Pinky Promise

"Granger!" Draco winced. He had building up his courage to say her name for the past five minutes, and it surprised him when it passed his lips.

The bushy muggleborn gave no indication that she had heard him.

He was almost happy. Then he wouldn't have to sweat out what he was going to say to her, he wasn't going to have to admit that he needed help. But part of him was disappointed, most of him wanted her to turn around and ask what was wrong, why he had said her name.

Before he could stop himself his traitor feet were moving to follow her through an abandoned aisle of books. He wasn't thinking, that was for sure. He couldn't be seen going up to a Muggleborn and asking for help, it was pathetic...or that's what his father would say. And he wasn't his father, right?

His mouth wouldn't work, he couldn't announce to people around him that he needed Granger's help, so his hand shot out.

"Hey!" Hermione whirled around. Her first thought was an attacker, someone like McCormac, who was interested in her.

"Malfoy?" She couldn't mask the surprise in her voice.

"Granger! Uh...could I...erm..." Draco's thoughts froze, his mind was focused on the point where his hand held her wrist.

"Let go of me," Hermione hissed, she didn't need anymore rumors about her. It was too distracting to think why the Malfoy boy would be talking to her...nonetheless touching her.

"Oh," he dropped her wrist as if he had gotten burned. "Could I ask...youaquestion?" The words spilled out of his mouth with no pause.

"A question?" Hermione asked after a moment of trying to decipher what he had said.

Draco nodded, his eyes earnest, and pleading.

"You just did," was her snark reply. It was supposed to come out in a joking manner, but she laid too heavily on the tone and Draco looked taken aback, his eyes wide.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Hermione was shocked to see his feelings written on his features. The pain was wrought in his eyes, the disappointment sketched in his mouth, the sincerity blazing in his eyebrows.

"Go ahead," she waved her free hand at him. The other one clutched her books closer to her chest. Draco Malfoy, coming to her, to ask a question. She would hold this over him for the rest of their time in school.

Draco looked down into his chest, not wanting to meet the girls eyes. "Will you help me?" He muttered quietly.

"What?" Hermione asked, brown eyebrows raised.

Malfoy looked up, fury boiling under his blue eyes, "you heard me," he hissed, this time looking up at her.

Hermione stepped back, scared at how much hatred burned in his eyes. "No I didn't! You were talking too quietly, and into your chest, I really didn't hear you."

Draco considered her for a moment, her feeling we're all too obvious in her voice. She was scared, that's not what he needed, he needed her to help him. "Sorry," his face relaxed, his eyes went from narrow to wide, the hard lines in his face eased. "I need your help, could you...help me out?" He asked.

"M-my help?" She asked. "With what? Why me, you hate me."

"Yeah, you're the smartest in our year, you know all the spells, I just need some help fixing something, I think you'd know how to approach it." Draco tried to keep his tone polite, he really didn't want to sound desperate.

"Fix what?" She asked, then thought of a more important question, "why?"

Malfoy's eyes were full of turmoil. And Hermione could see it. His eyes stormy, part of him wanted to tell her the truth, but he knew that if he did he would get into trouble.

On a whim he leaned closer, "I-I can't tell you here, we need to go somewhere where we can't be overheard."

Hermione was intrigued. The mystery boy, the boy who has called her names and hurt her friends, was asking for her help. Not only was he asking, but she could see through the flimsy mask he wore, he was borderline desperate.

"Could I set this-" she looked down at the books she was holding.

"Weasley will ask, or Potter," was his quick reaction, he could barely contain the smile. "We don't have to go far, just...you know not in the quiet library."

"Alright," she said, she hefted the books up in her hip and reached her other hand for her bag.

"I, uh, I can take something," Draco said softly.

Hermione looked up. He was so small, he looked sickly. She was so used to him being a huge being in her life, not actually that much taller than her, but always loud, imposing, she was always so aware when he was near, now she didn't recognize the broken boy in front of her.

"Thank?" she handed him a few of the books in her hand, hesitant.

"Give them all to me Granger," he demanded, exasperated. She handed them over and straightened up, pulling her bag into her bag.

Draco was amazed at how much taller she was without the weight of so many books. She now probably came up to his nose, instead of his chin. She looked more confident too, not carrying books clutched to her chest all the time.

"You know, people will still look at us," Granger said, following him through the library.

"Only because I'm actually carrying books," Draco said, a twitch coming to the corner of his mouth.

"Haha, you have to carry around some books, you are second in our year," she pointed out, trying to keep some chatter flowing between the odd pair.

