Disclaimer: To state the obvious: Harry Potter is not mine but J.K. Rowling's, and, unless the Puppeteers have a different idea, I won't ever make money off her characters. Or her plot. Or anything else her brilliant mind may have made up.
Warning:This story is rated "M" for a reason, so please do not read unless you are prepared to confront difficult situations, allusions to sex and violence, and mature language. In addition, this story is dark and complex - be prepared to actually have to think while reading. This is not a fluffy, easy read. I've done my best to make it different from the mainstream Draco/Hermione stories out there, and hope that the challenge is worth your while.
Chapter 1 - Winter Wind
The wind blew from the west, carrying whispers of foreign shores and winter storms. The gulls' cries still echoed in its transparent arms, urging the leaves to release their hold on the earth and hover on borrowed wings. Then it changed, suddenly and utterly, to travel from the north. Frost was coming.
The ceiling in the Great Hall showed none of this. The grey sky was unmoving and blank, a solid sheet of pale clouds. The Hogwarts students swirled beneath it, unnoticing and uncaring. The weather held no mystery, no lure. It could tell them nothing of the threat that lay beyond the thick walls.
They were muffled, shooting worried glances toward the staff table. The sea of black was stiller than usual, almost uncertain. They were no longer under the curved nose of Dumbledore. They were alone for the first time. Without guidance, without hope.
Dumbledore saw this and knew. His blue eyes held no twinkle, no laughter; they were sad now, and tired. His students' trust had been betrayed. Few would believe in him after so many were lost, few would understand his helplessness against the battering gale of hatred and disgust. How was it that he, the one wizard Voldemort feared, had no allies? He had assumed that the bright beacon of glory and goodness would draw Hogwarts together, building a white hammer to shatter Voldemort. He had assumed, and was wrong. The banner of shadows hissed many lies, threw many ropes to capture the young hearts of innocence.
He simply hoped that his ending would be painless.
"How dare he?" Hermione Granger hissed across the table. "I don't understand how he can just sit there, do nothing. Doesn't he know we have a war to fight?"
Harry Potter stared down at his plate, moving the last bits of egg around in ever-smaller circles. Ron Weasley sighed, exchanging looks with Harry, doodling idly on a scrap piece of parchment by his elbow. In the beginning, her two best friends had shared her feeling of indignation, but they also knew there was a time to accept reality and move on. Dumbledore certainly seemed to have done so.
"Yeah, we know, Hermione. We get it. Can we please talk about something else now?" Ron interrupted.
"Well, I — What do you mean, talk about something else? He's been like that for days. Weeks even. How can you talk about something else?" Hermione grabbed the napkin by her place and pulled it to her lap. Her fingers tightened around the cloth, anxiously pulling it in time to her repeated glances toward the staff table.
"By opening our mouths and changing the subject."
Her hands stilled. "Change to subject to what, Quidditch? Professor Snape? Malfoy? Oh yes, they're definitely more important than the war, life and death situations—"
"No, no, those were excellent suggestions," Ron said seriously, waving her sarcastic remarks. He winked at Harry. "So, what do you think of the team this year?"
"Your sister's shaping up pretty well, actually," he said, fork clattering to his plate. "But we're probably going to lose the first few matches. We still need a Keeper and two Beaters, and we haven't scheduled the tryouts." He eyed Ron hopefully. "We'd be glad to have you on the team. At least you have some experience."
Ron shook his head. "Nah. When I quit, I mean to stay quit." He took a large bite out of a piece of coffee cake, scanning the staff table as he did so. It seemed cold, bleak without the warmth of laughter. The chairs that were filled were hidden behind a wall of newspaper print, brimming with reports of death and abuse. "Ah, look at Snape," Ron said, swallowing. "Not even bothering to read the Prophet any more. The greasy bat. I'm so glad I don't have him this year."
Hermione dropped her napkin. "Ron! Potions is one of the most important branches of magic, and you could really benefit from it. I mean, didn't you want to be an Auror once? I certainly remember you mentioning it, let's see, daily all last year."
