Chapter 8 - The Book of Dreams

Potter, Weasley and Hermione spent the following day locked on the top floor, alternating between Ollivander's, Griphook's and Harry's bedroom. Draco wasn't sure what to do around the house. He had been forbidden to go to the top floor while the trio conducted whatever plotting they were doing, so he couldn't lock himself up and read. Surely he could ask Hermione to bring the books down, but he felt self-conscious at the idea of being caught reading Muggle books. As much as he enjoyed 'Norwegian Wood' so far, the idea of reading it in front of everyone felt oddly performative, and he didn't want people to think that he was trying to manipulate their opinion of him. He also felt a bit awkward about going outside, as he would most likely need a chaperone like the morning when he went swimming in Dobby's company. Wizarding textbooks seemed out of the question too, as he didn't want to seem like he was scheming. Draco sat down in front of the window, sighing. Things were easier when he could mask his insecurity under demonstrations of power. He wanted to hear Hermione's Muggle music again. He wondered how many songs her machine contained, and if they were all as good as 'Shadowboxer'. Draco stared through the window for a while, trying to remember all the words to the song. There weren't any passersby, just the wind carrying sand and seagulls. After a short time, Luna and Dobby's voice took him out of his contemplations.

"Miss Luna is an angel, Dobby knows that much!"

"It's nothing Dobby, I only want to learn from the very best housekeeper I have ever met — and that's you!"

"Miss Luna! Surely Dobby could never accept such a - such a lovely - such a heartfelt, beautiful compliment," Dobby's choked-up voice answered.

Draco turned around. In the corner of the living room, Luna and Dobby were standing next to the kitchen counter, both wearing aprons. Dobby had a small pink child-size apron on with frills, whereas Luna's wore a dark green, more industrial-looking one. She had tied up her hair into a fluffy bun that looked like it was about to roll off her head at any moment. Draco quickly looked away and went back into his thoughts. But Dobby and Luna grew increasingly louder as they handled pots and pans and discussed every step of the process. After a while, Draco got up and walked towards them, his skin buzzing louder under the Monitus spell. Before he could speak, Luna shoved a bowl of dough into Draco's hands.

"Here, you can stir this. It's good you're here, it's better to do it without magic anyway. Makes the flavours stronger," she said in her usual dreamy voice.

Draco looked down. The thick dough gave out a lovely smell of sugar and vanilla. He looked left and right, suddenly feeling awkward. He had never cooked anything before.

"Do I just stir this with this - um, thing? Clockwise" he asked, pointing at the whip resting inside the bowl.

"Yes, former Master Draco is very intelligent!" said Dobby.

Draco's cheeks burned with embarrassment.

"All right, all right," he grumbled. "What are you making?"

"All-flavour-fluff-filled pancakes!" said Luna. "The idea came to me in a dream."

"Miss Luna is brimming with the best ideas!" added Dobby.

Draco started stirring, pretending to look disinterested but keenly listening to Dobby's advice to Luna, as they prepared the pancakes. As someone who had never touched a single cooking utensil, he kept wondering if he was doing something wrong. But neither Luna nor Dobby seemed to find anything to criticise about him — perhaps because they only gave him the simplest tasks.

An hour later, Luna was making fluffy dough blobs launch themselves into a frying pan on low heat, and covered them with a protection spell to, in her words, "diffuse the heat nicely". This resulted in the thickest pancakes Draco had ever seen. Almost as wide as they were thick, yet light and soft, they left the pan when toasted enough and basked into various bowls containing different toppings. They then placed themselves into different plates, and Luna coated them with a rain of edible glitter as a final touch, which was so sparkly it created small rainbows that bounced across the room.

"Draco, would you go get everyone?" she asked while adding sparkles and colours to their pancakes.

"Um, sure," he answered.

Draco went around the house, knocking on doors and awkwardly muttering "Lunch's ready!". He didn't dare go up as he had been explicitly told not to, and just stayed at the bottom of the stairs, clearing his throat louder and louder. After a while, he decided to go up. The trio was holed up in Griphook's room. As he approached the door, Weasley slammed it open, fuming.

"Are you spying on us Malfoy?" he asked.

Draco glanced behind Weasley's shoulder. He quickly met Hermione's eye then looked at Potter and Griphook, all of whom were staring at him.

