Downstream [G] for namelessamelie
Title: Downstream
Author: shiorikazen
Rating: PG
Recipient: namelessamelie
Disclaimer: The characters are J. K. Rowling’s property. No monetary profit is made from this fanfiction.
Author/Artist Note(s): Thank you RC, for being an amazing friend and a lovely beta. namelessamelie, I hope you enjoy the fic!
Their light hair stands out in sharp relief against their black robes. They do not approach anyone, nor does anyone approach them. The instinct to follow the crowd and to retreat into familiarity takes over, but politeness demands that she cannot follow it. They have noticed her.
The father and the mother quickly train their eyes elsewhere, but their son’s eyes are fixed on her - his jaw set and his chin lifted (shades of the typical/infallible Malfoy arrogance like back at Hogwarts, maybe?)
“Malfoy.” She inclines her head. She refuses to break eye contact.
He swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs. “Granger.”
His voice is scratchy, as though it has not been used for some time.
She wants to shake him and demand answers. How could you stand Voldemort being around all the time? Have you killed anyone? Are you mourning for Crabbe?
But the crowd influences her and she walks on.
A chill goes down her spine when she sees the marble fireplace and steps on the plush carpet. Her eyes dart from side to side and she trembles.
The heir to this accursed place stands - waiting.
“Granger.”
“Malfoy.”
He motions for her to sit and lowers himself onto the grey armchair behind him.
She sits. The room goes uncomfortably silent. She forces herself to look away from ice-blue eyes and stares at red-hot flames instead. Shadows dance - the only movement in the room.
She inhales and turns back to Malfoy. “How are you?” she forces out.
His left eyebrow goes up, and she is abruptly struck by déjà-vu, going back to a time when the raised eyebrow meant scorn and dislike, but it was the scorn and dislike of a still-innocent, proud child - not the scorn and dislike of a war-torn, proud man.
“I cannot believe that the darling of the Ministry, second only to Potter, would pay me a visit to enquire after my health,” he states, acidly.
Her fingers curl themselves into fists. “Is the concept of nice beyond you, Malfoy?” she snaps.
“Is the concept of not being a busybody beyond you, Granger?” he retorts.
“I’m just trying to find out whether you’re alright,” she says, angrily. “But if even normal conversation is beyond your abilities, I will leave.”
“You say that a new society is being created in the Wizarding World,” he says. “One free from discrimination. But you’re wrong. You’re just creating another system of elites, Granger. A system where Slytherins have replaced Mudbloods.”
She recoils. Seven years, and the epithet still haunts her. She sees his lips stretch ever so slightly in satisfaction and she sees red.
“You deserve it,” she grits out. “You - none of you are to be trusted. None of you stayed to fight against Voldemort in the Great Battle. None,” and here her voice breaks, “none of you gave up your lives!”
She blinks rapidly - refusing to allow her vision to be obscured.
“Snape,” he enquires, sarcastically. “Slughorn?”
Her gut twists at Snape’s name, but she refuses to lose the argument. “Only after he committed crimes against the order! Slughorn,” and here she has to think for a moment, “Slughorn is a pompous person, trying to ingratiate himself with those he thinks he can benefit from,” she finishes, scornfully.
“No one is perfect, Granger,” he rejoins, through clenched teeth. “Will you ostracise a quarter of Hogwart’s population?”
“We do not ostracise them,” she says, drawing herself up. “They are welcome to participate in society.”
“Are they?” he enquires. “As far as I know, whenever people see Slytherins out and about, they give them a wide berth. Watch them as a guard watches his prisoners. We are only welcome in theory - how can you not see that?”
“How could you have agreed to kill Dumbledore?” she says, changing tack. She will wrench these answers out of him.
“How could I not agree?” he asks. “All the Death Eaters were in the room - he was in the room...”
“You almost killed Katie!”
He lowers his eyes at that. “I never meant to,” he whispers, and a part of her wants to comfort him, but she ignores it.
“At the tower. You could have stood up to them!” she retorts. “Escaped. Harry told me Dumbledore offered you clemency.”
