Faith and Fury
There is a great castle situated on an isolated, vast mass of land in Scotland. For each day the sun's rays kiss it, or the moon's glow embraces it, it stands tall despite its wear. During the day, shouts and laughter usually echo over its grounds; at night, the hoots of gliding owls are occasionally accompanied by voices of rebellious adolescents.
Tonight, however, even the owls appear to be silent.
The half-moon is guarded by a few lone clouds, reaching down and seeping through the castle's thousands of windows. Five of those windows reveal a marbled, clinical room with rows of beds, surrounded by curtains. The milky glow of the moon is the only illumination of the Hospital Wing.
A young girl, nearly sixteen years of age, is curled up on one of the beds behind drawn curtains. Although the darkness allures her, she cannot close her eyes to rest. Instead, she stares at the bedside table — or rather, what's on top of it. Her fingertips itch to feel the pages caressed between them…
It leads her to wonder where such an urge had originated from. Some built-in mechanism within her has decided that she desires to soak words from a book, but her mind does not hold the same value for volumes. Though she has no concept of time, she knows that she's been struggling against her instinct for several hours, at the very least. The moon had not been there when the book was placed on the bedside table.
The person who had placed it there is a kindly boy, whose eyes shimmer like leaves behind a rainy window whenever he looks at her, with a smile anchored down by something she hasn't yet learned. He'd sat with her for the past six days, talking about things that she would understand — but she could sense he is not as patient as he portrays to her. Each time he visits, she keeps track of the way the cut on his cheek gradually seals over.
He is not the only one who has visited her. A gangly boy with a freckled face and wildly red hair would come in just as frequently, though he spent his visits far less composed. When he wasn't trying to force forgotten thoughts, he'd rant about witches and fairy tales and dark beings. Perhaps she's inherently polite, too, because she simply nods along until he eventually heaves a defeated sigh and gives up for the day.
An equally red-headed girl would come in, too, sometimes accompanying one or both of the boys with an ankle brace on her right foot. She would flick her silky hair about, telling jokes, giving her sweets, and whacking the other red-head whenever he got too hot-tempered. From time to time, a girl with shockingly blonde-white hair would drift in, having a one-sided conversation about things that make her truly question her sanity. Once or twice, a pudgy-faced boy with a gentle smile had come in to say hello to her.
They would all answer her first question the same: her name is Hermione Granger.
Of the amount of times she'd anticipated her apparent name, she had hoped it would invoke something within her, some recognition or clarity. Sometimes, when the light of the Hospital Ward's office flickers off and she is left alone with her thoughts, she would murmur it to the gloom, "Hermione Granger," testing the way it rolls off her tongue.
But it's nights like these where she lays facing the dark, that she wonders if this is all just in her head. Perhaps she's in a mental asylum and has no true grasp as reality. The amount of time 'magic' has been mentioned, she's got half a right to believe it.
Despite the most assertive attempts to demonstrate to her that witchcraft exists, they are only ever through words. And judging by the way the red-headed girl had furiously wrenched her brother out from behind the curtain after his rant about 'You-Don't-Know-Who', she suspects that she's not supposed to be told about magic at all.
Which draws her attention back to the book.
"It was the first one you read," the kindly boy, Harry, had told her. "About this world, I mean."
It lays there, holding information that she sorely wants. She watches it until the moonlight fades into a watery dusk pouring over its thick cover, and her eyes finally flutter shut.
When a heart is banging, so enraged, against a ribcage, and blood is coursing heavily through veins for no particular reason, one knows that something must be done. In a week, Draco's remaining respect for the Ministry has trickled out like sand; within six days, he's dreamed of ways of ripping Potter's heart from his chest.
It shouldn't be hard, considering the course of events. Draco's mother had whisked him home for a couple of days, giving him strict instructions and avoiding his demands about his father's freedom. That's when he had met his Aunt Bellatrix, who had spent a majority of the time cackling about the death of the Traitor Black, the way Potter had bawled and trampled after her like a toddler. Not to mention the state of his Mudblood friend, following his little tantrum. If anything, he should be smug.
His heart continues racing as he strides up the stairs towards the entrance hall, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. They're the only two who won't say a word about his father, therefore, are the only two he can stand to have by his side. As they reach the landing, Merlin would have it that the Boy-Who-Lived stops dead in his tracks, rounding from a corner leading to the Grand Staircase. When Draco mirrors him, fists clenching, he is anything but smug.
Glancing around for any professors lurking by with a Potter-saving intervention in mind, he turns back to meet the narrowed eyes glinting behind those spectacles. "You're dead, Potter," he growls in a low voice.
