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Victim of the Fall	By : PrettyDesdemona Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 32726 -:- Recommendations : 5 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe or any of its characters. I do not make any money off this story. Only love!

Chapter List
- 24
- 25
- 26
CHAPTER 25

DONE WRONG

"How could you do nothing and say, "I'm doing my best" and how could you take almost everything, then come back for the rest."

Hermione and Harry stayed up late into the night talking, though really, she did not enjoy a second of it. He was insular and uncommunicative for the most part and seemed to prefer asking Hermione countless questions about her life rather than answer any of her own. She found him harder to talk to than she once did. He was quick to judge, hard to read and spoke with a sort of cold indifference that she had never heard from him before. The only times he laughed or smiled, it was always with a sarcastic or cruel undertone and at the expense of someone else.

All in all, she really felt the uncomfortable reality of being outcast as his friend. She didn't know the person that slept on her couch that night, he was entirely unfamiliar to her. But she knew that it wasn't her Harry. It wasn't who he used to be. Oh, she could deal with his sadness really, his depression, his weakness; what she couldn't handle was his chilling demeanor and his harsh laugh. The more time she spent talking with him, the more the vulnerable little boy seemed to leak out of him, to be replaced by the callous stranger who'd fallen asleep at three am, finally leaving her time to think about things.

When she'd finally climbed into her bed, she felt almost resentful. All those months ago, she'd been consumed with anger while talking to George, she'd listed in her head all the times she'd been passed over for Harry, put Harry first and stuck her neck out for him. Now, she realised, it wasn't about her not wanting to do those things and feeling resentful that she had to, it was about the fact that there was never any appreciation and Harry's appearance, yet again, on her doorstep just illustrated her original point. She was always thinking of him, always concerned, always looking after him; when was her turn? When did he repay the favour? When did he think of her feelings, be concerned for her, look after her?

He could ask questions about her life all he liked but she could tell that underneath it all, he was too wrapped up in himself to take any real interest.

Like that was a foreign scenario.

The next morning, she woke in time to get ready for school, determined to go again that day and make up for what she'd already missed. Harry seemed to be calmer, less agitated since he'd arrived. Or so she told herself anyway. Either way, she was being irresponsible and had to get back to her education.

However, if she was honest with herself, schoolwork was only one very small reason for her to want to return to Hogwarts that morning. The cause that dominated her thoughts was Draco. She wanted to tell him what she'd learnt from Harry. But she didn't want to. She didn't know how to. Wouldn't it break his heart? But didn't he deserve to know?

For a moment, as she ran conditioner through her hair in the shower, contemplating how best to broach the subject of his father's betrayal, she'd felt quite guilty about what had happened between them the previous day. Perhaps she should have tried harder to communicate with him, to talk about why she was feeling the way she was. Perhaps she should have given him the reassurance he had so obviously craved.

But, she reminded herself firmly, he had made the assumption and, really, he hadn't asked if she was ok, hadn't given her a chance to properly talk to him. In fact, he hadn't even spoken to her. He'd spoken at her; like he was already prepared for the worst.

It was a small victory but a part of Hermione felt good that he'd finally fucked up in some way. In the past, it had always been her putting her foot in her mouth or making assumptions. Now he'd gone and done it too. He wasn't perfect either and realising that made Hermione yearn for him just a little bit more but this did nothing to quell the self righteous anger that she felt over his behaviour.

Despite all this, she knew she had to talk to him, whether it was to tell him he'd behaved like a right bastard, to apologise for not opening up to him, or to admit what she'd learnt about his father. In the end, they were in a relationship. Even if she hadn't quite confirmed it yet. They owed it to each other to talk and work out their differences if they fought.

When Hermione got out of the shower, got dressed and walked through the lounge room and into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, she was already in a bad mood. Her mind was abuzz with chatter about Draco, Harry and the tovarasi and what explanation she'd give them for her cold behaviour the previous day. When she saw the circle of mess that surrounded Harry's sleeping form, all of the previous night's resentments came back in full force.

He was in her house, she had allowed him to be there, welcomed him despite his behaviour the last time he'd visited. And he couldn't even tidy up after himself? Like it was so hard to take his dishes back to the sink when he'd finished with them?

