Macbeth: Act Three, Scene Four
Disclaimer: Macbeth was, of course, written by Shakespeare, and Harry Potter by JKRowling. The amalgam of the two was, however, my fault utterly – apologies to both!
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A/N: Well, we've all heard of fantasy reflecting reality: now reality appears to be reflecting this story. Yes. I have an audition on Thursday.
Sadly, it isn't for Macbeth, and there are no attractive blonds of dubious evil with the initials DM (my initials, incidentally, are HG) waiting for me to discover their impending insanity. It should prove to be very interesting, though, because the play actually hasn't been written yet.
We're going to have a playwright coming into school and 20 of us will be doing workshops with her to come up with ideas, characters et cetera, and then next yea we'll be acting in it. I haven't done much acting before, mainly because my school has a predilection for musicals and my singing is abominable but hey, no singing here, so I'm going out on a limb and taking the chance.
Anyway, wish me luck for Thursday, and onto the story. Enjoy!
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'Observe,' Snape addressed the class, 'the manner in which Mr Malfoy has ground his dried nettles.' He held up Malfoy's mortar, angling it so that the class could see. 'Note that the leaves have been finely ground into a light powder, and there are no large lumps of nettle remaining.' His gaze, slightly narrowed, swept the room and paused for the briefest of scathing moments on Ron, who had declared his nettles ground after his arm had gotten tired five minutes ago. There were still large chunks of nettle among his powder.
Snape replaced Malfoy's mortar on the table with his usual thin smile. 'Excellent work, Mr Malfoy. Ten points to Slytherin,' he said with a nod, before turning and sweeping away, glaring darkly at the room in general. Perhaps it was Hermione's imagination, but he looked paler than usual.
'Prat,' Ron muttered, picking up his mortar and beginning to grind the nettle again. 'Look at Mr Malfoy's this and how wonderful is Mr Malfoy's that…'
Hermione nodded, carefully stirring her potion and counting under her breath. They were making the Auditus Potion, which was historically used by spies in order to enhance their hearing. The picture in the textbook showed something ominously black and rather tar-like in appearance. Despite appearances, however, it was an incredibly delicate and tricky potion.
'… and Mr Malfoy's perfect nettles,' Ron finished, grumbling and gesturing sharply with his pestle. 'Hermione, is this powder fine enough?'
She glanced at his mortar. 'I think you need to keep going a bit longer. And keep your voice down, we aren't meant to be talking.'
'He doesn't mind when Malfoy talks to people,' Ron said darkly. 'Honestly, the way Snape goes on about Malfoy…'
Harry picked up his own finely-ground nettles, took a pre-weighed amount of crushed dragon scale in his left hand and carefully added the two simultaneously before turning the heat down and allowing it to simmer. 'Malfoy's always been his favourite,' he muttered, frowning as his potion began to turn aubergine. 'Hermione? Is it meant to do that?'
'What? Oh, yes,' she said distractedly, adding her own nettles and dragon scales before sitting back to let it simmer. 'Then you leave it for five minutes, and then…'
Snape's voice cut into the conversation. 'Miss Patil,' he said, a note of cruel malice in his voice, 'what is this?'
Their heads immediately swivelled to see Parvati, two tables behind, standing timidly by her cauldron. 'The Auditus potion, Professor,' she offered quietly. From a distance, it did look correct; the surface of the potion was shimmering a perfect shade of deep purple.
'Then tell me, Miss Patil, how much dragon scale you added to your cauldron?' Snape asked, raising a sharp eyebrow and fixing one of his most intimidating stares on her. Parvati gulped.
'One hundred and fifty grams, Professor. Like it says in the textbook. Professor.' Parvati replied quickly.
Snape stirred the cauldron once, raising the spoon out of the mixture and allowing the viscous mixture to slide off it. 'Are you certain, Miss Patil?' he asked silkily. 'Does the textbook say that the potion should give off the scent of rotten eggs at this stage?'
'No, Professor,' Parvati replied, looking down at the table top.
'In that case, Miss Patil, would you care to enlighten the class on how you have managed to add the correct amount of dragon scale to your potion and still managed to produce the incorrect mixture?' Snape asked, his tone incredibly light for the amount of scathing venom he put into it.
