Hermione woke up surprisingly early the next morning. She clambered out of bed and hunted half-heartedly around the room for some clothes, yawning all the time. Her hair was tousled and messy and her eyes itched with tiredness. She doubted she could sleep again, though. She ran a brush briefly through her bushy hair, asked herself for the millionth time why she hadn’t kept using the Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion, and slipped down the stairs, wondering what felt so strange about the room.
Nobody was up when she got downstairs. Grumbling, she went back up; only this time she continued to the top floor.
Malfoy was still lying on the bed. His nose was crooked, his face was pale and thin, and his hair had become greasy again. She remembered clearly the time Mrs Weasley had washed him. She still felt horror as she thought about the marks that covered his chest. She was quite sure she knew what had earned him that punishment.
“How can you fight for someone who tortures you for not being able to kill someone else?” she said quietly. “These people hurt you, your friends, your enemies, everyone. How can you stand by them and fight the side that is working to keep you alive? Harry saw you, that night you were going to kill Dumbledore. He was under the Invisibility Cloak, in the corner. His was the second broom, remember? He heard every word you said, saw every movement you made “ or didn’t make, as the case may be.
“Why did you try to kill Dumbledore? He was always so good to you, so kind to everyone around him. He believed that people could be good. He was wrong about you though. You’re weak, a coward and a bully.” Her last words were muffled by a yawn and she rubbed her eyes in hope of getting rid of the tiredness. It was too early in the morning to start lecturing Malfoy on where his loyalties lay. She yawned again and drew her knees up to her chest, rested her chin on them and surveyed the boy before her. She had looked at him millions of times during the past few weeks, always seeing the same thing. Pale face, blond hair, thin hands, and the most recent addition, his crooked nose. She felt slightly guilty at the thought of it. Maybe Manken was right; maybe they had left it too late. “It was Ron’s fault really, not mine. You can’t blame me.”
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She was back again. Didn’t that girl ever sleep? She seemed to be with him 24/7. She probably couldn’t get enough of his good looks. But then again, who could?
And for her information, he could blame her. He could blame anyone he wanted. Though for what was still a mystery to him.
Back to her earlier questions. He spent half his time answering her questions and the other half wondering which ones she would ask next. He had tried to kill Dumbledore because the Harry Potter obsessed maniac had told him to. Granger didn’t understand.
‘He was always so good to you, why did you do it?’
In case she hadn’t noticed, he hadn’t actually done it. Snape had. Yes, the greasy haired, son of a “ crow, who had followed him around last year trying to steal all his glory. He had gotten it in the end.
So Potter had been on the tower. Damn, he had seen him in his moment of weakness. Second one, actually. The first one, Draco had ended up with his chest slashed open. Oh, he hated Potter. No, wait, he loathed him. How he loved that word.
For someone so smart, Granger was terribly stupid. If someone put a knife to your back and threatened to stick it in if you didn’t do what they said, would you stand there and let them kill you? No matter how good the person you’re trying to kill is, it’s better to murder them than let yourself die. Besides, Dumbledore wasn’t that kind. He had known all along what Draco was planning to do and he had never told anyone. Why? It would have been better to stay safe in Azkaban than to be where he had been after June. Who knew, he might even have gotten a cell with his father. Hold on, that was a bad thing; Lucius would probably strangle him to death.
Anyway, back to Granger. Hadn’t she ever heard of the saying:
‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’?
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Hermione didn’t stay long in the room. There was a draft coming from somewhere and the Ghoul was starting to make noise again. She slipped down the stairs and into the kitchen. She fetched her book from the sitting room and sat down at the table to read. Harry and Ron joined her not long afterwards.
“Hi Hermione, sleep well?” Harry said, yawning enormously. Hermione looked up and smiled.
“Well enough. You?” Harry shrugged and suppressed another yawn.
“I don’t understand why we’re so tired,” he grumbled, rubbing his eyes. “It’s not like we do anything all day.” Hermione snorted in agreement.
“So where’s Crookshanks?” Ron asked. Hermione shrugged.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.” Her voice made it clear that she didn’t want to continue the discussion. Ron took the hint.
“Oh.” And the conversation was dropped.
