I'm going out for a while / So I can get high with my friends / I will...
I'm going out for a while / Don't wait up 'cause I won't be home
– High, Feeder
"You three, stay here!" McGonagall gestured to the younger students as they reached the bottom of the spiral staircase that led up to her office. "Mr Malfoy, Miss Granger – follow me."
Hermione trudged up the stairs after McGonagall, feeling Malfoy's eyes burning into her back as he followed her. She was still processing the fact that he'd even been at the scene; she hadn't even noticed him until McGonagall had arrived. Come to think of it, she hadn't really noticed much at all. She'd just heard that word, mudblood – and her heart had been in her throat, pounding in her ears, thoughts racing chaotically through her mind, and all her senses had narrowed and sharpened in on the danger – no, not the danger, she knew that now – rather, on the boy that had uttered the word.
She knew now that she'd overreacted. It hadn't been right, what she'd done. But then people shouldn't go throwing the word 'mudblood' around like that. As she climbed the stairs and her heart rate slowed, she found her mind becoming foggier again, felt herself becoming separate from the rest of the world, and welcomed the feeling of numbness that returned to her as a result. It was so much more tolerable than feeling as if her heart was going to explode from her chest.
After they entered McGonagall's office, the headmistress swept behind her desk and sat down in her chair, upright and stiff, as Hermione and Draco stood side by side facing her.
"Out of the two of you, who was at the scene first?" McGonagall's voice was stern and short.
Hermione's heart stuttered up again as she realised she didn't even know the answer.
"I was," Malfoy stated and Hermione both hated and envied the calm in his voice.
"Then Draco, please tell me what happened, from your point of view."
Hermione kept her gaze on a neat pile of parchment on McGonagall's desk as Malfoy described how the two third years had bullied Frederick Flint, about the vile things they had said about his mother. She started to feel a dull sense of regret as she learnt of the context of the young Slytherin's outburst.
"Thank you, Draco," McGonagall said once Malfoy had finished. "And Hermione, what is your version of events?"
Hermione took a deep breath. "I walked around the corner just as Frederick Flint called the Gryffindor boy a mudblood. I just –" How could she explain the jolt of fear she had felt on hearing the word? The rapid narrowing of her senses? "I suppose I overreacted and cast a levitation spell impulsively. Which I understand now I shouldn't have done. And then – you arrived."
McGonagall raised her eyebrows. Hermione wasn't sure if it was a gesture of disbelief, disappointment or confusion. Maybe all three.
"Hermione, I will have to take thirty points from Gryffindor for this."
It sounded so absurd, so juvenile and adolescent, the giving and receiving of house points. So laughable, in fact, that Hermione couldn't help the next words slip out from her mouth, in a flat voice that she was rapidly getting used to hearing from herself: "I couldn't care less."
Malfoy emitted an odd coughing sound that Hermione quickly realised was a stifled laugh. At the same time, McGongall's eyebrows rose higher, something Hermione hadn't thought was possible.
"And we may have to think about your prefectship, Ms Granger."
"Fine," Hermione said dully.
She found her hands fumbling with her prefect badge, unpinning it from her jumper and tossing it lamely onto the desk between her and McGonagall. There was a tense silence as all three of them looked down at the badge as it spun on its pin, the shiny 'P' flashing intermittently in the light.
There was another noise from Malfoy. A snigger that he didn't even attempt to hide this time.
"Miss Granger, am I correct in understanding you are relinquishing your prefect role?"
"I thought you were taking it from me?"
"No. I merely said that we need to think about how you are managing the role. You used a levitation spell combined with a spinning one on a younger student. You know very well that no such magic should be used on any other students, except in the rare circumstances in which one has to defend oneself."
"I was defending myself!" The words burst forth from the irrational, primal part of her mind before she could stop them, and she immediately realised how ridiculous they sounded. She hadn't actually been at risk from Frederick Flint, she hadn't actually been in danger, but she'd reacted as if she'd been in the middle of the Battle of Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake.
McGonagall was silent and still, her gaze flitting between Hermione and Malfoy. Hermione wished someone would say something, just to banish her own stupid words from echoing about the room. Something flickered in McGonagall's eyes, as if she was understanding something.
McGonagall turned to Malfoy. "Thank you for your report of what you witnessed, and your attempt to de-escalate the situation, Draco. Would you mind leaving us now?"
There was another silence, and Hermione sensed Draco still, as if in surprise.
"I can go?" Draco rasped out, his voice suspicious.
