Ch. 4 Rush
A/N:
Trigger warning: references to attempted suicide, but not a depiction of it.
The first half of this chapter is exposition about Hermione and her summer, but bear with it - there's some lovely Dramione action in the second half!
Huge thanks to Frumpologist and scullymurphy for being amazingly encouraging alphabetas.
'Crash and burn / All the stars explode tonight / How'd you get so desperate? / How'd you stay alive? ...
Get well soon / Please don't go any higher / How are you so burnt / When you're barely on fire?'
- Malibu, Hole.
What's happened to you?
Malfoy's words echoed repeatedly around Hermione's head as she navigated through her first week of term.
She pondered them as she went through the motions of getting up, showering and dressing every morning – she carried out the actions so automatically that she often felt oddly separate from her body; from her skin that burned with the heat of the shower water, or the hand that ran a comb through her unruly hair.
Malfoy was right – something had happened. But it hadn't been a single, momentous event. It had been a multitude of small occurrences that had gradually shifted and changed things within her, without her really being aware of them, like an insidious, malicious poison.
As she sat in lessons, listening to the teachers' introductions to the year's curriculum, hearing them through a now familiar mental glass wall, Hermione thought back on the events of the summer.
Things had been fine after the Battle. Along with everyone around her, she had revelled in the jubilation, joy and exhilaration of Voldemort's fall. Her heart had soared with relief that Harry, Ron and her other friends had made it through the war alive.
But then the funerals had started. And it had seemed as if they were never ending, a relentless stream of grief and sorrow and loss. She had started to feel tired – emotionally exhausted from witnessing the suffering of others, and from feeling the pain of it all herself. Until it seemed as if her feelings had started to dry up, as did her tears. She hadn't thought that could happen – that her tears could dry up like a river bed in a drought.
Embracing the encroaching numbness had seemed to be the only bearable thing to do. She'd had no strength left to fight it and so she'd let it wash over her like an anaesthetising wave.
Should she have done anything different? She thought to herself as she wandered through the corridors, absent-mindedly following her peers to their next venue – another classroom, the Great Hall for lunch, the library. Was there something else she should have done, which meant she would have coped better?
She'd known she probably needed to talk to someone about it all, and she'd tried. She'd tried talking to Ron. But he'd been coping with his own demons; his grief for Fred had hung about him like a heavy load. When she'd attempt to talk to him, he'd remain steely and quiet and would withdraw to walk the fields and fens surrounding the Burrow.
Hermione felt that forcing him to talk was akin to depriving him of his own way of coping, and she couldn't bear to exacerbate his suffering – there was far too much of it already – so she squashed her feelings away. But it had caused a rift between them. She had felt so close to him during the Battle, with the threat that death could irrevocably separate them at any moment, but his repeated solitary walks over the first few weeks of summer and his impenetrable quiet had widened an ever-growing gap between them.
In the rare occurrences when Hermione was alone during the first week of term – in a quiet corner of the library, or just before going to sleep – she would think of her parents.
She'd found them in Australia – Ron and Harry had come with her – but the reverse-Obliviate hadn't worked. With a sense of urgency and despair, she'd sought permission to perform an Imperio on both of them, so that she could take them home to St Mungo's where the best mind-healers worked and studied. As she'd taken away their autonomy, the guilt she'd felt at having interfered with their memories in the first place multiplied like a dark Gemini curse.
The mind-healers had offered a tentative hope. The memories of her were still in her parents' minds apparently, buried deep, it was just that their conscious minds were not aware of them. The most helpful strategy, Hermione had been told, was for her parents to be immersed in familiar contexts – contexts that related to her and their lost recollections.
Hence, the healers performed several 'suggestion charms' on her parents. Subsequently, the Grangers 'decided' to move back to their home in Hertfordshire and take a lodger who needed somewhere to stay between college and university – a polite, bookish young woman called Hermione.
And so, about half-way through the summer, Hermione moved back to her childhood home, to share the house with parents who looked at her like she was a stranger. By the end of the summer disappointment had wrenched at Hermione's heart, because she hadn't stopped being anything else to her parents but a young woman preparing to go to university.
It had been one of the reasons she'd decided to go back to Hogwarts – it was a relief to have an excuse to escape the curious looks her parents sent her way when they thought she wasn't looking, and the furtive, whispered conversations: "She's an odd girl, isn't she? Sometimes she looks at me as if she knows something I don't – as if she's staring right through to my soul," she'd over heard her mother saying once.
