Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Songs of Regret	By : RavieSnake Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 76454 -:- Recommendations : 5 -:- Currently Reading : 17
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters from it. I also hold no rights to any of the songs mentioned. I make no money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 41
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- 43
See...not abandoned!! LOL. Thank you for sticking with me and for all of the support you've all given me these past few months. Your reviews were so motivating and really meant a great deal to me. This fandom really is the best and just...thanks. :) Also, though...if you do leave a review and don't log-in, please put your username in the review so I know who to thank or respond to if need be, since they all come up as ANON now.
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Draco hobbled beside Snape in silence as they made their way down to the Slytherin dungeons through the dark, quiet halls of Hogwarts. Several portraits, disturbed by the light of Snape’s lumos, hissed at them as they went, but they otherwise arrived outside the Slytherin common room entrance without encountering anyone.
Snape turned to him when they stopped before it. “Here,” he said quietly, handing Draco what appeared to be a bundle of poorly folded cloth. Draco didn’t take it.
“What is that?” he asked flatly.
“A means to travel about the castle undetected,” Snape replied, holding out the bundle further. Draco furrowed his brows at it.
“An invisibility cloak?” he asked disappointed. “Where’d that come from?”
“Moody was gracious enough to lend it to you,” he said.
Draco scowled at it. “I’d rather use Potter’s.”
Snape looked impatient. “Potter’s will be utilized by your better half.”
Draco’s frown deepened as he grudgingly took the wadded-up cloak from Snape and inspected it. “This is it?” he asked in a frustrated tone. “Invisibility cloaks? That’s how we can see each other every night? That’s the grand solution?”
He shook his head and angrily stuffed the cloak under his arm. “Brilliant. So we’re still just sneaking around like we were before.”
“Cast a repulsion charm on your bed and keep the curtains drawn,” Snape said without inflection. “That will resolve the issue of the others accidentally discovering your absence in the middle of the night. So long as you’re back in the dorm each morning, you’ll be fine.”
Draco huffed. “Oh, yes. Fine. I’m sure it’s nothing at all to maneuver a bloody crutch underneath a cloak in the middle of the night. And you know I’ve already been doing those charms. This is an insult,” he said, holding up the cloak.
Snape scowled at it. “It’s the best we could do on this short of noti-”
“He’s known we were fated since the beginning,” Draco cut him off.
“And he’s looked the other way since the beginning when the two of you repeatedly stole away to that room despite the risk you both subjected us all to by doing so,” Snape reminded him.
Draco narrowed his eyes. “I see that spy map of Potter’s is coming in handy. And anyway, he wouldn’t need to ‘look the other way’ if he’d offered us a safe solution to begin with!”
Something flickered in Snape’s eyes. Guilt? Irritation? “Your arrogance never ceases to amaze,” he said.
“Arrogance?” Draco nearly snarled. “It’s arrogant to be upset that I’m being spied on -yet again - and that I don’t consider my own fucking life as disposable as everyone else apparently does?”
Snape exhaled deeply at the sarcastic reply. “You mustn’t dwell on what you heard this ev-”
“Mustn’t dwell!?” Draco whisper yelled at him with a furtive glance around them. “We’ve done everything that he’s asked of us. We’ve given him everything, told him everything. We’ve risked our lives! He owes us his! I turned Harry fucking Potter into an Occlumens! I got this fucking Mark again!” He thrust his left arm out for emphasis before continuing. “And-and Albus, he…he just spoke of killing us as if it were nothing at all and then doesn’t even TRY to ease our pain!?”
A muscle ticked in Snape’s jaw. “Have you not listened to a single thing I’ve tried to teach you!?”
“Of course I’ve listened,” Draco insisted with an affronted look.
The former potions master raised his brows in challenge. “And at what point did I ever say that sacrifice would be free of pain?”
Draco simply stared back at him, momentarily shocked into silence. Snape shook his head at him. “You know nothing of pain yet.”
Draco blinked angrily at him. “You know that I’ve been through enough pain for any two lifetime-”
“You believe getting a cursed brand is pain?” Snape cut him off harshly. “You believe a broken back is pain? That not being able to spend every night with the one you love is pain?”
