HP -- Getting a Life XI: Bitter Victory
Title: Getting a Life
Chapter: 11. Bitter Victory
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,834
Warnings: you should be accustomed to the melodrama by now, right?
Summary: Hermione Granger loves metaphors. Draco Malfoy loves Muggle cigarettes. What happens when the king of Slytherin and the queen of the library collide?
Author's Note: Apparently the trusty Harry Potter Lexicon had my back on this one. So says my original note, anyway.
HERMIONE
We had some trouble finding the entrance to Dumbledore’s office because Harry’s glasses were in a very bad way, which compromised his navigating skills considerably. As I had made him tell me very early in our acquaintance, Harry had myopia, and in addition, just about everything was fuzzy without his lenses in place. He attempted to hold the remains of his glasses in front of his eyes, alternating between them with the one intact lens, and did a lot of squinting. There was a series of spiteful little cuts on his right cheek where the glass had shattered on it, and one shallow, thin, arching one that was scabbing over on his eyelid. It looked like he’d get a black eye as well, as if the existing damage wasn’t enough.
The rest of us didn’t look too healthy, either. Ron had some pretty distinct bruises in the shape of fingers around his neck that were turning a very visible purple against his skin, and he’d split a knuckle and was clutching the wound as if cradling a small child. As for me, I was just in a general state of disarray.
It was Draco who had fared the worst. First of all, there was the startling contusion on his cheek from where Ron had hit him initially-a nice, oddly-shaped patch with rising hints of purple and a dark red. His right hand was still bleeding halfheartedly in the myriad places where Harry’s glasses had wreaked havoc on it, and there were scratches on his face from Ron’s fingernails, one of them seeming to tend towards severe given the way that it was leaking blood as well. He was limping a little and trying to hide it.
I would have been trying to help Harry figure out where we were going, but I was a little preoccupied with giving Ron warning looks when he seemed ready to menace Malfoy and avoiding the looks Malfoy gave me-glares laced with the kind of potent disgust and venomous rage that couldn’t be contained for long. Plus I was holding two wands, Malfoy’s and mine, to ensure that he didn’t try to pull anything. It didn’t seem too implausible, even now. Especially now.
Somehow, likely much by luck, we managed to stumble onto the right location. A gargoyle gazed at us blankly.
“Uh, Cauldron Cakes,” Harry said. “Chocolate Frogs. Pumpkin Pasties. Uh, Fudge Flies. Damn it. Ron, what’s all that stuff your brothers sell?”
Ron didn’t answer.
“Forget it,” Harry muttered. He chewed on his lip. “Lessee… Pepper Imps? Peppermint Toads? Umm… Sugar quills?”
“The password is candy?” I asked slowly. When he nodded, I racked my brain. “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans? Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum? Chocoballs?”
“Ice Mice,” Harry said. “Jelly Slugs. Oh, all the Weasley stuff-uh, Nosebleed Nougat. Fever Fudge. Fainting Fancy. Canary Creams. Help me out, Ron; they’re your brothers.”
The gargoyle continued to look at us stonily. So did Ron.
“Um, Ton-Tongue Toffees,” I supplied. “Oh, and Licorice Wands, but those aren’t Weasley-”
The gargoyle shifted, revealing a few stone steps, and continued to twirl slowly upward.
“Quick!” Harry urged, leaping onto the first one. Grudgingly, Ron followed. Draco allowed a few steps to rise past us despite my protests before he would take his place on one, likely as a statement of his distaste for Harry and Ron. Muttering vituperatively, I jumped on after him and waited, anticipation and anxiety melting into a tingling mixture in my veins, and clenched my fingers carefully around the two wands in my possession. I hoped Harry had a plan, because I didn’t.
We went straight through the oak door, barging in with a brazen and kind of desperate sort of impoliteness, and Albus Dumbledore looked up at us and paused. Bushy white eyebrows lifted slowly as he took in the extent of our injuries and prominent dishevelment.
