By the Way Chapter Five

By the Way

By: Provocative Envy

OOO

Author’s Note: Don’t accuse me of using a cliché at the end of this chapter. Please. Because it’s not. Not really. I promise. This chapter was so beautifully poignant to me, so invaluable to the story and to me, the author, that I didn’t want to sully it with classic, boring clichés. But I’d been stuck on this chapter for days now, and miraculously an ending and a middle and a perfect, perfect last chapter presented itself to me today; and the only way to get it was through falling back on the heinously overused “put them in detention together” scenario. But if you have any faith in me as a writer, you’ll know that I will not turn this into something not worth reading.

But, also, I needed something unpleasant, but not dramatic, to finalize Hermione’s breakthrough. A breath of reality to cauterize her gushing, rushing empowerment. I really do adore Hermione as a character, love all the complexity and insecurity and how she’s such a paradox, such a crumbling pillar of juvenile behavior and wonderful brilliance and bravery and confrontation. I love humanizing her and I love writing her.

OOO

CHAPTER FIVE

“Watch it, Granger,” he muttered angrily, pointlessly: all I’d done was knock his elbow in passing; all I’d done was brush his sleeve with my book bag.

“You watch it,” I replied tightly, belligerently: all he’d done was fling a harmless accusation; all he’d done was blame me for something meaningless, something that he wouldn’t remember in a day, in an hour, even.

“Sorry, but I try not to make allowances for clumsy Mudbloods,” he fired back, clearly in the mood for confrontation.

“Oh, well don’t I feel special,” I returned sarcastically. “And here I thought you never made allowances for anyone.”

“No, that’s just what you thought to make yourself feel better about being left out,” he observed wisely, smirking.

“Since there’s just so many requirements to being exempted from your selfish nastiness?” I asked sweetly.

“Well, there’s at least one. Which you can’t ever meet. Being born to soft-hearted idiots is, after all, a hindrance,” he answered casually, inspecting his fingernails.

“Because of course being born to disloyal sadists is so much better.”

“You’re just bitter because you lowered your standards enough to date a Weasley, only to find out that not even he wanted you,” Malfoy bit out, nostrils flaring.

I literally stopped breathing.

He watched me, waiting for a reaction, a retort, something.

I continued to hold on to my steadily depleting supply of oxygen, waiting for him to notice that I wasn’t, in fact, inhaling like a normal person.

But he didn’t notice; he didn’t notice, and he didn’t stop talking.

“Oh, don’t pretend to be all shocked. Everyone saw it, Granger. Everyone knew that he was your last resort, that after Krum dropped you anyone would do. So you picked him, the one boy in the whole school who might be desperate enough to put up with you, the neurotic bookworm,” he went on.

And all I could think, since doing something was out of the question in my present state, was: what a hateful, hateful boy.

“But even he, dense little Weasel that he is, realized you weren’t worth it. You weren’t pretty enough, weren’t interesting enough, were too wrapped up in you, you, you; he didn’t love you enough, didn’t want to love you enough, and you can’t stand it, can you? You can’t--”

“Shut up, Malfoy!”

I could barely believe it was my voice, so astonishing was its pitch, its tone; so astonishing was its raw, blunt assertiveness.

This was the Hermione Granger that had been missing for the past four months; this was the Hermione Granger everyone thought I was, everyone thought I had the potential to be.

“Just shut up for once in your pathetic life. You have no idea what you’re talking about, none at all, and if you possess even one tiny shred of intelligence you will stop talking before I hex you into the next millennia,” I threatened, surprised by the strength of my conviction, the strength of my words.

I’d been living in a fog for weeks. I realized that then. I’d been noticing things, doing things, saying things: but so little of it had mattered, so little of it had held any significance for me. I hadn’t wanted to get attached, hadn’t wanted to invest any emotion into anything I did or said, in case everything fell away and abandoned me, in case everything ceased to exist and all I was left with was that gnawing, aching emptiness that had engulfed me for so long, for too long.

I had fought with Malfoy, said things meant to sting, to bite, to hurt; but I was so terrified that he’d say something that stung a little bit more, or bit a little more ferociously, or hurt me a little more effectively, that I’d held back any sort of feeling, any sort of passion.

I’d wasted a whole month crying and wondering and waiting and being so pitifully, haphazardly apathetic: all I could remember, all I could recall, was hitting rock-bottom, reliving moment after moment of embarrassing weakness, shameful vulnerability. All I could remember, all I could recall, was holding my breath and hoping hoping hoping that someone, anyone, would come and rescue me, would save me from the loneliness and the silence and the awful, awful pain I’d succumbed to.

But Malfoy had recovered from his initial bewilderment at my forcefulness, and I had no more time to reflect, no more time to marvel at my revelations.

“Oh? And you’d dare to do that in this hallowed haven of learning? This sanctuary of academia?” he taunted, preying on my love of books, of knowledge.

I laughed out loud at this: anger and indignation and simple, simple understanding meshing together and giving me courage.

“I would dare to do plenty where you’re concerned,” I replied easily, twirling my wand in my hand and smiling blandly.

“Then go ahead and hex me, Granger. Please. I dare you,” he said mockingly.

It all happened in slow motion, as if I was in a daze, a dream, a movie, even: he issued his precious little dare, his lips twisted into something that might have been called a grin, if he hadn’t been barely trembling with barely concealed fear; I watched him for a moment, measuring my options, measuring if he was worth it; I decided that it didn’t matter if he was or wasn’t, that I needed to do something, anything, to prove I wasn’t indifferent, not anymore, that I wasn’t cut out for it; I pointed my wand, took a second to pull my hair out of my face; that second was crucial, really, since as soon as I’d opened my mouth to speak, a hand, gnarled and strong, landed on my shoulder, stopping me, freezing him; Madam Pince, authority figure and librarian, lover of silence and hater of children, ranted and raved at us for what seemed an eternity; finally, finally, we were allowed to go, forced to go, practically; but then, just as we gathered our things, snarling at each other, she issued one last decree: oh, by the way, children, you both have detention with Filch for the rest of the week.

I saw the price of my pride reflected in Malfoy’s cold, brittle, fathomlessly expressive eyes.

OOO