"Oh Helen, that's a little dramatic," her father had replied affectionately. "She'll be gone soon anyway and we can get back to normal, so no need to worry...I'm not sure why we decided to take a lodger in the first place..." her father had replied.
Their words had felt like a punch in the gut.
But when Hermione thought seriously about returning to Hogwarts, the idea seemed intolerable – to study in a place she'd seen her friends die in a myriad of painful ways. But she really did want to take her NEWTs – that, and regaining her parents' memories, seemed to be the only two things she had any motivation for.
Halfway through the summer, she'd met with McGonagall in a quiet café on Diagon Alley and asked if she could take her exams at the end of the academic year, without having to live or study within the castle walls.
The new headmistress had smiled at her sadly. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I don't think I can allow that. We really need all students to attend the relevant lessons...and it wouldn't look good if you were seen to be given special treatment, you see…"
McGonagall had then pulled from her handbag a small, shiny badge with the letter 'P' embossed on it and passed it to Hermione as if it were some kind of compensation. Hermione didn't know if she wanted it. The burden of the responsibility of being a Prefect added to the weight of multiple losses, and the combined load felt like it might crush her.
"There was serious consideration about making you Head Girl –"
"It's fine – I don't want –"
"But the students that were at school last year – they went through so much, you know – they did so much for the school when it was under attack from within." McGonagall's eyes glistened and her lips trembled. It was disarming – witnessing the normally stoic woman display such emotion. "It felt right for those that had lived through the last year of Hogwarts to be made Head Boy and Girl."
"Of course," Hermione replied flatly, and only half listened whilst McGonagall explained how Neville Longbottom and Padma Patil would be taking up the roles.
In earlier years, she would have felt disappointment and self-doubt at not having been granted the title of Head Girl, but now she just felt relief.
And so she'd had no choice, really, but to return to Hogwarts. When Ron had decided that he was, instead, going to take up the offer of a fast-track Auror training programme and not return, Hermione had suggested they end things. Their relationship was already fragile, and she just hadn't thought it could survive the distance. The passion she'd felt towards him up until the end of the war had half-heartedly ebbed and flowed over the summer until it was struggling to survive at all.
When she'd told him and seen the hurt and pain in his eyes, she'd hated herself, knowing she was the cause of it.
"Is it because I left?" he'd said, his tone both defiant and regretful. "You can't forgive me, can you?"
It had taken her a moment to understand what he'd meant, but then an image had come to her: of her screaming his name as he strode away into the dark of a forest.
"What? No! It's not that," she'd protested. "You know I've forgiven you that…"
But his look of betrayal and confusion had remained, right until the day she'd left the Burrow to go and live with her parents.
By the time she was unpacking her belongings in the bedroom of her childhood, which had been stripped of her old books and toys to look like the neutral room of a lodger, she'd felt as if she'd been bled dry of emotions.
Unintentionally, she'd lost herself in the Muggle world for those last few weeks before she returned to Hogwarts. One day she'd been walking back from the library, her arms full of poetry books and novels that she'd used to read and discuss with her mother – she'd thought that maybe she could initiate some conversation with her about them, that maybe it might dislodge a nugget of a memory in her mother's mind – when she bumped into an old friend from her primary school – Felicity Fairweather.
The ten-year-old Felicity had been popular, charming and cheerful, as her name implied. She'd never been one to name call and had occasionally tried to divert the teasing if it'd become too vitriolic, often giving Hermione a sympathetic smile as she'd yet again been left in tears by the ignorant cruelness of prepubescent girls.
Felicity went on to invite her out for some drinks that evening and so that was how, as the sun set over the Chiltern Hills, Hermione found herself sitting in the beer garden of a Muggle pub and talking to one of Felicity's friends about Russian literature. He was a few years older than Hermione, had a pleasant face and kind eyes and when she was alone with him later in the evening and he'd leant forward to kiss her, she'd let him. A week or so later, they'd had sex and Hermione had managed to get lost in it.
She'd seen him frequently after that, their meetings usually accompanied by the consumption of an unnecessary amount of alcohol. She'd learnt a lot from him – about herself, her body, about men's bodies, her likes and dislikes – but she always maintained that she didn't want to continue their relationship after she went to 'university' in September.
The physical sensations were all she felt. For those few weeks before returning to Hogwarts, she'd rode her numbness out on a crest of alcohol and sex and, when the latter two were gone, she was left with nothing again.
Those weeks in the Muggle world had been like an escape to another universe, or another life, and when they'd come to an end, Hermione had to turn back to the broken world she'd managed to temporarily escape.
