Title: Just a Game
Author: Sonya
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all associated characters, settings, etc., belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, etc. Harry Potter and all associated characters, setting, props, etc., belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Inc., etc. No copyright infringement is intended, so please don't sue - all you'll get is a really bratty bird and some really spoiled rats.
Spoilers: Up to 'Wrecked' in the Buffyverse, up to "Goblet of Fire" in the Potterverse.
Pairings: Willow/Snape, Hermione/Viktor Krum, Draco/Ginny, Fred/Angelina. Other 'ships to be revealed later. ;)
Summary: Viktor's visit, and the first Quidditch match of the new term.
Author's Note: Just a reminder that this story takes place following "Goblet of Fire" - as in, "Order of the Phoenix" never happened. There will be overlaps, but there will also be differences, and there are no intentional spoilers. So, if you've read the book, you'll see some things familiar and some things not. If you haven't read the book and don't want to be spoiled - use your own judgement. If I don't tell you what's my idea and what's from the book, then you're not really being spoiled, right?
And if anyone cares, I have a Livejournal - - It occasionally contains fic-related ramblings.
"You're sure we're allowed to be here?" Ron asked uneasily, ducking into the box seat in the first row of the Quidditch stadium stands. Blaise was already inside, jerking open the curtain and letting in a blast of frigid air. She seemed perfectly at ease with the arrangement, as if she sat in the best seats all the time. Which I suppose she probably does.
"Of course I'm sure, I asked Dumbledore just yesterday," Hermione answered, holding the door open for them. "It was his idea."
"You must thank him again," Viktor said, rather fervently, casting a nervous glance behind him. Several dozen sets of eyes blinked back at him. There was a chorus of giggles, and the stands creaked and groaned with the shuffling and shoving of many bodies all trying for a better look. He pulled his cloak a little tighter around his hunched shoulders and followed Ron inside so quickly he nearly tripped over him.
Hermione slammed the door firmly behind him, muttering something that sounded like "shameless harpies" under her breath.
"I didn't mean you," Ron amended, wondering why he'd thought the box might be just a little warmer than the usual stadium seating. "I meant us," he nodded at Blaise, who was leaning on her elbows on the ledge at the front of the box and craning her neck downward in an alarming manner. Ron stood back, noticing with equal unease that the seats appeared to be upholstered in plush velvet.
"You're my guests," Hermione pronounced firmly. "The box seats four, there's no point in wasting it."
Right, no point in wasting the best velvet-lined seats. He watched Blaise tuck a flyaway strand of dark hair behind an ear that had gone red with the cold. Is this what she's used to?
"Thank you again," Blaise said, turning and smiling at both Hermione and Viktor before leaving the window and settling into the seat nearest the door. Ron had been vaguely worried that Blaise might be a bit too impressed with Viktor – that she might be as bad as those nutters outside, actually, all having seizures over him.
She doesn't seem impressed at all.
If Viktor bloody Krum doesn't impress her, what the bloody hell does?
Not that he's really that impressive. He's just some bloke who's good at Quidditch. He walks like a duck and he snores.
And she's just way too bloody used to all of this. Box seats with velvet cushions and famous Quidditch players, right, nothing special. If you're richer than the bloody queen and you get reflecting pools and new cloaks and jewelry all for the same Christmas and your parents promise to send you to America for your birthday next summer to study bats, then I suppose not much is a big deal.
And I don't know when her birthday is. I think I'm supposed to know that. I'm probably supposed to get her something, too.
What in the bloody hell do you get someone like that?
Maybe Fred or George would lend me a few galleons ..
"You're welcome," Hermione smiled back at Blaise; they were both being very formal and very polite, but it seemed to Ron like they were almost enjoying it.
Like they're playing at being society ladies or something. Bloody hell.
Blaise turned to Ron then, still smiling – still way too pretty to be smiling at me like that – and patted the seat next to her. He sat down uneasily, unable to stop picturing how he was crushing the velvet. To his knowledge, there was one item, and one item only, made of material this fine in his house, and it was the shawl his mother had worn at her wedding. If he sat on that, he was fairly sure he'd be drawn and quartered.
"You are cold?" he heard Viktor say, and turned to see Hermione suppressing a shiver as they took their seats, Hermione against the far wall and Viktor next to Ron.
"Just fingers and toes, mostly," Hermione shrugged. "I won't notice once the game starts."
"Here," Viktor insisted, pulling off his heavy woolen mittens and shoving them at her.
"I have gloves," she frowned, holding up her hands and showing off the items in question – which appeared to be leather, and lined with something fuzzy that looked too soft to be wool. Muggle stuff, I guess.
"But you are still cold." Viktor took the opportunity to pull a mitten onto one of her hands, right over top of her gloves.
"I'm sure I'll survive it," Hermione protested, flushing, and trying to hide her other hand away. "Don't be ridiculous, you're going to freeze -" she cut off with an indignant yelp as Viktor's now bare hands went searching under her cloak for the hand she'd hidden. There was a moment of giggling and tussling and argument in Bulgarian, during with Ron scowled furiously and resolutely refused to look back at Blaise to see what she thought of the display.
"It does not seem so cold to me," Viktor pronounced with a shrug, in English, triumphantly pulling the other mitten onto Hermione's captured hand. She scowled, but didn't look truly angry, and she was still blushing. "If there was a day like this in the middle of winter, at Durmstrang, everyone would be outside. No one would be wearing their heavy cloaks, even, it would seem so warm."
"So what you're saying is that you're all crazy," Blaise suggested. Ron glanced back at her in spite of himself, in time to see her grinning at the pair before sticking her own hands in her armpits and shivering, tossing her head so that her hair fell forward over her ears.
"I can't even move my fingers," Hermione protested, wiggling her fingers inside Viktor's mittens; she looked like her hands had been hit with an engorgement charm, but she also looked rather pleased.
Ron looked at his own hand-knit mittens. They were a little too small, and left about an inch of his wrist bare between where the mittens ended and the too-short sleeves of his hand-me-down sweater began.
"You want my scarf?" he offered Blaise, hoping that didn't sound too pathetic. She was watching the pitch intently now, and didn't respond.
