bigger than us [dramione]

four

BY SUNRISE THE following day, Hermione's entire life had been wrapped up and secured in her tiny hip purse, with nothing but a black circle singed into the grass where the bonfire had been to signify that she had been there.

Even this she must erase, however — they could not risk leaving any trace of their presence behind. Nobody could know they had been here. Hermione raised her wand solemnly and cast a silent spell to clear the mark. Seconds later, it was gone. It's absence stung tears at her sore eyes, even as she turned away and tucked her wand back into the pocket of her jeans. Harry and Ron had known that she would apparate to this spot — of course, this was the reason they needed to leave in the first place. If they had been captured and had their minds pried into, she would no longer be safe. What they didn't know, however, was that everything had changed now that Malfoy was with her. They didn't know that she might never make it to Godric's Hollow, and this was the only place they would now meet if Harry and Ron came looking. There was a very good chance she might never see them again.

Ignoring the curious expression Malfoy cast her way, Hermione swiped silently at her tears and willed herself to control her emotions. This was war. There was no time for crying over the dead — not until the very end. Not until they had won. Then, and only then, would she truly stop to mourn what she had lost. And there was so much for Hermione Granger to mourn.

•

"—and the bloody thing nearly tore my arm off," Malfoy chortled, recounting his supposedly 'near-death' experience in their third year in painfully dramatic detail.

"He did not," Hermione scoffed, shaking her head in confusion. "You provoked him with your smarmy attitude."

It was Malfoy's turn to shake his head now. "Even that bloody chicken couldn't successfully argue provocation as a defence to the Wizengamot," he refuted gruffly.

Hermione glanced over at the icy blonde, slightly taken aback by his mention of the wizarding court. Though the thought had never crossed her mind in the past, Malfoy's statement, though an off-hand comment, made her realise that he would likely strive in a career in Magical Law. He certainly had the demeanour and aristocracy that many in the Wizengamot possessed; he was a natural-born leader amongst his peers and was undoubtedly intelligent. Admittedly, however, he lacked the necessary candour. Such an issue might still be overcome, though. After all, he seemed far less unnecessarily deceitful now than he had at school; he was more brutally honest than anything.

What are you doing? Hermione scolded herself suddenly. How had she found herself compiling a mental list of Draco Malfoy's good traits? How could she identify any? He was a Death Eater, for Godric's sake, and a terrible one at that. He had run away from Voldemort seemingly not to fight for the Resistance, but to keep himself from getting killed.

He was also born into a life he did not choose, something reminded her.

"That bloody chicken saw right through that awful swagger you had back then for what you really were," Hermione retorted finally, crushing her doubts down and reverting to the snarky tone she had managed to reserve for her classmate even all this time later.

Malfoy huffed audibly. "And what would that be?"

Hermione spared a glance his way; nervous, fleeting. She watched his eyes, brimming with the storm of what she undoubtedly believed to be his inner turmoil, flick across the grassy path ahead of him.

"A scared little boy," she uttered. The phrase lacked the clipped tone with which she had delivered her previous lines; something within their meaning had shifted, even before she had said it. Malfoy appeared to know it too, braving a fleeting look her way before clearing his throat ever so softly and staring back at the grass. Hermione wondered whether that same scared little boy was trapped inside the blonde — except this time, it wasn't something as gentle as Buckbeak that he was afraid of.