CARAGH BETH

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[caragh-beth]

Miss Granger, A prisoner awaiting trial, DRACO LUCIUS MALFOY, has declined your visitation request. Regards, Wilburt Pifflekemp, Azkaban Overseer

[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.

Ever since she’d noticed his wand was composed of hawthorn, she’d been revisiting Gregorovitch’s analysis of the wood again and again, attempting to make sense of the senseless as she was known to do. But the text did not bend to her will, only ever reading:

Hawthorn wood makes a strange, contradictory wand, as full of paradoxes as the tree that gave it birth, whose leaves and blossoms heal, and yet whose cut branches smell of death. A witch or wizard wielding a hawthorn wand, likely suffering a life of dissonance and strife, may find they are unsure whether to walk the path of Light or its twin path of Dark. A hawthorn wand is suited for either, capable of both exceptional healing spells and especially wicked curses. Due to their conflicted nature, hawthorn wands are not easy wands to command and require a talented master.

[caragh-beth]

The Granger-Parkinson Flat

[caragh-beth]

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. 

“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.” 

“To your misery, then.”

[caragh-beth]

Malfoy, Did I expect a reply to my previous owl? Perhaps not. Am I incensed that I did not receive one nonetheless? Naturally. I would like to help as much as I can in compiling your defence. If you don’t believe me, then you can write to Pansy Parkinson for verification of my good intentions.  - Hermione Granger, Order of Merlin, First Class

[caragh-beth]

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 way 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—”

“I meant you, Granger.”

[caragh-beth]

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 let out a slow, steadying breath. This was becoming her whole life: standing between a condemned being and the cage the world was certain it deserved. The dragon, at least, was a facet of her actual job at Dragon Research and Restraint, but with her continued work on S.P.E.W. and Draco sodding Malfoy’s defence piled on top, she was drowning in causes to thanklessly champion.

[caragh-beth]

Malfoy, I hope you’re faring well enough, given the circumstances. I’m writing to inform you that I will be testifying on your behalf in front of the Wizengamot Tribunal come November. I await your response.  - Granger

[caragh-beth]

Hermione Granger’s Pitiful Creatures Crusade

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

He was leaning against the wood-panelled gap between two compartment doors with a catlike ease, Crabbe and Goyle conspicuously absent. His platinum hair was combed flat and he was dressed in close-cut black robes, his pale face contorted by a well-rehearsed sneer. 

The sight of him brought his voice up from the campsite, unbidden. Granger, they’re after Muggles. D’you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Keep that big bushy head down. 

She’d spent the days since trying to work out what he’d meant by it, and had come to the uncomfortable conclusion that she had no idea. Because she didn’t know Malfoy, not truly. 

Which was hardly a loss.

[caragh-beth]

The Leaky Cauldron

[caragh-beth]

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.

She had always found it all too easy to forgive Malfoy.