Title: We Pay The Price
Author: Roslyn Drycof
Chapter: Four---Heartless
Pairing: Harry/Draco, (others will be revealed later)
Rating: PG-13
Warning: slash, swearing, violence, angst, slight tragedy (no death of major characters, don't worry)
Summary: Children always have to pay the price for war and Harry's been paying for it for sixteen years. Draco feels the War's dangerous claws as a spy. Lovers, but not in love, they struggle to stop the War before more of their friends pay the price. HPDM
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and anything related to Harry Potter and Co. are not mine.
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That night, the Golden Trio sat in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, each sitting apart from the others. Harry sat in a plushy gold chair, Hermione in the red chair, and Ron all alone on the large couch. Before, Ron sadly recalled, they would've all sat on the couch together.
Things were changing, and the redhead knew it wasn't for the better. As much as he'd hated the term "the Golden Trio", he'd liked how it symbolized their close friendship. Now, there was no more Golden Trio. First, Harry had distanced himself. And now Hermione was pulling away, too. The old days were over.
Ron hated it. He knew it was because of the war. And he hated the war. His own family was divided because of it! Stupid Percy had to get caught up by Fudge's idiocy and now there were only six Weasley children, Percy no longer a part of the family. So many families were being torn apart by this stupid war! Hell, some people didn't have any family left because of it. Harry and Hermione were orphans because of it. Orphans!
Still, he didn't understand why Harry and now Hermione were acting so strangely. Where they were once open and smiling, they were now closed up and indifferent. He couldn't understand why they were changing so much and shutting him out. It had been almost tolerable with Harry, but now Harry was encouraging Hemione to be like that, too. Why? Why were they being so crazy?!
He looked over at Hermione and had to suppress a shudder at the sight of her blank face, her eyes cold and unreadable. And dear Merlin, she looked like a Slytherin with those clothes!
Turning to Harry, he grimaced. His best friend looked exactly like a dark-haired, green-eyed version of Malfoy. There was no trace of the old Harry in those sleek clothes, in those hard eyes that looked so unforgiving.
Suddenly, he couldn't take it anymore. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Harry?! I don't even recognize you anymore!"
The raven-haired teen turned cool jade eyes to stare at him with an assessing glint in their depths. "Ron, dear Ron, are my eyes not the familiar green, my hair the same inky-black color? Do I not have the lightening bolt scar still marking my forehead? I am still Harry Potter, same as always."
Ron hated the way Harry spoke his dispassionately cool words with a sardonic quirk of his lips. It was distinctly arrogant and all-Slytherin. This was not the same Harry Potter, the all-Gryffindor Harry.
"You are not the same! You fucking look like Malfoy! That is not the Harry Potter, my best friend, I remember," he exploded, jerking his arms out with a tense movement of frustration and anger.
Harry smirked at the raging teen. "Like Malfoy, you say? I wasn't aware my hair was blond and I had silver eyes. And a ferret-like face? How interesting, Ron."
"You know what I mean! You walk arrogantly like him, you smirk like him, and you freakin' talk like him, in that annoyingly sardonic voice that makes people feel like you're looking down on them! Hell, you even dress like the ferret, with that earring and those silk clothes. It's like you're trying to be a Slytherin!"
Harry's eyes went cold and he crossed his arms across his chest. "I'll let you in on a little secret. I was supposed to be in Slytherin, but I pursuaded the Sorting Hat no to put me there. I'm not trying to be a Slytherin, I'm just showing who I really am. It's no use pretending to be some happy, little dunderhead who doesn't have a care in the world. I've been through shit, and it's opened my eyes to the fact I don't need to pretend anymore. In fact, I can't pretend anymore. I can't be someone I'm not!"
Hermione had been listening with only half an ear, but Harry's last response had been quite attention-worthy. "Too true, Harry."
Ron didn't like the superior tone in her voice. "Hermione, you have no room to talk. You've gone mental over your parents' deaths!"
"Excuse me, Ron? Did you just call me mental? I don't appreciate that, because it is simply not true. I am coping very well, considering the situation." She levelled a strong glare at her boyfriend.
He snorted in response and Hermione glared even harder. "Fine. If you're going to be an ass, I'm breaking up with you. Yes, Ronald Weasley, we are through."
With that, the brunette stalked away and disappeared up the stairs to the girls' dormitories. Ron was left to gape unbelievingly at the space she'd occupied only moments before. Then he turned on his friend, who sat slouched in his chair with a satisfied grin curving his lips.
