Ch. 2 Good Girl
A/N: Very brief references to rape (or someone being a 'rapist') in this chapter.
'And all the roads we have to walk are winding / And all the lights that lead the way are blinding / There are many things that I would like to say to you / But I don't know how… / Because maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me' - Wonderwall, Oasis.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, September 1998.
The atmosphere in the classroom was subdued and tense. Their new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was now seven minutes late and the apprehension in the room was like a taut elastic band, stretched to its limit and just about to snap.
The students were murmuring quietly to each other; there was none of the loud, carefree chatter that was commonplace just before the start of a lesson. A sense of foreboding hung in the air, worse than that moment at the beginning of an exam, just before they were ordered to turn the paper over to finally see what questions they'd have to answer.
Hermione observed it all with a curious detachment. She could surmise what the tension was about. She'd heard what happened in this classroom last year, to most of the students who were sat with her now, heard what they'd been made to do to each other. But only fragments – she'd stopped listening when people had started to go into too much detail.
Harry was sitting next to her, jiggling his left leg up and down in short, frantic movements, and tapping his wand repeatedly on his knee, as he always did when he was restless, apprehensive or simply bored, as he'd done countless times during frost-bitten mornings and dark evenings during their months running across fields and fens.
After a few moments, Ginny, who was sitting on Harry's other side, reached under the table and placed her hand over her boyfriend's, gently stilling his fidgeting. Clearly, Ginny wasn't as used to Harry's squirming.
As Hermione looked around – at the walls, the blackboard, the bookshelves, actively avoiding people's faces lest she make eye contact – she wondered idly if anyone had died in this room during the Battle. It was likely. The evidence would have been cleared of course, like all the damage that had been repaired, making it easier for people to pretend none of it had ever happened. This white-washing irritated her for some reason.
As her gaze settled on some floorboards that were a lighter shade than those surrounding it – clearly newly fixed – images flashed in her mind's eye, intrusive and unwanted, of how the people might have died. She felt her heart rate speed up, fought to push the images away, took a slow, deliberate, deep breath, counting in –
There was a sudden bang as the classroom door was flung open.
"Defence Against the Dark Arts!" a woman's voice shouted, loud and commanding. It felt like an assault after the moments of quiet, but it cut satisfyingly through the built-up tension, and Hermione silently gave thanks for the interruption to her reverie. There was an immediate shift in the room's energy.
Hermione, along with the rest of the class, turned to watch a slight witch stride purposefully down the aisle to the front of the classroom, waving her wand at the blackboard as she did so and charming the words she'd just proclaimed to appear there. A black dress swept about her calves and dark purple hair bounced up and down at her shoulders. She wore clumpy, masculine boots which somehow managed to emphasise her petite figure whilst at the same time making her look strong and sturdy.
When she reached the front, she abruptly spun around to face the class and swung her wand in an arc around the room. A swathe of students, those that had been there last year – Nott, Neville, even Ginny – involuntarily flinched at her sudden wand movement, before visibly relaxing as the wall sconces lit up harmlessly, their light immediately brightening the previously gloomy interior.
"Professor Isla Ingleton, auror of twenty years and now your new teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts." The teacher's name appeared on the blackboard as she spoke. "I apologise for my tardiness. I have higher expectations of my own punctuality, as I do of yours. It's a pleasure to meet you all.
"I understand that this lesson was, until recently, called 'Dark Arts' at this school. What," – Ingleton paused and looked pointedly around the room, her eyebrows raised expectantly – "is the difference between Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Dark Arts?" She almost bellowed the question.
The students shifted uncomfortably in their seats. There was a bemused murmuring at the teacher's brief introduction and lack of preliminaries, but most of all at the explicit reference to what this class had been last year. Unlike the efforts at the castle's refurbishment, this teacher was not going to white-wash. As the moments of silence drifted on, Hermione felt a gradual return of the previous tension.
"Come on, I know the majority of you have just had a year of being taught Dark Arts rather than DADA – what is the difference? Or, rather, the differences?"
The students looked down at their desks, out the window, up at the ceiling – anywhere but at Professor Ingleton – in an effort to avoid being called upon.
