Macbeth: Act Five, Scene Three
Disclaimer: It's past midnight; therefore I'll leave it with saying that no, I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I own Macbeth. J.K.Rowling and Shakespeare respectively have those honours. But rally, 21 chapters in, you should know that!
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A/N: And I'm back! Though as I note above, I'm writing this note after midnight, so it may not make all that much sense.
After this chapter, there are – all things going to plan – three more chapters of Macbeth to go. There is also a little over a month before Half Blood Prince comes out (are you excited?) Considering that this fic will be, obviously, AU when HBP comes out, I'm planning to try and finish it in the next two weeks (having no school), then I can get a bit of editing done and have it utterly finished just in time for the new book to render it all incorrect. Ah, the joys of fanfiction. I'm going to try and get a chapter of Fallen done too, but no promises. Reassure yourselves with the thought that there will be plenty of unbroken weeks of Fallen after this, though, while I'm planning the next fic.
The mystery of YD is solved – it was apparently an ultimate insult thing you can find on the web, so not written personally by him/her. Which is reassuring, because at least I know there isn't a psychopath out there after me.
The exams have all gone okay so far – we had some absolute gifts of questions – and I only have one to go, which is Biology. Wish me luck!
I'd also like to note that I now own four copies of Macbeth. Including a pocket-size version. In green leather, for Slytherin. What this says about my sanity, you must decide for yourself.
Onto the fic, and it's a longer than usual chapter this time! Enjoy!
His hands were uncomfortably tight around her wrists; the skin cold and slightly clammy, and she could feel a too-fast pulse beating where his flesh met hers. Whether it was his heartbeat or her own, Hermione didn't know.
'Blood hath been shed ere now, in the olden time,' Draco began, his eyes locked firmly on hers. His voice was low and resonant, loud enough to carry to the end of the Great Hall but still managing to carry a sinisterly dark air.
They were about halfway into the banquet scene, just after the first appearance of the freshly-murdered Banquo's ghost. It was one of Hermione's favourite scenes, or had been until Draco's condition had put a darkly ironic cast on the whole thing.
'Ere human statute purged the gentle weal. Ay, and since too…' His pause was slightly too long, and Hermione was the only one to see she slight shake, feel his shudder, 'murders have been performed, too terrible for the ear,' he reached up to gently stroke the side of her face that was visible to the audience. Hermione flexed the hand he'd just released, glad that the tables set up for the banquet hid the action from the others. She didn't need to explain why he'd been clinging to her wrist so tightly.
He stepped away from her, releasing the other hand, shaking his head fearfully. 'The times have been that, when the brains were out, the man would die, and there an end; but now they rise again with twenty mortal murders on their crowns and push us from our stools.' Stepping further backwards, he reached a chair on the very edge of the royal table, half-falling into it and raising his hands to his lips, then round to rest on his neck. 'This is more strange than such a murder is,' he finished, eyes never moving from her face, his voice shaking slightly, every word clearly formed as though he was fighting to say them.
Hermione moved forward, bending slightly beside him. 'My worthy lord,' she told him pointedly, 'your noble friends do lack you.'
At right angles to the royal table, forming a rough T-shape, was the lord's table. On the night of the actual performance it would be covered with food, provided lovingly by the house elves, but this was only a rehearsal and for now it was bare apart from the goblets needed for the toast. The assorted nobles – mainly fifth-years who had failed to get a part or only had a few lines – were sitting along both edges of it, pretending to talk amongst themselves and throwing curious looks at the conversation between their king and queen.
'I do forget,' Draco said, sighing, then closed his eyes as if pulling himself together before getting to his feet. Hermione stood also and moved back, suddenly fighting not to sneeze. The stage was newly completed, and the smell of fresh paint choked the air.
'Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends,' Draco began, his voice loud and cheerful, smiling at the lords as he moved down the left side of the table. He brushed aside his fit of madness with a flippant gesture, saying, 'I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing to those that know me. Come, love and health to all; then I'll sit down.'
