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…
"Put down that wand Malfoy. I'm warning you."
"Who do you think you are Mudblood? This place is mine."
Hermione and Draco were standing at opposite ends of a broken, partially rotten table near the door of the room of requirement. They circled the table, waiting for the other to make the first move.
"Look Malfoy. I'll be at the other end of the room. You can stay here. Don't come near me, and I won't come near you. This room is free for all to use, and you know that." Hermione glared at Draco, daring him to disagree.
A growl escaped Draco as he recognized his defeat. "You better keep your word Granger. I do not take kindly to trespassers." He eyed her just as fiercely.
Hermione gave a snort at the threat, before walking around broken furniture and debris that had piled in the centre of the room to the end furthest away from Draco. The huge pile of forgotten junk was blocking her view of the slimy git. Perfect.
…
Draco seethed as he heard the door open with a click once again. Granger just had to choose this day to come into the room. He needed to focus. Turning back to the vanishing cupboard once more, he started another series of charms, hoping that this time, he would succeed.
Just as he was about to tear his hair out in frustration, Hermione appeared in his line of vision. Which meant she was on the wrong side of the room. Oh, this would be fun.
"Malfoy, will you stop the grunting and cursing? It's highly distracting!" She narrowed her eyes at him.
He smirked. "No wonder you're a Mudblood."
She sputtered in indignance. "Do NOT call me that, you pompous git! And how does that even relate to—oh." She looked down at the wand in her hand.
"Right. Silencing charm." Turning on her heels, she walked back to her side of the room with her head held high.
Chuckling, Draco turned back to the cupboard. Then he stopped. He didn't even try to attack Granger. Something was very wrong with him. He gave his head a good shake before settling back on the task at hand.
…
Draco sat at the table, sipping his glass of orange juice while staring blankly at the doors of the Great Hall. His hair was in a mess, his shirt was buttoned up wrongly and the dark circles under his eyes could be seen even by those at the far end of the room. The cupboard was coming along badly. The Dark Lord was not happy with him at all. He needed to fix it fast, before he ended up at the end of Voldemort's wand.
A mess of bushy curls entered his line of sight, and he watched as Hermione tripped over the last step into the hall. She looked back and said something that Draco barely managed to decipher through reading her lips. His eyebrows quirked up in surprise. Did Granger just say sorry to the steps? It can't have been, that was just too odd.
With a sigh, he went back to his analysis of ways to fix the damn cupboard.
…
Over the next month, Draco slowly began to notice how Hermione would apologize to all kinds of inanimate objects that she'd tripped over, run into, hit or dropped. He caught her saying sorry to the fork that she'd knocked down from the table during breakfast one day. On another occasion, she'd apologized to the set of armour she'd crashed into while running around the corner. It was simply baffling.
That same month, the weasel got caught, once again, snogging Lavender Brown in the Gryffindor common room. Honestly, that dumb ginger wasn't the smartest cookie on earth. Rumour had it that Granger had upgraded herself and chose to attack him with a swarm of hornets instead of the canaries from the last time. This time, the weasel stayed in the hospital wing for 3 days longer. Eventually, he and Granger had got over it and finally admitted to themselves that they were better off as friends. Which was, to Draco, pretty obvious from the start. What puzzled him though, was how Granger never apologized, not once, from the beginning to the end of all that drama, for causing the 5 day infirmary stay for weasel.
…
He heard the door open, and this time, he stood up and turned to face it, and the person he knew was going to be there. His curiosity demanded to be satiated.
"Granger."
Hermione turned to face him with an arched eyebrow. "Yes?"
"Why didn't you apologise to that weasel? For the hornet attack," He asked, uncomfortable with the fact that he was asking her a question.
She looked surprised for a moment, before regaining her composure. "Because I'm not sorry. I don't do things that I will regret," she replied with confidence. With that, she turned away and walked off.
He stood there for a full minute, trying to understand what she meant. Rather, he was trying to understand how it was possible to never do something that one will regret. Only a saint could achieve that.
…
He gave a whoop of joy. Finally, after long months of tedious hard work, he had managed to fix the cupboard. Just in time too, for he could tell the Dark Lord had been about to blow his top off. He stumbled back to the common room and slipped into his room. Crashing down onto his soft bed, he fell asleep immediately.
…
Draco stared at the letter in shock and horror. This had to be the hardest mission ever. Asking him, a mere 16 year old boy to kill Dumbledore on his own? The Dark Lord obviously wanted him to fail in his mission, to find an excuse to kill him as soon as he could.
His hand trembled as he fell back onto his bed, screwing his eyes shut tight.
He had 5 days, 5 days to steel his mind and close his emotions off. He had to do this. He wanted to live, for goddamn's sake! He had never killed before, and he knew he didn't want to, but he had made his choice.
…
On the day of the Battle of Hogwarts, Draco entered the room of requirement one last time. He looked at the cupboard for a long while before moving forward to unlock it. In an hour, the Death Eaters would be entering the school through this cupboard. If he wanted to see it that way, he had single handedly enabled them to attack Hogwarts. He shut his eyes and leaned against the cupboard as he thought about the one place that he could call home, becoming a pile of crumbled cobble stones and dust. He sighed, straightened up and walked to the door.
Just as he put his hand on the doorknob, Hermione yanked the door open. She eyed him warily before walking to her side of the room. Pulling out a quill and some parchment, she started to scribble furiously. He frowned. She must be starting that 3 foot long essay set by Binns that morning. Too bad she would never have to finish it.
He stood there for a full 10 minutes, listening to the scratch of her quill on the parchment. He looked at her and remembered the times she had apologized to the wall, the floor, the butter knife. He tilted his head to the left. He remembered that one time she refused to apologize to the weasel. He remembered her words. I don't do things that I will regret. And suddenly, he wanted to cry and fall asleep in his tears and never wake up again. He wanted to lie down in a field and stare at the stars until they faded into dawn. He wanted to sit beside the great lake and watch the geese that landed on the smooth, mirror surface, and watch them fly off again in a rush of feathers and wings and water sprays. He just didn't want to do what he had chosen to do.
He walked up to her side. She still hadn't noticed him.
"Granger." She looked up, a bit surprised, but with a curious look on her face. I don't do things that I will regret.
"I'm sorry."
He turned, walked out of the room, never looking back the whole way.