QR / Chapter 21 - Quiet Revelation
Title: Quiet Revolution / Chapter 21 - Quiet Revelation
Author: street scribbles
Rating: R
Summary: Draco and Hermione finally take part in the Spell of Ipse together.
A/N: OH HI GUYS. Apparently I am still freaking alive and did NOT forget about this fic. :) I usually make these A/Ns really short and sweet but today I feel like rambling on for awhile just because this fic always brings out the sentimental side in me. So, I know that it's been forever since I've updated this story and without a doubt it's probably been forgotten or stamped abandoned by most, but I just wanted to first and foremost to say (to the remaining few) that this is my promise that that'll never happen with this story. I would love to hear from whoever is still following QR and just let it be known that you have my gratitude. In any case, I hope you enjoy!
Link:
Chapter 21 - Quiet Revelation
All I see are dark grey clouds in the distance moving closer every hour
So, when you ask “is something wrong?”
I think you’re damn right - there is
But we can’t talk about it now
No, we can’t talk about it now
Death Cab For Cutie - Tiny Vessels
(Hermione grabbed her wand and took hold of Draco's hand tightly while reciting the incantation clearly.
He squeezed her hand, blinked, and soon all they could see was a blinding white light.)
* * *
When he opened his eyes, seconds later, Draco saw that he was alone. He also thought for a second that maybe he had gone deaf, because he couldn’t hear a single thing.
It was just really quiet.
The silence was so much at that point, it became a tangible object that filled up his lungs to the very utmost capacity and if he didn’t breathe, he would choke from the excess of quiet. So he breathed and he let the ghost of silence blanket his face, weave through his nostrils, escape from his lips in breath and burst from his chest.
He breathed again, inhaling and exhaling and for the very first time since dying, Draco felt alive. He looked down at his hands and saw the splotched red skin - a reaction from the biting cold, and against the trembling pale hairs on his arms, prickly and standing up against the gooseflesh on his skin, he felt humanly cold. Before, when Draco was cold, it was an unnatural, out of body kind of cold. Hermione had told him one time that a Wanderer’s permanent condition is from that of how they lived their last moments on in the living world.
Draco had drowned. And it was very cold underwater.
He distinctly remembered feeling this way all the time in the beginning of being a Wanderer. Iced and hard, his joints tightened. But like the sunshine that slowly began to pour in with the spring and after a long winter, the warmth eventually came. It wasn’t in a Malfoy’s nature to question the good and, most of all, the gifts that they’d receive, so this part of the Living Draco Malfoy Complex remained. He was getting warmer with the seasons - his Wanderer status strictly prohibited this, but yet he didn’t question it.
Hermione was too scared to.
So neither of them really looked into this seemingly minor little detail of Draco being able to feel physical, temporal changes. But right now, right after the two of them had cast the Ipse Spell and were now at this very spot, right now Draco was definitely questioning why it was so cold.
And so quiet.
He looked around and saw that he was at the mouth of a shallow cave of some sort. All around him were trees, scattered sparsely. In the huge gaping spaces in between and resting on the brown earth was the pale afternoon sun ahead of him. In the distance, he could see the Hogwarts castle.
He walked further out of the cave and moved closer to the sun and open space. The soft ground and damp branches below his feet sunk softly with every step he made. Rolling shallowly down the hill he was standing on lead to the view of sandy banks along the lake. Chubby little oar boats bobbed noiselessly from afar against the baby waves of the pristine colored water that eventually spread into Hogwarts.
The sun provided negligible, temporary warmth and for the most part, it was chilly, still.
Draco darted his eyes around cautiously and a little tiredly, which caused his vision to drag. One thing that had never changed was that Draco was constantly exhausted. Even if he slept - which he could do easily. But when he woke up, it was that same tiredness greeting him at morning. He slept, sure, but he was unable to rest. The exhaustion came attached with the constant reminder that he was a Wanderer, and what the Wizarding world would be able to provide a Wanderer to continue . . . well, wandering, was obviously some compromise of energy and strength that one living would normally find themselves supplied with. A Wanderer had a very lingering, dangerously minimal supply of energy to work off of.
So, Draco was always tired. Except when Hermione was physically near, of course.
And he had always been cold, but that slowly started to melt off. Only the closer he got to one Hermione Granger, of course.
This was only now catching up to him.
The Spell of Ipse is all about discovery and learning. Only seconds into it, Draco was already learning so much more than he’d anticipated.
* * *
“Draco!” she called out instinctively.
Nothing.
“Where are you? Draco!” Hermione tried again.
It was only seconds ago that they had recited the Spell of Ipse together, clasped hands with the intention of going into it together. And now, blinks later, Hermione was alone. The lingering touch of Draco’s hands felt like lifetimes ago.
She was still in her room, of which her side was immaculately organized. Hermione was not the type to clean obsessively nor was she a neat freak, contrary to popular belief. But she was always, always organized. Not neat or clean, really, but never, ever messy.
Nothing was different, and for a second she panicked, thinking that maybe they’d recited the spell wrong.
“Draco?” she called out quietly again, more to herself than in hopes of him hearing it, really.
Armed without a clue or intuition of any sort, she stupidly knelt down and checked under her bed.
“Agh, stupid!” she scolded herself, frazzled. She rushed over to the spell book to double check, mouthing it to herself meticulously while clasping hands and closing her eyes, trying her best to recap what had gone wrong.
But she was Hermione Granger. When it came to spells, of course nothing had gone wrong.
“Hello, Hermione.”
Hermione gasped shortly, looking up at the woman standing in front of her. “Hello,” she stammered. “Who are you?”
“My name is Sabrina.”
* * *
“Hermione, where are you?” Draco called out, through cupped hands.
Draco looked around. Nothing. The row boats had stopped bobbing. The waves in the lake had smoothed and the winds had dried out. The surface of the lake looked like a sheet of bottle green glass.
And there he was, standing in front of him right at the edge of the cave that Draco had stepped out of.
“Dad,” Draco said slowly.
“Son.”
He spoke languidly, the tone of his voice smooth and the volume of the sounds always hushed and low. When Lucius Malfoy spoke, it was never to command the attention of the room - but the result always came out that way anyway.
Draco looked up at his father - the man, the blood, the bane of his existence and the one person he desperately wanted to be loved by more than anyone else in the world. He found that suddenly, his insides were storming - like the eye of the hurricane, the tornado twisted about innocently, frailly, but the more it picked up, the more damage it blew across and the harder it raged.
This is the eye. Draco’s right one was also twitching. He forgot that he was in the Spell of Ipse. He forgot that he was dead, a Wanderer - whatever. All he could focus on at this very moment was the fact that his father was standing in front of him. And though the days could be numbered and the time since he had died could be measured, it felt like centuries - lifetimes - and it felt like forever that Draco had been thinking about his father. It was all too much.
The wind was blowing now, turning inside of him a strange sort of relief to learn that the quiet in the place wasn’t permanent. It also marked the permission for Draco to make some noise of his own.
“Have you gone to see mom?”
“No, I haven’t. I’m here to see you right now.”
“I’m touched.”
“Language, Draco.”
“I didn’t say any bad words, father.”
“Your tone emulated them well enough.”
Pause.
And, then “fuck you!” Draco exploded. “How’s that for language?”
