Reformed
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Goldensnitch18
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Rated M for Scenes of a Sexual Nature, Language, and Violence.
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Summary: Draco Malfoy is released from Azkaban and sent to Hogwarts for his eighth year where he has a year to show that he can be reformed. Hermione Granger, and her friends, are struggling to come to terms with what has happened to them and move on, but she has agreed to be Malfoy's Muggle Studies tutor anyway.
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Disclaimer: I am not profiting from this story.
Anything you recognize belongs to the great and mighty JKR.
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Beta Magic: Many thanks to several people who read this over for me in preparation of its publication. If I have forgotten you, I deeply apologize. I believe this chapter has been read/beta'd/loved on by RavenclawMidwife, AkashatheKitty, BadWolf829, and JustLei
Chapter Two: The Request
Monday, July 13, 1998
Hermione walked into the kitchen at Grimmauld Place three days later to find Ginny reading the Daily Prophet, and Harry making bacon and eggs. She loved seeing them together, and she hated it. She loved that Harry had Ginny. Harry was the one person in the world Hermione could depend on, and he deserved to be happy. She truly couldn't thank Ginny enough for being there to hold him at night when Hermione knew he wasn't sleeping. She worried about him, mostly about what was going to happen when she and Ginny left. How was he going to cope if Ron didn't pull himself together and start being there? She hated the reminder that she should have someone. She should have Ron eating breakfast with her, and kissing her softly when he thought noone was looking, and pulling her in to snuggle him in the quiet moments before they fell asleep.
"Morning." Harry smiled at her, and she walked over to steal a piece of the bacon from him.
"Morning," she replied and moved over to the table to sit by Ginny. "Anything?" she asked, her eyes on the Prophet.
"Yes. They finally reported on Malfoy's trial."
"How was it?" Hermione didn't like thinking about the trial. She didn't like thinking about the man, child, boy, whatever he was, chained in the chair at the center of the room. He had been filthy, his hair matted to his head, his clothes stunk, and she wondered when the last time he'd eaten real food had been. He was thin and his cheeks had been sunken when he had turned back to see them sitting behind him.
"Harry is our hero, Malfoy will surely be reformed if Harry, our hero, says so," Ginny mocked and rolled her eyes. Hermione knew that Ginny still hated the Prophet just as much as she did. They used Harry to sell papers, and they always had, but sell them they did, and the girls couldn't stop reading. They felt they needed to know what was coming, what people were being told. Harry tended to take a more hands off approach to the Prophet these days, and his only news was what Ginny and Hermione discussed in front of him.
"Well, I suppose it's better than when they hated him," Hermione admitted and bit at her food.
"Yeah, well, it's a bit much. I mean, we're dating, and I don't even like him this much." She tapped the paper dismissively, and Hermione snorted. Living with Ginny was certainly an experience. Technically Ginny didn't live at Grimmauld place, but they all knew she did. When Harry had told her that Molly was upset about it with concern etched across his face, Hermione had told him there was no point getting between the two witches about it. Ginny was going to do what she wanted, and Molly was going to hate it.
"Thanks, Gin," Harry told his girlfriend, feigning hurt feelings.
"Well," Ginny raised her hands and shrugged. "Maybe you should learn to put the seat down in the loo in the middle of the night, and I might hero worship you."
Harry just shook his head and waved his wand to move three plates over to the table, following with a cup of tea for himself. "I rather like you not hero worshipping me." Hermione considered reminding the couple of the years when Ginny had been a lovesick pre-teen whose affections had surely been close to hero worship, but decided against it. Neither one of her friends was the same child they had been back then.
"Good, because it's not going to happen." She leaned forward and kissed his nose, before starting on her breakfast.
"Have you heard from Ron?" Hermione asked, no longer able to hold back the question she asked too often.
"No." Harry furrowed his brow. Hermione knew he was just as worried about Ron as she was. They tended to avoided talking about him except to check if the other had heard from him. The answer was usually no.
"I don't think he's been 'round the house much," Ginny confessed. Hermione couldn't help but wonder where in the world Ron was, if he wasn't with them at Grimmauld, and he wasn't with his family at the Burrow.
"You aren't round the Burrow much," Harry told her with a grin. "How would you know?"
"I went to grab some clothes yesterday and George told me." The Weasley children had all taken turns staying at the Burrow with Molly once Arthur had returned to work. Ginny took her turn, but it nearly always ended in tense silence that stretched until her father returned home from work.
"So, where is he all the time?" Hermione asked, and Ginny shrugged.
"George didn't know."
