Ch. 22 Atonement
A/N: Warning: dark themes are mentioned and alluded to in this chapter, including torture and rape.
Hold onto your hats friends, this chapter's a biggie! 😁
I want to hold the hand inside you / I want to take the breath that's true / I look to you and I see nothing / I look to you to see the truth / You live your life, you go in shadows / You'll come apart and you'll go black / Some kind of night into your darkness / Colours your eyes with what's not there / Fade into you / Strange you never knew / Fade into you / I think it's strange you never knew
Mazzy Star, Fade into You
Malfoy finally messaged Hermione, two days before the deadline for the fourth task, suggesting they meet at the entrance to the kitchens at eleven at night to carry it out. She was so relieved to hear from him after nearly two weeks of silence, she didn't question it, didn't ask for more details about what he had in mind, and just replied to say that she would see him there.
She wrapped her robes more tightly about her as she made her way down the stairs to the kitchens. Although the days were getting milder, it was still chilly this late at night, especially in the basement corridors.
Malfoy was waiting for her at the entrance to the kitchens. He gave her a polite smile and greeted her with a neutral "Hi", before knocking on the small, arched wooden door. Hermione assumed that he was going to ignore what had happened in the dusty store cupboard after her panic attack, and she thought that maybe it would be simpler to go along with that. For now, at least.
The door was opened by an amiable house elf, who greeted Malfoy with a short bow before hobbling away out of the kitchen and towards the elves' sleeping quarters.
"Did you bribe the house elves to let us in?" Hermione asked suspiciously.
"Nope. They were more than happy for me to make use of the kitchen without bribes. They consider me their friend, you see." Malfoy strode towards the enormous hearth and cast an Incendio, causing the fireplace to burst into bright orange flames.
"Their friend?"
"Yep. Spent a lot of time nipping in here and getting food over the years," Malfoy started to sort out various equipment and crockery on one of the vast workbenches – measuring scales, mixing bowls, a cake tin. "That's the advantage of our common room being so close. Not as close as the Hufflepuffs, but still."
"Right." Hermione came up alongside him. "And what are we making?"
Malfoy turned and grinned at her. "Your favourite. Chocolate cake."
She couldn't help but smile. "You remembered?"
"Of course I remembered!"
"And erm...how do you know how to do this?" she asked sceptically, eyeing the ingredients that Malfoy was pulling out of a bag: sugar, flour, eggs, delicious-looking dark chocolate...
"Well...the task did instruct that we do this together, so I was very much hoping for your help," Malfoy said uncertainly, scrambling about in his pocket for something. "Where is…? Oh, here we go." He pulled out a piece of parchment, unfolded it and placed it on the bench between them.
Cissa's Luxury Chocolate Cake, Hermione read at the top of the parchment.
"Your mum's recipe?"
"Hmm-mm," he confirmed, holding the eggs up in turn and narrowing his eyes as if inspecting them, before placing them on the workbench and moving them about into two groups. "Do you think she meant to 'separate the eggs' by size or colour, or something else? Cos they all look the same to me."
Hermione couldn't help let a giggle escape her. "It means separate the whites of the eggs from the yolk inside. Here. Shall I show you?"
Malfoy looked relieved. "Okay." Hermione took the bowl and cracked an egg, separating its insides as her mum had shown her many times in the past. "I'm not the best at it but that will do. Want to try?"
"Erm, maybe you do those and I'll weigh out the flour and sugar. I can handle that. It's like weighing out potion ingredients, right?"
"Right."
They worked together in silence for a few moments, their arms occasionally brushing against each other, which was really rather distracting for Hermione – she had desperately missed and craved Malfoy's touch over the last two weeks.
"Good work, Granger," Malfoy said, nodding approvingly at the separated eggs, before frowning down at his mother's instructions again.
"How the hell are you meant to fold in the eggs? They're liquid? Does this involve a charm or something?
Hermione grinned again, finding Malfoy's culinary ignorance quite endearing.
"It just means do this instead of stirring," she said, demonstrating. "It means the consistency of the cake will be lighter and fluffier."
