Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the people or places that exist in his universe. I wouldn't mind owning Draco, though (no, not like that. Get your minds out of the gutter). Then he could stand around looking all broody and gorgeous, and do things for me like reach the stuff on the top shelf and open jars. A pretty kitchen appliance, if you will.
A/N: So here's the plan. I'll post the next chapter on either Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. It won't have any author's notes or review responses attached. I love you guys, but not that much. It will be the chapter, simple and straightforward. That doesn't mean you get out of reviewing, though! When I get back, I will respond to the reviews from both chapters, and there had better be a lot of them (J/K)! Review responses at the end!
Chapter 11: Friends and Enemies
Hermione had walked from the classroom with admirable composure, but by the time she reached Gryffindor tower what seemed like an eternity later, her legs burned from running up innumerable staircases, and her lungs were screaming for air. She wasn't entirely sure what she had been trying to outrun -- Malfoy, memories, herself -- but it hadn't worked, because she felt no less hunted as she gasped the password at the Fat Lady than she had as she'd stared into Malfoy's shocked and disbelieving eyes.
She scrambled ungracefully through the portrait hole, still drawing air into her greedy lungs in noisy gasps that sounded suspiciously like sobbing. Seven pairs of sleepy, surprised eyes turned to look at her. She didn't know why the Quidditch team hadn't left for practice yet, but she didn't care. Without speaking a word to any of them, she ran across the room and threw herself rather inelegantly into Harry's arms, burying her face in his chest as her tears began to fall.
Harry didn't seem to know what to do about this new development for a moment. His arms went around her rather stiffly at first, but he soon relaxed and began stroking her hair in a comforting manner. Hermione felt rather than saw Ron come to stand next to them, and she could just picture his face, darkened with concern and slight panic as it always was when she behaved emotionally.
"Go on and start running drills," Harry instructed the rest of the team, his chest rumbling beneath Hermione's ear. Apparently, no one moved, because Harry's next words were slightly impatient. "Go on, then. We'll be out in a while. Remember what I said about that second formation, Dennis. You need to remember to give yourself enough space to maneuver. You're were practically in Ginny's lap last time we practiced."
The sound of shuffling feet and curious whispers began to move toward the portrait hole. After nearly seven years of friendship, Harry and Ron had learned that the best way to respond to one of Hermione's emotional outbursts was to remain silent, nod encouragingly, and offer verbal and physical comfort as needed. Therefore, they led her over to a couch, Harry's arm around her shoulder and Ron's hands grasping one of hers tightly. Their quiet kindness heaped guilt upon her heart even as it gave her strength. She had never told them about the dark night in their third year when her will, usually so strong, had wavered without them there to support it. She intended to tell them now, but not until her tears ran dry, and at the moment, that didn't seem likely to happen in the foreseeable future.
She cried as though her very heart was breaking, as though she would never stop. She cried for an innocent, tortured little boy who had grown up to be an angry young man, and for another who had never had the chance to grow up at all. She cried for a young Muggle-born witch whose life had been taken on a starless night, and for another whose life had almost been lost to a similar darkness. Each tear seemed to lessen the weight that had been steadily building in her heart over the last three days, and each shuddering breath was easier than the last.
Eventually, Hermione was able to choke out the events that had led up to her rather dramatic entrance into the common room, including the memory Malfoy had seen the previous day, his remarkable revelation regarding Delilah James' journals, their heated fight following yet another memory (she refused to tell them about what she had seen in Malfoy's past), and, finally, the terrible night she had just been forced to relive in her mind.
As she haltingly described the events of her memory, Harry's arm tightened around her, and his eyes grew dark with guilt and then wide with horror. Ron's reactions varied from flushing a deep magenta as she reminded him of their fight, to going so deathly pale that even his freckles seemed lighter when she revealed where her tired mind had been leading itself. When she was finished, Harry pulled her tightly to him, and she was surprised to feel him trembling.
"I'm so sorry we weren't there for you," he whispered into her hair. She almost started crying again.
"You didn't know."
"We should have." Harry pulled back to look at her with eyes that were full of guilt and compassion. "You never have to go through that kind of thing alone, you know. Not ever."
"I know," she replied, and she meant it. It seemed so obvious now, though it hadn't then. She supposed that was the sort of thing that was easier to know in the day light with friends all around than alone in the middle of the night.
She turned to Ron. Of the two, she expected Ron to take the news hardest. Indeed, he looked considerably worse than Harry, with his face a sickly sort of green and his eyes swimming in shocked horror. For a moment, he did nothing but stare at her.
"How can you even speak to me?" Ron asked finally. His cobalt blue eyes were utterly distraught when they finally met hers. "If I hadn't been such a jackass about Scabbers, you might not have . . ." He waved his hand, apparently unable or unwilling to say the word. His face looked utterly inconsolable. "It was all my fault. You must hate me."
Hermione surprised them both by flinging her arms around Ron's neck and burying her head in his shoulder. How could she ever hate him? He was stubborn, occasionally idiotic, and often bad tempered, but he loved her fiercely, as he loved every one of his siblings, both real and honorary. He and Harry had saved her life the day they rescued her from the mountain troll, in more ways than one. Until them, she had been alone in a foreign world, friendless and frightened and trying very hard to seem like she wasn't. They had saved her from a life of loneliness and solitude, and she was more grateful to them then either would ever know.
