Chapter: Un-Sympathy

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"The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

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"Again, please take your seats."

He sat. He sat and Hermione ignored her students as they entered the bleak whiteness of the classroom, focusing instead on rummaging through her large bag and placing an impressive collection of forty identical books on her desk. She stacked them in neat rows, her hands shaking only slightly, only enough so that she could see the near invisible tremor.

But Harry saw. With a concerned frown, he caught her hand in his and squeezed, leaning in to kiss her briefly on the cheek, offering her comfort the only way he knew how. She was unfailingly the one to provide comfort, and when their roles happened to be reversed Harry always seemed a bit lost. Hermione smiled stiffly, watching him as he turned and limped to the back of the room and sat tensely in the shadows and resolutely ignored Malfoy's sneer. His presence was met with disgust and fear, with significantly more of the latter. This man, this Harry Potter, had killed their Dark Lord, a force thought to be unstoppable and immortal.

Hermione didn't blame them for being frightened. Sometimes Harry frightened even her with his power and intensity.

Two silhouettes fall and only one is breathing.

She discreetly counted the number of students—she still found herself wanting to burst out laughing at the thought that these people, her classmates, the Death Eaters' children, were her students—and established that everyone was present. The murmur of voices that had been prominent as people were entering the room now quieted as her students looked up at her, slightly unnerved by her actions, or lack thereof. She was just standing. Standing and looking at them, her eyes blank.

And then the room was completely silent. Hermione allowed herself an internal smile of triumph.

When she saw that they were beginning to become concerned by her stillness (a fleeting glance sideways, a folding of the hands over a desk, a touch on the hair, perhaps a nervous tension in the shoulders) she finally spoke. Her voice was quiet and yet she doubted that anyone failed to hear her.

"The war is over. Voldemort is dead."

A collective gasp. No one said his name, not even after the war. Pansy's white hand fluttered over her chest and Hermione watched the blood drain from her face. Crabbe and Goyle stared at her stupidly, their eyes wide. Zabini only flinched. Malfoy half stood up, his fist pressing so hard on the table that Hermione heard his knuckles crack from across the room.

"How dare you. You're not fit to say his name, you filthy, disgusting, Mu—" He hissed, his eyes narrowed into slits. Now it was Harry's turn to rise from his seat, moving fast towards the fuming man, murder contorting his face.

Hermione almost faltered. She almost fell. That name had once leveled her to the ground, once prompted tears from her eyes. Then she had been immune to its hate, when it had been used against her time and again during the war. Now, when she knew that she would hear it again, it brought everything back.

The war shines red in her mind.

No.

No, she thought finally. You're stronger than this.

And so she interrupted him. He was halfway through the hateful word when she spoke, revealing first threads of disgust in her tone.

"Sit down, Malfoy. I suppose you didn't hear what I said, hmm? The war is over. We have no more use for prejudice, ignorant slurs, and hate. Your side lost." Her eyes flitted to Harry, before she took a deep breath and spoke again, her voice very firm. "And Malfoy… if you ever, ever even start to utter that word again I will lock you out of this classroom and you won't be let back in—that goes for all of you. I assume you all have read the Decree?" Her question was met with cautiously blank faces, but she knew that they all had. "Then you know what happens if I remove you from this class. I will not tolerate rudeness, bigotry, or fanaticism. If you want to argue a point, do so civilly with evidence to support it. In other words, act like decent people. I assume you are all capable of that?"

It was a rhetorical question; the class took the hint and remained mute. She paused for a moment, her eyes sweeping over the seated mass before her. Malfoy had sunk down into his seat again, eyeing her with deftly concealed shock, one pale eyebrow raised. People shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Hermione knew that she put forth a very different image now than she had when they had known one another during school. Harry looked at her with something like pride in his eyes.

She had no sympathy for these would-be murderers. Once, maybe, she would have felt pity for the loss of their parents to either death or Azkaban, but not now. Now, she knew the deadly consequences of their prejudice and thus could not accept it. It was her job to enlighten these people, and she was not so ignorant as to think that she would not have to essentially force them to listen to her.

"I'm not asking you to enjoy this class. You do not even have to like me," she continued, prompting a surprised expression from Harry and many of the other people in the room. "It all comes down to toleration, doesn't it? You tolerate me, I tolerate you. You all know who I am, and I know who most of you are… not all, but we will remedy that soon. You know what my position was in the war. I fought for the light, you supported the dark. We are different, but we are the same." She ignored the several incredulous snorts of disagreement that sounded around the room. Her voice was growing stronger now, and passion sparked continually in her eyes. She believed what she was saying with all her heart. Conviction.

