Seeking Perfection

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Disclaimer: However much I may have wanted the rights to this lot for Christmas, none of my presents contained copyright notices. They still belong to J.K. Rowling, that goddess of children's books.

A/N: Thanks for 286 reviews goes to: KeeperOfTheMoon, willowfairy, AideeEight, Queen Li, dixiedogbud, The Dragon Guardian Of The Sea, MaliShka, Saotoshi Hatsuma, Purple People Eater, Lilian, Katrina, HP1fan, StarJade, Madiszon, JoeBob1379, asd, Italia12, Sanaria, Zinerva, Rebecca, Akira Gown, paper star, mya14, Romantic Fool, angellumpcious, mutsumi, hyper_shark, Lulu81, MoonDancerCat, ragcey, heavengurl899, Angel: da Newsies fan, Vampiress_Ari, firey fairy, stephen, kei-chan, dragon eyes, Wormmon ABC, Dragonsbane, nicksgurl329, lexi wood, DiLLiRgA (x 6) Mystical Stormz, Xtreme Nusiance, Draco'sAmericanGurl!

I was intending to post yesterday, but simply couldn't resist the lure of making it that little bit longer and posting on Xmas day. As a result, this is my longest ever chapter! Go me!

To all those who commented on the fact that I know Latin: it's compulsory at my school for the first 3 years. It's boring, but deceptively easy – I just guess everything and it still comes out right.

A piece of trivia: the original idea for Fire and Ice was conceived exactly a year ago, on Xmas Eve. There is actually nothing at all that was there in the original version! It got changed around a lot. And now, a year later, I have only one thing to say: Thank you to all my wonderful, wonderful reviewers!

I also wish to note that this is one of my least favourite chapters to date. The beginning (between the two ~*~*~*~ symbols) is a flashback, and as such is utterly fluffy, which I think I'm allergic to writing. Anyway, you lot wanted it, and therefore here it is.

~*~*~*~

The moonlight was soft, blessing the grey stones with a silvered kiss. There was a peace about the room, an almost reverential silence, as the shadows of the trees created a monochromatic stained glass effect on the floor.

Draco lay on his bed, the hangings drawn shut and preventing any sound from escaping, thanks to the charms he had put on them in first year. The deep malachite green surrounded the bed, the moonlight painting shadows and highlights where the material folded itself into waves.

Hermione was asleep, her chocolate hair tangling across the pillow in complex patterns. Her forehead rested against his shoulder, and she had one arm stretched across his chest, almost as if Draco was a giant teddy bear.

'Goodnight.' he whispered. He struggled to hold back a smile, then gave in to it. It felt strange, almost unnatural, but at the same time completely right. He smiled often, of course: smiled at Hermione across the Great Hall at mealtimes, or smiled with laughter when he said something amusing, or the polite smile he reserved for teachers and adults. But he very rarely smiled for himself.

Unexpectedly, Hermione mumbled something into his shoulder, which sounded as though it may have been, 'Night.'

'You're awake?' Hermione didn't speak, but appeared to nod in a half-hearted way. The thought crossed Draco's mind that she was rather sweet when half-asleep. 'I'm sorry if I woke you.'

'You didn't. I was just dozing.'

Draco snorted. 'Hermione, you were snoring.'

Her eyes flew open. 'I don't snore!' she said, her voice equal measures of incredulity and surprise.

'Oh yes you do!' replied Draco gleefully, then frowned. 'Did I just say that? I sound like one of those pantymime things.'

'It's a pantomime.' Hermione corrected automatically. 'And I do not snore.'

'Yes you do. Worse than Crabbe.' It was true that, in the unlikely event of snoring becoming an Olympic sport, Crabbe would take the gold. 'You sound like an elephant with nasal congestion.' Draco added.

'I do not.'

'You do.' Draco said cheerfully. 'But don't worry, I still love you.'

Hermione smiled and made the traditional reply. 'I love you too.' She paused reflectively. 'Do I really snore?'

Draco nodded, a grin on his face that could be described as devilish.

'Oh… wait a minute! I know that grin! You're lying!'

'And you fell for it too!'

'Argh.' Hermione hit Draco's shoulder with her forehead. Whether this was intended as a rebuke or as a 'hitting-my-head-against-a-brick-wall' gesture, Draco didn't know. 'Sometimes I don't know why I put up with you.'

'Because you're madly in love with me as I'm so utterly perfect?'

'You were right up to 'me'.' Hermione sounded almost flirtatious, but added soberly, 'No one's perfect.'

'Not even you?'

