A Hundred Storms

Chapter Eighteen: These are the Confessions

I am crying, a part of me is dying and
These are, these are
The confessions of a broken heart
- Confessions of a Broken Heart, by Lindsay Lohan

Hermione led the way out of the Room of Requirement, her hand firmly grasping his. She tried not to over think the intimate physical contact she was currently sharing with Draco Malfoy. To his credit, he seemed to be content for the moment. He let Hermione guide him out to the corridor and didn't pull his hand back until the door to the secret room disappeared from sight once more.

Hermione looked down at her empty hand and back up at Draco quickly.

"I don't suppose you've restocked your whiskey supply?" She asked warily.

Draco's heart thumped an unfamiliar beat for a second before he regained his wits and smirked back at her.

"I make it a personal rule to never run even remotely low on good whiskey, Granger," he informed her curtly.

Hermione frowned. "I don't know if I should disapprove of feel grateful for that." She said in a tone that reflected the torn expression on her face.

"Cheers to that," Draco replied, feeling a strange and delicate shift in the emotional weight he had been shouldering, transferring ever so slightly to someone he could actually share it with.

Back in his room Hermione took the edge of his bed once more while Draco stood by the sidebar, the perfect image of a gracious host. Hermione's heart thumped in her chest, quicker than normal as she remembered the look on Neville's face as she once again entered the shared common room with Draco and once again disappeared into his room. She knew what he was thinking and Hermione knew he was telling Ginny everything. Ginny, in turn was informing Harry and Harry was probably keeping quiet, not wanting to anger Ron or upset Hermione with rumors without seeing the truth for himself. Hermione worried idly what Harry would think. She knew that Harry assumed she would spend most of her time back at school with Ginny, but things simply were not working out that way. Ginny had been through a terrible experience, but Ginny's blood status protected her from a lot of the personal, emotional horror. The death that rocked Ginny's life was the horror of war made real, but it was a different sort of horror than what Hermione lived with. Hermione found herself often dreaming of the future that thankfully never came to pass, a world where Harry died and Voldemort lived. It was a world in which she was enslaved, or maybe dead. Her parents certainly were. Sometimes Hermione dreamt of a world where Dolores Umbridge was the Mistress of Magic, other times it was Lucius Malfoy with the title. It didn't matter. In this scenario all the people she loved were dead, all the nightmares of her younger years at Hogwarts were fulfilled. Hermione worried Harry was still having nightmares, but he never indicated he did. He was her rock when she needed one, and she wondered what he would say to her now, knowing where she sat and knowing who she was sharing a drink (or several) with. Hermione tried not to care what the people she loved thought of her, but she felt indignant that they would assume she was sleeping with him. Maybe what scared her the most is that the idea didn't repulse her.

She took another healthy swallow of the firewhiskey in her hand and looked over to where Draco was standing, glaring at the fire.

"What are you thinking about, right this second?" She asked.

"What are you thinking about, right this second? Draco countered, always on the defense.

Hermione paused and then replied truthfully. "Neville probably thinks we're sleeping together in here, he's telling Ginny and Ginny is telling Harry. It's a sordid game of gossip and I'm not sure if I should care or just let it be."

Draco's blonde eyebrows shot to his hairline. "I never thought about it like that," he replied, gobsmacked.

Hermione gave him a weak grin. "I told you what I was thinking, your turn."

Draco emptied his glass of whiskey and refiled it, effectively buying time. He poured the expensive liquor slowly and swilled it around the glass to warm it. He took another drink.

"I was thinking about what you said about Crabbe," he finally said. "About how his death was nothing extraordinary, but still worth remembering. I was in Azkaban when his family, the family that wasn't involved with either side during the war, held a memorial for him. His father is still in Azkaban, of course, but I feel like I didn't say goodbye properly, or if I should even bother."

"He was your friend," Hermione replied matter-of-factly. "You should want to say goodbye."

