SoC So Far
Apr. 25th, 2002 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heidiCompletely untouchable, I knew no surprises
Wrapped in a cold world of my own devising
But I heard you smashing and swinging hard outside
Saw your face and I nearly died.
Harry Potter had died.
Harry Potter was dead, at the Manor. He lay crumpled on the ground in the garden, on the dirt, surrounded by Death Eaters, guarded by the Dark Lord.
He was dead and there was nothing Draco could do. There was nothing Draco could even think, his mind was awhirl with surprise. He'd stood and watched and saw the flash of green light, brighter and yet darker than it had been in Dark Arts class, and heard through the distance the swirl and scream of Potter’s spirit and magical essence as they were ripped from his body. Draco’s heightened attention to magic while he was in this astral state let him see the affect of the Avada Kedavera, and it looked different than it had in class. He could see the spell move from the Dark Lord’s wand and suffuse Potter in its green shimmer, then cut him down like a knife.
As Potter dropped, the green shimmer slammed to the ground with him, illuminating the grass with its terrible glow. Within an instant, the blades all crumpled around Potter; they died as he did. A sharp snapping noise began to hammer into Draco’s head, rhythmic and terrible.
It was applause. Potter hadn’t fully fallen yet, but the men who stood around him were clapping. Even Lucius set the torch he carried into the air, where it stood upright and unmoving, and slapped his palms together with the rest. The suddenness of the sound ripped the last of his concentration from his mind and the Projection ended sharply, unexpectedly, whipcording him through nothingness for those long and instantaneous moments until…
The moon was shining bright through the clear roof and in the darkness, the stars were sparkling merrily. The universe looked as if nothing about it had changed.
He was wrapped in softness and warmth, cocooning him around the chill that seemed to sit within his very bones and his soul. Someone must have come in and tucked him under a blanket in his bed in Eze. When he hadn’t moved in his dreamstate, had someone just thought he was in a deep sleep? Or had Narcissa been sent in to find him? For one moment he hoped as he never had before that it had been Narcissa, even though the comfortable bedding was very unlike her; she already knew what he was. Lucius would be furious if he had foolishly left his body unguarded during a Projection, and allowed his aunt or uncle to learn of his talent.
Draco caught himself before he finished that thought. Lucius had seen him there. Lucius would know that he’d watched Potter’s assassination. And the Dark Lord likely knew it as well – if he didn’t now, Lucius would certainly tell him posthaste. Any anger Lucius would have about an inadvertent disclosure to Charles or Shera would certainly be overwhelmed by his likely reaction to the events at the Manor that evening.
He’d hit the point of numbness, though his mind was finally starting to accept that what he’d seen had really happened. Foremost among his thoughts was the realization that Lucius could throw him under de facto house arrest for what had happened that night, or actually follow through on those “I’ll banish you and get myself a new family” threats that he’d made over the years. Or he might do the unexpected; it wouldn’t be the first time that Draco anticipated dramatic repercussions for something and found himself facing no obvious anger from Lucius at all. There was no way to predict which response he’d get this time; he hadn’t studied enough divination, and anyway, couldn’t take time to try and find out.
He certainly couldn’t just sit there with this terrible knowledge and this sick feeling in his stomach. He couldn’t sit with his mind blank and run through his usual evening routine of mental exercises and convince himself that he’d witnessed nothing of consequence and wait for Lucius and whatever consequences he brought.
No, that wasn’t something he could do. He knew that.
A glimmer of reason began to poke at the haphazard thoughts in his head. Someone must be told. If he knew anything about Lucius and about the Prophet, within a day the papers would be filled with the news that Harry Potter had been killed by the Dark Lord. That Potter had not fought, not protested, not shown the slightest glimmer of bravery, that he’d just sat on the grass and watched that wand point at him and listened to those words – the last words he’d ever hear.
Did he hear me scream, Draco wondered. Did he notice I was there? What did he think? What did he think of me?
There was nothing he could do for Potter now. He was dead, his spirit trapped in that twisted piece of wood that had killed him. And the world wouldn’t necessarily be a horrible place if he was gone; certainly school would be less frustrating without his smarmy attitude and pompous self-importance. But if Potter had been killed, the logical side of his mind insisted, that meant that those who were close to him might be in danger too. And they’d also probably be upset to hear that he’d been dead, he reasoned.
And Lucius was probably planning some banner headline in the paper, proclaiming the Dark Lord’s victory over The Boy Who Lived, shaking the foundation that the world had balanced on for over a decade. Nobody would know until Lucius allowed them to know.
She couldn’t find out that way.