Lucius didn’t speak. His upper lip curled with a biting shudder of his lower jaw, but his eyes remained lifeless and at all times, cold.
“That’s enough.”
“You left!” Draco seethed. “Why? What gives you the right? After we followed you into the war, after we stood by your side . . . like the family that we wanted to be. When it was all over, you lost a son. Then you left. You lost a son!” he repeated.
Draco was panting loudly, his mouth building up with saliva and breath and his chest pounding and twisting from all the circuits in his frail body charging overtime. But he still managed to painfully churn out his question.
“Didn’t that affect you at all?”
* * *
“Are you a part of the spell?” Hermione asked cautiously. Sabrina smiled faintly, not answering Hermione’s question directly, but she did speak.
“There are many spells involved in my appearance right now. We are a species of magic, after all.”
“Why are you here, then?”
“I’m here to see you, Hermione. I know of your life very personally, having been assigned to aid Draco in his transition assignment.”
“Transition . . . into an after life.” Hermione said slowly, almost as if informing herself of the inevitable. She closed her eyes, then. Her vision clouded by hopelessness, anyway. Spells layered within more spells. Everything just grew to be so . . . messy. Hermione Granger was not about messes, but here was the biggest one of her life.
“Life occurs in a cycle, dear. There is no life and after life or finality, I will tell you that much.”
“I know what we’ve done is wrong,” Hermione started shakily, biting her lower lip and opened up her eyes again.
She was frazzled at this point. Draco had always spoken of Sabrina’s soft, ethereal quality. He had made her sound forgiving and very nurturing, but for Hermione, she was simply a figure above her and in Hermione’s world, hierarchy was established not through monetary riches or social status, but through the knowledge that one possessed, and Sabrina knew worlds more than anyone living - than anyone Hermione knew, that was for sure.
“What have you done and why is it wrong?”
“When Draco died . . . when you met him, you were meant to help him find closure from his former life. And while an after life may not exist after all, Draco had definitely ended one life. I don’t exactly know what my place is in helping him do that, but he came to me immediately and it was this chilling connection I felt with him. I was the only person who could see him, for starters, so I knew that I was, in some way, meant to aide him into his after life . . . sorry, his . . . next life, or next cycle. Or just somewhere that wasn’t this lifetime.”
She then got up quickly to adjust her place on the bed and sat down with a flourishing poof of the fluffy blankets below her and smiled wistfully. “But he’s . . . well, you know. He’s Draco Malfoy. He had his own plans. And I was weak. I’m still weak. But it was too tempting and I gave in, and the spell we found seemed like it would be the perfect solution. It seemed foolproof. He’s smart and so am I and we would work together as a team to achieve it. I didn’t . . . I didn’t realize what other ramifications we’d come across. And now everything’s so complicated. Feelings erupted, and I’m so incredibly sorry because . . . we broke so many rules, and I feel like both of us are getting hurt even more and the progress is nonexistent in the grand scheme of things. I also get the sense that for a Wanderer, intense emotions just are no good for their well being.”
“No, they’re not,” Sabrina said simply. There was a breathy pause before she spoke again. “Hermione, I knew about your spell. I knew that Harry Potter fought a war in his lifetime - a war that the heroes of the ages would have been impressed with. I know that many lives were lost unfairly. It was the first major war in a long time fought by children, and I have watched that war the closest and nothing in recent times has made me weep more. I was not only assigned to Draco to help heal after all this, Hermione.”
“There’s someone else you’re helping?”
Sabrina nodded. “You will find out in due time, dear. What is to happen to the two of you is so much bigger than bringing Draco back to life or turning back time. As I’ve mentioned, all those things are easily cast into reality with magic. A skill that your kind has both been blessed and cursed with, as is what all knowledge represents, isn’t it? Both good and bad, as history has proven, time and time again. But this . . . this right now? It’s so much more than all of that.”
“What’s happening?” Hermione asked quietly. “Is Draco really dying? I want to know if it’s possible that we can actually reverse this whole spell . . . if we’ll all be happy again. Please, I can’t do this with the forces of the living . . . I know I’m not allowed to know, but if you know me at all, you know that I’m a good person, you know that I won’t do any bad with the answer you give me, I just . . . I need to move on from this, one way or another.”
“You will be happy again. But before that, you need to really think about what you have done and what you can do. You will be happy again.” Sabrina repeated.
“Will Draco live again?” Hermione pressed.
“What defines life in the Wizarding world is similar to what defines life in the Muggle world, Hermione. In fact, it is exactly the same thing. It is a physiological condition of the human body. It is biological and very much scientific when one is literally alive. Draco right now is not alive. But what separates our world from the Muggles is not what categorizes us as a superior species, but we do possess the skill to be able to prolong death. We are able to alter science with magic.”
Hermione could feel her heart pounding so hard that her chest was writhing in a clenched, sour pain.
“It is very easy to heal Draco physically so that he is alive again, Hermione.”
And the air filled up her lungs, then, drenching her with the knowledge that she had thirsted for all year long.
“But has such a case ever proven to have occurred, dear?” Sabrina asked softly.
And, there, it was.
Hermione’s heart collapsed against the walls of her ribcage abruptly, gasping softly and then it sunk to the floor, breaking inelegantly in a horrible wet mess - the kind of mess she had fought so hard never to be involved in, and she found that when she met eyes with Sabrina, there were tears shining in both their eyes.
* * *
. . .
“Didn’t that affect you at all?” Draco cried out again.
Lucius didn’t say anything.
“Well? Didn’t it?”
He couldn’t stop. Once the floodgates had loosened up and the bars broke, everything came whooshing out, colossal barrels and wave after wave of intense, dark, repressed emotion. Draco wasn’t even sure he meant what he was saying, he just knew that he couldn’t stop himself from letting all the word vomit violently hurl out.
“You have no idea what you’ve put me through. How fucked up I turned out because of you and your sick, homoerotic obsession with that piece of shit excuse for a human being that you called your fucking master!”
Draco had never been this angry at his father before. He thought he felt bouts of rage here and there while growing up and being neglected. But these were all normal feelings for a spoiled child to go through the motions of experiencing. And then, when the war tore into their lives, shattering the norm and colliding head on with every bit of hope Draco had for a normal family life, he grew more wary - more desperate, to want to know what it was like to be a Malfoy. To be the Draco he was meant to be, to live a life that supposedly was to be enjoyed. To be his mother’s son and his father’s son.
Then, he died. And when he was given the chance to redeem everything by Sabrina, Draco could only think of two things as he sought Hermione out on his assigned mission - to bring himself back to life . . . and the same for his father.
Now, standing in front of his father, it was the very first time he seriously questioned whether or not he wanted to see his father ever again.
And then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, Draco burst into a cry. He started sobbing uncontrollably, wailing loudly. The tears flew and he made a frantic motion with his hands in an attempt first to gather them all, spreading his hands about his face to continuously wipe away at his eyes, and then he just burst into his gloved hands all together. Draco shouted into them, his cry muffled and an animal-like, high pitched line of desperate noise escaping through the cracks.
He was crying so hard that his throat hurt, so hard that he was getting dehydrated, his supply of water shutting off on him.
Soon, it was just an empty, hoarse whimper.
Draco looked up and sucked in wobbly air, the noise of his loud staccato breathing the only thing to be heard.
