April.08.05

Coping

He watched her walk around the room busily, picking up random papers that were strewn around the room. He had long accepted the fact that he would always be under the surveillance of the Ministry and the Order, but he still had to get use to the fact that Granger of all people was the one who volunteered to be in charge of personally watching over him.

'I'm your parole officer' she had said when he first asked her what she intended to accomplish by watching his every move. Now six months into their strange relationship, he was use to seeing her suddenly apparate or floo into his home to check on him. Whether it was during the middle of the day, at the first break of dawn, or late in the evening.

"What are you looking for now, Granger?" he asked impersonally, as was his style despite the time they spent together.

"That's none of your business, Draco." she replied with the same tone of voice she had been using on him for the better part of two months.

"Well I'm making it my business. If you're going to go around my father's old junk and expect me to not care, you've been mistaken. And another thing, don't use that motherly tone with me, Granger, you know how I hate that."

Seeing her stop her search to size him up, Hermione walked over to him and laid a hand on his chest. It was some-what strange to him how she of all people was expected to keep him 'under control' when he was a good twenty centimeters taller than her, not to mention about fifteen kilograms heavier. Yet with a light touch or smile he felt completely disarmed.

"I'm sorry, Draco." she whispered with a slight smile.

Now feeling a bit on the bashful side, a feeling he often had and hated when around Hermione, he took a step back, beyond her touch, and managed to surreptitiously take her wand. He held the light piece of wood between his fingers, testing it, letting his hand reacquaint itself with the magical item.

It had been almost seven months since he's held a wand, the Ministry had put a temporary restriction on wand possesion to all the ex-Death Eater's, and he was no exception. 'Even though I didn't do anything throughout the whole year I was in the affiliation,' he had thought when they had dealt out his sentence.

Giving the willow wand a test flick, Draco knew that it would reject him the moment he tried a spell. Opting to not be blasted back by the recoil, he held it to Hermione's throat.

"You've been watching over me for what, six months now? Do you know how long I've been waiting for an opportunity like this, Hermione?" Draco asked with a slight twang of his old tone returning.

"Apparently not that long, seeing as it would have taken you only a week to do this to any other person." Hermione replied with a hint of a smile blooming in her lips.

Dropping the wand pathetically, he let a smile emerge from his otherwise scowling mouth and let out a sigh of disappointment.

"How were you so sure I wouldn't have blasted you?"

"Because the wand would have blasted you first, you silly goose." she told him before patting his cheek.

Catching her hand within his own, he held it to his face, looking at her with the grey eyes that had her secretly yearning for him for quite a while.

"Is that it?"

"What more is there to say? I trust you."

It was in that moment, for the first time after six months of house arrest, Draco found his sentence to be most promising.