"Your hands are going to freeze," Hermione fussed at Viktor, trying to fold both of his much larger hands between her own, and then seeming at a loss as to where to put them.
"Really, I am not cold," Viktor insisted.
"I think that's Delacroix," Blaise pronounced, leaning even farther forward, squinting at the green-clad specks that were the Slytherin team, hovering at the entrance to their locker. "Where'd you put the Omniculars?"
"I thought you had them," said Ron, who could clearly picture her Omniculars lying on the foot of her bed, atop a pile of clean laundry and next to a book that had featured a barely-clad and busily groping witch and wizard on the cover. He was beginning to be vaguely terrified of Blaise's dorm, in ways that had nothing to do with it being Slytherin territory.
"I thought you did," she turned and frowned at him, scrunching up her nose, which was bright red with the cold. "Damn it, we're not going to be able to see a thing! Aren't you cold?" Her brow creased further in puzzlement at the wadded-up scarf he was holding out to her.
"I thought -" he began, but was cut off by Hermione yelping as she was grabbed under the arms and hoisted onto Viktor's knees; he then took her hands and positioned them crossways around her waist, before sticking his own hands into her sleeves, leaving his arms around her.
"There," he said firmly, setting his chin down on her shoulder and squinting through her hair. "My hands are covered."
"We'll get in trouble!" Hermione protested squeakily, freeing one hand and trying to brush her wild hair behind her ears. The back of her hand collided with Viktor's nose. "Oh, I'm sorry -"
"No one is looking at us," Viktor argued with a shrug, blinking and sniffling a little as if trying not to sneeze, while Hermione twisted around and tried rather ineffectually to gather her hair out of his face.
That wasn't entirely true, Ron noticed; Blaise was watching them rather wistfully, now that her attention had been drawn away from the new Slytherin team.
"Nah, it's not that cold," Ron muttered, though he didn't think she was paying any attention to him, and stuffed the scarf away under his heavy cloak. The tips of his ears felt in danger of freezing off.
"It was very good of you," Minerva McGonagall said in a very prim voice, "to allow the quarter of my team that you've put in detention to have the day off in order to play."
"Of course," Severus responded evenly. "I wouldn't want to give anyone the opportunity to insinuate that Slytherin had been given an unfair advantage."
"A pity that reasoning couldn't have extended to allowing them to attend practices," McGonagall snipped back.
"A pity your students can't control their hormones," Severus retorted.
"How exactly did you happen to catch them, in the middle of Professor Rosenberg's class, anyway, Severus?" McGonagall asked in obviously feigned bewilderment.
Willow ducked her head down into her cloak to hide her grin. Do they know they sound like ten-year-olds?
Severus scowled, and fortuitously, the announcer chose that moment to introduce the Slytherin team.
That is Delacroix," Blaise pronounced, as Slytherin's new Seeker took a lap around the stadium, to much cheering from the Slytherin section. Blaise didn't cheer – something else Ron had worried about, considering they were squarely in the middle of the Gryffindor stands. "And that's – shit," she muttered suddenly.
"What?" Ron asked – he'd never heard her use that word before. She said 'damn' all the time, but somehow that seemed more ladylike, more appropriate. Though the books she reads aren't all too proper either.
"That's Montague and Avery," Blaise said. "The new Chaser and Beater – Montague's brother was killed and Avery's father's missing. I don't know why Delacroix, unless she's actually good – but girls, all girls."
"So?" Ron asked.
"Did you know about this?" McGonagall was suddenly hissing in a low tone, pitched under the roar of the crowd. She had gone ramrod straight in her seat as the new Slytherin players were announced. Severus had not visibly reacted, but sitting pressed into his side for warmth – and just 'cause it's kinda nice and cozy and such – Willow had felt him tense.
"I had nothing to do with it," Severus responded, tone carefully unemotional, though he was clapping enthusiastically for his House team. It made something in Willow's stomach flip over, seeing the discordance between action and emotion. Like Buffy in Slayer-mode. Only creepier. Or maybe just creepier because I was never dating Buffy. "Bletchley held try-outs."
What is going on, and why am I thinking it's not of the good? Willow glanced back and forth between the pitch and their suddenly tense, closed faces, feeling disoriented and uneasy. It's just a game, right?
McGonagall seemed on the verge of speech, but pressed her lips shut and said nothing, frowning in clear frustration.
"No," Severus shook his head, apparently answering the unasked question. "They're .. careful, but no."
"I think that's worse," McGonagall ground out; the Slytherins were hovering to their side of the pitch now, as the Gryffindors took the air. The cheering was louder, and more dispersed throughout the stands. She clapped, distractedly. "If that's just . . careful . . I think that's very much worse."
"Yes," Severus pronounced, "It is."
"Could somebody tell me what's wrong?" Willow asked, trying to sound casual and not draw attention.
"The last time there were girls on the Slytherin team was 1944," Blaise said. Viktor turned towards her, looking surprised; so did Hermione.
"Why?" Viktor asked, sounding puzzled, while Hermione said, "You've read 'Hogwarts, A History?'" and looked vaguely excited.
"So what about it?" Ron asked, then heard the Gryffindor team announced, and stood to clap and cheer as Harry zoomed by, followed closely by Angelina, Alicia and Katie, then Fred and George, and finally Seamus Finnegan.
"Why are there not girls on the Slytherin team? Or were not?" Viktor was asking Hermione as Ron sat back down.
"Because – because they're so traditionalist," Hermione said, and Ron recognized the look on her face that said a light was sparking somewhere back in her brain. "Oh! Oh, that's not good at all."
"You see?" Blaise asked, and Hermione nodded.
"I do not see," Viktor frowned.
"Me either," Ron seconded. "What?"
"There are no girls on the Slytherin team, ever, because Slytherin is the pureblood House, the House of tradition, the old ways -" Hermione began to explain.
"So they're breaking with tradition," Ron shrugged. "Isn't that good?"
"They're not breaking with tradition," Blaise sighed. "They're defending the home-front."
"You are certain?" Viktor's frown deepened. "You are certain they would not just put girls on the team if they are better? Perhaps none of the boys who tried out were very good -" Blaise was shaking her head.
"They'd put house elves on the team before they'd put girls, if it wasn't wartime," she insisted.