Draco’s chest rose and fell dramatically with barely contained fury. “I’ve lost my son,” he spit out through gritted teeth. “My father’s been in prison so long I can’t remember his voice. My first wife rejected me and made my life hell on purpose. I’ve seen good people butchered like animals. Don’t you EVER tell me that I don’t know pain just because you fucked up your own life.”
Snape’s face took on a blank expression, his black eyes going distant. Draco immediately regret that last bit, but simply scowled at the floor as they both just stood in the dark dungeon hallway. Snape lowered his still lit wand to his side, casting them both in an eerie mix of blue shadows as they avoided looking at each other in the thick silence.
After a minute, Snape turned his head to the side. “Ambition,” he barked at the stone wall.
The entrance opened at once to reveal the Slytherin common room beyond and Snape, his usual mask of indifference expertly back in place, waved his arm for Draco to go in. The blond hesitated only a second, but then turned toward the room as well.
“To bed, Mr. Malfoy,” Snape said loud enough for the lone straggler still awake within the common room to hear. “And don’t dawdle lest I allow Professor McGonagall to deduct another ten points for your gross and disappointing lack of judgement.”
Draco said nothing and took up his crutch beneath his arm again and shifted the cloak carefully against his chest. He turned and made his way into and across the room towards the dorms, glancing briefly at Theo who was staring at him with interest from where he was lounged in a chair near the fireplace.
“I suggest you get to bed as well, Mr. Nott,” Snape called out sternly to Theo. Theo snapped his attention to him and nodded at once.
“Yes, Professor Snape,” he said, standing. Snape gave him a hard once over and then turned on his heel and strode away. Theo stared at the entrance as it closed and then jogged after Draco.
“Rough night?” he whispered to him when he came up beside him just inside their dorm. Draco made a snort but otherwise didn’t respond as he limped to his bed. ‘Rough night’ didn’t quite come close to describing the hellish debacle that destroying the locket had been.
He set his crutch on the floor and then tossed the invisibility cloak on his mattress before crawling up onto the bed himself. He flopped down, belly first, and buried his face into his pillow.
Theo looked at him pensively. “Not going to change?” he asked.
Draco shook his head lightly. “No,” came his muffled response.
“Why do you smell like a bonfire?” Theo said, sniffing the air.
Draco turned his head and cracked an eye open to look at his friend. “Because I was in hell,” he replied darkly.
“With Granger?” Theo inquired, a taunting lilt to his voice.
Draco rolled onto his side to face away from him. “Good night, Theo,” he said, not bothering to answer the question.
“We were like brothers once, you and I,” Theo spoke quietly to Draco’s back, “there was a time when we told each other everything.”
Draco closed his eyes at that. There was a time in his youth when he’d have trusted Theo with anything. But that had been before Hogwarts. The idea of being able to confide wholly in his old friend was an alluring one to be sure, but it was not a risk he was willing to take. Especially not when one of the few people he thought he could trust had, less than an hour before, talked so easily about killing him. Especially not when he’d just hurt the only man he knew he could trust.
“You’re still my brother, Theo,” he replied without turning back to him, “I just want to go to sleep.”
Theo let out a long exhale. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah sure. I’ll…see you in the morning.”
Draco only responded with a flick of his wand to close the green curtains of his four-poster. He laid there then, straining his ears as he listened for the other Slytherin’s retreat. When the last of Theo’s soft footfalls stopped, Draco sat up with a huff and sniffed his shoulder.
He did still smell like smoke. Fucking wonderful.
With another huff, he held his wand up again and cast the repulsion and silencing charms that he’d come to perfect after weeks of sneaking out to meet Hermione and then slid his hand beneath his pillow for his mirror. He pulled it out and stared down at the black picture to wait.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“How do they deal with these things ALL the time,” Ginny complained, pausing just before the Fat Lady’s portrait to adjust the nether regions of her transformed body.
“Stop it,” Hermione hissed back in warning. “You’re going to give yourself away.”
Ginny pushed Harry’s glasses back up on her nose and made a show of looking around at the dark, empty hallway. “There’s no one around,” she whispered. “Besides… I have six brothers and, trust me, a bit of self-groping isn’t likely to raise any red flags.”
