Chapter 4: Lightless

Draco looked at the bottle of sleeping pills he'd gotten from St. Mungo's that afternoon.

Are you going to abuse them?

"Fuck yes," he said, opening the bottle. He'd love to see the expression on her face when he presented the bottle to her the next day, half empty.

What does that solve?

Her voice rang in his head. He stopped. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because seeing her angry at me is not what I want. I want...

What did he want? He wanted to know why she turned out the way she did - there was a start. Why did she put up such a facade when things could have been different? Of course, it was his fault too. He was beginning to understand that. But... why were the two of them so different? They were like the two sides of a magnet. They refused to get along.

Or... were they exactly the same? After all, those different sides of the magnet attract each other. They gravitate toward each other.

Draco gulped down two pills and got under his covers, hoping the pills were quick.

They weren't.

"Last night, I thought of something." Draco looked up at his therapist, the one and only Hermione. "It's really put everything into perspective for me."

"Really? That's wonderful. Would you like to share what you discovered?"

Draco looked at her. The one "wonderful" thing about this whole business - him being out of Azkaban for his crimes (thanks to some string pulling by Potter and his own wallet) and into what everyone affectionately called "treatment" - was that he didn't kill himself. Having her as a therapist, a counselor, a shrink. Her treating him as if he had never said a word to her, never called her names or threatened her life, and then making him hate himself for ever looking at her with a scowl. That was "wonderful."

But he could see it.

He could see, under those perfectly placed facial features that she was fuming inside. In his head, he could hear her argument with her supervisor - "Why can't he be transferred? You know how I feel about him. Yes, I know this is my job, but I don't want our past to interfere with the greater good... his greater good." They'd probably told her that it would be theraputic for herself as well, a test of her ability to stay professional or some other bullshit.

He wanted to scream at her. He wanted to get in her hostile little face and say, "This is what I am. Why don't you fucking hit me? I know you want to."

And then, last night happened. He thought of the first time he'd really seen her - he wasn't a sportsman or the best thinker, but he had a terrific memory, a fact that kicked him in the nuts more times than he would have ever liked.

He'd greeted her with a nod in the hallway. She wasn't his type in any sense - he'd known he wouldn't be able to stand her as a friend or a potential "life partner" as his father had put it - but she'd put the nails in the coffin in that moment. He'd known she was smart, and therefore a good ally for the sake of his studies. She was a Griffindor, which wasn't that much of a problem. But she'd done it to herself with one head movement.

She'd turned her nose up at him.

He'd seen it - it was like a brown aura of gore that floated around her person. He would get conformation from his buddies later, but he saw it in that moment.

She was muggleborn. And not only that: she was snobbish. She was borderline ugly.

And she had the nerve to turn her nose up at him?

He'd looked at her and seen something - an internal light, an awareness. Around her body, he saw the aura, the drippy grossness that he could almost feel as she walked by - the stain and stench of the muggleborn. But it didn't matter until she'd turned up her nose at him.

It took a lot of energy to stop the rage in his blood. It had been the first time anyone had really insulted him. And everything about it - about how she had no clue, no bloody idea about anything... made his blood run black.

It had also been the first time that he'd seen that light, the first time he'd seen it... and didn't care who was harboring it.

"Mudblood."

She hadn't heard him. She'd kept on walking. He got her later though, in second year. That one she'd heard. Oh yes.

Draco cocked his head and cleared his throat before saying, "I was thinking about us."

Hermione furrowed her eyebrows. "Define 'us.'"

His eyes were penetrating. "You and me. About how we're quite a pair."

Hermione hated when patients inquired about her personal life, or included themselves into her problems. She was there to help them, not herself. "I still don't understand."

Draco sighed and sat up. "You and me. Two of a kind, polar opposites, opposites that attract. North and South. Red and green, gold and silver. Heaven and hell. Fire and ice. You know the poem 'Fire and Ice' by Robert Frost? You must, you read. 'Some say the world will end in fire' - "

" - 'Some say in ice. From what I know of desire, I hold with those who favor fire.'"

"'But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great..."

"'... And would suffice.'" There was silence. It was quite obviously her favorite poem, and it quite obviously annoyed her that he knew it and was stepping on it.

"Like warm, creamy hot chocolate..." he stood up and slowly walked the short distance over to her desk, emphasizing every word, "... and an ice cold glass of lemonade; like the beautiful, hot day and the dark, starry night; the sky and the sea-"

"Malfoy," she said, letting her emotions sneak into her words. She was frustrated. "What point are you making here?"

"... Pure-blood prince trimmed with silver and green, and the mudblood bookworm in her lumpy red and gold jumper-"

"That's enough, you prick."

A wave of satisfaction spread through him, and he smirked as he sat down. "We could have been so perfect together."