Without even thinking about it, without making sure he had the energy for the jaunt he hoped to make, the world around Draco dissolved into blackness and he felt twisted on a whipcord for such a long second. In this travel, he felt just how exhausted and drained he was, and this terrible doubt nearly consumed him. He fought it, somehow knowing that if he gave in, not only would he never tell Hermione about what he’d seen, he’d probably not even make it back to his room. And in fighting, his mind filled with thoughts of Hermione, head bent over her books, hair pulled into that band’s tight embrace, focused and surrounded by a shimmer of concentration, almost framed like a picture with a border of wood.
His thoughts were so full of that image, it took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t just thinking of her; he was looking right at her as his legs dangled in midair and he leaned on a window sill. This must be Gryffindor Tower, he reasoned; only Hermione would study on a clear summer night when she’d had all day to spend with her books.
Draco watched as she sat not fifteen feet from him, picking her head up and looking into the fire crackling merrily in the fireplace. The flames reflected their red glow on her face, the same bright colour that filled and lined the room. Even though he really didn’t need to, he eased himself over the windowsill as she yawned and stretched her arms, her whole being as relaxed as he’d ever seen her.
“I’m going to ruin that.” He heard his own voice echo in the room, crashingly loud over the soft shift of wood in the fireplace. Hermione jumped.
“Draco?” She stood and turned in one simple motion and with a thought he was across the room, close enough to touch her hand if he’d been able to. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in France?” All of a sudden, she looked nervous, as if she could see the news he brought etched onto his face.
His mouth twitched nervously; he was more afraid of saying what he’d come here to say than he’d ever been when facing Lucius, or even Narcissa. He’d certainly watched people become devastated before; Lucius had him observe as he fired people or ruined careers, had shown him photos taken of crime scenes and battlegrounds where the faces of the witnesses moved from living ordinary lives into chaos. But he’d never known any of the people in the photos, and he’d never cared about any of the lives that he’d watched Lucius crush – not with any great sincerity, at least. Those who lost their jobs were incompetent The minor Ministry officials who were bribed, then exposed, were spineless and silly. The crime victims were poor, the soldiers went into battle willingly and Muggles were simply inherently weak.
This was personal. “I think you should sit down,” he advised, a bit of hesitation as he spoke the words. He didn’t know how to say what he’d come to say.
“I’ll stand,” she replied suspiciously.
“But I can’t catch you if you faint,” he said, knowing the words were stupid as he spoke them.
“I won’t faint, Draco, nothing could be that bad.” She held up her fingers and began listing things that Draco was sure she thought were impossible. “I’ve had a note from my parents, Ron is at the sea with his family, McGonnagal and Snape are in the castle, Dumbledore is off at a late supper with his brother in Inverness and Harry…”
“Potter’s dead.”
“What did you say?”
“I saw the Dark Lord kill him, not even an hour ago. He killed Harry,” using his first name in hopes of explaining so she would understand. Her face was frozen in surprise as he babbled about the circle of hooded men who watched and the tall, dark man who killed.
He paused and was sure she was going to burst into tears or even simply faint. He expected to see her eyelids flutter, her posture waver, her body swoon. He didn’t expect her to burst into whoops of laughter, but after watching her for a moment, he realized that she was quite hysterical, and there was nothing he could do. While she bent over at the waist, held her hands over her mouth and finally collapsed into a chair, he could do nothing but murmur platitudes that he wasn’t even sure she heard. Then, she sat down suddenly, all of a heap upon a stool in front of the fireplace, and continued laughing bitterly as though she would shake herself to pieces.
Before she had even regained her composure, she fought to speak. “He… can’t… be… dead…” she gasped as she caught her breath. “It’s… not… possible…”
“But I saw it, I…” He’d explain the details later, make her understand that he couldn’t have stopped it. Hermione was making so much noise with her hysterical chokes and gurgles that Draco wished he was able to reach for her and apply salts and sal volatile to quiet her, the way he’d done with Narcissa when a fit of anger made her collapse onto a chaise.
“No… I… mean…” She took one deep breath and looked up into his eyes, then spoke in a perfectly conversational tone. “I mean it really is impossible.”
“I saw the curse!” Draco insisted as he locked his eyes onto hers. “You have to believe me, I wouldn’t lie about this.” Was she delusional? Her face looked frozen, as if she had slipped under a façade.
She stood up from her place and moved to the side, her expression transforming into something he couldn’t quite comprehend. She was serene and completely focused. When Narcissa got hysterical or flew into a temper, her eyes would get glassy and her shoulders would tense and her hands would become fists or claws. Hermione looked nothing like that.
“Look in the fireplace, Draco.” She pointed into the fire and he saw there, suspended amid the flames, the head of Harry Potter.