"Right." Malfoy nodded, then said a little sulkily. "But I learnt a specific baking charm for this, a stirring one."
"Oh. I don't think you'd use that for this recipe." He looked disheartened. "Sorry. Maybe we – you can make something else one day and use it for that."
"Maybe," Malfoy said, unconvinced.
"Bet this isn't as good as my dad's. He makes – made – the best chocolate cake," Hermione commented, proceeding to pour the cake mixture into the tin that Malfoy had brought.
Malfoy's eyes flickered to her. There was something hesitant about his expression. "You said – on the night of the Ball – you said you'd obliviated their memories? Your parents'?"
Hermione's heart skipped at the question, but she found that, actually, she had no qualms discussing her parents with Malfoy. Not anymore.
"Yes. I thought that would be best, to keep them safe," she explained as Malfoy took the now full cake tin and carried it to the huge aga that stood to the left of the fireplace. She followed him absent-mindedly. "Along with giving them a strong inclination to go and live halfway round the world."
He opened one of the aga doors with one hand, and turned to her before placing the tin in the oven, looking at her thoughtfully. "That must have been hard."
She shrugged. "No harder than a lot of other things we – people had to do last year."
Malfoy's expression was closed, difficult to read. "Hmm," was all he said before turning, bending down and placing the tin into the oven. "Should take about twenty minutes," he said, before closing the door with finality.
About an hour later, Hermione was sitting in front of the fire beside Malfoy, two plates smeared with the remnants of chocolate cake discarded by their sides. The cake hadn't been as good as her dad's but it had tasted rather lovely nonetheless.
They had proceeded to make small talk whilst the cake had been baking. Then they'd mostly been silent whilst they'd munched down a slice of it. Now Hermione felt she had to voice what had been hanging in the air between them ever since they'd met a couple of hours before.
"So. You're not cross with me anymore?" she began rather clumsily.
Malfoy looked at her, bemused. "Cross?"
"About what happened in the store cupboard, after I had my panic attack?"
He gave her a half smile. "You mean about you lunging at me and wanting to rip my clothes off? I don't think I'd ever be cross about that."
She couldn't help but grin. Months ago she would have thought he was trying to embarrass her with his words; now, she just found him amusing.
"But you were. Cross with me when I did that," she insisted.
He frowned, and looked into the flames of the fire.
"I don't know, Granger. It's like you said at the Reconciliation Ball. It's all a bit fucked up and sometimes I'm just not sure…"
She couldn't help but reach out and place a hand on his thigh, her fingers gently stroking the rough cotton of his trousers. He stilled and looked down at her hand, but otherwise didn't move.
"You think I'm using – have used – you? To try and feel better about stuff…?" she stammered.
He shrugged and continued to gaze into the fire's flames. "You said it yourself: 'I help you forget'".
There was a pressing silence, the crackling of the fire was the only sound.
Instinctively, Hermione started moving, slowly shifting her body to face him. He was quiet and merely watched her as, with deliberate, unhurried movements, she put her arms around his shoulders for balance and straddled him where he sat. His eyes glided slowly up and down her body, before slocking her gaze with his, not objecting, but not embracing her changing position either.
She looked down, biting her lip and fiddling with the hem of his jumper, thinking about how to put her feelings into words. She wanted to choose them carefully. He deserved the truth.
"I suppose that's how I did feel, at the beginning, when we started doing this. It wasn't a conscious choice really – it just felt good to be with you like that, and it was just a blessed relief that for that time, when we were together, I'd – I'd feel something again, something good, and forget about the dark memories that seemed to always follow me around like a shadow… But now, now when I'm with you...I think…" She chanced a glance up at him. His expression was one of puzzlement, but his eyes weren't hostile. The light in them was welcoming enough for her to lean forwards and place a gentle kiss on his lips. He didn't respond at first, but then she felt his lips move ever-so-slightly. It was a barely-there kiss, but it was enough. "Now, I think it's about something else…"
"What? It's about what?" His words were rasped out in a whisper, and she couldn't help but notice the rare hopefulness in his eyes.
"I – I'm not sure," she replied honestly. "But anyway, aren't you just using me too?"
