15 Where my loyalties lie
02 April 2000
"Mom wants to know if you'll stay with us over the holidays. And if you want to for how long," Ginny informed Hermione, who immediately knew that she wasn't in the least intended to take Molly up on that offer. It was polite, but felt inappropriate after everything. Their peace was still fragile, especially between Hermione, Ron and Molly. She sensed the vibes and didn't lie to herself: the Weasley matriarch invited her due to expectations of her family and because of warm feelings towards her.
Ginny recognized her hesitation of course.
"You could bring the mysterious donor of your new jewelry," she added with a knowing smile and a look at her hand.
Suddenly it became even quieter, which Hermione hadn't believed possible in a library in which only the four of them sat. Judged by their staring, the boys took a sudden interest in the girls' conversation. Hermione looked at her silver ring, which was formed by an otter and a doe. She smiled absently.
"I'll tell you tomorrow."
Suddenly Hermione didn't feel like confronting them with her declining as she expected it to be followed by questioning her for reasons, which in turn would evoke a sense of duty regarding justifications for her reaction. No, not today, she decided. She was not ready to spoil the rather relaxed atmosphere, which she enjoyed so much.
"Oi, you having a lover 'Mione?" Ron asked bluntly.
"A lover?" Hermione repeated slowly, "Really now? Better finish reading!"
"What? Why? I mean-," Ron started again.
"Oh Ron, shut it before she strangles you-," Harry weighed-in.
"Or I do," Ginny interrupted.
"Right, before some girl strangles you. But, ahem, 'Mione-, are you seeing someone?" Harry asked disarmingly.
She chuckled.
"Let's say I have someone giving me jewelry."
"It's beautiful," Ginny said honestly.
"Yes, I think so, too."
When Mrs. Pince's voice informed them that the library would be closed soon, Hermione decided to invite them to her quarters for tea and talking and they happily took her up on the offer. It felt good, she had to admit and the timing was perfect since Draco was outside on the school grounds with Louis practicing flying.
They were all lounging comfortably on the sofa and the armchairs and in the minute that Ron complained intensely about their learning bulk for the NEWTS and Hermione repeatedly reminding him that he had had the chance to be a full-time student and how this would have made things easier, Draco purposefully entered Hermione's sitting room.
"Velve, I need-," he stopped short at the unexpected sight of the other three Gryffindors. He stared from them to Hermione and back, obviously at a loss of what to do now.
Ron was the first to react and he jumped to his feet, wand drawn.
"Malfoy, what the heck?" he exclaimed.
Hermione just gestured towards Ron and rose to her feet as well.
"Shush! And put your wand away this instant!"
She assessed Draco in his disheveled state, emotional turmoil written all over his face and was concerned enough to keep her eyes fixed on him.
"I'm afraid I've to ask you to leave," she said matter-of-factly.
Silence filled the room. With a suddenly pain-stricken look Draco pressed his lips together and turned around to leave.
"Not you, idiot!" Hermione called loudly after him.
Draco turned around and looked as irritated as the rest of them.
"Sit down," she commanded gently and gestured at the sofa behind her before she addressed the others, "It was lovely to have you here and I'd like to have breakfast together. Around eight?"
Ginny had risen to her feet tugging Harry with her.
"Sounds perfect."
"Why is Malfoy bloody Death Eater here?" Ron asked no one in particular.
"Nobody here is a Death Eater or had really been one," Hermione intervened sternly, "Here are solely people, who spent their childhood in a war as anxious victims of the circumstances that were forced on them by adults, who should have known better."
"What are you talking about? Of course he was, he has the mark! And you were- tortured in the home of this ferret, by his family, while he watched," Ron shouted enraged.
Points for saying tortured in favor of fucked, Hermione thought.
"I remember it every day," she answered in what she hoped would pass as a steady and calm voice and shoved up her pullover exposing the mudblood scar to them all. "I wear a mark, too. But I'm not what it says. It was forced on me and the same people forced his on him. Draco was threatened with the life of his parents and in his fear did what was necessary to save them. It's not as if he had had options to ask for help between all those Death Eaters. And when we're honest with ourselves, we should admit that not only we, but also the teachers had already written him and all Slytherins off as a lost cause. I mean, don't get me wrong, I remember the prejudiced prat he was and everything he did and it's surely not far from me to claim moral high-ground, but despite everything all of us have been through, we mustn't forget that judging him by our then-experience might be a bit too easy: He was a frightened kid too, maybe worse than we, because Voldemort sat right there in his home with his disgusting snake and searing terror in his heart for months, night and day. And nevertheless he avoided acting according to his mark whenever possible. I know that first hand, because what he did saved my life." Her tone of voice unmistakably forbade further discussion.
