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How could he be so reckless? He could have killed him! Fuck. She still couldn’t walk through those doors, but she couldn’t walk away either.
Hermione Granger finished her Prefect rounds an hour ago and her feet took her towards the direction of the Hospital Wing. She didn’t know why she was walking here, but that was a lie she liked to tell herself. It was well past visiting hours and there was no light coming from under the door. Presumably, Madam Pomfrey was in her private quarters, as long as none of her patients needed her throughout the night. Hermione stopped pacing to listen again and there were no sounds of distress or emergency, so she was sure all was well. She should just go back to her dormitory where she belonged. But if she saw Harry right now, she wasn’t sure what she would do. She was so angry with him. So disappointed. But Harry and Ron didn’t understand why. They knew it was a shit situation, but she was overreacting. “Snape got there in time. He was able to fix him up.” Ron tried to calm her down. Ginny just stared daggers at her while she grabbed Harry’s hand to go hide the book. Hermione was sure Ginny was just trying to protect Harry, who already felt guilty enough. But this was serious. It wasn’t just class or potions any more, it was someone’s life. Even if that life was Draco Malfoy’s.
Hermione just had to see him; just make sure he was truly okay. Then she would leave. No one would even know she was there. Hermione tapped her wand on the top of her head to put the disillusionment charm she had been practicing on herself. It felt like a cold shiver that traveled all the way down her body. Hermione looked down to make sure the charm had worked and then she walked through the Hospital Wing doors. It was dark, but just enough light from the moon traveled through the windows so she could see where she was going. The beds in the rows nearest her were all empty. Hermione kept walking slowly trying not to make a sound. She finally saw one singular patient in a bed closest to the window. He wasn’t moving, but she could see his white blonde hair.
As if a string was pulling at her sternum, Hermione walked towards the bed. His face was so pale. She could see bandages traveling down his neck and wrapping his shoulder. There was blood staining the white fabric, but it looked dried, like he had stopped bleeding a few hours ago. His right arm was also bandaged and was placed on top of his sheets. She could hear his breaths, slow and shallow. Draco Malfoy looked close to death, but here he was still breathing. Hermione looked at the table next to his bed, dittany, pain potion, and blood replenishing potion. That explained his palness.
Hermione looked back over his features. She had seen so many versions of Draco Malfoy over the years. The confident, posh, pratt that had all of Slytherin house eating out of the palm of his hand. The cruel boy who said horrible things about people she loved and herself. Then someone new this year, a young man who was trying to almost disappear. But this was the first time Hermione Granger saw Draco Malfoy stripped down of all that pretense and saw him. She thought people should look at peace when they were sleeping, but Draco wasn’t peaceful. His eyes were still shut so tight that there were creases. His hand clutched at the bed sheets. Hermione had the strangest urge to reach out to him, to smooth his furrowed forehead.
“You shouldn’t be here, Granger.” Draco’s voice was strained but each word was clear. His eyes slowly opened and stared directly at her disillusioned body. Hermione couldn’t breathe, but Draco wasn’t backing down. She took out her wand and ended the charm.
“How did you know it was me?” Hermione barely spoke above a whisper.
“Because I felt you looking at me.” Draco’s words were slightly slurred, the pain potion she thought, but that didn’t stop him from continuing. “I always know when you are looking at me.”
Hermione didn’t know what to say. She just tried to keep breathing.
“You shouldn’t be here.” He said it more instantly this time and Hermione wasn’t going to let him tell her what to do.
“But I am anyway, so let those potions do their work and get some rest.” She used her most authoritative voice that usually sent First Years off sniffling to their friends. Hermione could tell Draco hated being treated like a child, but then she saw him take in his surroundings. She saw it when he realized he was so utterly alone. He looked at the doors to the hospital wing with worry forming between his brows. Hermione didn’t remember making the conscious decision, but she summoned a chair and put it right next to his bed. She sat down and said, “I will be here all night, so rest.” It was a soft, but determined command. Draco looked away from the door and then took her in. He was looking for something, but she didn’t know what. So she did the only thing that felt right at that moment. Hermione reached out and took his hand, and she held it. Her thumb brushed his knuckles slowly back and forth.
“Rest. I will be here.” Hermione reassured him. Draco looked at their hands and then looked back at her. He didn’t say a thing, but he squeezed her hand. Then he closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep. Hermione could finally see the tension fall from his face, and he looked peaceful at last.
~~~~~~~
Hermione had noticed some healing tomes on Madam Pomfrey’s desk and summoned them over to her a few hours ago. She was reading on how to heal splinching when Draco turned his head to the side. He made a noise that was almost a whimper and his brows pinched together once more. She already read his chart and he wasn’t due for more pain potion until the morning. Hermione squeezed the hand she was still holding and got close to him.
“Malfoy, are you in pain?” Hermione whispered to him, but Draco didn’t answer. He continued to groan like he was hurting. “Wake up Malfoy.” Hermione brought her other hand up to his face, but she couldn’t make herself touch him. She thought that was a step too far. For her or him she wasn’t sure. But she continued to squeeze his hand.
