Prompt 4 - Hovel - Change Of Heart - ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spikespetslayer - Harry Po
Aug. 5th, 2006 06:58 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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tamingthemuseTitle: Change Of Heart
Author:spikespetslayer
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: None, really
Disclaimer: Don't own them, even if I wanted to...
Warnings: None; HBP compatible
Change Of Heart
He didn’t hate it because of size, impermanence, or location. The only real reason he could find to despise his location was because it was…dirty. Filthy. Disgusting.
Draco was fully aware of his situation. On the run, hiding from the Dark Lord and the Order of the Phoenix and praying that neither one would find him. He waited in the dilapidated house for Snape to return from where ever he went after dropping him here and tried to keep from touching anything. Muggle Studies had given him enough information to misinform him about disease and infection; his greatest fear was dying from some unknown, unbelievable mudblood illness.
He was so tired. His bones ached from weariness, his eyes drooped from exhaustion, and he knew that another step would send him over the edge into oblivion. Tired as he was, he knew that he couldn’t sleep in a place like this, dark and dank with the detritus and filth of the ages crusted on its surfaces. He couldn’t use magic to clean it because Snape had snapped his wand in two and warned him against wandless magic as well.
He sighed deeply and wrapped himself in his house cloak, prayed to whoever watched over wizards that he wouldn’t catch anything, and lay down on the floor to sleep the sleep of the damned.
*
Hours later he woke, stiff and sore with smudges of muck on his cheek and a suspicious look in his eye. A skittering pebble hit the sole of his dragonhide boot and he sat up reaching for an absent wand to defend against whomever was standing in the shadows watching him. They stood there silent and foreboding, an outline of a figure in the dim light of the moon that rose fat and full over the hillsides outside and he discovered his terror rising in his mouth like vomit when they didn’t move to show themselves directly.
Kicking himself, he began thinking of ways to have kept hidden. Pulling piles of the scattered papers over his prone form. Burrowing under the matted food and dirt on the floor. Hiding beneath the crooked table that hadn’t seen a meal in scores of years. His voice, when he finally found it, stuttered with his insecurity and youth. “W-who’s there? Show yourself!”
A figure separated from the night and he noticed wild hair and a wand pointed at him before anything else. The wand waved and a spell was cast, a full body bind that made his limbs rigid and his lithe form stiffen. Another wave and the hovel was clean, dirt floors spotless and garbage gone. A third wave and the fire sprang to life in the fireplace, snapping merrily in the hearth and warming him where he lay before it. He squinted into the darkness in a failed effort to see whom his captor was but that corner of the room remained dark, the flickering firelight unable to penetrate the gloom.
He tried to raise some remnants of his usual self from the depths but his fear was too great. “I suggest you—you don’t know who you’re dealing with. My father—”
“Your father is an insufferable toad and a bigot and is probably being tortured by Voldemort for your failure,” said the voice in the dark. “He is cursing the day he was born and so should you be for what you’ve done.”
Whoever it was knew who he was; a failure, a blight on his family name, a coward. He hadn’t been able to kill Dumbledore because the things that he had said in those last few minutes had penetrated the air of superiority he’d drawn about him like a cloak. They had soothed the child inside his mind with promises of biscuits and sweets and fireside chats, forgiveness and love and protection from what lurked under the bed in the middle of the coldest, darkest night.
“I didn’t—I couldn’t—” he said, his voice breaking as his chest burned with tears of regret that he could not shed. “All I did was let them in the school; they did the rest. I didn’t do anything.”
“I’m fully aware of what you did and did not do, Malfoy. It’s the only reason why you’re still alive talking to me instead of the alternative.” A figure stepped into the firelight and instead of easing the rising terror, it only intensified it. Snapping brown eyes raked his prone form from head to toe.
“Granger! Granger, let me go. Snape broke my wand and I’m no good with wandless magic. Let me go and you’ll never see my face again.”
She squatted down, her robes brushing against his legs as she prodded him with her wand. “I know,” she answered flatly. “That’s why you’re in a body bind and you’ll stay that way until the others get here. I’m just here to make sure that you’re alive and well.”
His stomach growled then, both embarrassing him and breaking the tension as it rumbled into the silence that seemed to drop between them. She took something from her pocket and waved her wand above it and a picnic basket grew from nothing. The smells of food hit his backbrain and he was already salivating without being aware of it.
