Disclaimer: None of it's mine, except for a few cookie crumbs from yesterday's picnic and some remnants of plot.
The Phoenix and Turtle
By Taelyn
Chapter: 8: Miles to Go
"Tis very strange Man should be so fond of being
thought wickeder than they are."
Daniel Defoe
As Draco walked out of McGonagall's office, he hardly noticed as Blaise fell in step behind him. Soon, though, she stepped out ahead of him and began walking backwards so that he could see her face.
In an instant, she was suddenly much more mature, her hair deep brown, her complexion dark. Then, in another moment, her hair was flaming red and curly, her cheeks dimpled, her mouth petite.
But instead of eliciting the usual smile from Draco, she found herself staring at a man thinking of something other than her. Which, honestly, never really sat well with Blaise.
With a shake of her head, her hair was suddenly chestnut brown and frizzy, her eyes brown and her mouth pouty.
Draco suddenly came into focus as he watched his cousin—an metamorphagus—transform into the closest thing she could to resemble Granger. When she saw that wouldn't laugh or even smile, she shook her had and grinned.
"So nothing will cheer you up today, dear cousin?" she asked, transforming to closely resemble Draco—her hair fine and blond, her chin pointed. As he set his jaw grimly, she noticed the faint, fading scars on his cheek.
"Now where did we get those, I wonder," she questioned him, ready for an answer. When none was given, Blaise frowned.
"Draco, are those from the fight?" she asked, suddenly disturbed that her longtime confidant had suddenly turned stoic. When he didn't answer again, she turned her back from him and began walking forward.
"I act like a circus animal just to make you smile and you won't even tell me where you got a few scars?" she asked huffily and Draco softened as he watched her hair recede to black.
"Blaise, don't be such a cow," he joked, half smiling. But when she turned around, he noticed something in her eyes.
"You used to tell me everything," she began, stopping in the hallway and looking at the stone floor. "I knew every secret, every nook and cranny of your brain." Blaise looked up at him.
"But now . . . I walk into your room a few days ago and I see tearstains on your face. I see scars than no boy has the fingernails to inflict." Draco gulped as he watched his cousin become close to tears and tried to smile.
"That Potter is quite effeminate, though," he said, hoping to cheer her up and she smiled a little, choking out a half-laugh.
Draco suddenly felt . . . wrong. For forgetting who he really was for the past couple of days. He had concentrated so hard on not thinking about Hermione that he had forgotten to owl his mother, nearly crashed into one of the goalposts at practice, and now reduced his best friend to tears.
"Blaise, the scar is nothing. It means nothing," he said, his voice determined to be strong, to keep from wavering.
The girl in front of him sniffled, and then looked up, smiling.
"Good," she said, trying to blink away any remnants of tears. "Because I'm trying to convince a couple more first years of the ambiguity of my gender and what is an metamorphagus without a certain amount of inspiration?" she asked and Draco laughed as they began walking down the halls towards their next class again.
That afternoon, another blizzard hit, and the Quidditch game was again postponed. Hermione suddenly found herself surrounded by students with an excess of pent up adrenaline that could not be let out that evening and spent most of the day patrolling. The next day came quicker than anyone would have liked as breakfast turned into morning classes, and then into the period that should have been lunch.
But for Harry, Hermione, Ginny and Draco, it was a period of particularly grueling detention.
McGonagall had sent the two girls immediately out into the snow banks to gather the Winter Sittlecote—a plant that only bloomed after at least two consecutive snowfalls. Snape had quarantined Harry in the potions classroom, scouring cauldrons, and only after Harry threatened to turn him into Dumbledore did Draco deign to do any work at all.
By afternoon classes, the four of them were either frostbitten or raw from scouring and, for Hermione, Defense against the Dark Arts seemed a nice break from the manual labor.
Until she walked into the classroom and noticed the odor.
Professor Trimble, who most of the Seventh Years said rather resembled a bowl of pudding, had been the only teacher for a decade to teach DADA for two consecutive years. Of course, by the look of his half-torn off mustache and constantly bleeding or cursed appendages, everyone wondered if he would make the year.
And today's class seemed to give him no break.
Above the clatter of desks and chairs being thrown across the room and what sounded like a crash of something very breakable, Hermione was able to make out to day's lesson plan.
"—going to—ape-faced murples—Snape thought—only cure—too many bananas—" gave her to very true guess that they would be spending the next hour cleaning up after the monkey-like rodents that had a fondness for levitation.
When the afternoon classes were finally over, Hermione trudged heavily back into the Transfiguration classroom. She found there, an equally exhausted Ginny.
"Hagrid decided to give us a pop quiz on Tebos today," she said, leaning on one of the desks and holding her side.
Hermione frowned. "I don't remember Hagrid every giving written tests," she said.
