"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." - Helen Keller
Chapter Eight: Shores of Discontent
Now that Hermione's shirt was ruined, she was forced to don her old one, complete with the ripped sleeve. She hugged the wrinkled cloth to herself as she listened to the sounds Draco made as he packed supplies into the bag. "Are we entering the city today?" she asked quietly, in the same manner she had used to, not a fortnight before, back when she was terrified of being dead at any second, frantic in the black world she was thrust into.
Draco pointedly ignored the question, pushing her further into her hole, but paused all the same.
"Let me see your wounds," he said abruptly, standing up. Hermione blinked her black eyes tearfully, taking a step back and finding herself still against a tree. She made no move to go around it because she knew he would get her eventually. The more compliant she was, the less likely he was to torture her.
Especially because all of it was torture now, a constant ache inside her that had nothing to do with the holes in her chest. She wanted to aggravate her wounds enough for her body to trigger some natural painkillers, covering the nerves that sent pain signals to her brain. Maybe she would not be able to feel the way he was tearing down her walls. It was already painful enough that she was a captive and vulnerable to any sudden... whims he might have.
Such as this.
Draco stepped over to her quickly, filling her with a breathtaking panic, but by contrast lifted her shirt slowly. He was deliberately careful with her breasts, ensuring that the fabric still covered them as he bunched it in his hand. Hermione cringed as she felt his gaze inspect her splotched skin; his patch job was as good as she could get with little resources, but there had to be some wood - and probably dirt and things much worse - still in there. The holes would probably get infected. She was unconsciously holding her breath, suddenly aware of how tall he was and how imposing his person was on her personal space.
"They don't hurt," she whispered, a blatant lie. She had been moaning in pain all night.
Draco nodded and stepped away from her. "We're leaving then."
There was a heavy silence between them as they found the highway leading into the city and began walking along it, Draco with the bulging duffel, which he could not shrink because of the panacea sap. She reveled in the cacophony that they were coming upon; days traveling with Malfoy had the oddest mechanical quiet to them, even in the beautiful singing of the forest.
It was definitely dangerous for her to look forward to the discomfort of avoiding his attention, but anything was better than reflecting on the awkwardness that had settled between the two, which had dimmed the extreme dislike into something less bearable.
As they walked, it occurred to Draco how ridiculous the whole business was. Hermione Granger? Really. He was letting her get to him, never mind actually keeping her away from Death Eaters, and, oh goodness, healing her. Ha! He would have rather fed her to the Death Eaters, in a manner of speaking.
No, he said to himself, you are not running away. You always do this - start something and then just let it go. Prove them right. Forfeit. He had to finish this. If not him, then who, and if not now, then when?
Destroying their plans was worth it, no matter the inconvenience.
Besides, the Death Eater's plans we're only in the corner of his mind now, completely overshadowed by his relationship with his companion. If only he didn't feel so strange about their situation, so unsure of himself, maybe he could put more effort into being a prick to her. But as it was, he didn't have the energy.
It was almost too... weird to torture her now. After he'd healed her, after he'd touched her.
Some part of him wanted to restore the balance, make a snide comment to break the fuzzy silence that had taken root, and establish them, once again, as former enemies, temporary companions, and eternal pet peeves. Acknowledging the awkwardness just made him feel like a schmuck who could not get over it.
A car honked as he veered a bit into the road, and he realized how suspicious the two of them looked walking along the highway.
"Let's hurry," he said shortly, tugging her along.
"What's this town's name?"
Hermione was now full of questions again and he was in no mood to be giving answers. "Don't know, don't care," Draco muttered, looking around the busy street. They were in a muggle city now, the coast glittering a short ways away. They were walking quickly toward the harbor - he could see the tops of boats already, poking oddly around the mismatched buildings.
First they had to stop at a store and nick a few things. Draco was desperate for some real food, that dull ache he'd felt earlier settling into his stomach and churning its emptiness. Hermione was also in need of some bandages and maybe some muggle healing potions. They walked up and down the streets before he found a franchise drug store, ignoring all of the pretty little clothing shops along the road; shopping with his mother had trained him to notice such establishments. He did not know how to shop for muggle bandages, but they were probably one of the few things that were easily identifiable. He was not above resorting to them, especially not when life could probably depend on it.
It was one of the biggest differences between him and his father.
He found the aisle quickly thanks to the clear aisle labels.
