Fic: Shadowed Lives (PG, Draco/Hermione, part 12/?)

[bookishwench]

Author: Meltha
Rating: PG at this point, but likely to rise
Feedback: Yes, thank you. Melpomenethalia@aol.com
Spoilers: Currently, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Again, this will rise.
Distribution: The Blackberry Patch and Fanfiction.net. If you’re interested, please let me know.
Summary: Draco returns from the hospital wing and discontentedly heads towards the owlery to write Hermione about the lousy first day he’s had. Things don’t go exactly as he planned, though.
Disclaimer: All characters are created by J. K. Rowling, a wonderful writer whose works I greatly enjoy. I have borrowed them for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.
Author Note: Some information double-checked through the Harry Potter Lexicon. I'm sorry it took so desperately long for the next chapter to come out! Hopefully this won't happen again.

Previous parts may be found here

Part 12: Comparing Notes

It wasn’t long before the other Slytherin boys started filtering back into the dormitory. Draco noted that both Nott and Zabini were carrying a fair few books as well as several parchment rolls filled with notes. Crabbe and Goyle, on the other hand, were completely unfettered by anything so dull as books or notes. Knowing that the answer wouldn’t be anything particularly enlightening, Draco took a deep breath and attempted the impossible.

“So… what did we cover in Herbology today?” he asked the pair.

“Huh?” Goyle said, and Crabbe looked around slowly.

“Herbology,” Draco said slowly. “What did we do?”

“Oh,” Crabbe said. “Yeah, uh, Sprout talked about dirt, I think.”

“Dirt,” Draco said, his face screwed up into a distasteful grimace. “Anything specific about… dirt?”

“I think it’s important or something,” Goyle said. “Oh, and we’re supposed to write an essay on it.”

“On… dirt,” Draco said slowly. “I don’t suppose Sprout provided more details than that?”

“Don’t know,” Crabbe said, throwing himself down on his bed. “I think she said something else, but I wasn’t really paying attention to her.”

“I can’t say I blame you,” Draco said. “Dirt, of all things.”

“Well, after all, it is Herbology,” Nott said. “What would you expect the topic to be?”

“Something useful,” Draco countered. “I’m starting to wonder about this place. So far today, I’ve been bored silly by facts about prehistoric wizards who’ve been dead for millenia, visited the hospital wing—where I was treated appallingly, by the way—and missed a lecture on dirt.”

“You forgot getting bit by a flower,” Goyle added helpfully only to be the recipient of one of Draco’s iciest looks.

Zabini nodded thoughtfully.

“I admit,” he said, sprawling gracefully across his bed, “I too had rather higher expectations for the first day. Still, I suppose we shouldn’t expect to be conjuring gold out of thin air all at once.”

Draco sighed. Dirt. Of all the stupid things. He couldn’t help wondering if the Gryffindors had faired better with their classes today. Perhaps dropping Hermione a note was in order. Carefully, he tested his leg and found that it was much better than he had expected it to be. He might, possibly, have been too hasty in his dismissal of Madame Pompadore or whatever her name was in the hospital wing. Granted, she could have been more far more polite, but he had to admit as he stared down at his now practically healed leg, the woman knew her cures.

As Crabbe and Goyle launched into a discussion of whether dung bombs or trick wands were more fun and Zabini and Crabbe seemed intent on starting their homework, Draco slipped unnoticed from the room, sped through the nearly empty common room, and began walking down the twisting corridors and stairways that led to the owlery.

He congratulated himself on getting lost only twice when he reached the gloomy, circular room at the top of the second tallest castle tower. It wasn’t yet dark, but the sun was getting lower in the September sky, and the owls were beginning to stir from their daily sleep, sensing night was coming. It really was rather a pretty view, he thought to himself as he looked at the scenery in all directions. The crisp air carried a hint of autumn in it, and the lake was glittering in the last of the sunlight while the deep greens of the Forbidden Forest were nearly blue in the depths of the darkest shadows. The hills that encircled the school looked rugged and wild, filled with a sense of quiet history that old Binns couldn’t possibly have understood. He could almost overlook the excessive amount of owl dung on the floor.