Hermione’s lips pursed into a thin line as countless instances of Ronald handling himself flashed through her memory.
“Well, Harry’s a bit more dignified than your brothers,” she said.
A small smirk tugged at Ginny’s mouth. “I can’t argue with that,” she agreed, running her hands over her sides appreciatively. Her fingers went to readjust again and Hermione slapped at her.
“Leave it alone and you’ll get used to it.”
Ginny’s thick brows rose at her friend’s sure tone. “Oh? And what would you know about Polyjuicing into a boy?” she asked amused.
Hermione hesitated at that. She knew all too well what being in Harry’s body felt like. His form had felt heavy but agile with joints that swiveled smoothly and muscles that seemed to react without much direction. The weighty bit between the legs had been a bit burdensome, she had to admit, especially when she’d mounted that thestral behind Kingsley, but the stress of the mission in moving Harry that night had all but obliterated any potential further consideration on the matter.
Ginny squinted her eyes at Hermione’s pause. “Wait…” she said with a laugh, “you haven’t actually Polyjuiced into a boy, have you?”
“Of course not,” Hermione replied with a forced laugh that startled the previously sleeping Fat Lady awake in her portrait.
The painting blinked and glowered down at the two Gryffindors. “A bit late,” she grumbled disapprovingly.
“We’re sorry,” Hermione offered.
“You always are,” the Fat Lady said with a huff. “I imagine you want in and then back out again?”
“Just in,” Ginny replied with a yawn.
“My usual routine,” Hermione acknowledged with an apologetic grin. The Fat Lady rolled her eyes.
“Be quick then,” the not-quite-alive woman ordered as she swung open to reveal the common room.
Hermione nodded. “Thank you, Portencia,” she said sincerely, stepping through the entrance just behind Ginny. The Fat Lady made an acknowledging hum, but said nothing more as she closed the hole.
“Portencia?” Ginny whispered to Hermione after glancing around to ascertain that they were alone.
“It’s her name,” Hermione shrugged. “Sometimes she makes me listen to her life stories before letting me back in in the mornings.”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “Paintings,” she sniffed, obviously expecting Hermione to chuckle. But Hermione merely stared at her. Damn, was it bizarre just how well Ginny was able to capture Harry.
Ginny waved a hand in front of Hermione’s face. “Uh…Hello?”
Hermione blinked rapidly to bring herself back into focus. “Sorry,” she sighed. “It’s just really strange talking to you as you are and tonight’s been super awful and I think…I’m just beyond exhausted.”
She was a bit more than exhausted. Her gut was roiling with the need to see Draco as it had been since he’d made that ominous signal to ‘be safe’ just before he’d left Grimmauld Place. He knew something…and whatever it was had him worried.
“Yeah,” Ginny agreed, her altered voice taking on a sad tone, “I suppose we ought to get to bed.”
Hermione nodded and Ginny motioned toward the stairs to the boys’ dorms. “I’ll, uh…I’ll just grab Har…my cloak for you, so you can head down to see Malfoy, yeah?” she said and then, after quickly adjusting a tinkling sack of potion bottles over her shoulder, jogged away when Hermione merely nodded again. She came back a minute later without the bag and handed Harry’s folded Invisibility Cloak out. “Might as well just hang onto it,” Ginny said as Hermione took it from her. “I won’t be needing it.”
“Thanks, Gi…Harry,” Hermione half smiled. “Are you sure you’ll be alright here on your own?”
Ginny ran a hand through her messy, black hair. “I’m the Boy-Who-Lived, Hermione. I think I can manage to sleep by myself in my own dorm,” she joked.
Hermione shook her head slightly, but pulled Ginny into a hug. “I’ll see you first thing before breakfast,” she said. “And go straight to Professor Dumbledore if anything happens, okay?”
Ginny nodded as she pulled back from the sisterly embrace. “Go,” she ordered Hermione, “I’ll be fine, I promise. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Hermione smiled again. “Good night, Harry,” she said. Ginny smiled and gave her a gentle shove toward the exit.
“Go,” she said again and Hermione unfurled the cloak in her hands to disappear beneath it and slipped her hand into her pocket to retrieve her mirror.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"This is utter horseshite," Draco muttered angrily. "Just fucking absurd."
