REPUTATIONS
by MODA
Chapter Two
Hermione glanced around the Great Hall. On the Gryffindor table alone there were many she knew well who had come back this year: Dean, Seamus, Neville, Ginny, and Luna all sat around her, and yet she had never felt so isolated at Hogwarts. Throughout the hall, people were chatting with their friends, laughing about things that had happened over the holidays. Yet there was something else there, something that was making her feel so cut off from everyone else, a feeling that she suspected most were sharing, though they appeared to be covering it up better. It wound through the chamber, weaving its way through tables and benches, wrapping itself around each student in the room, creating barriers of emotions that were too much for the individual to handle. Grief, shock, hurt, and inability to cope with the events of the past year, to process them, understand why the bubble of their own private lives had been shattered, and their world torn apart. They were all just kids. They should never have had the illusion of the world that all children have taken away from them the way it was, the illusion that it's a place of friends, and family, and enjoyment, with the hardest thing they have to suffer through being their school exams.
Hermione had lost that a long time ago. She thought maybe it had been when she had almost been killed by a rogue mountain troll, but even then, it all felt like a game, a challenge. In reality, she thought, she had only realised the severity of the situation they were in when Harry appeared on the grass before the maze at the end of their fourth year, the Triwizard cup in one hand, and Cedric Diggory's corpse in the other.
The others were chatting lightly among themselves, small talk about the past weeks. Hermione knew Ginny wouldn't have much to say. The Burrow had been deathly quiet over the recent months. No explosions were to be heard from George's old room, clattering of utensils from the kitchen, or yells from the yard. Hermione couldn't stand it there. Instead, she had spent her summer either with her parents or at Grimmauld Place, where Harry had moved. She used refurbishing the house as a way of drowning out the cries of the dying, the sobs of the grief-stricken, but she could not block out the flashes of green and red light that burst behind her eyelids when she blinked.
Nor could she keep away the attacks. They were infrequent, yet unpredictable. Sometimes they would come from nothing, and other times they would be triggered by a sight, a sound, occasionally a smell. Anything that reminded her strongly of that place. The place where Bellatrix had raised her wand against her, and there was nothing she could do to prevent the pain that suddenly coursed through her body, her mind, setting every nerve ending alight with flames like Fiendfyre. The attacks felt like an echo of the Cruciatus curse, but unlike enduring the curse, where you could think of nothing but the white hot pain tearing through you, every single bad memory from the past years stormed her brain, so that when it was over, thirty seconds or ten minutes later, she was left and aching, sobbing wreck, and all she could do when they happened was hope she would be alone when they occurred.
Any time they happened since May, she had been alone, but often had to hold back the screams that formed in her throat, threatening to alert her nearby friends or family of the lasting trauma of the curse. None of them needed that knowledge. They believed it over, Voldemort was dead, and all they had to contend with was the grief that had settled in their hearts after the deaths of their friends. This was her own demon to face.
Draco Malfoy looked around the Hall. Something felt different this year. He wasn't surprised. How could it possibly stay the same, after everything that had happened? His eyes landed on Granger. She looked completely out of it, staring into space with a slight frown on her face. Blaise was sat on the bench beside him, and Astoria and Daphne Greengrass were nearby. Pansy was further down the table with Theodore Nott. Both were prefects, and therefore required to sit away for the head-boy so they could monitor a different part of the table. No one seemed overly rowdy, tonight, though. Chatter filled with a somewhat subdued air echoed around the stone chamber.
Returning to Hogwarts this year felt like returning home to find someone less than pleasant had moved into your bedroom. Very much like Malfoy Manor had felt when Voldemort had taken up residence there. Except that was a million times worse in some ways, and a million times better in others. Hogwarts was somehow worse because it had never been tainted by his evil the same way his house had always been.
His left wrist twinged, his Mark itching. It had faded slightly over the past months, but only minimally. It would never go away, that he could be sure of. Forever would he be reminded of his cowardice, and the horrific events that ensued as a result.
At first, after the awful day at the beginning of May, four months previously, almost to the day, he had wanted the scar forever, as a constant reminder of his wrongdoings, but with time he realised that not only would he have to live with it, he would have to live with people seeing him as being a mark, rather than an actual person, for the rest of his life.
He may have escaped the battle alive, but the life he had escaped with was cursed with the remnants of his gutless mistakes.
The feast had finished, Draco and Hermione had helped direct the new first years to their common rooms, and both now stood at the foot of the marble staircase, where they had been instructed to meet the Headmistress, so that she could show them to their new tower.
They stood apart, not looking at one another, trying their best to ignore each other's existence. Hermione kept her eyes trained on a painting near by as it chatted with its neighbours. Finally, McGonagall appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Mister Malfoy, Miss Granger, if you'll follow me please," she said curtly. Still not looking at one another, they followed. She led them to the third floor and down the charms corridor. Near the end was a tapestry that looked similar to the one covering the door to the prefects' bathroom. Their Professor pushed aside the tapestry to reveal a dark wooden door with a glass knob set into it. She then turned to them.
