Disclaimer: Harry Potter doesn't belong to me (sobs hysterically)
Timeline: October, in Harry's seventh year.
Warnings: Snogging, and slash. Don't like it? Don't read it!
Behind the Masks
Part 6: Fawn EyesWhen Hermione saw Draco again the next day she felt like running herself into a brick wall. How stupid could she have been? She was getting so frustrated with those two Hermione felt like standing up in the middle of the Great Hall and announcing the verdict to everyone there.
The rest of the week passed slowly until finally she found Draco alone in the library reading at a hidden table behind the Defense Magic section. Making sure no one was watching her she disappeared behind the book shelf towards Draco.
"Hi." Hermione said gently sitting down as she pulled out her parchment notebook.
His eyes glared at her and then without a word returned to his large book.
"I know I messed up again but I've spent the past few days writing down ways to make Harry see you're Calli. I think #24 is pretty good." Hermione shoved the parchment on top of his book.
Draco stared at the parchment then up at the girl that was suppose to be his enemy. "Why are you doing this for me? You should hate me…after what I've done to you in the past? Are you daft?"
Hermione slowly smiled. "You don't like yourself very much. I don't think you were ever in any position not to like me. Beside, I think I'm very lovable if not a bit pushy sometimes but that's only because I know I'm right."
A slowly smile appeared on his mouth, one that Hermione saw for the first time that reached his eyes lighting them into a magnificent shade of blue. This must be Calli. Hermione thought with a smile. No wonder Harry's so in love.
Hermione's smile warmed even more as she leaned forward in her chair. "Besides even if we were enemies there was always a connection. Maybe it's because you're my best friend's lifemate but I don't know…" Her eyes narrowed on him thoughtfully. "There's just a connection, I want you to be happy." She felt something twist in her belly. It WAS something about his eyes...so...familiar.
"A noble Gryffindor all the way aren't you, Granger?"
She laughed as his eyes looked back down at the paper.
"This is really…nice…of you but my father gave me potions to help with the anxiety attacks I don't need Harry to live. I'll be fine." He sat up straight in his seat.
"Anxiety attacks? Draco Malfoy are you kidding me?" Hermione looked at him like he'd sprouted two more heads.
"Just one…" He twitched. "And another small one the other day but I'll be perfectly fine without Harry. Just look at my father he's been around eighteen or twenty years without his lifemate he's fine."
Hermione's face screwed up. "Right, just fine for a lunatic that bows at the feet of a mad man who got his arse kicked by a toddler."
Draco's head sunk down onto the table. "My life sucks." He moaned.
He heard Hermione gasp as he sat up quickly looking at her oddly. "Their coming! Quick under the table!"
Draco didn't bother looking as he disappeared under the table just in time for Harry and Ron to come around the corner talking about Quidditch.
"No, no, no." Ron shook his head. "The Cannon's defense is perfect it's the Seeker that needs to…oh, hey Hermione." The red head smiled as they sat down.
"Oh, hi." She replied slowly looking very nervous.
Harry sat down in the exact same seat that Malfoy had been in. Hermione made a grab for the parchment but Harry grabbed it first.
"What's this?" He grinned and then started to read. "#3: Catch Harry off guard after a Quidditch match. #24 : Write a descriptive letter giving Harry a choice between knowing who you are and not knowing under the conclusion that he will be unhappy when he finds out." Harry wasn't smiling anymore when he looked up at her. "This is for Calli?"
Hermione frowned and nodded. "I wanted to give her some options."
Ron pulled the book out from under the parchment. "This is about lifemates? They were here? Just before we came?"
Hermione slowly nodded and Harry quickly grinned. "I wondered why my seat was warm."
"Think about it Harry your bums are practically touching." Ron joked causing Harry to swat at him.
"Very funny, Ron."
Hermione flushed feeling Draco pinch her leg. "You two need to leave." She told them. "Don't you have Quidditch or anything?"
Harry didn't look up because he was writing on her parchment with the Quill Hermione had left next to her notebook.
"Yeah, yeah, Mione. One moment." Harry told her. A minute later he folded the parchment up and handed it to her.
"When she comes back will you give her that?" Harry asked hope in his eyes.
Hermione sighed. "Of course, Harry."
"Thanks, come on, Ron." Harry got up pushing his chair in.
His best friend followed reluctantly waving goodbye to Hermione before disappearing from the library altogether. She waited a moment and double checked that they were gone before Hermione gave Draco the all clear.
