Allegiance Changed
Ron wasn’t talking to Hermione any more, not even enough to say what she had done. She assumed it must have something to do with the week before, visiting Draco. She had tried to ask Harry what he had told Ron, but that just started another row with Harry. Why had she been lying, what had she been doing? He knew she wasn’t with her dad.
“At least you’ve stopped seeing him as much, I should be grateful.” Harry had said.
And so they had another fight. And so her week went, right up to the quidditch match. She had half a mind to skip the whole match, as neither Harry nor Ron seemed to want her there. But Ginny had made her promise to come. So she sat in the stands next to Neville, still annoyed. She listened to Lavender cheer Ron on much too enthusiastically, and tried not to focus on Draco missing the game.
The game went well, and as Gryffindor won and the flurry of cheers erupted, Hermione got dragged with the rest of the group to the common room for a party. Hermione wasn’t big on parties, or on quidditch for the most part. She stuck to the edges of the room, congratulating the players, she hugged Harry and Ginny and snacked a little, then went to find Ron to talk. Maybe he would be in a better mood after winning the match, she thought. Apparently, he was in too good of a mood. As Hermione rounded the corner, she found him locked tightly and quite publicly to the mouth of Lavender Brown.
Hermione was out the door and down the hall before she knew what had happened. Her heart was pounding in her throat, her eyes were blurred from tears. She physically hurt. She continued to walk down the hall, trying to hold in her tears, trying to repeat to herself , “Ron isn’t mine, we were never together, I have no reason to be mad.”
She walked down the stairwells, avoiding the great hall and the busier parts of the castle, trying to make it to the only place she could think of being at the moment. She was going to find her dad. She made it down the last narrow stairway to his office, where he usually was and knocked on the door. There was no answer, so Hermione knocked again. She turned the handle but the door was locked. She pressed her ear to the door and thought she could hear him inside, but Snape never answered, even after she called to him. Finally, Hermione slunk away defeated. She began to sniffle and cry again, not knowing who to turn to now. She passed the potions lab just in case, but Severus wasn’t there either. It was the first time in months she had really needed him to be there, and even when it was an emergency, he still couldn’t be found.
Hermione continued up the stairs, wiping at her eyes and trying to breathe evenly. She didn’t notice the group of slytherin boys coming down the stairs until they were around her, pushing her and laughing.
“Did the ickle Gryffindor get lost?” One boy jeered
“Careful, you’ll make her cry.” The tallest laughed.
“She’s already been crying.” A third boy elbowed her.
“Piss off!” Hermione bellowed and shoved them off.
She ran past them up the stairs, back near the Gryffindor common room. She debated going back inside, paced outside the portrait hole as the fat lady stared at her. Hermione wiped at her eyes again and tried to catch her breath.
“How do I look?” She asked with a sigh to the portrait.
“Like you were crying and running a marathon at the same time.” The woman said.
“Gee, thanks.”
Hermione shuffled back down the hallway. She couldn’t go back in there looking like such a wreck. Instead, Hermione opened the closest classroom door in hopes of sitting for a rest.
“Do you mind?” Lavender squalked from underneath Ron, balanced on the professor’s desk.
“Hermione?”
Hermione was out before Ron had a chance to clamour off the desk. She was down the hall and running up flight after flight of stairs. She thought she could hear someone coming after her, but her heart was beating so quickly, her sobs were coming out uncontrollably now. She ran faster, the last thing she wanted was for Ron to catch up to her and try to apologize only to realize with his usual grace that he was entirely flummoxed. She didn’t know where she was trying to get to, couldn’t remember what stair case she was on, or where it led. She wanted to climb it forever, past the ceiling, past the stars. She wanted to go back to loch cottage, in her own room with the butterflies on the walls. She wanted to escape from her friends, from the upcoming war, from the whole damned world.
She ended up at a dead end, in front of the door to the astronomy tower. She stood for a moment, trying to catch her breath. She’d given up wiping away the tears now. She needed to calm down and think. It wasn’t like Ron was hers, they weren’t dating, it wasn’t like she hadn’t spent the whole last year kissing some other boy. But she wasn’t with Draco, either.
“Hermione, where are you?” Ron’s voice echoed up the stone staircase.
Hermione grabbed the door handle and twisted. It was locked and automatically, she said alohamora and unlocked it. She scrambled into the astronomy tower just as she heard Ron’s footsteps and locked the door again. He never remembered how to lock or unlock doors anyway. If he did, she might not be in this state.
With the door securely locked, Hermione turned toward the rest of the tower. She realized why it had been locked. Against the back stone wall, Draco was hunched up, red eyed, and looking irate.
“You came looking for me again, after I told you to leave me alone? I don’t need your help or your charity Granger, so get out!”
Hermione reached for the door knob again, but then she heard the sound of footsteps.
“Hermione, blimey, just come out and talk.” Ron shouted. “I’m not going to run around looking for you all night.” There was a moment of silence as Hermione didn’t answer. “Whatever, this is all your fault any way, not mine. I’m going back down to Lavender.” Ron called.
Hermione listened as his footsteps died away. She leaned her head against the cold wood door and began to sob again.
“Are you alright?” Draco’s voice came from the corner, quieter this time.
Hermione shook her head no.
“You can’t stay here, you should go talk to Harry, or your dad or something.”
That was the last straw. Hermione rounded on Draco. “Go here, go there, I’m tired of everyone ordering me around and no one caring about what I think! Harry’s too busy with Voldemort, and the upcoming war, and what you and Snape are doing, he hasn’t done anything but bitch at me for months. My dad’s too worried about getting caught, he won’t even speak to me anymore. Mom and Dad don’t understand a god damned think going on in this world and just tell me not to worry. You’ve been moping about, doing god knows what, pretending like you’re the only one in the world with a problem. Everyone keeps saying they care about me, but has anyone even bothered to ask if I’m okay? Well guess what, I’m not!” She turned and fumbled to unlock the door and wipe at her tears.
“Come here.” Draco said.
Hermione turned back to look at him. His usually shining hair looked flat and messy. His white shirt was stained with sweat and dirt, rolled up to his elbows, not caring if she could see his mark. His eyes looked as red as she assumed hers were. He held out his arms, and she climbed into his lap, arms around his neck, wiping her tears on his shirt.
“You love him, don’t you?” Draco whispered, brushing Hermione’s hair.
“Not anymore,” Hermione sniffled, “I won’t ever love him again.”
“I tried to stop loving someone once.”
Hermione sat up, “Did it work.”
Draco looked into her eyes and ran his fingers through her curls. “No, not really.”
Hermione sighed and laid her head back on Draco’s shoulder.
“You need to leave, Hermione.” Draco whispered. “The things they’re making me do, they’re…and if they knew you were here with me…”
“If they knew, they’d be in the school, and we’d all be doomed anyway.” Hermione said.
“But…”
“We could support each other, Draco, keep each other company. I think we could both use that.”
Draco chewed his lip. “Alright, but on one condition. You can’t know what I’m doing, it’s too dangerous. You can’t ask any questions about what they’re planning. And you can’t tell me anything about what Potter or the Order are doing. I know they’re planning something, and I don’t want to know what.”
Hermione smiled a little. “It will be like a sanctuary. When we’re together, we’ll pretend everything else in the world doesn’t exist.”