.
.
Give me back my innocence cos I wish to dream again
Like I never outgrew my old playground
Where the sun sets slowly with a golden crown and the leaves sing lullabies 'round vacant swings
Give me those wings
Let me fly once again
Like I did way back when
I would gamble and win
To lift me high above the din
Of the future we see
Does it hold something for me
I'm weightless again
Just before the shadows...
~Poets Of The Fall, Given and Denied~
Wine, what a glorious substance.
Finally he had something interesting to do after so many weeks of boredom: Asking questions from Granger. Also the wine made him feel relaxed and better than in weeks!
She was telling him about The Order and the other people she was working with when she was gone from the house.
During these five years of war they had come to trust the planning partly on her hands. First, they had been so young, that the adults of The Order hadn't let them do much. Only Potter had had a permission to work with the adults.
She told him that they had hunted horcruxes on their seventh year. He certainly remembered that. Who would forget the Dark Lord living in The Manor, His home? And her screams when Bellatrix tortured her? Of course, he would not let her know, he still remembered.
But it seemed their horcrux hunt hadn't been enough of prove to give them permission to enter as full members of The Order straight away. She told that they had had minor tasks for years before Kingsley Shacklebolt had approved them. And that was when the cruel reality of Order's work had been revealed to her.
She had become the head of the planning of the raids about six months ago. She had been unwilling, but Potter and Weaslette had talked her to it. Now she was being pressured all the time.
With a little help of the wine she told him, how they never let her plan anything properly. Especially Weasley wanted action. She was accused all the time of not being fast enough, proper enough, aware enough.
The Order had lost many members during these years. Speaking of them made her drown more wine and become a little teary.
"Potter is still alive?" He asked while she was swallowing tears.
"Yeah and determined to win. I think he is not completely sane anymore though. It is an obsession. He can't think of anything else. We can't put him on raids or minor battles anymore because we're not sure of his actions. It worries me he'll do something rash. Ginny says he talks a lot in his sleep too, always muttering about Voldemort."
"Why are you telling me this?" He interrupted.
Her gaze was a little hazy when she looked at him.
"You asked."
"But what if I run away and get all this information to Him?"
"Nothing he would not know already "
"But you've told about their weaknesses."
"It's not like I'll let you walk away freely with everything I told you anyway."
"What are you going to do?" He challenged.
"You'll see when the time comes." She stood up. "Don't underestimate me Malfoy. I have this all planned through."
He thought she would leave, but she just poured more wine and sat back down.
All planned… that reminded him, that he still didn't know her whole plan for keeping him here. That made him a little nervous.
"What about your healing practices?"
She had said something about those on his first night here...
"I help the healers when I have time. Trying to absorb as much information as I can."
"Should have known…" He muttered.
"I think it is your turn to tell me about your life before I found you from the forest."
"Nothing to tell…"
He certainly was not going to start opening his past years to Granger.
"What happened to your friends? To other Slytherins?"
He huffed.
"Are they alive?" She was pushing.
He didn't want to talk about them. He felt like, if he was going to tell Granger, it would all become too real.
"Do you think they worry about you? Wonder where you are, maybe?"
"I wouldn't know!" He suddenly burst out. "Your Order took them all away from me! Order and the Dark Lord together. How are my fellow Slytherins, you want to know? They're dead! Dead and gone. Pansy's dead, Greg is dead, Vince is dead, Theo's missing, Blaise's missing. Astoria's alive, but barely sane" It all came out and he couldn't stop it.
He felt like crying. But no, he was not going to cry in front of Granger. All this information was already too much. He'd rather die.
Damn wine, it made him so emotional! He was supposed to be unaffected, make her talk and just listen, not break down like this.
She was observing him now. He tried to look away.
"You got what you wanted?" He asked angrily.
"Don't be so hostile Draco. We've all lost loved ones. There's nothing wrong with being sad and angry."
The silence that fell upon them was heavy. He was staring at her and she was looking back questioningly.
Draco, she had said. Not Malfoy, and suddenly that made all the difference in the world. His name flowing from her lips, like they were… not friends, but not the enemies, they used to be, either.
"So what about Weasley?" He asked to break the silence.
"What about him?"
"Weren't you two supposed to be lovers or something? Why are you living here on your own, and not with your boy-toys at the headquarters?" Suddenly he remembered that he had wanted to ask this ever since he got here. Her living arrangement seemed even stranger now when she had revealed her friends were living together somewhere.
"Ron and I? No, it didn't work out."
"Didn't?"
"Oh, I don't know why I'm telling you this!" She cried out frustrated, but went on anyway. Thank god for the wine, "I mean, I thought I liked him for a while."
"You thought?"
Confusing.
"Well yes, but it turned out that I thought wrong."
"Well how surprising! Thinking of how intelligent he always was, and so on."
"Shut up! He's a good guy… or was back then at least. But he is impulsive, and controlling, and jealous. He didn't want me to participate in anything but cooking. I mean of course, the model of a woman he had from home was…well motherly. But he wanted me to be Molly for him. And that is just not me! I mean, we're in a war and I was 19 years old! I couldn't even think of having children to this world. But he wanted that. He pressured me to it. He wanted to send me somewhere where I could be safe and have his children. He didn't want me to have any part in this war."
Her answer made him kind of uncomfortable. But it really sounded like Granger had picked friends who didn't know her at all. Even he could have said that Granger was no housewife.
"And then we started to go to more raids and battles. And I noticed there was something in him I didn't recognize…something dark." She stared ahead with unblinking eyes almost like talking to herself, "He aimed to kill. He cast the killing course like it was Stupefy, not caring who it was he was aiming. And he started to brag about his kills, counting them, like it made him some kind of a hero. He killed, and I saw he liked it. It made him feel power. And this new version of him frightened me. That is not the Ron I knew."
When she looked at him, her eyes were wet.
"I could not live with what he had done…" She said quietly "…What he is still doing. I'm still not completely sure he understands I'm not going back to him. Sometimes he talks about our family… like it would still be our future."
She turned to look out of the window. Her eyes were filled with sorrow and longing.
"I don't live with them in the headquarters because they all frighten me. This war has changed everyone. We are not the same we were five years ago. I'm not sure who we are anymore. And it terrifies me to think of what we will be if we ever survive this war."
He had no words for her. He felt like falling. If this was what the war had done to The Golden Trio, what chance did the rest of the world have?
Damn wine, damn him, why did he have to start this conversation at all?
They were staring at each other now, silence hanging around them.
After what felt like ages, she laughed without humor.
"Look at us! Here we are, a mudblood, who is afraid of her friends, trying to save a Death Eater! How twisted is that!"
"Maybe war just changed our roles" He pointed quietly.
"So you are not a Death Eater and I'm no mudblood?" He could hear the alcohol in her voice now.
"No, you told me the day you brought me here. I'm a patient and I'm not allowed to call you mudblood."
At that, she smiled. And that smile (and maybe the wine too) made him think that he had never seen Hermione Granger, his former enemy, more beautiful.
No, bad Draco! Dangerous, very very dangerous thoughts!
