"It's all a bit peculiar isn't it?" He joked, leaning against the wall of the corridor with a goblet in his hand nonchalantly, his winter eyes upon the men and women in ministry robes across the corridor, talking amongst themselves as they pricked their fingers; smearing their lives essence across the stone. Asking in hushed, sceptical voices for help in putting the school back together, and jumping back in astonishment as the blood was drunk by the stone.
Hermione had started in awe at the action the first time she had done it, her sparkling ruby drop sitting so perfectly on the top of a broken stone had simply fallen into the rock, as if sucked; as if it had been drunk.
The school seemed more alive to her somehow, colours more vivid, sounds sharper, the freshness of the air; sweeter. The offerings of the magical creatures had been given first, the unicorn blood had been spread about the great hall, its silver beauty absorbed hungrily, and a rush to the rest of the castle had happened. The realisation the stone was accepting blood had thrilled Hermione, despite the vileness of the subject, and she'd chased McGonagall through the corridors, eager to watch as each offering was given. Hope blossoming its pure flowers in her heart. She relaxed in the alcove, picking at her lunch casually, as the sun from the window beat down beside her, her eyes upon the boy beside her.
She'd gone looking for him come her lunch break from the library; her eyes and feet slow, searching for the man whose appearance suited snow and moonlight more than mortality, and had been surprisingly relieved to find him sauntering up on the fourth floor. His hands were held a tray, a jug placed upon it with two goblets, and a pair of plates, stacked beneath one heaped with lunch meats, breads, and cheeses. He'd greeted her, in the drawling, effortless way he did, with some excuse as to why he would be bringing her lunch, and she smiled, settling into the alcove as he placed the tray down.
"More than peculiar, I don't…of all the ways to fix the school; this is it?" She replied, disbelieving and curious; her head had been as heavy as lead the last few days since the centaurs had arrived, the revelation had caused her to think far too much. The man standing beside her a favourite topic for her brain to dwell on, and now she regarded him, tidying her mahogany hair behind her ears.
"I saw you using your hair earlier," he commented as Hermione sighed, fighting back a roll of her eyes, but she smiled slightly instead, remembering that Draco had used his blood, and only his blood.
"I think I've seen enough blood to last me a life time." She replied.
"Well, that's you becoming a healer out the question then." He retorted sipping the pumpkin juice casually as Hermione chuckled. She looked at him questioningly again; unable to ignore all the questions his very presence raised, and her pink lips twisted slightly.
"I suppose its best I'm using my blood." He mused, watching the ministry employees leave, as another group arrived, dutifully guided to their spot to give offerings by Professor Flitwick. Hermione saw red; betrayal and disappointment bursting through her like water behind a broken dam, the irritation making her hair crackle, the storm gathering.
"Don't you dare!" She hissed furiously, "don't you dare imply my blood isn't as magical as yours because it is! You and your pure-blood ways are just pathetic. You know, it's not even pathetic. It's sad. Have you ever really thought about it Malfoy? What you stand for? What you preach?" She spat, as Draco stared at her, his expression astounded; almost confused. She softened seeing his torn features, and pulled out her wand.
"Avis" she cast, the golden birds becoming her halo, before her wands tip began to glow like the stars. She dotted her wand above her, the little points of light beginning to float about her, as she changed the spell again, and flowers burst from her wand; their fragrance overwhelmingly pleasant in the musty corridor.
"This, all this," she began, referring to her magical shroud; "Is just so beautiful, and you pure-bloods would rather this died out altogether than allow it continue."
"What?" Malfoy gasped, horrified and repulsed; but his eyes were on Hermione, the silver lights she'd cast setting her complexion alight, making her warm brown eyes sparkle alluringly; setting the mahogany tones of her hair on fire.
"I mean, when I first entered the wizarding world, I never really thought of it that much when I learned it was a thing; then obviously, being friends with Harry and the war it became more prominent you know; I was what your whole philosophy was fighting against. I had to run from being registered, from being murdered last year. We both know what happened when your aunt got a hold of me." She continued, as Draco's pallor palled to grey, pain mingling behind his steely eyes, his expression as if he were repressing vomit. "So I had to think about it, how could I not? There was lots of time for thinking last year. Everything I was fighting for stopped being about my own livelihood a long time ago, before I had to go on the run; it was for my friends, for everyone I had met, for every child like me who didn't know what they really were; and would find a place they could become themselves without being a 'freak', in the muggle world. Never, not even once did I think it would become about magic itself." She explained, watching as Draco slid down the wall beside her, his eyes curious. The she flicked her wand, setting her birds to fly free as they willed, and the silver touches of light began to settle over both of them instead. She settled her gaze upon him; watching his agonised, tortured expression carefully.
"You pure-bloods only marry within the pure-blood families, and Ron was right. Wizards are dying out. The Black family is dead. It's completely gone, there are no remaining Blacks, and that was one of the biggest pure-blood families."