Hermione thought she knew the answer the teacher was looking for. And in previous years, her hand would have been eagerly up in the air. But that Hermione was gone. She didn't feel any motivation to raise her hand and become embroiled in philosophical discussions regarding the practical implications of defensive and offensive magic. She felt no need to prove anything anymore – to herself or anyone else.
"You!" Ingleton pointed at Blaise Zabini. "What do you think?"
Zabini's eyes widened slightly; he looked startled. "I… I'm not sure professor," he mumbled.
"Know a lot about the Dark Arts though, don't you?" The words were uttered by Seamus, who was sitting directly behind Zabini. He made no attempt to keep his voice quiet.
Zabini's spine snapped up into a straight line. He clamped his jaws together, as if trying to hold back a retort. Then, as Ingleton singled out Parvati Patil and the class's attention moved on, Seamus continued in a lower voice which was only heard by those few around him.
"Death Eater rapist." The words dripped with vitriol.
Hermione knew that the first accusation was true – Zabini had taken the Mark, under duress apparently, not long after she, Ron and Harry had escaped from Malfoy Manor in April. But the second accusation, and the word - rapist - hit Hermione like a stinging jinx. She'd heard the rumours about Zabini's promiscuity - but 'rapist'?
Zabini jumped out of his seat, spun on the spot so he was facing Seamus' desk, and towered over him. Ingleton stopped speaking mid-sentence as the whole class's attention turned to Zabini and Seamus.
"You better take that back, Irish boy." Zabini's tone was low and menacing, but Seamus merely smirked and slowly rose to his feet. Everyone knew that Zabini had left his wand on his desk for a reason - he, like Malfoy, could only use it for academic purposes. It had been a condition of their sentencing. Seamus, however, had his wand firmly clasped in his left hand and Hermione was unnerved at the sight of his other hand: the index finger was missing - there was a pink stub where it should have been. She didn't know how he'd lost it - probably in the Battle.
"Okay, boys, please sit down –" Professor Ingleton started, but her voice was drowned out by Seamus'.
"He shouldn't be here – he should be rotting in Azkaban!"
Seamus raised his wand and red light burst from it – what looked like a non-verbal hex of some kind – but at the same time Nott was swivelling in his chair, rising to his feet too –
"Expelliarmus!" Nott cried.
Seamus' wand flew from his hand, which meant that the aim of his hex was mis-directed and the red light faded away into nothing. His wand soared through the air, landing neatly in Nott's ready hand.
"How fucking dare you!" Seamus exclaimed.
He launched himself at Nott, his left arm raised and his hand balled into a fist, ready to punch. But Nott caught Seamus' wrist before it made contact with his face, pushing it back violently at the same time as Zabini went forward, in an apparent attempt to protect Nott. With the combined forces of Nott and Zabini, Seamus was propelled backwards, lost his balance and fell to the floor.
"Stop this at once!" Ingleton shouted.
But the students ignored her as Neville got to his feet – whether to help Seamus up or to hex the Slytherin boys in retaliation, it wasn't clear – and Nott, who also seemed to have lost his balance in the skirmish, reeled to the side, flailing his arms in a clumsy attempt to right himself and accidentally hit Ginny over the head as he did so.
Harry's face contorted in fury and he sprang to his feet, impulsively casting a nasty stinging jinx at Nott, whilst Zabini seemed to be going for Seamus again – he was able to avoid Neville's offensive spells because of a protective shield that was emitting, shimmering and impenetrable, from Daphne Greengrass' wand. Hermione saw that Malfoy had his arm around Zabini's torso – she wasn't sure when he'd entered the fray – in an apparent attempt to pull Zabini back.
"Calm down, mate!" Malfoy urged firmly.
It was then that Hermione lost the sequence of events, but she was aware of Dean and Parvati standing uncertainly on the periphery of the group, and that Pansy Parkinson was suddenly in the midst of it, although it wasn't long before she was blinded by a Bat-Bogey hex of Ginny's.
"You vile bitch!" Pansy cried as she desperately tried to counter-jinx the bogeys off of her face.
"Impedimenta! Immobulus!"
At Professor Ingleton's cry, all eight of them – Zabini, Nott, Malfoy, Pansy, Seamus, Neville, Ginny and Harry – were flung away from each other and ceased moving.
