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BETA READER: silverbluewords

THE THIRD WAVE

Draco finished putting up the last of the wards and paused to spare his partner a sideways glance. Not surprisingly, the instant that the group had slipped away to take shelter in a nearby copse, Granger had immediately volunteered to take watch and seal the area with protective enchantments. After considering his options, he'd gone with her, deciding that he'd much rather work in awkward silence with Granger than endure the accusations, distrustful glares, and underhanded remarks about his penchant for murder from the remaining group members and an inconsolable Patil.

Perhaps in another time, in another place, he would've smirked with sinister satisfaction at the memory of what had happened when Weasley had tried to offer his help. Granger had immediately snapped at him, informing him in her usual, verbose, insufferably know-it-all way that he needed to bugger off and that she, unlike him, had returned to school to complete her education properly, and possessed a far more intricate and cohesive knowledge of advanced defensive spells, and that he, Ronald Bilius Weasley, could count this respite as a blessing and use it to reflect upon his actions and straighten out his priorities.

Draco, on the other hand, hadn't offered his help—not out loud anyway. He'd merely drifted away from the group and followed after her. Call him arrogant, but he considered his spell-work nearly a match for hers, more than anyone else back in that cluster-fuck of dozy sods, at any rate. She'd turned, and for a moment, she'd blinked at him with mild surprise and hesitation before acknowledging him with a stiff nod and trekking on. He didn't say a word. He didn't need to.

Returning to the task at hand, Draco cautiously took a step back as Granger proceeded to inspect their completed barrier in silence, her eyes eerily distant as she searched for the slightest gap in the shimmering walls. They both knew that even a single, misspoken syllable in the incantation or error in its execution could well make the difference between life and death.

"Good work, Malfoy," she concluded at last. "I'm impressed."

The irony of her complimenting him, a pureblood, on his magic, didn't escape him. As they turned and headed back towards the camp, his guts roiled and churned, every snapped twig, crunched swath of dirt, and restless leaf compelling him to say or do something, blast it, even crack a droll remark or two, but he couldn't think of anything that didn't completely horrify him with the mere notion of its manifestation. Simply put, he just didn't know how Granger would react. He didn't know how she perceived him, despite all of his efforts to indirectly atone for his actions and strive towards civility. He just didn't know her… the way he wished he did.

"If you'd applied yourself in class for the past seven years the way you do now, I might've considered you more of a threat," she told him, the barest hint of a smirk tugging playfully upon her lips.

Did she just—tease him?

He resisted the urge to stare and gape at her in disbelief, plastering a mask of haughty indifference upon his face and acting as if he simply refused to deign her with a response. She continued to walk straight ahead, keeping her eyes on the meticulous layers overhead that had gradually begun to dissolve into the darkness, until nothing, save for a barely detectable hum and the concealment of the shadows, remained to indicate its presence.

How did she do it? How could she just speak her mind so freely? So openly? So honestly to another person, and not fear that someone would someday use that knowledge to crush her?

Unexpectedly, her determined strides came to an abrupt halt. She looked over her shoulder and braved a glance in his direction, only to note his rigid posture. Her face fell. "Sorry," she muttered, averting her gaze. "You probably didn't want to hear that from someone like me."

Guilt strangled him and wouldn't allow him to articulate a response.

"You were right, you know," she whispered, her voice breaking all of a sudden. "All this time, you were right. I just didn't want to believe it."

"Granger, what—?" he stammered, deeply unnerved by the unmistakable tremors of defeat that wracked her small frame.

"If I'd grown up with magical parents like you, I would've been able to save him," she wept, her shoulders shaking as she slumped to the ground and succumbed to her anguish.

"If you had parents like me, you'd be a raving, brainwashed fuck-up who wouldn't give a shit about saving anybody," he spat. He hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but hearing her, of all people, whinging on about self-pity when she clearly had nothing—nothing—wrong with her made him so enraged that he almost wanted to hit her—to make her shut the fuck up and beat all of those fucking delusions out of her.

He hated himself for leading her to think that way in the first place. He hated himself for hurting her, for still hurting her, for still wanting to hurt her. He hated himself for wanting her to feel, even for the slightest moment, a fraction of the pain that she caused him, every time she looked at him, every time she spoke to him, and every time she didn't. But most of all, he hated her, for making him wish he could change into someone else. Anyone else. Anyone but himself.

"Get up, Granger," he seethed with disgust. "Don't you fucking go mental at a time like this."

He made to storm off, unable to bear her needless sorrow and self-doubt for another moment, and nearly delirious with the compulsion to carve that vile tattoo out of his own arm and allow all of his frustrations—all of the evil and senseless hate that had ever caused her to diminish that way—to bleed out and die.

