Hi there everyone! Welcome to part one of Apocrypha. The sequel, Erised is already posted but under major construction and is not yet finished. This series will consist of two full length, dual POV fics. The first, Noctem, covering the events of sixth year to wartime and the second part, Erised, covering eighth year. There will be smut but we have a long way to go first ;).
Noctem will detail Hermione and Draco's experience throughout sixth and seventh year, slowly diverging from canon. Some of the beginning scenes, including the first chapter will even use the exact dialogue from HBP. This material belongs to JKR and I am merely borrowing it to orient us in the events of HBP.
As always, let me know if you think anything merits a trigger warning. Thanks for reading!
Apocrypha:
1. Biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of Scripture.
2. Hidden, concealed, obscured.
Sixth Year
Hermione
We're going to get caught. Hermione thought it to herself as they followed Draco Malfoy through the twisting passage that bridged Diagon and Knockturn Alley. She didn't voice her concerns to Harry though, realizing that her friend was on a mission, too fired up with suspicious zeal to listen to her reason.
Ron elbowed her ribs by accident, cramped as they were under Harry's invisibility cloak. She bit her lip to contain the shout and peered through the shadows for Malfoy's head of pale hair. The Slytherin glanced over his shoulder, subtly checking the smoky street for any witnesses, but Knockturn Alley was soullessly empty and quiet as a whisper.
The three of them paused for a moment, frozen as a dog brayed in the distance, the sound echoing off cobblestones before being swallowed up by the fog. Malfoy kept moving even as Harry and Ron scanned the shadows. Hermione watched him slip into Borgin and Burke's dimly lit entrance, the front door closing behind him with a soft snick.
She pinched Harry's arm to get his attention and immediately regretted it when he yelped loudly in surprise. "Shh! Look! He's in there!" she whispered to him.
They approached the shop, climbing a few old crates up onto the gabled roof of the neighboring building. There was a circular window into Borgin and Burke's across from them, providing an incomplete view of Malfoy's side profile as he spoke with Borgin himself.
Ron procured an extendable ear that they dropped down into the window and the three listened to Malfoy urgently speak to the shopkeeper about fixing an item that was not to be sold. Borgin looked intimidated, his cheek twitching softly as he attempted to hide his nerves.
Hermione understood. Malfoy could be disquieting when he wanted to be. She held her breath to hear more, but Malfoy only threatened Borgin into secrecy and stalked out of the shop, the bell tinkling over his head. The shadows of the alley cut his face into sharp angles and dark hollows, his bright eyes searching the street.
He was tall and lean, his black coat tailored to fit his straight lines and hard edges. His hair was in perfect disarray as usual. And his face was so beautiful, fine and aristocratic, that he would have looked angelic if it weren't for the glint of malice that constantly marred his features.
Ron and Harry chattered over her head as the gears in her mind whirred. What did he want from Borgin? What was so important that it couldn't be sold? What did he need to fix? It could've been anything. Malfoy was always up to something dodgy, but for some reason, his conversation with the shopkeeper left something cold in the pit of her stomach.
Before consulting with Harry and Ron, she found her feet carrying her towards the murky windows of Borgin and Burkes. "You two stay here." One of her boys started to protest, but she ignored it, squaring her shoulders and checking her reflection in the shop window to bolster her confidence.
The shop was as creepy and cluttered as she remembered. There were bones on display, both human and animal, as well as rickety antiques and all manner of occult objects. She greeted Borgin in as cheerful and nonchalant a voice as she could muster. He only scowled in return.
Out of her element, she cooed at a few objects, feigning interest as she planned how to bring up the topic of Malfoy and what he wanted. She inquired about a few trinkets and watched in dismay as Borgin clearly grew more and more suspicious.
"...The thing is, that boy who was in here just now, Draco Malfoy, well, he's a friend of mine and I wanted to get him a birthday present, but if he's already reserved anything, I obviously don't want to get him the same thing, so…" she trailed off, going severely awkward at the thought of being familiar enough to Malfoy to ever buy him a birthday present. She wasn't even sure when his birthday was.