She removed items from the basket and set them about. A joint of ham, some sausages, a large flask of what he couldn’t guess—she laid the food around him in her own subtle torture as his stomach continued to announce its unholy needy emptiness. “You will eat from my hand or you will starve,” she said, not meeting his eyes.
He nodded his agreement and she grabbed the front of his robes and hauled him to a sitting position with considerable effort. He winced as the material cut into his throat but offered no protest at her actions. She was being much kinder than he would be were their positions reversed.
Although the silence couldn’t have been called companionable, it was at least polite. Granger would hold a bite of food to his mouth and wait until he took it before she would eat herself, offering him sips of pumpkin juice between that he accepted or refused with a shake of his head. She watched him warily, waiting for him to revert to his usual behavior, but he was too grateful for the food to bother with being a prat.
If anything, he was grateful she hadn’t used one of the Unforgivable Curses on him the moment she walked into the hut. Feeding him seemed almost too kind and dreamlike after what he had done.
He paused in the middle of chewing on a large bite of sausage. “Why?”
“Why what?” she snapped, refusing to look at him.
“Why are you here, why are you feeding me, why? There’s no love lost between us, Granger, and I know that. We’ve always hated one another, you and I. Why did they send you?” He had no doubts now that the rumors were correct about his godfather—he was a blood traitor to the Dark Lord and went directly to the Order of the Phoenix when he left him here in the wood.
“I volunteered.” Her answer was short but it took his breath nonetheless.
“Volunteered? Why?” He couldn’t fathom what would make her choose to come to the middle of nowhere to find him, feed him, and clean him.
Throughout their interactions she had hidden behind her hair, keeping it as a curtain between them to hide her face from his gaze. Now she sat back on her heels, tossing the silky mane out of her face for the first time that night and let him see the full weight of her hate and disgust for what sat before her. “I wanted to see you at your lowest point, Malfoy. I wanted to see the mighty pureblood covered in filth and fear and stinking of cowardice. I wanted you to know that it was only a mudblood that would stoop low enough to volunteer to come and save your insignificant arse and hold you long enough for them to finish interrogating Snape before they come to get you.”
Her eyes were triumphant as she looked him in the face and saw the understanding dawning in his eyes. “See, you get it now. I was the only one who even offered. Ron and Harry were all for letting you remain out here alone, hopefully to starve. I was the only one who would come.” She gave a short bark of mirthless laughter. “I wanted you to see that you are lower than the mudbloods you despise at this moment. You’re a coward and a traitor, Malfoy, and I wanted you to know that I knew it.”
His heart fell to his stomach. He realized the rightness of her words as they left her mouth and penetrated the self-righteous fog that had surrounded him his entire tenure at Hogwarts. Deep inside he wished that he could turn the time back to repair what he had thrown aside in the six years that he’d been at school. He could have had friends, fierce friends that would have protected and cherished him; the people that he called friends probably were cursing his name as well at this moment.
He heard several pops as the air displaced outside the hut and feet were heard trampling toward their shelter. He knew that he had to speak quickly before the others arrived and the possibility was lost. “Granger, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything—”
She waved her hand, dismissing his apology. “Save it, Malfoy. I don’t want nor need some self-serving apology from you now. You’ll be treated well, even though you should be turned over to the Dementors. You’ll cooperate with the Order, if only to save your own worthless pureblood hide. Don’t expect me to believe a thing from your lying snake’s tongue, though. I may be muggle born, but I’m far from stupid.”
She had repacked the basket and shrunk it to fit in her pocket once again. Standing quickly, she headed toward the open door and back into the night.
“Granger.” She paused at the door, her hand on the lintel. “I’ll remember. I’ll remember that it was you, if only to keep myself humble. Will that suffice?”
She didn’t turn to answer him. “It will have to do. It’s a start.”
A start. A beginning. He had to tell himself that his old life was through and this was all a beginning of a new life and convince himself of a new way of thinking. It may be the only way to survive the war that was coming and save his hide—but it may be the way to mend things that he’d broken with his childish hands and beliefs. When he’d lowered his wand, he’d lowered his guard as well and the old wizard’s words had offered him hope for the first time in an age. Between the words of an old wizard and a young witch he recognized the depths to which he’d sunk and was unprepared for the rush of guilt that consumed him at his actions.