"Yes, Draco, you can go." McGonagall's mouth quirked up, as if she were suppressing a smile.
"Right."
As Malfoy turned to leave, Hermione kept her gaze straight ahead but she felt his eyes linger on her for a long, uncomfortable moment before she sensed him move away and heard the door of McGonagall's office open and close.
McGonagall's features softened slightly as she reached down and picked up Hermione's discarded badge from her desk. "Hermione, I would like you to continue being prefect for Gryffindor House if that is something you would like?"
A twinge of regret panged within Hermione as she looked at the badge. A small part of her – the part that meant she continued to get out of bed every morning, to get washed, to go to breakfast in the Great Hall – still cared about being a prefect. "Yes. Okay."
"Hermione," McGonagall said again. There was a gentleness hovering around the edges of McGonagall's normally stern voice, which meant Hermione found it hard to look in her eyes. She kept her gaze down at the desk, focused on the wood's swirling patterns of grain. "I know this year is no doubt going to be hard for you. I'm wondering if you're finding it harder to settle back at school than anticipated? I think it would be a good idea if you saw our school mind-healer."
Hermione's eyes darted back up to McGonagall. A mind-healer? Did McGonagall think her mind was broken in some way?
"I would really like you to go – even just for an initial session." There was a hint of something like pleading in the rise of her voice of McGonagall's voice.
It seemed easier for Hermione to just give in.
"Fine. Okay, Headmistress. I'll go."
When Hermione descended to the corridor at the bottom of the stairs of McGonagall's office, her stomach flipped oddly as she saw Malfoy leaning nonchalantly against the wall opposite, apparently waiting for her.
His eyes flickered down to her reinstated prefect badge and a twitch of a sneer played on his lips. She had no idea what he found so amusing; she never really knew what he was thinking and it was beginning to annoy her. Just like everything else about him.
She kept her face as expressionless as possible and wordlessly turned and walked away from him down the corridor.
To her burgeoning irritation, he pushed himself away from the wall and followed her.
"So, what's with the good-girl-gone-bad thing?" he mocked. "Is that what you're trying to pull off here, along with your prefect badge? 'Cos it's not convincing me."
What the actual fuck was he on about?
"I'm not trying to pull anything off," she spat. She thought again of what had happened with Frederick Flint, trying to make sense of it. "You shouldn't underestimate the power of language. No one should use that word – not after everything that's happened."
"Granger, they're using it because of everything that's happened."
"What?" Hermione quickened her pace, trying to get away from Malfoy and his nonsensical words. "I mean, I know that word is one of your favourites, isn't it? I bet it still just rolls off your tongue whenever you can get away with it –"
Malfoy quickly swung around in front of her and halted abruptly, leaving Hermione no choice but to stop too.
"Granger." His voice was no longer mocking, but hard and serious. "You have no idea, do you? Whilst you and the twat twins were on your camping trip last year, you have no idea what happened at this school, do you?"
Hermione seethed. There were so many things wrong with what he'd just said, she didn't know where to start.
"Don't call them that! And you know as well as I do that last year for us was far from a barrel of laughs, you were there for some of it –"
"Have you noticed your mate Finnigan's clusterfuck of a hand?" Malfoy interrupted her, as if he hadn't heard her at all.
Hermione faltered. "What?" Why was he talking about Seamus?
"That he has a finger missing? Have you noticed?" Malfoy insisted.
"Yes," she answered cautiously. "I assumed he'd got injured during the battle."
Malfoy shook his head, a tight smile – or possibly a grimace – pulling his lips up.
"No, Granger. That wasn't the battle. Maybe you should ask him how he lost his finger. Might give you a new perspective on this shitstorm you've dragged me through."
Then he was turning and striding away from her, which was, ironically, more infuriating than when he had been following her down the corridor.
"Hey! Why don't you tell me if you think it's so important?" she called after him.
He stopped, stood for a moment with his back to her, then turned to face her again, as she walked towards him, closing the gap between them once more. His eyes were hard but he nodded his head shortly, as if conceding, then began talking.
"Last year, one of the many new rules – and believe me there were many – was that we had to refer to Muggleborns as 'mudbloods'– in the corridors, in lessons, in our fucking sleep – otherwise we'd be punished. It became commonplace surprisingly quickly, only took a few weeks for even the Hufflepuffs to stop gagging when they said it. Even your band of Potter arselickers – most of them chose not to fight that particular battle.
