A Study in Shadow

Chapter 1 - Paper Chain

In which Hermione wonders where it began....

// Notes between double slashes indicate, however unprofessional it may seem, author's notes or notes that Ron, Harry and Malfoy have insisted on adding.

There are also many scenes in this for which I was not present, and therefore I am relying on what others have told me, except when Malfoy's summaries begin to be too dramatic or just too in-depth for such a story. I would like to apologise in advance for any lapses in writing or plot that these scenes cause. Thank You. ~ H. Granger //

It began during the Christmas holidays of our seventh year at Hogwarts...I think. At least, that's when it began to show. It may have begun in fifth year, when You-Know-Who returned, and Cedric was killed. It may have begun even before first year, when Harry refused Malfoy's friendship on the train, or even before that, in Madam Malkin's Robes For All Occasions, where the two of them first met. Maybe, it was even before that, on the night when one baby boy received his famous scar while another sat in his mother's cold embrace, waiting for his father to come home.

Actually, as much as I hate to admit it, I don't know where it began. All I know is that, wherever it was, the events of that year changed everything.

Hmm...this was meant to be a purely objective account of events, and it's rapidly becoming a love story. Which, I suppose, it is, when you look past the death, the hatred, the personal beliefs and morals of the people involved...behind all the covers, this is yet another tale of love conquering all, and that's what I'm here to tell.

I'm not here to relay stories about 'that-git-Malfoy', or to tell you that he poisoned Harry's mind. I'm not even here to tell you about how the heroic Gryffindor saved the evil Slytherin from the dark side.

And, yes, some (or all) of those ideas are applicable to parts of this tale, but that's not the point.

The point is that this is a love story, as I'm sure I've said, no matter how adamantly some people (especially one Ronald Weasley) may disagree. In fact, despite their supportive comments, I think I must be the only Gryffindor to truly accept and understand the relationship, because I'm the only one who could be bothered to try.

Others hold grudges, others believe that which house you're in dictates your personality. Maybe it's the fact that I was brought up by Muggles and didn't have all the mind-poisoning (if you could call it that) that the halfbloods and purebloods have had, but I didn't judge by what I'd been told, as I recall Ron and Malfoy doing that fateful day on the train. I judge people but who I think they are underneath it all.

Okay, I'll admit it, I never liked Draco Malfoy. I've seen his acting skills before, on numerous occasions, and his impressions of Harry's various misadventures and misfortunes, although cruel, were almost startlingly accurate...but how could someone's entire personality be an act?

You are probably thinking that I'm about to launch into a long spiel about how, behind his icy exterior, Draco Malfoy is a poor, unloved romantic who's just looking for someone to hold him, but (and I am truly sorry to disappoint you) I'm not, because he isn't.

Malfoy's entire personality isn't built on his position as the spoilt, evil daddy's boy, but even so, his 'hidden inner romanticist', as he himself once put it, only comes out once in a - well, blue moons probably happen much too frequently to apply, let's put it that way.

It's there; everyone has one, but I think that even Ron's is displayed more often than Malfoy's.

Anyway, façades like that are not only used by so-called 'evil gits', but by everyone. I know that I myself sometimes hide behind my IQ (and my hair), even when - as is normally the case - I don't have any reason to, or have nothing to hide, and I rarely, if ever, let it drop, even around my best friends, and they don't drop their façades around me. Luckily, I've somehow developed the ability to understand people, to see them, almost. I probably shouldn't have dropped Divination after all, but that's beside the point.

What I'm trying to say is that from the moment this...situation truly began to come to fruition, as it were, I was there, trying to decipher it.

I'm not a busybody; I leave that to Parvati and Lavender, but I take an interest in other people's affairs. Especially love affairs. Not only am I normally able to tell pretty quickly which ones are going to last, but it's interesting to watch them.

ont color="Black">I didn't mean that the way it sounded.

What I meant was that it's fun just to watch the couples interact, and watch the relationships blossom, or fall apart, as the case may be. But this was different...complex, not that watching Neville's brief stint dating Hannah Abbot wasn't riveting.

This was fire, passion. This was good and bad, love and hate, all rolled together. This was pure. This was perfect. This was destiny. This was Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter.

...There's a chance that's the scariest thing I've ever written.

But, anyway, as I'm sure I said somewhere much earlier, it all began during the Christmas holidays during seventh year. Or maybe it was just before that, when...oh, whenever it was, I'm starting with those holidays.

Actually, just a week before, but, honestly, who's counting?

