Chapter 90: Positioning Ring
If we turn our attention back to the time when Draco was punched, perhaps we can understand how he found Hermione through the dark night.
"Don't tell anyone." Draco looked at the three black dots moving hurriedly on the grass slope with a gloomy face, holding his nose and threatening Goyle and Crabbe. The two of them were already stunned by this exciting scene and nodded hurriedly to Draco.
Hermione's fist came too suddenly.
For a moment, Draco was caught off guard and completely confused.
For three years, his interactions with Hermione Granger had nothing to do with violence, and he never imagined that he would be beaten again.
Including his previous life, this was the second time he heard her say these words - "bastard", "disgusting little cockroach" - he covered his nose, and the sour feeling instantly rushed from the tip of his nose to the back of his head and flowed into his heart.
He had no choice but to smile bitterly, a smile that was uglier than crying.
Fate! He was scolded the same way again.
Is he—really that bad? Draco was frustrated.
"Draco, your nose is bleeding..." Goyle stammered. In his haste, he swallowed the toffee in his mouth and choked and coughed.
A stream of heat gradually flowed out from between the fingers.
A nosebleed is certainly not a decent thing for a Malfoy who is very concerned about his image.
"We'll go with you to the bathroom—" Crabbe blinked in confusion and offered a feasible suggestion.
"No! I'll do it myself. You guys go ahead," Draco said tiredly. "Go to training. Hit three hundred Bludgers today, three hundred each."
"But—" Goyle said worriedly.
"Right now, right now, training!" Draco snapped, sprinting towards the nearest men's room, leaving behind a single sentence: "Don't follow me!"
Crabbe and Goyle looked at each other and stared at his back in a daze.
The men's bathroom was deserted. Only Draco Malfoy, distractedly turning on the faucet, turned on the water. The cold water staunched the bleeding, and his blood-stained robes were tossed aside. He leaned his hand on the sink, and amid the gurgling water, he stared at the boy in the white shirt in the mirror, trying to discern the man's thoughts.
Merlin, what on earth had he done?
Did he ever kiss her? When?
He kissed her? Was that why she'd been avoiding him lately?
Draco pursed his lips, looked at himself with a frown, and dug hard into his memories.
Could it be that he accidentally mistook some of his present life memories for his past life and locked them up with Occlumency?
He trembled as he opened the sealed memory boxes in his mind, searching every possibility, hoping to find something. However, except for making his face increasingly pale, he found nothing.
It was so frustrating. Both the blank memory at this moment and having to experience Hermione's fists again.
She had beaten him before, because of Buckbeak. In this life, he had given the hippogriff a wide berth, but he still couldn't avoid the blow.
Hermione Granger, as always, was very strong when she was pissed off.
The pain was so vivid, both physically and mentally, that Draco smiled bitterly at the mirror, his heart in turmoil.
She was obviously angry, an anger you rarely see.
The signals sent out by her angry words were unusual.
"After what you did to me, you actually said you treated me as your sister?" Her tearful accusation appeared in his mind again, and her eyes were very red at that time.
Merlin, what on earth did he do to her that was so outrageous? When did he kiss her? I'm afraid we can only ask Hermione herself.
Merlin, he had no clue!
However, her next words were that she didn't want to be his sister.
What did it mean—was it what he guessed it meant?
He stared at the broken and melancholy boy in the mirror, not knowing what to do.
Admit it, Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger is more than just a sister to you.
At first, he could still deceive himself.
When she was in the first and second grades, he didn't have any evil thoughts - she was a lively, cute, and slightly arrogant little girl who needed to be coaxed, taken care of, and needed a lot of brotherly care and love.
But as she grows up day by day and becomes mature, she is not only cute, but can become even more cute.
She showed him another side of Hermione Granger that he had never had the chance to know in his previous life.
