Disclaimer:
Me no own, you no sue.
The
Price We Pay
He watched
as she pored endlessly over her piles of books in the library, dusty darkness
lit only by a single candle. Madam Pince was long gone now, hit by a random
Killing Curse in one of the many battles that had racked Hogwarts and the
grounds surrounding it, and they were left free to wander or desecrate the
library as they pleased. She never
befouled a book, of course. She loved them too much. Instead, she read
unceasingly in the library, barely sleeping, barely waking.
“’Mione,
love, you have to come to bed,” he said finally.
“Mmhm,” she
said without lifting her head from the enormous tome that was currently under
her inspection.
“You’re
looking peaky,” he tried again. “Soon even Pansy will be fatter than you.” He
was hoping that this mention of her nemesis would rouse her, but she only
nodded and continued flipping pages.
“Hermione!”
he shouted suddenly, and startled, her head flew up and her wand emerged as if
by magic from her robes. Her wand went down when she saw there was no one but
him, and with a scowl her head began to follow the same path, but he stopped
her, cupping her chin in his hands.
“Hermione, I
mean it. You’re not getting enough sleep. Look at yourself!”
His eyes
raked her as though she were one of those books which she herself was perusing.
Her skin was chalky white, even paler than his own, with a sort of sickly tinge
to it that made her look like a plant stunted in some dark cellar. His hand
against her chin, white against white. His white the white of a night-dweller,
a cave-liver, someone who was meant to be pale and dark, her white the white of
a sick person, a dying girl, someone who was meant to be golden and lively and
happy.
Her hair was
limp, strands falling everywhere. When was the last time she had washed her
hair, torn herself enough away from her research? He couldn’t remember. She was
so frail, skinnier even than Pansy, who everyone except herself knew was
anorexic, as though she would break at the slightest touch, yet he knew how
strong she was. She had slapped him in third-year after all.
He stared at
her, this dead, dying imitation of that ebullient girl, and his heart twisted.
He’d rather have that Hermione back, glaring at him and insulting him but whole
and well rather than this, this ghost who smiled at him sometimes when she
could spare the damn time.
He was her
boyfriend, wasn’t he? Her fiancé? She had promised.
“I’ll love you forever, Draco,”
smiling, looking up in his eyes, knowing how insecure he was behind his façade,
his mask. “I’ll never leave you, never stop loving you. This is a promise. Do
you understand? Whatever happens, I’m always gonna be there for you.”
What had
happened to that? The whispered trysts, the secret snogs, the flushed
love-making in broom closets and abandoned corridors? The passionate, intense
love that had flared up between them making them blind to all else? The way
they looked at each other as though they were the center of the universe.
“It’s all about us,” she had said to
him once after caught and scolded by McGonagall. She had told them about the
dangers of war and how heedless and thoughtless it was of them to just go off
like that. They had nodded all throughout the lecture—far be it from Hermione,
the goody-goody, to defy a teacher!—but once they left, she had wrapped her
arms around him and said seriously, “It’s all about us.”
That feeling
of joy that Hermione, the sensible one, Hermione the rule-freak, Hermione the
one who always thought like adults, hadn’t cared about anything or anyone but
him, him, Draco Malfoy, had been so wonderful…better than flying.
But now she
was gone, and instead here was this automaton who ate when he commanded her
too, who slept only when she could no longer keep her eyes open, who sometimes
went for days on end without getting up from that accursed desk.
She only
glanced at herself in the mirror he held up and shrugged. “So what? I’ve been
worse.” And that was what tugged at him so. It was true. She had been worse.
And the fact that she didn’t care what she had become—he remembered a girl who
had worked for hours to tame her unruly hair so that he would be surprised, be
pleased, think she was beautiful. What had happened? What had happened?
“Hermione,
please,” and now he was begging, Draco Malfoy, Ice King, Prince of All
Slytherin, Heir to the Malfoy name, was begging, he was pleading with her.
“Can’t you see what you’re doing to yourself? Damn it all Hermione, you’re
supposed to be the sensible one! You’re killing yourself!”
