Relentless - A Dramione FanFic

Friendship Must Come First

"Draco..." Hermione waved her hand up and down in front of his face.  "Yoohoo, earth to Draco."

"Huh? What?"  Draco shook his head, and the daydream of them being together vanished.  "Sorry, I must have tuned out for a moment.  What did you say?"

Hermione couldn't hide her amusement as she repeated, "I asked if you'd ever been sailing.  Then you went to another planet."

"Oh, yeah."  He continued walking as he answered her, in reality this time.  "No.  I've never been.  My family is not very fond of large bodies of water, my father especially."  From the corner of his eye, he saw her grimace at the mention of his father, but he continued.  "Plus, sailing is considered to be far too muggle a thing for purebloods like them to be doing."

She was a bit taken back by the hatred in his tone of voice.  She'd only ever heard him speak with such contempt when he was calling her mudblood or insulting Ron and Harry in some way.  To hear him speak that way about his family was surprising.  Then she realized something else... he'd used the classifier 'like them'.  He could have just said 'its far too muggle a thing for purebloods to be doing', but he added those two extra words.  Why?  "Wait, what do you mean when you say 'like them'?"

"I mean those who believe blood status matters."  He was pleased their conversation was following similar lines to his fantasy, but he wouldn't allow his hopes to rise.

She hoped he was saying what she thought he was saying, but she needed to be sure.  "But you've always made such a big deal about blood status yourself."  He could hear the pain in her voice, as she continued. "I mean, you always called me..."  Her voice trailed off.  She was unable to bring herself to say the word that had literally cut her so deeply.  She stopped walking and turned to face him as she asked, "Why would you do that if you didn't care about blood status."

The pain behind her question broke his heart, just as it had in his daydream.  "The truth is, it was to protect myself.  If I had shown any sympathy toward you, even once, I would have been marked as a traitor.  That's how seriously pureblood families take blood status."  Her feelings softened, as she began to comprehend what kind of life Draco had grown up with.  His voice was barely more than a whisper as he continued,  "And it was to protect you."  Her eyes darted to his, questioning how and why he would have been protecting her by being so nasty all those years.  "You see, if I hadn't been so cruel to you, my father would have made sure someone else was.  I was cruel to you verbally so no one else would be cruel to you physically.  I know it sounds terrible, but that is the way pureblood minds' work."

She was having a hard time computing what she'd just heard.  "But I saw the hatred in your eyes every time you said it or something like it."

He sighed, and his shoulders slumped, as if in defeat, as he answered, "The hatred you saw was what I felt toward myself for saying such things.  Every time that word came out of my mouth, it tasted like bile.  Many times, I'd soon after find the nearest bathroom and be sick."

Tears were trying to flood her eyes, "So all this time, every cruel word and sneer, every taunt and torment was done to protect me?"

"Yes." He hoped she would be as accepting as daydream Hermione had been.  "From the moment I knew you were a muggle born, I've been trying to protect you in the only way I knew how."

She was able to understand the logistics of how his 'protection' had worked, but she was struggling to understand the reasoning.  "Why, why did you feel the need to protect me?"

There it was.  She had hit him in the one place he couldn't be fully honest, so he bent the truth just a bit.  "It was because you reminded me of a muggle girl I once knew."