Chapter 19: Once Upon A Time
The dreams Hermione had that night were vivid and fitful. They were all black lines and sharp edges, unfamiliar manor houses, and moonlight reflecting off of golden white crescents. Then she was flying through the sky on the back of a dragon, hair billowing in the wind, laughing harder than she ever had in her life. The dragon dropped her off in the middle of the mountains, she turned a dial on a necklace hanging from her neck, and then repeated the sights all over again.
The freedom was exhilarating, contagious, and made her yearn for the day she could feel something even close to it, the sliver of possibility edging itself under her skin until it consumed her entire being.
She wanted it more than anything.
But she was no fool to think it would be possible in that way. Not in these circumstances, not in this lifetime.
However, the seed of hope had been planted.
When her eyes cracked open to the early morning sun, they settled on unfamiliar surroundings. At least initially, unfamiliar because she had only ever opened her eyes to her childhood home, the Burrow, her room at the training grounds, and the cover of trees.
It took a moment for the realization of where she was to catch up to her. Hermione stretched her neck out, tight from the unexpected and sudden comfort of the night, and her gaze landed on the space opposite her in the tent.
Empty.
The quilt was carefully tucked under the edge of the cot, pillow fluffed, and clothes folded neatly at the foot.
A quiet Accio later, her own clothing came flying towards her from outside of the tent. She dressed quickly, trying to replicate the appearance of put-togetherness to the best of her abilities. But she paused when she got to her bed. The ratty stitched sleeping bag was practically the only belonging to her name, besides her bow and arrows, and it looked terribly sad.
It was nowhere close to what Malfoy had to call his own.
She rolled her shoulders back and closed her eyes. Large bricks stacked on top of one another slowly, meticulously placed, and lined to perfection. The bricks came together to form a large wall that sectioned off an entire part of her mind. She felt the fleeting thoughts strain against the wall, prodding and pushing at it to budge, but it held strong.
Her feet carried her outside into the sunlight, and she spotted Draco sitting at the dormant campfire with his back turned to her. She approached quietly from behind.
"Morning," he mumbled, biting off the corner of a packaged sandwich as her footsteps crunched into proximity. He was dressed in a different t-shirt than the day before and had a baseball cap set low over his eyes from the sun.
Hermione came to a halt next to him and wondered how he had gotten his hands on a sandwich in the middle of the arena.
"Malfoy," she started, itching to ask him about what she presumed to be was an abundance of sponsorships, sponsors likely lining up out the door to send him gifts, when the answer came to her without any need for clarification. Her voice trailed off in a sigh.
He was Pure Capital, that was how.
"There's one for you too," he pointed to a package on the other chair, as if he knew what she had meant to ask. But that really wasn't what Hermione was interested in.
She picked up the sandwich and sat down in the chair opposite him. Her fingers fumbled around the wrapper, eyes roving over the contents: bread, lettuce, some sort of deli meat, cheese.
"Is this what you always eat for breakfast?" she asked, voice sounding tenser than she meant to let on.
He shrugged. "I eat what the sponsors send."
The confirmation stung more than it should have. They were on the same side now, technically ready to fight for one another, but that didn't make the reality of the situation feel any better. He had been living a privileged life inside the Games, one she was sure nobody else had access to. Not in this abundance.
Whatever appetite she had when she awoke was gone. She leaned back in her chair and placed the sandwich off to the side of her.
None of it felt right. She didn't want to believe that the Games should have been as ruthless as the Games-makers developed them to be, but there was also a fine line between fairness and absurdity. Every single thing on this camp was likely gifted to him. And maybe it hadn't been his choice, but his acceptance of the sponsorships was enough to show he was okay with it.
She was here now, and she should have been okay with it too.
Why wasn't she okay with it?
Why did it feel wrong? Why did it feel like she would betray everything she knew by basking in gifts she didn't deserve nor wanted to receive?
Hermione had yet to be given a single sponsorship, and though it was frustrating, at the very least, she felt clean. Untainted by the money of people who just wanted to see tributes die.
"Is there a problem?" he sat up in his chair, eyeing her still packaged food with agitation.
She should have been thankful. She should have been glad she was getting it easy now.
"No," she swallowed the lump in her throat. "I'm not hungry."
It could have been easy to sit and wallow in the words she claimed, and she might have been able to do it, but her stomach betrayed her with a loud grumble. The first time she could ignore it, keeping her eyes settled on her lap even when she saw Draco turn towards her. The second time was more difficult to ignore. When it grumbled for the third time, he cleared his throat sharply.
