Draco Malfoy and His Quest to Sensibility

by cleury

Chapter XIX

Draco blinked twice. He could not believe what he had just heard. "What?"

"She's completely cured," said Luna.

That did not make sense to Draco. Not at all. He had clearly seen the side-effects Luna that had plagued Hermione's face, and it was the only logical reason to explain her emotional outbursts. "Are you sure it's not the hospital that've gotten it wrong?"

Luna shook her head. "We have confirmed it with the best Healers in not just the British wizarding community, but globally as well. Hermione's body has recovered fully from the effects of the curse, and can function perfectly."

"Then why does she still act like she's sick?" demanded Draco.

"Hermione is still psychologically scarred by the side-effects. She's always been conscious about her appearance; I don't think we can imagine how she felt when she lost control to the spasms of her face. We've done all we can to convince her otherwise, but she's quite stubborn," said Luna.

Draco shifted on his seat uncomfortably. "What makes you think that I can do anything?"

"It's what I said to you before. There comes a point where therapists and being in this institute can no longer solve the issues you have. In order to make progress, people have to step outside in the real world and deal with it themselves."

"So she's refusing to leave?" said Draco, remembering how Hermione had called herself a 'permanent resident' and was allowed to go in and out of the ward of her own accord. "Why?"

"She won't tell us. But I can think of a few reasons."

"Why can't you just force her out?"

Luna shook her head. "We're not allowed to do that, so long as a person volunteers to be in the ward believing they need help, the institution cannot reject them."

"So what, Hermione refuses to go out?"

"Yes," said Luna, shaking her head. "I think she finds herself as a potential liability and she's terribly conscious about her loss of control on the muscles of her face. While she knows on a factual level that she's completely cured. She still believes that she hasn't been so she refuses to check out of the clinic."

"And because she believes, the symptoms keep persisting," concluded Draco. Luna nodded in affirmation.

"And as the days go by and everyone is moving on without her, I fear she'll become more and more dissociated with society. She's perfectly fine to go check out of the clinic and only needs to come back for additional therapy sessions like you, but she doesn't want to go, because she's scared of becoming a burden to everyone around her," said Luna, a frown on her face. "Everyone's tried convincing her that it's not like that. And by most parts, I think she is convinced, but for some reason she still refuses to move."

Draco couldn't help but crack a smile despite the situation. "Ha, she's stubborn like that. What makes you think she'll listen to anything I say?"

Luna shrugged. "I don't. But it's worth a try, isn't it?"

Draco bit his lip, thinking for a moment. "I'll give it a go, but I don't think anything will happen."

"That's all I want to hear," said Luna quietly. She looked at her quill again. "Back on record."

Draco watched as the quill floated to become perpendicular to the desk, poised and ready to write. "Now that we have decided on who you want to help out…"

After Draco finished his session with Luna, he exited the institute and apparated to his office. As he hung his jacket on the coat hanger and headed to his desk, he spotted an envelope with his initials written across it. Seated on his chair, he opened the letter and read the contents.

we hv triad 2 be nice. if you dun give us da Magic Routes we b forced 2 do somefing.

Draco sighed as he crumbled the note and threw it into the recycling bin on the other side of the room. He opened his drawer and took out a piece of parchment, deciding to increase the security of their headquarters and their storerooms. Adrian had already notified the Magical Authorities, but at the end of the day, Draco wasn't certain they could do anything in time. This wasn't the first note he had received from Jean Kidd, but so far his threats had been empty. Adrian and Draco checked and accounted for all their stock personally at the end of each day, and placed extra alerting wards around the premise. Jean Kidd possesses the intelligence of a mountain troll, I'd be hard pressed to believe he could actually do any harm. Draco actually wished the pirate would try something so they could have proper reason to arrest him. If he were locked up, Draco needn't be bothered by the owls coming in three times a day. The content was always the same, and ambiguous at best, so Draco and Adrian couldn't pin anything on Jean Kidd with just the notes.

"One of these days, I should just send back a note with contact poison on it," grumbled Draco as Adrian walked into the room.

"Count me in," said Adrian. Though he had an abundance of patience around people—he had four sisters to deal with—even he was beginning to feel annoyed. "Or we could trick them and send them some sort of rubbish route. They'd probably be stupid enough to believe it."

Draco shook his head. "We don't want to provoke them any further. Let's just leave them be, they're stupid enough to trip over their own feet, I think we can bank on them slipping up and letting the cat out of the bag with the notes. Then we can do something about it."

Adrian nodded. "Yeah, or maybe they'll realize we're not the kind of people to meddle with and go away on their own."

Draco sighed wistfully, if only that would be the case. He picked up a piece of parchment and scrawled the letters 'N' and 'O' in large and bold handwriting before rolling up the parchment. "Maybe they'll get the message if I send that to them. After all, communication is key in any relationship," said Draco, mimicking his therapist.

Adrian snorted, and whistled for his owl; the animal flew into the room, and perched on Draco's crystal paper-weight. "Hey! Not my paper-weight, it's valuable!"

"Snaps, Draco doesn't want anyone touching his precious family jewels."

Draco made a face at Adrian, who was chortling to himself. The owl refused to budge, and pecked Draco when he tried to shoo him away. Draco sighed and gave up, tying the note around the owl's leg and watched it flap away.

"Good riddance!"

"Balls," coughed Adrian.

"Jelly Shoulders."

"Smiley."

Draco scowled, planning a date with Crookshanks that involved a romantic candlelit dinner and setting Adrian on fire.

"I need to get going," said Adrian, looking at his watch. "Portkey's opening in a minute." He tapped the stone in front of him.

"Want me to come with you?" asked Draco. There wasn't anything outstanding to do, and he didn't feel like going through paperwork right now.