“Flee and hide in a safe house, leaving my parents to be tortured?” he demands. “Do you still rush headlong without thinking?”
He stands up and glares down at her. “This interview is now at an end, Granger,” he says. “You will never know what I went through there, just as I will never know what you went through here.” She flinches at the sudden reference to her torture. He gestures, and she finds herself standing up and walking out. He walks her to the wrought-iron gates and watches her pass through them, as if like smoke.
Over the next month, her to-do list seems to grow exponentially. She does not complain, because both Harry and Ron have as much, if not even more, to do, but every night, she returns to the Weasley home (both she and Harry have decided to stay there, for the time being) and falls into a dreamless sleep minutes after her head hits the pillow.
She hardly speaks to anyone anymore, unless it is related to work. Her conversations with Harry and Ron sound terribly grown-up to her own teenage ears, and sometimes she wonders how old their minds actually are. She finds herself addressing people whom she considers her superiors - her professors, people from the Ministry of Magic and visiting dignitaries - by their first names - not because she wants to, but because they insist that she do so. “You’re an adult now, Hermione,” they say. “You’ve been through this war.”
They've been fighting it, in their own ways, since first year - Harry, Ron and herself. Have they ever really been anything other than adults, ever since they confronted Quirrell?
The most intelligent student of her year she may be, adult she might be, but master of time she is not. Professor McGonagall - Minerva, now, refuses to authorise a Time-Turner for her use. “You’ll wear yourself out,” she says, and Hermione grudgingly accepts.
She tries to spend as much time with Ron as possible, but their time together is marked by silence and yawns, with the occasional desultory comment about work. It strikes her, when she arrives at work one Monday morning before sunrise, that she is pouring everything she has into her work, and there is nothing left to give Ron.
She breaks up with Ron two days later. She apologises over and over, saying that she needs some time to be alone - some time to think. Ron looks at her, bewildered. Eventually, he tells her that they should get back together after a certain time frame, but she refuses - saying that she does not know where she will be, mentally, tomorrow - let alone in a few weeks’ or a few months’ time. Ron looks as though he is about to protest, but he lets her be, and she apologises, again, upon seeing the dull look in his eyes.
She sees Harry and Ron together more often, and realises that there is a brotherhood there that she can never hope to be included in.
For some reason, she begins going to the Malfoy Manor after work. It could be that it is a change and it makes life at The Burrow less awkward (Molly has tried to have a heart-to-heart with her about Ron, but Hermione keeps making excuses. It is mostly because Molly is both her mother figure and the mother of her ex-boyfriend.
Malfoy Manor is not an oasis of comfort, however. Far from it. In that brief half-hour every working day, Malfoy throws questions at her. Temporarily bereft of his father, and with his mother insisting that he take a break from everything, he avidly follows the happenings of the wizarding world, coalesces his thoughts into sharp arrows and fires them at Hermione without fail.
He tells her that just as she wanted to educate certain pure-bloods, and this was said with a twist of his mouth, that Muggle-born wizards could be just as good as pure-blood wizards, she should also educate certain members of the three houses that Slytherins were not completely evil. He claims peer pressure and Voldemort’s charisma as the main reasons that so many (almost all, it seems) Slytherins of his father’s cohort became Voldemort’s disciples - an argument that she contests, and the subject becomes a recurring battle.
It happens on a rainy, muggy Thursday, when she enters the Manor and sits in her usual armchair. Instead of interrogating her about the latest developments at the Ministry, he says, baldly, “I’m attracted to you.”
She stares at him, incredulous, and he shrugs and leans back, his eyes challenging her to match his statement, just as they challenge her to match the arguments he makes five days out of seven. She debates how to respond and as she thinks, that is when she realises that it was inevitable. She used to fight with Ron, and later on, debate with him. With Malfoy, there are fights, yes, but she would say that they are more of reasoned arguments - not unfounded accusations.
“I’m attracted to you, too,” she says, finally, echoing him.
He has the grace to look surprised, but it vanishes, replaced by a sly smirk. “Then we’ll start having a formal relationship,” he announces, and stands up, but this time, he steps over to her and holds out his hand. She takes it and begins to laugh at the ludicrousness of the entire situation. Malfoy, controlled as ever, does not laugh, but the corners of his mouth turn up ever so slightly.
