A Little Piece of Sincerity
By: Provocative Envy
OOO
It had been such a brilliant maneuver. She couldn’t recall a time when she’d been so thoroughly manipulated.
He’d set her nerves on end, infuriated her with meaningless invectives practically designed to rile her up, and then…become human.
Hermione had never considered Draco Malfoy the type of boy to whom feelings of love and resentment could ever attach themselves; the idea of him exuding tender emotions had always seemed ludicrous. In retrospect, she knew that that had been naïve stupidity on her part.
She’d never looked at him as a person so much as a representation of everything she’d come to abhor in the wizarding world. He wasn’t supposed to have opinions or abilities that she might agree with or respect; he wasn’t supposed to have moments of bravery or honor.
He was a pureblooded Slytherin who would follow in his father’s footsteps and probably kill himself in the process. He was the bully, the narcissist, the boy whom cruelty was synonymous with. He’d tried to get her expelled, tried to get her killed, and almost succeeded at both: she’d never had cause to remember that he’d been born and raised just like every other normal child.
She’d been just as biased against him as he was against her. She could argue all she liked that he’d been the one to start it, but that wasn’t exactly true. He was a product of his environment, just as she was; he’d been told his entire life to think a certain way, the same way she had. The fact that their respective educations were on opposite ends of the morality line shouldn’t have made a difference.
She’d assumed that because they were both such radical contrasts to each other they couldn’t have anything in common; in theory, they still didn’t. But Malfoy had a side to him that was either very small or very well-hidden: he was contemplative, logical, and capable of affection.
She’d gotten a glimpse of the humanity that was cloaked in insincerity and lost in shadows; he was flawed, but that didn’t mean no one could love him.
She wondered if he knew that.
OOO
Draco wasn’t sure what had compelled him to speak aloud the thought that had plagued him since his father’s arrest two years earlier. Did a man such as Lucius really deserve the devotion that he’d accumulated? How did he accept his wife and son’s love without cringing at his own wrongdoings?
Was it because he didn’t think what he did was wrong? Or was it because he returned the sentiment and viewed it as his salvation?
Draco didn’t believe in good or evil. There was no black and white distinction between the two. There was what was socially acceptable and what wasn’t. It just happened that his own leanings were on the wrong side of right.
Of course, his father’s passion far exceeded his own in regards to their beliefs; Draco agreed with everything but his fervency. It seemed almost sacrilegious to worship as a god a man intent on destruction, but resistance wasn’t an option. He had no reason to disregard his upbringing; no cause other than his family’s to fight for. It would be senseless to fall victim to normal adolescent defiance.
He couldn’t abandon his father when he needed him most.
Besides the pragmatic reasons for maintaining his position, he knew he had another motive, one he was far less proud of: he craved the Mark to the point of obsession.
It was a glorious symbol of freedom and he cared little that his desire might have been irrational. Once he surrendered the two square inches of flesh necessary for the curse, he would forever be beholden to something other than his surname. It wouldn’t be about upholding the Malfoy legacy anymore; no, it would be about survival and loyalty. He wasn’t battling for the Dark Lord so much as for his own carefree lifestyle.
His constant yearning for the Mark had always been a source of pride for Lucius. He’d never bothered to dwell on the thought that he was signing away his life just to escape the pressure of not disappointing his forefathers. It had always struck him as stupid to fight his destiny.
And because he already knew what was going to be thrust upon him, why try and change it? He’d outsmarted fate, in a sense; fate was supposed to be unpredictable, was supposed to turn the tiniest mistake into the biggest of changes.
How odd, then, he thought, that I’ve known my own future since the day I was born.
OOO
“Hermione,” Ron whined, “we’re going to be late for lunch. Will you hurry up?”
Both he and Harry were standing in the doorway of the Potions dungeon, scowling as she meticulously brushed off the table she’d been working at.
“No,” she replied primly, “this is more important than your stomachs. Snape will have a fit if he comes back here to find his tables dirty. And I don’t know about you but I’d rather stay on his good side.”
“Hermione we all know that it’s impossible to be on the good side of a man who doesn’t have one,” Harry told her reasonably, earning a half-smile from her as she continued to clean the room.
“Yes, well, then better off not giving him cause to notice me, right?” she said lightly, sighing as she got to her feet. “You both can go, you know. I’ll be done in a few minutes and can meet you in the Hall.”
Shaking their heads at her stubborn diligence, the two boys left her in the dungeons.
Since the silence of the place often irked her, she began to hum a song of her own creation. She was off-key and being terribly loud, but she was alone, so what did it matter?
So absorbed was she in her singing that she didn’t even notice his entrance.
"Good God, Granger, you’re an absolutely horrible singer,” Draco observed, his voice startling Hermione so much that she dropped the cauldron she had been holding.
“What…Oh, it’s just you, Malfoy,” she exhaled, a hand held up to her chest as she fought to regain control of her breathing.
“Indeed.”
Nothing else, just a single word as he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her.
Deciding that she was above playing his ridiculous little mind games, she turned her attention back to her original task. She finished her table and began to organize her own things to leave. She was using these mundane activities to hide her disquiet; Draco Malfoy had been leaning against the wall next to the door, without speaking…just watching her. It was almost as if he was waiting for something.
“So you’re not going to ask me what I meant yesterday?” he finally said, just as she was making her way to the exit.
She stopped in her footsteps.
“No,” she responded slowly, looking up at him for the first time that day. “Why would I do that? Your meaning was abundantly clear to me.”
“Oh?” he raised his eyebrows in surprise, letting his foot slide down the wall to the ground. “I just thought you’d like an explanation, at the least. After all, I know how much you like to know things, Granger.”
She noticed his smirk, and was baffled. As far as she could tell, there was no subtle insult hidden in such a normal phrase.
“Yes, well, knowledge is the most valuable thing a person can possess,” she explained genially.
At this, he grinned.
“Oh, of course. Especially when it’s knowing who wrote the contents of some certain slips of paper found on the ground, right?” he asked mildly, waiting for the heady rush of triumph that would envelope him as he witnessed her face crumple and her eyes flash fire.
Predictably, she was wounded and furious. The tense set of her shoulders and the brittle line of her lips was testament to that. Yet…he wasn’t satisfied.
He’d come to the dungeons on the pretext of retrieving a quill he’d left; when he’d heard her abominable singing, he’d been inspired. There was so much about her that only he knew, so many imperfections that no one else ever looked closely enough to see. He’d studied her for six years, searching for a weakness, a flaw. Until that day when he’d impulsively snatched up a grimy piece of parchment and read its contents, moved by its accuracy and astonished by its maturity.
He’d been presented with the opportunity to humiliate his infallible enemy, his impregnably perfect rival, and he’d taken in.
But then something had happened, something he still couldn’t rightly explain. She’d figured him out in record time, and then…attempted to comfort him when she thought he’d need it. Of course, it wasn’t the point that he didn’t need it, that he wasn’t in danger of being melodramatically lonely. The point was that she’d been prepared to help the person who would have gladly seen her broken and bleeding at his feet.
Shame colored his cheeks as he watched her hold her head high and step past him with the kind of dignity that could make a Malfoy proud.
Dumbfounded by the direction his thoughts were going, he let her leave, embarrassed that he couldn’t muster up the proper elation.
He’d gotten in the last word.
And he’d never been angrier with himself.
OOO
No comments:
Post a Comment