Saturday, May 5, 2007

Pure Lunacy


Lookie, lookie!

I found this adorable Draco-Hermione fic just now, and I wanted to share it with you. I'll probably post this in OP, but my blogger Macofriends will have the unabridged version.

The author is xylitol in Fanfiction.net.

This is an interview, where you, the reader, get the gist of the questions from Draco's answers. The questions are invisible and are just represented by the letter Q. Get it? Here we go!


for the first timeI'm telling how much I need and bleed foryour every move and waking sound in my timeI'll wrap my wire around your heartand your mindyou're mine forever nowwho wouldn't be the one you love and live forwho wouldn't stand inside your love and die forwho wouldn't be the one you love -Stand Inside your Love, The Smashing Pumpkins



Q.
They all like to say that I 'saw' the light. That one day I woke up and decided that Voldemort was not the way and that Dumbledore and his army were. That I finally saw that being an evil bastard was just not a good thing to be.
Give me a break.
The truth is I figured out after awhile that I was on the losing side. And being the smart guy I am, I gracefully made my way over to the winning side. That, and I wanted to spite my father. Because, you know, all boys hate their fathers.
Q.
No, they do. It's some deep, psychological thing. That, and my father was a real jackass.
Q.
It has a lot to do with her. Do you think if I was still a Death Eater I would have fallen in love with Hermione Granger? Come on, now. That's not to say that when I switched sides I fell head over heels right away. In fact, I hated Granger more than ever. Since the Aurors couldn't really be sure of me, they assigned one of their best to keep an eye on me. One of their best happened to be Granger, of course. And she was awful. She took everything I said as some symbolic threat. She followed me everywhere. If I made any sudden movements, she stupefied me. And you know, I think that might have caused some brain damage. That, and I developed a tic. She constantly questioned my actions.
'Why are you sitting there?'
'Why are you reading that?'
'Why do you want to go there?'
'Why are you breathing?'
Q.
No, she didn't ask me why I was breathing, but I'm trying to make a point here. Anyway this went on for about two months, and I was about to go back to being a Death Eater.
Q.
Yeah, really. But then, the Ministry was directly attacked. Remember that? Remember hearing about how nasty it was? Well, I was there, fighting against those I used to call comrades. I was dealing with MacNair when my father, the bastard, cast a really nasty curse meant for me. And guess what happened?
Q.
Granger screamed my name, my first name, pushed me out of the way and got hit by it instead. It pissed me off, I've never been so angry.
Q.
Well, I killed MacNair, and then I turned around and killed my father.
…Q.
Yeah, it was me who kill Lucius Malfoy. I asked the people who witnessed it to keep quiet about the situation.
Q.
It felt good. And no, I don't regret it at all. Actually, that's not true, I did regret it a little when Weasley… Ron Weasley complained that Lucius would have been better to us alive. But other than that…
Q.
She was unconscious for nearly a month, as you know. You were all pretty sure she wouldn't wake up, that she was brain dead. But I knew better, I knew that Granger was a fighter, so I didn't give up on her.
Q.
…No, that's not when I fell in love with her! Are you crazy? I despised her more than anything that month. If she died, then her life would have been on my hands. And I hated her for putting me in that position. She woke up, though. And she looked at Potter, at Weasley, at Lupin, and then at me. And do you know what the first words out of her mouth were?
Q.
'Are you alright, Malfoy?' What the hell kind of question is that to ask after being in a coma for a month? 'Are you alright, Malfoy?' What a lunatic.
Q.
I said I was fine. And she smiled that small smile of hers that made you feel like you were the most important and wonderful person in the world. Then she drifted back into a healthy sleep, leaving the four of us dumbfounded.
Q.
After she was fully recovered and back in business the most evil man in the world decided to do the most sadistic thing.
Q.
No, not Voldemort. Dumbledore. Anyway, he decided that Granger and I would make a good team. I failed to see the logic in this arrangement, and so did Granger. But Dumbledore apparently saw plenty of logic, because he pushed for it. I don't think I've ever resented the crazy, old man more.
So, Granger and I would become the strangest and most unlikely partners in Auror history, but we would also become the best. It turned out, that despite all our differences, Granger and I thought alike. We just executed our tactics differently. She was a Gryffindor and I was a Slytherin, after all. After arguing these tactics with each other, and nearly biting each other's head off in the process, we would eventually settle for middle ground. This really threw off our enemies, and we had many victories as a result. And since Granger was naturally inclined to be act like an overly sentimental idiot, and I had a debt to pay, we always looked out for each other. You wouldn't believe the bounty Voldemort put on our heads. Makes a chap feel kind of proud.