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However, when he didn’t turn up for food at lunch time, Hermione began to question her ironclad belief that nothing bad could happen to her beloved cat. Ron and Harry didn’t bring up the subject again. They were all sitting around the kitchen table; the boys were engaged in a fierce tournament of Exploding Snap with Bill. Hermione didn’t express her worries to any of them, afraid that they would think her overly anxious. She wasn’t; it was just that these times were dangerous and anyone, even a cat, could disappear, never to be found again.
“Bill?” she asked, trying to keep her voice casual. The latter looked over at her. “You haven’t seen Crookshanks anywhere, have you?” Bill thought for a minute, but eventually shook his head.
“No,” he said. “But he’s probably out hunting or something.”
“Oh, yes.”
“You weren’t worried about him this morning, Hermione,” Ron put in, in what Hermione considered a nasty voice.
“I’m not worried,” she snapped in reply. “I was just asking.”
“Yeah, right,” Ron muttered, apparently under the impression that Hermione couldn’t hear him.
“I was! It’s not like he’s never gone away before!” She was quite aware that she was lying, but she was keen to wipe that smug look of Ron’s face.
“Okay, okay.” Ron put his hands up in fake submission. Then added in an undertone, “Though, now that I think about it, I thought I saw something orange lying on the road this morning.” Hermione stood up so fast that her chair toppled backwards.
“Ron!” Bill and Harry said warningly.
“That’s not on, Ron,” Bill said angrily. To Hermione, he spoke soothingly. “Come on Hermione, you know he’s not serious. Sit down.” With a flick of his wand, the chair righted itself and Hermione sank into it, glaring at Ron in a seething silence, fists clenched.
No one spoke. Finally Bill stood up, the uncomfortable silence too much for him. He muttered something about sending an owl and departed to the upper rooms. Ron and Harry glanced at each other, but didn’t leave. Hermione wished they would; she didn’t really feel like having company at the moment. She dropped her head into her arms and left it there. After a few minutes, she heard the sound of chairs being scraped back and careful footsteps retreated from the room. She didn’t move, but let the darkness soak into her whirling mind. Her head always seemed to be spinning these days. Her thoughts were twisted and strange, as though they couldn’t come out straight. She kept her eyes closed and pressed them firmly against the back of her wrist. Murky blotches of colour rolled in front of her, followed by never ending fields of stars. She lost herself in the images and colours that kept her wild thoughts at bay.
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Silence. Floorboards were creaking far below where he lay. He listened intently. Lately his hearing had become sharper, picking up sounds that were further away and making them clearer. He had heard angry voices downstairs not too long ago. He hoped Granger wouldn’t be too long in telling him what had happened. Curiosity intensified as he heard stomping on the stairs. These footsteps faded away and instead a soft padding on the wooden floor took its place.
The door, he presumed, groaned as it was pushed open. He suddenly felt an unexplained fear rise within him. Was it Granger? If so, why wasn’t she talking yet? If not, who was it? What did they want? As much as he joked and scorned the thought of Death Eaters coming to get him, he couldn’t ignore the fact that he had many enemies in the world, both Wizarding and Muggle. He had seen his face plastered all over the Daily Prophet in the weeks after Dumbledore’s death, and on a few Muggle papers that he had found. Was he now as wanted as Sirius Black had been? Was death waiting for him among the Ministry? Had Granger called the Ministry? Were they there, right then, preparing to kill him? The dread increased. But nothing happened. Nothing he was aware of anyway. He thought he could hear breathing but it was very soft. But at any rate, if they had come to kill him, so be it. He was tired of living anyway, if this could be called living.
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The house was silent. She heard Harry and Ron’s whispered conversation as she passed their door but saw no sign of Bill. She continued her slow ascent, concentrating on each step. She found that if she was absorbed in something else then her thoughts weren’t able to bother her to the same extent. Hermione pushed open the door quickly; she had discovered that if done slowly it tended to creak and groan, so she always shoved it in as fast as possible without banging it. Why am I thinking about the working of a door? she wondered suddenly. There wasn’t really anything more pointless. With difficulty, she dragged her thoughts back to the other inhabitant of the room. Inhabitants, that was. A purring Crookshanks was sitting calmly on Malfoy’s chest, slowly kneading his claws on the bed cover and surveying her lazily.