"How do muggle bandages work, Granger?"
Hermione shook her head, hugging her arms to herself. "Just get some big ones," she said quietly. The temperature in the store was not mixing well with her damaged chest and stomach; she couldn't hold herself as tightly as she wanted to without gasping in pain.
As expected, Draco was able to nick three boxes without rousing the suspicion of any store clerks. "What healing potion should I get?"
Hermione's eyes closed. She hadn't had to think like a muggle in a long while. "Get some hydrogen peroxide."
Draco wrinkled his nose. That sounded like such a muggle chemical. He grabbed the brown bottle anyway. This looked like one of the potions that burned when it came in contact with the wound. He honestly didn't know how he felt about that.
He grabbed a candy bar on the way out and headed for the pier.
"How are we getting on a boat?" Hermione asked quietly when he stopped.
Draco looked around the dock at the many boats, in every size, shape, and color. He had no idea how to man a boat. If he were to jump on one and try to sail, they'd probably end up in Iceland. Or stranded, if they were lucky enough not to drown.
Loitering and staring at the boats attracted unnecessary attention, but they had no other option; they'd come this far, and thus needed to follow through with their original plan. Draco opened the candy bar and put it into his mouth... hmm. Muggle candy was rather boring.
"Admiring her, are you?" said a voice from their left. Draco turned to see a middle-aged, slightly plump man with thinning hair and a crinkly smile.
"Um, yes I was," Draco said uncertainly around the chocolate in his mouth, lowering the candy bar. He'd never really talked to a muggle before and didn't quite know how to react. The man spoke with a slight brogue and had his hands on his hips, but besides his starched, albeit slightly drab clothing, he looked no different than a frequenter of the Leaky Cauldron.
"We were wondering if you could take us to Norway," Hermione said, looking toward the man's voice. Draco looked at her incredulously.
"I eventually stop in Norway, yes," he said, looking into the sun. "I pay three fifty an hour, you can start now if you like; you comin'?" Draco stared at him, and he chuckled. "I'm fooling. I pay more'n that."
"We - "
"We can't just ride along?" she asked. Draco looked sharply at her again.
The man stared at her for a long moment, probably assessing her slightly unkempt appearance, the dirt smudged on her arms. The way she shivered as if she hadn't eaten in days. "I'll tell you what," he said, motioning to a man who had just gotten off the boat, "If you can load all these boxes below while we go pick up some supplies right fast, I'll let you ride along." He smiled at them.
"Thank you!" Hermione said brightly, and the man walked away.
"What just happened?" Draco asked himself angrily before turning to her. "How many times do I have - "
"Shut up, I got us a boat. Now move the boxes." Draco stared at her.
"Do you really - "
"You have a wand. Just levitate them."
Draco sputtered angrily before looking around them. There were people around.
"No one will notice! Just make it look like you're lifting!"
"How would you know? You can't see how many people are around!"
Hermione shrugged and turned away from him, the wind twisting her hair about.
Draco's brain finally wrapped around the situation. That had taken no time at all... he'd half expected them to wait around the boats all day, looking for a way to sneak on one. He glared at her back as she suddenly bent down and felt for the edges of a box. "I don't think so, bug-eyes. Step aside, and don't go falling in the water."
It took twice as long as it probably could have, considering that he had to board with the boxes every time, but he still finished in time for the balding man to ogle the empty space.
"Whew," he said, obviously impressed. "You did that all by yourself, lad?"
Draco nodded, glaring at Hermione, who had her head turned in the wrong direction.
"Well?" he said, looking at the person behind him - a tall and toned man who was probably only a little older than Draco - who shrugged.
"It's your esteemed vessel, Frank," he said, lifting the bag he was carrying further up on his shoulder.
"Okay. Come along," Frank sighed, boarding.
The young man behind him stood next to Draco. "Isn't he great? I started working for him in much the same way - I showed up and asked for a ride. I'm Tim by the way."
"Pleasure," Draco said, grabbing Hermione's arm. She was drifting away a bit, a little too close to the edge of the dock.
"Anyway, I'll show you around. You ever been on a boat before? I hadn't either. It's not that difficult to learn. Well, actually it is, but we won't be having you do anything too taxing."
Draco looked at Hermione as the young man continued to blab away, wondering how she'd managed to get them a ticket into safety. She was obviously not as impaired as he'd thought.