With a gesture to Hermione, he added, 'Come, give me some wine, fill full.' That was her cue to give her best hostess' smile and pour his glass. There was a pitcher of water on the table – on the night it'd be fruit juice mixed to look like proper wine, blood red – from which she filled his goblet. Moving back to stand behind the table, he took it from her hand and raised it high. 'I drink to the general health of the whole table, and to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss…' He paused again, his smile fading, but picked himself up. Or at least, he was supposed to; Hermione could see the flicker in his eye, the tight curl of his fingers around the stem of the goblet, as they had been around her wrist, earlier. 'Would he were here! To all, and him, we thirst, and all to all.'
The assorted lords raised their goblets in reply, and spoke – not synchronised; the directors had spent weeks telling them not to; it sounded more realistic if they didn't. 'Our duties, and the pledge.'
They drank, and at the precise instant that Draco touched the goblet to his lips the Ghost of Banquo appeared, transparent and shimmering slightly, sitting in the single stool meant to be left empty for Macbeth with a ghostly goblet mockingly raised to Macbeth.
Draco froze for the briefest instant, then shrieked 'Avaunt!' and flung the goblet at the stool, water flying everywhere, splattering the lords who cursed and gasped in surprise. 'And quit my sight!' Draco half-pleaded, half-screamed. He staggered backwards, towards the right wall, his voice becoming desperate. 'Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold…'
He wasn't meant to pause.
'Thy bones are…' Hermione, as Lady Macbeth, was meant to be watching with a mixture of concern and ill-concealed anger, but something in her stomach froze.
'Thy blood…' She saw him swallow, saw the glazing look in his eyes as he stared at the mocking, terrifying image of the Ghost, saw the way the lords' expressions of puzzlement at Macbeth's insane behaviour turned to real confusion, and she knew. 'Thy blood is cold…'
His lips kept moving, but no sound came out. 'Draco?' That was Megan, polite bewilderment in her voice. 'Are you okay?'
He didn't respond; Hermione knew she had to do something. 'Draco?' she called, and getting no reaction, crossed the stage to him. He didn't even see her approach; he was staring at the Ghost's image. Any second he'd crack further, say something damning, something that would lead to suspicion at best and discovery at worst…
'Draco!' she called again, and reached out to shake his shoulder. He jumped, and blinked at her, attention turned away from the Ghost's image. Hermione felt she could have collapsed with relief, but they needed an explanation for what had happened. Thinking quickly, she asked, 'Did you go dizzy again?'
'Hermione?' he asked, blinking at her. 'What?'
She was acutely aware that everyone was staring at them. 'Did you go dizzy?' she repeated, meeting his eyes, willing him to realise what she was trying to do, to go along with it. 'Like you did the other day? That dizzy spell?'
'Dizzy…' His eyes flicked sideways, took in the curious fifth-year lords craning to see; the directors, distant at the back of the Great Hall, and she saw a spark of realisation in his eyes. 'Oh, yes.' He raised a hand to the side of his head as though it hurt, blinking; she could still see the shards of fear and horror in his eyes.
'Do you need to go and see Madam Pomfrey?' Ruth asked in concern.
'Oh, no, I'm fine now.' Draco assured her with a warm smile. Hermione knew it was a false one, put on to reassure, but she doubted anyone else could tell. Not without knowing what was going on, not unless they knew Draco well enough. 'It happened once or twice before, I'm fine once it's cleared up.'
Ruth frowned. 'Still, if it keeps happening and you don't know why, you should go and see Madam Pomfrey. Someone who can help sort it out,' told him firmly.
'After all,' added Stan with a grin, 'we can't have you going dizzy on us in the performance, can we? And it's only a week away.'
'I'll go straight after the rehearsal, I promise,' Draco said with a calming smile. Megan nodded her approval.
'Alright, then, we'll go from the toast. Backstage crew? You alright with that?'
One of the seventh-year boys poked his head out from the wings. 'You could just call me Peter, you know,' he remarked with a grin. 'And it's all fine for me.'
'Just don't let that goblet hit anyone when it goes flying.' Megan remarked darkly. 'Alright then, from the toast.'
