Five
Day: 720; Hour: 2
Hermione is chosen for the simple missions, and she knows this with both annoyance and relief. She also knows it has something to do with Malfoy, as she has learned he drafts most of the choices for each mission. Knowing this, she figures he probably wouldn't even put her in any if it weren't for the fact that they needed to give some of the more skilled individuals some breaks.
Not that she hadn't improved, because she had. It had been extremely hard at first. When it was just her and a few others against a small group, she could handle herself very well. Her knowledge of magic is vast, she moved quickly enough, and she was always brave to boot.
It was the big battles that did her in. When the air would be heavy with magic and smoke from wands, and when she couldn't get a clear vision or know who was on which side she became wary. There was confusion and panic in the air, and inside of her, and her mind would become frazzled and she would lose her cool. It wasn't something she was proud of, but something she admitted to herself was a problem. Her improvement was there, but it wasn't at the point yet where she was no longer a risk to herself or the people around her.
So, she gets the smaller jobs now. Which suits her fine, because she's still involved and does her part, and she does it well. She is bitter with herself more so than anyone else because she is not as good as she wants to be, but at least she is doing what she can.
Day: 728; Hour: 4
There is a brushing against her side that hadn't been there a few seconds ago and when she moves to further herself from the person, they follow. Malfoy doesn't look at her when she turns her attention toward him, and she can hardly make out more than his nose and mouth around the hood of the sweatshirt, but she knows him anyway.
She opens her mouth to question why he seems to be following her on her trek back through Muggle England, but he nods his head to the side and pushes into her as he turns. She is confused but turns with him as they head off down a small side street, and then into an alley. Malfoy pauses when they are sufficiently away from prying eyes, and pulls a large manila envelope out of his zipped up jacket. He nods toward her, casting another glance around before returning his eyes to hers.
Hermione fingers the corner of the envelope, fidgeting. "What is the one thing you want out of life?"
He scowls, but she thinks he had known she would ask him something to make sure it was truly him. The question may not be the right one considering the continuous clenching of his jaw now, but he answers her anyway. "Absolute power."
She nods, pulling the envelope out and offering hers. "Me too."
His eyes flash up from her hand and its contents, and she hopes he knows that is the closest he will get to an apology for that conversation. He takes the envelope and offers his, which she accepts after a moment. She tucks it away, clearing her throat to break the silence over emotions that she cannot define between the two of them. His eyes are still steady on hers, and she has to look away to bring back any semblance of normalcy.
He is the first to walk away, and she follows him out. They walk all the way back to the small building that serves as an entrance to the wizarding world without a word, and though it is awkward at first, she forgets that it is supposed to be a few minutes in.
Day: 730; Hour: 2
She tries to remember the exact bunch of numbers, because she does not feel she can pay the proper respects to time and war without knowing exactly when it began. She does know that it has been two years now though, beginning three hours ago or at this moment. She feels the pull of time, of war, but somehow it seems as if it has been longer and shorter at the same time.
Sometimes, when she closes her eyes and drowns out the world (which is a very hard thing for Hermione Granger to do when not buried in a book), she can see, and smell, and feel the beating of air and the stench of smoke. She can remember in vivid detail how she got to this point. But most days, she cannot remember beyond yesterday, because war is a tornado and she is just watching the eye turn.
Two years, she thinks; feels it like heavy lead coating along her bones. Two years.
Day: 741; Hour: 12
"Granger." Hermione looks up at Neville and frowns until she sees Malfoy walk over to the couch opposite her.
"Malfoy."
Neville smiles at her when she gives him an apprehensive look, because he probably knows why it is Malfoy has taken to addressing her. The blond pulls a scroll from a small chest he placed on the table, and his fingers are careful as he unrolls it on the surface. Runes in old, brown-turned ink are slowly revealed with the turns of his fingers, the parchment brittle as he lays stones on the edges.
"What is this?"
"How do you feel about puzzles?" He looks up then, seeming to analyze her.
She scans him as well, trying to tell what exactly he wants from her. "I like them."
"Good."
Hermione looks back to the parchment. "This is the rune for peace, though it's inverted. The Romans referred to it as corruption, or riots. The one next to it is for...a graph. Or a tablet." She glances up at him, then back to the scroll. "This line here symbolizes the importance of it. A riot over a specific doctrine?"