Q.
Yeah, yeah, I'm getting to it. What is it with you women and romance? So, here were me and Granger, kicking Death Eater ass. And when we weren't kicking Death Eater ass, or fighting, we treated each other with a cold formality. Potter would later say that the sexual tension between us was glaringly obvious.
Q.
No. I really didn't feel any sexual tension at all during that time. At least, not consciously. I had no reason to, you see. For the most part, I forgot that my partner was female, and I preferred it that way. It made things less complicated. … But that would change, unfortunately.
One day, one horrible day, I went to Granger's flat to discuss our newest assignment. She didn't answer the door after I rang the bell twice, so I just walked right in. I remember being annoyed at her for never bothering to lock her door. As I was closing it, and locking it myself, I heard a crash from her bedroom. And it scared the hell out of me. What if she was being attacked? So I kicked opened her bedroom door, and stepped in, wand ready. But Granger wasn't being attacked, the rack that held all those …what are they called? Those flat, silver plates that muggles use to play music? DZs? …DCs? …No, CDs! Yeah, that's it. Anyway, it fell and the CD's were scattered all over her bedroom floor. I would have just rolled my eyes, called her a klutz, and told her to hurry up. If it weren't for one very unfortunate detail…
Q.
Granger was standing there, staring wide-eyed at the fallen CD rack, hairbrush in her hand, hair wet, bath towel at her feet, completely naked and completely perfect in everyway. When I burst into the room, she looked up at me, and then back down at the towel that, I'm assuming, she dropped when the CD rack fell, then she looked up at me. Then a lovely blush stained her cheeks, and she screamed at me to get the hell of her room and threw the hairbrush at me. I was out of her room in less than a second, and then out of her flat in two seconds. But it was already too late. I had seen enough for my mind and body to remember that Hermione Granger was, indeed, a female, and a very nice looking one at that.
Q.
That little minx pretended the whole thing never happened. And I figured I could get over it just fine. I mean, it's not like I was deprived or anything, I knew plenty of girls that would be willing and ready to sleep with me. But things only got worse for me, because suddenly I was noticing things. The shapeliness and fullness of her lips that made her look like she was pouting. The way she bit that bottom lip when she was nervous. The dimple in her right cheek when she smiled. The fact that her eyes were the color of cinnamon. The way she lifted her chin stubbornly when she knew she was right. The small mole on her right shoulder. The way she talked with her hands. How she always smelled of Vanilla. Her no-nonsense walk. The little sounds she made when she was irritated with me. All of it just came into full focus.
Q.
It made me want to scream at her and destroy her with one good hex. But mostly I wanted to kiss her until she couldn't think straight. I wanted to push her against my desk in our office, rip all of her non-flattering clothes off, and take her right then and there. Right on that damn desk. I wanted to replace that self-righteous look of hers with a look of pure pleasure. …And I really could go on and on, but from the look on your face, I doubt you think it's appropriate.
…Q.
Well, the lust was fast and chaotic, and it left me breathless. The love, on the other hand, was a bit sneakier; it crept up on me slowly. In the beginning, it was a very rare thing for Granger and I just to talk.You know, have a conversation about a book or something. But gradually, Granger would just start telling me things. What she thought of a book, the weather, a color, rumors, universal theories and stuff like that. It was in her nature to enjoy discussing things; she just needed to get comfortable enough with a person before she did. And being that she spent time with me more than anyone else, she probably figured that she either had to fight against her nature, or give in and get comfortable with me. She chose the latter. So, I got to know Granger really well. And after awhile, she became more than my partner, and a great annoyance in my life. She became a person. And I liked the person she was. Why wouldn't I? She was intelligent, witty, and she had a good sense of humor.
Q.
The day I realized I was in love with her was the day we got caught in the rain. We were tying up some loose ends in a muggle park where the Death Eaters had killed a few muggles a few weeks before. It was dismal, boring, routine work that always put Granger in a dark mood. We both wanted to be done and out as soon as possible. Just as we finished, the sky, which had been ominously dark all day, rumbled with a loud thunderclap, and rained down on us. We were drenched in seconds. I yelled at Granger over the rain that we were done and that we needed to get the hell out of that park before we drowned. But Granger just stood, staring straight ahead, seeing something that wasn't really there. I remember scowling and walking over to her, and putting my hand on her shoulder, shaking her…
