Title: Atonement
Part: 1?. 3901 words, so rather lengthy.
Author: Edie
Summary: Hermione has all but forgotten her world but has her whole world forgotten her? A post Hogwarts fic.
Rating: R, for later chapters.
Disclaimer: Do I own? No, I think not. Do I wish I did? I think so. The sonnet I blatantly stole the title for this chapter from is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Pain in Pleasure."

Chapter One: Sad Enough to Sting

Oh, entertain (cried Reason, as she woke,)
Your best and gladdest thoughts but long enough
And they will all prove sad enough to sting.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Pain in Pleasure"

The first thing Draco Malfoy was aware of upon awakening was the scent of pine, unusually strong but familiarly bitter- a smell that made him think of fast approaching winter and long ago walks through woods that he had never really gone on. He could smell dirt as well, earthy and so close to his face that he scrunched his already closed eyes up even tighter. They were nice smells, comforting for some reason, and…

Then Draco Malfoy woke up entirely and shot up in bed, thinking Merlin, not again.

But Merlin was not listening to him tonight and, though the realization made him feel overwhelmingly nauseous, it had happened again. Frantic now, he looked towards his clock and blinked at the hour. 3:15 in the morning. What did he remember last? Important things, the thoughts he could not quite grasp. Telling himself to breathe, he concentrated and recalled irritation over not being able to find a house elf to fetch him something hot to drink. That had been… when? Around 11:30, by his reckoning.

In the dark, Draco sucked in a deep breath. It had been almost four hours this time. Four bloody hours that he could not account for; four bloody hours he seemed to have spent rolling around in a forest somewhere if the state of his clothes and his sheets- bloody sodding hell, his beautiful, expensive, satin sheets- was any indication. Panicking, he leaped out of bed and groped around through the blackness of his bedroom for his wand.

What if, what if and his brain wouldn't shut the hell up, only he was sure he had his wand here somewhere. Never before had he left it behind doing… whatever it was he did and this time couldn't be the exception… could it? But no. There, on his bedside table. Letting out something that was dangerously close to a squeal of relieved glee, he grasped onto it and muttered a quick, "Lumos."

It was worse than he thought. His clothes were absolutely ruined beyond repair. His sheets were fixable, he supposed, but… where had he been? And, almost more importantly, what had he been doing? Not knowing made him feel strangely hysterical.

Strangely hysterical and bloody well mad, in all actuality.

Pressing his fingers to his temples (fingernails full of dirt and how?), Draco looked around his bedroom as if in a daze. It was all going wrong, that much was clear. Everything he had spent the last four years working for was about to come crashing down around him if he started to… started to seem off. There were too many people watching; too many people waiting for something just like this to happen.

Swearing, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants, only to whip them out at lightning speed. Carefully, oh so cautiously, he stuck his left one back in, felt his fingers brush against thin cardboard and-

A pack of cigarettes? A pack of Muggle cigarettes? Expensive cigars he could understand. But smoking was a filthy habit- a filthy Muggle habit, no less- and was one that he absolutely did not abide. Not only did the whole idea of it disgust him, it seemed to announce a blatant weakness in the manner of a big blinking sign that proclaimed, "Look at me! I can't cope!"

In the pocket of his bloody pants, no less!

He stared at them dumbly for a moment or two, wondering why his breathing picked up looking at them; why his head throbbed a little. Then, before Draco knew what was what, he had one out and in his mouth and his breathing was normal and his head felt fine and-

And he wasn't coughing or spluttering. He had done this before. They were his cigarettes. Somewhere, in the countless hours he couldn't remember, he had gone to some horrible Muggle place, purchased them, and…

And it was all too much for Draco. He collapsed on his bed with a confused expletive and stared up at the ceiling in abject dismay. He wondered how long he had before he would disappear entirely and this thing, this terrible unknown part of him, took over and made him pay for the choices he had made? Made others pay, even if Draco didn't care for them so much as a means to an end for himself? And he didn't, he told himself firmly.

Still smoking (put it out, put it out, put it out, you weak little nothing!), he shut his eyes as tightly as he could and told himself to concentrate. To not let go.

3:15 in the morning in Muggle London two days after the anniversary of the death of her mother, and Hermione Granger was almost certain that she was being watched. It was a feeling she couldn't explain but all the same she paid the taxi driver in a rush and all but fled to the door of her building. Her feet refused to slow until she was safely on the other side of the glass door. There, she paused and gazed out into the night.

Nothing. No one. But a feeling all the same.