Parvati shook her head numbly and bit her lip, and with something remarkably like a sneer, Snape Vanished the contents of her cauldron and stalked back to the front of the class.
Ron was grinding his nettles rather harder than was strictly necessary. 'I couldn't smell any rotten eggs,' he whispered sharply to Harry. 'I don't even think it did smell of rotten eggs, I bet he was making it up.'
Hermione frowned. 'I don't think he'd go that far,' she replied, 'he'd pick on someone who'd got it wrong, yes, but not on someone who hadn't…'
'He's a prat,' Ron said savagely, punctuating this with a particularly hard grind of his nettles, 'a complete and utter prat! And even if it did small of rotten eggs, it's not that big a mistake, is it?'
'It could make the potion poisonous,' Hermione pointed out, trying to be fair. 'But he was really mean.'
Harry, meanwhile, was frowning at his potion. 'You don't think mine smells, do you? Just a little?' he asked, rather worried.
Hermione assured him it didn't, and then Ron said that Snape would probably say it did anyway, and Harry probably replied but Hermione's attention had wandered. Certainly Snape was being particularly snappish today, but she wasn't particularly in the mood to discuss it endlessly. Snape was currently pacing around the classroom, glaring at the contents of everyone's cauldrons. It might have been the angle of the light – the fires from the cauldrons cast light upwards onto peoples faces, which made sharp shadows fall in unexpected places – but when he wasn't glaring or scowling or sneering, Snape looked tired.
Ron, at this point, was crushing his dragon scale. 'I swear he's going to go mad one day and burn the Potions classroom down because someone added the ingredients in the wrong order. With us inside it,' he added darkly. Snape was on the other side of the room, criticising the colour of a potion.
'Don't be silly, Ron,' Hermione said, only half her mind on what she was saying. 'Snape may be mean, but he's not insane.'
'And he wouldn't burn down his precious Potions lab,' Harry added, but Hermione's mind had drifted again to the table behind the one where Snape was currently sneering at the luckless person whose potion was turning lilac, where Malfoy was sitting. He appeared to have reached the five-minute simmering stage, and was resting his head in the crook of his arm, bent over the table, eyes closed and looking so peaceful that Hermione wondered if he might be sleeping. His face was relaxed and still, the paleness of his skin given quite an attractive cast by the flickering gold of the flames, and in that instant he looked so innocent that it was easy to forget what he was, what he'd done.
Then his eyes opened and the illusion was shattered, because for the briefest of moments after he opened his eyes Hermione could see a kind of pain in them which was at once frightening and terrible, and she started and looked away, feeling as though she'd seen something she shouldn't have, something forbidden.
'And of course, if you do the slightest thing wrong,' Ron was saying, now firmly into his rant, as he picked up his dragon scale, 'he picks on you, if it's slightly the wrong shade of purple or if it doesn't smell quite right it's an utter failure.'
'Er, Ron?' Harry interjected. 'You've got to add the nettle and the dragon scale together…'
Ron wasn't paying attention. 'Unless you're a Slytherin, of course, you can end up with a cauldron of tomato soup and he'll still say…'
'Ron!' Hermione hissed, but Ron didn't hear, starting to tip the dragon scale into the cauldron, and quick as a flash Harry grabbed the nettle and tipped it in too, quickly saving the potion from complete ruin.
'Quick thinking,' Hermione congratulated Harry, who quickly sat down and began to look as though he'd done nothing. It wasn't enough.
'Mr Potter,' Snape said quietly and coolly, a small smile on his face as he crossed the classroom, 'Could you repeat the instructions I gave to the class a the beginning of the lesson, please?'
Harry took a deep breath. Snape had expressly forbidden working together in any way, shape or form. 'Which instruction, Professor?' he asked innocently, trying to buy time.
Snape smiled thinly. 'I should not expect someone of your limited brain capacity to remember,' he said coldly. 'The instruction about working together, Mr Potter. Did I not explicitly instruct you to refrain from doing so?'
'You did,' Harry replied. The whole class was silent, as usual.