"It's jumbled. Some of them we were able to understand, but others...this one, for example," his fingertip hovers over one at the end of the first row, tracing it through the air. "There are three different meanings for what it could be. We have to solve all of them, arrange them, and then try to figure out their meaning through placement."
Hermione releases a breath, her eyebrows furrowing in concentration. "Here, let me...just..."
She stands, making her way around the table, and Malfoy moves to the other end of the couch so she can sit. He hands her the notebook he's been carrying around with him for months, already flipped to a blank page in the back so she can't glimpse what else it contains. Neville supplies her the pen over her shoulder.
"This one is for...place."
"Yes, but I've seen this before. Do you see this curve off the top line? I believe that means something akin to 'at here', as the Latin used. It represents a specific place rather than abstract placement or general areas."
Hermione nods, scribbling down their observations. "The short line at the bottom means it's grounded, perhaps in a literal sense of the word. It-"
"Or it's home-based." She looks up at him and he leans forward again. "Look over here, in the rune of home, then again in the one for family. The line represents familiarity."
"But what about here? In friends? There's no line."
"Perhaps they weren't familiar with the 'friends' or 'allies' who are involved. Or, maybe, they thought they were, but were proved wrong."
"You're making guesses before you know the story."
"And that's why I came to you."
She meets his eyes, and feels the tips of her ears heat up, though she isn't sure why. It is almost a compliment, and she is unsure how to take it.
"Alright. Let's see then."
Day: 754; Hour: 14
It takes her almost two weeks to finish the scroll, and Neville is the one she hands it to. She has been hoping it would be Malfoy, just to see what he thought of what she came up with. She had never known he was as skilled in runes as he was.
"You work with him a lot, don't you?"
Neville shrugged. "I think everyone works with him a lot."
"He's not mean to you, though, is he?" She blinks at herself, because she notices she sounds like a worried mother.
Neville laughs, because he notices as well. "He jokes sometimes. Tells me not to blow anything up. But it's more...joking than being mean. For both our benefits rather than his."
"Hmm."
"Still don't think he's changed, huh?"
She waves the scroll before handing it to him. "I like puzzles."
Day: 761; Hour: 21
She sees no one for a week, only passing shadows of strangers for two, and then suddenly almost all her friends at the same place. Two days pass before she thinks she is losing her mind.
"Fred!" she screams from the top of the stairs, and Seamus stops to gawk at her.
"Why, that is a lovely shade of orange, Hermione." The redhead turns the corner and smiles at her.
"You!" she seethes, pointing.
"Me? Wrong twin, love. Must have been George, or someone else in the house."
"George left three days ago."
"That is George actually." Seamus cackles behind his hand.
Hermione practically stumbles down the steps and George is wise enough to turn and run in the other direction. Her bright orange hair flies up in her sprint toward him, and she doesn't know how he manages to outrun her while he's laughing the entire time. She's already out of breath just two minutes in.
"I'm going to kill you!"
"It wears off!"
"When!"
"A few weeks maybe? A year at the most." He tosses her a smile and she growls, lobbing a stick at him across the expanse of the yard.
"You have to come back sometime!"
But later, when she is already asleep and her hair has been washed thirteen times, he leaves in the middle of the night for his next mission. In the morning, she is more bothered that she hasn't had the chance to say goodbye rather than not having been able to get her revenge.
Day: 763; Hour: 13
Malfoy raises his eyebrows, halting, and almost keeps himself composed before bursting into laughter. Hermione glowers and stalks away. If it wasn't his birthday, she would have hexed him.
Day: 777; Hour: 12
"You look like a Weasley." A sneer twists his face briefly, and then it is gone. Her heart lurches a little, because it reminds her of Ron, and she misses him terribly.
The orange has begun to wash out of her hair, though it has taken weeks to do so, and he is right. The dye stained her hair orange and red, and left her looking as if she decided to do a bad job of making herself a redhead one night.
"Thank you." Because she knows there is nothing else she could say that would goad him more.
He gives her a look and pulls himself up on the table behind him. "I suppose you wanted to discuss something, Granger?"
"I don't think you should send Lavender on this mission."
He arches an eyebrow, looking classically bored and arrogant. "And why is that?"
"She's off. I don't know what happened to her yet, but she's depressed. She mopes about, she's not eating, and she's chain smoking."
