Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, though I wish I could come up with something amazingly similar so I could be a multimillionare. J.K. Rowling is the author of those wonderful novels. This fanfic is my own invention however. DON'T STEAL IT! hehe :P
Author's Notes: Well Howdidoodee reviewaroonis- okay, I know, I know; too many 'oo' vowels. Chapter 5 was really well reviewed and received, and now, here is chapter 6. Chapter 5 was a really difficult chapter, or perhaps, not so much difficult as it was- trying. I got severely frustrated throughout the whole process, but, I got it up, and it seemed well enough liked. Chapter 6 is back to Hermione's POV and I have to admit that I am glad. Draco's character is quite dark really, and I like the idea of swapping between the two, gives me a break from both people, who occasionally cause me angst. Chapter 5 gave you an insight into Draco's upbringing and the 'Slytherin' persona, which people seemed to have liked.
I'm really glad that everyone likes my style of writing. It is the greatest praise for a writer, I believe, to have people say that their writing is interesting and enjoyable, so thank you. I don't want to drag Hermione and Draco out of their character statuses, as that is who make both of them who they are, but I also want to develop their characters, give them more room to grow into the same but perhaps slightly different people. Hopefully, as this story grows and Draco and Hermione's characters develop, so will their friends and the people surrounding them, and so in each chapter, I will try and focus on the person whose view it is from (Draco or Hermione) and perhaps another such person.
Thanks you all so much for reviewing, and I'll hope you'll stick with me, even though I'm an amazingly slow writer. ~Cai~
Chapter 6 Dinner finishes as Dumbledore gets to his feet, and as my eyes travel the length of the room to rest on the elderly headmaster, they land for a single moment on my 'hunter's' form. His face is stern and serious, his eyes facing forward through the long, blond strands of hair which overhang his face, but as I stare, the moment growing to be longer, his eyes shift, and turning his face every so slightly, he looks at me.
I freeze, my eyes caught by his as my cheeks grow undeniably hot. His eyes, blue as evening ice, stare illicitly me and I choke for a moment before dragging mine away, and folding my face in my hands. Those eyes, my mind shrieks like a banshee, and I shudder involuntarily, trying not to raise my head to stare at his face. My neck aches as I place my face against my knees, and finally, in the darkness, which looms beneath the table, those eyes disappear and I am left to think of him on my own. My hands have begun to shake again, and in the darkness of the underneath, I can see the faintly growing light, that through the day I conceal so well, but at night, begins like a beacon, shining the way for those haunting memories to return. I scrunch my nailed claws into tightening balls and try to stop the rigorous tremors, which assault them.
Those piercing eyes burn the inside of my eyes and even now, when I am hidden away from their penetrating stare does my stomach do back flips around my innards, collaborating the thought of retreating into myself. I breathe deeply and place a hand on my heart in the darkness, feeling it beat hungrily against my fingers. It beats like the rhythm of a clock and I wonder what exactly it ticks to; what event it counts down to.
"Hermione..." Harry's voice breaks through my thoughts and I look at him, ashamed of how I must look, wondering why he doesn't question the heat, which burns my cheeks and flames them to life. "Dumbledore is talking about a prefect meeting..." he trails off, returning his eyes to the front, and I quickly follow them only to find myself eye-to-eye with Dumbledore. Beneath the table, my hands shudder and twitch against the folds of my robes, but for now they are concealed.
"This meeting is for the Head Girl and Boy," he looks purposefully from Malfoy, who I force myself not to look at and then at me, "and the prefects of each house. It will take place tomorrow night after the dismissal of dinner and I wish for you all to be there precisely." He pauses for a moment, seeming to direct his next statement at Malfoy and I, "Please make sure that you have decided on some choices for the upcoming events. Thank you for your patience, you're dismissed." I get to my feet slowly feeling tired and drawn all of a sudden; the day's events have taken their toll on me. My eyes pass unconsciously across the room's mass of moving bodies and one body, slipping away into the shadows, catches my eye and I pause and watch him. I wonder how such a person can slip away or upon someone so silently with such a head of hair. I watch for a moment as he lifts curtain and takes a passage and feel my eyes blaze to life as he looks back. Even in the shadows those eyes glint with a mischief that I can catch from here, and I feel propelled to take a step towards him.
What am I doing! I realise as my feet lift to move, and my eyes widen in fright as his eyes take in my movement and narrow with what appears as a deep passion. Those eyes, they hold a deepness and dark intensity, which freezes and burns me at the same moment, creating within me a mess of conflicting emotions and I feel myself flare to life. Here, in the narrowness of this icy world, my body feels free and bound at the same moment and I want to gasp at the saturated emotions that roam freely in my body, that make me want to scream in frustration.
I watch him standing there, regarding me and I want to hit him so hard that he bleeds, so hard that that beautiful face is flared red with the print of my hand. How dare he?
"Mione!" Ron suddenly declares and I snap my head around to face my carrot-haired friend. "Why didn't you tell us about the upcoming events? What are they? What are we doing? Is it something dangerous?" The words seem to shuffle from his mouth in a clutter of syllables and I watch in amazement as his tongue whips in waves around the different consonants and vowels. Fleur must have a lot of fun.
I realise he is still talking, and steady the smile that threatens to bloom on my face, "Ron, Ron, Ron. Don't you think I would have told you everything by now, if I knew what was happening? Upcoming events, as professor puts it, are as much a mystery to me, as they are to you." His face flairs for a moment to a deep red, and he shuffles his feet in embarrassment. Come a time, Ron and I may have snapped at each other with astonishing tempers, but those times are gone.
Ronald Weasley has grown tall and sure of himself. There is a certain sparkle in his eye, which disappeared some years back when his spirit was broken and he watched his best friend's heart break as their only family disappeared behind a curtain of black veil. Seven years of facing the peril of the wizarding world alongside Harry has taken its toll on Ron's face, leaving a certain rugged, creased look, which seems unusual in someone so young. But if one was to ask Ron to play a game of Chess or to take a swim in the lake, which lies in a paddock just beyond The Burrow, a glow returns to his cheeks, which one cannot mistake for anything but happiness.
At night, he sleeps, surrounded by photos of those he smiles at, those he laughs with and those he loves, and when he awakens, although the childhood gibberish of his past which erupted in him an untameable anger is gone, there is something different in its place. When he slips his arm around Fleur's waist, or stalks into Molly's kitchen to grab another piece of Slippery Fudge, his eyes reflect a calming ecstasy which makes me want to grin and cry at the same time. It never used to be there, and I wonder how such experiences in someone so young could make them so happy, could make them seem so alive.
"There is not a day that doesn't go by, Hermione, that I don't wish my life could have been different." Ron once said to me, as we were about to hop off the train at the end of our sixth year. Harry was not on the train; he was still out cold in the hospital of Hogwarts. "But," he continued, and I almost choked on the streams of wetness that coursed down my cheeks, as I saw tears spring into his eyes, "I would still make the same choices, the same decisions, I'd just erase the moments in my life where my anger or jealousy got the better of my love for you and Harry. There is nothing in this world that could keep me from you two, unless Fleur was wearing something utterly adorable," he pauses and adds on the last bit, earning a punch in the arm from me, "and I thank everyday for that. I thank everyday for my friends and teachers, for my family, because if I don't, and I one day wake up, and find, like Harry that I've lost one of you, my life would be a poorer experience, my life would be sadder, and I'm not strong enough to think I could go on." He admitted, and I bit my lip, before throwing myself into his arms and covering his cheeks in kisses.
