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“Sonorus Solo,” whispered Hermione as she slowly mounted her broom, careful not to dislodge the boombox hanging right at the end of her new Strata X. The high-end broom had been a gift from Ginny. Her quidditch star best friend had been elated at the news of her newfound love of flying, and was excited to go on flying trips with her when the quidditch season ended. For now though, she only had the company of Dave Mustaine’s ear splitting shrieks for her midnight zip through the English countryside.
Due to her parents’ obliviation, she had nowhere to come home to after the war. So she stayed with Harry in Grimmauld Place for a few months, making her home in Lupin’s old office, at least until Hogwarts returned to a semblance of normalcy and she could go back and finish her seventh year. It was there that she found a box of Tonks’ old mixtapes. Curious, she took out Tonks’ equally ancient boombox and listened to a few recordings. She shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Tonks was a metalhead, given her propensity for wild hair colours, tattoos and piercings, and even having a werewolf for a husband. She wasn’t a fan herself, and she could barely understand the words to any of the songs, but something about the loud music filled up the devastating quietness brought about by war and loss. She asked Andromeda if she could keep the tapes and the boombox, and the older witch gave her permission to take even more of Tonks’ music collection from their house.
Not long after, Megadeth, Cannibal Corpse, Anthrax, Exodus, and Dio would be heard from Hermione’s room, growling along to Whalburga Black’s shrieks of Mudblood and Blood traitor. Hermione had half a mind to form a metal band herself and call it Mudblood, thanks to Walburga’s constant inspirational insults whenever she passed by the old witch’s portrait. But her friends were less than enthusiastic, and nobody really could appreciate the music like she did, well except for Luna. But Luna had different outlandish ideas altogether, including performing naked at the bottom of the Black Lake, and she wasn’t ready for that.
Back when they were together, she and Ron always fought about it. With Ron saying that her music taste was trash and way too loud, and her saying that he had the musical intelligence of slimy discombobulated slug. It was one of the many things he didn’t understand about her, and in the end drove them apart.
Harry also said something along the lines of, “I’m glad that you have an outlet for your feelings Hermione, but I’m afraid this old house will collapse with all the noise rumbling all through the cracks.”
Considering Harry’s feelings on the matter regarding the fragility of his house and the volume of her music, Hermione modified the Sonorus charm to be contained and to work only on her ears. The charm proved to be useful even as she came back to Hogwarts, and she continued her newfound love for metal music alone and in peace.
As to how music and flying came to be her new favourite pastime, being a new hire in the DRCMC came with frequent flying trips to remote locations and habitats. At first, she would come home to her flat with trembling jelly legs after a long day of flying on the job. However, it wasn’t long until she discovered that listening to music while flying kept her from the fear of flying, and what started out as terrifying trips during the day turned into leisurely zipping through the night sky in tune with the frantic pace of drums and guitar solos.
It was on this fateful cloudy night, in the quiet of the foggy Wiltshire countryside that she collapsed midair against the unsuspecting hard body of one Draco Malfoy. No, it was not a cute bumping of foreheads and nervous smiles. It was a deadly collision of limbs and broken bones, both of them being saved from broken necks only by sheer luck and lightning fast casting of spells. Hermione’s being an arresto momentum, and Malfoy’s transfiguring the hard ground into a soft, bouncy surface. The two survived, but Hermione’s sonorus charm did not.
“Salazar’s fucking tits!” Malfoy shouted above the din of Megadeth still playing in the background. Limping towards the source of the hellish loudness, he blasted the boombox with his wand till it was no more than a pile of ash.
“Noooooo!” Hermione cried, clutching what felt like a dislocated shoulder.
“Granger?” the pain from his black eye had disappeared and been replaced with a confusing headache trying to comprehend what just happened. “Is that you? Are you alright there?”
“You blasted my boombox! I’m not okay!” She ran into the steaming pile of ashes, not minding the sharp pain in her knees.
“You blasted my sodding face! Not to mention you nearly killed us both!” he accused, pointing to his black eye and bleeding forehead. But to his frustration, she ignored him and tried to hug the pile of ash he just made.
“It was Tonks’.” she sobbed as she clutched the ashes, her tears, snot, and blood mixing with the black ash.