“I don’t deserve this,” Draco rasped. “I’m really not a bad person. But you led me to believe that I was. And I believed it. And I believed that it was the only way to thrive. To live. Even now, Hermione and I . . . this fucking spell we’re working on. A Dark spell, of all spells! Why is it that I can’t escape you?”
“I left that book for you, Draco.”
He looked up at his father with bloodshot eyes and a salted, sticky face that felt grainy against the wind.
“What?” Draco whispered.
“The book that contained the very spell that you are working on. You see, the afterlife doesn’t break apart your life here in the living world - there’s an infinite connection with us because we’re family. I knew of your mission and I lead you to the book.”
“You know what’s happened, right?”
Something changed, all of a sudden. His sinuses immediately cleared up, his vision sharpened and he looked up alertly. Focused. Connected. Realizing. It was not because Draco finally mustered up the courage to stand up to his father that helped him break down just minutes ago. But it was an innate sense that rang automatically in Draco’s head that told him this wasn’t his father. This wasn’t Lucius Malfoy. The person standing before Draco looked and felt like his father, but when Draco looked carefully, the gaze through fake Lucius’ eyes clearly pierced through to the other side. His eyes were hollow - this person was simply a product of the Spell of Ipse.
Draco knew all this. Knew that this wasn’t actually his father. But he needed to say things to his father anyway, and he hoped that by doing this, somehow the real Lucius would know. Or at least somehow Draco would be a step closer to healing.
“I’ve fallen for her. The person who represents everything you taught me about what was wrong. But I don’t think I’ve done any wrong, dad. And I know you didn’t leave that book for me. You would never have wanted me to fall in love with a Muggleborn. You didn’t allow it. You restricted my life. And I understand it, now. I’m not angry. I have no right to be because I was a coward, too, you know. During all this, after you died - after I died, I look back upon it and all I did was think about you and how effortless it felt to put the blame all on you. So I did that. Even just now, I was yelling at you and angry at you for what happened.”
Draco exhaled and kept talking. “But I don’t know what’s going on. It’s all so messy. I really need someone to help me stand up right now. I don’t even know if I want to be alive anymore if it means that I don’t even have you. I don’t want to complete that spell Hermione and I are working on because I’m scared something will go wrong. I’m scared that it is wrong. There are powers higher than everything I’ve ever believed in, and that’s probably the only thing I’ve learned since this has all begun.”
“You do what you feel is right, Draco. That’s all I’m allowed to tell you. That’s all anyone is allowed to tell you, even Hermione.”
Draco looked up alertly. Hermione? Lucius Malfoy would never have addressed Hermione Granger as an equal being. This definitely wasn’t his father.
“Who are you?” he asked, then.
“I’m who you think I am.”
“What am I supposed to do now in this spell?” Draco asked.
And the artificial older Malfoy said no more at this point.
There were cracks forming steadily on Lucius’ face. The crooked, broken lines spread about fast and furious and the broken pieces of his complexion divided swiftly.
“Dad?” Draco leaned forward, attempting to catch the pieces. “Dad!” He cried out frantically, then. “What’s going on? Don’t break up like this, please. I really could use you at a time like this.”
His salted, sticky face felt grainy and dirty and in one rough motion of his dirty palms, Draco wiped away at the dampness of his face as he could only watch helplessly as the image of Lucius Malfoy literally crumbled.
“I could’ve used you all the other times, too,” Draco realized out loud, quietly.
“I must go,” the voice whispered, as sandy and airy as its own contents.
“Dad,” Draco tried again, grasping at the weak straws.
“Draco.”
Draco snapped his head up. There was now nothing in front of him, except small scattered patches of sand at his feet of which fine grains were being swept away by the light wind, swirling all around him in the air.
The voice was clear, and it felt more real to him as his own father than the figure that he had just been talking to before.
“Draco,” the voice said again.
Draco closed his eyes, and he could clearly see his father standing in front of him. He didn’t want to open his eyes, because he knew that once he peeled off the many layers of this spell, his father wouldn’t really be there. Right now, he just wanted to hear his father’s voice one last time.
“Dad,” Draco tried.
“Draco.”
“Dad,” Draco repeated, tears forming at the edges of his eyes, stinging his vision with the salted wetness.
“What you asked me earlier, the answer is yes. I was very much affected.”
* * *
She had never run so hard in her life. As soon as Sabrina gave off the ghostly hint of the possibility that Draco would die, Hermione bolted through the doors of her dormitory, past Sabrina, and out to find Draco.
Time. Time wasn’t on their side, and she needed to capitalize on however much she still had. They had taken a year to connect, to work, to learn. It had felt like a time trap at one point, like someone took the hourglass and laid it down horizontally on the table so that the world was just being with Draco and nothing else. There was no end in sight, and the beginning felt like it had never even really begun. But now she was just learning that the hourglass was definitely still standing upright, the sand swooshing down through an even bigger opening than either of them had imagined.
Her lungs clenched together tightly and the back of her throat clamped up, cotton dry. She wasn’t sure if it was the running that did that or the finality of every moment from here and now would break her heart, but she felt overwhelmed with an flurry of emotions when finally seeing him.
“Draco.”
Draco turned around and Hermione grabbed a handful of his collar, pulled him close to her and kissed him hard on the lips, inhaling through her nose and savoring the taste of his mouth.
She closed her eyes.
“Hermione,” Draco said when finally pulling away. “What’s going on. We’re still in the spell, right?”
“Yes.”
“Where have you been?”
“I was in my room . . . Sabrina came to talk to me.”
“What?” Draco cried. “Okay, wait, you have to hear who I’ve been talking to. It’s been incredible. I haven’t felt this way ever when I was alive . . . I think . . . I’m finally ready.”
“I - what? Ready for what? Who did you talk to?”
“I talked to my dad. Or something. It was amazing. I finally got the closure I’ve been looking for since I died, Hermione. I think I’m almost ready. Screw the spell, I think I’m ready to die, I think that’s what was meant to happen. You helped me get to this point.”
She narrowed her eyes as a light breeze shuddered past them.
Then she slapped him square across the face, the loud clap of the skin to skin contact burning hot, instantaneous friction and slicing through the silence. Draco’s face whipped to the side and he cried out in protest.
“Third time’s the charm?” he snapped, his mouth still half open from the wince.
“Screw the spell?” she breathed. “Screw you, Draco Malfoy! I’m so glad you’re ready to give up just because everything is right in your ‘life.’ What about the fact that, oh, I don’t know, that you’re in between life and death and you’d much rather be dead than alive just because it’s easier?”
She began tearing up and Draco instantly grabbed her hands by their wrists and held them close to his chest. He could feel her entire body quivering with anger. “No,” he said lowly. “Listen to me, I didn’t mean it like that. You know I didn’t. It’s not that I want to leave you, Hermione, it’s that I just really think we have to deal with reality.”
“This is reality,” she insisted vehemently. “It’s taken me forever to realize that, because I was working so hard to secure all of us a reality, but this is it. We are reality. You’re a Wizard, Draco. We can do magic. We can change things that most of society isn’t even aware is a possibility. But you’re ready to just give up?”
“I’m tired,” he finally said wearily. “I’m really tired.”