"Buck up, Hermione," she lectured herself, laughing thinly, "You are going to be seeing Death Eaters lurking in the shadows for the rest of your life. Might as well get used to it."

All the same, she cast one look over her shoulder before hitting the stairs.

Her flat was on the second floor and, tonight, each step felt like murder on her feet. There were only 21 steps for her to climb but her thighs screamed in protest and never before had she hated her work shoes quite so much. Kicking them off would be the second thing she would do after entering her flat; first she paused in her dark entrance way, absolutely still, and listened.

It had been two weeks since she had felt it; since she had come home and sensed beyond a reason of a doubt that her flat had been disturbed. Crookshanks, old and grumpy now, had seemed especially so and her trunk… The pictures were not where they had been before and…

Images of Death Eaters, cloaked and hooded, float terrifyingly through her mind. Waiting. Always waiting.

Hermione paused and Hermione listened for a full minute before relieving her feet of her shoes and flicking on the lights. Crookshanks was curled in a tight ball on the tattered light pink cushions of her couch; he did little more than glance up at her homecoming. She, however, made a fuss.

"Crookshanks!" she cried, rushing to him and ruffling his fur, despite his meows of protest, "Have you missed me?"

It was imperative to her that he did, of course, because he was all that she had as far as friends went. Sighing to herself, she moved over to smack the button on her answering machine, listening for messages as she moved into her bedroom to change out of her work things. Wryly, she thought it did not say much about the size of her flat that she could still hear it.

"Honey?" Her father. The only person she had ever known who started all of his messages with a question. "Just calling to make sure you got home safely. Text my mobile when you get in."

She had told him about her suspicions, something she regretted sorely the instant it had left her mouth. She should have realized how her father might react and she might have once, back when she was smart enough to be the best Hogwarts had to offer. Now, however, her wand had been snapped in half and disposed of long ago and she had never even learned to legally Apparate, for God's sake, so even that did not-

Babbling. Sighing at herself, she padded to her bed where she had flung her purse and pulled out her mobile. She did not understand her father. What difference did it make if she text messaged him at 3:15 in the morning if he wasn't going to read the message until at least seven anyway? Some head start on her would-be stalker.

She did it anyway and, illogically, felt better.

"Hermione, it's Marnie!" babbled on her answering machine and God but she hated everything about that woman, "Supper on Saturday at 5:00? Say you have it off and that you'll come. It would mean the world to your father. I'll even bake your favourite cookies. Give me a ring, sweetie."

"Stupid bint," she muttered, squirming into pajama bottoms and finding her most comfortable sweatshirt at the bottom of a particularly large stack of clothes that had never quite made it to her hamper. She grabbed her cigarettes off of her bedside table- Hermione Granger from Hogwarts never would have smoked and the Hermione Granger of today smiled evilly at the thought- and made her way back to the living room, disturbing Crookshanks by plopping down onto her couch. A quick visual check reminded her that she had locked the door and drawn the blinds. The stick was still wedged against the sliding door of her balcony. Impossible to open with that there. She sighed again and, cigarette lit, relaxed back into the cushions.

"Dad wants us to move," she told Crookshanks, although she could not quite say whether or not her cat was even listening, "And back in with him too. And her."

But Hermione did not want to move and, what was more, she absolutely refused to. She had worked and saved for this flat; had devoted herself with a passion usually saved only for learning to that horrible diner with its pervy clientele and lousy pay and all to get away from that woman and her crazily obsessive cookie baking. Hermione loved her father, she did, but she could not stomach that… that usurper. Or the sight of her father with her, staring at her in the way that he had once reserved entirely for her mother.

After a large row that Hermione was still trying to forget, she and her father had reached a compromise. Her flat had two bedrooms, one that was currently used for little more than a computer room, and her father had agreed to stop badgering her about returning home if she would find herself a flat mate. He would feel better, he had said, with someone with her. Marnie had beamed at her like an imbecile and chirped, "You'll make friends!"

Practically growling now, Hermione ashed her cigarette rather vehemently. Like she needed friends, anyway. Hermione had had friends once and friendships hurt.

But she was not thinking about that now. She was thinking about the ad she had called in one week ago; the ad that should make its appearance in tomorrow morning's paper. It was all she could do not to bite her fingernails, dwelling on it. What if the person did not respect her privacy? What if they snooped through her room and found her trunk? How would she explain her wizarding photos? She wouldn't. She couldn't. She didn't want a bloody flat mate.

