Quiet Revolution

Chapter 2 - The Mystery of Malfoy

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Well, I've been afraid of changing
Cause I build my life around you
But time makes you older
Children get older... I'm getting older, too

The pale sunlight shone gently on Hermione. Layers of warmth spread about her face and she struggled to clamp her eyelids shut, determined to absorb at least another two hours of sleep. She'd just begun to dose off when, soon enough, a crow flew past her window and screeched so loud that both Lavender and Parvati stirred in their sleep. Hermione sighed. She was wide awake now and the sun was beaming down on her.

"Blasted sun," she muttered. She really had to remind herself to arrange her bed in a different position. As she got up from her bed, she snatched the nearest quill from an uncorked bottle of ink and jotted down a note in her notepad to discuss rearranging the room with her roommates.

She reluctantly threw on her robes and decided to take a brisk walk outside in the courtyard to get some fresh air. As she walked down the corridors, the open day came rushing at her as more bright rays of the warm sunshine began to eat at her.

Finally stepping out into the courtyard, she looked up at the sky, squinting as the sun smiled brightly down at her. Her smile crumbled into a frown as she realised what today was.

The first day of school...without Harry.

"Stupid," she cursed herself. "How could you be stupid enough to forget?" she whispered. She quickly wiped away the tears that pricked the sides of her eyes with the back of her hands and kept walking, rubbing her hands together.

It had only been a week since Harry's funeral, and now Hermione was back at school for her Seventh Year. It had felt strange to have only one of her best friends sitting beside her on the Hogwarts Express the night before. Conversation was petty and all of a sudden, so seemed life. Without Harry---

Hermione cut the thought short before it could go any further -- she knew crying wouldn't help anything and she needed her strength today.

And for the rest of the year - this was N.E.W.T.s year, after all.

It was cold. Mornings were always cold in September. She should have known, and then she made plans to head over to the Great Hall to have a hot mug of tea. The thought appealed to her and she kept crossing the courtyard, ducking her head slightly as a message owl streaked past, dangerously close to her ear. She was just about to reach the other side when a slight dark movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention.

She turned her head slightly to what had made her look in the first place, and in the far corner of the courtyard sat a light blond haired boy. Dressed in all black with a dark green Slytherin patch in plain sight was none other than Malfoy. Desperately trying not to come off as nosy, Hermione kept walking. She briskly strolled past him but couldn't fight it off and from the corner of her eye, saw that his head was buried in his hands.

She twitched, feeling uneasy. She had never really seen Malfoy in distress before. She'd seen anger or extreme bitterness of him, of course, at Harry's success or she herself getting a higher score than he had. But never this... quiet type of sadness that she had witnessed just now. Hermione had never seen Draco Malfoy so... vulnerable.

She shook her thoughts away and continued on, hoping that he hadn't seen her.

Far back in the courtyard, Draco lifted his head and pulled his gloves up over his wrists, blowing cold white breath into the air. He glanced around quickly.

Good, Granger's gone, he thought. He made note of how cold it was, but continued sitting.

*

"Welcome, welcome everyone... after the First Years settle into their seats, I have a few quick announcements to make. First of all, I apologise for delaying the feast for a day. Yesterday morning I was unexpectedly summoned by the Ministry of Magic...there was no time to..."

Dumbledore kept talking as Hermione and Ron sat quietly, listening to his usual first day of term speech. There was an empty space next to Ron where Harry would usually have sat. That same lump that Hermione carried around with her all day made its way to her throat and in a desperate attempt to keep from feeling sad, she distracted herself and turned to observe the other tables. All the way at the Slytherin table, she noticed how Pansy Parkinson's head was down and a depressed looking Crabbe and Goyle sat next to her, sad expressions on their faces. She looked around for the leader of the gang - Malfoy, and noticed that he was nowhere to be found.

"Ron," she whispered and poked him. "Look at----"

"And my last note... I'm sure you're all aware of what happened just a few weeks before school started," Dumbledore began softly. All the Professors, including Snape, put their head down respectively.

"I'm sad to inform you all that Hogwarts has lost two of its most notable students..."

Hermione's eyes widened as she looked down at her folded hands in her lap. Two? She looked around and saw that nobody else seemed to be surprised like she was.

"...Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy have both left us. Their deaths were not in vain, however; many good people were saved because of their bravery. Please take a moment of silence to recognise their sacrifice."

Hermione bowed her head, seeing many around her doing the same. But even as she did, her thoughts took another direction completely.

Malfoy is not dead.