He delicately stroked a strand of hair away from her face, his eyes burrowing into hers as if searching for something. "I – I'm not sure that was ever what this was about for me..." He leaned towards and kissed her firmly.
She wasn't quite sure if she wanted to unravel his words further. That way, danger seemed to lie. So instead she kissed him back. A long, deep kiss. They hadn't quite kissed like that before, that slow and deliberate. For once, they weren't hurrying to get to a place of release, and she wasn't rushing to run away from the demons in her mind. She was with him for the sake of being with him: for the calmness that came from looking into the depths of his irises, for the tingles of pleasure she felt at the touch of his skin.
He undressed her slowly, pausing every now and then to stroke her bare skin – tracing a finger down her arm, then the dips and curves of her waist and stomach, encasing her thighs with his palms… At first she wanted to hurry a little – it was almost habitual to be that way with him – but she forced herself to match his tempo as she unbuttoned his shirt with trembling hands, and he moved her so she was lying on her back on the rug by the hearth, with him leaning over her.
The heat from the fire, and the feel of his fingers – sweeping down to bury themselves in the wet softness between her legs – made her body flush and her muscles loose and slack. She relaxed back into the rug, as he dipped his fingers in and out of her, his eyes wandering up and down her body as she squirmed and whimpered under him.
His gaze was intense. She'd never felt the object of such undivided attention by anyone before, as if she were precious, rare, special. She didn't know what that look meant but she refused to run from it like she might have done before – by grabbing hold of his hardening cock and starting to pump it, for instance, so they'd both get lost in seeking his release. Instead, she managed to hold his gaze, and return his delicate, exploratory touches. She allowed him to move her legs and wrap them around his waist, as his fingers continued to sink in and out of her and an exquisite tension built in her core, a tension her body was too relaxed to fight for long. Her cry as she came was loud in the quiet of the kitchen, her legs shuddering involuntarily where they encased his waist.
She saw his lips curl up – a small smile of triumph – before he leant down and kissed her, deep and warm and slow again. He positioned himself so he was right at her entrance and fixed his gaze on her, asking permission. She nodded – agreeing – wanting. Then he thrust forward and filled her in one delicious movement, letting out a primal grunt as he did so. She gasped his name as he moved methodically, torturously slowly inside her, tightened her legs around his waist and scratched her nails down his back. She arched into the touch of him, tightening her hold on his shoulders and pulling him closer. Her body craved him. It wanted more. It always, always wanted more of him...
A little later, Hermione was stretched out on the rug in front of the hearth, her clothes in a crumpled heap by her side, with her head lying in Malfoy's lap. Her bones felt heavy; she felt a deep sense of relaxation she hadn't felt in a long time, and knew that it was due in part to the boy – young man, rather – who was currently stroking her hair with gentle, lulling movements.
Despite her sense of relaxation, her mind quickly returned to its typical busyness and started flitting over the events of the last week.
"Luna said you helped her last year," she said into the quiet. She felt his fingers still.
"Luna Lovegood?"
"Yes. When she was held captive in your cellar. She said you smuggled her a charmed blanket and told her news of her father."
"It was nothing." His voice was hard and dismissive. "Nothing compared to how shit her situation was." She felt his fingers continue their gentle stroking.
"It wasn't nothing. It was definitely something," Hermione objected.
She heard him make a non-committal noise and felt his body relax as if the conversation was over.
"Alethea's asked me to come to one of your sessions," he said quietly after a moment's silence. She could tell he was making an effort to make his voice neutral. "Said it would be helpful for you to hear what happened at – in April last year. From someone who was there."
"Yes." She felt a curdling of nausea in her stomach, but it was nowhere near as bad as it would have been if she'd tried to talk to Malfoy about this even just a few weeks ago. "I can't remember a lot, and I really hate not remembering."
"The know-it-all hates not knowing it all. You surprise me." She could hear the smile on his lips.
"I suppose so, yes. I'm trying to work through it all and put it to bed." She lifted her head to look at him. "It's part of my way of dealing with stuff – of not 'fucking the pain away', as you put it." She smiled playfully up at him.
