Quiet Revolution

Chapter 3 - Uninvited Changes

Drink up, baby doll
Are you in or are you out?
Leave your things behind
Cause it's all going off without you
Excuse me - too busy you're writing your tragedy
These mishaps you bubble wrap
When you've no idea what you're like

So, let go... let go
Jump in
Oh well, what are you waiting for?
It's alright

Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

"Harry!"

She had never felt such a massive wave of relief sweep upon her soul. Here he was... alive and well. It really was all a dream.

Harry stood in front of her, his hair sticking out as usual and his spectacles resting on his nose. His face was tired, worn... like that of a soldier who had been without the love of his wife and the food of her kitchen for years.

She curiously walked over to him. "Harry?" She reached out a hand for his. He didn't take it.

"Why, Hermione?" His voice was raspy. Never had she heard his voice sound like this. It was drained of all vitality and the sand paper texture grinded painfully in her ears. She cringed slightly.

"What...?"

"Why didn't you save me? Ron made it out fine, didn't he? I had to be the one to die... you couldn't do anything at all to help me? I don't deserve this."

She felt nauseous. "Oh, Harry..." Tears stung in her eyes, but she didn't bother to wipe them away. "I'm so so----"

"Hermione?"

She was cold when she woke up. Seated in the couch across from her in the Gryffindor common room was Ron, he leaned forward carefully and was observing her.

She looked down at her hands and saw that they were unstable and her knees felt weak. Her head was spinning and she had never felt such an urge to dive into Ron's arms and just cry.

It was a weakness she had never experienced. One that wasn't welcome, but was unfortunately swimming through her veins at this very moment.

"You were... you looked upset during your nap. I didn't mean to wake you..." Ron explained, stammering a bit and putting his quill in a dish of ink. "Alright there?"

"I keep seeing him, Ron," she whispered. "And if it's not Harry I dream about... it's those few weeks I stayed with the Order when you and Harry went to fight... it's always so clear... and so real... I can't tell the difference between my dreams and when they actually happened. And Harry... whenever I dream about him... oh, Ron! It's all my fault! Harry could be alive today!"

"No," Ron said and looked at her sternly. She was trying not to cry, he could tell. Hermione was never an emotionally weak person. It took so much out of her to cry. And it was always the same. She was always convinced that it was her fault, and he always took his time out to give her the same not so convincing speech. "It's not your fault. At all. You couldn't have done anything to stop it, Hermione..."

He trailed off and looked down curiously at the parchment she was working on. "Isn't that the same timeline Binns assigned us last week?"

"What? Oh. I wasn't feeling well and he gave me an extension... what with Harry's death and all."

Ron sighed. Hermione had never, ever in her whole life needed an 'extension' on any assignment or project. If anything, getting things done right on time was a half attempted academic suicide as is.

He opened his mouth to talk. But then he closed it again.

"What?" she persisted, catching his hesitance. Ron was so closed up these days. Then again, she was too. Emotions were bottled up in her like a sour simmering potion and she didn't know much at this point, but focusing on anything but herself would be very nice.

"It's just... I think, right now, your marks are worse than mine."

She smiled sadly. "I'm glad you're doing better in your classes, Ron."

He stared at her. "I'm not."

She swallowed. Merlin's beard and eyebrows and chest hair! Her grades were really... that low?

"But they haven't gone down either... everything's stayed the same for me. I've... I've been taking a lot of Retractatio," he said sheepishly, looking at her for a second before he looked down at his hands.

She gasped. "You've been brewing the Retractatio potion for yourself? Ron! That's not safe! You know any type of potion that makes you feel that good has bad side effects."

"So what? It's just a bloody denial potion. I take it, tell myself that Harry's alive and that he's in the library or something and I can concentrate on Quidditch better, I can do my work just fine... and when the time wears out... I'm back to reality."

She shook her head. "You have to stop right now. It's not safe. I've read about it, so many wizards of the past have overdosed on Retractatio, they love their stage of denial so much that they grow addicted to it."

"Well I don't blame them!" Ron snapped.

"Why are you snapping at me?" she snapped back.

"Because you don't get it! All you can think is that what I'm doing is against the books. Didn't you even stop to think that if I don't take that stuff...I'd be barking mad like you are without it?"

"I am not mad." She got up and placed her hands on her hips.

"Oh, come off it, Hermione! You think you see Draco Malfoy everywhere! That classifies St Mungo's for you!"

"I..." she trailed off and bent down to close her book. "I can't believe you're being so insensitive, Ron! Harry is dead and all you can do is take some kind of... drug! So you can forget what he did for this world!"

Ron stared at her. "You try functioning properly knowing that Harry will never come back, because I just can't."

