Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe. (Though I certainly wish I owned Draco. :) )

Summary: Takes place in second year, when Draco visits a petrified Hermione in the hospital wing. He reflects on how Hermione has affected him. Angsty-ish one-shot. No real dialogue because...well, Hermione is petrified.

A/N: I've come out of my shell and decided to start writing again! I abandoned my two other stories, and I'm eternally apologetic for that. But when I went back to actually read what I've written, I just have to say that I detest my writing from before. Now, I shall start on a fresh page, with a whole new series of fics (mostly HP and HGDM-specific) in a hopefully much better style of writing. If this one-shot gets good responses, maybe I'll post up somemore of my stuff. :)

As for this story...well, it just popped up at me when I was rewatching CoS recently. R&R please, will be greatly appreciated!

Sanctuary

He really shouldn't be out of bed in the dead of the night, wandering the school corridors. After all, the Chamber of Secrets was open, and a crazed monster was on the loose, killing people. But Draco Malfoy couldn't care less. He was confident that, being a pureblood, he would be exempt from all the dangers that monster might pose. Furthermore, Draco had more pressing matters on his mind. Getting to the hospital wing. He could only hope that he wouldn't run into anyone on the way there. It might be hard to explain what he was doing at that time of night, because Draco himself barely had any idea what he was doing there.

Except that he wanted – no, needed – too see Hermione that instant.

He had overheard the rumours that the latest victim had been Hermione Granger, and something leapt at his heart in terror. He remembered, reluctantly, how he had continually wished for the heir of Slytherin to attack Granger. Yet when he heard that she had been attacked, Draco regretted his words instantly, and could only hope that she, like the previous victims, were only petrified, not murdered. It was a fact that Draco had believed he wanted Granger to be the muggle-born who was killed by the heir of Slytherin and his monster, but he knew, instantly, that it wasn't true.

Draco had never liked Hermione, but not purely for the reason everyone else expected of him. His father had drilled into his head, from birth, that mudbloods were filth, lower than the scum on earth, highly unintelligent, and wholly unworthy of studying magic. And Draco had believed all that. At least, until he met Hermione Granger. He would never have expected someone like her to be a mudblood; she was unlike how Lucius had described them to Draco. Hermione was neither ugly nor deformed – in fact, she was beautiful. Her eyes were captivating despite their common brown colour, speaking of an entire whirlwind of emotions. And she was not unintelligent; she was the cleverest witch their age, able to perform highly advanced spells that sometimes even adults were unable to. Spells that Draco could never master, even after days of practice and hard work. That was why he disliked her.

Lucius would never be satisfied with whatever Draco did, despite how much effort Draco put into his work, not so long as Hermione Granger would be able to beat him. Draco dreaded every school break, when he would be forced to return to Malfoy Manor, if only to endure the harsh words from his father. Never in his life had Draco understood the feeling of acceptance, not at home, where Lucius was demanding and Narcissa was weak, not in school, when he was detested for being a Slytherin. He envied Hermione intensely, envied her for her intelligence that earned her the teachers' respect, her amiable personality that earned her acceptance into the community, her loyalty and bravery that earned her true friends. Draco despised her friendship with Harry and Ron, simply because it was something he knew he would never be able to experience.

Yet, in all his dislike for Hermione, he admired her. Despite how everyone viewed her – as an insufferable know-it-all, a bookworm, the teachers' pet…a mudblood – she could still stand strong. Hermione remained true to what she enjoyed and believed in, even when the society turned against her, something Draco couldn't help but admire. He knew he didn't possess the courage to stand tall amidst everyone's expectation – he would only live his life as he was instructed, never brave enough to stand up for what he believed in.

Which was the reason why he was skulking around the school, heading to the hospital wing to visit Hermione. He wanted to see her, to make sure she was alright, apologise to her – even if she could not hear him – but he didn't dare to. If anyone found out, if his father found out, Draco would surely be punished. People would talk, gossip about how the heir of the Malfoys was concerned for a mudblood, and Draco knew that he wouldn't be able to stand that.

Stopping hesitantly before the doors to the hospital wing, Draco took a deep breath, praying that Madam Pomfrey would have gone to bed, and nobody else had decided to visit at this time of night. He pushed the door open, wincing as it let out a deep, ancient squeak, and stepped into the hospital wing. The moonlight filtered through the tall glass windows, casting gloomy shadows, a stark contrast to the bright pools of white light.

Hermione's face was illuminated by the soft rays of moonlight as she lay on the bed, hand outstretched, eyes open, not moving. Draco stood in the shadows, only daring to look at her from a distance. Her features were even more beautiful when he took time to admire them, with the moonlight shining over them. But a glance at her glassy eyes tore at his heart. The brown orbs that were usually sparkling with emotion and shining with warmth were clouded over with fear, and lacking in all other emotion. Draco moved closer, every so slowly, his striking grey eyes staring into her brown eyes, willing her to get up, willing the expression to return to his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Draco whispered softly. If he hadn't insisted on continually calling Hermione a 'mudblood', then maybe the heir of Slytherin wouldn't have decided to target her. Maybe she would have been spared, until the heir found out about her, and by the time, the culprit might have been caught. Maybe he had, indirectly or not, brought this upon Hermione. "I'm sorry," he repeated, reaching out to touch her cheek, which was scarily cold to his fingers. He drew back his hand in shock.

Guilt washed over him. A solitary tear sneaked out of the corner of his eye and he clasped Hermione's hand in his, rolling slowly down his cheek and splashing on her cheek.

Then he composed himself. That one moment of weakness was already too much. Yet the young, twelve-year-old Draco couldn't really care. There was still a small portion of his otherwise black heart that was still uncorrupted, and Hermione had unwittingly found her way in there. She showed him what really mattered in this world, things like friendship, loyalty and courage. Things that Draco would otherwise never understand or experience. But Draco would soon come to shut everything Hermione tried to teach him out, following in his father's footsteps, masking the real him under layers of pretence and deception. He would make mistakes that he would never be able to correct, because he chose to ignore the little voice in his head that sounded so much like Hermione.

"Get better soon," Draco whispered gently. There was no one to hear him; Draco could show his true self. Yet Draco wished Hermione could hear him, could comfort him. He was terribly afraid, because he knew he was the bad guy, and Harry Potter was the good guy; and everyone knew that good always triumphed over evil. He wanted Hermione to tell him that everything would be okay, tell him that he wasn't evil. But she would never do that, because she believed he was evil. With no one to trust him, to understand him, Draco would fall into a bottomless pit, into darkness and the horrors that lay beyond.

He moved away from Hermione, backing to the door, never taking his eyes off her. Once he stepped out of those doors, everything would be the way it had always been, and Draco would revert to his old self. There was no sanctuary for him in the real world, and Draco knew it. No acceptance or admiration, no friendship or love, no home to return to when the going got tough. Nothing except continual pretence and disguise, hiding who he really was from the world around him, never able to trust another person. It was a tiring existence, but the only one Draco had. He didn't know how to escape everything that was holding him back from finding his sanctuary, the one place he could be himself without a care in the world.

His sanctuary would be Hermione, and that night would be the only night he got the opportunity to enter his safe haven. From then on, he would continue running and hiding, doing what he was expected to instead of what he wanted to.

"Goodbye," he mouthed, turning and running out of the doors, away from his sanctuary.

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