Macbeth: Act Three, Scene Five

Disclaimer: There are only so many witty ways to phrase a disclaimer, and I've used them all, so I'll simply state that I don't own either Harry Potter or Macbeth.

Thanks for 480 reviews goes to: thatonechic, PsYcHoJo, Jaid Ziaen, Rebecca15, ablakevh, Little Green Person, Keindra, abi-j, samhaincat, Nikki, heavengurl899, SycoCallie, Janie Granger, Poojies, Mother Zephyr, Silver Moonset, draconas, Munching Munchkin Management, darkbiscuit, Lisi, teabiscuit, citcat299, misticrystalfaerie, blueberrygirl, RedWitch1, Catelina, Kou Shun'u, Stoneage Woman, Catatonic Caudillo, Pheonix, Plaidly Lush, willowfairy, brettley, Ryu-Hitori-Lenore-Evans, JenCarpeDiem, ToOtHpIcK, Madam Midnight, I-luv-Harry-Potter-Romance, hermione3x, Noubliz, Flavagurl, Queenie Jones, Nathonea, Beloved-Stranger, Alexi Lupin, C Argentum, stargazer starluver, Greenfaerie361, yourGUN-myhead, The Black Mage, sugar n spice 522, Evan M, Flexi Lexi, KawaiiRyu, insanemaniac, Miss Morg Malfoy, Angel-Wings-Forever, Tayz, Kelly, WWJD4mE2LiVe, Storm079 (x2)

A/N: Thanks for everyone who suggested items/wished me luck for the audition! It was a really fun audition – lots of drama-games-type things – and I ended up taking my homework diary, because being individual and different I eschewed the regular school-made ones and got my own. One with rather amusing cartoons in, which I even managed to turn into a philosophical insight. (Frankly, all of your suggestions would have been better, but I spent ages dithering and didn't decide until about 3 hours before the audition…) I didn't get in, sadly, but I did have a lot of fun and I know one of the girls who did get in, so I'll demand all the info off her anyway.

Well, with that said, onto some bad news… You might have noticed that my updates have been all over the place for a while, and I've absolutely been trying my hardest to get a chapter of both fics up each and every week, but – as my beta told me when I started Macbeth, I'm really not able to keep up with school and two fics per week.

Don't worry, I'm not going to stop one! I am, however, going to change the schedule of updates so I actually have time to breathe, and since I'm writing these for you, I'm letting you choose the new one. Choose from:

1. Macbeth once every two weeks, Fallen every week.

2. Fallen once every two weeks, Macbeth every week

3. Fallen every two weeks, Macbeth every two weeks (in other words, they alternate: one week Fallen, one week Macbeth, the next Fallen.)

Tell me which one you'd prefer in your review! And of course, this will change again once Macbeth's over. I'm really sorry about this, but there's no other way for me to balance writing and work.

With that said, onto the chapter. Enjoy!

Granger,

The next rehearsal of Act Two, Scene Two is on Wednesday, and we need to have practiced it before then. Are you free on Tuesday at eight o'clock?

Yours, Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy,

You know full well why I've been avoiding you. No, I won't meet you on Tuesday.

-Hermione

Granger, you were the one who pointed out that we had to keep practicing the last time we fought. I have as little desire to meet you as you do to meet me, but unfortunately bad fortune has seen fit to force us together to practice this accursed play, as I would rather not look like an idiot on the night of the performance, and I suspect you wouldn't either.

I will not apologise for saying what I did. I do, however, feel it would be prudent not to discuss our respective positions on the subject – at least until after the play is over – so that we may continue some pretence of civility.

Yours, Draco Malfoy.

Fine. Tuesday at eight.

-Hermione

That was how Hermione found herself making her way to their usual place in the library at eight o'clock on Tuesday evening, clutching her copy of the script tightly on one hand. She'd spent the past few days deliberating – endlessly – the question of whether she should tell someone, but after the Potions lesson the point was rather moot.

