Chapter 6: Little Talks
Grindelverse
"Harry."
The voice at the door was unfamiliar, but the face was absurdly not. It was all Hermione could do not to gape at the man in the doorway, despite the lack of attention spared by any of the others. They were much too busy planning their war, it seemed, to be interrupted by a man who should have been dead for almost two decades.
"Harry," James Potter said again, shaking his head with a sigh. "You haven't changed since you were a boy, you know. Every time things are too quiet I know something's gone horribly wrong."
He was the exact mirror image of Harry. That Harry could be anyone else's son was such an outrageous impossibility Hermione wondered how they'd pulled it off for so long. He was dressed casually—though in something Hermione was beginning to think of as 'moneyed-casual'—in a camel cashmere jumper with slate grey trousers. He wore glasses, like his son, but had far unrulier hair. All in all, adult James Potter was lean and artfully rumpled; like a literature professor, or a character from fiction.
Harry glanced up briefly, barely acknowledging his father (godfather, Hermione corrected herself) with a nod, and then glanced back down. "Nothing's broken, James. Hardly even bespoiled my good name today."
"Well, that's not entirely true," Theo murmured, and Harry elbowed him, rolling his eyes.
"I'm sure Sirius has done it for you," James said, and nodded politely to Hermione. He seemed to be good-natured, if not also avoiding something. He didn't ask who she was, and nobody offered up the information. Instead, James continued to address Harry directly.
"We talked about this," James warned, and Hermione caught a flicker of annoyance in Harry's gaze, though he didn't look up. "You should be packing, Harry. The rest of term starts in a day."
"I'm not going back," Harry said, still pretending to fixate on the book in front of him. Hermione could feel echoes of repetition in the words; evidence they'd been said before. "There's no point to it, James. And I thought the whole purpose in giving me rooms here was that you wouldn't bother me while I was using them," he added coolly, as James' mouth curved, shadows carving themselves out in his cheeks.
"When," James said softly, "are you going to stop being angry with me?"
To that, Harry finally looked an ounce of sheepish.
"I'm not," he said. "I just—I'm not going back, that's all." He looked down. "I don't see the point."
By the looks on both their faces (one stubborn, one not-mad-just-disappointed), it was perfectly clear James and Harry had had this argument many times before. "And let me guess," James said, glancing between Draco and Theo. "You two are along for the ride, are you?"
"In fairness, it's a very good ride," Theo offered, as Harry elbowed him again. "Ouch, fuck—you're only making it worse, you know, that could have been a perfectly innocent comment—"
"It never is with you, Nott," James informed him. "But Harry—"
"Why don't you ask my dad what he thinks?" Harry asked, looking up. His gaze was impassive, but there was an undeniable lilt of defiance to his voice. "Might as well both weigh in, don't you think?"
James looked as if he knew he was being tested, and after a moment of I know precisely what this is and I'm choosing to entertain it, not because you've won, but because I have all the patience in the world, he gradually raised his wand, conjuring a silver stag and speaking into it.
"Sirius," he said. "Your son is being an obstinate wanker."
The stag disappeared, and after a matter of moments, with a pop, Sirius Black appeared in the room. Again, Hermione had to stifle a sound of disbelief; he was rather firmly unlike the Sirius she had known. This one was handsomely dressed in a set of fashionable black robes, and compared to James, he looked far more princely than professorial. At her obvious stare, Sirius glanced at her, bemused, but turned his attention immediately to James.
"Must be trouble if you're calling him my son," Sirius said, with a light-hearted humor Hermione had only seen glimpses of during her time with him. "You know perfectly well he's been our shared bundle of joy for the past near-eighteen years."
"He's calling himself your son," James supplied grimly, as Sirius' gaze cut to Harry's, displeased. "He's also thinking of gallivanting off to murder Grindelwald instead of finishing his schooling, if you'd like to weigh in on that."
"Well look, Harry, we all know Durmstrang isn't ideal, but you're so close," Sirius said half-heartedly.
"Close to what?" Harry prompted. "Eternal servitude?"
Sirius swiveled to scowl at Draco. "This is your influence, is it?"
"What, someone says the word 'servitude' and I'm automatically to blame?" Draco asked, bristling. "Hardly seems fair."