"It's a war," he drawls. "I don't know who isn't depressed or stressed out. You hardly eat either - should I not send you out? And Patil was passed out on the table when I walked in, so I shouldn't send her. Goldstein twitches when he's nervous, and that could cause bad aim, so I suppose-"
"Malfoy. Just...give her a break - all right? She's not thinking clearly, and I think it's a very bad idea. She just needs a little time. I'll talk to her and try to sort it out, but she won't be at her best tomorrow-"
"She doesn't need to be at her best. It's a simple mission. There likely won't even be any opposition."
Hermione can feel her annoyance kick in harder at her ribs, her hands balling under the table. "I'm asking you nicely."
"I can see that."
Hermione snorts and stands. "My apologies then, Malfoy. I nearly forgot you don't give a damn about anything but yourself."
She exits the room without bothering to look at him again.
Day: 778; Hour: 18
Lavender does not make an appearance on the porch and Hermione is ready to go wake her, just as a breath fans itself across her ear. She's aware of strands of soft hair brushing against her ear and cheek, and a source of warmth close to her back. She has a feeling who it is before he even speaks.
"The fact that I make sure I create plans that fit with everyone's abilities that I choose for their missions, and that I'm here at all, must mean I don't give a damn about anyone but myself. I suppose you're right then, Granger?"
She blinks and blinks at the backs of her friends out in front of the house as they converse in distant morning voices, lit only by the dull grey of dawn. She doesn't know what to say, because there is a part of her that knows she might have been wrong even before Lavender's apparent dismissal from the mission; yet there is also a part of her that still thinks he only did it to prove her wrong, and wouldn't have otherwise.
"No answer then? Right. I forgot you can't hear the question all the way up on that high horse of yours."
He moves around her, stiff, as he descends down the stairs to join the rest of the team, and it takes her several moments to remember she has legs that must move.
Day: 780; Hour: 7
Hermione hates how she is always the one who seems to come off as being judgmental, rather than Malfoy, whom she always judges because he has always been the judgmental one. This realization has brought her to the idea that perhaps she is now the one who judges too much. Malfoy is an ass. But she can no longer blame that on his prejudice, no more than she can blame Ron's tendencies for being one, as his. Because in both cases, she can't find it.
She resolves to look at Malfoy now as a person she does not know, and has never known. This way, she thinks, she can stop putting her foot in her mouth. She does not like to be the one who comes off as the mean one, or the cruel person.
She hates that she has lowered herself to the position, no matter who the other person happens to be. She is better than that, she knows, and perhaps it is time to act like it.
But, God, he is infuriating.
Day: 783; Hour: 12
"What about you, Hermione? Have you ever been in love?"
Hermione gives a small smile to the black and white film playing out on the screen in front of her and Tonks, and shakes her head. "No, not yet."
"You will." Hermione, sometimes when she was away from the pull of the world, would sit and wonder if that was true.
Not everyone fell in love, after all. She is officially out of her teens, and yet here she is, a young woman who has never been in love, or even lost her virginity. She always believed that the two must coincide, but the fact that she was older and still without both did not seem as all right as it had when she was still a girl in a dormitory at Hogwarts. She knows she is young, but the fact that everyone around her seems to have achieved at least one, if not both, of these milestones, it makes her feel as if she is running too far behind.
"I thought you were in love with Ron." Tonks smiles at the screen, and Hermione glances at her.
She takes awhile to respond, and it is both with regret and acceptance. "I thought, for a very long time, that I could have been. But that's over now."
"Because of the war?"
"Because of a lot of things. But mostly because we don't fit right, and I would rather keep our friendship then bother trying to change us both to make it work, and just have it end badly. I think some things just aren't supposed to happen, no matter how much you want them to."
"And sometimes they do, no matter how much you don't want them to." She sounds as if it is her own revelation about her own life, so Hermione only nods and folds her hands in her lap.
Life has a horrible way of surprising you.
Day: 789; Hour: 20
Malfoy is seated on the couch when she returns from her second attempt to fall asleep. A bowl of popcorn is settled haphazardly between his knees as he studies the remote control. It's dark except for the changing colors from the television. Lavender's voice rises from the bedroom she is in, moaning loudly, and Hermione blushes despite the fact that Malfoy is not even aware of her presence.
