Scarred Roses and Blood Filled Chocolates

Chapter Two: The Ties of this Red Liquid

Changing focus he looked to the assignment sheet on the desk, History of Magic, a class now taken along side the Gryffindors because so many seventh years were unceremoniously dead or lying unconscious in a sterile hospital bed, and now he had nearly all his classes with her.

Hermione re-read the assignment paper in front of her, "Together, you and your partner, will research your families and create two family trees, one for each. The trees should trace back six generations; they will be presented before the class in two weeks. No allowed class time, 200 points."

Her insides deflated, not that she would let her disappointment show. They may have been on the same side during the war, but she would never reveal her weakness to him.

For her family was her greatest weakness, her downfall. Her newfound heritage was not a topic to discuss with a persona who could probably trace back his family to the ancient Druids, and then a few more generations.

She stood up irritably as the bell rang; harshly she spoke, "Tonight. Six o'clock. Library. Don't be late."

Draco could feel his infatuation growing to ungodly proportions...

Spilling over the edges, frothing, stewing, and bubbling into a molten form of twists and turns, black and red-hot, a horrendous heap of metal.

Neville had melted yet another cauldron, his potion flooding over the stone floor, singing shoes, and putting charred holes in desk legs. A rare snicker escaped his lips, Longbottom had avenged the torture of his parents, proven himself a wizard of the wand, but potions were utterly wasted on him.

Waving a pale hand over the floor tiles the orange slop cleared away and shoes began to heal themselves. As he slid his empty hand back into a deep pocket he felt eyes watching him.

Hermione dusted her callused French-tipped nails over the destroyed heap of pewter; she then turned her attention to the floor, only to see Malfoy replacing a hand in his pocket. Studying him, their eyes locked and contact was maintained for the second time that afternoon.

Breaking the contact she added a fistful of moth wings and preserved entwish water to her brewing concoction, it emitted a dull puff of gray steam. Stirring clockwise and then counter clockwise her thoughts drifted away with the floating smoke...

Her wand aversion had rooted itself sometime in her sixth year, beginning when her temper had blown up her willow wood and unicorn hair, smithereens raining splinters down.

Of course, in that same row he had also shattered his dragon heartstring and birch. Not that it was any constellation...

***FLASHBACK***

McGonagall's N.E.W.T. class was hard, no questions asked. But normally she only had to consult a brief paragraph in her notes or the glossary of a reference book.

Alternate Universe Transfiguration was a different ideal. She'd always thought the idea was a fanciful story for young witches and wizards. But now McGonagall wanted six feet on the subject and the three books about the topic were all checked out with three week long waiting lists.

Calmly and as rationally as possible she had dashed up the stairs to the to the tapestry guarding the Room of Requirements. This was the last place she had left to look. The people with the books were all keeping them under safe guard with spells and enchantments, none wanting to find that a fellow student had taken their book for a walk.

As the stone wall opened she glimpsed tall shelves stacked high with texts about various methods of Transfiguration. Cross-species, crossbreed, cross-color. Linen covered, silk covered, thin spines, thick spines, ancient, recent, some copied in scribe calligraphy, others done on the modern printing press, molded, crumbling, and yet others that still retained that new, never been opened smell.

Knowing full well that she was the perfect cliché, she let her jaw gently fall open.

But it wasn't in awe.

More like shock hate fury....

"Stop staring," intoned the object of her bewilderment.

"What are you doing here?" she said, gaping awkwardly.

"Reading," his face never left the book he was reading, no color crept into his cheeks, not the slightest bit of embarrassment that that he'd been caught in a white undershirt and black boxers, sitting atop a pile of velvet covered poufs.

"Oh. Well-spotted! All those years of inbreeding have finally done some good, you can read with the best of us!"

"What is it you said? Well-spotted. Now be quiet I'm reading!"

"Not that book, you're not! That is one of the three books on Alternate Universe Transfiguration, and it's the only one that gives full and explicate detail on the process. The other two books only give brief mentions as to the actual process," he was letting her pick up steam, she could yell and holler at him for hours if he let her, and in the end, she would get what she wanted.

