M rating: An ongoing aspect of this fic is suicidal tendencies. Reader discretion is advised.
Other tags: violence, sexual themes, language, substance abuse.
Disclaimer: In another universe, I owned it and turned it into something Tarantino would write.
"We're more ghosts than people." — Arthur Morgan, Red Dead Redemption 2
Chapter I
Third Time's the Charm
They say that the winners write history.
All of the Prophet headlines are the same. Kingsley Shacklebolt Dead. Severus Snape Dead. Arthur Weasley Dead. Harry Potter Dead. The ink is made of their blood. All the empty promises from the new Minister are made of their souls. And the Order of Merlins awarded to them is made of their memories, wrapped up and stowed away in some shadowy corner of the Ministry.
Hermiones sees Death Eaters slithering out of Azkaban, free of charge, of guilt, of consequence. She watches them reunite with their Pureblood families, ready to continue their bigotry for generations further. Festering like fungus. You-Know-Who, Still At Large? Son of Crabbe, Back From Dead? Bellatrix Lestrange Bloodline Immortality? Malfoys Redeemed? Perhaps the winners really do write history.
In this case, it just isn't so obvious who won.
Over time, symbols can become blurred over the lines. Like runes etched into stone. Slowly, they fade. Moss covers them. The weather wears it down. They become overlooked. Harry Potter collapsed to the ground saving over a thousand onlookers. The Boy Who Lived, who died nonetheless.
She dreams about his eyes. Sometimes they're glimmering underneath the sun. Other times they're glinting at her from the depths of a cave. Emeralds that she's too afraid to reach for lest she wakes up. There are dreams that don't allow her to awaken… that she's not even aware she's dreaming.
Those are the worst.
Green, green, green, but it's not his eyes. It's the jet of light from the end of a madman's wand.
Ron's worse. He doesn't just haunt her nightmares. He reminds her he's not there every waking moment she has to spare. When there's food piled up in the Great Hall, she thinks of how much of it he'd be shovelling down. Anytime she gets a whiff of spearmint, she drifts to the feel of his lips, soft, clumsy, warm. There's not a single spot in Hogwarts Harry, Ron and her hadn't coveted. She remembers the hallways. Ron and her, on prefect duties. Just the two of them. Talking and bickering and laughing. One of those hallways had been outside of the library. She hasn't gone to the library since this damned year started.
Hermione isn't sure why she came back. More than anything, the feeble child in her has an inward obligation to complete her education. Besides, what else would she do?
Her parents are gone. They're Mr and Mrs Robinson, retired practitioners who moved to Australia. They're not aware of their true identities. They certainly don't remember having a daughter named Hermione Granger. Mr and Mrs Robinson never had children.
She should try to find them. Bring them back. But the more she thinks about it, the more she believes they're better off living in blissful obliviousness. They wouldn't look at her the same either way. They're better off without her.
Perhaps she should've just gone for a job. Travelled the world a bit. Get out of Britain. But she didn't. It's the nineteenth of September, and Hermione is in Hogwarts.
The summer has finally relented. Weak sun rays fade into dusk as the lapping ivory lake turns iron under the darkening sky. She starts shivering as a chill settles, but Hermione does not make an effort to get up from where she sits, cross-legged, with a discarded book laying on the dewy grass beside her.
Her hands nurse a bottle of half-empty firewhiskey. It was the first drink that came to mind before she could flee from the Three Broomsticks from ogling stares and mouths twitching to ask questions.
They call her the Muggle-born Who Lived. Harry would've cracked up. "They couldn't even come up with something original," he would've said. She would have laughed scathingly and come up with a series of colourful insults that would send him wheezing. Her cheeks would be hurting. She'd be dying for breath.
Hermione pauses. The phantom laughter dies with the last of the light. Silently, she regards the silky black ripples. They're alluring.
The firewhiskey bottle plops against the grass, and she goes for a swim.
It's a beautiful feeling. Surrounded by darkness and silence and a blanket that promises peace. Freedom from what her eyes have witnessed and what her ears have heard. Unshackling her from the torment her mind puts her through every night. Her lungs start constricting, but she ignores it.