She'd known she couldn't avoid it forever – being a witch was an inherent part of her, it was woven through her soul, and she could not not deny that essential part of herself. So she faced the magical world again, even though it felt desecrated and sullied and it was hard to see how the fragments the war had left behind would ever fit together again.
So when she returned to Hogwarts for her eighth year, all she felt was an ever-present numbness, a surreal indifference, and a very occasional, half-hearted fluttering of irritation and anxiety.
So it was quite interesting that, by her first day of lessons, despite all the potential triggers in seeing and sleeping in the castle for the first time, it had been Draco Malfoy that had managed to ignite any feelings in her at all.
Hermione stood on the parapets of the Astronomy Tower, her left arm looped around a column next to her in order to keep her steady as she gingerly leant forward, peering into the darkness below. There were normally protective charms in place to stop students doing what she was doing now, but she'd easily disabled them.
It was late on the first Saturday night of the school year and so the darkness was thick, although the lights from the windows of the Tower gave off a subdued glow, giving her a dim view of the cobbled courtyard which lay metres below at the foot of the Tower.
She wondered how long it would take for her body to hit the ground. What sound it would make if it were to collide with the stone. How many bones would crush. Whether her limbs would stick out at grotesque angles like Dumbledore's had.
It was the photos that had made her bolt from the Gryffindor Common Room moments before. They'd been Parvati's idea and, rationally, Hermione had known it was a lovely one. To hang up photos of the ones that were lost, inside beautiful frames and in a pretty arrangement, just above the fireplace in the Common Room. Pictures of Lavender, of Colin and Fred. Of three other Gryffindors that had been victims of Tom Riddle's relentless persecution.
They'd sipped on Butterbeer as they surveyed the rich collection of Colin's old photos that Dennis and the Creeveys had bequeathed them. There was one of Parvati and Lavender, their arms slung comfortably around each other's shoulders, laughing delightedly at a long-forgotten joke, probably taken in their sixth year. Hermione was in some of the pictures: bent over Colin's shoulder at the Common Room table in one, helping him with his homework. She hadn't remembered it being taken. And in another, with Fred and George, rolling her eyes as a bolt of fire flew over her head from one of the twins' practical jokes.
Initially, there'd been a jovial atmosphere as they'd hung up the photos, with everyone else joining in, performing levitation and fixing charms, debating amicably on the pictures' arrangements. But Hermione had hovered on the periphery of the group, unable to be buoyant when all she could see was a gaping red gash in Lavender's neck, Colin's body looking so tiny in death, the light dying from Fred's eyes...
When the pictures were finally in place, they lit the candles that Parvati had arranged on the mantelpiece. One for each of the fallen.
"They're magicked to never go out, as long as the person it's burning for is remembered by the living," Parvati had explained.
Each one had a small motif emblazoned on the side, indicating who it represented: a camera on one, a toilet seat on another, a sprig of lilac flowers...
When all the candles were burning brightly, the group had taken several steps back from the fireplace, surveying their work. The atmosphere had changed then – they'd become subdued and thoughtful, the air between them laden with a thousand lost memories.
"It's her laugh," Seamus had said solemnly into the silence. "I really miss her laugh."
His voice had broken then and he'd held up his hand to hide his face as Dean unhesitatingly stepped beside him, wrapping his arm around his friend's shoulder and squeezing him to him. Something had clenched at Hermione's heart and she'd unwittingly taken a step backwards, increasing the distance between herself and the group of mourners.
Then Ginny, with tears swimming in her eyes, had murmured something about Fred that Hermione couldn't hear, and Harry had pulled her to him and kissed her tenderly on the forehead.
"He was too fucking young to die," Neville had said softly, his eyes trained on a photo of Colin, and Hermione remembered how it had been Neville and Oliver Wood that had found his body.
The sadness, grief and loss that permeated the room should have felt suffocating. But Hermione hadn't felt any of it. She knew that there must be something wrong with her – to be enveloped in this numbness. The difference she felt between herself and her fellow housemates had intensified; it felt as if there was a gulf between them that could never be breached. She felt even more alone.
Then she hadn't been able to stand it anymore – she'd run from the room, the Fat Lady a blur in her peripheral vision, a concerned call from Ginny faint in her ears – and had hurried through the castle's corridors. She'd found her feet taking her to the Astronomy Tower; she'd always been drawn to the wide expanse of stars that could be viewed from it.