"You have no idea," Harry said, watching the woman's quill scratch against her parchment. She was, thank goodness, a far cry from the atrocity that was Rita Skeeter, and even further from Fudge.
She was the woman in charge of the Department of Magical Defense.
"What else did the storekeeper say?"
Harry looked at his hands. "That was all." The woman nodded and put away her quill and parchment pad.
There was silence as she looked at him for a couple of seconds. He looked up at her and knew that she understood.
"I'm very sorry about this, Harry," she said, her expression motionless but her voice all concern and remorse.
Harry nodded. They'd found out very little since the inn incident, and time was moving very quickly. He tried not to think about what condition his friend was in, about how close she had come before to being in their clutches permanently, about the muffled sound of her screams as he'd sat in that cell after being captured...
"We're doing everything we can. But Thomas just joined the Death Eaters, so they don't have him doing anything big yet. He hasn't even been to their camp... he's not that reliable anyway - we need more snitches."
Harry smiled a bit at the muggle term. "It's fine. I know you are working really hard. Thank you for taking this case, Nora."
"It's my pleasure, and my job," Nora Constable replied, clasping her hands.
Once they set sail, they ended up not doing anything in particular. Hermione found herself sitting on the top deck, listening to the sounds the water made as it hit the white gloss of the boat.
Draco, of course, the map under his arm, was pacing.
As far as he was concerned, they were now trapped in an enclosed space. How had she managed to talk him into this shit? Besides the rocking of the boat making him nervous, as well as the strange looks from the handful of people aboard, he could not help but feel that he had put them in more danger than they would have been in otherwise. "I can't believe this," he muttered, turning.
"Relax, Draco. We're safe now."
"Did it ever occur to you that if the Death Eaters managed to find us here, we have nowhere to run?"
"Can you apparate or not? Besides, you agreed with me before."
He shook his head, running his fingers through his hair, backwards and forwards, scraping his scalp. He'd never apparated over water, and he had no idea where to go. Hopefully any capture attempt would not be traumatic enough for him to have his mind open. If that was the case, the Death Eaters would know his destination, and it would be harder to lose them.
Not to mention the fact that he was getting very sick of this rocking motion and the smell of the sea water as it sprayed over them. It made his stomach twist even more. He put his other hand to his stomach to ease some of the discomfort.
Bloody sailing.
Hermione leaned against the railing, letting the cold wind whip at her face and blow her now undone hair around. She needed a bit of freedom, and this was the closest she could come. She'd already thought tell Frank that Draco was holding her against her will, but what good would that do? If he believed her, they were still on the water and he still had a job to do. There was only so much he could do for her, being a muggle while Draco had a wand.
And how much did she really want to escape anymore?
Everything back home - all the paperwork, meetings, endless newspaper articles - it all seemed so far away, and so unappealing to her. The only real reason why she wanted to get out of this was so she could see Harry and Ron again.
She missed them so much... the thought made her throat tighten.
Draco had started out being a completely unbearable captor, but lately he had become more of a travel companion than anything - bringing her food, letting her bathe, healing her wounds, carrying her while they apparated... she remembered, briefly, the feeling of his chest as she'd bumped against it, over and over, during their first escape...
She also had no wand, no way to contact her friends, and no way to get to the Ministry of Magic, even if she did manage to incapacitate Draco long enough to make an attempt. And Draco was her eyes.
Ugh. Her eyesight was complicating everything.
Because she couldn't see Draco's face and connect that with his voice, she was starting to view him as a different person, and not the mean, brutish little punk that she remembered. While limiting her to treating him fairly, which she knew that she shouldn't do, it also gave her an opportunity to understand him and hear him out. She couldn't forgive him just yet for the horrible way he'd treated her, even in the past few weeks; it didn't matter that he'd done it to save her life.
He wasn't much for deep conversation, but she could still view him as a human with thoughts and fears. Her brain wanted to blanket it, make it seem as though he was just an ill-hearted person who got off on the pain and suffering of others, but in her heart she knew that nothing was as simple as that. Not being able to see his face helped so much when dealing with him... it was probably only because of that fact that she even allowed herself to think of him in any kind of positive or understanding light.
But what could she expect? She was out here, on some random boat, traveling to a random city, with no one but him to lead her in the right direction.