And it took her by surprise. Because, of course, she was tired too. It had been a long, tumultuous year. It had also been a lonely year and she had never hurt this bad. But she found that no matter how weary her bones stood and how exhausting the fight, she was nowhere near ready to give up. Even when Sabrina had hinted that Draco dying was the inevitable.
There it finally was.
This was the Hermione Granger that had been dying to escape for the longest time now. Not the logical Hermione Granger, not the Hermione Granger who stepped in with all the facts and the obvious and the things that made sense. Not the smart Hermione Granger that drew accurate answers from complicated questions.
This was the Hermione Granger who was ready to defy the odds. This was the Hermione Granger she wished she had stepped into that long raging war into as. The Hermione Granger who was ready to really fight.
The Hermione Granger who was strong as everyone who believed her to be. The Hermione Granger who was as strong as she finally knew she was.
Her voice trembling, short breaths escaping her throat in hoarse shudders as she spoke, then. “Listen to me, Draco. We have to finish the spell.”
He looked at her hesitatingly. “And then what?”
“And then I’ll lay everything to rest once that’s done. I need to know that I set out to do everything that I’m capable of doing, Draco. I’ve got only a little left in me - but I know it’s enough.”
He smiled a little, taken aback by her sudden newfound vigor. “What did Sabrina say to you, exactly?”
That you are going to die, she wanted to cry out desperately, so that her voice ripped through her lungs and penetrated the air they were standing in, so that it would rock the core of the very moment. Her heart ached and the tears were frantically fighting hard not to form. Her chest hurt literally with the truth.
“That I’ll be happy again.”
Draco again smiled at her, this time in a way that made her want even more to cry but she didn’t.
“Are you ready to go back?” he asked.
“How do we do that?” she asked, grabbing his hand.
He didn’t question why Hermione, a girl normally not a fan of any displays of affection in public, was gripping his hand so hard.
And Hermione, the girl who had just found out about Draco’s ultimate fate and who refused to let go of Draco’s hand, would never tell him what she learned today.
“Let’s just start walking, I guess,” he said.
They walked in complete silence for a few minutes. The shifting temperature in the air was drastic, as the pinching cold quickly melted away into a soupy warmth that occurred so fast without any temperate transition that Hermione shivered, then.
“Why is it so warm?” she mused out loud.
“I don’t know why I’m feeling as warm as I am,” Draco said automatically.
She looked at him funny.
“I’m saying that in general it’s very warm, Draco.” She didn’t let go of the hand that was clasped with Draco’s but with her other hand fanned her face quickly, the splotches of thick heat feeling almost prickly against her cheeks. She looked around and finally spotted a fire in the distance, right at the edge of the forest, before the lake.
Across the creek was a hazy image of a blond man.
“Draco . . .” Hermione trailed off.
“Yeah, I see him,” Draco said, his voice coarse.
It was Lucius. She gripped his hand even harder.
The fire spread quickly and crackled loudly over the bridge, as if someone had soaked the entire thing in fuel. Chunks of wood snapped and burned as the flames rose up dangerously amongst the thick smoke and the orangey glaze reflected in Draco’s eyes as he watched as, very literally so, the bridge between he and Lucius was burned.
The fire died out as fast as it had started. Absolutely no remnants of the bridge remained and the lake was pristine as it was before.
“Should we find a way to get to him on the other side?”
“No,” Draco said quickly. “That’s not in the right direction of the castle, anyway. We spoke earlier already. Let’s go, come on. I’m fine.”
“Dr---”
“Let’s go,” Draco repeated.
Hermione wasn’t sure what was going through Draco’s mind right now. The fact that the spell had basically just affirmed the last Draco would ever be seeing of his father was a moment long gone. She snuck a look at him from the side of her eyes as they walked through the woods and noticed that he was looking straight ahead, alert. Emotionless. On the other end of the spectrum, here Hermione was, every emotion imaginable raging inside her, pulsating through her veins and causing her to feel almost lightheaded from the information that she had learned earlier.
While the first two Ipse spells had them running through a maze to learn something new, this one was rather straightforward. Both Draco and Hermione had been contacted separately by very important people and were given information. For Draco, it was closure. For Hermione, it was the unwelcome truth.
There was a difference here in that Draco took his new discovery and ran with it, while Hermione refused to accept it. But ultimately, they both very much wanted the spell to be completed, life or death.
“Oh!” she cried out in surprise as they came to an abrupt halt. In front of them were two very large winged horses. One black, the other brown but otherwise identical. Their wings were elaborately patterned in its leathery texture and their manes long and shiny. The brown one turned and flared its nostrils at Hermione and she saw that its eyes were white and shiny. A tremble ran down her spine.
“Thestrals,” Draco breathed. “There’s two, one for each of us?”
“Okay,” she agreed as they cautiously stepped forward, still hand in hand. Draco helped her onto hers and then he climbed onto his.
Once they got back to the Hogwarts castle, the spell had transitioned itself into a nice close and they were back. Spots of students could be seen from above and a Quidditch practice was in session on the field - Hufflepuff, judging by the uniform colors.
Hermione breathed a sigh of a relief as they landed right at the entrance of the castle and waited for Draco get off seconds later.
The relief was temporary as Draco looked at her funny when he stepped off his thestral.
“Let’s go, we’ve got a lot of work to get done,” she said.
“You could see the thestrals,” Draco said, not walking with her.
She whirled around and faced him as he stood under a stone gargoyle at the entrance. His hands were shoved into his pockets and he was looking at her intently.
“What?”
“Thestrals can only be seen by those who have seen death, Hermione.”
“So?”
“So, who did you watch die?”
“I . . .” she trailed off. “I don’t know.”
“I’m going to ask you again who did you watch die?”
“Excuse me?” she snapped, taking a step toward him. “Are you accusing me of lying? What happened to our trust?”
“Don’t dodge the question.”
“Don’t dodge my question.”
“Trusting someone doesn’t mean believing their lies, Hermione!” Draco shouted, his voice not shifting a single wave in the sound barrier.
“Oh, so I’m a liar now?” she shrieked, her voice echoing behind her in the covered entrance to the castle.
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said stonily. “I don’t have time for this. Are you coming or not?”
He then grabbed her arm not so gently and she cried out.
“You say that you don’t remember much from the war, right? Your memory’s really hazy because it was so traumatic for you, that’s the explanation you gave me once.”
“What’s your point?”
“You told me that Weasley had to fill you in on how Potter died. How he died in battle. If that was true, then why did you keep accusing me of killing him?”
“I was angry! It was in the heat of the moment, Draco. I never believed you killed Harry.”
“But despite that, you must have not believed Weasley’s story. You must still remember something, namely about Potter’s death. Just earlier when we were with Longbottom, he kept accusing me of killing Potter as well, but I remember the events from the war very clearly Hermione, and I can tell you that I didn’t kill Potter.”
“What are you saying about Neville’s accusation, then?”
“I’m saying that it’s funny because Weasley has one version of how Potter died and Longbottom seems to have another. Meanwhile, you were so traumatized from something that happened during the war that you blacked out so much of your memory, yet you can’t get Potter’s death out of your head.”
“Because he was my best friend, Draco! Can we please go inside and work on the spell?”
“I’m sorry, I have to ask this.”
“Ask what?” she demanded wildly, almost frantically.
“Did you kill Potter?”
