tampered | [closed] all the shame of it all the pain fell on him

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[closed] all the shame of it all the pain fell on him

When; Aug 11th, 7pm, the Library
Rating; PG for swearing? I assume there will be some.
Characters;

honestlyrubbish
Summary; The City makes for strange bedfellows. (nobody saw that)
Log;

Draco Malfoy was second-guessing himself already. Not just about agreeing to work together with Hermione Granger, one of his least favourite people in the universe and a mudblood to boot, but about going home entirely. He might be trapped in a hideously-named metropolis of multiple alternate universes which was almost entirely muggle that got off on humiliating its citizens periodically, but at least there was no impending war here. What had become a familiar twinge in his arm where the tattoo was magically sealed into his skin had faded to nothing since he'd arrived, his family wasn't here but they weren't in danger either, and if the people here didn't know what being pureblooded meant they didn't know who Harry Potter was either.

His new owl had deigned to ride on his shoulder as he left the small flat, locking and warding everything behind him, but now lifted off into the night on silent wings. He watched her go for a moment before continuing his walk towards the vast Library, still brooding. Despite the current relative safety of this place, there was still the chance that one or another of the Death Eaters would appear and he would have to account for himself. Merlin forbid the Dark Lord himself arriving here. What would he do then? For now, he was only following the example of his father and Severus Snape. Don't let pride get in the way of survival, lie and cheat and steal and give the appearance of loyalty whenever it costs the least. That's the lesson he clung to now.

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Incidentally, Draco wasn't the only person second-guessing himself. Rushing up the steps towards the Library, anyone who knew Hermione even distantly might have been able to notice that she wasn't feeling herself that day, hair in more of a frenzy than usual, eyes slightly bloodshot. The second-guessing wasn't due to the fact that she was meeting with one of the people who only just fell short of being an enemy during the majority of their school years--for she still felt that it was right to treat people as people, in spite of all mistakes accrued in the past. Instead, it was the way that this agreement, to meet Draco Malfoy in the Library and share her notes, had driven a wedge into her closest friendships. Had seemed to make Harry lose faith in her ability to hold to her principles. Ironically enough, it was principle itself which had brought Hermione to the steps of the Library in the first place, whereas bias would have made her long to pull back, to renounce any attempts of being civil with Draco and simply stay within the comfortable bubble that the cabin crafted for Hermione.

Guilt fell on her from all sides--the possibility that she was placing justice over friendship, in a way where she wasn't quite sure which was supposed to mean more. The fact that even when it came to justice, to principle, Hermione was bending that too, in being prepared to give Draco most of the facts she's learned, but none of the theory--withholding certain crucial notes, those taken when Hermione was furthest down in the Underground, as she still didn't trust him. Still wasn't sure what to expect from someone who had hated the lot of the cabin for so long, and who in the end, had yet to felt the debt he so owed them.

He was self-serving. And perhaps that much would never change. Hermione only hoped that the superiority they had over him for the moment would last, that it would be enough for him to tell them if he'd found a way out. How could one guarantee airing of secrets from a boy who had spent the past couple of years of his life finally learning how to keep them out of reach?

She found Draco waiting just inside the entrance, mentally cringing at having arrived later than the wizard.

"Malfoy?" Hermione called out, adjusting her grip on the papers in her arms.

When the door behind him opened, Draco turned and, spotting Hermione, cocked an eyebrow and smirked. He didn't bother hiding the fact that he looked her up and down. "Granger, you look like shit," he drawled by way of greeting, almost gleefully. Reverting to type was the easiest way to hide his uncertainty. He himself, of course, was in the best immaculate black shirt and pants gold could buy.

Draco was almost certain she'd argued with Potter on his behalf and that of course was just a fringe benefit of infiltrating their happy little surrogate family. Harry had said that it was likely pity that motivated her to agree to this little project, and that certainly stung his ego, but never let it be known that Draco Malfoy wasn't willing to take advantage of it. However, the accusation that he was doing it entirely out of maliciousness was, for once, rather wide of the mark. He wanted the protection familiarity would gain him, information that could be traded if other Death Eaters arrived in the city, and also to make himself look the better person in the eyes of the city at large. After all, he was the one who was making the overtures of truce while in a strange land, and Potter was the one snapping about a childhood antagonism.

Being antagonized from Draco's end certainly wasn't helping matters, Hermione's eyes fluttering to a shut as she took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. Yes, the insults got under her skin, and yet deep down, there was also slight relief which washed over Hermione at the familiar tone--perhaps all of them were clinging onto some aspect of their past, in a day and age where everything was changing and leaving none of them with very firm ground to stand on. She didn't have to like him. She didn't have to go that far.

