A/N: A thousand apologies for the delay of this chapter but it's totally intense. Or at least the end is. So stop reading this already. God.
Chapter 8
The energy surrounding the Welcome Back ball was palpable. Dumbledore was right – from the initial dull surprise emerged a rippling wave of excitement inside the castle walls as the event inched closer and closer. As she scurried around finalizing and re-touching arrangements for the big day, she heard titters and laments from the halls and dorms. The corridor fires burned a little brighter, people smiled a little wider, and there was a fresher air wafting around them that often coincided with breaking tradition. Even Hermione, with all of her focus on making sure everything would go smoothly, felt this.
She had one word for it: pressure.
"Relax, Hermione. You're running around like a chicken with its head cut off," Harry said to her. He pulled out his supplies from his satchel, randomly placing them on the table. She frowned at the state of his quill – bent and obviously neglected. She was glad to know the quill box she had gotten him last Christmas was being put to good use – collecting dust in his trunk somewhere.
"Not that it's any different from how you usually are," Ron commented. "But you nearly trampled a first year the other day hurrying off to send an owl. It's not like you."
She looked at both of her friends, before they all broke into a fit of laughter. She leaned back into her seat, sighing, rubbing her eyes. She could feel all of the tension in her body leaving her, little by little, the oxygen starting to trickle back into her blood. "God, I'm exhausted. I can't wait 'til it's all over. All week I've been having nightmares about what could possibly go wrong tomorrow."
Her voice fell softer at this, hesitantly trailing off. She had thought about telling Harry and Ron about her recent dreams, but didn't think she could find the words to describe them. In them, she was always in a crowd, trying to run, but seemingly blocked by other, slower-moving bodies that didn't budge against her pushing and pleading. A thick, churning cloud of darkness was threatening to overtake the room. She couldn't run.
In the end, she always woke up right as the ominous wisps of blackness were reaching her, breathless with terror.
"It'll be perfect. You're worrying over nothing," Harry was saying. "It's not like you're capable of anything less."
She flushed, the intense residue of her nightmares slowly ebbing away.
"Yeah, and if anything does go wrong," said Ron, "you can be sure no one else is going to blame you anywhere near as hard as you will."
She rolled her eyes before getting up, slinging her satchel strap onto her shoulders. "I'll keep that in mind, Ron," she dryly said to him, before bidding them good night and heading out of the library.
She walked the empty, shadowed corridors, shifting her fingers against her bag, sighing at the thought of tomorrow. Everything seemed as if it was going according to plan, though she couldn't help but heed the worry threading through her. It reminded her of how her mother would often claim she sensed storms before they hit. "Something in the air," she would try to explain. "Like the air is heavier, and full of electricity. You can even smell it, sometimes."
She used to fool herself into thinking she had inherited this gift from her, this sort of sixth sense for disasters. But this was before she had found out the real reason why her hair's shade of brown had never really matched her mother's, and even longer before her friends had ever convinced her bad gut feelings were usually just symptoms of her over-analytical nature.
She was shaken out of her thoughts when she looked up and met eyes with Draco, who had also just arrived at their common room. Her steps slowed, her heels sinking to the ground. He let his gaze linger on her for a brief second, his face absent of its usual scowl but still stony, before heading inside. She watched as the door closed behind him with a soft click, and stood there with her feet against the plush carpet, as if waiting.
Things had been different with him lately. Gone were the aggressive putdowns – his iciness now coincided with the cold sting of detachment. They had gone from jumping at each other's throats to dull passing glances that confused her more than anything. From an outsider's point of view, they could have mistaken it for near-civility. Not her, though. She could feel something underneath his frigid silence, something bulging and growing.
There were even times she swore she could see it, a glimpse of something, the way you could sometimes catch things in the corner of your eye – but gone always before you could turn your head and tell it to stay.
ooo
Sometimes she looked down at the finger that had been cut open by the rose's thorn, all of those years ago. She inspected it, rubbed her thumb against it, in awe of its smoothness. She remembered how gruesome it had looked that day, even now, as if her finger had ruptured open to an angry, red mouth. It had always amazed her how the smallest wounds seemed to bleed more excessively than you thought they ever should. Even after Draco had slid his tongue against the torn skin, cleaning it, it had continued to bleed, ribboning down to the waiting soil. She had even been struck by the strange beauty of it, the blood so jarringly crimson and bright against her pale, freckled skin.
Eventually she had gone back to her mother, who had cleaned it up with a spell and magicked it away so thoroughly it hadn't left a trace. Not even a tiny sliver of a scar. It looked as it did before, virgin and pink, as if it had never opened up to expose its underneath, as if a boy so unaware of blood politics at the time had never tried to keep it from profusely bleeding out in the most primitive way.
