Chapter Twelve: Dirtiness

"Sit down Malfoy. There is something I would like to show you today."

Draco eyed the bowl, cauldron, and knife on her desk, along with what looked like a few jars of potion ingredients. Let's see if I can figure out what potion she is making...

"So, Draco. For as long as you can remember, you've had people telling you how 'filthy' muggleborns are. Is that correct?"

Draco paled. What was she talking about? He looked at the knife on her desktop. "Yes."

"I thought as much. Today, I wanted to show you something about muggleborns, and about blood." She brought her wand out and set it next to her notepad, and then started unscrewing jars.

Let's see... that looks like troll beettle wings... toad venom... and... diluted panacea sap -

Oh no.

It was a simple but special kind of healing potion designed to quell sickness. And combined with magical human blood, it could create a potion designed to induce a dreamless sleep.

Draco gulped as she started to create her potion. "Um... you aren't going to cut yourself with that knife, are you?" To tell the truth, blood - any kind of blood - made him queasy. Just the smell of it - that metallic smell, and the aftertaste of salt in his mouth as he breathed it in... he felt dizzy after being exposed to it.

Hermione was silent as she mixed the potion with her wand, waving it over the surface. She then added a measured amount of the diluted panacea sap and set her wand back on the table. If Draco remembered correctly, that potion had to sit for a few minutes before anything else was added.

"Well.. this has to sit for a bit. Tell me how your assignment is going."

"I can't... deal with coming here every day and you asking me how it's going. It makes it harder to do."

"Get used to pressure Draco. You'll deal with it for the rest of your life."

"I know what pressure is!" he snapped.

Hermione looked at him before turning back to her potion. "Well, then I suppose I can do this now." She took the knife and held it to her arm.

Draco gasped involuntarily. It was quite a strange sight, and a disturbing one as well. He felt like he was watching her calm, collected suicide; sitting at her desk, calmly taking out a knife to kill herself, humming a little catchy tune... his thoughts rushed back to that sentence he'd read about deceased soulmates.

"What? I want to show you something." She made a cut all the way across her arm, letting it bleed freely into the bowl.

Draco watched in horror.

"Don't worry, it doesn't hurt - it's like cutting meat open. I'm pumped full of pain killing potion," she said, eyeing his horrorstruck expression. "Though perhaps it would make a bigger impression on you if I let you know that it does hurt, that I am hurting myself in order to get you to understand something." She took a towel from inside her desk and wiped her arm before putting her wand to her skin and mending the incision. He looked at the bowl - it had at least two cups of blood in it. He could smell it.

"Come here," she commanded. He stood up and hesitated.

"Closer," she said, leaning over the bowl. He took a step forward and peered into it.

"Give me your hand," she said a little more softly. "Come on, I won't bite."

Her smile did not fool him in the slightest. What was she doing? "What are you going to do with my hand?"

She rolled her eyes. "Just give me your bloody hand, it's not like I'm going to cut it open too." He stiffened and looked at the door as Hermione took his hand and brought it next to the bowl. He turned to watch her nervously.

"Now. Did you or did you not see me pour my own blood into the bowl?"

The image of her bleeding arm, her calm face, and the bloody knife was still unbelievably fresh. "Yeah." He glanced at the knife - it still had wet and splotchy bright redness on it.

For the first time, he looked at her desk - it looked like a crime scene.

"So - there it is then. Take a look at it."

"At what?"

"The blood in the bowl."

He looked. The sides of the bowl were dripping with it, and the bowl itself was a bright white that looked like it should never have housed something so sinister; the blood was bright red and opaque - and from this close, was making him faint. It took him a second to realize that she was rubbing circles in his palm. It was clearing his head a bit... and yet making it fuzzier.

"What does it look like? Does it look dirty to you?"

It hit him then. Of course that was what she was showing him - why else would she cut herself open like that? He shook his head, feeling a strange feeling in his stomach - a combination of bile and something like... contrition.