Hermione looked up at him, and he was watching her, eyes glued to her face, mouth in a stern line. His left brow slowly rose, and he narrowed his eyes.
The challenge was written all over his face.
She didn't break contact, eyes steady and firm, as she reached for the sandwich and undid the wrapper slowly.
The corner of his mouth twitched up his cheek.
She pulled the sandwich out with her fingers and pushed the wrapper down to the base. The only break in their eye contact was the occasional blink from him or her. Otherwise, their gazes remained steady.
What started as a challenge on his part was now very clearly a test. Hermione felt her lips scrunch into a scowl.
She pulled the sandwich to her mouth and let the aroma of meat and cheese invade her senses. He cocked his head towards her, an infuriatingly audacious invitation to take a bite.
She narrowed her eyes and did.
A large one, likely the most indiscreet bite of food she'd ever taken, and he chuckled before looking away with a satisfied glint in his eyes.
As she ate, they sat in silence. Draco vanished the packaging from his sandwich and threw his feet up onto the edge of the fire pit, tossing his head back onto the headrest of the chair.
Hermione forced herself to look away from him and focused her eyes on the perimeter of the camp where the faint shimmer of the ward glistened against the beams of sunlight. If Draco had been sheltered from everything outside of this camp this entire time, it was another luxury he had. In total solitude from the rest of the arena, it was tempting to imagine there were no Games at all beyond the barrier of the wards, that it was just her and him in their own little cocoon of blissful ignorance.
It felt like the freedom was almost there, so close she could grasp for it, feel it if she could just wrap her fingers around it, but it would always remain just out of reach.
She finished her sandwich and vanished the wrapper. With a quick look his way, Hermione could tell that he had made himself comfortable.
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" he drawled, eyes closed and head turned towards the sun.
"I'm not sure. That's why I asked."
"Nothing," he boasted, rosy cheeks flushing against the light complexion of his skin. "I'm doing nothing."
"Why?" she asked, unsettled by the notion that a tribute could simply do nothing in the Games. Even when she was doing "nothing" a few days earlier, she still had to forage, she still had to stay hidden, she still had her own life on her mind the whole time. There was no "doing nothing" in an arena where the likeliest outcome was your death.
Draco was clearly not flagged by the same concerns. He shrugged his shoulders in response.
She wondered if the Games had always been this way for him. The most action he'd faced was when they'd interacted with one another, but he'd otherwise been sheltered from everything else.
She wondered if he'd even come across another tribute aside from her.
But she didn't ask because she didn't know how.
There was so much she wanted to ask but didn't know how.
"Do you ever forage?" she probed, pulling herself forward in her chair.
Draco remained arched back in his, arms crossed behind his head. "There are tons of supplies already on the camp."
Right, she thought, no thanks to you.
"What about strengthening the wards?"
She thought about what Arthur had taught her about the Wards at The Burrow. They always had to be re-strengthened, adjusted, and tweaked as the circumstances around and inside them changed. With the Games still going on in full force outside of the barrier, it should have been a no-brainer to adjust them, at least daily.
"They're already strong."
He pulled his cap down to his nose, and she realized that was all she was going to get from him. There was nothing more left to say; there was nothing more left that she wanted to hear.
"Okay," Hermione muttered, the resignation bleeding through every particle of her breath. Minutes ticked by as he remained seated, seeming content to spend the rest of his day the same way.
She passed her eyes over the space again, wondering what useful thing she could do. There was nothing to do in the tent, nothing to do next to him, but then her eyes landed on the pile of weapons he had stored near the edge of the wards.
Perfect.
Practice and an outlet for her rage.
"I'm going to go target practice," she jumped to her feet, not bothering to wait for a response before she made a beeline for the weapons. Her bow and arrow remained in the tent, and that was fine by her. There were plenty of other weapons to practice with.
There was already a target set up against a large tree, and it was no doubt another sponsorship gift. Her frustration coursed through her as if completely replacing the blood in her veins.
That was all she was—an utter mess of emotions and resentment, bundled up into the complicated form of her body.
She spotted a box of throwing stars and tossed them to the side. Instead, she pulled out a pouch of knives, unfurling the suede leather cover to inspect the steel handles. They looked completely untouched.
She assumed it was another convenient gift, so many to his name she had no idea how he was able to keep track.
He likely wasn't even trying to.
Hermione snarled as she yanked a knife out and flung it towards the target. She didn't wait to see where it landed before grabbing another one and throwing it in the same direction. Within moments all eight knives were gone.