“Brat,” Hermione muttered, and sat down on the bed beside him. She scratched him behind his ears and his purr increased. He began to wash behind his ears then, so she tickled him under his chin and he rolled over on his back. She stroked the soft fur on his stomach. “I thought you had run away. You scared me. Is that your idea of a joke?” He meowed lazily in reply. “Well, it’s not funny. If I lose you, who will I talk to when things get too awful? You had better hang around to see me through this war.” She sighed. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. What use am I? What can I do to help the Order?” She rubbed her eyes furiously with the sleeve of her jumper. Crookshanks was looking at her with something vaguely like pity in his yellow eyes and she sighed again. If a cat could understand her enough to sympathise with her, she really was in trouble.
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Silence. No, this time he was joking. Granger had come to talk to him. Or insult him, as the case had been. Brat, his foot. He hated it when people spoke to him as if he was three years old. No, wait; he loathed it.
He really had to stop doing that.
He wasn’t sure why Granger was telling him that she was useless. He had figured that out for himself long ago and without anybody else’s help.
He was quite sure at this stage that someone in the house owned a cat. It had stayed near him for a long time, waiting and purring until Granger came in. Then someone had turned on what sounded like an engine while she was talking, which was only punctuated by one meow. Strange people, these Muggleborns.
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Hermione went downstairs to tell Harry and Ron about Crookshanks and to get an apology out of Ron, thinking that now it seemed so melodramatic. Ron did say that he was sorry and the three were able to see the amusing side of the whole affair. They laughed about it longer than they should have, because in the end, it wasn’t that funny. Their laughter was more out of relief than amusement, each wishing every problem ended that easily. Finally, they lapsed into an almost nervous silence, as though they were waiting for something to happen. In the end, Hermione went back upstairs, unable to stand the tension any longer.
She settled herself into her usual chair with a sigh. The room was empty, save for herself and Malfoy. Crookshanks was devoting a lot of his time to catching up on any food he may have missed out on. Regretting her decision to leave him down there, she pulled her knees up to her chin and started to talk.
“I wish all our problems could be solved as easily as they used to be. I mean, now, after everything we’ve been through, all the years before our fourth seem very care free. Or maybe that’s just me.” She surveyed her sleeping nemesis thoughtfully.
“I want to help the Order. I want to help Hogwarts, the Muggles, the wizarding world, everyone!” She threw her hands up and out to show what she meant, forgetting for a moment that no one was there to see it. At this thought, she felt a lone tear trickle down her face. She pressed on anyway. “But I know, in the end, I won’t be able to help anyone. I can pretend I know everything, pretend that I’m able for war, but it’s all a lie. I can’t and I’m not. At the Ministry, I was more of a hindrance than a help to Harry. I allowed myself to let my guard down and I got hit. I couldn’t help Harry anymore. I was useless.” Now the tears were flowing freely, sliding down her cheeks to land in a gathering pool on her lap. “I want to help this time. I want to be there to protect Harry when he needs me. But I get frightened. Frightened when I’m faced with a task that is away from the safety of a classroom, frightened when there isn’t a familiar person there to tell me what to do.” She buried her face in her arms and continued in a muffled voice, forcing each word out.
“I hate feeling scared. I hate not being able to do anything just because fear holds me back. I hate the way my mind works when I’m afraid, so painfully slowly and maddeningly thorough. Most of all, I hate the way my mind works when the danger has passed, when the fear has receded. Since we found out Voldemort was back, I have had these horrible thoughts, ones I never intended to have in the first place. They crept into my mind, all those times I was worried about what Voldemort might be doing, or scared by what he had already done. I felt it when Mr Weasley was attacked, when Sirius fell through the veil, when all our friends’ relatives were being murdered, but it was strongest the night Dumbledore died. These thoughts slip in through the tiniest cracks of my barriers against them. They’re like poison, darkness seeping into my mind. And they make me think horrific things. But the worst part is that a bit of me sees sense in those words. They whisper to me while I struggle to keep them out. Their suggestions make me feel like I have a demon in my head …”
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Her words jolted something. Memories rolled over him. The darkness around him changed; its blackness became darker and more intense. Smoothly, as though he was watching a photograph, the gloom above him changed to a night sky; a raw wind penetrated his skin, chilling him to the bone. He barely had time to enjoy the feeling of the breeze on his face before the scene in front of him became clear. He was on the Astronomy Tower.
Albus Dumbledore was half-lying, half-leaning against the wall. The Headmaster’s face was pale and as Draco watched, he slid a couple of inches down the battlement. Severus Snape stood in front of him, his features contorted with fury and loathing. He raised his wand, his eyes taking on a sinister and maniacal glint. Draco glanced towards the corner where he knew Potter was crouched, invisible. He could almost see the horror on the latter’s face, and knew the same was reflected on his own.
