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Red Summer of 19	By : bk11 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 2142 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Red Summer of 19
- 2-part 2
- 3-part 3
- 4-part 4
- 5-part 5
- 6-part 6
- 7-part 7
- 8-part 8
- 9-part 9
- 2
- 3
- 4
Disclaimer: Don't own them. J. K. Rowling does.

Title: Red Summer of 19

Email: bkeleven11@yahoo.com

Rating: R

Spoilers: Anything. Everything.

Summary: Boy meets Girl again during the summer of twenty-three. And they remember the summer of nineteen.
Notes: Uh, notes. Notes. Crap.
Review?
The beta who gets a million cookies: Meg

- - - - -

Part 3

- - - - -

Her mother used to buy her ice cream on cloudy days:

Though some people might liken her as the kind of girl to take vanilla, she was actually the kind of girl to stare with her nose pressed against the glass, wearing a yellow halter top because she thought it made her look more like a woman.

And her mother would smile, knowing better.

Hermione never picked the same flavor two times in a row. One time, as she was telling her mum she wanted the rocky road, they both heard someone chuckle behind them. It was a lady, weighed down with various gift bags. She said, �Kinda cold to be having ice cream, isn�t it?�

And Mrs. Granger would simply say, �Maybe,� and smiled.

The ice cream parlor doubled as a candy shop, and that was what the lady with the gift bags was buying, pieces of salt-water taffy in every color and flavor.

When they had their cones gripped in their hands, Hermione took her mother�s free hand and pulled her hard towards the exit. �I want to go on the beach, Mum,� she said. �Maybe fly a kite. Or let�s rent one of those bikes!�

�Swim in the ocean?�

And Hermione�s gut response was, isn�t it cold? But then her mind quickly rearranged that. San Diego had warm waters.

�Okay! Let�s do it!� And she tugged her mother�s hand towards the sand and waves and palm trees.

And as they were walking along the side, sandals dipping precariously over mini sand dunes, they saw the lady with the gift bags, walking awkwardly with her bare feet, ice cream cone in one hand. She saw them back and smiled, �Maybe it isn�t too cold for ice cream!� she yelled over the ocean breeze.

- - - - -

Here's the second story:

/The First Beginning/

A dark and stormy night. Really. Full of lightning flashes and rolling thunder and all that stuff. Or maybe she had just imagined all of that. There were robes and cloaks and lanterns and boats and a big tall magnificent building with so much promise. She found herself out of place and so incredibly small in the sea of similarly inspired bodies, and she found him flanked by two other boys--near giants, really--buttoned and pressed and pale in his own cloak. She scratched her stocking clad leg.

/Girl sort of meets Boy/

"You've met Malfoy before?"

A boy, not the Boy obviously, answered. "I've heard of his family, they were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side." To the girl, "Can we help you with something?"

She hesitated, just barely though. "You'd better hurry up and put your robes on, I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!"

/Boy doesn't chase Girl/

"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood."

/Girl runs for her life/

. . . by smacking him across the face. "Don't you dare call Hagrid pathetic, you foul -- you evil--"

/Boy stops not chasing Girl/

"Hadn't you better be hurrying along, now? You wouldn't like her spotted, would you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Granger, they're after Muggles. D'you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Because if you do, hang around. . . they're moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh."

"Hermione's a witch."

"Have it your own way, Potter. If you think they can't spot a Mudblood, stay where you are."

"You watch your mouth!"

"Never mind, Ron," Girl gives Boy a dirty look. "Let's go and find the others."

Boy doesn't care. "Keep that big bushy head down, Granger."

/Girl takes a mangled olive branch/

"You know, Granger. Just in case today's the last day before . . . you know--utter desolation and the like--"

"Malfoy, are you trying to tell me that you'll refrain yourself from dancing a happy jig over my gravestone, then?"

Boy smirked. "Hardly a jig. Maybe a little tap number."

"Not if I beat you to it."

/. . . And lets herself be caught/

"So this is it, then?"

"Rather anti-climatic. I'd expected trumpets, gunfire, pistols at dawn at least."

"Well. . . ."

"Yes, well--"

"Well, you should be glad, Harry--"

"Well, do fuck off. And give my best to Potty and Weasel."

Oddly enough, this story doesn't end there. There are detours and rocky gravel paths that have been omitted and glazed over. The Second Beginning (of the Second Story) starts off with another dark and stormy night. It was Dumbledore's retirement party. A few months after the summer of nineteen. Dumbledore's party was chocolate themed, because he was going to open a sweet-shop the following day. The boy found her staring dejectedly at a frosted cupcake in the corner next to the staircase.

