A/N: I'm not sure where I'm going with this. It will be DM/HG, if I can make it at all believable, but I don't know if I can. And I promise that it won't be too angsty, b/c I am an adult and thankfully past all of the teen 'my-life-is-so-hard-and-not-worth-living-and-no-one-understands-me' stuff.
Chapter 1: The Diary of Hermione Granger
06 Sept: Thank Merlin for Quick Quotes' latest design. You just speak to the quill, or hold it lightly and think, and it writes for you. So helpful. I'm not sure why I'm writing at all, since I can't even read my own words, but Pomfrey says that it is only temporary, and that they should be able to clear up my vision before the school year is out, as soon as they figure out what blinded me. Who am I to be down with such strong encouragement? That was a joke. Of course I'm down. But I try not to dwell on it. I still have to help Harry and Ron. I'm also looking for a cure on my own, because Madame Pomfrey is very kind and very good at her job, but research is my forte, and if anyone can find out what's wrong with me, it's me.
Hermione Granger laid her new Quill on top of the parchment that served as a diary, rubbed her eyes, and sighed. She couldn't get used to not being able to see. Dobby, serving as a sort of seeing-eye dog at Harry's request, had led her into the library, to her favorite table in the back, and left her. She hadn't been there five minutes before the futility of trying to research from books she couldn't read struck her, and she had brooded a good fifteen minutes before shrugging and pulling her diary out of the bag at her feet.
She had just finished "writing" when she heard the chair across from her pulled out and turned around on the soft carpet. A thump against the table leg indicated a bag being dropped, and then the sound of a person slumping into the chair. She turned her head in the direction of her companion, and waited.
"So. Granger. What's it like?"
The last voice she had ever expected to hear again, and the last person she wanted to hear. She tensed up, and fancied she could feel his eyes on her face.
"What, Malfoy, being blind?"
"No Granger. I'm sure you've been asked that a thousand times already." She nodded in agreement, as he continued. "I mean being sent back here while the Dynamic Duo are out saving the world and whatnot. Do you feel completely useless, sorry for yourself, mad at them, what?"
"Why should I tell you anything, Malfoy?"
"Because I'm the only one who has any inkling about what this is like for you. You have to feel completely impotent. No one running to you for advice, no one counting on you for anything. You can't even bloody read! You have to be completely miserable, but I've seen you around the halls. You practically look normal, except for-"
"My eyes?"
"Your eyes." Her eyes, she had been told, were no longer the warm, friendly brown that they had always been. After the accident, her eyes had turned golden, even the whites, like a cat, and pupil-less. She had overheard some of the girls in the toilet describe them as eerie and creepy. She didn't like that, but refused to cover them. A month in bandages had been enough. Besides, Pomfrey assured her that the pupils would be restored as soon as the cure was found, although she couldn't guarantee the colour would revert to normal.
"Why do you think that you know how I feel?"
"Because, Granger," he said with a sigh, and she could hear him shifting in his seat. "We're sort of in the same boat here. We both went off to do what we thought were these big, life-changing things, and we both failed miserably. We both had to return to a place we never thought that we would ever be again, and we are both out of our element. You're no longer SuperGirl, and I am a complete pariah. In my own house for having failed, and with the others for having attempted it in the first place."
"Why did you come to talk to me, Malfoy?"
"Didn't I just bloody say that? Look, I'm not saying we need to be bosom buddies and go skipping down the corridors or anything like that. I just think that we could help one another out. I've heard that you're trying to research this curse or whatever that's damaged you, and I'm only second to you in the research department. I don't see anyone else around that's bothering to help you."
"What do you need from me?"
"Honestly, Granger, I'm not entirely sure. I know that everyone in this bloody school thinks I am evil incarnate, and I thought I was, myself, but after that night on the Astronomy Tower, I started doing a lot of thinking, and maybe I- look, I don't know. But I don't think I'm cut out to be a- what everyone always expected me to be. It was never my choice, anyway. I was forced into receiving," his voice lowered drastically, "the Mark last summer. My entire mission was a punishment for my father's failure. I was expected to fail, and I did. What I can't figure out is why I haven't been killed. I deserve to be, I suppose, by one side or the other. Until that time, though, I think that I want everyone at least to wonder if maybe they were wrong about me."
