Characters by JKR, plot ala PJ.
Pen and paper… Pen and paper…
The heavy curtains were drawn across the window and Hermione couldn't see anything in the darkness.
Pen and paper…
The fuzzy feeling around the edges of her mind was slowly filtering away. With the one hand she had managed to get out from under the tangle of covers Hermione clumsily felt for the items on her bedside table.
She always kept something to write on beside her when she slept, just in case she thought of something important. For some reason, if she didn't write it down her thoughts would keep her up all night. Of course, some times she would be up all night even after she wrote it down...
Hermione jerked up with a shock, groaning as she knocked something heavy off of her bedside table.
Her awareness returned full speed with the loud crash, and tinny noise of something bouncing across her floor. What had she knocked over? She couldn't see anything, the room was so dark. Where was the light switch? They were always across the other side of the room…
Wand! Shaking her head in exasperation, Hermione continued to fumble in the dark. There were still days when she was more Muggle than witch…
Where was her wand?
"Lumos."
It was only after the faint glow from her wandtip bathed the room in light that she remembered why she hadn't been able to find writing tools beside her.
Right, so… quill and parchment then.
Stumbling out of the small nest of twisted blankets she had made during the night, she padded over to the small writing desk in the corner of her room. She supposed the room was indeed hers for as long as she stayed in the palace – at least, until the wedding…
No, she didn't want to think about that.
Opening the desks small drawers, Hermione started fossicking around for a quill and parchment. Really, she should have a better look around the place if she was to be staying there indefinitely. Well, that would go on the list. But first she needed to find…
AHA! Quill and parchment.
Smiling happily Hermione pulled back her curtains, blinking rapidly at the bright morning light that streamed into the room through the large windows. She sat down at the small desk and carefully dipped her quill into the ink she had found. It wouldn't do to get messy ink spots on the parchment.
Hermione had spent the entire day before in bed. She had woken late in the day with a headache, stuffy nose and a scratchy throat and had never quite worked up the motivation to leave the warm comfort of soft mattress and downy covers. She didn't particularly want to face the outside world and the reality of what was happening when she was feeling so poorly.
Part of her couldn't help but feel ashamed that she had once faced down legions of Death Eaters but now a simple head cold coupled with the thought of Draco could have her cowering in bed with the sheets over her head. The other part of her rolled her eyes at her own melodramatics. It wasn't like that at all. This wasn't about cowardice; the constant veiled conflict was physically and emotionally draining and she needed to recuperate before she made herself even sicker constantly stressing over things.
When Chloe had come by Hermione's room in the early afternoon she had barely cracked open an eyelid and croaked out that she that she was sick, no she didn't need a healer, she simply wanted to be left alone. Oh, and would Chloe be so kind as to close the curtains and procure a headache potion? Thank you very much.
Hermione spent the remainder of the day sleeping, reading and summoning tea and chocolate biscuits from the kitchens when the mood struck her; basically ignoring the world outside the walls of her room – just as she ignored the niggling degree of disappointment that Draco also stayed away from her room and didn't once think to check on her. Not that she really felt up to dealing with him at that moment in time; it was just that…
She really hated being so contradictory.
But now, after a day of complete inactivity, she had woken early. She felt decidedly better than yesterday; refreshed, healthy and slightly restless.
Hermione was, by nature, a pragmatist and generally not one for inaction. She had allowed herself a day to laze half-awake in bed alternately consumed by self-pitying thoughts and wallowing in a state of denial, pretending that nothing had changed. Now her need to take charge had got the upper hand.
There would be no more pathetic examples of self-pity or denial.
If she was going to be forced into a marriage then she would just have to make the best of a bad situation.
Of course, making the best out of a bad situation didn't mean she was going to stop trying to reason with Draco; trying to make him see what a bad idea the marriage was. After all, she had yet to stop trying to reason with Harry and Ron over countless issues and arguments, and she'd known them for fifteen years now. In Hermione's mind there was no such thing as a lost cause.
She just needed to be realistic. Hermione knew her strengths; she was quick enough with her wand, quicker even with words and she was an expert planner. In this battle of wills she needed to know when and where to attack, just as when to retreat and take stock of her losses. She also needed a back up plan if she didn't manage to convince Draco, because at the moment it looked like she didn't have even a snowball's chance in hell. Or perhaps fiendfyre would be a better comparison?
Nonetheless, if this marriage was to take place, then she would accept that. She would accept it and move on. But Hermione was adamant that she would make it as painful an experience as possible for Draco. There was honour, and revenge, even in defeat.
