A/N: Here's chapter 7! I must really love my few readers because I've been keeping up during exams! Hehehe. It's a little longer again, so I'm getting better! Please please please review! I'd love to know what you think :)
Chapter 7
"Where are we supposed to stay here?" Malfoy asked, wrinkling his nose at the little town. Everything in the town was cute and quaint, not big and dark like Malfoy preferred. Personally, Hermione quite liked it here. She looked around, not knowing the answer to his question. They had just landed in the first town they had planned on checking out, Thurso. It was in the north of Scotland, and it was on the ocean. Based on where the locket horcrux had been found they thought that maybe Voldemort was fond of the sea and decided to search those towns. The thing about searching a town was that there weren't many secluded areas to stay. It's not like they could stay in a hotel or anything for fear of being seen.
"Let's go to the outskirts of town and see if there's any forests or anything around there." Hermione suggested. Draco nodded and they began walking. They walked for about 15 minutes in silence, until the houses began to thin out.
"I seriously hope our plan didn't rely on there being a forest here." Draco commented. Hermione looked around disdainfully. There wasn't a tree in sight, just fields.
"Well, I supposed we could stay in that field." Hermione said, motioning to a large empty field. Hopefully no one would decide to take a stroll through it tonight.
"A field, Granger? I hope you're bloody kidding. It'd be like shooting pygmypuffs in a cage if the Death Eater's came!"
"Well if we cast the wards properly, we should be fine." Hermione said tentatively. She was also a little nervous about staying in such an open area, but it was a better spot than anywhere else.
"I bloody hope you're right Granger. If anyone finds us I swear to Merlin…" Draco threatened. Hermione smirked at what she knew was an empty threat. She undid her disguise with a flick of her wand and then cast a disillusionment charm over herself and Malfoy.
"Granger! I can't see where you're going!" Malfoy hissed when Hermione started walking to where she planned on setting up the tent.
"Oh, sorry!" She exclaimed, walking back to where she had heard Malfoy's voice come from. "Here, grab my hand."
She waved her hand through the air until she felt Draco's arm. She found his hand and started dragging him in the direction she had started off to. Hermione felt Draco tense up as her hand closed around his. "Merlin's beard Malfoy, I haven't got cooties." She laughed.
"It's not the cooties I'm worried about." He sneered.
"Oh suck it up. You're not going to get 'dirty blood' from touching me Malfoy." She scowled. They walked in awkward silence after that until they stopped at what Hermione deemed a suitable place. She began pulling thing after thing out of her bag.
"Could you set the tent up while I cast the wards please?" She asked Malfoy. Then she went about casting all the necessary wards, including a muggle repelling charm and a confudus ward incase and wizards happened about. When she had finished, she went into the tent to find Draco already looking at a map of the town.
"Did you cast all the wards?" He asked, looking up.
"And then some." She sighed, sitting down. Casting so many wards at once was tiring, as it required so much magic.
"I was just looking at the map so that we wouldn't be wandering around aimlessly tomorrow. I think the best place to go would be the library so that we can look into the archives." He suggested.
"I was thinking the same thing. It'd be pointless to ask around, as he would have been here so long ago. Surely any wizard of importance would make it into the archives. And from what Harry's told me of the Marvolo's, they were so dysfunctional that they'd likely be in there too."
"How does Harry know about the Marvolo's. Information on them is limited to even the Slytherins." Draco inquired, his brow furrowed.
"In year six, him and Dumbledore began searching for horcruxes. This involved diving into the memories of many people. They went into a memory involving the Marvolo's. Dumbledore had a little knowledge of them as well." She explained.
"Well, I hope something turns up. It would be great if we got the right place on the first go." Draco said, leaning back. Hermione nodded in agreement. The sooner this was over with, the better.
"What do you want for dinner?" Hermione asked, turning to head into the kitchen. Draco's eyebrows shot up at this in surprise.
"You're making me dinner? After last night?" He asked.
"Of course. You helped me, plus we had agreed to be civil. It would hardly be civil if I just allowed you to eat whatever it was that you had been eating before I got there." She explained.
"Oh, well I'll just eat whatever you make for yourself."
"I'm kind of in the mood for breakfast for supper. Is that okay with you?"
"Breakfast for supper? What in Merlin's name is that?" asked Draco.
"You've never had breakfast for supper? Maybe it's a muggle thing." Hermione said thoughtfully.
"Oh… What is it?" Draco said, trying to hide his disdain for anything muggle.