Ginny looked up, slightly bemused.
"Pop quiz as in us trying to find a way to lure the buggery beast back into its cage before it gouged out Creevey's eye," she said, wincing as she stood up straight.
"You should see Madame Pomfrey about that, Miss Weasley," Professor McGonagall said as she entered the classroom, nodding to Hermione who looked down at the floor. She had yet to recover from the embarrassment of the day before.
"That's okay Professor," Ginny said, resisting the urge to cry slightly as she took a step forward. "It's only a slight bruise."
The Transfigurations professor eyed the girl for a moment, and then nodded quickly.
"I won't push you to, Miss Weasley, but only because you will be working inside for a good part of the rest of the afternoon."
"Thank Merlin," Ginny muttered under her breath as McGonagall explained exactly how they were supposed to rearrange the Charms room for the next days lesson.
As Hermione and Ginny worked to move the desks quickly around the classroom, Hermione couldn't help but notice that her good friend kept eyeing her.
"What is it then?" she finally asked exasperatedly and Ginny grinned mischievously.
"So, how are you and my brother," she asked, adding just the amount of cheek needed to make Hermione blush slightly.
"Fine," she said curtly and then, when she saw the look on Ginny's, she added "just fine. That's all."
"Are you sure?" needled Ginny, not paying any attention to where she was pointing her wand and nearly sending one of the desks flying out of the window.
Hermione huffed and the desk she was moving banged into place a little harder than she meant it to.
"What do you mean to insinuate, Ginny?" she asked, her face very hot.
Ginny tried to swing her legs nonchalantly, but groaned as pain shot up her stomach again. "Nothing," she said, momentarily doubled over and breathing shallowly. "Just that there might be, you know, sparks."
Hermione crossed her arms, sending one of the desks spinning across the room.
"Ron would never think of me as someone who would induce sparkage," she said and Ginny looked up at her.
"I would laugh," she said, "but my side hurts enough already."
Hermione just stared out the window.
"No boy in his right mind would ever think of me as anything but a friend," she said matter-of-factly and Ginny snorted loudly.
"I'm not even going to respond to that," she said, focusing again on the task at hand. "Now stop feeling so sorry for yourself and help me," she finished.
Hermione flipped her hair indignantly but raised her wand again, and, soon enough, the girls were giggling hysterically over the stories of afternoon classes.
"—and Braddock couldn't even get down from the tree," Ginny gasped out, amid Hermione's shrieks of laughter and her own giggles. Suddenly though, she sank to her knees and Hermione stopped laughing.
"Oh, oh, ow," she said, holding her side again as she fought back sudden tears.
Hermione reached down to help her friend up, wondering whether she should call a Professor, but her thoughts were interrupted by Professor McGonagall for the second time that day.
"Miss Weasley, you will report immediately to the infirmary," she said, watching as the slight witch rose to her feet. "And no more of this 'stiff upper lip' nonsense," she finished as Ginny began to protest.
Hermione watched as the professor grabbed hold of one of Ginny's arms and turned back to look at her.
"It seems that Mr Potter and Professor Snape have had a bit of an . . . errrr . . . confrontation," she said carefully as Hermione smiled inwardly at the thought of the two enemies screaming at each other in the dungeon classroom.
"Since there are only two of you left," McGonagall continued, "you will report to the Potion's classroom and help Mr Malfoy scour cauldrons.
Ginny looked back apologetically as she limped painfully off with the aid of the professor, but Hermione's legs didn't seem to want to move after them and out of the classroom.
Three more hours of detention. Spent with Draco Malfoy.
Suddenly the meaning of punishment became very, very clear.
Within the next half-hour, the meaning of painful silence would also suddenly become very vivid for Hermione. As well as looks-that-would-kill and that stupid saying about the pot calling the kettle black (as it didn't really matter since cauldrons were, by rule, much more so).
And as hard as she tried to totally ignore Draco Malfoy altogether, she couldn't help but notice each time his hand accidentally brushed against hers as they both went for a certain tool, or the several moments in which they had accidentally locked eyes.
And that one time, when she had mistaken his robes for a rag and used it to polish the soot off her current work.
It really had been a mistake. No, really.
Nonetheless, the static in the air between them wouldn't fade, and Hermione could only attribute it to the growing animosity. But two hours into the work, they had managed to avoid any conflicts.
Until his foot seemed to find its way into the path where she was walking.
And Hermione ended up, face down on the cold floor as Draco shook with amusement next to her.
"Oh go ahead, laugh all you want," she said snottily, picking herself up off the ground.
"Fine, I will," Draco choked out before nearly falling to the ground himself with laughter.
"Stupid prick," she said haughtily, wiping off her palms and turning up her nose.
