Out of Time

Chapter 18

"What was your favourite book, outside the mysteries you liked by Agatha Christie?"

He remembered the author's name. Well, Hermione supposes it shouldn't have been that hard if he keeps her answers the way she keeps his questions. She's still inordinately touched by it.

What would she call her favourite book? His phrasing of the past tense makes her think he still means books she'd enjoyed before coming to Hogwarts.

It takes her by surprise to realise it's probably poetry by T.S. Eliot. Her father helped her learn how to read with his poetry, alternating stanzas aloud. It was tremendously difficult but that was almost a bonus - it meant more time with her father, more time sorting through pronunciation, cadence, and vocabulary, line by agonising line. Even after she was a proficient reader, it was something they loved to do together.

But which one? She knows Draco wants a single title this time, since she'd effectively cheated her way out of the original question before. It's nearly a coin flip between The Waste Land and Prufrock and Other Observations, two of Eliot's earliest published works. It's been ages since she's read either one but she recalls adoring the title work from the second publication, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

That's probably just bizarre enough to fascinate Draco for a good bit. She can't help a tinge of amusement at writing it down and imagining the confused scrunch of his face as he reads it. Smiling, she folds it up and sends it back off.

Hermione's glad this note was from Draco. She's gotten a handful of the other sort, too, since that evening in the library. That was the only time she's received more than one at a time, but they still get under her skin. She ought to be grateful they're just anonymous hate mail, from someone too cowardly to confront her face-to-face, but this rings hollow. She should be 'glad' for anonymous hate? Absurd. She can't even think of it as a lesser evil, because so many more people are inclined to be hateful if their anonymity is assured. It simply widens the opportunities for more bigots to express their opinions.

On one hand, her cornucopia of distractions outside the castle keep her from giving these notes much mental consideration. It would have been worse when she was younger, when her acceptance in this school seemed like the most important thing in the whole world to her.

On the other hand, her acceptance outside this school is almost the point of the war. It almost all boils down to pureblood society clutching tightly to their superiority in the face of... witches and wizards like Hermione. It's all fear-mongering, she knows. Voldemort drums up support by feeding the parasitic hate slithering its way into all facets of wizarding life.

It's so short-sighted. If the old pureblood contingent had its way, wizarding society would effectively begin to die off. There aren't enough families. Inter-marriage alone would do it within another few generations.

They need more people like Draco, or like Theo (even though he and Pansy would make a lovely and societally-approved pureblood marriage before long, if everybody survives the war). But their mentality is what needs to spread.

Snape thinks some of them might follow Draco's lead in the coming conflict. Pansy had said as much in the Prefect Bath that day, after Hermione found Draco's Dark Mark. She and Theo won't be around, but Blaise might be. And who knows? Maybe some of the younger students look up to them. A ripple effect could start small.

But for that to happen, Draco would have to be openly on their side. Hermione wants to believe that can happen, but she can't envision how. The path is too murky.

What about after? Once Voldemort is overthrown, it's not as if his supporters will just... go away. Sure, the Death Eaters and open criminals will hopefully be tried and incarcerated in Azkaban, but loads of other people believe in the rhetoric. If they saw Draco openly with Hermione... If Draco married Hermione...