"We tolerate one another, now, in this classroom, and outside, on the streets. Whether or not you like it, it's what we do. Society relies on toleration. The rights our government gives us—freedom to think as we please, namely—it is inevitable that differing opinions, factions, and people will arise. To live with some semblance of order, then, we have to be able to tolerate these opinions that differ from ours. If we do not, everything falls apart. We fall apart. I know you've seen this, whether you like to admit it or not… it happened during the war, and it is threatening to happen again.

"Apparently, you all are having trouble with this toleration, this simple concept." For the first time, the bitterness was palpable in her tone and expression. It was gone as soon as it had come, and she continued. "This is where my job comes in. I'm not naïve enough to be sure that I can change any of you. Most of you have been taught your opinions on wizarding society since birth." She shot a hard glance at Malfoy, Lucius's superior face as he sneered down at her flashing briefly in her mind. The son stared back at her stonily, anger radiating in a constant heat from his eyes. "I ask only that you listen with an open mind. Let your ideas be challenged and question yourself. Allow your rational thought argue with your ideology. If you still find merit in your opinions, even after all of the six weeks we will be together, you may leave and be none the wiser; I will have tried my best. I will not alert the Ministry if I feel that you are still harboring loyalties to Voldemort, but that's not to say they won't find out on their own."

Hermione gazed steadily at her students. The majority of them were looking at her with something akin to hatred—after all, she had just insulted, albeit subtly, everything they knew. Several stared with amazement at this bold new creature, this Hermione Granger who was so different.

With a faint sigh, Hermione continued. "I know this will be difficult. I know right now many of you feel lost. I don't blame you. The war was won—or lost, depending on how you see it—only three months ago. It's a lot to adjust to."

She caught sight of Pansy and Millicent snickering at her apparent soft-heartedness, so typical of the old Hermione. "Don't mistake this for sympathy," Hermione snapped sharply. "You made your choice when the war broke out. I am merely expressing understanding."

"No we didn't," said a voice, both softly and with an edge at the same time.

"Oh?" Hermione questioned, turning to face Malfoy with a distinctive air of disbelief. "Enlighten me with your reasoning, then, Malfoy."

He reclined easily back in his uncomfortable, Ministry-issued desk like it was his throne, smirking at her with a focused resentment and antagonism hidden in the grayness of his eyes. "You can't 'understand,' Granger. Your Muggle parents weren't Death Eaters. Death Eaters don't give anyone choices, not even their own children." The words were an unperturbed drawl, and it was only with her perceptiveness that Hermione noticed the slight lines of stress around his eyes, the resentment that was not only directed towards her.

She detected several nods and grunts of agreement around the room, and smiled faintly. She did not falter, not this time. "You've always had a choice, Malfoy. You just never could see it," she insisted gently, noting with slight amusement as his eyebrows rose past his hairline. Wanting to keep on track, Hermione proceeded to the next part of her lesson.

"Now I think we should introduce ourselves. Please go from row to row, say your name and repeat the name 'Voldemort' at least twice." She frowned at the indignant and horrified exclamations that followed her instructions. "Be quiet… Thank you. A very great man once said that fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself. Voldemort is dead, so there's nothing to fear. I'm Hermione Granger, and I've already repeated Voldemort's name far more than twice. We'll continue with Vincent." Crabbe looked rather startled to hear his first name from the lips of his enemy, but nevertheless complied. He stuttered over the 'V' sound in the name.

One by one they said the names. Pansy trembled so hard she dropped the quill she had been using to scrawl notes to Millicent and Daphne Greengrass. Hermione heard familiar surnames: Avery, Rookwood, Macnair, Dolohov, and Black, to name several. They all looked at her murderously as they repeated their Dark Lord's name. She felt her hands begin to tremble again; she had never been as brave as Harry. Each time any of these notorious family names left the lips of one of Hermione's students, she could see her friend visibly tense in the corner of her eye, his hand clutching his wand tightly in his pocket.

And then they reached the name Hermione had been dreading all afternoon.

"Vulpecula Lestrange. Lord Voldemort, Lord Voldemort."