"My mother is a Black." Draco found himself saying, and Hermione laughed.
"No, she's a Malfoy. Can you see her having any children anytime soon?" She asked, as Draco curled his features up in thought. "What about the Potter and Weasley lines? They're both impure now. Not because Weasley's are blood-traitors Malfoy, but because they're starting to marry non-pure-blooded witches. The Weasley's are a huge family that are pure-blooded, but again; completely disregarded because they like Muggles, have a tolerance for people like me. Shunning them only served to make all the pure-blooded inbreeding worse."
"I'm not inbred." Draco cut in, turning his lip up into his famous sneer.
"Oh please. Exactly how pure-blooded are you?" She retorted, matching his sneer with a scowl.
"No one in my family has ever been with a muggle, half-blood or muggle-born." He replied, the tone carrying the weight of how old his heritage was and Hermione smirked.
"You are extremely inbred. Your mother comes from a line that was famous for its madness. That kind of stuff comes from inbreeding." Hermione told him, as Draco paled, torn between anger and humiliation. "We have had two wars in the last twenty years both with heavy losses, all because people like you think that people like me are scum. That we have come in forcefully to this world and we're making it awful, like we're ruining it somehow because we happened to have been brought up on the side of the world that hasn't a clue about magic."
"The Lestranges' have died out as well," Draco began as if he hadn't heard the last part of her rant, "I don't think there will be much fraternising going on in Azkaban, so that means the Goyle line has gone too, so has the, Carrow, Yaxley, Rowle, Rosier, Avery and Crouch lines." Draco told her, paling still further with each name he rattled off.
"Now let's add the names with only female heirs to marry off, essentially killing off those lines when they marry." Hermione encouraged gently.
"Greengrass, Parkinson, Abbott and Bulstrode." He whispered, his winter eyes glazing over with horror; as Hermione looked at him sorrowfully.
"Now the lines that could die out if their male heirs don't marry soon." She continued, watching him carefully; relieved that he knew the pure-blooded families as well as she thought, her own studies of the sacred twenty eight had been brief, and not thought of after she realised it wouldn't help with the Horcrux hunt.
"Slughorn, Shacklebolt, and Ollivander."
"Pure-blood lines that have already died out?"
"Gaunt, Prewitt, Black and…" he trailed off, his voice so quiet Hermione had to strain to hear him, his skin as grey as the dead she'd been forced to step over, and his expression fearful.
"See, you're dying out Draco; so don't you fucking dare tell me that your blood has more magical potency than mine, or that it's better than mine somehow because it isn't. My kind of blood is what will keep the wizarding world alive. We need it now." She whispered flicking her wand and stopping the incantation that had made their conversation seem so private. As if lights, flowers and birds could keep sound in. The ministry witches and wizards had continued to come and go as they chatted; now further on down the corridor than Hermione expected, as the pair sat back in silence. Draco fiddling with the cuffs of his shirt as he forgot about his meal, his brows knitted together, lips white.
"I guess we should all be breeding like the Weasley's" He sighed after a while, running his hands through his hair of stolen moonlight.
"It would help." Hermione chuckled, as Draco grinned.
"I always thought the Malfoy tradition of having just one son was stupid; lonely." He commented, surprised as he found Hermione nodding along.
"It's really lonely." She agreed a wistful expression on her face.
They sat, in amicable silence for a while, disappointment still strong with Hermione, that Draco would assume his blood was better than hers after all he had been through and done. Revulsion was beginning to build, irritation at herself for possibly entertaining the idea of getting to know him; to possibly be his friend. The sun faded as a cloud passed over it, and she sighed, realising that age old prejudices would be hard to kill the moment a war ended. The stone was hard underneath her, cold to the heat of the sun; she looked over at Draco, and smiled softly. She met his gaze unflinchingly, resting her head against the wall.
"I don't understand you." Draco said, looking so deeply into Hermione's eyes she felt utterly naked. "I don't understand any of this. I hate what you said."
She gasped, re-winding the words they'd said to each other, wondering what it was that would have upset him. She blanched inwardly, unable to admit the idea of upsetting him now caused her dread, and upset.
"I'm sorry about the inbred-"
"Don't be ridiculous, it's not that; it's the fact you think I need a chance to be myself." He interrupted his face an attractive grimace, "I don't know what that is supposed to be. You imply I wasn't myself before. Who am I supposed to be?" He almost growled, staring her down; his posture somehow intimidating despite the fact he was sitting, turned towards her on the stone floor of the corridor.
"You!" Hermione replied, worry leaking into her tone.
"I am me! I can't be anyone else!" He hissed at her, the venom in his tone, so clear it hurt.
"So you're telling me that you honestly, truly believe that you weren't brought up in an environment that may have stopped you from thinking for yourself." She spat back, suddenly incensed, her bravery back on its legs, but still cowering a little.
"Do you always make assumptions?"
"What am I assuming?"
"That I was raised to not think for myself."