- - - - -

Someone nudges her in the ribs:

Bouncy red hair with freckles, or Cassie, as she is called now, pokes Sally again. "Hey, someone's looking at you, again."

"Kinda hard when there's a wall between the dining area and the kitchen," Sally quips.

"Oh, I can just tell."

"Expert at looking through walls, are you, Cass?"

"Just call me Superman," she smarts.

Sally purses her lips and wipes the back of her hand on her apron. She crouches behind huge pillars of saltshakers and metal napkin dispenser, maybe unconsciously hiding herself from whatever real or imagined gaze that might be upon her. She wipes away her fingerprinted reflection on the dispenser and mutters, "are you sure he or she isn't looking at you?"

Cassie shakes her head and Sally's arm simultaneously. "It's a he. And definitely not."

Sally chuckles and hears the bright ding of a bell behind her.

�Table seven,� says Pete.

"That's Danny's table." Danny had taken his break without telling any of them and was currently behind the building, smoking his ciggies, so he calls them. Pete grunts disapprovingly, and Sally, ever the peacemaker, spins around, her back to Cassie, and steals a mustard colored tray.

Sally goes out and turns her head in time to see little Joey burst through the doors. She smiles and waves her free hand.

Table seven.

"Hi."

- - - - -

His father never really was a person:

Looking back to the beginning, he sees that his father was just a force of power--very strong in his cold vibrancy.

When Draco was bad, he was punished for it. When he was good, he was aptly rewarded. It seemed like a very good method. He knew where he stood, and he knew exactly what he needed to do in order to advance himself in the world.

But then once school started, things got all twisted. Suddenly he wasn�t always punished for doing or saying bad things. And he wasn�t rewarded for any good deeds either. Taken with this new system, Draco slanted to the doing-bad-things side. It seemed more worthwhile.

He wished a girl death, one time (many times).

At the time, he didn�t feel any remorse for it. He still doesn�t. You can�t feel remorse for something that�s so far removed from you now, he says to himself.

She was a stupid bitch. She thought she was better than everyone else. She lived life on the other end of the spectrum, where every little mild good deed was rewarded ten times its worth, and the slightly misdoing would surely bring the world crashing down in flames and fire.

It�s not that he wishes he had never said it. He just wishes that he had been more right.

- - - - -

Did you hear the story?:

The story of a girl. Her name was . . . her name was . . . oh hell, I don�t know her name anymore. It�s not really important.

What I do remember in that this girl had long dense (and black) braids hanging all the way down her back. Back when I was only seven years old, there had already been legends about the girl. Her mother was a whore. A dirty no good whore. The girl didn�t have a father. Not really. Or maybe her father wasn�t even a human kind of creature. That would explain everything, you see. The town says that she was born with those braids, like snakes those braids were. Some said that she�d wrap those braids around the neck of her victims and strangled them to death. Those were braids whose strands were saturated with innocent blood. Evil evil evil girl.

They say her mother wanted to kill herself when she first laid eyes on the girl. They say her mother saw the eyes of the devil and promptly tried drowning the wretched creature. Tied sinking her in a tub of rainwater. The girl survived through all the attempts though. Her mother went absolutely mad, they say. Started pulling out her hair by the roots until her head was a scabbed-over stump. Then she hanged herself in her kitchen. The girl was in the next room, they say, barely six months old and watching her mother with evil evil evil eyes.

When she was twelve, she still hadn�t gone to school. Just wandered the village like a lost soul. Like a damned soul. Like a soulless abomination. She�d mutter a lot, they�d say. Talk about things she wasn�t supposed to. She probably said sinister little incantations. She probably was planning to strip apart the skin of men and eat it for dinner. She probably hunted them and ripped out their hearts. Evil evil evil girl.

They say that she lured men by wailing, long and hard and mournfully. Horrible wails that sounded ghoulish. And the men, they came, they did. They came to the siren�s call. They put their hands on her shoulder and shook her. Asked her what was the matter. Tried to help her by looking for cuts or bruises on her dark dark skin. And the girl, she bit off their heads. She really ate them, they say. A man-eater, they say. An evil evil evil man-eater.

There was something strange about that girl from the beginning. She didn�t look normal. She wouldn�t wear women�s clothing. She would dress up in trousers and a deerskin hat, she�d dress like a man. They claimed that they could detect something sinister about that girl from the get-go.

It caught up with her in the end, though. They caught her. They say she screamed like a wild animal when they shackled her (wept like a babe when they fucked her). They caught her and tied her to a stake. They say a whole day was spent collecting stones. Extra merit if the little ones managed to carry the heavy ones. They shoved it all into one pile, made a big show of it. And then it began.

