Title: Nothing Important Happened Today
Summary: "Nothing Important Happened Today." diary entry of George III, king of England, on July 4th, 1776. ---- In the distant future, Draco Malfoy looks back on the day that changed his life.
Pairing: D/Hr, of course! Who do you think you're dealing with?
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe does not belong to me. I swear on all that I hold dear (my mother, Prada, Jake the cat, orange pez, the way boys' hoodies smell, etc.) that I am making no money off of this story. Don't sue me. Please.
A/N: This is a little one-shot that appeared on my computer screen one night. It was VERY late, and I was watching an X-Files re-run, which, having once been X-Files obsessed, I knew to be entitled "Nothing Important Happened Today." This title had always tickled my fancy, for I knew it to be a quote from the diary of King George III of England, written on the day that the representatives of the American colonies signed the Declaration of Independence. Since it was quite late, my train of thought became rather philosophical in nature (when I am either very drunk or very tired, I tend to speak in very big words about very obscure concepts that no one, not even myself, really understands). I wondered how often people are completely ignorant of the events that change their lives, or are, at least, ignorant of their importance. Therefore, at three in the morning with the formidable Special Agent Dana Scully droning on seriously in the background, I hammered out this little story. Perhaps not the most original of plots, but I really liked the writing in it, so I wanted to post it anyway. I would love to hear what you think.
Many, many years later, when the world was quite a different place and we were the sort of people who did such things, we sat in front of a fire very late at night and she told me story about a king. One day, he sat on his throne in blissful ignorance while, in a distant land, fifty-six men were tearing the world as he knew it down around his ears. That night, his diary entry read: "Nothing important happened today."
I rather like that story. It makes me feel slightly less alone, because on the most important day of my life, I, too, was a poor, ignorant bastard who had no idea that my universe had just changed forever.
It was, to the best of my knowledge at the time, just another day in the winter of my eighteenth year. My world was no larger than the walls of Hogwarts and Malfoy Manor allowed it to be. The War was still a distant, formless thing that was not yet tainted with the faces of the dead. My father's twisted beliefs were still my own, for she had not yet had a chance to love them into dust. Death and suffering were still abstract concepts, not the stenches and screams and slashes of red and black that still haunt me when I sleep.
The day dawned as days in January are apt to do, with a cold brilliance and a blinding, empty light. Meals came and went, as did classes that were no more or less interesting than usual. Quidditch practice was uneventful, and, following my scheduled patrol of the fourth floor corridors, I escaped the tense, calculating silence of the Slytherin common room for the quiet familiarity of the library.
The library was closed at nine on school nights, but with the approach of NEWTs exams, seventh-years were granted twenty-four hour access. You had to watch your ass in the halls, where Filch and Mrs. Norris still reigned supreme, but if you could get yourself to the library after curfew, you could stay there all damn night, if you so desired. As the exams were still many months away, few people had taken advantage of this privilege, except for a few brave souls who were so desperate for a late-night snog that they braved the hallways and the wrath of Filch to get it.
I myself had not yet given much thought to studying for NEWTS (which turned out to be a moot point, as the War had already begun to rage by May and such quaint things as exams and lives lived free of fear and loss fell to the wayside), but I sometimes took advantage of our library privileges. When I grew weary of Pansy's incessant chatter or Crabbe and Goyle's uncomprehending stares, I would go there for a few hours of solitude and thought.
So, on that unexceptional January night, I walked into the library -- and changed my life.
I was absorbed in thoughts of my father, or really, to be accurate, in thoughts of the looming, oppressive shadow that was my father's will. His body and mind may have been withering away in Azkaban, but his plans for me were like towering iron fences lining the path of my future. I could not escape them.
The knowledge that my life was not my own, that I had nothing to look forward to but servitude, suffering, and a young and pointless death, led me often in those days to bouts of morose self-pity. It would not be until later, when I had the incentive of her love to beckon me across the divide, that the option of pledging my allegiance to the other side would even occur to me, so on that night my inner musings consisted mostly of considering what I had ever done to deserve such a fate.
Wallowing in self-pity tends to distract one from the world around him, so I honestly didn't see her when I turned the corner. She didn't believe that, of course (still doesn't, as a matter of fact), but it was the truth. I was just as surprised as she was to find my forward momentum suddenly halted by a warm, bony something, and then to come back to reality to find Hermione Granger sprawled on the floor in front of me, books, parchment, and quills all around her and a look on her face meant to convey that if I were the lowest, slimiest, deadliest creature to ever crawl from the depths of Hades itself, she could not possibly hate me more.
We blinked at one another for a moment, her scowling and me still struggling to leave the weight of my inner misery behind. Finally, she huffed at me, drew herself up to her knees, and began gathering her scattered belongings while muttering malevolently under her breath.
"Pompous, arrogant git, no consideration for anyone but himself, probably standing around the corner for hours just waiting for me to come by so he could make my life hell . . ." She continued her quiet rant without looking up at me. Perhaps she thought that, my mission to ruin her evening accomplished, I had already moved on by. I still don't know why I didn't do just that. For a moment, I simply stared at her, watching the way her long, wild curls brushed the floor where she knelt, contemplating the merits of a quick round of trading insults with my favorite sparring partner.