"Yes, well," she replied, rolling her eyes. "So sorry that I spent more time collecting my notes for you than I did on my hair--if you would prefer, we could of course suspend this meeting for another couple of hours, let me freshen up for you."

False simpering tone aside, Hermione then stepped further into the library, nodding at some of the employees, who had long since recognized her as being a regular around the stacks. Immediately, she cut towards the right side of the library, leading to a set of stairs which would lead up to private study rooms--all citizens were allowed in the library, after all, and Draco Malfoy could not be considered one of the worst or most dangerous, among them.

"What have you learned about the City, so far? Or perhaps better yet, which places are you even interested in looking at?"

"Not that it would really have mad a difference even if you had, I'm sure."

Gryffindors would never get that it was just a game, the insults and the taunting. Of course they were meant to be hurtful, but the trick was to not be hurt - or hurt someone back worse. Much like the bludger in Quidditch. It was the mark of a true friend who knew your weaknesses and chose not to use them against you. If anything, it involved more trust than being friends with someone who was friends with everyone and all parties involved knew where they stood at the end of the day.

Not to be left trailing behind like a duckling, Draco kept pace with her with his longer strides, mentally keeping track of their path with a survivor's eye for exits.

"There's talk of a clockwork mechanism, but that it's strongly warded. The longest I've heard of anyone being here is two years. People come and go very often, it shouldn't be hard to get some sort of lock on the mechanism that causes it," he listed off idly. Collaboration was not something he was very good at without one person very obviously being the superior and the other inferior, but he was willing to do what was necessary.

When they'd managed to get into a small study room he pulled a small folded piece of parchment out of his pocket along with his wand and tapped it so that it unfurled into a page much larger than it should have been. Show-off? Never.

An eyebrow quirked at the little bit of magic--impressed? Hardly, although it was a nice piece of magic, to be sure, but Hermione had always been perhaps one of the most aware of the fact that Draco wasn't a bad student by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, he was probably one of the top of their year, only seemed far less so because Hermione's capacity for learning was almost unheard of, and... admittedly because Harry's fame managed to steal a good portion of the spotlight, grades put aside. Pursing her lips, Hermione simply reached into her bag--the same beaded bag from home, charmed to practically have no limit as to the amount it could hold--to pull out a thick stack of notebooks. Spiral-bound, ten in number, labeled: deities, fountain, clock, curses, underground [general], guides, natives, barriers, adrastus, and finally: [AVOID]. None of them were filled from cover to cover, but there was enough to see that Hermione had spent quite some time on the Network rooting around for information.

"Alright. I guess we can start with the clock, then, in that case. I think it's probably the most dangerous out of all of these subjects, with the possible explanation of Adrastus, but that... I know far less about that than anything else," Hermione mutters, quickly sitting down in her seat and pulling out spare pieces of parchment and flipping the notebook on the clock open, peering up at Draco. "As for how long people have been here, I've heard that there are some people who've been around for three, but... the turnover rate is often less than that, so we can't really be certain how long this place has been in existence."

Handy for note-passing, anyways. Practical skills had always trumped book knowledge for Draco, after all. He pulled out a quill fitted with a nib and a small pot of ink and slid into a seat, eyeing her bottomless bag with some interest as she pulled out her several large notebooks. What were the chances she'd put a password or lock of some kind on it? Who knew what someone could find inside the handbag of the mudblood best friend of Harry Potter? After all, in a place like this someone wouldn't leave their valuables at home. But he put that aside for later.

"But the hospital and money haven't been around forever. This place has been growing in size and complexity, so there must have been a point where this place was small enough that everyone knew each other personally or maybe a point when a large group arrived together," he argued. "Some of the earlier guides give a list of the deities, but some of the ones listed in the office are different. So not even they are immutable or eternal."

He paused then, suffering from a momentary peak of paranoia. The deities certainly gave the impression of seeing and hearing all, and even if that wasn't the case they would certainly be doing something so elementary as keeping an eye on anyone speaking about them. When no bolt of lightning struck he continued.

"Anyway, it would be fast if you'd just let me copy the things."

Of course she wouldn't let him, she'd want to hold back the most interesting or potentially useful bits of information, but might as well ask so that they were both clear.

