“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.
“
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_
August 2002
Hermione stayed up half the night re-analysing Draco. She scrapped her entire notebook and started a new one.