January.
February.
March.
She thinks of the painting by Van Gogh, the man in the chair. Everything wrong, and nowhere to go. His hands over his eyes.¹
Life moves on around her. The weather warms, the days grow mild. Overcast grey skies are replaced by gentle blue. The branches of the tree outside her window are dotted with tiny green buds.
Hermione drowned in her sorrow.
There was nothing left in her life anymore.
He had come, of course.
Draco had stalked into her bedroom after the Christmas party had ended, still in his formal black dress robes. It was early morning by then — the winter sun would be rising soon.
The world had ended for Hermione but time sloughed on, uncaring.
"Granger, please," he began. His voice was strained, face lined with exhaustion.
Hermione stared at him.
A million hurts raged inside her. The ache of loss, the biting sting of disappointment. The way he had quietly asked her to run away with him; feverish, dream-like.
The feeling of betrayal cut so deep that it burned molten-hot. An inferno began to stir inside her.
His cool, aristocratic face, soft lips pressed against those of Daphne Greengrass. The recollection flit across her mind so suddenly, stuttered and flashed, but lingered like an image burnt into a television screen.
When he had begged her, pleaded with her to let him smuggle her out. To carry her from the war, like she was a wounded bird. He had wanted to save her.
"Let me get you out."
Her eyes shot open.
She turned to stare uncomprehendingly at him.
"W-What?" Hermione stuttered, uncertain if she had heard him correctly.
Draco stared at her urgently. Her hand that clutched his had slackened at some point, and he took the chance to wrap his much larger hand around hers instead.
"Let me get you out of the war, Granger. Say the word and I'll smuggle you out. I'll take you away from all this. You'll be safe. You won't have to suffer anymore, risk your life every day," he ground out in a low tone.
His hand squeezed hers so hard that it nearly hurt. He clutched onto it like it was a lifeline.
Her brows furrowed.
"I can't run away from this war, Draco. I- … I can't do that. If I left, it would mean leaving them to their doom. I can't betray my friends like that," she said. Her voice shook with emotion.
She stared sadly into his face.
Draco's expression went flat, and his grip on her hand loosened. He leaned back.
"Of course," he said woodenly. "I should've known."
He gave a small, mirthless chuckle.
She gave a mad bark of laughter, her own take on the deranged, signature cackle of Bellatrix.
Maybe the Malfoy Estate was cursed. Maybe everyone that stepped foot over the threshold slowly lost their minds, until they were insane like Bellatrix, or silently haunted the lifeless manor like Narcissa.
Or vengeful, trapped spirits that lingered like Hermione. Unable to move on. Unable to find release.
"So this was why you were avoiding Narcissa," Hermione laughed bitterly, loudly. Her voice cracked across the room like a whip. Draco stiffened.
"How long has she been working on this little arrangement? Surely it wasn't a spur of the moment decision. Your mother is smarter, cleverer than that. She chose the older sister, too, didn't she?" Hermione mused. She stepped closer and closer to Draco, stalking him. Bellatrix had done the same thing to Narcissa just hours ago, in this very room.
She was becoming a mad woman.
Draco stood and watched her silently, shoulders tense. His jaw was grit hard, but emotion flashed across his face.
Something burned in her. There was something that felt like inferno thrumming in her veins. She felt drunk with rage; like the most potent firewhisky had coursed through her, loosening her tongue and making away with her inhibitions.
"I suppose you like them blonde, do you? She's very pretty. Slim, pureblood. Good breeding. I'm sure she'll be a fine wife, produce some healthy, pureblood children for you," Hermione continued on in a silky drawl that was completely unlike her own. Her voice had grown quieter. "All this time … all this time, this is why you couldn't, wouldn't be with me? Why you rejected me?"
Her rage and hurt echoed in every word. She didn't need to shout them.
"Am I some game to you?" she demanded as an afterthought, nearly laughing again. "This is it, isn't it? Toy with the Mudblood?"
Everything was suddenly very funny. The whole thing felt like one massive, elaborately planned joke and she was the punch line.
Hermione had reached Draco at this point, and stood inches away from him. She reached a hand out and pushed him. He stood still and unmoving.
"Are you getting back at me for all those years of beating you at school?" Another push, harder. Then, a shove with both hands. "You always hated me for that, you know — you told me yourself."
"I rejected you because I couldn't hurt you like that, Hermione," he interrupted her coldly, but Hermione continued on. She spoke over him, nearly screaming her words. Shoving him as hard as he could, until he truly did stumble this time.
"Do you feel good about this? Why didn't you just give me a good fuck too, then? Or are you saving that for after the marriage, when I'm your little mistress?"
This got a reaction out of him.
Hermione watched in twisted, sick satisfaction as anger and disgust flickered across his face.
"Enough," he snarled. His hands reached up to close around her wrists in an instant, long fingers curling around them.
Draco's eyes glittered dangerously as he stared down at her, face dark with rage.
"You will not continue this tirade any longer," he hissed. His hands tightened around her wrists until it was nearly painful, but Hermione hardly felt it. She watched his beautiful face, now twisted in the ugliest way, with immense satisfaction.
Good.
You should be hurting too.
She wanted to hurt him.
She wanted to make him hurt, to make him feel just as she did.
"I never wanted to marry Daphne fucking Greengrass," he continued on in a low growl, eyes molten with repressed emotion. "I never wanted any of this—," he shook Hermione once, hard. "But we are in a precarious position — the Dark Lord wants a visible, lavish wedding. He wants to see his famed General, his second-in-command and right hand man, make a show of it. He wants a distraction from his own weakening physical and political state."
Draco was breathing hard.
He seemed to suddenly realize that he was towering over her, caging her in. His eyes flickered down to his hands with Hermione's wrists clasped in them, and let go immediately.
