Author's Note – Quidditch League Round 9 Entry
Team: Tutshill Tornados
Position: Chaser 2
Prompt: Symbol of luck – the number 9.
There are six unlucky numbers in Japanese – one of them being the number 9. Number 9 is sometimes pronounced ku, with the same pronunciation as agony or torture.
You will witness both in this story.
Additional prompts: Malfoy Manor (setting), essential (word), If I Had a Heart – Fever Ray (song)
Word count: 1,363
FYI: AU story – Draco and Hermione obviously never had any relationship, secret or otherwise, and we all know how sixth year actually went.
Extension used: Yes – 4 of 5
If I Had a Heart
This will never end
'cause I want more
More, give me more,
Give me more
"I want more," Draco exclaimed, gasping for breath as if the mere thought of such an event could rob the very breath from his lungs.
"More, more, what does that mean?" Hermione responded, just as agitated. They had both stolen away to a dark, unused corner of the seventh floor to finally sort out what they'd been dancing around for the last nine months. Draco's sixth year had initially begun just as any other, with the exception of the Dark Lord's unshakeable hold on his and his family's lives constantly playing in the background of his mind. Where before his voice had been restricted, Draco now struggled to breathe or voice his thoughts, his doubts, about the effect of the actions he was being forced to take. He'd been given clear instructions to complete his task before the school year was out, exactly nine months from the day of September 1st. And now, with the clock about to strike the eleventh hour he had still not succeeded and events were starting to work against him. He'd been fumbling with his task for a while, so he couldn't blame that failure on her, but in his weakest moments he considered doing so.
Her.
Hermione Granger. The golden witch of the light side, the mastermind within the Golden Trio and now an immoveable point of focus from Draco's own mind. He hadn't planned to fall for her, it hadn't been a conscious thought on his part. And yet, somehow, through unsure glances and softly uttered words, a bond had formed. A tie to bind the voiceless. And now here he was, shocking the both of them by being the one to fight to declare their love to the rest of the world. Feeling hopeless had brought him to the edge of desperation, where he had firmly set up camp in an effort to save himself and his love before it was truly too late. Nine months had brought him here, to this point in time, where the scales of fortune were to finally tip one way or the other. Either Draco would survive, leave this bloody war with his life intact, or he and his love would be separated by forces bigger than the both of them.
It was a rare occurrence indeed that Draco would throw caution to the wind in this way, boldly meeting out in the open, but that was what this witch did to him. His witch.
"I want more with you. We can't keep doing this Hermione, we can't," he stressed. He ran his hands through his hair in frustration, before coming back to Hermione and cradling her face in the palms of his hands, wishing to convey just how precious she was to him. "You don't get it, do you? How much I need you? How essential you are to my every breath? I can't think when I'm not with you, and bloody Merlin I'm sick of it."
A tear slid down her cheek, Draco swiping his thumb under her lashes to swipe it away. With a shuttering exhale, Hermione cracked the remaining hope that fluttered weakly in his chest.
"We can't Draco, we just can't. You know why."
If I had a heart
I could love you
If I had a voice
I could sing
To think then that that was the acutest form of agony, Draco's thoughts mocked him in the present. He knew now that that feeling, which seemed to have occurred eons ago but in reality, was only the year before, was nothing compared to what he felt now. He used to think that having to witness Hermione laugh and experience joy, while he had to hide himself from her shining light lest it break away the cold façade he hid behind, was akin to emotional torture.
Now, looking at the sweat and tear stained face of his love as she lay on the floor of the drawing room of Malfoy Manor, he knew that to be a fallacy. This, this feeling of utter hopelessness that filled his very being, was the truest form of agony. It seemed that the scales of fortune had not tipped in his favour, and now here he was in his own personal torture chamber. Except, he could not bring himself to truly suffer, for he had not said a word to stop his aunt since Hermione had been thrown to the floor, his aunt following with her silver dagger in hand.
Draco wondered briefly, as he watched his love with a cold face while fire raged in his soul, if it was possible to love without a heart. For surely somebody that loved Hermione as he had claimed to love her would stop this. And yet here he stood, a sedentary thrush hovering on the edges of his sanity, while the woman he had coveted for nine torturous months writhed in agony in front of him. The fact irony that this was happening in the heart of his childhood home, the gilded, oppressive cage that was Malfoy Manor, was not lost on Draco. The place where love had never risen, was now the place his love had come to die.
This will never end
'cause I want more
More, give me more,
Give me more
"Go on you two, I'll be just a minute and then I'll meet you in the common room," Hermione said to Potter and Weasley, urging them to continue their trek into the castle. He waited with baited breath while the indecision flew across their faces, each eager to protect his love like the two Gryffindor Knights they were, before they each resigned themselves to her stubborn nature and nodded. Waiting until they had slipped through the castle doors, Draco immediately leant forward to brush a brief kiss to Hermione's forehead.
"I have missed you," he said on an exhale, leaning back to meet her warm and caring gaze. "I never want this feeling to end."
"I spoke to you only two days ago," she replied, though he caught the smile that could not pass by unseen when he knew each corner of her expression so well.
"And as I have told you previously, you are ess-"
"-essential to your every breath," she finished for him. "Yes, I do remember. Though I still catch myself doubting it, in the dark corners of my mind."
"Doubt it no longer, my love, for soon we will be free of this place," he said, tucking an errant piece of hair behind her ear.
"Nine days," Hermione hummed contentedly. "Then everything will be different, and we'll be free."
Outwardly Draco nodded, bringing their foreheads together.
Internally he knew – everything would change, but he would be no freer than he was now.
If I had a voice
I would sing
"Ess-essential...to my...breath," Hermione uttered now, looking at him with the same look of desperation and fear that coloured his thoughts and tainted the tip of his tongue, like bile rising from the depths of his soul. Draco couldn't breathe, couldn't think, didn't know how to respond. His aunt turned to him, eyes wide and pupils blown, a crazed look glazed over her visage. Hermione lay behind her and looked directly at him, piercing his mind with her poignant gaze, waiting on him to repeat the words that he had once told her religiously, as if uttering a prayer.
"What is she talking about Draco?!" his aunt demanded.
Draco swallowed, his throat clenching as if it were passing gravel. His eyes shut and he turned partially around so his attention wasn't on the torture scene in front of him. He was in agony but he knew that his emotional pain was nothing compared to the torture that she was being submitted to. He knew he could speak now, knew he should speak, should sing from the rafters about the depth of his love for this woman.
But he couldn't speak. He did not use his voice.
He did not sing.
If I had a voice
I would sing