Peter picked up the goblet from where it had fallen – or been carefully guided by a few clever spells – and held it out to Hermione, who was nearest. As she collected it from him with a polite thank-you, she noticed her hand was shaking. It had been so close, so close to discovery. If they hadn't believed it was merely a dizzy spell, if Draco had said something incriminating, if he hadn't snapped out of it so easily. They had been lucky.
Trying hard not to spill the water, she refilled the goblet for him. They couldn't expect their luck to hold out. Next time this happened, there was no guarantee he wouldn't say something incriminating. It could happen anywhere – in a class, at lunch, in another rehearsal, in his common room with her nowhere near him to help. And if he was found out…
She handed the goblet to him, staring at the way the surface of the water shook and shattered, until she felt his hand close around the goblet, brushing her skin, and her breath caught, and she looked up at him, startled. His eyes were rough grey, scattered with a dark pain that was all too familiar in that gaze, like the sky before a storm.
'Thank you,' he said as he lifted the goblet from her hands, and Hermione was the only one who knew that he wasn't thanking her for refilling the goblet.
Hermione rubbed her thumb along the edge of a page, not even reading what was written on it. Even the reassuring pages of Hogwarts, A History were failing to distract her. Ron and Harry had been better, because at least they could call her out of her thoughts if she started worrying while they were there, but they had gone to Quidditch practice over an hour ago, and Hermione had managed to read barely five pages of her book before concern for Draco took over her thoughts.
The performance of the play was rushing ever closer, and after the performance came the Christmas holidays, and holidays meant that Draco would be going home to his father. She had tried to help him, as much as she could, but his near slip in the rehearsal had proven that he was getting worse. He'd always managed to hide it around people before now.
And what if he slipped in front of his father? Even in Hogwarts, where he had schoolwork to distract him and Hermione to help, he couldn't keep his sanity together that long. For a day, perhaps, but even a week was out of the question, and the holidays were over a fortnight. He would slip, eventually; it was only a matter of time. And his father would find out all about Draco's insanity, find out that the killing of Muggles and Muggleborns was driving him mad, even find out about her own part in it all, find out that his son felt… felt something for a Muggleborn girl.
What would he do? Hermione didn't know very much about Draco's relationship with his father, but she couldn't picture a man like Lucius Malfoy taking the discovery with a compassionate smile and an assurance that Draco didn't have to kill anyone if he didn't want to. At best, he would reinforce the view that Muggles were worthless, inhuman, that Draco should enjoy torturing them like a sport, and ruin any progress Draco had made in tearing down those prejudices. At worst?
Hermione didn't want to imagine the worst that Lucius Malfoy could do.
She didn't want to let Draco go home. He should stay here, at Hogwarts, where she could help him, and do what she could to help him lose his prejudices, and maybe, between them, she and Snape could persuade him to leave Voldemort. But she had asked him before if he wanted to stay, and he'd refused to, looking torn and edgy as he had done. He was a Malfoy, he'd said; he had to do as his father wished, and his father wished him to come home. For Dark Arts training and servitude to Voldemort, Hermione had suspected but hadn't asked.
But he was also Draco, just Draco, and Hermione knew that if she let him go back home she would regret it forever.
She didn't have long until the end of term; they had less than a week until the play was performed and the day after that they went home. Hermione's heart sank; there was no way she could persuade him to remain at school, not in that amount of time. She would try, of course; there was nothing she could do but try, but how would she manage it? Perhaps if she-
'Hermione? Hello?'
The voice startled her; she glanced upwards to see Ron, his face still flushed from flying, a bottle of Butterbeer in each hand. He was frowning at her, but grinned in amusement when she looked up at him. 'So you are awake, then. Thought you'd mastered the art of sleeping with your eyes open for a minute there,' he joked good-naturedly, holding out the bottle of Butterbeer towards her. She took it with a smile, and Ron settled into the seat beside her.