"It wasn't anyone's fault, Ron, except maybe mine for trying to do so much and insisting on doing it alone. And nothing you could ever do could make me hate you." He hugged her back fiercely, which was a feat in itself considering how uncomfortable he usually was with physical displays of affection.
Hermione pulled away from him, feeling stronger and lighter than she had in days, perhaps in years. She should have come to them right away, she realized. Whatever burden she had been carrying, they now carried it together.
"It was a long time ago," she said firmly. "And it's over. No need to talk about it anymore." So they didn't. Instead, as the dormitories slowly emptied and their fellow Gryffindors went out to enjoy their Saturday, they simply sat and talked, about school and Quidditch and an upcoming Hogsmeade weekend, about whatever came to mind. Never once did they mention Malfoy, or Delilah James, or the strange events of the last three days. They had no place there, amidst their quiet camaraderie and easy laughter. Outside the window the Gryffindor Quidditch team soared in the sunlight, utterly forgotten.
Malfoy did not have a Harry and Ron with whom he could seek counsel and advice. If he had, he would've had no idea what to do with them. Such a relationship was foreign to him; he would have been unable to understand it. In lieu of confidants, Draco turned to the lake for solace.
He had not ended up at the lakeshore earlier that morning by chance; his panicked mind had sought the place that he found safest and most comforting, and it had not led him astray. He had been coming there to think since his first-year, when the silvery water had seemed more familiar to him than his own room back at Malfoy Manor. It was his haven, one of the only things he had ever treasured at Hogwarts.
He sat on an outcropping of rock, staring out over the steely water with blank, steely eyes, and for possibly the first time ever, he was not thinking of himself. His thoughts were instead on a bushy-haired witch with sad, old eyes, who had just proven herself to be far less perfect and far more human than he would have ever thought possible.
He could barely believe that logical, serious, unflappable Hermione Granger, admired and well-liked by possibly everyone but him, had ever been driven to such terrible despair. He was inexplicably certain that she would never have acted upon her alarming train of thought. In fact, he had never felt anything as powerful as the desire to live that seized her as soon as she realized where her thoughts were wandering. Her hopelessness had been brief, practically instantaneous, but it had been there. He knew not what to make of that.
He tried to incorporate this new information into his mental image of Granger, and found that it couldn't be done. Whoever he had thought she was -- a know-it-all, a Mudblood, an self-righteous idealist, and, most unforgivable of all, a blind follower of the Boy-Who-Lived-to-be-a-Pain-in-His-Ass -- he had been grievously mistaken. Granger was far more complex than anyone gave her credit for, not even her revoltingly loyal and loving friends. Gryffindors, after all, were known for their (in his opinion, idiotic and reckless) bravery, not their observational skills. Her simple, happy façade was so flawless that even he, who would have sold his tarnished soul for a glimpse of a weakness, had been unable to see past it.
She was strong and intelligent and complicated and exquisitely fallible, but what did that mean? Was she still his enemy? Could anyone who knew her the way he did really hate her? He was finding it difficult to summon quite as much loathing for her as usual, and he didn't like that that one bit.
He was beginning to realize that, in an alarming amount of ways, they were far too much alike for comfort. He knew what it was to be lonely, to experience loss and grief too profound for his young age, to put forth an image that belied his complex and perhaps unexpected nature. They were so alike, and yet so different, like two sides of the same coin. It was not an analogy or a situation that he particularly wanted to explore.
The only thing to do, he decided, was pray that the next morning's post would bring answers and a much-needed escape from this unwanted intimacy. Perhaps, when he no longer had to feel her compassion and her quiet strength, no longer had to see her in pain she had done nothing to deserve, he could remember all the reasons that he hated her. Perhaps, after a while, he would even be able to call her his enemy again without hearing a nagging voice in his head that told him he was lying through his teeth.
A/N: Sorry it was a little shorter than last chapter. I happen to think that it's considerably better than last chapter, so I suppose it's a fair trade. Do you think Draco's change of heart is happening too quickly? If you do, I can always make him do something really Draco-like and slow it down a bit. Let me know!
Special Author's Note: Since this will be the last time we converse (and I do like to think I converse with you guys) before then, I would like to wish everyone a thoroughly awesome and enjoyable experience reading the Half-Blood Prince (can you hear the trumpets sound and the angels sing?)! I'm practically jumping up and down as I pack, and I'm driving my family (none of whom have the least interest in Harry Potter -- I suspect I was adopted) absolutely insane because it's all I talk about! I have my copy reserved at the ONLY FREAKIN' BOOKSTORE ON THE ISLAND, which doesn't open until 8:00 IN THE MORNING (sob), and intend to happily give up two days of normal vacationing to sit on the beach and read HBP. Enjoy standing in midnight lines with fellow Harry Potter fanatics! Revel in staying up all night to read it and then wishing you'd savored it more! Live long and prosper! (Whoops, wrong completely dorky universe that I know WAY too much about)