A/N: This one has 3 chapters…I've got 30 or so stories, y'all. It's going to take me days to post everything…
Love's Sweetest Sorrows Chapter 1
Hermione Granger sat with her colleague, Theodore Nott, in the back gardens of Malfoy Manor. Narcissa Malfoy, who had always intimidated Hermione if she were being completely honest, was looking at the pair with pleading eyes. "Draco is to receive the Kiss in three months' time if something is not done," she said, her voice wavering and her hands shaking around her teacup.
Her husband had already received the Kiss earlier in the year, and Narcissa looked to be a woman at her wit's end. The thought of losing her only child in such a manner turned the poised woman into a fragile and antsy semblance of her former self. Theo looked at her with pity and true sadness in his eyes. "I know Draco doesn't deserve this, but an appeal is extremely difficult to obtain, Cissy. You know this," he told her, his voice tender as he pulled the teacup from her vibrating hands.
"Theo…he was your best friend. Your brother," Narcissa tried once more to appeal to Theo's childhood memories and fraternal love for Draco Malfoy.
Theo looked at her, pain written all over his face as he was faced with the prospect of his best friend facing the Dementor's Kiss. He looked to Hermione, who felt for them both at that moment. She gnawed on her bottom lip and sighed. "We need to try, Theo."
Hermione didn't know much of Draco Malfoy, she would be the first to admit this. The only memories she had of him revolved around him being a petulant little ferret in the first five years of school, a sallow shell of himself in the sixth, and of being tortured in the very Manor at her back in the seventh. She'd followed his trial following the War, nearly five years prior now. He had been lumped in with the rest of the Death Eaters and sentenced to indefinite imprisonment, with the Dementor's Kiss to be administered when the Ministry saw fit. Narcissa had just received word that his date was set for the fifth of June—his twenty-third birthday.
Hermione may not have known Draco, but she certainly knew Theodore Nott. They'd gone through the Ministry's rigorous law program together, Theo following in his fathers' footsteps and Hermione following her dream of bringing swift justice for all. She worked for The Law Offices of Theodore H. Nott, Jr., working her way into being financially able to purchase her share and have her name added to the sign. And, though her name wasn't on the sign outside just yet, Theo treated her as an equal already, consulting her on every decision that was made within the company. They'd grown close in the five years since the War ended, many weekends and nights spent together late into the morning, pouring over a case. If Theodore Nott didn't believe Draco deserved the Kiss, then there had to be something to that. Hermione couldn't help but think that defending a Death Eater wasn't the best course of action, despite her words.
Narcissa stood from her seat at the table and walked up to where Hermione sat, bending forward to draw the petite witch into her arms. "I can't tell you how much this means to me that you will try. He's my only son—he was just a boy, caught in a man's world, Miss Granger. You mustn't hold this against him."
She withdrew her arms from around Hermione, whose eyes were wide with the close contact. She felt awkward to be in such close contact with a woman who had once harbored the Dark Lord in her home. She could do no more than smile sympathetically and give Narcissa a single nod.
o-o-o
Hermione stood in the entrance of Azkaban Wizarding Prison, her hands above her head as she watched the guards survey her wand. They had made it to the fortress on the rock despite the harsh storm raging around them. The waves crashing against the stone foundation were angry and violent, and she found herself comparing their ferocity with that of the butterflies currently flapping in her belly. Her stomach was roiling, her nerve synapses were firing anxiously, every hair on her body was standing at attention—the curls on her head were coming out of the tight plait with the static electricity in the air.
"Your wand will be available for pick-up upon your return to this room after visiting the inmate," the guard explained lazily.
Another witch and wizard stood behind her, their wands raised to her and Theo's backs. "Remove all jewelry and your outer cloaks and coats," they were instructed.
Hermione stripped down to nothing more than her skirt and the short-sleeved button-down shirt she wore. Her watch, cloak and suit coat all made their way into a locker with her wand. "You may only write with the new prison-supplied quills," the witch told them, handing them each a quill. "They are meant to break in the event he tries to stab you."