She cared for him. She buttered his bread and handed it to him naturally. She tightened his tie, as if winding a string. She fed him medicine, wiped his mouth, even cuddled him and patted him to sleep. She chased away the desolation brought by the Dementors. She cast drying spells, cleansing spells, and warming spells on him in the stands, making those dreary training days less unbearable, even giving him something to look forward to.
She defended him. She stood up to the Hufflepuffs in the library, defending his dignity as Slytherin Seeker. She argued with her roommate over a prophetic curse—she didn't even believe in prophecies, but she wouldn't let anyone say he was doomed. She was the first to cast the Patronus Charm in the Quidditch stands, trying to protect him from the attack.
She helped him. She secretly took him into the Forbidden Forest while invisible. She translated the cryptic notes of Herpo for him. She analyzed the students of all the houses, trying to find who was opening the Chamber of Secrets.
She even trusted him. She kept many secrets for him, despite her doubts. Secrets of the Forbidden Forest, secrets of the Bludgers, secrets of the Basilisk, any secret.
She brought him warmth and comfort. She offered him a friendly hand on the Hogwarts train. Flying with her made him feel alive. She embraced him warmly in the stands, awakening his Quidditch spirit. She noticed he hadn't eaten dinner and secretly brought his favorite food to the observatory to soothe his stomach. She stroked his hair in his sleep, giving him the most wonderful afternoon in the library.
She sweetened his bitter life. She would save a piece of birthday cake for him. She used her Muggle skateboard to entertain him through the afternoon. She tried to lighten his spirits with Muggle music. She capriciously swapped his iced Americano for her own iced latte. She forced him to eat a bunch of chocolate. She dragged him around the Muggle streets, refusing to let him fend for himself in the house, forbidding him to press his temples over books that had a headache.
She was a natural puzzle solver. He relied on memories from his past life, and every thought was a struggle. But she seemed to connect the dots effortlessly. Who else could have guessed that the basilisk was traveling through Hogwarts through the "pipes"? Who else could have imagined that Remus Lupin might be a werewolf?
She was a master at learning from one instance and applying it to other situations. She meticulously studied every spell, always earning praise from Professors Flitwick and McGonagall. Even a spell they'd accidentally cast was something she could quickly learn, often performing it better than he could.
She was a true academic genius. Who else could have brewed a high-level potion like Polyjuice Potion in her second year? Who else could have taken the initiative to study so many subjects and achieved such excellent grades?
She always said he was her favorite study partner, and wasn't she his favorite, either? Who wouldn't be captivated by such a clever, hardworking, and skillful girl? He relished the smooth flow of their potion-making collaboration. With a single glance, a single word, they knew what each other was talking about. No explanation was needed. That tacit understanding always brought a smile to their faces.
She always tried to probe him, to dig deeper into him. She called him brave, though he never considered himself to be anything like that. She dragged him to teach the Patronus Charm, letting him experience the joy of being respected by students from the outer house. She called him kind, though he didn't expose Lupin out of a desire to be nonchalant. She even described him as gentle, as if she could detect some other emotion in his cold eyes.
She said she liked his smile. She said he looked very nice when he smiled.
Hermione Granger. She always seemed to be trying to find something that shouldn't be there, some shining point of humanity, in Draco Malfoy's dark soul. The most terrifying thing was that she always seemed to find some specious evidence to prove the rationality of her thinking.
She understood him. No one could understand him except her.
Merlin, he loved her. He loved everything she did to him.
He loved her intelligence, her pride, her ambition. He loved the way she gloated over everything, the way she answered all the questions, because she deserved it. With a mind like hers, why shouldn't she hold her head high and accept the applause?
He even liked her naive idealism. He liked her anger, her stubbornness, her perseverance. He liked her unrealistic thinking. He liked her delusion of breaking free from all injustice. He liked the unattainable utopia she imagined. He even liked the tears she shed for the weak, and the fighting spirit that rose after she wiped them away. She seemed to never know how to "give up," and even if she occasionally felt depressed, it would never last long.
