Sins of the Father

AUTHOR'S NOTE: THis chapter is much longer then the last two. It is also much darker. So there is a content warning on this chapter. Some of the upcoming chapters will have that warning. A special thanks goes out to Heidi191976 who has reviewed every chapter and is very positive, and so I am dedicating this chapter to them. Thank you for your support everyone. I need a better summary to get people to read this story so if anyone has any ideas, throw them my way! Enjoy!


*


Hermione slammed her door, being as loud as she possibly could. She was beyond furious. Where did Harry get off thinking he could dictate her actions like that? This wasn’t even his house! She could understand if maybe they were at Grimmauld Place, but this was the Burrow. How dare he order her about at someone else’s house?

She didn’t know what upset her more, that he had done that or that she had let him.

Growling, she turned and kicked the door. She hoped they all heard her. She was tired of trying to be what they thought she should be. She was tired of being the good little girl; the scared little girl who needed protecting.

She picked up a book that was lying nearby and threw it at the wall, for once in her life not caring what happened to her precious books. The tome flew threw the air, landing with a satisfying noise that was almost calming to her. Quirking a smile, she picked up another book and heaved it across her room. Seven books later and she felt utterly exhausted.

She looked around her room and sighed. Her eyes fell on the pile of books on the ground and she groaned. She went and retrieved them from the floor, thankful that none of them had been hurt. She slowly put them back in place, one by one, smiling at the titles and fondly caressing her fingers over their covers and spines. She bent to get the last book, moving a strand of hair from her face, sighing when she read the title of the book.

It was an updated version of Hogwarts: A History that her parents had bought her one Christmas.
She lovingly ran her hand over the cover, a single tear falling down her face. She went and set the book by her parents picture frame. She felt a profound tiredness sweep over her. She undressed down to her underwear and collapsed into her bed, sleep overtaking her immediately.


*
She had gone to sleep early that night. She was really tired and excited about seeing her friends in a few days. She planned to go to the Burrow and then onto Hogwarts for her seventh, and final, year. She couldn’t wait and so she had gone to bed early, hoping that would make the hours pass faster.

A noise woke her up. She looked around her room, rubbing at her eyes. She listened for a second, thinking maybe she had imagined it, when she heard a thud from her parents room. A frown crossed her face and, slowly, she sat up, reaching for her wand.

She was shocked to find that it wasn’t where she had left it.

Her frown deepened as she got out of bed, reaching for her robe. She hastily put it on and crossed the floor to her door, quietly opening it.

Her house was completely dark. She took one step into the hallway then froze, waiting for her eyes to adjust. She figured that she would go get her father when she noticed something odd.

Flickers and flares of light were coming from underneath her parents’ door.

It was strange because it almost looked like someone was either having a wand duel or was throwing around hexes and curses in her parents’ room. It reminded her of the way the fight at the Ministry had looked back in her fifth year.

Fear pricked her and she slowly walked forward, as if underwater.

When she reached the door, the lights abruptly stopped and everything went black. It was almost as if whatever was inside had felt her arrival and was now waiting for her. Then, she saw twin flashes of bright green flicker under the door. Panic gripped her now and with no regard for her personal safety, she flung the door to her parents’ room wide open.

Complete barbarity greeted her eyes.

The room was covered in blood. Her father was tied to the wicker chair her parents had in their bedroom, his body dead and lifeless, his eyes open, and his stomach gutted. It appeared that the Sectumsempra spell had been used on him multiple times. His eyes were glazed over but they were fixed on the bed in the middle of the room, where her mother lay spread-eagle and naked.

It was apparent that her mother had been hit by the same curse as her father had, except that she had been raped. Her father must have been forced to watch, as that was the only explanation for the scene before her.

Her mouth gapped open, no sound coming out. Tears fell nonstop from her eyes, yet on she stared unblinking. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the scene. It was unlike any horror she had seen in a movie or since coming to the Wizarding world. She knew that darkness lived inside of people but she didn’t know that this amount of evil also did as well.

Slowly, she became aware that there were other people in the room. She finally blinked, sending crystal tears to the carpet and slowly turned her head. Three hooded figures stood there, openly laughing at her. Finally, one of them spoke.

“Well, look what the Death Eaters dragged in.” The others laughed as slowly the mask was lowered.

Lucius Malfoy was sneering and laughing at her.


*

Tap, tap, tap.

Hermione fidgeted in her sleep, the arrival of the noise deadening her brain. As far as she could remember, the noise wasn’t a normal part of her dream, as there had been no tapping that night.

Tap, tap, tap.

She groaned and rolled over onto her stomach. She pulled her covers over her head. Now the noise was being amplified in her brain and she didn’t know what to do. Nothing was stopping it and the noise was not mixing in well with pictures of her parents being murdered and raped.

Pound, pound, pound!!!

She shot out of her bed, her eyes popping open and her heart beating viciously. Still in a strange dream world, she ran to her door, only in her underwear and flung it open. Her eyes widened at the sight before her and she gasped, slamming the door in Draco’s face. Draco could hear her locking it and crying behind the door and could only surmise one thing: she had mistaken him for his father again.

