Saving an Innocent

"Damn...Where's Harry?" Hermione threw a punch at a nearby Death-Eater while trying to locate her scarred friend. "Harry?"

He had left her. He had left his best friend.

"Where's Bellatrix?" Damn. Bellatrix was gone. That meant that Harry had left his best friend to die so he could have his petty revenge; some friendship that was.

"Ron? Ronald Weasley?" She threw another punch. "Ron? RON?" Hermione almost collapsed.

He had left her too. He thought that running off to fight with Harry was more important than helping her. She thought he had loved her. "No…"

"Well, well, well…isn't it that filthy mud-blood Granger…" There was someone behind her: mocking her. She could hear the ice in their voice. This man was most definitely a Malfoy.

She spun to face, only to be hit with a heavy-duty cruciatus curse. She fell back writhing in pain. Every bone in her body was cracking and her muscles were going into fits of spasms. Her vision was clouded but she could faintly make out the blonde-haired profile of Lucius Malfoy and someone behind him holding a wand to his back.

Then, all of a sudden the pain was gone and she was left with only the memory of it in her joints and muscles. "Thank you…" She looked up at her savior, only to find the face of Draco Malfoy: the ferret.

"Malfoy?" She lifted a hand to touch his arm. "Why…why did you save me? You hate me…" Darkness was closing in on her quickly but she had to know. But Malfoy wasn't answering her. "Draco…please tell me why you helped me…please…"

At the sound of his first name, the blonde-haired boy looked down at her. His silver-blue eyes bore into her chocolate ones. "I-I killed him…my father…"

It was then that Hermione noticed the fallen form of the elder Malfoy. "Draco…he was trying to kill me. You only did what your heart instructed you to. You were protecting an innocent."

He laughed. "You're no innocent, Granger. I saw you kill 10 Death-eaters over there," he bent to lift her into his arms. "That was amazing." She let him pick her up.

She laughed too. "No it wasn't…I was just defending myself. I didn't kill that many. I mostly trapped them all in their minds. I didn't want the dementors going soulless."

Draco shook his head, his blonde hair falling across his face. "No, we would never want that. Then they might come after Golden boy again. Speaking of which, where are they? Where are Golden boy and his trusty sidekick?" He looked down at her in sincere interest.

Before she knew it, Hermione was sobbing into Draco's shirt. She hadn't even noticed when the first tear had fallen but she knew that as of now, the tears were nowhere near stopping. The two people she had thought were her best friends were gone; leaving her to go fight a single Death-eater when she was trapped in a field of them: alone. "They-they-they left me to die out here! They went to go get their revenge. They left me to-to-to die!"

Draco let her cry on him. She was a wreck. The Golden Trio had split off, leaving the Gryffindor Princess to her own devices. They had left her to die so they could exact their petty revenge. "Granger…I think you need to come with me for awhile. I don't know where Potter and Weasel are, but I do know that you need medical attention and, by the looks of it, some heavy-duty sleep. And I need to speak with Dumbledore. So will you come with me?"

Hermione was drifting into the welcoming darkness, but the sincerity in Draco's voice brought her back long enough to nod her heavy head.

"Alright…we're going to need to get to my portkey without any of the Death-eaters seeing us. Keep quiet, okay?"

She nodded weakly and reached her hand into the bag hanging loosely around her waist. She pulled out a gleaming invisibility cloak: the one the Order had given her when she had first arrived with Harry and Ron. Now it was saving her and Malfoy's lives. "Malfoy-"

"Black; it's Black now. I don't want to be my father. I'd much rather be like mother. You'd like her, I'd expect. She's just like you: headstrong and very talented. They called her the "Lion's Dragon" in school. They swore she belonged in Gryffindor and Slytherin…"

"Draco- please stop rambling and put this cloak on. If we get out of here alive, I will gladly meet your mother. Now will you please get me out of here? I do believe I'm bleeding…." She then passed out, the cloak slipping from her fingers onto Draco's chest. He picked it up and threw it over them both.

"Her-mi-o-nee," he smiled, it sounded good flowing from his tongue. It was strange. "Hermione, I will get you out of here and when you're better, you can meet my mother. I do believe that your correct nickname now is: the "Dragon's Lion", little Gryffindor. My mother will love you." He then stepped into the night.

Hermione awoke early the next morning with a severe pain in her head. It hurt like hell but that was not what had startled her. It was who was lying next to her on a different hospital bed: Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter; that had given her the shock.

"Harry? Ron?" She whispered. When they didn't answer she screamed, louder than a banshee, some would say, sending them sprawling to their feet.

Ron spoke first. "'Mione! I was so worried about you. I came back for you and I didn't see you and then I found your wand next to Lucius' body but you were nowhere to be found. I was so scared you had died or been captured….Hermione?"

Hermione was laughing: a maniacal laugh that shook her small frame. The boys looked on it interest. Harry spoke: "Hermione? What's so funny?"

She stopped laughing and pointed at them, the strange smile still plastered on her face. "You!"