She didn’t answer.
<< PREVIOUS | NEXT >>
Author: street scribbles
Rating: R
Summary: Draco and Hermione finally take part in the Spell of Ipse together.
A/N: OH HI GUYS. Apparently I am still freaking alive and did NOT forget about this fic. :) I usually make these A/Ns really short and sweet but today I feel like rambling on for awhile just because this fic always brings out the sentimental side in me. So, I know that it's been forever since I've updated this story and without a doubt it's probably been forgotten or stamped abandoned by most, but I just wanted to first and foremost to say (to the remaining few) that this is my promise that that'll never happen with this story. I would love to hear from whoever is still following QR and just let it be known that you have my gratitude. In any case, I hope you enjoy!
Link:
Chapter 21 - Quiet Revelation
All I see are dark grey clouds in the distance moving closer every hour
So, when you ask “is something wrong?”
I think you’re damn right - there is
But we can’t talk about it now
No, we can’t talk about it now
Death Cab For Cutie - Tiny Vessels
(Hermione grabbed her wand and took hold of Draco's hand tightly while reciting the incantation clearly.
He squeezed her hand, blinked, and soon all they could see was a blinding white light.)
* * *
When he opened his eyes, seconds later, Draco saw that he was alone. He also thought for a second that maybe he had gone deaf, because he couldn’t hear a single thing.
It was just really quiet.
The silence was so much at that point, it became a tangible object that filled up his lungs to the very utmost capacity and if he didn’t breathe, he would choke from the excess of quiet. So he breathed and he let the ghost of silence blanket his face, weave through his nostrils, escape from his lips in breath and burst from his chest.
He breathed again, inhaling and exhaling and for the very first time since dying, Draco felt alive. He looked down at his hands and saw the splotched red skin - a reaction from the biting cold, and against the trembling pale hairs on his arms, prickly and standing up against the gooseflesh on his skin, he felt humanly cold. Before, when Draco was cold, it was an unnatural, out of body kind of cold. Hermione had told him one time that a Wanderer’s permanent condition is from that of how they lived their last moments on in the living world.
Draco had drowned. And it was very cold underwater.
He distinctly remembered feeling this way all the time in the beginning of being a Wanderer. Iced and hard, his joints tightened. But like the sunshine that slowly began to pour in with the spring and after a long winter, the warmth eventually came. It wasn’t in a Malfoy’s nature to question the good and, most of all, the gifts that they’d receive, so this part of the Living Draco Malfoy Complex remained. He was getting warmer with the seasons - his Wanderer status strictly prohibited this, but yet he didn’t question it.
Hermione was too scared to.
So neither of them really looked into this seemingly minor little detail of Draco being able to feel physical, temporal changes. But right now, right after the two of them had cast the Ipse Spell and were now at this very spot, right now Draco was definitely questioning why it was so cold.
And so quiet.
He looked around and saw that he was at the mouth of a shallow cave of some sort. All around him were trees, scattered sparsely. In the huge gaping spaces in between and resting on the brown earth was the pale afternoon sun ahead of him. In the distance, he could see the Hogwarts castle.
He walked further out of the cave and moved closer to the sun and open space. The soft ground and damp branches below his feet sunk softly with every step he made. Rolling shallowly down the hill he was standing on lead to the view of sandy banks along the lake. Chubby little oar boats bobbed noiselessly from afar against the baby waves of the pristine colored water that eventually spread into Hogwarts.
The sun provided negligible, temporary warmth and for the most part, it was chilly, still.
Draco darted his eyes around cautiously and a little tiredly, which caused his vision to drag. One thing that had never changed was that Draco was constantly exhausted. Even if he slept - which he could do easily. But when he woke up, it was that same tiredness greeting him at morning. He slept, sure, but he was unable to rest. The exhaustion came attached with the constant reminder that he was a Wanderer, and what the Wizarding world would be able to provide a Wanderer to continue . . . well, wandering, was obviously some compromise of energy and strength that one living would normally find themselves supplied with. A Wanderer had a very lingering, dangerously minimal supply of energy to work off of.
So, Draco was always tired. Except when Hermione was physically near, of course.
And he had always been cold, but that slowly started to melt off. Only the closer he got to one Hermione Granger, of course.
This was only now catching up to him.
The Spell of Ipse is all about discovery and learning. Only seconds into it, Draco was already learning so much more than he’d anticipated.
* * *
“Draco!” she called out instinctively.
Nothing.
“Where are you? Draco!” Hermione tried again.
It was only seconds ago that they had recited the Spell of Ipse together, clasped hands with the intention of going into it together. And now, blinks later, Hermione was alone. The lingering touch of Draco’s hands felt like lifetimes ago.
She was still in her room, of which her side was immaculately organized. Hermione was not the type to clean obsessively nor was she a neat freak, contrary to popular belief. But she was always, always organized. Not neat or clean, really, but never, ever messy.
Nothing was different, and for a second she panicked, thinking that maybe they’d recited the spell wrong.
“Draco?” she called out quietly again, more to herself than in hopes of him hearing it, really.
Armed without a clue or intuition of any sort, she stupidly knelt down and checked under her bed.
“Agh, stupid!” she scolded herself, frazzled. She rushed over to the spell book to double check, mouthing it to herself meticulously while clasping hands and closing her eyes, trying her best to recap what had gone wrong.
But she was Hermione Granger. When it came to spells, of course nothing had gone wrong.
“Hello, Hermione.”
Hermione gasped shortly, looking up at the woman standing in front of her. “Hello,” she stammered. “Who are you?”
“My name is Sabrina.”
* * *
“Hermione, where are you?” Draco called out, through cupped hands.
Draco looked around. Nothing. The row boats had stopped bobbing. The waves in the lake had smoothed and the winds had dried out. The surface of the lake looked like a sheet of bottle green glass.
And there he was, standing in front of him right at the edge of the cave that Draco had stepped out of.
“Dad,” Draco said slowly.
“Son.”
He spoke languidly, the tone of his voice smooth and the volume of the sounds always hushed and low. When Lucius Malfoy spoke, it was never to command the attention of the room - but the result always came out that way anyway.
Draco looked up at his father - the man, the blood, the bane of his existence and the one person he desperately wanted to be loved by more than anyone else in the world. He found that suddenly, his insides were storming - like the eye of the hurricane, the tornado twisted about innocently, frailly, but the more it picked up, the more damage it blew across and the harder it raged.
This is the eye. Draco’s right one was also twitching. He forgot that he was in the Spell of Ipse. He forgot that he was dead, a Wanderer - whatever. All he could focus on at this very moment was the fact that his father was standing in front of him. And though the days could be numbered and the time since he had died could be measured, it felt like centuries - lifetimes - and it felt like forever that Draco had been thinking about his father. It was all too much.
The wind was blowing now, turning inside of him a strange sort of relief to learn that the quiet in the place wasn’t permanent. It also marked the permission for Draco to make some noise of his own.
“Have you gone to see mom?”
“No, I haven’t. I’m here to see you right now.”
“I’m touched.”
“Language, Draco.”
“I didn’t say any bad words, father.”
“Your tone emulated them well enough.”
Pause.
And, then “fuck you!” Draco exploded. “How’s that for language?”
Lucius didn’t speak. His upper lip curled with a biting shudder of his lower jaw, but his eyes remained lifeless and at all times, cold.