Draco began to search for his Persephone among all the other owls. While normally he would simply have bellowed her name loudly, he didn’t think it would be wise to abruptly wake up a few hundred owls, all of whom would probably be grumpy, and all of whom, he noted, possessed very sharp beaks and intimidating claws. The sheer number of birds was a little staggering, but he finally caught sight of his own eagle owl curled up by one of the arches and beginning to stretch lazily.

“There you are,” he said, smiling at her. “Feel up to delivering something before you set off for the night?”

Persephone’s eyes opened wider, and she gave a quiet hoot of assent.

“Good,” he said, then realized the obvious. He had completely forgotten parchment, quill, and ink.

“Oh, for Circe’s sake!” he yelled, causing several late sleeping owls to ruffle their feathers indignantly. “How am I supposed to write Hermione now!”

“Well,” said an amused voice behind him, “you could try just turning round and talking to her instead. That is if the owls don’t peck your eyes out first for waking them.”

He winced. Great. Now he looked like a prat. How charming. But her teasing laugh seemed warm and not unkind, and he turned to face her with a sheepish grin.

“I got your owl this morning,” Hermione said, taking a seat on a window ledge that somehow wasn’t completely coverd in owl droppings. “How was tea with your godfather?”

The words “morbid,” “cynical,” and “deeply uncomfortable” were dancing on the tip of Draco’s tongue, but he thought it was better not to tell tales out of school… or rather in school, as the case might be.

“About as I expected,” he said quite truthfully, “which is more than I can say for the first day.”

Hermione’s face fell in disappointment.

“Really?” she said. “I was hoping you’d enjoyed your classes. What happened?”

Without quite realizing he had done it, he sat down next to her on the window sill and was immediately pouring out the story of the Fanged Geranium, which she listened to with wide eyes and gasps in all the appropriate places. He didn’t know why he felt the urge to actually talk about it with her rather than cover it up, and he chose not to look at his motives to carefully.

Granted, Draco may have taken a few small liberties with the scene. For example, on later recollection he supposed the flower hadn’t been quite twenty feet tall or possessed a head the size of a wild boar or fangs as long as his leg and clogged with the flesh of previous victims, including a human skull. Still, after the day he’d had, he thought he was entitled to a little artistic license.

“That’s awful!” she cried, her hand to her mouth. “Will you be okay?”

“Should be,” Draco said, moving his leg back and forth a bit. “Whatever else might be going on, the healer in the hospital wing is at least adequate, which is more than I can say for Binns.”

“Yes,” Hermione said, “I’ve already heard rumors about him. I take it he’s not exactly a great deal of fun.”

“After an hour in that class, I found myself wishing I was dead, too,” Draco said, heaving a sigh.

“Too?” she asked.

“Yeah, Binns is a ghost. That’s the only exciting thing about him,” Draco said. “Yeesh, who’d stay in this place after they were dead, for pity’s sake?”

“I was wondering that myself,” Hermione said. “Sir Nicholas is rather nicer than I was expecting, really, and the Fat Friar and the Grey Lady seem decent sorts, but the Bloody Baron… I don’t know how you sleep at night with him hanging about! I want to look up more information on the castle ghosts. You haven’t happened to read Hogwarts: A History, have you?”

“No,” Draco said.

“Oh, I’ll have to loan it to you. It’s really quite interesting, well, if you’re interested at all in history and the like,” Hermione said.

“Anything’s got to be less boring than Binns,” Draco said, and she laughed again.

“So what did you have today, then? Any professors I’ll need a wakefulness potion for?” he asked.

“Professor McGonagall is really fascinating. Did you know she can turn herself into a cat?” she said enthusiastically.

“Really? She’s an animagus?” Draco sniffed in a vaguely impressed way. That was far more than he’d expected from someone who headed Gryffindor.

“Yes. We’re still working on small things now, nothing anywhere near as elaborate, but it promises to be a really wonderful experience,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll like her.”

“Yeah,” he said uncertainly. “Maybe. Say, if you were going to be an animagus, what animal would you pick to become?”

“I don’t know. From what I’ve read on the subject, it’s more that a witch or wizard’s personality dictates what form they’ll take,” she said.

“Yeah, but if you could pick?” he pressed.