First off, he was a Death Eater's son, so she knew he didn't fight with Harry. And second of all, she had spotted him at Harry's funeral. And today! Just today she saw him sitting in the courtyard. Of course he was pale, but not pale enough to be declared dead, by any means.

"Ron," she said urgently. "I need to talk to you."

Ron looked at her funny. "Er... of course, right now?"

"After we lead the first years to their rooms, after dinner..." she said. She wanted to speak to him in private, to make sure she really wasn't going insane.

*

"What do you mean you saw Malfoy?" Ron cried out.

"Shhh! Ron! Keep your voice down," Hermione cried out as the two sat in the empty common room. It was late, maybe skimming around 2am. She warmed her hands with the mug of hot chocolate in her hands before she looked back up at Ron's gawking face. "Well, I did!" she snapped.

"But he's dead, Hermione. I can't believe you didn't know that."

"I can't believe you didn't tell me!"

"Me? Tell you? Since when was I the one to teach you anything?"

Okay. He had a slightly vague point. She shook her head.

"I can't believe I didn't read about it or... oh, goodness!" she muttered. "What's happening to me?"

"You've gone mad," Ron said simply. "Barking mad, really."

She glared at him. "Thank you, Ronald."

Ron made a face. "Malfoy died. I think he insisted on going with his dad to watch him help You-Know-Who---"

"Voldemort," Hermione interrupted him. "If you have any respect for Harry, you'll call him that,"

"Alright... Volde...hem! Anyway. He insisted on going with Lucius to watch him... or rather, I think he wanted to fight too... but Lucius ordered him to stay home. Rumour has it that Malfoy tried to interrogate the Order... but I doubt that's true, you were with them and you don't remember him paying any visits, do you?"

She shook head and he continued. "Rumour also has it that Malfoy snuck out and all the bouncing hexes and spells... the stupid git actually got hit by one of them and croaked."

"Who killed him? Did you see?" she asked curiously.

"Don't know. It was insane. There were flashes of light bouncing everywhere... chaotic, really... though Neville claims he was the one who shot the curse at Malfoy. I say it was me though... because he fell immediately, and I had tried to fire at You-Kno....demort."

"Ronald Weasley, that's terrible! You're smug about thinking you're the one who killed another person?"

"I'm not smug. I'm not happy that he died. But I'm not really devastated, either. What? Oh, Hermione... come off it. This wasn't just any person, it was Draco Malfoy."

"Still." She shook her head. "But are you sure you saw him fall?"

"Of course! Whether or not I saw it doesn't matter! Malfoy died, I'm sure there was a funeral and everything... he's gone!"

"I saw him, Ron. Saw him at Harry's funeral."

"I didn't."

"He was way in the back. And I saw him just yesterday in the courtyard."

"Did you see his face?"

"Well... no, but---"

"It was probably someone else then. And it was raining at the funeral, remember? Your vision was probably blurred. In fact, you probably saw Gordon Lewis, from Ravenclaw? His hair's pretty blond too, and he played Quidditch with us."

"Gordon's much shorter and stockier than Malfoy! And I saw him too at the funeral, he wasn't way in the back!"

"Okay, Hermione... the point is, you couldn't have seen Malfoy. He's dead. There's no way the dead can come back, remember? Unless he was a ghost?"

"I saw Malfoy as flesh and blood, Ron."

"Then it wasn't Malfoy." Ron said tiredly.

She glared at him and he stared back just as fiercely. He finally broke their staring contest by standing up.

"I'm heading off to bed. I've got Potions first thing in the morning. Can't miss the excitement of that."

She sighed. "G'night, Ron."

"Night. And tell Malfoy I say the same."

*

"Hermione," Remus put a gentle hand on her shoulder as he looked over it to see laid out scroll in front of her. "Anything?"

She shook her head.

She felt edgy. Ron and Harry had been gone for days. The map that was laid before her showed no sign of them. She had developed it with Remus over the past few months of the war, and it was in its final stages. The Phoenix Project, Dumbledore had so fondly called this assignment, involved an elaborate map designed by Hermione with the help of the last good standing Marauder. And today, it was spanned over all of London, with special careful detailed attention in the Ministry of Magic, Surrey, and Hogwarts.

"You can't see anyone on it," she finally said dryly. "Maybe I could take Harry's Firebolt and-"

"No," Remus said sternly. "You can't go. I can't go. We've got to watch this map and track the second group of Death Eaters. Any sign of them, and Ron and Harry's lives could be saved because of you... because you've located them and will warn Harry and Ron ahead of time."

