"That is what deconstruction is made of: not the mixture but the tension between memory, fidelity, the preservation of something that has been given to us, and, at the same time, heterogeneity, something absolutely new, and a break." J. Derrida
A knock.
He knows it is coming, is waiting for it, staring out over a white landscape and a sky just registering the pink of day.
When he disables his wards and opens the door, he is not surprised to see the curly haired witch in front him. He notices the dark circles, the tension along her jaw line, the dry and direct eyes.
The slight tilt of her chin.
None of this surprises him.
He steps back from the door, just to the side of it, movement of white linen the only sound in the room, the slight rub of black trousers.
He doesn't say a word.
She walks past him trailing just a hint of lavender.
That goes straight to his gut, clenching it, tighter and tighter.
She disappears through a door.
Turning, he leans his forehead on the stone wall, for a moment, just a moment, then straightens, reassembling his wards with a flick of the wrist as he follows the witch into the sitting room.
There is a fire burning where there wasn't a moment ago.
She sits in one of the chairs in front of it, black cloak hanging on the chair behind her, arms wrapped up in a Muggle jumper and Muggle jeans.
She looks young, achingly young, staring into the flames with a blank expression, reminding him, reminding him of the girl at the Burrow, the witch who had…
He stops himself in mid-thought.
Tired. Must be tired.
Exhausted
Draco moves from the entrance way to the other chair, looking at her before sitting. "Do you want tea?"
The first words spoken.
Echoing. Echoing.
"Please." A voice, quiet, gentle.
It's as if someone punches him in the gut and for a moment he sees darkness. Shadow. Black. Blessed peace.
And then reality.
She is looking at him now, eyes focusing, cataloguing.
He hopes he has kept his face blank. But knows it probably doesn't matter.
The connector, throbbing, even as he backtracks, covering it, muting it, though he wishes he could silence it.
He orders tea.
And then sits. Waiting.
He has not slept. After reading the book, after meeting her the night before (or was it this morning?) he walked the Forbidden Forest for no other reason than it was dark, it was quiet, and something about the darkness and the quietness pulled at him.
Peace.
It is a foreign concept to him. Has always been a foreign concept but for one moment in time, one moment ten years prior.
A teaser, a taste.
He longs for it with a pain slicing through every nerve.
Though for many years he has refused to see it, feel it, acknowledge it.
Now it is back, horrid, final.
The tea comes, house elves placing it on the table between the witch and the wizard. They leave as fast they can, two identical pair of eyes shifting nervously between the two persons sitting in the room, not understanding the layers of emotion wavering, pulling, only understanding the direct threat, the danger in it.
They disappear with a pop.
Hermione turns and pours the tea. Her cup, one sugar and milk, his cup only milk.
Exactly as he likes it.
Her face perfectly blank, her breathing normal, eyes adverted.
Hand shaking just slightly, ever so slightly, as she hands over his tea.
He takes it, careful not to touch her.
The sound of flames, leaping in the fireplace, the sound of wind whistling through the small cleaves in the castle walls. The sound of a teacup being placed on the table, and then the slight rustle of movement, fabric.
"The book?" She asks.
Draco stares in front of him, watching the oranges and yellows, counting, one breath in, one breath out, and then nods, placing his own tea down and rising from the chair.
Feline, graceful, movement minimum with maximum effect, he doesn't realize he does it, but Hermione does and though nothing escapes her lips she feels the moan low in her throat, in her chest, spreading, wider and wider.
When he disappears into the bedroom she closes her eyes.
Focus. Focus.
A purpose.
She opens her eyes, looking down at her tea, picking it up with a steadier hand than before. Sipping. Liquid warm on her tongue, on her lips.
Focus.
He returns with the book. A small leather book, held in his hand, cradling it, one thumb absently rubbing the cover.
Hermione bites her lip and then takes another sip of tea to cover it, the memory of his words echoing almost immediately in her mind.
He hands her the book before settling himself back down in the chair.
This time the hand that takes the book visibly shakes.
"You've read it." A statement more than a question, directed towards the man who now sips his own tea.
She doesn't see him nod. She is looking at the leather book she holds, the book she last saw ten years ago.
Vibrating in her hand, recognizing her, something in her.
As it had Draco days earlier.
The implications so complex, so confused, she doesn't know how to understand them or even where to start.
But she is here to understand so she opens the cover, staring down at the pages before she starts to read.
Memories, circling around on themselves, circling, around and around, touching, flickering, smoothing away, caressing.
Focus.
Draco watches her, head tilted down over the book, curls falling around her face, just barely hiding her features. But just barely, more framing, outlining the delicateness.
He can just make out the small smattering of freckles across her nose.
A vice-like grip around his middle, in his chest, squeezing, tighter, tighter.
He looks away, first at the fire, and then towards the window, the sun glaring through the glass.
He stands. Unable to sit still.
A testament to her focus that she doesn't even flinch, doesn't look up.
For some reason this causes the vice to lessen, just a moment.
Some things change. Some things do not.
He goes to the window, placing a hand against the cold glass. It's sharp, frigid, palm gathering the cold, transferring it into his skin, his nerves, the bones there.
Each small bone absorbing the chill.
In another time, he had stood at another window and watched a storm rage outside in blinding whiteness, barely a hint of daylight penetrating the black clouds overhead, the white falling insistently, demanding.
He'd looked away from the window only when the insistent sound of her quill had stopped, looked over with curiosity. She'd been staring at him; eyes that were not yet shuttered, that were still open and honest, not yet tainted, had locked with his and held.