Lavender's depression had been caused from a break with her lover, who she happened to claim she was in too deep of lust with to be able to function without. Hermione is of the opinion that Lavender simply loves the scruffy man who appears from her bedroom at random times, but doesn't want anyone to know. Their reconciliation has been going on intermittently for hours now. Hermione had attempted to drown them out with the television, but she was left staring pitifully at her ceiling as Lavender's cries rose above the booming volume of a bad fight scene.
"You're up?" she asks, so he knows she is there, because she has heard a rumor that Seamus snuck up behind him and Malfoy sent him slamming into a wall on instinct.
He jumps anyway, and clutches the popcorn bowl that almost topples with the movement. He mutters a curse, fixing the bowl before glancing up at her.
"Between the obnoxious shagging and the blasting of the television, I would have had to be dead not to be."
But she does not believe him, because there is a look in his eyes that she hasn't seen since Ron came home from his first mission and holed himself up in his room. It is a stunned sort of horror there. And with the odd pallor of his skin, the smudges from lack of sleep, and the glaze over his eyes, she thinks he looks haunted. She very much doubts Malfoy has trouble sleeping due to being too uncomfortable to hear someone having sex.
"What are you watching?"
His lips twitch, and there is a ghost of a smile. "The methods of safe sex."
Hermione blushes fiercely, and squirms in the seat she has taken on the recliner. "Oh."
"Muggles are quite inventive. Though I'm unsure how I feel about that rubber contraption."
Oh, my God, she moans in her head, and rubs at her face like it will help with the heat of it at all. He hits a button on the remote multiple times, and her voice is rushed and high when she tries to change the subject.
"The remote won't work?"
"No, it does. I just like to push the buttons that don't do anything."
She purses her lips at him and thrusts her hand out. "Let me see it."
"No." He pulls it closer to him, as if she has extendable arms and can reach him from her position. Typical male, then.
She sighs. "Try taking the batteries out and switching their positions."
He blinks down at the black plastic in his hand, and then back up at the television. "I would rather watch this anyway."
She knows he has no idea what she's talking about, or if he does know what batteries are, he certainly doesn't know how to locate them. He obviously wanted to watch the current program more than he wanted to show her he didn't know something.
"Just let me see."
"I said, no."
"Well, I'm not watching this."
He looks at her as if she is entirely too slow for him to talk to. "No one said you had to."
"Well since we both have to deal with...that, then we should find something we both want to watch."
"You're not in a position to compromise, I believe." She glares and he smirks, leaning forward slightly. "Does it make you uncomfortable?"
She flames. "It's not interesting, nor is it anything I don't already know. So-"
She stops when he grins wickedly, and turns even redder after he speaks. "Oh, so you're well-educated in safe Muggle sex, are you?"
She catches herself before she makes a fool of herself by stomping away, and instead moves to the television set, waiting to respond until she's facing away from him. "That is none of your business."
"I- Hey, turn that back."
"No," she grumbles, jabbing the button to change the channel.
She waits until she lands on what seems a fitting enough movie, actors dressed in Victorian style clothing as the women titter at passing men. She holds her nose up all the way back to her seat. Malfoy glares at her and gives a refined snort, hitting the buttons on the remote again.
"I suppose we'll watch this."
"Or I could simply get up and change it, but then I suppose I would lower myself to your childish standing."
It is her turn to glare. "Childish, was watching something that I obviously did not want to watch."
"Childish self-importance is believing that one can come and change what a person has been watching for half an hour already, just because they don't want to watch it."
"Childish is not wanting to share, when-"
"Or, it's this conversation." He turns to look at her, eyebrow raised, and looking as arrogant as ever. Except for his mismatched socks that she noticed on her way back to her seat, or his butter covered fingertips as he pulls out another piece of popcorn.
Hermione huffs, though regrets it when she remembers how immature she thought all his huffing was when she was flipping the channels. She turns back to the screen and ignores him, trying to concentrate on the woman being charmed by a relatively good-looking man.
There are long, blissful minutes of silence where there is nothing from Lavender's room, or anything from the man seated five feet from her. Hermione becomes so caught up in the movie that she actually jumps when Malfoy speaks up.
"He's a ponce."
"What?"
"That's the problem with these cinema pictures. What man has ever acted like that? Quoting poetry, waxing on about her bloody hands for five minutes. I am completely unaware how you can stomach this, let alone believe it enough to watch it."
"There are some men..." She trails off at the look he gives her. "Well, perhaps some woman want to believe that there are men out there like that."