Hermione had been just as shocked as Harry was now when she had learned that the Lestrange's had had a daughter. She had owled Percy to ensure that the name on the list was correct. He assured her that it was.

Vulpecula looked so much like Bellatrix that it was unnerving. The same dark, hooded eyes, the same pale skin. She looked very young, perhaps seventeen. Unlike her mother, she had not spent near fifteen years in Azkaban, and had Bellatrix's erstwhile beauty to show for it.

Harry looked very much as if he wanted to turn the girl into dust where she sat, swinging her long black hair, so very much like his hated enemy's, over the seatback of her chair. He was staring at her as if she were indeed Bellatrix Lestrange.

But that was impossible. Neville had killed Bellatrix in the last battle, finally avenging his parents, before he himself was hit with Lucius Malfoy's killing curse. Harry had grieved doubly: first for the loss of his friend, and second for his failure to avenge his godfather.

Hermione forced her mind back to the present

"Draco Abraxas Black Malfoy. Lord Voldemort, Lord Voldemort."

He was staring at her amusedly, as if sensing her discomfort. After making sure her eyes were on him, he jerked his head so rapidly that she might have been imagining it towards Vulpecula Lestrange and mouthed, "Like mother, like daughter." She disregarded him completely.

He and Lestrange had been the only two people in the room who had addressed Voldemort as "Lord" and had not wavered at all when saying his name. That she did not disregard, instead filing the information safely away for later consideration.

When the last person finished his name ("Marcus Flint, Vol-Voldemort… Voldemort!"), Hermione levitated a copy of her mysterious novel to each desk, silently thanking her skills in duplicating charms throughout—she had not wanted to spend the money and purchase forty copies of Dostoevsky. The majority of the students looked at the book with blank expressions, obviously not recognizing the Muggle classic. Hermione noticed Vulpecula glance at the cover and smile vaguely, seemingly unsurprised.

One person had not noticed this new development. Malfoy was whispering fervently to Zabini, a cruel sneer coloring his features. Hermione watched them for a moment until she broke the silence with a question.

"Care to inform us, Malfoy, as to what is so interesting?"

He stared at her lazily, the tips of his long fingers tapping against the surface of his desk. "I was just wondering," he clipped, his eyes obviously goading her, "how many Ministry officials you had to fuck to get this job, seeing as you're enjoying it so much."

Silence.

Harry's chair scraped out from underneath him as he jumped from his seat, his wand leveled instantly at Malfoy's white head. "You miserable git! Get the fu—"

Hermione, recovering from her shock, caught his eye and shook her head. No, Harry. This is a test. And she knew it was. Harry froze.

Malfoy was testing her.

How far could she go?

She gazed coolly at him, and he met her eyes steadily. He had not moved throughout the entire ordeal, not even when Harry had raised his wand.

And Hermione knew what she had to do.

"You think I want to be here?" She asked softly, her face very hard. "You think I enjoy being around you? I'm sorry to disappoint, Malfoy, but the Ministry had to nearly beg me to do this. All of you," she gestured widely around the room, "made my life hell. I'm here because I am loyal to my cause. It's not a choice, it's something I have to do for everyone who was lost in that damn war."

Harry sat back down. Everyone looked at her in astonishment.

"Now get out."

Malfoy's mouth dropped open. "What?" He said, surprise chasing the cruelty from his voice.

"You heard what I said. Get out or I'll call the Aurors and they will force you out."

Hermione had definitely seen an excess of hate in her life. But nothing she had ever seen before matched the glare that Malfoy shot at her. Hermione reached discreetly into her robes and grasped her wand. Just in case.

But instead of cursing her, Malfoy stood. His hands were curled into tight fists and a high flush colored his cheeks. As he passed her, he hissed, "This isn't over, Mudblood. You can't always have your bodygaurd around." He glanced hatefully towards Harry, before stalking out of the room. Hermione didn't reply, although her heart jumped quickly in her chest as she heard the door of the classroom slam shut with a resounding, final sound.

"Merlin," someone breathed.

Pansy whimpered quietly, her eyes trained on the door.

Hermione let the silence preside for half a minute, before she finally straightened and gazed at the frightened faces in the room.

Fear.

She didn't need fear.