Snape already knew, which meant that either Dumbledore had been told – and was taking appropriate response; making it unnecessary for her to tell anyone – or that Snape hadn't told Dumbledore for some good reason, in which case she shouldn't tell Dumbledore anyway.

That ruled out telling the teachers, and though she'd considered telling Harry and Ron, she hadn't. Some part of her felt they wouldn't understand; perhaps because she didn't understand either. Malfoy was a contradiction; A Death Eater who could argue passionately and firmly that Muggles and Muggleborns – she shuddered at the memory – were nothing more than animals, yet went frighteningly insane with what could only be guilt when he killed them. Tortured and killed, and she didn't let herself consider that.

That was a point – did Dumbledore know Malfoy was guilty, was going half-mad? Should she tell him? Then again, Hermione doubted very much that Draco could properly hide what he felt when… when at a Death Eater meeting, so surely Snape would know, and would have told Dumbledore… if he'd told Dumbledore of course, that was…

'Granger,' came Malfoy's cool voice, completely civil, and Hermione realised she'd arrived at their usual enclave without realising it.

'Malfoy,' she replied, dipping her head slightly without taking her eyes off him, and didn't sit down. Malfoy was sitting with his copy of the play open in front of him, pale fingers brushing at one edge as though he'd just been about to turn the page when she walked in.

He casually picked the book up and began flicking through, looking for the right place. 'Shall we begin?'

'I'm not an animal.'

Hermione was probably more surprised than Malfoy at that sudden statement; she'd come here with the intention of keeping quiet, civil and saying absolutely nothing that wasn't to do with the play. Malfoy lowered his book a little, looking at her over the top of it with grey, strangely glittering eyes.

'I thought we agreed not to talk about that?'

'No,' Hermione replied. 'No. You suggested we shouldn't. I… I never said anything.' And, feeling a little surer of herself, 'And I think I do want to talk about it.'

'No,' was Draco's reply, flat and sharp. 'It's your line.'

Hermione opened her script to the right place in silence, took a breath, looked up at Draco and snapped. 'I can't,' she said.

'Can't what?'

'Can't do this with someone who thinks I'm an animal,' she replied, flinging the script upon the table. Hermione took a deep breath, trying to force away the beginnings of righteous anger deep inside her. She had to stay calm. Anger would be no benefit.

'This is neither the time nor the place to talk about this, Granger,' Malfoy said shortly, picking up his copy of the play. 'This is the time to practice Macbeth. Not to have debates about humans and animals. It's your line, Granger.'

Hermione knew, logically, that she ought to stop arguing her point, act civilised and begin the practice. That was the sensible thing to do, but unfortunately, the rest of her mind didn't seem to want to be sensible.

'How do you define humanity, then?' she asked. 'What does being 'human' mean?'

'Granger…' Malfoy began, glancing at her over the top of his book, his face sharp and cold with annoyance. Their eyes met for a moment, one that seemed to last far longer than it actually did, and then Malfoy's eyes flicked away, and he sighed.

'Fine,' he said, sounding very much like a sulky toddler, and then in a tone that sounded very much as though he were reciting this from memory, began. 'Humans are distinguished from lower life forms by magical ability, language, abstract thought, creativity… of course, the physical shape of a human, discounting Transfigurations or Animagus abilities. Also by not possessing traits such as Muggle, non-human ancestry, vampirism, lycanthropy…'

'Werewolves are humans!' Hermione cut in. 'What about Professor Lupin?'

Malfoy sighed, as though explaining something to a particularly difficult child. 'I'm not saying there's anything wrong with animals,' he said patiently. 'Animals can be intelligent, rational… look at phoenixes, for example. They can be smarter than some humans. That doesn't make them human, though.'

'So being human means being a Pureblood?'

He shrugged. 'Basically, yes. I assume you'd disagree with me, though,' He looked completely calm and unruffled as he said, 'In the end, it's all a matter of opinion.'

