Chapter Six
By some miracle, the professors did not find out about the impending duel between Draco and Harry. Hermione wasn't entirely certain how this was possible when it was basically the only thing the students were talking about; the Slytherins – excepting several of those whose parents were now in Azkaban thanks to Lucius Malfoy – rallied nicely around Draco, initiating a campaign of taunts and insults against Harry, while the rest of the school stood staunchly in support of The Boy Who Lived. In fact, Hermione became so irritated by complete strangers cheering Harry on to victory as they walked down the halls that she actually threatened a group of second-years with detentions if they mentioned the duel again, the first time she had ever abused her Prefect status.
She considered more than once anonymously informing Dumbledore of the duel, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Part of her was hoping that Harry or Draco one would come to their senses before Saturday and call the whole insane scenario off; the other part couldn't quite believe that the Headmaster wouldn't find out about the duel some other way, leaving her blameless in whatever punishment Harry and Draco received.
Draco. Hermione vacillated between wanting to kill him, wanting to cry her eyes out over him, wanting to kiss him until his knees buckled, and wanting to kill him. She was an emotional mess, and try as she might to hide it, she knew that at least Ginny noticed. If Harry and Ron found her distracted moods and ragged temper unusual, they apparently chalked it up to her being furious with them – which she was.
Of all Gryffindor house, only Hermione and Ginny expressed reservations about the duel. They discussed it together for long hours and both agreed that not only was expulsion a real possibility if Draco and Harry were caught – dueling was, after all, against the law – but that with Harry's grief over Sirius still raw and Draco's pride still severely wounded by his father's treachery, it was an even worse possibility that the duel might get out of hand. Hermione didn't believe Harry would intentionally hurt Malfoy, at least not seriously, but would he be able to control himself when facing the nephew of his godfather's killer – the closest he would probably ever get to facing Bellatrix Lestrange herself?
And how far would Draco be willing to go to prove his undying loyalty to Voldemort and the ideals of Slytherin house?
Draco studiously ignored Hermione during their two classes together, so even if she had wanted to speak with him – which she didn't, she was still too mortified by having kissed him like kissing was going out of style – she couldn't have. And by Friday morning, when her every attempt to reason with Harry had been rebuffed, she had finally stopped speaking to him as well.
"Don't you think you're being a little bit ridiculous?" Ron ventured Friday afternoon. He had sought out Hermione in the library where she was ostensibly writing a report on healing potions for Madam Pomfrey but was actually silently fuming over Harry and Draco's combined immaturity. "Harry could use your support right now, Hermione. He's worried that you'll never forgive him for this."
"Then why doesn't Harry come talk to me himself?"
"Well…He, uh, he asked Neville to help him practice for tomorrow night – "
Hermione barely suppressed a strangled cry of rage, but Ron got the picture. He scampered out of the library and didn't try talking to her again for the rest of the day.
The truth of the matter was, on top of her worry about Harry's safety (and Draco's, if she was entirely honest), Hermione was impossibly confused by her feelings for both of them. Ever since the start of term, Harry had been treating her differently – opening doors for her, carrying her books between classes, once even quietly taking her hand as they strolled down to Hagrid's cabin (Ron had been serving a detention with Professor Sprout for cursing loudly when a Mandrake bit his finger). She couldn't deny that Harry was growing up to be gorgeous, or that when he'd wrapped his fingers around hers, she had really, really wanted the walk to Hagrid's to last forever. She supposed she'd always had a bit of a crush on Harry – Cho Chang was a complete imbecile for giving him up, in Hermione's opinion – yet she also wasn't blind to Ron's feelings for her. The conflict a romance between her and Harry would cause for their friendship with Ron was almost too painful to consider.
And then, there was Draco. A boy she normally couldn't stand to be in the same room with. Just thinking about the trouble he had caused for her, Harry and Ron over the last six years made her regret that Crouch-as-Mad-Eye hadn't permanently transformed him into a ferret. But then again, when they were alone together, Draco sometimes showed a different side. Not that he became all goopy and sweet; admittedly, part of Hermione's attraction to him was the "bad boy" image. Yet she sensed a depth to him during their practice sessions that she would have thought impossible just a few months ago. More and more, she realized that Draco was a product of his upbringing, a damaged and lost young man whose father was largely responsible for his anger and self-imposed isolation, and she had also begun to understand that Draco's plans for the future had little if anything to do with Voldemort. After a few hours of studying the career brochures they had been given last year before their O.W.L.s, she had discovered that Draco's coursework was spot-on with a profession in healing.
Draco the Healer. Odd, but somehow, not completely unthinkable. He was a gifted wizard, especially with potions. And he rivaled her knowledge in their Standard Healing class. Somebody who wanted to devote his life to helping others couldn't be all bad, could he?
Not to mention, he was quite as gorgeous as Harry, really. They were polar opposites even in appearance: Harry had wavy dark hair, arresting emerald-green eyes, and a tall, lanky build with muscles wrapped tight around the bones; Draco had stick-straight, baby-fine blonde hair, pale blue-grey eyes, and a shorter, more compact body than Harry's, still thin but not as wiry. What girl wouldn't have found them both attractive?