“No,” Draco tried to shout, for the both of them, but the words would not come. Neither of his professors took any notice of him. Snape’s shriek of the Killing Curse echoed in the silent night. For the second time, Draco watched in terror as Dumbledore slowly rose in the air, as his already lifeless body was dropped over the wall, and as he fell to the ground surely hundreds of feet below.
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“These thoughts whisper infuriatingly in my head. They tell me of their plans and then explain them so that they make perfect sense. They say we should join him, join Voldemort. Just that. But they leave behind lingering reasons. I think them out when I’m alone. And I always end up with the same answer …”
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He was tearing across Hogwarts grounds, Snape at his side. Behind him, Potter was sending spells every way possible, shouting furiously at Snape. Snape stopped, telling Draco to run on.
So he ran, ran as fast as his legs would carry him; ran away from the fighting, away from the guilt, away from the old man lying dead at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower.
Tears ran down his face and sobs tore at his lungs. He was numb; nothing penetrated the wall of guilt and sorrow that surrounded his mind. His feet were those of another, thudding constantly on the hard ground. His eyes saw the same picture he had witnessed less than two months ago. This was his punishment, his torture. He would suffer this pain for his wrongdoings…
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“I always end up with the answer that they’re right. If we joined him, we could stop him killing as many people as he does. If we joined him, we might be able to work something out between him and Harry. If we joined him, everything might go back to the way it was. It might be better…”
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The scene changed just as smoothly as before. He was striding purposefully down a small, twisting and deserted road. He held his wand tightly in his grip. The dark Muggle jeans he had been ordered to wear contrasted sharply with the black cloak that swirled around his ankles. His grey eyes stared straight in front of him. Nothing was going to stand in the way this time. He would not fail on this mission. The house was just ahead, its lights barely visible in the dark night. Granger’s house. He could still hear his instructions in his head.
“Go to the Muggleborn girl’s house,” the Dark Lord had commanded. “Kill the Muggles there and take the girl. Bring her back here alive. She is no use to us dead. Do not come back without her.”
“Yes, my Lord,” he had replied hoarsely. Voldemort’s thin lips had curled into a cruel smile that could have frozen the sun.
“Remember, Draco,” he had whispered. “I do not forgive easily. One mistake I can tolerate - barely, but two… no, you must not fail this time, Draco, for your own sake.”
“No, my Lord,” he had rasped. “I won’t, my Lord.” The Dark Lord had waved a long-fingered and dismissive hand and Draco had hurried out. Hurried out to his doom.
Kill the Muggles, and take the girl. His ears still rang with those words. For your own sake.
His determination strengthened and he stepped out onto the road…
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“I never dared to tell Harry or Ron. I was afraid they would think I agreed with Voldemort, that I wanted him to take over. I don’t. I want to kill him, to destroy all his Horcruxes and see him die a more painful death than he has inflicted upon anyone else. I want him to know that he failed, that we won, before he dies. But those suggestions; I can’t help defending them, considering them. I would never do anything to help Voldemort, but if we joined… if we could reach an agreement… maybe it would be for the better. I’m not ever going to say this to anyone else…”
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That’s when he realised his mistake. He had no time to get out of the way. His legs remained glued to the road. He tried to yell, but “
BANG.
Hadn’t seen the truck. Hadn’t checked. A horn blared. Then died. Lights flared. And stayed. Memory, or reality? His head was heavy. So sore. Memory mixed with thoughts. Couldn’t tell one from the other. Hadn’t reached Granger. Had failed. He was going to die. Oh, please let him die. He didn’t want to live. The light was getting brighter. Like sun through a very grimy window. Or a glow through a filter. Flickering. Dancing. Like shadows. The light was clearer. The darkness was receding. He was getting out…
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“I’m just so glad you can’t hear me.” Hermione raised her tear-stained face to look at him. Suddenly, she noticed his expression had changed. With a puzzled frown, she leaned forwards.
Without warning, his eyes snapped open.
___________________________________THE END____________________________
AN; I wan to say a huge thanks to the fantastic mods who looked at this story, to the brilliant mooncalf for helping me when I got stuck, and to my wonderful readers and reviewers, especially bread_smoothie, cedriclover, and nicolestars!!! You're all amazing, thank you!!!