Frozen Heart
Disclaimer: The characters in this story belong to J.K. Rowling. Does that satisfy you Mr. Lawyer-Person?
A/N: Wow! 39 reviews! I never thought I'd get so many… *daydreams about standing on a stage, surrounded by millions of cheering fans, throwing roses at her that are for some reason black* Oh… sorry. Got carried away. Well here is a list of all the wonderful people that reviewed! Jaime Wood, KAOS, JAMtillDawn, allee kat, KitKatt0430, Selenay, stephanie, iceheart-04, Inu-chan, bunny, Sophiebabe, shivohnsongbreeze, , shibbydragongirl, lily luna, Vanillastar, Simrun, Eriol's bear and Random Anonymous Person 1 and 2! Sorry if I missed anyone!
Doubly special thanks to the tremendously brilliant Amo il ragazzo, who must have written the longest review ever to exist! Yes I am writing a book, but it's too complicated to explain here. I did put it into this story though, can you guess where? It's the Laekalia! All the scenes, characters and plot bits you see in the Laekalia are actually parts taken from the book. (Which won't be called the Laekalia by the way.)
I hope you all enjoy Chapter Three! Don't forget to review!
~*~
Luckily for Malfoy, the Gryffindor common room was a five minute walk from the library, giving Hermione a chance to cool down. She stepped through the portrait hole still angry, but having decided that to tell Harry and Ron would probably result in numerous murders. And expulsions. Malfoy wouldn't dare do it again… he was just wound up because for the first time in his life he lost an argument. Hermione smiled secretively to herself.
She made her way over to the two boys, who were sitting in a well-lit corner talking. About socks.
'Why on earth are you talking about socks?' she said, sitting down on the sofa next to Ron.
'Good question. Why are we talking about socks?'
'Don't ask me.'
Hermione rolled her eyes. 'Well I'm asking you Harry. Why on earth would two teenage boys spend their evenings talking about socks?'
'I think it was just one of those things where you get a long chain of conversations which lead on to strange topics.' Harry replied. 'Oh, and I found a pair of pink flowery ones in the bottom of Ron's trunk.'
Hermione snorted.
'I'm telling you, they're Ginny's. We must have mixed them up when we were packing.' Ron glared at Hermione who couldn't keep a small smile off her face. The thought of Ron wearing pink flowery socks was hilarious. For one thing they'd clash with his hair.
Harry was still spluttering, and Hermione was fighting hard to keep a manic grin off her face. Ron looked defiant.
'It's ok Ron, we believe you.' Hermione reassured him. 'It's just the idea of you wearing pink socks…' she trailed off with a splutter. Pretty soon, they were all laughing.
The topic soon turned to what socks they were wearing at the moment. Ron revealed a boring pair of black socks, and Harry was wearing the mis-matched pair Dobby had given him, which sent them into a fresh bout of hysterics. This was the life, thought Hermione. Spending your evenings in the Gryffindor common room, surrounded by friends, and laughing over some strange and random subject.
They finally recovered, and Hermione found herself almost wishing she'd worn more interesting socks than the plain sky-blue ones she had put on this morning. She told them this, and they all burst into laughter afresh. It was quite possible, with the giddy mood they were in at the moment, that the Apparition of Voldemort himself would probably send them into further hysterics. Hermione bent down to take off a shoe.
'What's that on your arm?' Harry asked suddenly. Drat. Her sleeve had slipped up.
'Oh, nothing.' She said smiling brightly and smoothing her sleeve. 'Look at my socks, aren't they a lovely shade?'
The giddy air suddenly disappeared like a feather in a force nine gale.
'What about your arm?' asked Ron.
'You're not fooling me that easily.' Harry said. 'Let us see.'
Slightly worried – she'd rather not make a fuss and they were certain to over react – she pushed up her sleeve to show them the damaged forearm. It did look worse than it was. The drop of blood that had been there before had run down, almost to her wrist, and the nail marks were still surrounded with an angry red.
