AN: It's been another looong wait between chapters, I know. I went to write this earlier and ended up posting a smut piece instead, which is better than staring blankly at the screen like usual, but still not an update. I've just been having a really hard time lately doing… pretty much everything. I've lost all motivation to do anything, even to continue this story, which is one of the few things I actually enjoy. Massive thanks to the super-mega-foxy-awesome-hot Kriszti for helping me with this stuff. Please take a moment to review, every one means a lot to me. Lyrics are from The Black Brigade by Project 86
-Ophelia
Straining on to run without remorse
Casting off mistakes that came before
In my mind I see a hallowed door
Open arm embrace, I'm reaching for...
Committed
Determined
My gaze is set on finishing
I stared at his outstretched hand, feeling my stomach drop with horror. Return to his house, the very same place where you hurt me so badly? Return to that place of pain and terror, where Luna and Mr. Ollivander were imprisoned for so long? I wouldn't do it. I couldn't do it; couldn't bring myself to go with him. "Draco, I- I can't do it. Please don't make me go back there." I sat back down and hid my face in my hands.
Draco Malfoy is not a harsh man, but he certainly seemed merciless to me, asking me to go back to that awful place. He knelt down beside me, prying my hands none to gently from my face and cupping my chin in his hand. He tilted my face up, forcing me to look into his pale eyes. "Why do you fear my home, Hermione?" he asked, his voice colder than I expected.
I blinked in surprise; surely he knew the answer to that. "Your aunt tortured me there," I whispered, trying to turn my head away but unable to with his hand holding me still. Draco looked triumphant, but then oddly pitying. His mouth was pressed into a thin line, but his eyes held a sadness and compassion that he so rarely showed. I knew that I could never expect you to look at me with such concern and found myself doubting our agreement again.
"Precisely. It was my aunt who attacked you. Not me, not my parents. But who is it that you would rather marry, hm? Me, that obnoxious kid from school," his voice was teasing but then grew deadly serious, "or the woman who you barely know but who hurt you so badly. What the hell are you playing at?" He stood up again, staring me down.
I couldn't bear to look at him; I knew he was right. "I made an agreement, Draco. Your aunt is a loathsome woman, I know, but I promised to help her..." My voice and argument sounded weak and childish even to me, and from his raised eyebrows and smirk I could see that Draco agreed. I fumbled for the proper words to explain myself, but none came. Here, away from your piercing and menacing gaze, it was next to impossible to justify my decision.
Draco spoke up again, still towering over me. "Exactly, she is. So why would you decide to save her instead of to be with me? I don't want this wedding any more than you do, Hermione, but I'll do whatever it takes to protect my family. She," he pronounced the word with a look of disgust, "is not family. I don't care what happens to her." He looked strong and determined, a major change from the way he was during the war. The death of Voldemort was clearly a huge weight taken from his shoulders, and without it he stood taller and stronger than ever before.
It was quiet for a moment after Draco's declaration, and I could hear water lapping at the shore of the Black Lake. Shattering that moment of peaceful silence was my memory of what exactly you had said to convince me to marry you, and my cheeks burned. Draco noticed and raised an eyebrow, and I shifted uncomfortably. I needed to explain and here the words were at last, but I wished I didn't have to be the one to speak them. "Er- well... You're the only Malfoy heir, right?"
Draco nodded tersely, clearly not grasping what I was getting at. I cleared my throat, my face still flushed, and forced myself to continue. I struggled to keep my voice matter-of-fact, as yours had been, but probably only succeeded in sounding like an idiot. "Well, um... You would be expected to father children, right? To continue the family line?"
After what felt like an eternity of staring at me in confusion Draco seemed to catch on. He smirked. "You're going to marry my psychotic aunt and spend the rest of your life with her... to avoid shagging me. Is that it? That's all she had to say to convince you?" He laughed and I wished that something, anything at all, would take me away from this moment. Perhaps the Giant Squid would come out of the lake and carry me off, perhaps a meteor would fall and squish me flat. Anything but looking back at Draco's eyes, alit with his usual terrible glee.
"It's not funny," I muttered. "The Ministry clearly didn't think of this, or maybe they just don't care. But I do care, a lot. They're already trying to sell my hand, they don't need the rest of my body too."
Draco finally stopped laughing at that, then looked at me curiously. "Ah, well, that does make sense, Gra- Hermione. Of course you would care about that. To be honest, I never thought of that at all." Now was his turn to look embarrassed.
I sighed. "Neither did I, until Bellatrix brought it up. I was about to tell her to sod off until she said it, and I just can't forget about it."
There was another awkward pause. "Well, erm... Is this because I'm a bloke?" he blurted out. I couldn't help but laugh; I was very strongly reminded of Ron. Draco scowled at me, his pale cheeks flushed. "Don't laugh, I'm serious. You're a girl, obviously. You would rather marry Aunt Bella than me because you don't want to have to sleep with me. Is she the better option because she's a woman?" He spoke rather quickly and scuffed the ground with his foot to avoid my astonished gaze.
"No, no, it's not like that. I'm, er, I'm not gay, Draco. Really. She promised that we would be married in name only, enough to satisfy the Ministry but we don't have to live together or... or anything like that." He looked at me suspiciously, as though he didn't believe me. "It's true! I just really can't see myself having kids..." My voice trailed off to avoid adding 'especially with a git like you', which would no doubt create more problems than it was worth.