"The point," James said, mildly exasperated, "is you can't just run off, Harry. You're going to get yourself killed, and—"
"Dad?" Harry asked, ignoring James in favor of boldly eyeing Sirius. "You know I wouldn't be doing it if it weren't important."
Sirius looked terribly uncomfortable. Hermione was beginning to guess that perhaps Harry had not taken the news of his patronage well at all, and now seemed to be doling out separate but equally effective forms of punishment.
"Well," Sirius began, glancing at James, "he is of age, Jamesy-boy—"
"Don't Jamesy-boy me," James snapped. "I don't care if he's of age, Sirius! Nobody's ever 'of age' for the sort of thing he wants to do, and he's barely old enough to have any idea what he wants! We certainly didn't," he added, and Sirius grimaced. "When we were seventeen, I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life, and you were—"
"Mistake," Harry cut in sharply, letting the word hang in the air between them, and James flinched.
"I didn't mean—"
"No, no, you said it," Harry said, staring down his father. "Keep going. Of course it was a mistake, wasn't it?" he asked harshly, and beside him, Theo and Draco both looked down, uneasy. "You knocked up a muggle girl and got her killed. Had a son you didn't want. That's a mistake, isn't it? Objectively speaking. It's a mistake."
James looked pained, and glanced sharply at Hermione, the outsider in the room. "Harry, I wasn't saying you were—"
"You don't have the right to stop me," Harry interrupted, "because you aren't my father. And you," he said, rounding on Sirius, "can't stop me, because it's not in your nature. So why don't we just stop pretending I'm going to listen to either of you, and all just continue on as we were, hm?"
At that, James looked livid. Sirius looked stunned. Harry looked… not very much like Harry, that was for sure.
"Harry," Hermione couldn't help blurting, and every head swiveled to her. "I just—I, um—"
"Who's this?" Sirius asked Theo, gesturing to her.
"Oh, you know, just a muggleborn witch from a parallel universe," Theo said. "Draco picked her up on the way over."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Theodore, for the love of god—"
"I need to talk to my godson. Now," James cut in, never dropping his gaze from Harry's. Harry, too, hadn't looked away, and he hadn't lowered his defiant chin, either. "You can be as angry with me as you like, Harry, but I'm not about to let the relationship we've had your entire life fall away simply because I'm not what you thought I was. I'm still the man who helped raise you, like it or not, and you will listen to me now, or so help me, I will chain you to that desk until you do. Am I understood?"
The ensuing silence was sharp with tension, but eventually, Harry spoke.
"Theo stays," he said flatly.
"Theo goes," James snapped.
"Theo stays," Theo said.
"Theo fucking goes," Sirius growled. "Draco, too."
"Draco has no interest in being here," Draco assured him coolly, "so Draco's perfectly fine with that. Come on," he said to Hermione, who hadn't quite recovered from what she'd just seen, staring blankly between them. "A piece of advice," Draco whispered in her ear, and tugged her along after him out of the study and into the hall. "Muted gaping doesn't become you, Miss Granger."
"It's just—" She looked over her shoulder, watching the door shut. "The Harry I know would have been desperate to speak to his father, and that—that was—"
"It's easy to love the idea of someone," Draco said, shrugging. "But when that someone disappoints you, it's quite another matter entirely. They're very close, actually—not that you can tell," he added, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder to the mess they'd left behind. "But Theo and I always envied Harry's relationship with both James and Sirius. My father is something of an overstuffed sack of ego. Theo's father—" He broke off, grimacing. "Theo's father was a nightmare of a man, if you can even call him that. He was a fucking brute, to say the least."
"Was?" Hermione echoed, and Draco paused, turning his head to glance down at her. He stared at her for a few seconds, gauging the words that lingered on his tongue and weighing them against their impact.
"Harry and I took care of him," was his eventual choice of phrasing, his voice a shadowed kind of softness, like a secret in the dark. Then he continued forward as if he'd said nothing at all worth commentary, leaving her to freeze in place, eyes wide.
"But Harry would never—"
"Let me be clear," Draco sighed impatiently, turning to face her. "You don't actually know him. Do you understand? You may be his friend in some other world, but it isn't this one. In this world, I am his friend. And I am your friend. But you will not judge what he is or what he does until you know all of it. Am I clear?"
