._.
Nightmares and Dreams
Hermione didn't expect to awaken again until morning, nor so abruptly. For a moment, she stared tensely into a black void, wondering where she was, until her eyes adjusted to darkness, and the faint outlines of the cosy wicker furniture of the Coniunctis Viribus bedroom came into view.
Still half-asleep, she pulled her wand from beneath her pillow and mumbled a spell.
The numbers 3:43 floated in pale smoke from the tip of it.
Rolling over, Hermione shoved a hand through curly hair tumbling wildly around her face, pushing it out of the way, and tiredly rubbed her forehead, blinking blearily. Why had she…
Suddenly, a thud and a muffled crash shook the wall directly behind her.
Hermione sat up swiftly and twisted around, gripping her wand. She was inches away from the wall — the back of her bed was pressed flat against it; in the faint light, she reached out a hand and touched only smooth wood.
Her pounding heart slowed slightly.
The noise must have come from the room beside her.
Draco's room, her fatigued mind realized.
Then likelihood of what she might be hearing abruptly registered, and her eyes widened in concern.
Now fully awake, she unhesitatingly pulled the covers back from her bed. Though she was still clad in the long blue duelling tunic, she quickly pulled on the outfit's soft leggings to ward off the chill of the Tribute and crept into the hallway. She glanced around the rest of the building — she wasn't sure where Pansy slept — but the floors that she could see through the open centre remained hushed and still. Whatever the noise was, she'd been the only one to hear it.
Hermione carefully turned the knob of the door to Draco's bedroom and, after steeling herself momentarily, quietly pushed it open and leaned her head inside.
She could hear sharp, choking breaths and unintelligible but clearly pleading mumbling immediately.
Her heart leapt to her throat. In dread, she slipped quickly inside the room, closing the door behind her.
"Lumos," she murmured.
Draco was tangled in the sheets of his bed, only his right arm fisted and free in the tightly twisted covers. In the shadows of the wand's faint light, his eyes were squeezed shut, his face contorted in an expression of utter anguish. His chest heaved with panicked inhalations, while his body alternatively trembled and jerked roughly, his arm stiffly flailing outward as it did. Dark shards of glass were scattered across the floor at the foot of his small bedside table — the bottle of Dreamless Sleep Potion she'd given him, she guessed swiftly.
Hermione repaired it quickly and fell to her knees beside his bed as he stiffened, clawing at the mattress. Tears streamed down his pale face, and she was close enough now that his continued mumblings solidified into a comprehensible words that nearly broke her heart in half. "No… No… Oh, god!" He choked back a sob. "I… I can't—"
She felt sickened, and swallowed back bile that choked at her throat. She desperately wanted to reach out to him, but she wrestled away the urge. She had been best friends with Harry Potter long enough to know what to do for someone in the throes of a horrific nightmare… and getting too close could get her accidentally punched.
"Draco," she called quietly, careful to give him space if he awoke disoriented. "Draco… wake up!"
Draco's free hand clenched the sheets, his face fixed in a silent scream. He again thrashed erratically, the shudder violently wracking his entire body. "N-No," he mumbled hoarsely, "Please, no… Please!"
He let out a muted cry of agony and for one horrible moment, Hermione froze, sucked back to the memory of staring into his defeated eyes in horror as he implored her to simply let him die.
Dear Merlin, she had to rouse him!
"Draco, please wake up," she pleaded, raising her voice slightly so it was audible over his own. "It's Hermione. You're here with me in the Chamber of Secrets. You're safe, Draco… Draco!"
He inhaled sharply, and his eyes flew open. Almost immediately, he struggled to move in the twisted sheets but couldn't; Hermione saw the moment panic gripped him.
"No, no! Draco, you're alright; look at me," she said quickly. He instantly recoiled from her voice, though his wild-eyed gaze shot to hers. With horror, she recognized his expression — as blank, panicky, and genuinely bewildered as it had consistently been in the initial moments of their first few encounters.
"It's alright! It's Hermione," she whispered emphatically, her own heart racing. "Not My — Hermione. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. Tom Riddle's here, your father's here… You're safe, Draco."
He blinked rapidly, his red-rimmed eyes swiftly taking in every detail of her face in the dim light of her wand. "Her—mione—?" he croaked.
Tears burned at her own eyes. "Yes. Hermione." She tried valiantly to smile encouragingly but couldn't summon the energy she knew he'd be able to if their roles were reversed. She dug through the twisted sheets to find his arm. "Here— take my hand. Take my hand."
Draco's fingers gripped hers tightly, his own clammy and frigid. His gaze shifted toward the ceiling, and he frantically choked in uneven breaths, his entire body shaking.
That he, that anyone could ever experience such pain and atrocities in their lifetime was enough to make something inside her simultaneously break and burn. She had only been tortured for a fraction of an afternoon and still had nightmarish flashbacks of it; she never knew when they would come or what would set them off.
Draco had been tortured for years.
For his sake, she forced her expression and tone to remain as comforting and assured as possible. Without releasing her hold on his hand, Hermione raised herself from her knees to sit on the very edge of the bed beside him. Operating purely on instinct now, she reached up and began to soothingly brush his damp hair away from his face; the motions served to also calm her. "You're safe, Draco… You're safe."
As he squeezed his eyes shut, she softly repeated the verbal and physical reassurance over and over and over again. She couldn't help but think of Neville's poor parents - how they'd been tortured into insanity. As she did, she found she felt a twisted kind of gratefulness. The fact that Draco hadn't been utterly and totally destroyed, forever, for the months and years of horrific abuse he'd endured was a true testament to his resiliency... and honestly, nothing short of a miracle.
She hadn't the slightest idea of how much time had passed before his panicked breaths calmed completely. Avoiding her eyes, he silently untangled his left hand from the sheets and used it to roughly wipe the dampness from his face. His other hand, he left motionless in hers, though his grip had loosened considerably.
"Sorry to have… woken you with that," he whispered at last, his voice gravelly and exhausted.
She shook her head reassuringly. "It's nothing, really." She forced another weak smile. "Growing up with Harry Potter… this sort of thing happened to him frequently enough for me to become rather used to it."
That was a lie. Harry's visions, nightmares, dreams… Though she'd learned how to approach them, she'd never become used to them, and these nightmares of Draco's were from experiences far more horrific than even Harry could have envisioned, though Hermione had certainly had her share of nightmarish imaginings of what the future might look like for Muggleborns in particular if Voldemort had won.
"D'you… want to talk about it?" she asked Draco uncertainly.
She wasn't surprised when he shook his head wordlessly. After a few more seconds of silence, she said as gently as possible, "Draco… What happened with the Dreamless Sleep Potion?"
