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“So, let’s say—“
“Let’s not.”
I let out a frustrated huff. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
Draco turned towards me, taking in my appearance with his cool grey gaze. I must have looked a fright from the way his eyes flickered across my face like he was inspecting some rare species of bird. I hadn’t brushed my hair for weeks now, opting for the same haphazard bun I’d pinned into submission (well, tried to, but my curls would’ve frightened Devil’s Snare on a good day) for the duration of our Eighth Year N.E.W.T’s.
“I’m not joining your little study group, Granger,” he said finally.
“It’s only me, Neville, and Padma. You and Neville get on alright, and Padma is much less—well—rude than Parvarti is.” I chewed my lip guiltily when Draco gave me a wry smile. “Was that awful of me to say?”
He snorted. “Only if it’s not true.”
“Well then…”
“Either way, it doesn’t matter. It’s not the group itself. It's being in public with the lot of you while I try to dodge hexes the entire time. Does not make for a peaceful study atmosphere if you ask me.”
“If they so much as even try,” I started, stopping abruptly and turning, causing Draco to bump into me. I held out my hands, expecting him to fall, but he swatted them away as he righted himself on his good leg.
“I’m fine.”
“Draco,” I chastised.
He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his pointy nose. The bruising must’ve gone down enough that he could touch it again without wincing. “I’ll think about it,” he conceded, then glowered at my self-satisfied smile. “Can we go back to our dorm now? Not all of us are used to studying all day as if the world might cave in on itself otherwise.”
“Fine, fine. Also, you’d be surprised how true your statement is when you're friends with Harry Potter.”
“Thank Merlin for small mercies then that I’m not.”
I huffed, ignoring his glare as I approached, and took hold of his arm, giving him support so he would stop stubbornly resting all of his weight on his good leg. As we continued along I pretended to take a slow pace, insisting that I was tired. That earned me another glare from the tall blond, but I took no notice and kept moving.
He was hurt, sporting a magical cast on his right leg that had given him a limp for the last few weeks. It was so badly broken, he’d needed physical therapy for it.
He’d insisted that he took a bad fall on one of the moving staircases, but for someone who was just as agile as Harry, I thought there must be some other explanation that he wasn’t telling me no matter how much I prodded. As stubborn as I was, he was built of the same obstinacy.
And if he wanted to feign bravado, pretend that he wasn’t that badly injured and didn’t need my help, then I decided that I could stage my own pretence if it meant that I could make it easier for him.
Eighth Year was… not at all what I had expected it to be. Sure, I didn’t think it would be easy. Hundreds of students with some level of post-war trauma, and especially the returning eighth years, most of whom fought in the Battle of Hogwarts. There was no way we could resume normal functioning just because a dark lord and his blood-thirsty supporters weren’t skulking around the castle or unsuspecting teenagers’ heads.
Combine that with some residual teenage angst and there were bound to be hiccups.
I just didn’t expect one of my hiccups to manifest itself in a white-blond Slytherin who’d been mercilessly bullied as soon as he entered the Hogwarts train at the beginning of the year.
I was given the Head Girl badge, and Malfoy was given Head Boy alongside me. I was surprised, befuddled that Malfoy of all people was picked for the position when there were plenty of Seventh and Eighth Years who could’ve been chosen instead. I couldn’t say I was bothered, however, when at the start of the new school year I saw a group of Gryffindor boys hovering around Malfoy in a corner of the train near the Heads’ compartment.
I cleared my throat, and they all turned, and I remembered Malfoy’s expression when he saw me. He looked empty, hollow in the way a ghost was. He had an ugly bruise forming on his jaw and left eye, and an ugly split lip. The specks of blood on his shirt made my vision go blurry for a moment, and I was momentarily taken back to when Ron splinched his upper arm after we escaped the Ministry of Magic.
When I met his gaze he was studying me, his eyes dull and tired, and I recalled that same look on the front page of the Prophet that summer when a reporter asked Malfoy how he felt about his father being sentenced to life in Azkaban.
I demanded to know what they were doing, to which I got a reply that I should go scurry off to Harry and Ron and not bother with what they were doing.
“I think not.” I conjured several tiny spiders to fall down on all of them, something I had done to Ron over the summer if he tried to be short with me. They all bolted for the next carriage, crying out as they tried to get the tiny arachnids out of their robes.
Malfoy’s lip twitched in a facsimile of a smirk, but then he seemed to remember I was still there. He turned towards me, and the light from one of the windows revealed more fully the severity of his injuries.
“Malfoy, are you—”
He whirled, stalking towards me until my back hit the compartment door with a thud. I could feel his breath on my face as he glared down at me, his jaw clenched and his eyes hard. He’d gotten thinner, but he was still much taller than I was, and a food shortage during the hunt for Horcruxes left me underweight. But I lifted my nose at him anyway, stubborn and ready for whatever lashing he was prepared to throw at me.
