Blood, Tears and Drowning Fears

Chapter 2: Falling

For once, this time, it had started out truly as an accident.

Harry had been mock-dueling with Ron during Transfiguration, and somehow a jet of hot sparks from his wand had gone astray, hit the ceiling and fired straight at Malfoy, which was quite a scalding shock for him and made him turn his hamster into a bright orange hat. Malfoy had retaliated with a hex, but Harry had ducked and the curse turned Neville Longbottom into a toad instead. As a result, they both got detention from McGonagall.

The animosity peaked and boiled over immediately after Transfiguration.

"Aching for another scar, Potter? I can give you one in the most inconceivable of places."

Draco's snarl silenced the entire hallway of students as everyone turned to watch yet another showdown between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Students hastily retreated out of harm's way, in case a mad flurry of ricocheting curses ensued, which was not a uncommon occurrence when Potter and Malfoy clashed.

Hermione groaned. "Please, Harry, not here," then quickly corrected herself to, "not again." It didn't matter whether it was in the hallways or on the Quidditch pitch or in Potions, she hated to see Harry and Draco fighting — or Draco and Ron for that matter.

Ron was clearly in the mood for another fight. "What, Malfoy, is that supposed to sound intimidating? You'd better rethink your offer, because Harry's got a new hex that'll catapult you all the way to, well, Hamsterdam." Ron sniggered derisively, and gave Malfoy a superior smile.

Draco's pale cheeks heated up with a pink flush. "Looking for another detention, Weasley?"

"With you? A pleasure, Malfoy." Ron answered through gritted teeth. "There's little in life more enjoyable than rubbing your face into the dirty bedpans we have to scrub."

"What a sad life you have, to find delight in such puerile pleasures." Draco sneered back without missing a beat.

"You bastard." Ron lunged forward, but Hermione's hand on his arm quickly restrained him.

Harry stepped forward, looking furious, and met Malfoy's smug stare squarely. "Shut up, Malfoy."

"You're asking for it, Potter." Draco raised an eyebrow, issuing a silent challenge, and slowly drew out his wand. He held it between his forefinger and his thumb, twirling it casually, although he would have it poised for hexing in less than a blink of an eye. "Come on, then. What's the matter? The audience bothering you?" (The other students scuttled back even further.)

Harry smiled humourlessly. "Keep your whiskers on, Malfoy." His hand dove into his pocket, retrieving his wand. "I'll take you on anytime. You must really like the hospital wing a lot, to keep coming back for more."

"A graze or two is worth it, if I get to see you all trussed up in bandages with your limbs in slings."

"Don't count on it, Malfoy."

"ENOUGH!" Hermione suddenly exploded, stepping in between them. Harry and Draco stopped and looked at her, both of them mildly surprised at her outburst.

Hermione looked angrily at them both. "Will you two stop? Your fights have sent more people to the hospital wing than the flu bug has!"

Harry and Draco both goggled at her for a moment, dumbfounded.

Hermione gave them a sharp look, then continued, "Now can we all just go to lunch in peace?" She glanced at Harry, who looked rather uncomfortable, and her expression softened. "Harry, come on, please just leave it." She turned to Draco, who glared mutinously at her, and stared hard at him for a moment. Her voice faltered imperceptibly as she said, "Malfoy, please, just... just get lost."

Malfoy didn't move for a second, his intense gaze fixed on Hermione, his lips set in a grim line, his eyes betraying nothing but an aloof coldness. Harry eyed him carefully, his body tensed for action — if Malfoy was going to pull a fast one on them, he'd be ready for it.

Finally, the sullen expression on Draco's face melted into a cold, forced smile. Without another word, he turned and strode off in the direction of the Slytherin dungeons without even a backward glance. Crabbe and Goyle, who had gone to hide behind a pillar in case Malfoy and Harry decided to set off wand fireworks again, peeled themselves away from their corner and hurried after Draco's retreating figure.

Hermione heaved a sigh of relief as she watched Draco leave. Her tight grip on Harry's arm relaxed, and the tense atmosphere gradually dissipated as the crowd began to disperse. Harry looked mildly shaken, and Hermione and Ron escorted him off toward the Great Hall.

Harry turned to Hermione. "Sorry about just now," he said morosely, looking slightly ashamed. "I wasn't thinking — Malfoy was being such a git, and I just lost my head."

