Why We Fight

Part 29:
Belonging
(Saturday, October 15, 1977 - Continued...)

Hermione was in shock. She had kissed Draco Malfoy, willingly, and had meant it. What had she been thinking? Draco was a bad guy; he was a Slytherin (okay, so now he was a Gryffindor) and he had made life miserable for her since they'd met (okay, not since they'd met, but most of the time they'd known each other). The dark-haired Gryffindor-turned-Slytherin slumped onto her green-and-silver-bedecked four-poster bed. She reached into the end table and fished out her journal and a quill. She stared at the book and quill for the longest time before sighing and putting them back. How could she explain this to Harry and Ron? Hermione frowned and began to think.

---

Hermione Granger had met Draco Malfoy on September 1, 1991: their first day at Hogwarts. It had been before the elder Malfoys had assigned Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson to be Draco's cronies. Hermione had found an empty car and had been practicing a levitation spell on one of the Cauldron Cakes she had purchased. For some reason, the spell wasn't working and the know-it-all was confused. She couldn't think of a single time that she had gotten something wrong once she put her mind to getting it right. But this spell was driving her near insanity. Every other spell she had tried had worked perfectly. The levitation spell was child's play compared to Alohomora or one of the other spells in her book, but she couldn't make it work. She was almost ready to break her wand in half when a voice startled her.

"It's Wing-ard-ium Le-vi-o-sa," the voice said. The Cauldron Cake rose as the owner of the voice made an elegant motion with his wand. "And it's swish-flick-and-swish." Hermione turned to face the boy; he was a handsome, aristocratic-looking blonde with a pointy face and silver eyes.

Hermione's eyebrows rose and, with them, a blush. She angrily snatched the floating Cauldron Cake from midair. "I cannot believe I couldn't get that right," she said with disgust. He shrugged and rescued the Cauldron Cake from Hermione's crushing grip. He sat down on the bench opposite Hermione and began to unwrap the Cauldron Cake.

He gave Hermione a hint of a smile that showed a glimpse of perfect pearly whites. Hermione ran her tongue over her buckteeth self-consciously. "Not everyone can get every spell right the first time," he replied, nibbling the Cauldron Cake. His well-manicured nails tapped his wand with annoyance. "In chapter eight, I'm having trouble with spell twenty-nine."

The girl was impressed. "Alohomora?" she questioned.

"I can't get it to work," he admitted.

"Well, it doesn't work on all locks," she said. She gave him a small smile. "I'm Hermione Granger."

"Draco Malfoy." They talked the entire ride with a brief intermission when Hermione had tried to help Neville find Trevor the Toad.

At Hogwarts, Draco and Hermione split up for the Sorting. Now, as Hermione recalled, Draco had looked somewhat upset when she had been Sorted into Gryffindor; Hermione had been equally disappointed when Draco had been Sorted into Slytherin. The next day when Hermione had been studying in the library, she had met Draco again. She had found a cozy little hidey-hole in the back of the library and near a roaring fire that helped remove the constant chill in the air that was the result of the school being housed in a centuries-old stone castle. Her books had been sprawled over the ancient table as Hermione studied for a test that wouldn't be given for nearly two months.

Draco had meandered through the stacks to find Hermione's sanctuary and began to place his books down on the sparse areas that the Gryffindor's books didn't cover. She stared at him as he made himself comfortable. "I thought Slytherins and Gryffindors weren't supposed to be seen together," she chided.

He gave another perfect smile. "Well, we're not being seen," he stated. "Plus, I've always been the kind to break the rules. Or, at least, stretch them to their limits." For the next two months, they met in the library, studying in companionable silence. For the next two months, Hermione looked forward to meeting him, talking about magic, and learning as much as she could from him without being too obvious. She had considered Draco Malfoy someone she could commiserate with. It had been very stupid of her.

---

Some rule-breaker he had turned out to be, Hermione mused as she relaxed on her bed. Sixty days later, he gets a letter from Mummy and pretends that the past two months hadn't happened. The dark-haired girl stared at the green blankets on her bed with disgust. That had been the part that had hurt the most. His pretending that nothing had happened between them. That they had never been friends. That just because she was her parents weren't wizards she wasn't as good as he was.

The girl's life had been far from easy since she'd started at Hogwarts. She had been thrust into this entirely different world that she hadn't even dreamed possible at the tender age of eleven. Well, there had always been dreams. She had never felt quite like anyone else she had ever met and it was hard for her to make friends. She was too bossy. Too much of a know-it-all. Not pretty enough. For those first two months at Hogwarts, she had felt like she had belonged. She had had her first real friend.