"Of course not, Weasley" said Draco, trying to muster his best drawl. "I have been told to fetch you for lunch. We're all waiting for you."

"Why didn't you just call us?"

"I did, but you guys must be deaf. Lunch is ready. You can come or not, I don't care." Draco thought about ending his sentence there and walking away, but the presence of Hermione behind Weasley reminded him of his intentions. New day, new me, he angrily thought to himself. "Luna really put a lot of effort there. And Dobby too. So would you just join us. Please," he added, gritting his teeth.

Best I can do, he thought.

Weasley looked behind his shoulder, and, met by Potter and Hermione's nod, followed Draco downstairs. But lunch went fast, and was drenched in a tense silence on the trio's side. Draco had the small hope that Hermione would stop and spend a few moments with him, but she and her two friends immediately went back upstairs after eating, in the company of Griphook.

Several days passed, during which Draco had little to no contact with Hermione. It felt as if he had initially entered a warm bubbly bath, that had slowly gone cold, leaving him shivering in the icy water. It wasn't like he could get out of it. He still rolled 'Shadowboxer' around in his mind throughout the day, wondering with increasingly frustration if he had made up his memories of that night they had spent together. It was hard to believe that Hermione, who had been so warm and vulnerable and teary-eyed, could now be this distant, adult-like person furrowing her brow harder than she had ever done during their time in Hogwarts. As if they were nothing but enemies again. Even though he knew that she and the other two boys were close friends, the idea that she could be secretly dating one of them was never too far away in his thoughts, especially considering Weasley's increasing agitation around him. Everyone around the house but him had been slowly warming up to Draco, including Dean, who could now stay in the same room as him without getting hostile — a net improvement from a few days back. But Weasley seemed more and more uneasy around him, and prone to raising his voice. There were moments, particularly when she scurried upstairs after lunch, when Draco felt the urge to shout at her, and that urge terrified him. He could hear Lucius in the angry voice making up scenarios in his mind, threatening Hermione into a little ball of fear like Narcissa always recoiled in. It made Draco want to stand between her and that voice, protect her from the side of himself that he was desperately trying to rid himself of. As the option of holding her against him was unavailable in these moments of inner conflict, Draco got in the habit of going out for a swim when these thoughts overwhelmed him. Dobby accompanied him, staying on the shore, keeping a more and more distant and trusting eye on him. In the cold sea, Draco didn't think much. He just focused on tolerating the burn of the waves licking his skin, his slowly-healing arm and side. The sea was so cold it felt actually painful, and his lungs seized up every time, as if their size was halved by the cold. Tolerating that pain made it easier for him to tolerate the other pains plaguing him. The regrets. The grief. The increasing rage. The non-stop worries for Narcissa, even for Lucius. And that terrible feeling of belonging nowhere on Earth. Perhaps all of this could wait while he put up with the icy waves of the Celtic Sea. Perhaps if he could master himself enough to go through this pain, he could master all the sides of himself he wanted to kill. To see dead. Perhaps if his skin got cold enough, cold as that of a corpse, that could awaken a warmth inside of his heart, akin to a new desire to live.

And it worked.

Draco didn't notice it at first. It started subtly. A feeling of feeling refreshed and in control of his life, that usually lasted for at least one to several hours after swimming. Falling asleep more easily, feeling like he was swaying when he closed his eyes. It wasn't enough to cure him. Didn't stop the nightmares nor the ghosts in his chest, nor the constant consideration of death. But it did something. And even though he couldn't identify that something, he understood that he ought to cling to it. That it contained a key to enter this new life.

During those days of distance from Hermione, Draco chewed on his impatience by trying to fill in his days with activities that distracted his mind and his hands. As soon as he noticed that no-one was paying that close of an attention to what he was doing rather than to his whereabouts, he began openly reading Muggle books, even though his frustration towards Hermione made it difficult at times. He quickly finished 'Norwegian Woods' and started 'Ada or Ardor', which he found it particularly hard to understand due to the convoluted style of the author and his frequent references to the Muggle world. He cooked with Luna, Dobby, Fleur, and sometimes Bill during the day, learning new techniques every day and following Luna's more or less successful ideas. She talked endlessly about her plan to publish a 'Book of Dream Recipes', containing all the recipes that had come to her in dreams. Perhaps it was because she was physically so alike him, but Draco felt no attraction towards Luna. It was better this way. He loved spending time with her because like Hermione, she seemed to feel no embarrassment about the kind of person she was, no matter how others might want to ridicule her. The side of him that he wanted dead made many snarky comments about her, but he kept those comments hidden inside his head, and pushed through with his own voice, his own better judgement.