The imprint of his fingers had left dark bruises on her forearms.
Blood seemed to drain from Draco's face. Hermione's own eyes flicked down to the rapidly forming bruises on her wrists with surprise; she had hardly noticed the pain.
Her heart was pounding with adrenaline still, and she could taste the venom on her tongue. It begged for release. It yearned for it.
Who was she to deny it?
"I need to do this to protect my family. My parents. You. I am doing this to protect all of us," he said hollowly, after a moment. It sounded like a rehearsed phrase; like a mantra.
"I am doing this to protect all of us," he repeated.
His voice was clipped and cold. He had slid back into the role of the perfect son. The High Reeve. The heir to the Malfoy title and estate.
He was doing everything that was expected of him.
The venom dripped out.
"You are pathetic. You are the same disgusting, nasty little coward that you were in school. You haven't changed at all and I was a fool to think otherwise," Hermione hissed. She took a step forward and stared directly into Draco's face.
She held herself still for one moment, then remarked with almost perfect, light casualness, as if discussing the weather: "I never want to see you again."
He had gone very still as he watched her.
Hit me.
Slap me.
Slam me into the wall.
Do something, she wanted to beg him. Do fucking something. Rebel against this. Prove me wrong. Beg me to run away with you again.
I really will.
I would run away with you.
Scream at me.
Do fucking something.
Draco stared at her. His face was perfectly blank; he wore it like a mask, but his eyes were glittering with burning emotion.
Then, something seemed to shutter behind them too.
He turned and strode from the room without another word, slamming the door behind him.
Hermione stood there for a moment, suspended by her rage, before the fight slowly went out of her. She sagged. The tears, held at bay by her rage, were no longer restrained. They came freely now, until her vision was a blurred kaleidoscope of beautiful colours.
Everything seemed to grow brighter, more vivid. Indigo, sea foam, lime-green, canary yellow and magenta. The world was too bright and spinning off its axis, blurring into watercolour and impressionist strokes.
A Van Gogh painting, an explosion of colour. A tragedy captured in still life.
She screwed her eyes shut and crawled feebly into bed. The sobs started instantly and didn't stop for a long, long time.
She cried herself to sleep.
"THE WEDDING OF THE CENTURY: MALFOY-GREENGRASS CEREMONY USHERS IN THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA OF BLOOD PURITY" Sunday, March 19th, 2000. Evening Special Edition of the Prophet. Love was in the air, and pure blood running through the veins on this beautiful spring equinox, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Six months after the Dark Lord's defeat of Harry Potter, a new golden era of blood purity is well underway, and the Dark Lord's most esteemed General and second-in-command leads by example once more. Draco Lucius Malfoy was wed to Daphne Greengrass in an intimate ceremony at the Malfoy Estate this Sunday, this reporter is delighted to announce. The Malfoy and Greengrass families are both members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight and are thus recognized under the new Decree for Magical Purity (see page 12). Family and friends witnessed the union of two ancient, pureblood families during a ceremony officiated by the Minister for Magic, Pius Thicknesse. In attendance were the bride's family and the groom's family, as well as notable members of the Ministry of Magic and pureblood society. The bride and groom have been sweethearts since their Hogwarts days together, and their engagement announced at a Christmas gala hosted by the groom's mother, Narcissa Malfoy, this past December. "I've never been happier," the new Mrs. Daphne Malfoy confessed to me with a winning smile during the reception. She wore a stunning ivory dress, with a veil and 12 foot long train of goblin-stitched Acromantula silk. Her husband, Draco Malfoy, is the famed High Reeve who was responsible for numerous key victories during the war, such as the Battle of Debrecen and Battle of Hogwarts (see page 8). As is pureblood custom, the title and estate, along with the obligations of such, will be handed off to Draco Lucius Malfoy by his father Lucius Malfoy in the coming weeks. It is expected that Draco Malfoy will take over the Malfoy and Black family chairs and sit on the Wizengamot, in addition to his High Reeve duties. This union was the first to be authorized after the Decree for Magical Purity was ratified earlier this year, which bans any marriage that is not between those of pureblood ancestry. The Decree for Magical Purity is the latest in a string of efforts by Minister Pius Thicknesse to safeguard pureblood ancestry, and to protect magic from being stolen from their righteous pureblood wielders by unworthy Muggleborns. For a full list of pureblood protections, see page 6.
Hermione gets her wish, in the end.
He doesn't try again. He leaves her be.
Hermione draws the curtains close in her bedroom until her life exists only in shades of grey. She doesn't research horcruxes or the Dark Mark anymore — there's no one to escape with.
No one to escape for.
She watches as his wife moves into the manor. She spies on her from a distance.
Daphne crosses the threshold and becomes another ghost haunting the estate. Once or twice, they glimpse each other; she's a pretty enough girl, blonde and slim, with green eyes. The first time she sees Hermione, she lets out a little scream of shock.
Hermione watches Daphne for a second, before turning and making her way back to her room.
When nobody comes to admonish or scold Hermione, she realizes she's been more or less forgotten, like peeling wallpaper.
On the rare occasion that she does see them together, Draco treats his wife with complete indifference. They barely speak to each other. They don't touch one another. There's no affection there.
His wife lingers around the manor for a few weeks before she disappears; Hermione hears from a gossiping house-elf that the new Mistress is summering in Europe, keen to escape the gloom of their home.
She supposes Draco must be busy now, for she rarely sees him. He's taken over the title and estate, and all the obligations. The Daily Prophet reports little on the news. It seems to exist simply to boast and print glowing compliments to the Dark Lord's regime, the sanctity of blood purity.
Life grows dimmer and darker, and blurs until she can't make out anything at all.