But he did in fact, cut her off. "Oh no, I'm doing some before bed research, and this is quite fascinating."

"You're not even in N.E.W.T. Transfiguration." She yelled this with her little remaining dignity.

"I know my own schedule, thanks, and it's quite flattering that you know mine too," his voice oozed sarcasm. "No, you can't have the book. I'm trying to enlarge-"

"ACCIO!" the book flew from his curled hands, "Now to as what you're attempting to enlarge I'll never know, seeing as me and this book are leaving."

"Why'd you have to go and bring magic into it-ACCIO!?"

"Give that back! ACCIO!"

"ACCIO!" he countered.

"ACC-Holy hell and a bag of chips! Look what you did, look you blew my wand up!"

Seething in sarcastic juice he retorted, "That is exactly what I did! My wand's decimated too..."

****END FLASHBACK****

Since that time she had learned from extensive research that wand aversions were very rare, and to have two people in such a close vicinity become independent of their wands at the same time was very nearly impossible...

Draco corked his potion vial, let his hand glide over the half empty cauldron, and cleared the extra-contents away. No incantation or piece of wood required. A frown creased his forehead; she also had this strange gift. A scowl flitted over his previously blank face, great another thing for them to have in common. Half of him detested anything remotely similar between them, but yet another half reveled in their rare, special commonality.

Something creaked at the back of the room, turning in his seat, he saw Pansy leave, presumably to use the loo. She had been another Slytherin to change. And yet he didn't know why she had changed sides so drastically at such a crucial time. Something, or someone, had changed her way of thinking; because she certainly wouldn't have gone Light of her own accord, but Draco didn't know nor care.

What Hermione cared about was surviving the remaining days of term before the Easter holidays. If she wanted to survive and pass, she would have to cooperate with...with.... him. She couldn't bring herself to think his name, yet she found brief snaps of him floating through her mind's eye, and her ligament eyes lingered on him during stolen peaks.

She snapped out of her reverie when Harry got up to casually cut the last half of class. Snape wouldn't notice the boy was gone. He had lost his sight.

****

Shaking the inopportune glimpses of him away, she looked to her watch and snapped her books shut, replacing them in meticulous order in her bag. Going toward the library she let her feet take the weight and automatically cross the well trodden floors, past worn and rusted suits of armor, beside moth-eaten tapestries depicting days of bloodshed gone by.

Casting scornful looks at the cloth hangings she added a purpose to her strides, putting considerable distance between herself and the murals. Pain coursed through her and she slammed her eyes shut in futile attempts to block out the memories. But they came rushing to her, from the deepest recesses of her mind; places she kept locked, even from herself. Every time she saw the fake woven blood mixed with dust, the picture magically moving, the locks popped off, shouts filled her ears, chants were screamed, tears pricked her eyes, a long line of clasped hands, and a dull copper taste filled her mouth. She had bitten her inner cheek from the painful memory.

Snapping her fingers a glass of water appeared in her hand, a benefit of having no need for a wand. The aversion certainly had helped in battle, she never lost her weapon, it had never dropped from limp fingers. With another snap, the ornate crystal glass evaporated into oblivion.

Mouth clean again, but memories forever impure, she pushed the heavy oak library doors open.

Opening a dusty book, he let the musty smell of velum and of the glue binding the thick spine wash over him. The book was an obscure title she had artfully found, a Godsend; it would cut their research time down to one evening.

Genealogy of the Wizard was positively ancient. Some of the pages curled into the fetal position at touch, and the linen cover was piteously faded, the coloring of the past never to be known in this time.

The table of contents showed the prominent wizarding families: Black, Lestrange, LaPorte, Malfoy, Parkinson, VanDorian, and Weasley.

Draco remembered from long-winded speeches by his father that all the Blacks had readily jumped into Voldemort's first uprising and they had all been killed, with the exception of Sirius Black who had been killed two years ago in the Department of Mysteries. Neville Longbottom had vanquished his parents' torturers. The Weasley's had gone blood trading and had fallen from riches to rags, and brought back to riches by their children.

