Chapter 15 - Supportive of murder?

"This better be good, Granger." Pansy flounces through their dormitory door at 6:23 am on the Sunday morning students are meant to be returning from the holidays. She tosses an expensive-looking bag carelessly on her bed and regards Hermione derisively. "I haven't had a single mouthful of coffee yet."

Hermione herself has been back for exactly thirteen minutes. She came through the floo in Snape's office, open to Slytherin students for the day. But she's been up since 4:30, since she had to get all the way across London from her parents' house to the Leaky Cauldron first.

"Thanks for coming. I really appreciate it," Hermione says, wringing her hands anxiously.

She perches on the edge of her bed, half-sitting, half-standing, and Pansy mirrors the pose, arms crossed impatiently.

"Well?"

"I think I figured something out… about what Draco's doing," Hermione says, Malfoy's first name slipping out unexpectedly.

"And?"

"And I need you to listen to my theory, and tell me if I've gone mad. And then help me figure out what to do about it if I'm right."

"Have you considered the possibility," Pansy counters calmly, "of staying the fuck out of it?"

"Yes," Hermione says honestly. "But I can't. Because if I'm right…"

Pansy closes her eyes and heaves a long-suffering breath. "Fine. Tell me."

"I think he's trying to kill Professor Dumbledore."

Pansy's eye's snap open. "That is a very serious accusation, Granger. I assume you have proof?"

"Not exactly," Hermione admits. "But all the information adds up. He's doing a task for You-Know-Who — he basically admitted as much when Harry overheard him on the train, and then again when Harry heard him talking to Snape — "

"What?" Pansy interjects "What exactly did Potter hear?"

"Well I don't know the exact words, but he heard that Malfoy has a plan to do the task, and he thinks he can do it even though it's taking longer than he thought. Also that Snape made a promise to his mother to protect him," she says. "But Malfoy won't let him – apparently he doesn't want Professor Snape stealing his glory. Oh, and he's using occlumency."

"Excellent," Pansy mutters. "Fucking excellent thing to have let Potter overhear. Good work, Draco."

"Anyway," Hermione continues. "It's really quite obvious at this point that he's doing something for You-Know-Who. And I know it's something dangerous, otherwise he wouldn't need protection from Snape, and it must be something big and important if 'glory' is at stake."

Hermione takes a breath, steeling herself for what comes next.

"And I think… the attack on Katie Bell… she was meant to be delivering the necklace to someone in the castle. Harry's been convinced this whole time that it was Malfoy, of course. But I didn't think it could be, he had a McGonagall-approved alibi, but maybe… I checked, and it is possible to control someone under the imperious curse from a distance. If he cursed her before she left, or if there was someone helping him, imperiused or otherwise, then he still could have done it. And he must have known about the necklace… it was right in front of him in Borgin & Burkes."

"How do you–– Nevermind." Pansy shakes her head. "But by that logic, any one of a hundred people could be behind the attack on Bell."

"Yes," Hermione agrees. "But let's assume for a second that it was Draco. That would mean he was trying to kill someone. That necklace was deadly — Katie is really, really lucky to be alive. It didn't get to whoever it was meant for, obviously. But it had to have been someone in the castle. If it was a mission from You-Know-Who, then it has to be someone he'd want dead — Harry, maybe, but Katie saw Harry with the necklace and didn't try to give it to him, plus You-Know-Who probably wants to kill Harry personally. So Dumbledore is the next logical option."

"But not the only one," Pansy says, her demeanour remaining flat. She's not giving anything away. "And you still don't have actual proof about Draco."

"Right, but what he said about glory… and the danger aspect… it's something big. A major target. And because of his father… I think it might be an impossible target. Dumbledore's the most powerful wizard in the world, there's no way Malfoy could…" Hermione trails off for a moment, faltering under the weight of what she's saying, what she's realised. "What if he wants Draco to fail as a punishment for his father?"