"Why do you say that?" Draco asked, more curious than angry. "You said it yourself, he was wrong."

"I think he was wrong," Hermione said softly, finishing her drink. "Do you?" She looked at him. He crossed the room with the decanter in hand and refilled her glass without saying a word. "Do you think he was wrong?" She asked again.

Draco looked around the room as though looking for some sort of escape. This was the question he struggled with every day since the night he watched Severus Snape kill Dumbledore in front of him. It was like the question was so much more than right and wrong. How could he possibly put into words what he felt for his dead friend? It was like asking him to explain why the Unforgivable curses were unforgivable while so many other curses were not. There's a thousand reasons. There's one reason.

Draco finally took the chair at one of the writing desks and dragged it over so he was about six feet away from Hermione. He sat down and looked at his glass and tried to form the words that he had been trying to articulate for a year.

"I think," he said slowly. "That Crabbe was my friend. He and Goyle, we grew up together. Pansy Parkinson, too. Blaise was around some of the time, but really it was the four of us. Our parents were friends and that's how these things work, right? And then we came to Hogwarts. Crabbe and Goyle were my best mates. I bullied them because I could and because they let me, but one thing about Slytherin is that you always, always stick up for your own. I would do their homework and manage their potions because they didn't get it, Pansy would tutor them in charms and transfiguration. They would watch out for her when she was dating whoever and they would mess them up if that whoever hurt her at all. They made sure no one messed with me, period. I was always a lot smaller than them, and even with money and influence, sometimes it doesn't hurt to have a little extra muscle at your disposal."

Hermione looked at him. "Was it all friendship build on convenience?" She asked.

Draco ignored her question and continued.

"After sixth year we all grew closer. Pansy and I were romantically involved when we were younger, but that never manifested into anything tangible. She didn't care about the war, she just wanted herself and those she loved left alone. If that meant sympathizing with the Dark Lord so be it. I wrote to her often when I left Hogwarts. As you witnessed the first night here I still continue to do so. Crabbe and Goyle? They loved the idea of a pureblood-run society, because that's what we were taught. You're not born with the hatred we felt. You're not born with the sense that everything in the world has become filthy and wrong. Muggles and mudbloods? The world was supposed to be better off without them. Unicorns could finally run free again without being hunted for their magical properties like the ancient muggles did. The merfolk wouldn't have to hide in cold, dark regions of the world because they were afraid of being netted. Pureblooded witches and wizards would not have to hide what makes them special because the muggles were scared of what they didn't understand and tried to burn us. Imagine that, Granger. Imagine learning as a child that the muggles would try to burn you to death if they found out what you really are. Obviously we know now that muggles very rarely burned a real witch or wizard, and even if they did there's a simple charm to counter-act fire if the need presents itself. But imagine learning that as a child. As children we don't know how to control our magic, we would be defenseless if a muggle tried to burn us. Those were our bedtime stories. That's how we were carefully taught to hate you and your kind as well as any muggle we would meet. They wanted to destroy us and the Dark Lord gave us a way to fight back. That's the way Crabbe thought when he died, how could I possibly say he was wrong?"

Hermione was quiet for a time and sipped her drink while Draco patiently did the same. She knew, on an intellectual level, that the very story Draco laid out in front of her was the truth. She knew, from the fear in her parent's eyes, that muggles didn't understand. How could they? It wasn't their fault, but it wasn't her fault either. It also wasn't Draco's or any of his friends. It wasn't their fault what they were taught and it wasn't her fault for being who she was or her parents for not being who she was.

A tear slipped down her cheek and she tossed back the rest of her drink. Draco removed himself slowly from his chair and returned to her with the decanter. He topped the both of them off and then sat back down, this time beside her on the bed.

She looked at him. She struggled with the words she felt needed to be said and finally asked: "Do you think, at this very second, that what he did was wrong?"

Draco leaned in close and kissed her.