But that wasn't all that upset Hermione. If she was being watched- and for some unknown reason she was quite certain that that was the case- what if the very person she let in was the one who was spying on her? The thought sent shivers racing up and down her spine and she stood up rather abruptly. Paced towards the window and peaked out through a crack in her blinds.

Still nothing. The street was almost empty, except for the occasional car. Calling herself a fool, she returned to the couch and tried to relax. Turned on the television and tried to concentrate on the late night shows. Babbled to Crookshanks until her mouth was dry.

And still, it wouldn't go away. Try as she might, Hermione couldn't shake the thought that something was not right.

A Muggle newspaper on Malfoy's desk and those confounded cigarettes. Later now or earlier depending on one's perspective. Almost 4:30 in the morning.

It had been nearly a week since the last debacle and he had thought he was doing just fine… until last night. Not that bad, in comparison, a mere forty minutes of lost control or forty minutes of hell for a control freak like Draco.

Three days after the Four Hour Ordeal, he had decided quite rationally that his episodes only occurred when he was asleep. He had toyed with the idea of his black holes being the result of some complicated form of sleepwalking. He had toyed with a lot of ideas and he hadn't slept for more than half an hour at a time since then.

Somehow, it had yet to affect his job cracking codes down at the Ministry. Draco liked that; could sit for hours playing with number patterns and strange letter formations. It was a sequence. It was controlled and, most importantly, if he concentrated he could figure it out. It was imperative that no one there suspected anything and he knew a charm or two that could make him appear refreshed, even if he hadn't gotten more than five hours of sleep in just as many days.

For a brief moment, he wished for Snape. For anybody really. But they were gone and he was alone in this Manor, which up until now had never seemed so huge or offensively empty. He wasn't afraid of it exactly- Malfoy wasn't afraid of very much- but its empty corridors and sprawling rooms did fill him with a sense of unease.

He was alone and going crazy.

Chain smoking like a disgusting Muggle too. Really.

His eyes alighted on the newspaper on his desk in passing. He had discovered it there after the Forty Minute Ordeal and had been loathe to look at it. His first instinct, in fact, had been to chuck it into the fire and cackle as it burned. However, only people who were completely off their bird cackled so Draco chose not to do that. He had glanced at it warily and had started in surprise to see what his… that other… half of him had been reading.

Wanted ads. And that… thing inside of him had circled one that requested a quiet and private flat mate. Please respond to Hermione Granger.

Hermione fucking Granger, Mudblood extraordinaire, she who had vanished off the face of the planet at the very start of the War, once upon a time friend of Potty, lover of the Weasel, whatever you wanted to call her-

alone and big eyed and bloody hell but she looked about to cry

- was looking for a flat mate.

He knew the sob story, of course, even if it made him feel uncomfortable dwelling on it for reasons he did not want to ponder. Everybody at Hogwarts that year had heard her sob story. Mother killed in one of the first attacks, an attack that had been mirrored on the Weasley family that same day. It had been a blatant attempt to frighten off Hermione and Ron and, surprisingly, she had fallen for it. He had expected better of her, of course. He could admit that. All the same, two months later she had run home to Daddy and had refused to answer any owls sent to her. Just up and left, without even a word to her precious sodding friends.

The whole thing disgusted him- such weakness- except for the fact that-

But no. He didn't want to go there, not now. Not ever if he could help it.

Draco could not say why after seeing the ad he did not simply burn the thing (minus the cackling, of course. Malfoys were not crazy and did not cackle). Maybe it was smug pride. Wouldn't Potty just die to know that his precious little Granger was holed up in London and looking for a flat mate? Knowledge was power, after all, and the realization that he had it almost made Malfoy giddy.

Or maybe it was something else. Maybe he simply remembered how annoyingly smart Granger had been. Maybe he thought of empty corridors and Malfoy Manor and the sorry state of his life and thought she might have the answer. Maybe it was none of those things at all but, all the same, he did not burn it.

Two weeks after posting her ad, Hermione found herself wasting her day off by sitting in the corner of her bedroom, wrapped in her mother's quilt, and doing nothing but sniveling. She had been having a pretty good go of it, having already been at it for almost three hours. If maybe her mother's quilt still smelled of her perfume… if maybe she was different, a little warmer perhaps and a little less know-it-all… if maybe her flat wasn't so bloody ugly and mismatched…

If she had ever been able to make friends like a normal person! It didn't seem fair to her that she should only ever have had two but, then, it did in a sick way as well. She didn't deserve friends. She didn't deserve anything.