"Mr. Malfoy's already being punished. In prison."

"But not by You-Know-Who! He'd want to do his own thing, right? And the occlumency — Malfoy's hiding something from him. Could it be that he doesn't want to do it? Or is scared?"

A silence seeps between them, humid and heavy.

"Granger," Pansy stands and steps towards her. "Hermione." She places a hand on each of Hermione's shoulders. "You're way, way out of line."

Her heart sinks. Pansy thinks her theory is wrong. Or she'll be stubborn and refuse to give her an opinion about it.

"You don't think it makes sense? At all? I know it's not concrete, and it sounds mad, positively mad, but it all adds up, doesn't it?"

Pansy takes on a pained expression, her eyes closed and her lips pinched. "You're not going to let this go are you? And you're going to do something incredibly stupid if I don't stop you. Okay," she sighs. "Okay."

Pansy rubs a distressed hand over her forehand as Hermione waits with bated breath.

"Okay," she says a third time, opening her eyes and meeting Hermione's gaze. "You're right. I think you're right, anyway."

"What?" Hermione half-shrieks.

She was not, it turns out, prepared to get confirmation on her theory, despite her own near-certainty about it. She sinks more firmly against the bed, her hands clutching wildly at her sheets, just for something to hold onto.

"If you didn't want to know, you shouldn't have brought it up," Pansy says, taking several steps back and forth, pacing around the room as Hermione watches. She explains. "Draco told me — part of it. A little while ago, he came to me, upset, and he said that… he had to kill someone. He wouldn't say who, but I've thought about it and… yeah, I think — I think you're right about who it is."

Hermione can hardly breathe. "Kill someone? As in murder? That's what he said?"

"Yes."

"And that's what he's working on in the Room of Requirement? A plan to kill someone?" Her voice keeps getting higher and higher as she speaks, nearing hysteria. "That's his secret project? Murder?"

"Yes."

"How can you be so calm about this?" she demands, jumping up. "We need to do something! We have to stop him!"

"Sit down, Granger," Pansy orders. "It's barely dawn. We're not about to go running off to heroically save a life right this minute."

"But — how long have you known about this?" Hermione accuses frantically. "Were you just going to let him do it? He'll die! And if he doesn't, Dumbledore will! And Draco will become a killer!"

"Don't insult me," Pansy says icily. "I am aware of the stakes. Better than you are. And," she pauses, punctuating her statement with a finger point at Hermione, "it's not my job to interfere. It is definitely not yours."

Hermione puts her face in her hands and pulls at her skin. She should have known it would come to this. She did know on some level, she thinks, remembering the dreams where Malfoy choked her. Malfoy told her, over and over, that he was dangerous and bad and capable of awful things. She should have believed him.

But the abstract concept of an evil deed is quite different from a specific, literal, ongoing murder plot.

"Pansy," Hermione pleads. "This is murder we're talking about. We can't do nothing."

"No, this is war we're talking about," Pansy snaps. "Draco was given an order. It's his decision what to do about it now. I'm his best friend. I'm being supportive."

"Supportive of murder?"

"You don't need to keep emphasizing it, I do actually understand what we're talking about," Pansy sneers. "But yes. I'm supportive. It's not my job to tell Draco what to do, it's my job to support him no matter what he does. He's my best friend."

"But there have to be limits! I care about him too, but I can't just be supportive of this! I have to do something. I need to tell Dumbledore, at least!"

"Absolutely not!" Pansy snaps, whirling around and drawing her wand. "You will not tell anyone! If you so much as try…"

"What? You'll kill me?" Hermione taunts. "Since you're so okay with that?"

"I will make sure you regret it," she corrects, wand still pointed at Hermione. "This is bigger than your fucking moral compass or whatever. Do you remember what I said when you first moved in here? If you do anything to hurt a member of this house, you will be on your own and I won't be there to help you. In fact, I'll be the first in line to make your life hell."