He'd heard a roaring of blood in his head, at the naked look of…what? At the time he saw it as a realization, but since then, looking back on the scene, seeing the way her eyebrows had furrowed together creating that line between her eyes, he's realized it was not realization but an epiphany.
Not for the first time he wonders what the epiphany had been.
A small sound, merely a whisper, something he shouldn't even hear. He turns and sees she's closed the book and is staring at him.
Not epiphany in her gaze now. No, they are past the ability for epiphany, moved on to something else, something he can not define and refuses to try.
But in her gaze, more open then it has been since he saw her in the library the first time, he sees truth.
Panic, fear, yes, but also knowledge, excitement, curiosity, and, tilting his head just slightly and not realizing it, gentleness.
A different time, the same roaring of blood in his head.
He shuts down the reaction just as quickly as it comes.
A testament to the years.
A testament to who he is and has become.
Hermione sees nothing of his reaction on his face, just the slight tilt to his head that causes the morning sun to glint on the white strands of his hair.
She looks down at the book, her hand tightening into a fist in her lap.
He moves back across the room, seating himself once more in front of the fire. His hand throbs from the contact of the window and then tingles as warmth invades the tips and moves downwards.
"It's the protective field," she finally says, breaking the silence of the room. "The field we created through the spell to protect Harry when the last horcrux…" a pause, "So he could destroy it and so he could remain whole and to allow the - " she searches for words, "playing field to exist so the battle between him and Voldemort could take place."
Hermione watches his face, the profile, highlighted in the sun, the fire.
She knows he remembers all this, the reason behind it, but she has to state it.
The actions, reasons behind actions.
And consequences.
She continues, "It has created," she pauses, unsure how to state it, "It created a dimension, no," she pauses again, growing frustrated, taking a deep breath, "It created a bridge between the polar opposites, a grey area."
He looks over at her then, "Polar opposites?"
Hermione nods, "Muggle term, but yes, the whole spell is based on opposites, directly opposed pieces. The usual, of course, male and female, light and dark, but not so normal, and," Another pause, "Us."
Draco narrows his gaze on her, not because she is saying anything he doesn't understand, but because she is biting her lip and the pain at that point in his chest is almost unbearable.
She continues, "A bit like Muggle magnets I think, polar opposites, they repel if a positive is put with a positive, but put a positive and a negative together…" She lets her sentence trail off.
Silence.
And then she meets his eyes, "We've always been like that Draco," she says quietly, so quietly, not stumbling over his name, just saying it, as if she had never stopped.
A whirling of shadow.
Darkness.
"Always explosive, opposites, you and I, Gryffindor and Slytherin, Muggle-born and Pure-Blood. I think Severus understood that. I think it was another reason, maybe even the most important reason, why you and I were the only ones who could do this. Oppositions, in everything, in what you believed in, what I believed in, thoughts, feelings, direct and utter ends of the spectrum."
Draco hears the words, watches them fall from her mouth, pass that slightly swollen bottom lip.
He looks from those lips and up to her eyes, not surprised to find they are liquid, staring at him. Not surprised they are expressive.
She wants him to understand what she is saying. She wants him to know that she is not only talking about what they did, about how they did it or why it had to be them, but something else.
Something more than that.
An explanation for then and for now.
She is explaining that her stubbornness, her strength of will, barriers, whatever she may call them, they are failing her, and now she is asking him to do what she cannot, to ask him to step away this time, to stop whatever hunt he has begun.
She has lost in her use of strength.
Now she is using her weakness.
Anger.
Brilliant.
Murderous.
And Hermione sees it, the quicksilver eyes hardening, hardening to the point of steel, a silver shined steel.
Run
An instinctive thought.
But his eyes hold her there, lance her to the spot, as if his hands were pushing her down, in place, unable to move, just as if he'd cast an Imperious curse on her, and she can't move, she can't look away, meeting that cold gaze, that terrible cold gaze.
Legilimens, she feels it, but it's not like the one other time she'd been invaded unwillingly, when Ron had done it to her in an abrupt movement of distrust, no, this is different.
Ron's was a clumsy and harsh mistake, with the pain of someone bludgeoning one in the face.
This is precise.
A cold blade, just barely touching. The point barely there, gliding.
Liquid.
Coolness moving with painful precision.
And she can't stop it.
Her mind not responding, barriers no longer in place.
Everything open.
And the feeling of it, the complete nature of it.
Oh Merlin, oh gods
Moving, stroking, hot nerves soothed over in frigid chill, curling, dipping.
A caress.
It makes her want to weep.
A focus, so intense, seeing nothing, feeling nothing but his mind, darkness, shadows, gliding, a touch so slight.
A bloom of pain, slowly. Slowly.
Her mind gasps with it.
And then the gaze is gone.
"Leave." The voice quiet.
Hermione catches her breath, the effect of one word spinning, spinning her mind, the room. No air, can't breath, struggling, struggling.
Chaos.
And empty. So incredibly horribly empty.
"Draco…" She starts.
"Professor Granger," he cuts her off, "Please leave my presence."
It's the please that breaks her momentary paralyzation, such a word spoken in such a voice.
She gains her feet, grabbing her cloak, moving two steps, quickly, unsteady.
The voice stops her.
"Take the book."
Hermione turns, staring at Draco's profile, perfectly blank, appearing as if he is sitting having a nice morning tea, long lean body in black trousers and a white linen shirt, relaxed, causal, hands lying easily on the chair arms.
She catches sight of the red stone on his hand, a red stone held in place by a scroll of silver, snakes, two snakes, holding the stone in their mouths.
The stone pulses, the red almost black, pulsing, growing, deepening.
A whimper, a strangled sound of a wounded animal.
Coming from her throat.
She grabs the book and flees.