"Well, that doesn't sound good." Harry looked over at Hermione's worried face. "I'll find him today and check in with him." He squeezed her hand, and she nodded.
"Thanks, Harry."
"No problem." They ate in silence for a few minutes, each of them lost in thought about Ron, until an owl scratched at the window, and Ginny jumped up to let it in.
"It's Hogwarts," she told them, recognizing the letters. She took them from the bird and handed one to Hermione, who pulled it open. Inside with her normal list of supplies was a note from McGonagall.
Dear Hermione,
I hope that I can convince you to join me at Hogwarts this afternoon for lunch. If you are able, please Floo to the Headmistress' office. I will have the Floo Network allow you through between 11:30 and 11:45.
Looking forward to seeing you soon,
Minerva
Minerva. Hermione had never received a more informal note from a Professor. It made her anxious. "Professor McGonagall wants me to come for lunch."
"She's given me the team and made me a Prefect," Ginny told them holding up the badges.
"What do you think she wants?" Harry leaned across the table and took the letter from Hermione.
"I have no idea," Hermione admitted and watched Harry's eyebrow raise.
"Minerva?"
"What?" Ginny pulled the letter from his hand and read through it. "Minerva? Since when have you and McGonagall been on a first name basis."
"I guess since today." Hermione looked over her book list.
"I wonder what the school looks like," Ginny mused. Hermione could tell she was trying to keep her voice steady, but the thought had also frequently crossed Hermione's mind.
"Well, she's had a lot of help," Harry told them. "Kingsley has half the ministry there every day."
"I hope it's mostly done." Hermione tried not to remember the way the castle had looked the last time she had seen it, or the bodies lying on the stone. She hated thinking about it. She hated remembering all of the funerals they had attended in the two weeks following the battle. It had been … well, she couldn't even think of a word. Haunting, maybe. That didn't seem to be dark enough.
"Me too," Ginny agreed.
"What are you two doing today?" Hermione asked them, trying to change the subject.
"Going to see Teddy," Harry told her. Ginny reached over and brushed her thumb over his knuckles. They loved Teddy, but Hermione knew that it brought up a lot of pain for Harry. The Lupin funeral had been hard for them all. Nearly everyone had been crying while a solemn Harry held Teddy next to Andromeda Tonks, who had been shaking too badly to carry the baby.
"Give him a kiss for me," she told them, as she stood. She waved her wand at her plate, cleaning it, and then sent it back to the cabinet.
"You could come for a little while," Harry suggested.
"No." She smiled, but shook her head. "I'm going to get some reading done." She saw Harry and Ginny both frown, but she ignored them as she turned to leave the kitchen.
XXX
Draco set the clothes he had brought into his bathroom down on the sink and turned the taps to start the water. It was the perfect temperature. He didn't even need to check. He pulled his shirt off and watched as his scarred chest was exposed to the mirror in front of him. He was still unbelievably thin, but his skin was clean. The mark on his forearm was a light red now. It had been that color for a fortnight and was beginning to scab. He was desperate for it to go away, but he knew that it would probably not. He had grown up with a Death Eater father and his mark had faded, but never gone away.
Draco brushed at the skin softly so that he would not rub away the scabs, and then dropped his hands to his pants. He pushed them down and climbed into the water. It scalded his skin as he stepped inside, just the way he liked it. He had showered three times that first day, twice the next two days. He couldn't feel clean enough. Every crevice of his body had been caked with grime when he had arrived at Hogwarts that first day. McGonagall had met him at the door to the castle and brought him straight to his room and given him clean clothes and told him to shower and come to her office. He had never loved McGonagall before for anything in his life, but he had loved her for that.
Draco leaned against the wall and felt the water fall down his back, washing him, cleansing him, calming him. It was real. He was really here, at Hogwarts. He wasn't in Azkaban anymore. He wasn't a prisoner anymore, well, not in the same way at least. He could handle being locked in Hogwarts. He could handle having his own room and a shower at his disposal whenever he needed it, and a kitchen full of food and house elves eager to share it with him. He could handle a library full of books containing knowledge he hadn't yet acquired.
He still had trouble at night. He would lay down to sleep, and he would remember those first few weeks in Azkaban, before the Dementors left. He would remember the feeling of minutes, hours, days, weeks, trickling by as he felt nothing but a hollow, terrifying, emptiness. When they had left, it had gotten better slowly. He had gradually been able to remember how to feel something other than empty, but he was still a prisoner. He was still locked in the same dirty cell with no answers to his questions and no hope of ever leaving.