He looks disgusted, wrinkling his nose. "Why? Do you honestly mean to tell me that you would enjoy...that?"
He nods toward the television, where the man is gesturing wildly and going on a poetry rampage. Hermione watches for a moment, another, and then giggles. And she does not think she has done such a thing since she was five.
"Maybe not." He makes a sound that lets her know he knew he was right the whole time. "But I would appreciate it all the same. It's sweet."
"It's nauseating. And then you feed women these images, and they get ideas in their heads, even when no man acts like that. You're only all setting yourselves up for disappointment."
"Sometimes it's just nice to pretend, Malfoy."
"I would rather keep my dinner from making another appearance."
"It's not that bad."
"You can't tell me you actually get off on this romantic drivel? It's bullshit."
"It's a little ridiculous, but at least it's better than your previous show."
He looks at her as if he had just overheard her tell someone a dirty secret. "Are you a...a closet romantic, Granger? Skip the sex for the poetry, hmm?"
She blushes hotly, which counts as being far too often this evening. "I am not a romantic. I'm a practical person, and love is not practical."
He still looks at her like he has busted her, and his smirk is absolutely devious when he turns back to the television. He is quiet for three seconds, and then snorts, looking at her. "He just compared her hair to dirt."
"He said she was as beautiful as nature, with her hair...like..."
"Like dirt."
Hermione laughs outright.
Day: 796; Hour: 22
The building is made of chipped stone, rising up two stories with broken towers and half the roof collapsed. Dark, angry vines twist paths up the length of it, and the wind howls through the branches of dead trees that are scattered across the barren landscape.
"It's creepy," Dean whispers.
"I think it's beautiful, in a gothic fashion," Hermione whispers back, and Dean gives her a strange look.
"Pay her no mind, Thomas. She obviously looks at things through a romanticized scope," he pauses to accept her mandatory glare in his direction before continuing. "Give in to how much the appearance puts you on guard, because you're going to have to be. There could be anything inside, and all of you would do well to remember it."
The end of the broom slung over Malfoy's shoulder comes closer to hitting her in the face, and she has to step aside to avoid it. The move sends Dean sideways as well, and his foot cracks a branch loudly. Malfoy stops and spins, holding up a hand to signal the rest of them to, and gives her his angry expression.
He looks back over his shoulder at the building, as if there could possibly be anyone inside of it, and then gives her another look before gesturing for them to continue. She is already angry with him, so the apparent blame doesn't push him any further into the clear when it comes to the heaviness of her look.
He hadn't informed them until that night that there would be some level of flying involved, and when she told him that he hadn't said there would be at the meeting, he simply told her that he was then and that it didn't matter. Malfoy would never stop being a pompous git as far as she saw.
He stops them at the side of the building, and instructs them to fly up to the busted out window one at a time. Hermione grows progressively nervous the longer she stands there.
"I don't fly."
He growls, because he probably knew this was going to happen. "Did you take the basic flying lessons at Hogwarts?"
"Yes, but-"
"Then you know well enough."
"I'll fly you up." Neville offers after Malfoy has flown up himself, and lays a gentle hand on her shoulder, as he knows how much she hates it.
Yet she still declines his offer, despite the easy way out. Malfoy will likely think her a coward or incapable if she had accepted, and though she may have been like him in the fact that they didn't like people to see when they couldn't do something, she wasn't about to have him show her up.
It takes her three commands to get the broom to even come up from the ground, and it sways uneasily under her nerves. She hovers up slowly, the broom jolting and moving enough like a seesaw to make her nauseous. Her heartbeat speeds up once she comes to a stop in front of the window. She doesn't dare step onto the windowpane like Malfoy had done, and she also doesn't trust herself not to slam into the edges.
She puts too much pressure on the broom as she leans forward, anxiety and lack of experience catching up to her. Malfoy, waiting like a statue at the side, has to grab the broom before she jets into the wall at the other side of the room. It sends her whipping around, and she glimpses the stern frown on Malfoy's face before she tips over, hanging upside down on the broom.
Hermione exhales a loud breath, embarrassed and shocked and turns darker at Anthony's sniggering at her side. She clutches the broom frantically, trying not to make a sound, and suddenly is spun back upwards. It takes her head a moment to catch up and settle on the growing smirk on Malfoy's face, but she's too unnerved to be angry over it. He laughs silently, his shoulders shaking, and gestures for her to get off as he holds the broom still.
