Chapter 8 - I'm different now

October arrives that year like a determined case of mould. Wet, relentless, and hopelessly inconvenient.

By the end of the first week, the constant rain, the endless assignments, and the general drudgery of the passage of time renders Theo morose.

Everyone's noticed.

Neville keeps offering tea. At meals, in the common room, he even brings it up to the dorm if Theo sleeps late. It's lovely and far more than he deserves. Add 'guilt over taking advantage of Neville's friendship without offering anything in return' to the list of things making him feel bad.

Draco and Blaise keep inviting him to come flying with them. This, despite the fact that Theo wouldn't particularly enjoy flying on the warmest, sunniest day of the year, let alone in Scotland in October. Add 'annoyance that his oldest friends don't know him at all' and 'guilt about being annoyed when they're trying to help' to the list.

Daphne keeps being the perfect girlfriend. She sits with him quietly sometimes and talks to distract him at other times. Sometimes she distracts him with kisses instead. Add 'increasing disinterest', 'the growing realisation that he has to end this', 'related fear and dread', and 'guilt about said disinterest and realisations' to the list.

Even Potter and Weasley have been leaving him alone. Add 'shame over being so miserable that even your rivals notice and take pity on you' to the list.

The list is endless. Never-ending. Will never end.

Theo hands in a half-arsed Potions essay and skips lunch.

Instead, he goes out to the lake. He sits on a boulder at the edge of the clearing where he's come many times with Daphne. The boulder is damp and the wet seeps into his robes, making him cold.

The rain, at least, is light. More mist than downpour. It reminds him of the inside of a crystal ball.

When he looked into his crystal ball in Divination the other day, he saw nothing.

Sitting alone in the rain and letting himself get cold feels right. It's what he deserves.

He sits for a while, watching the giant squid bob to the surface and disappear. He might skip Divination this afternoon. Why bother, if he can't See anything anyway?

"I thought you might be here." Daphne's voice cuts through the mist. It sounds like she's a great distance away, but when he turns, she's right there. "I brought you some tea and something to eat. It's just bread and cheese, but I didn't think you'd want much."

She climbs carefully onto the rock beside him and conjures a cushion. She settles onto it gently before passing him the tea and food.

He accepts the tea, but sets the bundle of food down on the rock. He looks back out over the lake.

Daphne shivers and conjures a blanket for herself. "Aren't you cold?"

"Yes," he says.

She shuffles closer and leans her head against his shoulder. "I'm sorry you're sad," she says.

"Thanks," he manages, continuing to stare straight ahead, watching the water. He sips his tea.

This is a bad day for him. One of the worst, in a series of many bad days. He's had them before, but never quite like this. She knows this, and she came to him anyway.

Daphne is warm against his shoulder, as is the tea in his hands. He thought he wanted to be cold, but this is better. She's making him better.

It makes him feel worse.

"Daph?" he says after a while, emboldened by the quiet and the wet and the weight of the warm tea in his hands. "I think we should talk… about us."

She sits up straight, taking her head off his shoulder. A shiver rips through him, straight from his spine, at the sudden removal of warmth.

"We can wait until you feel better," she murmurs.

"No, we can't. I can't keep doing this, Daph." His voice is flat, his eyes still fixed on the lake.

"This meaning… us?"

"I'm sorry."

"Right," she says, voice shaky. She opens the packet of food she brought for him and tears off a chunk of bread. She hurls it into the lake. She does the same with a second piece.

She tears off a third piece and moves to throw it, then turns abruptly and brandishes the chunk of bread near his face, gesturing with it. "You know, I wondered, a month ago, if you were going to do this. I stopped wondering lately. I thought you got over it, your adjustment to Gryffindor or whatever, and we were back on track. What changed, Theo? Why now?"

"Nothing," he says dully, his eyes on the chunk of bread, rather than her face. "I wanted you around more when I started to feel depressed, cause you know me and you make me feel better and you're so amazing, but that's not fair to you."

Daphne's quiet for a moment, digesting. "So before that, you're saying… you didn't want me around? I'm annoying to you now, or something?"

"No, god, it's not that, I just —" If he knew how to explain it to himself, it might have been easier to explain it to her. "I just think something's changed for me this year. Who I am, what I want, something. I can't explain it, Daph. I want to want to be with you. I want to feel like I used to. I — you're amazing and you know me better than anyone and you're one of my oldest friends, but I — it's different now. I'm different now."

