Chapter 6 — Shadowboxer
Draco shivered from head to toe as he approached the entrance of the manor. He wanted to go back, but his feet kept moving forward against his will. The manor was saturated in darkness, without a single candle to light the way. Draco entered, and as he walked, noticed that the floor felt bumpy and sticky, but it was too dark to check why it felt that way. There was a presence at the end of the corridor leading to the dungeon where Granger — no, Hermione, was nursing stillborn puppies. The presence stood between him and the door of the dungeon. Draco didn't have the key, but knew that a simple Alohomora would suffice. He thought that the best way to get past the presence would be to lure it to follow him, so he went up the main staircase towards his bedroom, and surely enough the presence started following him. There was something so threatening, so lethal about it that every hair on his body raised itself in goosebumps. He didn't have long before they'd cut Hermione open to clean her blood. It was part of the plan. As Draco approached his room, the floor felt stickier and stickier, as if he was walking through goo. But he couldn't afford to slow down. The presence wasn't slowing down. Draco arrived in his room and quickly got behind the door. From there, he waited for it, and observed his surroundings in the near complete darkness. His father's cane on the floor, Quidditch medals from elementary school games, the hair gel he used to put on so cautiously in the past, broken cutlery stamped with their family crest, empty magical shampoo bottles for kids, empty bottles of the finest of his mother's wines. The presence was getting closer. He could hear it come up the stairs. Draco moved his knees up to his chin, curling up like he used to when his parents used to loudly fight. He could feel himself getting smaller and smaller, like he was a child again.
"Dra… co…"
The presence rattled his name, and he recognised Dumbledore's voice.
"Draco…"
The death rattle grew louder as the presence approached his room. Draco noticed that he had been gritting his teeth so hard that his back teeth were wobbly. He unclenched his jaw, and two molars fell onto his lap. He clenched his teeth again to prevent them from falling out, but they shattered like porcelain. He cupped his hands under his chin and all of his teeth fell into his hands like painful porcelain shards. Warm, sticky blood poured out into his palms. Because his teeth were now mere nails chips in his mouth, he could only keep his mouth open in a grotesque manner, blood and saliva pouring out.
"Draco…"
The presence entered the room. Draco went around it with surprising ease and closed the door behind him, making a run towards the dungeon where Hermione was locked in. But he was so, so slow. And his body so small. Every step was a calculated effort that took all of his strength. The presence managed to open the door, but Draco was making progress and made it back into the hallway. He moved as fast as he could towards the dungeon, at the speed of a turtle. The door was locked but a simple Alohomora would suffice. Then they could take on the presence together. Save the stillborn puppies. She didn't need her blood cleaned. She didn't need to be opened up with a knife. Draco reached for his pocket, and his mind exploded with fear as he realised that Harry had left with his wand. He turned around, and the presence, the presence's sharp blue eyes —
Draco lunged out a bed with a scream. He fell into a bundle of sheets on the ground and fought to extricate himself, pouring in sweat and gasping for air. A door opened and his skin started emitting a loud buzz as light poured in from the corridor.
"Draco!" whispered a hushed voice.
"Where am I?" he yelled.
"Draco shh! You're going to wake up everyone. Are you hurt?"
Hands detangled him from the sheets. A dark presence with a cascade of tangled hair. He felt his whole body tingle with goosebumps again. He couldn't breathe. A cold hand touched his cheek.
"Draco, you're okay, you're in Shell Cottage, with us. Bill and Fleur's home, remember?"
It took a few painful seconds, but the voice brought Draco back to his senses. He inhaled deeply, his heart still beating furiously in his chest.
The sleepy voice of Luna Lovegood came from the corridor.
"Are you guys having a sleepover? I heard some giggling."
Hermione turned towards the door.
"All good Luna, Draco had a nightmare. You can go back to sleep."
Draco shot Hermione a death glare. He didn't want the whole house to know he was having these kinds of dreams.