As the kettle boiled, Hermione walked back into the living room and put a hand on Harry's shoulder, shaking him softly but firmly.

"Harry, I'm going to school." she could hear the suppressed annoyance in her own voice.

He opened his eyes and stared up at her sleepily before he grimaced and made to turn over, clearly ruffled that she'd woken him up. "Ok." he grunted into the pillow.

"Perhaps you should think about going back to the Burrow?"

He turned back over to look at her again, "Why?" his voice was almost condescending, as if she'd just asked an incredibly stupid question.

"Well, I'm sure Molly and Arthur are worried about you." her tone was clipped as she began to gather his dirty dishes up into her arms and she almost thought she saw him roll his eyes. He sat up and scrubbed at his face but did not reply. Hermione made her way into the kitchen, her arms laden with cups and bowls.

"What does it matter if they're worried about me?" asked Harry, who, she was surprised to see, had followed her in. There was an air of challenge in his voice, like he knew that they were about to have a fight and actually wanted it to happen. Hermione could feel it too, hanging over their heads like a storm. But this knowledge did nothing to assuage her resentments.

Hermione dumped the crockery in the sink and, using the very same tone he'd utilized on her earlier, said, "It matters a great deal, Harry. The Weasley's don't need any more worry."

He laughed harshly, "Oh, you're going to guilt trip me now? Like you can talk."

"I am not guilt tripping you! I'm stating facts! I think Molly and Arthur deserve a little more than your indifference!" she bit back, crossing her arms defensively.

He scowled, something Hermione thought she'd never seen him do. She showed him her back as she began to run water into the sink before he spoke again, "That's so like you. Think you can dictate everyone else's lives when you can't even manage your own."

She laughed sarcastically, "Well that's calling the kettle black."

"How?!" he demanded, "I'm not trying to tell anyone how to live their lives!"

She rounded on him, "No Harry, you just hand judgement like sweets! I might act like I know better than everyone else, but you act like you are better than everyone else! No one can compare to the famous Harry Potter!"

"That's bullshit and you know it, Hermione!" he scoffed derisively.

"Oh yeah? What about Draco Malfoy then?" she almost shrieked, a hint of hysteria leaking into her voice.

He let out a high, condescending laugh, "What? What the fuck does Malfoy have to do with any of this?!"

"You judged him! Just like you judge me! You don't even know him Harry, you don't know what he's been through! And yet you think that you can just cast him aside because you had some pathetic grudge against him at school! Just because he has a black tattoo on his arm!" Harry made to cut across her but she bellowed over the top of him, pointing her finger accusingly at his chest, "YOU DON'T KNOW! You never look beyond your own fucking nose because no one is as important as you! No one is as valuable as you!"

Hermione's throat felt raw already as her rant wound to an end. She stood, staring at Harry, her chest heaving. He didn't look shocked or angry, didn't look like anything she'd just said had penetrated his mind in any way; he just wore that same patronising look on his face that told her just how little he thought of her.

After a moment, he smiled darkly and Hermione almost took a step back in alarm. "Oh, I know what's going on here…" he said and she could hear the fury underneath his calm tone. "What happened, Hermione? Did Blaise get boring? Thought you'd move up from a Slytherin to a Death Eater, did you?" she did not validate any of these questions with an answer and he ploughed on ruthlessly, that same fierce growl lacing his words, "I've heard about women like you, Hermione. Don't feel good about yourself unless you've got your legs wrapped around some hopeless sod. Doesn't really matter who it is does it? What's the word for someone like you, Hermione? Slut, isn't it?"

Hermione's hands slowly clenched into fists, her face burning and her eyesight clouding with an unspeakable rage. "Is that the best you can do?" she said in a low, quiet voice, "After eight years? I was your best friend, Harry, and the only name you could think to call me is slut?"

He laughed cruelly, "Oh, I could do far worse than that Hermione. Trust me."

"Well go on then," she hissed, "Show me your worst, Harry. Feel free, I'm all ears."

Suddenly, there was a manic gleam in his eyes, like he was exhilarated, electrically charged. He looked entirely alien to her, like someone she'd seen from a distance but had never spoken to. "You want my worst?" his hand slid into his pocket and re-emerged clutching his wand, "Think you can handle the worst?"