And Hermione couldn't say anything to that, because it was a matter of opinion. She could find the dictionary definition of human, and Malfoy would simply say that the dictionary's writer had the wrong opinion, and… and what could you say? You couldn't prove the meaning of a word. If a group of people decided that the word 'garden' meant ' a dragon's scale', then you couldn't prove them wrong, because to them it did mean a dragon's scale. It was just minority opinion versus minority opinion, and you couldn't say one was wrong and one was right.

Which left only one line of reasoning open, really.

'So if Muggles and Mudbloods aren't human,' she said, speaking slowly to give her words greater impact, 'why is being a Death Eater driving you insane?'

He flinched, very visibly, and curled one pale hand into a fist, looking away from her. 'Granger…' he began, his tone warning.

'I just want an answer to the question, Malfoy,' she carried on. 'Why? You could kill other animals without regret. I've seen you do it in Potions. And you tried to get Buckbeak executed in third year, and you didn't care then, so why do you care about killing these other animals?'

'Granger,' he repeated, and this time there was a note of desperation in his voice. His breathing was too quick, too shallow.

'Just answer the question,' she repeated, half-consciously moving, walking round the table, closing on him like a predator on its prey. 'Muggles are animals, by your logic. Killing animals… well, you might not like it, but it certainly wouldn't drive you insane. So why is killing Muggles making you go insane?'

He didn't respond, his eyes tightly shut as though trying to block out what she was saying. She continued.

'Perhaps Muggles aren't animals after all? Perhaps they're humans, just like you, just like me, perhaps that's why you're going mad from… from killing them, and torturing them until they scream and beg and… and whatever else you do to them, and…'

'Do you want me to go insane, Granger?' Draco cut in suddenly, voice low and fierce and, just a little, under the fury, shaking. He was shaking too, Hermione saw suddenly, and pale, and…

Anger has a very disconcerting way of vanishing and leaving an oddly hollow place inside you instead. Deflated, Hermione sat down in the chair beside Malfoy. He wasn't looking at her now, although he had looked at her when he spoke with his grey eyes full of anger, of fear. He was staring at his hands now, eyes widening in horror, and oh, no, he was going to start hallucinating blood again…

She reached out and grabbed hold of his hands without thinking, pulling them away from his eyes, which seemed to snap him back to reality a bit – though he was still pale and horrified and his hands felt like ice. 'No,' she said, in response to his question. 'No, I don't want you to go insane.

He stared at her blankly, and somehow – how could you be so utterly furious with someone one minute and so worried for them the next? He looked as though, just over her shoulder, the world was ending and the ground was being swallowed by rivers of blood and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse were riding forth, charging through the middle of the bookshelves, spreading war and pestilence and famine and death and…

And she didn't know what he was seeing in his head, really, because he wasn't seeing the library.

'Malfoy?' she said, firmly, with only the slightest tremor of doubt in her voice. 'Malfoy? Snap out of it. Come on. It's…' It wasn't okay, which was what she was about to say. 'There's no… no Death Eaters here. No killing. Come on, snap out of it.' She realised she still had his hands in hers, and experimentally gave them a squeeze.

When he did speak, it made her jump. 'One of them looked like you,' he said, his voice half a whisper. 'Same hair. I didn't see her eyes. Her mouth was just like yours, though. I think.' He turned his face towards her again, pulled one hand out of her grasp and raised it to her mouth, tugging gently on her chin. 'Open. Like you're screaming.'

Wordlessly – she didn't know quite what else she could do – she complied, and he looked at her with his head on one side, frowning. The pupils of his eyes were wide, so the iris was just a thin ring of mercury separating black from white.

'Like you. Yes.' He said, and took his hand away from her chin. 'And she… and she…'

'Malfoy,' Hermione cut in, finding her mouth suddenly dry. 'Malfoy, listen. Try… try and snap out of it, don't think about it…'

'These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will make us mad,' Malfoy muttered, glancing to one side. 'She looked like you, but she wasn't you, because you're here, aren't you? I thought she was you, at first,' he said, and shuddered.

'It wasn't,' Hermione said, not having a clue what to say but somehow feeling obliged to say something. 'I'm here.'