It's gotten harder to breathe while he's been talking. He doesn't realise why until a tear rolls down his cheek.

"I don't think I do, Theo." Daphne stands up, sniffing away tears of her own. "I don't think I know you at all."

He skips Divination, and stays out in the wet. It rains harder, he cries some more, and the cold sinks impossibly deep into his bones.

When he can hear students coming outside for afternoon break, clustering around the castle away from the wet and cold, he stands. He tosses the rest of the long-cold tea into the lake, vanishes the last bits of food, and makes his way back inside, ignoring the stares of everyone gawking at his soaking wet form.

He pops into the dorm to change his clothes. He gets in and out as quickly as possible, doing all he can to avoid Neville. Neville would be nice to him and he can't handle that right now.

He doesn't want nice. He goes in search of Draco.

He finds him in an alcove off the hallway outside the Slytherin common room with a Potions textbook open on the bench beside him.

Theo slumps against the stone wall, letting the tension seep out of him as he slides slowly onto the bench seat. He lands with a thump.

"Theo," Draco greets him blandly, nodding once.

"Hi."

"I just spoke with Pansy," he says wryly. "I hear you have some news."

"Yeah."

Draco turns back to his book, as if he's disinterested. That's how you know he cares.

"What happened to your dream?" he says absently.

"Hm?"

"You know, mid-level ministry wonk, two-point-five mini-Daphnes, et cetera." Draco waves a hand haughtily.

"Two-point-five?"

"Statistically speaking."

Theo closes his eyes and slumps lower in his seat. "I don't know. Things changed."

"Yeah," Draco says dolefully. "A lot's changed lately."

Theo opens one eye and turns his head slightly. "What's changed for you?"

"You know I can't say."

"Not even when I'm all desolate and miserable? Not even to cheer me up?" Theo raises one side of his mouth in a non-smile.

"It wouldn't cheer you up."

"I know," he says, closing his eyes again and turning away.

He'll keep asking and Draco will keep not telling him. It's how they do things. Lots of questions, minimal answers. Lots of emotions, minimal expressions thereof. They'd probably both be healthier if they hugged once in a while.

"I wonder how hard it would be to get a time turner?" Theo muses aloud.

"Why? Having regrets already?" Draco taunts.

"We could go back to last year, have another go. Both of us."

"Yeah…" Draco says wistfully. "Not sure it works like that, though. I'm pretty sure the ministry ones only go back a couple hours…" he trails off. "But it would still be cool. Useful."

"Remember when you thought Granger had one in third year?"

"She did have one!" Draco declares indignantly, sitting abruptly upright.

"Wow."

"What? She was taking two classes at once, Theo. How else could she be doing that, hm?"

"Fine, whatever, they let a third year have a time turner, sure." Theo rolls his eyes. "Man, I haven't heard you talk about Granger and her alleged time turner in ages. What a flashback." The smile that flits across Theo's face is brief, but genuine. "How's the obsession going anyway, with her living down the hall? Fully revitalised?"

"No." Draco says, too quickly. "There was never an obsession. She was getting special treatment! It wasn't fair!"

"What's that thing muggles say about protesting too much?"

Draco heaves a dramatic sigh. "You're annoying."

"Ouch, what a thing to say in my hour of need." He clutches at his heart.

"You don't seem that needy," Draco mutters.

They sit in silence for a moment, the familiar cold of the stone wall soaking into Theo's back.

He hopes Daphne's somewhere warm. She deserves that much at least, after everything.

"You are okay though, right?" Draco interrupts his thoughts. "Not going to throw yourself off Gryffindor tower later?"

Theo almost laughs. "That would be the way to do it," he says. "But I think I'll hold off for another day at least."

"Good," Draco clips. He rolls up the sheet of parchment he'd been writing on when Theo arrived and snaps his textbook shut. "Do you want to come flying this weekend, maybe?"

"Oh for fuck's sake," Theo mutters.


Hermione gets an O on her Transfiguration essay, and an excellent comment from Professor McGonagall.

Between that, the promise of a Hogsmeade weekend tomorrow, and the fact that she's hardly had to speak to Draco Malfoy for weeks, things are going well as of the end of class on Friday afternoon.

The year might not end up as a total loss. Hogwarts, it turns out, is still Hogwarts, whether she sleeps in a dungeon or a tower. She gets to learn magic, and that's what matters.