Borgin wasn't buying it and all but chased her out of his shop, yelling at her to get out and not come back. She barely cleared the door before it slammed behind her with a bang and a rattle, making her jump in surprise.
She rejoined Harry and Ron, who were decidedly not impressed with her attempt at espionage, but her mind remained on Malfoy. Call it brains or reasoning skills or intuition, but she just knew that the unfairly beautiful boy was mixed up in something sinister, and it bothered her more than she could let on. Looking back she would wonder how she could have been so blind, so willing to ignore her own logic, all for a taste of dark attraction and a twisted sense of closeness.
The last threads of summer slipped through their fingers with little fanfare. The tall grasses around the burrow yellowed, the nights growing cool. Hermione spent her days trying to keep up with Molly's baking, embarrassing herself during quidditch with Ginny and the boys, and avoiding Fleur, who was staying with them much to Mrs. Weasley's displeasure.
Since they saw him leave Borgin and Burke's, Harry had been insisting that Malfoy was marked as a Death Eater. It seemed like nonsense to her, but her friend was convinced. He was a man possessed, unwilling to consider any other possibility. Hermione did have to admit that the idea had merit. But something about it just felt so outlandish. So unbelievable.
Draco Malfoy had never made his dislike of Muggleborns a secret, and his father was a Death Eater. But at the same time, he was young. Still in school. And she had never thought him evil. Mean. Crooked. Wrong. But not evil. Could he really have so little of a soul left that he would join with Voldemort? Even after witnessing the way it ruined his father?
Hermione just couldn't accept it. Not really. It wasn't in her nature to forgo giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Harry was just paranoid. Still upset about Sirius. Ron was on her side at least, also unable to believe that Malfoy could have been marked as much as he hated the Slytherin.
Still, Hermione avoided Malfoy as usual. And it wasn't hard. Considering he had been ignoring his prefect duties since the start of term. The only run in she had with him on the train was when she passed his compartment window and saw him making out with Pansy Parkinson, despite the fact that they had an audience.
Blaise Zabini ignored the pair, lazily flipping through a book. Goyle and Crabbe made it no secret that they were watching, but she expected no less from them. Ron had caught Malfoy's eye through the glass and the blonde barely paused in his activities to give Ron the finger.
He was at the welcome feast, but abandoned the other Slytherin prefects to guide the first years to the dungeons without him. She didn't know why she kept surreptitiously seeking him out, scanning for his tall frame in the crowd, but since the day she saw him in Knockturn Alley, she itched with a curiosity that she couldn't shake. What was he up to? Was he acting different or did she just not really know him enough to predict his actions? Why did she care?
She pushed thoughts of Malfoy from her mind as she entered the potions dungeon. It was their first day of classes and she had of course secured O's in enough O.W.L.s to ensure a full N.E.W.T. level schedule. This class at least, she got to share with Ron and Harry. There were only twelve students taking N.E.W.T level potions, Malfoy being one of them. It came as no surprise that he was there, considering he was right behind her in all their classes.
She took a seat at a table with Ron, Harry, and Ernie Macmillan from Hufflepuff. Slughorn had four potions lined up on the central table and he gathered them all around to take a look at them. She recognized each one by one. There was Veritaserum, clear and odorless. What she knew was Polyjuice thanks to her intimate familiarity with that particular brew. What looked like highly sought after liquid luck and lastly, the moonstone pink of Amortentia.
"...anyone tell me what this one is?" Slughorn finished. Hermione's hand shot up into the air at the chance to show this new professor that she was a serious student. She knew she would never stand out to him because of wealth, magical ancestors or ministry connections, but she could impress him with her knowledge. Being the smartest in the room, she always had that to her advantage.
Slughorn pointed at her and she identified the Veritaserum. And then she identified each subsequent potion he indicated. When he came to the Amortentia, she stood over the cauldron to inhale its curling vapors.