When she'd ascended the Tower, she'd edged closer to the battlements and stepped up onto the low wall, grabbing hold of a nearby column for balance with her left hand, whilst holding her wand tightly in her right. She'd swayed dizzyingly at the seemingly infinite space in front of her, and a surge of adrenaline had flooded her veins. It was a feeling she hadn't experienced for what felt like an age – and it was such a welcome relief from the dull, chronic ache of numbness. It was that which gave her the idea – to launch herself off the battlements and descend through the air so she could at least feel something…and stop herself with an Arresto Memento just before she hit the ground.
She raised her wand arm ready, lifted her right foot off the parapet, exhilarated by the feel of it hovering in nothingness, loosened her grip on the column, bent her left knee ready to propel herself off –
"What the fuck?!" a voice cried out from behind her.
There was a sudden scuffle of feet and a strong arm around her waist, pulling her violently off and away from the battlement walls. She fell onto the Tower's floor, landing painfully on her back. The impact was such that her wand escaped her grasp – she heard it clatter away from her across the stones. There was a blur of blond hair in her eye-line; the silver and green of a school tie flew in front of her face –
It was the remains of the butterbeer, the remnant adrenaline, and the panic induced from the loss of her wand which meant her fight and flight instinct dominated – she frantically lashed out with her arms and kicked with her legs, managing to strike the attacker hard over the head –
"Oww! Shit, that hurt! Calm down, Granger! What the actual fuck?!"
– and her wrists were suddenly pinned either side of her head by his hands, and she was lying on her back on the floor of the Astronomy Tower with Draco Malfoy on top of her. Her eyes focused on his – storm grey now in the dark of the night – and they stilled her.
She rationalised that he was physically stronger than her and she didn't have a wand, so she gave up the fight. The physical sparring, but not the verbal one.
"Get the fuck off me!"
"No." His voice was firm, although his arms were trembling slightly, and she noticed sweat glistening on his forehead. He was scowling down at her, his face flushed. He's pissed off, she surmised. Again. When is he ever not pissed off with her? It must take quite a bit of energy to hate like Draco Malfoy hates her, she thought idly.
"Malfoy. Let. Me. Go." She spat the words out fiercely.
"So you can try and top yourself again?" he sneered.
"What?! No!" Her voice rose; she was losing her fight with her own fury. "I wasn't trying to kill myself, you dickwad!"
"Pretty much looked like it from where I was standing."
His face loomed inches above hers, so close that the hair that was falling down from his head tickled her forehead. She could smell firewhiskey on his breath. It seemed that the Gryffindors weren't the only ones that were celebrating a Saturday night then. Although she doubted the Slytherins would be conducting a memorial to the dead.
Hermione rolled her eyes in frustration and squirmed under Malfoy, trying to see if there was a weak spot she could take advantage of, to make her escape. But he just tightened his grip and increased the weight of his body on hers. Despite the fact that she desperately wanted to get out of the situation, she had to admit that there was something about being held – having a warm, solid body holding her down – that felt oddly containing – comforting even.
"I wasn't trying to kill myself," she repeated. "Why do you care, anyway?"
Something flickered in his eyes, so quickly she couldn't read it.
"I don't care," he replied bitterly. "But I really don't want to be found at the top of the Astronomy Tower with a dead body at the bottom of it."
"Yeah, I can see how that would look suspicious if it happened a second time."
"Exactly," he replied unhesitatingly, seemingly unfazed by her acidic tone. "So what were you up to, if not doing the world a favour by ridding it of your mardy face?" His eyes flicked up to where his hands were holding down her arms. "In order for me to let you go, you need to convince me that you're not going to hurt yourself."
Hermione sighed.
"I was just…looking for an adrenaline rush," she explained sheepishly; she knew that her real explanation was going to sound almost as crazy as attempted suicide.
"What?" he spat, scowling in confusion.
"I was going to jump off the Tower but stop myself from hitting the ground with an Arresto Momentum...for the…rush," she finished weakly.
He gazed down at her intently. She could almost hear his mind processing this new information – recalibrating and adjusting his perceptions and beliefs.
"That's crazy. And reckless," was his conclusion, said with a mixture of disdain and incredulity.
She shrugged. "Do not overestimate how many fucks I give about what you think Draco Malfoy."
His lips quirked up at one corner, and in the silence that followed she couldn't help but wonder what that tiny movement meant. His eyes flitted between hers as if searching for something, before he leaned down and brought his mouth to her ear.
"The Gryffindor in you hasn't completely died then," he hissed, causing the hairs on her neck to stand on end and a shiver to prickle at her spine.
Alarmingly, the sensations were pleasant rather than uncomfortable, and she found herself inhaling sharply.