"Their gone."
He scowled as he straightened his hair out sitting back into his chair and tried not to grin when he thought about Weasley's comment about their bums touching. "About bloody time."
"You liked hearing Harry's voice, and you know it so be quiet." She teased enjoying it when he flushed.
"Only a little." He said in a stubborn tone.
Draco's eyes were staring at the parchment in her hand as if to burn a whole through it. She waved it in the air.
"Is this what you want?" she asked feigning innocent curiosity
Draco glared into her until she sighed and handed it over. He held it with both hands and looked at it until slowly opening it up. Harry had used the Quill to circle #24 several times even putting a little star beside it. In the margin next to it Harry had written a little message for him.
I understand you're scared, Calli. I'm scared, too, but most of all It's from not knowing if I'll ever see you again. Please, please write me, tell me what you are so afraid of. I promise I'll do everything to resolve your fears and quiet your heart. With all the love I have, Harry.
Draco whimpered and Hermione grinned. "Do you want to use my quill?"
There was a long silence until he looked up at her and she saw fear in his eyes. "The pain I feel is nothing compared to how I would feel if I was the reason Harry died."
"He'll be fine, honestly. How many times has he battled you-know-who?" Hermione insisted.
"Hermione?"
She looked at him and he looked like he was trembling.
"I love him."
"I know, Draco." She whispered.
"I don't want him to get hurt."
Hermione reached over and covered his hand with her own. "Give him the chance, please; he's had so little choice about anything in his life."
Draco was silent as he thought this over. "Can I barrow your quill?"
Later on that night Hedwig flew to his window at around 11:30pm and the sage green note rested into Harry's sweaty hands.
He couldn't seem to believe his eyes or his good fortune. Was this what he thought it was? Did Calli trust him enough to tell him her fears?
Carefully opening the letter he leaned against his headboard and read.
Dearest Harry,
I must ask you a favor though I have no right to ask this of you. I've seen you around everyday and see you ache as I do. However, I know one thing you do not, I know what kind of person you are, how wonderful a family you come from. How your friends love you and would do anything for you, this is a test of your character and you pass it so wonderfully. But I am not like you, my friends are not truly friends, I can trust no one and no one trusts me. Perhaps this is why you were so special to me, Harry. You cared and trusted me without ever seeing my face; I loved that about you, your faith. The faith you have in others and the faith in yourself.
Once you know who I am you'll be disappointed, no, you'll be upset even furious that it is me. That is why I did not come to you, why I haven't let you find me. Why I've told no one about who I was that night. My request is this; I'll be at the highest Astronomy tower at midnight waiting for you.
I beg you do not come if you do not want to cry, for this I will do to you. I will make you miserable but I cannot stand to let you carry on unhappy. Ether come and be miserable or please stay and carry around my heart with you and dream of who I was for that one wonderful night.
With all the love I possess,
Calliope
Harry reread it about five times trying to understand and the fifth time he thought he finally realized what it was saying. In terms it read, I'm someone you're not going to like, you'll hate when you find out, and you'll feel like a fool, you'll regret our night happened. However, if you stay in your bed I'll totally not only understand I want you to, because then you can keep our wonderful night locked up tight in your memory and never think anything bad about me.
"Harry?" A voice yawned making him look over. "Where are you going?"
"Astronomy tower."
"Why?"
"To get mad." Harry grinned and disappeared under his invisibility cloak.
"Okay." Ron yawned and collapsed his head back onto the pillow.
Harry made it through the castle in time to see the clock strike midnight exactly as he peered through the window of the tower. His stomach was doing awful nauseas things to him making him queasy.
He opened the door and a tall figure in a black silk cape turned and looked at the door slowly. Looking both way but saying nothing their head turned to the side and looked around. They had come, they had come. Harry thought nervously.
"Hello?" A voice called, it was familiar but he couldn't place it right away.
Harry almost ran down the stairs again but pictured holding her hand and seeing her adorable nose pressed up in the air like she knew something he didn't.
He tugged the cape and in a shimmer of silk stood Harry in jeans and a hoody looking at her with intense eyes.
"H-harry!" They stammered stepping back. "You have a…umm…" The voice was soft and Harry could barely hear it.
"Yeah." He glanced down at the cape at his feet. "It was my dads."
"That's how you sneak around school so often." She mused looking away into the distance.
