A/N: Thanks to anyone who reviewed and thanks for the tips ;)...I'll try not to disappoint you, but I'm not sure about when I can update next, because I'm in a boarding school and my ICT teacher fusses with the computers too much so there is only one computer where I am allowed to upload fiction...but bare with me, I have a plot...
()()()
Chapter 2 – Cry me a riverDraco watched as Granger turned the corner after him and started looking around. He saw her open a door to her right and check the classroom inside. Then he saw her give up and turn around towards the Great Hall.
Subconsciously, he slid the robe sleeve of his left hand up and held its forearm. When he realised he had been doing so, he quickly released his hand and let his sleeve fall back to its place, before leaving for the Great Hall himself.
When he entered the Great Hall, it was packed with people; he seemed to be the last to enter. There was a moment of intense silence as he walked in, like there always was. He wore no expression, he moved swiftly, his tall and lean body just emphasising the aura of power and danger he gave out. Most of the people in this Hall feared him and always kept their distance, even Crabbe and Goyle avoided him as much as possible, which was fine by him as long as they kept it like that. To the whole Hall he was a Death Eater and one to be feared.
Draco Malfoy was also by far one of the most intelligent and capable students in the whole school – a very worthy adversary to the Head Girl. While he still used to be a prat in 6th year, in the 7th year he had changed completely. He had started to respect the professors, unlike he had done before and now he was a man – that you could definitely see. All the girls, even the ones in his own year, who knew him well enough to hate him, even some Gryffindors, could be heard daily gossiping about how fine and handsome Draco Malfoy was. And he knew it. And, surprisingly, he didn't live on it; on the contrary, he kept his distance, which just added even more to his mystical and unnerving identity. He also knew that quite a few students hated him, especially the amazing trio, especially Granger. He couldn't blame her though and kept his distance from her the most – she could be pretty scary when angry, that he knew from experience.
He made no notice of the silence and everyone's eyes upon him as he settled down and started eating. The Hall was still silent as he took his first bite and it was beginning to annoy him. He slowly lifted his head up from the plate and looked at the students. Almost everyone, excluding a few certain Gryffindors and the professors, looked away, not daring to confront his gaze. He looked over the Hall with a completely expressionless but hard face that sent shivers of fright down most of the student body, before returning to his meal. Everyone went back to their meal as well and slowly the conversations that were disrupted before, continued.
Hermione watched all this with a glassy gleam to her eyes. She shook her head – what was there to fear? But then again she was quite different from the rest of the school. Hermione had always been one of the few people, including Harry and Ron and the professors of course, who was not afraid of Draco Malfoy and his tricks, and nor was she afraid of his sudden change – he had to grow up sometime. She shook her head slightly; It's Malfoy for Christ sake! Why do you care what's wrong with him? and continued talking to Ginny and Ron; Harry wasn't there...again.
()()()
After Hermione had quickly finished her dinner she made her way to the Heads' rooms to finish her homework for next week and get a shower before going to patrol the halls.
The common room was empty when she got there and there was a new fire in the fireplace. The house-elves had tidied up the room and a smell of spring flowers lingered in the air. Hermione smiled, forgetting her worries for a moment and just thinking of spring. A sudden emptiness and sadness filled her when she thought about the school year ending soon. There were so many memories in this place, happy and sad, too many to leave behind. She loved this place, the smell of it, the excitement, the magic; she didn't want to leave, ever. But she had to and she knew it, so she had decided that while she's still here she would make the best of it and dwell in the happy memories of the past and the ones yet to come.
She very slowly started walking towards the staircase to her room. She had her eyes closed and was thinking of all the things she had gone through: making friends with Harry and Ron, saving the Philosophers Stone, solving the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets, saving Sirius and Buckbeak, helping Harry in the Triwizard tournament, capturing Death Eaters, killing Peter Pettigrew with Harry; she smiled when she remembered all those good memories, the latter wasn't the best one, but the look of content on Harry's face made it all worth while.