"Oh come on—down on the floor, with the dirt and grime—that certainly must be the place you're most comfortable, Granger," he said, finally recovering from his laughing fit.
"At least I don't belong a little further below the surface, Malfoy," Hermione spat, for some reason stung by barbs that had gotten old years ago.
Draco smirked. "Come on Granger, is that the best you can do? For someone thought to be so intelligent, I find you quite lacking," he said, his glinting.
Hermione smiled. "Then why can't a pureblood like you seem to beat me and make your father proud?" she asked as she moved past him.
Draco shut his mouth quickly as she glided around to face him.
"Your father must not be too happy about that, right Malfoy?" she asked, testing him to see how far she could go. "Hermione Granger, mudblood, besting the Malfoys, and you: disgracing the family name with every single test score that's returned to you."
"You can't deign to think that you know anything about my family," Draco ground out through clenched teeth.
"What," Hermione mocked, moving closer towards him, "is there something there that poor Draco doesn't want to talk about?" She watched as he clenched his fists, no longer caring how angry he became.
"Do you have long lost brother? Is your father never home? Does your mother—"
Thirty minutes later, the two of them were sitting in Dumbledore's office, staring at a very solemn headmaster in front of them.
"You both know that I do not tolerate fighting in my school," he began, looking from Hermione to Draco as they both stared back at him.
"We fell," Hermione said defiantly, rubbing the bruise on her thigh as she held an ice charm to her already purpled eye.
Albus Dumbledore had seen much worse over the years. Much worse. But to watch two of the most promising pupils in his school squabble like housecats was particularly troubling. He stared down his nose at the Head Girl, her robes torn and ripped and her lip puffy and cracked.
"You fell," he repeated simply.
"Yes, headmaster," said Draco, looking sharply up into the clear eyes of Dumbledore.
Dumbledore surveyed the boy in front of him. His nose was bloody for the second time in two days, his robes had been left in the potions classroom along with a shoe, and a very large bump was beginning to rise on his forehead.
"Well, that simply explains all of this," Dumbledore concluded, looking at the two battered seventh years. "Of course, because of the injury you have done to the Potions room floor in your falls, each of you will, I'm told, be spending a week in detention."
The two groaned consecutively, Hermione resting her head in her hands and Draco massaging the bridge of his nose tenderly with his fingers.
"Together?" they asked simultaneously and sunk back further into the chairs as Dumbledore nodded, a slight smile on his face.
"It wasn't my fault!" exclaimed Hermione to a sympathetic Ginny as they both headed, healed, back towards the Gryffindor commons for a meeting with Harry and Ron. "It was completely—
"—her doing!" spat Malfoy as he walked with Crabbe and Goyle towards the Slytherin common room. "She just started taunting me and I couldn't help but—"
"—retaliate" continued Hermione, nearly walking into the portrait of the Fat Lady before Ginny had a chance to say the password. "He thinks he's—"
"—so smart," he said as Crabbe began moving other students out of Draco's path (he didn't seem to be paying attention). "She thinks she knows everything about me, she presumes that I'm nothing more than—"
"—some stupid cow," she said angrily to Ron who was only half listening as he tried to take out Harry's knight. "And it's certain things he's so—"
"—touchy about," he continued as Pansy began to edge away from him cautiously. "How am I supposed to know—or care—that what I say—"
"—actually means anything to him," Hermione said as she paced in front of the stone fireplace. "And the fact that he would—"
"—resort to violence over something like that just lowers my opinion of her so much more," Draco said as he walked back and forth between Crabbe and Goyle. "Not that I had that high an opinion—"
"—of him in the first place," said Hermione, as Neville began to back into a corner.
"He's just—"
"She's just—"
"—so—"
"—incredibly—"
"—infuriating!"
And suddenly, she could hear the screams, the cries, the pain of every single being on this earth.
Alone in everything but her mind, she suddenly felt the panic of a Moroccan salesman as he entered his burglarized house, the grief of a mother receiving a phone call from a hospital, the fear of a wife as her husband pulls out another bottle.
And, amid all of their screams, she couldn't find her own. Her identity, forgotten, she became the pain of millions, and she suddenly didn't care if this thing ripped her apart.
She wanted death, she wanted it all to end. She wanted silence.
Author's Note: Okay, you definitely need to tell me if that end dialogue switching from Hermione to Draco was too complicated, because it very well might be (even though it was a blast to write). I am beyond sorry that I haven't really written in a very, very long time, but hey! That's real life for ya. Anyway, my sincerest apologies for everyone who has been waiting for this chapter: I really hope you like it. And please review, since I bet I'm going to lose a lot of my past reviews with the new formatting. I absolutely adore everyone who has read this, though, whether you've reviewed or not. Thanks!