Whether she liked it or not, he was becoming, in a twisted way, a friend. Complete strangers were nicer to her than he had ever been, and yet a part of her needed him - his help, his eyes, the now reassuring sound of his voice. A part of her even craved his touch; he'd been touching her almost constantly, and it was somehow comforting to be steered, to have someone with so much confidence in their actions direct her.
Though, his gentle hands on her naked chest had been incredibly confusing. Through the terror and pain, the intimacy had honestly excited her.
Don't think about it, don't think about it...
She dared not compare Draco with her other friends; Harry... Ron... her relationship with Harry was one of the best she'd ever had, and with Ron... well, even now it was complicated, going back and forth between friend and romantic interest, depending on the time of day, it seemed.
There was no comparison in that way. But what she had with Draco was a different kind of relationship. Again, she still couldn't really talk to him - it was a rare thing to have an open conversation with him, like the one she'd had only a night ago - but she sensed that if she could get him to talk openly, he really wasn't so bad.
It still wasn't friendship... but it was on its way.
Besides, when she really thought about it, she and Draco had the same goal: bring down the Death Eaters. Crush the remaining resistance so the rest of the world could live in harmony. He could never change sides formally; he had to work undercover to protect himself, and to protect his mission. So perhaps his cause was good, even though he demonstrated that he was, at least on the surface, an egotistical prat. And perhaps that would never change... but his heart apparently had.
"There is no honor in this so called mission of his... he's basically driven by nothing but revenge," she tried to convince herself. It had decent chance of being true, given his history.
She didn't understand revenge as a motivator; she understood the need to make people feel what they have done to others, but she knew that revenge just got more people killed and more people hurt, and that it was a never-ending cycle of madness. There were better motivators for doing good.
But then again, it was a good start for him. Revenge was something that she knew Malfoy could understand; it was in his family and in his nature.
"Well, I can hardly go back now, can I?"
Hermione whipped around to face him, barely keeping her balance at the edge. Had he been standing behind her that whole time? Her face flushed; damn her eyes. "Yes, you can back out. Take me to the Ministry."
"I'm sorry, Granger - I just can't trust you to go about your merry way without exacting your own revenge."
Hermione shook her head and carefully turned around again, letting her hair plaster itself to the sides of her head from the wind. He obviously knew nothing about her motivations - her revenge on him would just be him knowing how much he had ruined lives, and nothing more than that. "You are just making the end harder for yourself."
"I can't just let this go," he said a little more softly. "I have to finish this."
"And what end is there?"
There was a brief silence before she understood. "Are you suggesting... are you dragging me along to your futile attempt to destroy Voldemort's followers?"
Draco thought, letting a little smirk cross his lips. "Yes, I guess I am."
"That's ridiculous! You're going to lead me straight to them! We are supposed to be running away, not sitting in their laps!"
"It's not that simple, I know," he countered, sliding a hand over his face, "but I think we can do it."
"What's this 'we' business?"
"Oh, so you don't want to bring them down? You were so quick to offer your help before! You knew this is what we would do. You knew."
"I never said that I don't want to bring them down, Malfoy."
"Well, then where is that supposed courageous Gryffindor?"
Hermione shook her head. "The Ministry of Magic can't even bring them down. What makes you think that we can?"
Draco was losing patience. It all made sense to him, and she was more the type to do this sort of thing than him - she and her little friends had done things like this numerous times, in almost every single year they were at Hogwarts. But suddenly he was the one rushing into things? "Because we are two people they want more than Harry Potter himself. We are smart, and we both know the secrets of the sides, former for me, current for you. Because we are a small unit while the Ministry is composed of a bunch of bumbling, blundering idiots who can't organize a decent office party let alone a raid."
Hermione closed her eyes, finding it easier to envision his face despite the lack of change in her sight. The only image she could conjure, however, was his murderous features, cast in shadows from the streetlamps on a lonely drive in Edinburgh, and even that was blurry... she shook the image away. "Let me think about it - "
"No," he responded quickly, turning away from her, "if you are not going to help, then what are we supposed to do? Hide away forever?"
"You could let me go."
"Yes, and I could also just avada myself where I stand."
"You could do that as well."
He eyed her sharply. "Be serious, Granger."
"I am being serious," she responded angrily. "What good can we do?"
Draco shook his head and started to walk away. "I offer my help with something you want to do as much as I. I'd like to see the Death Eaters make such an offer."