Even though conversations were going on all around them, in their corner it seemed suddenly quiet.
Harry spoke first. Very calmly, he said 'Do you want to kill him Ron, or shall I?'
'I'll rip out his intestines,' replied Ron, 'and eat them on an omelette.'
'Fair enough.' said Harry, standing up and heading for the portrait hole.
'Oh no you don't.' said Hermione, grabbing him by the shoulder. 'It's a scratch for goodness's sake. And I'm not having you go and get expelled.'
'We're not going to get expelled.' replied Ron. 'We're going to murder him in a dark and secret dungeon and leave his mutilated body where no-one can find it.'
Hermione looked back and forth between the two boys. They wore near identical expressions of calm anger and something similar to determination. And their minds were totally set on murdering Malfoy.
On reflection, they were taking it better than she had expected.
'Look you two, its hardly anything. We had an argument and he just… overreacted. It was my fault for winding him up. It's a scratch…'
'Oh, sure, it's a scratch today.' interrupted Ron. 'Let him get away with this, there's no telling what he'll do. Today it's a scratch, then a cut, then before you know it he's got you under the Cruciatus curse and…'
'Ron,' said Hermione, kindly breaking him off mid-flow, 'be sensible for a minute. For one thing, the Cruciatus curse is very advanced, no one would be able to do it in fifth year, and secondly you're starting to rant. Sit down.'
Hermione's look was so commanding that the boys sullenly obeyed.
'There is no point in going off and murdering Malfoy, it was mostly my fault for provoking him anyway, and if you did you'd almost certainly get expelled, and…'
'Yes McGonagall.' interjected Harry. 'Oh fine then Hermione,' he said, seeing her retaliating glower, 'there's no need to lecture us. We wont annihilate Malfoy.'
'We won't?' asked Ron, looking disappointed.
'Not yet. Maybe later.'
'Can't we slightly kill him?'
'What are you on about Ron?' said Hermione. 'Slightly kill someone? Either they're dead or they aren't. There's no slightly about it.'
'Ok then.' he said. 'But if he hurts you again, I'll rip out his innards, feed them to some Blast-Ended Skrewts, and throw the bloody remains of his body into the lake for the giant squid to eat.'
'Nice imagery.'
'Thanks.'
~*~
Meanwhile, the subject of these violent discussions was lying on his bed, many floors below them, in the Slytherin dungeons. He was thinking.
What was the dammed reason? There had to be a reason. He couldn't just have been brought up his whole life on a prejudice-born lie! He was smarter than that. Or at least he thought he was.
But he'd thought of everything. Every possible area where Purebloods could have superiority, and there was something that showed it to be impossible. Intelligence, magical strength, physical strength, everything – there were always some Mudbloods that proved the hypothesis wrong.
Damn that Mudblood Granger! Why did she have to ask that question? He couldn't be sure of anything anymore. He'd rather have remained ignorantly prejudiced. She had no idea of the problems it would cause if he started thinking Purebloods weren't superior. His whole life had been built on that one truth, and then to realise it's a lie?
He cursed Hermione with every curse he could think of. Damn her! This was all her fault. She had to go and ask that question, and now he didn't know what to think. It felt to Draco, although he would never have admitted it even to himself, as though believing that Mudbloods were inferior had been like being locked in a very dark room of ignorance. And Hermione had opened the door, allowing in a flood of light that was so violent he wished he had never seen it, wanted to be back inside the dark room he had never really known he was in. And, although again he would deny it even to himself, he felt the beginnings of respect.
His father would kill him if he knew what he was thinking. Potter and Weasel were probably going to kill him anyway when they found out what he did to Granger's arm. He really shouldn't have done that. He didn't mean to – he just did it without thinking. Maybe if he apologised tomorrow? What was he thinking! She's a Mudblood. You don't apologise to Mudbloods. But why not?