But, he had left. He was here. He was rubbing soap deliberately into his skin, washing away the dirt he could still feel on him three days after he had washed it all away. McGonagall had been pretty easy on him that first day. She'd told him not to leave the grounds and to behave until the rest of the students arrived. She'd said they would meet again soon but she was busy. He'd realized just how busy in the days that followed. Every time he left his room, which was only to go get more books from the library or to get food from the kitchens, he would have to work hard to avoid the crews of witches and wizards restoring the castle and the wards of protection around it.
He wasn't ready to see other people. He wasn't ready to have to talk about any of it. The war. The things that happened before the war. His stay at Azkaban. His father. Potter. The things he'd seen. The things he'd done. He saw enough of it in his nightmares. He didn't need it during the day. He needed to bury himself in books and pretend that everything was fine. He was fine. Reality would hit soon enough when the school was full of students who hated him, but for now, he was the only one, and he was going to take advantage of the quiet.
XXX
Hermione stepped out of the fireplace and brushed at her jeans without really thinking about it. "Hermione." Professor McGonagall was sitting behind her desk. She smiled at her student, and the large portrait of Albus Dumbledore behind her smiled as well, but did not speak.
"Hello, Professor McGonagall." She crossed the circular room and sat down in the chair offered to her. Though the room hadn't changed much. Hermione assumed that the Headmistress had simply been too busy as the desk itself had been buried beneath neat stacks of parchment.
The professor followed her eyes and sighed. "The room needs work, but not nearly as much as the rest of the school. It will have to wait. Besides, I don't … it will be difficult to get rid of Severus' and Albus' things." She was speaking to her like an old friend, like a confidant, and Hermione didn't know how to respond. "How have you been?"
"Oh … uhm ... " She thought about her visit with her parents to remove their memory charm. They had been livid and relieved, but in the end Hermione hadn't been able to move back home with them. That wasn't her home anymore. She thought about the nights she spent trying not to listen to Harry and Ginny make love, as she cried in her own bed wondering where in the world Ron was. She thought of the books, the piles of books, she had read to keep her mind busy. She thought of seeing Draco Malfoy, his hair nearly pasted onto his head with dirt, his clothes hanging off his skinny frame, and listening to Harry speak as he convinced the Wizengamot to send him here to this place. "Fine."
"Hmmm." The Headmistress looked over her spectacles at Hermione, her mouth pursed. "I doubt that. I heard that you attended Draco's trial."
"Oh," Hermione let out in surprise. "Yes."
"You were there to testify in his defense."
Hermione remembered her conflicting emotions on this decision easily, because they were still bubbling, still festering under the surface. "Yes."
"And you didn't need to. Harry was able to convince them."
"That is correct, Professor."
"Minerva is fine, Hermione. You can call me Professor in class, but you are a fully grown witch, my dear." Hermione's cheeks turned pink at the thought of calling her Professor by her first name. "Do you believe Mr. Malfoy capable of changing his ways?" McGonagall asked, her face a blank canvas. Hermione had no idea what she was after.
"I … honestly … I don't know." Hermione wanted to say yes, but Malfoy had been unpredictable to say the least. She never knew what to expect from him. Hermione liked order and people who acted the way they were supposed to.
"That is understandable." The older witch shuffled some of the papers on her desk and pulled out a piece of parchment and handed it to Hermione. "What do you think of this?"
Hermione let her eyes fall down the parchment as she took in the contents. "Is this an application?"
"Yes. One of the few I received. I need to hire Transfiguration and Muggle Studies Professors. The Transfiguration is easy. I tried a few of my more promising former students and one accepted. She'll be teaching the first through fourth years this year and then we'll see how she does."
"So, this is for Muggle Studies," Hermione stated. "Benjamin Crowley. He was a Ravenclaw." Hermione remembered him vaguely. They had crossed paths in the library a few times.
"Ben received an outstanding on his N.E.W.T.s, but he's only been away from Hogwarts for two years." McGonagall pursed her lips at this.
"Do you have any other options?" Hermione asked, unsure why the Headmistress would be considering someone so young for the position for any other reason.
"Unfortunately, No one else more qualified seems to want the job."
"So, you're hiring him?"
"Yes."
"So what exactly is it you need me to tell you, Pr-Minerva." She forced the word past her teeth with some stumbling.
"You were at the trial. You heard Draco Malfoy's sentencing?"
"Yes."
"I would like to know if you believe Ben to be capable of, on top of teaching for the first time, teaching Draco Malfoy enough about Muggles in one year to pass the exam he will need to take." McGonagall eyed her closely.
"Oh." Hermione looked down at the application. "I rather doubt it."
