it anymore, tired of the politics and cherry-picked articles. Now that Rita Skeeter regained her position as a journalist, the newspaper lost its appeal to her. She could no longer trust it to tell the truth. Not that she ever trusted it much in the first place.

"No… why?"

Draco's body deflated, shoulders slumped. One hand went up to grip the side of the stone window. His other dragged forcefully through his hair, one of his nervous ticks.

And then his hand reached in his robe and pulled out a wad of paper.

The prophet. With the only light available from the moon and stars, and the crumpled way he held it, she couldn't make out the big black letters of the headline.

"Before I give this to you, you need to know it wasn't what I wanted. My father did it. And I… I need to know you're on my side."

"Of course, I am—"

"You don't understand yet. I need to know if you lo—care for me enough to stick through this with me."

Love. The word stuck in the air between them, despite him not saying it. Neither of them had ever used it before, though it had almost tumbled across her tongue several times while lying in a blissful daze.

Did she love him?

Hermione wasn't sure. All she knew was that she had never experienced anything like this before. All she knew was that her heart made the same beats as his as he held her.

Her stomach swooped. Nausea stung the edge of her lips.

"You're making me nervous."

He finally turned. His eyes in the moonlight looked as colorless as his hair, as if the universe forgot to paint him.

"You promised you were mine, and you'd never leave me. Today you need to uphold your word. This is the moment I'm asking you to be brave." He extended his hand with the paper rested between them. She hesitated to touch it for a few moments. But her need to know defeated the fear, and she ripped the prophet from his hands.

Her eyes scanned it several times before comprehending.

Bold, black letters read: Draco Malfoy Engaged to Astoria Greengrass.

Underneath was a picture of the two at some event around Christmas time. He had his hand on her waist, and they both wore smiles. She wasn't sure if they were pretending or not. Astoria wore a beautiful silver dress that sparkled like diamonds. If she didn't hate the sight so much, she'd call it elegant.

Christmas time…

Betrayal was a bitter thing, almost worse than the jealousy that ripped through her. But it was all eclipsed by the sudden, sharp pain.

Astoria Greengrass. It all made sense now. His ability to order her around. Their shared conversation she overheard.

Hermione couldn't read anymore.

If possible, Draco looked more ill than before. But Hermione found little sympathy for him.

"So all this time you were with Astor—"

"Of course not. We don't even like each other. This is arranged. Has been since I was a child."

The admission allowed Hermione to breathe again.

"Then you can get out of it," she said. "You can tell you father—"

"No, Hermione."

The blow hit her and went through. Her body straightened, and the blood in her veins turned to icy sludge.

"Then it's over, I guess," she spat. "Not that I thought—"

"It doesn't have to be." Draco's hand entered his jacket and came out with a little black box. He cracked it open to show a shimmering ruby ring nested in velvet. If she wasn't mistaken, it looked exactly her size.

"Are you asking me to marry you? You just said…"

No, she realized with his pained expression. He didn't plan on asking her to marry him.

The room became sinister again, as she looked back at the ring.

"I built a house for you too," he said with her silence. "Everything you could want. A library with so many tomes it would take lifetimes to read them. First editions. Obscure texts. Some you can't find anywhere else."

A house? A personal library? He built her a dream, but it was only something rotting.

She recognized the type of ring it was. Steeped in old magic, it prevented pregnancy and had a tracker on it. Purebloods gave trinkets like these to a mistress. She read about them once in a book about Pureblood customs and culture, though she had never seen one in person.

Her vision swarmed a second. It took her a second to feel the tears pooling in her eyes. Hermione let out an involuntary gasp. It was the moment after a trauma when everyone walked around like a zombie. Not running. Not fighting. Just walking through the ashes as if at any moment things would return to normal.

"Hermione, just… please, consider—"

Hermione slammed the prophet into his face. His hands scrambled with the paper a moment before it fluttered to the floor. She wished to slug him, but he thought ahead of her. Using his seeker reflexes, he grabbed her by the wrists before she could attack him, pushing her so that her back was pressed against the stone.

"Let me go," she hissed. Her hair flew with the wind, curls obscuring her vision.

"You'll curse me in this mood. I'm not taking any chances."

She just very well might.

A terrible part in her wished he could obliviate her so everything could go back to what it was just a few seconds ago.

"You're not leaving this room until you hear me out."

"Then why?" She shouted. "Why would you marry Astoria if you don't want to?"

"It wasn't supposed to happen until next year, but my father became impatient. If I don't do as he wishes, I'd lose everything. My inheritance. My family. My home."

"Well, now you've lost me. I hope you're—"

"Just listen to me! I'd be destitute and on the streets. More than that. My father wouldn't stop until I lived in a gutter, begging to come back. And the Malfoy inheritance would go to the next of kin. Some second cousin in France who doesn't fucking deserve it and who doesn't even have the Malfoy name."

Reputation. Power. Blood. He'd warned her long ago. The world—his world—revolved around those words. Without them, he'd be nothing. He'd never give them up for her.

Had he thought of this all along? Did he believe he could have everything while she sacrificed all her ideals and dreams? Did he really think he could convince her to become some hidden lover tucked away while he married and had kids?

"Well, congratulations," she finally said, letting her anger take control. It was the only emotion she trusted. "Enjoy your new wife and your money."

He winced and held her wrists tighter, callused palms pressed against her soft flesh.

"You don't understand. The marriage doesn't mean anything."

"It's not hard to understand you're asking me to be a whore."

"No, not a whore. You'd be… you'd be mine."

"As a mistress?"

His mouth tightened, thinning into a small white line. It made his jaw clench and enhanced his cheekbones.

"If you insist on naming it."

Hermione sputtered out several incoherent swear words.

Ginny was right. Ron was right. Even Theodore Nott was right. They'd all warned her this would happen. But there had been a small hope in Hermione, the one she carried everywhere that good things could still happen.

"That is the most repulsive idea I've ever heard," she said, voice hard. "And I've listened to Voldemort prattle on."

Anger exploded through her. She moved hard against his hold, managing to twist her wrist, and he flew backward until he reached the farthest window. His feet dangled over the edge.

"You won't do it," he said. But his eyes darted to the open air behind him, and he gave an involuntary gulp.

"This time I won't." Hermione smoothed her curls back into place. She didn't think she could throw Draco out a window, but she did feel capable of violence. "If you bother me again, you'll understand why even Dumbledore was wary of me at the end." She bunched her free hand in the folds of her robe to steady herself. "Did I ever tell you that? I'm not sure I've told anybody before. A year before he was thrown from this tower, he told me he hoped I'd learned the lessons Voldemort hadn't. I've thought a lot about it over the years, about what he meant. I believe I have a purpose to fulfill, and I don't have the desire to be a mistress or a whore."

She let his feet touch the ground again and took the spell off him.

Hermione tried to be strong, but she brushed the sleeve of her robe to catch the tears that dripped down her cheek.

"Granger…" Draco said softly, as if she was a baby unicorn that need soft reassurances to come eat a treat. She couldn't stand it anymore. Couldn't look at the way his blond hair glinted in the moonlight and hung over his eyes just so. She twisted and walked toward the door to the stairs, knowing he wouldn't follow.

"Take your ugly ring and shove it up your arse."

"Consider what I propose," he called after her, undeterred. "You're angry. It's still a shock to your moral system. Just give yourself a few days to think on it. Once you come to your senses, you'll realize that it can work. That we can—"

Hermione slammed the door, taking a second to clutch at her chest. The link thrummed as if it too was in pain.