Chapter 19
“How long have you been standing there?” Hermione asked her best friend tiredly.
“Long enough to hear him threaten my fiancée,” Blaise growled in reply.
“I can handle my brother, Zabini,” Ginny growled back.
“We came in while he was telling Ginny she couldn’t kick him out. Why did he need to be kicked out?” Harry questioned once more, struggling to understand the problem.
“He was-”
“Being Ron.” Hermione interrupted before Ginny could get her idiot brother into too much trouble. “He was spouting idiocracy and Ginny and Stori happened to walk in while I was correcting him. It’s fine.” It was not fine. She couldn’t understand what went through that boy's head at the best of times, but why now, of all times to get hung up on something so stupid, did he get it into his brain that they in some way belonged together. She wasn’t about to involve Harry in this... conversation? Argument? She wasn’t even sure what this was. And because it really wasn’t anything anyone could help (aside from the ginger in question) she didn’t need everyone in the house in on it.
“Fine my arse!” Ginny shouted.
“Your arse is quite fine,” Blaise mumbled under his breath, earning a glare from his future wife.
“Did you know that-”
“Gin, let it go. It’s not worth the fight.” Mione interrupted once more, sinking down into the couch and massaging her temples as Kreacher shuffled past her with a broom and dustpan. Today was one of the most exhausting that she'd had in a long time, and it wasn’t even late enough that she could reasonably haul herself into bed.
“Is it often this... loud around you lot?” She looked over to see a look somewhere between disdain and amusement on Malfoy’s face. She’d almost forgotten that he’d come in with the other two boys. Just what she needed, even more stress and arguing!
“What’s he doing here?” Ginny ground out. “I have a very dull knife with your name on it, prick.”
“Right, Malfoy, you and Mione go upstairs and have a chat,” Harry said with finality, stepping aside so the blond could walk past him. “We’ll send someone up in ten minutes to do a wellness check if neither of you reappears.”
“We’re not children, Potter,” Malfoy grumbled.
“Why, pray tell, must I go speak to this twat? Haven’t I had to deal with enough today?” Hermione asked her friend, her fingers massaging her eyelids. She was tense all over from her emotional state, and she could feel a bad headache coming on.
“Both of you. Upstairs.” Harry demanded. “Please.” He added as an afterthought once Hermione had turned to level him with a glare. Her mouth pinched into a scowl but she stormed up the stairs to the first open room. She would not be taking them back into her bedroom today. Once this mess was over and done with she needed to have some sanctity where he hadn’t been to decompress. So they ended up in the study with the door shut behind them.
“Well? Talk.” She told him expectantly, not in the mood to play games or have any more spats with people. He stared at her for a moment with a frown.
“I’m... not entirely sure where to start.” He let her know.
“Well I certainly have nothing more to say to you today, so either speak or get out.” Her anger may have waned to annoyance at the end of her and Ron’s discussion but standing here looking at Malfoy, it was all coming back in full force.
“It was brought to my attention after you’d hit me, yet again , and stormed off that you may have gotten the wrong impression of what I was going to say to you.”
“So you weren’t going to continue insulting me? Because it sounded an awful lot like you were.”
“I... Look, I know I can be...”
“An arse? A dick? Thoughtless? Hateful, resentful, hotheaded, uncouth? Any of those work, otherwise I can keep going.” She said, folding her arms in front of her.
“That’s a bit excessive isn’t it?” He grumbled in response. She glared at him. “Fine, yes, I can be thoughtless and hotheaded. I was incensed because you kept calling me stupid-”
“I never-”
“And treating me like a child-”
“Called you stupid. I did no such thing!”
“ So I was being spiteful and going after your own intelligence in retaliation. Unfortunately, as St. Potter and Blaise have pointed out, I have a tendency to reuse insults. If nothing else comes from this... discussion... I want you to know that I do not use the term ‘Mudblood’ anymore.” She flinched as it came out of his mouth. “Aside from just now that word has not left my mouth since 1998. Since the war, or even in the months leading up to it, I’d come to realise that there is no such thing as dirty blood. It all looks the same. Whether you're born into a family like mine or born into the muggle world, it’s red. The final testament to this, that opened my eyes to how wrong my thoughts on the subject were, was actually you.”
“Me?” She asked him sceptically.
“When the snatchers dragged you into my family’s drawing room and my deranged Aunt went after you with a dagger to write that word in your arm,” he gestured to where she now held the carved slur on her skin, “all I could see was that your blood looked identical to mine. It affirmed everything that I’d been starting to think. Every day since I’d left for Hogwarts and met you, you’ve challenged everything I’d been taught to believe. You aren’t some drooling moron. You keep clean and hygienic. Aside from your hair, there’s nothing really outlandish or brutish about you. And even now that can’t be said because it’s calmed down considerably since then. When Aunt Bella cut into your skin there was no mud, or dirt, or specks of dust, or anything else coming out of your wound. You bleed exactly the same way I did. You felt pain exactly the same way I did. So since that day, I have not used that word again. Because it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Its meaning is to bring someone down. It was never about actual blood. It has always been a metaphor for worth. Worthy of magic, worthy of status, worthy of human decency. Don’t try to say it doesn’t mean anything because it does!”