Harry pointed an indicting finger at Malfoy, who was glowering at him formidably. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but we-Ron and I-caught him harassing Hermione. In a closet.”
I tried to fight down the blush climbing my cheeks like ivy on a stone wall. Way to make it sound shady, Harry, I thought.
“He was probably going to do something horrible, sir, knowing Malfoy, so we…intervened. Solve the problem before it starts, I guess.”
“That’s not even the problem,” I interrupted. When everyone looked at me, except Malfoy, who continued to attempt to incinerate Harry with his eyes, I went on. “It’s not. The problem is that he smokes and drinks, and he’s going to kill himself if he doesn’t stop.” Now I had Malfoy’s attention, too.
“What?” Harry and Ron said at once. It was the first word the latter had uttered in many long minutes.
Malfoy’s blazing eyes burned at the floor again. “It wouldn’t be a problem,” he snapped, “if you hadn’t told my father.”
“What?” Harry repeated, looking to Dumbledore bewilderedly. “I mean, I didn’t know…that was possible here…”
The headmaster smiled a sad, weary smile. “Very little in this world is impossible, Harry,” he responded gently. “Allow me to assure you that this is not the first time I have seen this happen-nor the second, or the third. There is a lot of pressure to succeed here, more in some cases than others, and invariably that regrettable circumstance breeds some students who seek alternative avenues to relieve that pressure. It is certainly not the proudest of our traditions, but it is among them nonetheless.”
Ron and Harry were still blinking, dumbly and in disbelief.
“But…here…” Harry began again, hopelessly.
“Oh, come on,” I interrupted, trying to soften my impatience. “Do you really think you can jam a bunch of stupid teenagers into one place and not expect this to happen?”
Dumbledore smiled that same horrible, defeated smile and looked to Harry, who shook his head and fell silent. The headmaster turned to Malfoy.
“Draco,” he said quietly-and more kindly than anyone else in the room would have managed, “you have a variety of choices now. Do you know what you intend to do?”
“Yes,” Malfoy spat. “I’m getting out of this hellhole.” At our shock, he glared at us petulantly. “Go ahead and celebrate,” he continued, his lip curling. “I’m sick and tired of this same old shit every day. I’m tired of the dorms. I’m tired of the food. I’m tired of the moving passageways and the doors that go nowhere and the teachers playing favorites. I’m tired of the quill pens and the idiotic rules and the amnesty for the-” Here he sneered at Harry. “-heroes who break them. I’m tired of the candles and the one janitor and his stupid cat and the Quidditch games and the pranks and the homework and the detentions and all of you.” His voice was gaining volume as he went, working its way up to a shout. “You lot most of all. You’re just disgusting. And so naïve. Everybody is here. This place’ll hire any old hack-how many teachers have turned out to be ‘evil’ and whatnot? I’ve lost count, that’s how bad it is. And honestly. There’s a snake in the walls paralyzing kids and a known murderer running around, and nobody closes down the school? The passwords to the places kids sleep are just verbal, and perfectly audible to anybody in hearing range? Anybody who wants one can buy an Invisibility Cloak and go sneaking around running amok, and anyone can go gallivanting off into the middle of a forest full of freaks so long as he doesn’t get caught? How many times have we been infiltrated, and still everyone’s always just saying it’ll be okay and hoping the school will stay open? Am I really the only person who can see how ridiculously dangerous that is? Am I really the only one who thinks this is all just stupid? Is it possible that I’m the only person who’d like nothing better than to get the fuck out of here?”
The silence in the room was unmarred but for his faint panting when Draco finished. Dumbledore watched him motionlessly, his hands laid on his desk, his fingers arranged in the shape of a steeple. There was a glimmer in his deep blue eyes, and I couldn’t discern whether it was pity, sorrow, disappointment, or some combination of the three.
“Where would you like to go, Draco?” the headmaster asked softly just before the mortified silence grew too heavy to bear.