The improbability of their relationship existing, let alone succeeding, however, is only brought home to her when Harry comes back from work on Friday, a week later, ranting about the intractability about ex-Death Eaters to provide information about the way Voldemort set up Death Eater enclaves in certain distant European countries. As she listens to Harry’s blanket generalisation about Slytherins (a sentiment she would have certainly echoed until a few months after the end of the war), she dimly wonders if her friends would approve of Draco.
She scolds herself for even wondering. Of course, the answer would be no. She remembers giving in to the silent crowd in the Great Hall, and wonders whether she should do it again.
Monday night sees her standing on a Muggle street, under a lamp, wondering whether she should go to the Manor.
She stands, watching dark shadows pass by, illuminated briefly by the lamp’s beams.
Half an hour later, she Apparates back to The Burrow.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” accuses Draco, on Wednesday, when she finally works up the courage to return.
She would deny it - claim exhaustion - except she cannot lie to Draco. She doesn’t know whether it is because he learnt Legilimency from Snape, or because she herself cannot practice Occulmency, but it is a moot point. She might as well just admit it.
“I don’t know if I can stand the pressure”
His eyes narrow, but he doesn’t dish out reproof. “I won’t make you my secret, and I won’t let you make me your secret.”
“I’ll try,” she says, and it’s the most she can promise, for now. She slips her hand in his, and relaxes when his broomstick-callused fingers curve around hers.
They fall into silence, and Hermione watches the flames dancing in the fireplace. The memory of her torture assaults her, suddenly, and she shivers.
“She’s dead,” says Draco, in a low voice, and she takes a deep breath - not questioning how he knows. “Think of something nice.”
She tries.
“Harry and Ron will have fits when they find out,” she attempts, trying to laugh.
“Pansy and Goyle will have fits when they find out,” he echoes.
“Maybe they’ll agree on something at last,” she muses.
They decide to ‘come out’ a few days later in Diagon Alley. They walk down the street, hands brushing as they peer through windows and discuss Ministry news. No one gives them a second glance until they meet Harry coming out of Flourish and Blotts, carrying two books. One of them has wings, which beat against his robes. She calls out to him, smiling.
“Hermione!” exclaims Harry. She sees the exact moment his grin wilts - the moment he recognises Draco. He recovers quickly, greeting Draco with a cordial smile, but his face seems frozen, and his eyes flit to her, a silent question being transmitted. She feels Draco’s arm stiffen and his shoulders go rigid.
They exchange pleasantries, before Harry excuses himself politely and walks away, though not before sending her one last, penetrating look.
“That was a brilliant start,” he says, trying for sardonic but not entirely succeeding.
“We’ll weather the storm,” she says, and believes it. “We’re children of war. Peace doesn’t suit us.”
His answer is a squeeze of her hand and a kiss to her hair.
The prompt:
Describe what you'd like in as few words/keywords as possible: Angst, preferably followed by a hopeful or happy ending. I’m flexible as to the level of angst -- I can’t imagine an in-character Dramione fic without *some* amount of it, and I would really, really like for Draco and Hermione to be in character.
Song, Poem, or Quote: Feel free to disregard these entirely, but just in case my request wasn’t specific enough and you’d like more inspiration, you can turn to either one of the following completely optional quotes! “No man ever steps in the same river twice, because it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man” -- Heraclitus OR "Cause you’re the storm that I believe in/And all this peace has been deceiving" -- You’re the Storm by The Cardigans
Dealbreakers (absolute no-no's): PLEASE READ. While my request is intentionally non-specific, I am specifically inflexible about the following dealbreakers: Draco and Hermione already together. First-person narrator. Second-person narrator. Pregnancy or children (with each other or with other people). Sex god Draco. Suddenly unprejudiced Lucius. Draco and Hermione cheating on each other (cheating with each other on other people is fine!). Slash.
Feedback is appreciated.
ferretbush_post is the account the mods use to post the gifts. It has not created any of the gifts.
