Life on the Other SIde 4 - Common Ground.
by Maenad
Disclaimer: These aren't mine. Neither are the lyrics. NOTE: This is NOT a songfic.
Author's note: I'm changing the rating, 'coz it's just gotten very dark indeed. Blame recent events (and events 60-odd years ago) not me.
LIFE ON THE OTHER SIDE 4
COMMON GROUND.
The group ate their lunch back at Hermione's house and started talking about what they wanted to research for their essays when they got back to Hogwarts. Ron and Sophie had been intrigued by the microwave and Hermione hunted out some old physics textbooks for them to read. Maria wanted to know about Muggle medicine, so she got an old, dusty book of common illnesses and another book dealing with homeopathy and alternative medicines, which Hermione's father had bought for a laugh, but had eventually led him to try acupuncture when dealing with toothache. They had gone off to other rooms to start reading. Hermione was reading The Guardian, which she had picked up at the supermarket, in order to research contemporary politics, and Draco was looking at the Grangers' bookshelves in search of inspiration, picking out books, flicking through them, making sounds of denigration and putting them back without settling on anything. After half-an-hour of this Hermione looked up from her newspaper, looking annoyed.
"Haven't you found anything yet, Malfoy?" she snapped.
"Not if you don't count the Kama Sutra," he said, casually waving in front of her a book with two people doing naughty things on the cover. "I wonder what this is doing in your parents' bookcase? Never mind - care to help me with the practical research?"
"Very funny," she snarled, folding up her paper and coming to stand next to him by the shelves. "What sort of subject are you after anyway?"
"Something that won't put Muggles in a good light. Your parents are very nice, Hermione, but I can't believe all Muggles are all pleasant all the time. I'm not going to praise Muggles to the skies, you know." Looking at Hermione, who didn't look at all pleased, he continued. "For one thing, my father would be extremely angry if I did."
Hermione was starting to get angry at Draco, who seemed that he couldn't give up his prejudices at Muggles in General, although his one-to-one conversation with Mabel proved that he could at least treat them with sympathy. But his last sentence made her think again. As he was saying it, something had slipped from behind his laconic exterior and for a second he actually looked... nervous? Hermione thought about what she knew of his father, Lucius. Harry had told her that he was among the Death-Eaters when he had faced Voldemort after the Triwizard Tournament, and the couple of times she saw him he had sneered at her. No, he didn't like Muggles at all. And the few times she'd seen him with Draco it was quite obvious that Draco was very subordinate to him. Seeing Draco's nervousness, she began to wonder what dort of father he really was, but decided not to mention it.
Instead, she reached up to the books and pulled out a large book with "Holocaust" on the cover. Biting her lip, she gave it to him.
"You heard of what the Dark wizard Grindelwald got up to in the 1940's? This is about what a group of Muggles, called Nazis, were doing to another group, called Jews, at the same time. I think that it shows the depths to which Muggles can sink in their treatment of one another."
Hermione looked so upset while saying this that Draco started to ask her what was wrong. He stopped himself, though, fearing to show concern for a Mudblood. Hermione, however, had already picked up her paper and left the room. Shrugging, Draco sat down on one of the Grangers' comfortable armchairs and began to read.
It wasn't long before he saw what Hermione had meant. Stories of brutal torture, horrendous concentration camps and mass killings sickened him, and when photographs of some of the survivors found when the Americans had liberated the camps appeared, he went into shock. These people didn't even look like humans anymore, but more like skeletons or zombies. The records of research on killing methods and "medical research" appalled him with their cold, scientific approach to inflicting suffering and pain.
He decided to try and find out why this had all happened. Scanning the bookshelves again he found a history of Germany in the 1930's and 40's, and a biography of Hitler. With shock he read about Hitler's reasoning behind blaming the Jews for Germany's problems and the ease with which he convinced a large section of the German people to follow his ideas, and the Nuremberg laws and Kristallnacht that started off the whole horrible nightmare, and the Final Solution, the aim of which was to destroy every Jew in the world.