“I don’t care,” Malfoy mumbled, kicking at the rug moodily, shrouded only in the remaining wisps of his former anger. Most of it had dissipated into the air over the course of the tirade, and the fight had gone out of him now. He’d said what he’d needed to say. “There’s got to be a million schools, given how many Quidditch teams there are. And there’s got to be one better than this one where they speak the right language and all.”
“When you choose one,” Dumbledore replied, his gaze on the boy before him, his eyes entirely unreadable now, “I will personally write you a recommendation, if you like.”
“Sure,” Malfoy muttered. “Thanks.” Summarily he turned to go.
“You’re leaving?” I asked hesitantly.
“Pretend you care,” he retorted acerbically.
“If I didn’t care,” I shot back, “I wouldn’t be here.”
He looked at me for a few seconds, and then he lowered his eyes, shook his head, jammed his hands in his pockets, and disappeared out the door.
Indignantly I tried to resist the tears that pricked at my eyes. “Jerk,” I whispered to myself.
“Miss Granger,” Dumbledore interjected carefully, “do you think I could speak to you?”
Obediently I tore my eyes away from the door, nodded, and sat down in the armchair indicated.
“Are we to go, then, sir?” Harry inquired. At some motion that I couldn’t see, because I was looking at my folded hands in my lap, they went.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Dumbledore said then, “I would be very much obliged if you were willing to tell me the whole story.”
So I told him. I told him everything, sitting in the big, overstuffed armchair in his odd office, and I cried a lot. He subsequently conjured a lot of tissues, and I subsequently soaked them all. I felt a little better after that-hollow, at least, and therein less susceptible to the wormwood I’d been served. It was going down easier now. At least my fears and worries weren’t a precious, perilous secret anymore. At least, if Draco Malfoy had been telling the truth, I wouldn’t have to fear for and worry about him ever again. And he’d take all my hopes and dreams and adoration with him, whether he realized it or not.
I had seen a problem, and, in the usual busybody fashion, I had sought to fix it. Now I had succeeded. Triumph had never tasted so cold, empty, and cruel.
[Chapter X] [Chapter XII]
Chapter: 11. Bitter Victory
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,834
Warnings: you should be accustomed to the melodrama by now, right?
Summary: Hermione Granger loves metaphors. Draco Malfoy loves Muggle cigarettes. What happens when the king of Slytherin and the queen of the library collide?
Author's Note: Apparently the trusty Harry Potter Lexicon had my back on this one. So says my original note, anyway.
HERMIONE
We had some trouble finding the entrance to Dumbledore’s office because Harry’s glasses were in a very bad way, which compromised his navigating skills considerably. As I had made him tell me very early in our acquaintance, Harry had myopia, and in addition, just about everything was fuzzy without his lenses in place. He attempted to hold the remains of his glasses in front of his eyes, alternating between them with the one intact lens, and did a lot of squinting. There was a series of spiteful little cuts on his right cheek where the glass had shattered on it, and one shallow, thin, arching one that was scabbing over on his eyelid. It looked like he’d get a black eye as well, as if the existing damage wasn’t enough.
The rest of us didn’t look too healthy, either. Ron had some pretty distinct bruises in the shape of fingers around his neck that were turning a very visible purple against his skin, and he’d split a knuckle and was clutching the wound as if cradling a small child. As for me, I was just in a general state of disarray.
It was Draco who had fared the worst. First of all, there was the startling contusion on his cheek from where Ron had hit him initially-a nice, oddly-shaped patch with rising hints of purple and a dark red. His right hand was still bleeding halfheartedly in the myriad places where Harry’s glasses had wreaked havoc on it, and there were scratches on his face from Ron’s fingernails, one of them seeming to tend towards severe given the way that it was leaking blood as well. He was limping a little and trying to hide it.
I would have been trying to help Harry figure out where we were going, but I was a little preoccupied with giving Ron warning looks when he seemed ready to menace Malfoy and avoiding the looks Malfoy gave me-glares laced with the kind of potent disgust and venomous rage that couldn’t be contained for long. Plus I was holding two wands, Malfoy’s and mine, to ensure that he didn’t try to pull anything. It didn’t seem too implausible, even now. Especially now.