Wrapped in a cold world of my own devising
But I heard you smashing and swinging hard outside
Saw your face and I nearly died.
Harry Potter had died.
Harry Potter was dead, at the Manor. He lay crumpled on the ground in the garden, on the dirt, surrounded by Death Eaters, guarded by the Dark Lord.
He was dead and there was nothing Draco could do. There was nothing Draco could even think, his mind was awhirl with surprise. He'd stood and watched and saw the flash of green light, brighter and yet darker than it had been in Dark Arts class, and heard through the distance the swirl and scream of Potter’s spirit and magical essence as they were ripped from his body. Draco’s heightened attention to magic while he was in this astral state let him see the affect of the Avada Kedavera, and it looked different than it had in class. He could see the spell move from the Dark Lord’s wand and suffuse Potter in its green shimmer, then cut him down like a knife.
As Potter dropped, the green shimmer slammed to the ground with him, illuminating the grass with its terrible glow. Within an instant, the blades all crumpled around Potter; they died as he did. A sharp snapping noise began to hammer into Draco’s head, rhythmic and terrible.
It was applause. Potter hadn’t fully fallen yet, but the men who stood around him were clapping. Even Lucius set the torch he carried into the air, where it stood upright and unmoving, and slapped his palms together with the rest. The suddenness of the sound ripped the last of his concentration from his mind and the Projection ended sharply, unexpectedly, whipcording him through nothingness for those long and instantaneous moments until…
The moon was shining bright through the clear roof and in the darkness, the stars were sparkling merrily. The universe looked as if nothing about it had changed.
He was wrapped in softness and warmth, cocooning him around the chill that seemed to sit within his very bones and his soul. Someone must have come in and tucked him under a blanket in his bed in Eze. When he hadn’t moved in his dreamstate, had someone just thought he was in a deep sleep? Or had Narcissa been sent in to find him? For one moment he hoped as he never had before that it had been Narcissa, even though the comfortable bedding was very unlike her; she already knew what he was. Lucius would be furious if he had foolishly left his body unguarded during a Projection, and allowed his aunt or uncle to learn of his talent.
Draco caught himself before he finished that thought. Lucius had seen him there. Lucius would know that he’d watched Potter’s assassination. And the Dark Lord likely knew it as well – if he didn’t now, Lucius would certainly tell him posthaste. Any anger Lucius would have about an inadvertent disclosure to Charles or Shera would certainly be overwhelmed by his likely reaction to the events at the Manor that evening.
He’d hit the point of numbness, though his mind was finally starting to accept that what he’d seen had really happened. Foremost among his thoughts was the realization that Lucius could throw him under de facto house arrest for what had happened that night, or actually follow through on those “I’ll banish you and get myself a new family” threats that he’d made over the years. Or he might do the unexpected; it wouldn’t be the first time that Draco anticipated dramatic repercussions for something and found himself facing no obvious anger from Lucius at all. There was no way to predict which response he’d get this time; he hadn’t studied enough divination, and anyway, couldn’t take time to try and find out.
He certainly couldn’t just sit there with this terrible knowledge and this sick feeling in his stomach. He couldn’t sit with his mind blank and run through his usual evening routine of mental exercises and convince himself that he’d witnessed nothing of consequence and wait for Lucius and whatever consequences he brought.
No, that wasn’t something he could do. He knew that.
A glimmer of reason began to poke at the haphazard thoughts in his head. Someone must be told. If he knew anything about Lucius and about the Prophet, within a day the papers would be filled with the news that Harry Potter had been killed by the Dark Lord. That Potter had not fought, not protested, not shown the slightest glimmer of bravery, that he’d just sat on the grass and watched that wand point at him and listened to those words – the last words he’d ever hear.
Did he hear me scream, Draco wondered. Did he notice I was there? What did he think? What did he think of me?
There was nothing he could do for Potter now. He was dead, his spirit trapped in that twisted piece of wood that had killed him. And the world wouldn’t necessarily be a horrible place if he was gone; certainly school would be less frustrating without his smarmy attitude and pompous self-importance. But if Potter had been killed, the logical side of his mind insisted, that meant that those who were close to him might be in danger too. And they’d also probably be upset to hear that he’d been dead, he reasoned.
And Lucius was probably planning some banner headline in the paper, proclaiming the Dark Lord’s victory over The Boy Who Lived, shaking the foundation that the world had balanced on for over a decade. Nobody would know until Lucius allowed them to know.
She couldn’t find out that way.
