Chapter Three: Pressure Cooker
Hermione surveyed her opponent with caution.
The boards of the platform were slightly uneven between her feet- the blue cloth accented with the typical silver stars of Duelists was meant to hide this as much as to decorate. The person standing opposite her was Pansy Parkinson, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot with her eyes trained on Hermione.
Hermione sighed, rubbing at the nape of her neck resignedly.
Some days are like this, with this hard knot of pressure congealed under her breastbone. It doesn't move; it won't budge, and every little action makes it larger until she can feel it in her throat, threatening to choke her.
It's a response to the lack of tension (or direction) in her life; a frustration that neither herself nor her society will allow her to change what she wants to change. The little knot in her chest is her fist in the air, her battle cry, her tension, her guilt.
"Ready?"
It's been there ever since the war, since The End, since the return to the status quo. Since Ron looked her over like he was buying a horse and asked her when they could start having children, and Molly Weasley tried to teach her how to be a housewife. Since Kingsley pleaded for her forgiveness amidst the chains of bureaucracy that he was struggling to untangle.
"Begin!"
Since-
"Stupefy!" she heard, and rolled instinctively to the side, casting a wandless jet of light in Pansy's direction. Feeling the sudden spike of adrenaline, she awkwardly pushed herself to her feet and grinned wildly at Pansy, who was recovering her own feet and who smirked terribly back.
They screamed their next spells at the same time.
Hermione's work for the rehabilitation of young Slytherins had proceeded along with her studies in potions. Her other two charges (apart from Malfoy) were Adrian Pucey, who sat quietly in her office without saying a word, eyes wide and round and filled with terrible memories, and Pansy. She hadn't made any progress with Adrian, yet, but Pansy had lashed out at Hermione their first meeting, and Hermione had done something she hadn't expected:
Recognized herself.
With Pansy's fury, humiliation, and resigned helplessness, Hermione had identified, and after the two of them had wrestled across a table for a few minutes Hermione had sat back and laughed and laughed and laughed, until the both of them were laughing helplessly, hair knotted and noses bleeding.
They'd been going to a dueling club together ever since.
"Confringo!"
"Protego!"
"Expelliarmus!"
It was unexpected, this: identifying with the enemy. Though Hermione knew things were never so black-and-white, she'd been surprised by both Draco and Pansy. She could see herself in them. It was both frightening and soothing, and she'd decided to seize the chance to rehabilitate herself along with them.
The dueling match continued for a while. Eventually, wiping sweat from her brow, the knot feeling much reduced, Hermione crossed the line to shake Pansy's hand, and they both retreated to gulp down water and freshen up.
She wondered at how natural everything seemed, as they changed and agreed on their next meeting, and how easily the human mind settled into a routine.
Later, as Hermione sat over a complicated drought, immersing herself in the ingredients and the methodical clockwork of the mixing – much like she immersed herself in dueling, or books, an escape- she wasn't wondering anything at all.
Job hunting, thought Draco, was getting less appealing by the second.
His credentials: "Well, I have experience in skullduggery, murder attempts, and can produce reference letters from Death Eaters on command."
His academic history: "Hogwarts honours graduate, despite my faction trying to burn it down."
Why should they hire him: "I have nowhere else to go."
Really, there was no point in even starting interviews, but he did his best, searching around Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, and other wizarding communities, for a job that would suit him – or even just take him.
He found none.
It was wearing on his patience (not that he had much of that to begin with), so he ducked into a little bookshop in a quiet community, and threw himself in a dusty window seat to catch his breath.
He was his best to ignore the bitterness rising inside him, but it hurt. He was disappointed. Largely with the entire wizarding world –filled with what he considered gross incompetence and prejudice-, but also with himself.
Because he was letting himself (and Granger) down, if he were to get the yoke of this ministry mandate off his back.
Grumbling to himself about the unfairness of the world, Draco looked about him for something that would distract him from his melancholy. Merlin, but the place was a mess! His fingers twitched as he saw the books stacked out of order, some inside each other, others upside-down.
Quietly, he tidied up the nook, and pulled a random book off the shelf to peruse. In it he found a series of poems and stories by a half-blood known as Edgar Allan Poe. Curling up, he opened to "The Tell-tale Heart," and read, his anger already cooling.
Hours later, he was shaken awake.
"I'm closing," said a kindly voice, an old man who carefully brushed dust off of Draco and the book. "It's getting late. Do you have somewhere to go, young man?"
The stranger's kindness and the imprint of the book on Draco's face were momentarily confusing, but eventually it came back to him. He'd fallen asleep halfway through the Masque of the Red Death, and he rubbed his eyes and wondered that horror stories could not keep him awake.
He was bone tired.
"I have somewhere to go," he replied. "Thank you for waking me."
The old man smiled and nodded as Draco sat up. He pulled down his robe sharply- had the man seen the Dark Mark? and tried again.
"You have a lovely shop," he said.
"It's messy," the old man replied. "Needs another person on hand to whip it into shape. Know anyone I might ask?"
It was a chance-
"Could I?" Draco asked in a small voice-
And he grasped at it like a drowning man.
"Of course, Mr. Malfoy," the old man said with a small smile. "Come back tomorrow."
Draco bought the book of Poe, and as he tucked it in his sleeve and left the shop, it never occurred to him that he'd never told the man his name, or learned his.
("I have a job," Malfoy said to Hermione when they next met. "In a bookstore."
"Then you have excellent taste," she replied. "Congratulations.)