"It's supposed to smell differently to each of us, according to what attracts us, and I can smell freshly mown grass…" she recognized that as the smell of her Muggle neighborhood in high summer. Sunny mornings at the breakfast table with her parents.
"...and new parchment…" That one was self explanatory. It was the great library of Hogwarts, one of her favorite places in the world. "...and," she trailed off, trying to put her finger on the last smell. It was both rich and light. Oaky and dark. Mysterious but oddly comforting. She wasn't sure it was something she had even smelled before, only vaguely familiar. But whatever it was, for some reason, it made her warm and conscious of everyone staring at her.
"May I ask your name, my dear?" she glanced up to find Slughorn looking at her with a wide grin on his face.
"Hermione Granger, sir."
"Granger? Granger? Can you possibly be related to Hector Dagworth-Granger, who founded the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers?" He looked delighted at the possibility. Her heart sank in her chest. That strange feeling of inadequacy stroked its claws down her back. She was the most accomplished witch in her year, brighter than most by half and yet, she would always be held back by the status of her blood. Othered by her Muggle heritage.
"No, I don't think so, sir." She hoped she didn't come across as awkward as she felt. "I'm Muggle-born, you see."
She heard a cold whisper and turned her head just in time to see Malfoy murmuring something to Theodore Nott, no doubt about her. They both chuckled. Hot anger bubbled inside her, but it was short lived because Slughorn was smiling at her with approval and confirming with Harry that she was indeed the best witch in their year.
Malfoy turned his attention from Nott and accidentally hooked his gaze on hers. She raised her eyebrows in triumph as Slughorn bestowed points to Gryffindor on account of her correct answers. He didn't look away and he didn't look annoyed like she expected. Instead, he simply curled the corner of his mouth up in a cruelly amused smirk, like he knew how serious she took being the best and found it both pathetic and funny.
Anger simmered in her blood, but she turned away from him, gazing back to the vial of Amortentia. "It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room- oh yes," Slughorn continued over Malfoy's soft huff of disbelief. "When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love…"
Draco
Draco couldn't quite understand why it was always her. Couldn't figure out why he could be sitting at a back row table in the potions dungeon or lying on a bench in the courtyard and be rendered incapable of stopping himself from glancing up everytime heard her swotty little mouth.
And he was always hearing that mouth. Correcting her peers, scolding Saint Potter and Weasley, spouting random facts and useless information in a never ending stream of consciousness that spilled from her lips like water out of a vase. In every single lesson, her hand would raise each time a professor proposed a question to the class, without fail. She would squirm in her seat, biting her lip, like she would just combust if someone didn't allow her to say the right answer soon. Those instances were both his favorite and the absolute worst.
Even now, sitting in the Great Hall on the first morning of his sixth year at Hogwarts, his brain was only half focused on what Blaise was saying to him. The other half was waiting to hear her voice drift over from the table next to his.
"So, when are trials?"
Draco looked up at his friend, startled into loosening his grip on the apple he was about to bite into. Not that it mattered. He hadn't had much of an appetite lately anyway. Not after the past few months.
Blaise was still looking at him expectantly, his face open and good natured and Draco realized he asked him a question that required an answer. It was too bad Draco hadn't the slightest idea what Blaise was talking about.
"What?"
Blaise furrowed his brows. Great. It had been less than twenty four hours and he was already in his head.
"Quidditch, Draco." He tilted his head in perplexion. "You got handed a captain's badge twenty minutes ago. So when are trials? Unless you already had my spot on the team sorted." Blaise let his voice go arrogant at the end, having played quidditch with Draco for the better part of both their lives.
"Quidditch, huh?" Draco felt a humorless laugh slip out of his throat before he could stop it. "Why don't I just go find some sidewalk chalk and a jump rope while I'm at it." His tone was caustic and he knew it. Truthfully, he hadn't even thought about quidditch. Almost handed the captain's badge back to Snape the moment the stoic man handed it to him. But the look in Snape's eyes warned him into just taking it. Like his head of house was silently telling him to keep up appearances.