Then his features contorted, first a grimace, then something that looked like guilt flickered across his face.
He stepped back from me, looking lost and unsure of what to do, and my brows furrowed as I tried to figure out what was wrong.
“Are you alright, Malfoy?”
His eyes had widened as if he expected me to say something else before he cleared his throat and nodded, and walked back to the spot he was in earlier, snatching his wand up from the ground. He was about to leave when I remembered why I came to the front of the train in the first place.
“Malfoy!” I called, and I saw his back stiffen. He turned towards me, bracing himself for what, I didn’t know.
“We have a Head’s meeting, are you ready?”
Recognition dawned on his face, then Malfoy stopped and closed the door he was about to step through. He walked towards me and I nodded, sliding open the compartment we would be sharing for the remainder of the ride.
Awkward was not an adequate word to describe the tension in the compartment, and I had the strangest urge to heal Malfoy’s wounds in the same way I would want to fix Harry’s glasses each new year at Hogwarts. But as skittish as Malfoy was, I had a feeling that it wasn’t entirely unreasonable that he might fling me bodily across the train should I attempt it. Instead, I pulled out the folio that laid out our Head duties, and began to read them aloud as I pretended to ignore him spelling the blood off his shirt and face.
Malfoy barely said a word throughout the entire journey, only slight nods when I asked him if he was alright with the way I divvied up our duties, and when the train stopped and we’d both changed into our robes with shiny new badges in tow, I expected that silence to continue. As we exited the train, Malfoy finally spoke.
“Thanks, Granger.” It was a soft mumble, something I only just barely heard, and I remembered thinking I was going to fall clear off onto the tracks when my mind computed what he was thanking me for, but when I turned, Malfoy already had his back to me, walking down the platform to the wagons guided by the now visible Thestrals.
I thought about Malfoy all the way through dinner and at bedtime when we shared awkward goodnights in our shared Head’s dorm; because I’d always been a curious person, and when something shifted in my estimation of someone—when Malfoy made a slight clunk in my character analysis of him—I couldn’t help but wonder who he was after the war.
And who he is now.
The last year together, Draco and I went from a slightly amicable but still distrusting dynamic, to several all-nighters when our duties were at their highest and where we got into several arguments spanning, at first, innocent school topics, all the way to why I was correct that Draco’s black robes billowed so far to his sides he looked like he was taking after Professor Snape, to then slightly trusting each other not to murder the other in their sleep, to tentative… friendship? He was a person that I realised required constant revision. A topic of interest that did not only have clear-cut facts and answers.
I thought maybe it was just Draco trying to satisfy his probation. But then one day, he noticed something that I had kept hidden pretty well from most people.
My shaking hands.
I had trouble writing this year. Even after meeting with a Cruciatous healer over the summer to mend my broken nerves, courtesy of Bellatrix Lestrange, I was still experiencing phantom spasms throughout my hands and arms. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d upended an entire inkpot or made a random slash on my parchment when I was writing notes in class or doing an assignment. One day, I had been so frustrated, so wary of someone seeing the tremors in my hands, that I just sat with my arms folded and glared at my parchment as the lecture droned on, my fingers twitching from not only my spasms but an itch to record everything the professor said.
Class ended, and feeling miserable, I took longer than I normally did packing my things. I’d only noticed Draco was still in the room as well when he walked over and handed me his notes, perfectly organised and with indents in crisp sections to mark each topic. I told him it was alright, that I just had too much sugar during lunch.
Then he smiled at me.
The first genuine smile he had ever given me and it belied his amused reaction to my bullshit.
“Whatever you say, Granger,” he finally said, before walking away while I gaped at him.
It had been a routine then. He’d make a copy of his notes and slide them to me at the end of each class (I shared every class with Malfoy except for Herbology), and though I tried to ignore him, tried to push his notes back to him or left them on the desk as I left class, he still kept making me a copy every day.
And after being frustrated over my messy notes and spending too much time trying to figure out if I recorded the correct potion ingredient, I finally gave in. I almost snatched the thick parchment from his hands after class, a copy that I practically salivated over and WOULD have if I didn’t need it desperately for studying for one of our midterms.
I had shot him a glare and then, doing the only thing I could think to offer in return, I demanded that we study together in exchange for him helping me.
He gave me an unsure look, something I didn’t recognise briefly flickering over his face, before nodding hesitantly. I then found myself spending even more time with him. And although that idea should’ve given me pause, even should’ve scared me, I found myself quickly becoming comfortable with Draco's presence in my life.