Maybe there's an afterlife. She's not sure how this coincides between the Wizarding and Muggle worlds, but she supposes she just doesn't care. What she cares about is seeing Harry grinning at her again; in the same garden she dreams of, on the good nights. Ron leaning against a wall with a lopsided smile, reunited with his brother and father. Tonks and Remus and Sirius are there, too. She's almost forgotten what Sirius looks like. The idea it could happen with the rest troubles her. Dobby's there with plenty of knitted clothes. Even fucking Lavender Brown is giggling in a corner.
It feels like her lungs are on fire. It also feels like something has grabbed the hood of her jacket. Then, there's a rough jerk. As she propels upwards through the dense cool expanse, she inhales in shock.
Then she's out, spluttering for unwanted air. Squinting through her stinging eyes as the brighter gloom overwhelms her. A blur of tilting silhouettes is all the warning she gets before she slaps harshly against the grass. Groaning, Hermione rolls to her side and coughs some more. Her throat and nose are burning as much as her lungs.
"Fuck, Granger." She stiffens, holding back another cough. There's a pause. "I thought you were too much of a swot to make stupid decisions even when you're drunk." There's a sloshing of liquid, and she sneers as she realizes he's taken a swig of her firewhiskey.
Her throat tickles as her lungs seize. She ignores it all, sucking it up. Perhaps it's a habit from the war, but she can't let a branded man see her weak. Not her, a Mudblood. Hermione raises herself to stand, soaking from head to toe and glaring down at the one who started it all. He doesn't look at her, clutching her bottle as he stares out towards the lake.
"You know, my mouth's been on that."
Silver eyes swing over to lock onto hers. She glimpses a smirk on his lips. "I wonder where else your mouth has been."
She can't believe him. She can't believe herself. So many people — way more than just her friends — are going cold in the ground and yet her cheeks heat up at this disgusting… boy. This horrid, disgusting boy, sprawled lazily on the grass, his platinum hair plastered against his head as crystalline droplets twinkle against his skin. She wonders why he didn't just use his wand to pluck her out of the lake. It's the wizard's way, after all.
She wonders why he'd taken her out at all.
Instead, she pushes the thought aside, and snaps, "Fuck off, Malfoy." When she retrieves her wand from where it's nestled deep in her jacket's pocket, she's pleased to spot the brief apprehension flicker over his face. He catches himself quickly, lazy mask back on. Hermione summons her book from where it was lying forlorn on the bank of the lake. Malfoy's eyes follow it to her waiting hand. His smirk is back. She frowns.
"Keep the drink. My courtesy."
Hermione swivels around, facing the great, looming castle. She remembers when laughter used to echo over these grounds.
"Granger."
She closes her eyes, taking in a rattling breath. "What?" she breathes, barely suppressing a cough.
"Happy birthday."
She squints over her shoulder at him suspiciously. In the silver, she can't spot anything insincere. "What the hell are you doing here, Malfoy?"
"I was out for a walk, and you happened to ruin my pleasant view," he drawls.
"No," she snarls, more at herself for having to swallow back a snort that has nothing to do with her burning nose and throat, "why are you back?" He's certainly not welcome here. Eyes have been stabbing him like daggers the second he set foot onto platform nine and three-quarters.
Malfoy tips back some more firewhiskey and doesn't answer. She leaves him alone by the lake.
The next time he interrupts her, her blood boils.
October has been dragging on and her classes have obliged with it. All of the professors who have taught her in prior years (those of whom aren't stored away somewhere in the Ministry, of course) have definitely noticed her lack of participation in lessons and her lackluster essays. She dissects it in their sympathetic glances and deciphers it in their gentle prompts. Hermione does not want their pity. She wants them to shout at her for not propelling her work. To give her detentions and threaten to kick her out for wasting this opportunity they've presented all the 'Eighth Years'.
Not that there were many students to come back in the first place.
Seamus Finnegan and Parvati Patil spend an absurd amount of time together. She suspects they're trying to fill the gaps of Dean Thomas and Lavender. Neville's here, too. That's Gryffindor, including her. Susan Bones and Ernie Macmillan, the returning Hufflepuff duo, hang out with him, mostly in the Greenhouses. Hannah Abbott among her other five surviving housemates had chosen not to return, and Hermione recognises the sad nostalgia on Ernie's face that appears from time to time — knows he's thinking about Justin Finch-Fletchley.