"Ha, those Nargles… when will they learn," answered a sleepy voice. "Good night Hermione, good night Draco…"
Hermione went to close Draco's door, and created a silent Lumos inside the room. Draco got up, instantly embarrassed by his behaviour. He was completely wet in sweat, his pyjamas sticking to his skin. He looked at Hermione. She was wearing a pale pink nightdress with a tiny bow on the front. Her hair was untied, wild as ever as she had just woken up. Her eyes were slightly swollen from sleep. She wasn't wearing a bra, a detail that Draco felt awkward to notice. Her breasts looked smaller and more gentle that way, under the thin fabric of her dress. She shyly folded her arms in front of her chest and he promptly looked away. His heart was still wildly pounding, and he noticed a slight tremor going through his hands. On his nightstand, the candle had completely melted, staining the book he had been reading.
"What on earth is going on?" she asked.
"Just a nightmare," he said. "All good. There was no need to wake up."
These kind of nightmares had been extremely common ever since Dumbledore's death. He wasn't used to anyone making a fuss about his reactions to them. He hoped no-one else had heard.
"All good, really. You can go back to bed," he added.
"Okay," she whispered. "Good night."
She headed towards the door, and as she was about to close it, looked at him once more. He was sitting at the edge of his bed, hands noticeably shaking. She hesitated for a moment, then came back in.
"Come on", she whispered. "Follow me."
"Go back to bed," he said. "I'm fine, really."
"I know. Just come down for a bit. I'll make a verbena infusion. I can't sleep anyway."
He knew it was a lie, but didn't want to be anymore of a burden. He reluctantly got up and followed her out of the room. He stayed at a certain distance behind her, to keep the buzzing noise low. They went all the way to the living room.
"Shut the door," she said, and he obeyed.
With a flick of her wand, she put the kettle on, and two cups of tea placed themselves on the coffee table in front of the couch. A few leaves of dried verbena got out of a cupboard and placed themselves in a teapot.
Draco went to sit on the couch, which was placed in a way where it was facing the massive window-wall of the living room, right in front of the sea. From the inside, he could only see the movement of a few moonlit waves in the dark. The darkness reminded him of his nightmare, and he shivered. He wanted light, and only light. No more darkness. No more black magic. He looked towards Hermione, standing next to the bright standing lamp, her wand leading the boiling water to the teapot, and the teapot to the coffee table. He checked the clock on the wall. 3:22AM. She walked barefooted towards the couch, and sat at the other end of it to dim the buzzing noise coming from his body. They sat in silence for a while.
"What did you dream of?" Hermione asked.
Draco took a second, before deciding to tell her the truth.
"I dreamt of the manor. My family's manor. I was trying to open the door of the dungeon, but a weird presence kept chasing me around. And I couldn't open it because I didn't have my wand."
"You couldn't just run away?"
"Well, no. You know how dreams are." She nodded. "And besides, you were in the dungeon. They were going to kill you."
Hermione looked startled.
"I was in there?"
"Well, of course. I mean, you were the one that Bella- that she hurt the most."
Draco hadn't been able to ask her how she had been doing since that night. He was too ashamed to bring it up. He couldn't face the pain that she had gone through, and the fact that he had watched without intervening. But not asking was starting to feel terribly rude.
"I didn't ask but - I mean, are you okay?"
He reddened at the childishness of his question. She stared at her bare forearms as the teapot poured the verbena infusion into their cups. They were covered in pink puffy scars. She thought for some time before answering.
"I'm okay most of the time," she ended up replying. "It's not the most painful thing I've experienced this year - far from it actually. And I've been too busy to really think about it. But it did - it did startle me."
Draco nodded. That was a particularly strong understatement. Bellatrix had tortured her. She had tortured her relentlessly. He wanted to apologise, but didn't know where to start. How to take on the responsibility of not having intervened. He wanted to explain himself, but it felt like an immature thing to do. So he remained silent.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
He shrugged.
"I had this thought earlier," he said. "That it's only uphill from here. I've been thinking about your assignment, by the way."
"About your good traits?"
"Yeah. I found one. I'm tenacious."
She stared at him with an amused look on her face. She seems to want to say something mean, but refrained.
"I know," he said. "Not really tenacious about the right things, as far as what you've seen of me."