"But it's not wartime," Ron argued. "There was just a big raid, that's all, we're not at war."
"That's the point," Hermione snapped, watching the two teams take their positions with more interest than Ron could ever remember her showing in a Quidditch game. "They're saying that as far as they're concerned, we are."
Draco jerked the last tap wide open; every showerhead in the entire bathroom was spraying forth scalding water at full force. He watched with satisfaction as the room filled up with great billows of steam.
Also they drown out the stupid fucking crowd at the stupid fucking Quidditch game.
Not that you could really hear them down in the dungeons anyway. A bit out in the hall, but . . well, now I definitely can't hear them.
I am such a pathetic fucking wanker it's not even funny. It's not even funny at all.
He closed his eyes and stuck his head under one of the spouts, feeling the hot water pounding down against his skull.
I could just go flying, I suppose.
On a school broom. That barely even counts as flying, they're so fucking slow, and old, and pitiful. It'd be like walking – it'd be like fucking crawling – just without the ground quite so nearby.
And nobody would be watching. No cheering crowds. No House banners.
Not that I'd want anybody to see me on a school broom.
But I could fly. I could fly better than fucking Potter, and it's not my fault I made a lousy Seeker, never wanted to be Seeker anyway, Chasers do all the fancy flying, but oh no, Seekers are the ones who get the attention, can't have a Malfoy being anything but the Seeker –
"You're wasting an awful lot of water," commented a high, nasal voice.
Draco yelped, blinked, yelped again and swore as the sharp spray of water stung his eyes. He stumbled forward out of the stream rubbing his eyes. When he could focus, he saw a translucent head – just a head – peering up out of one of the drains.
"That is just fucking creepy!" he pointed and shouted accusingly at Myrtle, then belated remembered he was entirely naked, and yanked a shower curtain in front of his waist. "What in the bloody fucking hell are you doing?"
"You swear too much," Myrtle commented blandly. "Oh, don't worry, I can't see anything," she added, and sounded a little disappointed. "There's far too much steam."
"Good!" Draco snapped, feeling inordinately annoyed at the way his voice cracked as he did. I will not let some pathetic Hufflepuff ghost know she spooked me!
Though bloody hell, that is creepy . . heads just shouldn't stick up out of the floor like that and people shouldn't talk when you think you're alone in the fucking shower.
"The Ravenclaws are much more interesting," she confided, floating the rest of the way out of the drain and blending in with the steam in a very disconcerting manner. "They're so serious all the time."
"And that makes them more fun?" Draco asked incredulously, clutching his shower curtain and wondering why in Merlin's name he was letting himself be drawn into conversation.
"Oh yes," Myrtle giggled, a grating nasal sound. "They take very quick showers. There's hardly any steam at all."
Draco just stared, at a loss for words.
"What?" Myrtle snapped irritably. "Well what would you do with your time then, if you were stuck here forever and ever and nobody paid you any attention at all and you knew you were never, ever, ever going to get to do any of the things living people just expect -"
"I think I'd spend the rest of my life following Potter around humiliating him at inopportune moments," Draco mused, cutting off the ghost's tirade, as it was starting to spiral up towards a dangerous pitch that, last he'd heard it, had indicated incipient hysterics. "Or maybe Weasley. I think Weasley's worse than Potter lately," he amended, thinking a little uneasily that Potter had seemed almost human, at his hearing. He squashed the thought ruthlessly. "I could follow Weasley around for the rest of his life and make sure he never, ever got laid."
"No you couldn't," Myrtle sighed.
"Why not?" Draco asked indignantly. "You asked what I'd do, after you got done saying how you like sneaking a peek at Ravenclaw naughty bits -"
"No, I meant you couldn't do that because the Ministry wouldn't let you," Myrtle explained, sounding wistful. Draco blinked.
"That's what you were doing, to get bound to a bathroom?" Draco guessed incredulously. Myrtle? Pathetic whining Moaning Myrtle?
"Not the – the getting laid part," Myrtle grumbled, and her cheeks turned a slightly darker silver that Draco interpreted as a blush. "Just the humiliation part. They get very particular about that."
"Who?" Draco asked, fascinated in spite of himself.
"None of your business," Myrtle said primly. "Anyway, you're distracting me."
"I'm distracting you?" Draco protested.
"Yes, you are," she said, nodding firmly and glowering. "I came here for a very specific reason, you know." Draco tugged the shower curtain a little closer. "And I've been waiting just forever for you, it's been dreadfully boring, especially with all the steam, and – why don't you shower in the morning like everyone else, anyway?"
"None of your bloody business," Draco snapped, tugging the shower curtain all the way up to his chest so that he could cross his arms.
"OooOOooh, I found something that bothers you," Myrtle sing-songed, gliding closer in an alarmingly predatory way. "Don't you want to be in the shower when everyone else is? Are they mean to you?"
"Maybe I just don't want to see all their ugly pimpled asses," Draco retorted. "Not everyone is a pervert, you know."
"Do they steal your soap?" Myrtle taunted. "Do they steal your robe and make you run back to your room naked?"
"Fuck off," Draco snapped, yanked the curtain off its hooks and began to walk away with it, leaving the water running.
"Oh, they do, they do!" Myrtle crowed triumphantly.
"I said sod the fuck off!" Draco shouted back over his shoulder at her, stomping out of the showers and into the main part of the bathroom, leaving a sodden trail behind him. The few hooks that had remained caught in the curtain clinked on the tile. "Go wank off at some Ravenclaws!"
"They used to steal my glasses all the time," Myrtle announced quietly to his retreating back. He stopped, hearing the resigned misery in her voice, and feeling it pluck an unfamiliar chord somewhere down in his gut. He hated it instantly, and hated himself for feeling it, hated the memory of all the times he'd stolen something of Neville Longbottom's and hated the strange new twisting of his insides at the thought that he'd made someone else feel this way.
It was funny. It was just fucking funny, and I don't know why it's not funny anymore, and nothing is fucking funny anymore, and nothing makes any fucking sense – it's your fault Father, it's all your fault –
"I don't know why they did it," Myrtle went on. "At least you know why. At least you meant to be a freak."
"I did not mean to be a fucking freak!" Draco shouted, whirling on her. His feet caught in the shower curtain and he teetered precariously for a moment before catching his balance. "It's all my father's fault, it's all his fault and I'm going to kill him!"