"Always, Mr Weasley, always. Forever you will always be in my heart." I whisper to him earnestly, and after some time, we slowly release each other and holding hands, we walk from the train.
There is a serenity to him, that now, when he says something, is thought through thoroughly, and has been comprehended in his mind as a good or bad statement. No longer the boy who had a raw bout of 'foot-in-mouth' disease, Ron is more considerate; Ron has matured. But sometimes, late at night when the memories of my experiences at Hogwarts overwhelm me and I feel tears coursing down my cheeks, I want to howl in pain and scream in anger at how much he has changed. I love him every bit as much as I did when I saw him and Harry for the first time after being petrified in second year, and I never will stop, but there is something different about my red-haired friend, there is something so unlike the Ron I met seven years ago, which hurts so much, because I realise that it is because of us, Harry and I, that he is the way he is. What we have experienced as the Golden Trio has changed each of us so much, but it is only in each other, I guess that we really see the truth of all this.
"Sorry, Mione. I'm just excited! The heads, no matter who they are, always seem to think up the best things!" His eyes are alight with amazing clarity and I grin at the excitement, which he expresses like an overjoyed three-year-old. "And since you're our friend, you will of course favour any event which will be good for Harry and I." He says, raising an expectant eyebrow at me, and I roar with laughter, and clap him across the back of his head.
"Oh, so, is that how it's going to be, Ronald!" I shriek in mock-anger at Ron who seems to be twiddling his thumbs before he throws an annoyingly cocky smirk at me, and hurls me over his shoulder. "Put me down!" I relentlessly scream in earnest, beating his upper back with my fists, but he just laughs manically, and insists on running me to the Gryffindor tower.
I glance up from my assault of Ron's back and see Harry and Ginny chasing after us, the mouths open with laughter, whilst their cheeks flush a brilliant red with the exertion of running. "Ron! Ron, put me down! Put me down this instance!" I shriek, and he finally pauses, and gently pulling me off his shoulder, he places me on the ground before him.
"Well, that was quite an event." He says casually, and wrapping an arm around my shoulders, he pulls me into the Gryffindor common room, and over to the fire. "We don't see nearly enough of you, Mione, since you started all your prefect duties." He tells me, as he pushes me onto a seat and sits opposite me, in the other plush, red-velvet chair. He drags it almost close enough so our knees are touching, and then gives a horrendous tug on the couch that Harry and Ginny have collapsed on.
Here, in this room, where at the present moment, no one but us four sit, all is happy and alight. The fire casts an amazing glow across the room and the paintings of past Gryffindor prefects and the heads of this brave house, make amusing background noises to our laboured breaths which rush from our lungs as we try in earnest not to laugh. The last month or so, spent within the confines of the Head Rooms, have been somewhat intriguing and heartbreaking. Alone in my bedroom, I can stay up as late as I want, reading and going over whatever I please, whether it be the extra notes I requested from Professor Flitwick or, much to his annoyance, Professor Snape, or one of the many muggle magazines that I have accumulated. Here I can hide away my scars and none will be the wiser, none will know how these plague my mind. But as I lie awake in the lightest of my clothes, the quilt and sheet stuffed to the very end of my bed, I miss the sounds of my friends' breathing as they slept in the beds, which lined the female dormitory. I miss the squeals of delight which Lavender used to emit when she returned from one of her many adventures with the males of this school. But most of all I just miss the company.
Until recently, company has been hard to come by in my dorms, and Draco and I, although relatively civil, if you call speaking a maximum of two words to each other, civil and resorting to much used insults, have maintained no close contact. I rub my face in my hands, tuning out to my friend's conversation for a moment and think of the situation I have found myself in. Company seems almost too much now, especially the company of a specific Slytherin, who undeniably makes me rethink everything that I am, everything that I thought I was and would be.
"I can't stand you, but... but I can't seem to leave you alone! It's not even a day and I've spent more time around you than I have any other girl!" His voice creaks in my ears, over and over, and I find myself unable to stop myself thinking about him. There is a vicious temper hidden beneath him, which he hides so well behind a disconcerting, disinterested air but watching him stand there, flustered and drawn out, his posture resembling an old man whose very state seems to be breaking, I cannot help but feel something stir inside of me, and I clench my hands, to stop them shaking. There is something inside of me, which aches with uncontrolled emotions as I stop myself wanting to believe what he says and turn my back on his charismatic, passionate eyes. I have to turn my back on him, because of my friends, because of me, because of how much he could hurt me.
Deep inside Draco, there is an obscure hate and trauma, which has captured his soul, which shines so brightly when he leaves himself open. I feel drawn to that person. Drawn to the person who can't hide the anger, the furious loathing, which seems to simmer like a curtain of raw emotion around him. But I can't help but hate him as well. For six years he has taunted and teased me, insulted my family and my friends and dealt harsh blows to my pride. It is he, whose family supports a man of torment, it is he who follows in his father's footsteps, and he who neither apologises or shows remorse for the actions performed by him.
His glare still penetrates my thoughts but beneath the glare, which is irked with anger, and still is begrudged by such hateful emotions, is a passionate fire, which beckons and scares. I can't help but be drawn to that like a bug to the light. I crush those thoughts, remembering, my words to him, the words, which I so easily threw in his face like the summer's breeze, the words which I cast out with such skill. My voice reverberates in my head, and I groan.
I... I won't play these games anymore. Find some other whore to play with; they're much more willing, because I may be some middle-class, muggle-born witch, Draco Malfoy, but I will not be known as yet another number on the Malfoy's conquering list. My hands begin to shake as my mind remembers the glimpse of hollow coldness, which conquered his eyes with my words, and I fold them in my lap, trying to contain the shuddering quakes, which rip through their nerves, a result of my preceding experiences. I want to expose these hands to Malfoy's eyes, push them until he can see how damaged, how broken they are, and show him that I am no faery; that I have cast no spell. What spell have you put on me, faery; that anything you ask, I would give to you on my knees? Anything I ask, anything I wished for? If that were so, he would leave my side and never play such games with a mind already harmed by those he lives amongst. One has no choice in their enemies, but friends are but one of the few choices in a life.
"Mione?" I glance quickly at my friends, and find myself staring into Ginny's blue eyes, the concern and distress which is openly expressed in them, directed entirely at me. "Mione, are you okay?" She whispers, as Harry and Ron splutter with laughter at some memory of Seamus' attempts to woo Lavender.
"And then, and then," Harry continues, his cheeks blushed with a glossy red as he tries to contain his laughter enough to get through his story, "he walks right up to her and hands her a bouquet of flowers and a poem personally written by Seamus Finnegan." Ron roars with overly loud laughter, but Harry quickly waves his hand to show the story isn't finished. "And then, he recites the poem to her, whilst holding her hand to his chest." The two of them snort and fall off their chairs, their laughter echoing in the stone mounted room, and I roll my eyes at Ginny. There are moments, when we are all together, that it seems like it did so many years ago, when things did not trouble our minds.
"If I might add something to this story," I whisper, "he performed the poetry very ill." She giggles, but the laughter doesn't reach her eyes and continue to portray worry.
"Mione, what's wrong? Something's been bothering you for a while now. I can't figure out whether it just began at the beginning of this term, or whether it was after the 'fall-out' last year. Do your hands still shake?" She asks, her blue eyes turning black with hurt and alarm, concern and distress.
I withdraw them from the folds of my laps and give them up for inspection. My copper-haired friend gasps, and tears spring to her eyes, and she gently touches the shaking limbs. As if in answer to an unvoiced question, I speak, "The medicine Madame Pomfrey gives me only lasts so long, before the shaking returns and the colour reveals itself." I trail off, casting my eyes to the lit wood in the fireplace, and try to unclench my teeth and resist the urge to hit something or to last out.
