Chapter 4
Draco stood with his wand leveled against hers, fighting back the tears that held behind his eyes.
He always knew it was a risk, running into her. Every mission he went on there was a moment, a hesitation before entering every safehouse or battlefield, where he whispered a near-silent plea to whatever deity still acknowledged him that she would never end up where she was now, on the opposite end of his wand.
Draco took this as a confirmation that the last of the Gods had abandoned him.
He stood across from her and used what little time he had to drink her in, to have her in whatever way he could before one of them ended the other.
In this moment, his fingers grasped tightly at the base of his wand, but they were also wound snuggly in the curls of her hair.
In this moment, one arm was outstretched offensively while the other was stiff at his side, but they were also wrapped around her center, holding her as tightly to him as their flesh would allow.
In this moment, his chin was raised high and his eyes were narrowed and his lips were drawn straight, but he was also on his knees, inhaling against her stomach while his tears wet her jumper, pressing infinitesimal apologies into her being through his lips.
In this moment, they were enemies, they were friends, and worse yet, they were in love.
In this moment, they were everyone they had ever been, and yet, somehow, new people entirely.
—
Year Three
Hermione sat cross-legged on a table, flipping through one of the books she borrowed from the restricted section. There was no point hiding them within this room now that she had been caught red-handed, it wasn’t like she could read them in the common room or around the castle. She never borrowed a book for more than a week; she was very careful to make sure that everything was in the correct place for Madam Pince’s weekly Thursday evening cataloguing. This did mean, though, that she had to sneak back in every Friday to, once again, retrieve what she needed. And now, on her way back from the library each week, she took a detour to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
Hermione found it increasingly difficult to read as she waited, her mind drifting between the variety of pressing matters that had come up this year. She thought of Harry and his rising anxiety about Sirius Black’s escape, she thought of Buckbeak and his upcoming trial, she thought of Professor Lupin and her growing theories about him, and she even thought of Malfoy and his ongoing battle with the Boggart. How could she be what everyone needed her to be? How could she solve all of these problems circling around her like sharks?
Her eyes drifted upward to her reflection in the boggart cabinet, the mirrors on its surface reflecting moonlight around the room. They had been meeting for a few weeks now, and each week the result was the same. The same man– Malfoy had not confirmed the identity of the man, but Hermione felt confident she had connected enough dots to piece it together– would step out of the cabinet and raise his left hand to Malfoy’s chest. Malfoy’s eyes would drift downward to look at the wand aimed at him and he would freeze. Hermione would have to cast the spell and return the boggart to the cabinet as Malfoy slumped to the floor and calmed his breathing. Hermione would join him on the floor and they would argue, but then they would just talk. Sometimes they just sat in silence until one of them nodded at the other and they stood to leave.
Overall, it wasn’t a terrible way to spend an evening.
She was staring at the cabinet and thinking of how to help Malfoy when he finally slipped through the open door. He walked down the center aisle of the classroom and leaned against the table opposite her.
“Granger.” He greeted her, crossing his arms across his chest.
“Malfoy,” she responded in kind, “You’re late.”
“The only time I arrive after you and suddenly there’s some kind of schedule we’ve supposedly been following?”
She shrugged and turned the page in her book despite not having read a word of it.
“I don’t even know why you’re here. I told you not to come.” He muttered, crossing his legs at the ankles.
She kept her head down but looked up at him through her lashes, “You tell me that every week.”
“And yet, every week, here you are.”
“And yet, every week, here you are.” She mimicked, closing the book and putting it behind her. She hopped off the table and walked toward the cabinet.
“We’re wasting our time.” He said, not moving from his spot against the table, “I can’t even say the bloody spell.”
Hermione turned around, looking him in the eyes, “Say it now.”
“What?” He uncrossed his ankles and leaned back on his hands, looking at her with annoyance.
“Say the spell out loud. If the fact that you haven’t said the spell is putting you in a foul mood, say it now to get it over with. It’ll help.”
“It won’t help.”
“It will help, Malfoy.” She took a step towards him, “just say it. Riddikulus.”
“You’re riddikulus.” He said, pushing off of the table and bumping into her shoulder as he walked past her. She whirled around to tell him off but stopped herself when she saw the smirk on his face. He was teasing her, and not in a harsh way, in a lighthearted, almost friendly way.
“Feel better?” She asked, grinning back.