He would do better. He would have to if he wanted to live.
Author:
spikespetslayerRating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: None, really
Disclaimer: Don't own them, even if I wanted to...
Warnings: None; HBP compatible
Change Of Heart
He didn’t hate it because of size, impermanence, or location. The only real reason he could find to despise his location was because it was…dirty. Filthy. Disgusting.
Draco was fully aware of his situation. On the run, hiding from the Dark Lord and the Order of the Phoenix and praying that neither one would find him. He waited in the dilapidated house for Snape to return from where ever he went after dropping him here and tried to keep from touching anything. Muggle Studies had given him enough information to misinform him about disease and infection; his greatest fear was dying from some unknown, unbelievable mudblood illness.
He was so tired. His bones ached from weariness, his eyes drooped from exhaustion, and he knew that another step would send him over the edge into oblivion. Tired as he was, he knew that he couldn’t sleep in a place like this, dark and dank with the detritus and filth of the ages crusted on its surfaces. He couldn’t use magic to clean it because Snape had snapped his wand in two and warned him against wandless magic as well.
He sighed deeply and wrapped himself in his house cloak, prayed to whoever watched over wizards that he wouldn’t catch anything, and lay down on the floor to sleep the sleep of the damned.
*
Hours later he woke, stiff and sore with smudges of muck on his cheek and a suspicious look in his eye. A skittering pebble hit the sole of his dragonhide boot and he sat up reaching for an absent wand to defend against whomever was standing in the shadows watching him. They stood there silent and foreboding, an outline of a figure in the dim light of the moon that rose fat and full over the hillsides outside and he discovered his terror rising in his mouth like vomit when they didn’t move to show themselves directly.
Kicking himself, he began thinking of ways to have kept hidden. Pulling piles of the scattered papers over his prone form. Burrowing under the matted food and dirt on the floor. Hiding beneath the crooked table that hadn’t seen a meal in scores of years. His voice, when he finally found it, stuttered with his insecurity and youth. “W-who’s there? Show yourself!”
A figure separated from the night and he noticed wild hair and a wand pointed at him before anything else. The wand waved and a spell was cast, a full body bind that made his limbs rigid and his lithe form stiffen. Another wave and the hovel was clean, dirt floors spotless and garbage gone. A third wave and the fire sprang to life in the fireplace, snapping merrily in the hearth and warming him where he lay before it. He squinted into the darkness in a failed effort to see whom his captor was but that corner of the room remained dark, the flickering firelight unable to penetrate the gloom.
He tried to raise some remnants of his usual self from the depths but his fear was too great. “I suggest you—you don’t know who you’re dealing with. My father—”
“Your father is an insufferable toad and a bigot and is probably being tortured by Voldemort for your failure,” said the voice in the dark. “He is cursing the day he was born and so should you be for what you’ve done.”
Whoever it was knew who he was; a failure, a blight on his family name, a coward. He hadn’t been able to kill Dumbledore because the things that he had said in those last few minutes had penetrated the air of superiority he’d drawn about him like a cloak. They had soothed the child inside his mind with promises of biscuits and sweets and fireside chats, forgiveness and love and protection from what lurked under the bed in the middle of the coldest, darkest night.
“I didn’t—I couldn’t—” he said, his voice breaking as his chest burned with tears of regret that he could not shed. “All I did was let them in the school; they did the rest. I didn’t do anything.”
“I’m fully aware of what you did and did not do, Malfoy. It’s the only reason why you’re still alive talking to me instead of the alternative.” A figure stepped into the firelight and instead of easing the rising terror, it only intensified it. Snapping brown eyes raked his prone form from head to toe.
“Granger! Granger, let me go. Snape broke my wand and I’m no good with wandless magic. Let me go and you’ll never see my face again.”
She squatted down, her robes brushing against his legs as she prodded him with her wand. “I know,” she answered flatly. “That’s why you’re in a body bind and you’ll stay that way until the others get here. I’m just here to make sure that you’re alive and well.”
His stomach growled then, both embarrassing him and breaking the tension as it rumbled into the silence that seemed to drop between them. She took something from her pocket and waved her wand above it and a picnic basket grew from nothing. The smells of food hit his backbrain and he was already salivating without being aware of it.