"Funny, the top two aren't even in Ravenclaw."

"The Sorting Hat almost put me there," Hermione quickened her step to catch up to Malfoys longer strides. A moment later she realized what she said, she hadn't even told that to Harry and Ron.

"I'm not surprised," Draco said, looking over to the busy brown hair bouncing next to him. "I'm actually more surprised you're in Gryffindor."

"I am brave!" She commented sourly, looking at the ground in front of her.

"I was joking Granger," Draco said, trying desperately to fix his blunder. "I was there last year in...HER office." Draco was too ashamed of that. A kiss-ass fifteen year old, that's what he was.

Hermione let out a shakey breath, and smiled slightly.

"Here will do," Malfoy said, turning sharply to his left into an empty classroom. Hermione looked around, glad to see the hall was deserted, her curiosity winning over her common sense. She followed him.

He had set her books down on a desk, and was already pacing in front of the abandoned classroom.

Draco's mind was working overtime. He had expected the short walk here to be silent, then he would've had time to think about what he was going to say to Granger. But they had had a civil, but short, conversation, and now he didn't know what to say. He pointed his wand at the door. It slammed shut.

Hermione jumped, but uttered no sound. He was acting really weird.

"Can you put a spell on the door so people can't overhear us," he asked. Malfoy was waking her way now.

"What's this about?" Hermione asked, backing away from him.

"I can't have people overhear what I need to say to you," he looked up at her, and Hermione could see that he was unwell. His eyes were bloodshot, his face not just pale anymore, more like a sickly gray now, his cheekbones were more prominent. "Please," he whispered.

Hermione, thrown off by his intrusive manner, cast a nonverbal spell on the door.

Malfoy let out a sigh of relief.

Draco took a few deep breaths to calm himself, there was no more stalling now. "Granger, you have to promise not to tell anyone. Not Potter, Weasley, no one can know. You need to promise to me," he begged. Granger was looking at him like he was another species.

She held out a small, fragile pinky finger.

"What?!" His seriousness was broken. He furrowed him brows at the pinky, what the hell? He thought.

"Pinky promise," she said.

Draco still stared at it. "What's...since...huh?" He had tried to form a sentence from it, but in the end he couldn't comprehend it.

She shrugged, "sorry," she pulled her hand back towards her, unconsciously rubbing her wrist. "It's a Muggle thing."

"Why?" He asked.

"Sorry, I forgot you are accustomed to Muggle things, it's just a stupid little thing that people do to swear to each other," Hermione said, brushing it off, although she had embarrassed herself tremendously, if she had to admit.

"Do you, Hermione Granger pinky swear not to tell anyone what I am about to say to you?" Draco asked, his face perfectly composed, as he held out a skinny pinky to her.

Hermione's face spilt into a wide smile, a small giggle escaped her lips. She took his pinky, stating on it, "I do."

"Oh god!" She slapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh man, that sounded..."

"Wrong," Malfoy finished for her. His face now had a healthy glow of pink to it, it blotched a little at the top of his cheekbones, Malfoy was blushing.

Hermione couldn't help herself, she smiled shyly at him. A genuine smile.

"Sooooo..." Draco said. "With that out of the way...gods, can you just not, like, I dunno, hate me anymore than you already do?" He asked.

Hermione's thoughts immediately jumped to Harry's theory at the beginning of the school year. But she shook her head at it, she couldn't jump to conclusions. "I'll try," she responded with sincerity.

"Imma...shit..." He muttered to himself. His mind was in riot of what he was doing, it was completely against everything he had been taught. "Death Eater."

Hermione's eyes grew to the size of galleons. Harry was right.

"I can explain!" He blurted out. Draco had seen Granger tense, she was going to make a run for it. "Please," his voice softened. He saw Granger consider it.

Hermione heard so much vulnerability in that one word that she had to stay.

"H-" Draco took a breath, looked away from the intelligent creamy brown eyes of the girl before him and began. "This was my parents plan for me, all along. It's almost a heritage that the Malfoys all become Death Eaters, so one day I knew I was going to have to.

"It came a lot sooner than expected, I'm the youngest, inner circle Death Eater, since the initiation of the Knights of Walburga, the very first. It was because of my fathers failure to perform up to standards at the Ministry last year. He was..." Draco paused, and again questioned what he was doing. "He was improisined. Instead of punishing only my father, he punished my whole family by making me a Death Eater, and giving me impossible orders to carry out. If I fail, he...he will kill me. If I succeed my family will be in the good graces of the Dark Lord.