"Oh," said Myrtle, backing up a ways and crossing her arms over her chest.
"Going to tell me how deranged I am now?" Draco demanded.
"Of course not," Myrtle frowned, as if puzzled as to why he would ever think that. "You father's the one who hurt Ginny. I think you should kill him. Can I help?"
"No, you can't help!" Draco exclaimed in exasperation. "It's not the sort of thing you want help with!"
"You'd let Ginny help," Myrtle accused glumly.
"No, I wouldn't!" Draco was beginning to feel rather exhausted, and a bit like banging his head against the nearest wall. "I'd keep her as far away from it as fucking possible, is what I'd do with Ginny!"
"You like her," Myrtle insisted petulantly.
"No I don't," Draco snapped. "I mean, I do. I just – don't." – do I? No I don't. I don't want the Weasel-girl.
Even if she does have tits after all.
She said like, not want.
Want, like, same fucking difference.
That's your father talking. That's just exactly what he'd say, just exactly how he thinks.
"You do," Myrtle was grinning nastily. "Maybe I should tell her."
"Maybe I should tell the Ravenclaws you peek in their showers," Draco retorted.
"When? While they're kicking your shoes over the railings?" Myrtle asked in mock innocence. "Oh, yes, I heard about that."
"Fuck you," Draco grumbled, feeling vastly pathetic for having been reduced to expletives twice in the same conversation by a Hufflepuff ghost.
"I'm worried about her," Myrtle blurted out, before he could again turn to leave. "Ginny. I'm worried."
"Why?" Draco asked sharply, turning back towards the ghost.
"You can't tell her I told," Myrtle said, biting her silvery lower lip.
"They are not using their brooms," Viktor said, sounding pained, while Ron cheered as Gryffindor scored yet another goal. Claudette Delacroix swooped down past Gretchen Avery, shouting something in the other girl's ear that couldn't be heard in the stands. From the way Avery flinched, though, it couldn't have been pleasant. "That girl, she is not quite so bad as the rest, and Harry is not either, but see – see how widely she just turned? That is a Nimbus 2001, she does not need to be doing that!"
Hermione glanced sideways at him, unsure whether she should be feeling fond or exasperated at his inability to see past the technicalities of the game.
"Good," Blaise said tersely. "They need to lose."
"I still think you're reading too much into it," Ron said as he sat, flush-faced and in high spirits. Gryffindor had the quaffle again, and Avery was diving determined toward a bludger that had been aimed at Bletchley, the Slytherin Keeper. She misjudged the distance and swung a second too late; the quaffle clipped the end of her broom, which diverted it only enough to send it careening into Christopher Warrington, who was forced to abandon his pursuit of Katie Bell in order to avoid a concussion.
"You think they chose her because she's good?" Blaise asked pointedly – but Katie had passed the quaffle to Alicia, and Ron was on his feet again and not paying her any attention. Adrian Pucey attempted to intercept the pass, but was cut off by a bludger courtesy of George.
"You see?" Viktor asked Hermione, gesturing rather frantically at the pitch. "He did not need to dive so far, now it will take him too long to recover -"
The quaffle went through the goal; Ron whooped and punched both fists into the air, dancing from foot to foot in excitement. The crowd in the stands roared, all except the Slytherins, who booed and hissed. Someone threw what looked like a butterbeer cork into the stadium, in George's general direction. Madam Hooch circled the Slytherin stands, waggling her finger and obviously scolding.
Avery was flying in a tight circle below the goalposts, wavering and trying to get control of her damaged broom; it was hard to tell from a distance, but Hermione thought she might be crying.
Then she was jerking sharply to the right and almost unseating herself, as Claudette Delacroix nearly flew right through her, followed immediately by Harry.
"Snitch, they saw the snitch!" Ron announced unnecessarily.
"So I promised dead girl I wouldn't tell you that she told me you're carting another diary around, again, and mooning over it, again, or that you're opening things that ought not to be opened, again," Draco announced none too quietly, flopping down in the chair across from Ginny and sprawling out in a way that looked unaffected, but that she knew was no such thing. If it was as casual as it looked, it wouldn't have put one of his appendages in easy grabbing or tripping range of every side of this table.
"So, why don't we just pretend I'm brilliant and I figured it out all by myself," he concluded. "Is that the diary?"
"Be quiet," Ginny snapped, closing the diary carefully and pulling it towards her, resisting the urge to cradle it protectively against her chest. She glanced quickly around the library, feeling very caught out, half expecting someone to come around the corner – to see the diary, to see Ginny Weasley sitting with Draco Not-Malfoy-Don't-Call-Me-That, to see everything - don't let him see how much it's worth to you, don't give him that advantage.
He'll see anyway. He's the only one who ever sees anything.
Then he's a risk. A danger.
So if people don't see you, then they're worthless walking corpses, but if they do see you, then they're dangerous and threatening?
Look at the arrogant little bastard, just lounging there and thinking to intimidate me. As if I couldn't annihilate him instantly, as if he's anything -
- I thought he was a threat.
He is nothing, how dare he presume, how dare he question my right –
"Is it?" Draco pressed. "Never mind, of course it is. You wouldn't be fondling it like that if it weren't."
Ginny became suddenly aware that she was, in fact, running her fingers over the leather bindings yet again, and made a conscious effort to still them.
"You don't know anything about it," she hissed. It's mine, mine, my right, my heritage, my reward –
- for murdering third year Hufflepuffs? For killing your father – he wants to kill his father, did you know that? Did you know you have something in common?
Don't remember that, I didn't do that, that was the other, that was after –
I didn't do half the things I remember. I don't remember half the things I did. I am not who I remember -
- but I know that this is mine. This is mine. This is what I've earned.
"So tell me about it," Draco shrugged; another casual movement made somehow angry, predatory. She licked her lips. "You're missing the Quidditch game for it, so it must be good. Can I read it? Or won't it talk to me?"