'And would you kindly inform me what you did with Mr Weasley's cauldron a moment ago?' Snape continued.
'I added his powdered nettle, because he'd forgotten it, Professor,' Harry replied, staring straight ahead. Hermione bit her lip; she wanted to defend Harry, but she knew that if she did so she'd just get herself into trouble. She glanced sideways at Ron, and knew that he felt the same.
'And would this constitute working together, Mr Potter?' Snape asked, his voice smooth with a kind of malice in it.
Harry sighed. 'Probably, Professor.'
'As I thought. Evanesco,' he muttered, and the contents of both Harry and Ron's cauldrons vanished. 'Begin again, please. Twenty points from Gryffindor,' he snapped, and then leaned slightly closer to Harry, a dark malice in his eyes that was somehow frightening. In a lowered voice, he added, 'I thought you would have learnt your lesson about rescuing people after last year, Potter.'
And then he turned sharply and walked away, leaving Hermione and Ron gaping at him and Harry's skin rapidly paling.
'What?' Ron was the first to speak. 'How can he… who does the think…. Harry, mate, are you okay?'
'Fine,' Harry replied, after a pause, and shook his head. 'I just… no, I'm fine.' His hand was shaking slightly; he clenched it.
'No, you aren't,' Ron replied adamantly. 'Merlin, if I could get my hands on him I'd hex him till he turned orange.'
'He's just trying to upset you,' Hermione offered. 'Ignore him. Concentrate on the potion.'
'Yeah,' Harry replied, slightly shakily, pulling some more dried nettles towards him. 'The potion. Yeah.'
Hermione and Ron shared a glance, and anger began to simmer just under Hermione's breastbone, as though someone had lit a flame there. How dare Snape do that! Mean he could be, yes, but reminding Harry of Sirius? With no purpose other than to upset him? Forget hexing; she wanted to take something sharp and vicious and simply stab.
The five minutes were up, and Hermione stood up slowly and began to stir her potion. To her right, Malfoy had already completed the second-to-last stage, and Snape was rapidly bearing down upon him.
'Superb, Mr Malfoy,' he was heard to mutter. 'Class, look at this potion. This deep reddish-purple colour,' he scooped some of the thick substance out of the cauldron and let it slide slowly back in off the spoon, 'and thick viscosity is exactly what you are aiming for before the final ingredients are added.' He paused, and frowned slightly before saying, 'I commend you on your potion, Mr Malfoy.'
Malfoy nodded and picked up his pestle and mortar again, intending to grind the beetle shells that would finish the potion off, and the rest of the class returned to their potions. Still stirring the potion with her left hand, Hermione was the last to turn back, and consequently the only person to see the look that passed over Snape's face for the briefest instant as he glanced at Malfoy.
It was a look, if anything, of disappointment; perhaps responsibility, perhaps guilt, and it was there for the time it took for the fires beneath their cauldrons to flicker once, and then gone.
Hermione glanced back to Snape, surprised, but he was faintly sneering again and completely back to normal. What on earth…? Disappointed in Malfoy? For all that Snape over-praised him, Malfoy was actually fairly good at Potions, and she'd seen herself that his Auditus potion was perfectly correct, so why…?
And then she realised, with a sudden bolt of surprise so great that she stopped stirring for a moment, before remembering herself and continuing.
Snape knew Malfoy was a Death Eater.
He was a spy for the Order, so he would have been at the meetings, he'd have seen Malfoy there, doing… whatever it was he did, she didn't want to think. And of course he'd been disappointed, because he'd known Malfoy since he was in first year, been his Head of House and teacher, and of course he'd be disappointed that Malfoy was a Death Eater.
Did he know that Malfoy was going insane? She doubted it; he wouldn't be disappointed if he did. He'd be worried, perhaps, but disappointment was for when Malfoy was a murderer and enjoyed it, when he was evil, not when he was a murderer and was being driven mad by it. You weren't disappointed when people had a conscience, not if you were Snape.
Was that why Snape was more snappish than usual? Hermione didn't know, but she was willing to bet it was a part of the problem.