'How was Quidditch practice?' she asked – it was the first question that came to her head, and it was such a safe, innocuous topic to talk about. One that was very unlikely to veer into dangerous areas, such as Draco, Death Eaters or insanity. 'You've finished a bit early, haven't you?' She was about to ask where Harry was, but remembered he had an Occlumency lesson.
'Yeah, well, have you seen the weather?' Ron asked, gesturing towards the window with his Butterbeer. The sky outside was dark, a textured darkness which suggested bands of storm clouds, and Hermione realised she could hear the hissing, ghostly noise of rain hurtling through the air. 'Not exactly the best flying conditions, are they?' Ron remarked.
'I'm surprised you stayed out this long,' Hermione replied, frowning at Ron. He wasn't wet – a drying spell, she expected – but that was no excuse for flying around in the rain. 'You must have been freezing.'
'Well, flying warms you up a bit,' Ron said, shrugging it off. 'I'm more surprised that you didn't notice. What book were you reading?' He reached for the book on her lap and tugged it towards him; she let it slide onto his knee. '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 – hang on. Hogwarts, A History, right?' he guessed, looking up at her and grinning when she nodded.
'You know me too well,' Hermione complained.
'Nope. Harry said you were reading it when we left. He also said you were around the beginning, which means…' He flicked back a few pages. 'You've either finished the book and started again, or read about three pages.'
Hermione felt herself flush. 'Well, I got distracted, thinking about things. You know what I'm like.'
'Damn,' Ron remarked cheerfully, and seeing Hermione's expression, explained. 'Harry and me had a bet on; I owe him three Sickles.'
'You had a bet on about how much I'd read?' Hermione asked, feeling strangely amused.
'Not exactly. I said you'd be reading while we were practicing, and he said you'd try to read but get distracted,' Ron clarified. He took a sip of his Butterbeer, watching her with a curious frown on his face, before asking, 'What were you thinking about, anyway?'
'Oh… nothing very much,' Hermione answered, feeling rather uncomfortable. She didn't like lying; even though she knew she couldn't tell Ron the truth, lying still made her feel guilty. 'Just schoolwork and things. Daydreaming.'
He gave an oddly triumphant grin. 'Nope,' he remarked cheerfully, 'don't believe you. You're worried about something,' he added without pausing, not giving Hermione time to react. 'Harry and me were talking about it on the way to Quidditch practice, trying to work out what.' He took a gulp of his Butterbeer, keeping his eyes on Hermione; he looked slightly amused, but mostly curious with a touch of concern. After years of being friends with Ron, Hermione knew what he was thinking.
'I'm just worried about the play,' she found herself saying, feeling her cheeks tinge red again at the lie. 'I mean, we don't have long left, and what if I forget my lines-'
But Ron was shaking his head. 'We thought about that,' he said, giving her a long look over the top of his Butterbeer bottle. 'And we thought that if you were worried about the play, you'd be like you were before the auditions – running everywhere in a state and muttering bits of it under your breath. And you aren't worried about Harry either, because when you worry about him you keep watching him without realising you're doing it and asking how he is when he come in the room.'
Hermione opened her mouth to argue, then, defeated, she shut it again. 'You know me too well,' she complained, which was greeted by a muffled laugh from Ron. For something to do, she sipped her drink.
'And you tell us what you're worried about, normally,' he added. 'Or you tell me at least, if you're worrying about Harry. But this time you haven't. Which makes us worried because, well, it must be something important, mustn't it?'
Hermione glanced away, looking sideways at the dying fire, down to ominously glowing red embers by now. If she was truthful, she wanted to tell Ron, and Harry too. She'd never liked keeping secrets from them, and she really, really wanted help. Not even necessarily someone to help her figure out what to do, or to take some of the burden of helping Draco off her shoulders. Snape could do that. What she really wanted, right at that moment, was someone who'd just understand. A bit of sympathy and support.
Except that if she told him Ron would probably be too angry that Draco was a Death Eater – and worried for her safety - to give her sympathy. And she couldn't betray Draco's secret. For his own good, to Snape, that was justifiable: to Ron, for her own relatively unnecessary wants, it would be wrong.
'Hermione?' came Ron's patient voice. 'You were drifting off again.'