'Not even me, no matter how many hundred percent marks I get.'

'I think you're perfect.' Draco said defensively. Hermione blushed.

There were a few moments of silence. It was not the uncomfortable kind of silence created by two people trying desperately to think of what to say, but the easy, familiar silence of two people who didn't need to say anything. Hermione closed her eyes and shifted slightly to find a more comfortable spot on Draco's shoulder.

Perfection… Just thinking the word brought back memories. How many times had he been told to be perfect? How many times had he been punished for doing the smallest thing wrong?

Draco hated his memories, with the honourable exception of the more recent ones. He would gladly have Memory Charmed them into oblivion, except… except for the fact that he wouldn't be the same person. You changed when you lost your memories, because your memories made you what you were. He didn't know what he would be like if he lost those memories, but he didn't want to try finding out.

Thinking about them brought back the anger, anger that had been locked away beneath layers of protective ice before. Remembering brought it back afresh, to burn through his thawed bloodstream, re-born vividly and carrying something almost like… pain.

He considered telling Hermione about it. There is something in everyone that is repulsed at the idea of sharing problems, that little voice that whispers, 'They'll think you're weak, that you're a coward.' In some people this is stronger than others, and in Draco's mind it was almost deafening.

But he knew he could tell Hermione anything. Anything at all, in a way that almost scared him. Malfoys weren't supposed to have emotions, after all. The very idea of emotions was alien to him. But Hermione didn't judge or condemn or pity, she just understood. And besides, as she had told him herself, she liked to hear things about him. Liked the insight it gave…

'My father… he always tried to make me be perfect.' Sensing the beginning of a story by some emphatic link, Hermione nodded slightly, curling her arm further around him. Draco smiled slightly, eyes glazing as he sank into the memories.

'I used to feel like some sort of performing animal. As though my only function was to do everything right, to do the thing that created the right impression. Everything I said, everything I did, right down to the tiniest detail, was judged and punished if it wasn't to my father's liking.'

He felt Hermione give him a sympathetic squeeze, and continued, staring into nothingness. 'He used to have formal dinners, two or three times a year. Whenever he felt one would be good for his connections, I suppose. They used to be huge, two or three hundred guests – mostly either supporters of Voldemort or wizarding celebrities who wanted some media attention. Ever since I was old enough to go, I was wandering among the guests, acting polite and trying to give the right impression, and he used a spell to spy on me. And if I did one thing wrong – and I always did, in his estimation – he'd punish me.

'Punish' was a way of avoiding saying 'torture'. Torture was a nasty word, far too melodramatic. Punish sounded more normal, less shocking. But they both knew what was meant by it.

Draco continued. 'The last one of his dinners I went to was the summer before last, just after the Triwizard Tournament. It was a big one; there were hundreds of Death Eaters – although you couldn't tell who was one and who wasn't unless you knew beforehand – lots of minor celebrities, old wizarding families, and so on. And this time, I did everything perfectly. I said the right things, I smiled in the right places, I was polite to the right people. I couldn't see any mistakes at all. And then afterwards, he called me into his study, and he…'

Draco trailed off. However much he was rebelling against those taboos that forced him to keep things like this shut inside, he couldn't bring himself to say the word. But Hermione knew what he meant, and raised her chocolate brown eyes to his. She looked concerned, and loving, and for one breathtaking moment, like an angel.

'I know.' she said simply. 'But… why?'

'He said I was too perfect. He said that perfection looked bad, like I thought I was superior to all of them. And I knew that whatever I did I couldn't win, because he'd just keep telling me it was wrong, he'd just keep changing the rules. I told him that, I told him he was just bending the rules to suit him. And he was angry. That was when he cast the Glacios on me…'

There was silence for a few seconds. Slowly the memory faded away, as if by telling it and speaking the words aloud, he had exorcised some inner demon. For an instant he had relived it all, the sickening realisation that no matter what he did, it would always be wrong and the sudden wave that had spread over him, not of cold, but of a mysterious not-warmth.

But the memories faded, and he was back in the present day, back in his room. He could keenly feel Time, as it passed, heartbeat-by-heartbeat, from future into past. Hermione's face was a queer mixture, as though her features could simply not decide what to be. There was concern, and sympathy, and something like horror, and a flicker of anger that grew until her eyes were burning.

'How could he do that?' she said bitterly. 'How could he… you hadn't done anything wrong!'

'I don't think he cared.' Draco pointed out.

'I swear, I'm going to learn the nastiest, most horrible Dark curses I can find and attack him with them, I swear.' Hermione sounded vehement, her normally warm, open, kind face screwed up in a loathing that was more than simple hate. But the hate was just, and the anger was for Draco, and it was beautiful too, in its own way.