Padma Patil didn't come back with her sister; the only surviving Ravenclaw in their year. How morbid it would be to live in an empty dormitory.
As for Slytherin, well, none of them had suffered deaths, apart from Vincent Crabbe, who'd dug his own grave. And according to the Prophet, his family might have some blood voodoo resurrection mumbo jumbo up their sleeve! So as far as she's concerned, Slytherin lost nobody at all. Most of them were intuitive enough, however, to understand that nobody would accept their presence warmly. Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott arrived anyway, laughing and strutting about in their expensive silk robes as if it was that blissful time before that terrible night on the astronomy tower. Hermione was not there, but Harry was — and so was Malfoy. The Dark Mark stark against his arm as he pointed his wand at the wizard Voldemort had feared the most.
She wonders if Malfoy ever realized he was, at one point, the owner of the Elder Wand. Hermione wonders a lot of things.
Of the trio of returned Slytherins, Malfoy is the most quiet and reserved, seeming to have swapped personalities with Zabini. But he's still an unwelcome, pretentious, interfering prick.
"Can I help you?" she snaps, glowering up at him from where the potion simmers. Slughorn has allowed her to use his classroom whenever she feels like it, and she thanks her past self for building such a good girl reputation for him to not to suspect a thing. Malfoy's eyes flicker from her cauldron, to her, and he leans against the doorframe.
"Slughorn's not in his office," he replies crisply, "was hoping he'd be here."
"Well, he's not," Hermione says bluntly. Faintly, he smirks. The potion hisses warningly and she returns her attention to it. It has to get done absolutely right.
But he's still here. She strains her ears for fading footsteps. Nope, still hovering in the doorway.
Distracting her.
"Malfoy-" she says through gritted teeth, "maybe he's off for dinner, or an early night." He doesn't respond. He doesn't leave, either.
Grabbing the valerian root, she starts chopping them violently.
"Never managed to perfect that one." It's such a mild statement that it forces her to glance up. He's looking speculatively at her cauldron. "Draught of Living Death, right?"
Hermione drops her eyes to the chopping board, making the last few chops before tipping the diced roots into the potion. "Yes." Well, sort of.
"Are you just practicing, then?" She sighs irritably, watching the liquid go violet before she puts her hands on her hips to glare at him.
"What's it to you?" At this, an eyebrow twitches. She thinks he's grinning like the Chesire cat.
Malfoy pushes himself off the doorframe, and approaches the desk she's occupied. Clenching her jaw, Hermione keeps her potion in her peripheral vision as her hands slithers subtly into her pockets. There's no need for her wand. He's just Malfoy. War habits die hard.
Lazily, he strides around the desk to where she stands. Tensing, she shoots him a warning look; he seems not to notice, focused more on her cauldron than she is. As he stops beside her, Hermione inhales the scent of green apples and something sharp. Pine needles, maybe. Not warm like Christmas. Cold, harsh, in a gloomy forest, being overlooked by Thestrals.
"After the roots it's the Sopophorous bean, right?" After a few seconds of fruitless glaring, Hermione scowls down at the desk. She grabs the bean in answer. "And you cut it. But I remember it was difficult."
This time, it's Hermione who smirks. She grabs the knife, and with the edge of the blade, crushes it. After she drops the crushed bean into the potion, it turns lilac in colour. She looks up, and Malfoy is gaping at her. Smug, Hermione immediately returns her attention back to the potion.
"Since when?"
"Harry taught me." There's a pang in her chest but there's nothing unusual about that.
Malfoy laughs. "You mean when he had that sudden stroke of genius in Sixth Year?" The air is thick. Any event in the past, as insignificant as it may be, is best left alone in these classrooms and corridors but she supposes sometimes people forget. Her lips twitch a little. Maybe she should forget for a bit, too.
"Not exactly. He was learning from Snape."
"That old bat," Malfoy grumbles, "and I was his godson."
Hermione snickers. She immediately silently scolds herself.
He doesn't leave the classroom, watching her method, steps he'd never even read about before, until she's brewed a smooth, lilac liquid. She pours it into a vial and Malfoy remarks on what he perceives as Snape's betrayal a second time. She doesn't elaborate. On the Half-Blood Prince or the extent of her potion. The parts he'd missed before he'd interrupted her deadly tranquility. Her Draught of Living Death is supposed to be more of a… Draught of Death. Something to let her drift off peacefully.