The silence was deafening.
Ginny smiled slightly at her and while tugging her brother with her, she shoved Harry towards the door.
"Good night you two," she greeted.
In the doorframe Harry turned around.
"But he simply entered. Malfoy, how do you know her password?"
But before Draco could answer, though right now he didn't appear to be tempted to participate at all, Hermione intervened as she didn't fancy a fight between the men now. She was glad that Ron had meanwhile chosen to just gape at Draco from the door.
"Harry, it's alright. I'll fill you in tomorrow," she assured him.
"You have to change your password, 'Mione.- And I'd rather not leave you alone with him," he now insisted.
Hermione snorted at this as she immediately remembered the obnoxious attitude she had to endure from those that now insisted on defending her. She would have to do some setting the picture straight tomorrow. But not now. Now Draco needed to talk.
"Harry, I appreciate your concern, but if there was anything to worry about you had rather recognized by my reaction by now, don't you think? We'll talk tomorrow. Good night," she dismissed them.
Ginny tugged at Harry's shoulder and dragged him along, but he wasn't willing to give up, yet.
"But, I don't- I mean, why-," was as far as he came before they heard Ginny say, "Because they are friends, Harry." And with that she closed the door behind them.
Hermione was slightly amused that his mind apparently refused to take up her polite but insistent chuck-out of them in favor of this special Slytherin. Taking a deep breath she faced the paler than usual Draco and settled down next to him on the sofa.
"Sorry for the delay, dear. What happened? Who will we have to jinx?"
"You defended me," Draco said incredulous and slowly turned to face her.
"Uh, I see. You're not with me yet," she said and found herself looking into confused eyes. She took his hand. It was cold, "Of course I did. But you've heard it all before."
Draco nodded. Yes he had, but that she did it in front of her friends, if this was the adequate term for them, came unexpected. His grey eyes pierced her brown ones trying to detect her truth. Becoming aware of how much he had come to trust in their bond, Draco not only wanted but needed to believe in her passion and feared being hurt.
"You kicked your friends out for me."
"Ahem, I asked them to leave, because my- best-disposed enemy stormed-in looking rather shaken. It was no hardship actually. But frankly, I thought our arrangements and the fact that you are able to storm into my quarters at all kind of showed where my loyalties lie? Goodness, Malfoy, did our close contact break your inner Slytherin?" She teased slightly and found herself suddenly in a hug and patting Draco's back. They had never hugged before. It felt strange to have him this close, but no party-related panic arose. Quite the contrary actually since Hermione felt indeed touched by his emotion. Subconsciously she breathed in the clean, coastal scent from his Scottish sea-kelp soap, which she had secretly come to love during their stay in Spinner's End.
"You defended me- adamantly." His voice was shaky and brought Hermione back to the topic at hand.
"Of course."
"I don't need to be defended," he added stung.
"I know," Hermione tightened her embrace reassuringly and decided to not follow this path and simply repeated her question from before, "What happened?"
Draco slowly let go of her.
"Jealousy and fear. I got carried away and ended up in a verbal fight with Martin about Louis or rather over Louis, who naturally walked in on us. He must have heard more before and was not amused to be treated as a 'belonging'. Then he told me he might want a break to gather his thoughts."
"How come you fight with Martin? I mean Louis is obviously infatuated with you."
"That annoying bastard keeps turning the knife in the wound of my past. Making sure my deeds are remembered in detail by everyone, behind my back of course. And no matter what you say, I'm still the villain in this story and I still deserve to suffer, but there is only so much I can take of that. I intended to talk sense into him and, well, I let him provoke me and got carried away and- you know the rest. Louis refused to hear me out," he said with a despaired voice, which made Hermione entwine her fingers with his and when she squeezed his hand, he clutched to hers.
"You know that it's hard for me to try for nice and decent. Not really right up my street, especially not when being challenged. And I shouldn't care. I'm changing and if he doesn't value what he has in me, let him-"
"Oookay. Don't go there, dear! Would you like some advice or did you just want to get it out?"