The worst part of the whole thing, though, was that even though he read the books with an unbelieving horror, he recognised in the discrimination of the Jews, and the ideas and attitudes that the Nazis held towards them, a reflection of the ideas and attitudes that he, his father, and his father's friends held towards Muggles. Worse still, a small, cold part of him regarded the idea of the Final Solution as nothing worse than efficient and effective.
Appalled at his conclusions, he put the books on a nearby table and went to se Hermione.
Ron and Sophie were reading through the physics textbooks in the room Ron was sharing with Draco. When Hermione entered they were lying on their stomachs in the middle of the room, with their heads together, looking at a large diagram of an atom.
"So electrons are negative, protons are positive and neutrons are neutral, with no charge," Ron was saying.
"And the number of electrons equals the number of protons in a stable atom," added Sophie.
"How are you two doing?" asked Hermione. Ron and Sophie jumped up on hearing her voice and moved quickly away from each other. Sophie was blushing furiously and Ron was red to the roots of his hair, which now looked pale in comparison. Hermione studiously ignored this, however, and looked at the books that were scattered over the room. "Find anything interesting?" she asked.
"Umm, yeah, well, the size of the atoms explains how electrical things can work with very thin wires," said Ron.
"But I can't understand how Muggles know that they exist if they are so small," said Sophie.
"Well, I think what happened was that some Greek philosopher thought that if you cut something in half, and then in half again, and kept going, you would eventually come up with something that couldn't be halved and that something was an atom; and poeple just built on that idea. And then, even if you can't see something, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist," Hermione replied, looking at a loss.
"But you don't know for sure?" Ron pressed.
"Muggles start learning this stuff when they are about eleven, but I went to Hogwarts instead," she replied.
"Oh my goodness! Something that Hermione doesn't know!" squealed Sophie.
"Well, my parents tried to make me learn Muggle subjects when I went home during the holidays, but on top of my homework and trying to learn all about magic that I could it was just too much, and frankly not all that interesting either. Give me Arithmancy over Arithmetic any day!" she laughed.
"Fair enough Hermione, but can you help us understand this?" Ron asked, pointing to a section in the book. Hermione agreed, and spent about an hour puzzling through her brother's old books, with Ron and Sophie sneaking laughing glances at each other every time Hermione was stumped.
Finally Hermione had had enough, and realised that she still had her newspaper to read, so she made her excuses and left. As she shut the door she noticed Ron move to sit close to Sophie again.
She went to her room, put a CD on and started to read her newspaper, but she couldn't concentrate. Bringing up the subject of the Holocaust to Draco had raised some unpleasant memories, and seeing Ron and Sophie giggling and whispering to each other made her feel a little depressed and left out. She lay back on her bed, folded her newspaper and laid it to one side, closed her eyes and let the melancholy sound of Radiohead wash over her.
Draco found Hermione in her room, lying on her bed, with the newspaper folded by her side. Muggle music was emerging from a piece of electrical equipment on her desk. Slow, depressing, and with uncomfortable words sung by a surreal voice filled with hate and despair, it suited his mood perfectly. Hermione hadn't heard him come in, but she wasn't asleep as her hand was marking the beat and her lips were moving in time with the singer's words. Draco reached out and touched her shoulder, and she jumped up and jerked away. Seeing Draco, she tensed.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I read the book," he said, and sat down cross-legged by the bed, looking down, with his hair covering his eyes.
"And?" she said, turning onto her side and propping her head up with one hand.
"I never realised that hatred could be so ugly," he said softly.
"Yes," she replied. "But... I never thought you'd see it that way."
"How did you think I'd see it?" he asked, curious.
"Only as you'd said - as something that would make Muggles look bad. Easily influenced, only thinly civilised, capable of outbursts of horrifying violence..." she tailed off.