First things first, she needed to make a list… And then she ought to brush her teeth.
And then she really had to get out of this room; there was a whole castle to explore.
OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
The palace was huge.
She had thought it was large when she had first visited, however, exploring now Hermione realised how much larger it was than her first impression.
There were whole wings that she never seen before; hallways that had once led to abrupt dead ends now led onto whole suites of rooms. Yet it wasn't as if the palace was ever-changing, as the stairs and classrooms tended to at Hogwarts. Conversely, it seemed that nothing at all had changed.
She felt that there was perhaps as much magic holding the halls of this castle constant as there was in the dynamic architecture of Hogwarts.
Except for the additions of new rooms everything matched her memory exactly. The decorations had aged a small degree but none of the furniture had moved even the smallest fraction of an inch since the day she had left many years ago, from the paintings down to the smallest of ornaments. In fact, it did not feel as if the palace had changed at all. It was if she had always somehow known there were rooms behind doors that didn't exist; only now she was able to see them.
For most of the morning Hermione explored. By the middle of the day she was beginning to become ever so slightly bored.
The rooms were all sumptuous, the furniture gleamed with polish and the views were spectacular, but there was only so much she could admire before her appreciation of the beauty began to wane. There was something to be said for the earthy coloured ramshackle rooms at The Burrow, with dented furniture and threadbare upholstery. Those rooms said something; they were full of life even when unoccupied, unlike the frozen emptiness of the castle.
Hermione realised she had become entirely too blasé when she started to scratch off the enamel of one portrait's intricately decorated frame with her fingernail. The brilliant white horse in the painting stamped it's foot in irritation and blew great puffs of air out of it's nostrils. She rolled her eyes at the horse's theatrics, feeling the tiniest bit of perverseness in upsetting the arrogant beast.
But then she had discovered it. And it was possibly the most fantastic thing she had ever laid eyes upon. A library. The Library.
She was irrationally disgruntled at the castle for hiding this treasure from her on her first visit, and at the same time delighted that it would share it with her now.
The castle had several libraries, in which she had spent a considerable amount of time eight years ago. But this was the definitive room; this was THE Library. It almost took her breath away.
The room was almost unbelievably large and had a high ceiling, like most in the palace. Unlike most, however, it was decorated in darker tones, with wood paneling and cracked leather furnishings. Windows were set high into the walls and let in muted shafts of light which lit the small dust motes hanging in the air. Hermione's eyes followed the path of the light to fall lovingly upon the row after row of different sized tomes lining the walls. The Library was otherwise quite dark; the dark leather of ancient furnishings almost bleeding into the shadows. The room somehow managed to look gothic and romantic at the same time and despite the mild spring warmth Hermione thought the room's atmosphere could only have benefited from a fire burning steadily in the grate.
Hermione crossed the threshold slowly, unsurely. That moment felt almost sacred. As if this room was a temple and she were the high priestess. Oh, but she wished, Hermione would have loved to bow her head in worship of these walls.
But it was not in her nature to be so blindly devoted. Books were not idols, to be worshipped as symbols and relics only.
And this was, after all, a Malfoy library. There was a great probability that she wouldn't find anything sublime in these tomes at all...
An hour later Hermione was curled up in the arm large chair her head bent over a book, a cup of tea with a constant warming charm and a plate of newly conjured biscuits on the low table beside her. Hermione had actually become so engrossed by the detailed the history of Cythera before it was ceded to the Malfoy family, that she had completely forgotten the conjured food and drink. The majority of The Library's books were in some way related to the tiny island nation, with the remaining fraction devoted to the Malfoy family; and even there was not one essay on the superiority of their bloodlines as far as Hermione could see.
For a Malfoy library, it was really quite restrained.
Her food remained untouched as she continued to read through the large tome. Only after Hermione had safely put the book away would she pick up her tea and biscuits, being careful to magically clean her hands to remove any traces of moisture and foodstuffs before she would pick up another book.
Undoubtedly the books were all spelled against the acid and grease from human hands and everyday spills, and probably a good deal besides that, but it would not be proper to… 'disrespect' them, even so. For the moment, however, food was not the principle thought in her head.
She was so engrossed in the written words, in fact, that the sound of approaching footsteps and soft voices did not penetrate her conscious until a moment before the door opened.
A/N: I probably won't be able to get a new chapter up for a while. Possibly a month, I'm not sure. I'll be travelling and won't have access to computers or internet regularly so I'll have few opportunities to write and update. SORRY. I really wanted to update before my extended absence – even if I did leave you all hanging there.