Hermione eyes were trained on the thin piece of wood in her former best friend's hand as it raised slowly to point at her. A kind of blind, quiet terror was gripping ever inch of her body as the rage fled like a kicked dog. It had been so long since she'd been on the bad end of someone else's wand, someone who likely wanted to hurt her. She froze at the sight of it, her blood ran cold.

Harry's wand hand was shaking. "You… You don't know." he snarled, his voice quaking, "You weren't there. You should have been, but you weren't. You were too weak! You gave up!"

All she could do was stare at the point of the phoenix feather wand, but as he spoke, the cogs began to turn in Hermione's mind. She didn't know what he was talking about, couldn't make sense of his words. She frowned, confused, and raised her hands in supplication, her voice almost a whisper as she said, "I- I never left you, Harry. I don't understand…"

"YOU DID!" he screamed, his face contorting grotesquely in his anger. "You could have lived but you chose not to! YOU CHOSE TO LEAVE ME!"

Hermione's hands dropped to her sides in shock. Either she was stupider than she thought or all sense and logic had left the argument. "Harry, what…?"

But she never did get to finish her sentence. A bolt of light had shot out of Harry's wand, aimed at her chest. The pantry burst to pieces behind her as she dove out of the path of the spell and drove her hand into her pocket to retrieve her own wand. Another spell rebounded off her swiftly cast shield charm. Hermione clambered back to her feet, taking the opportunity to do so before the dust of her half wrecked kitchen settled. When it did, Hermione was subjected to a volley of attacks that were so fast that she could barely keep up. She would have felt proud that Harry finally seemed to have mastered silent incantations if he hadn't been using that mastery in an attempt to hurt her.

Harry cast again and again, and Hermione parried each blow deftly. He was using magic she didn't even recognise, some of which crackled and screamed against her shield charms, giving her the impression that they might be too weak to hold the spells off for long. Her wand weaved through the air in front of her almost too quickly for her eyes to follow as she cast protective spell after protective spell. She would not resort to violence, she would not attack back, despite the fact that his rebounding curses were demolishing her kitchen. If she had had the opportunity to use the Auxilium spell, she would have; but Harry was too fast. His face was a mask of concentration as he attempted to break through her defences and hers was twisted in despair as, with each attack, the reality of the situation crushed down on her mind.

They were duelling like enemies, like soldiers from two different sides of the war. But that wasn't right. They were on the same side, weren't they? They were fellow soldiers, comrades, tovarasi…

Suddenly, just as Hermione had begun attempting to stun Harry just to make him stop attacking her, just to put an end to their furious fighting, a jet of light sliced cleanly through her shield and hit her chest. She crumpled to the floor, her body caving in on itself.

Pain, familiar and heartbreaking, screamed through every nerve ending, every synapse. Her chest rose into the air as her body quaked and her back arched. Her fingernails dug into her palms like tiny knives but the sensation was nothing compared to the knowledge that Harry had used this spell on her. The spell that had nearly broken her mind in the depths of the Malfoy Mansion almost a year ago…

Almost as soon as it had hit, the pain stopped and Hermione lay in the dust and debris on her kitchen floor, panting and shaking uncontrollably.

First Harry's wand tip and then his face appeared over her. She raised her arms in a vain attempted to shield herself. "Please…" she gasped, "Please Harry, don't do it again! You… You can stay. I'm sorry I said what I said, just… Just please don't do it again!"

Rather than appearing pacified by her begging, Harry seemed to be disgusted by it. "Really, Hermione?" he scoffed, "You put up with forty minutes of the cruciatus curse from Bellatrix Lestrange without breaking but you can't even handle two seconds of it from me? When did you become so pathetic?"

Hermione sobbed in response and continued to whisper the word "please" over and over again. After a moment, Harry bent down and Hermione almost sobbed in relief as his wand lowered. That was before she felt it press painfully into her ribcage.

She saw Harry's lips move. There was a flash of red light and then blackness took her.

The first thing Hermione knew when she woke up was that she had been stunned, and the next was that her arms and legs were bound magically. She couldn't move or stand though she tried. It was as if her wrists and ankles were wrapped in solid, impenetrable air. Blind panic spent a few minutes crashing around inside her body before she managed to calm herself down enough to begin taking in her surroundings.