She was suddenly much more aware of his body lying over hers, warm and strong. One of his legs was resting in between hers, his right hip pressing into her lower abdomen. For some inexplicable reason, she felt the heat of a blush warm her cheeks. His eyes drifted over her face, and she knew he'd noticed it. His lips did that annoying quirking thing again, and she battled to keep her expression as indifferent as possible.
"'What are you doing here, anyway?" she asked, trying to shift the focus away from herself.
His eyes became guarded, and his annoying mouth turned down, which Hermione found rather satisfying. "I came here to… think…" His eyes flitted around her face, as if distracted. "I didn't expect to see some crazy cat about to jump into oblivion."
"Well, now you know I wasn't trying to top myself, are you going to let me go?" She squirmed under him again and pushed her wrists up against his restraining hands.
His lips curled up into a half-smile. "Maybe… you're quite the wriggler, aren't you?"
She wondered if he was trying to intimidate her. "You don't scare me, Malfoy. You never have."
She arched her back and pushed her hips up into him in an attempt to make him move. If he just angled the other way –
"I know. Pity," he said regretfully, which caused a renewed round of contempt to spark in her.
Then she felt it – him – against the top of her left thigh - him growing harder. She was horrified and repulsed, but those feelings were smothered somewhat by a pleasurable warmth that spread through her. She blamed the remaining butterbeer and the lingering adrenaline for the way her body betrayed her – for the rush of wet heat she felt between her own legs.
They held each other's gazes, both knowing that the other was aware of the growing bulge between them.
"You're sick," she said eventually, trying to make her voice as contemptuous as possible, but it was frustratingly unconvincing.
He chuckled shamelessly.
"Don't flatter yourself, Granger. The vibrations of a broomstick can send it off."
Hermione tried to look as disdainful as possible. She felt a renewed urge to get away from him, and became acutely aware of the lack of her wand in her hand. The reminder of the loss of it sent a jolt of anxiety searing through her. Her thoughts raced through various options.
In an attempt to pass countless empty hours whilst searching for Horcruxes, and because they'd all thought it might have been useful one day, Harry had taught her and Ron Muggle fighting. In case they ever lost their wands, he'd reasoned – 'it's better to have some back up than nothing at all'. Harry had become well-practised at Muggle fighting during his summer holidays, defending himself from his cousin and his minions. Hermione had, as ever, been a conscientious student; she'd bruised Ron's ribs on one occasion and had given Harry a black eye on another. Unintentionally, of course.
Malfoy moved to his right slightly – it was the best chance she'd had so far – the angle was much better. Aim for the eyes or the groin – the soft, vulnerable parts, she heard Harry's voice in her mind. Well, the eyes were out, so she launched her left knee up, aiming it right between Malfoy's legs.
"Ahhhh!" He instantly released her wrists and sprung away from her, leaning back on his heels, caressing his groin. Her knee had obviously made its target. "You fucking bitch!"
"I asked you to let me go. Twice," her tone was unapologetic, as she inelegantly crawled away from him, scrambling for her wand.
Her hand gratefully grasped around it and she felt a flood of relief, only then realising how anxious she'd been without it. She pulled herself to her feet, straightened her shoulders defiantly, and headed to the stairs. She had nothing more to say to Malfoy.
"Nice one, Granger," Malfoy retorted bitterly before she started to make her descent.
She turned back to look at him. He was on his feet too, his face flushed and chest rising and falling as he took in quick breaths, his hands trembling slightly. The sight of him reminded her of herself when she started to panic. Her knee-in-the-groin must have been more painful than she thought, she surmised uncomfortably.
But she pushed the thought away and instead clung onto the anger she felt at being restrained by him for so long, at how this boy had made her feel in the past: of how he'd wished her dead when the Chamber had been opened, the countless 'mudbloods' that he'd flung her way throughout their years at school, of how he'd apparently gloated and glowed when he'd had the Dark Mark burnt into his arm. It was, Hermione had learnt, so much easier to feel anger than guilt.
"Enjoy your thinking space," she couldn't help but say, her words caustic. "There are such happy memories for me here. I can't come here without remembering how I dodged three killing curses on those stairs – one cast by your own father, incidentally. Of how I would have died if it wasn't for liquid luck. Of how Fenrir Greyback slashed Bill Weasley's face open. Of Dumbledore falling to his death. Oh, and we have you to thank for that, don't we? Because you spent a whole fucking year working out how to let a load of Death Eaters in to the school. Nice one, Malfoy," she echoed his sarcasm before turning away and stomping down the stairs.
A/N: Your comments, thoughts and constructive feedback are cherished and treasured!