A/N: Sorry this took me so long. I have plenty of valid excuses, but its not like they really matter to you…so I'll warn you that nothing terribly momentous happens in this chapter…it's sort of filler, but I figured you all wanted something…so here it is, and I promise there is better stuff coming. Peace.
Defeated We Rise
CHAPTER EIGHT: Chess
"Draco." I was standing in front of the thing I called Master. His voice was slithery and made me feel like I was getting the Cruciatus curse a thousand times over. He was returned to full body and almost complete power. All he needed was the amulet. All he needed was me.
I scrambled down on my knees and kissed his black boots. Soot clung to my lips as I said back to him, reverently, "Master."
I lay crouching, not daring to bring my head up. I had seen what happened when a Death Eater rose too quickly.
"Alright. You may get up." He sounded amused. I felt sick.
My father summoned forth a luxurious chair made wholly of silver, with plush, deep green upholstery. It was a chair reserved for Voldemort alone. Voldemort strode across the room and took his seat. I followed my father's actions and sat down on the floor in front of him. I was reminded eerily of the muggle kindergarten class I had helped murder. It had been their story time, and they had been sitting joyfully at their teacher's feet when I entered and the little girls screamed and the little boys hid and the teacher died.
He steeped his hands together and looked down at me with a mixture of amusement and scorn laced across his face. "Your father has informed me that you have had a sudden change of heart. Life must be dear to you."
I knew it would be easier and wiser if I simply hung my head and agreed. But I was already being shamed, I was being stripped of everything I held dear, and my purpose for doing so would have to remain clear to this…man.
"Master, forgive me, but it is not for my life that I return to you."
He beamed. "Enlighten me." My father stifled a groan.
"I will be your loyal servant for eternity, I will bring you that amulet, if you will only spare Hermione's life," I paused "and, yes, my own."
"Lucius, you've got a foolish boy. Thinks he's in love. I expected better from a family like your own."
"I expected better from my son, too, my Lord." My father bowed his head, shame pouring forth from his eyes.
"Yes, you do try…" Voldemort seemed to be pitying my father. I jutted my chin out a little bit farther.
"I cannot promise never to kill the girl. She could pose a potential threat."
It was time to show my loyalty. "I only ask that you consult with me before it is done." Now they both beamed, hands were shook, champagne was brought forth, and the plotting began.
***
Life was proving to be an interesting thing. Voldemort was killing the world off little by little, I was wrapped up in two relationships, one of my best friends was dating Draco Malfoy, and the other was oblivious to it all…which wasn't necessarily a good thing, because once Ron did catch on…I winced. It would be painful.
I couldn't help but let a small grin flit across my face as I thought of last night. Ginny Weasley had kissed me. She had clung to me, clawed, ripped the shirt off my back, kissed me and kissed me until her mouth had worn itself raw. Then I had commenced to kissing her, to pleasing her more than I thought I could ever please a girl, to being the hero she had always wanted me to be. It had been wonderful; but it had been wrong, and now I was in a very uncompromising situation. I hadn't seriously thought about leaving Parvati, but I hadn't seriously thought about getting involved with Ginny either. One moment she had been Ron's little sister, the next she had transformed into a red-haired, blushing Goddess. I liked Parvati, really I did…and she liked me, but I had never made her feel the way Ginny had felt, and she had certainly never made me feel the way I did when I was with Ginny.
I shook my head. I could hear Hermione coming now. She was finally going to explain what had been happening between her and Malfoy.
"Hey. Sorry I'm late…I don't know what happened, but I didn't wake up, and…" Hermione looked very perturbed. It was an unusual thing for her to sleep past eight on the holidays.
"It's alright. Funny how we can live in the same house and still barely see each other!"
She looked at me and smiled. "Isn't it?"
"Anyways…" I looked at her. I didn't want to actually say it.
She caught on and smiled ruefully. "I didn't mean to keep it from you—well, yes, I suppose I did—but only because I knew you wouldn't understand."
"Couldn't you give us—me—a chance?"
"I should have. I'm sorry, Harry. It wasn't something either of us thought would happen, not in a million years. He's not as evil as everyone thinks, and I, well, in case you haven't noticed, there's no way for me to be as sweet as I used to. There's this black hole in my heart and it's not going away anytime soon."
I looked at her in sympathy. She knew I understood. "Why him? Why not Dean, or Seamus, or even Neville?"
"Harry, do you honestly think any of them measure up to Draco Malfoy? Honestly. He's only been in Witch Weekly's Hundred Hottest Wizards column since he was twelve!"
Now all I could do was gape. She actually fancied Malfoy. "How long have you liked him? Christ!" Now that it had been uttered from her lips I felt the weight of the entire idea sink into me.
"Oh, no, don't start thinking I've had some longtime crush on him. No, it's not like that at all. I really did hate him for awhile, and he really hated me. When did I realize I no longer hated him? That was only a few months ago, and it's even less since I realized I liked him. I don't know if it's something you can understand…"
It wasn't something I could understand. Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy!
"Why?" I would at least try.
"Well…he was there for me when I needed someone most…he…he knows me, Harry, like no one else ever has…I, we…oh, and Harry, he's so sexy…"
She was laughing, thank god. "Slap me."
And she did.
"But seriously. I don't know why, I just know it is, I know it's right, I know I love him, and I know he loves me. Isn't that good enough?"
***
"Ginny! Hurry up! You're going to make us all late for the Express! GINNY!" Ron hollered up the stairs. "She's got those stupid walls sound-proofed, never can hear anything. Takes so long to get ready to go anywhere…" Ron left me muttering angrily to himself as he pounded back into the Burrow.