"Harry said that Dumbledore offered you protection. Are you applying to me for that now? Because I'm not in much of a position to help anyone."
"I think that you are, Granger. But we'll talk more another time." She heard him get up, but his footsteps must have been silent on the soft carpet, because she didn't hear him leave. A second later, though, she heard quick footsteps and a forcedly-cheerful voice call, "Hermione! Are you ready to go see Pomfrey? I reckon it's time for your afternoon treatment."
"Sure, Gin. Let me just collect my things." She carefully placed her ink, quill, and parchment in her bag, grabbed it, and stood up.
"Do you need me to grab your arm?"
"Just on the stairs and such, so long as you tell me if I'm about to crash into anything."
"Alright. By the way, was someone talking to you before I came up? I thought I heard voices."
"You know how sound carries around those stacks. It must have been someone else." She didn't know why she was keeping Malfoy's visit a secret. She didn't plan to do so. She just wanted to find out more about what was going on with him before discussing it with anyone.
Hermione:
How ya doin', love? I feel like it's been ages since we left you at Hogwarts, rather than just a week. I hope that Ginny will have time to read this to you – we've been dying to write.
This is Harry now. Ron is driving me batty. Hermione this, Hermione that. I hope you hurry up and get better and come back to us so that I don't have to lis-
Never mind him, Hermione. He misses you as much as I do. We reckon we're on the right trail here at 12GP, so we're staying on a while. We still haven't found that locket, but Kreacher had so many hidey-holes that it's taking us forever to look.
We tried asking him when we were at the school last week, but he just muttered something along the lines of "Young Master had many lockets and trinkets. Kreacher tried to save them all, but the blood traitor and her brats threw many away…" blah blah blah, you get the picture.
Anyway, please keep researching the other you-know-what's, and we'll just stay here until we get word from you. We're bollocks at research, and don't even know what we're looking for. I am SO SORRY this happened to you. If I had known for a minute that touching that-
Sorry 'bout that. You know Harry and the guilt complex thing. Keep well, and take care of Ginny for me. Me too.
Love,
Ron & Harry
"That's it?"
"That's it," Ginny replied, folding up the letter and handing it back to Hermione. "My brother certainly seems to have warmed up."
"Yeah," Hermione grinned sheepishly, tracing the stitching pattern on the bedspread with her finger. "It was right after my- er- accident. He said it was silly, the way we danced around our feelings for each other. Then he kissed me."
"Really!" Ginny said eagerly. "So when's the wedding, then?"
"Gin! You know how it is with us. We really care about each other, but we don't want to ruin our friendship, so we're going really slowly. Besides, if something happened, it would be even more awful. And now that I'm here, well…" Hermione's rambling thoughts went unfinished as she started thinking about Ginny's brother.
It seemed like her crush on Ron had lasted forever, but after the accident, she felt as if she were in the way, and Ron and Harry had relentlessly argued with her until she agreed to come back to Hogwarts for treatment "and to help out on the research end," as Ron put it, neither boy realizing how difficult it would be for her to research without the use of her eyes. Ginny was busy with her own work, and she trusted no one else to help her with the information about the horcruxes.
However, she felt that there must be a spell or charm that would help a wizard gather the information from a book, and she knew just the person to help her find it. He had offered, after all.
Malfoy:
If you want to help, meet me in the library at the table beneath the picture of Mafalda Hopkirk after breakfast tomorrow. I've heard you're only taking a couple of afternoon classes, so I shouldn't be disrupting your schedule too terribly. I don't trust you a bit, and I still want to know what you're getting out of this, but I guess it can wait.
HJG
A/N: IS there a spell to help Hermione read without another wizard's help? WILL Draco and Hermione find a cure for her blindness? WHAT is Draco after? WHY aren't Draco and Hermione at one another's throats? ARE Ron and Harry ALWAYS completely clueless choads in D/H fics? Stay tuned!