Before She Learned To Trust:
By: Fire Goddess
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Chapter 2: Caught in a Spell~*~
Hermione couldn't come up with a logical answer as to why she was following Draco Malfoy. After all the nasty comments he'd made about her and Harry and Ron, and all the trouble he had gotten them into, here she was walking with him down a corridor in Hogwarts that she'd never been…all because he knew about the ghost she'd seen. What was her name again…Gráinne?
Draco slid a glance at Hermione, observing with some satisfaction that Hermione looked confused as to why she was here. To be honest, he was confused as to why he even told her about Lady Gráinne; it was supposed to be a secret. A legend that reached the ears of few Hogwarts Professors and even fewer Hogwarts students. But his instinct pulled him to tell her about her. About Him. About the spell.
Draco highly doubted that she knew of the legend, anyway, because the few who did know the legend were in Slytherin. It was not a happy legend of fair maidens and gallant knights or of the ancient warlocks that were so feared in dark ages, but of the love that was lost between two who feared what love might bring them.
Draco had to admire her, though. Hermione had certainly grown up over the last few years or so – her trademark brown hair was still bushy, but not so much that it didn't look exotic. She still had big brown eyes that sat untouched under a pair of slashing brown brows that could kill. Her full lips, he noted, were bare except for the single coat of gloss she put on, most likely to keep them from becoming chapped more than to attract male eyes. Her skin was flawless and just over the bridge of her nose was a spray of freckles just a hint darker than her already pale skin that made her still look innocent.
He knew all too well the legend, and surprisingly, Hermione looked stunningly like the Lady who walked the halls as she waited for the love that would set her free from the spell that bound her to the corridors of Hogwarts.
Hermione told herself it was only out of curiosity that she was walking with Malfoy. She wasn't going to become one of those girls she so often saw throwing themselves at him, only to be trampled on – their hearts in more pieces than Malfoy had money. Besides, his story intrigued her; it was like a dream remembered, flashbacks of a previous life. That fake, Trawleny, or whatever the old coot's name was, would probably be very proud of her at the moment for having 'visions of a former life', Hermione thought sourly.
Gráinne.
It was a name that floated like music and danced merrily on the tongue, but the story behind it, she thought, was probably one of great sadness and longing; oh yes, Hermione knew what it was like to long for something. Or worse, to pine for it.
The torches of the dungeons filled the dreary shadows with a hazy orange color, illuminating Draco's platinum hair making it seem almost strawberry-blond, his pale skin glow and his stormy gray eyes that held the story Hermione wanted to badly to hear were contorted into an almost-mocking expression.
"Well, are you going to tell me your story or not, Malfoy?" She raised one of those killer brows in anticipation for his answer.
So, he thought, she didn't know about the legend after all, "You mean the great Know-It-All of Gryffindor Tower doesn't know the legend?" He looked down at her as she said she didn't and said, "Well, that depends,"
"Depends on what?" She knew she probably shouldn't trust his answer; he was a Malfoy, after all.
"It depends on weather or not you're going to run off and tell your boyfriends that I raped you when all I really did was tell you a story," he said this as if it were the most natural thing to say.
"They're not my boyfriends," Besides, she thought grimly, they were probably off snogging each other at the moment, anyway – not like she was going to tell Malfoy that, they would kill her first. "And why would I say you raped me? That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Harry and Ron probably think I'm in the library at any rate, so I won't be missed for a few hours yet."
"Is that all you do, Granger? Go to the library?" She shot him A Look, and he smirked as he began the tale from long ago, "She is a ghost who walks the halls of Hogwarts, longing for the love and weeping for the love she refused to see until another pair finds the love she was presented with and accepts it. It's a spell that binds her heart here. Michael's here too…but he's rarely ever seen."
"Michael?"
"Her love, the Knight in Shining Armor."
"Obviously, but why the name Michael? It just seems so…plebian." All ghosts had a story, but why was this one so special?
"Because Grace, as she was called in her school days, turned away from the man she loved in because she thought it was the right thing to do. Most ghosts are kept alive by some gruesome form of failed murder or torture, these two are kept alive by the pain they felt by denying what they should have accepted." He looked at Hermione, and saw that the mask she usually wore was gone; her guard let down and the fact that she was sitting alone with a Slytherin, and a Malfoy, no less, seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind.