"Dammit!" Hermione cries, throwing herself back on her bed in frustration. "I never should have talked to you, I should have gone straight to Dumbledore's office! What happened to me? I should have listened to Harry! I never, ever should have even begun to trust you or Draco!"

Pansy stills. She narrows her eyes for a moment, staring at Hermione, then she tucks her wand back into her pocket. She strides over to Hermione's bed and perches on the edge of it. Somehow, impossibly, she's grinning.

"You trust us?"

"No! I don't. That's my point!"

"Liar," Pansy smirks. Then she… strokes Hermione's hair?

It makes no sense that that's what is happening, but Hermione can't figure out how else to describe what she's doing.

"Um," Hermione says.

"You trust us," Pansy repeats. "And you keep calling him Draco."

"So?"

"Before this year, you thought all Slytherins were evil, right? But you learned. It's more complicated than good or bad. And so are you, by the way. I remember the time you set an angry herd of centaurs on Professor Umbridge. And there's that rumour about Rita Skeeter and a jar? Anyway. You've always known things are complicated, but if you can admit you trust us, you can recognise that this situation is complicated too."

"No, Pansy, it's not complicated," Hermione says, her voice tired. "There is no middle ground on some things."

Pansy pauses for a moment, continuing to slowly pet Hermione's hair.

"Did you know that the Dark Lord is living in Draco's house? You know, where his mother lives?"

"No," Hermione admits.

"And do you think," Pansy continues, "that he gives people orders without there being consequences for failing to comply with those orders?"

"I suppose not."

"So that begs the question, if Draco doesn't do this — or if Dumbledore finds out about it — how long do you think his mother would survive, hm? How long until his father has a mysterious accident in Azkaban? Do you think Draco would make it to the end of the year?"

She lets Hermione ponder this, her hand remaining firm against Hermione's head.

"So it's not so much a question of Draco killing someone, is it? More of a question who he kills," Pansy reasons. "What would you have him do? He acts and Professor Dumbledore dies. He doesn't act and his own mother dies. Of course, he risks his own life either way."

Hermione is quiet for a long time. Yes, the situation is complicated. But it's still murder. She's always thought of murder as being exceptionally non-complicated. You just don't do it.

But this… it's like that trolley problem muggles talk about. The train is heading down a track where it will kill five people. But if you pull a switch, it will change tracks and only kill one. The answer should be obvious — you pull the switch.

But what if the one person on the track were the leader of the movement to defeat a murderous tyrant? What if it wasn't a switch, it was a cursed necklace or an Avada Kedavra? What if the five people were actually three, and it was yourself and your parents?

Hermione sits up. "Alright."

"Alright?"

"I see that it's complicated," she says. "I do. But Draco said — he made it sound like he wanted to do the task."

Pansy shrugs. "He's always hated Dumbledore. He wants his father's approval. I think he goes back and forth."

"Back and forth about wanting to kill someone?" Hermione says skeptically. "Because it's one thing to have to do it, and it's entirely another thing to want to do it."

"I think," Pansy ventures cautiously, "that he grew up around more death than you did. For us, the last war wasn't that long ago. We grew up learning about it, where you didn't know until you started school. His parents were involved in the war — so were mine. If you think Lucius Malfoy has never cast an Avada… Well, I just think the idea of killing someone might not be as shocking to him as it is to you."

"Maybe, but that has nothing to do with wanting to, does it?"

"Only in the sense that it puts it within the realm of possibility. He'd be rewarded, of course… and he probably imagines it would be satisfying – hurting someone who's hurt him, you know? Not that he talks to me about it," Pansy clarifies. "And besides, I think most of what he said to you was just bravado. He wanted to impress you with his bravery and dangerousness or something." Pansy rolls her eyes, then sighs. "I think he's mostly terrified. He might act tough, but no matter what happens, this is going to destroy him."

