Chapter 9: Some flaws and other floopholes
"What? No!" exclaimed Hermione, trying to sound convincing despite her surprise at how quickly Malfoy had assumed that a burning letter indicated communication with that woman.
The boy's eyes glittered above his dark circles, and Hermione had the feeling that, for a moment, he could see through her lie.
"Brown also sent me a letter that self-destructed in the same way to explain about… the curse," he said almost solemnly.
Hermione blushed, realizing she had been discovered. If she had been quicker, she might have been able to deny it again and make up some lie on the spot, but she had let the seconds pass, and in the end, her silence had been confirmation enough of what Malfoy had insinuated. Or rather, accused.
"Why did you do it?" the boy asked, a hint of resentment in his voice.
"I just wanted to help," Hermione confessed, almost in a whisper.
The rage ignited in the Slytherin as quickly as a spark sets a gasoline canister on fire.
"I told you, you can't help me!"
Hermione wasn't someone easily frightened. She usually didn't back down from people's harsh words or yelling because she knew that, deep down, they were natural reactions to anger. But this time, there was something deeper than simple anger in Malfoy, something that made her hunch her shoulders a little as she sensed the fury radiating from his gaze.
It seemed so personal and intimate that it didn't take long for her to understand what was happening. Of course, now it was so obvious that she didn't know how she hadn't realized it before. No one could be that angry with someone whose only motivation was genuinely to help solve a problem unless...
"You knew," she said, convinced she was right. "You've known all along what you needed to do to free yourself from the curse."
The signs of exhaustion were becoming more pronounced in him, evident in how the fury Malfoy had felt a few seconds earlier had suddenly extinguished, giving way to a silent agony that was only present in his gaze.
"I didn't want..." he began, visibly tired. "I didn't want you to..."
"You didn't want my help," Hermione concluded. "Especially when the only way I could help you was... well, by letting you impregnate me. I understand."
Malfoy shook his head, as if there was much more beneath the surface. As if the problem was a huge iceberg and she could only see the part that jutted out of the icy water.
"Don't you get it? I want to get rid of this on my own, with Snape's help and his knowledge of curses. I trust he can remove it before... before it's too late," he argued, pausing and sighing before continuing. "I don't want to have a child. I'm too young. And, honestly, I don't think I ever want to have children. I've been forced to reflect on certain things over the past year and... I've learned a lot. Like how my family's blood has been cursed for generations. Why else are we so despicable? Why do we hate so much? Why do we hurt people so much? I wouldn't be burdened with a curse of this magnitude if I were a good person, right? Of course, I knew what I had to do to free myself from this, and I could have just slipped into the Muggle world and charmed some girl for a while. With a bit of luck, it would have all ended there. I would have disappeared from their lives. Problem solved. Who knows, maybe I'd even run into a kid who looked like me on the streets of Hogsmeade a few years later, when they got his Hogwarts letter. But the Malfoys have always climbed to the top by stepping on others. Don't you see, Granger? I can't get what I want if it means ruining someone else's life. Maybe I would have done it before, when the desire to get what I wanted blinded me and I didn't think about others, but not now. I want to break the cycle. And no, I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to feel obligated to help me. Do you think I want to bring a child into the world to carry the burden of such a name? I..."
Hermione felt overwhelmed by the unexpected burst of sincerity. Now she could see that Malfoy was very different from what he showed to others. She could sense it in the air they were breathing at that moment, in the serenity of his sharp features as he spoke about how he couldn't bear the idea of deceitfully impregnating an unknown young woman, even though the alternative was his own death.
And now, in this precise moment, Hermione could see why she had felt drawn to him in recent days. Because she had realized that, in private, when no one else was watching... Draco Malfoy was a different person from the one he showed to the world.
And she could perfectly understand what he was saying. It was madness to even consider having a teenage pregnancy. But Hermione had noticed a loophole in the curse. Something so small, so insignificant, that it could easily be overlooked by anyone. In fact, she didn't even think Beatrice Brown had noticed it when she cursed Malfoy.
"Actually... I think there's a way..." she began. "There's a way I can help you."
People had started returning from dinner, so the boy lowered his voice to add, "I don't see how you could. I already told you I don't want..."
"It won't be necessary," she assured him, cutting him off. "I don't plan on having children right now either."
The Slytherin looked at her with newfound curiosity. "I'm listening."
Hermione closed her eyes for a second, focusing on finding the right words and arranging them into sentences to convey what she wanted. When she felt ready to explain it as clearly as possible, she began to speak:
"According to Brown, you have to impregnate a Muggle-born, right? Well, that means... inseminating a girl. At no point does it mention that the girl in question has to give birth to a child," she continued, lowering her voice so no one would overhear their strange conversation, leaning forward and slightly hunched. "Do you see... do you see where I'm going?"
By the way the Slytherin's mouth gradually opened as she spoke, it was clear he hadn't even remotely considered that possibility.
But it was an option. In fact, it was his best option.
"Beatrice Brown wants you to impregnate a... Muggle-born," she continued. "But she probably overlooked that the process can be interrupted. If it's done within the next forty-eight hours, it will only be a few cells, do you understand? There are safe ways to do it. Sometimes accidents happen, even in the magical world."
Draco nodded, absorbing those words. Words that had just offered him a solution to his problem. Words that would surely become his salvation.