Little ones. Little children made to watch, gleeful sparks in their eyes. Made to throw stones. Made to cut. Made to bruise. And all watched it in some kind of morbid fascination.

And then they burned her.

And the children danced.

Evil evil evil girl.

- - - - -

Last night, he remembers:

He's driving an 87' Toyota Corolla, blue. He had grown rather attached to it, something he wouldn't have been able to do, if his father hadn't taken the money away. And if his father hadn't taken the money away, Draco could have never gotten attached to the blue Toyota. It was a vicious cycle. Or maybe it was cause and effect. Or maybe it was fate.

He sees a disappearing sun with thin fingers stretching over cracked orange mountains, etching lines in the purple sky. A song is playing on the crackling radio, Mr. Sandman. He laughs out loud at the absurdity of it all.

There was a time when he used to search for brown earthworms underneath flowerbeds. He had taken take his wand and had peeled up his mother's daisies. He had built a collection, fifteen, maybe twenty worms. And when dinnertime came, his mother came out in her white dress and gasped. He had cried when she made him throw the worms back in the soil.

There was also a time when he wore starched clothes and recited his name and a generic salutation (hello, sir, my name is Draco Malfoy--how are you and your lovely wife doing this evening?) over and over again to a bunch of strangers who smelled like fake flowers. Like potpourri. But he did it diligently because his father had told him to. And then he had to stand stiff as some stupid twit told him that bottled incantations were the wave of the future. Hardly.

Now he thinks back to a lip-gloss mouth and brown curly hair spilling over as equally brown eyes stare back up at him.

(Disgusting little Mudblood)

He hums along with the tune until he sees curly brown hair poking out from in between green bushes.

- - - - -

Here�s the Second Beginning (of the Second Story):

A girl. A boy. A past. A frosted cupcake.

/Girl meets Boy/

"Fancy seeing you here, Granger."

"Oh, it's you."

"Please, don't sound so ecstatic. You're embarrassing yourself."

/Boy chases Girl/

"Well, don't stare at me as if you're exceptionally dull."

/Girl runs/

"What do you want, Malfoy?"

/Boy sprints/

"Perhaps to catch up with an old school chum?"

"What was--how had you put it? Oh right. Fuck off."

"I see real life has done wonders for your countenance."

/Girl slows down . . ./

"So what about you, then? What have you been up to?"

"Nothing particularly noteworthy."

"I see life has also treated little Drakey unfairly." A snort. "What happened? Some bird shat upon your gold-plated broom?"

/. . . And hits the ground--hard/

"Given the circumstances, I�ll overlook your attitude."

"Circumstances? Get over yourself, you bastard. You have no right talking about my mother."

"I didn�t mean--."

"Why the hell are you in my face, Malfoy?"

/Really Hard/

"I-I came to offer my condolences."

"Look. You�re not going to trick me into saying that I�m sorry your father�s dead. In fact, I�m ecstatic with the fact that that monster no longer draws breath. Sod off."

"Don't you mean fuck off?"

"I don't care. Leave me alone."

"Look. I'm not making fun--"

"Didn't you hear me, you stupid git? Fuck off, then."

And after a moment�s silence:

"It's been a pleasure, Granger. Hope real life doesn't continue to kick you in the ass."

And that is the end of that. She wonders all the time where the gray eyed, crooked smile boy is. She wonders if he's traveling through the Serengeti, or if he's scaling the Alps. She wonders what he's doing and if he's finally happy. She wonders what would happen if she took an airplane home and walked through platform nine-and-three-quarters. Perhaps she would've walked into Flourish and Blotts, and perhaps she would've reached for an early edition of Hogwarts: A History at the same time he did. And then maybe the gray eyed, crooked smile man would appear from the shadows and say something like, "fancy seeing you here. . . ." And maybe he'll smile at her cruelly and say, "How are you, then?"

And then maybe he'll crush her to dust under his heel again.

- - - - -

It was a war based on hate:

It only took seven months for Wizarding Colonies to pop up. The government, when forced to finally face the reality of it all (the reality of it all) sanctioned off areas at least five kilometers away from �high-density� areas. Dead land. Land already plowed over with fire and bodies. Land stained with blood. Land that no longer had use. The government cut up pieces of earth and assigned them to those who had lost their homes.

And she really couldn�t fault the government. There really was nowhere else. What she did fault them for was giving these colonies a cute little nickname.

(Ghetto)

(Slums)

The nickname was �WC� (they�d laugh and say, �not water-closet, though enough shit does flow through, down there�).

