Dolor Draconum

Chapter the Twentieth

Term was approaching. This side of Christmas it looked much closer, and Draco had to force himself to keep the dread from showing in everything he said and did. Things had been... 'different', since Christmas. Draco knew people still talked about him when he wasn't there, but when he interrupted one of these conversations, whether by accident or otherwise, the quality of silence was different. Pitying.

He chucked a stone into the lake as hard as he could and was rewarded with a rumbling moan and some large bubbles as the giant squid protested at this treatment. He had spotted Hermione making her way determinedly through the muddy quagmire the grounds had become over the course of the soggy winter, and the last thing he wanted right now was her pity as well. He didn't want every moment he spent with her tainted like that; knowing she was there only out of a moral obligation, and that she'd do the same for anyone. He wasn't just anyone, he was Draco Malfoy, and he was used to being treated like a someone.

"Why are you sulking out here?" Hermione demanded as she approached, pulling each mud caked boot out of the mud an immense effort that left her panting and exhausted as she collapsed against a tree near where Draco stood.

"I'm not," Draco said in the face of the obvious.

"What's wrong now?" Hermione demanded brusquely. "Honestly, what do you want from us? The others nominated me to find out."

"So you didn't come here out of choice?" Draco asked sharply.

"I didn't say 'no', did I?" Hermione said more softly. "Look, we're just worried. You were having so much fun on Christmas and Boxing Day, and then suddenly it all went sour. Why?"

"I caught on," Draco said, pointedly not looking at her. "I don't want your pity. Any of you. Especially not Potty and the Weasels."

Hermione giggled despite herself. "That sounds like some bizarre punk rock band," she explained when Draco, against his better judgement, turned around to fix her with a quizzical look.

His breath caught in his throat. For all that he fallen for her, he'd never really thought of Hermione as more than averagely pretty, tolerable to look at. Now he out and out stared, drinking her in. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkling, life pouring out of every pore. She was wearing a black wool coat, fitted at the waist, and her school scarf over a Weasley Jumper. The mix and match outfit, chosen for practicality against the cold wind and threatening rain, was so typical of her Draco almost smiled with an odd glow of nostalgia. She was holding gloved hands up to her mouth and the bobble hat Ron had given her for Christmas had slipped over one eye, her hair curling madly out from under it to frame her glowing face. She was so utterly alive that Draco couldn't move, couldn't breath, couldn't think.

An ache settled in his heart. She was alive. He was dead. Life meant changing and evolving and moving forwards. Death meant staying in one place until you rotted to nothing. That was what Draco was doing, rotting. Jealousy hit him in a huge wave and he almost staggered under its weight. He couldn't remember what it was like to be that happy and optimistic and so full of potential.

He turned back to the lake again, glowering across the still grey water. Still, like his life, but not stagnating like he was.

He heard Hermione sigh behind him. "Oh, honestly," she muttered. "Look, it's not pity, I don't even know where you got that idea. I can understand why you don't want pity, Draco. It's sympathy, but it's also condescending. Draco, for the first time, on Christmas day, you managed to make people like you."

"I have had friends before," Draco said in a slightly hurt tone.

"They weren't friends. Friends don't turn their backs on a person when he needs them the most," Hermione told him. "We were listening to your opinions and taking them into account. I don't think it occurred to any of us that you even had reasons for your prejudice. Admittedly, I disagree with the reasons you gave, but they were real reasons. Justifications."

"I didn't have to justify anything," Draco said. "I was just sick of you lot living in your little contradictory, hypocritical worlds, where everything revolves around Potter."

"Fine. Whatever you say." Real irritation was creeping into Hermione's voice. She stepped away from the tree and walked over to stand behind Draco. "Even Ron respects you now, did you know that? He doesn't like you, but he's tolerating you, which for Ron is a lot."

"Oh yeah? And what sexual favours did you have to pledge to wrangle even that sacrifice from him?"

Draco knew he had crossed a line. The world went dead silent.

And then, for the first time in his life, he apologised sincerely to a mudblood. "I'm sorry," he said, turning around to look Hermione in the eye. "That was going too far."

She slapped him anyway, but as he watched her storm away up the hill Draco found himself smiling. That hadn't been so hard, had it? And she'd realise, later, that he'd meant it, and give him a chance to explain and excuse his words, because that was the sort of person she was.

* * *

Draco was proved right later that evening. He was playing chess against Ginny, who seemed to have thrown aside all family prejudice in favour of thrashing him utterly and totally. Ron occasionally appeared and suggested moves, and visibly restrained himself from make snide remarks to Malfoy.

Hermione appeared just as Draco was checkmated by Ginny's pawn and what had been his own Queen until Ginny claimed it. He glanced up and smiled winsomely at the brunette.