“Loads.” He rolled his eyes, taking his routine position across from the cabinet. Hermione walked over and lifted her wand to open the lock. She left the lock hanging on its hinge and stepped back.
“You’re ready.” She said, nodding her head.
“That didn’t sound like a question, Granger.” He raised his wand towards the cabinet as the corner of her mouth curved up at her.
“It wasn’t.” She smirked back, levitating the lock out of place and drawing it to her left hand.
The scene that unfolded was, unfortunately, entirely familiar. The cabinet door swung open slowly and the man stepped out, his eyes immediately falling on Malfoy as he smirked in a way that made Hermione’s skin breakout in goosebumps. This time, Hermione chose not to look at the man, but to focus her attention on Malfoy. His wand trembled slightly in his hand as the man emerged, and she watched his eyes frantically scan from head to toe. His lips parted with a shaky inhale as he clenched and released his right hand at his side. When the man raised his wand, Malfoy’s eyes focused in on the object– no, on the man’s arm– and were frozen there. Hermione’s stomach flipped. If she had any doubts who the man was, or what Malfoy’s true fear was, they dissolved in that moment of realisation. His fear wasn’t the wand trained on his face, his fear was that mark on the man’s arm, and the possibility of who he himself could become.
“Say the spell, Malfoy.” She said, not looking away from him.
He took a steadying breath and stood up straighter, his eyes unmoving. He flicked his wrist and with a flourish of his wand, uttered the spell:
“Riddikulus.”
Nothing happened. The man smirked back at Malfoy, unphased, and went to make an identical movement with his left hand. Hermione interrupted, casting the spell herself and sending the boggart back into the cabinet.
Malfoy threw his wand, releasing a frustrated groan followed by a quieter expletive as he looked toward the ajar classroom door. He slumped down to sit on the floor and hit the side of his fist on the ground. Hermione said nothing, silently replacing the lock. She walked over to retrieve his wand from the floor before taking a seat next to him.
“You said the spell.” She said quietly, placing his wand between them.
“Fat lot of good it did.”
“That’s not the point, Malfoy.” She shook her head at him, “The point is that you said it, which is an improvement.”
“Your optimism is nauseating.” He rolled his head over his shoulder and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
“I like to think it's rather motivating.” She shrugged, smirking down at her fingernails.
“I’d rather be hexed into improvement.”
“That could be arranged.”
He released a sharp exhale out of his nostrils, a small, almost-laugh.
“We’re done here. I’m not doing this again.” He said definitively, rolling his head back to look at the ceiling. “Sorry to ruin your weekly entertainment, I’m sure you and Potter have a right laugh every weekend recounting my failure, but it’s over.”
She gaped at him, “What did you just say?”
He kept his eyes fixed upward, not responding.
“Are you being serious? You think I come here every week just so I can report to Harry?” She smacked him on the arm when he didn’t respond, “Answer me, Malfoy! Is that what you truly think?”
“I don’t know, Granger!” He finally turned to look at her, throwing his hands up exasperatedly. “Why else would you be here?”
It was a fair question. She had very little reason to help him, and for several weeks she wondered the same thing.
“I’m here to help you, you bloody idiot.” She crossed her arms over her chest, “I haven’t even told Harry that I’m coming here. I haven’t told anyone.”
“Oh, so it's some dirty secret then? A way for the goody-two-shoes Gryffindor to get her rocks off?”
“You have got to be kidding me!” She laughed in disbelief, “Is it that hard to believe that I’m here without some ulterior motive? That I genuinely want to be here? To help you?”
He looked away, avoiding her eyes.
“You’re a right prick sometimes, Malfoy.” She muttered, tightening her arms around herself and also looking away.
“So I’ve been told.”
Despite the tension, the silence between them was oddly comfortable. When they spoke, she felt like she was balancing aloft on a tightrope, having to toe the line between pushing the boundaries of whatever this was and pulling back into a protective shell. She could see him doing the same. Sometimes, their conversations felt like friendly banter, but sometimes his words stung. In the silence, they just were. Somehow, when they sat there, simply inhaling and exhaling in time, things felt less complicated.
“I’m sorry.” He muttered under his breath. Hermione almost missed it, having closed her eyes and relaxed into the quiet. When she realised what he had said, she couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face.
“What was that?” She turned her head to look at him and just caught the end of his eye-roll as he looked up at the ceiling. “I didn’t quite catch it.”
“Don’t be cheeky.” He grumbled.