He gave her a strange look then, a look of soft affection, and she realised it was only strange because she had never seen him direct such a look towards her.
He nodded slowly, contemplatively. "Are you sure you want me to come to one of your sessions? I could just give you my memories of the – of that night? "
"Yes, I want you to. I want to hear you tell it, with your own words. If I just watch your memories, that would be – that just wouldn't be the same."
He smiled, and his smile was new to her too: a warm, open smile as if there was nothing he was trying to hide, nothing he was trying to defend against.
"Then of course. Of course I will."
"Okay. Draco, thank you again for coming to this joint session with Hermione," Alethea said. "We're hoping you can help Hermione fill in the gaps of the night of the eighteenth of April, when she and her friends were taken to Malfoy Manor. Hermione can remember up to the point where Harry Potter and Ron Weasley are taken down to the cellar, and then the next event she remembers clearly is waking up at Shell Cottage. Your memories of what happened in between are quite fragmented, aren't they Hermione?" Alethea's kind eyes turned from Malfoy to Hermione.
"Yes," Hermione rasped out the word, realising with frustration that her mouth had become dry. She and Malfoy were sitting on separate chairs, facing Alethea across the low coffee table.
"Hmm. And Hermione, are you ready to hear from Draco more detail of what happened from his perspective? You remember your relaxation strategies if you become anxious? Or we can just stop at any time."
"Yes. Yes, that's all okay." Hermione replied. Her words came out in a rush, from that part of her brain that wished they would all just get on with it.
"And Draco, I wanted to check the same with you. I know we've talked over that evening in our sessions, but you can always stop if it gets too difficult, or put into place some of the techniques that work for you."
Hermione frowned, her head snapping quickly towards Malfoy. It hadn't quite occurred to her that that evening would have been traumatic for him too. That he would need to counter the memories with therapeutic strategies like she did.
"Yes. That's fine," Malfoy replied in a tight voice, not taking his gaze from where it rested at the foot of the table.
"Okay. So Draco, would you like to tell us what happened after Ron and Harry were taken down to the cellar?" Alethea asked gently, cautiously.
Hermione heard Malfoy clear his throat and shuffle about in his chair. When he started to speak, his voice was low and grave. "After Greyback took Potter and Weasley from the room, Bellatrix, she –" Malfoy halted abruptly, causing Hermione to flit her eyes towards him again. Her gaze rested on his hands – he was gnawing at the skin around his thumb, she could see it starting to bleed, his knuckles white. "She dragged Granger into the middle of the room by her hair. I remember Granger looking her right in the eyes, with that defiant look she has – just as Bellatrix cast the first Crucio. Granger fell to her knees, crying out, as Bellatrix screamed at her, demanding to know where they'd found the Sword of Gryffindor.
"In between cries of pain, Granger managed to insist she didn't know anything about the sword. Which just wound Bellatrix up more...she cast another Crucio, then another, all the while carrying out this shrill, mad interrogation... I waited for Granger to cave, to tell her where they'd got the sword. I'd seen it so many times before – the most I've seen someone last under Bellatrix's Crucio's is ten minutes."
Malfoy paused, and when he continued, his voice had a hint of wonder to it. "But Granger didn't cave. Despite the fact the Bellatrix was getting more and more angry, more and more spiteful –"
Malfoy suddenly sprung to his feet, the movement abrupt and agitated, and strode over to the window. Hermione's eyes involuntarily flew to him, but she couldn't see his face – he remained with his back towards her. "I wished she would just fucking tell her. Just so she'd stop fucking screaming," he continued bitterly. "She kept looking at me, you see. Granger. I was standing by the side of the room, and her eyes kept locking onto mine. She was giving me this pleading kind of look, as if pleading for me to not look away, as if I was somehow saving her just by being there. Which is fucking ridiculous."
Malfoy paused, and Hermione saw his shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep, shuddering breath in and out. His arms were straight and stiff by his sides, hands balled into fists.
"After about five minutes, Bellatrix got exasperated. She stopped. Which gave Greyback a chance to come forward. He scuttled across the room and –" Malfoy faltered again, as if the words were stuck, thick and congealing in his throat. "He leant down and – and sniffed her."