“I’m trying to explain myself to you-”
“I know that!” She shouted before calming herself down a little bit. “I know that. And I’ll let you get back to what you were saying, I just... You need to know that it was never about blood. And you saying it has no meaning just applies to how you see the world. It still holds meaning to others. Those of us it affects, or did affect, or will affect in the future. Words have consequences and people need to learn that. So please, if nothing else, instead of saying it has no meaning just stick with what you’ve just explained to me. Because by doing that you acknowledge there was a problem with that way of thinking and speaking but you don’t let the stigma and the prejudice continue. The more people you explain it to, the less likely it is to keep hurting others.” She finished quietly.
“I’m sorry.” He told her in the same tone she’d finished speaking with. “But I was not going to call you that today. I was going to call you a pathetic, little, bookworm. It’s juvenile of me to be calling you names but I was so frustrated and overwhelmed I resorted to the only way we’ve ever communicated. It wasn’t until after you’d left that Blaise and Potter reminded me that that’s how I used to torment you. It wasn’t my intention to hurt you like that.”
“Yes, it was. That’s exactly why you were saying those things! It was specifically because you wanted to hurt me. Malfoy, arguing and fighting all the time is not communicating. It’s not even talking. There are very specific instances where arguing can be considered communicative or helpful and not one of those applies here.”
“I’m trying to apologize and you’re arguing about it right now!”
“No I’m-” She realized that she was kind of contradicting herself. “Sorry, you’re right. It’s just that- I’m not trying to argue with you, I’m trying to explain to you something you grew up too privileged to understand. It comes down to the same thing about words having consequences. It doesn’t just apply to prejudiced words. Its connotations and tonal changes and a whole range of other things that would take a hundred years to explain to you. Not because you’re stupid or a child, but because there’s so much of it. But in this specific conversation, you need to learn to understand that our arguing, what you think of as a ‘conversation’ is all meant to hurt. Whether it be intentional or subconscious. What you don’t realize you’re doing, is that subconsciously you want to hurt me. You felt belittled and unintelligent so your brain wanted me to feel the same way. You associate that with speaking to me because all we’ve ever really done in the past is more of the same; arguing with each other and trying to hurt each other verbally, mentally, or physically. I’m trying to make you understand that by saying you’re sorry and claiming that you weren’t trying to hurt me you’re not accepting any responsibility for your actions or the damage you’ve caused.”
“So I can’t say sorry?”
“Yes. I mean no, you can. I just-” She huffed in frustration. “Say someone broke your arm in the past. Whether it was on purpose or an accident. And then they do it again every time it heals. You don’t see this person for a few years and then all of a sudden they show up one day. They greet you like an old friend and smile and joke around. But the whole time they’re there you are holding your arm. You’re being hypervigilant and carefully avoiding them and trying not to hurt their feelings because they’re being nice now. But it’ll still hurt if they break it again. It’ll still hurt if they claim they don’t remember doing it, or if they do and say they’re sorry but that it was so long ago you should just move on. Or even if they say they’re sorry and mean it. You’re still gonna be wary. Still going to be careful and cautious. The pain doesn’t go away and you still won’t trust them not to do it again. That’s how it feels when you spend your whole life arguing with someone or calling them a name. So, yes, you can say sorry. And you can mean it, which I think you do at least in regard to calling me a Mudblood in the past. But when we argue and you say sorry, it doesn’t negate the fact that we argued. It doesn’t take away the fact that you say things during that argument specifically to hurt me, because that’s a learned behaviour. I do the same thing to you. You know that it hurts because in the past that’s how you got a rise out of me. That’s how you made me cry or react or fight back. So please, if you need to say sorry, I want you to think about why you’re saying sorry and whether or not you actually mean it.” They stood in silence processing what she’d said. He ran his fingers through his fringe in frustration, obviously not understanding what she was trying to explain and not liking the fact.
“So you want me to say I’m sorry, and mean it, and think about why I mean it, and why we argued in the first place, and how it all relates to our arguments in the past, and why my brain wants to hurt you even if I don’t think I do?”
“In so many words, yes. Look, you can apologize right now. I can accept that you weren’t going to call me a Mudblood. I can accept that you feel bad for structuring your sentence in a way that led me to believe you would call me one again. I just can’t accept the part where you didn’t intend to hurt me. That’s the part you need to think about. You said you have a childish way of arguing or calling people names right? That’s what you need to figure out how to be sorry about.”
“Well, how do I do that? Look, we don’t like each other. We obviously don’t see things the same way, either. But I don’t have the energy or the will to do this every day. I was trying to see things your way today and look where we are now. So tell me how to figure that out so we can get on with our lives.”