She uses his shoulder as leverage to not further embarrass herself and fall with her wobbly knees. She thinks the touch may shut him up, and though it works, he is not angry as she expected. His face is carefully blank as he looks at her, and he holds still and hard under her palm until she drops it away.
Day: 804; Hour: 5
She hears news down the wires of the Order that Malfoy and Tonks were injured badly at an abandoned church in Glasgow. She convinces Lupin to let her leave her delivery post at the dreaded white house, for Grimmauld. Tonks is on the mend; though out for a few days for the breaks in her fingers to heal. Hermione follows her from the living room into the infirmary, and Tonks does not say anything when she catches her looking toward Malfoy's bed several times during the conversation.
"He broke his ribs. Fell from a beam he was running across when they found out he was above them. Got a nasty cut from the glass on the floor too."
"Well, at least he's not dead. We would have been short a good strategist."
But it is something more than that, because Hermione realizes that perhaps she would care a bit more if Malfoy were to have died. Tonks seems to know this too, because she does not answer, but Malfoy does.
"I'm glad to see you've come to think of me so highly." She starts, thinking he had been asleep, as his body had given all indication that he had been.
"At least it's improvement. A year ago she would have glared at your corpse." Tonks offers, he snorts, and she wonders if that fact could make her a bad person.
He reaches down, running a fingertip along the scar she can see edge out from the bottom of his shirt. "Longbottom did a fantastic job of marring me."
"He did. I was quite proud of him." Tonks smiles, and Hermione rushes to defense.
"At least he healed you at all." It comes out harsher than it should have, and it is very silent for a gaping second.
"I know," he whispers, dropping his hand away.
Hermione looks back to Tonks who winks. "I don't think he's stopped complaining since he woke up yesterday."
"If Draco Malfoy didn't complain about things," Hermione whispers back, "I think the world truly would stop turning from the shock of it."
"I like him surly, myself. Not as much talking. They start pumping him with potions, and he gets chatty."
"I can still hear you, you know."
Day: 811; Hour: 6
She has gotten to used to simple missions. She knows this in the way that she knows she cannot feel her legs, and that there is too much blood in her head. Her surroundings tilt, and spin, and she stumbles. The building behind her is soaked with fire, raging across the entire structure. It lights the night in orange and shadows, and there is ash on her tongue that clogs up her mouth.
There is screaming, hoarse and full of so much fear that it makes her want to cry, and she finds Anthony Goldstein as a sinking yellow figure in the mud. He bows his head to God, or death, or something so much bigger than anything around him. She quickly raises her wand at the Death Eater grinning behind his mask of bone, and it does not shake, not at all.
"Avada Kedavra!" The grin is frozen, malicious and dead, and the body accompanying it drops to knees and then falls face first.
Hermione does not feel as if she has saved a life, but is weighted with all the knowledge of having taken one. And though it is not hard to kill a person, she has found, it is harder to have someone else know you have. He will look at her different she thinks, the way she did when she looked up from the ground after Malfoy killed that Death Eater. Or at Seamus. Or Neville. Or Angelina. Or absolutely anyone else. There is a tint to death, and it covers them like shadows.
But Anthony does not look at her, collapsed and shaking, and she finds the answers in the body near the fallen Death Eater's. Padma's locks of black hair float like dancing strands in the wind of smoke and ash, and Hermione's heart knows before she does.
Day: 811; Hour: 12
Hermione does not expect to see him standing with Lupin in the kitchen when she drags her feet across the doorway to find the nearest place to collapse. When she does, she moves without acknowledging, and she forgets the tired in the marrow of her bones or the dull and heavy weight inside her chest.
She must look a fright, but she thinks of this only later, when she eyes her reflection in the mirror of the bathroom, and only sees black ash and sorrow brimmed eyes. He just stands there, even when she is charging at him, but he moves when she shoves her hands against his chest and sends him flying into the counter's edge.
"Hermione-" Lupin gasps, and moves, but Malfoy uncurls his long fingers from the expanse of his palm and halts him.
"You bastard!" She yells, and shoves him again, again, again. It doesn't affect him, and so she balls her own fingers, sending knuckles to the curves of his body. "I fucking hate you! I fucking hate you so fucking much!"