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Draco was waiting in their usual place, the little enclave created by bookshelves in the far corner of the library, and he didn't look up when she entered. In one hand, his left, he was holding a quill; as black as the cloak he was wearing with a sharp silver nib, which he was examining in minute detail. His right hand lay loosely clenched on the table, beside his copy of the play.
'Malfoy?' she asked, not sure if he'd noticed her, stepping into the room. Very slowly, he looked up and smiled – an oddly twisted smile – when he saw her.
'Granger,' he said, as a greeting, and put the quill down, curling his left hand around his right. 'I… shall we begin?'
Mutely, she nodded, putting her bag down on the edge of the table and pulling out her script. They were doing Act Two, Scene Two that night, the one where they murdered King Duncan, and she was half-expecting him to go mad on her. It didn't help that he already seemed on edge before she came in.
She turned to the right place in the script, assumed her position, and began, trying to focus on the acting as far as possible and not on Malfoy's likely descent into insanity. 'That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold; what hath quench'd them hath given me fire,' she began, trying to say it slowly and firmly like a mantra, which wasn't that difficult considering Malfoy. Then she twitched, looking around wildly as though startled. 'Hark! Peace!' she cried, then tried to calm herself. 'It was the owl that shrieked…'
It wasn't a particularly long passage, but it felt like forever until she came to 'Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't.'
And then Enter Macbeth. 'My husband!' cried Hermione, hurrying over to him, which meant that she was close enough to see the oddly haunted look in his eyes as he spoke, slowly and clearly and almost disbelievingly, holding his hands out as though bloodstained – which they would be in the play itself.
'I have done the deed,' he said, and shivered. 'Granger…'
That, obviously, was not part of the play. 'What is it?' she asked, feeling her whole body tense up – was he insane?
'I… I may have to leave a little early tonight,' he said, quietly. She didn't miss the way is eyes flicked down to his left arm, and the implications of that struck her, violently and suddenly, like a slap in the face.
'You… you're going…?' she asked, unable to articulate where she thought he was going, where she knew he was going.
She didn't know how Malfoy kept his face so smooth, so expressionless, as he said, 'There's a meeting. Sometime tonight. I… I don't know exactly when.'
Stunned, she sat down on the table, the nearest solid thing that would take her weight. Well, they helped to explain why Snape had been so snappish. 'Wh… Why?' she asked.
'I don't know,' Malfoy said, turning away from her, looking at the shelves. 'The usual, I expect.'
'And what is the usual?' she asked, feeling suddenly dizzy, suddenly impossible. They could not be standing here, in a library, a peaceful, calm and quiet library and be talking about… about Death Eater meetings.
He didn't reply for a minute, and when he did speak it was in a whisper, almost a hiss. 'Granger. Don't make me say it.'
'Killing people,' she said quietly, and he flinched.
'Don't talk about it,' he ordered her urgently, perhaps desperately. 'Just… just don't.'
Hermione opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and closed it again. Instead she crossed the room until she was standing beside him, slightly to the left, and tentatively reached out a hand to his shoulder. He was tense, which was only to be expected, and her hand felt incredibly small and fragile. 'Malfoy?' she tried, and then, feeling slightly stupid, 'Don't go.'
'Don't go?' he asked incredulously, but didn't look towards her. 'Are you mad?'
She paused, taking a deep breath. 'No, but you are. Or at least going that way, and… look, you can just stay here and practice the play, and it'll be…'
He did turn to look at her then, one eyebrow raised. 'Do you really think it's that simple?' he asked, shrugged off her hand and stepped backwards, away from her. 'Do you think it's that easy? Just don't go and it'll all be fine?'
'No,' Hermione replied, twisting her hands together. 'But… you could get help. Dumbledore can help, he's done it before with other people…' She was thinking of Snape.
Malfoy shook his head vehemently, staring off to his left, her right. 'No,' he said. 'Granger, you don't know… you haven't seen…' He paused, shook his head. 'What he does to… to traitors. Not even to traitors. Just to any of his followers who annoy him, or who mess something up, or…' He took a deep breath.