She shook her head.
"I've seen your potion-making abilities. And how you stuck with us when you put your mind to it. And how you went through with things even when they got hard, and you didn't want to do them. But yeah. The bullying and plotting were also very... tenacious."
He chuckled in spite of himself, and sipped from his teacup.
"I'm sorry."
This was an easier apology to make. It touched on childhood, on school issues, and not on the heart-shattering cost of death and torture.
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. It was shitty of me."
"Thank you," she said. "I appreciate it."
"And I appreciate this tea," he grinned. "It's good. I don't think I've ever had it before."
She laughed.
"I don't think I did either, before I came here. Fleur says she can't live without it. Her family grows it in their garden."
"Does your - I mean, are you still in touch with yours? Your family, I mean?"
Talking about Hermione's Muggle parents made Draco uncomfortable, for a reason he couldn't exactly pinpoint. Perhaps the fact that her heritage had been, until recently, a topic of such intense disdain from his and his entire family's behalf that mentioning it in casual conversation still felt like he was insulting them. But Hermione didn't seem to pick up on it. She looked down at her cup, holding it between her long fingers.
"I erased their memories last summer," she said. "They don't remember anything about me."
Draco's jaw dropped. He didn't know that anyone was able to cast such a powerful Obliviate spell, especially towards their own parents. He hadn't realised, until then, that she and him were in the same boat. It didn't matter how much they cared about their families. The war had made them abandon their parents. He and her had taken that decision for drastically opposite reasons — him to protect himself, her to protect them, but it came down to the same end: they were both technically orphans now.
"I'm sorry," he said. Not apologetic this time. A simple expression of his understanding. She didn't say anything, and he noticed her lip tremble as she took another sip. He thought about his own mother, and fought back tears.
"I don't think too much about them," she said, composing herself. "We've been so focused on our tasks these past months. I didn't get to think much about it. That's the issue with resting, isn't it? It makes it safe for all the bad stuff to come up at once."
Draco had never thought about it this way.
"To be frank with you," he said, "I've been restless ever since last June."
"June 30th? Dumbledore?"
He nodded.
"Yeah. I don't think I have rested a single time since then. And all the bad stuff has definitely been there. It hasn't left."
She sipped her tea.
"What do you do when you feel particularly low?" she asked. "Anything that makes you feel better?"
He slightly blushed. His answer was silly. It took him a while to take it out of his heart.
"I like to fold paper into paper animals, and then enchant them," he said defiantly.
He expected her to mock him at any second, but the mockery didn't come. Only the distance sound of the waves, behind the glass wall.
"I think I've seen it. Didn't you send a swan to Harry once?"
"I did."
She rolled her eyes.
"Do you always use your paper animals to send threatening notes to fellow students?"
Draco laughed.
"It was the only time, I promise. I usually don't show them to anyone."
"Can you show me next time?"
"Sure," he said. "Anyway, what do you do when you feel low? Go to the library?"
"I do. I like to read. I… also like to listen to music. Muggle music."
"Why not wizard music? Not that there's anything wrong with Muggle music of course."
She side-eyed him.
"Right. I don't know what it is about Muggle music. I guess I grew up with it. And music is far more popular in the Muggle world than it is in the wizarding world. You know how we only essentially have that awful Celestina Warbeck and the Weird Sisters here? Well, in the Muggle world, we have hundreds of famous bands, all in their own niche. And they don't sing about anything magical. They just sing about being human. Unpopular opinion I guess, but I find it much, much more relatable."
"I wonder why music is so important in your world."
"I guess it's the closest thing to magic."
Her words sent an unexpected chill down Draco's neck.
"I must say, having to do a few things with my hands since I lost my wand has already made me a bit more grateful for magic."
"What did you have to do?"
"I don't know, small things like drying myself with a towel?"
She laughed.
"Poor you."
She stared at the crashing waves in the distance, and he stared at the coffee table. He wanted to look at her, but was afraid of giving her the wrong idea. His pyjama still felt wet with sweat against his skin, but it was much better than it had been when he had woken up. The clock ticked behind them, and outside the wind howled. His skin still buzzed from Bill's Monitus spell, a sound that felt awkward in such an intimate atmosphere.
