A/N: Okay, unlike Bleed, this fic’s
predecessor, this one requires an author’s note (and PLEASE, READ IT! It’s VERY necessary!). I really don’t feel that this quite measures
up to Bleed, at least, not to anyone
who’s not me or doesn’t quite understand what’s behind these fics. (These fics are very special to me, because
of how personal they are.) In fact, I
wasn’t planning on writing a sequel to Bleed, but I got a review from
indigo_dream for it that mentioned how it was actually sort of like the song “Smoke”
by Natalie Imbruglia. You see, the
lyrics from that song are “Why, bleeding is breathing, you’re hiding underneath
the smoke in the room…” and I guess that, and the song that I used for this fic
gave me the inspiration for this fic.
It’s a songfic to “What Do I Have To Do” by Stabbing Westward. It is my absolute favorite song, and I had
been wanting to use it for something.
It might seem at first that the song doesn’t quite fit this, but it
does, trust me.
Everything in this fic fits
together, and makes sense. I made sure
of it. I even did research, which
succeeded in thoroughly freaking me out.
That research was on symbols in dreams and dream interpretation. I have a whole list of just the dream
symbols in this fic. If you want it, I
can send it to you.
And now I just have a few
things to say about Bleed (I just
couldn’t bring myself to tarnish that fic with an author’s note)… there are a
lot of symbols in that one, but I don’t really want to explain those. They’re pretty easy to find, unlike the ones
in this fic. I found so many songs that
seem to relate to Bleed. In addition to “Smoke,” I’ve found “Just
What I Needed” by The Cars, “Amazing” by Aerosmith, and “November Rain” by Guns
N Roses (that’s what I used in the summary).
I’m sure that there were others, too.
If this fic ends up on FF.n, I
don’t know what I could have been thinking.
This isn’t as good as Bleed, and it sort
of ruins Bleed. Bleed is raw
emotion, and it’s just so powerful and blows you away, and then this sort of takes
away some of that impact. If you don’t
want that to happen for you, DON’T READ THIS FIC! I am giving you fair warning.
If you REALLY REALLY liked Bleed, think about
whether you REALLY want to read this fic.
By the way, this is my longest
fic ever, aside from The Witches From
Thunder Canyon, and Wizards’ Day
Out, but they don’t really count, because they’re Canyon Crew fics, and
those are a completely different genre altogether. This fic took me the longest of any of my fics to write, too
(once again, aside from the two Canyon Crew/Harry Potter crossovers). Took me a week, exactly. Usually I write HP fics in one day, and it’s
very rare for me to take more time than that.
And when I do that, it’s only two days.
This took me every day of a week.
I was VERY into it, just like when I wrote Bleed (that one took me five days). When I’m writing only for myself, I can
really get into it like that. That’s
the best kind of writing.
Disclaimer: The characters don’t belong to me; they belong to J.K. Rowling. “What Do I Have To Do” belongs to Stabbing
Westward. (It’s a really good song, and
I recommend that you download it. Now.)
Breathe
There was a flash of green.
Hermione was standing in one of Hogwarts’ hallways, not wanting to be there. It was all too foreboding to her, because at her feet lay the corpse of Draco Malfoy. And he wasn’t lying there because of some freak accident, or because of the wrath of a powerful dark wizard. He was dead because Hermione had killed him.
She staggered back on her feet, her hands out in front of her, as if shielding herself from some sort of bad karma. In horror, she glimpsed the blood freely flowing from her knuckles. It just couldn’t be. She had killed Draco a year ago, but somehow, there he was, freshly fallen, and her hand was bleeding just as it was on that day, after she had punched the wall.
Taking another step back, she laboriously breathed out one syllable. “No.”
She didn’t understand at all why she was back at the scene of the crime that she had guiltlessly left so long ago and never even thought of since. By then, people had somehow found out that Hermione was in love with Draco – and assumed that he loved her just as she loved him – so the Death Eaters’ revenge was perfectly feasible. Hermione had deserted that desolate hallway and made sure never to come back. She had managed very well to do so, because she never needed to go through it, and never did. Until now.