She plans to take it on a particularly bad day.
So when she retires to her dormitory a week later to discover a stiff Crookshanks next to an empty vial and her shredded beaded bag, she spends the whole night crying.
The end of war was supposed to mean the end of deaths.
She is tempted to kill him, this time round.
It appears Malfoy has a knack for catching her in her worst moments. A part of her is suspicious that he's aware, somehow, of her new-born self-destructive habits. As to how he keeps figuring out the right times, well… magic, her brain tells her. It's not impossible like in the Muggle world so it makes a perfectly viable explanation.
It's Halloween night. McGonagall has been trying throughout the year to bring joy in the school, and to her credit, she's been making a decent effort. Kids tend to ignore the missed bloodstains on the walls when there's loud music, costumes, floating pumpkins and sweets buzzing everywhere like insects. In fact the overlooked remains of the war pose as a disguise as decorations in the festivities.
Ginny had tried to drag her into the Halloween Ball, but Hermione was insistent that she spend the night alone. At first, she thought Ginny had been coping far better than she was, and she lost her father, two brothers and a boyfriend in the span of a day. But then she spotted the telltale signs; the red-rimmed eyes; the pallid complexion; the dazed looks; the dopey smiles. Now she's being selfish, not keeping an eye on the youngest Weasley during the Ball where she can find God knows what has been smuggled into the forgotten corners of the castle.
Instead she sits on the Astronomy tower, also alone. Pictures two scared boys and a wizened liar between them. Her empty bottles of whatever she could scavenge from the Hog's Head lay clattered at their feet. Imagines the look in Snape's eyes before he follows what had been ordered of him. Then, she peers down over the railing. Down, down, down. She can't see the grass from here. It's too dark. Did Dumbledore see the ground before he landed? Of course not, he was dead the second the curse hit him.
Hermione leans forward, teetering precariously on the rails. All it would take is to let go. Gravity would do all the rest.
"Granger!"
She yelps, and plummets forward. For one second, she's furious that the cause of her death will be Draco fucking Malfoy. Then, she's suspended in midair, and her eyes are torn away from the darkness below as she crashes to the astronomy tower's ground with a skull-rattling thump.
"What-" she shoves herself to her feet, quaking with fury, "the fuck are you doing here?"
Malfoy's wearing his Quidditch gear, which informs her that he, too, passed on the Ball. Unless being on the Slytherin team counts as a costume now, considering he's been banned from that particular ability. Some things money can't buy. "Could ask you the same question, Granger," he drawls, pocketing his wand and studying her. "Ever thought getting drunk on your own is a bad idea?"
"No," she deadpans, and he laughs.
"I was flying. Saw the lights here. You looked rather pathetic, so I thought I'd come and grace you with my presence." Colour rises to her cheeks. Hermione puts her hands on her hips, and gives him a haughty look. He smirks.
"Flattered," she snaps, "but I'd like to wallow in my pity again, so if you would please…" She gestures to the door behind him.
Something's wrong.
His smirk is fading; he's going paler than he usually is. Then she realizes: he's picturing it, too. But his visioning is far more accurate than whatever her alcohol-induced brain could produce. His picture is a memory. She watches his throat bob as he swallows thickly.
"What are you doing here, Granger?" he croaks, his eyes floating above her shoulder. Perhaps wishing to get sucked in by the inky blackness behind.
"Completing my education."
His eyes snap to her, and they're hard. Steely. It makes her reminisce about their earlier days, when he would spit derogatory words at her. Malfoy takes several steps towards her until they're almost nose-to-nose. Hermione is too tipsy to be cautious, so she stands her ground and glares up at him. "What are you doing here?" he growls, eyes locked onto hers as if she's a lifeline. As if he can't stand to picture any more.
And then, it's as if he's pushing into her mind. Well, he is.
Hermione's flustered at first, her sluggish mind struggling to catch up the events that have hurtled towards her. Occlumency has been a struggle for her even when sober, so she's furiously helpless as Malfoy probes her memories.
Contemplating jumping off the tower.
Brewing a death potion.