Draco didn't always win against the dark side of himself. That side always won at night, sending him, as usual, terrifying nightmares that made him wake up gasping for air or biting down so hard on his own teeth they felt wobbly in the morning. It often won in the shower, when he looked at himself in the mirror, naked and full of loathing towards what he saw. It almost always won when he could hear Hermione laugh upstairs with her friends. It won when she avoided eye contact with him.

One evening, Draco managed to corner her before she could go upstairs. He could tell that she hadn't meant to linger. He was washing the dishes, and she came downstairs in the middle of one of her upstairs meetings to fetch her shawl, that he had left on her chair at the kitchen table. She came silently, perhaps hoping not to talk to him. The side he had inherited from Lucius wanted to shout at her seeing how she seemed to think she could just slide past him as if they hadn't, less than a week ago, been curled up on the couch tears swimming in both their eyes. But that day, Draco had spent a particularly long time in the aching embrace of the Celtic Sea's water, and had had exchanged his first cordial words with Dean as they had wished each other good morning. He had made food and had stared for a long time in the fire. He had laughed far too much with Luna when he had told her that the mystical dream recipe she had had was actually a basic fish and chips dish. So Draco let the tune of these hopeful events guide him.

"Hermione?" he asked.

She turned around, startled. He realised that it was his first time addressing her one-to-one and directly since that night, since she had started slowly avoiding him more and more.

"Do you have time?" he asked, trying to master a breathiness in his throat giving away his anxiety.

"Of course," she replied, and he noticed that her voice too was tight and tense. "Um, here?" she asked, avoiding eye contact with him.

"In private."

"Sure. That works with me."

She leaned towards him, intensifying the sound of Monitus that he had become accustomed to over the days.

"When?"

"At the end of the day?"

She nodded, and he noticed that her cheeks were redder than they had been a few seconds earlier. But her eyes looked as defensive as ever.

"One?" she asked.

He nodded.

"1AM downstairs. I'll boil some water."

"For…?"

"The verbena."

Draco went into his room at 10PM, eyes wide open. He tried to focus on his book, but the words kept slipping away. He was both scared of falling asleep by mistake, and too aware that he wouldn't be able to even if he wanted. The dread in his chest was back, swelling up at the idea that following their conversation, which would probably go disappointly, they wouldn't find each other so close again.

Damn it, Draco thought to himself. It's been going badly for days now. At least I'll have an answer.

Feeling so nervous about someone that barely a year ago he would have made fun of for merely existing made him want to kick himself. And yet, he couldn't help it. Anytime he tried to take a step back and revert to his old way of viewing Hermione in the hope that it would cure him of his nervousness, he kept going back to the feeling of her body pressed against his, and the memory of how easily she had cried. He suspected that she didn't allow herself anything of the sort in front of anyone else.

To pass time, Draco built an entire speech in his head. He rolled it around, perfecting it down to the smallest vocal inflection. It touched elegantly on the fact that something intimate had happened between them, that wouldn't happen between friends and even less between enemies, but tactfully enough to not sound like he was accusing her of not going further. There were a few tasteful hints, hidden questions about whether she already had her eye on someone else. And finally, an overall sense of ennui that suggested that he wouldn't be sad nor upset if things didn't go any further. That last part was the most crucial.

But when 1AM came, and he went downstairs, he felt the words slip out of his mind as each step brought him closer to her. She was already boiling water, in her nightdress, her long hair falling to her waist. The events of that first night together submerged his thoughts and he silently went next to her.

"Hi," she said in a small voice. She pointed her wand to him, removing the sound of Motivus coming from his body - a trusting gesture that comforted him.

He nodded and grabbed two cups a from the cupboard above her head. She grabbed a few verbena leaves and dropped them in before pouring the water. They brought them to the coffee table in an oddly formal way, as if they were strangers to one another.