Malfoy's eyes fixed on her again, with a relentless, wide-eyed stare that didn't seem to be taking in anything that it looked at. 'And then they hurt her. We hurt her. In a circle with her in the middle, like a children's game, did you ever play them? Ring a ring of rosies, we all fall down. Except we didn't. She did, though.' He blinked, and it was only when he did that Hermione realised he hadn't been blinking.

She took a deep breath, but before she could say anything he was talking again. 'And then… and then…' He gulped in air, shook his head fiercely. 'Thou canst not say I did it: never shake thy gory locks at me.' He really did look at her then; raised his free hand to her hair and touched it, hesitatingly, as though he expected it to attack him. 'You couldn't even recognise… by the time they were done. We were done. They made me take a turn, too.' He said this last in a whisper, so quiet she barely heard it, then closed his eyes, shaking, and was silent.

Minutes passed like this, Malfoy with the very tips of his fingers tangled in her hair and the other hand still loosely in her grasp, close enough for Hermione to see every flicker and every impossible stillness in his face. After five minutes of silence, she dared to speak.

'Malfoy?'

His eyes opened, and he saw her face, shuddering again, then drew back, pulling his had out of hers and out of her hair. 'I'm fine,' he said, quietly but firmly, and picked up his copy of the play with one quivering hand. 'We should start.'

'I don't think you're in any fit state to practice yet,' Hermione said firmly, reaching to take hold of his book, but he wouldn't let go.

'Let's start,' he repeated.

'Not until you're okay,' Hermione said firmly. 'And you aren't, no matter how much you say you are. Especially not for this scene, I don't want you going… like that… again.'

He raised an eyebrow quizzically at her. 'Coming from the one who set me off just then?'

Hermione felt her cheeks flush. 'I was angry,' she said, as if that excused anything. 'If it helps, I apologise. I… I didn't mean to make you go… Well, perhaps I did, but I was angry and I wasn't thinking straight. I'm sorry.' She was somewhat surprised to find that she meant it.

He waved a hand, though whether this was acceptance or refusal she didn't know. He was staring at his left sleeve. 'She didn't stop screaming,' he said, almost nostalgically, as though it was something he'd dreamt.

'Don't think about it,' Hermione ordered him firmly. 'Think about something else.'

He laughed, the sound almost bitter, and slumped further in his seat, looking straight ahead and not at her. 'How? You can't forget when every time you close your eyes… when you can always hear…' He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them. 'Forget it. I'm fine.'

'No, you aren't,' Hermione replied, sighing, then eyes him thoughtfully. 'You can tell me, you know. If there's anything you… need to, I mean…'

He simply shook his head in reply; Hermione supposed that Malfoys didn't talk about such things. 'Thank you for the offer, but no. I'm fine, and we should get on with the play,' he said firmly, picking up his copy. 'No excuses. I'm fine, Granger. Come on, we should stand up and do it properly.' He got up, waiting for Hermione to do the same so that he could get out from behind the table.

Hermione opened her mouth to argue, found that she couldn't, and closed it again. Quietly, she picked up her copy of the script and moved into the patch of open space they used to practice in, assumed her starting position, and began to read.

The wards at Hogwarts appear to be unique to the school; they have never been found elsewhere, and though many witches and wizards have attempted to replicate them, no attempts have ever been successful.

The basic function of a ward is to protect an area – commonly a building and its grounds – from attack, unlawful entry, et cetera. Normal wards usually function specifying certain individuals, or a group of people definable by a single characteristic, and preventing them from entering the warded area. The wards on Diagon Alley, for example, prevent all Muggles from entering, while old wizarding houses commonly have areas warded to forbid entry to all but family members.