Draco finally turned his head, looking over to the now-repaired bottle rather than at her; she doubted he even realized he'd broken it. "I nearly ran out yesterday… Only had a quarter dose left," he said tiredly. "Riddle's… brewing more, but it still needs another three weeks." He paused, his voice slow, weary. "Supposedly Snape's bringing some tomorrow instead…"
He voiced the latter sentence with incredulity.
"Careful he doesn't poison you with it," Hermione muttered bitterly.
Surprisingly, he didn't seem to be concerned. "I'm not valuable enough for Snape to risk whatever his… understanding is with Riddle for that," he mumbled, his drooping eyelids falling shut briefly.
Her lips parted. It wasn't the first time he'd said he wasn't important in the grand scheme of things — thrown it out offhandedly, even — but she couldn't understand how he could even begin to think that. "You're incredibly valuable!" she exclaimed before she could stop herself.
His gaze shot to hers. After a moment, a weak smile touched his face, his eyes glistening suddenly in the faint light of her wand. Unexpectedly, his thumb caressed the top of her hand. "I'm glad you think so," he said softly.
A thrill ran from her neck down the entirety of her spine, but before she could react further, he released her hand entirely, wearily hauling himself up to a sitting position and leaning back against the wall. "But not enough for an assassination attempt… Luckily." His gaze slipped toward her again. "If it makes you feel better, we could always slip some of it in a drink for him to try first."
Hermione's brow furrowed in consideration. "That would make me feel better, actually." And if it was poison, good riddance.
Draco's eyebrows raised slightly, his expression suddenly one of grave seriousness. "No doubt your Potions marks would suffer for it."
"Oh, sod my marks!" she exclaimed, remembering the disgusting smirk on Snape's face as the boggart of Lily Evans entered the Archives room. As if her — well, My's — marks could get any worse anyway. "That miserable skink of a man… It'd be well worth it!"
Draco laughed, though tiredly. "'Miserable skink of a man'…" he repeated, his eyes thoughtful. "I like that. I might use it sometime… All credit to you, obviously."
She echoed his small laugh. "As long as the target's—" She was unable to stop a yawn once it began, "—worthy of it."
"Oh — that, I can absolutely promise you." Her yawn was contagious; Draco mirrored the action, and then heavily tipped his head back against the headboards. "Merlin," he sighed, briefly closing his eyes, "Tonight I was hoping I might… actually be able to get by on the DSP I had left." His smile became limp. "Naive of me, I know. I just wish I… hadn't dragged you into it."
"Stop apologizing! It's really alright," Hermione insisted. She let out a long, tired breath, and tilted her head pensively. "You might, you know." When his brow knit, she clarified, "Still be able to get by. When Ron and I used to wake Harry, most of the time he didn't have any other dreams once he fell back asleep." She frowned, remembering the usual course of events after such a dream took place. "If he fell back asleep and didn't run off to try to save someone, that is."
Merlin, in some respects, that world felt so far away now…
Draco sighed and shook his head. "I sincerely wish that were the case for me, but it isn't." His voice fell to a low murmur she wondered if she was even meant to hear. "They… don't stop." For a moment, his eyes slipped shut — it was so clear he desperately wanted to sleep — but then he appeared to force them back open, meeting her equally tired gaze. "There's no point in both of us losing sleep tonight. Go on back and get some rest; I'll be fine."
She stared at him in disbelief. "So, what… you're just going to stay up all night?"
"I've got enough literature to keep me going for a week at least," he said, gesturing down toward a small shelf of books beneath the beside table. "Perhaps you could just… zap me with a Rennervating Charm so I can make it 'til morning. I'll be as good as new two days from now."
Though his tone was joking, his eyes weren't.
"Draco, that's ridiculous; you can't expect to stay on DSP forever," she disagreed. "You're as exhausted as I am!"
"I'll be more exhausted if I let myself have those dreams! I can't rest through them!" he exclaimed, visibly frustrated. He shoved a hand through his limp hair. "I just — I don't… I don't know what else to do, Hermione. I know that potion's addictive and I hate that I've come to rely on it. But it's — it's been such a relief to simply…"
He trailed off, clenching the sheets.
Hermione understood his anger — she honestly and truly did. After her experiences in Malfoy Manor and deeper into the war, she had tried Dreamless Sleep Potion herself a few times on the rare occasions the Trio had gotten their hands on it. No words could describe the relief she'd felt when closing her eyes and knowing, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that she would awaken the next morning well rested, without a single lingering image in her mind of Death Eaters or the dead.
She'd eventually decided to make do without it, but just because she didn't want to depend entirely on anything outside of herself for something as fundamental as sleep didn't mean others who'd faced far more ghastly horrors had that easy a choice. If she'd been through what Draco had and that kind of respite from it was available to her every night, she could only imagine it would have been terribly difficult to let go.
Suddenly, a memory struck her, and she sat up quickly. "You fell asleep in the Gryffindor Common Room a few times when I was with you. No potion. Do you remember?"
Draco shook his head. "That's only because you were—"
He stopped speaking abruptly, his shoulders tense.
"I was… what?" she asked after a long pause.
"Nothing. Forget I even said it," he said quickly, looking down at the sheets.
Hermione studied him for a minute, recognizing the avoidance she'd noticed he usually fell upon when he didn't want to make himself appear any more vulnerable than he might have already. "Because I was there?" she asked softly.
He didn't respond.
It was answer enough.
Hermione came to a spontaneous decision then, one that made her nervous even thinking about it because she knew she was absolutely going to go through with it. For a moment, her stomach clenched apprehensively, before she shook it off; she'd certainly slept in close quarters with boys before, especially on the road when they were all bunking together in the tent, shelters or the Room of Requirements… not to mention her faux seduction of Ronáld. Though she also knew that none of those situations had ever been anything quite like this.
"How would you feel about me… staying here, tonight?" she asked.
Draco looked up at her swiftly. "W-What?" he stammered.
"If my being here can help you fall asleep, then we should try it. Anyway, I won't be able to sleep knowing you aren't, either."
His mouth opened and closed. "Hermione — I — This isn't…" To her surprise, a genuinely pained expression flitted into his eyes. "This is something I'm… going to be dealing with for a — a very long time," he finally managed wearily, the shadowed lines of his face suddenly even more exhausted than they had appeared moments before. "I don't — I can't ask you to—"
His struggle to string together coherent sentences was evidence enough of his exhaustion, and the fact that he was giving her the chance to gracefully extract herself from her offer simply made Hermione all the more determined to go through with it.