Without even thinking about it, without making sure he had the energy for the jaunt he hoped to make, the world around Draco dissolved into blackness and he felt twisted on a whipcord for such a long second. In this travel, he felt just how exhausted and drained he was, and this terrible doubt nearly consumed him. He fought it, somehow knowing that if he gave in, not only would he never tell Hermione about what he’d seen, he’d probably not even make it back to his room. And in fighting, his mind filled with thoughts of Hermione, head bent over her books, hair pulled into that band’s tight embrace, focused and surrounded by a shimmer of concentration, almost framed like a picture with a border of wood.
His thoughts were so full of that image, it took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t just thinking of her; he was looking right at her as his legs dangled in midair and he leaned on a window sill. This must be Gryffindor Tower, he reasoned; only Hermione would study on a clear summer night when she’d had all day to spend with her books.
Draco watched as she sat not fifteen feet from him, picking her head up and looking into the fire crackling merrily in the fireplace. The flames reflected their red glow on her face, the same bright colour that filled and lined the room. Even though he really didn’t need to, he eased himself over the windowsill as she yawned and stretched her arms, her whole being as relaxed as he’d ever seen her.
“I’m going to ruin that.” He heard his own voice echo in the room, crashingly loud over the soft shift of wood in the fireplace. Hermione jumped.
“Draco?” She stood and turned in one simple motion and with a thought he was across the room, close enough to touch her hand if he’d been able to. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in France?” All of a sudden, she looked nervous, as if she could see the news he brought etched onto his face.
His mouth twitched nervously; he was more afraid of saying what he’d come here to say than he’d ever been when facing Lucius, or even Narcissa. He’d certainly watched people become devastated before; Lucius had him observe as he fired people or ruined careers, had shown him photos taken of crime scenes and battlegrounds where the faces of the witnesses moved from living ordinary lives into chaos. But he’d never known any of the people in the photos, and he’d never cared about any of the lives that he’d watched Lucius crush – not with any great sincerity, at least. Those who lost their jobs were incompetent The minor Ministry officials who were bribed, then exposed, were spineless and silly. The crime victims were poor, the soldiers went into battle willingly and Muggles were simply inherently weak.
This was personal. “I think you should sit down,” he advised, a bit of hesitation as he spoke the words. He didn’t know how to say what he’d come to say.
“I’ll stand,” she replied suspiciously.
“But I can’t catch you if you faint,” he said, knowing the words were stupid as he spoke them.
“I won’t faint, Draco, nothing could be that bad.” She held up her fingers and began listing things that Draco was sure she thought were impossible. “I’ve had a note from my parents, Ron is at the sea with his family, McGonnagal and Snape are in the castle, Dumbledore is off at a late supper with his brother in Inverness and Harry…”
“Potter’s dead.”
“What did you say?”
“I saw the Dark Lord kill him, not even an hour ago. He killed Harry,” using his first name in hopes of explaining so she would understand. Her face was frozen in surprise as he babbled about the circle of hooded men who watched and the tall, dark man who killed.
He paused and was sure she was going to burst into tears or even simply faint. He expected to see her eyelids flutter, her posture waver, her body swoon. He didn’t expect her to burst into whoops of laughter, but after watching her for a moment, he realized that she was quite hysterical, and there was nothing he could do. While she bent over at the waist, held her hands over her mouth and finally collapsed into a chair, he could do nothing but murmur platitudes that he wasn’t even sure she heard. Then, she sat down suddenly, all of a heap upon a stool in front of the fireplace, and continued laughing bitterly as though she would shake herself to pieces.
Before she had even regained her composure, she fought to speak. “He… can’t… be… dead…” she gasped as she caught her breath. “It’s… not… possible…”
“But I saw it, I…” He’d explain the details later, make her understand that he couldn’t have stopped it. Hermione was making so much noise with her hysterical chokes and gurgles that Draco wished he was able to reach for her and apply salts and sal volatile to quiet her, the way he’d done with Narcissa when a fit of anger made her collapse onto a chaise.
“No… I… mean…” She took one deep breath and looked up into his eyes, then spoke in a perfectly conversational tone. “I mean it really is impossible.”
“I saw the curse!” Draco insisted as he locked his eyes onto hers. “You have to believe me, I wouldn’t lie about this.” Was she delusional? Her face looked frozen, as if she had slipped under a façade.
She stood up from her place and moved to the side, her expression transforming into something he couldn’t quite comprehend. She was serene and completely focused. When Narcissa got hysterical or flew into a temper, her eyes would get glassy and her shoulders would tense and her hands would become fists or claws. Hermione looked nothing like that.
“Look in the fireplace, Draco.” She pointed into the fire and he saw there, suspended amid the flames, the head of Harry Potter.