Somehow, likely much by luck, we managed to stumble onto the right location. A gargoyle gazed at us blankly.
“Uh, Cauldron Cakes,” Harry said. “Chocolate Frogs. Pumpkin Pasties. Uh, Fudge Flies. Damn it. Ron, what’s all that stuff your brothers sell?”
Ron didn’t answer.
“Forget it,” Harry muttered. He chewed on his lip. “Lessee… Pepper Imps? Peppermint Toads? Umm… Sugar quills?”
“The password is candy?” I asked slowly. When he nodded, I racked my brain. “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans? Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum? Chocoballs?”
“Ice Mice,” Harry said. “Jelly Slugs. Oh, all the Weasley stuff-uh, Nosebleed Nougat. Fever Fudge. Fainting Fancy. Canary Creams. Help me out, Ron; they’re your brothers.”
The gargoyle continued to look at us stonily. So did Ron.
“Um, Ton-Tongue Toffees,” I supplied. “Oh, and Licorice Wands, but those aren’t Weasley-”
The gargoyle shifted, revealing a few stone steps, and continued to twirl slowly upward.
“Quick!” Harry urged, leaping onto the first one. Grudgingly, Ron followed. Draco allowed a few steps to rise past us despite my protests before he would take his place on one, likely as a statement of his distaste for Harry and Ron. Muttering vituperatively, I jumped on after him and waited, anticipation and anxiety melting into a tingling mixture in my veins, and clenched my fingers carefully around the two wands in my possession. I hoped Harry had a plan, because I didn’t.
We went straight through the oak door, barging in with a brazen and kind of desperate sort of impoliteness, and Albus Dumbledore looked up at us and paused. Bushy white eyebrows lifted slowly as he took in the extent of our injuries and prominent dishevelment.
Harry pointed an indicting finger at Malfoy, who was glowering at him formidably. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but we-Ron and I-caught him harassing Hermione. In a closet.”
I tried to fight down the blush climbing my cheeks like ivy on a stone wall. Way to make it sound shady, Harry, I thought.
“He was probably going to do something horrible, sir, knowing Malfoy, so we…intervened. Solve the problem before it starts, I guess.”
“That’s not even the problem,” I interrupted. When everyone looked at me, except Malfoy, who continued to attempt to incinerate Harry with his eyes, I went on. “It’s not. The problem is that he smokes and drinks, and he’s going to kill himself if he doesn’t stop.” Now I had Malfoy’s attention, too.
“What?” Harry and Ron said at once. It was the first word the latter had uttered in many long minutes.
Malfoy’s blazing eyes burned at the floor again. “It wouldn’t be a problem,” he snapped, “if you hadn’t told my father.”
“What?” Harry repeated, looking to Dumbledore bewilderedly. “I mean, I didn’t know…that was possible here…”
The headmaster smiled a sad, weary smile. “Very little in this world is impossible, Harry,” he responded gently. “Allow me to assure you that this is not the first time I have seen this happen-nor the second, or the third. There is a lot of pressure to succeed here, more in some cases than others, and invariably that regrettable circumstance breeds some students who seek alternative avenues to relieve that pressure. It is certainly not the proudest of our traditions, but it is among them nonetheless.”
Ron and Harry were still blinking, dumbly and in disbelief.
“But…here…” Harry began again, hopelessly.
“Oh, come on,” I interrupted, trying to soften my impatience. “Do you really think you can jam a bunch of stupid teenagers into one place and not expect this to happen?”
Dumbledore smiled that same horrible, defeated smile and looked to Harry, who shook his head and fell silent. The headmaster turned to Malfoy.
“Draco,” he said quietly-and more kindly than anyone else in the room would have managed, “you have a variety of choices now. Do you know what you intend to do?”