He was the last Malfoy. Son of a father who'd murdered his wife, the mother of his only child, his son. Part of a family who had molded his soul to never cry, never laugh, and never fail. He was raised to be the perfect Death Eater, just like the rest of the pureblood families. Except for the LaPortes and VanDorians...

Were in her blood.

Visibly trembling, she turned the crumbling pages to first the LaPortes and then the VanDorians. These people were her relatives. The Grangers, who she had grown up with, the people who had taught her to walk, the people who she had learned the quirks of, the couple entrusted to love her...had merely been her protectors. Ensured to keep her from herself, to give her a normal and safe childhood.

Her biological mother, Donnatella LaPorte, and Italian witch, was wed to VanDorian heir, Nathaniel. For sixteen years they were married without a child, and when they were finally given a baby girl they were forced to give her away.

Mind, they had not wanted to abandon their first born, but their hands had been maneuvered by politics, and by the hunters after the hand of such a rich little baby. A baby born into such good fortune: social standing, money, land, blood.

Dumbeldore had let her heritage slip last year when her new gift had originally surfaced, "You have your mother's angry power..."

Tracing the lines of the paper with scarce fingertips, heart pounding a tattoo into her chest, she found her great-great grandparents on her father's side: Guinevere Crailmore~VanDorian and Triton VanDorian.

This was who she was.

A pureblood.

Never would she have expected this to have such a strong effect on her. She had known for nearly two years and it had never rattled her this much. But this...seeing the words engraved on the page really hit home, drove a stake through her heart.

Her breathing slowed, eyes blocking out the neat penmanship. Keeping the pleasant names and titles away, warding them off. One stuttering breath later, the lids fluttered open. Picking up her quill, she slowly and deliberately dipped it in the ink. She started to copy the names, birth and death dates, and long detailed tittles.

Once that was complete she turned her eyes, now bloodshot, to him...

The lines of the Malfoy family tree were embossed neatly with many flourishes into thick parchment. Cordelia Lestrange~Malfoy and Xavier Malfoy, his great-aunt and uncle. Decent people, they had each left him a small inheritance under Gringotts.

Near the top of the page, a set of names caught his eyes. Elizabeth Weasly~Malfoy, wife of Gamin Malfoy. That meant Ron and his family were his very distant relatives. His reflexes told him to recoil away from the page. His fingers curled, and he was about to push the book away when she entered his line of vision.

This was bothering her, he could tell. For that matter it was bothering him. She was no Muggle-born, not a Mudblood as he had so often called her, but she belonged to those old families, two he knew nothing about. Out of curiosity he checked the family tree labeled Malfoy, no where were there any mentions of her relations.

Relatives were tricky things, he could attest to that from personal experience. Most of his relatives had been pompous tyrants, all for the purification of the wizarding race...

But then again he'd been that way too. Until he was rudely set to learn that purebloods could be as barbaric as any other wizard, killing their own wives.

Disgust settled in his stomach. Next to him Hermione was already drawing the fine spindly lines that would be the branches of her family tree. Following her lead, he wrote at the top of his paper: Malfoy Family Tree, letting his quill flow over the paper, writing names and dates, dates going back six generations.

She was the sixth generation in a line of prejudice old wizards and witches, the product of two reclusive clans who drew into hiding before even that of Voldemort's first uprising. Living quite solitary lives behind tall stone walls, inside lavish chambers, hidden in the vine-covered wrought iron gates of the Italian Alps.

Suspicion had driven them away from one another, prejudice had shoved them away from the rest of the world, and they had lived as hermits until danger had pulled one of their own back into the grasp of the real world.

Ashamed, she batted her thoughts back to the task at hand. With a last whirl of her quill she finished her birth name...Hermione Victoria VanDorian~LaPorte.

It was a long name, he had to admit, longer even than his...Draco Lucius Black~Malfoy, but not by much.