"It's when you eat breakfast food for dinner. My parents used make it sometime." She said smiling wistfully. Draco watched as the peaceful look on her face was replaced with a troubled on.
"What?" Draco asked, confused at the sudden change in her demeanor.
"Nothing. So is breakfast for supper okay? I was thinking I would make chocolate chip pancakes." She said, trying to cover up her emotions.
"Yeah. That'll be fine." Draco agreed, still confused at the change in her demeanor at the mention of her parents. Had something happened to them? Draco was incredibly curious, but he knew that he couldn't just ask her. They weren't even friends, let alone confidants. Plus, it wasn't like he actually cared, right? He watched as Hermione pulled ingredients out of the pre-stocked cupboards. It appeared as if the cupboards in the kitchenette had everything in them, and would restock themselves as soon as something had been removed. She began tossing ingredients into a bowl and mixing them with her wand. He watched in confusion when she conjured a spatula and began flipping the pancakes without magic.
"Granger you know you have a wand right?" He said.
"I prefer doing it this way. It's much more fun. I remember being so happy when I finally landed a flip perfectly." She said with a smile. Draco watched in amazement as she tossed a pancake up in the air, and it landed perfectly back on the pan. She smiled as she handed him his plate and sent a a fork, knife and syrup over with her wand.
"What other breakfast for supper foods are there?" Draco asked curiously. He seemed to be really enjoying the pancakes.
"Anything you might eat for breakfast! You could have cereal, an omelet, eggs, ham, bacon." She told him.
"And this is a common muggle thing?" He asked incredulously.
"Yes. Muggles all over the world do it. It's not like a special occasion or anything, it's just something we do sometimes."
"Weird." Draco hated to admit it, but he found this muggle tradition endearing, and he began to wonder more about what odd things muggles did. He couldn't say anything though, because muggles were inferior and he really didn't care about them at all. It was just a passing thought, nothing more. They ate the rest of their dinner in silence; the only sound was the crickets outside and rustling of the grass in the wind. Just as they were finishing up, Hermione thought she heard something. Her head snapped up and she rushed to the opening of the tent.
"What's going on Granger?" Malfoy asked nervously.
"There's some one one out there. Come here." She said, waving him over. He stood up and walked to where she was standing. Sure enough, there were a few voices coming from outside their tent. They both froze. They knew their wards would hide them, but their bodies refused to move for fear of making a sound. As the people got close, Draco and Hermione could faintly hear what they were saying.
"They're making their way across Scotland." One voice said.
"Apparently they're recruiting again. Merlin knows why though. It's over, why can't they just accept it?" Another said.
"Clinging onto whatever little bit of hope they have left I guess." The first voice said again.
"Death Eater's need to learn when to give up. He's gone and they need to accept it and get on with their lives." The second voice said with more vigour. Hermione gasped, but Malfoy grabbing her arm as a reminder not to make any noise soon distracted her. She figured that he just did it out of reflex.
"Oh well. It's not like they can do any damage now. They've got no one to follow. The next best thing was Lucius and now that he's been caught…" Draco's hand tightened on her arm until she thought she might lose all feeling in it.
"Malfoy." Hermione started to say.
"Shh." He said, cutting her off.
"I just hope that they don't corrupt too many more innocent minds with their horrid ways. We should be moving forward and leaving all this prejudice behind us." One of the voices said. Hermione looked at Malfoy, giving him a pointed look, but he was still too rattled about the mention of his father to notice.
Draco was fuming. Sure his father had been pretty dark, but he was nowhere near as dark as Voldemort. How could these imbeciles say that? They don't even know him! He was so angry at this association that his hand unwillingly tightened its grasp on Grangers arm. He knew that he was probably hurting her, but he couldn't unclench his fist. He had half a mind to go out there and teach those tossers a lesson, but he knew that he couldn't. He'd blow their cover and potentially get them killed.
"Malfoy," Hermione tried again. The feeling of her struggling against him pulled him out of his angry trance. When he listened closely, he could tell that the wizards walking by had gone. He let go of Hermione, and headed back inside.
"Sorry." He mumbled as he sat down at the kitchen table.
"It's alright." Hermione said understandingly. She looked at him with concern written all over her face. She knew that it must be hard for him to hear his father spoken of in the way.
"Stop looking at me like that." He snarled.
"Like what?" She asked.
"Like you actually care."
"Sorry for showing a little compassion for another human being." She said defensively. Malfoy cringed.
"Please tell me you're not cringing because I just spoke of us as the same species." She said, exasperated. Malfoy didn't say anything.