She still dwelled in the happy part of these memories not acknowledging the bad parts accompanying them, when she reached the landing of her room door. She opened it, her eyes still closed. There was a fire in her fireplace as well; giving out warmth and dimming the room with golden shadows and a scent of vanilla filled the air. Oh, she thought the house-elves must have been here too. She felt very light headed like in a dream, when her recent thought snapped her back to the real world and she opened her eyes. The house-elves were always very thorough with Hermione's room when they cleaned it; they thought that if she were pleased she wouldn't be coming to tell them horrid stories about setting them free. Hermione slowly turned around, house-elves were known for their love of pictures, flowers and all sorts of shiny things and that would undoubtedly mean they would dig up everything fitting in the category to decorate the room. She kept on turning slowly towards the direction of her bed on which side laid her nightstand.
"NOOO!" She screamed and ran over to it. She snapped the three picture frames set on the nightstand down so the pictures faced the stand, and fell to her knees in front of it, crying. The little happiness that had filled her a moment ago was long gone. She felt like a hollow core again, a sensation she had grown very familiar with, the sadness that filled her was above all. She sobbed there for quite awhile and when her attack was over she was rocking back and forth, her chin between her knees and her arms around her legs. Her gaze was set upon the upside down picture frames.
Slowly she stood up and sat on her queen sized four-poster bed and looked around her room. She had lived in this room for the last half year and she loved it, even more than her Gryffindor dorm room. Her new room was situated in one of the towers. It was a beautiful and large round room with a wooden oak door and marble floor. Facing the door was a huge walk-in cupboard, on both sides of it there were large windows looking over the lake and the Forest. To the left of the door was a comfy three-seater couch situated in front of her small stone fireplace and besides it a desk. To the right of the door was a huge shelf of books and next to that was the bed. The floor was covered in a thick and soft maroon rug, the curtains around her four-poster and her sheets were also a soft red colour with gold trimming, fitting perfectly with the dark brown of her room furniture. It seemed the perfect place, but Hermione couldn't see the beauty of it, of anything anymore, life was just too harsh and real for fantasy, even if coming from a witch studying in a magic school.
Her gaze went round the room and landed on the nightstand. She sniffed and slowly reached out her hand. She took the middle-sized picture with gold framing and looked at it. There were Fred and George Weasley happily smiling and waving to her, Ginny perched on top of one of their shoulders, laughing. A tear escaped Hermione's eye and landed on top of the glass covering the picture. She wiped it away and opened her cupboard drawer. She put the picture in it, upside down and looked at the black back of the frame. She sighed a small sad sigh; Fred and George had disappeared more than a year ago in December of 6th year. No one knows what happened to them, most people think they were tortured and killed by Voldemort's Death Eaters, but Ron and Ginny are convinced they will turn up soon. Harry and Hermione had always encouraged the Weasley's to think that, but deep down both of them knew that they themselves didn't really believe it, no matter how much they wanted to.
Hermione sighed again and closed her eyes fighting back tears. But as she reached for the smallest picture with silver framing and was already tucking it beside the other picture frame in the drawer, she found her tears oddly comforting, like all the worry and frustration were just flowing out of her. She hadn't let herself cry for a year and now she needed to She didn't want to stop anymore, so she turned around the picture and let out a sob as tears started streaming down her cheeks. She reached out and gingerly touched the picture, choking on sobs. The picture held a huge black dog, who was happily panting, side-by-side with a smiling black-haired and green-eyed boy, Harry. Hermione put two fingers to her lips and then moved them to the dog and boy on the picture. It seemed only yesterday when she was waving to the retreating backs of Sirius and Buckbeak. She laid the picture upside-down in the drawer next to the picture of the Weasley's so that there was a gap between the two frames.
