Chapter two: Take no prisoners
Draco surveyed the nondescript walls of the room with distaste.
He didn't want to be here, and he was sure that everyone involved knew it. It was evident in the way that Potter crossed his t's in his brief missives about Draco's "required rehabilitation", and it was evident in the manner that Luna had appeared from nowhere and shown him to this nondescript room, and he was sure that Granger would figure it out as soon as she swept into the room and tried to save him, like he was an unfortunate house-elf.
With a grumble, he settled into a chair, resolutely keeping his cloak wrapped around him. He was determined not to stay for long, or even get too comfortable in this room.
The door opened, and in walked Granger. She didn't sweep in like he'd expected her to, lording her position over him, but instead scuttled in nervously and with one shoulder up, a curious contrast to the poker-straightness of her posture. She surveyed him, sprawled at the table, and her eyes ticked down his body, cataloguing it in a manner that Draco was all too familiar with: assessing if he was a threat. Apparently, he wasn't too frightening, and so she sighed and sat in the chair opposite him.
"Malfoy," she acknowledged calmly.
"Granger," he said curtly, watching her face for signs of disgust or pity.
There were none.
"Anything you want to say before we get started?" she asked, all business, and he wondered at how neither of them was cursing at the other, just staring across the elephant in the room as if it didn't exist.
Draco opened his mouth, but strangely, he had nothing to say.
"Okay," Granger said, looking momentarily disconcerted. "Well, then – you have to do community service for a year, as you know, and are also free to use me as a counselor. Do you have any ideas as to what you'd like to do for your community service?"
"Why don't you come up with something," he said quietly.
Granger sighed, propped her head on one hand, and considered him through half-lidded eyes. He shifted, uncomfortable with her stare, but didn't say anything, just stared at the table.
"I expected this to be more of a screaming match," she said. "Are you sure you don't want to call me names or anything? Because this is just a little odd."
"You want me to call you names?" Draco asked, incredulous.
"Well, no," she replied. "But it would make a little more sense than what I'm seeing now."
"What are you seeing now?" he said with not a little bitterness. "Someone who's given up? The reject of society? A Death Eater, or a murderer?"
Granger leaned back. "Are you those things?"
He looked at her with astonishment, watched her loll her head lazily and consider him with those half-lidded, tired eyes, and something inside him started to burn like the letters he received from anonymous hate.
"I'm all of them and none of them," he growled. "I'm just eighteen, barely an adult, who had to make adult decisions and live with the Dark Lord in his house, and when it's all over and done nobody gives a single damn- I'm not evil enough to go to jail, but not good enough to be respected, I'm just in the middle, enough to be ignored and sneered at but also pitied, and now you come into this room and ask me what I am and pretend like I didn't do cruel things to you too. Who gave you the right?"
Granger sighed and smiled, and muttered something that sounded like "that's better," before leaning in and giving him a look that told him that she could see the fire in his bones- and that she could feel it, too.
"What do you think should be done with you then?" she asked. "What do you want?"
Before the reality of the situation could hit him- here he was, spilling his soul to Granger of all people, but she was here and she was listening – he let the words pour out.
"I wish it had never happened."
"You can't have that," she pointed out. "As much as I agree."
"Then I would just like the chance to fit in," he had to force the next words out, "just like a normal person."
As soon as the words were out he hated them for having been said. And he hated Granger, sitting across the table from him with a look of complacency and understanding, what was she thinking, that she was a psychologist now and that she could actually help him?
She couldn't and he wouldn't let her.
"Then I think I know what you should do for your community service," she said, briskly but not unkindly.
He looked at her with a downturned mouth, waiting for something like working in an orphanage or cleaning up the streets or volunteer work or-
"I think you should get a job," Granger said, and all he could do was stare at her in shock.
…
"A job," Malfoy repeated in shock. At least he didn't sound disgusted, Hermione thought with a sense of relief.
She was quite pleased at the results of the conversation. She'd come in here expecting anger and hatred, but directed at her. Instead she saw someone (though she didn't want to admit it) as vulnerable as she was, and she'd instantly devised a new tactic on the spot.
And he'd spilled out – though probably against his will – what he'd felt, which instantly made her more comfortable. She liked to know where she stood with people.
"I'm not here to babysit you," she said quietly. "And let's face it, if you were to do community service somewhere, not only would you resent it, but people would want to rub it in your face. 'Look, there's the Malfoy heir cleaning up the streets'. If you want to be normal, you have to act normal."
"And eventually enough the act will become reality," he said bitterly. Hermione nodded solemnly.
"What do you think?" she ventured timidly.
Malfoy laughed. It wasn't an unpleasant sound, and Hermione felt a glow of pride start somewhere in her chest. "Where's the catch?"
"You still have to meet with me," Hermione said. "There are Ministry requirements that we can't get around. So you have to spend time with a-"
"Genius," he interrupted. Hermione swallowed the word mudblood and surveyed him carefully, watching how he became still and panicked-looking and his eyes turned into large, empty saucers, flickering with the spells of the past.
"- if that's okay with you," she continued as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn't been testing him.
"I don't have a choice, do I?" Malfoy asked rhetorically.
Hermione watched his face, looking for signs of disgust, hatred, fear. Funnily enough, these emotions were as sparse as any of her similar feelings towards him. There was nothing but a blank space, which was both depressing and hopeful.
"No," she said. "You don't."
"Then it's settled," he sighed. "I guess I'm going to get a job."
They ironed out details for their next meeting – "let's just decide when the next one is at the end of each meeting," Malfoy said, "I don't like routines"- and then Malfoy gathered himself off the chair in a bundle of dark coat, messy blonde hair and shadows under eyes and exited the nondescript room.
Hermione let out a pent-up sigh of relief as soon as she was sure he was out of earshot. She'd been tense the whole time, worried that he would get angry, or vicious, or that she would hurt either of them more than they was already hurt. (And since when were they a collective unit, she wondered). But it seemed to have turned out okay.
She absent-mindedly played with her hair for a few moments, thinking hard as she twined the strands around her fingers.
"Then I would just like the chance to fit in," he'd said, "just like a normal person."
"Me too," she said aloud to the nondescript room, waited a beat for no reply, then grabbed her bag and whispered out the door.
She could see him walking down the street, shoulders hunched in his jacket, as she turned to lock the door of the building. Sighing gustily, she looked left and right, and turned on the spot, feeling the familiar twinge behind her navel as she apparated home.
Hermione had work to do: a dissertation on the properties of a Dancing Draught and how it could theoretically be improved. She moved methodically around her apartment, pulling books from corners and crannies, and when she was settled down at her coffee table, cross-legged on the floor, she finally felt peaceful.
This was where she felt at home. Immersing herself in the theories of Potions where there were only complex ingredients and proportions to bother her. Elm shavings couldn't talk back or ask for an autograph or demand to know how she was doing. Frog spleens couldn't judge her. Lionfish spines were blessedly, blessedly silent.
She was too tired, she thought, pushing the heels of her hands into her eyes, and dispelling the haunting grey eyes that were floating behind them.
"Get to work, Granger," she said, and bent over her page.
…
A/N:
I told you I was terrible at updating. I have a lot of schoolwork at the moment, so this chapter might seem a little bland, but there are a lot of details that you might be able to pick up about our two characters.
Hopefully the next chapter will go up sooner than later; spring break is approaching so I might get another chapter up that moves the story along.
Reviews are appreciated, favourites as well, and I hope that you enjoyed this chapter of Efflorescence!
-Isefyr