"Funny," Potter responds nonchalantly, putting his hands in the pockets of his robes. Draco follows the movement carefully. "You'd think I'd have stopped walking around…"
He thinks this is a joke? Draco has never been more serious in his life. "You're going to pay," he hisses, gritting his teeth, fury firing his stomach at Potter's blank expression, "I'm going to make you pay for what you've done to my father."
"Well, I'm terrified now," Potter says, emphasizing his sarcasm to non-existent applause. "I s'pose Lord Voldemort's just a warm-up act compared to you three —" Draco's aghast at the lack of respect, and no sooner does his jaw slacken, then Potter goes, "what's the matter? He's your dad's mate, isn't he? Not scared of him, are you?"
Draco's heart stutters momentarily. He'd asked Aunt Bella why she was shaking so much, and she had laughed, pinching him on the cheek, crooning that he should never fail the Dark Lord so he would never shake. "You think you're such a big man, Potter," he snarls, shoving the memory aside. He advances forward now, Crabbe and Goyle not far behind him; Potter's hands sink deeper in his pockets. "You wait. I'll have you. You can't land my father in prison —"
"I thought I just had," Potter deadpans.
"The dementors have left Azkaban," Draco mutters, watching for a flash of fear even though he doubts it will ever show. "Dad and the others'll be out in no time..."
"Yeah, I expect they will," Potter says. "Still, at least everyone knows what scumbags they are now —"
For a fraction of a second, Draco considers whipping out his wand; but he knows Potter's fist is already clamped around his own one in the pocket of his robes. So he intercepts in a different way: "Just like everyone knows where your little friend really belongs?"
Potter stiffens, jaw clenching. Draco resists the temptation to smirk, keeping his face as blank as Potter's had been moments before, his own hand slithering into his own robes.
"A Mudblood, stealing from our world —"
Potter takes a step forward, now, his wand out in the open. "Shut up, Malfoy."
"Now, she's just a Muggle —"
A jet of orange light hurtles towards Draco, but he's ready, deflecting it with a flick of his wand out of his robe pocket. Potter's eyes are burning an inferno as he waves his wand again, "Stu—"
"Potter!" A silky voice rings across the entrance hall; Draco looks over his shoulder, but as he watches his godfather emerge from the staircase to the dungeons, Snape's eyes are focused solely on the Gryffindor.
"What are you doing, Potter?" Snape says coldly, and Draco's head turns back as he steps forward, next to Goyle. .
"I'm trying to decide what curse to use on Malfoy, sir," Potter snarls, eyes flickering from Snape back to Draco.
Draco's godfather is silent for a moment. "Put that wand away at once," he snaps curtly. "Ten points from Gryff —" Snape looks toward the giant hourglasses on the walls and gives a sneering smile. Draco suspects that they matter as little to Potter as they do to himself now.
"Ah. I see there are no longer any points left in the Gryffindor hourglass to take away. In that case, Potter, we will simply have to —"
"Add some more?" Professor McGonagall had just stumped up the stone steps into the castle. She's carrying a tartan carpetbag in one hand and leaning heavily on a walking stick with her other, but otherwise looks like her same old Potter-saving self. She seems to like saving oafs, otherwise she wouldn't have been sent to St Mungo's for trying to prevent the removal of that great idiot who lives in the hut.
"Professor McGonagall," acknowledges Snape, striding forward. "Out of St. Mungo's, I see."
"Yes, Professor Snape," replies Professor McGonagall, shrugging off her traveling cloak, "I'm quite as good as new. You two — Crabbe — Goyle —" She beckons them forward imperiously and they come, shuffling awkwardly. Draco rolls his eyes at the pair of them — they're not supposed to follow everyone's orders.
"Here," says Professor McGonagall, thrusting her carpetbag into Crabbe's chest and her cloak into Goyle's, "take these up to my office for me." Ticking his jaw, Draco watches as they turn and stump away up the marble staircase.
"Right then," Professor McGonagall begins, looking up at the hourglasses on the wall.
Draco doesn't need divination to predict what is about to happen. As little significance as it has to the pair of them, Potter is still the one who wins. So he scoffs, turning his back on them all and marching back down to the dungeons. As he snaps the password at the wall, strides through the common room while ignoring Theodore Nott calling out his name, and makes his way up the staircase to the dormitories, he struggles against the tremor in his body. It's only when he's behind a closed door in an empty room that he allows his legs to give way, sinking to the floor.
Casting a silencio charm at the door, he screams until his throat goes raw.