"Excuse me?" Hermione said, suddenly furious. "In case you've forgotten, you trapped me here! You trapped me, and if there are things I don't know, or don't understand, that certainly doesn't mean you get to—to condescend to me," she seethed, glaring at him. "And if this is how you're going to treat me, then—"
"Then what?" Draco asked, taking a lunging step towards her and dropping his voice. "Tell me what you'll do to me, Hermione," he beckoned, daring her to come closer, to turn around and flee. "Will you run, Hermione? Run out into this world you know nothing about, and where you're not even supposed to belong? Where you'll be killed just for having a wand? Will you curse me, maybe, or kill me? Do it," he suggested, snatching up her wand from her pocket and shoving it into her hand, aiming them both at his head. "Here, I'll help you. Go ahead."
"I—" She stared at him, suddenly balking at the sight of her wand where it pressed into his forehead, already leaving a visible imprint against his skin. "I wasn't—I wouldn't—"
"Don't make threats unless you plan to carry them through," Draco warned, not moving. He barely flinched, and didn't drop his angry gaze. "Don't threaten me unless you mean it, Hermione, because I don't have the patience for bravado. And if you do mean it, then—" He stepped closer, digging the tip of her wand in further. "Be my guest."
She gaped at him. "I—"
She faltered.
And then she broke.
She barely realized she was crying until after her wand had clattered to the floor, falling with a loud, echoing sound that cracked against the ceilings of the too-tall room. She brought her shaking hands to her face, pressing them to the liquid at her eyes, and wondered wait, are these mine? for what felt like a full minute before she was suddenly being pressed against his chest, her muffled gasps buried in his shirt.
"I didn't—I was just—it's just too much—"
Draco sighed. "I'm sorry," he murmured, resting his chin on her head. "I suppose it's been a very trying day for you."
It has, she wanted to wail, only that seemed largely counterproductive. Instead, she sniffled her agreement, letting him tighten his arms around her.
"I'm your ally here," he said, with an audible grimace. "I promise, I won't… I won't do that again. I'm sorry."
His lips brushed the top of her head and gradually, slowly, she regained her breath, feeling ever so slightly comforted by the pressure of his embrace—even if he had just admitted to her he'd murdered at least one person, which certainly implied more. She stiffened at the realization and pulled away, glancing up at him.
How, she wondered desperately, had she ever been put in a position to take comfort in Draco Malfoy?
"Let me make it up to you," he said, his grey gaze falling over her face and sweeping back up, certain. "You must be hungry."
"Starving," she admitted, pressing her fingertips to her eyes. Puffy, of course. Probably swollen and stupid. She turned away, utterly humiliated, but he reached down, picked up her wand, and then took hold of her chin, holding her still; locking his eyes on hers.
"I swear to you, Hermione Granger," he said, placing her wand in her hand with significantly less malice this time, "if I ever make you feel like that again, I give you permission to stop my heart. Curse me to oblivion. Punch me in the face. Whatever you want. I won't do it again, I swear, and if I do, consider me yours to punish."
He kissed her, hard and undaunted, and for a moment, she let her breath catch in her mouth.
Then she leaned back and slid her wand up, the point of it aimed just below his throat.
"If you ever make me cry again," she warned, watching him freeze uncomfortably as she slid the tip of her wand over his larynx, "I will make you so sorry, Draco Malfoy, you'll wish you were in some other goddamn universe."
For a moment, he simply stared at her. Then she felt a chuckle from his throat, and let her wand arm fall as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her again; longer this time, and if she believed him capable, she might have also said it was sweeter, or at least more oblivious, as if he'd had less to prove and more to give.
By the time they'd broken apart, she'd forgotten about her hunger, and for a moment, she'd even come close to releasing her pent-up misery at being trapped somewhere she didn't belong. Harry and Ron's faces flashed in her mind for a moment, and at the memory of where she'd left them, she couldn't help a wince; but still, there was nothing she could do. Not for now, anyway. Not yet.
And besides, she certainly needed Draco's help if she was ever going to make it back to them. In the long run, she needed him on her side—even if, at the moment, she couldn't decide which of her needs was most pressing.
