Chapter 5
There is a truth that swirls thick through the air between them, and despite the certainty of this truth, neither can bring themselves to speak it.
“I’d be lying if I said I was glad to see you,” Draco says, smiling softly despite the tears rolling down his face. A sob escapes from her throat as she tries to smile back and she tastes fresh salt on her tongue.
While not a lie, this is not the truth that hangs between them.
“Draco,” She chokes out, shaking her head at him, her eyes closing briefly as she sniffles. She brings her left hand up and stifles another sob with her sleeve. “I can’t do it, you know I can’t do it.”
Hermione thinks that nothing has ever been more true. And yet, this is not the truth they are avoiding.
“I know, love.” He nods, the tip of his wand dipping slightly, though not retreating altogether. “But you have to.”
The truth is suffocating, stealing the oxygen from the room. They inhale, but the truth is too thick for their airways; they gasp and choke, their eyes watering from the pressure within their chest. Hermione begs him with her eyes not to speak the truth aloud, to let it crush them under its weight. Would it not be better that way?
“Because you know as well as I do,” his voice cracks as he speaks and she shakes her head, begging him not to continue.
Please, don’t speak this truth out loud.
“We can’t both leave this room.”
—
Year Three
Draco froze mid-step as she slipped through the open door of the classroom. He lowered his hands which had been gripping his hair at the root.
“I didn’t think you were going to come,” was all he could manage to say.
“I almost didn’t.” She muttered back, dropping her bag on a front-row table as she walked up to the boggart cabinet.
Draco felt a stab in his chest as she walked by without looking at him. He should speak up, he thought to himself. He should try to explain, though he wouldn’t even know where to start. He should do something other than just stand there, surely, but nothing he could think of felt adequate.
“Gra-”
“Don’t, Malfoy.” She said, fiddling with the lock and taking a steadying breath. “Don’t apologize.”
His mouth hung open loosely. She was getting to know him better, it seemed, because that’s exactly what he planned to do: to apologize for what had happened that week at Hogsmeade. He had been thinking about it nonstop, the way he accosted her and Weasley, the horrible things he said and what he called her. He couldn’t think of anything else since it happened. It had been driving him mad. He snapped his mouth shut and tried to start again.
“I just want to explain–”
“How could you possibly?” She turned around to look at him, tears brimming in her eyes, “How could you ever explain the difference between who you are in here and who you are out there? I certainly can’t! I can’t explain it, I can’t justify it, I can’t even begin to understand it.”
He flinched at the intensity of her words, but more so at the truth behind them. He didn’t entirely understand it either. He was grateful for her help with the boggart, but more than that, he just genuinely enjoyed spending time with her. Then, when he left this room, everything about his life told him that was wrong, that being friends with Hermione Granger was never an option for him.
“We’ve been coming here for months now, Malfoy, and I– I like doing it, despite myself! I enjoy helping you and talking to you and joking with you and… and just being here!” She was exasperated, and Draco could tell how difficult this was for her to admit out loud; and yet, she continued, “But then when we leave this room and the sun comes up you’re mean and hurtful and calling me a mud–”
“Granger.” He interrupted, not able to bear hearing her say the word he uttered not two days earlier. He looked down at his shoes, shame welling up inside him until he worried he might drown in it. “Please don’t.”
She let out a small, sardonic laugh on an exhale at his request, but abided.
“I just don’t know what it means, Malfoy, what any of this means.” She dropped her hands, defeated. Draco could see a small droplet splash against the floorboards at her feet. “I need you to tell me what’s real.”
He released a long exhale at the floor before raising his head up and backwards to look at the ceiling. He took another breath to steady himself before lowering his chin to look at her.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” he shook his head, “It’s all real, Granger.”
She nodded slowly in agreement, letting the statement breathe. She deserved a better explanation, but he couldn’t give her one. There wasn’t one. It was all real, and she had to know that as well as he did. The people they were in here and the people they were out there were the same people, somehow, despite themselves. The budding connection they shared here was incredibly real, but the circumstances of their lives were, unfortunately, also real. He was still a Malfoy, and she was still muggle-born. They were both still constantly surrounded by family and friends who hated the other; their secret joy and stolen laughter couldn’t erase that, no matter how increasingly powerful.