"I think I remember that," Hermione couldn't help but interrupt Malfoy. Her instinctive repulsion at the image of Greyback sniffing her was overtaken by the relief at having one of her many memory fragments make sense. "I remember the grease of his hair and – and I think that's what the rancid smell I sometimes remember is." Hermione looked at Alethea, who nodded in acknowledgement.
"Do you remember what he said?" Malfoy's turned his head slightly, although he still wasn't looking at her directly.
"No." Her voice was small, and she hated how vulnerable she sounded.
Malfoy raised his head and looked at Alethea as if asking permission. Hermione saw her give an imperceptible nod. Yes.
Malfoy turned back to the window, his shoulders rising again in another deep inhale. "He threatened to rape you." His voice was hard and resentful. But she knew it wasn't her that he resented.
Hermione was not surprised by this. Rape was commonly used as a weapon of war in the magical as well as Muggle worlds, as Lavender's sad story reflected. Hermione had often thought how grateful she'd been for escaping the war without suffering something similar.
"What – what exactly did Greyback say?" She was not sure why she needed to know, but she knew her imagination – what she could conjure up in her mind – could be worse than the reality.
"'I can smell that she's pure. Let me have her once you're finished with her','' Malfoy quoted. Hermione's stomach flipped threateningly. "Bellatrix ridiculed him, said something like 'you want a dirty mudblood, covered in her own piss and vomit?' –" Malfoy paused abruptly, as if he'd uttered something he hadn't meant to.
"Piss and vomit?" Hermione echoed, barely audibly.
Malfoy kept his head down, and said quietly to the floor. "You'd been sick – just moments before. And – and the Cruciatus Curse – it often makes people lose control of their bladder."
Hermione's face burned at Malfoy's words, but she refused to feel ashamed. At least the fragments of smell – of ammonia and bile – that she sometimes remembered made sense now.
"There was then talk of veritaserum, or legilimency," Malfoy continued hurriedly. "But I don't think they were...physical enough for Bellatrix. That's when she scrambled about in her pocket for her cursed blade, crouched down and started cutting into Granger's arm."
There was another silence. Hermione had no words, no questions to fill it with this time, and Malfoy continued. "So that carried on for a while...Bellatrix with her dagger. But Granger wasn't screaming anymore...she would occasionally let out a strangled yelp, which was the only indication she was still conscious. Then those two – Potter and Weasley – burst into the room. There was a fight. My father was stunned and Bellatrix disarmed, but amongst it all she got hold of Granger and shoved a knife at her throat, which made Potter and Weasley stop. Then...then that elf managed to loosen the chandelier, causing Bellatrix to let go of Granger. It landed on top of her and the goblin though."
"Oh – that's why I remember fragments of glass, and those gleams of light…" Hermione contemplated.
Malfoy was silent for a moment before continuing. "Weasley pulled them both from the wreckage. Then Potter snatched their wands from my hand, threw one at Weasley, who grabbed Granger and disapparated with her." Hermione wondered how Harry had managed to get the wands so easily from Malfoy, but before she could think more on it, Malfoy continued. "Potter followed suit with Dobby, but only after Bellatrix had thrown her dagger at them..."
In the quiet that followed, Alethea looked between Hermione and Draco, her manner unusually tentative. "And Draco, what were you thinking? And feeling? During this time?"
Draco finally turned towards Alethea, and Hermione realised that Alethea already knew the answer to her question – it was something Malfoy and her had likely gone over with in his sessions. The question had been asked for Hermione's benefit only.
"I thought of doing something to stop it. But I'd tried that before, with the other people they'd brought into the drawing room, and I'd promised my mother I wouldn't anymore. V – Voldemort had threatened to – to torture my mother and make me watch the next time I tried anything. At other times he'd threatened to just kill her. So...so I had to just stand there and do fuck all," he finished bitterly.
Malfoy turned and looked at her properly for the first time since they'd been in the room together. His face was contorted in torment and there was something wrong with his eyes – they were glistening oddly. Hermione realised it was the first time she'd seen Draco Malfoy cry.