Malfoy’s eyes flew open and he woke with a gasp. There was fear in his eyes that were darting all around them. He looked like he wasn’t sure where he was. His hand gripped hers so tightly, it was almost painful.
“Breathe, Malfoy. Just breathe.” Hermione spoke calmly to try and ground him to this moment. His eyes locked on hers and he breathed. They stayed like that breathing together for a moment. When his breaths slowed down she asked, “Are you in pain?” All of a sudden he shut down. It was like he realized she could see him and all his emotions. His eyes darkened and his hand released hers.
“No. I’m fine Granger. What the fuck are you doing here?” His voice was flat and more tired than anything.
She took a breath and sat back in her chair, “Harry told me what he had done and I was furious with him. I went on Prefect rounds early and walked the castle after my rounds were complete. I somehow ended up here. I thought,” Hemione hesitated for just a moment, “I thought you would need someone to check on you.”
Draco scoffed, “And you thought I would want it to be you?”
“I don’t see anyone else here? Oh no, you’ve pushed everyone away this year. So yeah, I thought it could be me.” Hermione practically spit the words at him by the end. She doesn’t know why she even tried. But then she looked up at Draco. She could see the cracks in his mask. The exhaustion, the hurt, the anger. He wasn’t even trying to hide it. She thought about why he was here in the first place. He was just physically attacked and he was alone. Hermione rubbed her forehead and sighed. She was going to regret this.
“I’m sorry. Th-that was too far. Fuck. Can we just..Can we just forget all that Gryffindor and Slytherin bullshit for once and just talk?”
“Just talk?” Draco said it like it was a foreign language.
“Yeah, like a truce. You aren’t shitty to me and I won’t be shitty to you. You don’t lie to me and I won’t lie to you. That kind of thing.” Draco raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. “It’s just for tonight. You can deny this ever happened in the morning and I would agree with you.”
“So I can ask you anything and you would tell the truth.” Draco asked.
“Yes.” Hermione said simply, but she was worried this was a mistake.
“How did you fix your teeth in fourth year?” Draco looked like he was waiting for her to lie, but this was an easy one for her to answer.
“After you hit me with that jinx, Madam Pomfrey had to shrink my teeth. She told me to stop her when they were back to their normal size. I let her keep going, so they would look better.” Hermione shrugged to try and play it off like she wasn’t embarrassed.
“How vain of you,Granger.” Draco snickered.
“Alright, my turn. Were you actually hurt that badly by Buckbeak?” She threw back at him.
“The hippogriff? It sliced my arm! Of course I was hurt.” Draco sounded indignant now, but Hermione just leveled him with a look. “Okay, okay maybe upon some reflection, I was at fault for the injury and played it up a bit.” Hermione would accept this answer. And it continued on like that back in forth for an indeterminate amount of time. They talked about classes and which teachers were actually good at their jobs. They talked about their favorite Weasley twin pranks and the best Hogwarts ghosts. They discussed what they would not want to face in the Forbidden Forest and what creatures they would want to see.
But then Hermione got too comfortable with their truce. “Where are your friends? Not just Crabbe and Goyle, but the other Slytherins?” Draco used to be surrounded by Theodore Nott, Pansy Parkinson, and Blaise Zabini along with Crabbe and Goyle. Draco would practically hold court in the Great Hall in previous years. But now he walks the halls alone and she sees him in the library alone most nights.
Draco’s face shut down immediately. “That’s a question for them, Granger.” The energy between them changed into something sharp.
“Did you fuck Krum?”
Hermione almost choked on her tongue. “W-what?”
“Viktor Krum, the professional athlete, grown man who took you to Yule Ball. Did. You. Fuck him?” He stared daggers at Hermione, challenging her. Hermione was offended and pissed. She was not going to let him have the upper hand.
“No. Did you fuck Pansy?” She shot back at him.
“Yes.”
It was like a punch to her stomach. All the air rushed out of her lungs. It was completely silent for a moment or two.
“Are you still fucking her?” Hermione hated how breathly her voice sounded, but she had to know the answer.
“No.” Hermione barely moved, but Draco still saw it. Saw the tension leave her shoulders. “Are you relieved by that answer?”
Hermione hesitated. This was heading some place dangerous and she knew they weren’t ready for it.
“Your rules Granger, no lying.” He knew he won.
“Yes, I’m relieved.” But she didn’t let him bask in that victory. She had to ask what she wanted to know, what she had wondered for months.
“Why have you been staring at me this year?”
Draco looked at her, like he was trying to see right to the center of her. Then he sighed, “Because you make me question everything.” He didn’t say it with hate or malice. He said it simply, just a fact.
“Turnabout is fair play Granger, why have you been staring at me this year?” And he was right. She didn’t know how it started. Maybe with Harry’s theories that Malfoy was up to something. But she made it a point to observe him. In the Great Hall, their classes, the library she would watch him. And half the time he would already be watching her. Their eyes would meet across the room and they would just look at each other and breathe. No words were ever exchanged. They never got close to each other, but they were always there, together in those moments. Hermione could see how much he had changed from the years before and this sense of dread filled her every time they would lock eyes. Like she was running out of time.