He breathed hard. He couldn't believe that he was having such a conversation at all. Allowing those overwhelming emotions to rule him made him weak. He could almost hear his father mock him from his cell in Azkaban for such undignified behavior. He wished he could convince himself to retreat to numbness.
"I take what you offer," he said in hopeful despair, voice all shaky.
"Alright. First of all, nice and decent are totally right up your street. You are just leashing out when insecure. Don't put yourself down. You're managing a most impressive change, and not from bad to good but from a showy personality to your true one and that's so brave," she smiled warmly at Draco and he squeezed her hand again, "My suggestion is a bit Gryffindor: Talk to him as soon as possible. The way I perceive Louis, I should say he is trustworthy and really interested in you. Thus, be open and generous with information on how you feel. And not only for him, but regarding school, your House and please don't leave out the issue of being a Malfoy and former Death Eater. That's an important part of your history and life and crucial to understand who you are now. I volunteer to vouch for your profound change and noble character."
She looked at him and another thought appeared.
"Unless of course he has a problem with my past or me being Muggleborn or Gryffindor. Then I'd also volunteer to retreat from knowing you closer," she added and fought the crawling sadness from shining through. Hermione was well aware that they talked about another pureblood Slytherin.
Draco, however, snorted inelegantly.
"How noble of you, Velve, but the good ship of us getting along has set sail some weeks ago already and is now well on the way, however, if this were the case with Louis, I wouldn't want him. I too know where my loyalties lie," Draco said firmly and Hermione, all flabbergasted and sensitive now, returned his hug from before.
"We really do hugs now, huh?" Draco grinningly asked while stroking her back.
"Did you just feel the chilly breeze, too?" she returned and when Draco shot her a puzzled look, Hermione simply shrugged her shoulders. "Probably just hell freezing over," she added with a blink and they both chuckled.
"Allowing oneself to openly care for people is bloody frightening. I feel helpless in the face of it," he conceded. "How do you still manage that with everything you've been through?"
"Well, you've to start training to ride this special dragon in early childhood and then the best ones are awarded by being sorted into Gryffindor," she said with a bright smile and indeed Draco had to grin.
"Thank Merlin, I averted that disaster," he said.
She grinned as well. "Acting true to yourself is always worth it in the end, because you have people, who love you, listen to you and tease you," she reassured him. "Look at us here right now!"
A shy knock at the door interrupted them and on opening, Hermione stood face-to-face with an apparently strained Louis.
After having smiled at the black Frenchman, she turned around to Draco on the sofa. "And you might also want to look at your boyfriend," Hermione tied in with her previous comment and a telling look.
After the suddenly even paler Draco had nodded slowly and while getting to his feet, she asked Louis invitingly inside. At the sight of his blonde man he seemed to have gotten over his shyness as he determinedly approached his lover, cupped the back of his head and leaned-in to kiss him. Then he broke the kiss, but his hand held Draco's head in place, when they came to stand with their foreheads pressed together.
"You are an idiot when you believe for one second that I'd be interested in anyone but you," Louis said in a low voice. "I gave this some thought and came to the conclusion that this- misinterpretation is very likely resulting from rubbing-off of Gryffindor traits from your great friend here. So I decided to better make my feelings impossible to misinterpret," he added.
Draco meanwhile steadied himself at Louis' hips and repeated their kiss. Hermione was positively surprised by his compliment and touched by their relationship and when it became obvious that they didn't plan to stop exploring each other anytime soon, rather the contrary, she whisperingly Accioed the blanket from her armchair and silently retreated into the hallway.
On her way, she reminded herself that she mustn't forget to tell the boys that the new trio might spread the rumor of Hermione and Draco being a couple as Ginny very obviously had misinterpreted the situation - not that she could be blamed for it. It made her smile as it occurred to her what their faces would look like had they knowledge of the truth regarding Draco's and her love interest.
She decided to go up the Astronomy Tower, the view was lovely and tucked-up in her blanket and with an additional warming charm she might be able to catch some sleep even before it was safe to return to her quarters. Draco now owed her, she swore to herself to make him pay. Dinner would be nice she mused and grinned to herself. She would love to have the chance to just go to a boyfriend of her own in situations like these. Well, there was one man that popped up during such musings immediately, but this option was out of the question and in addition, Hermione was rather sure that her overall physical state would very likely not result in a longer relationship. Maybe never, since the wizarding world was keen on reproduction due to being a small population anyway; and she was still the immoral subject.