"Now that," he murmured softly, "was a very convincing threat."
Potterverse
Part of the reason Draco had gone to Theo to begin with was that Theo's father had an extensive antique wand collection. It would have made a less wealthy person (like, say, Ron Weasley) weep for knowledge of its value, but Theodore Nott Sr was a collector purely for the sake of collecting. He rarely checked on his belongings, and it wouldn't be the first thing Theo and Draco stole without his noticing.
Unfortunately, there was only one way to test a wand, and Draco was becoming more and more anxious about how that process would go for Hermione, who had never touched one before. He needed to speak with her, and quickly.
"Maybe you should rest," he suggested to her, throwing it out wildly. "I mean, after what happened—"
"What happened?" Ron demanded, hysterically alarmed, and she turned to him with something of an impatient glare, as if she would have expected him to know better.
And she did, evidently, as a single word, "Torture," was all the answer she gave.
"Oh," said Ron, pained.
"She should, you know, lie down," Draco tossed out quickly, giving Theo a meaningful glance. "I can take her to one of the bedrooms while you all pick out wands."
"Why are you taking her?" Harry asked suspiciously.
"Because I already have a wand," Draco informed him, holding it up for emphasis. "I hardly need to select another one, Potter, honestly, use your head—"
"I also have a wand," Ron began, but Hermione cut him off.
"No, you go with Harry and the others, Ron," she assured him, giving him a mournful look. "I'm just going to rest my eyes for a few minutes." She smiled weakly, proving herself a rather capable actress indeed. "You don't mind, do you?"
Ron looked uneasy. "No, of course not, but—"
"Great. Draco will show you to the guest room," Theo said, obviously half-laughing under his breath. "He's very familiar with it."
Draco glared at him, and he shrugged, feigning innocence.
"That sounds lovely," Hermione said, and then yawned. "I'll see you both soon, I promise."
She turned, gesturing for Draco to lead, and he hurriedly aimed himself down the hall, nearly sprinting for the guest room to get them both out of earshot.
"I have a question," Hermione said the moment they reached it, letting him nudge her inside the door and seal it shut behind him. "Why are they all so afraid of that You-Know-Who person? It's all they talk about. He certainly went down easily enough," she mused, and Draco opened his mouth to answer, but then shook his head, determining it would have to wait.
"Okay, look," he said instead, "when you touch a wand for the first time, if it's the right wand, something happens, so try not to be alarmed. There's these—sometimes there's these sparks, and—"
"You're nervous," Hermione noted, flopping down on the bed and eyeing him. "I fooled you, remember? I can certainly fool them."
"But for how long?" Draco demanded, frustrated; not exclusively because Theo had said the exact same thing, but it certainly didn't help. "Okay, look, let me just think about a couple of spells for you to start with. Wingardium Leviosa, that's a staple, only you have to make sure the emphasis is properly on the—"
"You're babbling," Hermione said, and sighed, patting the seat beside her on the bed. "Come," she beckoned. "Sit."
He glowered at her.
She patted the bed again.
He scowled.
She smacked the duvet twice, hard.
"Fine," he groaned, and fell down beside her. "But listen, we don't have much time, so—"
"Look, I can figure the magic part out. I'm going to. But right now, I need to know things about them," she said, gesturing idly to where the others had gone. "Like, okay, Theo. How do you know him?"
"Childhood friend," Draco said uncomfortably. "He's—he's like a brother to me. Or he was."
"Until what?" Hermione asked.
"It's—" Draco grimaced. "It's not important. The real Hermione Granger doesn't know about it," he added, "so why should you?"
She stiffened.
"I'm real," she said.
He swallowed. "That's not what I meant."
She took a moment (inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, all of her fingers drumming on the duvet between them) and then she turned her head, glancing at him.
"I know what you meant," she eventually said, her voice quiet, "and fine. But I need to know about Harry and Ron," she pressed, inescapably firm. "They care about her—me. Obviously. And I need to know why. I need to understand why."
"Fine," Draco permitted grimly. "Ask me whatever you need to, then. I'll try to answer. If I even know the answer," he warned, and she shrugged, turning to look at him.
"Okay," Hermione said, patting his knee gratefully and then, on what was seemingly a whim, resting her hand on his thigh, slipping her thumb blithely over the fabric of his trousers. "So, how did I befriend them?"