We are strangers, Draco thought.

It was too soon to start drinking, so Draco just stared through the window, into the pitch darkness. His mental speech was long gone. If Draco had once been the type to always stir up fights, the past year had made him accustomed to silence. So he stayed silent. After a while of them sipping in silence, Hermione spoke.

"I won't stay up too late. I have to wake up early tomorrow."

"Right."

Another silence went on between them, during which Draco imagined Hermione going back to her room without having exchanged any further words. The image horrified him more than he expected.

"Did I imagine something?" Draco ended up asking. He didn't look her way while asking. He was too embarrassed. He kept alternating between the darkness outside and the dark green liquid between his pale hands.

An eternity seemed to pass. He looked up at her.

"No," she answered, looking away.

"So? What's the problem? We're enemies again?"

Her eyes briefly widened in shock. His words came out more angrily than he had expected. He expected her to lash back, but she pressed her hands against both sides of her head.

"No. We're not back in school. But if you haven't noticed, Harry, Ron and I are planning something. Something crazy. And I don't - I don't think you and I can get any closer during that time."

Her voice slightly shook as she finished her sentence.

"I think it would be better if we didn't go further for now," she added.

She took a deep breath, as if she had lifted a weight off her chest, handing it to Draco instead.

"I see," he said. All his recent interactions with the rest of the house suddenly felt derisive. He understood that no-one liked him here. They barely tolerated him because it wasn't in their code of ethics to kill prisoners. They were putting up with him. It was a thought that made him want to lock himself in his room upstairs and never come back down.

"Right," he muttered under his breath. "So that's what it comes down to."

"What do you mean?"

"It doesn't actually matter that I took that knife, or spilled my guts under Veritaserum, or tried to be honest with you. It doesn't matter. You don't trust me and never will. I can't even blame you."

He got up and brought his mug back to the kitchen.

"You can put Motivus back on me. Wouldn't want anyone to think you're fraternising with the enemy."

Draco turned around. Before he knew it, Hermione was crying again, and a great lassitude came over him. It wasn't her style. That was a him thing.

"What is it?" he asked.

She shook her head. He went to sit next to her, his heart clenching for her. It didn't matter that they would never be close again. He still cared for her.

"It's not that I don't trust you," she said. "Well, I can't say for sure that I do. But that's not the issue."

"What is it then?" he asked.

She took a deep breath, composing herself. A flash of misery ran across her face, and it made him want to hold her again.

"Harry, Ron and I are planning something crazy," she repeated.

Draco almost replied with "I heard you the first time", but refrained. He turned her words around in his head for a few seconds, a sudden pit in his stomach.

"How crazy are we talking?" he asked.

"I… Well, I give it a 90% chance of failure. 85% if we're being optimistic."

"What happens if you fail?"

She shrugged, the words stuck in her words.

"Hermione?"

"You know what happens if we fail. It's a war. You need to understand that I will go all in on this whole mission. I don't care if it's the last thing I do. But going all in is going to mean ignoring everything within myself that might hold me back. It's so much harder to risk your life when there are people out there who might suffer from it. If I die, Harry and Ron will most likely die with me. Outside of them, my parents have forgotten about me and my other friendships are superficial enough. So why would I make new bonds? Strong bonds. It doesn't make sense. Ignoring it just - makes it easier," she said, and even though she was holding her emotions in, he could feel the pain behind her words.

"You think we have a strong bond?" Draco asked.

She looked at him.

"It's not as strong as full of the possibility of being strong, if you know what I mean," she answered.

"I agree," he said.

"But do you understand?"

"I do. We don't have to - I don't know how to say this. We don't have to have a strong bond," he said, emphasising the word strong and giving her a knowing look. "But what about a light one?"

"Such as?"

"I don't know. Small talk. Small moments. Muggle music. Something like that. We don't need to pull an all-nighter like we did or dig too deep. I'll never touch you again if that's what you want. I just like being around you."

"I like being around you too," she said, and her eyes, her reddening cheeks, the shiver in her tone said far more than her words did.

"Right. Right." It was his turn to lose his words. "Well, then that's settled. Small moments only. Let's start now. It is getting late. should go straight to bed after we finish our drinks."

She nodded, and wordlessly, refilled his almost empty cup to the brim.