"We're not talking about forever, Draco," she said quietly. "We're just talking about tonight."
For a moment, his gaze was frozen in hers, a thousand emotions she couldn't begin to name rapidly crossing his expressive face. Then, with a small nod, he simply reached over, pulling back the covers on the other side of the bed.
Though she had absolutely no reservations about what she was doing, Hermione's stomach flipped again.
Draco looked back at her, giving her a tentative smile. "It isn't My's 2,000 galleon water bed, I'm afraid."
Somehow, with that single sentence, her nervousness disintegrated. "The rubbish mattress, you mean," she said disdainfully, standing and crossing around the foot of the bed to the other side of it. "How anyone could spend that much money on such a terrible product is beyond me. One wrong roll and you literally feel like you're drowning in a sea of air and bedspread." She propped her lit wand up between their pillows before climbing under the sheets. Briefly, she closed her eyes in relief as she sank down on her side into the same semi-firm mattress that had also been in the room she'd taken. "Believe me, these beds are a massive improvement."
Draco chuckled softly and reached down to untangle the sheets around his legs. "I can see how you've managed to fool everyone for months; you sounded exactly like her then."
Hermione groaned, exasperatedly pulling the blanket up over her head. "Well, that's bloody wonderful. I'm morphing into her at every turn, it seems." He had voiced the singular concern she'd begun to feel more and more frequently the longer she played My — every time distinct aspects of My's personality would spill into her thoughts and actions when she wasn't pretending to be her.
She felt Draco shift. Then the cover hiding her face was pulled back slightly, and his warm gaze met her dismayed one; he had similarly lain toward her, his face no more than a hand's length away. "You'll never turn into her, Hermione."
His smooth blond hair spilled across the pillow, near enough to reach out a finger and touch, and Hermione had to restrain herself from actually doing so. He was so very close, she could breathe in the scent of him, and her throat constricted. "How do you know?" she whispered, unable to summon the volume to reply normally.
Draco gazed at her for a moment, then found her hand and pulled it up between them. Slowly, he entwined his fingers with hers, and Hermione prayed he couldn't hear or feel the blood that had begun to pound through her veins as he looked back up at her. "Because unlike her, you have a heart," he murmured, his voice as faint as hers. "And yours is… beautiful."
Breath failed her. Her eyes began to burn, and something expansive and warm and inexpressible swelled in her chest. She rapidly blinked back tears, unable to form the ghost of words on her tongue that longed to speak in reply.
Several seconds or perhaps minutes must have passed, because Draco unexpectedly let out a groan and released her hand. "Merlin, I'm a huge idiot," he said, rolling onto his back and roughly shoving a hand through his hair. "I've gone and made this horribly awkward. I'm so sorry, that was the last thing I ever—"
"No." Hermione shook her head fiercely and swiped at her eyes. "No, don't apologize. You didn't. It's just — That was… possibly one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me."
Draco went still, then turned back toward her, looking both surprised and relieved. His face was flushed slightly, and a part of her was glad she wasn't alone in her uncertainty, in the new and somewhat foreign experience that was the simultaneously frightening and wonderful connection they shared. Her voice again collapsed to a whisper. "I… didn't know what to say."
He shook his head. "You don't… have to say anything, if you don't want to," he whispered haltingly, his gaze searching hers.
In the wand's dim light, Hermione found herself doing the same, but over his entire face, from the faded lines and curves of indiscriminate marks above his eyebrow, around his temple and down the left side of his cheek from injuries she didn't want to imagine, to the fine crinkles at the corners of his eyes, down his slender nose and the jagged, healed wound running along the side of it, and finally, to his lips, where the numerous but faint scars lining them were practically invisible against his equally pale, otherwise smooth skin.
Her heart began to pound, and her mouth — dear goddess — her mouth actually began to salivate.
She swallowed hard and swiftly looked back into Draco's eyes, forcing herself to continue to breathe steadily. His were filled with a mix of uncertainty and the same tender intensity they'd held the night before, had held many times before, now that she thought about it — the expression that made her feel like he could see all of her without using a lick of Legilimency… and, despite that, that she was safe. Wanted. Valuable, and not just for what she or her body or her giant brain could do for him.
From his expression, Hermione wondered if he had any idea he was those things to her, too.
Before she could stop herself, she propped herself up on her elbow and reached out, lightly tracing her finger along a thin scar directly below his right eye. She was surprised how warm his face felt, and her hand slipped down, cupping the concave contour of his cheek.
Now he was the one who appeared to be frozen, his grey eyes wide, and though his lips were parted slightly, his breaths were so shallow she couldn't even feel him exhaling.
A fire began to burn deep in her abdomen, and it gave her the strength to continue what she had intended.
"You're right," she murmured at last. "I don't."
Returning her gaze to her original target, Hermione leaned forward and gently pressed her lips to his.
Draco remained utterly motionless.
Her stomach plunged, but as she uncertainly began to pull away, he suddenly responded, kissing her back with a slow, focused intensity that both stunned her and took her breath away. Heat and energy unlike anything she had ever experienced surged through her, as if all her life her insides had been hollow and empty and now they were suddenly full — no, not just full, ready to burst forth from every pore in her body —
The sensation was so overwhelming, Hermione gasped, and hardly noticed Draco move to cradle her face and her neck supportively in his hand, pushing himself up slightly so they were at the same level without stopping or breaking an embrace that was at once gentle and scorching.
They kissed each other with a rhythmic, searing slowness, as if each was trying to map and memorise the terrain of the other. Blood and wanting swelled through her temples, and she gripped a fistful of his shirt, leaning into the warmth of his body and the soft curve of his lips. He made a low sound in his throat, tangling his fingers in her wildly curled hair, and she immersed herself in the scent and taste of him, in pinewood and candles and lemon and sweat.
Hermione had never been terribly impressed with nor fully understood the appeal of the act of kissing, having really done it only three times before — once with Viktor, who was nice enough, she supposed, but with whom she had never fully clicked romantically, and unfortunately twice with the sloppy, slobbering, overpowering freight train that was Lord Ronáld. The idea of two mouths pressing together, and, what — somehow expressing affection? — hadn't seemed like a very logical or effective pathway to what she had once overheard Lavender describe to Parvati as "rapturous bliss."
Now, though, her head spun with delirium and fatigue until, in a dizzyingly coherent wave of clarity, she finally, finally understood how people could and did fight for this, give up livelihoods and travel halfway around the world for this, turn away from families and even die for this. Great Godric, this was why she'd been so afraid to allow herself to step into a relationship of this magnitude here: these raging emotions, this uncontrollable inability to focus on or think about anything other than her lips on his. Abruptly, she was struck by the very acute fear that if she didn't do something — anything — very quickly, 10:00 would be here and gone and neither of them would be prepared for a face off with Riddle, Snape, and Merlin knew who else.