Adrian snorted. "I think I should go alone, I don't think they ever forgot about how you blew up in their faces and yelled at them for the incompetence."

Draco crossed his arms and shook his head. "That was totally not my fault."

"And that's exactly why I'm going alone," said Adrian. He turned to the port-key that was flashing, signaling it was about to activate. "Take care of the company while I'm gone. And owl me if Jean Kidd does something stupid."

Draco nodded curtly as he watched his friend disappear. He yawned and stretched, ignoring the large amount of paperwork in front of him and swiveled in his chair. "This would be the perfect time to start analyzing Hermione," he said, thinking aloud. Problem was, he didn't know her well enough to help her adequately. "Guess I'll start getting to know her better?" he asked himself. Shaking his head, he dipped his quill in ink and took a piece of parchment from his drawer. This called for lists and serious planning.

Five later, Draco admired his handiwork. It wasn't much, and was just a list of things he recognized in Hermione.

Hermione Granger

Likes: Crookshanks, reading

Qualities: Smart, irrational, likes to prove her point

Dislikes: Being insulted about her appearance, people who mistreat Crookshanks

It was only then, did Draco realize how little he knew about Hermione Granger. It seemed strange for Hermione to only like two things and yet, that was all he could recognize. But then Draco dismissed it with a shrug, it wasn't as if he liked a lot of things either. Quality over quantity, he mused. He could try and make sense of her motivations and why she liked reading with these points and see where it led him. Draco wrote 'CROOKSHANKS' as a subheading and made a list of why Hermione might be so fond of her cat, it was easy really.

CROOKSHANKS

- hates everyone so when he's surprisingly affectionate, he makes you feel special

- smart

- can take care of himself

- his purring is soothing

- his hisses to your common enemy warms your heart

Draco frowned. He was writing why he liked Crookshanks, and not why Hermione did. But surely those were the reasons why Hermione loved her cat, right? Wrong. He shook his head and decided to do the 'reading' section. He didn't hold the same passion for books as Hermione, who read like a binge eater.

Draco's eyes lit up as he thought of something and wondered why it hadn't hit him before. A lot of people read books for a hobby chose books which reflected their current mentality. It was true for him anyway. He scrunched up his eyes and thought back to all the books he remembered in Hermione's hand. It was a trip down the memory lane and would have found impossible to do. Fortunately for Draco, his father had taught and trained him from a young age how to store all his memories into 'rooms' in his memory palace. If he wanted to access a particular memory, he could enter and easily recall specifics. Being the son of an evil overlord was handy during times like these. As he recalled each book he scribbled the names down.

The Wizard of Oz

Alice in Wonderland

Orpheus

Draco didn't know what the first two were about, they appeared to be Muggle literature, but he could recall the legend of Orpheus, in which a man braved through the throes of hell to bring his wife back to the world of living. But at the very end of the legend, when the man had overcome all the dangers, he broke a rule. He had turned and looked back at his wife—causing her to disappear forever. Slightly concerned with the morbid element of the ending, Draco pulled out from his bookshelf something he hadn't touched since his days at Hogwarts: A Complete Guide to the Classics of the Muggle World - With Annotation and Context. He hadn't paid attention in that class, no self-respecting pure-blooded wizard did, and for the most part, Muggle Studies had passed in a blur of snorts and paper throwing. Draco remembered that he had thought the book was totally useless and vowed never to open it again after the year was over.

Funny how things turned out.

Draco flipped to the back of the book and skimmed his eyes over the glossary. There! He leafed through the book to find The Wizard of Oz. "Girl lives in some Muggle place, blah blah." He stopped and snorted. "Then she gets transported into a strange magical land called Oz by a Muggle contraption that…" He frowned, wondering if he was wasting his time. He skipped to the end, "…finally defeated the Great and Powerful One, she wishes to be sent home and is returned back to Kansas." Draco shrugged and wondered if he was going to benefit anything from this. Nonetheless, he pressed on and read the summary to Alice in Wonderland.

"You've got to be kidding me!" said Draco, he could remember Hermione holding that book the morning after they had decided to be civil. He had noted the cover was stupid then, and the summary wasn't doing anything to help. "A girl falls down a rabbit hole and into Wonderland, where she chases the White Rabbit, only to find that it was all a dream!" It seemed preposterous. This exercise, if it was doing anything, only served to convince Draco that all the writers in the Muggle world were absolutely bonkers and Hermione wasn't in her right state of mind, if what she was reading reflected the text she read.

Then it hit him.

He was an idiot and should have noticed the recurring themes before. It was staring at him right in the face.

The Wizard of Oz was metaphorically Hermione's biography. She had been trust into a strange magical land herself when she received her letter to Hogwarts and had defeated the 'Great and Powerful One.' Alice in Wonderland depicted the same thing: that she had fallen into a different and strange world.

"Escapism. In the books, all the heroines all go through a fantastical and amazing adventure only to return back to the real world—Hermione wants to return to her old home and wishes this could all be a dream," muttered Draco, not liking where this was going at all. He was taking very large leaps and guesses but he had come to a several conclusions: Hermione was definitely staying away from the outside world and hiding in the institution because of fear. What Luna said was correct. She was scared of being a liability, and was conscious of her appearance… but that wasn't what keeping her away. Hence, no amount of reasoning would convince Hermione to leave the institute. Assuring her she could live a functional and perfectly normal life was like giving someone gloves when their feet were cold. They gave solutions that didn't address her concern.

Draco put the book down and slammed the desk hard. He regretted his little analysis of Hermione. What he had found out was something he did not want to know, or happen. Draco could only begin to guess why Hermione would deny such a crucial part of herself; to him, it would be dismissing the fact that his leg or arm existed.

Hermione wanted to leave the magical community, and live her life as a muggle.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Next chapter coming soon. Review, my loveliesssssssss.