"Hermione..." he started, then stopped, thought, and started again. "You're one of Potter's best friends, so I assume you know that my father is a Death Eater." She nodded. "Well, I can use all this to write something that will make it look like I think that way - and I will have to. My father... has a certain amount of control over me." She nodded again, but said nothing. "But I want at least you to know that that is not everything that I learned. Muggles are susceptible to hate, violence and all the rest of it, but so are wizards. It isn't anything we can act superior about. And... I won't let my father or anyone else create another Holocaust if I can help it." He fell silent.
"Draco, I have something I want to tell you, but it's very uncomfortable. Please bear with me?" Hermione said.
Draco looked up. "Go on," he said. "I'm listening."
She took a deep breath. "My mother's father was a German, and was a member of the S.S. in the war. He served for a while in Belsen, one of the death camps, and took part in much of the killing. But near the end of the war he was called back to Berlin and was there when it fell. A few years later he came to Britain , as he spoke good English, and eventually married my grandmother. She knew nothing of his past, and he kept it secret from everyone until he died a few years ago, when some papers were found in his attic that told the whole story." She looked directly at him. "My point is that my mother, my brothers and myself are descendants of a mass-murderer, and this is something I will have to live with all my life. But just because my grandfather did some evil things, that doesn't mean that I am evil as well. And neither are you."
Draco had listened to her in silence, watching her struggle to tell her story, which was obviously very painful for her. For the first time he felt something linking him to her in a way he had never expected. Her eyes were filled with tears, although she refused to let them fall, and her breath was jerky and irregular. Watching her fighting to control herself in front of him, something inside him suddenly shifted and he found himself wanting to comfort her. She was someone who could, albeit in a small way, empathize with him. He reached out and touched her hair, then leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Then, habit taking over, he got up and strode out of the room.
-----------------------------------------
That's it sir,
You're leaving,
The crackle
Of pigskin,
The dust and
The screaming,
The yuppies networking,
The panic,
The vomit,
The panic,
The vomit,
God loves his children,
God loves his children, yeah.
(Words from Paranoid Android by Radiohead).
by Maenad
Disclaimer: These aren't mine. Neither are the lyrics. NOTE: This is NOT a songfic.
Author's note: I'm changing the rating, 'coz it's just gotten very dark indeed. Blame recent events (and events 60-odd years ago) not me.
LIFE ON THE OTHER SIDE 4
COMMON GROUND.
The group ate their lunch back at Hermione's house and started talking about what they wanted to research for their essays when they got back to Hogwarts. Ron and Sophie had been intrigued by the microwave and Hermione hunted out some old physics textbooks for them to read. Maria wanted to know about Muggle medicine, so she got an old, dusty book of common illnesses and another book dealing with homeopathy and alternative medicines, which Hermione's father had bought for a laugh, but had eventually led him to try acupuncture when dealing with toothache. They had gone off to other rooms to start reading. Hermione was reading The Guardian, which she had picked up at the supermarket, in order to research contemporary politics, and Draco was looking at the Grangers' bookshelves in search of inspiration, picking out books, flicking through them, making sounds of denigration and putting them back without settling on anything. After half-an-hour of this Hermione looked up from her newspaper, looking annoyed.
"Haven't you found anything yet, Malfoy?" she snapped.
"Not if you don't count the Kama Sutra," he said, casually waving in front of her a book with two people doing naughty things on the cover. "I wonder what this is doing in your parents' bookcase? Never mind - care to help me with the practical research?"
"Very funny," she snarled, folding up her paper and coming to stand next to him by the shelves. "What sort of subject are you after anyway?"
"Something that won't put Muggles in a good light. Your parents are very nice, Hermione, but I can't believe all Muggles are all pleasant all the time. I'm not going to praise Muggles to the skies, you know." Looking at Hermione, who didn't look at all pleased, he continued. "For one thing, my father would be extremely angry if I did."