Draco Malfoy just wanted to protect Hermione Granger from being broken and hurt again.
However, he got closer and closer to her, becoming more and more unable to extricate himself.
Her face increasingly overlapped with the vague Hermione Granger in his memory, and it became even clearer.
Those complicated emotions from his previous life that had been locked at the bottom of his spiritual world and had not yet been sorted out, under the nourishment she gave him in this life, were like seeds scattered on the ground, gradually breaking through the ground in his heart and sprouting wantonly.
She was special to him.
In his previous life, what little conscience, compassion, and broken heart he had left were all secretly hidden in that exquisite treasure box with the name label "Hermione Granger".
He deliberately hid the treasure box under a pile of rubble in his mind, where it was covered with dust and became gray.
He thought that this way no one would be able to discover it.
He never dared to open it. In his previous life, whenever he came across the box in his head, he would wrap the chains of Occlumency tighter around it, so that he could be as cold and sarcastic as ever when facing Hermione Granger, as if he didn't like her at all.
The irony was that his secret feelings for Hermione were known clearly and thoroughly only by Bellatrix, the mad woman and his Occlumency teacher in his previous life.
His self-taught Occlumency was a joke. The summer he became a Death Eater, she had come to tutor him with a malicious smile. It didn't take long for her to find the strange-looking box, opening it with a sinister grin and flipping through it.
He didn't know how many secrets she had seen at that moment.
In short, it was enough, enough for her to know that her nephew was a naughty child.
"Draco, this won't do," she whispered to him, a cruel look in her eyes. "The Dark Lord will be angry."
Draco panicked. He was determined not to be seen through again. He gritted his teeth and accepted Bellatrix's mental baptism and torture, quickly becoming a highly skilled master of Occlumency.
Bellacrite never had the chance to open the box a second time; not even Snape, a master of Occlumency, could read his mind.
So, when Bellatrix captured Harry and the others, she chose to torture Hermione so cruelly.
Perhaps, this crazy woman wanted to see his reaction, to see if he was still secretly hiding some "toxic emotions" in his heart.
Poor Hermione.
She would never know that the horrific torture she suffered was all due to the rebellious thoughts of that bastard Draco Malfoy.
Although Bellacrite could no longer see through him, he always had doubts about him and felt that he would defect to Potter's side one day.
The Death Eaters said she was full of lies—the Malfoys were known to be loyal supporters of the Dark Lord—but her suspicion of him never changed.
Draco really didn't have time to do anything, nor did he show any kindness to Potter. He even harbored a lot of anger towards the Potter trio.
But she sensitively caught the clues.
That sign is so dangerous. Anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone will instantly understand the horror of that sign.
Bellatrix had probably loved, even if she was mad, so much so that she saw through him immediately, long before he could even begin to comprehend those feelings.
That evil day in the living room of Malfoy Manor, she caught Hermione and tortured her, just to see if he would still show any emotion towards her.
She wanted to nip any signs of danger in the bud.
Since his brain blocking technique is indestructible, the only way to verify his thoughts is to torture her in front of him, make the girl he once kept in his heart scream, and see if he is moved.
If his expression changed in the slightest, the Malfoys would be labeled traitors; if he showed the slightest frown, or begged her to spare the poor girl, the mad woman might go even further and kill her on the spot without hesitation.
He had no other options. The only way to save her life was for him to watch Bellatrix torture her with a cold expression, pretending he didn't care. Perhaps that would satisfy Bellatrix enough to spare her life and, when he lost interest, lock her up in the dungeon beneath the drawing room.
By then, as long as she is not dead, there may be a way to save her.
He couldn't immediately save her. The disparity in power was too great. He had never been a master of dueling, and he had no confidence that he could defeat both Bellatrix and the werewolf Greyback at the same time.
He also had his parents to worry about. By then, Lucius had lost his wand, and his mother, Narcissa, was troubled by the Death Eaters who came and went freely in the manor.