The Slytherins are less friendly than Gryffindors, to be sure. But living with them, she finds that they're mostly just regular teenagers, albeit with a higher likelihood of having Death Eater relatives or subscribing to abhorrent blood purity ideologies.

Things are…fine. Good, even.

She's still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

There has to be a reason for this. The Sorting Hat didn't just go rogue. It didn't do this for no reason. But she cannot for the life of her figure out what that reason is.

Hermione's been to the library chasing down every lead she can think of. Reading about the Hat itself, the history of sorting, the founders, the traits of the houses, the start of term feast, everything. She's been through Hogwarts, A History more times than she can count.

(Ron saw her reading it the other day. "Don't you have that memorised yet?" he'd asked. She does. But it's such a rich, detailed text… there could always be something she missed.)

Regardless, she hasn't turned up anything remotely useful.

There's a part of her that wonders if it's her. Has she changed, become more like a Slytherin?

She's ambitious, yes. She wants to do some good in the world.

Slytherins do whatever it takes to achieve their ends. And so does Hermione. She's fully aware that trapping Rita Skeeter in a jar was a bit extreme, but it was necessary. She doesn't regret it one bit.

Slytherins are known for being power-hungry. She's never thought of herself as desiring power. Although… she can't say there wasn't a bit of a rush when she got to control time, or when she sent Umbridge into the forest. And she does quite enjoy the powers of being a prefect. But she's not going to go out of her way to get more power. She certainly wouldn't hurt anyone just to increase her own power.

So maybe she does have some commonalities with Slytherins. But not more so than with Ravenclaws! Or even Hufflepuffs — she's every bit as loyal and hardworking as she is ambitious or cunning.

It can't be just her, or just Theo. There's more to it than that.

In considering the events of the start of term feast, she's left with one clear fact:

The Sorting Hat lives in Dumbledore's office.

It has to have overheard something. Or been told what to do by someone. The Headmaster himself?

Dumbledore seems too busy to concern himself with the goings on of student house placement, what with his lessons with Harry and frequent absences from the castle.

It's unlikely. And furthermore, it's absurd. What purpose could it possibly serve? What has been achieved by her placement in Slytherin, and Theo's in Gryffindor?

Nothing obvious. Other than causing a major disruption and making Theo quite miserable.

Hermione, Harry, and Ron spend the rest of the afternoon after Transfiguration sitting in an alcove in the Entrance Hall. She practices her spellwork, conjuring various types of flowers. Harry reads through the margins of his ill-advised Potions textbook and Ron flips through a Chudley Cannons magazine.

"What do you think Dumbledore will want to talk about at your next meeting, Harry?" she asks him, once her pile of conjured flowers is toppling over.

"I dunno," Harry says. "Probably another memory, right?"

He had told her and Ron all about the memory of Voldemort's ancestors in the run-down shack Dumbledore showed him last time. She didn't really know what to make of it.

"When's the next one again?" Ron asks.

"Monday."

"Are you sure he didn't say anything about why these memories matter? What the point of it all is?" She's asked Harry this before, and she's not expecting an answer, but she's been going over and over it.

Like her re-sorting, and whatever Malfoy is or is not doing, and his behaviour when they were partners in Transfiguration, and what's really happening outside the castle, and where Dumbledore goes when he leaves… and she has no answers.

If Hermione hates anything, it's not knowing the answer.

"No, I would have remembered if he said anything about that, Hermione. He's being secretive. But that's Dumbledore, isn't it?"

"I guess. I just wish we knew…" she trails off.

"Things always end up making sense in the end," Harry says optimistically.

Yeah, she thinks, I just hope no one has to die along the way this time.

Students have begun to file through the Entrance Hall on their way to dinner, so Hermione starts gathering her things, preparing to leave the boys and join the Slytherin table as usual.

At dinner, she sits between a surly Malfoy and a heartbroken Daphne. The meal is quiet. Everyone, her included, is lost in their own thoughts.

Even the ceiling in the Great Hall is dreary. Cloudy and miserable.

Later, Hermione makes her way up to the library, only to find she can't focus. She's not sure what she's looking for anyway.

She goes for a walk instead, staying inside to avoid the rain. She goes from one side of the castle to the other, back and forth, floor by floor.

It's quiet. Most students are undoubtedly huddled up by the fires in their common rooms.

Hermione wanders across the seventh floor, thinking about the time she ran into Malfoy up here. She never figured out who he'd been with. Add that to the list of mysteries.

Unless he was lying. It's possible he was using the Room for whatever secret mission he may or may not be working on.