"Shh," Hermione shushed him as she tried to hold up Moody’s invisibility cloak covering him so that it still hid him without impeding his use of his crutch. She frowned under Harry’s cloak as she tried to maneuver them both through the dark halls.
"This is the best he could come up with? How did he expect me to do this on my own? It's so-"
"Draco," Hermione interrupted him as his voice rose in volume, "shut up."
He growled in frustration as he continued to slowly hobble down the corridor toward their room underneath the borrowed cloak while Hermione held it for him.
"No," he spat, "this is an insult. A complete fucking slap in the face. He has the means of making this easier on us, but he won't. Instead we get to spend an hour every night stumbling through the halls hoping we don’t get caught by the other prefects and professors who aren't in on our schemes."
"The chances of which increase the longer you keep talking," Hermione spit at him.
"I'm done," he snapped back, "I'm so fucking done with this."
Hermione frowned. "Let's just get to our room and then we can talk.”
Draco scowled under his cloak but didn't say anything more until they finally got to the tapestry of the silver queen. He hissed the passwords at it and then waited as Hermione pushed open the door and came back to him to help him inside.
The moment the door clicked shut behind them, Draco ripped the cloak off and hurled it. “I’m done,” he repeated venomously. “I want to leave.”
Hermione tugged down Harry’s cloak and gave him a troubled look. “What’s wrong?”
“It took me twenty goddamn minutes just to get out of the common room,” he spat. He poked harshly at Moody’s cloak on the floor with his crutch. “This is how much he really thinks of us. We help him and he gives us more trouble in return. We mean nothing to him!”
“Draco,” she said, her voice thick with concern, “where is this coming from all of a sudden? You know that they all care abo-”
“No,” he snapped. “We need to leave.”
She mindlessly folded Harry’s cloak over her arm as she stared at him. “We cannot just leave. There are still two more Horc-”
Draco shook his head vehemently. “We can finish it all on our own. I can go right now and buy us a house in the middle of nowhere, make it Unplottable. We’d be safe.”
“And your mother? Would she be safe?” Hermione challenged. Draco’s lips pursed in brief thought.
“I’ll go and get her too,” he said.
When Hermione opened her mouth to say something more, Draco went on loudly. “It’d only be for a short while, anyway. We know what the remaining Horcruxes are, Hermione. We know where they are. We know how to destroy them. We have the means to destroy them. We have elemental powers for Merlin's sake! You and Potter and Weasley didn't have ANY of that and you STILL managed to kill them all and defeat the bloody Dark Lord. Why can't we!? We could end this. Why are we staying here!?”
Hermione pursed her lips as well, her brown eyes scrutinizing every line of his face. “Did you touch that locket before you stabbed it?” she asked suspiciously. Draco blinked at her, confusion at the question playing in his own grey eyes for a millisecond before fury took over.
“No, I didn’t fucking touch it!”
“Then what is going on with you?” she snapped back. “Only hours ago you were all for learning the plans and staying. I don’t understand where this sudden need to go out on our own is coming from.”
Draco’s rigid demeanor and anger appeared to fade in an instant at the look of worry mingling with anger in her face. He let out a shaky, exhausted breath and then turned to start toward the bedroom.
“Draco,” Hermione called after him, “don’t you just walk away from me.”
Draco halted immediately. “I need to sit down,” he said reluctantly, without looking back at her. Hermione noticed the defeated slump of his shoulders and relaxed with a tired sigh of her own. She went to him and pulled his free arm around her waist to give him support. They went slowly together then to the bedroom where she deposited him on the edge of the large, white bed that they’d for months claimed as their own.
“Strip,” Hermione ordered him after setting his crutch to the floor. Draco sighed heavily.
“You know I hate denying you, love,” he said wearily, “but I’m really not in the mood.”
Hermione ran her fingers through his disheveled hair as she stood before him. “I don’t want sex,” she said softly. She leaned down and kissed his crown. “We need to get cleaned up.”
She straightened herself and began shrugging off her clothes. Draco lifted his head and watched her shed each item until she was down to just her underwear. She looked over to see him still dressed and, without a word, began helping him.
