Chapter Text
It was late and despite all Hermione talked, she did have her limits. Four hours spent in the library had deep fried her brain and all she needed was some sleep. Her arms felt like noodles from carrying her stack of textbooks.
Then she heard the sobbing.
And sobbing it indeed was. Crying would not have been loud enough to hear from an entire hallway away. It also would not sound that pathetic. She could hear the tears, broken up by gasps of breath and soft baby like hiccups. Hermione assumed it was Neville.
“Malfoy?” The name slipped from her lips without a thought. She instantly regretted saying anything or ever even walking towards the Great Hall after seeing the look on his face.
A moment ago he had seemed just a boy. All of the big talk had always given Draco Malfoy an air of superiority despite how much one might hate it. Hermione had always thought of it as kind of like that popular boy at muggle school that all of the girls liked and that she had tried to hate by principle but…he was just…well hot! Not that Draco was hot…Just that there was no denying…Ugh whatever.
The small boy curled in on himself with pink cheeks from a moment ago disappeared as if magically at the sound of his name. Malfoy’s body stiffened and his cheeks turned sallow, eyes hollow sockets in his angular face.
She stood a moment, her arms screaming in agony (she was still holding the books), just staring. For all of her brains, she didn’t have any clue what to do when confronted with a vulnerable Malfoy. She knew she should be angry- she had punched him for being a dick earlier just that day- but for some reason her frigid heart was melting. She tried to contain the drips but her emotions seemed to be oozing right through the cracks of her fingers.
“Well?” Malfoy’s outburst seemed to knock her out of her reverie. “Go away!”
Hermione started to leave but then she remembered the tears. They had turned his harsh features into a sort of marble fountain…Merlin, she hated herself and what she was about to do. She turned back to face him in all his fury. “Malfoy, are you okay?”
He didn’t seem to know what to do. His dark eyes just stared at her from out of their caves. She noticed the handprint she had left from earlier for the first time.
“I’m going to say this one…more…time.” He leaned forward on his bench, his hands pale claws grasping at the table. “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
“You do realize that you’ve chosen the absolute most public place to have your meltdown?”
“I’m not having a meltdown!”
“You sorta are. I heard you from down the hall.”
“I’m not….LEAVE!”
“Well since you asked so nicely.” Hermione wasn’t sure if it was because she liked making him angry or if maybe just maybe she did actually care but either way she went and sat down across from him at the table.
“I could stand up right now and leave,” he growled.
She shrugged, setting down her books for the first time then taking a moment to admire the night sky above. The candles flickered and gave the hall an eerie glow. “Then why don’t you?”
His claws tightened. “I hate you.”
“And I hate you.”
“Then why are you talking to me?”
Hermione’s gaze fell from the ceiling to his face. His anger had started to subside, leaving his expression sort of empty. As if without his anger he was just a shell. Maybe that was exactly the case. Maybe that’s why she stayed. Maybe none of it was true and Hermione just had a lapse of insanity that night. Maybe not. Either way, they sat like that for a long while. Just looking at each other like they were looking into windows through to another world. One in which Hermione wasn’t a mudblood and Draco wasn’t the son of a Death Eater.
Malfoy broke the silence. “You don’t act like this around Potter or Ginger.”
“Like what?”
“Sassy.”
And she laughed. There it was. Draco Malfoy had made Hermione Granger genuinely laugh. He had called her sassy. It wasn’t a word often known to be in his vocabulary.
“I…” Her smile fell and her eyes looked askance. “I’m sorry I hit you earlier.”
“No you’re not.”
Her forehead furrowed, eyes once again unafraid to bore into his. “Who are you to tell me whether or not I’m sorry?”
“You’re not.”
“Fine. You’re right. I’m not sorry for hitting you- you deserved it- but I am sorry that I made you cry.”
“You didn’t make me cry.”
“Then why were you crying?”
He shook his head, blonde hair falling out of its usually slicked style. “I wasn’t crying.”
“I can literally see the salt streaks on your face.”
“No you can’t.”
“Your nose is running. Unless you suddenly caught a cold you were crying.”
With that he stood up and left.
It was all so odd, by the time Hermione had finally summoned the strength to pick up her books and go to bed all of her confidence had left her. She felt like the whole conversation had been some sort of dream or a trick. It wasn’t until she got the note later that week that she even believed the night had happened.
It said:
We can’t be friends. Friendly enemies at best. See you when I see you.
-Draco
P.S. Don’t tell Potter or Ginger unless you want me to rip your face off.
She smiled. Friendly enemies. She could agree to those conditions.