She didn’t want to be there, once again beholding the scene in front of her. Draco was dead, all because of her, and not because of a disgruntled Death Eater, as she had persuaded everyone else, and later, herself. She couldn’t take it anymore, and turned around, her back to the body of the person she had once loved.
What she now saw in front of her was almost equally as startling as that behind her. It was a swirling black mass that somehow resembled a tornado except that it was spinning around much more slowly. Actually, it was more like a hurricane, because the blackness looked like water, and almost gel-like.
The black liquid was starting to lap over her feet and she was anchored in place, unable to move her feet from where they were planted. It oozed over her, first moving slowly upwards from her feet to her legs, quickening its pace with every passing second. Soon it was over her mouth, rendering her helpless to scream as she was pulled into the abyss.
The liquid was so thick that she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even think. With all her might, she tried to resist it, the quicksand jelly, but it was no use, so she finally let up. As soon as she did so, the resistance was gone, and she could move. But it took Hermione a few moments to realize where she was moving – downwards.
She was plummeting towards the ground at an alarming rate of speed. At least, she thought she was falling to the ground, even though she couldn’t see it. Where else could she be falling to?
Suddenly, the falling stopped. Everything was still black, and Hermione was sitting down, but on what, she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t see a thing, and then she felt the presence of someone next to her. She couldn’t see the person’s face, or anything about the person that could distinguish him or her to Hermione.
“Herm, don’t worry about them. You have me,” came a male voice from next to her. She knew it had to be the person, even though she couldn’t see him talk, or if they were alone. The voice, and the words, were awfully familiar, but she just couldn’t quite place it. Or maybe she didn’t want to.
Without willing herself to, words escaped from her lips. “I’m glad I do have you, Draco.” What was going on? Draco was next to her? It couldn’t be. She could hear the person next to her breathing. Draco was dead.
I can feel your heartbeat
through my skin
She felt herself putting her head on the person’s shoulder, and then he softly kissed her on the forehead and put his arm around her waist. She wanted to push the person away, to get his strange hands off of herself, but she was unable to take control of her own hands, let alone any other part of her body. She felt herself moving closer to the person, and then leaned back on him. She was helpless to resist, and gave up the unseen force that was pushing her to do things beyond her control.
She held her breath, unable to breathe with the person’s hands on her, and quickly wandering to where they were unwelcome. Somehow, she wasn’t thinking about the fact that the stranger’s hands weren’t supposed to be there, but that his hands weren’t that strange, after all. She had felt that very same smooth skin against her own before. It was Draco.
She remembered that one time when his hands had caressed her body. It had felt so good, so right… but at the same time, it felt almost wrong. That was when she had been in love with Draco, and she knew that much, but not whether he actually returned her love. Hermione’s head became a rush of emotions that she thought she had forgotten about, and then, she found that she was again alone in the darkness.
It makes
me sad to think
this could all be for nothing
In the darkness, she found herself remembering how much she had loved Draco. All she had ever thought about was Draco, and she had never wanted to be with anyone else, even Ron and Harry. The tensions between her and the two boys were the reason that she had gotten close to Draco in the first place. She had had nowhere to turn, and one day, Draco was just there.
If only she could have known that Draco had only one thing on his mind, as all males do. If only she could have known that he never would return her feelings, or that they wouldn’t matter to him. If only she could have known not to trust Draco with her heart, she could have avoided the pain.
Actually, she did know all those things, but she never gave them any thought. She didn’t want to think that anything could go wrong, even though she knew that it was the only thing that could happen. She wanted to think that she could fight the odds that were against her, even though somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew it would never work, not matter what.
I wish
there was a way
for you to see inside me
She had once thought that love could conquer all. She had thought that if she loved Draco enough, he would love her back, even if that was completely the opposite of the Draco Malfoy that everyone knew. She had thought that her love had transformed him into a kinder, gentler Draco than the one that everyone else knew. She was wrong.