There is a distinct change that has occurred to my small group of friends, those to their demeanour and personality being most widely noticed, but physically, the years have taken their toll; physically, we have been scarred by our years of fighting a man who I won't even deem worthy to mention. And I find that the fingers, which used to encase butterflies with in their cages, are more clumsy and slow. Fingers, once quick to snatch a wand and cast a spell are careless and I do not trust their sometimes-erratic movements.
Ginny eases my hands into hers, and she rubs her thumbs across my scarred skin, her eyes growing large at the unusual display of colours spreads in a kaleidoscope of hues beneath. My hands, once pale and well figured, are marked and blemished by veins, coloured by silver, green and blue, which run to the folds of my arms. Hands, once perfect in appearance and state, are no longer real looking and shudder and tremble like I'm unsure and nervous of myself. "This potion will conceal your hands, child, if that is what you wish. It will only last for three quarters of a day, where upon the shaking will soon begin again, and the colours will soon fade back into place." Madame Pomfrey's says softly to me, as she stands before my prone figure, which sits on the very edge of the bed. My hands clench the around the bed sheets and I clench my jaw, grinding my teeth tightly together.
"Oh child," the patron whispers, and she takes my hands, and kneels before me, her face looking up at mine. I had almost forgotten she was there, "what have they done to you? Professor Snape has a large portion of this medicine produced so when you need more, just ask. Hermione?" My eyes dart away from the lady's concerned face and I look to the beds, which hold my friends. Harry lies prone within the folds of a white sheet, the twitching of his foot showing his place in the living, whilst his arms lie still by his sides, the tops of bandages, wrapped tightly around his waist and lower chest, just visible.
From the bottom of his waist to the centre of his chest lies a gash, an inch deep and wide. From it oozes a silver and green blood, which slips from his body like mercury across water, and sleeps in the veins surrounding the wound like an intricate spiders web. I watch him lying there, restful, and feel hope in the belief that perhaps the worst is over, and that Harry, the boy who has slept for two weeks now, will awaken soon, but my thoughts are cut short as an almighty wail erupts.
"STAY AWAY FROM ME! HERMIONE! RON! GET AWAY FROM ME! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME! SIRIUS! DUMBLEDORE! GINNY!" The last of his cries erupts from his chest like a hoarse wail and tears spring to my eyes as his hands reach up into the air, pushing and shoving at the people, which haunt his mind. His scream resonates throughout the room, and I step off the bed, desperately trying to make the decision to go to his side or run away. "Hermione..." My name reaches my ears, and his eyes are wide open and staring blindly, the pupils covered in a silver mist, which stops his sight. He is still alive but asleep, his thoughts dead and abusive. "Make them stop... Voldemort... he is coming! Oh dear god, help me! Ron, please... get Dumbledore, I can't feel my legs... WHAT ARE YOU DOING! MOTHER! FATHER!" His voice rings like a banshee's plee, and I watch the cowering boy who lies strangled in his bed, fighting his nightmarish memories.
There are memories in our minds, permanent ones that haunt our thoughts and break our smiles, but there are moments in Harry's where he is alone, and where I never got to him in time, where Ron never stood at his side, and when Ginny never held his hand. There are moments, where he faced the terrors of his existence on his own, and it is these, which haunt him first. These are they, which his mind plays over and over like a broken record player.
"Mione? Mione, come back to us..." Harry's voice is closer than it was, softer then it had been, and I open my eyes, feeling drugged and tired to see Harry's matured and older face staring at me. He sits on the floor at my feet, his hands wrapped around mine, and I can't help but bite my lip in an effort to stop the tears. "Oh, Mione... your beautiful hands." He whispers, and I see that he is staring dumbly at them, "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you keep this to yourself?" He wonders aloud, and I look to Ginny whose eyes are wide with unknowing.
"You didn't know, Harry? How could you have missed the potions that she takes three times a day?" Ron's voice startles us, realising that we had forgotten his presence, and I drag my eyes from his sister's face to his.
"You knew? You knew and you didn't say a word?" My voice quakes and I stare at him, my eyes wide with astonishment, "How could you have known about this?" My eyes glaze over and I find myself suddenly embarrassed, withdrawing my hands from Harry's and trying to hide them beneath the folds. "I... I need to... to go..." I mumble and get up quickly from my chair, knocking it some distance away.
"Hermione, don't go!" Harry demands, but I look at his face and feel scared. There is a strangeness to my hands, a scarring which attracts unwanted attention and questions, and I don't want to see the reaction that my friends would have. I stumble backwards, towards the portrait hole of the room, and with a quick word, I am through that hole and in the darkness of the corridor. In the darkness, I can't see my hands, and I don't need to think, just for a moment how horrible particular moments in my life have been, how much hate they have caused me. Reaching into my pockets, I withdraw a pair of black, dragon-hide gloves, and slip them neatly over my fingers.
"For you, my dear." Dumbledore tells me, before I board the train, and he tucks into my clenched hands, a pair of gloves. "After several long nights, Professor Snape and I have discovered that only dragon's hide will conceal such things. When you need to, just slip them over, and they will conceal the shaking and the scarring." He says, and I give him a gentle smile, a kiss on the cheek and enter the train, just catching the last of his words, "Oh, my poor, poor girl, how badly the world has treated you." I trip over my feet as I stagger to my rooms and find myself sprawled upon the ground, my cheek pressed against the cold stones of the floor, once beneath my feet, and I feel tears dribbling down my cheeks. I choke on them, mucas and salty water catching on my tongue as I try desperately to breath and suddenly I am being heaved to my feet.
"Well, what do we have here?" A familiar voice startles me, and I shriek in fright, just stopping myself from throwing up my disfigured hands in protection. The blue eyes, concealed beneath straight, dark hair, watch me in amusement, and I take a moment to contain myself before meeting his stare. "SEAMUS FINNEGAN..." I manage to calm the tone of my voice, "what on earth are you doing here?" He possesses a cheeky grin, which only an Irish could have, and takes my gloved hand, folding it in the crook of his arm.
"Why, accompanying you, of course. In hopes that one, miss Hermione Granger may grace me with her presence on a date." He looks at me with smiling eyes, and a wide grin, and despite myself, and albeit Seamus, I blush.
"Oh, a date, really, and will Lavender be accompanying us on this one, or shall I see her on another one." I joke, for a moment feeling carefree and unthoughtful of anything but the banter passing between us two.
"Lavender has never appreciated me as you have, my dear." He tells me, and pats my hands gently, the gloves playing their part and concealing their true state. "Appreciated you? Yes, I guess you could call it that, but unfortunately I shall have to decline your choice." I say, my eyes, feeling almost sad at the thought.
"Nay, Lady, don't offer sad eyes to I, for there are others who would take my offer, but yours is a heart for winning not taking." He says gently, and suddenly we are at the entrance to my chambers, and I look to Seamus. "There is a hurting in you, Hermione, which runs as deep as the blood and water in your soul. Take off your cloak before you give yourself away; do so openly with no secrets. You're a good friend, Hermione, to all who honour you with that name." He presses a kiss to my forehead, before slipping away back to the Gryffindor tower, and as I watch his shadow dissolve, I unwind the hide, which binds my hands, and step inside.