"Now you know my secret." He teased stepping forward beside her but didn't touch her yet. There was another silence that wasn't to terribly awful until Harry whispered. "I'm glad you're telling me."
Calli shivered and wrapped her cape closer around herself. "I'm scared, Harry. You're going to hate my memory now. It's…it's the only good memory I have."
"We'll make more memories."
"No, no Harry you don't get it." Calli turned away from him as Harry still cocked his head to the side.
"You sound familiar."
"I told you I would." The voice was annoyed and panic started to rip through Harry.
"No, you REALLY sound familiar." He made a grasp at the hood but she took a step sideways.
"Harry, no." She whispered. "I want you to go this was stupid of me…"
"No, no I can't leave you, not again, give me a chance. Explain to me why we don't like each other. Tell me why you don't like who you are. You don't have to be so scared to tell me. Calli please, trust me."
Draco trembled and looked at Harry a long time before he saw the hands reach up and tug at the hood of their cape. It fell back onto the persons shoulders and Draco flinched as they looked up as if waiting for a response. He expected screaming, yelling, cursing, asking if this was a trick and all those things were happening but they were happening inside Harry's head.
The boy-who-was-confused was going over things in his head and the first thing of all things to come out of his mouth was, "How?"
"Hermione switched my token at the Ball to get back at me. I didn't know until I'd transformed in through the door, I tried to leave, but I literally ran into you…and you know the rest of the night." Draco said timidly. "It's…ITS ALL YOUR FAULT YOU KNOW." He said arrogantly doing that thing with his nose in the air and Harry half laughed and demanded. "MY FAULT?"
"YES!" Draco hissed looking annoyed. "It's not like I asked to be stuck with you, I thought you were someone else."
"Yes, yes, I quite remember how badly you freaked out in the Room of Requirements." Harry nodded his eyes never leaving their face making him feel nervous and to stare everywhere but at Harry.
"But it doesn't explain why you acted the way you did that night. I only have one question."
"What's that?"
"Which ones real? Was Calli real, or, are YOU real."
The question should have been that they were real after all Calli was an illusion from transfiguration. However, they knew what Harry meant. Were they lonely and loving, or arrogant and mean?
"I'm Calli more then I've ever been the person you see daily. I don't like who I am." Draco whispered. "I liked who I was that night."
Harry nodded and took a step forward, heel to toe and blinked at them. "So, do you want to be my Calli?"
Draco's jaw dropped and then looked around nervously and took a sly dainty step forward turning his hip to the side. "Do you want to be my Harry?"
Harry took another step forward swinging his hands behind his back and looked around thoughtfully and said. "Wouldn't mind it."
With that arrogant cuteness Calli had he stepped forward one more time in a baby step till they were neck and neck. "I, wouldn't to terribly mind being, yours." Draco whispered.
Harry slowly reach up to the person he loved and touched there angular jaw in his hands. "Good." Harry whispered and kissed Draco deeper.
(Hidden Malfoy Estate)
The screaming in Lucius' ears was unbearable sometimes. Even his powerful potions could not block out the sound of his lifemates cries as she died. No healer, no potion, no spell could stop his emotions completely and that is where in lay the problem.
No dreamless sleep potion could block her bright fawn brown eyes as they dimmed of life.
No, you idiot, she was a muggle. A filthy muggle. The Malfoy part of him screamed.
No, she wasn't just a muggle she was her. She was Helena, she was perfect. The young teenager in love whispered inside of Lucius' head.
No, Muggles are beneath me. The Malfoy shock with rage.
The annoying lifemate inside him calmed the rage immediately. If Muggles are so beneath us then how did she outwit us every time? Make us laugh, make us feel, give us such joy? She knew what we were but she loved us anyway, TRUSTED us even though we hated her kind.
She was a…she was a… The Malfoy tried to think of something awful but he could only see the bouncing brunette curls.
He'd would threaten her and she's would have only laughed. "Just try it, Luci." Helena's voice made his insides ache. "Try to hurt me, I dare you!" She'd always said it as a joke and his insides ached as he remembered he's always pulled her into his arms hating himself for it all the way and kissed her till she was blushing head to toe.
His body laid itself on the bed and tried not to shack. The potions seemed to be doing less and less for him every day.
His gray/blue eyes closed clouded with potions but they did not stop the memories, did not stop the voices, and didn't stop her screams.
"I'm evil, you should be afraid." Lucius told her.