And now, as she inspected it underneath the moonlight from her window, she wished she had let it heal on its own. That it had scabbed and left something for her; proof other than her own memories. Memories could be distorted and changed. Even now she was beginning to doubt the authenticity of her own memories, the way you remembered only what you wanted to or what had burrowed itself deep inside your mind; the way the mind could be so sinisterly selective and easily influenced. And for a second, she hated magic. She hated that it could erase things so cleanly, without so much as a single pang of remorse.
How could she have known, standing there in front of her mother, that she would have wanted it? That she should have begged for a scar? That someday it would stand for innocence and the goodness of the past that seemed so impossible to hold onto now?
ooo
The next day, Hermione arrived at the Great Hall just after lunch to make sure set-up was going smoothly for the night. She hadn't slept much the night before, having woken from the same pervasive nightmare. Despite overall confirmation about the big event, she had arrived flustered and feeling out of focus, her eyes scanning wildly. The prefects were there, their wands raised, helping with the decorations. Tables were being moved, exposing the gleaming floor. Somewhere, someone was tinkering with the Great Hall's ceiling, changing it from one sky to another, exposing vast, arresting galaxies to darkness speckled with miniscule twinkles.
Snow was just beginning to fall from the ceiling when she saw Malfoy across the way, dressed in a black luxury jumper and slim trousers, talking to a man – the manager, she assumed, of the band she had hired to play. She averted her eyes before he could catch her staring, heading towards the prefects, making the rounds.
Eventually, she found herself by Ginny, who was directing a small crew of other prefects on the placement of the tables.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Ginny quietly said to her as the circular tables glided across the floor, "but you look like you've had better days."
"I'll just be glad when all of this is over," Hermione sighed. "I haven't been sleeping so well."
"You worry too much, Hermione. It'll be flawless, you'll see. Your dignity as Head Girl will be cemented once you see how brilliant everything will be." Ginny grinned at her. "Now go and take a nap. Everything's handled. You've done your part."
ooo
She watched the expressions of those entering the Great Hall, sipping from a glass of punch. The awe and thrill reflected on their faces, glowing girls in extravagant dresses on the arms of nervous boys in classy dress robes, the cacophony of compliments and laughter. It reminded her of the parties back home when everything seemed to take on a certain shimmer, as if so far detached from the dull, ordinary colors of day to day reality. Parties and balls had always inhabited their own dimension. People were different. Even the air felt different.
"You did it," her housemates were telling her. "You pulled it off."
"The night's not over yet," she said to them, taking another drink.
"Bloody hell, Hermione," Ron said. "Just enjoy it, will you? Just look around and enjoy the fruits of your crazed labor. It's stunning. Just admit it."
It was stunning – that fact was undeniable. Along with the students, swarms of Hogwarts alumni and benefactors had also attended. As she counted them, she couldn't help but notice that it was likely every single one of them had come. That had been Draco's job, and he had pulled it off. They looked jovial mingling with the Hogwarts professors.
Just as she was looking around the room, she happened to see Draco through the shifting crowd. He was dressed impeccably, of course. Next to him was his date, Astoria Greengrass, dressed in a pretty navy silk dress, her hair charmed in luxurious curls. Draco had always had the uncanny ability to select the most genetically perfect girls, exaggerated even more so when he stood next to them. She stared at them, unable to deny the faint unfurling in her chest of loathing. How many times had she witnessed this exact scene – him with a pretty girl – looking fated for each other? Countless. But still, even now, it made her mouth taste like metal.
It reminded her that some things from their past still persisted despite how their relationship had warped into something unrecognizable. There were still echoes of how things used to be.
As if he had sensed her thoughts, he looked up, catching her gaze. Instead of looking away, as if now made more confident from her success, she kept her eyes on him. She wanted to see who would look away first. She wanted to see if he would let something slip, a clue as to why his behavior had changed so suddenly, from actively making her life hell to back to pretending she didn't exist. Had he given up from trying to make her step down from Head Girl? Had he realized he was wasting his time? Perhaps he thought now that she wasn't even worth his cruel putdowns or his simmering glares.
Maybe she was no longer an object to hate. Maybe now she was just an annoying gnat that hovered around, a nuisance. Or maybe she was not even that. Maybe she was nothing.
She expected for him to stonily turn away, as usual, but he surprised her by beginning to head towards her, not once moving his eyes away. She blinked, setting her empty drink down. Then something moved into her view – someone. She found herself face to face with a smirking Cormac McLaggen. She had the urge to swat him away like an annoying fly.
"Cormac," she said.
"Blackwell," he said coolly. "I see you've come dateless."
She feigned a smile. "I decided it was best."
"A shame. You would've looked gorgeous on any man's arm," he said, to which he aided with a generous look-over of her body. Hermione rolled her eyes. "But I've come to you to apologize for the way I treated you. And, to ask you if we could just let bygones be bygones." He handed her a glass of punch, smiling. She took it, hesitantly, watching his face, waiting. "And to make the humble request of a dance with you before the night ends. Just one. I'll be a gentleman. I promise."