She removed items from the basket and set them about. A joint of ham, some sausages, a large flask of what he couldn’t guess—she laid the food around him in her own subtle torture as his stomach continued to announce its unholy needy emptiness. “You will eat from my hand or you will starve,” she said, not meeting his eyes.
He nodded his agreement and she grabbed the front of his robes and hauled him to a sitting position with considerable effort. He winced as the material cut into his throat but offered no protest at her actions. She was being much kinder than he would be were their positions reversed.
Although the silence couldn’t have been called companionable, it was at least polite. Granger would hold a bite of food to his mouth and wait until he took it before she would eat herself, offering him sips of pumpkin juice between that he accepted or refused with a shake of his head. She watched him warily, waiting for him to revert to his usual behavior, but he was too grateful for the food to bother with being a prat.
If anything, he was grateful she hadn’t used one of the Unforgivable Curses on him the moment she walked into the hut. Feeding him seemed almost too kind and dreamlike after what he had done.
He paused in the middle of chewing on a large bite of sausage. “Why?”
“Why what?” she snapped, refusing to look at him.
“Why are you here, why are you feeding me, why? There’s no love lost between us, Granger, and I know that. We’ve always hated one another, you and I. Why did they send you?” He had no doubts now that the rumors were correct about his godfather—he was a blood traitor to the Dark Lord and went directly to the Order of the Phoenix when he left him here in the wood.
“I volunteered.” Her answer was short but it took his breath nonetheless.
“Volunteered? Why?” He couldn’t fathom what would make her choose to come to the middle of nowhere to find him, feed him, and clean him.
Throughout their interactions she had hidden behind her hair, keeping it as a curtain between them to hide her face from his gaze. Now she sat back on her heels, tossing the silky mane out of her face for the first time that night and let him see the full weight of her hate and disgust for what sat before her. “I wanted to see you at your lowest point, Malfoy. I wanted to see the mighty pureblood covered in filth and fear and stinking of cowardice. I wanted you to know that it was only a mudblood that would stoop low enough to volunteer to come and save your insignificant arse and hold you long enough for them to finish interrogating Snape before they come to get you.”
Her eyes were triumphant as she looked him in the face and saw the understanding dawning in his eyes. “See, you get it now. I was the only one who even offered. Ron and Harry were all for letting you remain out here alone, hopefully to starve. I was the only one who would come.” She gave a short bark of mirthless laughter. “I wanted you to see that you are lower than the mudbloods you despise at this moment. You’re a coward and a traitor, Malfoy, and I wanted you to know that I knew it.”
His heart fell to his stomach. He realized the rightness of her words as they left her mouth and penetrated the self-righteous fog that had surrounded him his entire tenure at Hogwarts. Deep inside he wished that he could turn the time back to repair what he had thrown aside in the six years that he’d been at school. He could have had friends, fierce friends that would have protected and cherished him; the people that he called friends probably were cursing his name as well at this moment.
He heard several pops as the air displaced outside the hut and feet were heard trampling toward their shelter. He knew that he had to speak quickly before the others arrived and the possibility was lost. “Granger, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything—”
She waved her hand, dismissing his apology. “Save it, Malfoy. I don’t want nor need some self-serving apology from you now. You’ll be treated well, even though you should be turned over to the Dementors. You’ll cooperate with the Order, if only to save your own worthless pureblood hide. Don’t expect me to believe a thing from your lying snake’s tongue, though. I may be muggle born, but I’m far from stupid.”
She had repacked the basket and shrunk it to fit in her pocket once again. Standing quickly, she headed toward the open door and back into the night.
“Granger.” She paused at the door, her hand on the lintel. “I’ll remember. I’ll remember that it was you, if only to keep myself humble. Will that suffice?”
She didn’t turn to answer him. “It will have to do. It’s a start.”
A start. A beginning. He had to tell himself that his old life was through and this was all a beginning of a new life and convince himself of a new way of thinking. It may be the only way to survive the war that was coming and save his hide—but it may be the way to mend things that he’d broken with his childish hands and beliefs. When he’d lowered his wand, he’d lowered his guard as well and the old wizard’s words had offered him hope for the first time in an age. Between the words of an old wizard and a young witch he recognized the depths to which he’d sunk and was unprepared for the rush of guilt that consumed him at his actions.
He would do better. He would have to if he wanted to live.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-05 02:29 pm (UTC)~Nebula