'Sorry,' she said with a sigh, swirling the Butterbeer in its bottle. 'I was just thinking.'
'See? This is exactly what I mean,' Ron said, his expression growing more serious. He sighed and leant back in his chair, rubbing a finger pensively around the rim of the bottle. 'You know you can tell us anything, Hermione, don't you?'
She smiled, at that. Not only for the sentiment of it and the reassurance of knowing that Harry and Ron cared about her, but for the fact that it was so predictably what the boys would say. It wasn't much of a reassurance, anyway, as she'd known that already and it didn't make it any more possible to tell them what the problem was.
'Harry suggested you say that, didn't he?' Hermione asked, guessing. 'Or you decided on it together.'
Ron frowned a little. 'Well, yeah. Most of it was his idea, pretty much. But you know I really do mean it, don't you?' he added quickly, glancing up to catch her eyes; his gaze was sincere and a little worried.
'Of course I know,' Hermione replied, a smile coming to her face and a warmth curling inside her that wasn't wholly due to the Butterbeer.
'Good,' Ron replied cheerfully, taking a sip of his Butterbeer before setting it down on the table and sitting back in his seat, glancing her way. Hermione had the sudden uncomfortable feeling that he was waiting for her to speak. She opened her mouth, about to say something, but closed it again. How could she explain that she couldn't tell him?
'And I really, really do want to tell you everything,' she began, thinking that at least that made a good beginning. Ron nodded, obviously wanting to be a good friend, and leant forwards slightly. Hermione took a breath. 'But I can't tell anyone.'
Ron jumped in before she had a chance to explain. 'You can tell us,' he said earnestly. 'Anything. It doesn't matter if it's really bad, we won't-'
'I can't tell anyone about this,' she repeated again, meeting his gaze firmly. 'Because… well, I'm worried about someone. And it's really his problem, not mine, and I can't tell you because it'd be betraying his secret,' she explained, watching Ron frown and feeling a little uneasy. She knew he only wanted to help, and she knew she was probably worrying him and Harry by being so preoccupied, but she couldn't help that; betraying Draco's secret would be worse.
'Alright,' Ron sighed, defeated. 'Can't you at least tell me who it is you're worried about?'
Hermione bit her lip. If she did, she'd have to explain so much, and Ron would be even more concerned and possibly angry, and he'd jump to conclusions that would, unfortunately, be the right ones. Or at least as far as Draco being a Death Eater went; she didn't think he'd guess the insanity part.
'I can't tell you that either; you'd guess,' she apologised. 'It isn't anyone you know well.'
He frowned a little, as though trying to work it out, but then gave up and shrugged. He still didn't look happy. 'Alright,' he said, 'but I still wish you could tell us.'
'I will when I can,' Hermione promised, thinking that if would be more appropriate than when. 'Do you fancy a game of chess before Harry gets back?' she asked, hoping to distract him.
Besides, she still had to figure out what to do about Draco.
The meagre week she had left passed all too quickly, an endless round of schoolwork and rehearsals, friends, meetings and lessons bringing her with an almost terrifying speed to the day of the performance.
The corridors of Hogwarts were filled with excitement; if it hadn't been a Saturday the teachers would have been forced to cancel classes. The first years chased each other screaming through the corridors, and playing at murder and prophecy in a manner that only the young and innocent can manage. The older years, those who weren't involved in the production, were sharing endless rumours: who was the best actor, who was coming to watch, what the costumes looked like.
It seemed half of wizarding England was coming; tickets had gone on sale for four Galleons - all proceeds to St Mungo's. Everyone involved with the play was racing around the school, attending last minute rehearsals, checking and double-checking their costumes were ready and prepared, muttering lines under their breath.
The directors were all exhibiting various degrees of tension and stress, of course, with the notable exception of Adrian, who had slept through half of a last-minute practice of the Porter's speech. Hermione hadn't been there, but rumour had numerous different suggestions as to what Megan had hexed him with, each one more inventive than the last; whatever she'd done, it had singed his eyebrows off.