While they maintain an outward appearance of respectability, facing outsiders with pride and indifference, their inner selves are already shaky. They must remain loyal, even if their interests are severely violated. They worry more about someone reporting them to the Dark Lord than about their dignity, bringing disaster upon themselves.
He couldn't just take her away and drag his parents into a deeper abyss.
So, he dragged his own soul into the abyss, along with the innocent Hermione Granger.
Her eyes had looked at him so brokenly that they almost tore his heart apart.
But he still had to remain expressionless, without any emotional fluctuations.
He had to pretend that she was his mortal enemy, the garbage under his feet, and not the untouchable beauty he imagined in his heart.
And then, naturally, he messed it all up.
He thought he had nothing to lose.
But that day, he lost a lot.
The wand, the faith, her.
He finally understood what it meant to "lose".
Lost forever and completely.
Lose her.
When he thought of this, a sharp and delicate pain suddenly surged in his heart.
"I am indeed a bastard, am I not?" he said to himself in the mirror, looking up.
He hurt her.
It hurt her deeply.
It was him who was hurting her all along, and it had nothing to do with others.
He had hurt her, even though it hadn't been his intention.
Merlin be damned, the last person in the world he wanted to hurt was her.
Draco closed his eyes, loosened the silver and green tie around his neck, and felt like he was suffocating.
That experience was his nightmare.
He locked up those painful memories again with the technique of brain occlusion, forcing himself to forget them and continue thinking about the problems he faced in this life.
Hermione, she seemed to like him.
She likes him.
Is it possible? Is it possible that she might fall in love with him?
This faint possibility fluttered in his heart like a butterfly.
It started as a faint fluttering of wings in my heart, and now it is a raging hurricane in my heart.
Yeah, this thing got out of control from the beginning.
Like a beautiful dream that he dared not touch, that day, she "met" him again.
She reached out to him on the express train and shook his hand without hesitation.
She introduced herself to him and asked him to call her "Hermione".
There were no more Grangers, no more Mudbloods; no more sarcasm, misunderstanding, indifference, or harshness.
Everything is brand new.
The new Hermione who hadn't been hurt by anyone yet.
Hermione looked at him curiously with bright eyes.
Day by day, he found it increasingly difficult to refuse her.
How could he refuse that look of hers, the look he had always longed for?
He hadn't expected so much.
He was fully aware of his grave sins.
He never dared to hope for anything.
Just watch from a distance, keep a safe distance, and help her when necessary. At first, he persuaded himself.
Don't let her get hurt again, don't let her become the girl in my nightmare. Later, he reminded himself.
Most of the harm she suffered was caused by him.
Draco Malfoy, to Hermione Granger, is "harm" itself.
Sometimes he thought that perhaps keeping a distance from her was the best way to protect her.
She didn't like him at all. In her previous life, she never liked him.
Then why bother approaching her and hurting her again?
Don't overthink it. It's just a fleeting thought from a past life. He kept telling himself.
Just to help her. Just to make her feel better. Just couldn't bear to see her cry.
There was no other meaning. He warned himself in his heart as he reached out to her again and again.
He was avoiding it. He was avoiding thinking about it.
Draco Malfoy was a coward. He couldn't handle disappointment.
So he said that. He used the definition of "sister" to defuse the awkwardness.
Just when she had inexplicably opened a small crack in her tightly closed heart to him, he said that sentence and hurt her again.
She must be very angry.
She threw the ring away. Draco sighed, feeling a pang of bitterness.
"Draco Malfoy, the worst man in the world," he deadpanned to the boy in the mirror.
"You make me despise you," he said to himself.
What should he do?
I need to go find her first and apologize. I need to make sure she calms down.
She was probably still angry.
Would she still want to see him? Would she still want to talk to him? He wondered anxiously as he walked out of the bathroom.
As dusk fell, Draco still couldn't find Hermione. Not in the library, not by the Black Lake, not in the common room - if the Fat Lady hadn't lied to him.
