Kairos: Mageia

Draco angrily stormed through the dark halls of Hogwarts castle, wrenching his tie off his neck and throwing it on the ground. If his mother could see him, she’d be so ashamed, and would probably lecture him about how nice that tie was or how he was mussing his formal dress shirts, but damn it, he could hardly care. 

He could hardly think right now, he was so incredibly furious. He knew that the gossip would be all over the school tomorrow, how he’d been ceremoniously kicked out of Slughorn’s stupid Slug Club party, but that wasn’t what stoked his ire. 

He hadn’t ever really been upset at not being invited. It was a ruddy joke anyway, with who he asked to be in his weird little meeting. Slughorn’s mind had really gone south since he taught his father, that was for sure. Lily Evans had been a strange one, maybe a Charity case, but the requirements for admittance were much stricter. Now? Slughorn had been poisoned by Dumbledore. He let anyone with half a brain in, and frankly, Draco was pleased he hadn’t been asked. Yeah, he was downright glad! 

He hadn’t been interested in the party, to begin with. Draco Lucius Malfoy had hundreds, no thousands, of better things to do on his weekends! He could have any bird he pleased, he could be smoking with Theo near the Black Lake, he could be doing homework...okay, so that option sucked, but it just went to show that writing Binn’s history paper would have been preferable to showing up willingly to that party.

So why did he go? 

Pfft...well, because! 

Everyone expected Draco to try to go, and he wasn’t going to disappoint, obviously! Plus, he wanted to see how pathetic the security was.

Okay, so it was better than expected. He hadn’t even been able to slip a canape. Ten points for Slughorn, he guessed? If anything, he should have been congratulated for proving the anti-invitation wards around the party were running top-notch. 

And yes, it was humiliating to be kicked out of the party in front of everyone by Filch of all people. That was proper shite. 

And sure, it was unfortunate he didn’t get to try just a taste of the fare since Slughorn did have a good sense of culinary tastes.

But what was making him so absolutely furious right now was the look a single person had given him. No, not the laughing and pointing. No, not the sighing. No, not the snorts.

It had been the one single look of pity, straight from Miss Hermione Granger. 

How dare she look at him like that? Who gave her the right to feel bad for him? She should feel sorry for herself, with her buck teeth (which, weren’t so bucked anymore) or her frizzy hair (which, looked very nice tonight), or her stupid-know-it-all brain (which, Draco might be a tad bit envious about). 

The question that he should be asking, he considered belatedly, is why did he even care? And the fact that he realized on some level he did care was what was making him so out of sorts right now. 

It shouldn’t bother him. He shouldn’t give a flying hippogriff what little Miss Muggleborn (no, Mudblood. She was a mudblood, arg!) thought of him, it shouldn’t! 

Obviously, Potter had been a thorn in his side since day one. No brainer.

Ron was...irritating. But when he’d started imagining Weasley as just a badly trained chihuahua following Potter around everywhere, around, oh, year three, and since then...his complaining was just background yapping.

And most Gryffindors he just straight-up ignored. Or rather, forgot about. Until kids like Dean Thomas of Faye talked, he often didn’t remember that they existed at all, and he was always startled by their very existence. 

He’d tried that with Hermione. He tried to think of her as a snotty poodle or something, but that didn’t work. And he tried to ignore her, take her out of his mental memory, but she was...persistent. 

Hermione Granger had been the ghost just out of the corner of his eyes at every turn, the whisper in the back of his head as he was falling asleep, and the scent he smelled for just a second as he turned a corner. He felt flustered around her, his chest clenched, and he always felt warm on up his neck. 

Last year, he’d tried watching her, trying to figure out why. 

She was intelligent. Fine. He’d give her that. Arrogant, like any damn Gryffindor, but she knew her shit. Unlike a lot.

She was passionate. She cared about things. Sometimes, he wished he could care more...sometimes he wished he had the permission, rather, to care like that. 

She was also so stubborn. He’d began to recognize the glint in her eyes when someone told her to let something go, the sort of narrowness she’d show on her expression, and he knew that whatever it was...she wouldn’t stop unless she was dead. It applied to small issues, like a particularly vexing and deeply complicated charm, to big issues such as defeating Voldemort.

But there were loads of people that were intelligent. And passionate. And stubborn.

