Note: Song lyrics at the beginning from the song "It's a War in There" by Dar Williams. Many thanks to my beta, Eilonwy:D
Requested by: Weaselbee, jamy21, NelStar7
ooo
War In Me
If you want to make peace, well you gotta find the pain,
And you bring your words, but you're just like them,
you're unprepared,
Cause you don't know the terrain.
ooo
Draco stood on the beach, just out of reach of the water, trying to calm his nerves. He tried to focus on the sound of the waves steadily rolling over the fine, white sand beneath his feet. He squeezed his eyes shut and took very measured breaths. For a few minutes, the constant rhythm soothed him and he felt his stomach slow its churning.
Then a bird chirped, interrupting the quiet, and other sounds started punching through the ocean sounds. Voices… images… began bombarding his mind, flashes of black and green and red… screams…
The momentary calm Draco had achieved was broken and he snapped his eyes open and rushed into the water waist deep until he could hold it in no more. He threw up until he had nothing left in him, and then bent double, resting his hands on his knees. The salty water pulsed over his head with the incoming waves and he barely noticed it.
"Draco! Draco!"
He heard a voice that sounded as if it came from the other end of a long tunnel. Once more the waves crashed over and around him. If only he could be so smooth, if only things didn't matter like they did.
"Draco!"
Slowly, he turned toward the source of the voice and saw Jane standing on the beach, on her tiptoes, arms crossed, and brow furrowed in concern. He stood to his full height and looked at the woman.
She motioned for him to join her, but he couldn't trust himself to move yet. He took a few steadying breaths and waited until his stomach wasn't whirling and churning and somersaulting. And just as he was about to make his way to the shore, Jane started waving her arms, pointing. Draco turned to look behind him, but a large wave hit his back and he went under.
He opened his eyes and saw the sediment rolling around him. It was quiet, absolutely silent, and it helped to calm him even more. Finally he set his feet on the ocean floor and stood up.
Jane was pacing and when she saw him, she stopped and called to him to come in. Draco nodded and started toward her.
"Are you okay?" Jane asked as soon as Draco stepped out of the water. He frowned; she seemed worried… over him!
"Fine," he mumbled, looking away from her.
"Don't 'fine' me, you were just quite sick in the ocean! Repeatedly!"
"It's nothing," he grunted, making to walk toward the tent where Steve and Jane lived, the beginnings of a framed house behind it. "Ate something bad, probably."
Jane grabbed his arm and held it firmly when he tried instinctively to pull out of her grasp.
"Let me go," he said, narrowing his eyes.
"You are paler than I've ever seen you—you're green-tinged, Draco. It's not just food. And I'm not letting you go until you tell me what's wrong."
He scowled. "You're not my—" he stopped himself before he said 'mother.' No, this woman was certainly not his mother. She would have looked the other way and reminded him not to get the carpets wet when he went inside.
Jane stood there, waiting, eyes blazing—so much like Hermione's when she was fired up.
"I… I don't talk, Jane."
"Nonsense. Everybody talks."
"I don't."
She smiled at him as though she knew something he didn't. "Maybe you've never really talked, Draco, but I'm sure you've got something to say. Let yourself say it. I'm your friend and I'm here for you."
He shook his head in disbelief. Jane and Steve never ceased to amaze him. Ever since he'd brought them to the island, they'd gone out of their way to make him feel comfortable, relaxed… at home. He'd fought hard against it at first, but Jane refused to let him win. It was as though she had a secret sixth sense and she could detect just what he needed, even when he hated to admit it, even when he didn't even have a clue what he needed himself.
And she always had a smile for him, even when he snapped at her, even when he just went to his room to brood.
Now, after only three months, Draco realized he would never win that battle against her, that really, it had been lost before it even began. More than anything, he longed for someone to call a friend, someone to accept him… to love him for exactly who he was, because he wasn't capable of doing it on his own.
"Draco, you can't hold everything in. It's been three months, and… I reckon you're about to burst."
He looked at her briefly, then returned to staring at the ocean. The steady, rhythmic undulations of the waves he once again found calming. He swallowed hard and tasted the acrid leftovers from his venture into the water. He made a face.
"I'd like a drink," he said.
Jane nodded. "Then we'll talk, right?"
Draco shrugged and together they walked to the tent.
On the outside, it looked like a normal, two-person tent. Jane had blanched when Draco first showed it to her and Steve, and told them the tent would be their home until they could build a house. It would be the first of many communications glitches that would rise between Draco and the Grangers, due to the fact of their very different backgrounds.
When Draco had explained about wizarding tents, and then finally when they saw the inside, Jane relaxed. The tent had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, kitchen and small eating area.
When they neared the tent, Draco looked behind it, where the foundation and framing for a house sat. Whenever he could get away, he would go to the island and work with Steve and Jane on the house. He'd bought a book about building with magic, and the house was relatively easy—if time-intensive—to build. A few more weeks, and it should be done, if all went according to schedule.
"You first," said Jane, opening the tent flap.
Draco sighed and walked into the tent and headed for the kitchen.
"Sit," said Jane when she arrived behind him.
Draco was just about to get a glass out of the cabinet. He looked at her, puzzled.
"You've been sick. I'll fix you some juice. Sit," said Jane in a no-nonsense tone of voice.
