A/N: Hi! Did you guys miss me?? I know it has been a very, very long drought since my last update. Soooorryy. But, my computer, as u might now, shut down completely and I had to wait a more than a week to get a part replaced. Then it took me another week to write this chappie, as my sibs are on spring break and I hafta constantly entertain guests; not to mention homework… another story….u get the idea.
SO, I have rewarded ur patience with an extra special chapter…u see the beginnings of some romance (yay!). Mostly its just angst and fluff in this one, but I particularly enjoyed it. I actually scribbled the Herm? Draco scene on my notebook weeks ago when my computer died.
A thanx to my readers, who keep this alive:
Potterlover: Here's the update!!!! This one is especially for you, cause u were so excited to read more. Thanx for still keeping up with this story, despite all the fates contriving against me in writing it. Ur right, Eve will be the dangerous one, not Lupin. Read to find out more. I'll try to answer all the questions as soon as possible. (some of them will be answered in my next update, actually.)
Very Interested Reader: Ah…one of my absolute fav readers….The seventh son thing I read in Cassie Claire's story, but I'm sure it goes back in legend somewhere. Anyways I just thought it was a cool thing for Ron to have. Lots of delicious Herm/ Draco action in this chapter, by the way. (A lot more of Eve/Harry in the next one).
ErinWrites: You know me and cliffhangers….thanx for still reading.
Velvet: A new reader!!! Yay!!! Thanx for reading so many chappies, since u got this far. Hope u like this one.
Chapter Twenty Six: Dare to Touch
"Professor, is there something wrong?" Hermione asked. "Professor?"
But she was answered with silence. Harry looked curiously at Eve. She was staring, transfixed, into Lupin's eyes. Her own eyes were glimmering—with something indescribably and frighteningly raw and primal.
But Ron had been staring at Lupin. His breathing was becoming more and more ragged, and he was gripping the edge of his desk so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. He also had something primal about him, but it seemed more—ferocious. Ron immediately sensed something, or rather, saw it. "Run." he whispered to Harry and Hermione. They looked at him, surprised. "Go! Now!" he cried, and shot out of his seat, grabbing Hermione by the arm.
"Eve, he's a werewolf, run!" Harry cried to her as he neared the door and realized she hadn't been moving. She hadn't seemed to notice him.
"Harry, c'mon," Ron said urgently.
"Take Hermione. I'll be right there," he said.
Hermione's eyes flashed. "Harry, no."
"I'm just gonna get Eve. Something's wrong with her, but there's no way I'm leaving her with Lupin. I'm coming. Trust me," he said through gritted teeth.
Ron's eyes were very wide. "Harry, I don't think you should be near either of them right now."
"Just go!"
Ron looked very torn, but finally he took hold of Hermione's arm and ran out through the corridor. Harry ran and started shaking Eve; she didn't even turn her head. But when he looked at her face, a stab of pain exploded on his forehead. His knees buckled, and one image was ingrained into his head—Eve's eyes, the green in them strangely paled and morphed, and looking disturbingly…reptilian.
Everything had become a blur of mixed color and pain—and through it all Harry heard a snarling sound that made his heart almost stop; he tried making his feet move, but they refused. There was a sudden heaviness in the air that had seized his muscles.
Then the growling suddenly turned into an enormous roar; Lupin had apparently leapt toward Eve, but at the same instant, he heard a very deep, firm hiss.
"NO!" Harry knew it was Parseltongue. Suddenly, the pain stopped—disappeared as if someone had instantly lowered the volume to a very loud, painful noise. Harry was able to see clearly now. Lupin was standing, frozen, his lips inches away from Eve's throat. He was sweaty and flushed, but still looking quite human. Eve was panting, looking at him utterly horrified, her eyes as if they were silently screaming.
She would have fallen to the floor if Lupin had not caught her. "Oh God. I'm so sorry," he gasped hoarsely. He was holding her very tight by her shoulders. She stared at him as if his touch terrified her. She wrenched herself from him and bumped into Harry, knocking his glasses even more askew.
"Harry! You're still here?" Lupin said, as if he had just seen Harry there for the first time.
"What happened?" Harry cried.
Eve had tears in her eyes; she was still looking at Lupin. "You're a…a….."
"A werewolf. Yeah." he said, closing his eyes.
Eve opened her mouth, struggling to find the words she wanted to say. "But, I mean…do you realize what could have just happened?"
"I know. I wasn't supposed to transform yet, but somehow it stopped just as suddenly as it started. But I swear, that's never happened before. But you're right. Oh my God, I could have--"
"No," she said, looking down.
"What do you mean?" Lupin asked.
"No. I could have, I could have…" She looked up at Lupin. "Do you know who I am?"
"Yes I do," Lupin answered. Then comprehension dawned on his face. "Oh," he gasped.