She looked at the last frame on the table and closed her eyes, bracing herself. She wasn't sure she was ready to see that just yet. She opened her eyes, breathing out and looked at the star strewn night sky outside the window. Subconsciously she took the picture, which was the largest of the three and had a beautiful frame made of black crystal and cornered with gold roses. She very slowly turned the picture around, her eyes looking away from the man in the picture. She took a few steadying breaths still staring out of the window, before finally, after half a year, she looked down at it. She completely collapsed off her bed onto the floor again, dissolving in tears, as she saw the familiar but yet so strange face of Justin Finch-Fletchley; her boyfriend for a year, someone she had grown to love, and someone that had been killed 7 months ago. Hermione raised the picture frame to her heart, holding it close. She sat there for awhile as her sobs died away and she rested the picture, also upside-down, in the middle of the other two pictures. She looked at them sadly, wanting to cry but having no more tears left.
Hermione walked over to the window and looked outside over the grounds of Hogwarts. Everything was dark even Hagrid's hut was retired for the night. She loved those grounds, the lake, the quidditch pitch, even the forest. She breathed in the scent of the cold gentle winter wind blowing over the grounds, glad there was a fire in the fireplace to warm her. She could feel a faint smell of roses and looked at her desk next to the window. The house-elves had set an elegant transparent light blue vase on it, filled with a dozen dark red roses. She bent over the desk and smelled them. She chose the one rose with the biggest flower and picked it out from amongst the others. Then moving to her bed and sitting on it, she looked at the three picture frames in the drawer side by side. She set the rose on top of the pictures.
"Where are you?" she whispered and closed the drawer, feeling even more alone and empty than before.
She lay down on her bed and stared at the red canopy. She heard a door shut somewhere and remembered: Malfoy. She gritted her teeth and stood up from the bed. She had to brake the ice between them, or at least make it thinner since they had to work together on the Valentine's Ball, and Hermione was set on making her last ball here one to remember. She closed her door behind her and made her way down the stairs.
Their common room was empty. He must be in his room, thought Hermione biting her lip. She looked at her watch, it was 10.43. They should start patrolling at eleven and he must come downstairs soon so she decided to wait for him and sat on the couch. Hermione looked at Malfoy's staircase, she expected to hear footsteps coming down it soon, although she hated Malfoy, she had to admit that he was a very good student, second in school, and he took his Head duties very seriously, so he was never late for anything, again, like her.
She looked at her watch again. 10.54. Where is he? She thought. He was never usually this late, by this time on other evenings they were already patrolling in the halls. Maybe something happened to him and she would get into trouble if he didn't show up and she didn't even look for him. Dumbledore wouldn't be pleased, he always encouraged them to get along with each other and be an example to the rest of the school. Well they hadn't quite got over their differences, but Hermione wasn't going to risk her position for him so she decided to go up to his room.
She ascended his stairs to the landing and knocked on the large oak door. No answer. She knocked again and still nobody replied. Maybe he's sleeping. She quietly opened the door.
"Malfoy?" she stepped into the room.
His room was exactly like hers, only where in her room there was red in his room it was a teal green, and her golden trimmings were silver in his room. He also had a dark green rug and his furniture was made of some dark wood, almost black. How ironic, she thought and looked around the empty room. He must of left already, she turned around and was leaving when a twinkle of light to her left caught her eye. She walked over to Malfoy's cupboard and looked at the things on it. There was a picture of a beautiful blonde woman smiling, set in what appeared to be a solid gold frame – the source of the light. Then there were some other things on it like parchment and quills and ink, all set neatly in piles in one corner of the desk. There was also a black leather portfolio besides his desk and a cloak on the back of his chair. On the upper shelves of the desk there were three unlit candles and under them two newspaper cuttings. Curiosity got the best of Hermione and she looked over her shoulder towards the door making sure no one was coming and then carefully removed the newspaper cuttings. She looked at the first one. It was out of the Daily Prophet and displayed a picture of a tall blonde man with very fine clothes, smirking smugly and proudly, standing besides a doorway with lots of people filing out, occasionally sending him a glare or shaking their head. The article was captioned
LUCIUS MALFOY RELEASED FROM AZKABAN:
HE WAS JUST ANOTHER INNOCENT VICTIM
On the 6th of January, 1997, yesterday, Mr. Lucius Malfoy, former governor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and a known Ministry of Magic official and benefactor, was released from Azkaban, where he had been sentenced to in June (the exact date is not revealed) of 2003, under the charges of invading the Ministry of Magic and being a Death Eater.