Hermione was starting to get angry at Draco, who seemed that he couldn't give up his prejudices at Muggles in General, although his one-to-one conversation with Mabel proved that he could at least treat them with sympathy. But his last sentence made her think again. As he was saying it, something had slipped from behind his laconic exterior and for a second he actually looked... nervous? Hermione thought about what she knew of his father, Lucius. Harry had told her that he was among the Death-Eaters when he had faced Voldemort after the Triwizard Tournament, and the couple of times she saw him he had sneered at her. No, he didn't like Muggles at all. And the few times she'd seen him with Draco it was quite obvious that Draco was very subordinate to him. Seeing Draco's nervousness, she began to wonder what dort of father he really was, but decided not to mention it.
Instead, she reached up to the books and pulled out a large book with "Holocaust" on the cover. Biting her lip, she gave it to him.
"You heard of what the Dark wizard Grindelwald got up to in the 1940's? This is about what a group of Muggles, called Nazis, were doing to another group, called Jews, at the same time. I think that it shows the depths to which Muggles can sink in their treatment of one another."
Hermione looked so upset while saying this that Draco started to ask her what was wrong. He stopped himself, though, fearing to show concern for a Mudblood. Hermione, however, had already picked up her paper and left the room. Shrugging, Draco sat down on one of the Grangers' comfortable armchairs and began to read.
It wasn't long before he saw what Hermione had meant. Stories of brutal torture, horrendous concentration camps and mass killings sickened him, and when photographs of some of the survivors found when the Americans had liberated the camps appeared, he went into shock. These people didn't even look like humans anymore, but more like skeletons or zombies. The records of research on killing methods and "medical research" appalled him with their cold, scientific approach to inflicting suffering and pain.
He decided to try and find out why this had all happened. Scanning the bookshelves again he found a history of Germany in the 1930's and 40's, and a biography of Hitler. With shock he read about Hitler's reasoning behind blaming the Jews for Germany's problems and the ease with which he convinced a large section of the German people to follow his ideas, and the Nuremberg laws and Kristallnacht that started off the whole horrible nightmare, and the Final Solution, the aim of which was to destroy every Jew in the world.
The worst part of the whole thing, though, was that even though he read the books with an unbelieving horror, he recognised in the discrimination of the Jews, and the ideas and attitudes that the Nazis held towards them, a reflection of the ideas and attitudes that he, his father, and his father's friends held towards Muggles. Worse still, a small, cold part of him regarded the idea of the Final Solution as nothing worse than efficient and effective.
Appalled at his conclusions, he put the books on a nearby table and went to se Hermione.
Ron and Sophie were reading through the physics textbooks in the room Ron was sharing with Draco. When Hermione entered they were lying on their stomachs in the middle of the room, with their heads together, looking at a large diagram of an atom.
"So electrons are negative, protons are positive and neutrons are neutral, with no charge," Ron was saying.
"And the number of electrons equals the number of protons in a stable atom," added Sophie.
"How are you two doing?" asked Hermione. Ron and Sophie jumped up on hearing her voice and moved quickly away from each other. Sophie was blushing furiously and Ron was red to the roots of his hair, which now looked pale in comparison. Hermione studiously ignored this, however, and looked at the books that were scattered over the room. "Find anything interesting?" she asked.
"Umm, yeah, well, the size of the atoms explains how electrical things can work with very thin wires," said Ron.
"But I can't understand how Muggles know that they exist if they are so small," said Sophie.
"Well, I think what happened was that some Greek philosopher thought that if you cut something in half, and then in half again, and kept going, you would eventually come up with something that couldn't be halved and that something was an atom; and poeple just built on that idea. And then, even if you can't see something, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist," Hermione replied, looking at a loss.
"But you don't know for sure?" Ron pressed.
"Muggles start learning this stuff when they are about eleven, but I went to Hogwarts instead," she replied.
"Oh my goodness! Something that Hermione doesn't know!" squealed Sophie.
"Well, my parents tried to make me learn Muggle subjects when I went home during the holidays, but on top of my homework and trying to learn all about magic that I could it was just too much, and frankly not all that interesting either. Give me Arithmancy over Arithmetic any day!" she laughed.