“That’s enough.”
“You left!” Draco seethed. “Why? What gives you the right? After we followed you into the war, after we stood by your side . . . like the family that we wanted to be. When it was all over, you lost a son. Then you left. You lost a son!” he repeated.
Draco was panting loudly, his mouth building up with saliva and breath and his chest pounding and twisting from all the circuits in his frail body charging overtime. But he still managed to painfully churn out his question.
“Didn’t that affect you at all?”
* * *
“Are you a part of the spell?” Hermione asked cautiously. Sabrina smiled faintly, not answering Hermione’s question directly, but she did speak.
“There are many spells involved in my appearance right now. We are a species of magic, after all.”
“Why are you here, then?”
“I’m here to see you, Hermione. I know of your life very personally, having been assigned to aid Draco in his transition assignment.”
“Transition . . . into an after life.” Hermione said slowly, almost as if informing herself of the inevitable. She closed her eyes, then. Her vision clouded by hopelessness, anyway. Spells layered within more spells. Everything just grew to be so . . . messy. Hermione Granger was not about messes, but here was the biggest one of her life.
“Life occurs in a cycle, dear. There is no life and after life or finality, I will tell you that much.”
“I know what we’ve done is wrong,” Hermione started shakily, biting her lower lip and opened up her eyes again.
She was frazzled at this point. Draco had always spoken of Sabrina’s soft, ethereal quality. He had made her sound forgiving and very nurturing, but for Hermione, she was simply a figure above her and in Hermione’s world, hierarchy was established not through monetary riches or social status, but through the knowledge that one possessed, and Sabrina knew worlds more than anyone living - than anyone Hermione knew, that was for sure.
“What have you done and why is it wrong?”
“When Draco died . . . when you met him, you were meant to help him find closure from his former life. And while an after life may not exist after all, Draco had definitely ended one life. I don’t exactly know what my place is in helping him do that, but he came to me immediately and it was this chilling connection I felt with him. I was the only person who could see him, for starters, so I knew that I was, in some way, meant to aide him into his after life . . . sorry, his . . . next life, or next cycle. Or just somewhere that wasn’t this lifetime.”
She then got up quickly to adjust her place on the bed and sat down with a flourishing poof of the fluffy blankets below her and smiled wistfully. “But he’s . . . well, you know. He’s Draco Malfoy. He had his own plans. And I was weak. I’m still weak. But it was too tempting and I gave in, and the spell we found seemed like it would be the perfect solution. It seemed foolproof. He’s smart and so am I and we would work together as a team to achieve it. I didn’t . . . I didn’t realize what other ramifications we’d come across. And now everything’s so complicated. Feelings erupted, and I’m so incredibly sorry because . . . we broke so many rules, and I feel like both of us are getting hurt even more and the progress is nonexistent in the grand scheme of things. I also get the sense that for a Wanderer, intense emotions just are no good for their well being.”
“No, they’re not,” Sabrina said simply. There was a breathy pause before she spoke again. “Hermione, I knew about your spell. I knew that Harry Potter fought a war in his lifetime - a war that the heroes of the ages would have been impressed with. I know that many lives were lost unfairly. It was the first major war in a long time fought by children, and I have watched that war the closest and nothing in recent times has made me weep more. I was not only assigned to Draco to help heal after all this, Hermione.”
“There’s someone else you’re helping?”
Sabrina nodded. “You will find out in due time, dear. What is to happen to the two of you is so much bigger than bringing Draco back to life or turning back time. As I’ve mentioned, all those things are easily cast into reality with magic. A skill that your kind has both been blessed and cursed with, as is what all knowledge represents, isn’t it? Both good and bad, as history has proven, time and time again. But this . . . this right now? It’s so much more than all of that.”
“What’s happening?” Hermione asked quietly. “Is Draco really dying? I want to know if it’s possible that we can actually reverse this whole spell . . . if we’ll all be happy again. Please, I can’t do this with the forces of the living . . . I know I’m not allowed to know, but if you know me at all, you know that I’m a good person, you know that I won’t do any bad with the answer you give me, I just . . . I need to move on from this, one way or another.”
“You will be happy again. But before that, you need to really think about what you have done and what you can do. You will be happy again.” Sabrina repeated.
“Will Draco live again?” Hermione pressed.
“What defines life in the Wizarding world is similar to what defines life in the Muggle world, Hermione. In fact, it is exactly the same thing. It is a physiological condition of the human body. It is biological and very much scientific when one is literally alive. Draco right now is not alive. But what separates our world from the Muggles is not what categorizes us as a superior species, but we do possess the skill to be able to prolong death. We are able to alter science with magic.”
Hermione could feel her heart pounding so hard that her chest was writhing in a clenched, sour pain.
“It is very easy to heal Draco physically so that he is alive again, Hermione.”
And the air filled up her lungs, then, drenching her with the knowledge that she had thirsted for all year long.
“But has such a case ever proven to have occurred, dear?” Sabrina asked softly.
And, there, it was.
Hermione’s heart collapsed against the walls of her ribcage abruptly, gasping softly and then it sunk to the floor, breaking inelegantly in a horrible wet mess - the kind of mess she had fought so hard never to be involved in, and she found that when she met eyes with Sabrina, there were tears shining in both their eyes.
* * *
. . .
“Didn’t that affect you at all?” Draco cried out again.
Lucius didn’t say anything.
“Well? Didn’t it?”
He couldn’t stop. Once the floodgates had loosened up and the bars broke, everything came whooshing out, colossal barrels and wave after wave of intense, dark, repressed emotion. Draco wasn’t even sure he meant what he was saying, he just knew that he couldn’t stop himself from letting all the word vomit violently hurl out.
“You have no idea what you’ve put me through. How fucked up I turned out because of you and your sick, homoerotic obsession with that piece of shit excuse for a human being that you called your fucking master!”
Draco had never been this angry at his father before. He thought he felt bouts of rage here and there while growing up and being neglected. But these were all normal feelings for a spoiled child to go through the motions of experiencing. And then, when the war tore into their lives, shattering the norm and colliding head on with every bit of hope Draco had for a normal family life, he grew more wary - more desperate, to want to know what it was like to be a Malfoy. To be the Draco he was meant to be, to live a life that supposedly was to be enjoyed. To be his mother’s son and his father’s son.
Then, he died. And when he was given the chance to redeem everything by Sabrina, Draco could only think of two things as he sought Hermione out on his assigned mission - to bring himself back to life . . . and the same for his father.
Now, standing in front of his father, it was the very first time he seriously questioned whether or not he wanted to see his father ever again.
And then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, Draco burst into a cry. He started sobbing uncontrollably, wailing loudly. The tears flew and he made a frantic motion with his hands in an attempt first to gather them all, spreading his hands about his face to continuously wipe away at his eyes, and then he just burst into his gloved hands all together. Draco shouted into them, his cry muffled and an animal-like, high pitched line of desperate noise escaping through the cracks.
He was crying so hard that his throat hurt, so hard that he was getting dehydrated, his supply of water shutting off on him.
Soon, it was just an empty, hoarse whimper.
Draco looked up and sucked in wobbly air, the noise of his loud staccato breathing the only thing to be heard.