"Right. Now you know that I'm serious about this," she continued, her voice deceptively light, as if she had not just condemned someone to Azkaban for a year. "You all have a copy of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. A lesson plan for the next five classes is enclosed in the front cover. Please take not of this, and come prepared for the subject matter of each class. I assume that not many of you have heard of it. Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1821…"

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"Um… are you teaching an English class, Hermione?" Asked Harry once everyone else, muttering mutinously and with no small amount of confusion, had filed out of the room.

Hermione smiled. "Of course not, Harry! This class is just going to be a bit different than expected."

"Yes, but…Muggle classics? How can that possibly relate—"

"It will all come together next week. All they have to do is finish the book by next week"—this had caused minor protestations against the novel's length when she had introduced the assignment—"and I can take it from there. It will all come together eventually."

Harry was silent for a moment, and seemed to be debating within himself. Finally, he spoke darkly, "Did you know that Bellatrix had a daughter?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Oh. She looks…She looks like her."

But Hermione wasn't listening. Leaving Harry standing in the front of the room, she stepped over to the last remaining book sitting innocently on the desk and picked it up, smoothing her thumbs over the glossy paper of the cover. He watched her.

"Are you really throwing Malfoy out for good?" He asked quietly.

Hermione raised one shoulder in a shrug, still gazing at the heavy book in her hands. Harry walked up behind her, placing one hand on her shoulder. "He deserves it, Hermione… what he said about you…"

"He was just trying his limits, Harry. I had to make a point. They all thought I wasn't serious about…everything."

"He still deserves it."

Hermione turned towards him, patting his cheek fondly. "Thank you for being here today. It helped me. You should probably get home to Ginny, no? She'll be worried."

"Okay. See you later, Hermione." Harry grinned, kissed her on the cheek again, and disappeared with a disjointed pop. With a sigh, Hermione tucked the book under her arm, grabbed her back, and swung the door open to walk out into the hall. She knew that Malfoy would still be there, waiting for confrontation.

Her breath left her as something large collided into her, crushing her to the wall. Her bag slipped off her shoulder and quills and parchment spilled over the floor like a random game of chance. Gasping for breath, Hermione looked up to see the fury-contorted face of Draco Malfoy hovering over her. He hissed words into her face:

"I'm not going to Azkaban, you meddling bitch."

Hermione shut her eyes and prepared to explain. He was pressing into her very hard, and she was finding it difficult to breath. She fought the fear down, subdued into her breast like a beast trying to escape, and opened her mouth to speak. He interrupted her.

"What do you want? Money? Power?" An angry pause. "Something else?" He asked coldly, rolling his hips suggestively against hers. Hermione squeaked in shock, digging her fingernails into his arm hard enough to leave small crescent curves on the white skin. He drew his breath hard through his teeth, backing away from her slightly.

"Name your price, Granger. I'm not stupid enough for pride when Azkaban is on the line." His voice was frightening her. She could tell he was livid, completely and entirely, but his voice was so calm that a blind man could have mistaken their exchange for a mere business deal.

Hermione was angry now, too. The anger triumphed over fear. "Get off me, Malfoy! You are such a sorry excuse for a human being!" She took another deep breath, drawing the strength to continue from inside. "I came out here to give you this." She threw the copy of Crime and Punishment at his feet when he stepped away from her, confused. "I'm giving you one last chance. One. If you step out of line again, I'll throw you out of the classroom for real."

His expression quieted, turning carefully neutral. "Fine," he said tightly, his lips drawn into that hateful sneer. "I suppose I have no choice."

"Yes, you do. You always have a choice. Didn't I just tell you that? It's only that one choice is much more agreeable than the other."

He didn't say anything.

"Read that," she pointed at the forlorn book on the floor, "by next class." And then she walked away.

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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long enough into an abyss, the abyss gazes also gazes into you."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

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Author's Note: Ooo. A bit more serious, no? Let me know what you think. Don't worry, next chapter brings much more intellectual talk, and Nietzsche comes into the picture.

Many thanks to the reviewers (Vashka, I have an interesting coincidence for you: the night before you reviewed, I discovered your story "Vengeance" and loved it, by the way, then you discovered mine. Hmm). I'm still amazed that people are enjoying this, seeing how different and odd it is. I thought people would see the names Dostoevsky and Nietzsche and flee with their hands over their ears. Shows what I know.

I had so much fun writing this, it should be illegal. Malfoy is so entertaining.

In keeping with the Black family tradition, Vulpecula is indeed a constellation and the name translates into "The Fox."

Bye for now… next chapter should be up in about a week, maybe more.