"Except that I'm not seeing it as my father wants me to. I don't want to carry out my orders, I don't want to be a part of this goddamn secret society for a second longer. That's why I need your help.

"There's a Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement. I need to escape, or have the option of escaping.

"And I know that out of everyone In the school you would be the first person not willing to help me. I get it, I've been a downright bastard to you all through school. I don't know how to show it to you, but I have changed, this year...I've made some realizations about my life that, that make me different from the rest of the Death Eaters. Would you please help me?"

Hermione was fully prepared to say 'no', go back to the library and forget everything that he had to say to her. But that's not what happened. She stared at him. Full blown eyes bulging, mouth open staring.

"Are you okay?" She asked, her voice soft.

Malfoy laughed, "out of all the things you could say you ask me that," he smiled. "I'm coping. Thanks."

"I believe you. There's no way anyone could feel as much as you do, and lie about it."

Draco let out a long breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Thank god," he shut his eyes and allowed himself a small smile.

"Are you going to be alright?"

"Depends," he answered carefully, and eyes her knowingly.

Hermione knew that look. It was one the boys had given her countless times. It's the "it's up to you" look.

"What's your, er, orders?"

"I think you know that I can't tell you," Draco pleaded her to understand.

Granger sighed, Draco bit the inside of his cheek. She might press too much, he had already told himself that he was not telling her his real purpose.

"Did he put spells on you?" Hermione asked. She had read about plenty of different enchantment that would prevent a person from speaking. Malfoy looked surprised, he nodded. Hermione licked her lips, "ok. Why would you have to leave the school?"

"People..." Draco paused. How was he supposed to word it? He furrowed his brow, and brought his hands together and began picking at his fingernails. "If people, like Dumbledore found out...he'd try to help, that's what the problem would be. I'm not able to break out of this connection, see?"

Hermione thought she knew where Malfoy was going with it, but she shook her head.

"If Dumbledore, you, anyone were to try to help me escape this it would be fruitless. The only thing that would be gained would be more of you guys getting hurt. The Dark Lord would come after me, and not stop until he got me, which would mean him killing you. So I need a way to escape that, Dumbledore won't take no for an answer, but I can't have him killing people on account of me." Draco said, he hoped that it sounded truthful to her ears. A part of it was true, most of it was irony, but it gave him a lie to use.

"That's twisted logic. So you want it to escape the help that you...want to take?" Draco nodded. "You'd rather him go after only you instead of the entire order?" Again Draco nodded. "You realize how Gryffindor that sounds right?" The question was followed by a breathy laugh and a small smile.

"Geez, I guess I've spent so many years fighting you Gryffindors that it's wearing off on me!"

Hermione smiled, but her mind was elsewhere. She was going over every part of Malfoy's speech. "What realizations have you made about yourself?"

"Huh?"

"You said something along the lines of different realization that make you different from death eaters."

"Oh! Well, I mean, the Gryffindor thing, my mother finds that extremely annoying. I know it seems small, but I'm able to produce a non-corporal patronus, all other Death Eaters can't produce anything. And I guess that this thing, this...lifestyle...that I was bound to live isn't as I want it. I don't want to go out and kill people, torture people, it's not right. I want to help them, to heal them, and make sure they don't go through anymore pain." Draco paused, he had never told anyone that, and finally confessing it well, "sorry, that was really mushy."

But Hermione was smiling. It was great to hear her enemy of six years tell her this. "That's wonderful!"

"Really?"

"Yeah! I-wow...not what I expected, but any means," she ran a hand through her bushy hair.

"So," Draco paused, he didn't want Granger to thing he was too pushy, "will you help me?"

"I can try."

Draco's face split. His smile ran from ear to ear, showed all his teeth, and made Granger laugh. "Thank you!"

"I-I only said I'll try," she smiled. "Just," Hermione looked up. Malfoy was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, "hey, calm down. Just don't call anyone a Mudblood anymore. And I get to help plan an escape, don't look at me like that, you'll need my brains for it! And if you don't escape, I'll help you out."

"But-"

"Just say yes," Granger wasn't smiling now. Draco rolled his eyes and nodded his head.

Hermione held out a pinky finger, "pinky promise?"

Draco took her pinky in his own and swore to the oath. "Pinky promise."

Thank you so much for reading. This began, in my head, as a Dramione one-shot. But after writing this (and not being sure how to continue for just a one-shot) I realized that this may be a better idea for a longer story. I would really appreciate your feedback on this idea. Thanks again for taking time out of your life to read this!