“Hmm,” she said, looking out over the grounds. “I know it would be more sensible to pick something that could fly, but I’m not overly fond of heights, and while being a water animal would be useful sometimes, I don’t think that would come in handy very often.”

It intrigued him, the way she was reasoning everything out rather than simply blurting out a response. This was definitely a girl who thought things through thoroughly.

“I think… I think I’d like to be a squirrel,” she finally said.

“A squirrel?” he said, stunned. “Why on earth would you pick one of those rats with fluffy tails?”

“Well, they can move about from one place to another really fast, and it would be easy to blend in to the background if I didn’t want to be noticed. Also, well, they always seem so happy. It’s not often you see a depressed-looking squirrel, is it?” she said.

“I suppose not,” he said, grinning. “As for me, I’d be a horse, a great black charger.”

Hermione nodded her approval, saying “Not terribly good for camoflage, I suppose, but still, it would be wonderful to run as fast as you’d want, feel powerful.”

“That’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it? Power and who has it,” Draco said. He was rather surprised by her frown.

“I think there’s some things more important than that, though,” Hermione said.

“Like what?” he said with a laugh, figuring she must be joking. In the Malfoy house at any rate, nothing trumped power.

“Friendship,” she said simply.

“Friendship?” he said, then turned out to the darkened grounds again as a cloud of owls swooped overhead. “I suppose it’s useful, at any rate.”

“What an odd thing to say,” she said. “Useful?”

“Sure. Friends of the right sort can move a person along, make him more important, a real force to be reckoned with. People are stronger in a pack than alone, after all.”

“I guess I see your point,” she said, but the frown still marred her features. “People definitely do have more strength together.”

“In any case, you’ve got one Slytherin friend on your side,” he said magnaimously.

“And you’ve got a Gryffindor as well,” she said, smiling, and though Draco still couldn’t really find an advantage in have a Gryffindor or all things in his social circle, he found himself smiling as well. “We’d really better get back to the dormitories before the sun’s through setting or we’ll be in such trouble.”

“Probably right about that. I’d rather not get detention if I can avoid it. I’ve heard they do some really nasty things,” he said as they stood and began making their way around the late sleepers and to the door.

“I’ve heard the same, and of course I don’t want to lose my house any points,” she said seriously. “How many did you earn for Slytherin today?”

Draco paused as they descended the spiral staircase that led from the owlery. He’d slept through one class and been bitten in the other, so the grand total was a goose egg.

“Ehm, didn’t really keep count,” he said with a shrug. “It seems so vain.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” she said in an embarrassed voice. “I mean, heh, who keeps track of that sort of thing anyway?”

“Good night, Hermione,” he said with a graceful bow at the foot of the stairs. “I guess I’ll see you in Potions, then.”

“Good night, Draco,” she said with a wave as she ran off in the direction of what he assumed must be Gryffindor Tower.

He was practically back in the Slytherin common room again before he realized he was still smiling contentedly. Perhaps that was the benefit of having a Gryffindor as a friend, he thought. It might not be the sort of usefulness his parents would have approved of, but at the moment it seemed more than important enough to justify looking forward to Potions with enthusiasm.

At that moment, a package from home was on its way. It would arrive the next day, and its contents would begin a chain of events that would make happiness and contentment very rare things in Draco’s life.


Continued in Part 13: Mail Call

Comments

[snowe.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so pleased you've updated! Their developing friendship is charming...can't wait to find out about the package!

[bookishwench.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it. :)

[bunney.livejournal.com]

I was so thrilled to see an update, I went back and reread from the beginning. Poor Draco...he's about to get a very nasty surprise, isn't he?

[artsy-aura.livejournal.com]

Just read from the beginning. Am quite enjoying it! ^_^
Poor Draco. :-(
Not surprising that he turned out the way he did considering who raised him and the (bad) advice he's being given. Things may work that way in Slytherin House, but as they make up less than a quarter of the population, odds are that it's not the best way to act in life... Also no big surprise that he didn't make his house's team as a first year, considering how he insulted the Quidditch Captain the first time they met. It's sad that he's going to find out Hermione isn't what he assumed her to be. I doubt he'll take finding out he was wrong (about anything really, but this in particular) very well...
Really interesting to hear Draco's side of the story. Looking forward seeing where you take this! ^_^