She stormed towards the target with a huff, stomping her feet against the dirt ground, hair flying all around her, thinking that when she threw the knives next, she would imagine she was hitting people from Pure Capital. The Games-makers. The President.
It took two hands to try and get each knife out. She dug her heels into the ground, tugging with all her might, but the knives remained slotted firmly in the wooden base. She pulled with her entire body weight until one suddenly dislodged and sent her stumbling back.
Each time it happened, she just got angrier.
"Stupid handles," she huffed, "stupid knives, stupid target, stupid tree…."
A particular stubbornly lodged knife had her muttering expletives under her breath, tugging and grabbing as it refused to move even an inch.
"Argh!" she roared as her hand slipped from around it again, turning swiftly from the target and throwing all the other freed knives in her hand, soaring to the ground in a fit.
"Woah, Granger," Draco's voice echoed through the grounds, "Don't hurt yourself with all that rage."
"Why?" she whirled around to look at him. "I'm sure if you ask nicely, they'll have a remedy sent over in no time! Maybe a get-well card too? And a balloon? If it was you, would you ask for a box of chocolates?" She could do nothing to hold back the spite in her tone.
He rose to his feet and cocked a brow at her. "Is there something you'd like to talk about?"
"No!"
"You sure?" he crossed his arms.
"No, I'm not sure!"
She could feel the magic sparking out the tips of her fingers, pushing her hair to stand on all ends. The breath left her lungs heavily, where she was huffing and puffing more than just breathing. She didn't know why she was so angry, seeming so deranged, but she was, and it was almost worse knowing he knew that she was.
"You should go cool off in the tent," he sat back down into his chair, throwing his heel on the opposite knee.
"Are you sending me into a time-out?" she shrieked, fuming at his curt dismissal.
"Yes," he dragged his cap back down to his nose again.
Hermione stood in disbelief, pulling her jaw tight to stop it from dropping, and watched as he sank into his chair without another word. She counted the seconds as they passed, five, ten, twenty, but little patience remained within her for anything more. She made sure to scoff loudly enough for him to hear as she stormed off into the tent, letting the flap close behind her.
Throwing herself onto her cot, the emotions swirling within her threatened to spill over, to consume her at her worst as they strained against any semblance of control she had.
She was so tired. Tired of everything. Of being in danger, of being watched, of being angry.
She was angry at Draco for the sponsorships, not because he had them, but because he took them instead of doing things for himself. The jealousy prickled at her skin, but she dismissed the feeling quickly.
It's not jealousy, it's only anger, she tried to convince herself.
She was angry that sponsors from Pure Capital would even send such mundane things as sandwiches. She threw her sleeping bag across the tent when she realized she was angry about sandwiches, feeling silly and dejected that her circumstances had reduced her to someone so petulant.
She settled back onto her bare cot, no support to hold her back up except for the side of the tent, which sagged beneath her body and tried to force steady breaths through her lungs. Her hands were clasped in her lap, thumbs spinning around one another as she thought, letting all her emotions swim to the top.
Was it really Draco's fault? Was any of this really even the sponsors' fault?
A resigned sigh interrupted the motion of her fingers.
She was getting angry at the wrong people.
All of this was the fault of the people in power.
Everything she was angry at was a product of the Games, of the establishment set by the President and his Death Eaters.
It was likely that none of it would exist if President Riddle didn't.
A nervous energy suddenly shot through her body, filling her bloodstream with adrenaline she had no outlet for. She jumped to her feet and started to pace around the cramped space between the two cots.
She walked to one end of the tent. I'm angry because of the Games, not the people within them.
She walked to the other side of the tent. I'm angry because of the Games, not the people within them.
The first side again. I'm angry that the Games exist.
The other side. I'm angry that the Games exist.
One side. Why do the Games exist?
The other. Are they really there to punish people for District 13?
Again. Why do the Games exist?
The other. Why do the Games exist? Control? Obedience? Fear?
The red-eye tracker on Hermione's forearm flickered, and she stopped dead in her tracks. It was as if all of the organs seized to function.
Then it flickered again, like a warning, just the slightest dilation of the eye, and that was all it took for her to realize all too quickly, but likely all too late, that she was thinking dangerous things.
Dangerous things that she couldn't guarantee weren't being monitored by outside forces.
She slammed her palms over her eyes, shutting all light out, and forced up the strongest Occlumency wall she was capable of. She forced it up to the perimeter of her mind, and after she built one, she pushed up another. And then another, until her entire mind was shuttered with red bricks.