So, once upon a week-before-the-Christmas-holidays, the students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were sitting in the Great Hall of the castle eating breakfast...

~*~

I could say that it was just like any other morning, but that would be a lie. The second that Harry, Ron and I stepped into the hall, I could sense...something in the air. Tension, maybe. As was instinct, all three of us turned to the Slytherin table, but our glares weren't met by the icy gaze of Draco Malfoy, Serpent King, as was custom, but by nothing.

One or two of the lower year Slytherins glanced at us, but nothing as remotely satisfying as usual.

It feels weird to say that, but Ron's motto of 'There's nothing like mentally torturing a Slytherin to help you build up an appetite' had somehow stuck since the first day of fifth year, when he ate seventeen chocolate frogs after a glaring-contest with Crabbe. Or Goyle. It's hard enough trying to keep track of the Weasley twins (now the proud owners of the world's first - and only - owl-mail joke shop), without having to tell apart Malfoy's goons.

By that point I must have been gazing vacantly at the two, because I distinctly remembered exactly how much of his handsome Death-Eater salary Lucius used up paying those two to guard his precious heir, and I was jolted out of this reverie by the look on Goyle's (Crabbe's?) face. His double looked the same. It was the expression they usually wore during the lesson before lunch. Not hunger, they were stuffing themselves with sausages at the time, but more...anticipation.

That was what they were feeling, anticipation.

At first I couldn't possibly imagine what it was that would have a quarter of the school looking so...

'Constipated,' Ron said, seemingly out of nowhere. Harry choked on his toast and I returned my full concentration to these more local events.

'What?' I managed to ask eventually, having somehow got used to impromptu outbursts like that.

'Look at Malfoy! He looks like he just drank a laxative potion that'd been reversed! Constipated!'

Honestly, why did Ron have to complicate everything he said so much? With the exception of the last word (which, incidentally, could have been substituted for 'anxious', but I suppose I am talking about Ron here), that sentence could have been cut - or at least rearranged - to make something much more sensible.

The same would apply to Harry's hair: it's getting ridiculous. I'll make sure he gets it cut next time we go to Hogsmeade.

All I replied to Ron's garbled sentence was 'The letter.' He nodded once and went back to his eggs.

A moment later, he looked up again. 'Um, 'Mione?'

'It's Hermione,' I corrected instantly.

'Fine then, Hermione,' he mimicked, and I allowed myself one moment of anger before my attention once again switched to Harry. He hadn't laughed at Ron's heartless mockery or really joined in the conversation at all. Instead, his gaze was riveted on a point above us where a haughty-looking black owl was watching the proceedings below with disdain.

'What letter?'

I chose to ignore Ron's question, once again, as, at that point, the owl decided to finally do its task. With a grace befitting an owl of its 'pedigree', the bird swooped along the Slytherin table, dropping a black envelope neatly into Malfoy's lap before flying back up to its perch, where it seemed to just disappear into the shadows.

'Oh, that letter,' came the murmur from beside me, but following that was silence, and it seemed that every face in the hall was turned towards Malfoy. Watching...Waiting...

Ever the exhibitionist, he drew the moment out as long as possible, finishing the (extremely heavily buttered) piece of toast he was eating, wiping his hands and mouth delicately with a conveniently placed napkin before finally turning to the letter.

Slim, pale fingers grazed across the envelope, a stark contract to the dark parchment, and he opened it as if it was an art, unfurling the note itself like a royal scroll. Quick eyes skimmed over the page, and I was certain that some people had stopped breathing. I know Harry had.

He was just sitting there, staring, chewing his bottom lip as was his habit when anxious or nervous, and it was understandably so.

Every year, at this time, Malfoy received a letter from his father informing him of the annual family winter holiday, be it skiing in Switzerland, diving in Queensland with some sort of magical tan-repellent or any other of the countless destinations around the world that Lucius had deemed worthy of their presence.

After reading the letter, Malfoy would proceed to brag about it to the whole school, especially Harry and Ron, talking about how his entire family were going, and how expensive and lavish it was going to be ('Not that I'd expect either of you to understand it. Potter's got no family, and you Weasleys can barely afford to keep that scrawny owl alive, let alone pay for a trip like this.'). And, if that wasn't enough, there was always the blow-by-blow account of his amazing Christmas abroad, which kept him occupied for two, maybe three, weeks into the spring term before he began to hunt for new material.

Anyway, at that time, the whole of Slytherin house was practically salivating at the opportunity to acquire more ammo against us.