Draco sat.
"Here," said Jane, handing him a glass of orange juice.
Draco took a few small sips to help wash away the horrid taste in his mouth, then took a large gulp. Jane was watching him expectantly.
Draco frowned. He didn't talk. He didn't need to. He could handle things fine on his own, had been doing it for years. An image flashed unbidden into his mind and he had to quickly drink the remaining juice to avoid being sick all over again.
Maybe… maybe he could tell her… enough. Not everything—Merlin, no! Just the surface might be enough to relieve the gnawing in his gut that was his constant companion.
"Take your time," said Jane kindly.
Draco took a steady breath. "It—it's just… there are… things… that I see, and… do… that, for some reason, bother me. And they didn't before."
Jane nodded, waiting for him to continue, but he didn't for a long moment.
Then he shuddered and whispered, "Awful things."
"If you need to talk about them, it's okay," said Jane quietly.
Draco looked at her, eyes wide. "I—I can't! No! You… you'd hate me!"
"Draco, I know you do bad things as a Death Eater. Not only did Hermione talk about her job, in some detail at times, but you were sent to kill us."
Again, Draco shivered and shut his eyes tight, forcing himself to take steady breaths. "There are worse things than killing a person."
Jane reached over and squeezed his hand. "These… awful things are things you must do, in order to continue with your plan."
"Would you still say that if you knew?" Draco asked angrily, yanking his hand out of Jane's and pushing his chair away from the table. He grabbed his head with both hands and fisted his hair until it hurt.
"Draco—"
"I mean… I—I've seen things you can't even imagine. I've helped, I've done it… you don't say no to him, you can't!"
"Draco," said Jane so sternly that he looked up at her in surprise. "Do you think I have lived my entire life in a sheltered bubble? Do you think I don't know what people are capable of? Muggles have guns and knives and bombs. Every day someone does something evil to a fellow human being. I don't need to hear specifics unless you want to share them, but I can imagine what you've been exposed to. I am not naïve.
"And you must not forget that the very fact that you are bothered by these things is the reason you are doing what you're doing! You have something inside you that screams at you, that tells you 'this isn't right!' Do you think your master has such a voice?"
"No, but… I've only heard the one in my head since I met you and Steve."
"You only listened to it that night; it was always there. When you stood outside our door, the voice was screaming at you and you finally heeded its call. Draco," Jane said, leaning across the table and looking him in the eye. "If you are bothered now, you have always been bothered. You'd just learned to ignore it, to push those thoughts away. Now that you're doing something about it, trying to make a difference in the world and listening to that voice, it makes perfect sense that you would be affected more than ever before."
Draco looked away. Part of him knew she was right, but he couldn't get the other part of him to accept it.
"It… it's like I'm constantly at war with myself. The side I want to win can't, because I don't believe it can. I can't ever be good, as much as I wish it were so."
"That's not true!" Jane cried. "You can be anything you want to be, Draco, if you truly want it hard enough."
Draco's shoulders slumped. "How long, Jane? How long until I don't feel like this anymore?"
She smiled sadly and then got up from her chair and came around the table to stand beside his chair. "I don't know, Draco. Stand up."
He looked up at her skeptically.
"Please?" she asked.
With a sigh, he complied.
"I wanted to look you in the eye when I say this. What makes a man good is his desire to be good and his efforts toward that end. I don't know how long it will take you to feel good, but you've already begun being good."
Draco felt his throat tighten but refused to let the water pooled in his eyes fall. "You—you really believe that, don't you?" he asked in a whisper.
Jane nodded and her own eyes filled with tears. "Yes. I do."
Draco stared at her, wanting desperately to believe her. He opened his mouth to speak, but as he did, she pulled him into a hug. He stood awkwardly in her arms as she cried—cried! For him!—and felt, as her tears fell, that some of his own pain and guilt were being washed away.
He'd never really been hugged like that in his life. Neither of his parents showed him any kind of genuine affection, much less were at all demonstrative. Pansy had hugged him… or more accurately, hung on him. There was certainly a difference between that and what Jane was doing. He felt as though he truly mattered to Jane, as though his life were important to her. It felt… good.
After a few moments of consideration, Draco slowly, hesitantly, and awkwardly returned the hug; he was amazed at how easy it was. Jane only squeezed him harder.
Finally, she pulled away, her eyes still brimming with tears, but with a smile on her face. "So," she said, taking her seat once again. "How are your plans coming?"
Draco sat down as well. "Well. I've purchased a tract of land."
"Really? Where is it?"
"In Wales, in an area that was under government protection. I had to sign all kinds of papers saying I wouldn't build certain things, or develop too much of the land. I assured them I only wanted to build a small house."
"I see. When will you start?"
"Soon, I reckon. I'm looking forward to having a place where I can go to get away from things. And I won't have to worry about hiding all my plans." Draco sighed. "And… it will be nice not living with my parents anymore."
Jane nodded. "It hurts me to know that you aren't close to your parents."
Draco scowled. "Don't bother." The scowl turned to a frown as he thought about what she'd said. "If I had been closer to them, who knows—things might have turned out much differently…"
ooo
A/N: I know, this one was short - really short - but I just went where the scene went and stopped when it stopped. There might be another Grangers scene coming up a bit later. Thank you for reading! See you next week!