"Werewolves are full of dark magic," Eve whispered. "And so is my father." She closed her eyes painfully. "And so am I."
"You must have naturally brought out-"
"No." Eve repeated. "You brought something out in me." She gulped. "I'm not sure I
know what it was. But I don't like it."
Lupin bent forward, closer to her. "Listen. You probably have powers none of us have ever dreamt of before. But the important thing is that you can also control them. And you can somehow control those with Dark powers. Do you realize what that means?"
"But I didn't do it, I didn't stop-"
"Me from killing you? Yes, you did. The mere fact that you did stop it is simply--"
Eve was becoming angry, but it was a strange sort of anger—frustrated, desperate.
"You don't understand! It took all my strength to stop myself from attacking, but it wasn't enough. Something else did it, I don't know. We were reacting to each other's Dark Magic; only thing was my reaction could have been much more devastating."
"Eve, all you did was speak Parseltongue. I can do that too. Does that make me evil?" Harry said, but it was only to comfort her; he knew it was more than that—the pain in his scar, her eyes.
"Yes, I assumed that was what that hissing was," Lupin thought out loud, "even though there weren't any snakes around."
She shook her head. "There are much worse things other than snakes that speak Parseltongue. In fact, snakes received it from another source," she said as if knowing this made her miserable. Harry wanted her to go on, but she remained silent.
Lupin tried to be comforting—he was still quite shaken from so nearly endangering the lives of two students. "Eve. The things you can do are amazing. The things you can do with your abilities are infinite. You've been blessed like no one ever before in history. I know you're very young, but you have to try and appreciate it, or at least come to grips with it all."
Although he meant well, Lupin had said precisely what she had not wanted to hear. Eve was on the verge of losing her control.
"Appreciate it? You want me to appreciate the fact that my mere presence directly threatens the lives of everyone near me? You don't know what was happening inside of me…at that moment what was raging inside me to do. You can't imagine how terrified I was. You call it an honor. Well I didn't ask for this honor!"
Her voice was shaking, eyes were flashing, and suddenly the wall behind Lupin exploded with such force he was thrown a few feet into Harry. Dust and debris clouded their vision for a moment. Harry and Lupin were still coughing and sputtering as the dust settled. Eve fell limply to her knees, her anger dissolving into a desolate despair.
Harry saw her and struggled to get up. He wiped some grime off his glasses hastily and went to her. His hair looked almost gray with all the dust that had settled into it.
A low moan next to him made him look at Lupin. He was nursing his arm, and even under his sleeve, it looked swollen. When he rolled it up, wincing, Harry saw a great blue bruise beginning to spread across it, starting from the shoulder. One of the more larger pieces of the wall must have had struck him during the explosion.
"That doesn't look good," Harry said.
"Never mind. Are you okay?" Lupin gasped.
Harry waved him off. "I'm fine. I think you should go to the hospital wing, Professor."
But Lupin was looking at Eve. "What about her? I think she feels worse than I do right now." Harry stared at her; she was sitting on the floor, not moving—calm, but silent in that way which conveys a wrenching pain better than any audible sigh, gasp, or scream.
"You go on. I think maybe I can help her better than you could right now, Professor, with all due respect, of course," Harry said. Lupin smiled, but through his pain it was more of a grimace. Nevertheless, he nodded, got up with the help of Harry, and made his way out the door. He stopped before the door. "I never thought I'd see the day when a student would be sending a teacher to the hospital wing." He gave a last glance in Eve's direction; Harry could tell he was deliberating in his head the prospects of leaving Harry alone with Eve in such a distressed state. But he left anyways, the slightest smirk fighting to show on his lips.
He grabbed Eve and made her raise her head. Tears had made clear streaks across her dirty face. She looked at him as if seeing him was agony.
"Get away from me, Harry," she said as she tried wriggling away from his fingers.
"Eve, no. It's alright, okay? You just have to let us help you. Dumbledore can help you. I can help you. I want to."
The sincerity in his eyes only seemed to make her feel worse. "Harry, no. You don't want anything to do with me. Look at all this. I'm a monster."
"No. How can you say that? You saved Sirius, you saved Ron. Look at all you've done. You're smart and funny and I know you're a good person."
But Eve had blocked all he had said, like an invisible brick wall. "Harry, there's no way you could humanly understand. You don't know what it's like, living like this second from second. Knowing that if you don't control yourself for an instant all hell might break loose. And yet struggling harder and harder every moment to restrain something that is getting stronger and stronger until you know you won't ever be able to win out in the end. And on top of that there's no one to comfort you, because the people you had depended on for years to soothe some of this insanity are now gone forever. In fact, their memory constantly haunts you and makes your suffering even worse." Fresh tears were spilling, and her face was reddening. "And through all this I feel so powerless—I feel like I have no control over anything. Harry, do you know how many times I tried to even end it all? I tried poisoning myself, it only made the raging beast inside me stronger. I couldn't even kill myself. I don't even have the power of something that everyone else in this world has power over. I tried slitting my wrists, so many countless times. But it always healed, without anything else about me healing. Unlike you, Harry, all my scars are invisible."
