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My 3 drabbles from dramionedrabbles 2009 Easter Challenge
Title: A Difficult Choice
Author: Madeleone
Rating:G
Word Count: 873
Notes/Warning: written for 2009 Easter Angst Challenge prompt #3 Death is terrifying because it is so ordinary. It happens all the time. - Susan Cheever
Hermione stood in the doorway of the small study near the back of the Grimmauld Place, watching the blonde haired boy staring morosely out the window into the rain. Draco Malfoy had been here for several weeks following Dumbledores death on the Astronomy Tower. He hadn't killed the headmaster, but he had been deeply involved in the events that caused it. At any rate, Draco was more or less under house arrest until they could figure out what to do with him. Did they just keep him here indefinitely, send him back to Voldemort , put him in Azkaban with his father?
Hermione was unsure what she thought of the whole mess, especially now as she watched him. Malyfoy seemed so very lost and forlorn, like an innocent, not someone who could have successfully plotted the downfall of one of the most powerful wizards in history.
“Hey, Malfoy,” she said by way of greeting.
“What do you want Granger?” His voice clearly implied just leave me alone.
“Just thought you might like a little company. I can go if you'd like to be alone.”
“No, wait. It's OK I guess.”
“Want to play wizards chess or exploding snap or something?”
“No I don't think so.”
“Good, I'm pants at games anyway,” she replied with a smile.
She sat on the sofa and looked at him curiously. “Do you want to talk about anything?”
“Like what? Are you just being nice to try to get information out of me? I don't know anything you know.”
“No Malfoy. I didn't think you did. If you don't want to play games and you won't talk to me what else would we do in here?”
His eyes suddenly lit up and he waggled his eyebrows at her with a grin. “I might be able to think of something we could do.”
She slugged him in the shoulder, laughing. “Malfoy, you prat,” she scolded. But that seemed to break the tension and they started talking. Over the next few weeks they met often in the little study to read quietly together or talk.
The potential future Order member and the son of a Death Eater formed a grudging friendship of sorts. It changed both their perspectives on the others point of view. It was hard for him to see muggle-borns and muggles as the threat to the wizarding world he had been taught to believe they were. And she came to realize that he had gotten his prejudices through years of pure blood beliefs and fears passed down from one generation to the next. After all if someone told you something over and over again and insisted it was the truth, eventually you would surely believe it.
“I'm so confused, so unsure of what to do. Where do I stand in this war, Hermione? If I remain loyal to the Dark Lord I am choosing a side I know in my heart is fighting for the wrong things, things that I no longer believe in. But, if I chose to join the Order, I would be going against my own family and friends. How can I make a choice like that?”
“Maybe you could go away, not take sides. Just wait out the storm somewhere. Doesn't your family have properties in France?”
“That wouldn't work. The Dark Lord would find me there easily, he'd send someone after me.”
“I'm sure someone from the order could arrange a hiding place, with a Fidelius charm, you could be safe until the war is over one way or the other.”
“I think that sounds like a cowards way out. How would I feel afterwards if I just sat it out in hiding while people I care about die fighting. Unless... would you consider waiting it out with me?”
Hermione hesitated, thinking carefully before answering. “The choice is clear for me in all this, Draco. I fight for the light. The concept of a world where Voldemort wins would mean the end of me and my kind anyway.”
“But you might die if you fight.”
“I might die just as easily if I don't fight, Draco. Death is terrifying because it is so ordinary. It happens all the time. People die in their sleep, they die of illness, of accidents, of old age, in wars and in peace. People die every day, death is a fact of life. We're all going to die sooner or later. I guess to me, the possibility I might die for something I truly believe in makes the risk worthwhile.”
“It's not the thought of dying that scares me the most, it's the thought I might be called upon to kill my own parents, or friends in the heat of battle. Or if I fight fight for the other side what if I am asked to kill the people who have helped me, given me shelter, the Weasleys or Lupin or my cousin Tonks or you Hermione? How could I live with myself after that?”
“I don't know what the answer is, Draco. But can you live with yourself if you do nothing at all?
Title:New Traditions
Author:Madeleone
Rating:G
Word Count:135
Notes/Warning:written for 2009 Easter Angst Challenge prompt #5. Every act of creation is first an act of destruction. - Pablo Picasso
“What is it you want, from me?” he asked in a defeated tone.
“All I'm asking from you is public acknowledgement that we're together. If you can't give me that much then we have nothing.”
“You don't understand how hard telling my parents about us is. Destroying ten generations of blood purity is important in my father's eyes.”
“And how do you feel, Draco? Is it important to you as well? More important than us?” Her voice was soft, the hurt evident in her tone.
He thought carefully knowing that saying the wrong thing could destroy everything they'd built. “Nothing is more important to me than you, Hermione, nothing.” He reached for her hand, “Come on, let's go to the Manor, we're about to create a new Malfoy tradition.”
Title:The Promise
Author:Madeleone
Rating: R for strong language
Word Count:380
Notes/Warning:written for 2009 Easter Angst Challenge prompt #2. The first step in a person's salvation is knowledge of their sin. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Oh fuck, this can't be happening, he thought as he watch Granger convulsing, her screams piercing his skull and threatening to shatter his eardrums. This can't be happening right here on the floor of my own home. Please, oh please... let this be a bad dream... a nightmare... this can't be real.
Sure, he'd been mean to Granger at school, cruel even, some would say. Singling her out for his own brand of verbal abuse on a regular basis. But he had never wanted to physically hurt her, not like this; to see her tortured like this was wrong, even he could see that. Why were his parents just standing by and letting this happen, letting his insane Aunt Bella do these horrible things to her? And they acted like it was just a normal everyday occurrence to watch a girl being tortured in your drawing room. What the fuck?
Was this how it was suppose to work in their wonderful pureblood world? If you were muggle or mudblood, it was OK to treat you like little more than animals. She's not an animal, he wanted to scream. She was a girl... just a girl, someone he knew. Maybe half bloods would be next, and surely blood traitors were on the list as well. If this is how it was supposed to be he didn't want any Bloody part of it.
Silence fell as Granger passed out. Finally, blessed silence. Well you couldn't torture someone if they were unconscious, but of course that didn't stop Bella, she just cast a Rennervate and started right back in again with the questions and the Crucios. Her mad laughter ringing throughout the room. Fuck, she's enjoying this... getting off on it.
Oh please, he prayed to any Deity who might respond. Please, please, please... somebody, anybody... make this stop, do something, anything.
Hermione can't take much more of this, he thought. Surprising himself, he found he was thinking of her as Hermione, a real person, not the just the Mudblood or Granger . I don't want to have to watch someone I know die. Oh Gods, this is so wrong! Please just get us out of this and somehow, I'll find a way to change, to make a difference. I promise. I solemnly swear!