At the thought of a wild, prison-hardened Draco Malfoy attempting to stab them, her heart started hammering even more. She and Theo had certainly been here prior to meeting with other clients, but this was the first time she knew the person. As little as she knew him.
Once they were cleared to enter the prison another guard, a stout wizard of thirty-five or so with a smug face and excitement in his eyes, stepped in to escort them to the holding area at the heart of the prison. Draco Malfoy would already be seated within the room, shackled to the table and floor. She had nothing to worry about. He couldn't touch her.
Hermione looked to Theo, who looked more sad than worried—he still didn't believe they would be granted an appeal. She felt a pang in her chest at the thought that he was internally fighting a battle between his desire to do right by his friend and the reality that almost certainly awaited him.
They followed the wizard down a long, winding corridor. Cells lined both walls, feeble and grotesque human beings housed within. The lighting was dim, almost foreboding as it flickered on and off from the close proximity to the dementors that circled just beyond the walls of the prison, waiting. The air was cold and damp against her now bare arms. It stunk of filth and decay as the barely living individuals around them fell into disrepair. The smell mixed with the scent of the sea spray that wafted in from the envelope-sized open windows in each cell, making her stomach turn even more violently.
As they made their way along, a few of the more lively inmates—the ones who had yet to receive the Kiss—cat-called and whistled at the sight of her. Theo scoffed, disgusted as she wrinkled her nose at the sound of it and held her chin high despite them all. This was not her first time here, not her first time being cat-called within these walls.
The guard finally led them to the end of this corridor to a heavy oak door. The door opened to a wrought iron spiral staircase. With every rattling step she took, her shoes—loafers, since heels were prohibited—clinked and clanked, the stairs' metallic sound ringing in her ears. It was the most deafening noise she'd ever heard, rattling her deep in the osteons of her bones. Each step drawing her nearer to the last person she'd ever expected to see again.
She tried to keep reminding herself that this was Draco Malfoy. He had sat behind her in Potions, stirring clockwise in time with her. He'd ridden a broom to catch a flying ball. He'd been turned into a ferret in their fourth year. He was Theo's best friend. Hermione took calming breaths to steady her nerves as they descended the stairs.
When her feet finally landed on level stone flooring, she felt unable to lift her eyes to the table sitting in the middle of the damp, dim room. She knew she would see him sitting there in his prison-issued black and white jumpsuit. Theo stepped off the staircase behind her and placed a comforting hand on her back, pushing her gently forward into the room. He stepped around her and walked quickly toward the table. "Well, if it isn't the Devil himself!" he said, and Hermione in her peripheral vision, she could see Theo march to Draco and throw his arms around him, slapping his back in a brotherly hug.
"You're a barrister? I never would have guessed it, except they told me Theodore Nott was coming to see me, and well…your father is two cells down," Malfoy's voice rasped into the room, filling every inch of breathable air.
Hermione finally gained enough courage to drag her eyes slowly up as she heard Theo's chair scraping across the stone and Malfoy's chains rattling as he sat. She focused for a brief moment on the table's edge, hesitating before she looked up to the imprisoned wizard.
Her eyes dragged up his thin frame—looking even more thin and sickly, his skin a greyish pallor, under the black and white striped jumpsuit. He was sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed, bouncing one leg anxiously. His face was gaunter than it was even the last time she'd seen him, his cheekbones more prominent with his malnourishment. His hair was shaggy and long, hanging over his shoulders in a way that reminded her of Lucius. His lips were curled into a sneer, though she could see that it was forced, hollowness behind it.
But it was his eyes that were most striking in that moment. Grey eyes. A shade of grey like chimney smoke against a blue October sky. The same shade of grey as her first smelted pewter cauldron. Like the ocean that raged around the fortress where they were currently housed. They were unnerving, piercing a hole right through her head. As she held his gaze, she noticed they, too, were hollow. His ashen gaze met her mahogany and she felt her heart beating erratically, skipping beats. Haunted. Lifeless. Draco Malfoy may not have received the Kiss just yet, but he was far from being alive.
"Hermione Granger in the flesh," he finally voiced, breaking the silence like a siren in the night.
o-o-o