He walked slowly out along the corridor and returned to the big rock where he had witnessed the beating. He squatted down, raised his wand and used Lumos non-stop, feeling for something on the ground without fear of getting dirty.
Surprisingly, Draco never found the ring, which made him upset.
In desperation, he cast a locating spell for the first time—since she had thrown away the ring, it might not hurt to use it, he thought.
But a magical thing happened. The light emitted by the locating spell was not nearby, but pointed directly in the direction of the Forbidden Forest.
This was unbelievable. Had Hermione returned to retrieve the ring? However, this meant she was in the Forbidden Forest.
How could it be? Hermione should have known better than to be in the Forbidden Forest on a full moon like this. He had reminded her.
If it wasn't her, then who took the ring, and why was it in the Forbidden Forest?
Draco gazed anxiously at the dark woods in the distance for a moment, then glanced at the dark clouds in the night sky.
He would have liked to use the Marauder's Map to locate Hermione, but it had been borrowed by the Weasley twins and was probably now at Wizard Wheezes in Hogsmeade.
It was too late. Draco stared at the moon slowly emerging from the clouds with a heavy gaze, and was flustered by the glimmer of light from the full moon.
Although he trusted Professor Snape's potion skills and Lupin should not get into any trouble tonight, if Hermione was in the Forbidden Forest at this moment, even the slightest unexpected situation would be fatal.
Werewolf.
This reckless and willful girl! His face turned pale, he made up his mind, gripped his wand tightly in his hand, and ran towards the dark grass in the dim light guided by the positioning spell.
When they passed Hagrid's pumpkin patch, the locating spell seemed to be not working well, and the direction was getting more and more off. Draco sighed and looked around.
In the brightening moonlight, he saw Hermione's ginger cat trotting proudly from the edge of the Forbidden Forest, a dead mouse in its mouth.
"Crookshanks," he asked glumly, "have you seen Hermione?"
Crookshanks looked up at him with his bright yellow eyes and twitched his tail in delight.
"Come." He opened his arms to Crookshanks.
The cat was being particularly well-behaved today. It spat out the mouse with half its head missing from its mouth and immediately jumped into his arms.
"I really wish your master could be as reasonable as you." Draco stroked its thick and rough fur gloomily and peeled off a willow leaf from its head. "Can you lead me to find her, since you are so smart?"
Crookshanks seemed to understand him. He broke free from his arms and leaped gracefully to the ground. He flicked his tail and trotted swiftly ahead of him, leading the way.
Draco tried his best to follow it for a while, and suddenly heard a shrill wolf howl.
Werewolf!
The full moon emerged completely from the clouds.
Draco turned pale. He quickened his pace, just as Crookshanks quickened his pace.
He prayed in his heart: Merlin, please let him find Hermione soon. Merlin, please don't let her meet a werewolf.
Yet, he saw it.
Under the full moon, at the edge of the forbidden forest, a hideous and terrifying werewolf was approaching his pale little girl.
Hermione. She was alone. She stood alone before the werewolf, her wand hand shaking.
For a moment, his heart and lungs twisted together and he couldn't breathe.
Where are Harry and Ron?
Why bring her to a place like the Forbidden Forest during a full moon?
Why leave her alone to face all this?
Why is there always danger around her?
Draco sputtered.
Just leave her for a short while and the werewolf comes to find her!
They couldn't protect her at all!
How many times has her safety been casually ignored?
How could he be so naive as to think that she would be safer if she stayed with them than with him?
How could he be so naive as to think that no one else could hurt her except him?
Perhaps all the forbearance and avoidance over the long term were simply foolish!
He shouldn't have let her go! Draco ran towards her angrily without any hesitation.
The werewolf was grinning, and his teeth were flashing with a frightening cold light.
He rushed over and protected the weak, frightened, trembling little girl tightly behind him.
"Hermione Granger, I finally found you." He said frantically, his voice trembling.