The Draco that she knew was still the same one that everyone warned her to never trust, but somehow, she had let her illusion tarnish the reality. He was still the ruthless, conniving Slytherin that everyone knew, even if Hermione couldn’t see it. The side of him that she had seen wasn’t a different side of him at all. It was part of the conniving Slytherin that would do anything for his own gratification that everyone had warned her about. She had never realized it until that fateful night of green.
about anyone or anything
The love that Hermione felt for Draco was completely new to her, and it was a feeling she didn’t want to lose.
Tell me
She closed her eyes.
What do
I have to do
to make you happy?
Instead of that still overwhelming darkness, she saw a vivid image of Draco’s pallid face of stone.
What do I have to do
to make you understand?
She saw his pale, silvery blonde hair, wet and hanging into his face. He looked just like he did on that first day that she saw what she thought was another side of Draco.
What do I have to do
to make you want me?
She saw Draco’s face, in a picture frame, mounted on the
wall of what she recognized as her room.
She stared into his cold grey eyes of stone, and suddenly, he stared
back, and she was transported into her room, realizing that her eyes weren’t
closed anymore. When did she open them?
Still staring, she remembered wishing that she could get through to him, and
make him love her. With every touch,
her heart would jump, thinking she was getting closer.
But if I can’t make you want me
what do I have to do?
She had thought that there was hope, but when she felt the blood trickling off of her hand, she remembered that it was in vain. She remembered how much of a relief she had felt before, watching the red liquid emerge from her broken skin, her tainted knuckles, but now, just feeling the blood creeping down over her fingers, it sent a shiver down her spine. The blood wasn’t comforting at all. It just reminded her of everything that she had wanted to forget, all of the pain, and all of the guilt.
The guilt wasn’t actually because of what she did, but what she didn’t do. She never regretted killing Draco. The thing that she did regret was never actually thinking about her situation, and what was really going on. She should have known that Draco wasn’t who she wanted him to be, nor would he ever be that person.
She had to learn that she just couldn’t change anyone if they didn’t want to be changed. Draco didn’t want to change, but she never noticed or cared, and went on loving him anyway. She never thought that it might not have been what he wanted in the first place.
She saw Draco’s grey eyes still staring back at her, almost boring a hole into her soul. She never realized until that moment that maybe she would miss him, and not feel whole.
But she shook her head at the thought. The Draco that she missed wasn’t even real. He was fake. Draco had been pretending to be a different person, a person that Hermione had actually liked, but in the end, he couldn’t hide his true self. They both should have acknowledged that it would happen eventually, and what a waste the whole sham was. They did know, but they could never admit it, not to themselves, not to each other, nor to anyone else.
But I
swear this time I will not let you down
There was a mirror next to Draco, and Hermione looked into it, her reflection staring right back at her. She studied the face now in front of her, remembering that all a mirror does is merely reflect light. So, she thought, if a mirror reflects light, does that mean that a dark person would be barely visible in a mirror, or not even appear at all? And, if a mirror reflects light, what can reflect darkness?
Her eyes wandered back to Draco, who still stared back at her from his place on the wall. She would have thought that a picture of Draco would have been only paying attention to himself, because that was all he ever cared about, and ever would, even in death. He would never be able to fathom the depth of the love that Hermione had for him, but it didn’t matter anymore, because that love she had was gone, and had been for over a year. It had disappeared in that one night, the night of green.
She slowly drew in a breath, trying to step away from that wall, but there was some unseen force wielding her to that spot. She moved her feet, and even watched herself do so, just to make sure that she wasn’t just imagining that they were moving. When she looked up, she still saw the same distance between herself and the picture and the mirror.
The mirror reflected the image of a frenzied young girl, her sable brown eyes open wide in fear. As that image faded from her view, the eyes grew even more fearful, until the reflection was gone. Hermione saw the mirror now reflecting only the grey wall behind her. Her breaths came in ragged, panicked gasps, while her eyes remained fixated on the mirror.
She wanted to move, to get away from the mirror, but an invisible force was forbidding her from doing so. It was as if she was walking backwards on a treadmill, whereas she could move back, but still stay in the same place, but she couldn’t move at all forward, not that she wanted to. She didn’t want to get any closer to Draco, or her reflection – or rather, her lack thereof.