"It's not like that," she explained, shaking her head. "It's not like – like the other -"
- ink fading into parchment and no body no feeling no flesh no blood and bone and feathers and chickens blood and fading .. fading .. I remember dying -
- but I didn't. I survived. I am more, more than flesh, more than words, I am Slytherin's Heir and this is MINE – I paid for it, paid for it with flesh and blood and pain -
- it means something, it must mean something, I know it must. Slytherin's own words and I never would have found them – never would have found them if not for everything -
"So what is it like?" Draco insisted, sitting up and leaning forward across the table. She snatched the book away.
He's a threat –
- he's the only one who sees, don't think about him like that, you can't start thinking about him like that, not Draco, not Myrtle – they see -
- the stupid little mudblood bitch told! Betrayed your trust! You see what comes of trusting them? Of caring about them?
He hasn't done anything yet. He hasn't tried to take it. There's no need yet –
- so you have to wait, then? You have to bleed first, before you'll see them for what they are? Wasn't my blood enough? Isn't everything you remember, everything they did -
- not THEM, not Myrtle, not Draco.
"I'm not going to take your fucking book," Draco snapped. "I don't want your fucking book. I'm not fond of being possessed, personally."
"I'm not possessed by the bloody book!" Ginny retorted sharply. "And you shouldn't – you should show some respect, you're in Slytherin House, you of all people ought to respect it."
"Why? What's it say that's so impressive? Read me a few pages," Draco suggested belligerently. "Share the wisdom of the Founder of my oh-so-noble House." His voice dripped sarcasm.
She just glared, clutching the diary tightly.
Insolent, pathetic little worm! He knows NOTHING, nothing –
"Well?" Draco insisted, leaning even closer. "What's it say? Is it all just very boring? 'Dear Diary, today I visited the local basilisk breeder and looked at lots of promising eggs -'"
"I can't read it!" Ginny blurted out angrily. "I don't know what it says because I can't read the bloody thing, alright? Are you happy?"
Draco sat back, frowning in confusion.
"What do you mean, you can't read it? Is it enchanted somehow, you need a charm to read it?" he asked.
"I don't think so," Ginny shook her head. Shut your mouth, you stupid little girl! It's not his, he doesn't need to know anything about it, he has no right – "It's just in Old English."
Draco didn't respond, and looked as if he were waiting for her to say something else.
"So?" he said finally. Don't answer him, you idiot, you pathetic, weak, stupid little worthless bit of meat – don't you answer him, don't you let him see -
"So I can't read it," Ginny repeated, swallowing down sudden and inexplicable nausea. Why does this matter so much?
"You can't read Old English?" Draco asked incredulously, and Ginny felt bile rising in her throat, a gut-deep shame that she didn't understand.
"Should I be able to?" she asked, swallowing, quieter than she'd meant to be. I don't understand. Tom wasn't explaining.
"I'd say so, yes," Draco answered, sneering. "Your family is just bloody pathetic, Weasel. Who ever heard of a Pureblood who couldn't read Old English? What's your family Grimoire written in, pig Latin?"
Family Grimoire?
Ginny didn't answer; the shame and rage welling up from the base of her spine were overwhelming, and utterly alien. I don't care if my family has a Grimoire, I've never cared about things like that, and I want to destroy him just for knowing my shame – no, not mine, not mine – my family is noble and old and pure of blood, the blood of Slytherin – blood dripping and running away down the sink, hold your hand under the cold water long enough and it'll go numb – I PAID for this, for Slytherin's blood, Slytherin's words –
- and I can't read them.
"You do have one, don't you?" Draco asked.
"And if I don't?" Ginny challenged. "Maybe then you'd better stop associating with me. You wouldn't want to be seen with such a commoner, would you? Whatever would your father think?" she lashed out.
Oh no, I didn't mean to say that – I don't want to hurt him, not him –
- not ANYONE, I don't want that, I don't, that's not me, not me -
- need to get out of here, need to get away, he'll see – I'll hurt him -
She stood to leave, and he was instantly on his feet, blocking her way.
"Move," she said flatly.
"Make me," he snapped back, and then a look of sudden, astonished comprehension crossed his features. "Wait – we've done this before. You say 'go', I say 'make me', and you say 'you know I could' – because you've got Voldemort in your head."
"Tom," Ginny corrected, crossing her arms defensively over hear chest, the book tucked between them. I am Lord Voldemort! "His name is just Tom."
"And you can't read the book," Draco went on.
"No," Ginny confirmed. "We've been over this, my family's one step up from being insects, you're so very superior, now get out of my way before you make me do something unfortunate."
"He can't read it either," Draco pronounced. "Bloody fucking hell, the great Lord Voldemort can't read Old English."
"Of course he can't!" Ginny snapped out in an angry hiss, suddenly furious in her own right. "Where do you suppose he would have learned it, hrmm? They don't teach it here, now do they, and he was only ever here or at the orphanage, and they weren't big on teaching old languages there. They were much too busy beating him bloody and breaking his bones and setting vicious dogs on him and generally driving him stark raving mad by the time he was about eight, so that he grew up to be the most evil wizard who ever lived and murdered loads of people, but in the face of all that, by all means, judge him for not knowing bloody Old English!"
She didn't realize until she'd finished that she'd been moving forward all the while she was ranting, or that Draco had backed away several steps and was looking a little paler than usual.
"So -" he paused, swallowed visibly. "So, he grew up in a Muggle orphanage?"
"You didn't know that?" Ginny asked disbelievingly.
"Nobody knows anything about his past," Draco was shaking his head. "I mean, my father knew he was Muggleborn on one side, but most people don't, and he disowned that heritage and he killed his father -" Draco stopped again, swallowed again, and looked a little like he might be sick.
"I don't – I can't talk about it," Ginny took a step back. I just want it to stop, but it did stop, it stopped years ago and it never stops -
"Okay," Draco agreed readily, still swallowing nervously every few seconds, and seeming no more eager to hear about it than Ginny was to tell.
"So I'm going to go now," Ginny said.
"No, wait!" He reached for her arm, stopped, drew back. She paused. "I can." She blinked at him. "Read Old English," he elaborated.
"I gathered that," she returned dryly.
"I mean I could read the diary for you," Draco explained. "To you. Whatever. Don't run away again, I know I'm a git, I just can't help it."
It almost made her smile, but she didn't loosen her grip on the diary. "I don't think – I don't think I want to let you hold it," Ginny said carefully.