Hermione flops back onto the bed. It's all too much. She's been through a lot with Harry and Ron. She's faced many more life-or-death situations already than most people do in their lifetimes. She's never had to wonder before about the rightness of it. It was always clear who was good or bad, what was right or wrong.

It was a matter of bravery. The right thing, the good choice, was right in front of her and she just had to be brave enough to stand up and do it.

There might not be a good choice here. There might not be a right thing to do.

"I don't know what to do," she whispers.

"Yeah," Pansy says. She rests a hand on top of Hermione's for a moment, then springs to her feet. "Come on. We're going to get coffee."


The freezing January air cuts at Theo's skin like so many little birds, pecking at him until there's nothing left.

He walks along the shore of the black lake, into the wind. He's wrapped up in his heaviest cloak and his thickest scarf, but the cold gets in anyway.

It's not clear why he's doing this, even to himself. He just needed to get out of the castle. He's been restless ever since his father died. Since he was buried in the family plot without a funeral. Since Theo read his last letter and discovered that his father held far more affection for Lucius bloody Malfoy than his own son.

He doesn't miss him.

He doesn't feel triumphant or victorious. He doesn't feel sad, or even particularly angry.

He hasn't cried since it happened.

When his mother died, Theo cried for months. He remembers that time more than he even remembers her. His father hated it. The first time he hit him was when Theo couldn't stop crying.

But that's the past now. All of it is. The present is a freezing cold day, a biting wind, and a view of the choppy, roiling waters of the fucking lake.

Theo makes his way to the boulder at the edge of the lake where he's sat before, and eases himself down. He crosses his legs and pulls his cloak over his lap.

He would quite like to throw something.

Theo summons some rocks from the shoreline and the shallows of the lake, and watches them soar elegantly through the air and settle into a neat pile beside him.

He picks up a rock. Smooth, flat, and grey with a single jagged edge. He holds it in his hands, turns it around, flips it over, strokes a finger gently across its surface. Then he lets it go, throwing it full-force into the lake with a yell of exertion.

He picks up another rock. Turn, flip, throw, yell.

Then another one, and another, until the pile is gone and he's left panting for breath with nothing but the blank surface of the boulder on which he sits and the churning water of the lake, as if nothing was ever there at all.

"Theo!"

At first, he thinks he imagines it, his name cutting vaguely through the wind.

"Theo!" The voice is closer now. He turns to see a figure in a thick cloak and a fuzzy, lime green winter hat bobbing towards him.

Theo smiles faintly and nods up in acknowledgement. "Hi Nev."

"Can I sit with you for a while? Or do you want to be by yourself?"

"You can sit," Theo says, throwing open the side of his cloak. Neville drops down and tucks himself against Theo's side, holding the cloak around his shoulder, encircling them both.

Neville has been good about that in the few days they've been back at school. Asking Theo what he needs. Sometimes he has wanted to be alone. But mostly he likes it better when Neville's there.

It is a more pleasant way to watch the lake, with Neville's warm, comforting body pressed against him, the heavy reprieve of his head against his shoulder.

"It must be cold in there," Neville says of the churning black water. "I wonder how the merpeople manage."

Theo hums in agreement.

"It's hard to imagine," Neville continues. "A whole city, right there under the surface. When Harry was in the lake, he said he saw houses and streets and everything. Even picket fences."

"Sounds nice," Theo says.

"Harry said it was really creepy. But I suppose they were holding his friends hostage at the time. So, that might have affected his judgement," Neville chuckles.

"Yeah," Theo says and snuggles closer against Neville.

They fall into silence for a little while and Theo thinks about the letter. It's been on his mind a lot — what it means, what to do about it, how to feel about it.

He wasn't surprised to hear that his father considered him a disappointment. He's known that for years. He wasn't surprised either at his father's commitment to the so-called cause, even after his loyalty to the man at its center was repaid with poison.

