“I'm going to dream about Colin tonight,” she said sadly, dropping her head against her knees.
“You were delusional when you said you could ever kill anyone. You can't even handle them dying at someone else's hand,” he said, shaking his head dismissively.
Hermione stiffened and stared up at Malfoy.
“I don't think there's anything particularly awful about dying. I know it's war. People die,” she said. “What I care about is the manner. You have no idea, Malfoy, what it's like to have someone die while you are doing everything in your power to save them. He died slowly, screaming the whole time, and I was trying to save him. That's what haunts me. All those deaths in my mind... that's the type they are. That's why they haunt me. They were in my hands — I was trying to save them — and I failed—“
She choked slightly and her voice cracked at the final words.
Malfoy looked at her and seemed considering for the first time.
“Why does Colin matter so much? You weren't close. Why is that death the one that still remains so significant to you? You've seen worse deaths since then.”
She hesitated. She had never spoken about it to anyone. Not really. Not for years.
“His death was the beginning of the end of everything,” she said, looking down and noticing a snagged thread on her shirt. She tugged impulsively at it and watched the knitted fabric tighten and bunch until the thread suddenly snapped and a hole appeared. She repaired it with a flick of her wand. “He was the first person who died entirely under my care. Harry saw it happen. And after that — I realised that what the Order was doing wasn't enough. That defense wasn't enough. And I started saying so. But Harry disagreed. To him — dying is the worst thing. It's leaving. So, killing in any way is evil. Self defense. Mercy killing. Any kind. That — disagreement — sent us in different directions in the war. Nothing was the same after that. That's why I ended up a healer while everyone else went to the battlefield together.”
“Somewhat ironic.”
“One person using Dark Arts in the battlefield isn't enough to make a difference. And if I'd been insubordinate and tried to recruit people into my thinking — it might have split the Order.”
“If you were fighting again, how would you kill?“
“Quick. There are spells to stop hearts. Curses that suffocate. Slicing hexes to the throat. I'd do things like that. I'd probably even use the killing curse if I had it in me — but Harry would probably never forgive it.”
“How does Potter plan to defeat the Dark Lord?”
“It's — there's a prophecy. Harry thinks the answer is the prophecy.” she said vaguely. She wasn't sure if the Power of Love was a real Order strategy, but Malfoy didn't really need to know the details.
“Fantastic. We're all betting our lives on the-boy-who-won't-kill and a prophecy. We're doomed.”
“Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald without killing him,” Hermione said.
Malfoy looked unimpressed.
“Where did you study healing?” he asked her. She looked over at him with surprise.
“France at first,” she said, “but the war crossed the channel quickly and it was safer for me to transfer than risk being found there. So I went to Albania; their Old Magicks Department had the best fundamentals for healing Dark Magic. I was there for a while. That's where I learned the treatment I've used on your runes. You're lucky — I'm probably one of the only healers left who knows the treatment since the hospital was destroyed. Then Denmark, for spell analysis and deconstruction. After that I went to Egypt; their hospital was the most specialised for curse breaking, but the situation was — unstable, so I got transferred to Austria within a few weeks. I was in Austria until the Order brought me back.”
“A lot of people thought you died, or ran,” Malfoy said, studying her with hooded eyes. “Until the Dark Lord wanted to know why the Resistance was surviving after their hospital was razed, and Severus mentioned that Potter's little Mudblood friend had been recalled from her journey abroad, healer and potion mistress to boot. It caused a slight stir among the upper-ranks.”
She looked at him sharply. So he'd known what she was when he made his demands. She wondered if that had played any part in his decision.
The conversation stalled. After a few more minutes Hermione stood up.
“I'm sober enough to apparate now,” she said.
“You're not going to go off and get drunk somewhere else are you?” he asked, staring at her suspiciously.
She shook her head.
“No. You have quite thoroughly killed my buzz. And I'm sufficiently cried out.”
He looked faintly relieved. “Don't splinch yourself,” he drawled after her as she went out the door.
Hermione didn't. When she got back to Grimmauld Place she went up to her potion cabinet and downed a sobriety potion. The headache and nausea promptly dropped down upon her with all the subtlety of a sledge hammer.
She dropped her head down onto the worktop and groaned.
Trust Draco Malfoy to not even allow her to get drunk in peace. Sodding bastard.
She had expected sobriety to fill her with horror, but she felt surprisingly unrepentant for finally lashing out at him. It certainly hadn't seemed to surprise or upset him. He'd been waiting for it.
She found herself entirely at a loss about how to interpret or process all that had occurred.
She fumbled through the cabinet for a vial of headache relief and downed it, trying to focus.
Draco thought of himself as a villain.
That was an important realisation. Possibly the most important one she had yet made regarding him. The inconsistency that was in the heart of him.
She wracked her mind replaying everything he had said that day. Now that she'd vented all of her rage at him, her mind felt suddenly crystal clear.
“ Then the littler one stepped in a badger hole and broke his leg. He started crawling through the grass. Quite an easy target for a killing curse. The second person I cursed in the back with it. You know...the killing curse. It takes something out of you. It's not something just anyone can throw around. Not repeatedly. Colin could have kept running. If he had he might still be alive today. But he stopped. For his dead brother he stopped, ran back, and tried to drag the body with him.”
Hermione froze.
He could have killed Dennis Creevey in an innumerable number of crueler, slower ways than the killing curse. With a broken leg, Dennis was no flight risk. He would have been the perfect lure to draw Colin back. But — rather than just stand over injured Dennis and catch both boys — Draco had killed him, humanely. Possibly in the hope that a dead brother would drive Colin off and spare his life.
Hermione felt ready to fall over at the dual realisation that struck her.
Malfoy had been trying to spare Colin.
But, possibly of greater significance for Hermione, Malfoy didn't regard that detail as redeeming.
He'd been certain she'd become completely mindless with hatred for him once she knew he'd been involved at all. The unintended admission that he'd been trying to let the boys escape wasn't a way of trying to excuse himself. She suspected he didn't even register it as such.
Malfoy considered himself a villain because of what he did. Which implied that he didn't want to do it. Which implied that his desire to aid the Order might be sincere and not merely a means to some other end.
Hermione drummed her fingers on the worktop thoughtfully, re-evaluating once more everything she thought she knew of Draco Malfoy.
Chapter End Notes
Additional Illustrations:
Drunk in a creek by _bite.art_