Without warning, she put his hand right in the bowl. He yelped in surprise and tried to get his hand back - she had a firm grip on it.

"What does it feel like? Describe it to me. Viscosity, temperature... everything." He felt her thumb still moving over his palm, a strangely rough surface amidst all the smoothness in the bowl.

He felt distinctly sick then. Even as his time as a Death Eater, blood was not something he saw very often. The Unforgivables were not only the worst curses... but they also tended to be the cleanest ones. "It's... I don't know, Granger, this is really... weird."

She was entirely unfazed by his discomfort, which made him even more uncomfortable. Why was she acting like this? "Well... it's the wettest thing I've ever felt. And it's warm..." Hearing it come out of his mouth made him want to gag and vomit. She abruptly let go of his hand, and using her bloodied one, she reached in her desk and pulled out something wrapped in foil.

"Eat this," she said, holding up a piece of blood stained white chocolate.

He fainted on the spot.

When he awoke, the first thing he felt was her hand on his forehead. "I told you to eat it, Malfoy. You can drink a pint of blood before you get sick."

She left the bit of chocolate in his open, bloody hand and returned to her desk, letting him get up on his own.

"WHAT THE FUCK, GRANGER."

"You know, you say that to me all the time."

"SERIOUSLY."

He got to his feet and fell against the cushions behind him. He was suddenly freezing. He looked up groggily - her desk was clean, but the blood bowl was still there, along with the cauldron and a glass of water. "FUCK," he yelled, looking at his drippy hand.

"Hey, you were going on a pretty good clean language streak - don't screw it up by cursing up a storm now. And eat that, or I'll feed it to you along with some of your organs."

He was gagging again, but he shoved it in his mouth anyway.

"That's better. Now chew like a good boy."

He bit down, and his tongue touched the metallic wetness. He felt like crying, like he was five years old again and his mother was forcing him to eat something at dinner he didn't want to.

"Come on, it's bloody chocolate!"

"Ugh," he sounded around his mouthful. Why did she have to say "bloody" chocolate? He chewed it, and immediately felt his head clear up. His heart didn't however - it still felt like he had been kicked in the chest.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" She ignored his glare. "I bet if I opened your arm up, the same color blood would come out, am I right? Now, tell me why my blood is dirty, in detail. Because I am human just like you. I don't have any deformities, no tentacles under my robes, no extra toes or eyes hidden somewhere."

Draco stared at her, holding his hand out like it was covered in slime... which it kind of was, now, considering that he was simultaneously letting it air-dry. "I don't know, Granger," he muttered, his voice shaking.

Her fierce stare softened a bit. "Just think about that," she said, picking up the bowl and dumping the contents into the cauldron. It began to bubble uncontrollably. "I'm making this so that you can sleep better. The blood usage was just a bonus... though it'll probably do you more good than this potion will."

They sat in silence for a bit before Hermione remembered. "Oh, let me get your hand for you..." she came over toward him with her towel and glass of water.

She knelt next to him slowly, wetting her already blood-stained towel, and took his hand gently. Her now clean fingers pressed into his skin as the roughness of the towel worked on the drying redness. She twisted his fingers in her hand, rubbing the skin in between his fingers and on his knuckles. For some reason, the whole experience was starting to make him feel fuzzy again, and the silence between them became an awkward one. He searched for something to say.

"You know," he said, watching her face, "it's just an expression."

"Yes, just like the 'n' word is an expression?" she said sweetly, twisting his hand all she way around until something popped that was not supposed to. His eyes bulged as he bit his tongue. Something had told him that he shouldn't say it, that he should just keep his fat mouth shut...

"I bet you don't think saying that is right, do you? Well, guess what, racist, it's the same fucking word for two different people." Tears leaked out of her eyes, and she let his hand go, throwing the bloody towel on his face as she went back to her desk; she then rounded on him with the most ferocious look on her face, ready to let him have it.