The room is dim and seems colder and more severe than the other common room, and I shudder as I step further inside and see that the doors to the balcony are open. Walking idly up to them, I lever them shut against the harsh winds blowing outside and place a hand against the cold glass. My hands, webbed with silver and green veins, glow delicately in the twilight of the room, and for a moment everything is deadly quiet and then something grips the top of my arms, and it is an untimely reminder of my past.
"You stupid, Mudblood! This is no place for a dirty little girl!" A blond haired man, sneers at him, but despite the fact his face is hidden behind the confines of a mask, none but his voice could be so familiar. This voice rings in my ears and I find myself face-to-face with Malfoy's lucid expression. He is seething; his face a mask of every surging emotion, and as he holds the tops of my shoulders, he pushes me up against the glass. His face, centimetres from mine, is heaving with ragged breaths and as he looks at me, his eyes darting from my nose to my mouth to my cheeks and finally to my eyes, I catch a glimpse of something tormented, something clinging to the last ounce of sanity. All of a sudden his lips are upon mine and there is a furious passion behind them, which I hate because it makes me seek more. My hands, swept to my sides by his vicious hold on them, are shuddering and withering at my side and as his tongue slips across my lips, drinking in their softness, biting down on them, and drawing a single drop of blood from their red confines, I shudder. "What are you doing?" Our eyes, wide open as we kiss passionately, vehemently, venomously, quake with something in response to this connection between us, and suddenly he is renching himself away, placing the smallest of distances between us.
"How do you do this, Mudblood? How can I want to stand here with you and want to hit you as well? What are you doing to me?" His voice sneers at me, and I shiver involuntarily, finding his countenance, at the moment, a little too much to handle, a little to intimidating.
"Let go of me, Malfoy! Get you hands off me! I don't even want to be here!" I hiss at him, and I see a smirk tug at the corner of his lips, his demeanour suddenly changing all of a sudden.
"Have you finally realised, Granger, that life isn't a perfect sunshine, that life isn't always friends and family, that life can also be moments of abuse and torment." He closes his eyes, his breathing calming ever so slowly, and with only the slightest of hesitations, leans forward and brushes his lips against mine. The lightest, most gentlest kiss ever presented to me is quickly drawn away, and when I look at him, my face already flared to life with a fiery hue, his face is contorted. There is something pained in his expression, as if doing what he has just done, is a trauma for him.
"Anything that made me realise this, was done by you and yours. Anything that brought torment or pain, was done by your hands." I spit at him spitefully, and his face flushes red, his eyes flashing to a frightening black, "How can you still be the same? How can you still act so happy, so mighty when you... you..." He raises his hand away from my shoulder as if to hit me, and suddenly the nightmares of my past are present and I cannot contain the scream that escapes me.
"NOOOOOOO!" It drowns out the howling of the wind, it drowns out the presence of Draco Malfoy and all I can see through my stagnant eyes is the image of hooded bodies.
His body lies upon the floor, beside the remains of a steaming, repulsive snake of a man, and all I can see through tears is the hesitant rise and fall of his chest; a chest slashed and cut by claws and blades. From Voldemort's body, beaten and bloody, seeps a sticky paste, a paste of silver and green, and it slips into Harry, drowning itself in the scars that it made. I scream for help, for guidance and suddenly they are upon me, pulling and shoving at me, compelling me downwards to the dirt of the floors, and I raise my wand and shout a string of hexes, curses, anything that can move this awful mass of bodies which is suffocating me.
"Expelliarmus!" The bodies closest to me fly backwards, and as several of them land around Voldemort's body, in his blood, which has pooled around him, it splashes upwards and upon my hands, singeing and scorching them. Again a scream erupts from me, as the blood burns my hands, and as the pain contorts my mind, dragging me into darkness, I yell for help, I yell the last thing that comes to my mind. "Expecto Patronum!" From my wand a misty coil unwinds itself and flinging itself into the air, the great bird, an eagle of great spans, erupts and throws itself before me. Its body, not at all like that of Harry's is silver and green edged, veins of these colours seizing the folds of its feathers and the contours of its neck. And as I slip back to the ground, it folds itself around my body, and through silver-laced eyes, I watch as the spirit of the dark lord soars towards me, determined, it seems to rid itself of its final slayer. I watch him growing closer and my eyes widen as he takes hold of my hands in his and darts me forward, pulling me against him, finding that despite the fact he is so ghostly, he is solid. I scream as he raises one of his hands to belt me across the cheek, quivering as pain laces through my fingers. But suddenly I am falling back to the ground, staring at hurt fingers, laced with silver blood where there once was red, and as I drop into unconsciousness, the patronus slowly deflating with each sleepy wave of my eyelids, a single cry rings out and shatters through that man's body like glass, and then nothing...
My scream startles Draco's face, and he stares at me, his hands no longer near me, his face no longer close, and I raise my hands and smother my face. A gasp emits from the back of his throat, and he grasps my fingers nimbly in his own, searching the shining veins.
"Where did you get such scars? Why are your hands such?" He whispers, his eyes wide with something I haven't seen before. He doesn't appear scared or concerned, rather he just barely seems to control a moment of recognition as his eyes take in the site of my hands.
"Get away from me, Draco! Just leave me alone. You know nothing about me, and what I do; you don't see all that there is! These hands don't want you touching them," I tell him foully, snatching my hands away and knowing my eyes are already silver laced, "and this face does not want your kisses. Don't offer anything to me on your knees because I wouldn't want the son of such a man to come so close to me. These hands are useless, Malfoy! They are scarred and damaged, and I don't need you to do anything more to me, you've already done enough!" I scramble away from him, and when I finally reach my the doorway of my room, I glance back at him, the charismatic, egotistical, self-centred man, who has me thinking of him so often, and I find him still facing away from me, his eyes still poised on the place where I stood moments before.
In the darkness of my room, tears burst through my eyes, and I cannot stand for a moment longer, before I slip into a sofa chair, which lies, listlessly beside the door. No fire is brewing in the fireplace and as the chair creaks under my weight, I sob. In the darkness of the room, but one thing shines forth and I curl up tighter into myself, hiding my hands within my folds. I wish that he would leave me alone, for when he does, the space in my heart grows larger not fonder and beat of my heart grows slow and steady, but there is a heat which floods through my veins and erupts in my cheeks, which fails to disappear, and a subtle ache in my body which overwhelms my thoughts, when I wish that he might leave me be.
~*~
That is chapter 6, I am so, so, so sorry that this has taken so long, and to the last two reviews that I got- Sarah and grey tears, I am sorry for keeping you guys waiting :) I know how frustrating it can be. I have been so busy the last few weeks, what with university offers, and accepting them and entering in particular courses that I haven't had a lot of time to write this, but because of feeling bad that I hadn't updated in so long, I finished this in the last two days- I wrote 12 pages in two days!! OMG!! I really hope you enjoy this chapter, and the next chapter, I promise will have Draco/Hermione interaction- I promise. I have already begun writing it. Sorry again for taking so long.