Dreaming of drowing.
She can handle those ones. It's what uncontrollable set of haphazard memories flies into the forefront of her mind next that makes her blood boil.
Curled up next to Harry in a tent. Charming roses onto the graves of Lily and James Potter. Laughing with Harry and Ron one evening in the Gryffindor common room. Helping Harry teach in Dumbledore's Army during their first gathering. Getting ambushed by Cormac McLaggen under mistletoe. Confounding McLaggen so Ron would get onto the team. Watching Remus Lupin transform into a werewolf. Hugging Sirius the summer after Fourth Year. Screaming at her reflection in the mirror when she'd put cat fur in her Polyjuice potion. A quiet moment in the Burrow, her lips melded to Ron's.
Lying against a cold drawing room floor, pinned down by Bellatrix Lestrange and her knife.
There's a resounding crack. Hermione shakes furiously. Breathes heavily as she fixes Malfoy with a look intending murder. He's sprawled on the ground, now a safe ten feet away from her, groaning as his hands splay against the wall to support himself. She hadn't registered when she'd taken her wand out, but now it's in her hand, a list of painful spells flashes across her mind as he manages to stand up, still leaning against the wall, and uses one of his hands to clutch his ribs.
Several minutes of silence pass. Malfoy breathes raggedly. Something like a chuckle puffs from him. For his sake, she hopes it isn't. Hermione considers just leaving him there. Alone in his pain and surrounded by his sins. But he turns his head to her. Grimaces. Roots her to the spot, fingers twitching over her wand. "I may have deserved that," he says, wincing.
Her voice is cold and hard. "Get out of here, Malfoy."
He doesn't, even as his eyes flick over to her wand twirling between her fingers.
"Hear me out—" He pauses when she directs her wand straight at him. Licks his lips briefly. "Granger—"
"No," she hisses, "I don't want to hear anything from you. Death Eater scum." And there it is again. Silver eyes hardening to steel. Except this time, Hermione's prepared with a wand and an expectation. "You ask me why I was here? I'll tell you. I was imagining the look of pure disappointment on Dumbledore's face when he saw your—"
"Granger," Malfoy says warningly, clenching his jaw.
"I was imagining you cowering in the shadows behind Snape. Just like you father did—"
Malfoy snarls, and staggers towards her. He stops dead when she points her wand right between his eyes. "What do you think I'm about to do to you?" he asks softly, eyes sliding from her wand to her face. "Hurt you?"
"You would know that getting hurt isn't really a concern to me," she mutters. Malfoy winces again, but this time his jaw is set and there's a determination in his eyes. He strides, one step, two steps forward. Hermione's fist clenches tighter around her wand.
But she throws no curses. She's too drunk to ask herself why.
And Malfoy is right back in front of her. There's a small, albeit triumphant smirk on his lips that she wants to slap off him. "I had my suspicions, Granger, but…" he sighs, his lips anchoring down, "I never took you for an idiot." Hermione glares at him. "You're not Potter—" She opens her mouth furiously, but he cuts her off. "—you don't need to kill yourself for the sake of being a Martyr." It feels like he's plunged his hand into her chest, ripped out her heart and crushed it in front of her.
Harry didn't die for the sake of it.
In one quick movement, her wand is in her pocket and both of her hands are fisted into his muddy, green Quidditch shirt, their lips a hair's breadth away. "Go to hell, Malfoy," she says, her voice a monotone. His eyes are shuttered and locked on hers. His breath is cold against her skin. "You probably don't know what that means, but I know that's where you're heading. Go on and get lost! Go there, and don't look back." She shoves him back abruptly, not caring that he catches his footing gracefully. Her world sways a little as she turns her back on him.
The doorway towards her sanity is right there.
Of course, it would be Malfoy who stops her. He's got a talent for disrupting her at this point. It takes her a moment to process his ludicrous words. Whipping around, Hermione fixes him with a calculating look. Stands back, and really, takes him in. "Have you completely lost your mind?"
Malfoy grins. Not smirks, or sneers, but grins. Toothily. Like a juvey boy who doesn't know where hell is. "Have you lost yours?" he mirrors, making her scowl. "Thought you were supposed to be the 'Brightest Witch of Our Age'. Ever heard of a Time-Turner?"