Draco let his hands fall to his sides while she undid his clothes and he felt his chest constrict as he took in the absolute miracle that was this woman taking care of him. Her hair was frizzed out in every direction, heavy bags shadowed her eyes, and there were still smears of soot across her forehead and neck, but she was beautiful. How anyone could think to harm her…
“We’re not safe,” he suddenly said, breaking the silence. Hermione paused at that and glanced up at him. Their eyes met but, before anything more could be communicated, she looked away and resumed tugging his trousers off of his legs. She threw them aside and then patted his thigh.
“Let’s get you into the bath,” she said.
Draco allowed her to pull him up by the hands to stand and used her as support as they made their way slowly to the bathroom. Once inside, Hermione helped him to the bath’s edge and then ducked out from under his arm that was draped over her shoulders. She turned to the perpetually filled bath and dipped in a toe to gauge the water’s temperature.
“Water’s lovely, as usual,” she commented, facing Draco again. She reached behind her back to unclasp her bra and let it slip from her arms to drop to the tiled floor. Draco’s eyes tracked the garment as it fell and then skimmed over her bare chest before settling back on her face. She reached up and cupped his cheeks in her hands and kissed him softly.
Draco closed his eyes at the action, but stood motionless before her, his arms at his sides as he balanced his weight on his good leg. Hermione lowered her hands and pulled back. She made a small, concerned sigh but took a small step back and shimmied out of her knickers. She kicked them aside with her bra. When she reached forward and tugged at Draco’s boxers to lower them down his legs, he opened his eyes.
“Come on,” Hermione instructed him with a nod toward the bath, her arm out held. Draco took hold of it and followed her movements to step out of his boxers, lowered himself to sit at the bath ledge and then swung his legs into the water. He released her arm and shifted to slide the rest of his body in with a groan. Hermione watched him get settled and then got in herself.
She dunked her head under the water to wet her hair and then swam the short distance to the left side of the bath where they kept the shampoos and soaps they used most days. She took them in hand, and turned to swim back only to find Draco staring off at nothing with a vacant expression.
“Are you ever going to tell me what’s really troubling you? Back at the house you said we needed to talk,” she said when she came back to his side and set the bottles on the ledge. Draco didn’t answer and Hermione frowned as she opened one of the bottles. “Tonight was hard on all of us,” she said softly. “It couldn’t have been easy for you, having Voldemort’s image jump out at you like that…just watching you look at hi-”
“No,” Draco interrupted. “It’s not that. It’s…”
“It’s what?” she prompted.
He sighed. “I can feel every drop of water in this room.”
Hermione’s hands stilled in their preparation of the shampoo. “You want to leave because you can feel the water?” she inquired doubtfully.
Draco continued to stare off as he went on. “The more I practice, the more I can feel it, Hermione. I can feel the water evaporating in the air, the tears hydrating your eyes, the drops clinging to the rims of the taps.” He lifted one hand and a pillar of water rose from the bath’s surface with it.
Hermione watched him manipulate the pillar into different shapes. “I don’t understand why you won’t just tell me what’s wr-” she began, but the words died in her throat when, in a split second, two dozen tennis ball sized spheres of water shot into the air and morphed into the shape of arrowheads. Hermione gawked at the display as the faint crinkling sound of forming ice suddenly filled the air and the floating water froze.
“If you weren’t my soulmate,” Draco said, a wave of his hand directing the lethal looking bits of ice to move so that they were all pointing at Hermione, “would you feel comfortable with what I’m doing right now?” At Hermione’s shocked silence, he turned and looked at her. “Would you have gotten in the water with me, knowing that I could set it to boil in an instant? Would you even want to be near me, knowing I could freeze the blood in your veins?”
“I could just as easily fill this room with flames,” Hermione whispered with a glance at the torches burning in their sconces on the walls. “What does that have to do with us leaving?”
Draco lowered his hand and all of the ice fell at once back into the bath with a chorus of splashing water.
“What do you think the reaction would be if anyone believed we’d become a threat?” he asked her. “Do you think they’d let us live?”