Thanks to my reviewers: Jackeline, Baby-Prue, sosweet22, grey tears, Legolas Chix, Draco_Fan, Ennoymoon, Draco's seeker, Innocent Little Birdie, padfootsknightingale, Aluma, lizzy-malfoy87, Zirconiathblue, DanishGirl, In Dreams, Mystykitty, Blanche DuBois, sarah. Thanks so much for reviewing guys, it was so appreciated, and you guys make me update, even though it still takes ages. Please stick with me, and have patience, because I will always update, it might just take two or three weeks. Thank you so much to those people who wrote really long reviews, I have never been so flattered in all my life and been so proud of my writing. Your comments in my fanfic, have made me more confident about my book, so when I've finished editing it, I'm going to send it to a publisher. Thanks guys,
Cheers,
~Cai~
Author's Notes: Well Howdidoodee reviewaroonis- okay, I know, I know; too many 'oo' vowels. Chapter 5 was really well reviewed and received, and now, here is chapter 6. Chapter 5 was a really difficult chapter, or perhaps, not so much difficult as it was- trying. I got severely frustrated throughout the whole process, but, I got it up, and it seemed well enough liked. Chapter 6 is back to Hermione's POV and I have to admit that I am glad. Draco's character is quite dark really, and I like the idea of swapping between the two, gives me a break from both people, who occasionally cause me angst. Chapter 5 gave you an insight into Draco's upbringing and the 'Slytherin' persona, which people seemed to have liked.
I'm really glad that everyone likes my style of writing. It is the greatest praise for a writer, I believe, to have people say that their writing is interesting and enjoyable, so thank you. I don't want to drag Hermione and Draco out of their character statuses, as that is who make both of them who they are, but I also want to develop their characters, give them more room to grow into the same but perhaps slightly different people. Hopefully, as this story grows and Draco and Hermione's characters develop, so will their friends and the people surrounding them, and so in each chapter, I will try and focus on the person whose view it is from (Draco or Hermione) and perhaps another such person.
Thanks you all so much for reviewing, and I'll hope you'll stick with me, even though I'm an amazingly slow writer. ~Cai~
Chapter 6 Dinner finishes as Dumbledore gets to his feet, and as my eyes travel the length of the room to rest on the elderly headmaster, they land for a single moment on my 'hunter's' form. His face is stern and serious, his eyes facing forward through the long, blond strands of hair which overhang his face, but as I stare, the moment growing to be longer, his eyes shift, and turning his face every so slightly, he looks at me.
I freeze, my eyes caught by his as my cheeks grow undeniably hot. His eyes, blue as evening ice, stare illicitly me and I choke for a moment before dragging mine away, and folding my face in my hands. Those eyes, my mind shrieks like a banshee, and I shudder involuntarily, trying not to raise my head to stare at his face. My neck aches as I place my face against my knees, and finally, in the darkness, which looms beneath the table, those eyes disappear and I am left to think of him on my own. My hands have begun to shake again, and in the darkness of the underneath, I can see the faintly growing light, that through the day I conceal so well, but at night, begins like a beacon, shining the way for those haunting memories to return. I scrunch my nailed claws into tightening balls and try to stop the rigorous tremors, which assault them.
Those piercing eyes burn the inside of my eyes and even now, when I am hidden away from their penetrating stare does my stomach do back flips around my innards, collaborating the thought of retreating into myself. I breathe deeply and place a hand on my heart in the darkness, feeling it beat hungrily against my fingers. It beats like the rhythm of a clock and I wonder what exactly it ticks to; what event it counts down to.
"Hermione..." Harry's voice breaks through my thoughts and I look at him, ashamed of how I must look, wondering why he doesn't question the heat, which burns my cheeks and flames them to life. "Dumbledore is talking about a prefect meeting..." he trails off, returning his eyes to the front, and I quickly follow them only to find myself eye-to-eye with Dumbledore. Beneath the table, my hands shudder and twitch against the folds of my robes, but for now they are concealed.
"This meeting is for the Head Girl and Boy," he looks purposefully from Malfoy, who I force myself not to look at and then at me, "and the prefects of each house. It will take place tomorrow night after the dismissal of dinner and I wish for you all to be there precisely." He pauses for a moment, seeming to direct his next statement at Malfoy and I, "Please make sure that you have decided on some choices for the upcoming events. Thank you for your patience, you're dismissed." I get to my feet slowly feeling tired and drawn all of a sudden; the day's events have taken their toll on me. My eyes pass unconsciously across the room's mass of moving bodies and one body, slipping away into the shadows, catches my eye and I pause and watch him. I wonder how such a person can slip away or upon someone so silently with such a head of hair. I watch for a moment as he lifts curtain and takes a passage and feel my eyes blaze to life as he looks back. Even in the shadows those eyes glint with a mischief that I can catch from here, and I feel propelled to take a step towards him.
What am I doing! I realise as my feet lift to move, and my eyes widen in fright as his eyes take in my movement and narrow with what appears as a deep passion. Those eyes, they hold a deepness and dark intensity, which freezes and burns me at the same moment, creating within me a mess of conflicting emotions and I feel myself flare to life. Here, in the narrowness of this icy world, my body feels free and bound at the same moment and I want to gasp at the saturated emotions that roam freely in my body, that make me want to scream in frustration.
I watch him standing there, regarding me and I want to hit him so hard that he bleeds, so hard that that beautiful face is flared red with the print of my hand. How dare he?
"Mione!" Ron suddenly declares and I snap my head around to face my carrot-haired friend. "Why didn't you tell us about the upcoming events? What are they? What are we doing? Is it something dangerous?" The words seem to shuffle from his mouth in a clutter of syllables and I watch in amazement as his tongue whips in waves around the different consonants and vowels. Fleur must have a lot of fun.
I realise he is still talking, and steady the smile that threatens to bloom on my face, "Ron, Ron, Ron. Don't you think I would have told you everything by now, if I knew what was happening? Upcoming events, as professor puts it, are as much a mystery to me, as they are to you." His face flairs for a moment to a deep red, and he shuffles his feet in embarrassment. Come a time, Ron and I may have snapped at each other with astonishing tempers, but those times are gone.
Ronald Weasley has grown tall and sure of himself. There is a certain sparkle in his eye, which disappeared some years back when his spirit was broken and he watched his best friend's heart break as their only family disappeared behind a curtain of black veil. Seven years of facing the peril of the wizarding world alongside Harry has taken its toll on Ron's face, leaving a certain rugged, creased look, which seems unusual in someone so young. But if one was to ask Ron to play a game of Chess or to take a swim in the lake, which lies in a paddock just beyond The Burrow, a glow returns to his cheeks, which one cannot mistake for anything but happiness.
At night, he sleeps, surrounded by photos of those he smiles at, those he laughs with and those he loves, and when he awakens, although the childhood gibberish of his past which erupted in him an untameable anger is gone, there is something different in its place. When he slips his arm around Fleur's waist, or stalks into Molly's kitchen to grab another piece of Slippery Fudge, his eyes reflect a calming ecstasy which makes me want to grin and cry at the same time. It never used to be there, and I wonder how such experiences in someone so young could make them so happy, could make them seem so alive.
"There is not a day that doesn't go by, Hermione, that I don't wish my life could have been different." Ron once said to me, as we were about to hop off the train at the end of our sixth year. Harry was not on the train; he was still out cold in the hospital of Hogwarts. "But," he continued, and I almost choked on the streams of wetness that coursed down my cheeks, as I saw tears spring into his eyes, "I would still make the same choices, the same decisions, I'd just erase the moments in my life where my anger or jealousy got the better of my love for you and Harry. There is nothing in this world that could keep me from you two, unless Fleur was wearing something utterly adorable," he pauses and adds on the last bit, earning a punch in the arm from me, "and I thank everyday for that. I thank everyday for my friends and teachers, for my family, because if I don't, and I one day wake up, and find, like Harry that I've lost one of you, my life would be a poorer experience, my life would be sadder, and I'm not strong enough to think I could go on." He admitted, and I bit my lip, before throwing myself into his arms and covering his cheeks in kisses.
"Always, Mr Weasley, always. Forever you will always be in my heart." I whisper to him earnestly, and after some time, we slowly release each other and holding hands, we walk from the train.