"So I'll read over your shoulder," he suggested.
"O-okay," she agreed on an expelled breath.
"This sucks," Ron proclaimed glumly, shuffling along through the crowded main hallway back into Hogwarts.
"It is one game," Viktor shrugged. "Harry flies well, but he must learn not to be afraid of shoving girls."
"Yeah, 'cause she sure wasn't afraid of shoving him," Ron agreed sourly.
"She's a poisonous little bitch, and if she could have knocked him off his broom, she would have," Blaise interjected fervently, standing on her tiptoes to peer over throng of students, which had slowed to a snail's pace as everyone paused to rehash the highlights of the game with everyone they met along the way. "Don't these people know how to walk? It's not hard. You pick up one foot and put it in front of the other one."
"Uh, right," Ron agreed hastily, swallowing, and attempted to pick up his pace. He didn't get very far before he ran into a crush of Hufflepuff girls, stopped dead in the middle of the hallway and staring worshipfully at Viktor.
"Um, could you -" Ron started.
"Will you move?" Blaise snapped out. "You look like a bunch of demented grindylows, with your eyes about to fall out of your heads."
Hermione blinked in astonishment, and heard Viktor - who had slouched down so far that he kept nearly tripping over the ends of his cloak – making a noise that sounded halfway between choking and laughter. I think I could like her, she thought, surprised.
The Hufflepuffs scowled, but hurried away – one short blonde with very, very curly hair turned around for a last glimpse, tripped over her friend, and nearly toppled them both to the floor. The righted themselves in a fit of giggling before dashing to catch up to their companions. A moment later the entire group exploded in a fit of scandalized laughter.
Brainless little trolls.
Blaise paused, then suddenly turned to Hermione and blurted, "You need to be careful."
"Of what?" Ron asked, turning away from staring horrified after the Hufflepuffs to give his girlfriend a doubtful sidelong look.
"Of Slytherins," Blaise answered, still looking at Hermione. "Not all Slytherins, I mean, obviously not me, not most of us really, and there are a lot of good things about the house and I'm not sorry to be in it despite its reputation, but . . well, there are some that earn it. The reputation."
"I can take care of myself," Hermione said tonelessly, feeling Viktor's hands settling carefully on her hips. For some reason the gesture annoyed her, and she shook him off, stepping away from him, needing space. The movement brought her closer to Blaise, who bit her lip and backed away awkwardly.
"I know," Blaise said. "But not against a half-dozen people all jumping you at once. Nobody could."
"This is Hogwarts," Ron protested. "I mean, sure they'll throw hexes, but you really think they're going to jump her in the middle of the hallway?"
"Yes," Blaise said flatly. "They're going to be riding high on their victory, and they're going to have seen you -" she nodded at a point behind Hermione's head; Hermione turned and saw Viktor nodding back tersely, hands shoved into robe pockets and shoulders slouched. He met her eyes briefly before staring sullenly down at the floor. "- and they're going to think that – well -"
"That I need to be put in my place," Hermione finished for her, feeling the now familiar hot rush of rage going up her spine. She was surprised to hear that her voice was calm, level, unemotional – she felt as if she ought to be spitting fire.
It's not natural to be so angry. It can't be. This isn't anything new, you've known this since Malfoy called you mudblood in second year – this hasn't been a safe place, not ever –
- but it felt like one, and now it doesn't.
So I was a pathetic self-deluding little idiot, and now I'm not. Now I know better.
Now it's too late, now my parents are both dead, and I have to go to school with the people who killed them, who cut them, who bled them, who cracked my mother's skull – and mustn't say anything, mustn't say a word, must be careful -
"I'm sorry," Blaise was chewing hard on her lip, turning it a bright cherry red to match the spots of color on her pale cheeks.
"I wish everyone would stop saying that," Hermione snapped, the words flying out of her mouth before she could stop them. "It's not like you killed them, now is it?"
Blaise's perfect white little teeth paused mid-chew, the chilled flush on her cheeks drowned in the rush of color that flooded her face.
"I'm – I'm -" Blaise stammered, while Ron said, "Uh, Hermione -" in a half-worried, half annoyed sort of way, and behind her Viktor shuffled his shoes.
"Sorry," Hermione finished for the other girl. "I know, there's nothing else useful to say, and I'm sorry, and I think I'm just not fit for company right now," she concluded, turning on her heel and striding briskly away, fighting not to break into a run, not caring for the moment that she was leaving Viktor standing in the middle of the hallway looking like he wanted to just hunch his shoulders over until he disappeared.
Hermione heard familiar loping footsteps following her around a corner a moment later, and the murmur of excited whispers and titillated giggles that followed his progress, and paused. She flexed and clenched her fingers, trying to remember why hexing away the tongues of all the silly, stupid little girls who were all but swooning over him would be a bad idea. She turned around, plastering a bland expression on her face, not reacting to the speculative, predatory glances that were being shot her way.
Oh, are they fighting? Are they breaking up? Oh, will he be single again?
But they're all sorry. They're all so very sorry for me.
Vultures. That's what they are. They're all vultures, every last pathetic one of them –
"Hermione?" Viktor asked uncertainly. She made a show of taking his hand, leaning in to kiss his cheek. She whispered, "Not here," and dragged him down the hall into an empty classroom.
A shielding charm was cast on the door with perhaps more force than was necessary; Hermione suspected she'd soundproofed every classroom on this side of the hall.
"You are not well," Viktor pronounced with a heavy, worried frown. He hovered near her but didn't attempt touch her again, and she felt a small spasm of guilt.
"I'm alright," Hermione answered with a sigh. "I'm just – I'm sorry -" I can't do this, I told you I would, I told you I would any how and I want you to believe in me and be proud of me but I can't, I just can't – "I didn't mean to shove you away like that, I just – I can't think – I'm just so fucking angry I could explode!" she blurted out, and then slapped a horrified hand over her mouth.