Hermione gave him a troubled look. “Only Albus, Severus, and now Moody know what we are. They know we’re not a threat. Besides…they need us.”
Draco cocked a brow at her. “They don’t need us,” he nearly scoffed, “not anymore. He has our memories already. We’re only making things easier at the moment.”
Hermione merely blinked at him, looking for all the world like she wished she could disagree with him, but couldn’t. Draco sighed and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“Maybe he does care about us,” he offered, “but from what you’ve told me, he cared for Potter too and look at what he did to him last time.”
Hermione shook her head. “It’s not the same.”
Draco’s mouth thinned into a tight line as he thought a moment. “Why do you think he didn’t tell me right away that he suspected I’d have elemental powers like you?” he asked. “He knew we were soulmates and that means the second he knew you were a Telepath, he knew I was one too, which means he knew that I’d probably have an elemental power. He knew that from the fucking beginning, Hermione. But he didn’t say anything. I know he gave you some line about needing to discover our own truths, but…think about it logically, love. Why would he say that?”
Hermione looked reluctant to but answered, “Because he didn’t want to seem overly eager. He knows how smart we are and knew that we’d get suspicious of his motives if he were the one to try and coax your power out of you rather than just let you discover it on your own.”
“Precisely,” Draco said. “He’s been playing us since the moment we stumbled out of his Floo.”
They floated there for several minutes in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
Hermione’s troubled eyes searched his somber face when she finally spoke. “If we assume that we’re only being used as…weapons,” she said the word like it tasted bad, “then we must also assume that he’d keep watching us even after the war. We’re always going to be this way. So, if we ran now…it would make us look like rogues. It would make it appear as if we didn’t want the Order knowing what we were up to. That wouldn’t exactly garner favor or trust for us with them in the future. If we want to have normal lives after the war…the best we can do is stay. We need to stay and prove our loyalty. It will be harder to justify harming us when we’ve proven that we’re not interested in hurting anyone that isn’t a Death Eater.”
Draco rubbed his hands over her lower back affectionately and then released her to reach over and snag up one of the shampoo bottles. He squirt a dollop into his palm and then lathered his hands together. “Then, I guess we ought to stay,” he said as he moved to come up behind Hermione. He began to comb his fingers into her wet curls.
“We stay,” she agreed quietly, closing her eyes at the sensation of Draco scrubbing her scalp.
“And prove ourselves,” he muttered.
Hermione turned her head slightly to look back at him. “You’re a spy for the Order,” she reminded him, “and together we’ve killed three pieces of Voldemort. I think we’re well on our way to proving ourselves already.”
Draco’s brow furrowed as the memory of Dumbledore and Moody’s words echoed in his mind. “And if they still decide we’re more hassle than we’re worth?”
Hermione shrugged. “Then we Obliviate them.”
That tricked a laugh out of Draco. “That might work…if Albus didn’t make a copy of his memories every night and stash them away.”
“How do you know he does that?” she asked with genuine curiosity.
“As you said…I’m a spy, love,” he said teasingly. “I’m supposed to know things.”
“Yeah,” she chuckled, “things about the enemy…”
Draco lifted his hands again to direct a small cascade of water to flow through Hermione’s hair to rinse it clean. “Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, indeed.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Snape’s knuckles were white where they were gripped against his bathroom counter. His head hung low, the black curtains of his hair shielding his face from the flickering light of the room. He sniffed as a tear trailed down the side of his nose and dripped into the sink. A choked sob threatened to escape from his clenched throat and he pushed off of the sink to swipe a hand harshly over his wet face.
He cast his bloodshot eyes about the small room to settle on his reflection in the mirror before him on the wall. His gaze roamed over the tattoos on his bare torso and he balled his fists at his sides.
“You don’t know pain,” he said in an angry, yet self-pitying tone, his eyes flitting back and forth between the inked lily on his heart and the black berries of belladonna on his side. His fingernails cut into his palms as his fists tightened just before slamming them into the mirror with a roar.
Splinters of silver glass clattered down into the sink as Snape sunk down to the floor and pulled his legs to his chest.
“You don’t know pain,” he repeated, folding his arm over his knees, the blood from his hands trickling down his shins as he began to cry, “not yet.”
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Songs of Regret