A Little Piece of Sincerity
By: Provocative Envy
Hermione didn’t know how long she sat there, slumped over dejectedly as she recalled her torturous conversation with Draco Malfoy. The irony that it wasn’t an insult that had shattered her heart, the brittle pieces cascading away to pierce her soul, didn’t escape her; she wondered if the ecstasy he had felt after wrecking her fragile, very distant sense of self had come close to her own euphoria after reading his distortedly brilliant depiction of their world.
She doubted it.
“Draco, you’ll never guess who was sitting on the ground, like the pitiful little Mudblood she is, crying her eyes out with mashed potatoes all in her hair. Which is dreadful, I might add,” Pansy Parkinson told him confidentially, her shrill voice causing his head to ache.
“Believe me, Pansy, it won’t be hard to guess considering there’s very few female Mudbloods in this school with extremely unfortunate hair,” he replied with more than a touch of sarcasm. It wasn’t until Pansy had turned away from him with an imperious huff of indignation that he let his surprise show.
He’d known that she was, for some reason, extraordinarily upset over his revelation. But that her distress had conformed itself into a public display of misery was unexpected. Granger wasn’t the type to dwell on her misfortune; true, she was one of those sentimental females that got teary at the end-of-year banquets, and devoted most of her time and energy into helping others. But it was her very selflessness that made her his favorite target.
Contrary to popular belief, Draco didn’t really enjoy it when, with a single cutting remark, he made someone crumple into a heap of self-contempt. Generally, his victim’s candidly presented consternation was too easily prompted. Granger was a challenge for him, for her heart was not so openly worn on her sleeve. No, her emotions, when of the negative variety, were never discernable; she made each and every encounter worthwhile since he was never sure when she’d break down and bawl.
And now that he’d finally crushed her spirit, he had nothing to look forward to. There was no one else at Hogwarts whose nerves were quite as steely as hers, whose retorts were quite as bitingly witty. There was no one else who could keep him guessing, who could make him embrace confrontation quite like she could. Simply put, there was no one left who measured up to her in regards to an exciting form of resistance; Harry Potter was a pale imitation and Ron Weasley wasn’t even on his radar.
Snorting with disgust, he abruptly strode to the door of the Slytherin common room and hauled it open. He needed to clear his head of any lingering shreds of regret. Remorse for him was foreign and guilt wasn’t something he knew how to tolerate.
If only she hadn’t been crying, he cursed silently, walking quickly and aimlessly through the halls.
Twenty minutes of picturing her as she had been when he’d left, shock and disappointment waging a war for domination in her eyes, and he found himself at the base of the stairs leading up to the Astronomy Tower. Sighing at his lack of direction, he turned on his heel to return to his dormitory.
Suddenly, he stopped. He could have sworn he’d heard voices.
Straining his ears as he cautiously ascended the steps, he pondered who could be up there, talking, so late. True, the place served certain amorous purposes in the evening, but none of them involved conversing.
Smirking, he silently stood in the archway leading into the circular room. He swept his gaze around the room and immediately ducked behind the thick stone doorframe. Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley were sitting, their legs pulled up to their chests, not five feet away from him.
His stomach plummeted when he noticed that Granger appeared to be weeping. Quietly, to be sure, but there were tears streaming down her moonlit cheeks nonetheless. Her voice was muffled as she let her forehead rest on her knees, yet her words were still clear:
“Ginny, you don’t get it. This…this composition wasn’t just that. It was moving and beautiful and so, so, so perfect. It made so much sense to me, Ginny. It was…it was as if it had been written for me,” she whispered imploringly, almost begging her friend to understand her. The redheaded girl merely blinked at her.
“Hermione, I’m sure you’re exaggerating. I know you said that you…what was it? ‘Fell in love with it’? But that’s impossible. You couldn’t have. You’d never even met whoever it was who’d written it. And just because you found out that it was Draco Malfoy doesn’t mean a thing. It’s just further proof that you were making much too much out of what should have been a passing interest,” Ginny said soothingly, softly.
“Oh, Ginny. It’s not just that. It could never be just that. I…I had been so sure that whoever had written it was someone I could love. You still don’t see just how much I identified with what he’d written. It was so wonderfully extravagant, so appallingly flawless in its construction and its temerity and its eloquence. It made me feel, for the first time since I got my Hogwarts letter, that I wasn’t alone. That there was someone else out there, just like me.
“Ginny, he doesn’t even know it, will never know it, but Draco Malfoy hurt me more in those ten seconds when he so casually explained that that parchment was his in more than just the material sense…than he ever has in the six years I’ve know him. He broke my heart, and…I’d never even given it to him. How is that for excruciating irony? God, I feel painfully stupid, Ginny,” Hermione finished tiredly, brushing a hand across her face as she whisked away her sorrow.
Draco, meanwhile, was processing what he’d overheard as he trudged back down to the dungeons. It explained why she’d been so unequivocally upset: she’d gotten her heart broken. But, he reasoned, that wasn’t really his fault. She was the one who’d so stupidly gone and invested it in someone whose identity was unknown to her. She’d realize, eventually, that it hadn’t really been true love and then no longer be so traumatized.
But then whatever power he lorded over would be gone. Frowning slightly, he considered the romantic entanglement she’d instinctively attached to her supposed “connection” with the mystery writer. He didn’t have to wonder why she’d dismissed the possibility so thoroughly when he’d announced his authorship.
Yet…could someone, if they had deeply and truly believed themselves to be captivated by love, so easily let go of it? Even if they recognized the hopelessness of it, even if they hadn’t a shadow of doubt of the sincerity of their hatred; could one fall out of love through being logical?
She had convinced herself that he’d broken her heart by pronouncing his accomplishment. He’d done nothing but admit the hypothetical truth and she’d decided that she was either delusional or tainted by fate.
What if he changed her mind? It wouldn’t be difficult, since her ridiculous affection for that parchment bordered on obsession. He could just play the part of a tortured artist, plagued incessantly by his muse; or the sensitive, misunderstood bully who just needed to be nurtured and loved.
And once he’d won her over, once he’d gotten her hopes up once more, made all her dreams come true…he’d prove her wrong and break her heart. Only the next time, he’d know he was doing it.
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