He wondered briefly if she felt how cold his skin was. He was pretty sure she felt his fingertips at least, most likely his palm as well. But did she notice? Hopefully not. The last thing he needed was a damned Gryffindor finding out about the curse. She'd probably try to help.
Draco smirked to himself. The thought was humorous. As far as he knew the Glacios curse had no cure. Then again most of the books he knew that would list it were in the Restricted Section, so there could well be. He hoped there was. Being permanently freezing was not the most fun thing in the world. He had almost forgotten what it was like to be warm.
It had been over the summer, when he had… irritated his father one too many times. It had been a punishment. And ever since Draco hadn't felt warmth. Not the warm flickering of fire, not the gentle glow of the sun. Only the permafrost that surrounded him.
Arctic colours. Silver hair and grey eyes. Cold features, icy skin, frozen heart.
~*~
Potions was the first lesson of the next morning. A whole hour sitting in the grim dungeons, Snape prowling the desks like meanness personified, praising the Slytherins and criticising the Gryffindors.
Naturally, not many of the Gryffindors looked forward to the lesson.
The corridor outside the potions dungeon was drab and dull, cold grey stone walls, lit mainly by magical torches in keeping with the medieval dungeons. The light, therefore, was sparse and flickering, giving the corridor a surreal look. The combined classes of Gryffindor and Slytherin thronged the corridor, each house keeping to one side as if there was an invisible line that they could not cross. They chatted amongst themselves, awaiting the arrival of the teacher.
Harry, Ron and Hermione were productively wasting the time before they went in by glaring at Malfoy, who was standing in one of the half shadowed areas with Crabbe and Goyle flanking him on either side. The silver-haired boy said something to his 'bodyguards', who nodded stupidly. Not one emotion crossed any of the three boys' faces. In one case this was from a well-practiced ability and perfect self-control. In the other two cases it was unfortunately from stupidity.
'Git.' said Ron with feeling.
'Remember what I told you. No murder.'
Snape chose that moment to make his entrance, looking exactly like the Grim Reaper would if he had misplaced his scythe and was pretty angry about it. The classes pushed reluctantly towards the entrance after him.
The three Gryffindors waited until about half the class had entered, before turning to join the crowd. Hermione threw a last glare over her shoulder at the spot where Malfoy had been, but he was gone.
She had barely taken two steps towards the door, however, before a voice cut her off in her tracks.
'Granger.'
That was Malfoy's voice. She subconsciously felt Harry and Ron tense next to her, and was glad of it.
'What?'
'I apologise.'
This was probably the one sentence Hermione had never expected to hear him say.
'Apologise?' she spluttered, shocked.
'For last night. Your arm. Is it alright?'
He had a glint of malice in his eye, and despite his neutral voice, didn't seem to want to apologise at all. Hermione wondered why? He hated her, and she hated him. So what had caused him to apologise? She blinked a few times to make sure she wasn't seeing things. When Malfoy failed to disappear, she pulled herself together and said in a voice that sounded too faint to be her own, 'It's okay.'
He gave her a violently brief nod, and with perfect grace, turned and joined the remaining stragglers that trickled through the door.
'Did Malfoy just apologise,' said Hermione weakly, 'or was I hallucinating?'
'If you were hallucinating, I was.' said Harry.
Ron looked doleful. 'I bet someone slipped something into the eggs. I thought they tasted funny.'
Harry and Hermione just had time to give Ron a very weird look before the three of them had to enter the classroom.
~*~
A/N: So, Draco seems to be getting the shimmering of a conscience! I hope you all like it. Poor Draco though – that Glacios curse doesn't sound like fun! In case you missed it/didn't understand it, it's basically a Dark curse his father cast on him as a punishment, with the effect of making you feel like you're permanently freezing. If you want to get the idea, go fill the bath on only the cold tap, and drop in a few ice cubes…
Please review! All flames will be sent to Draco – he needs them! Poor Draco…