"Oh don't worry," Hermione waved off Harry's apology. She was glad enough that they didn't start dueling in the hallway. "Malfoy has that sort of effect on people." She paused and drew a breath, shaking her head. "When he's around you, he makes you so mad you just can't think straight."

* * * * * * *

Hermione slipped off immediately after double Potions with the Slytherins, their last class of the afternoon. She followed Malfoy as he made his way back to the dungeons, and drew level with him as they passed an empty classroom. Tapping him sharply on the shoulder, she jerked her head sideways, curtly indicating for him to follow her.

Draco turned, and was immensely surprised to find Hermione behind him. Curiosity got the better of his reflexive hostility, and he stepped into the deserted classroom with her.

Once inside, he cocked his head to one side, eyeing her critically. "What do you want, Granger?"

Hermione's expression was hard, although touched with the mildest hint of earnest. "About what happened this morning in Transfiguration — it was genuinely an accident, all right? Harry wouldn't have intentionally done that to you."

Draco sneered, his tone of voice caustic. "Yes, our favourite Golden Boy — such juvenile hexes are way below him, aren't they?"

"Don't be such an obstinate git, Malfoy," Hermione hissed, getting angry. "Harry never curses you unless you've done something to provoke him."

"Which is almost all the time, considering his fondness for me."

"The point is," Hermione continued impatiently, "what happened was an accident, so don't make a big deal out of it, all right? I'm sure Harry didn't mean to."

"Yes, and when I bash his head against the wall some day soon, I'll be sure to let him know that I didn't mean to, either."

"For the last time, Malfoy, it was an accident. Let it go."

"Do you really think so, Granger?" Draco's eyes flashed with resentment. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that Potter and Weasley were just horsing around and happened to shoot a spell so accurately in my direction? Well, then sure, I believe you, and when the moon spirals out of orbit and smashes into the earth, I'm sure that's nothing out of the ordinary, either."

"Why do you think you're always right, that you've got the whole measure of everything?" Hermione's voice was a mix of anger and frustration, and she glared at Draco. "For once, can't you just drop this know-it-all facade?"

"Me, a know-it-all?" Draco quirked an eyebrow, looking rather bemused. "That's rich, coming from you."

Hermione ignored him. "It's infuriating, you know that? Because nobody's perfect, least of all you, and there's nothing more irritating than someone who thinks more of himself than anyone else does."

"It's called self-respect, something which people like Weasley grossly lack." Draco shot back.

"It is not self-respect." Hermione's eyes shimmered with a vague emotion. "I don't know whether it's because you've been raised this way, thinking you need to be best at everything and afraid of nothing, like you're some demigod. Well," she drew a deep breath, her nostrils flaring, "you're not, let me tell you that."

"Thank goodness I don't live off your opinion, Granger, or I'd probably go and kill myself right now."

"You're impossible, Malfoy," Hermione's voice bore an implicit tone of despair. "You're stubborn and snobbish and I totally understand why half the school hates you."

"Well, I'll just make do with the other half that loves me, then." Draco's eyes hardened to a deep shade of grey, and he met Hermione's gaze challengingly. "So is that all you came to tell me, how incorrigible I am? To hear me say that yes, I believe what happened with Potter was an accident, so for god's sakes will you leave me alone?"

Hermione wanted to explode, but suddenly the flare of anger died away, leaving a wistful emptiness that drained her temper and left nothing but plain hopelessness. She looked hard at Draco, deep into his clear, grey eyes filled with arrogance.

"No, Malfoy," she gave a mirthless, bitter smile, "I came to tell you something else, but now all I have to say is that you're just a disillusioned snob who has more ego than he does talent." Her eyes shone with a sheen of tears, and her lower lip quavered as she spoke.

Draco clenched his fists as her words cut deep, and spite and bitterness washed through him, feeding his dormant rage, yet at the same time quelling it with an overwhelming sadness. He looked into Hermione's brown eyes, seeing her unshed tears, understanding the uncertainty which softened her expression, because it reflected something deep inside him that he was too afraid to acknowledge.

"Yes, Granger." When Draco finally spoke, he couldn't stop the malice from bleeding into his voice. "And all the while you're standing there wondering, what the hell do I see in him?"

Hermione tensed, Draco's words lancing through her like an electric jolt. Her cheeks flushed furiously, and she felt herself trembling with rage and embarrassment. Her reply choked up within her, and to her horror, instead of being disgusted, she found herself feeling mortified.