But today it was different. Every previous year, he would smile smugly, maybe lean back or stretch subtly or something, and then he would whisper it to the huddle of Slytherins that would have almost magically appeared around him, who would then spread it around the hall, although Malfoy himself always liked to have the pleasure of informing the three of us.

Now, instead of that, he was staring down at the sheet in front of him, and I could tell from halfway across the hall that his hands were shaking.

You didn't have to be a genius to figure out that something was wrong, especially when he picked up the parchment without a word and stalked off out of the hall, no signs of dejection or sadness in his posture, although his head was held higher than usual, even for him, and his back straighter - he seemed to be radiating an aura of 'come within ten feet of me and I will hex you into next week', and I was almost certain that he would keep to that.

So, of course, Crabbe and Goyle went after him.

Idiots.

From beside me, I could hear Ron laughing insanely, trying to say something even less intelligible than normal. I was watching the Slytherins, who seemed completely confused by this - Pansy Parkinson had buttered her toast with porridge - as they tried to work out what was happening, and Harry....

Harry was staring vacantly at the door, obviously not seeing anything.

It was at that point that I first remember wondering about them. Not in a Lavender-style 'Oh my God, they are so shagging!' way, but in a 'Why is Harry gazing longingly at the exact spot where Draco Malfoy was just standing?' way.

It wasn't, in actuality, anything new: they'd both (Harry and Ron, not Harry and Malfoy) been known to glare after Malfoy, but usually it was because they'd been thinking of all the comebacks they could've used against Malfoy's parting shot, whatever it may have been.

It wasn't normally as compassionate? sympathetic? as Harry's expression was then. It didn't surprise me that he was concerned; after all that quality was a part of him that his friends (and, indeed, the wizarding world in general) treasured....but the person he was directing his concern towards....that was worrying me.

Besides, it wasn't even the same expression he normally wears when just concerned; it was deeper. That look was reserved for people like Ron or Ginny or someone like that, the people he cares about.

In that look was everything that he felt when one of us was upset or something, as though he would give everything to ease the pain.

It was very scary, to be honest, but I assumed Harry knew what he was doing as he excused himself from the table ten minutes later and followed the path Malfoy had taken, which, had anyone else noticed, would have aroused more suspicion that that time Ron and I caught Neville leaving Ginny's dorm room at two in the morning, although that, thankfully, is another story....

A much shorter, much happier, much less controversial story, which I really should be writing right now.

But I'm not, I'm writing about Harry and Malfoy, so I really should continue.

As I said, Harry would immediately be cast under suspicion if anyone had seen where he was going, as it was the opposite direction to Gryffindor tower, where he'd originally claimed to be heading.

At that point I had been privy to an argument between two voices in my head, one of which was berating me for worrying so much about Harry, he could take care of himself; the other reminding me that no one went near Malfoy when he was in that mood. At least, no one who wasn't suicidal.

Thankfully, they were interrupted by a third, calmer voice, which quietly pointed out that I was not, in fact, the only person who'd noticed the nature of Harry's departure: two other faces were also turned to that spot just beyond the doors, one with an almost amused expression, the other a colder, more calculating gaze.

The first was Professor Dumbledore, the second Professor Snape.

~*~

Meanwhile, Harry was striding purposefully through the corridor after Malfoy, getting directions from the portraits as he passed, and eventually following Sir Cadogan's lead up to the astronomy to the room below the observatory where Professor Sinistra holds our astronomy theory lessons.

// Or so Harry tells me. I would like to warn you, once again, that I wasn't present for all the scenes in this story, including this one, obviously. This means that I am relying on what Harry tells me. I actually offered to let him write this scene (and others to come), but he refused, and, as much as Malfoy insists that he'd love to, I've vetoed that idea. So, again, any lapses in style or badly recorded incidents are ENTIRELY THEIR FAULT. Thank you. //

He entered the room as quietly as possible to try and surprise the other boy, but was instead faced by Malfoy's familiar wand pointed at his throat.

Malfoy himself looked even angrier than he had in the hall: his features were set grimly, unlike the normally overacted expressions he tended to wear, and his eyes had narrowed into cold slits.

'Okay, Potter. Talk.'

Silence.

'Look, I haven't got all day here.'

More silence.

With a resigned sigh, Malfoy lowered his wand. 'I'm only going to ask you this one more time: what - are - you - doing - here? Come to threaten me? To brag about your Quidditch skills, make a bet on the next match? Have you come for dating advice?' At this point, the familiar sly smile crossed his face. 'Or perhaps....perhaps you've been talking to Parkinson and wanted to try me out for yourself.'