Whenever she visited with a liaison, she�d see them--the children.

She looked at them and she wanted for them to stop laughing and playing when the Ministry visited. Stop it! She wanted to yell at them. Sit still and stare those bastards in the face. Let them see how hungry you are! Let them see how tired your mother and father are, let them see how many of your brothers have died.

They aren�t allowed. Those bastards aren�t allowed to pretend they know you. They aren�t allowed to cry at your plight, mourn for your losses--our losses. They don�t know anything, sitting in their golden chairs and reading stupid articles about starving children. Not when they can�t see what�s in front of their faces.

Don�t run and play hide and seek as if there isn�t a fucking war going on around you. Don�t you see?

How can I make you realize this?

We don�t want them to look at you and smile at your games. We don�t want for them to say, �See? I told you! The children are happy, with their stale oatmeal and their rationed bar of soap and their little broken glass jungle gyms, and don�t you know? We�re wasting enough time talking about this, don�t we have more imperative matters, then? Tactical Strategies? Political Alliances? We don�t have time to waste standing around with children.�

�What game are they playing there, Miss Granger?�

He asked her because she was closer in age to them, less prone to time dulling the edge of childhood.

Her voice lilted and trembled. �They�re playing Duck, Duck, Goose.�

�Oh! Looks very fun.�

She nodded. �The children should have a bit of fun.�

It was a war based on hate.

How can I make you realize this?

- - - - -

This morning, he fingers an old photograph in his mind:

He doesn't take it out of his wallet, though. Not yet. He likes to say that he took that old photograph out of shoebox in his nightstand drawer. The shoebox labeled "Stuff To Be Forgotten" in invisible marker. His wand is in that shoebox, and his first Hogwarts letter is in that shoebox. But her imaginary picture couldn't bear to live in that shoebox. So she had stayed in his mind. He doesn't remember how she got there. He must've been insane. It's a small picture though, not much bigger than two inches all around, so that's something to take comfort in.

He cracks the dingy door of the motel that stood behind the pair of bushes that brown hair had been poking through. Blue paint peels off in flakes and collects on the black welcome mat. He finds a nondescript bald man behind a counter with a bunny coffee mug in front of him as he fiddles with his outdated computer-thing. A Macintosh? Pamphlets line the counter, info on the Great Barrier Reef and wallabies and world-class pubs (apparently).

He fingers the small white buttons on his shirt and clears his throat.

The man glances up, "Be with ya in a minnit . . . sir." He casually turns his computer monitor away, but not before Draco caught a flash of everyday garden-variety porn against the glass window that separated the lobby from the office.

A sardonic grin. "Sure, take your time."

The man eyes him suspiciously and then flicks off his monitor. He takes a sip from the bunny mug. "So what I can do for ya t'day?"

Draco edges closer, his expression serious. "I have a question for you." A pause. "You don't happen to have a young woman staying here all by herself, do you? Brunette?"

The man grimaces, eyes skittering back and forth in mini convulsions. Nervousness. He takes out a cigarette from the breast pocket of his striped shirt, politeness evaporating the second he realized that free information was wanted, not a room. "Want one?" he offers.

"No, thanks."

�Why d�you wanna know?�

�I think I might�ve gone to school with this one.�

�Oh, really?� the man asks skeptically. Draco has found out that he is the type to instill a sort of suspicion in everyone he required a favor from. He knows it�s the way his mouth tilts halfway up into a lazy smile. A discomforting I-know-something smile. He knows this by the way the other person�s eyes always squints a bit, like this man now, and he knows because someone once told him, Malfoy, maybe people would be more willing to trust you if you didn�t look so damn smug all the time.

He�s found a way to combat this though. Not with fake smiles and exuberance spilling out of his every word (instead of malice and dullness and sarcasm) . . . not any falsities. He�s done enough. He doesn�t need to lie to everyone he meets.

Instead he manipulates them.

�What? Do you honestly think I�m the serial killer type?� He snickers. �Oh yeah, got my axe outside in the car. Ready to cleave her head in half when I meet her in broad daylight.�

He�s found that people who are fooled to think that they have betrayed some sort of idiocy--people who hate staring themselves back in the face--he finds that they reflexively backtrack the second they see a bit of foolishness in their mirrors.

The man shrugs. "Yeah. There's a lady staying 'ere. Pretty girl . . . paid cash 'er first day 'ere."

Draco slides the man a twenty. "Can you tell me where she is?"

Another suspicious glance.

"I want to talk to her. That's all. We're old friends."

"She working right now."

"Where?"

- - - - -

(06-20-04)
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Red Summer of 19