"You're encouraging her! Why in the bloody hell are you encouraging her?!" he yelled, tears glittering in his blue eyes.
Harry gracefully got to his feet and stretched in a way that was distinctly feline. He turned shadowed emerald eyes to his best friend and said, "I wouldn't expect you to understand, not having gone through what we have. But you should know that you should always support your friends, even when you don't understand them sometimes. She's going to be fine, given time. She's just growing up, Ron. You're so lucky you haven't had to yet, did you know that? Treasure your ignorance, because one day everything will come crashing down around your ears and you'll be helpless to stop it."
He smiled a soft smile that held a thousand broken hopes and walked away. Ron watched him leave, a strange pang in his heart. Somewhere deep inside of his soul, he knew that Harry was telling him some important truth, but for the life of him he couldn't figure it out. What had he meant by not growing up? He wasn't a kid, he was sixteen. And yet, something told him that was was an innocent babe in arms when compared to Harry and Hermione.
Will this madness ever end? Things are changing so much, and I can't do anything to stop it. When will it all stop? Will it ever go back to normal?
Hermione Granger's entrance into the Great Hall the next morning was noted with more than a little shock by the students already seated. Make up enhanced her average features enough to make her actually attractive, and her outfit was gape-worthy. Her uniform skirt came to halfway down her thighs, her shirt was unbuttoned enough to show some cleavage that had somehow, almost-magically been utterly hidden before, and her usually sensible Oxfords were replaced with knee-high tie-up boots with three inch stiletto heels.
Her honey-colored eyes sharp and cold, a smirk twisting her lips, she stalked over the Gryffindor table and sat down beside an amused Harry Potter. A sardonic smile was in place on his alabaster features and his emerald eyes glittered coldly. "Just the look, darling 'Mione."
She crossed her legs gracefully and raised a delicate eyebrow at him. "Eloquent this morning, aren't we Harrykins?"
Everyone waited with bated breath to see what the Boy Who Lived's reaction was, half-hoping that he'd be angry with her blatant mockery. He simply leaned his head back and laughed. It was a sound that sent shivers down many spines. It was dark and rich, the sound of black silk sheets rustling in a candlelit room, of forbidden whispers and furious passion. It didn't belong in the Great Hall, coming out of Harry Potter's mouth.
Another sound joined his husky laugh, a feminine laugh that breathed seductively across bare skin. It was a sound of hidden caresses, of warm vanilla and musk, and of exotic pleasures found in the shadows of the night. Hermione Granger's laugh was a sound that stilled many a heartbeat and instilled fear in longing in young hearts. It was a sound that never should have escaped her rose-petal lips.
Over at the Slytherin table, Draco Malfoy had a hard time in trying not to join in their dark laughter. It was a sound that sang through his veins, beat in his own heart. It called to him.
"Hell, that did not just happen," breathed Blaise Zabini, his eyes wide with lust and wonder.
Draco narrowed his eyes at his friend. "It did, and it would be wise to stop looking like a lovestruck Hufflepuff. You have no business in thinking exactly what I know you're thinking about Granger."
Blaise frowned, catching the thunderous scowl on Draco's features. "What gives? She's free game."
"You are a heartless playboy, Zabini. The girl just lost her parents for fuck's sake, and you're lusting after her because of a stupid laugh."
"Don't tell me that didn't affect you!"
Draco smirked at the sandy-haired boy, the laugh he'd tried to suppress only moments before escaping from between his parted lips. It froze Zabini, who stared at him with slack-jawed astonishment. And why shouldn't he? It was a sound of silken skin writhing furiously, of blood spilling, of the line between pain and pleasure falling apart and never-ending ecstasy.
"Why should the sound of their laughter affect me when my own is as dark and powerful?" he asked in a deceptively-soft voice a few moments later, a harsh light in his silver eyes.
Blaise suddenly feared the blond more than anyone. He knew he was an innocent compared to him, a pathetic child in the eyes of one who'd seen so many horrific things. Too many horrific things. The kind of things that changed a person forever. . .just like how Potter and Granger were changed.
And he knew that the War had done all this. They were the victims of a War they never should've been a part of, but were because of who they were. Draco, the son of Lord Voldemort's right hand man. Potter, the bloody Boy Who Lived. Granger, the best friend of the savior of the wizarding world and a muggleborn who'd helped defeat the Dark Lord numerous times. They were condemned simply for being born who they were or who they befriended.And it was all because of this stupid War. The War that innocent people were paying the price for!