"Fair enough Hermione, but can you help us understand this?" Ron asked, pointing to a section in the book. Hermione agreed, and spent about an hour puzzling through her brother's old books, with Ron and Sophie sneaking laughing glances at each other every time Hermione was stumped.
Finally Hermione had had enough, and realised that she still had her newspaper to read, so she made her excuses and left. As she shut the door she noticed Ron move to sit close to Sophie again.
She went to her room, put a CD on and started to read her newspaper, but she couldn't concentrate. Bringing up the subject of the Holocaust to Draco had raised some unpleasant memories, and seeing Ron and Sophie giggling and whispering to each other made her feel a little depressed and left out. She lay back on her bed, folded her newspaper and laid it to one side, closed her eyes and let the melancholy sound of Radiohead wash over her.
Draco found Hermione in her room, lying on her bed, with the newspaper folded by her side. Muggle music was emerging from a piece of electrical equipment on her desk. Slow, depressing, and with uncomfortable words sung by a surreal voice filled with hate and despair, it suited his mood perfectly. Hermione hadn't heard him come in, but she wasn't asleep as her hand was marking the beat and her lips were moving in time with the singer's words. Draco reached out and touched her shoulder, and she jumped up and jerked away. Seeing Draco, she tensed.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I read the book," he said, and sat down cross-legged by the bed, looking down, with his hair covering his eyes.
"And?" she said, turning onto her side and propping her head up with one hand.
"I never realised that hatred could be so ugly," he said softly.
"Yes," she replied. "But... I never thought you'd see it that way."
"How did you think I'd see it?" he asked, curious.
"Only as you'd said - as something that would make Muggles look bad. Easily influenced, only thinly civilised, capable of outbursts of horrifying violence..." she tailed off.
"Hermione..." he started, then stopped, thought, and started again. "You're one of Potter's best friends, so I assume you know that my father is a Death Eater." She nodded. "Well, I can use all this to write something that will make it look like I think that way - and I will have to. My father... has a certain amount of control over me." She nodded again, but said nothing. "But I want at least you to know that that is not everything that I learned. Muggles are susceptible to hate, violence and all the rest of it, but so are wizards. It isn't anything we can act superior about. And... I won't let my father or anyone else create another Holocaust if I can help it." He fell silent.
"Draco, I have something I want to tell you, but it's very uncomfortable. Please bear with me?" Hermione said.
Draco looked up. "Go on," he said. "I'm listening."
She took a deep breath. "My mother's father was a German, and was a member of the S.S. in the war. He served for a while in Belsen, one of the death camps, and took part in much of the killing. But near the end of the war he was called back to Berlin and was there when it fell. A few years later he came to Britain , as he spoke good English, and eventually married my grandmother. She knew nothing of his past, and he kept it secret from everyone until he died a few years ago, when some papers were found in his attic that told the whole story." She looked directly at him. "My point is that my mother, my brothers and myself are descendants of a mass-murderer, and this is something I will have to live with all my life. But just because my grandfather did some evil things, that doesn't mean that I am evil as well. And neither are you."
Draco had listened to her in silence, watching her struggle to tell her story, which was obviously very painful for her. For the first time he felt something linking him to her in a way he had never expected. Her eyes were filled with tears, although she refused to let them fall, and her breath was jerky and irregular. Watching her fighting to control herself in front of him, something inside him suddenly shifted and he found himself wanting to comfort her. She was someone who could, albeit in a small way, empathize with him. He reached out and touched her hair, then leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Then, habit taking over, he got up and strode out of the room.
-----------------------------------------
That's it sir,
You're leaving,
The crackle
Of pigskin,
The dust and
The screaming,
The yuppies networking,
The panic,
The vomit,
The panic,
The vomit,
God loves his children,
God loves his children, yeah.
(Words from Paranoid Android by Radiohead).