"Except, in the autumn term last year, we were given a Muggle Studies essay about the dangers of breeding with Muggles and the undesirability of half-blood offspring. Finnigan refused to use the term 'mudblood' in his essay. He wrote 'Muggleborn' repeatedly instead. He got a detention. Three minutes of Crucio from Marcus Flint. And Finnigan had to write the essay again. Which he did, but he did the same thing – wrote 'Muggleborn' every time he should have written 'mudblood'."
Malfoy rolled his eyes and shook his head disbelievingly, continuing in an agitated tone. "Bloody lion pride. Fucking reckless. So Alecto made it so Finnigan would never be able to write again with that hand – his dominant hand, his then wand hand – she cut his finger off. Was going to cut his hand off but he – quite sensibly, in my opinion – caved. Said the correct term was 'mudblood'. Had to declare you were a mudblood, that Thomas, his best mate, was a mudblood, in front of the whole class."
Malfoy took a deep breath and continued in a more sombre tone. "You could see how much he hated it but it was the only way she wasn't going to cut his whole bloody hand off. Fucked up his casting for a bit too, until he learnt to compensate with his other hand. And he got off lightly. There was a guy at the Ministry that kept saying it, a junior official. He got his tongue cut out."
Malfoy paused to take another breath. "And the younger students – the first years, like Freddie – they were the most frightened of all of us, and the most likely to be influenced. If you were going to get tortured or mutilated for not using a word, you'd start using it too. Until it becomes as natural as breathing. It became so commonplace some people, especially the younger children, forgot it was an insult and saying it became a habit."
Malfoy drew back from her slightly, surveying her with an assessing look, and continued bitterly. "I thought you'd be clever enough to know about shit like brainwashing and indoctrination, Granger."
A feeling had been emerging deep from within Hermione as she'd listened to Malfoy's story: guilt. A twisted, sickening guilt. But she was so sick of feeling guilty, it had been a feeling that had dominated her summer – all through the funerals – suffocating and relentless.
"I – I didn't know. I didn't realise." she said quietly.
"Maybe get your head out of your own arse every now and again and you might. If there's one thing the war taught me, it's that self-righteousness and ignorance are not a good combination, Granger." Malfoy pulled at the strap of his bag, re-adjusting it on his shoulders, and his mouth turned up into a smile – a genuinely amused one this time. "Your hexing was pretty impressive though," he finished, before turning from her once more and sauntering away.
"I heard…Neville Longbottom's screwing…Hannah Abbott," Blaise's words were thick and slow, but then they were on their third spliff, which Blaise was just passing to Theo.
The three boys were lying side by side on the roof of the Divination Tower, staring up at a dark sky. Blaise had suggested they go to the Astronomy Tower but Draco had, of course, vetoed that. He hadn't gone back since that night with Granger.
"Does that make him a…" Draco paused. Talking was taking quite a lot of concentration. "Huffluffuffer?" No, that wasn't quite right. "Hufflepluck…" No, that wasn't right either. "Hufflefucker!" Yes! That was it! "Does that make him a Hufflefucker?"
They all laughed because, really, it was pretty hilarious.
"I get that, I get that!" Blaise declared enthusiastically. 'Hufflepuff fucker. Hufflefucker! You…like, made a rhyme. That's awesome," he finished earnestly.
"Who's a Hufflefusser?" Theo queried.
They were all silent for a moment because none of them could seem to remember, which bothered Draco because they were only just talking about it, weren't they? Merlin, this shit must be strong. They'd bought it from Zacharius Smith who'd bought it from Susan Bones who'd got it from Hannah Abbott who'd been gifted some from Neville Longbottom.
"Longblossoms!" Draco exclaimed. And then burst out laughing at his error. The others joined in, although Draco wasn't sure if they knew what they were laughing about. "I mean…Lommsbotts…" More laughter. Concentrate, Draco. "Long…bottom…Longbottom!"
"What about him?"
'He's the Huffleplucker…fucker…"
Oh. Whatever.
Longbottom – apparently he was growing cannabis in a corner of a greenhouse somewhere, telling Sprout it was a private Herbology project he was working on, and Seamus Finnigan was helping him with the business side of things. They couldn't deal with them directly of course, which is why they had to go through the ridiculously long trading route they had.
"Long…bottom seems to be…finally…growing a pair." Draco remarked as Theo passed the spliff to him.
"Think that happened with the…" Theo paused at such length Draco thought he wasn't going to continue, but then he finally concluded: "The huge fucking snake and sword thing…"
"Hmm...Longbottom's pair...and sword…" It seemed Blaise's mind was going down a familiar path, which induced more laughter from Draco and Theo.