"You wouldn't stop looking at me," Malfoy continued, his voice anguished. "The whole time Granger. Except when they were squeezed shut in pain or when you'd pass out for a bit. Even when she moved you around, your eyes would search me out again. And I started to mirror it...like you'd tethered me to you in some way. I started to move so that I was always in eye sight of you." He swiped impatiently at a tear on his cheek. "Why did you keep looking?"
Hermione opened her mouth to speak, but no words formed so she closed it again. Because she couldn't remember what Malfoy was recalling – she couldn't remember her eyes seeking him out in that room.
"Draco, would you like a moment?" Alethea asked quietly.
Malfoy took a deep breath in and looked resignedly up at the ceiling before walking to the chair next to Hermione and taking a seat again. He avoided looking at her.
"I'm fine," he mumbled to the floor.
Alethea gave a small smile, before starting to speak. "In a traumatic situation, when one fears for their own life or integrity of the self, the mind does many things to cope in the moment. Our survival instinct kicks in, as you know. I'm wondering if there was something about Hermione looking at you that helped her cope in that situation, Draco. I wonder if your face – your eyes specifically – linked very powerfully to certain memories for Hermione. Memories of Hogwarts, of lessons, of the library, where she felt safe and content and with friends."
"That doesn't make sense. I was horrible to her – I wouldn't have been associated with any good memories for her."
"Yes, but in that room you were the closest thing Hermione had to safety. Or at least, that's what her mind interpreted, in order to cope and to keep lying under torture and protecting those she loved. Also, I wonder if you reminded her of her own strength, and sense of self. I understand that you, Draco, often came off worse in your sparring during your earlier years at Hogwarts."
"So that's why she kept looking? Because I reminded her of safety? Of her own strength?" Draco asked, scornful and disbelieving.
Alethea gave a non-committal wobble of her head. "It's a theory of mine. Not based on a lot of evidence, I'll admit. Although there are some cases that support the argument that eye contact between magical kind, between witches or wizards that share some kind of affinity, can be very powerful."
Hermione's mind reeled. She remembered right back to the first day of term, to when Malfoy had stopped her in the corridor and she felt like his eyes were keeping her rooted to the floor like a hundred year old oak tree. She remembered the first time they kissed and how looking in his eyes had given her such a profound sense of calm. She thought of how they'd continued to do so since.
Hermione sensed Malfoy's posture change. He sagged into the chair, as if exhausted. "I didn't have any idea about all that...sometimes I thought she was doing it to punish me somehow? To make me feel guilty." His eyes flickered up to Alethea, and Hermione found she didn't seem to mind that he was talking about her as if she wasn't there. She could understand how difficult it was to voice any of this at all, and was just grateful to him that he was trying.
"Did you feel guilty?" Alethea asked gently.
"Worse than guilty," Malfoy replied unhesitatingly. "I hate myself for what I did. For what I didn't do."
"Well, we've talked about how you really had no choice. About how Voldemort always saw love as a weakness and took advantage of the love that your parents have for each other, and for you. That he would always control one of your family by threatening harm to another member."
Hermione felt a curdling of horror at the thought of her loved ones being under constant danger, of their safety being entirely dependent on her own behaviour. But before she could say anything, Malfoy stood up abruptly.
"Are we finished here?" he said, his tone now one of familiar disdain and haughtiness.
Alethea raised her eyebrows slightly but otherwise didn't acknowledge the abrupt change in Malfoy's mood.
"Well, is there anything you'd like to add, Draco? To what you've said? Or to ask Hermione?"
"No," he said with finality, straightening his shoulders.
"Hermione, is there anything you feel is missing? Anything else you'd like to ask or say to Draco?"
There was so much Hermione wanted to ask and to say to him, but at the same time her mouth seemed to be trapping all her words inside of her. It was as if what she wanted to say meant too much, and felt too private, to be spoken in front of Alethea, and before she had managed to think on them further.
Instead, she voiced the words silently in her head, so at least her mind could bear witness to them:
I'm so sorry about what happened to you.
Don't cry.
Stop hating yourself.
