Quiet Revolution

Chapter 6 - Forced Compromises

Have heart, my dear

We're bound to be afraid

Visits to the infirmary were not uncommon for Hermione Granger. She could not count on both hands how many times she had gone to see injured Quidditch players- the majority of them had been Harry, of course. Oh, twice it had been Ron. And even she herself had stayed there for several hours, and in her Second Year - weeks, at a time. When you play with magic - you never know what happens.

But this time it was different. The beds looked unfamiliar to her and the walls felt sterile. She quietly stepped up to Ron's bed. The wing was so eerily quiet that her soft footsteps against the cold tile floors pinched small waves of sounds through her ears. She looked down at Ron - his eyes had now closed and he looked as if he were in a heavy nap.

She told herself this was what he was doing - resting.

A low sigh escaped her throat and she found herself taking his hand into hers and squeezing it gently.

"Don't worry, Ron," she whispered. "We'll see Harry again, I promise. And you'll be good as new."

"I'm not sure he was ever really... good as new to begin with, Granger."

She dropped Ron's hand and whirled around to face Malfoy, only inches away from hovering over her shoulder.

"What are you doing here?"

"I need you to come with me," he stated. "Come along now, the quicker this gets done, the less we have to see of each other."

She wrinkled her nose disapprovingly and put a hand on her hip.

"You know how rude it is to be interrupting me like this, don't you?"

He raised an eyebrow and as to remind her of her fragile conditions just the night before when she had agreed upon accepting his help.

She finally caught his drift and, slowly, she followed him out; all the while looking at Ron over her shoulder.

"Where are we going?" she asked, once she had turned back to Malfoy.

He didn't answer.

"Malfoy. Where are we going?" she entered a deal made with the devil as is, and now she was blindly stumbling through the uncharted flames.

He sighed, grabbed her arm and pulled her into a deserted corridor. He turned around and she stopped in her tracks as he looked down at her, a few blond hairs falling and framing his grey eyes.

Harry's hair used to fall every which way and stick out in half a million directions, but she had never noticed, cared, or was bothered by it when she had noticed. Draco Malfoy had a few - a few strands of his neat boyish blond hair fall out of place and this irritated her to no end.

She grabbed the window ledge behind her and gripped it tight in an effort to distract her irritation.

"Okay, Granger. Before we start anything, I need you to trust me." He leaned one hand against casually against the wall and loosened his green and silver striped tie slightly.

"How can you expect me to trust you?"

The hallways were quiet and the silence glowed around them in the walls.

"Have I done anything to lose your trust?" he asked.

"That's an absurd question, and you know it."

"Is that right?" he challenged her, expertly raising a blond eyebrow. "Try me."

"Your father was a Death Eater," she spat out deliberately.

"That doesn't mean I am too," he said coolly.

"You hate Muggleborns, Malfoy," she said pointedly.

"Hate is such a strong word."

She looked at him. He met her gaze carefully and held onto it with his hard eyes.

"You wanted me dead, you were hoping I'd die in the Chamber of Secrets when we were Second Years!" she cried out accusingly. She clapped a hand over her mouth, not only because she realised he wasn't supposed to know she knew this (seeing as how Harry and Ron had been Crabbe and Goyle at the time when they found out), but also to steady her shaking hands. She was feeling such a turmoil of confused emotions.

"How did you know that?" he asked quietly, his voice dropping an octave.

"So it's true," she whispered. She didn't know why, whether it was the constant depression over Harry's death or stress over Ron's condition, but she felt tears prickle at the sides of her eyes.

He sighed as he ran his gloved hands through his hair.

"This was a bad idea," he said, avoiding eye contact, talking more to himself than her.

"No," she said, feeling more invigorated. The morning sun streamed through the small window of the deserted corridor and she looked up at him. "It's a fantastic idea, Malfoy. Good job on coming up with it, really. I'd like to understand why you hate me so much, why you despise my heritage, and why exactly you wanted me dead. It's not as if we were really close enough for you to hate me that much."