Blaise peered at him in apparent surprise, shaking his head back and forth as if to dispel the ridiculous notion that Draco was over quidditch. "What are you saying? You've been on a broom from the time you could walk. You're not gonna quit the team now." But Blaise didn't seem so certain.
"I just don't see the point. This time next year, none of this is going to matter. The world is going to hell, Blaise. I don't plan on watching from the quidditch pitch," he all but growled.
Blaise just shook his head. Draco wished he would stop doing that every time he said something. It made him want to grab his face and hold it still, shake his shoulders and make him see how spectacularly their universe was about to implode. Not that he could. Not if he didn't want to get himself into an even bigger mess than he was already in now.
He shrugged his shoulders in lew of a real reply, but Blaise, one of his oldest friends, wasn't going to let him off that easily.
"What's going on with you? You're not yourself. It's starting to worry me, mate." Draco turned away from him, not able to look at the actual concern in his eyes.
"Nothing. I'm fine. Give me a day and I'll figure out trials, okay?" He conceded in a low voice. He supposed playing quidditch might actually do him some good. If anything, it would be a distraction. And Blaise looked satisfied- for now at least.
Just then, he heard Granger's bossy tone from nearby.
"Ronald, you have to take N.E.W.T. potions. Just because something is difficult doesn't mean you should just avoid it!" He could hear the frustration in the little swot's voice and despite his best efforts, his ears strained for more. Why is she so fucking infuriating?
"I don't avoid things, you bloody know it all. I just have other interests that happen to not be potions," whined a male voice. That was definitely the weasel talking. Draco rolled his eyes internally just thinking about the ginger idiot.
"That's not the point, Ronald. You should be aiming for as many N.E.W.T.s as you can get. Quidditch is a hobby, not a class."
She was probably right, Draco admitted internally. He knew Potter and Weasley had their hearts set on becoming aurors, but he couldn't see that happening for the redhead. Draco suspected the big ginger had a better chance at becoming the next Filch from what he knew of his grades.
"Leave it, Hermione. Just because you have nothing going on in your life outside of classes doesn't mean we should all live that way."
Well, that was a little harsh. Draco didn't doubt it was true, but still, it was harsh. He didn't know why he was surprised though, having heard Weasel make thoughtless remarks at Granger before. He didn't hear Granger's reply. She may have not said anything at all. His eavesdropping was cut short by Crabbe nudging his shoulder and soon, he was walking towards his first class with his little group of Slytherin sixth years.
Walking the halls of the castle for mere minutes already had him feeling like he was just going through the motions. Pansy walked so close to him he swore he could feel her breath on the back of his neck. He shouldn't have started sleeping with her, he knew that. But he needed a distraction and she was there. It was easy and looked good for the image he was trying to maintain.
Of course, the image was a farce. This life, the life of a student, of a young man, was over. By June, Dumbledore would be dead at his hand. The Dark Lord's army would be inside the castle's supposedly impenetrable walls. If he succeeded that was. And he wouldn't let himself think about not succeeding. The stakes were far too high.
When he hugged his mother goodbye just yesterday, he could feel her hands trembling against his shoulders. She had pressed her lips together in a tight line, refusing to betray her anguish as he stepped back from her. She too, knew what would happen if he failed. The Dark Lord had made it quite clear to all three Malfoys that Draco was to complete his task or they would all find themselves murdered.
Draco could not let that happen. Not to Narcissa, a woman who had been nothing but a doting mother his entire life. Not even to his father, no matter how turbulent his relationship with the man could be. He was a Slytherin, loyal to the end. He would not be the cause of his family's torture. And if he was honest with himself, his own sense of self preservation was screaming at him to come out of this alive, no matter the cost.
Every morning he made a list of what he had to lose. Of who he needed to keep safe. The Malfoy name. Add it to the list. His mother. Add her to the list. His father. Add him to the list. Their fucking house elf, Mipsy. Add her to the list. Himself. Add his name to the list.