"It was a turn of…a turn of phrase…" Draco managed. "Words are so….hard…right now." And he laughed a little more, although he wasn't sure why. Maybe because it was quite funny, how ridiculously hard it was to form simple sentences.
"Words are…fuckng awesome…" Theo opined, with a hint of wonder in his voice. "How they…make sense…or don't make sense…the power of language…"
The power of language...an image flashed across Draco's mind from earlier that day: indignant eyes, pouting pink lips, flushed cheeks.
"Granger…" The word tumbled quietly from his lips before he could stop it.
"What…about her?" Theo asked, much to Draco's chagrin – he'd hoped they hadn't heard him.
Draco would normally have changed the subject but his thinking was so much slower than normal and the cannabis had all but dismantled his mental walls. The conversation he'd had with Granger after she'd emerged from McGonagall's office was replaying in his mind.
"Mudblood." Again, the word was out before he could stop it. Shit.
He sensed Theo instantly tense up by his side, and scrambled about in his mind for something coherent to follow the loaded word up with – to explain what he meant.
"Draco - no!" Blaise admonished in a childlike tone, jostling and poking at his arm. "That's...bad!"
"No. No! That's not what I meant…" Draco summoned all his mental energy to think coherently. "Today – some third years were being total shits to Freddie Flint. He ended up calling one of them a mudblood, just as Granger rocked up. She went absolutely batshit."
"Of course she did. She's Granger...all indignant and self-righteous." Blaise limply flailed his arms about in a poor attempt to emphasise his point.
"Well...she probably has a right to be indignant about that stuff. Her out of everyone. After everything that's happened." Theo's words were so quiet, Draco only just heard him. And he partly wished he hadn't because that familiar, distasteful feeling was roiling his gut again – a feeling that he habitually pushed away before he had to think about it too much.
"No, I mean really quite batshit," Draco insisted. "She levitated Freddie Flint, tipped him upside down and started spinning him. I mean, it was pretty impressive in a way…"
"So, what's the problem?" Theo asked gently. Draco could feel him looking askance at him.
'It's just not…her...it's not Granger," Draco feebly attempted to explain. He didn't go on; it was hard enough to explain when he wasn't stoned out of his mind.
It just...wasn't right, how Granger had been since the beginning of term. For some reason, it was really getting under his skin, how the light had died from her eyes. That's why he always had an urge to rile her – just to see that light flicker on again – like that time she was underneath him in the Astronomy Tower...even today, after she emerged from McGonagall's office, he'd wanted to make her understand about last year, but he'd also wanted more. He'd kept looking a her lips and had had the urge to reach out and...grasp the back of her ridiculous hair...push her up against the wall and…he wondered what kind of noises she might make if he –
"Draco mate, is that a wand in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?" Blaise's mocking voice tore through Draco's thoughts, and he turned to see Blaise looking pointedly down at the top of Draco's trousers.
"Shit," Draco mumbled, scrambling up into a sitting position.
Woah – head rush. Blaise and Theo both burst out laughing.
"Is that hard-on from the chat about Longbottom's sword?" Blaise asked as Draco tentatively got to his feet – he needed to get out of there.
"Or on behalf of Granger?" Theo asked, his voice quiet and serious.
"Neither, for fuck's sake…I'm going to get some food."
"Of course. Food," Theo said as Draco walked towards the stairs of the Tower.
"Enjoy your wank!" Blaise called after him, and as Draco started to descend down the stairs, he heard him say in a quieter tone to Theo, "Food does actually sound like an amazing idea…"
A/N:
As always, huge thanks to Frumpologist and scullymurphy for being amazing alphabetas!
Readers of my fic 'The Hardest Battles' will recognise the incident of Seamus' finger mutilation. 'The Hardest Battles' is my story of what happened at Hogwarts during the Deathly Hallows. 'Atonement' is not a sequel as such (as I've changed some relationship dynamics) but some things that happened in 'The Hardest Battles' are my 'head canon' for 'Atonement' too. If you want to read the scene regarding Seamus, from Theo's POV, it's the second scene in chapter 25 of 'the Hardest Battles', and will mostly make sense on it's own (I think!). But of course, reading that, or any of 'The Hardest Battles', is not necessary to understand 'Atonement' - they both stand on their own.
Also, credit to MotherofBulls and her fic 'The Year Neville Broke Bad' which inspired the last section of this chapter. If you haven't read it, you should - it's comedy gold!
Your comments, thoughts and constructive feedback are cherished and treasured!