Lunch was to be an hour late, to allow time for the final full dress rehearsal to run through. They were very nearly at the end of it, and Hermione could predict what was going through her fellow actor's minds – that the next time they stood on this stage, saying these lines, it would be night time, and the familiar house tables before them would be replaced with row upon row of silent chairs filled with people; dark, shadowy faces merging into one anonymous crowd with a thousand glistening, hungry eyes. It sounded like a horror film.
Hermione wondered if, out of all of them, she was the only one with worries on her mind that weren't connected to the play.
Not that she wasn't nervous, of course, but the uneasy nausea in her stomach was overpowered by a blinder, basic fear. Not the fear of embarrassment, or the fear of forgetting a line and looking foolish; the simple, ancient fear, more primitive and almost wordless, of danger to someone she cared about.
Draco.
Tomorrow was the last day of term. Tomorrow she would watch Draco leave from Kings Cross station with his parents, hiding something that he could not keep hidden, and when it was found out… Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, as the speech went. She had until tomorrow.
It wasn't enough time. She was watching him, now, from the wings, making sure to keep well out of the way of where the audience would be able to see her – it didn't do to get into bad habits, especially not when Megan was watching. They were just reaching the point where the images of Banquo's descendants were appearing to the horrified Macbeth, and Draco's acting was, as usual, flawless. Hermione sighed, watching him move across the stage, his words and movements telling her nothing. At least he hadn't suffered another attack of insanity. Touch wood.
She was well aware that her time was running out. If she was going to stop him leaving she had to do it tonight, because there was no guarantee that she'd see him the next morning. But what more could she do? Asking him to stay at Hogwarts hadn't worked. She'd carefully pointed out that he couldn't keep himself sane for the whole holiday, that sooner or later his parents would find out, and then what would they do? She'd tried pleading, begging; she would have threatened him if she could think of any threat great enough. He already had the fear of being forced to kill over his head, the fear of what his parents would do; if that couldn't stop him, what could?
Always, he had been hesitant, hadn't managed to meet her eyes, had told her that he couldn't stay because of what Voldemort would do, or what his parents would do, or – when she was annoying him – because he ought to be killing Mudbloods, it was what was right. He sounded a little more uneasy when he said that, though.
Which was progress, but progress that would mean nothing at all if she lost him now.
Hermione watched him, as if by watching hard enough she could make an answer appear on his forehead, the secret which would win him over, make him stay, safe with her at Hogwarts.
It was only because she was watching so intently that she noticed it.
'The castle of Macduff I will surprise,' he declared, his expression dark, the look of a man on the edge of Hell, 'Seize upon Fife, give to the edge of the sword his wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls that trace him in his line,' and with that declaration it happened. He flinched, so slightly it was barely noticeable, and his hand twitched ever so slightly in the direction of his arm.
His left arm.
Hermione felt her breath catch in her throat; she glanced round nervously. Had anyone else seen? No; most of them were further backstage; she'd left them practicing lines and exploring. Draco had barely even paused in his speech, and no one had leapt to their feet and accused him of being a Death Eater. Hermione glanced out again, nervously; had she seen it? Had it been her imagination? It had only bee the smallest of flinches, barely noticeable, but…
'Come, bring me where they are,' Draco finished, an arm around Lennox's shoulders, and Hermione realised they were leaving by the entrance she stood at. Terry Boot, who was playing Lennox, gave Draco a grin and a whispered, 'Good scene!' before hurrying off backstage. Draco nodded after him, rubbing – almost absentmindedly – his left forearm through his sleeve, the exact spot where the Mark was. Hermione stepped forward, out of the shadows, and their eyes met.
She shouldn't have been able to make out the emotion in them, not in the semi-darkness of the wings, but she could. They were cold. Not cold as in heartless or emotionless, but cold with fear, bleak and hopeless and desperate, and Hermione felt as though someone had tightened a noose around her heart.
Onstage, Susan Bones, Lady Macduff, was speaking. 'What had he done, to make him fly the land?' she asked.