"Grace had raven curled hair as black as the midnight sky and eyes as green as moss that shone with laughter, she was tall and slender and lured the hearts of many young men to her with her intelligence, wit and beauty that seemed to radiate wherever she went. She, ironically, was in the little haven you call home, but she was drawn to him. He pulled at her soul like no one else did, and she longed to spend her life with him, but her fear of disappointing her family stopped her from the life she wanted to live in the end."
Draco had, for some reason unbeknownst to him, had sat down in a dimly lit hall and watched as Hermione sat down across from him, her skirt hiking up a bit showing off her long, trim legs, which Draco helped himself to a nice long look as she sat listening intently, "Michael was your average Slytherin Prefect, smart in all subjects, especially the Dark Arts and Potions, a candidate for Head Boy, and training to become a Dark Wizard. He was also from a very respectable wizarding family who didn't have anything to do with her family, but when he saw Grace, he forgot about the rules he grew up by, he forgot how they were in different Houses; in short, he forgot everything when he saw her.
"So he went to her one night, offering his love to her, saying, 'Grace, these are my desire for you, take them and me.' As he poured the emeralds that were the color of her eyes before her, she refused him as a single tear fell down her cheek saying, 'How can you offer what is not yours to give? We hardly know each other, and you offer your desire to me?' she turned away from him, knowing that the desire that he felt for her was just as strong as hers was for him, but that they were too young to know what they really wanted from life. So they lived together for the next year, and they were each made Head's, and once again, and at the end of the year, Michael went to her, this time saying, as he held out gold diamonds in his hands to her, 'Grace, these are my passion for you, take them, and me and you shall have all the pretty things you want in the world and more.' But, again, she refused him, saying that she didn't want pretty trinkets and baubles, there were responsibilities she had to uphold, just as he had his, and he went away from her, defeated and angry that she should refuse him a second time."
Draco paused, thinking that perhaps Hermione had not been listening, but was surprised to see her still looking at him, her gaze never wavering.
"Is that what you would do, if you loved a women? Offer her all the things you have within your power of getting in hopes that she would take you?" She asked, her voice strong and clear, eyes holding soft but obvious flames deep inside.
Draco looked at her, unable to answer, and said at length, "It's hard to say what I would do, but if the women loved me for who I am, then why should I offer her things she isn't interested in?" He studied her and then gave her an another answer that was probably more like him, "But if she didn't matter to me, why not shower her with gifts? Most women love baubles and the like."
His gaze swept over her frame sitting across from him and he saw that she was relaxed, not tense as she normally was around him, but she sat as she if she had weekly conversations in a dark corridor with her enemy and he continued.
"So Grace married a man her parents could be proud of, and someone she loved. She led a happy life, and the children she bore were the love of her live. The man she married was good to her always, but there was no desire, no passion, no reckless danger that she felt whenever she was around Michael. And so she often walked the halls of her mansion thinking about what might have been if she had accepted his gifts and what he offered her. Money, power, fame, love. It was on one such night that her wanderings led her outside, where her children and her husband and her often sat together, and as she came out, she noticed a man sitting there. He wore a dark traveling cloak and held a broomstick in his right hand, and his startling blue eyes looked intently upon Gráinne."
Hermione was hanging on his every word as he spun out the tale of her ghost. His voice was musical, almost, and eyes alert as she saw him watching her every move. She repositioned herself so that she could see his face easier and so that she was half hidden in the shadow of the hall where the light from the lantern didn't reach as Draco continued his tale, "It had been some years since her children had left, and her husband had died, and all that time, she had been faithful to him and to her duties. And her duties had brought her much respect for what people often thought could not be done, but tonight all her courage and pride failed as she looked into the eyes of her lover from so long ago. But she was old, and her life was almost spent, but in his eyes, all he saw was the beautiful witch he had fallen in love with so long ago. So, he drew out his hand and held out pearls, which poured from his hands like moonbeams as he said to her, "Gráinne, these are my consistence for you. Take them an me, for I have been waiting for you many moons."
"But, as she refused him one last time, her heart shattered into pieces at realizing her own foolery for not accepting what he had to offer her. For not trusting him. "I am too old and my end is so near. What difference would it make now if I accepted what you hold out to me?" Her eyes were full of tears as she boldly looked the man she loved in the eyes, "If you had said the words instead of offering the gifts that you have at your disposal, than I might have taken what you offered…" her voice trailed off and her eyes were full of regret and passion as his eyes clouded over with storms of anger at being refused once again. Michael couldn't bear to look at her, and he turned his back on her and flew away into the night, casting a spell on them that would keep them apart until two more came together as they had and accepted the trust that was given."