I don't curse, not like that, I don't ever! My mother – my mother would be so ashamed –
- except she can't be ashamed because she's rotting in the ground. Because there's a puddle of blood in her skull and maybe she didn't feel it – maybe she was too far gone to feel it and she never knew – she'll never know – never know that she ought to be ashamed, that I can't think, I can't study, my grades are going to slip and I'm using foul language and I can't – can't –
"I would be as well," Viktor said with a shrug, hunching his shoulders further, and Hermione wondered if he was shoving his hands deeper into his pockets because he wanted to be holding her, but didn't know now if he could. Or maybe he just doesn't want to touch me. Maybe I horrify him too. "I think, if I were in your place, I would be plotting all the terrible things I could do to them without getting caught," he finished
"You would be?" Hermione asked, hating the slightly hopeful catch to her voice. He doesn't think I'm a terrible person, then.
"Of course I would be," Viktor responded with a scowl. "Your Ministry – they do not know how to do anything, they act like these people – like they trampled a flowerbed or something, not like they killed people – they let the younger ones back to school, even, these -" he trailed off glowering, slipping into muttered Bulgarian.
"I don't know what that means," Hermione said hesitantly. "I don't think I've heard that word before."
"There is a reason for that," Viktor said, scuffing the side of his boot on the floor.
"Oh," she responded simply, and bit her lip – then remembered how Blaise had looked doing just that, all flushed and coquettish, and forced herself to let it go, grinding her teeth instead. I don't want any girlish little habits. It would be ridiculous for me to look like that to everyone else, it would be a farce, a grotesque farce.
"I am sorry," Viktor said.
"Oh, don't be ridiculous, I just said 'fuck'!" Hermione exclaimed. "And I just said it again!"
"I do know what that means," Viktor said, teasing but still careful, still a distance away.
"Of course you do, you spent the holiday with Ron and Fred and George," Hermione retorted.
"Ah, I see," Viktor nodded, slipping into a faint grin. "My sisters do not curse enough, that is the problem. I must tell them to curse more, so that you can improve your Bulgarian vocabulary."
"Don't you even think that near Oksana!" Hermione scolded. "She would have your head on a pike, and she would think I was some kind of – some kind of -"
He swooped suddenly forward and kissed her, just his lips catching hers, his hands still shoved into his pockets.
When he would have pulled away again, she grabbed for him, clutching handfuls of robes and pulling with such force that they nearly topped backwards. She stumbled into a desk with a muffled grunt, and his bony knee caught her thigh hard enough that she suspected there'd be a bruise, but she refused to let go, working her hands up the cloth until they reached the tousled ends of his hair.
What am I doing? I'm never this aggressive!
She thrust her tongue into his mouth and didn't care.
One of his arms was braced against the desk, steadying them; the other hand crept up her torso, brushed the underside of her breast through layers of cloak and robe and shirt. That was new and uncharted territory, and startling enough to make her pull back, gasping for breath.
"I do not think we want to do this in a classroom," Viktor said after a moment of panting, shifting his lower body away from hers in a way that made her flush with knowledge and a certain embarrassed pride. "The floor is hard."
"No," Hermione agreed breathlessly. "No, I don't think – not today." She suddenly giggled.
"What?" he asked.
"We're making out in an empty classroom," she pointed out. "Us. Hermione Granger and Viktor Krum are making out in an empty classroom." He chuckled, and that made her laugh, and the simple fact that he got the joke was enough to make something in her gut unclench in a way it hadn't in weeks.
The rush of guilt, when it came, was less before it was more – before she realized she didn't feel quite as bad as she had, and then felt worse for it. He saw her laugher slip, running away like rain into dry ground, and he tugged her tight against his chest. She could feel him still partially erect against her leg, and was surprised to find that she didn't really care. In that moment, being held was more important than being embarrassed.
And what does that make me?
Some kind of scarlet woman, Ron would say. Though I suppose he must do these things with Blaise.
What would my mother say? My father? Would they understand?
I can't be your little girl anymore. You left and went away – they took you away - and I can't be your good little girl with you gone, I'm too angry, too lonely, too afraid – and I feel so small –
"It will be alright," Viktor murmured into her hair.
"It can't be," Hermione argued. He answered in Bulgarian, too hushed and muffled for her to comprehend, so she couldn't argue back. She thought that she probably ought to be annoyed by that, but it was strangely comforting.
"She is right, you know," Viktor said after a moment, pulling slightly back and tucking her hair behind her ears.
"Who?" Hermione asked blankly.
"The girl with Ron," Viktor said, frowning in concentration. "I do not remember -"
"Blaise," Hermione supplied the name with a sigh. "I was absolutely beastly to her, and she didn't deserve that."
"If she didn't deserve it, then she will understand it," Viktor countered.
"That is very circular reasoning," Hermione retorted.
"You are changing the subject," he said, scowling down at her.
"Yes, I certainly am," Hermione scowled back, and crossed her arms. "I can take care of myself. I am not going to hide up in my tower like some pathetic useless little princess in some outdated, patriarchal, misogynistic story -"
"I did not understand the last half of that," Viktor frowned.
"That's probably good," Hermione sighed. "I'm being beastly again. Yes, she's right, I can't defend myself against a dozen people, no one could, and I'm not going to waste my time thinking on it since I can't do anything about it."
"You do not understand," Viktor insisted worriedly. "Those sorts of people like that -" and he inserted the word she hadn't recognized in Bulgarian again, though she was beginning to gather its meaning from context "- men like that, you do not understand how they will think to put a woman in her place."
A woman. Am I a woman? I can't be a little girl anymore.
I feel very little, but not like a girl. Not innocent. Just scared and weak and angry.
I never thought it would be like this- beginning to think of myself as a woman, an adult.
"They would rape me," Hermione said bluntly, and Viktor flinched. "No, actually, they would try."
"Hermione -"
"Yes, I know, dozens and dozens of people attacking me at once, but I'm not scared of them," she ranted. "I'm scared of what I'd do to them if they tried it. Oh, they'd probably kill me, but I think I'd kill a few of them first. In very unpleasant ways. Things they couldn't put on the front of the Daily Prophet and they'd probably have to cover it up and say they died in a fucking car crash! And I said fuck again, damn -!" and she cut herself off, hitting the desk with the flat of her palm hard enough to make it rattle and snapping her jaw shut hard enough to ache.
"I do not care if you say fuck," Viktor snapped back. "In fact, I like it. I think I would like to do it sometime, and I would like you alive for it."
Hermione blinked up at his very serious, scowling face.