"You know that book you lent me, 'Norwegian Wood'?"
"Yes?"
"The title is in reference to a Muggle song, isn't it? They mention it in the book."
"It is. Do you want to listen to it?"
He looked at her strangely.
"You have Muggle music here?"
"I do. Accio MP3 player!" she said, flicking her wand.
A small black Muggle machine came speeding from upstairs, and landed on the couch after squeezing itself under the door. It had two black threads attached to it, with little heads on each of them.
"What's this?" asked Draco. He felt scared to touch it, wary about any kind of unknown Muggle artefact.
"It's a music player. You see, I first select a song, and then we can each place an earplug in our ear. I can take the right one, you take the left. Come closer though, I can't extend it."
Malfoy moved towards her until he was close enough to slide the "earplug" inside his ear. Her thigh was less than an inch away from his, so he had to contract his muscles to make sure that they weren't touching. The buzzing sound coming from his skin became particularly loud, due to their physical closeness. She started playing some music, but it was drowned by the sound of his skin. Annoyed, she glanced towards the door and quickly waved her wand at him, muttering "Demonitus" under her breath. Instantly, the buzzing noise stopped. Draco realised how much it had bothered him. The silence felt so much deeper this way.
"Did you actually just remove that spell?" he asked.
"I did." Her hand stayed on her wand. He couldn't blame her for it.
"No funny business, I promise," he said. "Let's hear this."
She pressed a dent in the machine, and the song called 'Norwegian Wood' started playing in his left ear. It was unlike any music he had heard before. He tried to focus on the lyrics, but the only thing he could concentrate on was avoiding touching Hermione's leg with his. Her bare leg, under her pink nightdress. It looked so smooth, so fragile. He tried to look at the sea outside, but her perfume distracted him. It was a discreet scent of strawberry body wash and coconut hair oil mixed together, subtle and feminine at the same time. The song ended quicker than he expected.
"That was short."
"Yeah," she said. "It's one of their shorter songs."
She didn't move away from him. He held his breath, dizzied by the closeness of her warm skin.
"Do you have a song that you particularly like?" he asked, fighting to regain his composure.
"I do. It came out two years ago. I heard it in a concert, with my mum. Back when, you know… I always listen to it when times get really hard. Or when I feel anything particularly intense. I don't know why. It's stuck in my head somehow."
"What's it called?"
"'Shadowboxer'."
Her finger toggled the machine for a few seconds.
"What's a shadowboxer?" he asked.
"It's someone who throws punches at the air."
He smiled, looking at her.
"Fitting."
She ignored him.
"You have to close your eyes to listen to it," she said. "It's the only way."
Draco nodded and leaned back on the couch, doing as she said.
As the song started, it made him think of Celestina Warbeck's music. A languid love song sang by a woman. But as the seconds progressed, the song quickly took him beyond anything that Celestina had ever produced.
Then you let your love abound
And you bring me to my knees
He unclenched his leg, slightly touching Hermione's with his. She twitched, but didn't move away.
Oh, it's evil, babe
The way you let your grace enrapture me
When well you know I'd be insane
To ever let that dirty game recapture me
Her voice had the clear sonorities of someone who has known pain and overcome it. He felt once again the urge to cry, and fought it back. He wasn't sure where that urge was coming from. He had always heard the worst things about Muggle art. Such an angelic voice could only belong to a witch, and yet…
You made me a shadowboxer, baby
I wanna be ready for what you do
I've been swinging around me
'Cause I don't know when you're gonna make your move
Draco remembered the way Hermione had struck him across the face. Shadowboxer. He grinned but didn't dare open his eyes. He remembered how in that moment, she had shook him awake for a few moments, out of their blood boundaries, out of magical strategies, out of their respective student statuses. It had been primal. It suddenly became very clear to him why that moment had been stuck so long in his head. Why it had somewhat felt like a clear marker between his childhood and teenagehood.
Oh, your gaze is dangerous
And you fill your space so sweet
If I let you get too close
You'll set your spell on me
So Muggle music did mention magic after all. Just in a metaphorical way.