Author: shiorikazen
Rating: PG
Recipient: namelessamelie
Disclaimer: The characters are J. K. Rowling’s property. No monetary profit is made from this fanfiction.
Author/Artist Note(s): Thank you RC, for being an amazing friend and a lovely beta. namelessamelie, I hope you enjoy the fic!
Their light hair stands out in sharp relief against their black robes. They do not approach anyone, nor does anyone approach them. The instinct to follow the crowd and to retreat into familiarity takes over, but politeness demands that she cannot follow it. They have noticed her.
The father and the mother quickly train their eyes elsewhere, but their son’s eyes are fixed on her - his jaw set and his chin lifted (shades of the typical/infallible Malfoy arrogance like back at Hogwarts, maybe?)
“Malfoy.” She inclines her head. She refuses to break eye contact.
He swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs. “Granger.”
His voice is scratchy, as though it has not been used for some time.
She wants to shake him and demand answers. How could you stand Voldemort being around all the time? Have you killed anyone? Are you mourning for Crabbe?
But the crowd influences her and she walks on.
A chill goes down her spine when she sees the marble fireplace and steps on the plush carpet. Her eyes dart from side to side and she trembles.
The heir to this accursed place stands - waiting.
“Granger.”
“Malfoy.”
He motions for her to sit and lowers himself onto the grey armchair behind him.
She sits. The room goes uncomfortably silent. She forces herself to look away from ice-blue eyes and stares at red-hot flames instead. Shadows dance - the only movement in the room.
She inhales and turns back to Malfoy. “How are you?” she forces out.
His left eyebrow goes up, and she is abruptly struck by déjà-vu, going back to a time when the raised eyebrow meant scorn and dislike, but it was the scorn and dislike of a still-innocent, proud child - not the scorn and dislike of a war-torn, proud man.
“I cannot believe that the darling of the Ministry, second only to Potter, would pay me a visit to enquire after my health,” he states, acidly.
Her fingers curl themselves into fists. “Is the concept of nice beyond you, Malfoy?” she snaps.
“Is the concept of not being a busybody beyond you, Granger?” he retorts.
“I’m just trying to find out whether you’re alright,” she says, angrily. “But if even normal conversation is beyond your abilities, I will leave.”
“You say that a new society is being created in the Wizarding World,” he says. “One free from discrimination. But you’re wrong. You’re just creating another system of elites, Granger. A system where Slytherins have replaced Mudbloods.”
She recoils. Seven years, and the epithet still haunts her. She sees his lips stretch ever so slightly in satisfaction and she sees red.
“You deserve it,” she grits out. “You - none of you are to be trusted. None of you stayed to fight against Voldemort in the Great Battle. None,” and here her voice breaks, “none of you gave up your lives!”
She blinks rapidly - refusing to allow her vision to be obscured.
“Snape,” he enquires, sarcastically. “Slughorn?”
Her gut twists at Snape’s name, but she refuses to lose the argument. “Only after he committed crimes against the order! Slughorn,” and here she has to think for a moment, “Slughorn is a pompous person, trying to ingratiate himself with those he thinks he can benefit from,” she finishes, scornfully.
“No one is perfect, Granger,” he rejoins, through clenched teeth. “Will you ostracise a quarter of Hogwart’s population?”
“We do not ostracise them,” she says, drawing herself up. “They are welcome to participate in society.”
“Are they?” he enquires. “As far as I know, whenever people see Slytherins out and about, they give them a wide berth. Watch them as a guard watches his prisoners. We are only welcome in theory - how can you not see that?”
“How could you have agreed to kill Dumbledore?” she says, changing tack. She will wrench these answers out of him.
“How could I not agree?” he asks. “All the Death Eaters were in the room - he was in the room...”
“You almost killed Katie!”
He lowers his eyes at that. “I never meant to,” he whispers, and a part of her wants to comfort him, but she ignores it.
“At the tower. You could have stood up to them!” she retorts. “Escaped. Harry told me Dumbledore offered you clemency.”