I was always a person that worked best under facts and logic, and so when he surprised me: moments of softness layered under all of his cold resentment—when he remembered that I only like a bit of milk with my tea, or that while I rarely ate sweets (being a child of dentists means you have a five in ten chance of your Boggart being cavities), he saw me indulge in pumpkin pasties sometimes, and would off-handedly toss some at me when he’d return from Hogsmeade, not replying when I smiled and thanked him—it was unexpected. He was unexpected. And it forced me to rethink in the middling grey where he seemed to permanently reside. The place of revision, of readjustment. Especially for what I considered him and I—
I didn’t consider us friends, not in a way that I considered Ron and Harry or Neville a friend. He was—he meant something to me in a way that I couldn’t define.
A snap of fingers to my face brought me back. “Wizarding earth to Granger,” Draco said.
I jolted and blushed when Draco was still staring at me. The intensity of his stare was almost uncomfortable at times, like he was looking into the very heart of me. I flushed further at the thought of what he could find if such a thing were possible.
“I’d ask what’s on your mind, but then I’d have to first make it through your hair.”
“Ha-ha,” I said. “I’m just tired.”
“And wouldn’t it be grand if we could just make it to our room and go to sleep?”
I would’ve slapped the smile right off his face, but it had the unwanted effect of making my insides gallop like a first-prise racehorse, and my mind like it was fresh off its second lobotomy.
“Shut up and move.”
Draco faked affront by placing his hand on his chest dramatically but then grunted as he tipped to his bad leg. I pulled him back to lean against me as we moved down the hall.
“I can walk by myself, Granger.”
“I’m not waiting for your slow gait, old man.”
He scoffs, though he betrayed his irritation by smiling. "I’m only eighteen!”
I sniffed. “Practically ancient.”
I couldn’t help the smile that broke out on my face when I saw him grin.
“Longbottom.”
“Draco,” replied Neville warmly.
I smiled at the slight wobbling Draco reacted with, like he suddenly didn’t know what to do with his hands or feet now that Neville was kind to him.
“Sit,” encouraged Padma, and he nodded and sat down in the chair beside me, still looking wary as he tried to get comfortable.
“Hermione said you thought we were just being nice by wanting you in our study group, but let me assure you that we only want to use you for your apparently above-average charm work.”
Draco raised a brow. “You’d do quite well in Slytherin, Patil.”
Padma gave him a sly smirk. “The dungeons are too cold. Now, stop picking your thumbs and sit down.”
I had a feeling Draco and Padma would get along. He had a sort of masochistic streak going on where he reacted more positively if others treated him with a healthy layer of contempt. I caught his eye, beaming at him, but he only rolled his eyes as he removed his outer robes. I moved my chair closer to his, a giddy sort of feeling permeating through me when he moved his chair even closer. As he unpacked his school bag, he leaned in to whisper in my ear.
“If you’re going to move closer to me so you can annoy me the entire time, then commit to it fully, Granger.” He grabbed hold of my chair and dragged me closer.
I shivered at the feel of his breath on the sensitive part of my neck, and the faint scent of woodsy smoke cologne that lingered over his robes.
“Are you alright, Hermione?” Neville asked. “Your face is really red.”
My blush deepened. “Oh—no, I’m just feeling a bit hot.”
Neville gave me a mischievous smile, then looked back down to his notes. I narrowed my eyes, ready to grill him, but then a hand touched my forehead, and I felt myself heat even more because Draco’s proximity was too much. I could feel the warmth of his body next to mine now as he moved closer, and gods’ damn it, hormones mixed in with whatever curiosity I had for him was not a good combination for logic when he was so close.
I swatted his hands away, insisting I was fine, before burying my face in the largest book I brought with me.
The first study group was… fantastic. By everyone’s account. Padma was studious, less gossipy than her sister, and would treat anyone who wanted to learn with the same measure of respect. That respect extended to Draco almost immediately once they started a conversation on Charm’s mechanics. And Neville. Even though I often thought he was a wizard who was kinder than most people deserved of him, I couldn’t help but be happy that he was willing to give Draco a chance.
One session per week with the four of us turned to almost every day, and I could see Draco getting progressively more relaxed. At first, whenever he’d arrive at our normal study table before the rest of us, he would just stand there, waiting like he needed permission to use it. Then after the first week, I saw him sitting there on his own, writing notes and hopefully not noticing the glares of some of the younger students who were by a bookshelf nearby.
“Good to know that you in fact are capable of making friends with people who aren’t bumbling and useless, Granger,” he said to me one night while we were walking to dinner.
“If you’re referring to Harry and Ron—” I was cut off when Draco grabbed my waist and dragged me to his side as one of Peeve’s pranks spilt over to where a bunch of First Years just bowled over each other in their haste to escape. I felt a laugh bubble up before I could staunch it, and I could feel Draco shaking beside me, trying to contain his own mirth as the pink matter started bubbling all over the place.
After some more laughing and banishing charms for the matter that was now becoming gooey, we continued on.