The shockwave realization cut through the euphoric haze fogging her mind and pumping through her veins.
Oh sweet Morgana. The meeting. Tomorrow morning.
Summoning self control from nearly every bone in her body, Hermione pulled away from him and rolled onto her back. Her chest heaved as she gasped in a shallow breath and then several more.
Dear… god… was the only thought she managed to produce.
The meeting… Less than… five hours… They couldn't — She couldn't — She had never…
Never in her life been kissed like that.
Had kissed like that.
Her entire body was trembling. Was this how Harry felt when he kissed Ginny? When her mother kissed her father? Was this — was this normal?
Hermione clenched her hands, hearing nothing but Draco's own ragged breaths beside her. Then she forced herself to move. Reaching up, she blindly fumbled for her lit wand, now partially buried amongst the pillows. She gripped it tightly once she found it. "I'm going to — extinguish the light," she choked out.
She sensed more than saw Draco look toward her, and she resisted returning his gaze with all her might; she didn't know if she would hold firm to her word if she did. "Hermione —?" His voice was croaky as he reached for her arm. "What —? Was it… something I—?"
At once, Hermione realized his line of thought and turned toward him. He seemed simultaneously dazed and deeply concerned, and she felt her own gaze soften dramatically. "No," she said hoarsely. "No, you were… That was…" Her voice failed her, and tears burned at her eyes as she shook her pounding head, willing her racing heart to calm down. "It's — the meeting, Draco." She swallowed hard. "We need… sleep."
She could actually see his expression shift to one of understanding. "Right," he said throatily, and rolled over on to his back as well, blinking blearily up at the ceiling. "Sleep…"
The glow of her wand faded, leaving them in blackness. Even so, Hermione was hyperaware of his presence, and she gingerly shifted away from him, closer to the edge of the bed. It wasn't that she didn't trust him; no, it was herself she didn't trust, and she knew she was going to have to be at the top of her game bright and early tomorrow if she was going to survive whatever kind of summit it was to be.
"If you need anything, and I'm asleep… wake me up," she somehow managed to say, though from the blood readily coursing through her buzzing veins, she wasn't sure how much sleep she was about to experience.
Draco didn't respond for a long time, and Hermione almost wondered if he'd already fallen asleep. But then, finally, he whispered, "Thank you… Hermione."
His low voice churned her already swirling stomach into a jittery whirlpool, and she gritted her teeth, gripping her pillow. Distantly, she registered it was raining — Beyond their two breaths, she suddenly noticed the sound of crickets and pattering water from beyond the windows.
She forced herself to focus on the rhythmic sound of the falling rain to keep herself from thinking about the kiss over and over again… How gently yet firmly Draco had held her… How it had been paradoxically intense yet tender — innocent, almost — and brief enough that she wasn't even sure she could consider it a snog rather than one long, seemingly continuous, sensual kiss… The indescribable energy that had surged through her…
Rain, she interrupted herself sternly. Rain… rain… rain…
Thankfully, soon enough the night again began to take her, though it was only utter exhaustion that forced her adrenalized body to relax out of sheer necessity. Her eyelids grew heavier, and she felt herself drifting closer to elusive, precious sleep. Closer…
Suddenly, Draco's breathing audibly quickened irregularly, and he began to mumble indiscernible words. Then, even across the bed, she sensed his entire body roughly twitch once and heard him gasp, as if he'd shaken himself from the dream.
Her heart began to race. "Draco?" she murmured uncertainly.
A few seconds passed before he spoke, his voice slightly strangled. "Hermione, would you… talk to me?"
She turned toward him; her eyes had adjusted enough in the darkness to see his faint outline, laying almost rigidly. "Does that help?" she asked in surprise.
Draco seemed hesitant to respond, then his head turned toward her, though the shadows shrouded his features. "It might," he admitted wearily, sounding reluctant.
"Of course." Hermione shifted on her side, resuming the position she had when she'd first lain down — that seemed like a lifetime ago. She hesitated, then reached out and found his left hand. It was clenched at his side, his knuckles icy. She uncurled his fingers and took his sweaty palm in hers, willing him reassurance and peace and something else, something deeper and more powerful than she could put into words.
He let out a long breath, his fingers curling around hers. "I'm actually… incredibly embarrassed my subconscious could even think of having a single nightmare after…."
Abruptly, his rueful-sounding voice wavered and trailed off.
Hermione couldn't help but smile as she guessed the unfinished content of his sentence.
"Nobody's perfect; you were bound to slip up eventually," she commented lightly.
A small, short breath puffed from his lips; she suspected it was the only level of laughter he could manage at this hour of the night. "Well, please be assured it's in no way a reflection on you."
Hermione found his concern incredibly sweet, and she smiled weakly again, trying to think of something to say that could take his mind off any thought of his vicious dreams. "Do you ever think about what you'd be doing now… if none of this mess with the Sovereignty had ever happened? If there had been no war?" she asked, remembering the hypothetical question he'd posed to her earlier that night.
"I used to," Draco murmured.
"And?"
"Cruising on a yacht across the… grand sea of life, swimming with dolphins and…" he yawned, "… soaking in the sun while W-Weasley — any one of them, really — launders my towels and serves me freshly made margaritas."
Despite his mumbled response, the reply sounded so much like the snotty, snobby Draco Malfoy of her world that Hermione couldn't help but laugh. "No… really," she said, truly curious.
Draco was silent for a few moments. "When I was a student, I'd always hoped I'd... be allowed to become a Healer."
"You'd be a bloody fantastic Healer," she said without hesitation, though she hated how he'd phrased it - like he would've had to have been granted special permission or some such rubbish from the Sovereignty to even try to pursue his dream.
He laughed once, faintly. "I appreciate the enthusiastic vote of confidence." He paused, and she could see the rise and fall of his chest lengthening, becoming more even. "What about you… in your world?"
Hermione furrowed her brow thoughtfully. "I founded this organisation, before the war broke out. Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare." A weak, dark smile pulled at her lips. "That all seems so quaint in this universe — promoting Elfish welfare. But I had thought, if we'd made it, I'd like to be an advocate for the rights of those who didn't have a voice."
"Careful what you… wish for," Draco mumbled dryly.