“What?” An even more confused Malfoy limped beside her to inspect the damage he had done. Well, strictly speaking, the damage Granger had done. Her face was black from the disgusting mix of ash and mucus that she was clutching. She had a huge gash on her forehead, her delicate jaw was bruised, and she was rubbing her probably dislocated shoulder, her hair was a big static mess, but it was nothing new, really.
Malfoy wasn’t doing any better himself. Judging from the pain he was feeling, and the dripping of blood from his right eyebrow, he suspected he had a lovely black eye. One of his molars had gotten loose and the metallic taste of blood told him he probably bit his tongue as well. His left ring finger was dislocated, as well as his right ankle. He could feel bruises forming all over his body.
“Granger, what the hell happened?” he tried asking her again, this time in a sort of calmer voice.
“Malfoy?” she stared at him in confusion, as if she hadn’t crashed and yelled at him just moments ago. Wincing, she tried to face him. “Why did you blow up Tonks’ boombox?” A look of panic was written across her face.
It hurt to roll his eyes, but he did it anyway. “We just almost fell to our deaths and all you care about right now is a goddam boombox! Have you suffered brain damage?” Upon hearing himself say this, he realized it must be the case and apparated them both swiftly to his manor.
“Snugglepuff!” he called his house elf as he placed a mad and confused Hermione Granger on the bed.
“You do not just apparate me without my permission Malfoy!” She berated him as she sunk into the silky soft, heavenly smelling sheets. “Where am I?”
“Yes my liege?” a deep croaky voice inquired as an old wrinkly house elf popped into existence.
“Please give me my medicine kit right away.” He ordered the elf. “You’re in my bedroom right now. I am a healer in training, let me fix you and you can go home right away.” He answered her in the most authoritative voice he could muster.
“No! I can’t be in here! And you’re just a healer in training! You’re totally not qualified!” She painfully kicked off the tempting sheets and attempted to wobble out and disapparate.
Instantly realizing his error in bringing her to his house, he sat beside her and placed a comforting hand on her uninjured shoulder. “You are safe here Granger, I promise.” He said. “I’m sorry to bring you here, but you are not fit to apparate on your own, given your present condition. I can accompany you to St. Mungos if you want though.”
They were so close that instead of listening to his words, she noticed the blood dripping from his eyebrow, and traced it with her finger. Entranced by the beautiful curve framing an intense silver eye, she mindlessly performed a wandless healing spell to stop the blood flow, all the while forgetting that she was at Malfoy Manor. “Did I do that?” she guiltily asked as she examined his bloodied face.
“Yes, your abnormally hard skull crashed into my face and destroyed it.” He whispered, half wanting to stay in the tender moment, and half wanting to chastise her for her carelessness. “But never mind that. Let me heal you first. You’re bleeding far worse than I am.”
She offered no protest and let him heal her injuries with his spells, and gently apply the various salves from his kit. He scanned her body to make sure there was no internal bleeding, and ordered her to drink one of the potions from his kit.
“Now your turn.” She picked up her wand and began running first aid diagnostics on him.
He immediately countered her spells and started to episkey his broken ring finger using his non-dominant hand. “I can heal myself, thank you.”
“You’re doing it all wrong.”
“No I’m not.” He replied, then turned away from her so she couldn’t see and criticize his less than stellar spell casting.
“I can still see you’re using your right hand to fix it. That’s going to turn out crooked. Your rings won’t fit anymore. Let me do it. I can do it more precisely.”
“No.”
“Don’t be stubborn. Let me do it.”
“No.”
“Malfoy!”
“Stop distracting me Granger!”
“You don’t trust me?”
“No.”
“Why not?” She asked incredulously.
Finally giving up on his attempts, he faced her. “Because you’re crazy.” He sputtered. “I was just minding my own business when suddenly, out of nowhere you crashed into me, very painfully might I add, before almost plummeting to death. Then you freak out about a bloody boombox from hell! Not to mention, this is the first time I’ve seen you since graduation, and I’m not entirely sure you’re to be trusted.”
“The boombox!” Suddenly, she remembered how he continued to shoot sparks at the thing until it was reduced to ash. “It was the only thing that kept me sane. It used to belong to Tonks, and now you destroyed it.” She said between sobs.
“I didn’t realize it was that important.”
“It was my lifeline.”
“What happened Granger?”
“I was just trying to let off steam for the night. I was sent here to monitor the area for unicorns. I wasn’t planning on crashing to death or reuniting with poncy arseholes. I was just trying to find a little bit of peace. I suppose I had been careless to go speeding through unfamiliar skies during the night.”