"You're right," Hermione finally said, fighting to keep her voice steady although undisguised hurt glistened in her eyes. "What the hell do I see in you? You're not even vaguely human, Malfoy, because humans have feelings and you obviously lack that. Humans feel pain and fear and pity and love, but all these are below you." Hermione caught the protest on Draco's face, but surged on defiantly, "That's true, Malfoy and you know it. Can you even tell me one thing you fear, or would it kill you too much just to say there's something you're actually afraid of?"

Draco tilted his head contemplatively, as if momentarily lost in thought.

Finally, he spoke quietly. "Drowning."

Hermione stared at him for a moment, and blinked. "Drowning?" she repeated. She wasn't quite sure what she was expecting him to say, but it was more along the lines of 'Malfoys fear nothing' or 'It's none of your business, Granger.'

Draco's gaze was even, although a contrite expression flickered briefly across his face. "Yes. I'm afraid of drowning." He gave her a small smile; it wasn't cynical or sneering, but resignedly sad. "So I suppose that makes me a little less than perfect, Hermione."

With that, Draco turned and walked away.

* * * * * * *

Later in the evening, Hermione made her way down to the Quidditch pitch alone, wrapping her cardigan tighter around herself as the icy wind chilled past her. She was thinking of watching Harry practice Quidditch for a bit, since Ron had gone for his detention (the one he got for his punch-up with Malfoy) and she didn't want to stay in the common room alone.

She made her way to the second row of the spectator stands and sat down. Harry and the rest of the team had gone to fetch their brooms, and the Slytherins were just rounding up their practice session to give way to the Gryffindors. Hermione's eyes invariably strayed onto a lean, blond figure, silhouetted against the brilliant dusk sky.

Draco wove through the frosty air on his broom, feeling the cold wind sting his face like daggerpoints. He broke into an abrupt dive, his broom shuddering slightly as an upward gust resisted his movement, although he still managed a smooth arc as he sped toward the ground and nosed up just seconds before impact.

Draco shook his head in mild frustration as he raced skyward again. It was good, but not good enough.

Hermione watched Draco from the stands. She conceded that Malfoy was a good flier, although nowhere as gifted as Harry. But Draco had his own unique style of flying, a more than passable mixture of flair, precision and speed. It was just his bad luck that he was constantly being compared to Harry.

She watched as Draco executed a spectacular feint, pulling out of his break-neck plummet just before the ground. But Harry would have pulled out of it even later than that, keeping with the dive just a few moments longer than Draco did.

That was the distinctive difference between Harry and Draco. When Harry flew, Hermione could see him relinquish his fears, his apprehensions, everything, as he immersed himself in the moment and went with pure instinct. He would streak across the skies with complete abandon, as if nothing else mattered or existed except him and his Firebolt as they blended into one, and Hermione could see that Harry let his innate senses guide him instead of his conscious mind.

Draco was very different. Hermione could see the way he gripped the handle of his broom very tightly and stared intently at the ground as it rushed up toward him, feverishly calculating the distance as it closed between him and collision before he swerved away and soared skyward.

She could see his tension, his uncertainty, his unwillingness even to trust himself, and that made all the difference.

Draco looped back down as he saw the Gryffindor Quidditch players making their way onto the pitch — the Slytherins' practice session was over. He landed on the ground and dismounted his Nimbus, running a hand through his blond hair, which had been tousled by the fickle wind.

The first person he saw was Harry Potter, with his Firebolt in hand. Potter's superior broom had always been a thorn in his side, and Draco resentfully turned away.

The next person he saw was Hermione.

Hermione was sitting in the stands, and Draco was mildly startled to find her looking at him, but managed to mask his surprise. Their eyes met for a fleeting moment before Draco tore his gaze away.

Walking off in the opposite direction, Draco bit his lip as he secretly wondered if Hermione had been watching him fly all this while. A bitter smile twisted his lips — she probably thought he wasn't half as good a flier as the great and wonderful Harry Potter, which was true, to some extent. Even Draco grudgingly admitted to himself that he could never fly as recklessly and daringly as Potter did, no matter how hard he tried.

Hermione found herself staring after Draco as he turned and walked away, raking a hand casually through his wind-tossed blond hair as he headed back to the school building. Draco was a few inches taller than Harry, and she couldn't help noticing his rather flattering physique.

Then again, Hermione mused, from a distance a lot of things looked much better than they really were.