Ron scowled. "If it means I have to take Advanced Potions with that idiot, I'd rather work at a desk in the Ministry, tie and all."
"And Harry! You shouldn't be complaining at all. I still don't know how you got in, after Snape kept on giving you those failing grades last year."
"I wasn't complaining! In any case, I was only failing because he loathes me. It wasn't entirely my fault."
"Oh, come on, Hermione," Ron interjected. "Maybe Harry simply has some undiscovered talent."
"Do you believe that?" she asked. There was a brief silence, filled by the clatter of wagging tongues and crumpling newspapers. "Anyway, Harry, you certainly didn't go out of your way to get on his good side, did you?"
"Well, no, but —"
"Precisely. You should at least make an effort to stay in Advanced Potions. You must have done superbly on your O.W.L.s to get into it." She looked highly disappointed that he hadn't shared that information with her earlier. It had been a complete surprise when she had seen him purchasing the necessary books at Flourish and Blotts' before school.
Harry squirmed a bit. "Well, no. I didn't. I got an E."
"Then how did you get in? You know everyone says he refuses to take anyone without an O. And like you said, he - he, well, he loathes you. He probably wouldn't have let you in even with an O."
"I know. I think that McGonagall might've pulled a couple strings to help me out."
Ron spluttered, spraying bits of coffee cake everywhere. "What?" he asked, eyes wide. "She helped you out but not me?"
"He is Wonder Boy, Weasley," a voice drawled behind him. "You know, Dumbledore's pet, pride of the wizarding world. It's only natural that he gets what he wants after throwing a couple of tantrums."
"Shove off, Malfoy," Harry said. "Just because you were too stupid to pass any of your exams doesn't mean that you should be jealous."
"Jealous, Potter? Me? Remember, I passed allmy O.W.L.s, without the help of a teacher," he smirked.
"Yet Hermione still got better grades than you," Ron said. Hermione opened her mouth to argue, to placate. "Not that that's a big surprise, mind you. Ferrets aren't exactly famous for their intelligence, are they? I can't imagine your dad was too pleased, at any rate." Malfoy looked at Hermione as Ron spoke, hatred swimming just below the skin of his eyes. Her mouth closed as she stared back, turning pink under his gaze, until Malfoy looked away with the hard shell of resolve over his eyes. Ron continued, "Between you and me, Malfoy, I'm just glad that you have enough gold to pay off what your brain is missing."
"Shut up, Weasel," he spat. "At least I have the money – begging's a hard life."
Ron shifted in his seat, Harry's hand pressuring his shoulder downwards. Malfoy laughed spitefully and stalked off, Crabbe and Goyle in tow.
"God, I hate him," Ron growled. There was quiet. Harry's hand slowly lifted from his shoulder, returned to his fork and the food still lying on his plate. Ron stared at the girl across from him, finally saying "Hermione?"
She started and glanced up at the clock high above the Great Hall, grabbing her bag. "Come on. We'll be late for Potions, Harry. Snape doesn't look to be in a fabulous mood this morning, and I somehow doubt that it will improve between here and the dungeons."
Ron frowned as Harry, plate clattering to the table, hastened to catch up to Hermione.
Far from Hogwarts, in a place unplotted on any map, there was night. There were tall mountains, white-cliff faces lost in clouds, cradling a forest. There were moors that ran to the edge of the trees, hills that led to the lofty rock. And there, high on a hilltop, drums sounded. The beat was urgent, quick, resonating in the bones and pounding in the blood of the stray figures below – the Listeners. It pulled and tugged and shoved them toward the source, dragging them faster and faster through the dark trees. At the top, in a crescent-shaped clearing, the dancers moved.
There were four of them. They twisted and swirled and flowed among each other in a continuous circle, moving so quickly that the Watchers never saw their grotesque faces, nor would they have cared. The movement was so beautiful and raw, it was all the Listeners, now Watchers, could do to keep from weeping.