“I’m still going to yell at you for saying what you said about Ron and Harry,” I said as we walked down the stairs into the Great Hall. Draco’s leg had healed up enough that the cast was removed, and he was only slightly limping now. I didn’t want to admit that I sort of missed taking care of him, if only because it was hilarious watching him limp around like an angry chicken.
“After I just saved your life,” he tsked, and I elbowed him in the stomach.
“Oof. So violent.”
“Wait till you see how I am when someone takes the final pumpkin pasty.”
He laughed. I grinned back at him, about to go inside the Great Hall, when he grabbed my wrist gently, turning me back to him.
“Yes?”
“I—" He paused, and for a moment I saw his intent stare, enough to make me shiver, and slight pink that dusted his cheekbones, but it passed before I could make out what it meant.“Never mind. Are we still studying tomorrow?” was all he said.
“Yes, of course.” My brows furrowed, confusion mixing with the growing tension in my stomach. At first, I’d thought the constant motion that started in my chest and sped down to my abdomen was anxiety, but there was a light and sweet quality to it that I wasn’t sure how to name. “Are you sure that’s all?”
His lips thinned. “Yes. I’ll see you later.”
I watched him go to the Slytherin table and felt a pang in my heart when I saw him sit by himself. I had offered for him to come sit with the Gryffindors, to which I got a sniff of disgust before I decided to ultimately start eating in our Head dorm together. He was suspicious at first, but we’d taken to eating most of our dinners together, outside of some days where I’d promised to eat with Luna and Neville.
After one more glance at Draco, I moved to sit, digging into my food right at the moment when Luna started talking about some strange type of subcutaneous insect that the Nargles were trying to remove by gathering around people like some insect busters. I paused from my gaping at Luna’s detailed analysis to look for Draco again and frowned. He was no longer sitting at the Slytherin table.
“Maybe he was tired,” I muttered to myself.
“Who, Draco?” Neville asked.
I nodded. “He was a bit off earlier.”
“You would definitely know.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And what is that supposed to mean, Neville Longbottom?”
“You love him, of course,” Luna answered, and I had to press my lips together to stop from the fish-like gape that was threatening to take over my expression.
“I do not!” My cheeks flushed, and I looked to Neville for backup, but he was only smiling into his tea, a knowing glint in his eyes.
“I don’t!” I repeated again, to them but also myself.
I didn’t love Draco. No. That was simply—well he wasn’t—I could admit, that I found him—not unattractive. He’d gained some weight from the food (read: bread) I had been basically shoving down his throat because bread makes everything better since the beginning of the year, so while he was still lean, he was no longer winnowy. He had a lovely face, and I didn’t mean his features, though Dad would give him a prize for his straight, white teeth. No, it was the seemingly infinite ways he could smile. I used to think he was a boy who only knew how to cruelly smirk, who would lift his lips when he wanted to allure himself to you, to deceive, to show disdain. But Draco Malfoy when he really smiled—when he read a passage in a book that made him laugh, or grinned when he teased me and I’d blush, or when he smiled fondly at his owl when he didn’t notice me there—that was a smile that could make my heart constrict.
But that didn’t mean anything.
It didn’t.
Oh.
Oh.
“Why are you sitting in the back of the class?” I asked Draco the next day. We normally sat at the front of the class out of habit from one class where he couldn’t find a seat, and he hadn’t moved from it since.
“I just felt like it,” he bit out.
My eyes widened. “I’m sorry?” I asked, confused at his dark tone.
“Do you ever stop prattling on, Granger?”
I folded my arms across my chest, my confusion giving way to irritation. “Draco.”
He faced me then, his face pallid, jaw clenched tight.
Worried, I reached for him. “Are you alright?”
He shoved me back. “I’m fine. Leave me alone.”
“You don’t get to just—“
“Miss Granger,” came Professor Vector’s voice from the front of the class, terse and impatient. “Please sit, so we can start.”
I nodded, looking at Draco again. He’d put his satchel on the stool beside him, forcing me to go to the front and sit by myself. I could feel other people’s eyes on me, but all I could think about was Draco’s unexpected behaviour. He looked horrible, was acting horrible, but what I couldn’t figure out was why.
I needed to talk to him after class. Maybe something happened to him. Maybe he was sick, or he'd come down with Luna’s ridiculous "illness", I thought darkly. I turned around, trying to see if I could gauge what was wrong with him, but his hood was hiding most of his face now, and the dark corner of the classroom didn’t afford much observation.
I would ask him after class. He couldn’t just… not after we’d become—something.
When class ended, I packed up my stuff, dropping an ink bottle in my hurry, but Draco was already storming out of the room, black robes billowing behind him.
What was going on?
He had ignored me all day and didn’t come to our study group meeting to the bemusement of Neville and Padma, and when I stormed into our shared dorm, intent on flaying him alive, the lights were shut off, and from the soft light under his door, I surmised that he was locked in his room.