A part of her wanted to let out a humourless laugh at his vocalized irony of her situation, but she couldn't bring herself to do even that. "Yeah," she sighed. "Now… I don't know, Draco. I'm just so… tired of fighting. Sometimes I think I'd," she shook her head weakly, "I'd quite like to go off and live in the middle of the woods for a good long while after all of this is over, before I do anything like that again."
"Don't need to tell me twice," he breathed, his voice thick with sleep.
Her own heavy eyelids fluttered shut, but she continued to speak in a murmur, about visiting the Forest of Dean with her parents, the old Welsh stories her grandparents would tell her when they were still alive and she was quite young, about how, once when her straight-laced father was still a teenager, her grandmother, in an attempt to make him eat more seafood that he detested, had made homemade salmon burgers but claimed they were turkey. Somehow, her father had not only fallen for it but had repeatedly declared how delicious they were… until her grandmum had gleefully informed him the truth of it afterward.
Hermione paused. Over the faint patter of the rain, she could hear his long, slow breaths. They were steady. He was asleep, and it didn't seem to be fraught, thank the goddesses. The worry she'd felt for him melted from her, simply leaving her exhausted. Her own breathing instantly deepened, her already shut eyes closing more firmly.
Lethargically, she stroked her thumb once over his motionless hand. "Dream of healing, Draco," she whispered.
She meant it both ways.
Mug of coffee in hand, Harry Evans reclined in an armchair in Tribute CV's ground floor common area, the third volume of the Muggle novel War and Peace, which he'd found in the library, open on his lap. At 8:30, he would have much preferred to be reading The Daily Prophet and had a private subscription delivered daily with his breakfast, but Riddle's rules for the Chamber expressly forbid bringing uninspected Sovereignty-produced materials inside, at the risk they held a hidden camera, tracking device or untraceable surveillance spells.
Harry didn't have to like it, but he had to respect the man's vigilance.
Pansy sat in a similar chair across from him, one leg pulled up to her chest, a cup of tea held firmly between her hands as if she was trying to warm herself through it. She was pouring over a colourfully illustrated gardening and permaculture book set on the coffee table she'd dragged in front of her.
"Harry, what's a handmower?" she asked suddenly.
He looked over at her. "A machine Muggles use to cut grass. There's mowers you can sit on now as well, not just push by hand."
"Ah. Interesting," she said, sounding enlightened. After another minute, she asked keenly, "Did you know that if you have a weed-infested area you fancy planting, you can enclose animals like chickens or goats in it to turn over the ground, so you don't have to do it yourself?"
His lips twitched upward slightly as he returned his attention to the Russian novel. "I did not."
"Mm-hm. And planting things like garlic and onion can repel pests so you don't have to use chemicals," she said.
Pansy was leagues more enthusiastic about the bone-dry topic of natural food production than Harry ever could and would be — which was probably a good thing, since he wasn't sure how long she'd have to make do in this place that relied entirely on self-sustaining mechanisms to provide it.
"I reckon Riddle wouldn't have allowed any pests inside the Chamber when he built these, would he have?" he noted, amused.
"This place is ancient, Harry. There's likely to be cracks in the walls somewhere. It can't be entirely pest-proof, can it?"
Harry thought dryly of Cassiopeia, who'd unfortunately still managed to find and annoy him that week even when he'd escaped down to the Chamber. "No, it certainly can't."
Distantly, he heard an upstairs door quietly click open, but he didn't bother looking up to greet Merry Malfoy.
At least, not until he heard Pansy softly say "Oh," sounding astonished.
Harry's gaze shot to the second floor, craning his neck to see Malfoy's bedroom door from where he sat.
He blinked, for a moment unable to believe what he was seeing.
Granger was in the process of quietly closing it, still clothed in the stripped-down version of the Sárnait Caomhánach costume she'd been wearing the night before.
His mouth fell open.
Holy hell.
Yes, it was pathetically obvious Malfoy'd had it bad for her from Day One — or Day Negative 1500, if he wanted to count the years before this bizarre switch had occurred — but Harry hadn't actually expected the closet-prude who was the alternative version of My Granger to go off and do something like this about it. While Harry knew all about choosing someone on the other side, for Christ's sake, the Poster Boy of the Trounced Conservative Movement was no Pansy. Nauseatingly sunny just to cover up his own traumatic experiences, convicted by the State for centuries to come, scarred, Squib-like and defenceless yet still, somehow, sickeningly noble; Harry couldn't see how any halfway-powerful witch could find him attractive, let alone someone like Granger, who had the world throwing itself at her feet.
Then again, unlike My, this Granger did seem to like charity cases.
Oh, this was bloody golden.
"I see someone didn't make it home last night," he said loudly, his voice carrying through the Tribute. "Who's the lucky man?"
"Harry…" Pansy muttered warningly, though a small smile had jumped to her lips as she glanced between Granger and Malfoy's room — for reasons very different than his, Harry suspected.
Granger spun, her eyes wide, and leaned over the balcony, searching the spacious common area for their voices. When she saw him and Pansy downstairs, she froze.
Despite Pansy's admonition, Harry arched an eyebrow. "Ruddy hell. Don't tell me it's Malfoy," he drawled, though obviously it had been. "Is he pissing rainbows from joy?"
Pansy abruptly whacked him with her book. "You know, Harry, you can be such an arsehole—"
"What?" he exclaimed, laughing. "You know as well as I do he probably is!"
Without a word, Granger cast a spell on Malfoy's door, then spun abruptly and marched down the stairs. Harry knew from her silence alone that her knickers were in a twist, and he found himself longing for the days when she would simply look at him tearfully and run away, obviously wishing he were her beloved Harry Potter. Throwing aside the copy of War and Peace, he stood, willingly facing whatever next exaggerated grievance she was about to bring against him.
Granger briefly glanced toward Pansy as she reached them; My would have dropped dead if she saw how much her hair resembled a bird's nest. "Morning," she said, her voice tight.
Pansy looked worriedly between him and Granger. "Hermione, what did he—"
Granger cut her off. "Pansy, your boyf—" For a moment, she looked disgusted, and then said, "Harry and I are about to have a row. If you don't want to witness it, I suggest you leave."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Oh hell, not another one of your blasted tirades—"
"Shut it; I don't want to hear another snarky, smart-arsed comment from you!" Granger exclaimed, spinning back toward him, her hands clenched at her sides. She lifted one and held it out rigidly, her eyes icy. "Give me back my bag of Wheezes."
Years of coping with his mother's frosty irritation had left him practically immune to any and all raised voices directed toward him. Unconcernedly, he gestured upstairs. "I left it in Pansy's room."
"Then summon it," she bit out.
His eyebrows shot up in repulsed disbelief. As if he ever would jump when she said go! "I think you own a wand—"
"I said summon it, Harry!"