The Watchers became Movers. The drums compelled them to dance, slapping their mortal feet on the cold earth. Hands were raised in tribute to the Foursome as the Movers desperately tried to copy the intricate patterns. All they could hear were the drums. Their minds were blissfully blank. The Foursome knew this and laughed, richly and subtly, their four pitches rolling together to form one organic voice.
They danced on in the night to the drumming from the roots of the trees. New shadows were added to their cloaks. No one ever knew what became of those Listeners, Watchers, Movers. The drumming induced forgetfulness.
The beat rose furiously, maddeningly, but the dancers slowed to stillness. The trees moaned on as the Foursome stood quietly, planted around the orange flames. Claws shot out from the whispering cloaks, scarred and gnarled. The veils over the faces parted slightly with a passing breeze, revealing Age, Innocence, Passion, and Cruelty. They were older than the soil they stood on, than the stars that hung above them.
Black eyes glittered as their scaly hands rose once, twice to meet the dark moon floating just beyond their fingertips. As they descended, threads of night were caught on their broken, bleeding nails. Puppet strings. The Foursome smiled maliciously.
Hermione was right: Snape was just as foul as he looked to be at breakfast. He slammed the door open, surprising the students who were carefully unpacking their cauldrons.
"From now on, I want cauldrons set up and ingredients organized before I walk in the door. This is Advanced Potions; we will waste no time in here. Five points from each House for your laziness." He shook back his sleeves impatiently, black eyes sweeping the room. Harry glared at him, loathing welling in the pit of his gut. Snape's gaze lingered on him. "Another five for your rudeness, Potter."
"Shut up, Harry! I need to concentrate," Hermione whispered, watching with eagerness as Snape wrote their assignment on the board with a careless swish of his wand.
"I didn't say anything!"
"Shut up!" She breathed out as she saw the potion appear, followed by its complicated recipe. "A truth serum. A weak one, judging from the minimal use of powdered unicorn horn and eagle feathers. I mean, you have to have a bit of it for the potion to work, but I would imagine that Veritaserum has at least double the amount. It's interesting that Veritaserum is clear – I would have expected it to be blue, the universal color of truth. Maybe this one will be, though a very light shade at best."
"Hermione?"
"What?"
"Shut up."
Snape looked coldly at the students in front of him. "This is a truth serum, though very weak and diluted. You would have to drink several entire vials to even begin to feel any effect close to Veritaserum. Still, it is extremely useful for testing the trustworthiness of a person or object. If you put a drop on a letter, for example, you would be able to tell whether the writer is truly who you believe it is and whether he or she is telling the truth, indicated by either a bright blue or red dot. If it turns red, it means that there is something amiss. To measure how much faith you can place in a person, you must take a piece of them and anoint it, whether it is hair, nail, or blood. This can prove to be extremely tricky if the suspect is making use of Polyjuice Potion, however."
Hermione was already calculating, making notes of the quantities of ingredients and the method for brewing, coming to her own conclusions of how to make the serum more potent. She scribbled the recipe on a scrap of parchment for later study, and quickly began to compile the ingredients in the proper order.
"I hate this," Harry muttered after twenty minutes. He squinted at the board, rechecking the same step for the fifth time and caught himself adding the wrong substance. "You'd think he'd at least let us work up to something this difficult."
"We did," Hermione whispered. "It's October already; we should be able to handle this. What did you think the Deception Potion was for last week? It was obvious that this would be our next step, really. I can't imagine why I missed it."
"What would have predicting it done? Given you time to practice?"
"At least time to prepare. This is a very intricate brewing process, and it would have been really beneficial to have already had the recipe worked out. Maybe I would have had some extra time to research the making of Veritaserum then. Do you think we'll work up to that?"
"If it's harder than this, I hope not," Harry said.