“I didn’t take you for a speedster. When we were back at Hogwarts, I remember you flailing like a toddler every time you mounted a broom.”
Glare.
“But what do you mean when you said that that boombox was your lifeline?”
“The music. It was Tonks’ music that filled up the empty space carved out by the war. It fills up my heart and clears my head out at the same time. It’s how I coped. It’s how I got over my fear of flying.”
“I’m sorry Granger. I shouldn’t have destroyed your property.”
“I’m sorry too Malfoy. For bumping into you. Although I don’t think I can be sorry for that shiner though.” She laughed so prettily.
“Bump, huh. What an understatement.” He conjured a mirror, and looked at both of them. What a pair they made. He looked like he’d been in a bar fight and lost, while she looked beautiful despite the yellow bruises and wild hair, like she’d been through a war and came out the victor. “I suppose I look roguishly handsome now, eh?” He deflected, trying to tamp down his errant thoughts.
“Here let me fix you.” She grabbed the jar labelled bruise paste from his medicine kit and started patting some around his eye. As soon as her fingertips brushed his skin, the angry red and purple bruises instantly calmed down to a yellowish color. “Your bruise paste is amazing. Where did you get this from?”
“I brewed it.” He murmured, his breath ghosting over her face, his eyes darting towards the bed. “My mentor helped me with the formulation. I’ll give you another jar to take with you when you get home, to help heal your bruises.” His eyes braved towards hers again, despite feeling a little too close for comfort.
“Thanks.” She lamely replied, suddenly realizing she had been running her fingers on his face for too long. She closed the jar a little too tightly and returned it to his kit. Her hands fidgeted with the bedsheets, in desperate need for something to do. Her eyes wandered around the luxurious room, jumping from the large canopy above them, to the bookshelves, to the trinkets scattered on the mantel.
Upon noticing her fidgeting, he stood on his good leg and make a wide sweeping gesture across the room. “I suppose you should get home. You know, murder house and all. Wouldn’t want you to get stuck here.”
“Strange. It doesn’t feel like that to me at all.” In fact, she felt like she belonged in there. The books on the shelf weren’t hers but they were begging to be read. The small trinkets and old toys, presumably owned by a little blond boy, called out to her. And the bed, oh the bed smelled and felt like heaven.
“I suppose it’s because it’s one of the few places in this house they never bothered to infiltrate.”
“Can I see it?” she asked, her voice going up an octave higher.
Instantly, he knew exactly what she meant. “I’ve never even been there in a long time, Granger. I don’t want to be there. I don’t want it in my house.”
“Then why don’t you just blast it out? Destroy it like you did my boombox.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t even bring myself to touch the doors.”
“Let me do it then.”
“I refuse to have you breaking down on my account.”
“I have an idea. Do you have anything that plays music?”
He gestured to the record player in the corner. She took out the spare mixtape she had in her back pocket and transfigured it into a vinyl record. Then she gave him a mischievous smirk, good enough to rival his old schoolboy signature evil one. It was impossible to say no, and the best gesture of opposition he could do was a long sigh and a lazy eye roll. “At least let me fix my leg first before you drag me into another accident.”
After much squabbling and a fair amount of healing, they made their way down two floors and onto the double doors leading to the dreaded drawing room. Malfoy charmed the record player to follow them around like a puppy.
Hermione opened the doors, and turned the record player on full blast. A song about fire and flames echoed around them, and she started blasting the black and white tile beneath her feet, where her blood, along with many others, had seeped into the grout. She let out a laugh and Malfoy followed, blasting the stupid dais, where a madman once placed his throne. The destruction went on, blasting windows, chandeliers, sofas and crown mouldings until the record ended. They were surrounded by ash and rubble, and it was the most freeing experience the both of them had had in a long time. They were dirty and disgusting. His hair was dark gray in some places and she had a large smear of ash on her cheek, but their eyes shone clear and bright amongst the swirling dust around them.
In a bout of impulsivity, or maybe due to the leftover adrenaline Hermione felt after causing such destruction, she crossed the two feet between them and threw herself into him. She placed a tender kiss on his mouth in gratitude, and calmly walked out of Malfoy Manor, leaving a dazed Draco Malfoy behind.
The end.