“I was afraid you’d say that.” She sighed, keeping her gaze on the floor, as well.
He dug his toe into a divot on the classroom floor.
Finally, after a beat of silence, she spoke. “Do you believe it?”
“What?” His head jerked up and he narrowed his eyebrows at her.
“When you call me that, do you believe it?” Her tearful eyes got suddenly serious as she lifted them to meet his gaze. There was sadness there, but also a blinding courage, the courage to ask the difficult questions. “Because if you do, Malfoy, then I deserve to know because… because then what are we even doing here–”
“I don’t.” He cut her off. “I swear to you, I don’t. I mean, I did… I used to, but not now.”
“What changed?” She asked him quietly, voice cracking.
Gods, what a question. Draco closed his eyes and tried to pull together a response. What changed? He went to fight a boggart and someone– someone brave and brilliant– saved his life. As if that weren’t enough, she also decided to help him, and somehow Draco knew that it wasn’t out of pity or obligation, it was just what she did. She taught him with a patience and optimism that he had never known. She let her guard down, and he did the same; they enjoyed each other’s company. She was forgiving, and giving him a chance, despite everything he had put her through, and well, that flipped any preconceived notions about blood purity on its head. In only a few months, she had dismantled the entire belief system he had grown up in. She deserved to hear that entire inner monologue working its way through his mind, he thought, but she didn’t deserve to hear it as an excuse.
“Everything.” He shrugged, trying to brush it off. It didn’t work, of course, and she waited expectantly for him to continue.
“It’s just that– fuck.” he exhaled, gripping at the roots of his hair again. “Look, can we just fight this thing and get it over with?”
“Of course, we can’t!” She took several steps toward him while throwing her arms in the air, exasperation playing out on her face, “Because this is the boggart, Malfoy! Gods, don’t you see? This is the fear you have to face. This is what you have to conquer!”
She stood in front of him, searching his eyes. When he didn’t respond, she shook her head, turning away from him and walking back to the cabinet door. Draco heard the cabinet lock snap back together and he clenched his fists at his side.
“You have to figure out who you are, Malfoy. You have to figure it out for yourself. If you can’t do that, maybe we are wasting our time.”
She walked past him to pick her stuff up off the table and began heading towards the door.
Draco kept his eyes on the floor, listening to every step she took. He continued to clench and unclench his fists, inhaling deeply and exhaling shakily.
He had to figure out who he was. It was like a cosmic joke. Everyone told him who he was. He was the Malfoy heir, pureblood royalty, slytherin legacy. He would excel in his courses and be a star on the quidditch team. He would go on to do whatever job his father deemed most beneficial for the family and marry whoever his mother deemed most suitable to carry on the family bloodlines. He would do what was expected, because it was expected. Because he was a Malfoy.
And yet, he was here, in the last place anyone would expect him. Every week he came to this room, with this witch, and didn’t give a damn what was expected. In this room, he was not an heir or royalty, somehow he wasn’t even a bully. He was a peer. He was categorically not excelling in this particular topic, and he was spending– no, enjoying– his time with this muggle-born witch who his parents would definitively not approve of in any capacity. Here, he was, ironically, not a Malfoy. Here, he got to be Draco, if for only a few hours.
He didn’t know who he was, but this felt like the closest he had ever been to finding out.
“Granger, wait.” He didn’t realize he was speaking until the words were already out of his mouth. He took another breath as she stopped walking halfway down the classroom’s center aisle.
“It is all real,” he exhaled, “but it’s not… everything about… Look, it’s not easy to admit, but of everything in my life right now, I think this is the most real. This is where I feel the most real.