Somehow she highly doubted that, but she could see Malfoy nearing them behind him, so she quickly agreed. With a bow, he walked away, clearing out the space in front of her. She took generous gulps of her punch as Draco passed in front of her, heading out of the massive doors. She set down her glass and followed after him.
She waited until they were far enough that it was unlikely they would be overheard by any passerby, alone in some isolated corridor, their shadows stretching and moving; enacting scenes they had yet to play.
"What are you doing?" she called out to him.
He sharply turned around, his jaw clenched. "What do you mean?"
She swallowed, her palms beginning to moisten against her dress. "You're different," she said, her words falling limp, rolling out of her mouth, as if confused. As soon as she said it, she regretted it. She was hit by sudden amnesia of why she had ever followed him out here in the first place, wanting instead to turn around and walk away and question the pull she had felt towards him in the Great Hall. Her feet had followed him without a single afterthought until now, until she heard how stupid she sounded, how undignified.
"Something's not right with you," she went on, despite her frustration. "Just tell me, so I can stop thinking about you. Then I'll leave you alone."
She hated how desperately her voice gurgled out of her throat. Something flickered in his eyes, and for a minute she thought he was deflecting her, not hearing a single thing she said.
He neared her, his shoes faintly clicking against the floor. His eyes were dark and shadowed. "You shouldn't be here," he said to her, his voice low and serious, and she felt dazed in her confusion. His scent wafted over her, and she felt dizzy from nostalgia. "I wasn't sure of it before, but I'm sure now. You need to get out."
She blinked. "What?" she said. Her own voice sounded a million miles away.
"Just trust me, Blackwell."
She scoffed. Her throat burned. "Trust you?"
For a second it occurred to her that she thought she had been seeing the old him – as if time had forgotten its linear motion and had rippled backwards, smudging its ancient constraints.
"I don't even know why I came out here," she muttered, stepping away. The dizziness was washing over her, and she turned away, heading back. He was yelling after her, on her heels, but she couldn't hear him. A white noise had begun to roar in her ears.
"Don't," he was saying. "We'll get out of the castle. Hermione!"
He had just grabbed her when she reached the Great Hall. There, in the presence of everyone, he let her go, as if he'd been burned.
In the Great Hall, fast music was playing. Colorful bodies were swirling together. Faces melted into one another. Hermione felt short of breath. Then, suddenly, the music ended and there was an announcement. Dumbledore was talking, and suddenly she heard her name along with Draco's, and everyone began to cheer. Somewhere behind her, someone was patting her on the back, commending her. She looked down at her elbow; it tingled where he had grabbed her just seconds ago, telling her to listen. Had he followed after her? She didn't know. Her mind felt scrambled, intoxicated, and confused. When she looked up, everything had begun to run together like waterlogged paint.
We'll get out of the castle. Hermione!
In the crowd, somewhere, was Cormac, closely watching her disoriented expression, his wiry lips smirking against his glass.
What happened then seemed to happen in a matter of seconds. Everything darkened, leaving them all in absolute darkness. There was a half-second of utter, shocked stillness before she heard people spring into motion, professors chanting spells with their wands glowing while the students began to murmur in panic.
When the room was again flooded with light, the slowly escalating noise of panic vanished in a chokehold of petrified silence. Hermione could barely keep herself up, her vision swaying. But when she finally lifted her eyes to where everyone was staring in complete fear, she felt her body go cold.
There, to the front, where two bodies were hanging, strung up. Their skin the sallow, unnatural hue of death, limp and heavy, dressed in the clothes they had been killed in. She knew better, however. She knew better than to think they had been merciful enough to simply kill them. No, even in her state, she could see the symptoms of torture. The blood-crusted fingernails, the sickening way she could tell their organs were not in the right places, the empty holes where their eyes used to be.
Eyes that had once looked at her with love and acceptance. She had memorized those eyes: one pair a haunting slate blue, another a warm brown with faint flecks of green. They had been hollowed out, like the insides of a walnut. Two sets of empty sockets looked at her now.
When the first scream was heard, piercing through the muffled bubble of horror, she almost thought it had been her. It wasn't. Her terror had blocked her airways and dismantled her completely, mute but already falling apart, screaming on the inside but her physical body fossilized in time, paralyzed in shock, unable to do anything but stand there like a tombstone, staring at the bodies of her parents, her parents hanging from the ceiling with their eyes now mere voids, their bodies battered shells, bloody letters carefully engraved across their foreheads and arms that spelled: DEATH TO ALL BLOOD TRAITORS.
And then there was chaos.
(I know this is probably the worst chapter to bring this up but) Vows has been nommed for Best Alternate Universe fic over at the HP Fanfic Fan poll awards! It's a total honor and a million kisses to whoever nommed it. There are a ton of amazing fics up for nomination, so feel free to read and vote! You can access the link on my bio page.