'You must have patience, madam,' Ross – one of the fifth-years – replied. His voice was calm and gentle and seemed to come from a very long way away, as though the brightly-lit stage with its cheerful, flickering candles was another world.
'He had none: his flight was madness,' Lady Macduff replied. 'When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors.'
Draco winced at that, breaking the stillness and the silence that had fallen over them. Hermione stepped forward, closer to him, the rustle of her dress almost deafening. Slowly, she put her hand on his wrist, slipped the sleeve up to his elbow – her fingers were cold against his skin, or perhaps it was his skin that was hot – and revealed the Dark Mark, a livid, burning black.
There was a moment of silence, in which the future, the possibilities, the gaping darkness and the dim, near-impossible chance at saving him, seemed to hang over them, heavy and thick as Fate.
'I'll go after the rehearsal,' Draco whispered into the thick tension. 'I'll be back before the play.'
It seemed such a ludicrous thing to say that Hermione almost laughed; if she had done it would have been a dark and bitter one. Knowing that they shouldn't speak in the wings – sound carried surprisingly easily – she pulled out her wand and muttered, 'Parmasoniti.'
'Don't worry about it,' he said, his voice neutral and utterly blank, sounding almost deafening at a normal volume. 'He won't punish me for lateness, he knows it's difficult for me…'
'You aren't going,' Hermione interrupted, the vehemence in her voice surprising even herself. Her hand was still on is arm, holding his sleeve bunched around his elbow. 'You aren't going.'
'I have to go,' he repeated, in the same passive and blank tone, than sighed, seeming to sag a little. 'Hermione, you know I can't stay. I can't. He may forgive my lateness, but not going? He'll punish me for that. You know he will.' She felt him shiver, the hot skin under her fingers shaking, the pulse beating hard under her fingertips where blood was flowing to the Mark. As though it were a wound, an infection which had to be fought by the body, which it was.
Onstage, Ross was speaking, his distant voice echoing in the silence. 'But cruel are the times, when we are traitors and do not know ourselves.'
Draco's eyes closed briefly, as though pained. 'All too true,' he murmured. 'Have you noticed that?'
'Noticed what?' Hermione asked. 'Draco, listen to me, please, for once listen to me. Stay here. Don't go to the meeting, don't go home, he might be planning to punish you but it's nothing to what'll happen if you go. You know he's going to make you kill again, you know your father's going to find out, you know what-'
'The play,' Draco interrupted; it was as if he hadn't heard anything she said. His voice was very quiet and very still, seeming to echo in the darkness around them. She tried to meet his eyes, but it was as though she wasn't even there; he stared straight through her. 'Haven't you noticed? How it's mirroring everything we do? Or everything we do mirrors it. Except it's a broken mirror, because some things aren't the same. You're meant to be evil,' he told her; his right hand found its way into her hair, tangling itself tightly. She could feel it shaking. 'But you aren't. You're good, and trying to stop the evil, but you'll never manage it.'
He paused a moment, his face pale white even in the darkness and shadow that surrounded them. 'Draco,' Hermione whispered, 'You aren't… this isn't…'
'I'm starting to think all of this will only end the same way it does in the play,' Draco said, his tone of voice almost whimsical, light, a tone suited to daydreaming and summer afternoons and horribly out of place in the stifling darkness. 'Macbeth dies. I'll die.'
Hermione's hand tightened reflexively on his elbow. 'No,' she hissed. 'No, Draco, don't be so… This is all coincidence. You do realise that? The play reflects what's going on, that doesn't mean it's foreshadowing what has to happen. And if you dare try and take the spell off the swords again…' She swallowed, feeling the reassuring weight of his hand on her hair.
She wanted him to touch her, to put his hand on her cheek, let her feel the heat of his skin which meant he was still alive. Her hand tightened harder around his elbow, as if afraid he would collapse to the floor and die on her then and there and take a part of her with him, it felt as though he was coming apart in her hands, thin wisps of nothingness with none of what used to be Draco, good or bad, and it felt as though she couldn't breathe, as though all the air in the world had been taken from her.