I forgive you. Even though there's nothing to forgive.
And she just shook her head, looked at the worn patch of carpet by her feet and mumbled, "No. I don't have anything else to say."
They were silent as they left Alethea's office together. It was late and Hermione felt as if she'd been squeezed and wrung out, drained and weary, and all she could think about was how much she wanted to sleep.
At the turning in the corridors where they would part – he to the Slytherin Common Room and she to Gryffindor Tower – they stopped. She chanced a glance at him and saw in the redness of his eyes and the pallor of his skin that he felt very much like her – as if every emotion had ricocheted around his mind and body, until they were exhausted and shaken out of him.
Malfoy's hand sank into his pocket, and he scrambled around for a moment before pulling out an envelope.
"Here," he said, holding it out to her. "Remember the letter task?"
"Yes." Her voice was cautious, curious.
"This is the letter I meant to send. Mostly. I've added to it a bit since then. I think – I think I'm ready for you to read it now."
Her hand reached out and clasped around the thick parchment. There was trepidation in the folds of the letter, she could sense it, but at the same time the feel of parchment round her fingers always brought her comfort, and it was no different now. Like being around Malfoy himself, it was a strange, contradictory combination of apprehension and stability.
"Oh. Thank you." Again, Hermione wished she would say more but, as they had for the last hour or so, her mind and tongue betrayed her and left her mute.
He nodded shortly, turned and walked, tall and stiff, down the corridor towards his common room.
Unsurprisingly, she couldn't wait long before reading the letter. She changed hurriedly for bed, wrapped her blankets tightly about her, propped herself up with pillows, cast the curtains about her and carefully opened the envelope.
She smoothed the pages out delicately before beginning to read:
Granger,
You asked me whether there's still blood stains on the floor of my drawing room. No, there aren't – despite the fact that there was so much blood spilt in that room, Granger. I had to kneel in front of him once and I remember it seeping through the knee of my trousers, sticky and luke-warm, because it was still bleeding from a body lying a few feet away.
None of that blood stains my floor anymore but, as you no doubt now know, that doesn't mean I don't remember the things that happened there.
I noticed, right back at the beginning of this school year, how you were the empty shell of what you used to be. And I couldn't stand it – because I knew that it was my family that had done that to you. Or at least, everything my family had stood for. And it was fucking wretched having to watch you like that – having to look at you when all the life had died from you. Because every time I did, it was a reminder of the pain I'd caused. Of the suffering inflicted by the ideology I'd stood for since I could ride a fucking broom.
You'd always been a symbol of the light: good and brave and defiantly doing what you felt was right. But it was as if, despite the light's victory, the dark had destroyed that. Had destroyed you. And I couldn't fucking stand it.
Which is why, in my fucked up way, I taunted and goaded you. Because I could see a spark of life in your eyes when I did that. I could feel it in the sting of your fist crushing against my face. I didn't know how else to be – how else to bring you back. Nobody had ever taught me how to apologise, how to voice genuine regret, how to console.
So what do I want? For you, and for me? Here are a few things:
I want to be able to look at your face and not remember it twisted in agony as my own kin makes your bones feel on fire and your blood feel like boiling acid in your veins.
I want to forget the sounds of your screams. It's as if they're woven in my soul and I want them fucking OUT.
I want to be able to take back all the times I called you 'Mudblood'.
More than that – I want to travel back in time and punch my younger self alongside you. I want to tell him to think for himself instead of mindlessly absorbing the bigoted, hateful beliefs of his father – beliefs that had seeped into him like an insidious poison.
I want you to stop hurting yourself. Properly – for good. I want that fucking scar to heal. Like I want – need – you to heal.
I want to burn the sorrow from your eyes. Or if I can't do it, I hope for the love of Merlin that someone else can.
I don't want you to have to jump off the Astronomy Tower just to feel alive again.
You don't have to like me or want me, I just want this for you. Because you don't deserve to have soaked in other people's pain until you couldn't stand it anymore, causing you to have shut down as if someone's nox'ed your soul.
And if I could bear that pain instead of you, I would. If there was some way of pouring it from you into me, I would do so until I'm saturated with it.