But deep down inside, she had a feeling Draco wasn't one of them.

* * * * * * *

There weren't many classes the next day, and the late afternoon found most of the Gryffindors lazing around in the common room, waiting for dinner. The sun was already sinking in the horizon, doing even less to dispel the cold that pervaded the wintry season.

"Where's my Potions handbook?" Hermione asked, poking Ron on the shoulder.

"Hmm?" Ron replied distractedly, his eyes fixated on the chess board on the table. The two boys were playing chess, and from the looks of it, Harry was steadily getting better at the game. Ron chewed thoughtfully on his nails, something he almost never did, wondering how to get around Harry's knight, barely listening to Hermione. "Oh, Harry has it."

Hermione looked to Harry impatiently. Harry was gazing intently at the chess board as well, the possibility of an imminent victory holding his entire attention — Hermione noticed he was wearing that same purposeful expression he always did whenever he was racing after the Snitch.

"Um, it's up in our dorm, on my bedside table," Harry answered absently, not taking his eyes off the chess board.

Hermione made an irritated noise — she thought only Quidditch could make boys completely oblivious to everything else. Casting a parting glance at the game (and privately thinking that Harry had a good chance at winning this time), Hermione headed off in the direction of the boys' staircase and ascended it.

She actually liked the boys' dorm better than the girls' — there was a distinctly boy kind of scent in the air, musky and strangely refreshing, especially in contrast with the girls' dorm, which was constantly filled with a melange of Parvati and Lavender's latest perfumes, often combining to a rather unsavoury effect.

Hermione walked over to Harry's bed and sat on it, finding her Potions handbook balanced precariously near the edge of the bedside table. She also noticed that Harry's miniature dragon, the small Hungarian Horntail — souvenir of his memorable Triwizard Cup experience — was sitting on top of the Potions book.

The little dragon was lying flat on its stomach in a rather leisurely fashion, its head propped on its two front clawed feet. It was entertaining itself by blowing grey smoke rings into the air. It eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then turned away with a rather disinterested look and yawned, stretching its tiny legs and fluttering its disproportionately small wings as it settled down for a snooze. It really did look quite adorable.

Hermione smiled. She never imagined she'd ever like a dragon.

"Oh, no you don't," Hermione chided, gently prodding the dragon with her forefinger — strangely, she wasn't afraid that it might bite her, even though she knew its fangs, however minuscule, would still hurt like hell. "Mind going to sleep somewhere else? I need this book." Like dragons understand English, she thought to herself.

Apparently, dragons understood a lot more than Hermione thought they did. The little Horntail cast her a rather miffed look before getting to its feet and hopping off the book, opting to catch a few winks nestled in Harry's gloves instead.

Intrigued, Hermione sat watching it; it seemed to sense her presence after a few minutes, and opened its narrow eyes sleepily. It waved its spiked tail at her in a mild, rather friendly gesture, then went back to sleep.

Hermione grinned in spite of herself as she got to her feet and walked over to the window, which overlooked the vast lake below. Maybe Hagrid was right, after all.

Dragons were really quite special creatures, once you got to know them better.

* * * * * * *

Draco stood before the lake, watching as the faltering sunlight danced across the shimmering surface, glinting like silver diamonds sprinkled randomly across the vast black waters. He watched the progression of colours as they sped across the water, first golden from the sunlight, then silver as it kissed the black lake, then bronze as it lost its lustre and finally dissolved into the restless darkness.

His favourite colour had always been black. It was the colour of your mind when you were too exhausted to think, the colour of the night when you were too tired to sleep, the colour of your soul when it was beyond redemption.

The lake beckoned him languidly, its waters stretching all the way to the far shore, like liquid black satin woven with threads of silver that glittered and faded in the dying sunlight. It was a beautiful sight, sad and melancholic, sinister in a seductive way.

Draco kicked off his shoes, leaving them lying on the grassy bank. He walked to the edge of the lake where the water lapped harmlessly, concealing the real depth in a mirage of shallow innocence. But Draco knew how deep it was, how it probably reached all the way to the other side of the world and emerged as a fountain of black water, a source of life in a sweltering desert.

He toed the water; it was freezing cold to the touch, searing his nerves, and he instinctively wanted to withdraw his foot, but he didn't. He kept it immersed in the icy water until his foot became numbed, reflecting the same unfeeling detachment in his mind.

Then he took a step forward, closed his eyes and plunged into the cold, black, fathomless water.