After hiding out and agonizing over her romantic dilemma in the library through dinner and most of the evening, Hermione was finally forced back to the common room as curfew neared. When she stepped through the portrait hole, she was surprised to find only one person still up – Harry, slouched on a sofa in front of the fire.
He looked equally startled to see her. "Hi," he offered hesitantly.
She briefly considered ignoring him, but optimism got the better of her: Maybe she could still talk him out of this ridiculous contest. Crossing to the sofa, she sat down beside him and answered, "Hi."
They sat in silence for a while, watching the flames dance and crackle in the hearth. Inevitably, Hermione was reminded of the previous year, when they had hunkered by the same fire hoping desperately for a glimpse of Sirius's head in the flames. Tears pricked her eyes. How tragic for Harry to lose the one person who could have been a parent to him; how senseless for Sirius's chance at a new life, a life with the godson he adored, to be cut short by someone as hideous as Bellatrix Lestrange…
Harry turned toward her, and she hastily blinked back her tears. "I'm sorry you're mad at me," he began shyly. "I've missed you."
"Oh, Harry." Hermione blew out a shaky breath, feeling teary again, then abruptly irritable. Why was she such an emotional basket-case these days? If this was what growing up felt like, she wouldn't mind skipping it. "Stop apologizing. And stop being so bloody nice."
"Okay." He hesitated. "How should I be?"
"Be honest with me." Hermione pulled her legs up on the sofa and angled herself toward him, searching his achingly-beautiful eyes for the truth. "Why are you doing this? Why fight Malfoy?"
Harry looked back at the fire. He was quiet for so long she began to think he wasn't going to answer. Finally, with the slightest shift of his gaze, he murmured, "It's not what you think."
"And what's that?"
"It's not revenge. I don't blame Malfoy for Sirius's death." He continued to look away, his voice distant. "I don't blame anyone but me for that."
Hermione's heart broke for him. How long had he been carrying the burden of guilt all alone? Why didn't he feel he could tell her these things? She reached out and laid a hand over his, squeezing tight. "Harry, I'm not going to tell you that you made a good decision in going to the Ministry that night. But you're wrong if you think you're the one responsible for Sirius's death. Voldemort has to take some of the blame. The rest of it falls on the person who murdered him."
At the word 'murder,' Harry shuddered. "He wouldn't have been there if I hadn't been so stupid, Hermione." He drug his eyes back up to hers; the depth of agony there took Hermione's breath. "I was so certain, so convinced I could save him, I never even stopped to think…I wanted to think of this all as some kind of game, like wizard's chess. I know people have died, it's not that, I just…I never thought Sirius could be one of them."
"Sirius loved you, Harry. Loving you kept him sane in Azkaban. Loving you gave him back his soul once he escaped." She drew in a steadying breath, hoping against hope that Harry was ready to hear what she had to say next. "Sirius wouldn't want you to punish yourself for his death, Harry, whether you're to blame for it or not – and I don't think you are. He would want you to go on living, to be happy, to do good with your life. And Harry, you have to know, he wouldn't want you to risk everything you have here at Hogwarts just to settle a score with Draco Malfoy."
"I told you, it's not revenge." Harry didn't sound angry, just tired. "This is something I have to do, Hermione. I understand if you don't agree. I just hope you won't stay mad at me forever."
Remembering Ron's words, Hermione winced. Did Harry really think she was the kind of friend who would drop him because of an argument? Pulling his hand up to her face, she rested her cheek against his palm and smiled at him. "Harry Potter, I can be royally pissed off at you and still be your friend. I care about you, you little idiot, haven't you noticed?"
In a flash, the atmosphere between them changed. Hermione saw the heat flare in Harry's eyes, as if the fire had seeped into him from the hearth. Her own temperature rose, reflecting the want she saw in his face, mirroring the uncertainty she read in his gaze.
Can we do this? Should we do this?
What about Ron?
What about Draco…?
Harry decided before she could. When he leaned in, she didn't pull away; she waited, frozen and burning all at once, her eyelids flickering shut instinctively as his lips brushed across hers. A thrill raced down her spine. She had often day-dreamed about kissing Harry, and now, she was going to find out if reality came close to fantasy.
It did. His hands trembled slightly on the sides of her face as he tilted her chin upward and pressed his mouth firmly to hers. Hermione felt herself melt at his tenderness. He kissed sweetly, tentatively, each gentle caress of her cheek promising that he would not rush her; she caught his wrists and tugged him closer, anxious to deepen the kiss, to release the cagey energy snaking through her veins.
A bang at the portrait hole sent them scurrying apart. Hermione fell back against the cushions as Harry jumped to his feet, flushed and shaking. Seamus and Dean stumbled in, laughing and smelling strongly of butterbeer.