'You're sick, Malfoy.'

He shrugged. 'You too. So, you're here because...?'

'I...I saw you leave the hall this morning and I wanted to know what was wrong, and whether I could--'

'Help?'

Harry nodded.

Malfoy's posture relaxed even more as he laughed. 'Help me? You wanted to help me? And this was because....'

'You looked like you needed help.'

Another laugh. 'Firstly, need and want are two very different things. Secondly, your amazing compassion astounds me. What is this, the newest adventure in the Harry Potter saga? I can see it now: 'How Saint Potter Befriended the Evil Slytherin and Brought him to the Side of Light'.'

'What?!'

'I know it's not very catchy, but you can work on the title more later.'

'Not that. I mean, what the hell are you talking about? Does the idea of basic human emotion fail to compute with you or something?'

'Well, I am extremely well-versed in the feelings of hate and rage.'

'Concern?'

'Whom do I have to be concerned for? I look out for myself. Honestly, Potter, you know better than to think that I'd ever give two hoots about you? I wouldn't spit on you if you were on fire!'

'I know,' Harry replied calmly.

'Then...no, wait, I know this. It's because you're a Gryffindor. Courage, loyalty, goodness and light - tell me if I'm getting any warmer.'

'Okay, why am I still here?'

'I thought I just answered that question. Gryffindor. Compassion. Famous Harry Potter...ringing any bells? Or are you just as solipsistic as the rest of us after all?'

'Damn it, Malfoy, why are you always like this?'

'I think Weasley summed it up pretty well on all those occasions when he called me an evil git.'

'But--'

'But you thought that maybe I had a human side? That if you came after me you'd see how upset I am? Would you let me cry on your shoulder? Honestly. Did you really think I'd change? Did you really think that, if I did change - which I won't - you'd be there?

Well, I'm not going to, so why don't you stop wasting your time and go back to your happy little Gryffindor world? I don't want your pity.'

'Want and need are to very different things,' Harry quoted. 'Maybe in order to feel for others, you need to let others feel for you.'

'Oh, come on, spare me the fluffy Harry Potter guide to life. Sometimes I wonder why you weren't sorted into Hufflepuff! And you were wrong, by the way....as I said earlier, I do feel something for you. I hate you, Potter. And, at this moment, I am also pretty pissed off with you. That count for anything?'

'No, that's not enough!'

'Since when did you know anything about me? Do you see me dying here because I'm not insufferably jolly all the time?'

Looking at Malfoy, Harry noticed that, against the light, he did in fact resemble a ghost, but for the sake of his safety, he didn't voice this thought.

'Exactly,' he continued, taking the silence as a no. 'I'm doing perfectly well with my bitter, hate-filled Slytherin existence, thank you very much, and I'd very much appreciate it if you stopped trying to fill it with sunshine and rainbows and just left me be.'

'Look, Malfoy, I don't think you really understand.'

'No, it's you that doesn't understand, Potter. Tell me, have you ever been into the Slytherin common room?'

All Harry could do was nod mutely, and he wondered vaguely whether he was going to be questioned over that statement: no one knew about the Polyjuice incident, after all, but Malfoy merely returned the nod and continued.

'Good. Now, picture that and then picture your own common room.'

Harry did so, not really understanding why.

He saw the hard leather seats and sofas, arranged into strict layouts and then the soft armchairs strewn haphazardly around his own common room.

He saw the cold, bare, stone walls of the dungeons and the rich hangings covering the gold paint of the Gryffindor area.

He saw the fire burning coldly, set in marble, casting no warmth, just a flickering light and then their own, shedding a soft golden glow over the room.

He saw the pale torches on the walls and ceilings, the only light aside from the muted fire and then the windows placed at intervals in the tower allowing a breathtaking view of the Quidditch pitch.

'The point of that was...'

'Do you see any Slytherins going round whining about how your tower is so much better than the dungeons or how they wished they had a room like yours?'

'No,' he answered hesitantly, 'but I do try and steer clear of Slytherins as much as possible...' Before Malfoy could comment on how Harry had followed him up here, another thought struck him. 'When were you in Gryffindor tower?'

Malfoy shrugged. 'I've been up there a few times. The Patil girl always makes me very welcome.'

Deciding to ignore that comment, Harry once again questioned the point of the common room exercise.

'We live in the cold, Potter. You're all happy and warm, and you seem to think that because that's what you want, it's what we want, too. I'm sorry to break it to you, but we're fine as we are. I'm fine as I am,' he emphasised.