His father was gone, had gotten himself thrown into Azkaban for fucking up the attack on the ministry so badly. And now he had been called up in the ranks to take his father's place. It was punishment, he knew. A punishment on his father, on the Malfoy line. To order the only heir off on a suicide mission. The fresh mark on his left arm burned.
He could still feel the way the dark magic had clawed into his skin, white hot and ice cold. But the worst part was the way it felt on the inside. Like his soul was being tarnished, twisted into something that wasn't even his anymore. He had shuddered in front of everyone, gritted his teeth and breathed through his nose until the pain finally subsided. The Dark Lord had laughed. Told him he took it much better than his dear father.
He willed the thoughts away and tried to focus on flipping to the correct page of his ancient runes text, briefly wondering how he even got into a seat while he was so lost in thought. Looking around the bright classroom, he could see that there weren't many other students who decided to take N.E.W.T. level ancient runes. It was a difficult subject and an elective, so that pretty much assured a small roster.
He wasn't a bit surprised to see Granger sitting in the front row, already twirling the quill in her hands. The little know it all was probably taking every advanced class she could. He heard a ridiculous rumor in third year that she spent the term using a timeturner to attend more lessons that should have been physically possible and spent far too much time considering if it was true.
As soon as the professor began his lecture on translation, Draco's mind wandered back to his plan, the real reason he had even returned to Hogwarts this year. The vanishing cabinet had to be in the room of hidden things or he was dead. They wouldn't have destroyed it, would they? His knee started to bounce at the thought and he had to make a fist to calm down. No, it had to be there. It was the only plan he had.
He would skip dinner and find the room of requirement. Start working on the cabinet tonight. He would-
"Excellent work, Miss Granger," their middle aged professor crowed, startling Draco's head into jerking up. Granger was returning to her seat, her pride evident by her upturned nose. Draco glanced behind her to see a chalkboard covered in runes and letters. So it was day one and the swot had already managed to establish her brilliance to the whole class. He watched the hem of her skirt flounce as she walked back to her desk and he knew his gaze lingered for a moment too long.
Hannah Abbot rolled her eyes in a look shared with Susan Bones. So even the Hufflepuffs were sick of perfect little Granger's perfect displays of her perfect, impenetrable knowledge of every subject at Hogwarts. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Draco so badly wanted to see all that tightly controlled perfection crack. Because there was no way it was real, right? It couldn't be. She had to have some kind of dirty secret, some harbored rage against her idiotic friends, some shameful inadequacy like everybody else did.
He wondered, not for the first time, what role she would play in the upcoming conflict. He knew she wouldn't sit on the sidelines. No, that wasn't Hermione Granger's style. And it's not like Potter would stand a chance without her. He knew she was the brains behind the little Gryffindor trio. The other two were just puppets on her strings. That is, of course, when they weren't ignoring her. Her and the big, stupid, ginger seemed to have more arguments than friendly conversations and Potter always took his side. Draco knew because he had witnessed it more than once. The blow out fights at the Gryffindor table he couldn't help but listen in on. The little mudbloods' scathing voice betraying her anger and hurt. And then of course, she would be at the library even more than usual. Studying alone and reading dusty tomes while all her little Gryffindor friends, including Potter and Weasley, were off to the quidditch pitch or Hogsmeade without her.
Draco spent a lot of time at the library too. Had to if he wanted to keep his grades at the top of his year. And he never missed a chance to taunt her over it, the trouble in paradise that was the trio. Poor little mudblood left behind again. He liked seeing her that way, brought low. It was vindication, payback for all the turmoil she caused in his mind. The sick prickle at the edge of his thoughts that maybe everything he was taught was bullshit. Because it was her fault. It was her fault he had to question at all. If she didn't have to go and be such a perfect, prissy, pure, little bitch his life would have been so much easier. Simpler.
It wasn't until she was writhing in pain on the floor of his childhood home, did he realize that he didn't hate her for being a mudblood with higher grades, stronger friendships, a more impressive resume. He hated her because she would always be better than him, untainted, beautiful, good. He would always want her, someone he could never have. Damned to be the snake in the shadows beyond her light. And that was so, so much worse.