You may wonder why I want this or why I care...maybe it's the need for some kind of atonement, or it's me finally taking responsibility for who I am. For who I was. And I still don't know how much disparity there is between the person I was and the person I am now. I don't know how much I've changed. How much I can change.
But I know that, above all, I want – I need – you to forgive me for the things that I said and did. And for the things I didn't do.
There's probably more but I know I'm asking way too fucking much already.
Draco.
Hermione sat frozen and still amongst the crimson covers of her Gryffindor bed. Her eyes danced across Malfoy's words again, trying to take them in, before starting to read the letter once more, slowly and deliberately, wanting to process each word.
But she'd only got as far as the third paragraph when she was distracted by a flash of light and the feel or something warm against her right hip. She grappled about under her pillow and retrieved her Binding Book from where she had last left it.
She turned to the new page of print and read:
oOo
Your Fifth Task
As you know, this is your last task.
Meet and discuss why you think the magic of this project matched you with your partner.
What is it that you have that the other person needed, or perhaps still needs?
Likewise, what have you gained from the other person through this process?
You might wish to think quite a bit about this before you meet with your partner, and/or talk things through with Alethea.
You may wish to write some notes of your discussion in your Binding Book.
We hope that the conversations you have are illuminating and helpful!
oOo
Only a moment later, Malfoy's writing appeared in the book.
DM: Hi Hermione.
Her heart stilled. It was so odd, Malfoy addressing her by her first name, even in writing.
HG: Hi
DM: Where do you want to meet?
She paused, still thinking, finding it particularly hard due to the tumult of emotions the words of his letter had caused. Before she responded, Malfoy's script appeared again:
DM: I was thinking maybe the Astronomy Tower?
DM: Let's end this where it all began.
She wondered if, by 'began', he meant the time he'd come and saved her from the suicide-attempt-that-never-was. Or maybe he meant before that, when Dumbledore had fallen to his death over the Tower's parapets. Or maybe even earlier, when an eleven year old Draco had had his first Astronomy lesson, gazing up at the stars with wonder in his eyes, his heart light with hopes and possibilities.
But what also struck her was the phrase 'let's end this'. Because whatever the 'it' was that she had with Malfoy, she didn't think she wanted it to end.
But the Binding Book was not the place to question all that. So she merely scrawled a few words in response.
HG: Okay. The Astronomy Tower. Tomorrow evening?
DM: Okay.
She thought about whether she should write something about his letter. But his words are too raw, too new in her mind. She needed her understanding of them to form and settle before she responded to them. And responding to them in writing felt like doing them an injustice. He deserved verbal words, addressed to his face, which is what she'd failed to do earlier that evening.
She waited a minute. Then two. Nothing further appeared on the page of her Book, so she was just closing it when Malfoy's handwriting surfaced once more:
DM: Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.
She immediately recognised the words as a quote from Wuthering Heights.
She sat still, frozen again, staring down at the words without really seeing them. She thought of what could have led a boy of sixteen, still only a child really, to have the Dark Mark burnt into his arm. She remembered the letter she'd just read...I had to kneel before him...and of what Nott had said: since Voldemort had risen again in the Little Hangleton graveyard the year we turned fifteen, there had been many occasions when Draco's parents' lives were threatened if Draco didn't do or say certain things...She thought of Ingleton's words about how events are far too messy to divide people up into neat groups of good and evil. About how they were all too young. That they were all, in fact, survivors.
And then, further writing appeared on the page:
DM: I'm sorry.
She stared at the words for some moments, in the quiet of her Gryffindor dorm, until they became so smudged and blotched with her tears that had splashed onto the page that they were rendered illegible.
A/N: the 'eye contact as a way of managing trauma and feeling safe' that Alethea mentions in this chapter is NOT a thing in actual trauma experiences/therapy. There's no evidence for this - it's just something I've created for the benefit of the story, and I hope we can all suspend belief and embrace the idea that maybe it IS something that can happen between magical kind! :o)
Huge thanks to Frumpologist and scullymurphy for being amazingly encouraging alphabetas.
Your thoughts and feedback are cherished and treasured!