The more Hermione went over the details in her mind, the more she felt that in all honesty, perhaps the City shouldn't have been tampered with, that perhaps it simply could not be tampered with to any meaningful level. After all, even if one tried to draw conclusions from the facts that Draco listed--that the hospital was only two years old, that the monetary system was devised in the past couple of years, as was the station of Wardenship--there was still the possibility that everything simply cycled, as seemed to be the pattern for the City. Cycling of deities, of people, or memories--why couldn't there just be a great cycle for the entirety of the City? A way of clearing the slate, allowing citizens to come up with whatever sort of system they deemed fit? She sighed, almost dejectedly at he tasks in front of her, perhaps uncharacteristically--but then again, the situation wasn't exactly precedented.

"There was probably such a point, yes," Hermione conceded quickly with a slight, dismissive wave of her hand. "And I know that the deities have cycled--there are plenty of things which suggest that they may be middlemen, in a manner of speaking. But that says nothing about when this City was first created."

Lips pressing thin for a moment, Hermione folded her arms on her notebooks, looking Draco in the eye.

"I do plan on letting you copy the things. Probably. But, Malfoy, how badly do you honestly want to leave this City? How effective do you think any of this will actually be? Not that I don't believe any of us aren't capable, but millions of people have cycled through this City, and not one has managed to determine a reliable way in and out."

It was never nice to have someone call you out on your own doubts.

"It will be more effective than sitting around waiting for the next curse to hit," he snapped, looking away to the side. What was he supposed to do? He wasn't naive enough to think that he could succeed in something like this where innumerable others had failed, but just sitting back and accepting the cage was not in his nature either.

"There is no reason not to try," he continued in a tone more resigned than angry.

It wasn't just that, though. He was restless with nothing to do, every time he reached some sort of peace he would have small panic attacks that he should be doing something, what if scenarios spiralling into infinity, not to mention the ever-present nightmares that had flared up horribly after his meeting with the Dark Lord at Easter and only got more material after the battle the night he had arrived. The fatigue came and went, but now, in this place, it felt more like he was living in a dream. A nightmare. But his posture never wavered. One doesn't show weakness to one's enemies. And everyone is an enemy.

"Who'd have thought that I would live to see the day that you and Harry agree so completely on a subject," Hermione shook her head, eyes rolling slightly. "Not that I disagree with the fact that sitting around for a curse sounds plainly awful, but I don't think there is always a... a clear objective to life, something which must be done and will make things clearly better for it, the sort of goals that this war has spurned on. While research could very well land us positive results, it's equally--if not more--likely for something bad to happen. I just..."

Hermione tapped her wand on her notebooks absentminded, each touch of the wand to parchment changing the color slightly.

"Maybe the deities are truly not very keen on killing us all. I mean, I've seen a fair bit of it happen during curses, but usually people are fully animated by the time those are over. There have been diseases which have passed through the population, and those are more permanent, but those are few and far between. So perhaps nosing around a little is fine, but I feel like if anyone were to truly approach an answer, attempts would be thwarted. The last time someone started an expedition to check out the Clock, the deities sent all manner of enchanted mice to destroy the evidence collected. There have been cases of amnesia wrought as well."

She turned her head down to her notes again, then sighed and shook her head. "I only think that maybe we should be focusing less on the City, and more on ourselves, but I suppose I'm losing this vote." Hermione pushed the notebooks towards Draco. "Copy these if you like, but don't go about spreading the information to the wrong people. Perhaps even more than back home, there is a price for knowledge, in this city."

Draco bristled at being compared to Harry on anything, even if he knew detachedly that there were quite a few similarities between them he didn't want to be reminded of it. He did take her warnings seriously, though, and let out a little sigh of frustration. Thwarted at every turn.

"We will, at the very least, be keeping them on their toes. After all, everyone said Azkaban was unbreakable and then my beloved cousin went and escaped," he replied, lip curling a little when referring to Sirius. The worst kind of blood-traitor, one who had spat in the face of family and tradition simply out of spite.

"If you were expecting a bloody heart-to-heart I'd think you'd gone delusional, Granger," he said, quickly gathering the notebooks before she could change her mind. Producing his wand once again, he stood and tapped the stack of books once, muttering exemplar and then tapped the parchment twice with an effingo. The page filled up with a minute but exact copy of Hermione's handwriting and Draco looked satisfied. The charm was no good for copying homework because there was no way to forge the handwriting, but it was a useful sort of thing for copying notes. One well passed on by upper-year Slytherins of yesteryear. "Excellent."