"Don't ask me such things, Granger. It makes me think you're really stupid, which I actually never thought of you, and will possess me to deliver a polemic about what I dislike about you and those Muggles."

"See?" she said angrily. "And you want me to trust you? How can you ask such a thing from me?"

She had her back against the wall, and he clamped both his palms on the cold stone surface above her head so that his eyes were fixed down at her. His blond hair fell down slowly by several strands at a time. She looked up at him expectantly, unflustered.

"You need to trust me. In the end, it was you who came to me, don't forget. Granted, I do need your cooperation as well... but I could easily find another Hogwarts student, someone much more willing to trust me than yourself."

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Not smart enough to figure it out on your own?" He smirked. "You can't obviously see that unless we work together on this, it won't work out? There are reasons why I came to you, Granger. Reasons you need not know, of course. But there are reasons. It's plain and simple - common sense, I'm sure even Mudbloods have. When you're going to be working on something so intensely life altering as this project is going to be, the trust is simply mandatory."

She bit her lower lip and tried to come up with something. Anything.

"You're a Slytherin," she blurted out, conveniently ignoring her frequent protests in the past for less Quidditch to promote more interhouse unity. "And I'm a Gryffindor."

He let his arms down and chuckled to himself.

"I don't find this very funny!" she said heatedly, feeling a bit embarrassed.

He looked at her crossly. "I'm a Slytherin? And you're a Gryffindor? Don't tell me you follow that idiotic stereotype of us all being junior Death Eaters?"

She shook her head. No, she never thought that to be true, despite Ron and Harry's arguments.

"So what's the bloody difference? The only difference between Slytherin and Gryffindor is that we're not shy about what we're good at."

She glared back at him. "I don't think that you should put such a noble cliché on Slytherin, seeing as how you yourself have always been a mean little coward."

"I'm not a coward. So I'm not ashamed of knowing what I have and what I don't have (which isn't really that much). I told you, you Gryffindors prance around like you own the school, do Slytherins do the same? You're damn right we do. Except we're blunt - brutal--about it, while you lot ham it up... trying to rack up points with the stupid, naïve house. We don't waste our time doing such idiotic things. We don't need support from worthless lower beings like you and your house."

She looked at him, bewildered. "What stupid, naive House?"

He coughed. It sounded something like "Ufflepuff."

Her facial expression grew nothing short of outraged. "I don't believe how ludicrous this conversation is. You're so cocky it hurts to listen to you talk."

He rolled his eyes. "So I'm a little proud. I have no reason not to be. And you really should be talking, Miss I-Walk-Around-With-My-Two-Slaves-and/or-Occasional-Friends-Like-I'm-Smarter-Than-The-Living-World. Tell me who the ignorant one is now."

"Agh!" she cried out. It wasn't the word "slave" that had enraged her so much as much as the fact that he wasn't affected by anything she could throw at him.

He smirked, yet again. "Have I struck a sensitive chord?

"You wish."

"I don't wish for what I already have."

She glared at him. "Drop dead."

"Done. So, can I have your trust?"

She was about to say something like over my dead body, but stopped herself.

"Stop calling me Mudblood."

"But that's what you are," he said coldly, not missing a beat.

She studied his face closely and realized something - there was no way she would ever, ever trust Draco Malfoy.

She shook her head at him and gave him a look of disbelief and began walking in the other direction.

"Wait," he demanded. He jogged up to her and grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back. She looked down at her hands and at his. They were surprisingly warm for someone with such a cold radiance. They both looked down - her first, then he, at his strong grip and his fingers traced the inside of her wrist slowly before he let go.

"What?" she demanded back, jerking her wrist up purposely, tenderly rubbing it.

He looked at her hands before he looked back at her.

"Okay," he said slowly.

"What?" she demanded.

"I said okay, I'll stop calling you that," he said impatiently, traces of irritation laced through his words. "I can deal with a little forced compromise when necessary, now do I have your trust?"

He was serious.

And she was at a loss for words. This trait, she realized, did not suit her personality.

She made a noise. It was a strangle tangoing with a mutter.