He listened for a couple minutes more, thinking that maybe she had calmed down. When he thought she had, he calmly rapped at the door again. “Hermione? It’s me, Draco.”

Reality seemed to hit her as she shook her head, the remnants of her dream fading away. She cautiously opened the door to find Draco, not Lucius, Malfoy standing there. She shook her head at herself and opened the door a little wider. “Yes?”

Draco smirked. “I’m going to assume that you slammed this door in my face because you thought I was Lucius and not because you’re only in your knickers and bra.” Hermione cocked her head to the side for a second, wondering what he was getting on about and then slowly started feeling a draft. She looked down and realized he was right. Her face turning a marvelous shade of red, she slammed the door in his face again, only to hop around for her clothes.

“I’ll be -oomph! - done in a moment!” She called back out, another thud quickly following her words. Draco allowed himself a small chuckle at her and waited outside her door, wondering why he was even here. Then he remembered and he wished he hadn’t.

The door opened again and Hermione was standing there in a black turtleneck and jeans. Draco couldn’t help but noticed that they fit her body very well, and then felt disgusted with himself, knowing all she had gone through at the expense of his family name.

“Yes? Was there something I could do for you?” Hermione asked, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe.

If only you knew, thought Draco. “Look, I wanted to . . . apologize,” Hermione scoffed as the word came out of his mouth. Draco gritted his teeth and continued. “For earlier. I didn’t mean to, er, jump down your throat like that. We’ve all been under a lot of pressure and I just wanted you to know that.”

Hermione pursed her lips, raising an eyebrow at him. “You just wanted me to know that we’ve all been under a lot of pressure? Thanks, everyone around here does think that all I am is damaged good with nothing to offer,” she said, the last under her breath. She went to close the door, but Draco stopped her.

“Wait, no, that’s not what I meant and you know it. “

She closed her eyes and sighed. “Okay then, Malfoy, what did you mean?”

He sighed himself and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I jumped down your throat. It’s hard for me to tell someone that I’m sorry, but I am. I’m just,” he looked up at her and saw that she had opened her eyes and was looking at him quizzically. “I should have done something. The whole time you were at the Manor, I could have done something, stopped it somehow. I -,”

“Stop it, you’re sounding like Harry.” Draco furrowed his brows at Hermione’s admonishment of her best friend. “The only thing you would have done is ended up getting yourself killed and you know it. Besides, you won’t do us much good dead, right?”

Draco sighed again, trying a new tactic. “Look, I want to apologize. For all of it. I know what you’ve been through. I know how … bad it can be. I want to do something, to help. I want to be there for you and too -,”

“Look, Malfoy, that’s all very nice and heroic of you, but nothing you do can help me. Besides, every time I look at you I just see him,” he didn’t need to ask who that person was. “I can’t get much help from my rapist’s son, alright, so just leave me alone.” She went to close the door again, but he put his foot there.

“Please, just listen to me! I’ll let you do anything you want, you can talk to me, hit me, anything!”

She stopped trying to close the door on him and looked at him strangely again. “Why are you trying to save me, Malfoy? Don’t you know that you can’t save the already executed?” And with that, she managed to close the door.

He sighed, and leaned his head against the wood of her door. “Because I’m not my father.”

“That remains to be seen.”

Draco slowly turned at the voice that always grated on his nerves, to see Ron standing at the end of the hall. They stared at each other for a moment before Draco realized that he must have heard everything.

“What are you on about?”

Ron slowly walked towards him, anger radiating off him in waves. “Your father seemed to take particular joy in abusing Hermione. It seems like you do too, even if it’s only of the emotional and verbal variety. Do you really think she’d want to be around the one person who reminds her of what she had to go through for a year?”

“Someone has to help her, Weasel. And since none of you are doing it, I figured I might as well.”

That seemed to hit a nerve with Ron and he grabbed the front of Draco shirt, pulling him threateningly close to his body, his jaw tightening in anger.

“Now you listen, Ferret, and you listen good. Hermione is my friend and I love her as much as my own family. I would do, and have done, anything for her. She wishes not to talk about what happened to her, so we respect her wishes, because that’s what you do with people you love. You don’t push them, but allow them space to come to you if they need to. She knows that everyone in this house is here for her whenever she needs us and that we don’t think less of her because of what happened. She is ours to protect and love, not yours to fuck around with whenever you feel the need to abuse someone.” Ron gripped Draco’s sheet tighter, his eyes hardening to a steely blue. “You would do well to stay away from her, unless you want that pretty face of yours fucked up badly.” With that, he released him and walked to the room he shared with Harry, slamming the door behind him.

Draco smoothed down his shirt, rubbing the creases out. He clenched, then unclenched his fists, desperately wanting to hit something. Unfortunately, the only thing close was Hermione’s door or Hermione herself and neither option were viable.

“Damn Weasley bastard,” he muttered as he looked down the hall. Abruptly, he turned and walked down the hall, needing to get out of this house and back to the Manor before he did anything rash.

Little did both of them know that Hermione had heard the whole thing.