"Was it Parkinson?" she suddenly interrupted, her face still hidden.

He didn't understand her question. "What the bloody hell are you on about?" he demanded.

"Was she the one who inspired you to say those things?" Her sniffles had mostly subsided by now, but her voice still had a slight quiver to it. "Back in the clearing?"

He looked down at the grief-stricken witch before him, the one still clutching the same wand that had tortured her, murdered her best friend's godfather, and driven Longbottom's parents into insanity. She could've bought a new wand, but she didn't. She took other people's sins and made them her own. And she suffered for it.

No one else had ever made him feel so insignificant, so wretched, so unworthy of the term "human."

"No," he answered. "It's never been Pansy."

Granger remained silent for a moment as she mulled that statement over in that overlarge brain of hers. And for once, he wanted—no, needed her to. Because he had no right to say any of it out loud. Not now. Not ever.

"I heard that she called the engagement off," she said after a while, her voice marginally more steady.

"I heard that Weasley hasn't," he retorted.

She let out a watery chuckle at that. "Knowing Ron, we won't get to that stage for another six years."

"Pathetic," he sneered. He could do nothing else. Because he couldn't do better.

"Yeah, he is," she muttered, gently blowing her nose into the sleeve of her robes.

"I meant you," he lied, quickly changing tactics. Perhaps he'd vowed not to interfere, but if Weasley didn't have the bollocks, he didn't see anything wrong with twisting a few words around to suit his own nefarious purposes. "You don't strike me as the sort of bint who waits around for a bloke to grow a dick."

"I'm not!" she snapped defensively, several shades of her characteristic prissiness returning to her already. Then, she grew quiet again. "Well, at least… Not anymore. That's why, what with my studies and Ron's Auror training, we decided to take a bit of a break. I reckon we both need time to figure out what we really want. Now that Voldemort's gone, we'll have all the time in the world, I suppose."

She didn't say anything after that, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. And he didn't say anything to distract her from her musings, hoping against hope that they would somehow work in his favour, even if he'd accomplished nothing more than to inflict her with a single, fleeting doubt. Eventually, she gathered herself and scoffed, "Anyway, enough about me. You, Malfoy, are much better off without that banshee. Even a prat like you deserves better than her."

He snorted with sardonic amusement. "Oh, please. I'm a Death Eater—saved from the nick by a half-blood, to boot. Not even Pansy's parents are mental enough to take a chance on that."

"You're not a Death Eater anymore," she whispered, so softly that he almost couldn't hear it.

There. She did it again. Spilling words out onto the ground so heedlessly and unreservedly. As if she expected nothing in return. As if they had no price. As if such things didn't matter. Those words should've pleased him. Vindicated him. But instead he found it a hollow victory. He felt only anger and dejection, because she shouldn't have said that. Not to him. Perhaps he couldn't control the circumstances surrounding his actions, but it would never change the fact that he'd made those decisions out of his own free will. He didn't deserve her kindness, or her sympathy, and even if he did, it wouldn't change a fucking thing. Why couldn't she see that?

"For fuck's sake, Granger, how can you be so fucking naïve?" he snarled, lashing out at her. He had to do it. He had to admonish them both. Before one of them said something that they couldn't take back. Something that would completely destroy the walls that he'd tried so hard to build between them. For her own good. "It doesn't matter if I'm not a Death Eater anymore! I was! And that's all the sodding Ministry cares about! Fuck, I don't even—I don't even know why I'm taking this fucking class, why I'm still in this fucking school, why I'm trying so fucking hard! I could get an 'O' in every pissing exam and NEVER get accepted into the Auror program!"

Granger finally looked up at him then, her eyes wide and rimmed with red. "You—you want to become an Auror?" she gasped.

"WHAT ABOUT IT?" he bellowed back. "DOESN'T IT JUST SHOCK YOU, GRANGER? THAT I, DRACO MALFOY, WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THIS FUCKED-UP WORLD? THAT I WANT TO HELP BRING DOWN THOSE BASTARDS THAT I ALMOST BECAME, SO THAT NO ONE ELSE WILL EVER HAVE TO GO THROUGH THE SAME SHITE THAT I DID? THAT I WANT PEOPLE TO RESPECT ME? NOT MY FUCKING NAME, OR WHO I FUCKING WAS, BUT ME! IS THAT SO WRONG, GRANGER? IS IT?"

Granger's eyes welled up all over again, compassion bleeding down her blotchy and hopelessly lovely face. Compassion for him. She trembled, sobbing, "Malfoy, I—"

"Fuck off, Granger," he hissed. "You know nothing about me." This time, he did what he should've done all along. He walked away and willed himself not to look back, not to look into her eyes. Because her eyes… those earthen eyes… would bury him alive.

TO BE CONTINUED