“I don’t deserve this,” Draco rasped. “I’m really not a bad person. But you led me to believe that I was. And I believed it. And I believed that it was the only way to thrive. To live. Even now, Hermione and I . . . this fucking spell we’re working on. A Dark spell, of all spells! Why is it that I can’t escape you?”
“I left that book for you, Draco.”
He looked up at his father with bloodshot eyes and a salted, sticky face that felt grainy against the wind.
“What?” Draco whispered.
“The book that contained the very spell that you are working on. You see, the afterlife doesn’t break apart your life here in the living world - there’s an infinite connection with us because we’re family. I knew of your mission and I lead you to the book.”
“You know what’s happened, right?”
Something changed, all of a sudden. His sinuses immediately cleared up, his vision sharpened and he looked up alertly. Focused. Connected. Realizing. It was not because Draco finally mustered up the courage to stand up to his father that helped him break down just minutes ago. But it was an innate sense that rang automatically in Draco’s head that told him this wasn’t his father. This wasn’t Lucius Malfoy. The person standing before Draco looked and felt like his father, but when Draco looked carefully, the gaze through fake Lucius’ eyes clearly pierced through to the other side. His eyes were hollow - this person was simply a product of the Spell of Ipse.
Draco knew all this. Knew that this wasn’t actually his father. But he needed to say things to his father anyway, and he hoped that by doing this, somehow the real Lucius would know. Or at least somehow Draco would be a step closer to healing.
“I’ve fallen for her. The person who represents everything you taught me about what was wrong. But I don’t think I’ve done any wrong, dad. And I know you didn’t leave that book for me. You would never have wanted me to fall in love with a Muggleborn. You didn’t allow it. You restricted my life. And I understand it, now. I’m not angry. I have no right to be because I was a coward, too, you know. During all this, after you died - after I died, I look back upon it and all I did was think about you and how effortless it felt to put the blame all on you. So I did that. Even just now, I was yelling at you and angry at you for what happened.”
Draco exhaled and kept talking. “But I don’t know what’s going on. It’s all so messy. I really need someone to help me stand up right now. I don’t even know if I want to be alive anymore if it means that I don’t even have you. I don’t want to complete that spell Hermione and I are working on because I’m scared something will go wrong. I’m scared that it is wrong. There are powers higher than everything I’ve ever believed in, and that’s probably the only thing I’ve learned since this has all begun.”
“You do what you feel is right, Draco. That’s all I’m allowed to tell you. That’s all anyone is allowed to tell you, even Hermione.”
Draco looked up alertly. Hermione? Lucius Malfoy would never have addressed Hermione Granger as an equal being. This definitely wasn’t his father.
“Who are you?” he asked, then.
“I’m who you think I am.”
“What am I supposed to do now in this spell?” Draco asked.
And the artificial older Malfoy said no more at this point.
There were cracks forming steadily on Lucius’ face. The crooked, broken lines spread about fast and furious and the broken pieces of his complexion divided swiftly.
“Dad?” Draco leaned forward, attempting to catch the pieces. “Dad!” He cried out frantically, then. “What’s going on? Don’t break up like this, please. I really could use you at a time like this.”
His salted, sticky face felt grainy and dirty and in one rough motion of his dirty palms, Draco wiped away at the dampness of his face as he could only watch helplessly as the image of Lucius Malfoy literally crumbled.
“I could’ve used you all the other times, too,” Draco realized out loud, quietly.
“I must go,” the voice whispered, as sandy and airy as its own contents.
“Dad,” Draco tried again, grasping at the weak straws.
“Draco.”
Draco snapped his head up. There was now nothing in front of him, except small scattered patches of sand at his feet of which fine grains were being swept away by the light wind, swirling all around him in the air.
The voice was clear, and it felt more real to him as his own father than the figure that he had just been talking to before.
“Draco,” the voice said again.
Draco closed his eyes, and he could clearly see his father standing in front of him. He didn’t want to open his eyes, because he knew that once he peeled off the many layers of this spell, his father wouldn’t really be there. Right now, he just wanted to hear his father’s voice one last time.
“Dad,” Draco tried.
“Draco.”
“Dad,” Draco repeated, tears forming at the edges of his eyes, stinging his vision with the salted wetness.
“What you asked me earlier, the answer is yes. I was very much affected.”
* * *
She had never run so hard in her life. As soon as Sabrina gave off the ghostly hint of the possibility that Draco would die, Hermione bolted through the doors of her dormitory, past Sabrina, and out to find Draco.
Time. Time wasn’t on their side, and she needed to capitalize on however much she still had. They had taken a year to connect, to work, to learn. It had felt like a time trap at one point, like someone took the hourglass and laid it down horizontally on the table so that the world was just being with Draco and nothing else. There was no end in sight, and the beginning felt like it had never even really begun. But now she was just learning that the hourglass was definitely still standing upright, the sand swooshing down through an even bigger opening than either of them had imagined.
Her lungs clenched together tightly and the back of her throat clamped up, cotton dry. She wasn’t sure if it was the running that did that or the finality of every moment from here and now would break her heart, but she felt overwhelmed with an flurry of emotions when finally seeing him.
“Draco.”
Draco turned around and Hermione grabbed a handful of his collar, pulled him close to her and kissed him hard on the lips, inhaling through her nose and savoring the taste of his mouth.
She closed her eyes.
“Hermione,” Draco said when finally pulling away. “What’s going on. We’re still in the spell, right?”
“Yes.”
“Where have you been?”
“I was in my room . . . Sabrina came to talk to me.”
“What?” Draco cried. “Okay, wait, you have to hear who I’ve been talking to. It’s been incredible. I haven’t felt this way ever when I was alive . . . I think . . . I’m finally ready.”
“I - what? Ready for what? Who did you talk to?”
“I talked to my dad. Or something. It was amazing. I finally got the closure I’ve been looking for since I died, Hermione. I think I’m almost ready. Screw the spell, I think I’m ready to die, I think that’s what was meant to happen. You helped me get to this point.”
She narrowed her eyes as a light breeze shuddered past them.
Then she slapped him square across the face, the loud clap of the skin to skin contact burning hot, instantaneous friction and slicing through the silence. Draco’s face whipped to the side and he cried out in protest.
“Third time’s the charm?” he snapped, his mouth still half open from the wince.
“Screw the spell?” she breathed. “Screw you, Draco Malfoy! I’m so glad you’re ready to give up just because everything is right in your ‘life.’ What about the fact that, oh, I don’t know, that you’re in between life and death and you’d much rather be dead than alive just because it’s easier?”
She began tearing up and Draco instantly grabbed her hands by their wrists and held them close to his chest. He could feel her entire body quivering with anger. “No,” he said lowly. “Listen to me, I didn’t mean it like that. You know I didn’t. It’s not that I want to leave you, Hermione, it’s that I just really think we have to deal with reality.”
“This is reality,” she insisted vehemently. “It’s taken me forever to realize that, because I was working so hard to secure all of us a reality, but this is it. We are reality. You’re a Wizard, Draco. We can do magic. We can change things that most of society isn’t even aware is a possibility. But you’re ready to just give up?”
“I’m tired,” he finally said wearily. “I’m really tired.”