'That's… that's why I suggested Dumbledore,' Hermione replied. 'He can help, he can protect you from him. And you won't have to… to…'
'To torture people. To kill them.' Draco replied, and for a moment there was a flicker of that silvery insane light in his eyes, as though he'd been poisoned with mercury. 'Dumbledore can't protect me. He's an incompetent old fool,' he said, quite matter-of-factly, with a sweeping hand gesture that seemed to push all mention of Dumbledore aside.
'He isn't,' Hermione insisted. 'He's old, perhaps, but still… a very wise man,' she said. 'And he's not incompetent, either. I trust him,' she finished lamely, shrugging.'
'Propaganda,' Draco said lightly, staring at some point a few feet off the floor. 'They tell you he's this brilliant leader, and he isn't. He's an idiot. Probably senile. Everyone thinks so.'
Hermione was stuck somewhere between anger and despair. How could he think that? She would grant that Dumbledore wasn't perfect, perhaps, but he was still a brilliant wizard, a great leader and a compassionate Headmaster, and she couldn't think of anyone greater to lead the war if she had access to the entire population of the Earth. How could Malfoy stand there and say things like that? But that was where despair came in, and despair won.
'How do you know you're not the one brainwashed, Malfoy?' she asked, quietly and sadly. 'Because from where I stand, Voldemort looks like the old fool to me, if anyone's going to be one.'
'Tactically, he's a genius,' Draco remarked, quite offhand, as though by talking about it objectively he could remove himself from the situation. 'Magically too. He has power, Granger, real power.'
'But ideologically, he's idiotic,' Hermione asserted, crossing her arms. 'He's some... some retarded prejudiced fanatic…'
'Ideologically? He has the right idea, Granger,' Draco said, and somehow his impassive tone made what he was saying even worse. 'Purebloods have always hated Mudbloods and Muggles. They're… accidents. Pureblood wizards are the true humans; your kind are just… aberrations. Genetic freaks, like babies born without lungs or without a heart.'
He actually did look at her then, with a perfectly blank – and frightening – expression. 'See, the difference between humans and animals is magic. No animal has magic. And Muggleborns are like… well, if a magical chimpanzee were born, you wouldn't call it human, would you? It'd be a freak, an anomaly, and…'
Her hands were balled into fists, and she was dimply aware that her breathing was harsh and loud, and her blood seemed to be so filled with fury that it was racing round her body even faster, flooding its banks until every part of her seemed filled with hot red rage.
She took a step towards him. 'You haven't a clue what a completely idiotic bastard you sound like right now, do you?' she spat. 'Am I an animal? Is Harry? Is your precious Voldemort, because he's a half-blood too, he's one of your freakish magical chimpanzees.'
'Granger,' Malfoy said, raising a placating hand, but she took no notice.
'I am human! And so is Harry, and so are my parents, and so are all the other Muggles and Muggleborns and half-bloods and yes, even Voldemort, as much as he doesn't deserve to be! We're all human! Being human isn't about doing magic, it's about… about intelligence and language and abstract thought, it's about creativity and culture and love and the higher emotions and… and… Do you think an animal wrote this?' she shrieked, picking his copy of Macbeth up off the table and holding it in front of her like a shield.
He took another step back, looking almost frightened. 'Granger…'
'Do you think an animal could write language like this, like poetry, and stories about murder and guilt and madness because Shakespeare was a Muggle too!'
She took a deep breath, the fury beginning to settle, the book in her hands beginning to shake. Malfoy looked frightened and perhaps a little upset, and his hand was firmly clamped to the inside of his left forearm.
'Granger,' he said firmly, 'I have to go.'
She closed her eyes, and didn't open them again when she felt the book being pulled out of her hands, nor when she heard his footsteps pass her and hurry away, nor when she sank to the floor, knees against her chest, and - for no reason she could pinpoint – cried.
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A/N: I have to say, that last scene was incredibly fun to write.
Anyway, onto reviews. For the aforementioned audition, we have been instructed to 'bring an object to introduce to us.' Having discussed this with friends, parents et cetera, I've concluded that the best thing to do is to take a completely normal object and say something incredibly interesting, original and creative about it.
This is all well and good, until someone asks: What completely normal object should I take? Having had no inspiration, I put the question to you, my noble and most excellent reviewers. Any and all suggestions are welcome, and now, review!