There was a flash of enjoyment at Draco's reaction, even if Hermione knew that Harry would be similarly offended on his end, had he heard--but no harm, no foul, at least she only had to witness one half of the reactions from her vantage point. His sigh, however, deflated whatever momentary pleasure she was able to get from the moment--all of them were rather defeated, in the City.

"Don't compare the two situations. Braving the dementors is something which just requires sheer will and cunning, with a touch of cleverness, all things that Sirius has to no end, and more," Hermione leaned back in her chair, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. "But this City's rules aren't any that we know or can verify. And the deities, they're watching, listening. The only thing that saves us is the fact that they're middlemen, and we know for certain that they can't able to act entirely of their free will."

She rolled her eyes at the charm, quickly tugging her notebooks back and stuffing them in her bag, tying it shut.

"A heart-to-heart requires for both of us to have functional ones, doesn't it?" Hermione asked, airily, shaking her head. "Well, see whatever you can make of those, I suppose. And let me know. I do advise that you stay away from the spots I've outlined as dangerous. Much of the Underground, for instance. Too far into the ocean, or into the lake. That sort of thing."

"We know that for certain? How?" Draco asked, frowning as he waved his wand in a spiral around his parchment so that it folded in on itself again. Once in a while he wondered if he would have ended up in Ravenclaw had he been born to a different family. Only once in a while, though. Blood was blood, and he cherished his house and what it represented.

It's almost a real smile when she sniped back, or at least a slightly appreciative one. So often Gryffindors jumped straight to their wands, it was refreshing for one of them to actually talk back for once. "Just because it doesn't bleed doesn't mean it doesn't exist, Granger. And I'll keep that in mind."

For a moment, Hermione allowed herself to be distracted by the magic, reluctantly admitting that Draco was a fair bit more competent than perhaps either of her best friends when it came to certain subjects. Charms probably being one of them, and it resulted in a shallow furrow in her brow as she looked back to Draco--as, after all, Hermione couldn't help but have a healthy respect for good students. Good magic. It was something that all of them could universally appreciate, perhaps.

"In the notebook labeled Adrastus, wherever you copied that on your parchment, I discuss certain occurrences which have happened in the City suggesting that the deities aren't at all who's truly in charge of the place. There have been... creatures which came in and punished the deities for taking things from citizens without any reason. Requesting payment where there was nothing to pay for. And all of the payment--granted, nothing more than piles of hair--was returned at once. It could be an elaborate act, put up to confuse the citizens, but I highly doubt it."

The smile caught Hermione slightly off guard, although she returned it with a very slight grin of her own. "I'll check up with you in a couple of weeks, somehow."

Unfortunately, the past year had mostly been spent on a handful of very specific charms and some of his skills showed it. He'd sleep-walked through most of sixth year courses on the bare minimum, resulting in several very uncomfortable discussions with a few teachers. But in the Dark Arts he'd pole-vaulted over most jinxes and hexes straight into the most effective of duelling curses and the Unforgivables. He didn't feel behind, but it irked him a little when he had time to think about it. It felt like throwing a match, even though repairing the cabinet had been unquestionably more important.

"That's interesting," he replied, for once not sarcastic. "Anyone bound by rules, responsible to a higher authority, can be manipulated by them."

Tucking his things away again he waved his hand a little dismissively. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Anyone bound by rules or responsible to a higher authority... can be manipulated, yes. But not manipulated by just anyone. I certainly have never seen a citizen manage it, and I have been here for nine months, no small amount of time," Hermione warned, still wary, still watching Draco as closely as she could, given the unease between the two of them. The lack of sarcasm in his voice only called her attention more to his words. A jump or break in the pattern.

Hermione stood then, out of her seat, not anticipating that Draco would discuss anything much further with her, that night, and not wanting to be the one left behind in the room.

"Still, we should check up. Not that I expect you to do so for any of us, but the City is a dangerous place, and should you need help staying alive, I would offer it. This isn't a place for any one of us to be stuck, for good."

For a moment there it had been like he had been airing out ideas with any other Slytherin. But he caught himself before he revealed too much and shook his head sharply to bring the world back into perspective. Hermione Granger. The Horribly Named City. Death Eater.

"Shall I just send up red sparks?" he sneered, heading out of the room into the hallway again. Of course he would take advantage of her and Lupin's offers of help should it come down to it, but there was no reason why he should appear grateful. No reason to encourage them to feel good about themselves and their good deeds.

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[closed] all the shame of it all the pain fell on him

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