She settled on the floor cross-legged and sank her blocked off mind into meditation. The tent flap billowed in the wind and hypnotized her into a trance. Time ticked by slowly as she remained rooted in that spot, the sun moving along the field as it shifted into the west.
At some point, she watched Draco rise to his feet, look back at the tent briefly, and walk towards the wards before he disappeared.
Sometime later, she saw him return. Day turned to evening, and he lit a fire outside.
As the fire sparked, she decided it was time to emerge from the tent.
The sun had already started to set, but she spotted him instantly, hunched over the fire, roasting a large fish over the flames.
"Nice of you to join me, Granger," his head perked up.
She huffed and sat down, biting her tongue to stop herself from sticking it out at him.
"If you're so inclined to know, I caught this myself," he pointed to the fish proudly.
She scrunched her nose and looked away.
"Don't believe me if you want, but I did. Almost considered catching a swamp monster for you -"
"It was a grindylow," she breathed, eyes set on the shimmers of the ward.
He paused as she cut him off but quickly continued. "As I was saying - a swamp monster for you, but I figured the fish would be more appetizing."
She passed her eyes over him and realized he was teasing her as she caught the amused look on his face and the sparkle in his eye. He was prodding and pushing at the places that hurt as if he already knew her better than the few moments of time together should have allowed.
It was both pleasant and infuriating.
As the fish finished roasting, Draco sliced it down the middle and conjured two plates. "Transfigured from a leaf," he assured her as she eyed the ceramic. She took it from him and quietly began to eat.
The awkwardness that lingered in the air around them was palpable.
"I have an idea," he said suddenly as they were both finishing their meal. "How about we play a game?"
"A game?" she grumbled. "Now?"
"A game," he affirmed. "Now."
He jumped right in to explain the rules. It was a simple campfire game called Once Upon a Time. Though it was typically played with multiple people, he told her it could be played with two as well. They would take turns, starting to tell a story that the other person would have to continue, and would go back and forth for as long as they wanted.
It was mindless and easy, and to her utter surprise, she agreed.
"I'll start," he said, vanishing his waste and transfiguring the plate back into a leaf which he let fall to the ground. She watched it tumble through the air before a gust of wind picked it up and carried it out of sight. "Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a big city."
Hermione had to suppress a laugh. She figured if he volunteered to start, he had some great idea in mind, but that clearly wasn't the case. She surmised the reference with ease but hesitated to continue because she didn't actually know the story's subject very well.
"He had blonde hair and a sharp tongue," she continued quietly, not knowing what else to say.
A satisfied smile pulled at his lips. "This boy did have blonde hair and a sharp tongue, and he was also particularly good looking," he leaned back in his chair like it was a throne. "But, there was more to him than that."
Suddenly, he sat up stiffly and clasped his hands before him. "He came from a small family, with only a mother and father and no siblings to call his own."
Hermione gulped at the mention of parents. The memory of the first time she saw him on television sparked in her mind, of the man who had cried out in silence desperately when the President made his announcement. The man who had pleaded so earnestly for him to reconsider before the camera had panned to Draco.
She felt with almost total certainty that had been his father.
"Bad things didn't happen to families like his. They were powerful, wealthy, and influential, but - " his voice trailed off.
His tone was somber, flat, the expression on his face hard and completely unreadable. His clasped hands were clenched tightly, veins protruding along his forearms, the red-eye tracker pulsing against his skin. Though his face portrayed an emptiness, the expression of his body was one of rage. He swallowed slowly and cleared his throat. There was a prolonged pause before he spoke again.
"One day, that all changed."
The air around them shifted to something unpleasant, something cold that prickled at the skin in a way that it shouldn't have. Like it never had before.
She didn't know where he was going with the story, but everything about the way that he was delivering it told her that this was no longer a game, nor something he wanted her to contribute to. This was his story. She realized that in their circumstances, with cameras that were no doubt rolling on their camp, this was the best, and perhaps the only way, he could share it with her.
His eyes were burning through hers, willing her to listen, to pay attention to every word he said, and to try and understand.
"There was a lot the boy didn't know about consequences, about amends you have to pay when something goes wrong, when someone does something wrong."
Hermione saw him wring his hands before rubbing them up his pant legs slowly. She remained silent, watching him carefully.
"Everything happened quickly. He was lucky to be prepared when things went wrong."
Suddenly, he rose to his feet and shifted towards her before he stood right at her knees, the tips of his shoes touching hers. "Give me your hand."