She was in her own bed, laying on her side, she could tell because the familiar smell of her pillow was pressed up against her cheek. It was night and the room was dark. She could hear nothing except for faint sounds of movement coming from the lounge room and see nothing except a chink of ghostly moonlight filtering through a gap in her curtains.

She became aware of the wet trails now slicing down her cheeks and onto her bedspread. The betrayal was astronomical, inconceivable. It was crippling. Her mind seemed entirely incapable of taking it in, of facing up to the reality of it.

Strangely, it was in this moment that she began to remember all of the things she loved about Harry, all the times he'd made her laugh or stood by her side and faced danger with her. The resentment was falling away like the leaves of an oak in Autumn. Images and memories were slicing through her psyche, each one blinding her with its brightness and lucidity. The smile he wore when he won a quidditch game; the way he used to try and smooth things over between her and Ron when they fought, the happiness that visibly poured from him when he got together with Ginny, the way he'd look at her when he was having trouble with his homework and needed her help… All of it amounted to happy memories, love and friendship.

Hermione wept for her best friend. He was gone. He'd left. Whatever had cursed her that day wasn't Harry.

She tried to keep her sobs silent, to stifle the keening little wails in her pillow but after a few minutes, she heard her bedroom door open behind her and light flooded the room.

Her eyes slammed shut and she tried desperately to feign sleep as footsteps slumped across the carpet. They stopped in front of her and Hermione could feel him crouch down beside the bed.

"You needn't pretend to be asleep, mudblood, I can see your tears fresh on the pillow."

Hermione's eyes snapped open and she was shocked to see Harry's pale face inches from hers. His eyes seemed greener than usual, bright and electric. The voice that had left his mouth was so unlike him, so high and cold. So quiet. The look on his face was foreign and all wrong for him. She recoiled.

The word had been like a blunt blow to her head, making her dizzy and disorientated.

Harry had used it. The cursed word. The bad word.

Well, she'd told him to do his worst. Evidentially she'd underestimated him. His worst was so much more terrifying than she ever could have guessed.

"What are you going to do to me?" she rasped between a renewed bout of sobs.

He narrowed his eyes, staring into her own with a penetrating intensity, as if he was examining a particularly fascinating insect. "I don't know."

Hermione cried unabashedly, her bound hands clenched into hard fists in front of her face. He seemed unaffected by her outpouring of emotion and stood. She did not open her eyes to see him leave. She didn't care what he did. There was no Dobby to get her out now, no Ron to pull her out of the line of fire, no Draco to drag her from the lake and comfort her with his scent. The only saviour left to her was Harry, but he was gone. She was here alone with this monster.

Abruptly, the lights went out and Hermione was plunged into darkness. What happened barely moments later made her skin crawl. The bed behind her sunk down and after a second she felt the skin of Harry's bare chest pressed against the exposed part of her lower back. He snaked an arm around her waist and pressed his face against the back of her neck.

Hermione's eyes were wide with fear in the darkness. Was this what he meant to do? Was he that far gone? That depraved? Would she lose her innocence once and for all that night?

The fear was creeping up the back of her neck, raising little bumps on her flesh. She couldn't even think of it, couldn't imagine Harry doing what she thought he might do.

This was the root of it, she realised then. The triggers were all well and good, the panic attacks she'd been having over her bad memories, the depression she'd felt… But she would gladly suffer all of that a million times over just to escape this fear. The fear was the cause, the fear was the answer. How could she have been so blind? Hermione had always been strong. She could handle the smell of blood, the screams of her friends, the sight of their bodies. What had been her undoing was the terror the war had brought. That was what she was infected with, that was why the mind healer had diagnosed her with post traumatic stress disorder. Because of that fucking fear.

Hermione wanted to scream. She wanted to throw her fierce anger and something, someone. But she was powerless, tied up and held captive by something that wore the face of her best friend.

She beared her teeth at the darkness and made her hands into fists, cultivating all the courage she had into a catastrophic knot in her chest. She would fight him, should he try and hurt her again. He could torture her, beat her, do anything to her, but she would fight tooth and nail until she freed herself or he killed her.

But the blow for which she was waiting never came. Instead, after a moment, Hermione heard sniffles and sobs coming from behind her. Harry was crying.