"Why are we funny?" Harry asked. Ron nodded in acquiescence.

"Because you said you cared! You said you were worried!" Her face turned deathly pale and the smile disappeared. Unshed tears glistened in her eyes. "You weren't worried about me. You-you left me to die. Both of you did. You left me in a field of Death-eaters all by myself to fight them all off. Multiple almost killed me. One even put the Cruciatus on me! I would have died right there, under Lucius Malfoy's Cruciatus if I hadn't been saved. Saved by none other than your "arch-enemy" Draco Mal-Black. Draco Black."

Harry and Ron were both shell-shocked. But Harry spoke first, anger laced in his baritone voice. "Black? That bastard ferret took my godfather's name for himself? What makes him think he deserves it? He's nothing but a spoiled git with an alternate agenda for saving you."

Hermione was crying now and Ron was moving towards her slowly. "He deserves it more than anyone in Sirius' family. His mother was Narcissa Black! The Lion's Dragon!"

Ron was getting closer and Hermione had stopped talking and had started trying to bat away Ron's attempts to touch her. "No, Ron. Get away from me…please get away." Ron was having none of that: Hermione was his girlfriend and he had spent three weeks fighting and hadn't gotten anything from her. Gods, he wanted to kiss her. Why was she being so damn difficult?

"I am your bloody boyfriend, Hermione! I have the right to touch you when and where I please. You are mine!" He grabbed her shoulders and captured her mouth in an angry kiss. His kiss reflected all the pain he felt…all the anger. All of the sexual frustration.

She pulled away quickly and her face held the look of a woman looking at a filthy beast. "Ron! How dare you! GET OUT! GET AWAY FROM ME!" He tried to kiss her again to make her shut up but she threw a fist his way. "HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP ME!" Ron tried desperately to silence her and Harry was pulling on his robes.

"Ron, we need to go. I hear someone coming."

"NO, Harry! She's my bloody girlfriend and she will do what I fucking say!" He reached for Hermione again, to only be pulled back by a different force.

"Weasley! What the hell are you doing?" Ron looked up into the face of Draco Black…'no', he thought. 'Definitely Draco Malfoy.'

"What do you think I'm doing, ferret? I'm trying to kiss my bloody girlfriend! I am allowed to do that, aren't I? She does belong to me!" His response was a punch in the face.

"She is not your damn property! She is a fucking human being! So when she tells you to leave her the fuck alone, do it! She deserves some sort of respect, don't you think? And what in the hell makes you think she would kiss you after you left her in a bloody field of fucking Death-eaters?"

Ron turned a crimson color as blood fell freely from his lip and nose. "She…,"Ron wheezed, "is…," He coughed, "MINE!" He screamed and propelled himself into Draco's body.

Hermione had had enough. "RON! LEAVE DRACO ALONE!"

Both fighting boys looked at her in surprise. Both surprised that she had defended Draco Malfoy. The heir to the Malfoy estate, the Slytherin Prince, her supposed enemy.

Draco felt a sense of pride flood into his system when she had defended him and he had felt a sense of joy when she had called him by his name. Ron felt only anger at all of it. His girlfriend was defending the flying ferret instead of him: her boyfriend.

She seemed to know the reason for his anger and she remedied it quickly. "Ron, I think we're done. I don't think I can be with you anymore, so just please leave. Harry take him with you. I don't think I want to speak to either of you for a long time."

Ron shot a glare at the smirking Malfoy, as Harry lifted him up and dragged him from the room. When the door had shut behind the two boys, Hermione collapsed on the bed, crying.

Draco picked himself up off the floor and walked over to Hermione's bed. He sat down on the edge of it and placed a hand on her back that was shaking with each heart-wrenching sob. "He doesn't deserve you, Hermione. Any man that thinks of a woman as property doesn't deserve one. Especially a man that thinks of you as property. You are by no means property."

She lifted her tear-stained face to meet his eyes. He smiled solemnly at her and she took a deep breath to steady her heart rate. "Thank you, Draco. I don't think anyone has ever said anything like that to me before." She placed a quivering hand on his arm. "I used to always think that to be a good girlfriend you had to do everything for that other person. That's why I let Ron copy my work…my hard work and why I let him dominate over me. That's why I couldn't fight back when he kissed me on the bed."

She smiled as tears fell down her face. "Then you popped into my mind. When you were saving me. You had asked if I would come with you, you didn't just take me. You asked me. It was different and I realized that was what I wanted. I wanted someone to care about what I thought and not what I could do for them….thank you again."

He rubbed a hand down her back until he heard her breathing even out. Then he placed her down under the covers so she could she sleep in peace. He then stood and walked towards the door of the infirmary. He needed to talk to Dumbledore.

Just as he was about to walk out, he turned and faced Hermione again. "You're welcome,

Hermione…You're welcome."

FIN!

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The next chapter will be up shortly. I know this one was short but getting started is always hard for me. I'm sorry Ladies and Gents. The next will be longer. I promise!

Darkness