"I let her win," he said in a stage whisper.

Ginny laughed and rolled her eyes. "Sure you did," she said, getting up and patting him on the head. It wasn't until Hermione was leaning towards him over the chessboard that he realised Ginny had vacated her seat so he and Hermione could talk in relative privacy.

"Does she know what I said?" he asked. He doubted she did, considering how she had acted while they were playing, but she had definitely known something was up.

"No, but I think everyone knows we fell out," Hermione said, voice uncharacteristically cool. "I think the fact I came back almost in tears while you stood there and smirked kinda gave it away," she said caustically.

"I wasn't smirking!" It occurred to him that saying it was the first time he'd apologised sincerely for something other than to a member of his family was perhaps not the best course of action to take. "I... I was smiling," he said lamely. "I'm sorry if I made you cry."

"And why were you smiling?" Hermione asked, ignoring the trite apology.

"Because I knew you would give me a chance to explain myself," Draco told her. Damn, he thought, I wish I'd thought up an explanation earlier.

"Go on then," Hermione prompted.

Draco considered. "I'm a very nasty person?" he saw Hermione's face darken and he sighed. "Okay, fine. Life would be a lot easier if you accepted that, but if you want to here a few half true lame excuses, that's up to you."

"I know you're a nasty person," Hermione told him. "You reminded me of that earlier today."

Draco sat back in his chair. He noticed, without surprise, that the common room was empty. "I'm not exactly in a good place, emotionally. As you so kindly pointed out, I was sulking. Most people know that that's a really bad time to disturb me. I lash out. Generally I'm not that quick, and you get those petty insults you and the other Gryffindors laugh at when you get back here, the kind of insults that make me sound like a complete pillock with no brains. It was unlucky that you manage to catch me on one of the few days where I'm actually thinking fast enough to come up with something really hurtful." Draco looked her in the eye. "I regretted it the moment the words were out of my mouth," he said, slowly and deliberately.

Hermione sighed. "You're a cruel person, Draco. Even those petty insults hurt. And what you said... I still can't believe you said that. I know you hate Ron, and he hates you, but that was just so low!"

"I know."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione demanded. "'I know'? What kind of explanation is that?"

"I know it was low, even for me. What's worse is it didn't have anything to do with him. I said it to hurt you. I wanted, for that split second, to watch you cry. I wanted you to hurt."

"You succeeded," Hermione said, but the coldness was seeping out of her voice. She shook her head. "This is one of those 'misery loves company' things again, isn't it? Draco, you're never going to get past this until you let that go. Making other people feel worse than you do isn't the same as making yourself feel better."

Draco grimaced. "You know, that's the best way I've ever heard that put. Yes, it was that. But it wasn't only that. It's hard to explain why, but I was so jealous of you, standing there. So I wanted to remove the source of that envy."

"Jealous?" Hermione looked shocked. "What of?"

Draco rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "I thought I just said: 'it's hard to explain why'. You wouldn't get it, Hermione. And you should be very thankful for that."

"Is that what you're jealous of?" Hermione asked shrewdly. "The fact that I haven't been where you are right now, emotionally, and I couldn't understand it?"

Draco shrugged. "Not quite, but that'll do."

"I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong, Draco. No one can help you. I don't know what it is that's keeping you so closed, whether it's pride or shame or the idea that you can handle this on your own, but you can't, you see. You can't handle it on your own. You have to let us help." Even as Hermione spoke she knew that she'd find herself repeating those words at some point, maybe very often throughout her life. But right now the face that came to mind for sheer stubbornness in the face of depression was Harry's, not Draco's, and that nestled worm of worry from last summer began to twitch again.

"'Us'? Us who?" Draco asked, voice dull but eyes interested.

Hermione shrugged, and pressed on. "Me, mostly, I guess. But there are others who'd also help, you know. You and Terry seem to get on quite well, and you and Ginny were just having a lot of fun. If you put the effort in you could have a lot of friends, not just hangers-on."

"I don't want their help," Draco told her. "All the Terrys and Ginnys in this world couldn't do a thing. But..." and to Hermione's complete surprise he actually blushed a little, "...I don't mind your 'help'. I mean, you're a good listener, and you don't give up on a person. And you came here and talked to me, despite how furious you were with me, and you gave me a chance to justify what I said today. I can't justify it, but you're still forgiving me."

Hermione was staring at him, open-mouthed. It was such an un-Draco like speech. He took advantage of her shock to lean forwards and press a quick kiss to her cheek, breathing in the dusky scent of her hair as he did so.

"Thank you," he told her, and left the common room. Hermione watched him go, a smile forming on her lips. Some days she thought he was almost redeemable.