Hermione felt a burgeoning of respect for their new teacher – to immobilise so many humans at once took profound concentration and advanced magical skill. It seemed clear now, though, that Ingleton could have stopped the fight before it had got so far, and Hermione fleetingly wondered why she hadn't.
Hermione had not moved from her seat during the whole skirmish, although she'd kept her hand tightly clasped around her wand. She was aware that if this had happened just a few months ago, she would have been in the middle of the fray, especially after Harry had gotten involved. Her concern for him – for all her friends – as well as a sense of injustice that anyone would try and hurt them would have spurred her to move.
But now, she barely felt any of that. Of course, she still cared about her friends, but the fight in front of her hadn't seemed real. It was as if she'd been looking at it through a wall of glass. And two of the Slytherins were effectively wandless, which meant the fracas had been heavily favoured towards the Gryffindors.
"When I terminate my paralysing hex, I want all of you – including those still in their seats – to stand and move to the edge of the room," Ingleton's voice simmered with barely repressed fury. "No one is to speak, and if anyone so much as raises their wand, they will be sent to Headmistress McGonagall's office quicker than I can say 'expelled'! Have I made myself understood?!"
There was a muttering of agreement from those students still able to move their lips. Once Ingleton reversed her paralysing hex, all the students moved to the side of the room, as they'd been ordered.
As Hermione stood in a huddle at the edge of the room, someone behind her murmured dryly, "Looks like the war isn't over at Hogwarts."
The person was standing so close, Hermione felt the warmth of his breath tickle the hairs on her neck, causing a shiver to creep up her spine. She didn't need to turn around to know that the sardonic tone belonged to Malfoy. She mentally rolled her eyes and resolutely refused to respond, or indicate that she'd heard him at all.
Then, with another impressive succession of spells, Ingleton moved the desks and chairs so they were arranged in a large semi-circle around the blackboard.
"Right! Sit down! I don't care where, but maybe not next to someone you feel inclined to curse!" she demanded. The students shuffled quietly towards the desks and Hermione sat down next to Harry again. "I will not have that kind of disruption in my classroom again! I will not have anyone drawing a wand at any other student except when it is part of an exercise that I have set! Is that understood?"
There was another round of mumbled agreements from the students.
Hermione kept her eyes on the floor in front of her, so the shoes and ankles of the students sitting across from her were the only things in her eyeline. She didn't want to look at other people's faces, it felt too exposing somehow. She was acutely aware that everyone in the class could see her, watch her if they wanted, which made her feel uncomfortably vulnerable. She wondered if that was why Ingleton had arranged the class in such a way.
"You!" Ingleton exclaimed, pointing at Nott. "What's your name?"
"Nott, Professor. Theo."
The class braced itself for the torrent of detentions and House point deductions that Ingleton was no doubt about to dole out.
"That was an excellently executed Expelliarmus, Theo!" Nott's brows scrunched together in confusion at the compliment and a wave of disconcerted fidgeting rippled through the class. "Why, can anyone tell me, do I say that?"
Timing and inflection, Hermione thought numbly, but her arm remained lowered and she didn't speak.
"Firstly, the timing was excellent," Ingleton began to answer her own question. "With Expelliarmus, one needs to make sure they have incantated the spell before their opponent's curse will reach them. So many duellers mis-time and, although they may succeed in disarming their opponent, they're still caught by their adversary's curse! If you are going to risk this particular defensive spell, you need to ensure you have the time!
"Secondly, inflection! Mr Nott's – Theo's – inflection was near-prefect, especially considering the difficult angle at which he aimed it, leading for his opponent's wand to travel straight to his free hand, for an easy catch. So often, if the inflection is clumsy, the opponent's wand can travel in all sorts of directions, possibly even hindering rather than helping one. And thirdly, what made that an excellent execution was the context. The fact that it was a defensive rather than offensive spell was entirely appropriate, given the context. Which brings me back to my original question: what is the difference between Defense Against the Dark Arts and the Dark Arts?"
There was a long, drawn out, uncomfortable silence.
"Well…I suppose there's the spells?" Parvati suggested tentatively.
"Yes? Carry on?" Ingleton urged.