She didn't want to think about how she'd feel if he actually did die. The threat of it was bad enough.
'Draco, please,' she begged, her voice cracking. She couldn't meet his eyes. 'Please stay. Do it for me, if you have no other reason to. Because I want you to. I want you to be safe, and alive and happy, I want you to be here. Please. They won't get you, they can't hurt you if you stay here, they can't do anything to you. You don't have to go.'
'Cruel are the times, when we are traitors and do not know ourselves,' Draco repeated in a whisper. Onstage, Lady Macduff was talking to her son. 'I don't know myself, Hermione. I don't know what I want. And whatever I do, I am a traitor.'
'Don't-' Hermione began, but he carried on without pausing.
'If I stay I'm a traitor my parents, to my ancestry, to my race. If I go, I'm a traitor to my feelings. Do you see? I can't win, whatever I do, there's no way out of it. No way out, whatever I do I'm a traitor.'
'But your feelings, your conscience, they're more important,' Hermione whispered, meeting his eyes, pleading for him to listen to her. If she could stop him going to the meetings, if she could stop him going home for the holidays, if she could help him…
'But I don't want to die,' he replied, sounding for all the world like a lost five-year-old, 'even if the play says I have to. And I don't want to be hurt either. And they will hurt me, if I don't go.'
'What about this pain?' Hermione asked, reaching out a cautious hand and laying it, flat, over his chest, over his heart. 'Isn't that worse?'
He was silent for a moment, looking at the floor. 'Yes,' he admitted. 'But I can't stay, Hermione, I can't.' His voice was cracking, breaking. 'I can't stay, I have to go, the cause, the survival of humanity. That's what… but you don't see it like that, do you, you don't-'
'And neither do you!' Hermione protested, tears rising to choke her voice. 'Don't be such an idiot, Draco, you know what humans are, you know I'm as human as you are, as anyone is, don't be so…'
Her voice ran out, and she had to close her eyes against a threatening flood of tears, so she didn't see his expression as he leant forward and tentatively, almost fearfully, dropped the lightest of kisses at her forehead. He shivered. 'I'll go when the rehearsal ends, and I'll be back in time for the play,' he said again, as though that could make up for anything, as though that could make any of it better, and she felt his hand slip out of her hair, felt him pull away from the places where she touched him, leaving her alone. She opened her eyes, fighting deep angry breaths into her lungs. It felt like all she could do not to scream; everything was falling apart and there was nothing, nothing she could do.
'Fine,' she said. Her voice was oddly choked, strained; she felt suddenly exhausted, as though every minute she'd spent worrying about him, trying to help him, over the past weeks and months had suddenly engulfed her all at once. 'If that's what you want, fine. Just go.'
She shut her eyes, feeling the first tear trickle down her cheek, and fought to keep her composure. She would not cry, not over him, not because he was too idiotic, too foolish, too fearful to leave. 'Hermione…' she heard him say, and shut the sound out.
'Just go,' she repeated, her voice so silent she could hardly hear it herself and he must have listened to her, because the next time she opened her eyes, the tears fought down and under a tenuous control, he was gone.
Onstage, the murderers were stabbing Lady Macduff's son to death, blood splattering across the boards, before chasing the poor woman offstage, swords brandished. Hermione couldn't help but shiver. If the play was a mirror of life, or life a mirror of the play…
'Be safe,' she whispered after Draco, the words vanishing into the darkness around her before she even realised she'd spoken.
AN: 'Parmasoniti' is roughly 'small shield to sound'.
I have two questions this week. The first, which will apply to a small minority of you but must be asked anyway, is: Been watching the new Doctor Who? (Non-Brits will probably not have a clue what I'm on about. Half the Brits won't either.)
And to everyone else: I'm intending on doing Creative Writing at university (surprise, surprise) and in order to do so I'd quite like to have some original short stories under my belt to show them. This is where you come in: inspire me. Suggest anything, from concepts to objects to themes, characters and ideas. Anything whatsoever. I get inspired easily. (Got inspired by the bathroom tiles once…)
Anyway. Thanks for reading, and review!