But as it turns out he was just another innocent victim, controlled by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named by means of an Unforgivable Curse to act in such fashion. Many people doubted this statement, but it is a Ministry confirmed fact that Lucius Malfoy was indeed under the influence of an Unforgivable Curse at the time and that he would have never done such things if he had had control of his own mind.
The Daily Prophet reporters were unable to get a comment out of the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, and were not allowed to be present at the hearing. However, a source present at the hearing informed that Lucius Malfoy was questioned under the influence of Veritaserum and that he could not have been lying.
For further news read pages 8-11, plus an exclusive interview with Mr.Malfoy himself.
Hermione felt her fury bubbling inside her and felt like throwing something against the wall and screaming, but settled with a couple of deep breaths and looked at the other piece of paper. It was also a newspaper cutting from the Daily Prophet, it was dated 31st July, 1997, last year. The article was captioned
MISSING OR DEPARTED:
THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF LUCIUS MALFOY
The Daily Prophet has just received shocking news; the, only few moths ago released prisoner of Azkaban and falsely accused Death Eater, Lucius Malfoy, has seemed to have gone missing. He was not found in his Manor yesterday, when Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, had a meeting scheduled with Mr. Malfoy at one o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday, 30st July. Fudge took prompt action and started a search for Mr. Malfoy.
"Lucius Malfoy is not a man to be late for his appointments, nor does he ever cancel a date with importance of this sort, where meeting the Minister for Magic. I am convinced he has never done so before and it is not of his nature," a source close to Mr. Malfoy commented to the Daily Prophet.
Immediate searches started taking place and are still at large at this moment. There is no sign of Lucius Malfoy in England and he is not registered to have left the country. This is a matter of great importance to the Ministry and all Wizarding World is to keep alert of any sight of Lucius Malfoy, it is feared that he is captured by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, for revenge of his earlier statements. It is also said that Mr.Malfoy has not been seen since Thursday evening.
For further information read pages 2-4 of the family reaction of Mr. Malfoy to this news.
Hermione read through the article and carefully placed both of the pieces back under the candles. She was furious, she couldn't understand how the Ministry could let such a man out after what he did to Harry. And how could everybody be so naïve, everyone knows that he is a Death Eater and the most powerful one in Voldemort's circle, of course he can lie under the influence of Veritaserum, it is probably a part of the main training of Death Eaters. I should ask Malfoy, I bet he would know she thought bitterly as she turned around heading towards the door. She felt like kicking it down but strained herself enough to not do that. She walked past Malfoy's bed and spotted his nightstand, there lay another picture frame of the same beautiful blonde woman and a blonde man behind her. Narcissa and Lucius. It was probably their wedding photo since Narcissa was wearing a wedding dress and Lucius a suit; they were much younger on that picture. As Hermione saw Lucius on the picture she couldn't hold herself any longer: she grabbed the photo and smashed it on the floor. Glass flew everywhere and Hermione stood before it, her fists clenched and face red with anger. When she had calmed down a bit, she spotted the clock on the nightstand. 11.07. Said the numbers.
"Bugger!" whispered Hermione and took out her wand, "Reparo!" she muttered and the pieces of glass flew into place fixing up the picture. Hermione put the picture back and stared at the man with narrowed eyes. "Murderer," she hissed in a deadly whisper and stormed from the room thinking how she could ever have thought about befriending Malfoy.
