The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go.
five
"And this is my son, Draco!" the woman exclaims, smiling down with unhidden pride at the small blond boy sitting on the floor of the parlour, busily yanking the wings off a number of unfortunate pixies. "Draco, darling, why don't you let Hermione play with you?"
Hermione eyes him distrustfully. Boys, in her experience, make poor play partners; they never want to sit and read books with her, but take pleasure in pulling on her tangled halo of brown curls or stuffing mud down the neck of her robes. This particular specimen seems like he'll be no better. He's small and thin, with a sharp narrow face and grey eyes. Already she towers over him by several inches.
"Do I have to?" he whines.
"Yes, darling," his mother says. "Hermione's mother is an old friend of mine from school. Why don't you take her up to your bedroom and… show her your signed Snitches?"
For a moment the boy's lower lip juts out mutinously. Then he gives in with ill grace and stands up, dusting off his robes.
"Come," he tells her. Without looking back to see if she's following, he exits the parlour.
Hermione hesitates, glancing at her mother. Mrs Dagworth-Granger smiles reassuringly at her.
"Go on, Hermione," she says. "Don't you want to make a new friend?"
Not particularly, thinks Hermione. She doesn't see why she needs a friend. She never has before.
Still, it's not worth arguing with her mother, so she trails Draco out of the room and up the stairs. It's a good thing he didn't manage to go very far; his house is huge, much bigger than hers, and the fireplace they Flooed into was wide enough to fit her and her mother side-by-side without touching. She soon discovers that his bedroom is built on an equally grand scale, with an arching ceiling and fanned-out windows that offer views of the rolling green countryside surrounding his house. Everywhere she looks, toys are piled into heaps.
"Let's play, then," Draco says.
She tears her attention away from an examination of his Quaffle-patterned bedspread to regard him. He's looking at her expectantly.
"No," she says. "I want to read your books."
His face screws up. "What?"
"Books," she repeats impatiently. "Don't you have any?"
"What do you want to read for?" he says, tone scathing. "Let's do something more fun. Look, Father bought me a broomstick for my birthday – it flies and everything – we could do that! Or I can show you my Snitches – they're signed, you know – you aren't listening to me!"
His voice has risen in disbelief as, ignoring him, Hermione crosses over to the tiny bookshelf she located in a corner of the room.
"Oh, this is one of my favourites!" she says. He has a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, but a much nicer one than hers, with shiny gold on the cover. It's so pristine it might never have been opened. Flipping to the first page, she sinks down to the thick grey carpet and starts reading.
It's promptly snatched out of her hand. For a moment, she's frozen in disbelief.
"Stop!" Hermione yells. "Give it back!"
"No!" Draco yells back. "Play with me!"
She launches herself at him. She's so much sturdier, he shouldn't have been a match for her, but somehow he is: he's all pointy angles and jabbing elbows, holding her off every time she thinks she's got her hands on the book, which slips through her fingers every time. She's also hobbled by the fact that she doesn't dare risk pulling too hard, not when the book could rip any moment, a concern that clearly isn't bothering him. Their scuffle culminates in her trying one last time to reach for it, him sliding boneless as a snake out of her reach, and then gazing her at triumph.
"No reading," he says. "Play with me."
"Fine," Hermione snaps. She can't wait to leave this place, and him.
An hour later, though, things – to her surprise – have improved somewhat. Draco's broomstick isn't so bad once you get used to it; eventually he badgered her into sitting on it and not just watching him, and now her toes are skimming the floor as she soars around his room, a whole foot off the ground. They played Exploding Snap too, even though they don't really know any card games, but the loud periodic bangs made him laugh. They've also had an in-depth discussion about each other's Chocolate Frog card collection. His is much bigger than hers.
He's waiting impatiently on the bed for his turn on the broomstick when they hear a raised voice from downstairs.
"Draco! Time for tea!" his mother is calling.
Hermione slides off the broomstick, a little ungainly, and looks at Draco. To her surprise, he holds out a hand for the toy.
"They're calling us," she says. "We have to go down now."
"No, we don't," he says. "We don't have to listen. We can do what we want. I want to ride now."
She frowns. This isn't an attitude she has encountered before.
"They're calling us," she says again. Perhaps he's a bit slow and hasn't understood. "For tea."
"I said," he snaps, "we don't have to listen. Don't you want to play some more?"
Of course she does, but she cares more about being a good girl. She doesn't like the feeling she gets when she knows she's disappointed her parents, and she knows her mother won't be pleased if they ignore the summons. Snatching up his copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, she leaves his bedroom and starts downstairs, ignoring his frantic attempts to regain her attention. At the bottom of the staircase she finds their respective mothers standing in the hallway. Next to Draco's – a tall, slender woman who towers over Hermione, her sleek hair palely golden – her own mother is short and dark, with the same brown eyes and springy curls as Hermione.
"Ah, there you are," Mrs Dagworth-Granger says. "But where's Draco?"
Draco's mother sighs, but even Hermione can tell the sound is more fond than exasperated. "I must say, he sometimes doesn't come down when he's called, if he doesn't feel like it. I expect I'll have to go drag him down here…"
But she breaks off. At the top of the twisting, sweeping staircase, so high up Hermione has to crane her neck to see him, has appeared a furiously scowling Draco. His wrathful expression is directed straight at her.
"I told you to wait for me!" he shouts. "I was coming!" He places his foot on the first stair.
Bored of him, Hermione turns away, debating her chances of successfully slipping his book inside her robes and taking it home with her when they leave. She knows taking other people's things isn't good, but she reasons that he's not using it, so really –
Draco's mother screams. Startled, Hermione turns back around.
Draco must have taken the stairs too quickly; one moment he was descending like normal, and the next he's hurtling down the staircase on his backside, roaring with surprise and pain. His mother plunges a hand into her silvery robes for her wand, but before either she or Hermione's mother can do something to stop him, a strange thing happens: his whole body slams to a halt mid-air as though he'd hit an invisible wall, and the rest of the stairs smooth themselves out into a slide, letting him glide to a neat and painless stop at their feet.
"Oh, Draco!" his mother shrieks, swooping down to engulf him. "Oh, Merlin –"
He suffers her embrace for several seconds before wriggling out of her arms. "Mother, did you see that?" he says eagerly. "I did that! Hermione, look!"
She looks dutifully, but there's a strange feeling in her stomach, one she doesn't have a word for even though she knows a lot of words – more than almost anybody her age, as Daddy likes to boast. It isn't a good feeling.
"That's not his first sign of accidental magic, of course," Draco's mother is saying to her mother, pointed face aglow with happiness, "but it's by far his strongest yet! Oh, I can't wait to tell Lucius when he comes home!"
Draco is trying to tug her by the hand over to the staircase, showing off how the steps melted for him, but Hermione shakes off his sweaty palm. She is looking at her mother. Mrs Dagworth-Granger's face is white, and lines of tension bracket her mouth, although she tries to smile at Hermione when they catch each other's eye. The attempt fades quickly.
The feeling in Hermione's stomach intensifies. She is now five years old, and despite the purity of the blood running through her veins, she has yet to show a single sign of magic.
AN: HELLO FRIENDS IT HAS BEEN A WHILE!
Since I last updated a story here, I've graduated university, finished law school, and (ugh) started work. I really shouldn't start a new story, I know, but the idea came to me while I was looking for a Dramione childhood friends story and not finding one. Be the change you want to see in the world, as they say.
I don't think this will be longer than novella length and is already fully plotted, so the chapters may be on the shorter side initially but this should be finished in like, less than 11 years (which is how long BWHB has been ongoing...)