What Hermione really wanted to do was sigh in an angry, impatient way. She wanted to be able to voice her annoyance in some likewise annoying way that would at least catch Hannah's attention. But if she'd thought that sound echoed in the stone halls of the fortress during the day, she'd realized that it echoed even more in the deepest, darkest, unfriendly parts of night. It was creepily quiet, and Hermione had to be satisfied with glaring at the other woman's back with as much ferocity as she could manage.
Hannah, of course, was totally oblivious. That was the major problem with silent fuming.
Hermione had been totally unprepared for Hannah's suggestion, and that's why (she thought) she was in this ridiculous position. If she had been better prepared, she would have been able to think of some excuse to turn Hannah down. But since she hadn't been able to form any response in advance, this was how the conversation had happened:
Hannah: Too bad I can't get a decent map of all the nooks and corners of this place while everyone's out and about. It would hardly be diplomatic to be up to something like that.
Hermione: I suppose so.
Hannah smiled.
Hermione: What? What? No, absolutely not.
Hannah: Well, I'm going tonight because we need to. I'd be safer with you to watch my back, but if you want to cower up here all alone, then I can look after myself.
And Hermione hadn't been able to come up with any response, because she had been lulled into a false sense of security by the conversation that had come before this little exchange. It was something banal and about the keep's chef or something, but Hermione could barely remember what it was about now. Just the last part of that conversation kept running around and around in Hermione's mind. She felt like a moron.
They had mapped out their floor, and the two floors beneath it. Their floor had been entirely residential rooms, mostly just single rooms with a bathroom. The fortress was… very odd. It appeared to be your standard old castle, roughly square shaped with the odd tower or spire, but on the inside, it was just wrong. There were hallways at right-angles to each other, and small steps down into floors that jutted off from the main of the building in a way that would definitely have been noticeable from the outside. Hermione had gotten unused to the quirks of magical architecture. It annoyed her.
There was no one else in their wing, but they knew that one old man, two young twin sisters, and a middle-aged man Hannah had seen hanging around the kitchen all lived on the other side of their floor. They'd met most of the floor mates at breakfast, and Hermione had even been invited to lunch with the twins in their room. The floor beneath theirs had been split into residential rooms and what seemed to be lab or conference rooms. Well, there were locked rooms that Hannah guessed were labs, since the doors were either badly charred, buckled, or suspiciously new-looking.
On the floor they were on now, there were more conference rooms and a few offices. They didn't look through the offices or any of the rooms in depth. Hannah just labeled it on her map, and they cleared out as quickly as possible. Frankly, Hermione was amazed that they hadn't run into anyone. In fact, the absence of anyone was somehow more unnerving than it would've been if there had been someone lurking around. This was a nest of evil, wasn't it? Where were all the lurkers? The shadows were entirely too empty!
Plus, you'd figure that there'd just be more people working late. This was an organization that was doing its damnedest to know what was going on outside while hiding what was going on inside. That wasn't exactly nine-to-five work. Where was everyone?
While Hermione was reflecting, Hannah was attempting to open the next door. 'Attempting' because the door was stuck. Not locked, by key or magic, because she'd checked. Just stuck, because this fortress was obviously ancient and probably nothing worked at all. She wondered that it hadn't collapsed into a pile of stones a hundred—oh, there, it was opening at last.
Hermione was about to follow her through the door when Hannah suddenly whirled around, smashing into her. Before Hermione could even make a noise of pain or protest, Hannah was pushing her out of the room and down the hallway. Without even realizing it, she was running flat out down the passageway.
Hermione turned to ask Hannah was the hell was going on, but just then she heard the raised voices coming from behind them. Well. There were all the industrious workers. It just figured that they'd all be lurking in the same unlit room. Shady bastards.
"Whoops" Hannah said as they sprinted.
Hermione could hear other steps being tossed around the stone hallway with their. The others apparently wanted to see who'd disrupted their meeting.
"They can't catch us," she panted. "We definitely aren't supposed to be up to something like this."
Hannah nodded, tucking the work-in-progress map into her jumper, keeping her wand in one wand. Hermione noticed that she'd drawn her own as well. She couldn't remember when she'd done that, exactly.
"Split up," Hannah ordered as they neared the end of the passage. "Meet in my room later. Don't worry about taking a long time."
They divided at the neck of the passage, Hermione going left and down the adjacent hallway (they hadn't explored that one yet), Hannah launching herself up a flight of stairs.
The sound of her sneakers clattering against the cold stone seemed freakishly loud to Hermione. Somewhat oddly, she just wanted to turn and curse the living daylights out of her pursuers, but that would hardly have been diplomatic. She wondered that they hadn't fired on her yet, though. But she didn't care enough to stop and ask them why. She kept running, whipping past unfamiliar doors and dark passages.