An almost wild gleam had entered Granger's eyes, said wand now gripped tightly in her hand.
"Harry, return her bag to her," Pansy suddenly said quietly. She was no longer sitting in the armchair but like them was on her feet, though well out range of their hatefully flying words.
Her blue eyes were serious.
Harry stared at her, surprised she was taking Granger's side on this without even hearing his. Sides, he thought sarcastically — Was there even a side to this? Granger's behaviour was completely absurd, and he was bloody well sick and tired of being the scapegoat of whatever passing vexation caught her fancy!
But Pansy raised her eyebrows then, her glistening gaze at once insistent and distressed.
Harry grit his teeth, hating Granger, and himself, for being the cause of that look on her face. After a moment, he stiffly lifted his wand, flicking it toward her room. After a moment, Granger's grubby rucksack came flying out and toward them. He didn't bother to catch it, letting it land in a heap at their feet.
Granger didn't move to pick it up, nor did she even look down at it. She simply continued to hold out her hand toward him, her furious gaze boring into his.
Harry stiffened, abruptly returning her expression with a cold one of his own.
He recognized a power struggle when he saw one, and when it came to battles over power, Harry Evans never lost.
The seconds passed, and neither of them moved, blinked or said a word. It abruptly occurred to him that he had never seen Other-Universe Granger quite this angry before, and he found it hard to believe it was over his comments about Malfoy. Granger might have been many things, but her temper wasn't quite as erratic and irrational as My's. But if not Malfoy, then why was she so ruddy narked?
Whatever it was, he wasn't about to drop to her feet and grovel like she apparently wanted him to.
No — bloody — chance.
A sudden flurry of purple and blue movement caught his eye, but Granger spoke before he did without breaking eye contact, her voice flat. "That isn't yours to pick up, Pansy; don't do it for him."
It only took a reminder that the one woman he loved was actually witnessing all of this for Harry's confounded irritation to bubble over. "The hell, Granger?" he exploded. "I saved your arse last night!"
"Yes, saved it so you could usher me to my own 'interrogation!'" she exclaimed shrilly. "I thought you all died! I thought I was going to die! And in that moment, d'you know the only person I could think of who might have conceivably betrayed us? You!"
Harry bristled; he had officially — and secretly — defected late enough into the second intervention that he'd never had to deal with distrust issues from conservative leaders like his godfather had, but perhaps it was on behalf of Snape that they still struck a chord within him. "I would never—"
"Oh yes, 'you would never'… but neither would I, and look how you lot trust me!" she exclaimed. "Tell me this, and don't lie: Did Riddle subject you to that when you switched sides? Tie you to a chair and unleash upon you your worst fears? Tell you that the game was up, that Pansy and whoever else your unfeeling heart might actually care about had been murdered? Did you know what you were sending me to?"
Her words stopped his next snide comment a moment before it skidded out his lips. Harry actually hadn't been sure what Snape's interrogation of Granger would consist of, though he'd certainly known it wouldn't be pleasant for her. His own induction as a spy had only comprised intense Legilimency from both Riddle and Black, and since he hadn't resisted their probing, it hadn't exactly been a terribly painful experience.
The idea of admitting to Granger that she had been subjected to more intense scrutiny than he had, and had apparently passed with flying colours if she was still standing in the Chamber of Secrets, freely gallivanting after hours to the bedroom of the conservatives' darling Draco, was actually embarrassing.
"Pansy and my… godfather vouched for me," he said instead, a bit uncomfortably.
Granger let out a sharp bark of humourless laughter. "Your — Your godfather?" she repeated in disbelief. "That's rich! And your godfather's such a saint, is he?"
"I was following orders, Granger!" Harry snapped defensively, sensing the argument was spiralling dangerously into her possession. "I'm trying to protect my own, just like you are with your precious Malfoy!"
"What, are you a lemming? Would you have leapt from a cliff if Riddle had asked you? And here I thought the only person to whom the great and powerful Harry Evans answered was himself!" she replied scathingly. "You didn't have to enable it, did you! You could have vouched for me, suggested that perhaps there were other, more dignified ways for him to ascertain my loyalty! But you didn't!"
Harry genuinely had no idea how to respond to that. While it wasn't entirely untrue, the thought of it was completely preposterous; people didn't assume Harry Evans would ever vouch for them, and if Granger had any idea who he was instead of constantly hoping for him to be someone else at every turn, she would've known he would have never done anything like that.
He looked toward Pansy for help, for defense - something - but she was already staring at him, her lips parted slightly in an expression of dismay.
Her eyes were shining with disappointment.
Rarely, if ever, had Pansy directed a look like that at him before, and, more than any of Granger's angry words, it shoved fear like a cold knife through his heart.
"You don't get it, do you?" Granger said incredulously when he didn't speak, yanking his attention back toward her. "How can I ever trust you again, Harry?"
Harry stared at her blankly, processing what she'd last said, then blinked. "Trust… Trust me?" he echoed in disbelief. "You trusted me?"
"Of course I did!" she burst out, her eyes suddenly glistening with, Merlin help him, actual tears. He didn't doubt for a moment she was again thinking about her perfect, humble, heroic Harry Potter, a man who seemed to have very little in the broad scheme of things and yet had still possessed and been everything Harry Evans never had. "We have to work together, don't we? And we were, and I thought - I thought perhaps finally…"
Granger trailed off and began to turn away, roughly shaking her head. Harry's shoulders sunk in relief, but he stiffened again as she rounded back on him suddenly. "You know, I've tried to give you the benefit of the doubt," she said. "I understand your life at home was… hard. But you pontificate about me being like My or how awful your mother is, when you're just like them! You're selfish to the core!"
It took everything Harry had not stagger backward from her pointed vocalization of his worst fear as if he'd been slapped, but as he opened his mouth to defend himself, she cut him off, looking in the direction he knew his girlfriend was standing. "I'm sorry, Pansy, but I don't care what Harry claims you are to him, what he's done for the conservatives and for you isn't altruism. He's benefitting immensely from his relationship with you; you know it's true." Granger spun her attention back to him. "So don't you dare fall back on that argument, Harry. And until you can just - just get over yourself, don't expect me to lend a hand if Ginevra comes calling!"
Again, Harry desperately shifted his gaze toward Pansy, hoping she would at least say something to that, say what she always had to reassure him — that Harry wasn't his mother, would never be his mother, at least not in her eyes; that Granger and her sanctimonious accusations were wrong.
But instead, Pansy shook her head, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. "No, Harry," she whispered, tears shining in her eyes. "Not this time."