If Draco thought I was so easily disregarded, then he did not know the depths of my own obstinacy.
The next morning, after getting out of the shower and going into my room, I heard the click of the bathroom door and the shower turned on. I waved away my shyness and got ready. After packing my books away, I heard the shower turn off and hurried to the door. We exited at the same time, Draco wearing only trousers, wiping his wet hair with a towel. But it wasn’t a view I could enjoy, for it was the deep bruises littering his body and arms that gave me pause.
“Draco…” I moved towards him, which seemed to jolt him from his shock. He reached for the door handle of his room, but I was closer and stepped in front of it, blocking his way.
“Move,” he demanded.
“No,” I said, crossing my arms. “Where did you get those bruises? Who did this to you?”
“Move or I will pick you up and move you myself,” he snarled, drawing himself up to his full height and glaring down at me.
I raised my chin, defiant. “I’d like to see you try.”
He raised a brow at that and placed his arms on either side of my head, cornering me as he leaned close, grey eyes level with my brown, a menacing expression on his face.
“Do you forget who I am, Granger? Do you think that because I’ve been nice to you this year that I’m not capable of hurting you?”
“You won’t.”
“Confident, are you?”
I nodded, rolling my eyes at his surprised expression, then studied his bruises again. They were varying shades of blue, and from the way he was breathing heavier, I guessed he also had a broken rib he hadn’t healed.
“Move out of my way,” he said again, voice dangerous.
“Not until you tell me who did this to you.”
He grabbed me by the arms, gentle but firm, pulling me out of the way, and that’s when I noticed. I ripped out of his grasp and took hold of his arms instead.
“You have muscle spasms.” I looked up at him, dread pooling in my insides. “Someone used the Cruciatus on you, didn’t they?” My throat felt tight, and there was a burning rage filling inside me at the thought of someone hurting him.
“Granger, leave off.”
“I will not,” I cried, and his eyes widened. “Who did this to you? Who hurt you?”
“Granger,” he said again, and his voice was tinged in desperation now.
I stepped closer to him, taking his face gently in my hands, and he flinched, trying to pull away, but I held tighter, making him look me in the eye. “Why won’t you tell me?”
His entire body shook in my hands. “It’s not worth it.”
“How?” I demanded. “Because you’re Draco Malfoy? Spare me your masochistic streak. I want to help you.”
“Why?” His tone was bitter scorn, though she thought he was directing it to himself rather than to her.
I looked at him, baffled. “Why do I want to help you?”
“Yes.” He removed my hands from him, but before I could protest he placed his own on my waist, backing me up until my back hit the cold wall. I shivered at his touch, heated from the shower, and I felt a drop of water that fell from a strand of his hair onto my skin.
“Why do I deserve your pity?”
“I don’t pity you. I care about you.”
“And I’m asking you why.”
“Do you care about me?” I asked instead.
“Of course I do,” he said fiercely, his large hands tightening around me. It made me feel dizzy. I wanted him closer. I wanted to bury my face in his chest.
“Then why is it wrong for me to care about you?”
He avoided my eyes. “I don’t deserve to be cared about. Especially not by you.”
“Why?” My heart was beating out of my chest, breaking the walls of my bones in its attempt to free itself from the pain coming from my nerves. “Is it—“ I gulped. “Is it because I’m a Mud—“
“‘No!” he interrupted, voice vehement and angry. “I don’t think that way anymore.”
“Then tell me why,” I whispered softly.
He stared at me, something between devastation and affection in his eyes.
“I’m the debris left over from a centuries-old bloodline that’s only ever made the wrong choices.”
Understanding clawed through me. “You were a boy,” I said resolutely.
“Who made all of the wrong choices.” He gave me a rueful smile, lifting a hand to tuck a curl behind my ear. “And I deserve punishment for them.”
I caught his hand, squeezing it. “Draco. There is a difference between recognising your mistakes and making amends for them. Atoning. What you’re doing isn’t that. It’s mindless self-hatred that leads you to nowhere.”
He inhaled a ragged breath, his jaw tensing, the muscles of his throat pulling taut. I had the distinct urge to soothe them. To soothe him, but I surely wasn’t someone he wanted comfort from.
“I’m not— I’ve never been good at atoning. I’m selfish. I’ve only ever thought of myself and how I’m affected by things. Hell, it took the Dark Lord threatening my mother and father when I was fifteen for me to even consider something beyond the bounds of myself.” His features contorted into something twisted and warped, like a corkscrew that had been dug into too many times for anyone to be able to pull out and reveal what was inside without mixing it with the broken material. “I’m trying to be better. To do better.” He looked at me then, his grey eyes shining and desperate. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
My heart was pounding a painful staccato in my chest, the thrum of my veins making a battery ram of my pulse. My throat was tight and dry as I tried swallowing and said, “Me?”