So I'll be sure to stay wary of you, love
To save the pain of once my flame and twice my burn
Draco was sensitive to words. He stopped on that line in his head, making sure to note it down in a corner of his mind, so he could remember it. The urge to cry was followed by the urge to touch her further, and he tightened his eyes to escape both of them. He glanced at Hermione, and was shocked to see that she was silently crying.
"Hey," he whispered. "Hermione."
She shook her head.
"Hermione," he repeated blankly.
Draco was probably the worst person ever to cry in front of. Having never been consoled, he had no idea where to start. His usual go-to was to make jokes about the situation or ignore it, until the person stopped. But he remembered one of the countless times Pansy had cried in front of him, as he had neglected her throughout their relationship. There had been one time where she had lost it, and screamed at him that he could at least ask her if she wanted a hug. "What's so goddamn hard about that?" she had bellowed in his ear.
"Hermione?" he asked. She looked at him, eyes swimming with tears. "Do you, um. Do you perhaps want a um - I mean, would you -"
Before he finished his sentence, she nodded with a small whimper that was very unlike anything he had ever associated to her, and he opened his arms. She crawled inside of them, pressing her chest against his. She hugged him tight, and he hugged her even tighter. A delirious feeling of relief washed over him. Not because he had been waiting for this specifically. But because Draco had never been hugged so tight, by anyone. Never so hard, never so defencelessly. The smell of her body overpowered him. The feeling of her soft breasts pressing against his chest, of her strong arms squeezing him like her hand had when Disapparating, that feeling of being infinitely safe. Before he knew what he was doing, he leaned back with her in his arms against the back of the couch, so that her whole body rested against his. He felt a stitch crack on his ribs and his skin get painfully stretched, but he didn't let it take over. He could feel the her warmth of her thighs near his, and got physically aroused for the time in over a year. He tried to push her away in shame, but she clung to him. Her face emerged from his shoulder, only inches from his. Her stare clung to his eyes, and he could feel her breath touching his lips from the distance separating them. Her hand still held her wand tightly, just in case.
"Did you like the song?" she whispered.
"Yes", he answered, small specks of light flashing in his peripheral vision. "It's a really good song."
"A good Muggle song?"
"Yeah. You guys win."
She smirked, but didn't lean further nor closer. She just stayed close to his lips, putting him in a state of light-headedness like he had never experienced before. Her long brown hair brushed against his skin, and he stared at it.
"Do you like my hair?"
"I do," he said. "I've been having dreams about it."
"Good dreams?"
"I haven't had a good dream in a long time, Hermione."
She nodded, and slowly put her face in his neck, resting it there.
"You said that you were tenacious," she said. "As one of your good traits."
He nodded.
"Well, you're also a good hugger."
They stayed like this for a time that felt undetermined. A time that felt stolen from the war, stolen from pain, stolen from their history and the situation that they were both in. Like they were the teenagers they were always meant to be, hadn't they been forced to grow up too soon. He gently stroked the skin on the back of her arm and she rested her hand on his chest.
"Let's get up", he whispered after that stolen time had passed, after the waves had kept going back and forth, after the first dim sign of light appeared at the horizon. She nodded. They silently walked back up to the first floor. She walked up the stairs in front of him, and he walked right behind, resisting the temptation to stare at the back of her thighs. Her skin looked so soft.
He went back to his room. Her room was facing his, which was something he hadn't realised as he had gone to bed earlier than everyone. As she retreated, he looked into her eyes again, and they seemed lit with a dark fire. He shuddered. She silently casted Monitus at him, the low buzz resuming. She closed the door of her room behind her, and he did the same with his own. As he got into bed, he realised that he would not be able to fall asleep, for very different reasons that the ones that had held him awake for the past year. With a pounding heart and shivering hands, he got back under the covers and stared at the ceiling. The song kept playing in his head as abstract shapes traced their outline in the dark.
I'm a shadowboxer, baby I wanna be ready for what you do
And I've been swinging around at nothing
I don't know when you're gonna make your move