After watching me shrewdly for another moment, Draco sighed again. He looked incredibly weary, as if the world had been placed on his shoulders and I was refusing to bear the load. I squirmed with guilt, but knew that I couldn't back down. If nothing else, I dreaded your reaction if I backed out of our agreement. "So that's it then. You'll help her and not me over something so insignificant, so stupid. She doesn't deserve mercy, Hermione. She deserves to die, or be put back in jail. And you deserve better than her." I was surprised that he would say something as nice at that, but there was something about his little speech that irked me.
"Stupid and insignificant? Excuse me, Draco, for thinking this is important. Excuse me for trying to have some semblance of control over my life." I knew that he was trying to do the same thing, and that it was childish of me to walk off with nothing resolved, but I felt that there was nothing either of us could add to the solution now. He was right and I would eventually need to face his parents to tell them the change in plans, but the very thought of such an unpleasant encounter terrified me. I turned away from him and swept up towards the castle, walking faster after thought I heard him behind me. A glance over my shoulder confirmed that he was not following; he did not even call out, just remained where he was looking utterly frustrated. I turned back and broke into a run.
My feet led me automatically towards Gryffindor Tower, leaving me free to look around at the rubble that was still scattered across many of the destroyed corridors. There had been massive efforts to restore the castle to its former glory, especially the Great Hall, but Professor McGonagall was concerned that the school would not be ready in time to reopen in September. Of course, I would not be likely to attend, as home sweet home. The Fat Lady swung open just as I approached, and to my delight it was Harry and Ron that had pushed the portrait open on the other side.
"Hermione!" Harry seems to have finally gotten a good night's sleep, as he called out eagerly to me and threw his arms around me. I laughed and hugged him back, happy to have such a good friend around instead of putting up with you and Draco. Merlin, it felt so nice to have a peaceful moment alone with my friends again. I turned, smiling widely, towards Ron but instead saw him hanging back.
The smile slid off my face at once. "What's the matter, Ron?" He turned to me with an ugly look on his face, his ears red and his expression oddly scathing.
"Oh, I don't know, Hermione. Wait a minute, aren't you getting married? Don't you think that might be what's wrong? Doesn't that strike you as a problem?" Harry reached a hand out towards his best friend, but Ron shook him off angrily, his chest heaving. His ears were as vivid a red as his hair, always a telling sign.
"Ron…" Looking between the two it was plain that they had argued over this many times before while I was waiting outside the hospital. Harry turned to me, his eyes full of sorrow and despair, silently begging me not to be angry with Ron. I knew how he hated being stuck in the middle of our fights, but this one was shaping up to be something else, something worse.
"How dare you?" I whispered, taking a step towards him. Harry stepped back quickly, but Ron held his ground, to his credit. "Do you think I'm happy about this? Do you think I wanted this?"
"Well, I certainly don't see you doing anything to stop it," he shot back.
"What? You can't be serious, Ron. What do you bloody expect me to do? This is the Ministry of Magic, not some school rule. It's a law. Or do you think those are optional?"
"I don't get it, Hermione. Do you want to marry Malfoy? Is that it? Are you so quiet about all of this because this is just what you wanted?" Harry groaned and clapped a hand over his face.
"WHAT?" This was well below the belt; Ron insisting that I actually wanted to spend my life with that nasty boy? I was absolutely speechless, and Ron took that as an opening to plow on.
"I see how it is, Hermione. You kept telling Harry and I to lay off him, not to get him angry, even when you knew we were right." Harry was shaking his head frantically, trying desperately to extract himself from Ron's argument. "That's why you turned me down the other night when I said I would try to stop this for you. You wanted this to go forward, you wanted to be with him. You've probably been fantasizing about this day for years, about walking around as Mrs. Hermione Malfoy, of living in a nice fancy mansion and having a bunch of little blond brats running around." His face was twisted with rage as he stepped towards me again, getting right up in my face. "Tell me something, Hermione. Is it just his money that you want? Or is it his-"
I never found out what else Ron was about to say, as my hand betrayed my self control and slapped him across the face. It was a rather hard blow, if I do say so myself, but he flew across the corridor and hit the opposite wall. It took a shocked moment to realize I had done unconscious magic for the first time since I was a little girl, my anger overcoming me completely. I was shaking with fury as Ron staggered to his feet, threw Harry and me a final filthy look, and stalked away self-righteously.
"Where do you think you are going, Ronald Weasley? GET BACK HERE, YOU ARSE!" I started to charge after him, wand drawn, but Harry grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
"Let him go, Hermione. You know how he gets, he just needs to calm down. He'll realize how awful that was and he'll come back to make it right, you'll see… He usually does…" I could easily break Harry's grip, but kept myself from struggling against him.
"What was all of that about?" I asked, feigning calmness to get Harry to release me. He did so and turned to face me, his shoulders hanging in defeat.
"He felt that you were not angry enough about the Ministry's new law. He spent days talking about it and deluded himself into thinking…well…" He looked at me warily before continuing very quickly. "He reckons you fancy Malfoy, which is why you're not making a big enough fuss about the wedding."
Not a big enough fuss? I had agreed to marry you, for Merlin's sake, but of course Harry didn't know that. Of course, he would need to know eventually; everyone would. If we wanted the Ministry to rearrange the wedding then they would need to know that changes had been made, and to do that I would need to break the news to them. I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath, hoping that Harry wouldn't react too badly considering how Ron had just behaved. "Harry, there's something I need to tell you… You see, I'm-"
Harry looked at me in confusion, opening his mouth slightly. The rest of my words were interrupted, however, by an anguished scream from the floor below us. We looked at each other, eyes wide. What horror could there possibly be now? Even worse, we recognized the voice. We turned simultaneously and ran for the stairs, ignoring the portraits that woke up along the corridor and began to shout after us. "Fleur…"