Suddenly, Blaise felt insignifigant and young. He hadn't been hit by the War, and knew nothing of what it felt like. And yet. . .his heart told him that he wouldn't stay untouched forever. His turn was coming, oh it was coming. . .
And he feared it with every fiber of his being.
Three weeks later, Harry and Hermione were leaning against the wall outside the Transfiguration room before their double class with Slytherin, when Draco Malfoy arrived, sans his two bodyguards.
"Hey Potty, did your girlfriend here give you that hickey displaced so vulgarly on your neck?" his cultured voice drawled insultingly.
Harry had to bite back a laugh at Malfoy's chosen words. What a way to show off the hickey he'd placed there himself! "Terribly sorry, ferret, but I don't have a girlfriend. Being gay kind of hinders that, you know. And besides, a girl could never give a hickey this good. Aggressiveness is a guy's forte, although I'm sure you know all about that."
"Actually Potter, I don't. I would never be a submissive, like you obviously are." There was blatant mockery in Malfoy's silver eyes when he said this.
Harry pretended to be offended. "Me, a sub?! Ridiculous! You're much more of a sub than me. You're thinner, more feminine, and obviously weaker."
Draco grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and hissed, "You take that back, you fucking whore!"
"Whore?! You're one to talk, Death Eater scum!" Harry yelled, shoving at the blond.
"You mudblood-loving git!"
Harry was ready with another run-of-the-mill insult when Hermione suddenly forced them apart and sneered at Malfoy, "You're one to talk, bowing and scraping to a half-blood monster! You sicken me!"
Yet again Draco was surprised by the vehemence in her voice and he appraised her. "Didn't know you had it in you, Granger."
Her face was twisted into a contemptuous scowl and she hissed, "You don't know a lot of things about me. Like how I know about you're secretly fucking someone with a crescent-shaped birthmark on their arse."
Draco paled, which hadn't seemed possible since he was so pale already, but the blood drained from his face and he looked shocked. In a movement only she caught, his eyes flickered to the emerald-eyed boy in front of him, who by the way was looking distinctly pale as well. Harry had to actually clench his hands into fists to keep from reaching out and touching the birthmark on his behind.
"Students! Enough lally-gagging about in the hallway!" Professor McGonagall's stern voice broke apart the three teenagers.
Draco stalked into the room as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Hermione walked in calmly, a cat-ate-the-canary grin curving her generous mouth. Harry was last, a thunderous expression on his features and a look in his eyes that promised retribution to the satisfied brunette.
Hours later in the Gryffindor common room, Harry cornered Hermione and whispered harshly, "How the hell do you know?!"
She glared at him with a pitying look in her brown eyes. "I may be different from who I used to be, but my observational skills haven't faded. You both have similar bruises and scratches. Whenever you're missing, so's he. I've caught you staring at each other when you think no one's looking. And did I mention the Marauders' Map was very useful?"
Jealousy entered Harry's mind. Why had she been looking at Draco closely enough to notice the scratches and bruises that were well-hidden by his robes? And why the hell had she gone through his things and used the Marauders' Map without his permission? "Why are you acting this way with me?! I know what you're going through!"
Hermione looked disbelieving and crossed her arms. "Oh really? Looks like you coped pretty well with Sirius' death."
Harry glared at her, his jaw clenching angrily. "Yeah, and that's why I got a tattoo, got my ear pierced, spike my hair, and started fucking my biggest enemy!"
His words ended in a shout, his eyes blazing with jade fury. Then suddenly, he pressed a hand to just below his collarbone, fear shadowing his features. "Fuck, Draco's in trouble."
He ran out of the common room abruptly, leaving Hermione no choice but to follow with confusion clouding her mind. How did he know that? Their shoes sounded sharply on the stone floors as they raced through the corridors of the school, Harry seeming to know exactly where to go. They ended up on the third floor in a rarely-used corridor that was dark with shadows.
A slender figure is lying in a fetal position near a statue of a unicorn. Silver-blond hair shines in the faint torchlight and the figure pants for breath. It is Draco Malfoy, his robes torn and bloodied.
"Malfoy!" Harry cried out softly, kneeling beside the injured boy.
"Knew these rings were good for something," Draco said wryly, attempting to sit up.
Harry helped him, even though the blond glared at him for doing so. "What happened?"