"Weasley was—" He grimaced. "Ron," he amended for her benefit, "had made fun of you. You ran to the bathroom in tears. Then a troll was set loose on the same floor as the bathroom—"
"A troll?" Hermione asked curiously. "The kind who lives under a bridge?"
"I—what?" Draco said. "What bridge?"
"Any bridge," she replied. "You know. Guarding it and such? That's trolls, right?"
What utter nonsense, he thought, but was immediately distracted by the acute widening of her eyes, which for whatever reason discouraged him from mockery.
"No," he said, somewhat gently. "They're just rather large, stupid things. Very large," he emphasized. "Very stupid."
"So a troll," she confirmed, and he nodded.
"Right, so, Pot- Harry felt rather bad for you," Draco continued awkwardly, "and insisted he and Weas- Ron," he sighed, exasperated, "go back for you. As I understand it, they both saved you from the troll, and you took the blame."
"Why?" she asked, frowning. "I assume I got in trouble, didn't I?"
"Well, perhaps a bit," Draco said, feigning at difficulty remembering, though in fact he recalled perfectly every instance in their entire schooling wherein Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger could have been expelled, and inexplicably weren't. "You weren't really ever in trouble, though. Bit of a swot."
"Some things are bound to be true in every universe then, I suppose," Hermione said, half-smiling at him. Her palm was warm on his leg, and he swallowed, trying to remember what he'd been saying and tragically, flagrantly failing. "So it's Ron's fault, then. But Harry went after me?" She paused, considering this information. "Even though he and I weren't friends?"
"As I've said before," Draco pointed out, shrugging. "Incurable heroism."
"Hm." Her lips twitched. "Am I in love with Harry, then?"
"No, actually," Draco said, thinking of the way the other Hermione Granger had taken such care with Ron Weasley in his cellar, giving him what could only be called a forlorn glance of adoration. "I mean, as you've seen, it's Ron she seems to like."
She frowned. "Why?"
It was inconceivable to Draco that he would have to be the one to answer this question.
"Maybe," he forced out, "he's… nice to you?"
"Is he?" Hermione asked doubtfully. "He made fun of me, didn't he?"
"Well, we were eleven," Draco reminded her. "We were all stupid then."
"So he was nicer to me after that?" she asked.
"Uh," Draco said, thinking of the way she had barreled past him in tears during the Yule Ball—and actually, cried for what felt like most of sixth year, now that he thought about it. "Yes. Sure, that."
She didn't seem to believe him.
He sighed.
"Another thing," he told her. "You hate me, so you'll really have to start acting like you hate me."
"Why?" she asked.
"I told you. So they'll believe it's you," he began again, and she shook her head.
"No. Why do I hate you?" she asked, and though he could not have imagined a more troubling question than the one she'd asked before, he found he was once again mistaken.
"I'm very mean to you," he managed, and glanced down at where her fingers stiffened against his leg. "I am… actually quite cruel."
It was difficult not to think of the way the other Hermione Granger had looked at him just the day before, when he'd asked her how she was doing. It was perfectly clear she didn't believe him capable of caring about the answer, as if she considered him a monster. Had always considered him one, in fact.
Slowly, the Hermione beside him retracted her hand.
"You call me names," she remembered, recalling the 'mudblood' incident and glancing down at her newly-healed palm. "You mock me for my blood."
He nodded, unable to look at her. "Yes."
"Have you done worse than that?" she asked.
He nodded. "Mostly to Potter. You and I, we were…" He grimaced. "You didn't consider it worth pursuing, for the most part. In fact, you rarely reacted when it was you I was—"
"Bullying," she supplied for him, and he flinched.
"It was usually when it was someone you cared about that you would respond," he continued, clearing his throat. "You slapped me, third year, when I insulted the groundskeeper."
"Well, as I should," she remarked.
He tried to laugh, but couldn't.
"I," he began, but immediately floundered. No explanation really came to mind. It wasn't you, he wanted to say, but maybe if it had been you, I wouldn't have been so—
No, he thought. If he said it, it would almost certainly be a lie, and she didn't seem to have much patience for those. Instead, he took the resulting silence as a penance, biding his time for her to decide what she wanted to do next until he could no longer stand the wait.