That said, the Room of Requirement is a pretty common spot for couples to sneak off to, everyone knows that. Malfoy could be entirely innocent.

Except, as she rounds the corner into the hall with the troll tapestry, he's there again. Coming out of the Room, alone.

"Malfoy," she calls, still halfway down the hall. "Here again?"

"I could say the same of you, Granger," he sneers. "Following me, are you?"

"You wish," she says. "I don't care enough about you to follow you anywhere."

He looks ruffled and stressed, just like he did the last time she ran into him like this. She stops walking when she's a few paces away from him.

"Oh, so you need the Room, is that it?" he says, his eyes finding hers and locking in place. "Meeting Weasley? Or is it Potter? I always forget with you three."

"You know full well that — You know what? It doesn't matter. Think whatever you like. Lurk in whatever hallways you fancy. I'm going."

She starts to march past him, but he grabs her arm. She snatches it out of his grip.

"Hey!"

He grabs her again, this time by both shoulders. "What are you really doing up here, Granger?" His voice is low, threatening and breathy. "Tell me."

"I told you," she says, struggling against his grip. "I was going for a walk." She pushes hard against his chest, breaking away from him. She stumbles backward and pulls out her wand. "Don't ever grab me again, Malfoy," she says, pointing her wand at his throat.

"A walk, huh?" he says. His tone is calm, even, and cold. "You're a long way from the dungeons."

"That's enough, Malfoy," she says, wand hand unwavering. "I don't owe you an explanation for anything. You're lucky I gave you that much."

"Lucky, am I?" His voice is rumbly, almost a purr. Her heart feels like it's going to beat out of her chest.

He takes a step toward her and she wordlessly shoots a light stinging hex at his collarbone. A warning.

"Yes. You're lucky I don't curse you to within an inch of your life and report you to the headmaster."

He doesn't miss a beat.

"Oh? Report me for what exactly? Standing in a hallway?" he growls.

"No," she states evenly. "For assault and uttering threats."

"Now look who's making threats," he scoffs. "Remind me again when I threatened you, Granger. Because I can't recall. What did I say I'd do to you, hm?"

She thinks back. He's not actually wrong. He's never been specific.

"I — it wasn't your words, Malfoy," she falters. "It was your demeanour, you know, your vibe." She waves her non-wand hand vaguely. "And that's beside the point."

He laughs meanly. "What is the point, then?"

He takes another step forward and it's all Hermione can do to stand her ground. She will not run. She will not cower away from Malfoy. He may be bigger and stronger than she is, but she has a wand. Physical strength doesn't matter.

"Is the point that you like it?"

She does step back then, staggering in shock. "What?"

He smirks. "So that's a yes? You like it when I'm mean to you? You like it when I'm dangerous? It excites you, doesn't it?" He steps forward until he's right in front of her, backing her against the stone wall. "You like it. You like me."

His deep grey eyes pierce her brown ones and she stares at him, her breath shallow in her chest, her mouth hanging slightly open. He radiates anger and volatility like an apocalyptic storm and it's wrong, he's wrong, it's all wrong —

Hermione nods.

He grabs her then, one hand around her waist and the other at the base of her neck. His thumb finds the hollow of her throat. If he were to press down, he could choke her. Kill her. Drain the life right out of her.

He rubs his thumb in a light circle over the sensitive skin of her neck.

She can see it coming, like in slow motion. There's plenty of time to back away, to change course, to stop it –

All she does is stare at his lips.

When Malfoy kisses her, it's like fire. Destructive and all-consuming. Burning.

She leans into the flames, standing on her tiptoes to meet his lips. She wraps a hand around the back of his neck, and when he opens his mouth she presses her tongue inside, wanting more. Wanting everything, wanting —

Hermione yanks her mouth away and shoves Malfoy off her.

"What the hell are you doing?"

He takes one single step back and his smile looks almost genuine. "I knew it," he says softly, almost to himself.

"You don't know anything. You're vile and disgusting and I want nothing to do with you." She tilts her chin up defiantly.

"You're a bad liar, Granger," he drawls, shaking his head.

She feels like she's still catching her breath.

He leans back into her space and for a wild moment she thinks he's going to kiss her again and she's pretty sure she's going to let him, but then he stops, hovering by her ear.

"I knew it," he says again.


A/N: Big chapter this week! How's everybody feeling?

Thanks to sunshineceline for the beta 💙