"As do I, which puts me in quite a predicament. I need Draco to do well. I want him to leave here and be a beacon of reform, Hermione. I want him to lead us into a new future, where we can work side by side and put this hogwash behind us. Slytherin house needs a new beginning. In order for that to happen, I need Draco to pass his Muggle Studies exam at the end of the year."
"What … does ... what do you want me to do?" Hermione asked uneasily.
"I would like you to make sure it happens."
"How?" Hermione set the parchment back into McGonagall's hand. She had a feeling she already knew the answer.
"I would like you to tutor him, starting immediately. You would return to Hogwarts as soon as possible and begin."
Hermione sighed and put her head down in her hands. Flashes of gray eyes and pain while she sobbed his name, pleading with him to help her. Shit. "Isn't there anyone else?"
"No one else that I trust who would be willing." Hermione heard her moving around her desk, and then the older woman was kneeling down next to her with a hand on her back. "Hermione, I know that this could be a disaster. I know it could be painful, but I wouldn't ask if I didn't need your help. I would do it myself if I had the time."
"I'll do it," Hermione told her softly, sitting up. "It will need to be on a trial basis at first. If it goes well, we can continue." The older witch breathed a sigh of relief and stood.
"Thank you, Hermione."
XXX
After she left Hogwarts, Hermione Flooed to Diagon Alley to replenish her supplies for the year and purchase her new books. She couldn't help but stare at the shops that were still unopened and wonder how long it would be before the street would return to its original splendor. The atmosphere was clearly happier, people were smiling and stopping to chat with friends, but behind that it was clear that the war had touched this street. She finished her shopping as quickly as possible and returned to Grimmauld Place.
Once home, Hermione emptied her trunk and began to sort through the old contents and the new supplies, organizing them neatly into her trunk. Some of the supplies were harder to pack than others. When she came across her dittany bottle she fell onto her bed next to the trunk, pulled her knees up to her chin, and sobbed for several long minutes as she remembered Ron after he had been splinched, Harry's bite from Nagini, and the burns they had all suffered at Gringotts. She managed to pull herself together just before she heard movement outside her door. She waved her wand to clean her face, set the dittany in her trunk, and went to open the door.
"How was your meeting?" Harry asked her and then his eyes moved behind her to her open trunk. "What are you doing?"
"I'm packing. Professor McGonagall has asked me to come to Hogwarts early."
"Why?" His piercing green eyes that knew her far too well moved back to hers, and she looked at the buttons on his shirt to avoid them.
"She wants me to teach Malfoy about Muggle Studies."
"What? Are you okay with that?" He wasn't shouting, and he didn't sound angry. He was genuinely concerned. He had known how hard her decision was about the trial. He had known that she was very conflicted about what to think of Malfoy.
"I don't know. I told her I would try it, and if it doesn't work out then it doesn't work out."
"You're a good person, Hermione. He'll be lucky to have you." Harry pulled her into his arms, and she rested her head against his shoulder. She let him hold her against him, and she felt safe. Harry was her family. "I saw Ron," he said quietly.
Hermione pulled back and met his eyes this time. "Did you talk?"
"Yes."
"And?" she asked, afraid of the answer.
Harry shook his head. "He wouldn't tell me where he's going."
"Of course not."
"He seems okay, other than being, just … I don't know."
"Like us?" Hermione offered.
"Yeah." Harry leaned against the door frame. "One day we'll be normal again. We'll all be able to get through the day without … feeling like this."
"I really hope so."
"It's all just really fresh. We need time," Harry assured her.
"What are you going to do without me and Ginny?" She tried to sound lighthearted, but the question truly worried her.
"I don't know. Force Ron to move in, I guess." Harry forced a grin.
"You'd better. You're going to need help cleaning up this house."
"I think I'm going to build a new one instead," he admitted.
"Really?" She had never heard him mention this before, but she supposed it made sense. Grimmauld Place was everything they were trying to escape right now.
"Yeah."
"I think that would be good for you," she told him, and he nodded in agreement.
"So, you're going to be leaving tonight?"
She nodded and bit her lip. "I'll write you all the time, and you'd better write me, too. And send photos of Teddy." Tears were brimming in her eyes as she realized for the first time just how hard it was going to be to be at Hogwarts without Harry and Ron.
"I will. I promise." He moved towards her and pulled her back to hug him again.
A/N: Thank you for the overwhelmingly positive response to the first chapter of this story. I am SO excited about the place this thing is going.
I was going to hold onto this for another week, but I have no self control. I'm the worst. Enjoy it.
I hope you enjoyed ! Review and let me know what you think.
XOXO
Meg