'Whatever, Malfoy,' Harry spat...and something cracked. 'The truth is that I don't want to help you. I don't give a damn about you, and the reason I came up here is exactly the reason that I've bothered with you these past years: I pitied you. I pity you for your lack of friends. I pity your inability to feel and your pathetic superiority complex. And now, I'm done. You don't deserve my pity, you don't deserve me sympathy...' His voice softened, 'And you don't deserve my hatred.'

Before Harry could make his dramatic exit, Malfoy made his, with a mutter of 'and vice-versa' as the door swung shut. Turning to leave himself, he noticed something black lying on the floor, a single black blot in a puddle of sunlight.

Malfoy's letter.

~*~

Ron and I were in the common room enjoying our free lesson when Harry returned from what Ron dubbed a 'close encounter of the Malfoy kind'.

He burst in and threw the folded parchment down onto the desk, blotting Ron's half-finished Charms homework and getting our attention.

'What,' Ron began, wrinkling his nose, 'is that?'

Harry looked at it as if he was expecting it to explode at any second.

'That is Malfoy's letter.'

At this, I finally lowered my book and gave myself fully to the matter at hand. 'How did you get hold of that? It's his private property!'

'I know,' he shrugged, 'he dropped it.'

'Where? What happened? Harry, are you okay?'

'We fought, he stormed off, he left this behind.'

There was a mumble of something like 'stupid git' from where Ron was, but I was too busy looking at the parchment to reprimand him.

'Harry, you have to give this back to him.'

'What?!' they chorused. The identical expressions of horror on their faces nearly made me laugh out loud, but I had to at least try to be the sensible one.

'This letter is private, and it doesn't belong to you,' I reiterated, 'You have to take it back.'

'No.'

I think even Ron was surprised at the force of Harry's tone as he said this, but I wasn't about to give in.

'Why not?'

'Because he'll know I took it.'

'You've done worse to each other. Remember last year, when he transfigured you into a tap-dancing teapot?'

Probably trying to repress the memory, Harry continued. 'But he'll think I read it.'

'As long as you don't mention it or do anything about it, it won't really matter whether you've read the thing or not.'

'Or,' Ron interjected, 'You can pretend you did read it and then blackmail him. He'll be completely humiliated and none the wiser.'

This earned Ron a glare from me and a light punch from Harry for being stupid, but, judging by the wistful expression on his face, he was too busy torturing dream!Malfoy to really notice.

'Honestly, do you have no sense of morality?'

'This is Malfoy, Hermione. Normal rules don't apply.'

'Look, this is stupid! Just go up to him in Care of Magical Creatures, tell him he dropped it, return it, and walk away!'

'It's not that simple! I can't just go up and talk to him, especially after--'

'After what? What did you do, Harry?'

'Nothing. I mean, normal stuff. Told him how much I hate him, etcetera, etcetera.'

'So what's the problem?'

'I can't just go and be nice to him after that!' he protested, and I could tell that there was more to their earlier fight than he was letting on.

At this point, Ron returned from his dreamworld and looked at us expectantly before glancing back down at the parchment.

'So?' he asked. I knew what was coming.

'So what?'

'Who's going to do the honours?' He gestured towards the parchment.

'Ron, we're not going to read it,' I replied in what I sincerely hoped was a gentle tone.

'Why not?'

'It's one thing Malfoy thinking we've read it when we haven't, but it's another thing altogether if Malfoy thinks we've read it and we deny it, but we actually have, especially as someone...' A glare at Ron '...always manages to blurt out secrets to the entire school when he thinks no one's listening.'

'I see...' And I could see the cogs turning in his mind as he processed this. 'But it he thinks we've read it anyway, what difference does it make?'

'Ron,' I began again, but before I could finish my sentence he was already unfolding the letter.

Across the page, shining in silver ink, was an elegant, flowing script that was undoubtedly Lucius Malfoy's hand.

Plus it had the Malfoy family crest in the top corner, complete with a moving snake.

Unable to quench my curiosity, I leant forward to read more.

Draco,

In previous years you have accompanied your mother and me on our business travels around the world.

This year, however, Narcissa and I will be travelling to Venice, Italy on the twentieth of December, and you will not be accompanying us.

Your mother has said that she wishes for you to remain at school this Christmas, and I second her opinion: on previous occasions, your defiance and stubbornness against my chosen profession has hampered my progress in these tasks, and this venture is of utmost importance to our cause.

Have a happy Christmas,

Your father,

Lucius