“Me? Cheeky? I would never! I just want to be absolutely confident that what I heard was a true Malfoy apology.”
“Oh, now who’s a right prick?”
She laughed and pushed at his shoulder; he laughed in return and shoved her, nearly knocking her over. She released a shriek involuntarily.
“Huh? Who’s there?”
The pair looked at each other with panic in their eyes as the voice carried into the classroom from the corridor. They simultaneously rolled over their hips to lay flat on their stomachs, trying to make themselves as small and imperceptible as possible. The last thing they needed was for someone to walk in on the two of them, not only sitting in an empty classroom, but laughing and being playful together.
As they waited, Hermione couldn’t help but notice how her arm was pressed flush against his from shoulder to fingertips. She didn’t dare move. She held her breath and felt tension run through every muscle in her body as she waited for whoever heard them to walk through the door. After a few moments, she heard Malfoy exhale.
“I think it was a portrait.” He whispered. “I think we’re okay.”
She nodded, releasing her breath as well. Neither moved as they both took several deep inhalations; Hermione took extra care not to flex the fingers that brushed against the backs of his hand, suddenly feeling anxious about the contact between them. She turned her head and saw him looking at her. When their eyes met, the two resumed laughing.
Hermione thought about their balancing act as they pushed themselves up to seated positions. He must have felt it, too: a testing of limits, a small shift in their dynamic over these last few weeks. How much was too much to push? At what point would he pull back defensively? She took a deep breath, resigning herself to find out.
“Can I ask you something?” He looked at her expectantly, giving her silent permission to continue, “It’s about Buckbeak.”
He shook his head at her.
“Come on, Malfoy. You could stop all of this–”
“No, I really can’t, Granger.”
“Of course you can!” She put her palm down onto the floor and pushed herself to rotate fully toward him, “You could call your father, you can stop the trial–”
“Granger, I can’t.” He interrupted her, “I know I can’t, because I tried.”
She paused, looking at him confused, “You what?”
“I owled my father,” He nods, “Weeks ago. After we had met here a couple of times. I– I guess I felt guilty now that you were helping me. Thought it would make us even.”
“You asked him to call it all off?” She clarified. He nodded at her in return.
That was, truly, the last thing she expected to hear. He had tried to save Buckbeak. He had written to his father and tried. Even if it was out of some sense of obligation or ‘getting even,’ it meant something. It meant he wasn’t entirely as cartoonishly evil as he portrayed.
“He thought I was being cowardly. He floo-called to properly ream into me, saying that Malfoys don’t change their mind and Malfoys don’t back down. I tried, Granger, but– I couldn't. If my father thinks I’m being weak, it– it just wouldn’t be good for me.”
“Wouldn’t be good for you?” She gawked. So, maybe still slightly evil. “Buckbeak could die, Malfoy!”
“I understand that but I can’t–”
“You can’t or you won’t?” She glared at him, crossing her arms. She expected him to glare back, but he just looked at her defeated, his shoulders slumping as he exhaled.
“You don’t know him, Granger.” He shook his head, speaking softly. “My father. If he thinks I’d embarrass him... If he thinks I’m not living up to my name… it’s all he cares about.”
She was silent, the anger she felt slowly evaporating. He was right, she didn’t know Lucius Malfoy, but what she did know was enough to understand Malfoy’s fear. If what he said was true– and she had no reason to believe it wasn’t– it was heartbreaking. She couldn’t imagine having that kind of a relationship with her own father. The fear of him was evident but overall their relationship just seemed… resigned. Cold. Distant. The longer his confession hung in the air the more it gnawed at her. She let the silence sit for as long as she could bear before speaking up again.
“Malfoy,” She asked, scanning his face for a reaction, “What do you mean it wouldn’t be good for you?”
“I mean…” She half expected him not to answer, but he merely paused, thinking through his words before continuing. “I think my father would do anything for a fraction of the power he once had. He would do anything to anyone. Including me.”
She nodded, the weight of the conversation sitting heavy on her chest. He didn’t need to elaborate, she was familiar enough with the lore of the Malfoy family to understand the implication. He toed a line at home, not unlike the one they toed here. There was push and pull between who he was expected to be and who he is. She could see that after only a few weeks of genuine time spent with him.
“I really am sorry, Granger.” He said quietly, “I wish I could take it back.”
“Me too.”
He exhaled sharply. “I wish I could take a lot of things back.”
“Yeah,” She smiled sadly at him, “Me too.”