Dread - what he'd felt every day that My had used Pansy against him as blackmail, but what had become unfamiliar and unwelcome now - settled into Harry like an old ghost.
He knew then he had lost.
And not just an argument to Granger.
He felt sick, shaken, confused and a thousand other humiliatingly weak emotions he didn't know how to handle or analyse. He had to get out, now; extract himself from the situation before they saw the weakness in him, too. Swiftly, he summoned Granger's filthy bag from the floor, shoving it into her hands. "Here," he snarled. "Take your bag of cheap tricks. I don't want any of that rubbish anyway…"
"That rubbish has saved us multiple times, as you well know!" she said in astonishment.
He ignored her and spun, walking as fast as he could to the Tribute's exit without making it appear he was running.
"Honestly, Harry, sometimes I pity you," Granger said behind him, now simply sounding tired. "Are you so self-serving that you have absolutely no ability to appreciate the people and things who've helped you get to where you are today?"
Ruddy hell, did the bloody witch have no idea when to leave things be and shut her mouth?
"No, Granger! I don't know what sort of dream world you and your little friends lived in before here, but I can't afford something as flowery as appreciation," Harry exploded, unable to keep a vein of bitterness from his voice. "D'you know why? Because appreciating and trusting and caring get you or the people to whom those actions extend taken or killed!" He couldn't bear to look at Pansy then, couldn't even think her name, and he clutched the handle of the Tribute door so tightly it was a wonder the it didn't crush. "Call that self-serving if you want; I call it self-preservation!"
With a resounding bang, he slammed the door shut behind him. The sound of rushing water greeted him, and he found himself surrounded by abundant flowers of all colours, shapes and sizes — the blasted things were practically bursting from the lush Tribute; apparently, they'd all decided to bloom at once since his last visit. Well, wasn't that just sodding perfect?
He scowled fiercely at their cheerfulness. Blast it all, his hands were shaking, actually shaking. He clenched them into fists, hoping no one else crossed his path or he'd certainly punch them, and headed toward the one place that matched his mood: the dark clouds of the rainforest.
Over and over, her words rang in his head:
No, Harry... Not this time.
Confirming his greatest fear from one of the two people whose word he trusted that while he desperately wanted to be nothing like his mother... he was everything like her.
Pouring rain and tropical birds greeted him as soon as he crossed the atmospheric boundary; Harry ignored both, collapsing stiffly on the steps leading into the back entrance of the unused Tribute. Water began to soak through his robes, but he didn't care. At 3,000 galleons apiece, only Madame Malkin's finest could maintain the Evans appearance, his mother insisted, and he knew that if he ruined them, she'd just force new ones upon him.
Some part of him sensed that he had just made a horrible mistake, but he didn't understand what it was or how to fix it. They all knew he wasn't a saint, and he had told Granger explicitly he could never live up to her idealized experiences with someone he had the great misfortune of looking like in some alternate dimension on the other side of the stars. He had only — he had always — been trying to do what was best for him and Pansy: keep her as safe and well-protected as possible. Yes, maybe he'd trampled on Granger's toes a bit, but now it was Riddle, not Granger, who was his surest bet to get them both to safety.
But as Pansy's disappointed blue eyes and damning words bore into his memory until he felt sick, the irony of it was almost too great. In putting above all the safety of the one person he was trying to protect… he'd still lost her through his attempts to achieve that end. She hated him now, he was sure of it… and why wouldn't she? He knew she'd come to care about Granger, though he couldn't understand how, and he was certain Granger was currently explaining to Pansy expressively how he'd gone and thrown her to the figurative wolves the night before.
"Don't you see, Harry dear? You're more similar to me than both of us would like to admit." His mother's words rang mockingly in his head, still clear as day even though it'd been over ten years since she'd first spoken them, after he'd thought to invite his primary school class over to the manor for his birthday... an idea he had after he'd heard about another classmate having a similar party. Even though his mother had heartily opposed the event, she'd eventually agreed.
But when the day arrived... No one came.
"No, Harry... No one wants to befriend someone like you. No one will love you," she'd said afterward, as he'd sat dejectedly on the lawn next to a giant, uneaten cake and balloons. "Yes, they might fear you, and they should. But love? For you?"
And she had laughed.
To this day, he didn't know if she'd deliberately dispersed the party without his knowledge before it had even began, just to spite him... or if his classmates had really disliked him that much.
He had never attempted to befriend a single one of them again.
In the swirl of damp rain and his brooding thoughts, he didn't notice someone speaking to him until they were nearly on top of him. "—wrong?"
Harry started in surprise, swinging up his wand.
Cassiopeia stared down at him from a few feet away, dressed in a bright yellow shirt with a jovially smiling green chameleon on the front — at least, that's what he thought it was. (Did chameleons even smile?) He was shocked the Longbottoms would have stooped to purchase something so plebeian for her. A giant leaf that was perhaps bigger than she was floated above her head, keeping her dry, though the humidity of the tropics had done nothing for her mane of frizzy hair.
"Harry?" she asked uncertainly.
He let out a breath and dropped his wand, for once glad it was her and not anyone else. "What do you want?" he asked dully, too drained from the row and its fallout to be as mean to her as he usually was, mostly in an attempt to get her to stop following him around like they were friends.
Her brows knit in confusion. "Nothing," she said. "I just… want to make sure you're alright."
Harry was torn between ordering her to mind her own business and leave him alone, and simply letting her stay and see what happened.
"Why wouldn't I be?" he bit out, partially hoping she said Granger had already told her about what had transpired between them, if only for an excuse to go back and grouse at the know-it-all witch more.
Ever true to form, Cassiopeia walked right up to the steps and sat down beside him, even though it was obvious he was in the midst of one of his hellish moods. Immediately, the rain falling on him halted, pounding instead on the leaf above them both. "Because you look sad."
Instantly, Harry neutralized his unwittingly dismal expression; it didn't work when she giggled. "See! Now you're trying to hide it!"
Merlin, grant him patience, he thought self-sufferingly. Suddenly, though, a realization struck him, and his eyebrows shot up. He turned toward her, studying her closely. "You have emotions, don't you. Like a — you know. Like a normal person does."
Cassiopeia frowned, looking uncertain. "I, erm… I hope I do," she said, sounding a bit nervous.
For a moment, Harry clenched his jaw indecisively and then decided, to hell with it. Twelve year old or not, if she had taken it upon herself to be his own personal pest, then perhaps she could at least provide him some insight in remuneration. "Right. Let's try a hypothetical situation, then," he said, trying to sound indifferent. "Let's say you… disappointed someone you cared about. Irreparably. What would you do?"
