Arbitrary Alignment

AN: So I've had this idea for a while and finally decided to try my hand at this whole writing business.

IMPORTANT: I mention Charlotte Perkins "The Yellow wallpaper". If you haven't read it, it is a story about a woman locked in a room at the top floor, walls covered in faded yellow wallpaper. Her eventual insanity results in her fixation on the yellow wallpaper. She ends up ripping it away with her bare hands.

----Arrival----

The war was heavy on all their shoulders, too heavy, choking them.

She would watch them, she saw. They had changed, all of them. Harry pushed everyone away, locking himself away from everyone else to wallow, thigh high in anguish. Hermione saw it, every time someone didn’t come back from a mission it grew tighter, his anguish, like a noose around his neck. Ron… Ron grew angry, but it was a different anger. Not like a violent outburst. It was a silent anger, cold and dark. It scared her, the changes in them.

Of course they were so careful around her. Walking on eggshells around her, treating her like a porcelain doll, afraid she might crack, shatter. And she hadn't, hadn't cried in front of them since that horrible night that had changed everything. She wasn't strong, or courageous. She just couldn't face what had happened, she hid away inside, so she wouldn't shatter, go mad with grief.

She felt deadened, numb, drained. She couldn’t sleep at night anymore; instead she would stay awake pressing her forehead against the glass of the window until the night frost numbed even that.

Eight days later they brought Malfoy in.

They had been looking for him ever since Dumbledore di…ever since that night. She watched from the drawing room as they dragged his stupefied body up the stairs. But there was this moment when their eyes met, hers and his, and the numbness was washed away and she could feel. Hermione stood there for a moment glaring at the stairs, hand clenched, and the rage, the rage was so great.

She saw red and she wanted to rip and tear into him and make him hurt, make him bleed all that pure blue blood, make him scream.

She wanted to refuse.

In her head she was screaming “NONONONONO”. They wanted her to guard him, to watch him, be his warden. It was all very logical, she could see that. She was at the headquarters more than anyone. They only sent her out on missions if it was absolutely necessary. She was the brains. She did the research. It was all very plausible that she be the one to keep and eye on him, but she didn’t want to.

But Harry looked so tired and she said yes yes of course. Thus she became Malfoy's keeper.

Harry and Ron had been following a lead to a possible horocrux location along with Moody and some others. They had been ambushed by Deatheaters. After the smoked had cleared they had found Malfoy.

The next day Harry and Ron were gone when she woke.

Hermione stood in the shower
With the water scorching her back
She crouched down and tried
tried to cry
willed the tears to come
tried to just briefly let it out
to be empty…numb
but she couldn’t
the tears didn’t come
so she let the water run down her face and pretended.

He was put in a room on the top floor. It was bare except for a bed bolted down and bars on the windows.

She thought of “The woman in the yellow wallpaper”. He was on that bed, still in the darkness his hair seemed to glow. Hermione suddenly saw herself ripping yellow only it wasn’t paper it was that hair. A hysterical giggle slipped passed her lips at the thought.

He stiffened. She stupefied him before he could turn around. Rolling him over was difficult. He was bigger, broader than she remembered. His lip was bloodied. She healed his jaw and fixed the gash on his face. Leaving a meal on the floor she left, locking the door magically, before releasing the stupefied on him.

The next morning she paused outside his room. Grasping her wand she unlocked the door. Casting a luminous she stepped into the room surprised to see a dark form on the bed. He was asleep still then.

Suddenly she was pushed backwards into the wall. Clumsy fingers wrapping around her wrists pinning them above her head. Her wand slipped from her fingers clattering to the floor and rolling away taking the light with it. His voice was hoarse and deep from disuse “Where am I” his putrid breath was hot in her face his weight pressing her into the wall so she couldn’t breath. She felt again. She felt fear, fear so heavy that forced the breath from her lungs as his calloused fingers tightened on her wrists grinding the bones together. He moved one hand down to the front of her robes grasping, tugging her upwards “Where the fuck am I”.

Then there was anger, the sweet rush of anger, and she remembered to fight, to fight and struggle.

She started thrashing against him bucking her hips into his.

One of her arms got loosed and she hit him over and over again anywhere she could reach. Her flailing arm collided with his side and Malfoy groaned and then suddenly his whole body went taunt, hands flexing against hers. Then he went limp, forehead crashing into hers, body collapsing over hers. They slid down the wall then all was still except for his harsh breathing.

She rolled his body off of her and shakily crawled on her hands and knees over to her wand.

As the cool wood caressed her palm her heartbeat calmed and she pointed it toward Malfoy. He lay on his back, limbs bent out at odd angles. She walked to the bed, wand still trained on Malfoy's still form. It was his cloak. Malfoy had laid his outer robe on the bed arranging it so that it resembled a sleeping form while he waited next to the door to pounce on her. He groaned and Hermione swung her gaze back to him as his pale fingers twitched. She levitated him onto the bed than stood over him examining his features, wand at the ready.

His normally pale features were flushed and the white linen shirt he wore was wet with sweat and something else. At first she thought it was dirt and grime but as she brought the light closer she saw it was a rusty brown…blood. Fingers shaking she unbuttoned his shirt gasping at what she saw. Slashes crossed his chest, angry red welts, and on his left shoulder there were deep punctures, but most alarming was the angry heat emitting from his skin and the greenish edges of the wounds.

Infection thought Hermione, there infected.

Leaning over she brought her hand to his forehead gasping at the feverish heat. Her heart stopped as his eyes opened, (where was her wand where was her bloody wand) his fingers reached up to touch her cheek trailing down his thumb brushed her lip, all thoughts left her mind, she was frozen, she couldn’t breath.

“Mother?” then he went limp again, bloodshot eyes rolling back in his head, arm falling to dangle of the side of the bed.

Hermione found she could breathe again…”Holy shit”!


She had cleaned him up scourified him, and transformed the dirty black trousers he was wearing into black cotton bottoms. She destroyed the shirt he was wearing and gave him a blanket. She had cleaned and dressed his wounds but the infection bothered her, she hadn’t been able to get rid of it.

A magical infection then.

While she had tended to him she had felt pity. She still hated him. He was the one who had introduced her hatred, prejudice, and bigotry, to the word Mudblood. No she still hated him but she couldn’t help feel the stirrings of pity mixed in to.

It didn’t sit well. She flooed Moody and filled him in on Malfoy's condition.

She hadn’t allowed herself to think about it but that night, right before she drifted asleep, she thought of how his fingers felt on her face, how he had smiled up at her.

Im new at this so any and all feedback would be wonderful. Did you hate it? love it?

NEXT UP: We find out what exactly happened to Hermione "that horrible night". Malfoy awakes.