"Oh, I do. Think about all the possibilities of twenty cauldrons of Veritaserum!" She looked around the room at the class of Sixth Years excitedly, then lowered her voice further. "The Order could use it against the Death Eaters, forcing them to betray their plans and so forth."
"Miss Granger," Snape said silkily behind her. "I must ask you not to talk. I'm sure that Mr. Potter's potion is not helped by the added distraction." He bent over it with distaste, and, apparently finding an incredible lack of things to criticize, moved on. He added over his shoulder, "If I hear you talking again, Granger, there will be one less cauldron of Veritaserum. And it won't come back."
She reddened and submerged herself back into the rhythm of stirring and adding, adding and stirring. She had forgotten how dangerous it was to mention the war – there were spies listening within Hogwarts for every weakness they could glean from the broken conversations of students. She could not jeopardize the Order and its purpose, especially if she wished to enter when she graduated.
That night, she dreamed. It was oddly clear, without the misted edges nightly visions usually appear within the eye of the clouded mind.
Deep in the heart of London, a single street lamp shone in the murky morning light. Its light was weak, illuminating a very small portion of the filthy sidewalk littered with cups and black gum. In the shadow of the curb, a rat scuttled to its reeking home in the sewers, its pale tail whipping out of sight almost before it appeared. The silence was deafening, void of the hiss of tires and squeaking of city rodents.
Scarcely after the rat vanished, the quiet shattered. It was a small sound, one that would escape the ears of any human listeners. It was no more than a trickle, a slight burble that erupted from the depths of the darkness to flow past the flickering light. As soon as the sound began, it halted, though the liquid continued to slip past the outskirts of the yellow sphere. It was slow and heavy, sticking to the rough pavement on the street.
Suddenly, the light grew, expanding to fill the street with a bright burst of white light before it snapped and disappeared. In that single instant, the brown stones turned a deep red. A red of rust and copper - the red of the human heart.
The river of blood flowed, spreading in the blackness
Then, out of the distance, she heard footsteps. A match flared and illuminated a pale face, gaunt and thin. He lit a lantern and paused not far from where she stood, as if waiting.
A rat erupted from the sewers and transformed into a crouching man, dressed in a long black robe. He twitched, looking around jerkily and met the eyes of the waiting man.
"Malfoy!" he squeaked. "I didn't think it would be you, after your mistake last year."
"You are not high in the Dark Lord's favor either, Pettigrew. Why do you think you were selected?" he asked coldly, silver eyes glinting.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, drawing himself up to his full height, which was scarcely taller than Lucius Malfoy's shoulder. "This is an honor, the most important task of all."
Malfoy's lip curled. "This is sewer work, hardly above Novice level. My son should be doing this." He looked toward Hermione and she shrank back, fearful of him noticing her. "He should, but he is not ready to take the Mark yet. Soon though, the Dark Lord will have another follower. A faithful one," he added, shooting a suspicious glare toward Wormtail. "Come. We have work to do."
Hermione crept forward to follow and felt her feet splash in running water. Lucius Malfoy stopped and lifted the lantern high, following the stream. She froze as she looked down toward her shoes.
They were submerged in blood.
She screamed in horror as she noticed bones, grey and cracking with age, floating on the current, snagging against her legs. She fell backwards and began to sink, despite her flailing efforts to remain on the surface. As her head slipped under the warm liquid, she woke, blood filling her open mouth.
A/N: This story will be an eventual Draco-Hermione romance, but it's going to be awhile before they begin to notice each other. It's my opinion that slow fics work best, especially since it's such an awkward coupling - makes it natural, you know? There's no possible way that they're going to go from wanting to eat each other's entrails to passionately making out in only a couple chapters. No possible way.
The chapters will probably go up sort of irregularly, simply because school has a habit of eliminating all free time. If the reviewers seem to like the story, I'll continue; if not, this will just fade into oblivion and no one ever need read it again. If you're so inclined to be the master of my existence, review by all means. Criticism is welcome - it's the only way to really improve the story and the writing.