“I have to
find it,” she said desperately. “I have to find a way.”
“You can do
it later! Others can help! You’re not the only one who can do it, you idiot!
Can’t you see all you’re doing is destroying yourself?”
“Harry will
die if I don’t find a way,” she said dully.
His heart
gave a dull pang as she said those words. And
don’t I matter, he wanted to yell at her, shake her until she got some
sense into that beautiful head of hers. What
about me? Do you even care if I die? Would you cry, or would you just go back
to those damned books? Doesn’t it matter that you’re slipping away from me?
That I hurt? That you’re ignoring me like the only thing in your universe is
that research?
He ignored
it and worked on the line he knew would convince her. “You’re not doing Potter
any good if you die,” he said brusquely. “He’ll just fall apart.”
She looked
at him, and he knew she was giving in, like she always did when he used this
line.
But this
time, he exploded.
“IS THAT
WHAT IT TAKES TO GET YOU AWAY FROM THOSE DAMN BOOKS?” he yelled, his famous
Malfoy temper rising. “THAT POTTER WILL FALL APART IF YOU DIE? WHAT ABOUT ME? WHAT ABOUT ME?” then quietly, his voice
dropping, “don’t you care about me anymore?”
She laughed,
a dry brittle laugh that was nothing like the wonderful laughs she had laughed
before. “Of course, don’t be silly, but I really do need to find something, I
thought that last book had something about Horcruxes—”
“HORCRUXES
BE DAMNED!” he yelled in an uncontrollable frenzy. “TONKS HAS WORK TO DO, BUT
SHE DOESN’T IGNORE LUPIN ALL DAY! THE WEASELETTE STILL LOVES POTTER EVEN THOUGH
SHE’S BUSY! HELL, EVEN MRS. WEASLEY STILL HUGS MR. WEASLEY GOODNIGHT! IT’S JUST
YOU THAT THINKS SHE HAS TO PUSH EVERYONE, EVEN HER OWN FIANCE AWAY! It’s just
you,” he repeated.
She looked
at him, seeing he was for real, that he really meant it.
“You don’t
understand Draco, Harry will die if I
leave this too long,” she repeated.
“And what if
I die?” he asked, so softly that she could barely hear it. “Would you care?”
“Of course I
would!” she said.
“Would you?”
he asked again, and she saw those beautiful silver eyes clouded with doubt.
“Of course,”
she said, trying to convince both of them at once, and knowing that it wasn’t
working.
He looked
away.
Always, it
was Potter.
Potter who
beat him at Quidditch. Potter who beat him at Potions, the once class he truly
loved.. Potter who Dumbledore favored. Potter who everyone wanted to know.
Potter who everyone loved. Potter who beat him at everything and anything.
And this
time, Potter who was taking away his girlfriend.
“I love
you,” he said softly.
“Draco?” her
voice was tentative, unsure, frightened.
He dropped
her chin and stepped away.
“Here,” he
whispered, and handed her the ring they had bought together one day in Diagon
Alley.
She took the
silver thing numbly. The ring glinted in the candlelight.
She didn’t
need to ask what he was doing. They knew each other so well—had known.
“I’m sorry,”
he murmured, but whether he was apologizing to her or himself she didn’t know.
Time whirled
past her ears in a sort of gasping vortex and the air was sucked out of her as
it rushed pashed her, pulled at her, millions of tiny eddies grasping at her
and whirling her a million different ways as it tore her apart and put her back
together with some of the pieces missing, gone, lost, forever attached to the
one she loved. Had loved.
He looks at
her with the tears that refuse to come, because he is a Malfoy and Malfoys
don’t cry. He searches her face for any sign of regret, of loss, but finds none
and he knows she had stopped loving him a long while ago.
It was only
that neither of them realized it.
He steps
away, into the dark which was always a part of him and always would be, letting
it claim him as he had always known it would when all promises were broken and
all hope faded, letting him be the creature of darkness, of loneliness, of
despair that he had always known he was.
And as he
melts into the darkness, she drops down into her chair to continue searching
for the missing piece to rescue Harry, to help in the War that had consumed her
life.
,