'Miss Hermione Granger, golden girl of Hogwarts, abider by all rules, using Dark Curses?' Draco said, a smile on his lips. Hermione glanced upwards, meeting his eyes, and all the anger vanished.

'Oh, I suppose. But I'd like to.'

There was an almost childlike fascination for Draco in watching the emotions flicker across her face, watching how quickly anger faded to happiness and back to hate, like some incredibly complex game. Everything he said, every word, inspired a change: a smile, a frown, a twitch as she fought to keep from laughing. And every time she smiled, every time she laughed, he was winning, because she was happy.

He planted a kiss on her forehead, prompting another of those winning smiles. 'Love you.' Hermione said, sinking her head deeper into his shoulder.

'Love you too.' Draco responded. It felt incredibly strange to say those words, but he said them anyway, because it was true, and it made Hermione happy.

There was a silence, a few seconds pause. Hermione was thinking; he could see her slightly abstracted gaze and a sudden lack of expression that meant she wasn't quite paying attention to this world. He let her think, waiting in silence for her to finish.

'Sometimes,' she said at last, 'I worry that you love me too much.'

Draco frowned. How could anyone love too much? Love was one of the rare things you could never have too much of, you could never run out of however much you gave. 'What do you mean?' he asked.

'I don't know exactly. It's like…' Hermione paused, searching for an analogy. 'You know when you read a book, and you just know what's going to happen. But when you tell someone and they ask you how you know, there's no evidence whatsoever to support your idea, but you still know that it's going to happen?'

'Hermione, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you were on drugs.' Draco raised his eyebrows in mock innocence.

Hermione frowned at him. 'Don't be stupid. It's… like an instinct, that's what I mean. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid. Sometimes I feel like you'd do anything for me. I'm not saying it's a bad thing,' she added hastily, seeing Draco's face, 'but it does make me worried sometimes.'

'Why does it worry you?'

'Because you're a boy. I know what boys are like. You'll end up doing something amazingly stupid, sooner or later.'

'I wouldn't.' Draco protested.

'I know.' Hermione said, and sighed a little. 'Just… be careful.'

~*~*~*~

It was impossible to sleep, and she should have known it. She lay on her bed, eyes wide open, watching the darkness. There was too much to think about, too much to take in, and she couldn't sleep. Thoughts flew around her mind, refusing to settle down. She couldn't sleep, not when every minute a new thought popped into her mind – what will I do if I can't get my memory back? What will I do if I can get my memory back? What if I get it back and I don't like what I remember? What if something really awful happened? What if? What if?

In spite of all these 'what-ifs', there was a strangely hazy feel to the recent events, as though they didn't really exist, or she was viewing them from somewhere completely outside her own self. Now that she had decided what to do, she felt no emotion about it at all. She ought to be upset, or worried, or nervous, or something – but all that was there was a kind of stillborn acceptance. Even the what-ifs were emotionless, born of nothing more than an errant curiosity.

So she lay in the darkness, wondering idly and unable to sleep, for what felt like an eternity until there was a soft tapping on the window. Her eyes flew open – strange, she didn't remember closing them – and she pulled aside a corner of the hangings to peer around the dormitory.

Tap, tap.

A snowy owl perched on the window ledge, and it took a few seconds for her sleep-starved mind to recognise it as Hedwig. But what was Harry doing writing to her this late at night?

She forced herself to the window, legs protesting that really, they'd rather be in bed. Upon opening the catch, she saw that Hedwig looked rather disgruntled. No surprise, really – Hedwig was growing older, and Hermione suspected that she'd much rather be in her roost by now. The same thing had happened with Crookshanks, who had been acting so lethargic over the summer that she'd been persuaded to leave him at home this term.

Giving Hedwig a gentle stroke – on her forehead, which she loved as long as you didn't stroke against the direction of the feathers – she noticed that she seemed to be carrying not one letter, but pages and pages of parchment. Puzzled, she untied them from Hedwig's leg. The topmost note was short; just two lines long, and in a script that some nagging instinct told her was Draco's.

Harry and Ron owled me to let me know that you had decided to get your memory back. I thought these might help.

Absentmindedly, she gave Hedwig another stroke, her eyes fixed on that peculiar handwriting. 'Go on, Hedwig, get back to Harry.' she whispered, and the owl took off. Not bothering to close the window – it was too hot in here anyway – she took the piles of parchment back to her bed, in a kind of daze. What were they?