And it took her by surprise. Because, of course, she was tired too. It had been a long, tumultuous year. It had also been a lonely year and she had never hurt this bad. But she found that no matter how weary her bones stood and how exhausting the fight, she was nowhere near ready to give up. Even when Sabrina had hinted that Draco dying was the inevitable.
There it finally was.
This was the Hermione Granger that had been dying to escape for the longest time now. Not the logical Hermione Granger, not the Hermione Granger who stepped in with all the facts and the obvious and the things that made sense. Not the smart Hermione Granger that drew accurate answers from complicated questions.
This was the Hermione Granger who was ready to defy the odds. This was the Hermione Granger she wished she had stepped into that long raging war into as. The Hermione Granger who was ready to really fight.
The Hermione Granger who was strong as everyone who believed her to be. The Hermione Granger who was as strong as she finally knew she was.
Her voice trembling, short breaths escaping her throat in hoarse shudders as she spoke, then. “Listen to me, Draco. We have to finish the spell.”
He looked at her hesitatingly. “And then what?”
“And then I’ll lay everything to rest once that’s done. I need to know that I set out to do everything that I’m capable of doing, Draco. I’ve got only a little left in me - but I know it’s enough.”
He smiled a little, taken aback by her sudden newfound vigor. “What did Sabrina say to you, exactly?”
That you are going to die, she wanted to cry out desperately, so that her voice ripped through her lungs and penetrated the air they were standing in, so that it would rock the core of the very moment. Her heart ached and the tears were frantically fighting hard not to form. Her chest hurt literally with the truth.
“That I’ll be happy again.”
Draco again smiled at her, this time in a way that made her want even more to cry but she didn’t.
“Are you ready to go back?” he asked.
“How do we do that?” she asked, grabbing his hand.
He didn’t question why Hermione, a girl normally not a fan of any displays of affection in public, was gripping his hand so hard.
And Hermione, the girl who had just found out about Draco’s ultimate fate and who refused to let go of Draco’s hand, would never tell him what she learned today.
“Let’s just start walking, I guess,” he said.
They walked in complete silence for a few minutes. The shifting temperature in the air was drastic, as the pinching cold quickly melted away into a soupy warmth that occurred so fast without any temperate transition that Hermione shivered, then.
“Why is it so warm?” she mused out loud.
“I don’t know why I’m feeling as warm as I am,” Draco said automatically.
She looked at him funny.
“I’m saying that in general it’s very warm, Draco.” She didn’t let go of the hand that was clasped with Draco’s but with her other hand fanned her face quickly, the splotches of thick heat feeling almost prickly against her cheeks. She looked around and finally spotted a fire in the distance, right at the edge of the forest, before the lake.
Across the creek was a hazy image of a blond man.
“Draco . . .” Hermione trailed off.
“Yeah, I see him,” Draco said, his voice coarse.
It was Lucius. She gripped his hand even harder.
The fire spread quickly and crackled loudly over the bridge, as if someone had soaked the entire thing in fuel. Chunks of wood snapped and burned as the flames rose up dangerously amongst the thick smoke and the orangey glaze reflected in Draco’s eyes as he watched as, very literally so, the bridge between he and Lucius was burned.
The fire died out as fast as it had started. Absolutely no remnants of the bridge remained and the lake was pristine as it was before.
“Should we find a way to get to him on the other side?”
“No,” Draco said quickly. “That’s not in the right direction of the castle, anyway. We spoke earlier already. Let’s go, come on. I’m fine.”
“Dr---”
“Let’s go,” Draco repeated.
Hermione wasn’t sure what was going through Draco’s mind right now. The fact that the spell had basically just affirmed the last Draco would ever be seeing of his father was a moment long gone. She snuck a look at him from the side of her eyes as they walked through the woods and noticed that he was looking straight ahead, alert. Emotionless. On the other end of the spectrum, here Hermione was, every emotion imaginable raging inside her, pulsating through her veins and causing her to feel almost lightheaded from the information that she had learned earlier.
While the first two Ipse spells had them running through a maze to learn something new, this one was rather straightforward. Both Draco and Hermione had been contacted separately by very important people and were given information. For Draco, it was closure. For Hermione, it was the unwelcome truth.
There was a difference here in that Draco took his new discovery and ran with it, while Hermione refused to accept it. But ultimately, they both very much wanted the spell to be completed, life or death.
“Oh!” she cried out in surprise as they came to an abrupt halt. In front of them were two very large winged horses. One black, the other brown but otherwise identical. Their wings were elaborately patterned in its leathery texture and their manes long and shiny. The brown one turned and flared its nostrils at Hermione and she saw that its eyes were white and shiny. A tremble ran down her spine.
“Thestrals,” Draco breathed. “There’s two, one for each of us?”
“Okay,” she agreed as they cautiously stepped forward, still hand in hand. Draco helped her onto hers and then he climbed onto his.
Once they got back to the Hogwarts castle, the spell had transitioned itself into a nice close and they were back. Spots of students could be seen from above and a Quidditch practice was in session on the field - Hufflepuff, judging by the uniform colors.
Hermione breathed a sigh of a relief as they landed right at the entrance of the castle and waited for Draco get off seconds later.
The relief was temporary as Draco looked at her funny when he stepped off his thestral.
“Let’s go, we’ve got a lot of work to get done,” she said.
“You could see the thestrals,” Draco said, not walking with her.
She whirled around and faced him as he stood under a stone gargoyle at the entrance. His hands were shoved into his pockets and he was looking at her intently.
“What?”
“Thestrals can only be seen by those who have seen death, Hermione.”
“So?”
“So, who did you watch die?”
“I . . .” she trailed off. “I don’t know.”
“I’m going to ask you again who did you watch die?”
“Excuse me?” she snapped, taking a step toward him. “Are you accusing me of lying? What happened to our trust?”
“Don’t dodge the question.”
“Don’t dodge my question.”
“Trusting someone doesn’t mean believing their lies, Hermione!” Draco shouted, his voice not shifting a single wave in the sound barrier.
“Oh, so I’m a liar now?” she shrieked, her voice echoing behind her in the covered entrance to the castle.
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said stonily. “I don’t have time for this. Are you coming or not?”
He then grabbed her arm not so gently and she cried out.
“You say that you don’t remember much from the war, right? Your memory’s really hazy because it was so traumatic for you, that’s the explanation you gave me once.”
“What’s your point?”
“You told me that Weasley had to fill you in on how Potter died. How he died in battle. If that was true, then why did you keep accusing me of killing him?”
“I was angry! It was in the heat of the moment, Draco. I never believed you killed Harry.”
“But despite that, you must have not believed Weasley’s story. You must still remember something, namely about Potter’s death. Just earlier when we were with Longbottom, he kept accusing me of killing Potter as well, but I remember the events from the war very clearly Hermione, and I can tell you that I didn’t kill Potter.”
“What are you saying about Neville’s accusation, then?”
“I’m saying that it’s funny because Weasley has one version of how Potter died and Longbottom seems to have another. Meanwhile, you were so traumatized from something that happened during the war that you blacked out so much of your memory, yet you can’t get Potter’s death out of your head.”
“Because he was my best friend, Draco! Can we please go inside and work on the spell?”
“I’m sorry, I have to ask this.”
“Ask what?” she demanded wildly, almost frantically.
“Did you kill Potter?”
She didn’t answer.
<< PREVIOUS | NEXT >>