Her dark eyes stared off pensively into the jungle beyond the stoop. "Well, if you're talking about yourself, which I think you are, and they cared about you as well, which, if you're talking about Pansy, I think she does, the disappointment doesn't have to be irreparable, don't you think?"
Merlin, he griped, did the little imp not understand the concept of hypothetical?
Though he sensed her question was meant to be rhetorical, Harry honestly wouldn't have known how to answer it if it wasn't, and after a moment, she turned, looking at him. "Disappointed how?"
He was amazed her freakish psychic omniscience didn't extend to the actual specifics of what had happened to him. He hesitated. "Hurt someone they like," he finally said tautly. "Behaved in ways they rightfully don't approve of."
She gazed into his eyes, and too late, Harry remembered with a panicked wrench that even twelve-year-olds could be Legilimens. He threw up his Occlumency blinders, but blast it, she'd already done her bloody voodoo by then.
"You've done what you've thought to be best for you and her in the past," the little mindreader said slowly, effectively voicing exactly what he'd been thinking minutes earlier. Her gazed cleared, and she brightened, looking at him with a smile. "But now you know better, so you can be better! Don't you see?"
The girl really was a Seer, he thought irately; she was already starting to make the same amount of sense as Trelawney: none at all. "But I don't know better, do I?" he said. "I still don't give a whit about anyone but Pansy."
Though that 'anyone' obviously also extended to her, Cassiopeia didn't seem insulted. "If that's the case, then what Hermione said about you really is true. You only do care about yourself," she said thoughtfully. The words caused Harry to stiffen automatically, and he swerved his head to stare at her intently. Not sensing his discomfort, she continued, "But if what she said isn't true… then you'll care about why you disappointed Pansy. And you disappointed Pansy because you hurt her friends. That seems like something you can fix, doesn't it?"
Harry hated how much what she said made sense… and how he probably would have never been able to figure something as simple as that out on his own.
"Maybe to you," he muttered, shoving both his hands through his hair. He was confiding in her and he couldn't believe that he was, but once the truthful words had started to leave his mouth, he found he couldn't stop them, that there was something almost… therapeutic about them. "Christ. I don't bloody well know how to do this, Little Mandrake." He usually twisted the moniker so it was insulting, but he didn't now. "Suddenly I have to collaborate with people. Collaborators are weaknesses. The Sovereign and my mother didn't become two of the most powerful wizards in the world by collaborating."
"That isn't true. Dumbledore's had to make plenty of alliances," she disagreed. "That's why very few countries outside've spoken out against the Sovereignty, even though they might think what he's doing here is wrong." She hesitated. "At least… that's what my — Tom thinks."
Ah - so she did know her true origins, Harry thought briefly. Still, he blew out a breath of air. "Well, I've just blown my alliance with Granger," he proclaimed exasperatedly. And, as much as he was loathe to admit it, when she wasn't acting like a rogue agent, auctioning off Pansy, blowing up buildings and generally ignoring the advice he gave her as someone who was far more experienced with the perils of this world, Granger was an efficient and effective ally to have.
"So tell her you're sorry," Cassiopeia suggested with all the blissful innocence only a child could possess.
Harry snorted. "I bloody well think not! She wouldn't forgive me even if I did, which, mind you, I never will. She's judgey herself; every time she looks at me I feel like some kind of inferior species of skrewt." Indeed, the expression torn between disappointment and disgust that Granger sometimes gave him reminded him exactly of his mother — except, whereas Lily was comparing him to James, and detesting him, Granger was comparing him to some better, pious version of himself drifting out in the universe's nether regions... and detesting him.
"Then prove her wrong. Be better," she repeated encouragingly.
"Black, do you seriously think I know how to be better?" he asked dryly.
She stood, brushing off her hands. "If you care about Pansy, you'll figure it out."
The words punched in him the gut - reminded him again of exactly what he'd lost that morning - and Harry was filled with the despairing knowledge that they were as true as everything else the little imp had said in the past ten minutes.
"Now, if you'll take this—" Cassiopeia looked up and flicked her wand. Harry followed her gaze to see that the umbrella-leaf had divided into two, one above her, while the other remained above him. "You have a meeting soon, don't you? Don't forget; Tom doesn't like when people are late, you know. I think it's from his days teaching. You'll probably want to dry off first."
He watched her walk away, the leaf dutifully following her path. "This is what it's like, you know. Having friends," she threw out over her shoulder. Abruptly, Harry's chest constricted, and his throat closed. "They keep you from getting wet when you need to sit out in the rain. And when they need help, you can do the same for them."
Horrified, he stared at the spot where she'd disappeared around the front of the Tribute.
Bloody mindreader... he cursed. She'd probed into far more of his life than she'd ever let on!
But for the first time since he'd met her, he had to admit… Perhaps there was something about her knowing that wasn't quite so bad.
Even if she was a blasted imp.
Harry released a long, uneasy breath, staring back down at the stone pathway, reluctant to acknowledge he was in fact grateful he was no longer getting soaked through.
Be better, she'd said.
He let out another derisive snort. The girl had more faith in him than he did himself. But she was as manipulatively insightful as her father for the motivation she'd offered him next. He did care about Pansy, cared about her more than himself or the bloody air he breathed. He didn't know what he'd do if he lost her, especially if it was due to some inherent character flaw within himself. Certainly not cross back over to the Sovereignty; no, revenge against Lily Evans for what she'd done to his father, to him would still drive him to support the conservatives.
But it was his relationship with Pansy that made his sorry life actually feel like it was worth something.
And if somehow 'being better' to Granger and Malfoy, whatever that meant, would help erase the disappointment from her blue eyes…
Harry heaved a heavy sigh, shoving his forehead back into his hands.
Then he was going to have to ruddy well do whatever it would take.
A/N: Hello, all you lovely people, and happy August! I cannot thank you enough for all the fun, encouraging, lovely and enthusiastic reviews you left that I've read upon my return! They are so fun to receive! I'm very pleased to hear your thoughts about how Reverse is developing. I know I've been posed a lot of plot questions, and while I encourage you to continue to wonder out loud, I'll admit I'm going to try to remain fairly close-lipped on those in Authors' Notes and PMs so there can be more boggart-like surprises for you in the future... I think it'll make reading the story more fun!
Please do leave a message on your way out; I do love hearing from you! :) Harry Evans - received his just desserts, or not? Draco and Hermione - I'll admit I was planning on withholding that kiss from all of you a bit longer, but when I put the two of them together in that bed, they just really wanted it to happen! (It's amazing how much your characters' wants and needs can change the course of a story on you while you're writing it...)