She brushed a hand over the parchment, over the ink, which seemed to possess an electrical impulse, almost a sentience. It seemed so much more real than anything else around her, carrying an essence of Malfoy – no, Draco. Not the Draco she remembered, it still bore a part of him. The wording was concise, and formal sounding, but there was a kind of melancholy that she couldn't place.

Suddenly impatient, she grasped the knot, prised it apart, pulling away the string like a child on Christmas morning fights with ribbons. And then – and then, she put Draco's note to one side, revealing… a letter.

Dearest Draco,

           

            I can't wait to see you at school; I've missed you so much! It feels like so much longer than a fortnight since I saw you last. I know I sound completely corny, but it really does feel like an eternity.

It went on, flowing down the page with happy, sweet-sounding jokes and teases. It looked so wrong to see her own handwriting, there on the page, and know that she had written it but to be unable, however hard she tried, to remember writing it. It was almost frightening, almost disturbing, to see the words on the page, proclaiming her endearments.

Suddenly afraid, she pushed the topmost one aside, revealing letter after letter, carefully stacked in a neat pile, in perfect chronological order. Letters stacked with laughter, with care, with love – to this boy she had hated.

She had believed it already, but now Truth came, sweeping out of the ink and rushing through her veins, dancing madly as thought after thought came to her, the implications of loving Draco Malfoy, this Slytherin, this sadist, this demon incarnate…

Except he wasn't, couldn't be, for why else were her words laid down so lovingly on the parchment? Her words, laid down by her hand and in her ink, traitorous words, proclaiming… proclaiming the truth, and she had to accept that, accept it or be driven crazy…

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, her eyes filled up with tears. She sobbed, muffling the sound in her blanket, crying for what she had forgotten, and for what she had come, finally, undeniably, to accept as Truth.

~*~

The next morning dawned like any other morning, crisp and pale with winter, the colours bleached from the landscape leaving only darkness and light. Harry and Ron hobbled down the stairs, shivering with cold and yawning, to find Hermione already awake and in the common room. She sat at a table, surrounded by books and concentrating hard on a large new-looking volume with flashy lettering which changed colour in a mysterious, smoky sequence.

'Memory Charms: Their history, usage and cures.' Ron read off the cover. 'What does it say?'

Hermione didn't move her eyes from the page, giving her answer automatically. 'Memory Charms at their most basic are used to make a person forget very recent events. However, advanced Memory Charms can be used to remove any event or chain of events from a person's memory. Memory Charms are incredibly complex at this stage and can often go wrong, leaving the charmed person with no memories at all.'

Neither of the boys really understood this, but they nodded all the same, sitting down on either side of their friend. Hermione's face was set with determination, just as if this was any normal school project. They had worried about her last night, worried that she might be taking this badly, but she seemed fine.

'Does it mention anything about cures?' Harry probed, causing Hermione to look up from her book with a regretful sigh.

'Memory Charms don't have nice neat cures. It isn't that simple. The only cure is… well, waiting. Memories can return with time, especially if they're very big memories… they often come back as dreams, or events in real life can spark one off.'

'Events in real life?' said Ron. 'Only, we were talking last night, and we reckon the best way to remember things is if you… well… spend time with Draco. Talk to him and stuff.'

Hermione looked up, seeming startled at the very idea. 'Spend time with…?' Then her face fell, dejectedly, as she seemed to recall what was going on. 'Oh, yeah, I love him, don't I?', she said, her voice suddenly quiet, 'I'm sorry, you just have no idea how weird all this is… I mean, the last thing I remember, you hated Draco, and now you're encouraging me to spend time with him, and it's … well, it's strange.'

'You don't have to do this, you know.' Harry told her. 'You don't have to get your memory back, if you don't want to…'

'No!' Hermione interrupted. 'I have to do this, I can't stand thinking there's something I've forgotten, even if it is about loving… him. I hate thinking that my memory was stolen. I'm going to get it back if it kills me.'

Harry and Ron nodded, wondering what had made Hermione so vociferously determined to regain her memory. She has paused, considering.

'It might actually be a good idea to talk to him. I'll have to arrange it.' This said, she went back to her book, reading with purpose and resolve.

~*~

And there it is! The Xmas chapter, with fluff, drama, and as a special present to you all, the reason why the Glacios curse was cast. Future chapters contain house elves, Harry and Ron playing matchmaker, and plans that contain a complete lack of cunning. REVIEW! Go on, it's Christmas…

(singing) I just want you to review, More than you could ever know, Make my wish come true! All I want for Christmas is reviews…

Merry Christmas!