There is a serenity to him, that now, when he says something, is thought through thoroughly, and has been comprehended in his mind as a good or bad statement. No longer the boy who had a raw bout of 'foot-in-mouth' disease, Ron is more considerate; Ron has matured. But sometimes, late at night when the memories of my experiences at Hogwarts overwhelm me and I feel tears coursing down my cheeks, I want to howl in pain and scream in anger at how much he has changed. I love him every bit as much as I did when I saw him and Harry for the first time after being petrified in second year, and I never will stop, but there is something different about my red-haired friend, there is something so unlike the Ron I met seven years ago, which hurts so much, because I realise that it is because of us, Harry and I, that he is the way he is. What we have experienced as the Golden Trio has changed each of us so much, but it is only in each other, I guess that we really see the truth of all this.
"Sorry, Mione. I'm just excited! The heads, no matter who they are, always seem to think up the best things!" His eyes are alight with amazing clarity and I grin at the excitement, which he expresses like an overjoyed three-year-old. "And since you're our friend, you will of course favour any event which will be good for Harry and I." He says, raising an expectant eyebrow at me, and I roar with laughter, and clap him across the back of his head.
"Oh, so, is that how it's going to be, Ronald!" I shriek in mock-anger at Ron who seems to be twiddling his thumbs before he throws an annoyingly cocky smirk at me, and hurls me over his shoulder. "Put me down!" I relentlessly scream in earnest, beating his upper back with my fists, but he just laughs manically, and insists on running me to the Gryffindor tower.
I glance up from my assault of Ron's back and see Harry and Ginny chasing after us, the mouths open with laughter, whilst their cheeks flush a brilliant red with the exertion of running. "Ron! Ron, put me down! Put me down this instance!" I shriek, and he finally pauses, and gently pulling me off his shoulder, he places me on the ground before him.
"Well, that was quite an event." He says casually, and wrapping an arm around my shoulders, he pulls me into the Gryffindor common room, and over to the fire. "We don't see nearly enough of you, Mione, since you started all your prefect duties." He tells me, as he pushes me onto a seat and sits opposite me, in the other plush, red-velvet chair. He drags it almost close enough so our knees are touching, and then gives a horrendous tug on the couch that Harry and Ginny have collapsed on.
Here, in this room, where at the present moment, no one but us four sit, all is happy and alight. The fire casts an amazing glow across the room and the paintings of past Gryffindor prefects and the heads of this brave house, make amusing background noises to our laboured breaths which rush from our lungs as we try in earnest not to laugh. The last month or so, spent within the confines of the Head Rooms, have been somewhat intriguing and heartbreaking. Alone in my bedroom, I can stay up as late as I want, reading and going over whatever I please, whether it be the extra notes I requested from Professor Flitwick or, much to his annoyance, Professor Snape, or one of the many muggle magazines that I have accumulated. Here I can hide away my scars and none will be the wiser, none will know how these plague my mind. But as I lie awake in the lightest of my clothes, the quilt and sheet stuffed to the very end of my bed, I miss the sounds of my friends' breathing as they slept in the beds, which lined the female dormitory. I miss the squeals of delight which Lavender used to emit when she returned from one of her many adventures with the males of this school. But most of all I just miss the company.
Until recently, company has been hard to come by in my dorms, and Draco and I, although relatively civil, if you call speaking a maximum of two words to each other, civil and resorting to much used insults, have maintained no close contact. I rub my face in my hands, tuning out to my friend's conversation for a moment and think of the situation I have found myself in. Company seems almost too much now, especially the company of a specific Slytherin, who undeniably makes me rethink everything that I am, everything that I thought I was and would be.
"I can't stand you, but... but I can't seem to leave you alone! It's not even a day and I've spent more time around you than I have any other girl!" His voice creaks in my ears, over and over, and I find myself unable to stop myself thinking about him. There is a vicious temper hidden beneath him, which he hides so well behind a disconcerting, disinterested air but watching him stand there, flustered and drawn out, his posture resembling an old man whose very state seems to be breaking, I cannot help but feel something stir inside of me, and I clench my hands, to stop them shaking. There is something inside of me, which aches with uncontrolled emotions as I stop myself wanting to believe what he says and turn my back on his charismatic, passionate eyes. I have to turn my back on him, because of my friends, because of me, because of how much he could hurt me.
Deep inside Draco, there is an obscure hate and trauma, which has captured his soul, which shines so brightly when he leaves himself open. I feel drawn to that person. Drawn to the person who can't hide the anger, the furious loathing, which seems to simmer like a curtain of raw emotion around him. But I can't help but hate him as well. For six years he has taunted and teased me, insulted my family and my friends and dealt harsh blows to my pride. It is he, whose family supports a man of torment, it is he who follows in his father's footsteps, and he who neither apologises or shows remorse for the actions performed by him.
His glare still penetrates my thoughts but beneath the glare, which is irked with anger, and still is begrudged by such hateful emotions, is a passionate fire, which beckons and scares. I can't help but be drawn to that like a bug to the light. I crush those thoughts, remembering, my words to him, the words, which I so easily threw in his face like the summer's breeze, the words which I cast out with such skill. My voice reverberates in my head, and I groan.
I... I won't play these games anymore. Find some other whore to play with; they're much more willing, because I may be some middle-class, muggle-born witch, Draco Malfoy, but I will not be known as yet another number on the Malfoy's conquering list. My hands begin to shake as my mind remembers the glimpse of hollow coldness, which conquered his eyes with my words, and I fold them in my lap, trying to contain the shuddering quakes, which rip through their nerves, a result of my preceding experiences. I want to expose these hands to Malfoy's eyes, push them until he can see how damaged, how broken they are, and show him that I am no faery; that I have cast no spell. What spell have you put on me, faery; that anything you ask, I would give to you on my knees? Anything I ask, anything I wished for? If that were so, he would leave my side and never play such games with a mind already harmed by those he lives amongst. One has no choice in their enemies, but friends are but one of the few choices in a life.
"Mione?" I glance quickly at my friends, and find myself staring into Ginny's blue eyes, the concern and distress which is openly expressed in them, directed entirely at me. "Mione, are you okay?" She whispers, as Harry and Ron splutter with laughter at some memory of Seamus' attempts to woo Lavender.
"And then, and then," Harry continues, his cheeks blushed with a glossy red as he tries to contain his laughter enough to get through his story, "he walks right up to her and hands her a bouquet of flowers and a poem personally written by Seamus Finnegan." Ron roars with overly loud laughter, but Harry quickly waves his hand to show the story isn't finished. "And then, he recites the poem to her, whilst holding her hand to his chest." The two of them snort and fall off their chairs, their laughter echoing in the stone mounted room, and I roll my eyes at Ginny. There are moments, when we are all together, that it seems like it did so many years ago, when things did not trouble our minds.
"If I might add something to this story," I whisper, "he performed the poetry very ill." She giggles, but the laughter doesn't reach her eyes and continue to portray worry.
"Mione, what's wrong? Something's been bothering you for a while now. I can't figure out whether it just began at the beginning of this term, or whether it was after the 'fall-out' last year. Do your hands still shake?" She asks, her blue eyes turning black with hurt and alarm, concern and distress.
I withdraw them from the folds of my laps and give them up for inspection. My copper-haired friend gasps, and tears spring to her eyes, and she gently touches the shaking limbs. As if in answer to an unvoiced question, I speak, "The medicine Madame Pomfrey gives me only lasts so long, before the shaking returns and the colour reveals itself." I trail off, casting my eyes to the lit wood in the fireplace, and try to unclench my teeth and resist the urge to hit something or to last out.