As she kept running and felt that she had to turn off this hall soon or be hit by some spell, panic began to set in. Almost in perfect time, the muscles in her legs and her lungs began to protest. She hadn't run like this in a long, long time. But where to go? What was a dead end?
Just when she was about to well and truly lose control, she caught sight of a way out. An almost hidden staircase, no wider than an ordinary door, just off to her right. She backtracked and threw herself down it, skipping down steps and hoping to God she didn't fall.
Well, she didn't fall. She did crash fully into the very large and very metal coat rack standing on the steps, knocking her head painfully and sending the rack tumbling down the steps in front of her. This is ridiculous! She moaned as she jumped from the last of the steps and turned onto the next hallway. Why on earth would there even be a coat rack in the middle of a tiny staircase stories above any sort of door? The night was beginning to have a strong sense of unreality to it. But she'd have a lump on her head from that little collision, and that didn't really happen in nightmares.
What she needed was a place to hide, and a clever enough place where they wouldn't think to stop and look for her. You're good at stuff like this, Hermione, she thought in a voice that sounded (though she really didn't want to examine the psychological meaning of this) like Harry's. Just wait for the flash of brilliance to come to you like it usually does.
It's the usually that she had a real problem with. And that wasn't a plan, that was some sort of a—there!
Hermione backpedaled, staring at another staircase. This one was grander and obviously newer, crafted of wood that was still a fresh yellow. It came up from the floor below and continued upstairs, with just a small landing connecting it to the hallway Hermione had been running down.
It was an insane idea. The gap between the beginning of one flight and end of the other was probably less than four feet wide. She'd fall to her death. She'd be caught. She had no alternative at the moment. That was all there was to it. And they'd never expect her to be this stupid.
She jogged over to the edge of the landing, jammed her wand into her back pocket, and hiked herself over the banister. Using the steps of the stairs coming up on her right, she carefully got a firm grip on the wooden slats of the banister above her. She tried to lower herself slowly so her arms wouldn't lock, finally letting her body dangle in the air below the staircase. Just as she finished her painstaking process, she heard steps in the hallway she'd just left. Careful, now. Don't panic. Only her fingers were visible from the hallway, just wrapped around the slats of the banister at the edge of the landing. Hopefully no one would think to examine the floor.
There were steps on the wooden landing now. They shuffled around, then stopped. Hermione bowed her head, wishing with more passion than she ever had before that her hair was a little less noticeable.
"I can't hear anything. Which way now?" someone asked. Whoever it was, they were sorely out of breath. Hermione smiled.
"Down again?" another man panted.
"They did that last time," said a woman's voice. "Would they choose the same direction twice?"
"If they were that thoughtful, would they have broken into that room so clumsily?" a younger voice reasoned.
"This would've been over much faster if we could've just cursed them," someone moaned.
"We told you, that's against the—"
"Stokes? Kuran? Is that you? What are you all doing?" This voice was new, unwinded, and coming from the steps alarmingly close to Hermione's right side. They were on the steps coming up. Had they seen her levering herself over the edge? And, the worst worry of all, wasn't that voice a little familiar?
"Sir1" One of her pursuers panted, and Hermione's heart sank. "Have you seen someone running down these steps, sir?"
"Sorry?" The new voice asked, clearly thinking they were playing some sort of joke on him.
"Up the stairs, then!" Someone called, and they were off, feet clattering up the stairs and vanishing out of hearing. Hermione didn't allow herself to relax or even shift her grip on the banister. She hadn't heard that other set of feet move yet. She grimaced, and tried to stay still. Her arms really hurt.
Draco pivoted to watch the others race up the steps, slightly bemused. What had all that been about? He had been wrapped up in his own thoughts, but had he been so distracted as to miss the sounds of someone running through his keep? No one had passed him (that he would have definitely noticed), but if they'd run up the stairs…
He sighed, stepping thoughtfully onto the landing. He thought that all conflict between members of the Rebels had been extinguished once he's united them under one name, but he knew that old allegiances die hard. Death Eaters weren't the only ones in the keep, after all, and old enemies sometimes found themselves face to face in this supposed haven. He'd put in rules to keep that sort of infighting in check, because he frankly didn't have the patience to deal with it, but fresh people came in every week. He couldn't personally address every prejudice and family issues in his keep, and he sure as hell didn't want to.
Maybe he'd just been working them too hard. He'd ask Stokes about it tomorrow, being entirely too tired to chase them around the keep now. He'd spent too many nights working lately, and coffee could only get a person so far before they started acting…funny. Draco recalled with perfect clarity the way Blaise had gone a few months ago. During a busy and critical time in their plans, he'd stopped combing his hair or showering, and he went missing for a whole day before Draco found him crouched under his desk, talking rapidly and incomprehensibly to his quill pen. He'd recovered after two days of uninterrupted sleep, but Draco'd rather rest before he went into such an undignified—What was that?