Draco stared at the large vial he was holding. She had given him the potion to take home in case he was having nightmares. It didn't even look like she had added a bowl of blood to it - the potion was a clear blue.

Yow can swallow a pint of blood before you get sick, she'd said. Well, wasn't there at least a pint of blood in that potion? And she expected him to drink it?

He scoffed and put it on his shelf. Today had definitely been the most disturbing day of his therapy - even more disturbing than their little dinner outing. When he should have felt disgusted for actually eating her blood because it was "dirty"... the thought of the actual method of consumption just made him sick to his stomach. He'd eaten her blood with a piece of fucking chocolate, for crying out loud. That was some evil sounding shit, like he was a dark vampire or something, laughing and popping some of his favorite candy.

Ugh.

And Granger. What was up with her today? She must have been quite a sociopath for doing all that just to prove a point. And proven it she had - he could distinctly still feel the blood swirling around his fingers as she held them there and rubbed his palm. It'd felt almost like... warm milk.

And even though he had been overcome with the smell of it... he could still feel the distinctly pure feeling of the blood, like... it had no infections. Perhaps it was a magical thing, or perhaps his brain had added that as he'd continued to think about it, but whatever the case was, he knew something.

"Dirtiness" had nothing to do with blood. It had nothing to do with heritage. And it certainly had nothing to do with magical ability.

It had everything to do with character.

Did that make him a mudblood now?

And then she'd just started screaming at him. Calling him names, ripping him apart. He had just... sat there, staring at her like she was some kind of wild animal that had gone crazy. He forced himself to not think about what she'd said, because then he'd be in danger of crying again.

Ugh. Why did he have to be so weak?

Draco lied down on his bed, trying to stop his brain from thinking.

She was bleeding everywhere, from every hole in her body, and every cut and gash on her skin. Blood splashed on pristine white walls - the strangely familiar color white that should never have housed something as sinister as blood.

"Go away," she said, turning away from him, blood still flowing down her body like she was a living waterfall. "I'm busy."

Draco watched in horror. He had something in his hand, something warm, something melty. He turned to look at the melting chocolate in his hand, and it suddenly began to spurt blood as well, with as much force as she. He was covered in redness - it was in his mouth and eyes, in his ears, shutting his brain off and killing his other senses. It became a living thing that was out to smother him, getting in every nook and cranny of his being, filling his lungs and his heart. He desperately reached up and tried to clear it out of his eyes, trying to see where she was, trying to see if she had died.

"Very good," she whispered.

He flailed around, trying to break free of all the redness that was blinding him, turning him about, and ripping at his core, but he was drowning in it. Drowning in her pretty, yummy red blood. He coughed, trying to get it out of his mouth, but no matter how much he fought, the red in front of his eyes eventually became darkness, and he felt the world slow down, as if time was stretching in order to let him relish in the feeling of his slow, torturous demise.

"You're mine now," she whispered. "Let me hear you say it."

Draco started shaking as the blood around him, the blood inside him, and the blood filling the room turned ice cold. He was suddendly a thousand times alive again, flailing around, trying to clear the blood from his being.

"Say it," she voiced. Draco looked around in vain, trying to find the source. It took him a few seconds to place that the voice was still inside him, coming out of every cell of blood around him and within him.

"Say it," she breathed, millimeters from his heart and his mind, his lips, his chest, his brain. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out except for more blood.

"SAY IT!" she screamed, chilling him past zero, past any temperature. The blood around him turned black.

"Mud.. mud..." he whispered.

"Wake up, Draco, you're scaring me!" Hermione was shaking him. He twisted around and opened his eyes.

"You're still alive?" he said, reaching out to her.

"Did you take that potion? I told you to take it!"

"Where's all that blood? There was so much blood, everywhere, and you were gone, I couldn't see you - "

"I'm right here, Draco, standing in front of you - you aren't dreaming anymore. You shouldn't leave your door unlocked - anyone could just waltz in - "

He was unconscious again.