She glared at Draco. It had to have been his fault, it only could be, and she was sure that he knew it. She could tell from the way that he kept staring at her, never moving, never showing any expressions of emotion, and never blinking. He just stared, his gray eyes following her every move. Of course, she was barely moving. Only her chest moved, rising and falling with each panic-stricken breath she took.
She smugly thought that Draco should have been reveling in her misfortune. After all, that was one of two things that he lived for: himself, and watching others suffer. “Aw, fuck,” she cursed herself aloud for never realizing it until after she had put herself through the pain. She whispered to the picture, “You selfish bastard.”
The whole room around her began to shake. The walls shook, making Draco’s picture and the empty mirror both rattle on their hangings until they fell off. Just before Draco’s picture tumbled down, he burst out of it, pushing Hermione to the floor, right on top of the shards of the broken mirror.
She cried out, the pain in her back sharp and unending. She could feel the jagged glass piercing through her skin and scraping the surface of the bone of her spine. The pain was excruciating, and she was powerless to stop it, because the glass was embedded so far into her flesh that she couldn’t reach it, and even if she could, Draco was holding her down.
She felt her hands closing in over another broken shard of the mirror. In a quick glance, she once again saw that familiar grey of the wall, the same grey that illuminated from rage in Draco’s eyes, but she also saw her own silhouette, slightly transparent, but there. Her only thought at that moment was to drive the spiked glass into Draco’s heart.
Raising her hand high, she let out another cry, one of anguish, one of a year’s worth of pent-up rage and frustration, and thrust the spike upwards into her assailant. His mouth formed a giant O, one of surprise, and one of fear. He was frozen there, the piece of the mirror obtrusively sticking out of his chest, which was irregularly expanding and contracting. “What?” she thought. “He’s supposed to be dead!”
Draco dropped down onto the ground, next to Hermione, where she still was from his attack. His limbs were sprawled out at odd angles, black liquid pouring out of the wound he had inflicted on his now still chest. Her eyes fixed on his corpse, once again, and she picked herself up from the floor.
Black blood. She knew he wasn’t human. No human could have put her through what he did, done what he did.
Hermione wouldn’t miss him at all, not again. Killing him the first time had driven her insane, but this inexplicable time, she wouldn’t let it.
The twice dead body of Draco Malfoy leapt up, eyes flashing with malice, teeth gritted together, and hands on a collision course with her neck. She didn’t have any time to react or to move out of the way.
His hands tightened around her neck, disallowing for any air to get into her screaming lungs. The skin of her neck was being rubbed painfully raw by his brute force.
The more Hermione tried to resist, to push him away, the more intensity he put into his effort to deprive Hermione of any breath. She gasped, and clawed out with her hands, sometimes grabbing hold of Draco, sometimes just swatting at the air.
She had to get away from him. She wasn’t about to let him have the last laugh, and would never give in to him.
What do
I have to do
Never making any progress, she thought that her attempts to rid herself of his suffocation were in vain. She almost gave up and gave in to him. Almost.
To make
you understand
She looked straight into his eyes, hers ablaze, trying to communicate to him that she’d never let go, and he would never win. She couldn’t let him win.
What do
I have to do
He stared right back at her, not saying a word, not giving a sign, but only squeezing her neck tightly, blocking all of the air that she needed to breathe. She needed to breathe, even if he didn’t.
To make
you love me
Her life flashed before her eyes – that day she had first used magic to conjure up bubble gum, to the day that she met Harry and Ron on the Hogwarts express, to that last pleasant day that she had spent with Draco, to the night of green, to where she was now.
If I
can’t make you want me
The last thing she saw was the piece of mirror still protruding from Draco’s chest, partly encrusted in his black blood. The mirror reflected herself, and the grey wall behind her.
Tell me,
what do I have to do…
The room spun around her, Draco, the walls, the shattered mirror and picture frames, and she felt pain all over her body, in her back, in her neck, and in her lungs, and everything turned into one big blur of pain as it all swirled around her, until everything, all of her surroundings, faded to black…
…to
forget about you
…and she awoke with a start, blinking at the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows, breathing heavily.