She knew he was trying to make her feel better about staying behind with the Order while Harry and Ron went to fight. And in a way... he was right, everyone was right. She was the logical one, the book smart one. That's all. That's all she was good for. Looking through a book.

She finally stood up. "I don't know how you do it, Professor, how can you just sit here...?"

"Hermione," he repeated sternly. "You've also got that ancient runes code---"

"Which I've deciphered... over and over! And it's meant nothing! It lead us to the Department of Mysteries which is currently empty! All this is rubbish. I... I can't take this, I need to be with Harry and Ron... I shouldn't have even let them go by themselves... those two, don't you know... those two are a hazard put together!"

Remus smiled a bit. "They're quite a bit older."

She sighed. Professor Lupin was a bit too calm and collected sometimes. She was being selfish. She never even thought about him...how his condition was worsening, and how bad he must have felt... being a full grown adult and professional, not being able to serve and protect.

It sharpened her senses and she turned back to the map, she was going to watch it with her every inch of breathing being if it killed her in the end. And she would save Harry and Ron.

She would protect them.

*

"Rise and shine, bush head."

Hermione bolted up so fast that she bobbed back and the back of her head hit the side of her bed.

Parvati and Lavender were sitting upright in their beds. Both of them were hugging their knees and had stopped giggling. They had obviously been gossiping about something.

"Sorry... did we wake you?" Parvati asked.

"Did you call me bush head?" Hermione demanded.

"Call you what?"

"Bush head!"

"No! I didn't."

"Lavender?" Hermione glared at Lavender.

"We didn't call you anything, Hermione," Lavender said. "You must have been dreaming."

"I had a dreamless sleep," Hermione said defiantly, lying through her teeth.

"Well you must have been hearing things," Lavender muttered.

"I don't hear things," she muttered back as a yawn took over her. "Somebody clearly..." she trailed off and paused in mid yawn as she noticed something in the corner of her eye.

Right near the doorway was a flash of pale yellow.

No. Not pale yellow.

Light blond.

Light blond hair.

There was only one family she knew who had the genes of such a hair colour.

She bounced up off her bed immediately and nearly slipped as her bare feet made contact with the cold wood floors. She darted to the entrance of the dormitory and stuck her head out. Both Lavender and Parvati gave each other 'she's mental' glances.

"Erm... Hermione...what are you doing?" Parvati called cautiously behind her.

"Malfoy was in this room!" Hermione cried as she slowly marched back into the dormitory, still in her nightgown.

"Draco Malfoy?" Lavender squeaked, "He's a ghost? Ew! He was spying on us? I told you, didn't I Parvati? I knew he had a thing for Gryffindor girls----"

"He's not a ghost," Hermione snapped. "And he doesn't have a thing for any of us!"

"Not only are you hearing things; you're seeing things, too. Hermione, maybe you should pay a visit to Madam Pomfrey."

Hermione opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. Then she closed it. She didn't know what to say. She couldn't deny it. And she didn't want to admit it again either.

Parvati and Lavender looked at each other and shrugged. They got off their beds and began dressing for breakfast. Hermione rubbed her head as she opened her trunk.

"I guess she's still upset that they didn't let her fight," she heard Parvati whisper to Lavender as they stepped out.

Hermione sighed loudly and practically stomped into her shoes. As rude as Parvati was acting, she was still right in every way.

*

Draco shoved his hands into his pockets as he shivered and walked down the corridors. They echoed slightly as he patted around aimlessly, looking for the Gryffindor common room. He let out another involuntary shudder. It had gotten so cold - he had never felt this intensely chilled ever, in his whole life.

He couldn't believe he was doing this. He never did believe in Heaven. But for some reason, thought that Hell existed. But whatever this was, it was far worse than the Hell he could have imagined. He would have to find Granger - she was the only person who could help him.

What irony. What despicable, disgusting irony.

The cold intensified with every thought he let brew in his mind. He growled softly, frustrated that the world around him seemed to be concentrated on draining all warmth of him. His father was gone. And his own world was turned completely upside down.

"I'll be back," he said softly, turning away from the open classroom in session. It was Professor McGonagall's Transfiguation class. Judging by the students' size, they were most definitely first years. Mini Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were carefully taking notes just a few feet away from him.

"Idiots," he drawled. He never took notes in Transfiguration, ever. It was all a matter of concentration.

With that thought, he clenched the piece of paper in his pocket and continued his way to the Gryffindor common room.