“Flee and hide in a safe house, leaving my parents to be tortured?” he demands. “Do you still rush headlong without thinking?”
He stands up and glares down at her. “This interview is now at an end, Granger,” he says. “You will never know what I went through there, just as I will never know what you went through here.” She flinches at the sudden reference to her torture. He gestures, and she finds herself standing up and walking out. He walks her to the wrought-iron gates and watches her pass through them, as if like smoke.
Over the next month, her to-do list seems to grow exponentially. She does not complain, because both Harry and Ron have as much, if not even more, to do, but every night, she returns to the Weasley home (both she and Harry have decided to stay there, for the time being) and falls into a dreamless sleep minutes after her head hits the pillow.
She hardly speaks to anyone anymore, unless it is related to work. Her conversations with Harry and Ron sound terribly grown-up to her own teenage ears, and sometimes she wonders how old their minds actually are. She finds herself addressing people whom she considers her superiors - her professors, people from the Ministry of Magic and visiting dignitaries - by their first names - not because she wants to, but because they insist that she do so. “You’re an adult now, Hermione,” they say. “You’ve been through this war.”
They've been fighting it, in their own ways, since first year - Harry, Ron and herself. Have they ever really been anything other than adults, ever since they confronted Quirrell?
The most intelligent student of her year she may be, adult she might be, but master of time she is not. Professor McGonagall - Minerva, now, refuses to authorise a Time-Turner for her use. “You’ll wear yourself out,” she says, and Hermione grudgingly accepts.
She tries to spend as much time with Ron as possible, but their time together is marked by silence and yawns, with the occasional desultory comment about work. It strikes her, when she arrives at work one Monday morning before sunrise, that she is pouring everything she has into her work, and there is nothing left to give Ron.
She breaks up with Ron two days later. She apologises over and over, saying that she needs some time to be alone - some time to think. Ron looks at her, bewildered. Eventually, he tells her that they should get back together after a certain time frame, but she refuses - saying that she does not know where she will be, mentally, tomorrow - let alone in a few weeks’ or a few months’ time. Ron looks as though he is about to protest, but he lets her be, and she apologises, again, upon seeing the dull look in his eyes.
She sees Harry and Ron together more often, and realises that there is a brotherhood there that she can never hope to be included in.
For some reason, she begins going to the Malfoy Manor after work. It could be that it is a change and it makes life at The Burrow less awkward (Molly has tried to have a heart-to-heart with her about Ron, but Hermione keeps making excuses. It is mostly because Molly is both her mother figure and the mother of her ex-boyfriend.
Malfoy Manor is not an oasis of comfort, however. Far from it. In that brief half-hour every working day, Malfoy throws questions at her. Temporarily bereft of his father, and with his mother insisting that he take a break from everything, he avidly follows the happenings of the wizarding world, coalesces his thoughts into sharp arrows and fires them at Hermione without fail.
He tells her that just as she wanted to educate certain pure-bloods, and this was said with a twist of his mouth, that Muggle-born wizards could be just as good as pure-blood wizards, she should also educate certain members of the three houses that Slytherins were not completely evil. He claims peer pressure and Voldemort’s charisma as the main reasons that so many (almost all, it seems) Slytherins of his father’s cohort became Voldemort’s disciples - an argument that she contests, and the subject becomes a recurring battle.
It happens on a rainy, muggy Thursday, when she enters the Manor and sits in her usual armchair. Instead of interrogating her about the latest developments at the Ministry, he says, baldly, “I’m attracted to you.”
She stares at him, incredulous, and he shrugs and leans back, his eyes challenging her to match his statement, just as they challenge her to match the arguments he makes five days out of seven. She debates how to respond and as she thinks, that is when she realises that it was inevitable. She used to fight with Ron, and later on, debate with him. With Malfoy, there are fights, yes, but she would say that they are more of reasoned arguments - not unfounded accusations.
“I’m attracted to you, too,” she says, finally, echoing him.
He has the grace to look surprised, but it vanishes, replaced by a sly smirk. “Then we’ll start having a formal relationship,” he announces, and stands up, but this time, he steps over to her and holds out his hand. She takes it and begins to laugh at the ludicrousness of the entire situation. Malfoy, controlled as ever, does not laugh, but the corners of his mouth turn up ever so slightly.