"You could always go with them. Without me," he suggested eventually, voice dry. "There's no need for me to come along, if you don't want me there. Or I could just stay until you've learned some magic, and then you could—"
"Are you sorry?" she cut in, and he blinked.
"What?"
"Are. You. Sorry," she repeated, slower, and turned to face him from where they'd both perched on the bed. "It's a simple question, really. Do you regret what you did to me, what you said? And not just me," she added, because of course she did, because of course no version of Hermione Granger would be quite so conveniently selfish as to permit him to be sorry only to her. "In a larger sense. Are you sorry?"
He opened his mouth, and then closed it.
"None of it was real until it was," he told her painfully, which wasn't exactly an answer, but it still had to be said. "My headmaster was thrown over the side of the Astronomy Tower. It was my fault, and so was everything after it, too. A professor I used to see almost every day was exsanguinated by a fucking snake, right in front of me. A classmate of mine was tortured in my own house. I'd said something terrible about every single one of them at least once, or even openly ill-wished them. Said they deserved to die." He shut his eyes. "I am more than sorry. Pointlessly so. I've done terrible fucking things, and no matter how sorry I am, I can never possibly be sorry enough."
He opened his eyes to find her watching him closely.
"You work for him," she noted. "This Dark Lord person."
He swallowed hard, hating himself and everything, and wordlessly yanked up the cuff of his left sleeve, holding it up for her to see.
"Oh," she said, her eyes widening, and then she reached out, taking his hand carefully in hers to look at his Mark for several silent moments. "A bit ostentatious for a gang tattoo," she murmured, and while the remark made positively no sense to him, he was more relieved than he could say that he didn't identify any obvious indications of loathing in her voice.
"I suppose it's rather pointless to ask if you could take it back if you could," she remarked, the touch of her thumb cool against the inside of his arm. "Seeing as that would be impossible."
"This is impossible," he reminded her, croaking it out, and she glanced up, her tongue slipping briefly to pass over her lips before she pulled his hand towards her, fingers wrapping loosely around his wrist.
"How sorry are you?" she asked, and brushed her lips lightly against his Mark, sending a shiver that fled up the taps of his spine.
"Very," he said, swallowing. "Desperately."
"You'd take it all back?" she asked, with another kiss this time, slower and more deliberate. She slid her lips higher, to his palm, and kissed him there, too, curling his fingers around it and then shifting his hand to her waist, drawing him closer.
"Yes," he said, and yes, there were people elsewhere in this house who resolutely could not know he was doing this and yes, he had to find the Deathly Hallows for reasons he only half-believed, and yes, this was highly inconvenient, and in fact highly irresponsible, but he held her anyway, proving himself a fool. "Fuck, yes, all of it, I take it all back—"
"So you'll never do it again," she mused, reaching up to toy with his hair. "Will you? The name-calling. The prejudice, the insults. It's all going to stop?"
"It's done," he promised, holding his breath as her fingertips brushed over his mouth. "All of it, I swear—"
"Don't lie to me," she warned, her lips right there, just there, his lungs positively exploding as she danced out of reach, sliding her nose along his. He tried desperately to kiss her; tried not to kiss her; tried to breathe; tried not to falter into oblivion. "Don't lie, Draco."
"I wouldn't," he whispered, and only then did her lips touch his, as delicately as if the kiss itself had been sugar-spun. "I swear," he said, hands shaking as they slid under her shirt, "I won't—"
The door opened a crack and they sprang apart, Hermione quickly lying on her back to pretend she'd been sleeping.
"Hey," Theo said, rolling his eyes as he waltzed into the room. "Just me. They're looking for her, though."
"Right," Draco said uncomfortably. "Right, um. Yeah, she should—you should go, so—"
Hermione stretched out sleepily on the bed, admirably committed to the part.
"I suppose we'll have to finish resting later," she determined, rising to her feet and slipping past Theo, who in turn arched a brow knowingly at Draco.
"Don't," grunted Draco.
"Oh, I wouldn't," chuckled Theo in return, before he slipped back into the hall, whistling innocently.
a/n: Dedicated to nymphadoraholtzmann, who makes my garbage heart happy.