For the next five years, Draco's callousness had made Hermione wonder if their friendship had ever really happened or if it had been simply a figure of an overactive imagination. Hermione swallowed hard. If she hadn't befriended Ron and Harry, Hermione had no idea what would have become of her. She didn't want to think about it. Couldn't think about it. Life had happened this way for a reason. Now, it was Hermione's responsibility to try and salvage the future. She couldn't believe how much she'd messed up in the past two months.

With a hard swallow, Hermione slid off the bed, left the Head House and made her way to the only person who could possibly make things better. She only hoped he wouldn't make her rather necessary visit unnecessarily painful. She made her way through the nearly-empty hallways and to the dungeon. If things hadn't changed too much, then Professor Flaherty's office should be where Snape's was in the future. Key word: should. Nervously, Hermione raised her hand to knock on the door to what had been -- would be Snape's office. The door opened before the girl's hand could connect to the heavy wood.

Professor Flaherty looked at her expectantly; his thin lips even thinner as his beady eyes glared at her. "It took you long enough, Miss Granger."

---

The way that the Polyjuice Potion had been scheduled, Draco lost James's form at sunset unless he took more. Every day, Draco prepared for just that; relieved to leave the body that had started to make itself familiar to him. Draco locked himself in the Head Boy's Room and waited for the change. As the sun sank beneath the horizon, tanned skin paled; messy, black hair straightened itself out and bleached itself white-blond; calloused fingers lengthened and the nails, bitten to the quick, grew into beautifully-manicured ones; hazel eyes paled to silver; the face would lose its strength and become a pointy, high-cheekboned, full-lipped one; bones shortened; the body thinned; muscles would become wiry but smooth; and, in a few minutes, Draco Malfoy would be back in his own skin. Each time, Draco took a deep breath of relief, thankful that the Polyjuice Potion hadn't been muddled up to leave the blonde stranded in James's body. It had been a week since Draco had been turning himself into James and the transformation still amazed him.

Draco couldn't wait until he could be himself full-time again. Well, not totally himself: Draco Aquilus. The blonde found that he was more comfortable in his Gryffindor skin than his Slytherin one...and the longer he stayed, the fewer reasons he could find to go back to his own time. He had friends here: real, true friends. He had a blank slate. He had choices, options, and a reason. Once he was home, things would be the same as they ever were: Lucius would be trapped in Azkaban; Draco would be forced back into the Dark Lord's servitude. And the sixteen-year-old would have to kill Dumbledore to save his parents' lives.

The blonde swallowed hard as he thought of the Dark Lord's mission. There was no way he could do it. There was no way he could kill anyone. The Slytherin had been tempted to do so to Potter and his cronies after the past two humiliating years that had ended with him, Crabbe, and Goyle cursed by Potter and company, and there had always been threats, but idle threats were an entirely different animal than actually murdering someone. Dumbledore's life or his parents'. True, Narcissa had been horrifying since he'd gone back in the past, but she was still his mother. And once he cast a good old-fashioned Obliviate on himself, she would be the same woman who had taken care of him since birth. As long as Draco was gone, Lucius and Narcissa were safe.

And as long as Draco was gone, he had James and Lily and Peter and, to an extent, Remus and Sirius. He had real friends and a future. Okay, so he was completely and utterly broke, but he could manage. He could...well...he could cut back on everything and get a job somewhere. Truthfully, Draco had never even thought of having a job. The Malfoys were filthy rich and their mass of Galleons would probably never run out in the next millennium, but you had to give up on every hope and every dream to be a Malfoy. You had to follow in the footsteps of those who came before you. Or else.

The door opened and Remus entered. "Prongs? What? Draco? Wait...weren't you..." Remus started. He looked back into the common room with confusion as he saw another Draco and Lily cozying. The Draco in the Head Boy's room raced over to the door and hurriedly closed it behind Remus. Remus examined the Draco in the Head Boy's Room. "So...which one's which?"

"I'm Draco," Draco stated. He nodded toward the door. "That's Prongs."

"Er...why is James in your body?" Remus inquired.

"I let him borrow it...wait...that sounded very wrong..."

"I get it. But, why?"

"Lily hates James's guts," Draco explained. "He's completely in love with her. So we thought that this might be a good chance for him to make her love him."

A slight smile crossed Remus's lips as he looked at Draco. "Well, I came in here to tell Prongs that I might have an idea for your final mission. But, I think, maybe you've already completed it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I was going to have you mix up a potion. But, if you can make Lily and Prongs get together, then maybe you've done an even better thing."

"You're serious?"

"No, I'm Remus."

"Funny. Ha. Ha."

"Draco Aquilus, I think you've just become a Marauder."