Harry noticed that she was still trembling; he was immediately reminded of the night before—her shaking, crying in his arms. She was dangerous one moment and yet so vulnerable. She suddenly seemed so fragile, and even through her misery, never-endingly beautiful. Harry couldn't bear it; he wished he could feel some of what she was feeling, so he could even begin to try to understand. He didn't care if he would feel pain, as long as hers would somehow be abated.
Without fully realizing what he was doing, he had enveloped her in his arms. She let him. He put her forehead against hers and started wiping away the grime and tears. She closed her eyes and took in a long breath, as if his touch were a sort of salvation but at the same time causing her infinite grief; then he remembered that she could feel the vestiges of his mother's sacrificial legacy in his very skin—a sign of that protection and comfort she thirsted for, but also a bitter reminder of what she lost. He didn't really know what else to say, and he wondered if he had the daring to even move his face an inch closer—close enough for his lips to brush her skin. But his nerve failed him. All he could do was think fiercely to her, 'Never think that you're alone—not as long as I live and breathe on this earth'. He didn't even say it out loud: he knew she heard him.
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Draco was lying on his back in the hospital bed with his eyes open. For an instant he thought he had been dreaming; but no, he was wide awake. It was just that a moment ago he had felt some enormous, indescribable rage, but the strange thing was it hadn't come from inside him—it had come from somewhere far away. He had immediately stifled it, however, even though he didn't quite know what it was, or from where it was coming.
"Mr. Malfoy, you have a visitor. She's asking if you'd let her see you," came Madame Pomfrey's voice. Draco didn't even bother asking who it was. Eve, no doubt, coming to tell him more about her horrible misgivings about his fate.
He thought perhaps he should humor her—or perhaps he wouldn't admit to himself that the weakness he was feeling really did feel quite odd, and he wanted to hear what she had to say. "Let her in," he said, as he sat up in bed.
Madame Pomfrey raised her eyebrows in slight surprise and let the visitor in; it was Hermione.
Draco silently cursed and turned his back to her. "What the hell are you doing here Granger?" he demanded without looking at her.
She walked closer to him and said quietly, "Just trying to repay a favor."
He still refused to look at her. Remembering her cutting words, the feeling of betrayal such as he had never felt before—just hearing her voice again was like bleeding an old wound. "Well I didn't ask for your help or pity. And I don't want it."
"Draco…"she began, her voice shaky with pleading.
"Don't," he said, finally turning around, but closing his eyes for an instant. "Don't…say my name. You say it as if your actually care, but in front of your friends I'm Malfoy, better known as that son of a bitch Slytherin."
"And I'm supposed to forget everything you've said and done to me for the past seven years, even what you said minutes before Ron came in? You're so great at distancing yourself, you have no idea how much what you say can hurt."
"And so you let Weasley and Potter think I helped my father do that to you. All so you could hurt me back. Well congratulations, you got what you wanted." He gave her a contemptuous sneer and hissed through gritted teeth, "Feels good, doesn't it?"
"Draco," she said, emphasizing his name, "For what its worth, I told Harry and Ron what you really did. I'm sorry," she said, truly looking it as she lowered her eyes.
Draco looked at her, oddly even more angered by what she said. "You wanna know what it's worth? What anything you do or what have done is worth? Nothing. Because they wouldn't have believed you then, and they don't believe you now."
Hermione stopped looking placatingly apologetic. She turned his pale face towards hers and stared into his eyes with a fierce determination. She tried reading his face—it was like trying to scratch the surface of a cement wall with a spoon. Despite this, she said. "I believe in you. Isn't that worth anything to you?" She looked, searched for any betraying reaction—she found none.
"No, because you have a funny way of showing it. Now go away, Granger, and tell your Gryffindor friends they don't need to fake worrying about me. I'm perfectly fine; Weasley only wishes he was strong enough to really hurt me."
Hermione took a deep breath. "Despite your crippling tendency to judge people before you even see them properly, I'm still going to do what I came here to do."
Draco made an indignant noise. "Last night, exactly who was judging who?" He paused. In answer to Hermione's silence, he asked, "What are you planning to do anyway, Granger?"
"I'm going to see for myself if you're alright," Hermione replied. She knelt over him and felt his pulse (which seemed to quicken the instant she touched him, but perhaps she merely imagined it).
"Snape said that it might have been just the side effect of a badly made pain relieving potion," she explained.
He pushed her hand away. "So what's your point, nurse?"