I wrapped my hands around my amulets. Draco hadn't written me since Christmas. I missed him terribly and was beginning to doubt whether or not he felt the same. In fact, the more I thought about our relationship, the more I realized exactly who I had fallen so madly in love with, and who had my heart to puppeteer. I wondered if he wasn't playing some long and cruel joke on me. Before we had left he had promised to write me every day, twice a day, that's how much he said he would miss me. Then, there was the fact that Pansy had been visiting…but no. That was taking things too far.
I shook my head and saw Ron pulling Ginny towards the car, while she hopped on one foot desperately trying to get her shoe on. Then I turned my head and watched Harry watching her. I knew, even though they hadn't told me, that their situation must have heated up some more. I could tell from the look in Harry's eyes that Ginny had at least peeled a few of Parvati's fingers off from around his heart and replaced them with her own. Maybe she had chopped them off. It all seemed to be the same.
***
My stomach was reeling. I hadn't been able to eat, out of nervousness, mainly, and self-loathing. Last night I had lain, sprawled on my silk comforter, deciding who I would be truthful to. Then I came to the full realization that this wasn't about truth. It was about love, and only love. And I knew what I had to do. I had to go ahead and take that amulet from her. There was no way she would figure out how to get it to work in time, not at the rate they could move, apparating and disapparating in matters of seconds. They would kill her, and I would rather know that I could never have her, that she hated me, that I was, once again, her loathed enemy, as long as I knew she was alive and healthy and out of harm's way, at least for the time being.
When I told her that she was the Dark Lord's greatest enemy, I meant it. She was everything that he feared: strong, intelligent, loving. Little did he know that in using me to take that amulet from her, he would be unleashing a dragon. When you add to an equation which consists of strength, intelligence and love, hate…the desire for revenge, you create an explosion, just like when you put baking soda and vinegar together. They don't get along, and so they do the only thing they can: explode, to cover as much territory as possible and thus separate themselves from themselves.
Ideally, Voldemort would go fuck himself and we could go on loving each other without the slightest fear. It was that which I worked towards. If I could keep us both alive, there was the chance that we would someday come back to that which we had shared together: bliss beyond anything that should be experienced in this world…
I had to get myself ready. I would be getting on the train in merely a few minutes and I had to put on the mask of Draco Malfoy. Today it was my least favorite garment, but when I looked in my closet all the masks were the same. What was so dreadful was that I knew in less than a week it would be the mask I would have to wear for years, after only just discovering that there was supposed to be variation in my closet.
***
I pranced across my room, my stomach doing somersaults and leaps for joy. He still loved me, he always loved me. Pansy hadn't come after all, and he had missed me something dreadful. I was going to skip dinner to go meet him in the Astronomy tower. We hadn't met up there since…since the beginning of everything, really.
***
Chocolates. Roses. Brushed hair. Cologne. Lip balm. Strawberries. What else did girls like? What would Hermoine like? Maybe a book? No. I knew her better than that. She hid behind books but really it was only because she felt her own life lacked that extra bit of excitement. Well, I could give that to her.
What was I thinking? She would probably get suspicious if I brought all that up with me. I just wanted to make the last time I saw her the best time…I wanted her to know I loved her, even though the owl she would get tomorrow morning would say something entirely different.
***
I heard his footsteps coming slowly up the darkened staircase. I began to nervously untie the ribbon to my red cloak, letting it fall to my feet just as he stepped into the light. His face seemed gaunter than I last remembered it, his eyes lingeringly eerie, but his mouth quickly twitched into a smile and he left his cool saunter behind and ran to envelope me in his icy hug.
I let a joyful giggle escape my lips, and he pulled away to look down on me. He looked into my eyes, looked at me possessively, and then swooped down on me like a falcon going in for the kill.
His lips touched mine and didn't flit across like they used to; they bruised my mouth and made my knees go weak. He pushed me to the ground not bothering to make me comfortable—he squashed me and made my heart race, but this wasn't the Draco I remembered, he was so urgent, and I didn't feel the tinge of warmth which had been in his lips before telling me he cared.
Suddenly he slowed down, caressed my mouth rather than assaulting it, stroked my face with his hand and wriggled around so that I was no longer suffocating beneath him. The warmth began to creep back into his lips and I felt a moistness on his cheeks. However, by the time he pulled away and I recovered myself, there wasn't a hint that he had been crying and I wondered if I hadn't imagined it.
"Sorry about that…I…I guess I missed you a bit much…" This cold boy telling me sorry, opening his heart so much to me, whom he pretended to possess and then admitted that he didn't, filled my heart with joy and suddenly it was like it had been before and I couldn't resist him. I smiled up and him and we sat up, while I braided my hair away from my face.
"Why do you ever pull it back like that? I like it far more when it's down and messy…"
"You know I can't stand mess," I paused, "and anyways, it would get in the way."
"Of what?" He asked, feigning innocence.
"Oh, well, I'm not quite sure…I was thinking…you know, since we haven't seen each other in so long…we might want to play a game of chess."
He had been looking at me mischeiviously, a seductive glint in his eyes, and I had to say it. I never could say something like that without making a joke. Truthfully, it made me too nervous. I was scared. I didn't want to get carried away.
"Chess? Oh, well, you know I'm the chess champion, in fact, I don't think you even know how to play…would you like me to show you?" I was impressed. He didn't even miss a beat, and he was, once again, in control of the situation.
"Well, Draco…" I let his name roll off my tongue like chocolate, playing with him. "why don't you tell me the rules."
"There are no rules."
"No boundaries?"
He mused over this. "My fair Hermione, the boundaries are for you to decide."
"Hmmm. I think I shall have you teach me how to play, but you musn't take my queen, because I'm not sure I'm ready to go quite so far, honorable Draco."
"Are you a sour loser?"
"Only if I lose too early on."
"Well, then, let the game begin."