There is a distinct change that has occurred to my small group of friends, those to their demeanour and personality being most widely noticed, but physically, the years have taken their toll; physically, we have been scarred by our years of fighting a man who I won't even deem worthy to mention. And I find that the fingers, which used to encase butterflies with in their cages, are more clumsy and slow. Fingers, once quick to snatch a wand and cast a spell are careless and I do not trust their sometimes-erratic movements.
Ginny eases my hands into hers, and she rubs her thumbs across my scarred skin, her eyes growing large at the unusual display of colours spreads in a kaleidoscope of hues beneath. My hands, once pale and well figured, are marked and blemished by veins, coloured by silver, green and blue, which run to the folds of my arms. Hands, once perfect in appearance and state, are no longer real looking and shudder and tremble like I'm unsure and nervous of myself. "This potion will conceal your hands, child, if that is what you wish. It will only last for three quarters of a day, where upon the shaking will soon begin again, and the colours will soon fade back into place." Madame Pomfrey's says softly to me, as she stands before my prone figure, which sits on the very edge of the bed. My hands clench the around the bed sheets and I clench my jaw, grinding my teeth tightly together.
"Oh child," the patron whispers, and she takes my hands, and kneels before me, her face looking up at mine. I had almost forgotten she was there, "what have they done to you? Professor Snape has a large portion of this medicine produced so when you need more, just ask. Hermione?" My eyes dart away from the lady's concerned face and I look to the beds, which hold my friends. Harry lies prone within the folds of a white sheet, the twitching of his foot showing his place in the living, whilst his arms lie still by his sides, the tops of bandages, wrapped tightly around his waist and lower chest, just visible.
From the bottom of his waist to the centre of his chest lies a gash, an inch deep and wide. From it oozes a silver and green blood, which slips from his body like mercury across water, and sleeps in the veins surrounding the wound like an intricate spiders web. I watch him lying there, restful, and feel hope in the belief that perhaps the worst is over, and that Harry, the boy who has slept for two weeks now, will awaken soon, but my thoughts are cut short as an almighty wail erupts.
"STAY AWAY FROM ME! HERMIONE! RON! GET AWAY FROM ME! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME! SIRIUS! DUMBLEDORE! GINNY!" The last of his cries erupts from his chest like a hoarse wail and tears spring to my eyes as his hands reach up into the air, pushing and shoving at the people, which haunt his mind. His scream resonates throughout the room, and I step off the bed, desperately trying to make the decision to go to his side or run away. "Hermione..." My name reaches my ears, and his eyes are wide open and staring blindly, the pupils covered in a silver mist, which stops his sight. He is still alive but asleep, his thoughts dead and abusive. "Make them stop... Voldemort... he is coming! Oh dear god, help me! Ron, please... get Dumbledore, I can't feel my legs... WHAT ARE YOU DOING! MOTHER! FATHER!" His voice rings like a banshee's plee, and I watch the cowering boy who lies strangled in his bed, fighting his nightmarish memories.
There are memories in our minds, permanent ones that haunt our thoughts and break our smiles, but there are moments in Harry's where he is alone, and where I never got to him in time, where Ron never stood at his side, and when Ginny never held his hand. There are moments, where he faced the terrors of his existence on his own, and it is these, which haunt him first. These are they, which his mind plays over and over like a broken record player.
"Mione? Mione, come back to us..." Harry's voice is closer than it was, softer then it had been, and I open my eyes, feeling drugged and tired to see Harry's matured and older face staring at me. He sits on the floor at my feet, his hands wrapped around mine, and I can't help but bite my lip in an effort to stop the tears. "Oh, Mione... your beautiful hands." He whispers, and I see that he is staring dumbly at them, "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you keep this to yourself?" He wonders aloud, and I look to Ginny whose eyes are wide with unknowing.
"You didn't know, Harry? How could you have missed the potions that she takes three times a day?" Ron's voice startles us, realising that we had forgotten his presence, and I drag my eyes from his sister's face to his.
"You knew? You knew and you didn't say a word?" My voice quakes and I stare at him, my eyes wide with astonishment, "How could you have known about this?" My eyes glaze over and I find myself suddenly embarrassed, withdrawing my hands from Harry's and trying to hide them beneath the folds. "I... I need to... to go..." I mumble and get up quickly from my chair, knocking it some distance away.
"Hermione, don't go!" Harry demands, but I look at his face and feel scared. There is a strangeness to my hands, a scarring which attracts unwanted attention and questions, and I don't want to see the reaction that my friends would have. I stumble backwards, towards the portrait hole of the room, and with a quick word, I am through that hole and in the darkness of the corridor. In the darkness, I can't see my hands, and I don't need to think, just for a moment how horrible particular moments in my life have been, how much hate they have caused me. Reaching into my pockets, I withdraw a pair of black, dragon-hide gloves, and slip them neatly over my fingers.
"For you, my dear." Dumbledore tells me, before I board the train, and he tucks into my clenched hands, a pair of gloves. "After several long nights, Professor Snape and I have discovered that only dragon's hide will conceal such things. When you need to, just slip them over, and they will conceal the shaking and the scarring." He says, and I give him a gentle smile, a kiss on the cheek and enter the train, just catching the last of his words, "Oh, my poor, poor girl, how badly the world has treated you." I trip over my feet as I stagger to my rooms and find myself sprawled upon the ground, my cheek pressed against the cold stones of the floor, once beneath my feet, and I feel tears dribbling down my cheeks. I choke on them, mucas and salty water catching on my tongue as I try desperately to breath and suddenly I am being heaved to my feet.
"Well, what do we have here?" A familiar voice startles me, and I shriek in fright, just stopping myself from throwing up my disfigured hands in protection. The blue eyes, concealed beneath straight, dark hair, watch me in amusement, and I take a moment to contain myself before meeting his stare. "SEAMUS FINNEGAN..." I manage to calm the tone of my voice, "what on earth are you doing here?" He possesses a cheeky grin, which only an Irish could have, and takes my gloved hand, folding it in the crook of his arm.
"Why, accompanying you, of course. In hopes that one, miss Hermione Granger may grace me with her presence on a date." He looks at me with smiling eyes, and a wide grin, and despite myself, and albeit Seamus, I blush.
"Oh, a date, really, and will Lavender be accompanying us on this one, or shall I see her on another one." I joke, for a moment feeling carefree and unthoughtful of anything but the banter passing between us two.
"Lavender has never appreciated me as you have, my dear." He tells me, and pats my hands gently, the gloves playing their part and concealing their true state. "Appreciated you? Yes, I guess you could call it that, but unfortunately I shall have to decline your choice." I say, my eyes, feeling almost sad at the thought.
"Nay, Lady, don't offer sad eyes to I, for there are others who would take my offer, but yours is a heart for winning not taking." He says gently, and suddenly we are at the entrance to my chambers, and I look to Seamus. "There is a hurting in you, Hermione, which runs as deep as the blood and water in your soul. Take off your cloak before you give yourself away; do so openly with no secrets. You're a good friend, Hermione, to all who honour you with that name." He presses a kiss to my forehead, before slipping away back to the Gryffindor tower, and as I watch his shadow dissolve, I unwind the hide, which binds my hands, and step inside.
The room is dim and seems colder and more severe than the other common room, and I shudder as I step further inside and see that the doors to the balcony are open. Walking idly up to them, I lever them shut against the harsh winds blowing outside and place a hand against the cold glass. My hands, webbed with silver and green veins, glow delicately in the twilight of the room, and for a moment everything is deadly quiet and then something grips the top of my arms, and it is an untimely reminder of my past.
