This Is War

The Swapping Game

AN: In this story, our beloved Golden Trio are in their Seventh Year. The hunt for Horcruxes happened in their Sixth Year, Dumbledore is dead, Snape is with the Death Eaters, and Harry still has to find two more Horcruxes. 

From a single line of pine trees that separated the furthest Hogwarts grounds and the Forbidden Forest, a plump barn owl stretched his claws on the branch it rested on. It opened its orange wings and dove off.

The castle was a shadow of black, giving no evidence that life existed inside. The sky was barely transitioning from a hazy navy to a blast of vibrant orange as the sun was beginning to wake, barely beginning to stretch its rays of heat and send them peeking out of the collection of looming clouds.

Continuing to fly with its wings set wide apart, the small and hefty owl shot up; the wind guiding its wings took him straight to the outline of one of the tallest towers. And as it did so, as it was preparing to set off for its morning duty, it caught sight of someone through a particular window. And by what it saw, it stopped suddenly.

Inside Gryffindor Tower, imprisoned inside the curtains of her four-poster, was a brunette that thrashed in the tangle of ruby sheets.

By what the owl was seeing, far more interested in what was happening to that brunette who huffed, tossed, grunted, and made expressions of pain, it knew perfectly well that in a secluded dungeon in the levels below of the castle, there was a blond experiencing the same thing.

It knew the dungeon was dark, but with a tint of emerald that gleamed with suffocation. Away from the common room, away from the leather furniture, from the dimness of it, from the lack of heat, up the stairs that led to the boys' dormitories, on the floor for Seventh Years, the second door on the right, there the blond was.

The four-poster was rimmed with dark curtains. Tangled in emerald sheets, sweat dampening his forehead, the blonde looked in pain as he slept. He grunted, moaned in misery, and kicked.

Though the barn owl could only see the girl, it knew that both  were withering the same way. Flashes of memory, echoes of words, emotions running low, recalls of boiling blood all mixed into some sort of nightmare behind their closed eyelids.

'Hermione Granger — GRYFFINDOR!' There was applause echoing in her head, welcoming smiles from those students with the lion crest.

'Draco Malfoy — SLYTHERIN!' The hat had barely touched his head, but he was sorted right where he wanted to be; right where he was demanded to be.

'And you must be Miss Granger. Yes, Draco's told me all about you and your parents. Muggles, aren't they?' They both tossed in their beds, the girl and the boy, as the memory of books and sounds of people crowded into a small shop invaded them next. They were both silent, both watching Lucius Malfoy cast his .

'At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in. They got in on pure talent.' She had seen him emerge out of the group of Slytherin Quidditch players; a sneering look on his annoying face as he had walked up to Harry. She turned in her sheets, remembering the way she scowled and look disbelieving that they would be so unethical as to let him in under questionable circumstances.

'No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood!' He groaned in his sleep, his brows furrowing as he could see behind his closed eyelids how judging her eyes were; how she stuck her nose and chin up in defense for her pathetic excuse of friends and it infuriated him.

'He called me a Mudblood — it means dirty blood. Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who is muggle born. Someone with non-magic parents, someone like me.' She clutched onto her pillow, feeling the wretched feeling of a past hurt in her chest. She remembered her eyes watering, feeling appalled for herself; even a little embarrassed and ashamed of herself.