His story finished, Draco looked over at the still figure sitting next to him.
"Is that it? They're separated until two people fall in love?" There had to be more to it than that, she had seen them before, Michael and Gráinne, in her dreams and felt the cold breeze that froze her heart as Michael had flown into the night sky, never to see his love again until the time when she learned to trust. It was like she had been there, and when Gráinne cried; it felt like she was crying, too.
But what did it all mean?
"Yes, that is it." His voice was full of steel again, it all comes down to trust, and the words that were not said." His voice snapped her out of her solitary thoughts, "Is it true that women want words more than what they can have?"
I love you.
You don't just say those words to just anyone, but if you don't say them, then holes are made. But, still, Hermione smiled to herself, "Well, a smart girl would find a way to keep both things, love and money."
"Is that what you are?" Draco asked and he tried to follow her gaze, but it went to some place far off, in a world far away from the bleak corridor they were in, "A smart girl who would keep both things?"
He wanted to know what would break Hermione Granger, Know-it-all of Gryffindor tower: love and tenderness or money and power.
She said, at length, but in a clear strong voice nonetheless, "it would depend on the man that was offering. Words that aren't said leave holes that can't be filled, but things that are offered in place of words are sometimes worse; like trying to fit a piece of a puzzle into it's wrong place and it won't fit, no matter how hard you try."
She got up to leave, but stopped and looked over her shoulder at Draco, who was still on the floor, "Why, are you planning on telling some Slytherin slut you love her, or try and dazzle her with you immense wealth?" She smirked, knowing that Draco wouldn't try and come back with anything now, not after the story of Gráinne and Michael.
To her surprise, Draco laughed. He laughed. "Why would I tell them I love them when I can barely stand to be around half of them? The only thing they're good for is a good shag in the broom closet every now and then – and sometimes that gets old."
"You're hateful, you know that?" She said as she made to take the next turn, but was suddenly grabbed by the arm and shoved against the wall by none other than Himself.
"Oh, so you really are going to rape me, then, are you?"
"Stupid Mudblood," he growled in her ear, "don't you know anything?"
Hermione only shrugged, having decided long ago that it would most likely be useless to try and break free of Draco's iron grasp on her forearms.
"You could have died," he looked her in her eyes, which to his surprise were calm and full of mysteries, "no one goes down that corridor ever."
"Gee, Malfoy, I didn't know you cared," She looked at his hands, which were still firmly planted on her forearms and said in a cold voice, "but you can let go of my arms now. I wouldn't want to tarnish your pristine Pureblood skin with my dirty Mudblood skin, now would I?"
He only scowled at her and promptly removed his hands from her arms. When he had backed off some distance, he told Hermione not to go down that hall ever again; she made a mental note to look for it on Harry's map later and to check Hogwarts, A History, but she had a feeling she wouldn't find it on there – much like the Chamber of Secrets hadn't been in it, either.
"Look, Granger, just go past this corridor and take the second left. Go up the stairs and take the fourth door on the right and you'll be in the entrance to the Great Hall." His voice was deep and muted, and before she could respond, she heard the soft clicking of his shoes walk the other direction leaving her nothing but to follow his directions.
It was quite late by the time that Hermione managed to find her way back to the common room (Malfoy's directions had been right, but she took a wrong turn on the third floor and had to go out of her way to get back to the Tower), and Ron and Harry thought she had been in her Haven the whole time that she was gone, so there was no reason to tell them any different and have them worry about her 'walk' with a certain Slytherin.
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Disclaimer: I don't own any of this, probably not even the plot, and never will and am not making any money off of it – although I wish I was.
A/N: Okay, so I know you all probably hate me…I kind of forgot about this. But, I didn't have school today and so I thought I'd finally type it up! I'm so sorry for how long this took to write…I'm a horrible person, I know. A big thanks to my Beta, Snow-Queen (a.k.a. s_a14 at The Park) and a big shout-out to all my SS Leather & Libraries Shippers out there!
Thanks to: Dreaming One, Beau Coeur, dmbabe, Willow, Veggie-Babu-Chan, eden, poopookachoo, Lynn, Ultimate Fairy Queen, The Charmed One, Lauren, ilovetidus, Miss Razberry, draco_herm4eva, hazeleyz, and Lauriena and snow-queen for reviewing!
Aloha~
Fire goddess,
The one and only.