"You stupid, Mudblood! This is no place for a dirty little girl!" A blond haired man, sneers at him, but despite the fact his face is hidden behind the confines of a mask, none but his voice could be so familiar. This voice rings in my ears and I find myself face-to-face with Malfoy's lucid expression. He is seething; his face a mask of every surging emotion, and as he holds the tops of my shoulders, he pushes me up against the glass. His face, centimetres from mine, is heaving with ragged breaths and as he looks at me, his eyes darting from my nose to my mouth to my cheeks and finally to my eyes, I catch a glimpse of something tormented, something clinging to the last ounce of sanity. All of a sudden his lips are upon mine and there is a furious passion behind them, which I hate because it makes me seek more. My hands, swept to my sides by his vicious hold on them, are shuddering and withering at my side and as his tongue slips across my lips, drinking in their softness, biting down on them, and drawing a single drop of blood from their red confines, I shudder. "What are you doing?" Our eyes, wide open as we kiss passionately, vehemently, venomously, quake with something in response to this connection between us, and suddenly he is renching himself away, placing the smallest of distances between us.
"How do you do this, Mudblood? How can I want to stand here with you and want to hit you as well? What are you doing to me?" His voice sneers at me, and I shiver involuntarily, finding his countenance, at the moment, a little too much to handle, a little to intimidating.
"Let go of me, Malfoy! Get you hands off me! I don't even want to be here!" I hiss at him, and I see a smirk tug at the corner of his lips, his demeanour suddenly changing all of a sudden.
"Have you finally realised, Granger, that life isn't a perfect sunshine, that life isn't always friends and family, that life can also be moments of abuse and torment." He closes his eyes, his breathing calming ever so slowly, and with only the slightest of hesitations, leans forward and brushes his lips against mine. The lightest, most gentlest kiss ever presented to me is quickly drawn away, and when I look at him, my face already flared to life with a fiery hue, his face is contorted. There is something pained in his expression, as if doing what he has just done, is a trauma for him.
"Anything that made me realise this, was done by you and yours. Anything that brought torment or pain, was done by your hands." I spit at him spitefully, and his face flushes red, his eyes flashing to a frightening black, "How can you still be the same? How can you still act so happy, so mighty when you... you..." He raises his hand away from my shoulder as if to hit me, and suddenly the nightmares of my past are present and I cannot contain the scream that escapes me.
"NOOOOOOO!" It drowns out the howling of the wind, it drowns out the presence of Draco Malfoy and all I can see through my stagnant eyes is the image of hooded bodies.
His body lies upon the floor, beside the remains of a steaming, repulsive snake of a man, and all I can see through tears is the hesitant rise and fall of his chest; a chest slashed and cut by claws and blades. From Voldemort's body, beaten and bloody, seeps a sticky paste, a paste of silver and green, and it slips into Harry, drowning itself in the scars that it made. I scream for help, for guidance and suddenly they are upon me, pulling and shoving at me, compelling me downwards to the dirt of the floors, and I raise my wand and shout a string of hexes, curses, anything that can move this awful mass of bodies which is suffocating me.
"Expelliarmus!" The bodies closest to me fly backwards, and as several of them land around Voldemort's body, in his blood, which has pooled around him, it splashes upwards and upon my hands, singeing and scorching them. Again a scream erupts from me, as the blood burns my hands, and as the pain contorts my mind, dragging me into darkness, I yell for help, I yell the last thing that comes to my mind. "Expecto Patronum!" From my wand a misty coil unwinds itself and flinging itself into the air, the great bird, an eagle of great spans, erupts and throws itself before me. Its body, not at all like that of Harry's is silver and green edged, veins of these colours seizing the folds of its feathers and the contours of its neck. And as I slip back to the ground, it folds itself around my body, and through silver-laced eyes, I watch as the spirit of the dark lord soars towards me, determined, it seems to rid itself of its final slayer. I watch him growing closer and my eyes widen as he takes hold of my hands in his and darts me forward, pulling me against him, finding that despite the fact he is so ghostly, he is solid. I scream as he raises one of his hands to belt me across the cheek, quivering as pain laces through my fingers. But suddenly I am falling back to the ground, staring at hurt fingers, laced with silver blood where there once was red, and as I drop into unconsciousness, the patronus slowly deflating with each sleepy wave of my eyelids, a single cry rings out and shatters through that man's body like glass, and then nothing...
My scream startles Draco's face, and he stares at me, his hands no longer near me, his face no longer close, and I raise my hands and smother my face. A gasp emits from the back of his throat, and he grasps my fingers nimbly in his own, searching the shining veins.
"Where did you get such scars? Why are your hands such?" He whispers, his eyes wide with something I haven't seen before. He doesn't appear scared or concerned, rather he just barely seems to control a moment of recognition as his eyes take in the site of my hands.
"Get away from me, Draco! Just leave me alone. You know nothing about me, and what I do; you don't see all that there is! These hands don't want you touching them," I tell him foully, snatching my hands away and knowing my eyes are already silver laced, "and this face does not want your kisses. Don't offer anything to me on your knees because I wouldn't want the son of such a man to come so close to me. These hands are useless, Malfoy! They are scarred and damaged, and I don't need you to do anything more to me, you've already done enough!" I scramble away from him, and when I finally reach my the doorway of my room, I glance back at him, the charismatic, egotistical, self-centred man, who has me thinking of him so often, and I find him still facing away from me, his eyes still poised on the place where I stood moments before.
In the darkness of my room, tears burst through my eyes, and I cannot stand for a moment longer, before I slip into a sofa chair, which lies, listlessly beside the door. No fire is brewing in the fireplace and as the chair creaks under my weight, I sob. In the darkness of the room, but one thing shines forth and I curl up tighter into myself, hiding my hands within my folds. I wish that he would leave me alone, for when he does, the space in my heart grows larger not fonder and beat of my heart grows slow and steady, but there is a heat which floods through my veins and erupts in my cheeks, which fails to disappear, and a subtle ache in my body which overwhelms my thoughts, when I wish that he might leave me be.
~*~
That is chapter 6, I am so, so, so sorry that this has taken so long, and to the last two reviews that I got- Sarah and grey tears, I am sorry for keeping you guys waiting :) I know how frustrating it can be. I have been so busy the last few weeks, what with university offers, and accepting them and entering in particular courses that I haven't had a lot of time to write this, but because of feeling bad that I hadn't updated in so long, I finished this in the last two days- I wrote 12 pages in two days!! OMG!! I really hope you enjoy this chapter, and the next chapter, I promise will have Draco/Hermione interaction- I promise. I have already begun writing it. Sorry again for taking so long.
Thanks to my reviewers: Jackeline, Baby-Prue, sosweet22, grey tears, Legolas Chix, Draco_Fan, Ennoymoon, Draco's seeker, Innocent Little Birdie, padfootsknightingale, Aluma, lizzy-malfoy87, Zirconiathblue, DanishGirl, In Dreams, Mystykitty, Blanche DuBois, sarah. Thanks so much for reviewing guys, it was so appreciated, and you guys make me update, even though it still takes ages. Please stick with me, and have patience, because I will always update, it might just take two or three weeks. Thank you so much to those people who wrote really long reviews, I have never been so flattered in all my life and been so proud of my writing. Your comments in my fanfic, have made me more confident about my book, so when I've finished editing it, I'm going to send it to a publisher. Thanks guys,
Cheers,
~Cai~