However...was there anyone he knew that was all three? 

He had told himself that he was merely fixated if that was even the proper term for noticing someone on occasion because it was the qualities he wished he saw more often in himself. Yeah, he could self-psychoanalyze. Slytherins were great at that.

It wasn’t that he worshiped her. The thought itself was preposterous...worshiping a muggleborn-no, a mudblood, like her? Ha!

It was more that he felt like he was looking at her as the person he hoped to be. A sort of framework. And obviously, once he achieved that, his interest in Granger would wane to be nothing more than a ‘huh, oh yeah’ once in a blue moon. 

Still, the one thing he could not stand was her pity.

If she really ever examined him, he was absolutely sure she’d find a lot she wished she could be too! So...so, yeah. 

He paced three times back and forth outside the Room of Requirements. 

After the party left him feeling like nobody, he needed to be reminded he had a glorious purpose. He had a goal. He had a task that was so special that he doubted it would have been given to even the most senior of Death Eaters. But Voldemort had picked him and that had to mean something.

When he flung the door open, expecting to see the Room of Lost Things, he instead found...nothing.

Damn it, Granger had been in his head like a siren, distracting him. He hadn’t been thinking properly. He needed to do it again.

Just as he was about to close the door and pace once more, he noticed the room itself was not totally empty. There was something large, covered with a tarp, sitting in the shadows of the back of the room.

Curiosity was not one of Draco’s natural tendencies. So honestly, he couldn’t tell you why he decided to venture into the room, what tugged him forward so. Perhaps his mind was just a bit fuzzy from everything, and he wasn’t thinking right.

Whatever the reason, he clutched the canvas cover, with a thin layer of dust over it, meaning it had not been used in quite some time, and he tugged the protection away.

As soon as Draco saw the gleam of gold and the light from the one tiny window reflecting off something, he knew what he was looking at.

Despite the best efforts, the news about Harry and the Mirror of Erised spread like wildfire. Everyone had some sort of idea what went down their first year, and while he was sure some parts of the legend were greatly exaggerated, there was always a sliver of truth hidden somewhere.

Plus, Draco could spell. Even if the word was backward.

So, though he wasn’t currently facing the front, Draco knew what the mirror was capable of doing. More solidly, he’d (like everyone else) had a long time to consider what the mirror would have shown him.

The first thought, at his age now, was it would show him at the right hand of Voldemort, his most trusted soldier. He’d be even richer, he’d have whatever he wanted, and no one would look at him with pity...only envy, or lust. 

Still, he had to remember that the mirror knew the most sacred of truths, and that seemed like low-hanging fruit.

Okay, second choice, and a bit more embarrassing to admit, but maybe it would be him and his parents. They wouldn’t be doing anything special, perhaps just all reading in their house- with no one else there- together. He might see his mother reach over and kiss his father’s cheek and caress Draco’s hand, and he’d look up and smile at her.

Draco turned sharply to leave, sure that this is what he’d see if he looked anyway, because this had to be something deeply hidden, right? That desire above all else? 

He didn’t think it would intrigue him so, but when he was two steps from the door handle, he turned back around cautiously.

Even if he could imagine that picture in his mind, magic was, well, magical. And it would be something else to see it in front of him.

He was weak. He was weak, but fuck it, he couldn’t help it.

Draco slowly turned to walk to the front of the mirror, eyes closed until he was standing squarely in front of it. He grinned a bit, exhaled, and opened his eyes. 

What he saw was not his mother and father, and what he did see have him startling back, almost falling.

In his reflection, Hermione Granger grabbed his shoulders, giggling as she steadied him. 

Draco felt his mouth dry out and his mouth hung open. With utter, mystified confusion, he approached the mirror. He reached out to touch, sure the ruddy thing was broken, because why? Why in the name of Merlin’s beard was he seeing Hermione Granger in the mirror-world? 

And more than that, why...why was she smiling so fondly at him, pressing her cheek against his upper arm, her own tiny hands, reaching for his palms. And his other self, who looked far less exhausted and strained, glanced down at her, the same stupidly besotted look on his face too.

A look he’d never given anyone, but hell...he knew what it was.