“Because I think something is really wrong and no one is helping you. And I don’t think you would let them help even if they offered.”
“And why should you care?” Draco sounded flat like he was closing himself off again.
Hermione had to take a chance. She couldn’t let this opportunity slip through her fingers. “Because I don’t want to have to fight you when this war arrives.”
Draco’s eyes narrowed at her. “So you know a war is coming.” Hermione nodded. “Then you should run.”
Hermione was shocked. “Run? How could–I, I couldn’t leave Harry to face it on his own.”
“Then you are an idiot.” Draco scoffed.
“I won’t leave him. I’ve known this war was inevitable since Harry finished the Triwizard Tournament. Why do you think I’m constantly working to learn the information in these kinds of texts?” She gestured to the healing tomes. “Because I know we will need them. That someone will have to know how to do these things.”
Draco sat up even straighter. “Do you know what they will do to you?”
“What because I’m a Muggleborn?” Hermione was not going to shy away from the horrors of what they faced. But Draco didn’t back down, he grabbed her wrist to pull her in close.
“Oh they would kill someone for being a Muggleborn, but they will keep you because you are his Muggleborn. And that is far worse.” Draco was seething with anger.
Hermione took a breath and then another. “I know,” she whispered, “But I can’t just leave him.” She paused for a moment and then confessed, “I don’t want them to force you to do those things.” Draco’s eyes shuttered and then he closed them.
“It’s too late for me, Granger.” He said it with such defeat.
Hermione raised her other hand to rest it on his cheek, “Draco,” she whispered. But it broke the moment they were suspended in. He dropped her wrist and pulled away before she even got close to touching him.
“Don’t.” His voice was brittle. “Don’t call me that.”
“Please” She implored, but Hermione could see all the emotion in him shut down. His body became rigid and his face was closed off.
Draco looked out the window at the sky that was now grey, “Suns up, Granger. Truce is over. This never happened.”
~~~~~~~
Weeks had gone by and it was like it truly never happened. Draco had come back to classes without a bandage on him and he began to disappear again. Sitting in the back of rooms away from their classmates. He even stopped staring at Hermione, but she still kept looking at him. She waited for a sign, a moment for when he would finally ask for help. But he never did.
Hermione was completing her normal prefect rounds, but she was on edge. Harry was on some mission with Dumbledore, so they had order members patrolling the grounds to protect the school. But there was a heaviness to the air that Hermione could not brush off. Something wasn’t right. Any student she saw on her travels she sent back to their dormitories and told them not to delay. No one should be walking the halls tonight.
Hermione strode by the last alcove on her route when two hands reached out and grabbed her. Her back was pushed up against the far corner before she could even let out a scream. When she opened her mouth to shout, yell, or hex this person she heard a voice she knew. It said, “Lumos.” Draco Malfoy was holding her up against the wall. His hair was not slicked back but disheveled like he had been running his fingers through it for hours. There were purple bruises under his eyes that made Hermione wonder when was the last time he slept. But then she focused on his eyes and they were furious.
“You shouldn’t be here, Granger. You need to get out of here and back to your dormitory for the rest of the night.” Draco’s voice was hard but he let go of her arms.
“If I shouldn’t be here, then you shouldn’t either.” Hermione wanted him to see reason.
“I can’t leave.” Draco closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose like he was in pain. “There’s something I have to do.” His voice broke at the end, but he was resigned.
“Why?” Hermione wasn’t going to hold back anymore. “Draco you don’t have to do anything. Tell me. Tell me and I can help you. We can find someone, McGonagall is here and we can tell–”
Draco grabbed her again by the arms, “They will kill my mother if I don’t.” The words were hissed and seething. Hermione gasped, the emotion in her throat prevented her from saying more. Draco took a breath and then put his hands on either side of her face. His whole body was rigid and ready to strike, but his hands held her so gently. The tears welling up in her eyes threatened to spill over.
“Hermione, the war is here.” She didn’t even have a moment to register that he used her given name before he closed his eyes and placed his forehead on hers. “I wanted so much more than this.” He whispered it onto her lips.
“Please, Draco, please. Just come with me. Stay with me.” The tears finally fell from Hermione’s eyes and Draco tried to brush them away, but there were too many.
Draco said one final thing to her, “Stay alive, Hermione,” and then he let go. Hermione watched him walk back down the alcove and into the corridor. She was alone, in the dark.
~~~~~~~
Draco was right, the war was here. Dumbledore was dead and Harry was devastated. Snape was a traitor and her friends were in the Hospital Wing. The reason why she learned the disillusionment charm and the extension charms, the reason why she read Madam Pomfrey’s healing tomes was here. But through all of the sadness and fear, Hermione only thought about a boy with white blonde hair and sad grey eyes. He had let them in. He opened the door for the Death Eaters and welcomed them into the castle. Harry confirmed Draco had been branded with a Dark Mark, something she was sure of, but didn’t have the heart to confirm in the hours she spent with him in the Hospital Wing. But Harry also said Draco lowered his wand. He didn’t want to do these things, Hermione was certain of it. But Draco Malfoy was out there somewhere with the Death Eaters and probably in more danger than she was.
The End.