CARAGH BETH

Hermione Granger's Pitiful Creatures Crusade

Chapter Three Flashback: December, 1994 [link] Written to "forwards beckon rebound" by Adrianne Lenker

Hermione shook her head, exasperated. “Is this some forbidden thrill for you, appearing every time I’m alone and drawing attention to yourself via thinly veiled innuendos? Because it’s certainly not for my benefit.” 

“Maybe it is for your benefit, an act of charity,” Malfoy supplied easily. “You must be lonely, self-imprisoned in the library, reading your”—his searching hand bypassed her open Arithmancy text and snatched up the closed book next to it, which happened to be Mykew Gregorovitch’s Written Guide to Wandlore—“massive tome on the art of wand-making, apparently. Salazar, it’s worse than I thought if you’re spending your time reading this drivel.”

She fought her blush valiantly. It wasn’t as though Malfoy would be able to deduce her reason for having the book set out at her workstation.

Hermione Granger's Pitiful Creatures Crusade

Chapter Three: Unspeakable [link] Written to "I Know It's Over" by The Smiths

“It’s final then, your disinheritance?” Hermione asked, cautious.

“Yes,” Pansy sighed, throwing a bent arm over her eyes in an act of blatant melodrama. “Mother never wants to see me again. While I’m no longer partial to her dreadful company either, I will miss the Galleons dearly.” Her other arm fell from the settee to snag the corked bottle of elf-made merlot resting on the floor next to her. She waggled it by its neck. “Shall we drink?” 

Hermione got the distinct impression that Pansy’s cavalier attitude was mostly bravado, born of an innately Slytherin need to preserve her dignity. She decided to humour her by summoning two of the crystal wine glasses Pansy had nicked from the Parkinson estate. They floated out of the kitchen and landed on the coffee table between them. Without so much as sitting up, Pansy followed Hermione’s lead, making a series of wand gestures that had the bottle uncorking itself and filling their glasses, the merlot flowing until it met the gilt rim of each glass. 

“To your bravery, Pansy.” Hermione lifted her drink in a toast. 

Pansy scoffed, righting herself. Crookshanks hopped from her lap and settled at her feet, curling around them. She grabbed her glass and downed it before saying, “Don’t make me out to be some bloody Gryffindor. Insult to injury, Granger.” 

Hermione Granger’s Pitiful Creatures Crusade

Chapter Two Flashback: November, 1994 [link] Written to "It's Called: Freefall" cover by Paris Paloma

They marched over to their petrified skrewt, side by side but not together, their steps just disjointed enough to communicate their mutual reluctance to be in the presence of one another. Hermione bent for the leash, but Malfoy dropped into the cold grass a little ways off instead, facing the lake with his weight braced on his arms.

“What do you think you’re doing?” 

“Relaxing.” He cast a quick Tempus. “There’s half an hour till the bell. I don’t see why I should spend it walking a horrid beast.”

Hermione rested her hands on her hips. “Horrid as it may be, we’ve been charged with its care—”

Hermione Granger’s Pitiful Creatures Crusade

Chapter Two: The Crusade [link] Written to "The Couple Across the Way (Skinty Fia Sessions)" by Fontaines D.C.

Hermione Granger’s Pitiful Creatures Crusade

Chapter One Flashback: September, 1994 [link] Written to "O Children" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Hermione Granger's Pitiful Creatures Crusade

Chapter One: Peacetime, 1998 [link] Written to "Dealer" by Lana Del Rey

It was not nothing, sitting across from the girl who, only months ago, had stood in a packed Great Hall and screeched for someone to give Harry up to Voldemort. But Hermione had already decided that she could hold her nose for Malfoy’s sake, an irony which was not lost on her. Malfoy’s sins filled a case file while Pansy’s fit in a single sentence, yet she had forgiven one and not the other.