He got up abruptly and stalked up into the direction of the boys' dormitory.

"It's bedtime!" he barked at a few giggling First Years who had walked past him and were headed towards the entrance to the common room. "No students out in the corridors after ten!"

They stared at him. "It's seven thirty," one of the girls said meekly, the other girls poked her and they left the room, still giggling.

Ron let out a sigh of frustration and balled his hands up into fists before he disappeared.

Hermione stared after him, contemplating quietly. She sat down again slowly, closed her eyes and sighed. She missed the old Ron. The one that used to tease her about her obsession with her books, the one who used to be bashful when it came to compliments and the one who was able to make her laugh when she was under the worst of stress.

These thoughts kept her warm as she rolled up right there in the common room and fell asleep.

*

Pattering around aimlessly as a dead figure didn't suit the rich lifestyle Draco had always wanted for himself. But he found that the best moments in his life as of now were during his dreams.

It was the only chance he had for company.

No, Sabrina wasn't company. She was his saviour. She had held his hand when he closed his eyes in the living world, and she had comforted him when he crawled over to the other side... shaking, his clothes torn, and feeling cold.

And it seemed whatever she said made sense.

Even things like telling him to go back to Hermione Granger to finish up your business in the living world.

The only reason he could conjure up, was that she reminded him so much of his mother.

And he loved his mother.

He was obedient during the first few visits she paid him, but as time went by... it gave Draco a chance to shake off his fear of death. And the more the fear left him, the more dissatisfied he became and the more he realized he would not settle for this kind of end.

She told him he would find closure and the true sense of finale he had been craving for once he followed her instructions. Again, he obeyed her. And he was so desperate to find this finality that he didn't even protest when she told him it would involve Hermione Granger.

But the more he thought about it, the less appealing it became to him. This was, after all... that filthy girl Granger. The Muggle-born. Shudder.

He went to go report this. In a nicer way, of course. She didn't need to know how much he actually despised Hermione. He went to sleep that night, knowing she would come to him.

He looked up at her. She possessed a sort of simple elegance. A wave of beauty seemed to always wash over her every time he looked into her glimmering eyes. She had been very patient in guiding him through the whole process.

"I've decided... that I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to deal with Granger."

"Her name is Hermione, Draco. And you have to. After what you did... it's crucial that you aid her. You have to complete your life and she has to learn and heal."

Frustration took over his senses and he sighed to himself and then looked up again.

"You don't understand. When we were Third Years... she slapped me."

"You deserved it."

"So you're telling me I deserved to be hit? For doing absolutely nothing?"

"Draco, I was not there. But I don't think she would hit you for no reason." Sabrina had a playing smile on her lips.

The nerve. She didn't know a damn thing now, did she? If only she weren't so... powerful. And... beautiful. If only it were a crippled man with one eye who had met him the minute he died, this would be much easier for Draco to refuse.

Excuses. He knew what he had to do. And he would do it.

But there was no way he would do it without getting something out of it for himself. Something more than just a simple 'closure.'

"The only condition is that everything has to be done under her will, correct?" he asked her again.

"Correct. If we sense she is being forced, or that you have altered her free will... your mission will end, and you will return here for eternity as a Wanderer."

Draco fought hard and didn't respond to her this time. He knew just one thing - he was going to find Hermione. He would not break the rules. But he would still be able to get everything - everything - he wanted.

He knew Sabrina couldn't read his mind. He knew she wouldn't be able to see what he did once back in the living world, either. She could only sense intense force and unless he forced Hermione to do something, he wouldn't be caught. Well, he wouldn't. Sixteen years of being a Malfoy benefited him more than he could ever have asked for. He had perfected the art of persuasion and deception beyond Pansy's sly little coaxes and Blaise's clever little tricks. Draco was King of cunning manipulation and ruler of extreme ambition.

He smirked. Oh, to be Slytherin was to truly be fantastically brilliant.

Draco finally woke up, his heart frantically pounding and his breaths caught short.

He rubbed his temples, out of pure reflex, while sitting upright in his bed. Then he looked down at his hands and saw that he had been sweating. He couldn't feel it. Not the sticky dampness, not his short breaths.

He was a complete lifeless soul trapped in a human body.

Draco hated being disrupted in his sleep like this, but finally his intentions had been clarified.

All his life he had failed, it seemed. He failed at his attempts to recruit Harry Potter as an ally; he failed horribly at all his sessions of provoking Potter, trying to bring him down. But surprisingly, all this only fueled his new mission. This would not be Potter he would be dealing with, it would be Granger. And that, in itself, already held a huge advantage - she was very, very weak.

He rubbed his eyes and smiled to himself.

He knew what to do.

Find Granger.