"You're impossible! We're both human beings Malfoy. I'm a person. You're a person. The only difference between us is that you come from a line of wizards, and me a line of muggles. Muggles aren't dirty. They're people. Just like you. Get your head out of your arse and start seeing the world as it really is." She exploded. Malfoy still didn't say anything. He wasn't in the mood for a fight, but he wasn't going to apologize for his beliefs. Hermione stood up and started bustling around the kitchen, cleaning up.
"You have a wand you know." He reminded her for the second time that night.
"I know Malfoy. Sometimes I prefer to do things the way I was raised. It's a good way to blow off some steam." She said, slamming a pile of plates down into the sink.
"Exactly. You do things the way you were raised." He said. He didn't want to fight, but she left that wide open. She stopped and looked at him.
"There's a huge difference."
"How?"
"Me doing the dishes the muggle way isn't hurtful to anyone! It's not getting people killed. It's not hurting anyone's feelings."
"Whatever Granger. I can't help the way I was raised."
"But you can help the way you think." Hermione said a little more softly.
"I was trained my whole life to hate muggles and muggle-borns. I can't just turn around and start thinking a whole different way. I can't just change my views at the drop of a hat. It's not that bloody simple."
"I was raised believing that magic didn't exist. I was raised to believe that I was just a muggle, and only muggles existed. Then one day, I'm suddenly told that everything I was told was wrong, and that I was to be thrown into a world were magic surrounded me- where magic was to become my life. I changed my views and beliefs at the drop of a hat. I completely immersed myself in magic. How is that any different?" She explained calmly. She was finally understanding that Malfoy had been raised to be the way he was. It was impossible to undo years of brainwashing all of a sudden, so maybe if she planted that seed of doubt, it would grow and he would come to accept the fact that there really was no difference.
"As a child you'll believe everything you're told. Magic was a myth, not constantly drilled into your head. For me, mudbloods and purebloods was always very real. From the time I could speak it was drilled into my head by my parents. Then when I became a Death Eater, it was drilled into my head even harder by the Dark Lord himself. People sharing those beliefs surrounded me. It's all I've ever known for 21 years. So yes, it is different." He explained equally as calmly. Their normal battles over blood status had turned into civil debates. Maybe Hermione was getting somewhere.
"Yes, but clearly you don't believe it as strongly as you like to think."
"What do you mean? Of course I do."
"Then why did you turn your family in? If you really hated us as much as you say you do, why wouldn't you want us dead?" Malfoy cringed at her usage of us. It seemed different when she said it like that, as if she was the target.
"It's one thing to be superior to them. It's a completely different thing to want them all dead." He said, speaking as if he wasn't talking about people like her. He wasn't quite sure why, but it just felt wrong to speak as if he were talking about her specifically- even if she was a mudblood.
"Is there even any proof that you're superior?" She asked him. When he didn't respond, she forged on. "I mean, I'm a muggle-born and I had the best marks in our year. That put my magical abilities above many purebloods out there." She said. This angered Draco. Any reasoning he had had not wanting to hurt her was gone. The mention of a mudbloods doing better than him in school caused him to cringe anyways, the memories of his father berating him for it just made everything so much worse.
"Oh come off it Granger. You must know yourself that your kind is inferior. Why else would you try so hard at school? It's because you felt you had to prove yourself. If you were a pureblood, you would have already known that you were capable. You wouldn't have felt that need to prove yourself to everyone by being such an insufferable know-it-all." He spat. Hermione went silent. Tears started welling up in her eyes, but she pushed them back. Malfoy's heart almost softened a bit at this, but he pushed any kind thoughts of her away.
"I worked so hard in school so that I could be the best that I could be. It started off with me just being so curious about the magical world that I knew nothing about. Then as I learned more, I wanted to improve. Everything was so fascinating that I had to know more. Then it became a necessity. Since year one, Harry, Ron and I have been battling Voldemort. If I hadn't constantly studied and read I would have been dead my first year at Hogwarts. Every year since then my knowledge of magic has saved my life. I worked so hard so that I could save myself and those that I love from people like you." She spat back. That hurt. A lot. He hated being put in with murderers, even though he was one. He hated being the type of person that she had to save herself from. He hated himself.
"I'm done with this. Believe whatever you bloody want to, but I know that I'm not inferior. I know that my hard work paid off. When it comes down to it, that's what matters." She said angrily. With that, she stood up and stormed off to her room. "You can make yourself breakfast tomorrow."
A/N: REVIEW PLEASE XOOXOX MUAH