"Well…with the Dark Arts, the spells cause pain, harm...suffering. With DADA, the spells protect against harm…" Parvati trailed off doubtfully.
"Yes, indeed," Ingleton said politely, no doubt relieved that someone had at least attempted to answer her question, even if the response was somewhat stating the obvious. "Thank you for your contribution, Miss?"
"Patil. Parvati Patil."
"Parvati. And what is the difference between the use of these spells?" Ingleton asked, her eyes roaming the semi-circle hopefully.
There was a silence again, but Ingleton waited, seemingly determined not to break and give them the answer. Hermione admired her tenacity, and for the first time she was tempted to voice her own thoughts, if only to stop the drawn out silence and move the class on. She opened her mouth, about to speak, but before she did so, someone across the circle from her mumbled something.
"Pardon?" Ingleton spun around eagerly in the direction of the mumble, as if trying to catch a snitch before it disappeared.
Hermione looked up at the speaker and her heart stuttered oddly as she saw that Draco Malfoy was sitting directly opposite her, his eyes fixed on the desk in front of him.
"Intent," Draco repeated more clearly, reluctantly raising his head as he addressed the teacher.
"Yes!" Ingleton seemed enthused. "Could you expand on that please, Draco?"
Malfoy clearly didn't need an introduction - his name and face had been on the front page of The Prophet on more than one occasion over the summer. He gave Ingleton a surly look of defiance, as if he'd already said more than he wanted.
"No," he stated calmly but firmly.
Their new Professor raised her eyebrows but otherwise appeared unfazed.
"Can anyone else expand on Draco's most interesting point?"
Hermione couldn't help herself. The long silences were starting to make her agitated; she wanted the class to establish the philosophical point Ingleton was trying to make and get the fuck on with the lesson. She found herself speaking. Like the others, she didn't raise her hand.
"Whether one wants to intentionally cause harm to others, or to protect oneself from harm whilst minimising harm to others, will result in a very different choice of spell." Hermione's tone was bored and dispassionate. She realised she sounded like… like Malfoy would if he answered a question, and mildly hated herself for it.
"Yes! Yes, Miss Granger, thank you!" Ingleton had had no trouble identifying her either; she'd been in the papers enough over the summer too, albeit for different reasons than Malfoy. "And what decides our intent?" Ingleton offered yet another question out to the class. This time, the silence was mercifully short – Nott broke it.
"I suppose a person's intent depends on many things - aim, morality, ethics," Nott shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, and it seemed he forced his next word out, "Ideology…"
"Yes, thank you Theo."
Neville piped up then but Hermione had stopped listening because, ever since she'd spoken, Malfoy had been staring at her intently, his expression unreadable. And, as she caught his eye, she couldn't help but stare back, as if his eyes had some invisible hook attached to them that had caught hold of her somehow. It was Harry's voice that finally enabled her to wrench her eyes away.
"I suppose emotions would come into it too," Harry said. "Like, if you're feeling a really strong emotion at the time, like revenge, or hate, or spite - that'll affect your intent...and...you have to really mean it..."
"Knowledge impacts on our intent, too." Malfoy spoke again, but this time, his cold gaze was directed straight at Harry, his voice hard. "You need to know what you're doing with certain curses, because uncontrolled emotion and ignorance are a very dangerous combination."
Harry guardedly returned Malfoy's stare, fidgeting uncomfortably, and Hermione knew he was battling with a ripple of guilt. The whole exchange stirred a complex mixture of emotions in her, which she tried to squash into the corner of her mind because she knew it would take too much energy to feel them all.
"Yes. Quite," Ingleton said. "That's why in this class we will be learning both protective – defensive – and offensive spells. Because in order to make an informed decision about whether to use an offensive spell, as well as how to protect ourselves against them, we need to both know and reflect on our intent in using them…"
Finally, it seemed as though Ingleton was satisfied she'd made her point about the difference between DADA and DA and, as she then started to talk through the curriculum, Hermione stopped listening again. She knew it all anyway – they had been given the information before the start of term – and those emotions she'd been trying to squash down were rising to the surface of her mind, ominous and unstoppable, along with images of Malfoy, lying on the floor of a Hogwarts toilet, blood seeping from him as if he'd been sliced open by a drunken butcher.