"I'll take that as a maybe, and a yes on one of your good days. Which, judging by your hair, I suppose is not today. Thanks for the lovely chat, Granger. I'm always up for a game of Prove the Gryffindor wrong. See you later - I promise."

He winked at her and she cried out in irritation.

But she didn't protest. Which meant one thing to Malfoy: she was in - so in it hurt.

And no words could liven up the smirk that was plastered on his face as he sauntered away from her.

*

A satisfying sleep was a rarity for Hermione Granger since Harry Potter's death, anyone could see that. Students in the halls treaded carefully around her, batch of dark eyes and yawns that she was half the time. All of this sleep deprivation had finally taken a physical toll on her body, and that night Hermione didn't wake up for five hours.

Until Malfoy crept into the room and rudely pulled the blankets off her.

She let out a yelp of surprise.

Lavender stirred a bit. Parvati woke up.

"Hermione?" she asked drowsily, her voice muffled and covered with thick layers of sleep. "What's wrong?"

Hermione didn't have a chance to answer, as Malfoy yanked her arm and pulled her down to the common room. She huffed with sheer annoyance and managed to place her other hand on her hip.

"This is what we're going to do," he said, watching her as she walked over the dim fire and desperately willed herself not to curl up in front of it. "We need to go to the library, get the book with the spell in it. And we need to do it tonight."

"The restricted section?" she said with a yawn as she turned around slowly to face him.

"No. Pince's panties would be in a bunch if she found us. The woman practically lives there, probably set up a little campsite in the corner," he muttered.

She waited to hear what he wanted them to do before suggesting Harry's cloak.

"We're going to the Malfoy library. Dad's got a huge collection of illegal magic books from since Binns was practically alive." He pulled a quill out of his pocket. "Alright, this is a Portkey that transf---"

"Why are we going so late? I don't understand why we can't go while your Mum is out during the day or something."

The look in his eyes was hesitant and he seemed to wear a grimace on his face when he spoke. "My mother... hasn't really been all that well since Dad and I died... she has trouble sleeping. She stays up late reading and painting because she can't stand sleeping - it usually involves nightmares of us."

What. The. Fuck. Malfoy. Now why don't you tell her your Mum enjoys watercolours and baking Danish biscuits on Saturday afternoons. Give her the damn recipe while you're at it.

But Hermione had slowly clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, my... that's awful. I'm really sorr--wait! How do you know all of this?"

"I've been watching her occasionally. She is my mum, you know. I do love her." He never let his gaze on her go.

The thought of a Draco Malfoy with an actual heart softened her up a bit, and she decided to stand up. "Okay, let's go."

"Do you trust me?" he asked suddenly.

It took her by surprise, and she thought about how badly she wanted to see Harry and Ron, fully alive, again.

"Yes, I suppose," she lied and quickly reared them back to the original topic. "Do you have an extra pen?"

"What do I look like, Flourish and Blotts? Here." He clasped his fingers around the top of quill. "Now grab the lower part of the pen."

When she did so, her warm sleeping skin bumped with his cold alert hand. The common room began to blur and to her surprise, Malfoy suddenly closed down his hand on hers tightly and pulled her close to him with the other hand as they were suddenly jolted forward and moved through a dark swirl.

"All right there, Granger?" he whispered as the waves of cold air flubbed through her ears and the dim light swam violently around her.

She nodded.

Within a few seconds, she landed softly on plush carpet that felt rough beneath her feet. It suddenly occurred to her that she was in her sleeping clothes, and she felt ridiculous.

He quickly let go of her when they landed. "Forgot that this is an old Portkey," he muttered gruffly as an excuse for touching her. And to make matters worse, he wiped his hands off on his grey trousers before he looked up at her. "We've lost two Aunts and one dog in Shanghai with that piece of rubbish."

But she wasn't listening to him. She was standing in the middle of the Malfoy library, one hand perched on the old rosewood stand next to her, and her eyes looked up and marveled at the spiraling books that swirled beautifully all around her. Between each section was a sweeping window that pulled in a breathtaking view of the Malfoy garden which was lit up by charmed torches all around.