"Yes, yes, it makes sense," he said thoughtfully. "As soon as this stupid punishment is over, I'll ask Snape to find a way to get me out of here and take me somewhere where I can find..." He stopped, visibly uncomfortable. "Maybe I can use my arm injury to get a specialist appointment at St. Mungo's, where I could easily slip away to London and..."
As soon as Hermione processed what he was saying, she smiled, though the gesture didn't reach her eyes. She didn't know why she had assumed he would want the girl in question to be her, but unconsciously she had. Maybe because she had been the one to discover the small flaw in the curse, or perhaps because she was the Muggle-born "closer to hand" due to the punishment chaining them together. But now it was clear that this would not be the case.
How would he do it? Would he find some girl who just wanted a one-night stand and, after a few days, return with a potion to make her drink... maybe with an Imperius Curse while she was asleep? Whatever way he planned to do it, it was no longer her problem. She had done her part and had helped him discover a way to get rid of the curse without giving Mrs. Brown the satisfaction and without dying in the process, as could have happened every time Snape had tried to forcefully remove it from his body.
Hermione shuddered at the thought. She vividly remembered the moment when she saw Malfoy's soul slipping out of his body, like a blurry aura around him, while the professor tried to separate it from the curse to extract it without killing him. But it was so closely attached to him that if Snape had made a slightly rougher move, Hermione would have witnessed how his soul completely left his body, which would have fallen lifeless to the floor, at her feet.
She felt so many emotions at once that she was somewhat overwhelmed. Discomfort at that memory, horror at what could have happened, relief at having found a feasible solution, disappointment that he didn't consider her valid to end that damned matter here and now.
She didn't even know why it mattered to her so much. It shouldn't matter to her at all. She was aware that her feelings were veering into an emotional plane where she felt she had no right to be, so her more rational side quickly tried to find a reason for her frustration, soon concluding that maybe it was because of sex. Yes, that must be it. It had been a while since the last time and her body was already crying out for a bit of release, a night to forget about exams and responsibilities and simply abandon herself to the pleasure of the flesh.
But just as she had found a flaw in Beatrice Brown's curse, at that moment she also felt she was noticing certain gaps... this time in her own thinking. Because if she had the possibility of sleeping with anyone once she was freed from the punishment, why then did it only seem like an appealing idea if the person under the sheets with her was Draco Malfoy and not any other boy in the castle?
Her unfortunate internal diatribe was abruptly interrupted when Parkinson dropped beside her on the couch without warning.
"Bloody hell!" exclaimed Hermione, clutching her heart and pressing her chest as if that could slow the frantic beats caused by the scare.
"Hermione Granger using bad language... the world must be on the verge of an apocalypse or something," the girl mocked, then looked at Harry and patted the couch to invite him to sit on her other side.
"Damn it, Parkinson," Hermione continued complaining, still affected by the shock. "I hate you, you know that?"
The girl feigned sadness, pouting her lips and tracing the path of an imaginary tear from the corner of her eye to her jaw.
"And I wanted to start making an effort to be your friend..."
"What are you talking about?"
"Come on, Granger, you won't turn out to be the most prejudiced of the six, right? That would be quite a surprise."
Hermione leaned to one side to ask Harry with a look what the hell the girl she was sharing the punishment with was talking about, but Pansy also leaned in to become the center of her vision again.
"I mean, Granger, that maybe this week hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be." Hermione, who had raised an eyebrow, returned to an upright position. The Slytherin mimicked her and then continued, "Well, Potter hasn't been as bad company as I expected, you and that one over there haven't killed each other yet," she said, pointing to Draco, who was watching his friend from the bed as if she had lost a screw, "and Blaise and Weasley just confirmed at dinner that they're dating. You know, romantically and all that. So I suppose the punishment has served its purpose. I mean, I don't think Dumbledore's main motivation was to pair us up... Or maybe it was?" She cast a fleeting glance at Harry and then hurriedly tucked her straight black hair behind her ears in a gesture that, for a second, felt strangely shy for Pansy Parkinson. "Anyway! I think we've at least realized that we can coexist with each other, that we don't actually hate each other that much." She crossed one leg over the other and adopted a slightly leaning position towards Harry, giving her back a bit to Hermione. "We've realized that we can be close, together. I mean, without killing each other. Right?"
Hermione's eyes widened. Only one thing stuck in her mind from everything the girl had said: That Ron and Blaise Zabini had started dating.
"You're kidding me," she said, and then leaned in to get her friend's attention, who had suddenly become nervous. "Are you kidding me?"
Harry took a few long seconds to understand she was referring to him.
"Uhh... no, she's not kidding," he finally said, tearing his eyes away from Pansy with difficulty. "About Ron and Zabini, I mean, of course. They made it public at dinner. Ron was red as a tomato, but Blaise kept downplaying it, repeatedly saying they've always secretly liked each other and that this had been the perfect opportunity to be honest with each other."
"Yeah, honesty is super important," Pansy quickly intervened. "People should be honest when they like other people, regardless of what they think others might think and all that. You have to go with the flow."
Hermione and Draco, who were watching the scene from the outside, tore their eyes away from their respective friends and looked at each other, sharing a complicit moment in which they silently asked each other a clear "Is what I think is happening between these two actually happening?"
But Daphne and Astoria entered the common room just as the two exchanged a faint, faint smile. The younger sister glared daggers at Hermione and judged everyone present with her eyes while dragging Daphne away almost forcibly. And when Draco's smile vanished at the scene, only Pansy witnessed Hermione's smile disappear from her face as if it had never been there.