Draco's grey eyes dropped to the floor and he muttered angrily, "Nott gave me a little reminder that screwing up isn't good for my health. It seems that something I told the Dark Lord led them into a trap and two Death Eaters were captured."
Hermione stood in the shadows, confusion warring in her mind. Was Malfoy not just a Death Eater like she'd thought? She stayed hidden, although she knew Harry knew she was there. Malfoy probably wouldn't want to see her there just yet.
"What was Dumbledore thinking?! He had to know any trap could be traced back to you!" Harry growled, pressing his hand to Malfoy's wounds and healing them with wandless magic.
Draco slowly got to his feet, leaning heavily on the raven-haired Gryffindor. "He probably thought once wouldn't hurt, the old fool."
Suddenly, his eyes narrowed and he peered into the nearby shadows. There was a form hidden there, a distinctly feminine one. "Granger?! What the hell is she doing here?!"
The question was directed at Harry, but Hermione stepped forward and asked an indifferent voice, "Are you a spy?"
Draco glared at her, drawing himself taller even though all his muscles ached. "You can't tell anyone, not even the weasel. Understood? Only Snape, Dumbledore, Potter, and now you know."
"What do you think I am, stupid? We need the information you bring. I would never jeopardize your position by blabbing it!" The girl sounded affronted.
Draco nodded, believing her. He groaned, as Potter's hand touched a particularly sensitive bruise Nott had given him. The area was instantly filled with a pleasant heat, relieving the pain.
"What did he do? Physically beat you up? I'd have thought he'd use magic," Harry asked, wincing in sympathy as he touched another sore spot.
The blond-haired Slytherin shook his head. "Wand magic can be traced. And besides, the spells he would've used would've been detected by Dumbledore's wards."
Hermione frowned. "Why didn't you fight back?"
"Obvious answer, Granger. He was a messenger from Voldemort. I have to submit to any punishment the bastard deems necessary."
She narrowed her eyes angrily. "That's not fair. You shouldn't have to go through with that kind of treatment."
"What can I do? I'm a spy pretending to be a good, little Death Eater. It's the price I have to pay." Draco shrugged his shoulders, feeling a lot better as Potter's hands finished healing him.
"It's the price of war, you mean. No matter which path you would've chosen, you'd have had to pay the bloody price of the War."
A grim smile twisted his lips and a dark light glittered in his silver eyes. "It's a price we all have to pay."
-We're broken inside,
Faded shells and imitations
All that's left are the
Pieces of the wreckage
-We never had a chance
-They stole our spirit,
Killed our child-like innocence
They tore apart the future,
Shredding all dreams to dust
-Darkness is our only friend,
The last ally at our side
Hope and light retreated long ago,
Knowing the fight was futile
-Our world is slowly dying,
Burning out under the burden
Of the hate, the blood, and war
-In the dust of the falling night,
They ask themselves how this happened
How could they have been so blind
To the suffering they caused?
-We are victims of the ever-going fight
To save the land from destruction
Nobody ever saw the truth,
That we in essence, destroyed ourselves
With all we did to save ourselves
-We never had a chance
-Blame it on the faultiness of our race,
On the ignorance of the human people
We let ourselves go astray,
Led by the leaders who swore to save us
We Never Had A Chance ; by N.M.C. (me)
A/N: Chapter Four is up after weeks of procrastination. This story is my baby, and I really want to have it be as perfect as I can make it. And even though I was sick today, I finished it so I could get it up.
Well, I've just nudged at the plot a bit more this chapter. Soon, you'll begin to see how the characters I've mentioned in more than passing fit in with the whole plotline. The characters who play a big part in this story are: Harry (of course), Draco (another obvious one), Hermione (wow, as if she wasn't obvious too), Ron (tell me you saw this one too), Pansy (beginning of chapter three should've tipped you off), Blaise (not as obvious, but noticeable), and one more who hasn't been mentioned at all yet. I'll give you another hint to the mysterious plot next chapter, just to keep you anticipating more of the story. I'm trying to be evil right now. . .is it wokring? grin
Thanks so much for the reviews! This chapter was utterly dedicated to the people who'd taken the effort to review my favorite story (although Spirit of the Veela and The Potterboy Problem are close seconds). Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart! And please review this chapter, too. I really like to hear how you like this story and questions are welcome! If anyone does ask any important questions, I promise to answer them next chapter.
Music I listened to while writing: Linkin' Park and Papa Roach
Roslyn Drycof.