"We need to go!" I said.
She turned and looked at me, smiling sadly. "Everyone thinks that rain represents sadness, death, misery… all those horrible things. I've never thought that. Rain is life, rain washes away all the bad, all the pain."
She lifted her arms and face to the sky, and spun once. Then she glanced at me and her smile was no longer sad, but happy and playful. She put her arms down and took my hands in hers. "Play with me, Malfoy!"
I stared at her like she had lost it. "...What?"
Her smile grew wider. "Play in the rain with me!"
Then she pulled me with her into a puddle that was nearly knee-deep in depth. I glared at her and started making my way out of that lake of a puddle, but she held on. I gave my wrist a good, hard yank, which took her by surprise and had her falling into me. I lost my balance and we both fell.
I was in the cold, muddy water, but her body was warm and soft against mine. It was an extremely uncomfortable situation. "Damn it, Granger!"
She looked at me a bit wide-eyed, then rolled off me much to my relief and misery, and sat next to me. "Geez, Malfoy. Way to ruin the fun."
I sneered, gripped a handful of mud at the bottom of the puddle, and smeared it on to her face. She screamed in surprise, and took her own handful of mud and threw it at me. It went on like that. We threw mud at each other like we were five-year-old Neanderthals.
Eventually she yelled that she gave up and then she laughed, that rich and carefree laugh that I loved, but I didn't know why. I just grinned at her.
"See? Wasn't that fun?" She said.
"Oh yes, but it might have been more fun if you were naked… and you were fighting in the mud with another naked girl. And I was a few feet away, under an umbrella, cheering you on." I drawled, trying to wipe some of the mud off my face.
She laughed again. "You need to get your head out of the gutter." And she leaned forward, and wiped the mud off of my cheek gently.
And it was there, right there, when I knew that I was in love. … Oh holy hell, are you crying?
…Q-q.
Oh, quit crying, it's not a big deal. And I didn't do anything about it. We got up and Apparated back to the ministry.
Q!
Because I was scared. And it takes a lot for me to admit that, even now. I'd never been in love before, and it was overwhelming. It was consuming. I could barely look her in the eye afterwards because I was so afraid she'd see. It was torture working with her. It's hard to be so close to your idea of perfection and knowing that it would never be yours.
Q.
I didn't tell her because all my life I was used to getting what I wanted, but this situation was different, because she had to want the same thing for it to work. I wasn't used to that. I am the proverbial only child that is spoiled and selfish, and I was afraid of being rejected for the first time in my life.
Q.
After awhile it got to be too much for me, so I started distancing myself from her. I pushed her away; I treated her like I did in the past. With a cold formality, except this time without the fighting. I could tell it bothered her, and she confronted me about it, but I brushed her off. And finally, she gave up trying to find out what was wrong, just accepted things. She did that, you know, accepted things even though she was unhappy with them.
Q. Q! Q!
Yes, yes it was wrong and probably very unhealthy, but that's the way it was. And I figured that would be that, you know? That I would be forever in love with someone I could not have. Eventually, I started getting used to the idea, because I just have so much strength. Then Granger started dating Adonis Makarios, that Greek prat from the Charms Department.
Q.
Well, I'm glad you remember. I remember too. I remember that it drove me fucking crazy. Excuse my language. Jealously, stark raving mad jealously was another emotion I was quite unfamiliar with. I wanted to kill him. Every time I saw them flirting with each other at work I wanted to break his face. Every time she mentioned she was going on a date with him, I wanted to grab her and kiss her and tell her she was mine, all mine. But I didn't, because I figured that I was better than that… and that the relationship wouldn't last more than two weeks because Granger was so focused on her job that she wouldn't let it become serious. But Makarios was a persistent guy, and he wouldn't take no for an answer, and when they were still dating after three weeks, I lost it…
"I'm leaving early today," She said. Her face was bright, and she was smiling very prettily.
"Why's that?" I asked, enchanted by her smile and that dimple of hers.
"Adonis is taking me out to dinner tonight," She said cheerfully, while tidying up things on my desk like she always did.
My eyes narrowed and I clenched my hands into tight fists. "Dinner, huh? So I guess it's just a matter of time before he's in your pants," I spat.