"You're not and I'm not afraid of you." Helena told him pushing a curl form her fawn brown eyes. A smile twisted on the corner of her mouth making him itch to kiss her.
"I am!" He thundered but she didn't so much as flinch.
She took a step forward and kissed his jaw until his rage was gone. "If you're so evil how can I feel your soul inside of me? I'm not a witch, Luci but I still feel your magic inside of me. In my heart, in my mind at all times. You'll never be rid of me."
Lucius moaned and rolled he over covering his eyes for the images he knew would come next.
The smoke and fire in the crumbling building was too much for most of the Death Eaters to bear for they were running out all available exits. Lucius and his father were the only ones that stayed.
Lucius had heard her screaming. She was in there somewhere.
Abraxas Malfoy glared towards a pile of rubble across the room and Lucius turned in the direction of the body. Lucius ran to it despite himself pushing the rubble off with his bare hands until he pulled the body of his lifemate into his arms.
She felt so broken and limp but her eyes looked at him with trust and love still as she died. "Luci?" She whispered coughing blood slightly from a punctured rib.
His fingers traced her face in horror feeling as if his body were dieing as well.
Trembling he cradled her closer. "I never meant for you to be hurt." He whispered. "I didn't know, I didn't know." He whispered into her dirty, bloody hair.
"I love you, Lucius." She whispered her eyes rolling back a moment her body becoming even more limp.
"NOOOO!" Lucius shrieked. Damnit she was only seventeen, so beautiful, so perfect.
He kissed her one last time gently as he felt her broken body against his own.
"I'll never…leave you." She whispered. "Your magic is inside me. I'll come back to you."
Lucius pressed his lips to hers one more time and felt her last breath and then her head lay back her body soft but still warm though no life lay in her anymore.
He rocked her for a moment until he felt a kick to his side. "Get up you're embarrassing our family. The bitch muggle had to die I made sure of it."
Abraxas turned to leave and Lucius carefully set her body down on the ground and stood pulling his wand out. "What are you talking about? You made sure of it?"
Abraxas turned sneering as he pressed his fingers through his silk blonde hair. "You're going to serve the Dark Lord, Lucius whether you like it or not. This family was built on pureblood and I'll see you dead before you tarnish it. I organized the raid on this establishment when I heard you tell that stupid friend Zabini of yours about the girl. You were going to leave the family for her weren't you Lucius? Stupid mistake. You're lucky I don't have you killed as well. We're leaving, NOW."
Lucius was steady as a board as he raised his wand directly at his father's chest. He had never killed anyone before. Never felt hatred like this before.
Abraxas laughed. "What? Are you going to curse me, Lucius? You should be thankful I killed that filthy bitch…"
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Lucius shrieked and was even able to see the look of surprise in his father eyes before he shrieked and crumpled to the floor.
This was when he started to shake; he could already hear the other Death Eaters run back into the smoking building.
His oldest friend Wellston Zabini grabbed him by the cape. "Come on, Lucius we HAVE to go!"
Zabini followed his eyes to Abraxas' dead body then to Lucius in confusion then he saw the broken body of the muggle girl.
"Oh." He whispered.
"Leave me." Lucius whispered. "I stay with her." He replied numbly as he collapsed next to Helena's body.
"No, she's gone, Lucius. We have to go Aurors have arrived!" Zabini gave a tug at Lucius but he pushed him away. "No, it's my fault. She's dead because of me. I killed her." He whispered.
I killed her…I killed her…I killed Helena…I killed her… The voice whispered inside Lucius' head as he shock terribly in his bed.
"Helena." Lucius whispered her name into the quiet room.
Hermione Granger sat bolt right up in her bed curls falling into her soft brown eyes.
Her dream had been so strange, all she could see was smoke, and she remembered her lungs hurt. Her heart hurt most of all. Two arms were holding her, rocking her.
"I killed her…I killed her…I killed her…" The voice whispered in her dream.
Hermione got out of her sweat drenched bed and stood in front of her mirror trying to take a deep breath. She was use to the dreams by now. The feeling of loss and love at the same time.
Most of all she felt her heart throb as she heard those words she spoke in her dreams.
"Your magic is inside me. I'll come back to you."
A shiver ran down her back.
HA! Bet you didn't see that coming! I thought Helena was a good name because that's the name of Hermione's mother in the Greek myth. I wanted something that connected the two names without it being Hermione and Hermin or something. Haha. What do you guys think?