Silence again, crushing silence, blaring in Hermione's ears and nose, filling her lungs and choking her. Now how could she respond to that? There were so many things she wanted to say to that. Things like, 'I thought you hated me,' and, 'maybe if you got off your pedestal for two minutes.' Her voice struggled with her next words.

"I am getting married, Malfoy."

Hmm. Interesting choice. Is it just me, or is she putting a flimsy little marriage vow between us amidst everything else?

"Lucky you. Or lucky him." He was still smirking. She was cracking, and he loved it. Where was that little lion inside her, that Griffindor lion? Where was that pretty light? He wanted to see her go crazy. Here, kitty kitty, he thought.

"You're insane-"

"Am I? I've realized something. All that... crap... about blood, and allegiance, and loyalty and deception and breaking rules and codes... its worth is all utterly bullshit. I'm not gonna say that we're all the same - because we aren't, and we never will be the same - but I know that all that crap just clouds the truth, the core, the real meat of everything... I'm a genius."

Hermione crossed her arms. "Oh really? A genius? Well, genius, it may have escaped your notice, but I am more than twice the person you'll ever be. So yes, we aren't the same."

"Aren't you supposed to be making me feel better? I can't even concentrate in here with you looking so - "

Hermione banged her fist on her desktop with an echoing thud. "Are you sure you want to finish that sentence?" she asked darkly.

"... annoying!"

She stared at him, unable to say anything. He continued.

"The real issue is, and always has been, emotions. That's right. What do you feel? You always ask me like you really care or like that question can even... contain... what I feel. What kind of general bullshit is that? I feel like my life has been wasted. That's right, get your little fucking notepad. I feel like I'm trying to wake up from a nightmare that I can't break the surface of and I don't know why. I feel like kicking every cat and dog and person and inanimate object I happen across. I feel like strangling you."

At this point Hermione's hand was firmly gripping her wand under her desk, while her other hand was on the panic button next to her purse.

"And I want everything other than that to go away. Stop your fucking facade. I want everyone to stop. Stop turning your nose up at someone because you think that they have half a brain. Stop going by the rules in some book and feeling the need to get all self-righteous and 'good-hearted' in certain situations. Everyone in this world... everything just feels like a facsimilie. Pretense and gossip and make-up and name brand clothes; all kinds of shit. Everything feels like a painting in front of my eyes, like people have no souls. And I find someone who does have a soul, a brain, a thought in her twisting, bushy little head - and she stoops down to the dirt. She has a light, and she masks it. She puts up her front. That is why I'm so angry, why I need medication, why I can't go through a minute in here without wanting to move your furniture around, disturb your colleagues, get ink on your fucking khakis and rip your perfectly selected expression right off your fucking face."

Through her rage and fear, Hermione saw it. She liked to call it a Breaking Point. A point where some of the chips fell into place, where the dim light brightened and the engine started. The engine of change. A lot of what he'd said made sense, though she'd never admit some of it under gunpoint - or wandpoint. Like how she felt the same thing when she looked at Ron - like he was a part of the wallpaper, a body and a beating heart with no light behind his eyes.

"And what about you?" she asked quietly, still angry. "All your history of pretense and 'bullshit'. Were you 'lightless' as well?"

Something he'd said had actually gotten through. It didn't faze him. "Necessary and partially incurable... though admittedly enjoyable to a degree." Of course she wasn't going down without a fight. Her question had nearly nixed his whole argument. His face blazed and he opened his mouth, but was cut short by her next words.

She calmed herself down quietly, and organized his papers on her desk. "Congratulations, Draco. You are one step closer." She looked into his furious eyes then, and smiled. She could see his light, and she knew he could see hers. It calmed him down instantly.

It would be hours later before he realized that she had called him by his first name.

"How's treatment going, Malfoy?" Ron asked casually as they stocked shelves with tiny glass bulbs - prophecies. It was a tedious business, and not the kind of job for a bloke as ungraceful as Weasley... with his huge hands and sudden movements. Draco was all grace. All poise. He smiled to himself, having successfully inflated his ego a bit.

"It's hell. But she said that I'm 'one step closer' the other day."

"Really? One step closer to what?"

Draco shook his head and reached into the box. Ew, dust. He really missed having a wand. "No idea. Killing myself?"

"We'd love that. No offense."

"None taken."

They finished off the box in silence and Ron went back to his desk... where he should definitely stay. Draco sighed and fixed Ron's row. He had untidy wand-work. It's like he wasn't living in the same house as Granger at all. Granger's wand-work would have been perfect. It would have been stellar.

Ew. I did NOT just say that.

He realized then that as much as he wanted to, he could not change the past - he could not unsay anything.

Now you need to make your future better. Look forward.

"Get out of my head," he muttered.