Draco, in real life, felt his knees buckle as his chest beat so fast that he felt lit might explode. His heart was tight and frantic and his cheeks were flushed a bright shade of vermillion. 

He honestly could not make sense of this visage, this vision. 

As he sank to his knees, mind reeling and frantically trying to connect the dots he somehow knew was already waiting, Hermione worriedly sank to kneel beside him. Her hands were on his cheeks, and she was looking at him with extreme concern. 

Not pity, a sense of disquiet...for him. Just for him.

Everything dropped into place as she reached forward to kiss him, and while his brain was unattached from itself, he had the passing thought that he wished he actually knew what that truly felt like. He genuinely was jealous of his reflection self having kissed Hermione Granger.

Draco almost violently threw himself away from the mirror, inhaling hard and fast.

Oh, oh, oh. 

He was totally gone for Hermione Granger, wasn’t he? He was properly smitten, fancied her, utterly obsessed. 

Also, apparently, quite stupid.

That feeling in his chest? The unbearable one whenever he was in the same room as her? Apparently, that was affection.

It was awful.

Yet, he wanted more of it. 

He crept back around to see Hermione waiting for him, and she reached for him, like he was her water in the desert, and pulled him into a warm, tight hug.

And though he was sure it was a phantom touch, he was sure he could feel the pressure against him, as though her tiny figure was truly embracing him. 

“Oh, what you’ve done to me,” Draco said roughly, shaking his head.

He felt unable to leave, as though someone spelled him to remain here. He wasted away what felt like the whole night, just watching his other self receive affection and closeness to someone he’d never had. 

By the time he picked himself up, his limbs were aching from remaining in the same position, immobile. The sky was not quite lit, but the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon.

Draco indulged in one last glance before he covered the mirror again, telling himself he’d waste away if he let himself ever return.

As he opened the doors to the halls, the doors nudged something balled up in front of them.

His first panic was that there was a dead body here, which was a more realistic guess than it should rightly be.

The figure, wrapped in what looked like a blanket from one of the dorm beds, groaned and yawned at the interruption, rubbing their eyes.

As the face squinted up, changing from grogginess to something unreadable, Draco’s brain fried itself to absolutely nothing.

“Hermione?” He said, kicking himself, because he never had called her that, “Err, Granger?” He bit the inside of his cheeks, frustrated and angry because the mirror was just a mirror and this was reality, “Trying to catch me in some devious act, hm?” He spat, his own feelings mingled with the resounding reminder that she would like nothing more than to see him in Azkaban. 

“Malfoy,” Hermione said behind a yawn, “You were in there all night.” 

“Stalking now, are we?” He crossed his arms, trying to push down that wonderful, agonizing feeling of love for her. 

“I was...I saw you were caught at the party,” She said. 

“Huh. Yeah, I know. You probably what, thought I was so pathetic? Thought you’d come to gloat? Didn’t take you for the type.” 

He tried to walk past her, sighing, “Go back to your tower, Granger. I wasn’t doing anything evil...tonight. Potter will have to live with the disappointment.” 

“I wasn’t-,” Hermione grabbed his arm, her fingers sliding to catch his wrist. Her hands were not enough to anchor him, but all the same, he paused, “I was worried.” She whispered, eyes big. 

Draco stopped, turning, “Worried?” He echoed. 

“After the party, you seemed so upset. I think it was wrong of Filtch to make such a spectacle of it. I guess I just...you’re okay, right?” 

Draco stared at her, his face pulled into a frown. He wasn’t dreaming, was he? Had he fallen asleep in front of the mirror? “Why do you care?” He asked, not as much malice in his tone as previous. 

“I don’t!” Hermione said defensively, “Well, actually, I mean…” He noticed her cheeks were pink. They hadn’t been colored like that before, “Are you okay?” She asked again.

Draco locked his jaw, “M’fine,” He mumbled, “Granger...go back and sleep.” He said, wincing as a hint of tenderness slipped into his quiet tone. 

She let him go, almost startled by how kind his voice had been.

Draco shoved his hands in his pockets and began to walk away. He turned once, his heart dropping to see she had picked up her blankets and gone.

But if he had turned back just a moment sooner, he would have seen that she too, had turned back, unable to leave without looking for him one more time. And if he’d caught her gaze, he would have recognized the look of need, want, and pining he felt for her.