“I hurt you because you were easy to hurt. I thought you were small and weak, easy to step on. Then I saw you at the manor, at how you held on through my aunt’s torture of you.” His lips thinned. “She tortured me too, you know, daily. I’d faint from the pain. You lasted longer than I did most days.”
I thumbed the Mudblood scar on my forearm, felt the tingle of the smaller scar on my neck. I didn’t know how to react to what he’d said. I was, for once in my life, rendered silent. How do two people from opposing sides reconcile what had been done to them, irrespective of choice or duty?
Several silent seconds passed before Draco sighed and let go of my waist, raising both hands to wipe away the tears spilling down my cheeks.
I hadn’t even realised that I was crying.
“Just leave it, Granger,” he said, his voice tired.
I put my hands on his before he dropped them from my face, feeling the tremors of his hand underneath mine. I looked up at him, at the forlorn expression set on his face. “I forgive you.”
His jaw clenched, and he tried pulling away from me but I gripped him tighter. “Granger—”
“I do, and it’s because you have changed. I’ve always detested people who give me empty apologies. They tell me that they’re sorry but just end up hurting me again. You are trying and I see it, even if you don’t.” I gripped his hands until my knuckles were white, afraid he was going to leave. “Even if you’re a complete idiot. Even if you were going to ignore your injuries and not name the people who hurt you.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
I glared at him. “And why is that? I swear if you try telling me that I don’t care about you—”
“I can’t fucking bear it, Hermione,” he said, plaintively. “I can handle being hurt. I deserve it, but you don’t. I’m not fucking dragging you down with me.”
“You’re not dragging me anywhere I don’t want to. I choose to be with you.”
He looked away. “There are better friends for you to have.”
“I don’t want to be your friend,” I said suddenly before I could even think to shut the words out.
He froze. “What?”
“I said I don’t want to be your friend. I want—” I clenched my teeth. ”I care about you.” I felt my entire face heat under his scrutiny, heart pounding in my chest when his eyes widened in painful knowing.
He opened his mouth to speak but I didn’t think I could bear hearing what he had to say. “You don’t need to say anything. I get it if—” I removed both our hands from my face then stepped around him, ready to mount an escape attempt. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just sprung that on you.”
I brushed my hair to one side, feeling like I was going to burst from the motley of emotions I was feeling: sorrow for Draco and his broken parts, embarrassment at the love— was it, though?—confession I had inadvertently made, but most of all I still felt rage, burning, shaking rage at the people that hurt him.
“I hope you will tell me who hurt you, but even if you won’t I’m making you go to the infirmary.” I turned to go when Draco caught my wrist, and I stilled, unable to look at him.
“It’s not just you.” A quiet inflection.
My eyes widened. “What?”
“You’re not the only who—” He gestured feebly between the two of us, his hand burning where he touched me. “Who feels something.”
Something.
Something.
I turned and looked at him.
Oh.
We went to the infirmary, where we were greeted with an apoplectic Madam Pomfrey when she saw the severity of Draco’s injuries. She demanded to know who hurt him and was horrified when he explained he’d been tortured with an unforgivable. Headmistress McGonagall was called down, and after getting the worst of his injuries healed, Draco relayed what happened the other night and who hurt him.
It was the stupid boys from the train at the beginning of the year. I could feel white-hot rage simmer in my knuckles as he described the details of his attack.
Kicked all over his body, laceration spells were used on his arms, and the Cruciatus was used last when he was barely conscious.
“They’ll pay for what they've done,” I said, voice shaking in my rage.
I looked over from where Draco lay on his back as Pomfrey performed healing spells on his body to McGonagall, who was looking at Draco with thin, furrowed brows and tightly pressed lips. She let out a stressful breath before speaking. “They’ll be punished for their actions. No student should feel unsafe at Hogwarts, not after all that we’ve been through,” she said, a crisp tone to her voice.
Draco turned towards the Headmistress, a cold smile taking over his face. “It’s more than I would’ve thought, so I suppose it’s enough.”
My brows furrowed. “What do you mean? They’re going to be punished—” Understanding dawned on me, and I whirled on McGonagall. “You’re not going to have them criminally charged?” I demanded. “They attacked another student with the use of an Unforgivable.”
“Miss Granger,” she sighed, looking as weary as she was during the war. “Do not look at me as if I do not want these boys to be punished."
“Then why don’t you—”
“Because you are demanding that a post-war Ministry of Magic—a governmental body that is recovering financially and will be for years—be responsible for the destruction that the Death Eaters, who Mr Malfoy was a part of, inflicted during the war. Do you think most Aurors in that department will come to Hogwarts and apprehend those very same boys who were on the winning side?”