He grabs for her flying hands, and she opens one, smacking her palm into his mouth, his jaw, cheek, the side of his head. There is a struggle, and she loses sight of what she does, but she knows she is clobbering his head and anything she can reach. When he finally grabs her arms, she uses her feet. Her voice is shrill and phlegm-filled, but she doesn't know she is sobbing all the words she is screaming.
"You knew! You fuck! You knew she couldn't handle it! That she couldn't...couldn't be there. And you didn't give a fuck! You did it anyway, you fucking, God-damned piece of shit!" And she screams, and it's broken and loose, and most makes no sense, but she doesn't care.
She doesn't care, because there is a rage inside of her that swelters up along her skin, until she is ready to explode with it. It is the most terrible emotion she has ever felt, and later, she will never remember another time in her life where she felt as out of control as she did then.
Malfoy has grabbed her and turned them, and she finds herself pressing hard against the counter until the edge feels like it might break her spinal chord. His thighs are holding hers still as he keeps them tight together, his fingers wrapped around her wrists and holding her arms up to each shoulder. She digs her nails into his clothes, but it's not enough, and she yanks them to cover her ears when her own scream breaks cracked from the muscles in her throat.
She closes her eyes to the furious face hovering in front of hers, and the blood dripping from his lip. She unclenched her fingers, grasping at him as her bent head hits the hollow of his throat, and she sobs unabashed into the laundry soap scent of his clothes. There is a tearing pain inside of her that is so much bigger than herself, that she feels nothing but that, and all she can think about is Padma, all the others along the way, and the way she misses Harry, Ron, her parents, and how much she hates her life.
Malfoy relaxes marginally, just enough to where she can breathe between him and the countertop, but she still feels both. He pulls her hands from his shoulders and slides to the side against her.
"It wasn't me," he whispers, and then there is a different set of arms, and she only takes a second to throw her arms around Lupin's neck as Malfoy's body disappears.
"Alright. Alright, come on."
"Padma."
He exhales heavily onto the top of her head as he guides her out of the kitchen, and pushes a curse out with his breath. "Do you want to shower, or go to bed?"
"I don't care." And bed it was.
Day: 814; Hour: 17
Hermione doesn't emerge from her bedroom for two days. It is depression on the first, and the second is more sadness and shame. She would never know what came over, but it scares and shocks her probably as much as it did Malfoy and Lupin. She hadn't known there was so much emotion boiled up inside the lines of her veins until it all split out at once.
She had attacked him. Which she doesn't feel absolutely horrible over, considering he had done it to her in the past, but it isn't in her character. And it had been the wrong person. She had been so quick to blame someone else, and there he had been. The one she had thought planned the mission and picked the members for it.
She would miss Padma's funeral. She had asked Lupin yesterday, and he had told her it would be a small affair and only a handful of people could go. He has asked if she wanted him to put a request in, but she refused on the grounds that the few who were picked should be people close to her. She knew Padma, but only just, and she did not feel right about the idea of taking someone else's spot that knew and loved her.
By the late afternoon of the third day, when Lupin does not leave any food for her outside her door, or knocks to ask to come in, she knows he must have left like he had said. She exits her bedroom to the smell of something cooking in the kitchen, and knows Malfoy had remained behind. She comes close to changing her mind, but keeps her feet on route to the kitchen.
He doesn't look at her as he sits at the table; the light lit on the stove letting her know something is in the oven. She searches through the line of cabinets for something to eat; she hasn't been to this specific house yet, and knows where nothing is. She thinks that perhaps he might tell her because he must know what she is looking for, but he doesn't speak a word.
She finds hot chocolate packets in the cabinet next to the fridge, and settles on that instead of food. She opens them to find the powder stuck together in a paper thin wad at the bottom, but still leans them up against the toaster and puts the water on. She is content to keep her back to him at first, but then decides that if she wants to get it over with, she should face up to any possible fallout now.
He still isn't looking at her when she turns around, though she can swear she had thought his eyes had been attached to her back when she faced away. He is sprawled out on the chair, and looks too large to fit on it. His legs are long and stretch out in front of him, one arm laying on the table and the other on his lap. His head is turned slightly away from her, eyes trained on the table. There is a red groove in the fullness of his bottom lip, and it is from her. She feels guilt like something sticky on the tissue of her throat.
He looks up at her with all the knowledge on his face that she will be looking back at him, and she swallows tightly at the blank look that doesn't even contain recognition.