“It’s not that simple.” She told him with a sad smile. “I can’t tell you how to look inside your own head for an answer to a question that only you can ask yourself. It’s confusing, I know, but unfortunately, that’s just what it is. And it’s not all you. An argument has two sides. I need to figure out my own answer to that question as well. In the meantime, all we can do is try our best to break old habits and at least tolerate one another for the sake of our mental and physical wellbeing going forward. That said, I realized while you were asking all of your questions that you were trying to understand things from my perspective. And I really appreciate that, which is why I was trying so hard not to yell at you. I know it’s frustrating not understanding what’s going on around you, and having to question every little thing. I went through all of that when I first got my Hogwarts letter, and there are still things I’m learning about the wizarding world. It’s a process, not a one-day thing.”
“I’ll say.” He grumbled.
“And while we’re on the subject about all of your questions and our argument; I was not calling you stupid or trying to treat you like a child!”
“Really? Because I think you saying that you ‘couldn’t dumb something down to explain it to me’ was calling me an idiot or a child.”
“What I was trying to explain to you was that computers are very, very complex. It has nothing to do with you being stupid, which you aren’t, or being childish, which you sometimes are. You thought the car was hard to understand and you were riding in it, for Merlin’s sake.” She finished, hands on her hips. He scowled in response but had nothing to refute her with. As annoying and ego-deflating as it was to admit, he had overreacted. A knock came from the door and they both turned to it to see what was going on.
“Is everyone still alive in here?” Harry asked as he popped his head into the room.
“Yes, we’re both alive. Did you really think we’d somehow manage to off one another with a house full of people?”
“Well, not each other but I half expected for him to come running down the stairs on fire or something.”
“Hey!” Malfoy exclaimed indignantly.
“We’re fine, Harry. No one is on fire, and no one is crying. You can stop worrying now.” Hermione rolled her eyes as she told him.
“Who said anything about worrying? I wanted to see him running around with no eyebrows and trying to put out his hair or something. I thought that’d have been hilarious.”
“Ha, ha, so funny,” Malfoy said dryly.
“Well, Ginny and Blaise have both left, so Tori and I are in the kitchen trying to decide what to do for dinner if you’d care to join us.”
“I think I’ll pass. Mother and Father have expectations about family dinners on Mondays and Wednesdays. I should probably be on my way.”
“I think I need a nap before I eat anything, so you two go ahead and make plans for yourselves tonight,” Mione told him with exhaustion evident in her voice. He nodded before leaving once more.
“What’s that?” Malfoy asked once he was gone.
“What’s what?”
“The tree on the wall. There’s a similar one in the manor but I didn’t think they made them anymore. Or that Potter’s would be so long. I noticed it when he came in, but he seemed smug enough to have gotten us to cooperate in here that I didn’t want to ask him about it.”
“Oh, that’s the Black family tree.” He spun around to stare at her.
“What?”
“Yeah, this was Sirius’s place before Harry inherited it. I thought you knew that, you’ve been here before.”
“I didn’t realize it was an ancestral home. I thought it was just something Potter’d bought cheap off the market or gotten in some war settlement.” He said turning around to study it more closely.
“There’s his burn mark there.” She told him pointing to where Sirius was once on the wall. Malfoy stood, looking over it slowly.
“Mother never mentioned there was a Black family tree. I wonder if she knows about it.” He wondered aloud as he came to a spot in front of his mother, father, and himself on the wall.
“I’m sure she does. Andromeda likes to come over and talk about some of the nicer relatives to Teddy, she says she and her sisters used to listen to their father tell stories a lot when she was younger.”
“Andromeda?”
“Your Aunt?”
“I know who she is. Or rather, I’ve heard of her. I just didn’t realize she was still alive. Mother always talks about her in the past tense.”
“Well, when your grandparents found out she was marrying a muggle-born they blasted her off the tree and disowned her. I’m sure they told Narcissa to forget about her.” Hermione told him with a shrug.
“Possibly. Anyway, I wasn’t lying about having places to be. Would you take me to the floo? Please.” He added as an afterthought. Not looking up from the wall until the last moment.
“Uh, sure.” She responded awkwardly before leading him down the stairs into the living room. “I’m still not coming over tomorrow. I just... Really need a break. Please let your Mother know?”
“She won’t be happy. You’ll probably get a few owls about it.” He warned her before taking off. She huffed out an exhausted breath after he’d finally left before grabbing her wand and dragging herself up the stairs. She got her bathrobe on and slipped into the bathroom. Finally, she sank into a warm bubble bath up to her chin and hummed softly as she let the water and the oils soothe some of the tension out of her body. Today had been an emotional roller coaster (adding to the ride she'd been on since June when this whole mess had started), and she was spent. Completely drained. She was happy that Malfoy had apologized, but still pissed off about why he had to apologize. And the whole debacle with Ron was just added stress she hadn’t needed. She hoped and prayed that whatever deity was controlling her life right now would roll a better hand. And soon because she wasn’t sure just how much more she could take.
～Edited 19th Jan, 2022