Her kneejerk reaction was to comfort him, to ask if he was ok. But then the anger roared in her ears and she was reminded that this was no longer Harry and, so far, speaking to him had gotten her nowhere. So she lay there in silence, glaring into the darkness as Harry wept into the curve of her neck.

After a while, she realised he'd begun to speak, to whisper things through his apparent grief.

"I'm sorry Hermione." the end of her name turned into a soft, drawn out yowl, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. It wasn't me. You don't understand what he's like. I can't… There's no… I don't know what to do!" he sounded, again, like a lost little boy. His voice was high and childish and every word was punctuated with a sob.

"Let me go." she said through gritted teeth. Harry ignored her and continued to cry.

After what felt like hours, Harry's sobs turned into quiet, familiar snores and Hermione found that, try as she might, she could not keep her eyes open any longer. After all, it must have been at least two o'clock in the morning by then and she'd only had a few hours rest the previous night…

With Harry still cradling her into the curve of his body, she drifted into sleep.

Hermione did not know what time it was when she woke again. The light outside her window was grey with the dawn. Something had jerked her awake and, as she stared through the chink in her curtains, her mind slowly raising itself through the fog of sleep and into consciousness, she tried to recall what it was that had done so.

As she emerged out of her slumber properly, she realised. She could hear mumbling. Frantic mumbling, coming from behind her. And whoever was making the sounds was pawing through her hair.

"Not like Ginny's. Not like hers. Not smooth. No. D-diffindo."

Momentarily the hands left her hair, only to return again moments later.

And there it was, the memory of the night before. Harry, the fear, the curse, the evil word. Hermione was almost numb to it now. The little knot of courage and fury was nesting in her chest, waiting for the perfect moment to be let out of its cage. She needn't waste it now. Whatever he was doing behind her, she didn't care. She'd save her energy for a more important time.

Something wafted into her vision from above her and fell on the floor beside her bed. Could she have moved, she might have looked, but as it was, she couldn't.

"Why? Why'd you leave?" said Harry's frantic, shaky voice from behind her, "Wasn't I good enough? Didn't you like me? Diffindo. Not smooth like Ginny's. Don't like it."

Hermione could not make heads nor tails of Harry's rambling and knew instinctually that he wasn't talking to her but talking about her, so she did not bother replying. Another of the unidentifiable things wafted down over her vision again.

"When did you know you were going to die, I wonder? Did you do it on purpose? Weak, so weak. Diffindo."

Hermione gave a shriek as something sliced into the side of her neck. She tried to lift her hands to feel the wound but, for obvious reasons, could not. "Harry, what are you doing?!" she demanded, struggling against her bonds as blood began to drip down onto her bed sheets.

He ignored her. "I wasn't weak. Oh no… I was supreme. Diffindo. I was superlative. Diffindo. I was the highest of priests. Diffindo. I defeated death. Diffindo."

As he continued to cast the slicing spell, Hermione finally realised what he was doing, what the strange things that he kept throwing over her body were. He was cutting off her hair.

"Harry, stop! Please!" she begged as tears, once again, clouded her vision. She struggled harder against her bonds. He continued to ignore her.

After a while, Hermione realised that struggling was hopeless. No matter what she did or said, he would not stop or pay her any attention. She simply lay as still as she could while Harry continued to mutter gibberish behind her and slice of hunks of her hair. Every now and then he would tell her that it was 'not like Ginny's' but there was nothing she could do to convince him to stop.

So she lay in obedient silence and prayed.

Two days passed in this manner. Hermione remained complacent and submissive to Harry always, fearing that if she was not he might resort to force. He slept each night, pressed against her back and each night he cried and talked nonsense at her until he fell asleep. Sometimes it was full of anger and blame, so much so that she feared he might hurt her again. Other times he was crying into her neck again, begging her to forgive him. But he would not untie her no matter how much she begged him to.

Only twice had she felt hope that she might escape, and twice her hope was crushed.

On Wednesday night, she had thought he'd fallen asleep in the lounge room and, using all of the strength she could muster, had dragged herself into a sitting position, using her bound hands to support the weight of her body. She then tried to hop over to her bedroom window to call for help. But he had caught her and put her back to bed with a dire warning that if she tried again, he would again resort to using the torture curse.