He froze, and the silence that had before seemed restive and peaceful now was oppressive. Eyes darting around the steps and landing, he felt the blood drain from his face as he remembered Stokes' question. What if the person hadn't gone up or down the stairs? What if they were still right here? Slowly and carefully, Draco pulled his wand from his pants pocket and gripped it in his right hand. Calm down. Maybe he'd made a mistake. He was tired after all, and paranoia was a symptom of too much caffeine and not enough sleep. Just wait a little longer. Just in case.
There! There it was again! A sort of muffled groan, coming from somewhere very close. Shaking more from adrenaline than fear, Draco turned to survey the landing. He had to move cautiously until he was sure where the intruder was hiding. He didn't even light his wand, in case he hadn't already given away his position. Bending slowly, Draco untied his boots and slipped out of them. Padding inaudibly across the wood in his thick socks, he crept over to the edge of the landing, peering over it into the darkness below.
And stared.
"I don't believe it."
"Shit," Hermione's muttered into the darkness beneath the stairs. When had he moved?
"Granger, what the bloody fucking hell are you doing handing off that landing?"
"Dying." She said grimly, still not looking up at him. "Very, very slowly."
"I should just leave you there," he said, with a great deal more vehemence than he'd meant. Damn. He'd promised himself that the next time he'd be the cool, in control one. There was no Blaise to bruise his tailbone here. He had to stay calm. She finally looked up then, though he could barely make out her features in the dark. She didn't reply. She just twisted her body and swung one leg up onto the steps to her right. Pulling herself onto that knee, she unwrapped one hand from the base of the banister and put it along the top slat. Draco watched as she went through this excruciating process, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest. Finally she got herself up, and was pulling herself over the top of the banister.
She righted herself, and stared up at him, her arms hanging at her sides.
She was breathing heavily, and shaking, but she hoped that he couldn't see her that clearly in the dark. She couldn't she much of what he was doing, but could make out the shape of his face and body. She couldn't make out any detail, but it was him. Beyond a doubt. She had to make a conscious effort to keep breathing evenly, and to think straight. She wasn't afraid, she realized. Her arms just hurt really horribly. After hanging in space over a three-story drop, squaring off against one man seemed like nothing,.
But that one man was still Malfoy. She wished she could just get away from him. But she'd thought it over after that emotionally charged first meeting, and had reached the conclusion that she'd spent entirely too much time running away from him. Something like six years. More than that, if you wanted to analyze their relationship at school (though she most definitely didn't).
"So, what now?" She asked, when the silence was getting ridiculous.
"Sorry?" Draco asked, his voice strained. It sounded as though he just wanted to run away too. At least he had a concrete reason for not wanting to turn his back on her. It wasn't something she was proud of.
"What happens now?" She repeated. "If you want to have some sort of 'clash of the titans', battle-to-end-all-battles, I have to tell you that I'm really not in the mood for it." She'd meant to sound light and easy, but her stupid voice came out all quavery. Shit.
He was silent, then took an odd sort of deep shuddering breath. Oh God, she thought suddenly, If he has some sort of asthma attack here, I'll have no idea what to do. She actually had to stop herself from giggling at the thought. She was really cracked. Utterly and totally cracked.
"What the hell were you doing down there?" Well, at least his voice quavered too.
"Nothing," she said. If she pretended that she was talking to someone else, she could probably get through this conversation without losing her composure. "I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd take a look around. I opened a door, and interrupted them—" she gestured above them to indicate Stokes, Kuran, and crew. "—and panicked. They chased me, so I just kept running. Hanging there was the only hiding place I could think of."
There was another silence, and she realized that her silly idea of pretending it wasn't him she was talking to would never work. She just wished that he wasn't standing above her on the landing. She'd have felt more secure if she could at least have had the advantage of higher ground.
"Where were you?" He asked hurriedly, the words running together in his mouth. As soon as he asked, he wished he hadn't. But now that he had…
"Scotland!" She said, losing her temper a little. "What is so hard to understand about that? I wasn't hiding there; I wasn't holed up in some pit or anything! I was just living in a rented house, waiting tables, and reading! How does that make me so incredibly hard to find? You're the one with an intelligence network! Just because it's a crap one doesn't mean—"
"Oh, Christ, Granger, that isn't what I was talking about!" He blurted out, taking a few angry steps closer to her. She stopped talking and pressed her arms against her sides for support. She would not back away from him.
"Then what are you talking about?" She asked through clenched teeth.
"Oh, please" his voice sneered (he still did that the same way he had when he was eleven). "I'm giving you the chance to explain yourself to me after all this time. Show a little common courtesy. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about."