“Draco wasn’t like the rest of the Death Eaters—”
“You believe this, Miss Granger, and I am in agreement with you. But it is not in this time that justice will be met for them. They will merely be looked at as students who took initiative at exacting worthy revenge against the remaining dark forces.”
I looked over at Draco, who was watching me now with bittersweet resignation, and I wanted to cry. I wanted to sob at the unfairness of it all. He reached over and took my hand in his, skimming his thumb over my tightly clenched knuckles.
“It’s more than what I expected, Granger.”
“That doesn’t make it right!” I cried.
“No,” agreed McGonagall. “And your generation will be the one that will have to fix our mistakes. And we don’t apologise enough for the huge burden we’ve left on your shoulders."
Pressing my lips together in an effort not to scream, I looked over at Draco again, and felt something quake inside me, both sad and happy—what could only be called bittersweet—and I gave him a watery smile.
“You’re going to catch your death.” Draco had dragged me to the courtyard after our conversation with the Headmistress, and though I felt drained I allowed him to lead me out, agreeing that we both needed less stifling air.
He turned then, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The dull grey of his eyes, usually slate and unreadable, were now a bright, effervescent silver. I had the strange urge to step closer, to map out and study the different ways his eyes shifted like they were starlight, but before I could Draco grabbed my hand and pulled me outside into the downpour.
“Draco!” I yelped, but I was laughing. I was laughing so hard. Freely, like a child who had felt rain for the first time as we ran across the courtyard.
We were soaked instantly, and he let go of me to place his hands on his knees as he panted.
“You look like melted candle wax,” I commented, dryly.
He narrowed his eyes. “You look like a drowned beaver.”
I smiled. “That’s fine. Beaver’s are cute.”
He grinned, and I felt a terrible, intoxicating hold on my heart. “True.”
He stepped towards me, predatory, his skin somehow hot and cold at the same time. Then he did something truly unfair. Incorrigible and devastating, even. He took my face gently in his hands, tilting it so that I would meet his eyes, and I felt my cheeks heat at the intensity of his stare.
“You’re blushing.”
I sniffled. “I think I’m getting sick.”
He hummed. “I should take you inside,” he leaned in closer. “We can go to the Prefect’s bath, draw up a nice warm bath.” He kissed the top of my cheekbone, my forehead, my nose. “Then we can go back to our dorm; you can grab your monstrosity of a fluffy pillow.”
My heart was climbing out of my chest as it signalled an override in function. “His name is Crookshanks. Also, you were the one who wanted to go outside in the rain,” I argued.
His lips brushed mine, and I gasped. My hands, which my mind had also lost control of, gripped his jumper and pulled him closer. I could feel the shaking of his hands on my face, wondered sadly if that was how my own spasms felt against his skin, and when I looked into his eyes again, he was frowning.
I kissed him. I didn’t want him to hurt anymore. And I’d been selfishly wanting to do it for weeks now.
Months, if I was honest.
He stilled against me, and I almost pulled away, but then he sighed—a contented and nervous sound all at once. He wrapped one arm around me, his hand trembling against the span of my waist. The other hand cradled my face, and he kissed me back. I could’ve matched him for the tremors that threatened to split me into a million pieces.
I thought it must be unnatural for a person to feel so intensely about another. It defied logic and reason that I could feel this way about him. Him. Draco bloody Malfoy. But I did. And so I brought him closer to me, tangling my hands in his wet hair as I rose to my tip-toes to reach him.
What neither of us accounted for was the mud. Later, He and I would argue for an hour about who slipped first. Seeing as I’m the more level-headed of us, obviously, I'll posit that Draco was the one who slipped and took me down with him. I will forgive him for at least taking the brunt of the fall as I landed on his chest. When I joked that at least I didn’t maim myself on his pointy nose, he breathed a laugh and wrapped his arms around me so I couldn’t escape. When I looked up at him, at the globs of mud making a fine wash over his hair and neck and the huff and grin he gave me as I chastised him for falling, I felt a warmth wash over me that was so unlike the rain beating down my back.
Then I internally chastised myself for being a romantic because tales of pining and romance did not preclude a person from getting hypothermia.
“Get up, you big lout. If I get sick this close to N.E.W.T's, I will maim you.”
He grimaced. “I believe you.”
We got up, shaking from head to toe, and made a hurried escape back into the castle. Since it was dinner, the castle was mostly empty, and I didn’t protest as Draco dragged me to the prefect’s bathroom.
“Turn around.”
“Granger, you do realise that I will be able to see you in the water, right?”
“That’s why we’ll add bubbles,” I said, primly.
I smiled at the sound of him huffing about as he turned on the taps.
“Can we fill it with the lavender scent?”
“What’s wrong with mint?”
“Well, I want to climb in the same bed with you when we leave, and I’d rather not have a tingling sensation on my skin all night.”