"You're trying to shock me," she said after a moment.
"Did it work?" he asked.
"A little," she confessed. "But really, what else can I do?"
"You could stop worrying about what you might do to those worthless stinking pieces of shit," he pronounced firmly.
"Is that what you were saying in Bulgarian?" she asked, vaguely aghast.
"I think what I was saying in Bulgarian is worse," he responded with a shrug. "At least, I think so. How bad is what I said in English?"
"Pretty bad," she answered.
"Well, good," he sounded satisfied, then paused. "I could teach you things."
Both of her eyebrows shot towards her hairline, and he flushed, holding up both hands. "Not like – not those things!"
"We're skipping around subjects in a dangerous manner here," she pointed out.
"Curses!" he all but yelped. "I could teach you – things to defend yourself." She sobered instantly.
"The Dark Arts," Hermione said. "They teach the Dark Arts at Durmstrang."
"That is what else is wrong with your Ministry!" Viktor jabbed a finger pointedly at the floor, as if the Ministry might be housed in the Potions labs below them. "They say you cannot learn this, you cannot learn that, like just knowing these things will make you all go mad and start trying to – to conquer Poland!"
"Conquer Poland?" she asked incredulously.
"You know what I was meaning!"
"I do," she nodded reluctantly. "And – well, it makes a good lot of sense. I just -" She shrugged helplessly.
Just one more piece. One more little bit of innocent little girlhood. I doubt I'll miss it. I doubt I'll know it's gone.
"You are not comfortable with these things," Viktor guessed. "You are not even comfortable with me knowing these things – you never wanted to hear about that class, when we talked over the summer, and you wanted to know all about my other classes."
"Here, we're taught that anything like that is wrong," Hermione tried to explain. "Which I'm not sure anyone even believes, because the difference between a curse and a hex is just a matter of strength, or duration, but it's still malevolent magic, the intent is practically the same, just a matter of degree, and half the charms we use could be hexes in the right circumstances, so really it's all a matter of the situation, and the intent of the one casting the spell, but -"
"But?" Viktor pressed.
"But I'm a bloody fucking Gryffindor and I'm a good girl and we good girl Gryffindors don't do things like that," she blurted out in a rush. "You're right, I'm an idiot. I had no idea I even thought like that."
"You are not an idiot," he retorted sharply. "You are not an idiot at all. I have never – I have never had someone I could talk to this way, and we do not even speak the same language very well. Most people, they do not even try to understand things like you do."
Hermione blushed, and murmured, "You too," to the floor, before looking up at him determinedly, biting her lip without realizing what she was doing. "Well, okay then. No time like the present – what can you show me?"
"What do you already know?" Viktor asked, seeming a little taken aback by her sudden enthusiasm.
"Nothing," she responded. "Just assume I know nothing. Assume we're starting from scratch."
The hallway just outside the Slytherin common room was empty, and Blaise heard no one behind her; the hand that clamped over her mouth came out of nowhere. In the length of time it took her to realize she couldn't draw in a breath to scream, she was twisted off her feet and pressed none too gently into the wall. The stone dug into her cheek, and her nose was bent to an uncomfortable angle that felt just short of snapping. She tried to grab for her wand, and found her arms pinned. Struggling resulted only in scraping her cheek against the stone until she felt the sting of broken skin, and went still, her throat still vibrating with muffled cries.
The need to struggle was overwhelming in the first seconds; then the need for air became paramount. She could suck in a thin whistle of it through her nose, but that was all. She could see nothing but stone wall, empty hallway, and the taunting edge of the doorway into the common room.
There was a celebration already started inside; Blaise could hear laughter, faint through the thick walls. There was a rushing sound in her ears, a faint whiteness at the edges of her vision; unable to do anything else, her entire body trembled until her teeth chattered. Her cheek throbbed, and she felt the trickling of something hot down her skin.
"Hello, Zabini," said a voice behind her; too far behind her to be the person restraining her. It was Delacroix. Blaise felt her pulse jumping, remembering her words to Ron earlier – she's a poisonous bitch. She'd kill him if she had the chance.
How was I stupid enough to give them a chance – they must have had invisibility cloaks, but I should have heard them coming, I shouldn't have been walking by myself -
- I didn't think it'd gone this far, he's a pureblood, and I'm not even sleeping with him, but I should have know, should have known with who his father is, but I thought if Morag was still talking to me it couldn't be this bad - stupid, stupid, stupid and thoughtless and my face hurts and my ribs hurt and another millimeter would break my nose – please, I don't want them to hurt me – please – please let someone come along -
- please!
"What can you be thinking right now, Zabini?" asked Delacroix's disembodied voice. Blaise tried to scream again; the hand tightened, pressed closer up under her nose, and the air thinned. Her chest pressed between stone wall and a body immovable enough to have been stone itself. She could feel a new pressure against her lower back, and knew that her attacker was male, taller than she was, and enjoying himself.
I'm going to be sick – I'm going to be sick and he won't move his hand and I'll choke to death on my own vomit –
- please, somebody come along, please, please -
"No, don't answer," Delacroix chided smugly, and her voice was a little closer. "I want to guess. I think . . you're thinking of all the nasty things that could happen right now, and no one would ever hear you scream."
She heard footsteps, and was sure that was deliberate. A puff of hot breath tickled her ear.
"Maybe this will help you remember where it is you sleep," Delacroix whispered. Then, briskly, "Come along, Gregory."
The hand vanished, and Blaise's knees gave way. She stayed huddle against the wall long enough to hear the door creaking open. Voices cheered the heroine of the day; she heard Delacroix's shrill, delighted laughter. She waited another breath, two – the door closed, the voices became muffled again.
Blaise stood; she wiped a hand across her cheek and came away with only a faint translucent smear of blood, and scrubbed the rest away, ignoring the stinging. She bit her lips, worried them between her teeth, aware they would be pale otherwise. She felt her eyes, checking to be certain they hadn't gone puffy. It took a moment longer to steady her breathing.
Then she walked the remaining seven steps down the hall to the door, plastered a smile on her face, and joined the celebration. No one asked what happened to her face. No one commented when, halfway through the evening, she disappeared into the bathrooms and was repeatedly, violently ill.
TBC . .