She didn't respond immediately. She crossed her arms over her chest, mirroring his own position. She was beginning to see what he was talking about now. She wished she didn't. She really wished she didn't.
"Do you really want to talk about this now?" she asked quietly, keeping the old pain almost entirely out of her voice. "Do you really want to go into all of this here?"
"Obviously!" he spat, her question only incensing him more. "I've had to wonder about it for some time, and now I'd like an answer. I don't suppose you realize how hard it was to even ask you to come, and then how it was when you—" he stopped. He could still remember it. It had been so dark, and it had been then that he'd realized how alone… how utterly alone… "I suppose you must have some regret now, at any rate." He laughed humorlessly, recovering himself. "I mean, just think what you'd have been able to tell the papers! 'My chat with the boy who let them in'. What a headline! But you seem to have gotten your fifteen seconds of fame without my help, so maybe you aren't remorseful after all."
"You bastard." She said coldly. "You absolute bastard. You should know why I wasn't there."
"Excuse me?" he asked, his high-and-mighty, declamatory tone faltering a little. "How should I know? We haven't spoken since, remem—"
"Because I found out what you were planning to do, you scum!" It came out a good deal louder than the rest of their conversation had, and it seemed even louder as it echoed around them and burst against Draco's ears.
"W-What?" It was just a ragged whisper through the air. She wouldn't have heard it at all if the staircase hadn't been so empty.
"I was going to see you earlier that day. I was going to return that stupid cloak. And I heard Crabbe and Goyle—I heard them—heard what you were planning to do! At the moment you wanted to meet, I was looking for help! But you'd already taken care of all of them, hadn't you? You know the rest."
"Yeah!" Draco shot out, recovering with an enormous effort. "Yeah, I do! And I've still got the scar to prove it!"
"Well, at least I did something right back then." she said acidly.
She was expecting him to attack. She dropped her arms so she could have easier access to her wand in her back pocket, but he didn't move. She could hear him breathing (they weren't very far apart, and it was very quiet now that they'd stopped shouting), but other than that it was as though he'd been turned into a lump of stone.
Finally, just when she thought they were going to be trapped in some sort of sick thrall on the steps all night, he took a jerky step back, and then another, then turned away from her and stalked into the hallway without looking back.
Hermione watched him go, then whirled away as well, her jaw set. She started heading down the steps, but stumbled, catching herself on the stone wall. She sank down to perch on the step beneath her, just thinking she'd wait there until she got her breath back. She'd just taken a deep breath to get some air into her lungs, but when she exhaled it somehow tugged itself out into a sob, and then before she could stop herself she was hysterically crying, pressing her face into her hands to muffle the noise. All the same old fear, the same horror, the same dread and hurt and horrible feeling of betrayal that she'd felt that night pounded through the carefully built barriers that she'd made to hold them back through the years and sucked her down. She could feel herself crouching in that corner as she had back then, as she'd listened to Crabbe and Goyle mutter to each other, could feel that disbelief crash around her as she'd heard that Draco meant to kill her. That dread as she'd raced to McGonagall's office, not even suspecting what she'd find there. All those accusations, carefully suppressed as time went on, surged against her mercilessly. You should've acted sooner. You could have picked up the hints. There had been so many that you just didn't want to see. You did it. You could have stopped him if you hadn't been afraid to face him after everything that had happened. It was you, not him. You did it. Your fault. And then a new one, fresh and terrible—If you had just been braver, you wouldn't have to be sitting in this frozen Hell, beaten already by that same fear.
Draco got all the way to his room. He only stumbled once he got inside, catching himself in his desk chair before he fell to the ground. Grinding his teeth and rubbing fiercely at his eyes with both hands, he found that those old memories were harder to force back than they had been. They kept wanting to rise up around him. The uncertainty and half-formed hope he'd felt, waiting all alone. The fear then, that she'd found him out. And then the terror that he'd felt when he'd realized that he would have to go through with it. Old, outdated, stupid feelings. He was ashamed of them now. He couldn't regret his actions during those critical days as he set things into motion. That regret belonged to some other time, some other place, some other Draco… He looked down then, suddenly noticing that he'd left his boots behind. He'd walked all the way to his room in his socks. How… how stupid. Just before he rolled over to drown out this horrendous night with sleep (to hell with the stupid boots, he didn't much like them anyway), one thought floated across his mind before he fell asleep. I never told Crabbe and Goyle what I was planning to do that night.
Hermione got up, eventually, because she'd remembered where she was, and really didn't want anyone to find her there in a state. Feeling spent and numb, she changed course and headed up the stairs, hoping she'd find her room before she collapsed. As it happened, this change of course was very lucky. If she'd kept going down, she would've discovered a very bewildered Hannah Abbot crouched just around a turn in the stair.
AN: Hee hee. Told you there'd be action. Lemme know what you think.