"Unlike your common rooms, which both use passwords, all you need to is touch your hand or wand to the door handle for the door to open. It does this by recognising your magical 'fingerprint', you might say. We need to set it up to accept you, though, so once I say the incantation, please place your wand hand on the handle one at a time. We'll then repeat this with your wands."
McGonagall tapped the knob with her wand and muttered something under her breath. Hermione reached out for the handle, only to find Malfoy's hand in the way. She jerked hers away hastily, glanced sideways at him. He shot her a glare. As he touched the glass, it glowed faintly blue. Only once he had removed his hand did she try to place hers on the door again. It glowed blue again. They repeated this with their wands. McGonagall stepped away.
"Well then, now that's done, I will leave you to explore your new quarters in private."
"Thank you, Professor."
Hermione had certainly not been expecting what she saw within the heads' tower. A large, red leather couch sat in the middle of the room, facing the fireplace set into the wall to the right of the entrance, a matching armchair beside it. Red cushions embroidered with silver thread sat on both. A large mahogany desk was pushed against the back of the sofa, a chair at either end. A coffee table, similarly made of mahogany, had been placed between the fireplace and sofa.
To the left, a door led into a wonderful bathroom, three walls of which were made of limestone, and the fourth was a floor to ceiling mirror. The bath was large and claw footed, and surrounded by a silvery curtain that reminded Hermione of a waterfall.
In the main room, two staircases with wrought iron banisters led up to doors set into the left and right corners of the back wall. The left door was painted with a beautiful green tree, whose leaves seemed iridescent, flickering with flecks of silver. The door on the right was very similar, but was of gorgeous autumnal golds and reds.
Between the two staircases was a large, panelled set of french doors that led out onto a small balcony that looked over the driveway of the school, the lake glittering in the moonlight on the right, towering mountains on the left. It was a magnificent view.
She didn't hear him come up behind her as she stared out across the grounds, one hand rested on the window pane. He cleared his throat, as if she was wasting his time and he had things to get on with. She started and turned.
"Yes, Malfoy?" she sighed tiredly.
His gaze was that of a predator choosing to spare its pray for a few minutes longer. It was a look that held both cruelty and power, and it took much willpower for Hermione not to look away.
"I think we ought to get a few things straight, Granger," her name came out a hiss, and he stepped closer, forcing her to look up at him as he towered over her. "We may have to spend the next year in here together, but I can promise you I am putting up with it for no other reason than that my family needs me to do this, to regain the honour the Dark Lord snatched from us. As far as I am concerned, you are still the dirty little mudblood you have always been, Gryffindor Princess or not. I don't give a damn if you're the supposed heroine of the wizarding world or not. You shall always remain tainted, spoiled goods, if you will, to me. You shall not speak to me unless spoken to first, and when I am in here, you can either scurry off to your friends in the Gryffindork common room or shut yourself away in your room, I don't care. I don't want to see you more than I already have to, yes? Then maybe this year will be some vague resemblance of tolerable."
Hermione stared at him for a long moment, considering her response. When she found it, it came out dangerously quiet, poison seeping through every word.
"Malfoy, you are sorely wrong if you ever believed I would do what you tell me to for a single moment. Contrary to this belief you seem to have, I have not, or have ever had, a care in the world about your opinion of me. Mudblood? That's the best you can come up with? That's a bit too second year, do you not think? And if you think your family's lost honour was because of the Dark Lord's failing to defeat Harry, you are stupider than even I ever considered you to be. Your family lost all sense of respectability years ago, when your father signed away all your lives by joining the Death Eaters, and then you added insult to injury by not being able to stand up for yourself enough to turn down the offer to join when it was your turn! Don't even get me started on your failing to kill Dumbledore," she finished in a whisper, glaring at him with all the hate she could muster.
"You filthy-"
"Mudblood? Save it, Ferret, I'm going to bed."
She shoved past him with more force than she thought she could muster, causing him to stagger slightly. She jogged up the steps to the red door, and closed it behind her. Leaning against the cold wood, she realised her heart was pounding in her chest.
A/N: Whahey! New chapter! I hope y'all enjoyed that. Right, now I need to explain something to you. Something you won't want to hear.
Basically, I know I won't be able to update as often as you want me to. Every two or three weeks, probably. Wait wait WAIT. Don't leave. Let me explain. This is because I'm in a fairly big year for exams and school work, so over the course of the next year, every week I'll be:
1) Doing fourteen hours of homework (approximately)
2) Doing coursework like music and art (both of which take AGES)
3) Writing Reputations
4) Writing From Here Onwards
5) Writing an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice for theatre
6) Working towards trumpet grade 7
7) Learning the guitar
8) Beta-ing
9) Working on both another FanFiction and an original piece of work
Do you understand how much stuff I try and do now? Good. But, all that said, when I get into the flow of writing, I get REALLY into it, which means more updates! I also adore feedback from you lot, and it really encourages me to be speedier about updating. Just saying, you know? Heh. Anyway, thanks for understanding guys. If you're reading From Here Onwards, I hope to be updating it within the next week or so.