“Yes,” Malfoy spat. “I’m getting out of this hellhole.” At our shock, he glared at us petulantly. “Go ahead and celebrate,” he continued, his lip curling. “I’m sick and tired of this same old shit every day. I’m tired of the dorms. I’m tired of the food. I’m tired of the moving passageways and the doors that go nowhere and the teachers playing favorites. I’m tired of the quill pens and the idiotic rules and the amnesty for the-” Here he sneered at Harry. “-heroes who break them. I’m tired of the candles and the one janitor and his stupid cat and the Quidditch games and the pranks and the homework and the detentions and all of you.” His voice was gaining volume as he went, working its way up to a shout. “You lot most of all. You’re just disgusting. And so naïve. Everybody is here. This place’ll hire any old hack-how many teachers have turned out to be ‘evil’ and whatnot? I’ve lost count, that’s how bad it is. And honestly. There’s a snake in the walls paralyzing kids and a known murderer running around, and nobody closes down the school? The passwords to the places kids sleep are just verbal, and perfectly audible to anybody in hearing range? Anybody who wants one can buy an Invisibility Cloak and go sneaking around running amok, and anyone can go gallivanting off into the middle of a forest full of freaks so long as he doesn’t get caught? How many times have we been infiltrated, and still everyone’s always just saying it’ll be okay and hoping the school will stay open? Am I really the only person who can see how ridiculously dangerous that is? Am I really the only one who thinks this is all just stupid? Is it possible that I’m the only person who’d like nothing better than to get the fuck out of here?”
The silence in the room was unmarred but for his faint panting when Draco finished. Dumbledore watched him motionlessly, his hands laid on his desk, his fingers arranged in the shape of a steeple. There was a glimmer in his deep blue eyes, and I couldn’t discern whether it was pity, sorrow, disappointment, or some combination of the three.
“Where would you like to go, Draco?” the headmaster asked softly just before the mortified silence grew too heavy to bear.
“I don’t care,” Malfoy mumbled, kicking at the rug moodily, shrouded only in the remaining wisps of his former anger. Most of it had dissipated into the air over the course of the tirade, and the fight had gone out of him now. He’d said what he’d needed to say. “There’s got to be a million schools, given how many Quidditch teams there are. And there’s got to be one better than this one where they speak the right language and all.”
“When you choose one,” Dumbledore replied, his gaze on the boy before him, his eyes entirely unreadable now, “I will personally write you a recommendation, if you like.”
“Sure,” Malfoy muttered. “Thanks.” Summarily he turned to go.
“You’re leaving?” I asked hesitantly.
“Pretend you care,” he retorted acerbically.
“If I didn’t care,” I shot back, “I wouldn’t be here.”
He looked at me for a few seconds, and then he lowered his eyes, shook his head, jammed his hands in his pockets, and disappeared out the door.
Indignantly I tried to resist the tears that pricked at my eyes. “Jerk,” I whispered to myself.
“Miss Granger,” Dumbledore interjected carefully, “do you think I could speak to you?”
Obediently I tore my eyes away from the door, nodded, and sat down in the armchair indicated.
“Are we to go, then, sir?” Harry inquired. At some motion that I couldn’t see, because I was looking at my folded hands in my lap, they went.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Dumbledore said then, “I would be very much obliged if you were willing to tell me the whole story.”
So I told him. I told him everything, sitting in the big, overstuffed armchair in his odd office, and I cried a lot. He subsequently conjured a lot of tissues, and I subsequently soaked them all. I felt a little better after that-hollow, at least, and therein less susceptible to the wormwood I’d been served. It was going down easier now. At least my fears and worries weren’t a precious, perilous secret anymore. At least, if Draco Malfoy had been telling the truth, I wouldn’t have to fear for and worry about him ever again. And he’d take all my hopes and dreams and adoration with him, whether he realized it or not.
I had seen a problem, and, in the usual busybody fashion, I had sought to fix it. Now I had succeeded. Triumph had never tasted so cold, empty, and cruel.
[Chapter X] [Chapter XII]