She dropped some paperwork, startled. "H-how dare you say such a thing!? You have no right to say something like that to me! What I do with my personal life is none of your business!"
I stood up from my chair and leaned closer, the desk the only thing that stop me from grabbing her and drowning in the vanilla that clouded all my senses. "I can say anything I fucking want to," I hissed.
"And just what gives you the right!?"
I didn't have a reasonable answer for that one. So I threw out another insult. "Hey, I'm just worried that when he decides to fuck you you'll get distracted from what matters. Your job."
Her own eyes narrowed, and she smiled cruelly. "Oh? Is that all? Well what makes you think that he hasn't fucked me already?"
It was the most vulgar thing I'd ever heard her say, and it was like a slap in the face. Unwanted images of she and Makarios together making love flashed through my head, and left me sick to the stomach.
My shock and revulsion must have been clear on my face, because in a huff she stomped around his desk and stood only what seemed like an inch in front of me.
"Just what is your problem, Malfoy? You've been acting like a complete bastard to me for nearly two months, and I know it's not just Adonis, because I only started dating him a month ago. So tell me, what is the problem!?"
"I don't have to deal with this," I said, not meeting her eye, and began to move away. I couldn't breathe suddenly.
But Granger pushed me as hard as she could against the desk and it had me thinking of all those not-so-innocent fantasies. …I really needed to get out.
"I want answers, Malfoy! And you're not leaving until I get them! Her voice was desperate and nearly hysterical.
And something else inside me snapped.
"You want answers, Granger? I'll give you fucking answers. I can't stop thinking about you. Everywhere I go, everything I see, everything I do reminds me of you. You drive me fucking crazy! I want… I can't…" My voice trailed off. I had just done a very un-Malfoy like thing. I wanted somebody to kill me right then and there.
Granger stared at me, cute and confused. "What are you saying, Malfoy?"
I pushed her away from me, gently, but the intent was still there. I didn't want her near me. "That I'm in love with you and I don't fucking LIKE IT! Now you know. Now you can go on your little date and you can go fuck Makarios. Go. Get out. Have a bloody wonderful time!"
Granger just stood there, looking shocked.
"Granger, I suggest you stop standing there looking like an idiot and go before I do something we're both gonna regret," I said, meaning every word.
She cocked her said to the side, and the shock was gone replaced by curiousity. "Like what?" She asked, her voice so nauseatingly innocent that I knew she was trying to bait me.
So I decided to show her just what.
I stepped forward and kissed her. Hard. All my frustrations went into that kiss. I wanted her to know just how crazy I was because I couldn't have her. Then Granger took me completely by surprise. She returned my kiss with the same vigor and passion. It turned out that she was just as frustrated as I was.
So there you have it. It turned out that Granger was in love with me too. Makarios had just been a charming and pleasant distraction that got her mind off of me, she later admitted. And she never slept with him, much to my relief. I demanded that she break off all ties with him and never speak to him again.
Q!
...She didn't, anyway. She's not like that, unfortunately. She just explained everything to him, and he understood completely, because he's Greek and that makes him all mystical and wise. … Or something. Anyway, they're still good friends, and I still despise him. You can't always win.
Q.
For some time, actually. You're going to have to ask her about it yourself, because that's her story to tell.
Q.
Not as shocked as I thought they'd be. I guess everyone had seen what we hadn't. Dumbledore's eyes just twinkled in that way that really pisses me off. And Potter and Weasley…er, Ron just told me if I hurt her they'd kill me. Slowly.
Q.
We wanted to wait until Voldemort was defeated. I told Potter to hurry it up, because I was getting impatient, and the man pulled through for me.
…Q!
…Oh come on, of course you can rush the defeat and death of a dark and powerful wizard. I even helped him out with it. What are you so mad at me for? I'm a hero!
Q.
I only refer to her as Granger when I'm talking about her to other people, now. She's the same. Our first names have become somthing of a pet name to each other, which is kind of sad, now that I think about it.
Q.
I'm very happy.
Q.
Prepared? What is there to be prepared for? I'm getting married, not going to war.
Q.
No, I'm not nervous. But you're starting to make me feel that way. Really, the only thing I used to worry about is the lack of a sex life that marriage usually causes. But I don't worry about that anymore.
Q.
Because I know you.
Q!
You and your husband had SEVEN kids. You guys must have been going at it all the time after you got married.
SMACK!
Fin.

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