She heeded his warning. She wanted to avoid being tortured again if she could.

On Thursday, Hermione's heart had soared with hope when someone had knocked on her door. She had, as usual, been bound on the bed while Harry occupied himself doing whatever it was he did in the lounge room. As soon as the rapping had rung through her flat, Harry had appeared at her side and dragged her to her feet which he unbound with a flick of his wand.

He marched her out of the room and towards the front door, keeping a painfully tight hold of her upper arm. Hermione was shocked to see the state of her flat for the first time in two days. The kitchen was a mess of chunks of wood and debris and the lounge room looked as if someone had been camping in it. To her alarm she saw many of the books on blood magic that Draco had given her laying scattered about the room. Harry, it seemed, had been occupying himself by ransacking her library.

Harry pressed his wand into her rib cage as someone called through the door.

"Hermione? Are you in there?"

It was Isobel. Hermione was ready to scream to her friend for help when she heard another voice. Ginny's.

"Hermione open the fucking door or I'm going to smash it down!"

Whatever she might be going through, Hermione knew then that all hope was lost. She could not allow Ginny to see Harry like this. There was no way.

She felt him tense beside her. "Get rid of them." he breathed into her ear.

"How?!" she whispered frantically.

"Lie." he hissed.

Hermione cleared her throat. "Yeah, I'm here!" she called loudly.

There was a pause before Isobel said, "Well, are you going to let us in or not?"

"Um… No, I have a… a stomach bug. I don't want you guys to get it." she said.

"Hermione, for fuck's sake. We don't care about that! Open the door! We haven't seen you in days!" demanded Ginny.

"No! No, really, I'm fine. I… I don't want you to see me like this!" she floundered, "Just… come back tomorrow night, ok? I'm sure I'll be over it by then!"

Another pause, then, to her relief, "Alright then. We'll be back tomorrow night."

She listened as the two girls make their way back down the spiral stairs, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. She sunk down to crouch on the floor and wept again, her bound hands pressed up to her chest.

"Why the fuck did you tell them to come back?!" snarled Harry, grabbing a hank of her shorn off hair and twisting her head back to look at him.

"Because they w-wouldn't have l-left if I hadn't!" she sobbed, her neck aching under the strain of his grasp, "You h-have the invisibility cloak, we can l-leave without being seen before they c-come back!"

"Leave?" he asked, blank faced. Hermione nodded. After a moment, he smiled maliciously. "Of course… Yes… We can leave."

He dragged her back to her feet and, using the point of his wand, pushed her back into the bedroom. She collapsed back onto the bed and curled up into a ball as he recast the binding charm on her ankles.

Yes, he would leave with her. And she knew no one would ever find them. They'd managed to avoid being captured by Voldemort for almost a year during the war, what difference was it now? What were the Ministry compared to him?

With a pang or despair she realised what she'd just sentenced herself to. Life, alone, with a monster.

A/N Ick. How yucky was that... I need to watch some really happy movies now I think.

Aranel, Cat and Siona - I'm going to incorporate the reply to all of your reviews into one as I'd be basically saying the same thing twice lol. For one, Aranel, I hope that was black enough for you haha.

I'm glad there was some anger towards Draco! People had this reaction to it like, "What the fuck, Hermione just chose Harry over Draco?!" (I had a rather frustrated reviewer over on FF about it) and I'm thinking, are you blind? She didn't CHOOSE anything! He didn't give her the opportunity! He just made assumptions and acted like a prat! Argh. It just really bothered me cause I had this moment of being all self righteously angry with Draco and no one else was lol. Though... Poor Hermione is probably regretting her tight lipped behaviour now... Ok, rant done haha. Can't wait to post the next chapter!!! It's going to be... Yeah. My fingers are already itching as I write it.

What else can I say? It's fucking amazing to see people so invested and patient with me... I don't know what's going on right now but I'm feeling all warm hearted and sappy. Thanks you three, as always, for the wonderful amount of support (don't think I'm not aware that you guys have been following this story for a while).

All the love in the world,

Desdemona

The quote at the beginning of this chapter is from Ani Difranco's song Done Wrong.
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Victim of the Fall