She was suddenly finding the air in the classroom heavy and stifling - she couldn't seem to get enough oxygen into her lungs no matter how deeply she breathed. She craved fresh air - and had an overwhelming urge to be outside in the large expanse of the Scottish highlands - not in this ancient castle where the halls seemed full of echoes of the recent dead.
Without quite realising what she was doing, Hermione had gathered up her things, rose from her seat and headed towards the door.
"Are you going somewhere, Miss Granger?" Ingleton asked with mock politeness, her eyebrows raised.
Hermione found it hard to think of an answer that wasn't the truth: yes, outside because I'll suffocate if I stay in here. But she knew she couldn't say that.
"I'm done," was all she managed, her tone expressionless, before she turned and exited the classroom.
Once in the coolness of the corridor outside, she instantly started to feel better, and sped up her pace as she headed towards the main exit. A minute or so later, she heard a cry from behind her.
"Hey! Granger!"
Hermione slowed to a stop at the sound of her surname. She knew who the speaker was without having to turn around: Malfoy. He must have left the class a short time after her, and she fleetingly wondered why - there was still a good twenty minutes before the lesson was due to end.
She turned unhurriedly on the spot and saw his tall frame striding towards her. He wore a frown of agitation on his face, as if her very presence annoyed him. Which, she supposed, it probably did.
She wasn't scared of Malfoy. She never really had been. His hatred for what she was used to scare her, and what he'd stood for used to scare her – the prejudice and the bigotry. But not him. She'd always viewed him as she viewed all bullies: as cowards. Pathetic, insecure cowards.
He came to a stop an arms length away from her.
"Are you following me?" Hermione couldn't help but spit out scathingly.
Malfoy's face creased up into a scowl. "Don't flatter yourself. Why would I do that? I have an –" he faltered. "A meeting. What's wrong with you, anyway?" He asked the question accusingly, as if her behaviour was a personal affront to him. Which, if she had any energy to feel right then, she'd find amusing in its absurdity. As if she had to justify herself to Draco-fucking-Malfoy. "Walking out of class, being all surly, going around with a face like a slapped arse–"
"Fuck off, Malfoy."
But there was no conviction in her voice. Because, ultimately, she didn't care what he thought, or what he said. She just wanted him to stop talking, to go away. Why she didn't just walk away, she wasn't sure. It was his eyes, she realised after a moment, the slate grey intensity of them - they were keeping her grounded to the flagstones of the hallway like the roots of a hundred-year-old oak tree.
He scoffed and his lips curled into a sneer.
"And casual swearing. That's not you. What's happened to you? To the prefect that would take five points for profanity use? To the annoying fucking know-it-all, so excited to answer a question in class I thought she might've been creaming her knickers?"
She barely flinched at his crude insults – they hit her like blunt knives and dropped futilely to the floor. Her lack of reaction seemed to offend Malfoy further, because he persisted. He scrunched his face into a mock pleading expression.
"Oh, please sir, please! Pick me! I know the answer, I'm such a good girl!" He was half imitating her in her earlier years and half faking sexual arousal. It would have been funny in its ridiculousness if it wasn't for the fact that his intention was to humiliate her.
Which it did – she felt the heat of a blush rise to her cheeks. And for the first time in weeks, it seemed like Hermione actually felt something – a bubbling of anger. She instinctively reached for her wand, which she always did when she felt the rare fluttering of anger or surprise or anything lately – it was impulsive.
Malfoy's eyes darted down, noticing her hand diving into her wand pocket. She could tell from his expression that he knew he'd riled her, which had probably been his intention all along.
"What happened to me?" Hermione spat the words out like acid, echoing his question.
"Yeah?" he demanded.
She didn't say her next words to make any particular point, but solely because she thought they might be the truth.
"I don't know, Malfoy. I think that girl might have died back in April." Her voice was flat, because her anger was already dissipating and being replaced by a familiar numbness. "On the floor of your drawing room."
Malfoy's eyes flickered uncertainly and his sneering expression started to morph into something else, but Hermione turned on her heel and strode down the corridor before she could see what it was.
A/N: Your kudos, comments, thoughts and constructive feedback are cherished and treasured!