Hermione pursed her lips. "My point is, that means your weakness is due to a numbing of your senses, a weakening of your nerves."
"So what?"
Hermione stared at him, examining every part of his face, which looked more tired than usual, but still clearly familiar—the icy eyes, the petulant glare, the sharpness of his features. Would she be able to soften him, enough to get to an unfamiliar territory? After all, the sharpness of an icicle can be melted away simply by touching it; and the initial sting of the cold would eventually fade away into numbness, to the point where the ice actually turns your skin red, even burns it. Hermione wondered if she would be able to be desensitized, or if his icy burning would hurt her forever…
Draco was still staring at her, getting more and more impatient—was just about to shut her off again—shut her off…a thought occurred to her.
"Close your eyes," she whispered. Perhaps making him close off would be what she needed for him to open up.
"What?"
"Just try it," she said. "Please."
He rolled his eyes, but then closed them. Holding her breath, Hermione slowly leaned over. Closer. Closer…until her lips touched his cheek as lightly as possible. He made a startled gesture—a product of lightning reflexes honed down because of Quidditch training. Hermion couldn't bring herself to look at him with his eyes open. "Keep them closed," she muttered into his ear. He was slightly wary, and for a moment she thought he would mortify her by laughing at her because of what she did. But he closed his eyes again, forcing himself to let his guard down, just this once. Trembling even more, but encouraged slightly (she was surprised for an instant how soft his skin was; she expected everything about him to be cold and sharp.) She let her travel across his cheek bones, touching them as lightly as a leaf scraping against the ground when it is caught by a small breeze. He had been keeping his eyes strongly shut, and she could see them moving fiercely under his lids. Was he as scared as she was? Then, as if moving without her really being aware of them, her lips had instinctively gone to his mouth; but when she kissed him she instantly drew away. She could feel the heat coursing through his face, searing her own skin.
He had opened his eyes. They were dilated and furiously alive. It hurt Hermione to see them—she could tell he desperately wanted her to go further, to forget everything that was holding her back.
"Did you feel that?" She asked breathlessly, although she felt quite silly asking it.
It took him some time to answer, as if he was struggling to find his voice, which had betrayed him. He had an amazement and a strange sadness, like how one gets when awakening from a beautiful dream to find he's still in his cold, desolate, lonely room.
"Yes," he whispered, gulping down the bitterness in his throat. "Very much." He looked at her, wanting to take in everything about her—she knew he was memorizing all the lines of her face, but also fighting a torturous internal constraint at the same time.
He could barely form words. "Why did you…"
Hermione tried to say something, to break free of the effect he was capable of having—was she trying to prove a point to him or did he just prove something to her? She finally made herself explain. "If you felt that, then the potion isn't the problem—it must be something else. The potion would have dulled your senses."
Strange, Draco thought. My entire life I worked to do that, because if I didn't numb myself to everything I would've gone mad; I've been walking through my life only half-awake, only half-aware. But everything seemed much more clear and acute now, and it was kindled because of her.
He tried easing up a bit. "You know, I have never been touched quite like that. Not in my entire life," he said thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, besides Eve, I don't remember being touched properly by anyone in years."
Hermione was stunned. "C'mon. Not a girlfriend…or a friend…." He shook his head. Hermione leaned slightly closer. "Not even…your mother?"
Draco sighed. He wondered if he should really say this to her. "Father didn't like her being too emotional around me when I grew up. He thought it would make me…weak."
Hermione looked at him, then slowly raised her fingers. He looked a little confused, but let her anyway. She felt his face, slid both her fingers across his cheeks, his forehead, then let them slip to his neck, sliding lower, creeping under his shirt; she could feel his collarbones. He closed his eyes again, as if he wanted to concentrate solely on her touch. He was feeling things he never felt before. He opened his eyes and extended his own fingers to her face, tracing them across her cheeks, and finally letting them rest along the space between her neck and jawline. She laced her own fingers with his own across her neck and just stared. This time he leaned in closer. Hermione suddenly froze with a terror—she was terrified at both moving away and moving closer. The image of Ron's eyes flashed across her mind—blue as a bright ocean; but Draco's eyes were gray—an ocean that was deeper, and stormy…and dangerous.
"I have to go," she said suddenly and broke away.
As soon as she became severed from him he snapped shut again. Dreams were only meant to be dreams, after all. Immediately his scorn resurfaced. "Granger," he called after her.
She halted, inches away from the door, startled to hear him say her last name again. It had a different ring when he said it now—more cutting than his usual lazy, drawling teasing. She turned to him and saw that his eyes were narrowed, the same icy glare had resumed.
"Just tell me whether you're running away from me…or from yourself."
Hermione took a deep breath. He was so close, but now he seemed miles and miles away. She bit her lip, and left without saying a word.
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