It was an order, a command, his domineering tone so unlike anything he had used with her before.
She stuck it out to him without hesitation, fingers splayed and palm up towards the sky. He brought a knuckle up to it before he paused and hovered it over her hand, as if waiting. She brought her head up to look at his face, and as soon as their eyes met, he deposited something into her hand. He pushed her fingers closed before she had a chance to see what he had given her.
"Don't look at it now," he warned.
She nodded and pulled the closed fist into her pocket, rising to her feet to allow her hand to fit into it. But he didn't step back when she did, and suddenly they were only inches apart, her forehead at his chin as he looked down at her face.
Neither of them moved.
They were close enough to feel the brush along their skin as one inhaled and the other exhaled, sharing the warm air in the space between them. Though it was dark, Hermione could see every line along his face, the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, the furrow between his two dark brows, the tightness in his lips and cheeks. She realized then that the fire had almost gone out, only specks of embers remaining and the faint smell of magical smoke.
The sensation in her mind, the sudden push against her Occlumency walls, was familiar and brought back memories of their early interactions. But it was also different, gentle in a way she hadn't felt before, and a stark contradiction to the way he stared into her eyes as though he could see right through her.
He prodded once, then a second time, eyebrows drawing together when she didn't relent, but when he pushed again, she let him in.
At first, she just felt his presence there, the same way you do when you enter a room and know somebody is present before you even see them. He wavered at the entryway, eyes swimming as his own walls fell. He prodded at the inside of his cheek with his tongue before his voice projected inside her mind.
I can't say anything more.
He pulled out like a lightning strike, stumbling back with a step before his eyes were flat and grey again. Hermione watched his face, the faint tap of his finger along her clenched fist the only break in the moment between them.
"Let's go," he motioned towards the tent.
He let her enter first again, and she fumbled with her clothing, refusing to let go of whatever was in her hand. It was small and warm, sticking to her skin as her palm sweat, but she didn't care. She threw her clothing atop her bow haphazardly and changed into the same pair of shorts and t-shirt he had given her.
Instead of stepping out of the tent again, she climbed into her sleeping bag and turned her back towards the entryway. A few moments later, she heard him come in. She shut her eyes, only hearing as he fumbled with his clothes behind her. He dimmed the lights without a word.
Hermione waited for his breathing to even before quietly pulling her head under the sleeping bag and pressing the edge firmly down onto the cot. She lit the faintest Lumos she could manage and uncurled the fist of her hand.
Her eyes strained to adjust to the light, but as her fingers uncurled, the object in her hand came into clear view.
It was a ring.
A ring she vaguely recognized, with a thick gold band and delicate carvings all around. She pressed the tip of her wand to it as close as she could to try and discern the details, but as she spun it, a prominent symbol came into view.
She gasped, quickly muffling the sound against the cot.
It was a symbol she had seen before, many times over the last two weeks. A symbol she could trace with her finger from memory, remembering the very first moment she had ever seen it.
A triangle, a circle within it, and a line crossed down the middle. Atop the shapes, a bird.
The very same symbol as on her pin.
The puzzle in her mind started to shift amidst a whirl of chaos, pieces flying from one end to another, without any rhyme or reason but with definite purpose.
She had seen this ring on him before, had watched his sturdy hands spin it around his finger during the interview before the Games began.
And it was adorned the entire time with the same symbol that she herself had been associating with her fascination of rebellion.
Her heart thudded in her chest as everything she knew fell apart, sweaty fingers holding on to the gold between her hands as she tried to build it back together.
Did he know what the symbol meant? Was it why he went after her for an ally?
She didn't know him well, but she knew enough to know that there was meaning behind every action, a layer to everything he said. If she were a gambler, she would wager he knew exactly what he was doing.
She fumbled with the ring, heart racing as each thought brought on more questions lacking answers, any answers just bringing about more gaping holes in his story. She closed her fist around the ring and focused on her breathing, one breath in, one breath out. The tension in her body slowly dissipated as her whirring mind put her to sleep.
When she awoke in the morning, the ring was gone. She turned over in her cot to see that she wasn't alone in the tent. Draco was still sleeping, hand hanging out from under his blanket towards the floor.
She trailed her eyes down the length of his bare arm, the smooth expanse of his porcelain skin, marred by dark ink below his elbow.
Her eyes stopped at his fingers, barely hovering over the floor of the tent.
The gold ring was on his index.
She could see it clearly from where she was. Flat metal, no markings or symbols on it, any evidence of what she had discovered the night before, gone.