"I shouldn't have blamed you."
He slides the arm on the table back, and reaches blindly for the bright red mug that had been sitting in the bend of his elbow. He grasps it and brings it to his mouth, and his voice is even and dull. "No."
He takes a sip from the mug and finally looks away from her, pressing his lips together as he sets it back down on the table. "I was...distraught."
"To say the least."
"I'm surprised you didn't hit me." This is honesty, though she hasn't meant to say it.
"Have I ever?" He looks back up at her then, his head still bent.
"Well, basically." Hermione flusters.
"I've gotten rough with you Granger, but I don't believe I've ever hit you."
Hermione stares back at him in silence, the truth of it swallowing her up a little. "You almost have."
His lips twitch. "More times than you likely know. I believe you're the most infuriating woman I've ever had to know."
"That's close enough, though."
"Is it?"
"Yes. And you're the most infuriating person I've ever known as well, so...we're even on that accord." He is quiet. "Perhaps I shouldn't have hit you."
"It wasn't the first time."
She narrows her eyes and points at him, her finger wagging. "Don't try to make it out like you're some innocent-"
"In this case I was."
"But-"
"I know, Granger. What I meant before you got all caught up in your indignation, was that I probably wasn't as surprised by your actions as you were. So you can stop trying to ramble on half-apologies to ease your guilt."
"I'm not feeling guilty," she snaps, but he doesn't respond. "I'm not."
He arched a brow and took another sip of his drink. "We'll consider ourselves even."
She snorts, loudly. "My one thing against you just evens out the playing field then?"
"The new one, yes." Though he seems fairly annoyed by her question.
"Fine. Even." She pretends to lick her hand and offers it to him. "We have to shake on it."
He stares at her hand as if it is a house-elf doused in mud and demanding an apology, and looks up at her with less scorn and more incredulity. Hermione winces and thrusts her palm out for him to see the clean skin.
"There's nothing there." His expression remains. "I'm just...joking. It was..."
She drops her hand, now aware that Malfoy either has no sense of humor, she isn't funny, or she hasn't reached a joking stage with him. She clears her throat as he moves back to his drink, and she turns for the now boiling water.
Day: 817; Hour: 11
"I think enemies need one another."
"They don't need one another. They hate one another. If a person's enemy turned their wand on themselves, said person would be delighted." He eyes her meaningfully.
"Then they would have no one to hate, and people need someone to hate in order to get their anger out."
"They could hate themselves, and perhaps that would get you to finally shut up."
"Enemies are people you have to fight for something against. If you could just achieve everything you wanted without anyone there to make it harder for you, then when you finally do get what you want, it doesn't seem important."
"It would still be important, or it wouldn't have been something you wanted in the first place."
"But if it's easy to obtain, in the beginning, you already basically have it. So the importance loses itself quickly. If you work for something, if you earn it, then you're proud of yourself and hold your achievements closer to you. Their worth something."
"That just makes life harder. Why prefer a harder life?"
"Because it makes you cherish things more."
"Know what I would cherish right now?"
"I think you've been redundant enough for me to wager a good guess."
"I think I've suffered enough."
"Yes, maybe. But I'm still not giving it to you." He snorts, and she looks back out at the sway of the trees with a smile. "You'll appreciate it more when it comes. That's what enemies are for, Malfoy."
Day: 836; Hour: 17
She has conversations with Malfoy under glinting fading suns, because he stays true to the darkness of his demeanor and pretends to be adjusted to a nocturne life. He is slow to wake, and she has learned to wait hours and hours before he is willing to reply to anything she says.
He is there for two weeks, and when he leaves, it is only for four days before he is back again. She wonders if he chose to come back, because she supplies him with conversation (at least bickering) instead of the ignorance he is prone to receive. She doubts this though, because sometimes she catches him looking at her, and it is always darkly or with far too much agitation for her to think herself anything more than a hindrance to him.
She provokes him into arguments, because he doesn't like to talk to her, but she needs someone to talk to at all. He answers when she is insulting or contradictory, but never on polite subjects. She does it anyway, because she is sick of reading conversations instead of having them, and she does not think about everything when there is something else to concentrate on.
She thinks he feels the same. And that is why he answers at all. They are alike despite their differences, and while this is a scary thought, most truths are. She joins him because it is better than being alone, and he does not stay behind a locked door because he knows this as well.