()()()
Draco Malfoy was walking down the 4th corridor looking for any rogue students; he had been unable to find any so far. He never seemed to find anyone out here this year. Last year he had been one of the many who would explore the castle at night, sometimes with Pansy, sometimes with others, but he assumed that the reason for the students' lack of adventure this year was him. Everyone tried to avoid him as much as possible and wouldn't even think about sneaking out at night, if maybe only Potter and Weasley, but they were much too smart to be caught.
In the final year Draco Malfoy had grown out of the school life, he had much better things to do with his time, he was, after all, head of Malfoy Manor and Fortune and had to take care of things. So, usually, he used this time to enjoy the quietness of the castle. He had always liked this castle, even if he never admitted it. It was like his second, or rather, first home, and his former shelter from his father's violent manners. Now, he didn't need it for that purpose anymore, now, he just appreciated it for what it was. A mysterious and eerie building, where he had had so many adventures and experiences, he could actually say that he loved this castle and cherished every moment of private time here.
Tonight was different though. Tonight he wanted to be done as fast as possible – he needed a nice flying to clear his mind. He didn't understand why he was bothered by Granger's words, everybody called him a Death Eater at some point, he was sure of it, even if they never said to him directly. But this time it cut through him like a hot blade – an experience he was quite familiar with. Or maybe it wasn't just her words, maybe it was something else.
Death Eater!
It was the way she had said it, she had spat it out like it was the foulest thing roaming the earth. And her eyes...her eyes had been full of such loathing, such disgust, he had actually felt guilty. He had no idea what he was guilty about, but he knew the feeling that had washed over him with her look, as guilt. After all, he had encountered that sensation far more than once over the summer. But he easily dismissed it – every time.
His train of thoughts was interrupted, when he heard a clock in the distance strike. He was finally done patrolling and headed toward his rooms. As he walked, he could still hear the clock chime as it restlessly continued toward the twelfth strike. Draco had always been bothered by that clock. As far as he knew, no one had ever seen it, not even the Headmaster, but nevertheless, it would always announce the arriving of midnight – only midnight. Draco had tried several times, in his earlier years, to find that clock, but with no success, he had finally given up – after all, in the magical world, when something doesn't want to or isn't meant to be found, it won't be found. He sighed and continued his journey toward the Heads' rooms.
()()()
Hermione was on the sixth floor, descending the stairs to the fifth, deep in thought. She had forgotten what se was really doing here and she didn't even really care. She was still angry, but in the last year, she had learned to conceal and convert her anger very well. She hated Voldemort, she hated Death Eaters, she hated Malfoy! All of those...things...had taken something she loved from her, and she hated them with a passion. She stopped in the middle of the stairs, as the memories of the last few years, since Voldemort returned, all swished past her in the speed of light, stopping on the last one. Hermione, however, refused to acknowledge the memory and shook her head, willing it away.
In the distance she heard a clock strike and knew it was midnight, so she started walking back to her rooms. She didn't even need to think where she was going – she knew the way off by heart. She turned a corner and found herself in the Heads' dorm corridor. She walked on, eyes downcast, thinking of nothing in particular and was mildly surprised, when she stopped in front of the portrait of two women with elegant dresses fanning themselves, which lead to the Heads' rooms. She sensed someone's presence and lifted her eyes to meet a pair of steely grey ones. They seemed so deep for just a moment before closing themselves. Suddenly she felt all her anger for him just flow away. It made her feel very defenceless and naked and she tried to resurface it. But the more she tried the deeper it went and she just accepted it.
Draco looked into Granger's eyes and felt like something cold had dropped into his stomach – her eyes seemed so pained for a second, before covering themselves.
"Risus Ignis," they mumbled.
Draco stepped aside as the portrait slid up to let Hermione in first. He saw the sort of surprised, but also grateful look on her face as she stepped in and headed for her room. He stood there for a second before following.
As Hermione climbed into bed, she knew she had done what she had wanted – she had made the ice thinner and she was glad.