The werewolf's eyes emitted a faint murderous light.
He wasn't sure if it was Lupin. There was no trace of humanity in its eyes, only savagery and cruelty. The werewolf was huge, even more fierce, stronger, and more cruel than he had seen from a distance.
He pointed his wand at it, thinking quickly about what spell to cast on it, but he heard Hermione's trembling voice behind him, "No, Draco, it's useless, the wand is useless against it... Professor Snape has been knocked down by it..."
Draco was shocked and panicked by the news.
Everything seems to be messed up.
Professor Snape - is he still alive?
Such a powerful wizard could kill Albus Dumbledore, but couldn't defeat a werewolf?
Draco lost half of his confidence, but still tried to use a "Quick Bind" on the werewolf. The werewolf was enraged and knocked his wand away with one claw.
"Draco!" Hermione screamed after him, clutching him tightly.
He was now unarmed and could only smile bitterly in despair - werewolves, a species with thick skin and flesh, were truly the nemesis of wizards!
Perhaps, this moment is the final destination he is heading towards after his rebirth.
He was unwilling, but there was nothing he could do.
There are still many things I haven't had time to do, many words I haven't had time to say, and many regrets I haven't had time to make up for...
The werewolf approached again, cruelly raising its sharp claws in preparation for an attack.
"Draco—" she called after him, clutching the corner of his clothes, in a frightened tone.
In that split second, Draco had no other choice.
Never mind. Let's call it a day. These three years felt like a steal.
Draco turned around, hugged his little girl tightly, and turned his back to the werewolf with a determined expression on his face.
This was the only protective measure he could take with his life, a ridiculous and crude one.
"I'm sorry, forgive me." He said in a trembling voice in her ear, his eyes tightly closed in great fear.
Muggles say that the moment before death amplifies all sensory experiences.
Maybe this is true.
He could feel her equally trembling body and her arms wrapped just as tightly around his waist.
He could feel the frantic thump of her heart in her chest, just as she could feel his.
Her cold face pressed against his, and warm tears silently flowed down the gap between their cheeks.
"Draco..." She called his name in a heartbroken and desperate tone, the pain in her voice almost tore his heart apart.
His Hermione. His sweet little girl.
She still smelled of his favorite green apples.
In his previous life, he had foolishly lost her.
In this life, just when he was trying to get her back bit by bit, just when she was about to give him a chance——
They are going to die here.
I really can't bear to die holding her like this.
The howling of wolves could be heard in the distance - the tearing and pain that Draco had imagined did not appear.
At the last moment, the werewolf seemed to be attracted by the wolf howl and turned around and ran away.
They are safe.
In an incredible way.
But they still don't want to let each other go.
In this great fear and joy of surviving the disaster, they collapsed on the ground, hugging each other tightly and tremblingly like two desperate drowning people grabbing at life-saving driftwood.
"It's okay, Hermione, it's gone," he said, realizing his voice was hoarse.
"Draco," she buried her head in his shoulder, her teeth chattering, and said in a crying voice, "It's really terrible..."
Her tears soon wet a small part of his shoulder.
"Okay, okay, you're safe." He gently patted her thin, shaking, rapidly heaving back, his fingers trembling so much that he couldn't control them.
She must have been terrified.
Hermione, she held him so tight. She clung to him, almost as if trying to bury herself in his arms.
The air in his lungs was almost squeezed out, and his ribs were almost broken by her.
But he doesn't care.
She was still alive, hugging him, and that was enough.
Merlin, how many chances can a person have to survive a disaster in this life, and how many times can he be lucky enough to erase his mistakes and start over.
Since she had snuggled into his arms, not someone else's.
After all, the warmth of a hug can resist the cold of death.
Why did Draco Malfoy hesitate?
For the first time in his life, he hugged Hermione Granger back firmly, clearly, and tightly.
He hugged his little girl back.
He trembled and hugged her tightly, who was also trembling, and never wanted to let go.