The improbability of their relationship existing, let alone succeeding, however, is only brought home to her when Harry comes back from work on Friday, a week later, ranting about the intractability about ex-Death Eaters to provide information about the way Voldemort set up Death Eater enclaves in certain distant European countries. As she listens to Harry’s blanket generalisation about Slytherins (a sentiment she would have certainly echoed until a few months after the end of the war), she dimly wonders if her friends would approve of Draco.
She scolds herself for even wondering. Of course, the answer would be no. She remembers giving in to the silent crowd in the Great Hall, and wonders whether she should do it again.
Monday night sees her standing on a Muggle street, under a lamp, wondering whether she should go to the Manor.
She stands, watching dark shadows pass by, illuminated briefly by the lamp’s beams.
Half an hour later, she Apparates back to The Burrow.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” accuses Draco, on Wednesday, when she finally works up the courage to return.
She would deny it - claim exhaustion - except she cannot lie to Draco. She doesn’t know whether it is because he learnt Legilimency from Snape, or because she herself cannot practice Occulmency, but it is a moot point. She might as well just admit it.
“I don’t know if I can stand the pressure”
His eyes narrow, but he doesn’t dish out reproof. “I won’t make you my secret, and I won’t let you make me your secret.”
“I’ll try,” she says, and it’s the most she can promise, for now. She slips her hand in his, and relaxes when his broomstick-callused fingers curve around hers.
They fall into silence, and Hermione watches the flames dancing in the fireplace. The memory of her torture assaults her, suddenly, and she shivers.
“She’s dead,” says Draco, in a low voice, and she takes a deep breath - not questioning how he knows. “Think of something nice.”
She tries.
“Harry and Ron will have fits when they find out,” she attempts, trying to laugh.
“Pansy and Goyle will have fits when they find out,” he echoes.
“Maybe they’ll agree on something at last,” she muses.
They decide to ‘come out’ a few days later in Diagon Alley. They walk down the street, hands brushing as they peer through windows and discuss Ministry news. No one gives them a second glance until they meet Harry coming out of Flourish and Blotts, carrying two books. One of them has wings, which beat against his robes. She calls out to him, smiling.
“Hermione!” exclaims Harry. She sees the exact moment his grin wilts - the moment he recognises Draco. He recovers quickly, greeting Draco with a cordial smile, but his face seems frozen, and his eyes flit to her, a silent question being transmitted. She feels Draco’s arm stiffen and his shoulders go rigid.
They exchange pleasantries, before Harry excuses himself politely and walks away, though not before sending her one last, penetrating look.
“That was a brilliant start,” he says, trying for sardonic but not entirely succeeding.
“We’ll weather the storm,” she says, and believes it. “We’re children of war. Peace doesn’t suit us.”
His answer is a squeeze of her hand and a kiss to her hair.
The prompt:
Describe what you'd like in as few words/keywords as possible: Angst, preferably followed by a hopeful or happy ending. I’m flexible as to the level of angst -- I can’t imagine an in-character Dramione fic without *some* amount of it, and I would really, really like for Draco and Hermione to be in character.
Song, Poem, or Quote: Feel free to disregard these entirely, but just in case my request wasn’t specific enough and you’d like more inspiration, you can turn to either one of the following completely optional quotes! “No man ever steps in the same river twice, because it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man” -- Heraclitus OR "Cause you’re the storm that I believe in/And all this peace has been deceiving" -- You’re the Storm by The Cardigans
Dealbreakers (absolute no-no's): PLEASE READ. While my request is intentionally non-specific, I am specifically inflexible about the following dealbreakers: Draco and Hermione already together. First-person narrator. Second-person narrator. Pregnancy or children (with each other or with other people). Sex god Draco. Suddenly unprejudiced Lucius. Draco and Hermione cheating on each other (cheating with each other on other people is fine!). Slash.
Feedback is appreciated.
ferretbush_post is the account the mods use to post the gifts. It has not created any of the gifts.