Hermione firmly squashed the sudden whisper at the back of her mind that wondered if Malfoy's house had such areas, and if so, what happened in them. Dark Arts, Muggle tortures…

No, she wasn't meant to be thinking about that. The rehearsal had gone fine once they'd started it; he hadn't said a word apart from his lines, and she'd been anxiously watching him – still pale and shaking slightly – for impending insanity, or anger, or…

Forcibly, Hermione turned her attention back to Hogwarts, A History. When she wanted to distract her thoughts, she read; and however much Harry and Ron teased her, she liked this book. It reminded her of finding out she was a witch, of discovering that magic was real and that there was a whole new world expanding before her eyes, full of spells and hexes, new subjects to learn, new teachers, new ways of thinking. New friends.

The Hogwarts wards are unique in their flexibility in this regard. One ward can be specified to keep out only one person or group, and if it is necessary to keep multiple people or groups out of the area, multiple wards must be used. At Hogwarts, however, there is only one ward – an incredibly complex, intricate and detailed ward that no one has ever managed to break. This single ward is capable of specifying multiple people or groups and preventing their entry.

This has incredible effects on security. For example, imagine that there is a group of people – let us take left-handed people as an example – who want to destroy an area. A ward would be set up to prevent their entry. But if there were one left-handed person, a spy, for example, who needed to enter the area, the ward against all left-handers would need to be removed and replaced after their departure, leaving the area vulnerable to attack.

The Hogwarts wards, however, can deal with multiple situations at once, and allow in a specified left-hander while preventing the entry of all other left-handers. This makes them far more secure than any other ward, and when you apply this idea to truly dangers groups such as followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the benefits of this ward can be clearly seen.

Which brought her mind round to Malfoy again. Dangerous groups, such as followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named… if it weren't for the versatile nature of the Hogwarts wards, Malfoy wouldn't be able to enter, and then where would he be? At home, probably, with his father, where he'd probably be forced to learn and practice Dark Arts all day, and that would definitely drive him mad…

Focus on the book.

Perhaps more astonishingly, the wards can identify members of the school – Hogwarts students and professors – and act to protect them. This process has been studied in depth, and current theories propose that Hogwarts and its grounds contains miniscule magical particles that are absorbed into the blood of those who live there. These particles can last for up to six months after leaving the school, though they can be instantaneously removed by a potion – as in the case of a 14th century Headmaster, who was thrown out of the school for numerous Dark Arts scandals (for more information on this event and the potion used, see The Biography of Cain Mortensen by Louise Marley.) It is believed that these magical particles enable the school to recognise its own and aid them when necessary. The wards will allow in anyone with these particles in their blood, no matter if they are part of a forbidden group.

Which was, of course, why Malfoy could still come here.

Was everything going to remind her of Malfoy tonight? Most probably, yes. She couldn't stop thinking – even when she was concentrating on the book – about how cold his hands had been, how terrified he'd looked with fingers lightly twisted in her hair. How he'd been shaking at the memories. What had he seen? What had he done?

He was a murderer, yes, and a torturer, and a follower of Voldemort, and he said that Muggles and Muggleborns were animals. But he was going insane because of it, and… and didn't that mean there must be some spark of conscience in him, somewhere?

Hermione turned her attention back to the book firmly. This wasn't getting her anywhere, just making her more worried and confused, but what could she do? Reading was the only thing that could distract her, really, and even that wasn't working tonight. Still, she tried it, and when Ron returned from a solitary practice of Quidditch and Harry and Ginny came back from practices, she tried talking to them instead.

She never quite managed to get Malfoy out of her mind, though.

A/N: 'Louise Marley' is the name of my ex-Latin teacher/Philosophy club teacher. We were meant to have a Philosophy Club lunch-out last Tuesday, but they scheduled Christmas Lunch on that day and everyone but me and Ms Marley either went to school lunch or was off sick. (I, being an incredibly fussy eater, abhor school Christmas Lunches. Everyone else seems to adore them.) While led to me eating lunch, alone, with a Latin teacher. What did I end up doing? Telling her about this fic. And talking about books.

Does anyone else find it extremely embarrassing explaining to someone not in HP circles about the Draco/Hermione ship? Other ships? You can count that as this week's question, along with the voting on my new schedule! Review!