Abyss

Abyss

"It's because I don't hate you at all."

Hermione stared at him, her eyes transfixed on his face. He said those words with such vicious intensity that she had difficulty in asking herself if he was mocking her with those words. But what was he saying? Draco Malfoy, not hating her? Really, it was such an outrageous, ludicrous idea. She would have laughed if she could. And this coming from him! What about all those years of hurling and trading insults, then? Were those words meaningless after all? Was all the animosity and unfriendly competition between them just some little game of pretense? She pursed her lips, and said, "I don't believe you." She took a step forward, and removed herself from the bark of the tree that was her prison moments earlier. Her lips twisted into a smirk of their own. "You, Malfoy, not hating a Mudblood like me? That's just absurd."

Draco took a step back, shoved his wand beneath his robes and turned away from her. "You ask me why I saved you, and I answer you, and now you dare tell me that I'm lying?" His shoulders shook with silent mirth, and each chuckle teased her with the purpose behind them. "Granger, Granger. Truly, you are a magnificent piece of work."

She did not miss the sarcasm that coated his every word. "I could say the same about you, Malfoy," she returned with equal malice. Hermione folded her arms in front of her chest, and winced slightly as she accidentally applied pressure to the sensitive area on her waist. "Honestly, do you expect that I will just buy every little thing you tell me? Just because you saved me from my death does not mean that, from here on forwards, I will blindly accept everything you say."

He whirled around, his face curled into a hideous mask of anger directed towards nothing else but her. "I don't remember asking you to," he told her. "I don't care whether or not you believe me."

"I might believe you if you start telling me the truth," she challenged him.

"What difference will it make?" he asked, his tone almost sounding tired. "Clearly you think all I tell you are absolute lies."

"Aren't they?" Hermione asked him softly, mockingly. She stared at him still, her eyes hardened like stones in her face. "Are you going to tell me the truth if I ask you why these things are happening to our school? Are you going to tell me the true reason why I just saw most of your Slytherin friends attacking and killing their schoolmates without even the slightest provocation? Are you going to lie to me if I ask you if you knew that all these things would be happening tonight?"

Draco looked away, and breathed, "No."

"No?" Hermione pressed. "No, as in you won't lie to Or, no, you won't tell me anything at all?"

He closed his eyes briefly, breathed deeply, then looked at her again. "No," he repeated. Then, "I don't regret saving you and killing Pansy."

She was understandably startled by the vague answer and the fact that he avoided her questions altogether. "Malfoy--"

"Look, Granger," he said as he walked towards her slowly, his feet silent against the ground. He approached her and took her by the arm again. "I'd love to stay and chat with you about how I don't seem to know the meaning of the word 'truth', and how I am the absolute embodiment of all things evil, but unfortunately, we don't have the time. You have to escape, or else you'll--" he deliberately cut himself off from saying more.

But of course she understood, and she knew, what the unspoken word was. "Die?" she finished for him. Her voice shook at the very real possibility of her death happening thaight.

Draco pursed his lips, his expression very grim. "Or worse," he said. "There are worse things in this world than death, Granger. Especially for goody-goody Gryffindors such as yourself. Remember that." He started pulling her again, and this time, when he ran towards the gates of Hogwarts she was running with him as well.

Hermione ran with all the energy she could muster. Her feet collided painfully with the ground, and the muscles on her legs and thighs were now sore, but on she ran. She tried her damnedest to keep her eyes forwards, but she could not help herself; she looked back at the castle, and saw the burning of her beloved school. "No," she sobbed pitifully. She stopped and tried to pull away from the hand that held her. "No! Harry, Ron! Malfoy, I need to--"

He stopped and faced her, his face darkened with fury. "Enough with the bravery and the heroism, Granger! It won't do you any good."

"But they...y might--"

"Be dead," he finished harshly. "And you won't be any good for them if you die with them. So you might as well start accepting that fact and move on."

His words were like knives through her heart. For a moment she marveled at the injustice of it all; here she was, alive, whereas the others... Harry, Ron... she stared at Malfoy, her mouth slightly agape. "Did you--" she started, her voice small, weak, trembling, "did you see them die?"

He said nothing.

Her face hardened considerably as she considered one possible angle, one possible reason why he wasn't answering her. "Did you kill them?" There was venom in her voice as she spat these words.

"I am not a murderer. I'm not one of them."

Hermione heard the words; she heard the quiet conviction that belied each piece, and she even saw the flash of stubbornness in his cold, cold eyes. Suddenly, she laughed at him. At him. The mirth in them was palpable, and it gratified her to see him seething. She gripped his hand with her own, gripped at it with all the strength she could give. She could feel his fingers between hers, and she used her own bones to squeeze his rather painfully. "I get it now," she said between harsh, cruel laughs. "I get it now, Malfoy."

"What do you mean?"

"I know now why you saved me," she said, and her face now held the widest, most triumphant smile she could display. Her laughter slowly died on its own.

"Do you really?" he taunted her. "Care to enlighten me, then, on why I am tolerating your presence?"

But Hermione was undaunted. "You want proof," she told him. "You want something, some evidence, that will convince you that indeed, you are not one of them." She pulled away from him, and this time she was able to free herself. "You need to see for yourself that you can do something to prove that you are not evil. You want redemption, Malfoy. That's why you saved me. That's why you've been tolerating my presence all along, because if you left me to die--" she glared at him, and her eyes were flashing dangerously, "if you left me to die, then all your hopes of being redeemed would die with me. And that would leave you with nothing, with no option, other than accept the evilness that you so desperately want to run away from."

Draco stared at her, his eyes chips of diamonds in their rigidity. He curled and uncurled his lips to show his displeasure. "You think you're so smart, do you, Hermione?" he started, his voice sugary, sickeningly sweet. "You think you know it all. You think you know me so well. But I hate to burst your bubble--"

"It's the truth, don't you see, Malfoy?" she said, and her voice suddenly lost all the steel and anger beneath them. "You saved me so you yourself can be saved. You did this for yourself. Not for me. Never for me." Then, Hermione's lips bared the smallest smile. "I don't think you're quite capable of doing anything for anyone other than yourself."

He was rendered speechless by her words. Was it because they were the truth, or because they were lies... he didn't know. But the possibility nagged at him... Could he be just saving her to save his own life, his own soul? He'd never examined his actions, never thought or analyzed before he leap. This time was no different from the others. But her words... what she was suggesting...

"Come on," he said instead, though this time he did not take any step to take her forcefully with him, and this time his voice was devoid of any emotion. "If you want to live, then come with me. If not, then feel free to stay here."

"Where are you taking me, anyway?" she asked.

"Somewhere far, somewhere safe." He continued to walk away from her. "Somewhere far away from here."