She quickly turned her face away, afraid her scarlet cheeks would announce exactly what had been going on before the interruption. But Seamus and Dean seemed not to notice anything unusual; they slurred out some story of finding a stash of butterbeer in the kitchens and then stumbled up the steps, singing a bawdy rendition of a Wyrd Sisters song.
After their noisy exit, a heavy silence fell over the room. Hermione twirled her hair around her finger, fidgeting, wondering what to say after kissing her best friend like kissing was going out of style – something which seemed to be becoming a habit for her…
"I've been wanting to do that all term."
Harry's admission made her grin. Relieved to have a sense of normalcy returned, Hermione teased, "So why haven't you?"
"For one thing, Ron's likely to turn me into a toad when he finds out. For another," Harry paused, watching her closely, "I thought you might be interested in someone else." Hermione's heart stopped. "Like…Malfoy?"
She knew the heat in her cheeks gave her away. "You couldn't understand," she murmured, suddenly longing to escape to her bed and hide the shame of falling for a sworn enemy. "He can be…different when it's just the two of us."
Harry nodded stiffly. She couldn't tell if he was angry, disgusted, jealous – or all three. "And now?"
Don't be stupid! You can't have a future with Draco Malfoy. Whatever you feel for him, it could never work. But Harry…You could have Harry, you could be good for Harry, you could be happy together!
Hermione bit the inside of her lip while a private war raged silently inside of her. She cared for Harry; she was undeniably attracted to him; their relationship made sense in many ways. But she also had feelings for Draco, impotent and strange as they might be. Harry deserved a girl who could be entirely his, not a girl who had settled for what was convenient.
"I don't know yet," she confessed, hating how her words visibly stung him. "Harry, you're so precious to me, I'm just…confused…right now. I need time to think."
Reluctantly, Harry nodded. "Okay." He glanced sideways at her. "Are you still mad at me about the duel?"
"I think furious might come closer to it, actually."
"Do you think that'll last for a while?"
"If you don't get expelled, we can have a big row about it on Sunday."
Smiling wryly, Harry leaned down to give her a quick kiss on the cheek before disappearing upstairs to bed. Hermione sat for a long time, staring into the fire and wishing things could be simple again.
By eleven o'clock Saturday night, one hour before the duel was set to commence, Hermione had managed to torture herself into a migraine by trying to sort out her feelings for Harry and Draco. When the Creevey brothers began a rousing rendition of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and Dean produced a banner that read "Go Harry, Kill Malfoy," she finally flounced upstairs to the dormitory in disgust. Ginny, with a sidelong glance at Harry that made Hermione wonder if that crush had been totally laid to rest, quickly followed after her.
They silently changed into pajamas. Then Ginny, stretching out alongside Hermione in her bed, asked, "Are you still worried?"
Hermione played with her best friend's long, silky red hair – a favorite pastime of theirs, lying in Hermione's bed and twirling each other's hair while they gossiped. "Yeah, I am." She sighed, her head pounding at the temples. "Let's just go to sleep, okay? Maybe we'll wake up and it'll all have been a dream."
Ginny quickly fell asleep, but, despite her killer headache, Hermione could not doze off. Her mind was racing, which did nothing to ease the throbbing in her skull, and she kept envisioning Draco and Harry's lifeless bodies laying in the hospital wing. Finally, at five minutes to twelve, she couldn't stand it any longer: She had to catch a glimpse of what was happening on the grounds.
Sliding out of bed carefully so as not to wake Ginny, who never stirred, Hermione crept to the window – everyone else was still down in the common room – and stared down at Hagrid's cabin. It was late October, just days before the Halloween feast, and the trees had already lost most of their leaves; their naked, bony arms stretched up into the star-speckled sky, swaying eerily in the cold nighttime wind. Winter always came early to Hogwarts. Already the grounds were blanketed by a thin layer of frost most mornings, and soon, the lake would be frozen and snowflakes would dance outside their classroom windows. Feeling the chill on the other side of the dormitory window, Hermione hugged her blanket tighter around her shoulders.
Moments later, she saw Draco and a Slytherin boy she recognized but whose name she couldn't recall walking quickly toward the Forbidden Forest. His audacity astonished her; Ron and Harry had taken the Invisibility Cloak, since they had to cross an open expanse of lawn and pass directly in front of Hagrid's cabin to get to the split oak. Draco appeared to have no fear of being spotted.
Is he insane? she wondered, shaking her head in disbelief. It's so bright out, Dumbledore could be looking out his window right now and see them-!
Hermione's heart suddenly stumbled in her chest. Mouth dry, palms sweaty, she forced her eyes up, up, up, above the tops of the skeletal autumn trees, to where a bright, perfectly-round disk illuminated the Hogwarts castle with all the brilliance of a late-afternoon sun.
A full moon.
She dropped the blanket from her nerveless fingers and, clad only in a thin pair of pajama pants and a tank-top, raced at top speed from Gryffindor Tower, out of the castle, and toward the Forbidden Forest.