What he wasn't expecting was to be saddled with information — if it could be called information, obscure as it was — that appears to be of vital importance to the Dark Lord. A cup, in the possession of Bellatrix Lestrange. He doesn't understand it, not by a long shot.

There's a part of him that wants to burn the letter and forget he ever saw it.

There's a part of him — the good part, the worthy part — that wants to bring the letter to Dumbledore or someone, in hopes that it may help.

There's a third part that wonders whether denying a dying man's final wish could ever be considered noble. No matter what he did in his life, he was still a person, wasn't he?

There's no way of knowing the importance of the letter. It might be just deluded ramblings. It could be vital to the war. Sending or not sending — it's a betrayal either way.

Mostly, Theo just wants to go to class and spend time with his friends and snog Neville. It's not fucking fair that he should have to do or think about anything else.

"I wonder what the point was," Theo says into the cold air.

"How d'you mean?" asks Neville quietly.

"I just wonder — what was the point of everything, if he was just going to die anyway?"

Neville hums vaguely.

"It's like," Theo continues, "what was it all for? Everything he put me through, how angry he was all the time. He hated so much. And now he's just gone. I don't understand how to make it matter."

"It matters because you're here," Neville points out.

"I think… I think he genuinely thought he was right," Theo muses. "About the pureblood stuff and You-Know-Who and everything. I mean, even I thought we were better than other people, just for being purebloods. I still think — I mean, I don't know anymore, but I don't think it's all garbage, you know? Like the value of the traditions and the old family knowledge and stuff."

"Sure," Neville says gently. "But none of that gave him the right to hurt you."

"Sometimes," Theo admits, "I think he thought he was doing the right thing there, too. Like he was trying to make me strong, turn me into a man, you know? He wanted me to be tough. It worked, in a way."

"You would have been tough no matter what," Neville says firmly. "You didn't need to go through that. You didn't deserve it."

"I know that," Theo sighs. "Most of the time I know that."

"Keep knowing it," Neville says, clutching tight to Theo's knee.

Theo nods and goes back to watching the lake.

The late afternoon light gets lower, shadows lengthening across the grounds. Earlier, they could hear the sound of first years running around and playing in the distance. They must have gone in for dinner by now. It's quiet.

"Remember the class when we did Divination of Desires?" Theo asks.

"Yeah," Neville says diffidently. "That was when you saw that sword, right?"

"Right," Theo confirms. "I also saw something else… Well, two other things. The first thing I saw was you."

"Really? Even back then?"

"Yeah. It was not an appropriate vision for class," he smirks, making Neville flush. "But then… the second vision was my father. He was in prison, and I was older. I looked all confident and stuff. And I told him everything I thought about him, told him right to his face. And then at the end… I pulled out my wand and pointed it to his throat, like I was going to kill him. The vision cut out before I could tell if I did it or not… but I was laughing."

Neville squeezes his hand in reassurance. Theo can't quite manage to look at him, just clings to his hand like an anchor.

"What kind of person sees that?" he asks, voice cracking. "Looking at their deepest desires, who sees that they want to kill their father? Or at least that they want to hurt him, when he's already down and broken? And laugh about it?"

Neville thinks for a moment. "A human person," he says. "You didn't actually do it, Theo. What you do is what matters, not what you think. And anyway, I think thinking about that is normal."

"How can it be?" Theo says. "You don't know how awful I was in the vision, Neville. It was scary."

The only sound for a little while is the crashing of the waves. And this could be it. He might have done it. Scared Neville away and ruined everything.

"Sometimes I think about what it would be like to torture Bellatrix Lestrange," Neville admits quietly. "To do to her what she did to my parents. See how she likes it. But I just think about it. I would never really do it."

Theo takes a deep breath. It doesn't quite fit with how he sees Neville. He wouldn't think he would be the revenge-seeking type. But then again, he's not, is he? He's the revenge-thinking-about-but-not-doing type.

Theo presses his lips against Neville's cheek. "Thank you," he murmurs.