Her cleverness, which has, at various points in our relationship, caused me to hate her, envy her, appreciate her, and eventually adore her, made her far more interesting to taunt than any other victims of my scathing tongue. She had long ago stopped staring at me with wounded eyes and started matching me insult for insult. When I was in the right mood, I almost enjoyed matching my wits against hers, for such confrontations almost always ended in a draw. I was not in such a mood that night; I was in a mood to wallow in my own whiny, put-upon depression. Therefore, instead of casting a biting remark her way, I did something that, while rather out of character for me, seemed like little more than an intriguing personality quirk that I would not give more than a passing thought to for many years to come. God, I was stupid.
Later that night, I would blame it on the distracting nature of my inner thoughts, or on a twinge of guilt for having knocked into a mere slip of a girl hard enough to knock her down, Mudblood or not, but I have since realized how utterly ridiculous those excuses were. I suspect now that it was Fate or God or whoever the hell is in charge up there taking a little mercy on a confused, stupid kid whose life was about to spin rapidly in the direction of fear, pain, and a death without purpose or honor. He/she/they were saying, "Here you go, you poor bastard. Your one shot at redemption. Take it or leave it."
And I took it. I knelt down there, in the wise, benevolent silence of the Hogwarts library, and helped Hermione Granger gather her things. I didn't see her stare at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. I didn't notice that the hatred was gone from her face, replaced by confusion and a wary sort of curiosity. I simply handed her a few thick books that were nearer to me than to her, picked up a slightly ruffled-looking quill and placed it in her small, pale hand, and repaired a broken ink bottle and dropped it in her bag. Then I stood up, nodded a curt apology, and went on my way. I forgot about the incident before I'd reached my preferred table near the back of the library.
And that was it. I knocked a girl down and helped her pick up her things, and in doing so saved myself from . . . myself. I did not die a spineless, hate-filled coward at the feet of a false Lord; no innocent blood was spilled on my hands; no families mourned the loss of sons and daughters of whom my vengeful hate deprived them. She saved me, saved us all, from those fates.
Not that night, of course, or for many nights to come. I was too blind, too lost in the hell of my own making, to let myself be saved so easily. In the months that followed that fateful night, I came perilously close to losing many things to my willful ignorance -- my freedom, my soul, my life -- but it is knowing that I nearly lost her, nearly never had her to begin with, that shakes me even now. However blind I might have been, though, I wasn't stupid. Once I recognized my salvation for what it was, I grabbed on tight with both hands and all the passion that she had instilled in me where once I had only known coldness and my father's hate. I can never love her enough to repay her for that, but it won't be for lack of trying.
As much as that night changed the course of my fate, it caused surprisingly little disruption in the short term. I still had homework to do, first-years to bully, my impending damnation to contemplate endlessly and uselessly. The change had started, to be sure, but not in me. As with all things that matter in my life now, it began with her.
As much as I hate to admit it, the only reason I am not lying in an unmarked grave with the hundreds of Death Eaters who gave their lives to an empty cause is because the woman who loves me, much to my chagrin, is a Gryffindor through and through. It was not my will or my strength of character that saved me; it was not even hers. It was her passion, her loyalty, and her brave and unwavering heart.
I learned much later that in my moment of careless kindness, she fancied that she saw something in me that made her doubt that I was quite as unworthy of saving as I had always presented myself to be. Being who she was, she therefore set out to discover the truth of the that conjecture. She was right, of course; she is always right.
After that night, I often caught her watching me, but never again would I see hatred in those dark, guileless eyes. Eventually, with the patience and determination that I both hate and love about her, she would wear me down, reveal my ignorant hate to me for what it was, show me that my life had always been my own. Eventually, she would love me, and when I grew weary being the blind, cruel, misguided prat I honestly thought I was, I would love her, too.
It wasn't a quick and painless transition. I didn't wake up one morning and realize that everything I had always believed in was wrong, because not all of it was. I didn't look at her one day and think, "Gods, she's beautiful," because she really isn't, at least not on the outside. That night changed everything, but not all at once. Like all things that are good and worthwhile in this mostly harsh and unforgiving world, my redemption took time and pain and sacrifice. The road that led me to her was long and hard to follow, but it was worth it. I do not know where it will end (though I can't imagine that the destination can be bad as long as she is with me), but I do know where it began, though I didn't at the time.
How is it possible, I wonder now, that I hadn't realized I had changed my world? Shouldn't I have felt something, some shift in the cosmos as my previous destiny was torn from its foundations and a new one, inlaid with shimmering veins of love and freedom, was laid in its place? I feel as though I should, but I didn't. If I kept a diary, which I don't (foolish, girly thing to do if you ask me), my diary entry that night would have been a distant echo of another, belonging to a poor, oblivious fool only slightly more ignorant than I was.
She is fond of telling me that the reason I didn't realize that my fate had been irrevocably altered was because it hadn't. She claims that she has always been my destiny, and that I have always been hers, and that things worked out exactly as they were meant to. I'm not so sure, but I'm hesitant to doubt her. She has little faith in the power of destiny, so when she says something is meant to be, she really means it.
Besides, the love of my life is seldom wrong about anything. She even turned out to be right about me.