"Well prove it then. If you weren't told being pure-blooded was best, what would you have thought about me and 'my kind', what would be your real reasons for hating me?" She asked, her eyes blazing, a forest fire to match his blizzard. He faltered, the snarl dropping from his face, the blizzard raging on and he picked himself up, standing on his feet only to start pacing up and down in front of her.
"Tell me, if you were raised the same way I was you wouldn't think the same. If our positions were switched." He growled at her, and Hermione blushed with shame. She noted that he hadn't answered her question, just skipped around it, and the strange thrill she so often got with Draco set her body alight.
"No, you're right. I would."
"So don't fucking preach at me like I should just be as perfect as Potter the moment all this war stops. I don't even understand why you did what you did for me anyway; why you keep talking to me."
Hermione pulled herself up, to join him in his pacing, her head low as he looked at her, his tormented expression she found herself unable to look at.
"Harry isn't perfect." She found herself saying as she walked with him, managing to look where she was going.
"Of course he isn't." He scoffed, placing his hands in his suit pockets.
"No one is perfect, I just think you can be…better; make the Malfoy name decent for once." She said softly, as the chatter from ministry employees neared them, and they both ducked into an empty classroom, unwilling to be seen together.
"The Malfoy name already is decent," he told her, proudly, as the chatter passed and silence descended on them.
"No, it's in ruins now." She goaded, unable to explain exactly what she was doing, and why she was doing it. They stood facing each other, her chin tipped up to look him in the face, his tall frame just a head taller than her own. He sneered, viciously, and the blizzard was back in his eyes again. He made to grab her upper arms suddenly, before thinking better of it, and stopped, sighing exasperated.
"I don't understand what you want with me." He said quietly, running his long elegant fingers through his hair.
"I don't want anything from you." She whispered, her guts telling her that she was an awful liar, as his brow lifted curiously, his eyes peering at her searchingly.
"Yes you do." He determined, irritation seeping onto his features once more.
"I think, I wasn't lying before, I want you to be yourself. I want you to be better. I don't want to see you fail in life and be nothing. I want to see you happy. I don't think I've ever seen you happy." She told him, her words stumbling over one another as they came from her mouth, a crimson stain to her cheeks.
"Why?" He asked her quietly.
"I don't know." She replied, truthfully.
"Why do you think I'm not happy, why do you think I'm not myself, why are you apparently obsessed with me?" He whispered, almost furiously, the torment a fire in the coldness of his silver gaze.
"I am not obsessed with you!" Hermione gasped, stepping back from him as if he'd struck her. "I just want…more from you!" She continued, only to see Draco's face contort with rage.
"Why." He demanded flatly, closing the gap Hermione had made between them.
"Tell me, honestly, do you think I'm beneath you. Have you ever thought for yourself when it comes to this subject? I want to believe you're a better person than you've shown me all these years. I need there to be some good in you." She admitted, her voice quieter than a whisper, her eyes dead locked onto Draco's, a shiver of fear slipping down her spine.
"I haven't thought you're beneath me ever. Not even one day did I think and believe it. I can think for myself, and I do." He snarled, and Hermione's jaw unhinged at his statement.
"I don't believe you." She said thoughtfully, thinking of all the times he'd been so antagonistic towards her, towards Harry, towards Ron; and ended up dismissing his attacks at her favourite boys as they were happy to join in the fight.
"Believe it, because it's true. I've done nothing but envy you, Potter and Weasel since the day we got here, and you three showed how wonderful you all are. Potter with his perfect flying talent, and world saving abilities; all that fame he doesn't even want. You with your marks, and Weasel with his damn siblings. I grew up being told that should have been me, and you three come along and you ruin it for me." He snarled, leaning away from her, his tall frame slumping with anger. Hermione's head spun, her words at his trial ringing in her mind, her own voice admitting she didn't think Draco really believed in what he was saying; that she believed it came from envy. It was true, and she couldn't understand it.
"Why are you telling me all this, why aren't you or haven't you spat insults at me the way you used to? I keep waiting-"
"For what? Me to call you a mudblood and laugh in your face? Can't you accept that maybe something else you said to me was right and I hate it, and Merlin knows why, but maybe I'm trying to be…" he trailed off, running his hands through his hair in sheer frustration once more, humiliation crossing the lines of his face like lightning, and Hermione bit her lip. "Can't you believe that maybe, maybe I am tired of all this, hatred and spite, and if you say there is another way of living; maybe I'd like to attempt it, see what it's like? Is that too much of a stretch for you?" he finished, his face imploring her to think.
"I knew that you were better than what you portrayed all along, and-"
"Mr Malfoy; a word please." McGonagall interrupted, her face harried and deep lines of stress carved into the creases that once held signs of laughter on her stern face. The pair jumped, spinning to face their headmistress a blush creeping on to Hermione's cheeks as Draco nodded, stepping forward. McGonagall moved, letting Draco leave the room, and she slumped at once; wondering what she was going to say before the interruption.