“At home, I’m basically a ghost, or a portrait on the wall.” He cringed, confessing things he hadn’t shared with anyone else, “My parents are so wrapped up in themselves they barely acknowledge each other, let alone me. When I’m not at Hogwarts, I sometimes go days without talking to anyone. It’s pathetic, really, but sometimes I call on my house elves just to make sure my voice still works. When my mother calls on me, it's to test me for etiquette, and when my father does, it’s for an errand I would rather not attend. My parents aren’t cruel, and they love me, but aside from that, they’re not really available, and I walk around like… like a shadow.”
She nodded slowly and took a seat atop the table nearest her. He ground his teeth before continuing.
“When I started here, everyone knew me. I was getting noticed and I felt so important; well, except for when Potter put me in my place.” The corner of his mouth raised at the same time as hers as they both recalled the memory. The gentle encouragement kept his mortification at bay. “When I sat at the Slytherin table for the first time, people wanted to be my friend. I didn’t feel invisible anymore. It was incredible. For the first time, I felt like I was truly seen. I felt real.
“But I hadn’t made friends,” He kicked at the floor, feeling ashamed at his admission, “Not really. People wanted to get close to me because of my name; they sought me out because their father had talked about my father, or their mother had told them who I was. People wanted me to like them, would do anything or be anyone to get in my good graces, but they didn’t care about me. I could do anything I wanted and no one would challenge me, so I did.”
He took a deep, steadying breath and looked up at her.
“Which led me here, to an empty classroom on a quest to unleash a boggart on the school because I felt entitled to it. And I never thought twice about that, not until you came, and truthfully, not for a few weeks after that. Now I realize how reckless and stupid I’ve been, but not just about that. You show up here each week and you– you push me and you scold me and you correct me. You make me justify my actions and my ideas in a way that is infuriating.”
He paused to release a small laugh through his exhale, then flexed his hands at his side as he continued, “Everything I was taught as a child, every belief I held, everything I’ve done, you challenge it, Granger, and it’s maddening. Sometimes, I feel like I’m being split in two trying to make space for the beliefs I held and the ones I’m developing.”
At this point, he didn’t even know if his words made sense.He tried to read her face but she kept her expression expertly neutral.
“I don’t think I want to be that person anymore, Granger. I like the person I am here, in this room, and I would like to be him all of the time.” He let out a shaky breath, “But I don’t think I can. Even if I rewrite every piece of myself, I will still be a Malfoy. I will still have to deal with my father and be the heir that he wants. I will still have to play the part– even if it is an act– outside of this room, because that is what is expected of me. Maybe that will change, one day, but that’s what it is right now. If you can’t understand that, or if it’s too much cognitive dissonance for you, I won’t blame you for walking out of that door and not coming back.
“But, to your question, yes, this is real. This— us— getting along and having a laugh, it’s real. And I wish I could tell you that everything else isn’t but I don’t want to lie to you, Granger. That’s also real. That’s who I have to be, for now. So, that’s my answer. It is all wholly and entirely and unfortunately real.”
He waited for her to respond, but she remained seated on the table, looking down at her hands. Not knowing what to do himself, he chose to mimic her, leaning up against a table and looking down at his feet. He didn’t look up when he heard her feet fall to the floor, unwilling to watch her leave the room.
He gasped when her hand landed on his left forearm and remained there, reassuringly.
“Thank you,” she said, softly, “for not lying to me.”
He kept his eyes locked on her hand against his skin as he nodded.
“I’ll see you next week, Malfoy.” His head lifted suddenly as he met her eyes.
“What?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, removing her hand from his arm to adjust the strap of her bag. The tone of the room shifted with the subtle change in her posture.
“I get it.” She shrugged, “In here, unlikely co-conspirators. Out there, mortal enemies. I can keep up.”
He nodded, trying to understand it himself. This was part of their dance. He had given a lot with his little monologue, so she was changing the tone. He had pushed, so she would pull.
“Right,” he said, trying to act casual, despite the wet streaks on his cheeks and the knots in his stomach “co-conspirators and mortal enemies.”
He pushed himself off of the table and followed her towards the classroom door.
“What could possibly go wrong?”