I snorted when Draco all but detached the tap in his fierce determination to dispense the lavender scent. A few minutes later when our clothes were removed, we sat chest-deep in the warm and comforting water.
Well, I was. The tall prat was standing, water droplets moving tantalisingly down his lean chest and torso. I blushed and looked away, and then I felt him move closer.
“Hermione,” he said softly.
“No, no, no,” I said, thankful for the steam that could mask the blush overtaking my entire body, and moved away from him. “Don’t say my name like that.”
“Like what?” he asked innocently.
I looked up at him, narrowing my eyes. “Like you want to taste it.”
He hummed. I realised that as I moved away from him, I cornered myself in the process. By the triumphant expression on Draco’s face, he knew that as well.
“Go away,” I said, weakly, practically whining as he placed two hands on either side of me.
“Do you want me to?” I looked up at him, then, at his suddenly vulnerable expression. It cracked something inside me, and I must’ve made a face that spoke displeasure but not for the reasons he thought because he started to back away. Before he could, I grabbed his arms, pulling him close.
“Never,” I whispered, just as vulnerably. I felt a nervous swoop spread through me as I took his face into my hands to pull him closer and he obliged me by leaning down, and then I did something I’d been wanting to do all year.
I kissed his forehead, skimming my lips to the scar on his temple. The one he told me his father gave him in a fit of alcohol-induced rage. The one he’d tried to hide by growing out the top of his hair. He flinched when I pressed my lips to it, and I was about to pull away and whisper my apologies when his arms encircled my waist, tightening their hold and lifting me so that I had to wrap my arms around his neck. I kissed the same spot again, and he still flinched, although less so than the first time. When I pulled back and met his gaze, he was staring at me intently.
“Hermione,” he rasped.
I nodded, my entire body trembling from the way he was studying me. He took hold of my chin and pressed our lips together, soft and then more insistent. Then he laid me out on my back, opened my thighs, warmth flushing all over my body, both from the heat of the water and the scorching feel of his hands that felt like they were touching me everywhere, rendering me unable to breathe or think or exist from the intensity of feeling.
My mind faded away to primal sensation: at the sight of his silver eyes staring down at me as if I were the only thing that mattered, and the soft weight of him bearing down on me and inside me, to the taste and smell of lavender on his shoulder where I bit into him to stifle my cries. Each sensation I felt mixed together in a cacophony of pure feeling. It was as if I caught a shard of something special, and I felt silly when the word magic came to mind.
I was exhausted by the time we left the bathroom, the steam making me lightheaded. When we got back to our dorm, we all but collapsed onto the couch with me laying on top of Draco’s chest, burrowing into him as he wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in my drying hair.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked softly.
“Sure.”
My cheek rested on Draco’s chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his heart as I traced the fine material of his shirt sleeve. “When we were on the train at the beginning of the year, you gave me this look. I’ve always wondered what it meant.”
“Oh... I—” He ran a hand through his still-wet hair. “I was just surprised, I guess.”
“By what?”
“Every person, and I do mean almost everyone down to small children, have given me varying looks of disgust, anger, even fear or dismay, since the war has ended. And don’t get me wrong, I thought I deserved It, but it also felt like I was running a repeat simulation where I was being tortured by the same face, over and over and over…”
He cupped my jaw. “I was honestly preparing myself that entire morning for the look of scorn on your face. And I was ready for it to sting so much more coming from you.”
“Why?”
“For all that people suffered at the manor, none of them suffered as much as you did. Not even the elves had their flesh carved.” And at that, he gently took hold of my arm, sliding my sleeve down to reveal the raised edges of the word Mudblood carved crudely onto my pale flesh.
“People always talk about how much Potter suffered at the manor, how Weasley was heroic, but barely anyone ever mentions you,” he whispered softly.
I felt my eyes burn, but I forced them back when I closed my lids, before opening them again. “I don’t tell many people about it.”
“They still know.”
My head dipped so I could hide my wobbly mouth. “I know.”
He took hold of my chin, making me meet his intent eyes. “I have scars littering my body from Potter, from my aunt, from the Dark Lord, but none of them matches up to what was done to you.”
I raised a brow at him. “Yours still matter,” I insisted. I leaned down, mouthing at the top of his Sectumsempra scar, and I felt him let out a ragged exhale.
“I can’t heal them,” I said, kissing across his shoulders, nipping at the soft parts of his skin as my mouth travelled to every scar and bruise he had. “But I can be gentle with them.” I looked up at him, at the bright grey of his irises as he stared at me with something akin to devastation. “I can be gentle with yours if you can be gentle with mine.” I took in a breath and exhaled. “If you can be gentle with me.”
“Always.” He lifted his hand to the scar on my neck and caressed it like it was something delicate and not a remnant of my own brokenness.
“Always for you.”