Miserably, she lit a cigarette and blew her nose before huddling down deeper into her quilt and willing herself to just die. Even Crookshanks seemed to be avoiding her and-

And no way in hell was she about to answer the telephone mid sob. What bloody awful timing. She hoped it wasn't about her ad. In truth, Hermione was not up to interviewing one more candidate. Turned out in her new (old now, wasn't it?) lack of magic state, she was a lot more of a bitch and a lot less… trusting. Not one of them had measured up and she thought her father was close to moving in with her. Which would be fine for awhile, comforting even, if he would leave Marnie at his house.

"Answer the phone, you bleeding machine!" she yelled in the general direction of her living room, "I'm not getting off of this floor! I'm crying!"

Fate was out to get her, she decided. Was her answering machine broken? Seemed unlikely but all the same it wasn't working. Huffing to herself, Hermione stood up a little unsteadily and, still holding her cigarette, padded towards the telephone. She cast a grouchy glance about her living room, discovered bitterly that Crookshanks was hiding behind her couch, and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" God, she sounded like she'd been crying too.

"Hi, may I speak to Hermione Granger please?" A woman's voice. Pleasant and soft. Older, Hermione decided.

"Speaking." She would not blow her nose on the phone, no matter how much she had to. And she wouldn't sniff, either. Her mother had taught her better than that.

"Hello, Miss Granger. I'm Penny Lexington and I'm calling to inquire after the ad you'd placed? The one requesting a flat mate?"

There was a man's voice in the background, saying something that Hermione could not discern. He sounded exasperated but Penny Lexington sounded calm and her voice was oddly comforting. It was because of that that she didn't sound as frustrated as she felt when she said, "Did you want to see it?"

Penny Lexington did and it only seemed to get better after that. Penny Lexington was a librarian, she explained, much to Hermione's unabashed delight. She hoped Hermione was not too loud as she enjoyed time to quietly read; hoped that Hermione did too. They had discussed rent and had set up an appointment to view her flat at 12:00 on the day after next, a time that made Hermione cringe as she was still stuck on nights at the diner.

When Hermione hung up the phone, she was strangely uplifted and optimistic. Her mood was, in fact, so improved by this woman who sounded almost like a kindred spirit that she shed her quilt, put out her cigarette, and went out post haste to get a second key for her flat cut.

At exactly 11:35 two days later, there was a knock on Hermione's front door.

She was in the bathroom, trying to tame her unruly tangle of hair in order to make an organized appearance, and balked at the sound of it. 11:35! She appreciated people who were on time, really she did, but twenty five minutes was pushing it a little even for her. So agitated by this was she that she did not think about how Penny Lexington might have gotten into her building. She didn't think about the horrible niggling feeling she had had lately of being watched. She only thought of how embarrassing to be caught by such a literary person still wearing her pajama bottoms and with her hair… well, being normal really. How embarrassing and how utterly irritating, she thought as she made her way to the door.

Grumbling to herself and still pushing at her hair, she flipped open the lock and turned the knob, only to stumble back in abject shock.

There was no cheery librarian on her doorstep and apparently Death Eaters did still lurk in the shadows because there before her was none other than Lucius Malfoy.

Shock froze Hermione. For one horrible second, she could not move. She could not think. Vaguely, she acknowledged the fact that without her wand there was very little she could do against such a man, unless she could run to her bedroom, grab her purse, and find her pepper spray. And what was pepper spray to a Death Eater? He would curse her and-

had her mother screamed? Was there pain?

-the last thing she would see in this world would be the cruel smirk taunting her from his pointed face. What would happen when her father found out?

Where had all of her Gryffindor courage gone? It was like it had never existed, washed all away in one atrocious evening six years earlier. Hermione's knees were perilously close to knocking together. Oh, if only she had her wand and-

And when had Lucius Malfoy cut his hair? Was it her imagination or had he somehow grown taller? Leaner? Younger? Which was precisely when her fear addled brain cleared enough to remember one important fact gleaned from the Daily Prophets she had secretly read during the War: Lucius Malfoy had fallen one year into it in a spectacular raid on Malfoy Manor. It had been a turning point, really, so many Death Eaters all in one place and-

Wasn't there a point to this? Shaking her head, Hermione came to a horrible realization… a realization that was sneering at her in a way she hadn't seen in over half a decade. Not Lucius Malfoy at all but-

"Six years, Granger," in a voice as supremely indifferent as ever, "and you still haven't managed to get that god awful hair under control."

TBC…

And that is all she wrote for this half, ladies and gentlemen. :) I have a very long and dull shift tomorrow so I'll probably be bad and write more at work. guilty smile Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reviewing on the prologue!