This was her dream life. To live in a place like this forever and just drown in a sea of books.

Malfoy had it all along? Malfoy had what she wanted? What she craved?

It made her sick.

"Every Dark book since Merlin himself was a baby," Malfoy said behind her as he walked over to one side. "I'll start here, under 'Egypt,' you go over there... get whatever you can under the subjects 'resurrection' and maybe 'time.'"

"...Do I search for those in the titles?"

He looked at her long and hard and looked as though he were fighting the urge to spit out something rude and sarcastic. "Use a spell, Granger," he said in a very low voice.

Pink crept up her cheeks and she resisted the urge to smack herself for being so incredibly... stupid. Or was she always like this, and was it Malfoy who had been smarter than her all along?

That sick feeling came back to her.

Trying her best to ignore the fact that she was with Malfoy in his home, she began to search. She concentrated hard and found herself lost in so many book choices that when Malfoy called out her name, she nearly dropped an armload of her books.

"I think I hear Misty," he muttered under his breath. "We'd better go."

"Who's Misty?" she asked curiously, using her free hand to stack one more book on top of the monstrous pile she already had in her arm.

"One of our elves," he responded casually as he took the pen out of his pocket.

She gasped, "One of your elves? You have more?!"

He gave her a funny look. "That's usually what 'one of' implies. Are you ready?"

He didn't give her a chance to answer as he pulled her close to him. She took notice once again of how cold he felt next to her. They took longer to get back to the Gryffindor common room with the books clutched in their hands. She noticed that Malfoy had more books piled up in his arms than she did.

It was the most frustrating thing in the world to feel that your archenemy had so much in common with you. For her, at least.

"I'll take these books to my room. Meet me after your lessons later today."

"There's nobody living in your old room?" she asked him quizzically as she dusted herself off. She would have thought that Blaise Zabini would have killed to have the single that Lucius Malfoy paid for Draco to have.

He shook his head as she emptied the books into his arms. "Empty for a year to pay respect for the dead," he said rather shortly.

She studied him carefully and noticed his expression was bitterly grim, with almost an unsettling level of sadness

"I'd have thought that you'd be happy to see the school mourning for your loss..."

He looked at her sharply. "Oh, is that right? Mourning for my loss? Exactly how are they doing that? Is that huge banner with Potter's picture on it just a place card for an even bigger, grander one for Draco Malfoy? The Boy-Who-Lived-off-His-Family's-Wealth?"

"It's not Harry's fault he's getting all this recognition," she said quietly, looked down at her bare feet. She was cold. And she realised he probably felt about ten times colder. "There's no use in being bitter about--"

He stared at her very hard. "Do you always speak without knowing what the hell you're talking about?"

She looked at him. "What are you talking about? I understand that you're--"

"You don't understand a damn thing, Granger. And don't think that you can find the answers to this matter, either. For once, you don't know anything. So you'd better get used to it."

She recoiled, feeling as if he had slapped her across the face. She inhaled sharply and as she released her breath, she almost choked as another thought occurred to her. "Malfoy..." her voice was skimming at a low hush. "Why... how... did you die, exactly?"

He raised one eyebrow at her before picking up all the books, and his voice was rough and slightly husky as he spoke. "I keep my promises. I'm not going to call you 'Mudblood' anymore, don't pry into my personal business."

There was complete silence among them in the dimly lit common room. Hermione looked down and felt slightly ashamed.

He seemed completely unaffected as he spoke his next words. "Don't forget. Tomorrow. The library. After your lessons."

She fought hard to speak. She knew what she wanted to say. She knew she should have said it. But he was leaving already.

"Get some sleep," he called over his shoulder. "You need it."

You need it. Not 'beauty rest would do you some good,' or 'by the way... nice pajamas, I didn't even think Muggles would resort to that kind of fashion statement but I suppose I have to be wrong sometime.'

It was just... 'Get some sleep.'

But... it had never been just that.

And another thing. It was what bothered her most when she crept back into her still warm bed: he was right.

She was going to figure out Draco Malfoy if it killed her.