A thought regarding her future that had developed during the last year already became increasingly solid: Her return to the Muggle world after school seemed inevitable: Harry held no prejudices regarding this, she didn't care about Ron, Draco of course still held many prejudices but would undoubtedly be fine without her with Louis as his lover and Severus as a kind of surrogate father – their ties ran deep and he would support him. And since leaving Hogwarts would in any case mean not being close to Severus anymore, it didn't matter if she sent an owl from a Muggle home where she wasn't judged for moral dubiety or a Wizarding one where she would always be. The pit in her stomach grew at the realization that she in fact just wanted to have it all: living amongst wizards, acknowledged rather than condemned for her sacrifice, surrounded by her friends and especially having Severus closely around, ideally as lover. Her lip twitched slightly at this truth, it was crazy and unrealistic, she knew, but likely healthy to allow herself to think it at least. However, instead of all this, she would physically be on her own again soon and although knowing she could manage it, she didn't want to. Deciding to give-in to her sadness, she slowly drifted off to sleep.
Waking up on hearing a man clearing his throat, she was only shortly confused about her whereabouts. Of course it had to be Severus to find her – he was the only one regularly patrolling the corridors at night. Going by his silence she was surely in for point loss and detentions. She should have visited him instead of coming up here.
"Good evening, Professor," she said in a low voice.
"Explain yourself," he commanded. His heart raced at the anticipation of her reaction to his tone. He mustn't care anymore for his sake.
Hermione shot him a puzzled look since she hadn't expected such harshness in return. She decided prudence to be the better part of valor.
"I simply fell asleep on enjoying the view."
"It's well past curfew. Move." Severus congratulated himself to have managed to Occlude his arising gentle feelings on seeing her obvious confusion. He was hurting too much, this had to stop.
She walked a step behind him, slowly gathering herself. What was wrong? She tried to find explanations in her sleepy brain. On the second floor she finally broke the silence. "What's my punishment, sir?"
"Why were you up there sleeping when you have the privilege of your own quarters? Trouble in paradise?" he sneered.
Hermione was confused what paradise he was aiming at. "They were occupied. Someone was eager to impress and I didn't want to spoil the surprise, so I went for a walk until it's done and settled for a break."
"Eager to impress," he stated.
"Eager to impress," she repeated meaningfully and was sure he could do the math knowing that Draco was practically living with her and after having joined-in the joke himself a month ago. Thinking about sharing Draco's joy with him, she decided to refrain from it given the mood of their Head of House and the curfew problem. After the probably passionate reunion they had just enjoyed, she didn't intend to end their evening with trouble, should they still be in her sitting room.
In the entrance hall Severus stopped his meanwhile furious pace and when he turned around to her she could feel the strain radiating from him and avoided his gaze. She felt it resting on her heavily. Severus couldn't stop himself from staring, while fighting his inner battle. Emotional and physical distance was the only solution. Severus already couldn't handle the pain she caused him now. He hated that he allowed her this power over him and that he had knowingly brought himself into this emotional tantrum, which he felt unable to handle appropriately. For Merlin's sake he had been an adult as a kid already, why was this so hard? He knew the answers, but didn't like them and also wasn't ready to deal with hearing the truth from her. No confronting her, he decided. All impossibilities and his inabilities made him angry.
"Twenty points from Gryffindor." Without another word he abruptly turned to head for the dungeons leaving her alone.
Hermione simply looked after him in shocked confusion and folded her arms to prevent herself from shaking. Some distant part of her mind knew that this had just been a crucial encounter. She was cold and a lump formed in her throat, while she tried to unravel in what she had just participated. She had expected him to at least comment on the impression issue or her safety at night in the hallways. But instead he had simply left her alone here. The ridiculously high amount likely served as compensation for the detentions he had desisted from imposing. This was one way to avoid privacy. And in her eyes his whole demeanor proved this wish of his. No smoothly voiced Hermione, it occurred to her. The lump now turned into pain and the disappointment grabbed her stomach and her eyes filled with tears. They had hardly spent time with each other for some weeks and their last real close moment had meanwhile been a month ago. But what had happened that made him act so out of character? She unsuccessfully tried to make sense of it, while still staring at the spot where he had disappeared into the dungeons. Intuition told her that his offer to drop by anytime was off the table and she decided to listen to it and thus fought the desire to follow him and ask for an explanation. She couldn't deal with hearing the truth as right now he surely wouldn't bother to wrap it in niceties. Severus, where are you? What happened? she thought desperately.