Disclaimer: The plot is mine. The characters, places and references similar to those in the Harry Potter books belong to JK Rowling.

Author's Note: This story is dedicated to my best friend who is in a bit of a "romantic plot-snag" at the time of this writing. Hang in there.

This is one-shot. I hope you all like this and I pray you haven't given up all hope in me. Thanks for reading. )

Finding Middle Ground

Hermione Granger did not have any time to lose, nor did she have the presence of mind to stop and think. By far, this was one of her more random acts of impulsiveness... but she didn't mind. All coherent thoughts left her stumbling around in the dark, not sure where she was going but as if instinct was guiding her to her place.

Her place. She couldn't think of it as anything else.

The girl in perspective was a seventh year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hermione was also the Head Girl. Unfortunately, due to events in the past year, the news of her position wasn't joyfully received as it might have been had things been different.

But she couldn't change Fate; not even if she used a time-turner. The memory of her third year activities involving the tweaking of time quickly came and went in her addled mind. She was no doubt getting tired from all of the flights of stairs she had to climb in her haste to get away. She kept on, however. The pain was still too fresh for her to stop and remember it.

The school was in shambles. The death of Professor Albus Dumbledore had done nothing for the war except bring to light the true enemies. Severus Snape was one of those determined enemies, as well as most of the Slytherin House. But it seemed that their connections had more in it for them than the accusation of their aiding the plans of Dumbledore's murder; for all Slytherins had come back to taunt and haunt them.

Professor Minerva McGonagall had taken over the school, trying to bring back the pieces of a wretched community through blatant ignorance of anything. The news of the Daily Prophet was never to reach the eyes of the students. Mails were being screened for magic and anything that might hold some information as to what lay beyond the walls of the school. People were never, under any circumstances, allowed to talk about the disappearance of Professor Snape or the murder of Professor Dumbledore.

The war was all too real, and all too much for mere adolescents to handle.

It was this reality that prompted Hermione to take refuge in the one place that no one ever entered. Except for her, though. The Gryffindor common room was simply too noisy for her to think. Her dorm room was filled with talk of the war. Harry and Ron seemed preoccupied with impending doom that they never could listen to whatever she had to say. So, she came up to the Tower to be at peace.

Finally, after many flights of stairs, she came face to face with her destination. The heavy door that blocked her way to paradise was quickly opened with a charm and Hermione was greeted with an unobstructed view of the autumn night.

The view of the stars twinkling never failed to put a smile on her face. Hermione stepped out into the moonlit walkway and quickly crossed to the stone balustrade. She stared up at the sky for what seemed an eternity when she suddenly had the urge to cry.

Hermione hated crying. She'd always thought that to weep was to admit failure, defeat. But months of pent up emotions filled her suddenly, then were forcefully expelled through one well-placed insult. By Merlin, she didn't want to admit it even to herself... she was getting weak.

Weakness was never a condition she wanted to be in. It made her feel... vulnerable. Physical pain and hurt she could shoulder. She had no qualms about having a bruise or a cut that needed stitches. But weakness? A draining feeling of emptiness deep inside the soul? That she had no defense against.

She willed herself to stop weeping. She curled her hands into fists, her nails digging into her flesh, trying to stop feeling the emotional hurt and focus on the physical. When that didn't work, she tried to bite the inside of her cheek.

Perhaps the emotional pain was simply too much for her to bear. After all, what was a laceration of the skin when there was a cancer that was eating her from the inside?

She didn't want to acknowledge the facts, but it seemed her own mind had other ideas. And so she wept. Not choosing to quiet herself because no one knew where she was. The whole disastrous event happened just a few minutes ago, in an abandoned hallway. She had passed there to gain courage, to be alone in a dimly-lit hallway and come out of the other end unscathed.

But unscathed she wasn't. She couldn't even stand her own ground. The insult came and went, leaving a deep gash on the inside, where it hurt the most. So she turned around and ran, not stopping until she was alone enough to cry.

The wind had picked up; leaving a shiver upon her once it had passed. She hugged herself in a futile effort to get warm. The thin sweater she was wearing wasn't helping much and her legs had goose bumps due to the uniform shirt that was slightly on the short side. But she couldn't bring herself to abandon her post. She had much more thinking, more weeping to do.

"Are you crying?" Came a voice from behind her. Somehow, she expected this. She knew who it was and she knew he had followed her here. The voice was a drawl, really.

"Yes." She answered, taking a deep breath. "Have you come to finish me off? Or will you content yourself by watching me cry?"

"Both sound tempting, but that's not why I'm here."

"Get on with it then." Hermione snapped.

"Get inside. You'll catch your death out here." He replied softly. Just as she was about to retort herself, he quickly added, "I'll have no delight in throwing insults at a corpse."

"But you will have as much fun in killing me, so what difference does it make?"

A long pause. Hermione imagined what the scene might look like. She was leaning on the balustrade, looking straight ahead into the darkness that was pricked by millions of tiny lights. While he was probably standing in the doorway, a death glare being given to the back of her head. She half-expected to hear him utter the killing curse and then she would feel no more pain.

It tempting to ask for her death from him. After all, he must have been used to killing people like her.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" She asked, just to relieve the tension that was brewing between them. She couldn't stand long silences.

"I want you to listen to what I have to say." He replied. He wasn't demanding, she noted.

"What is it then? I can't wait all night, you know." I have my life to evaluate, she added silently. She then waited for his reply.

An exhalation of breath. Hermione wasn't sure if it was from her or from him.

"It was... never my intention to send you running." He slowly started, choosing his words carefully. Hermione stopped in the middle of wiping her tears.

He continued. "The incident in the hallway, I didn't plan that. I didn't mean it... it just happened. And the words simply—"

"Flew right out of your mouth." She interrupted him. He took a deep breath.

"Yes," he said. "You do that to me."

"What?"

"I can never control what I say around you." Draco said. Hermione's mental image of him was now running his hands through his unbound hair, although it seemed highly improbable that he would be flustered at this time. The image ignited a spark within her. A spark of interest.

"Is this an apology?" She asked.

"An explanation, to be exact."

It was good enough for her, she justified. "Is that all?" She said, clearing her throat.

"I know how you felt for him; or feel for him for that matter." He continued. Hermione swallowed to try to will herself not to cry. "I know how you feel about me as well. He was the epitome of good; whereas I'm in line with evil... And I can't change how you think of him or me."

"And your point being?" She couldn't rein in her tongue.

Draco took a deep breath once again. "I didn't mean what I said about the Professor. I only said it to keep up my reputation with you. And..."

"And...?" Hermione prompted.

"And if I could take back everything bad I said to you or said about you, then I would."

Hermione's heart stopped beating for a second. Had she heard right?

"I want it to be known, for the record, that I am truly sorry." He said, as if he couldn't stop his torrent of words. "And that I vow, Hermione Granger, to never speak ill of you again."

It was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to her, but Hermione had no words to describe her feelings. She still couldn't look at him, still couldn't admit what she had denied herself for so long. It's too raw, she thought. If I say it, I might not be able to recover.

"I don't think I can trust you." She replied after a lengthy pause. She started to shiver, little tremors running up and down her body.

"Look at me."

She hesitated. What if this was a mere trick? But some greater force turned her around slowly, as she set her eyes to the ground. Not wanting to look at what he had to offer yet.

Once she was facing him, her eyes began to travel upward. She took in his shoes, his school uniform and lifted her eyes to meet his. He stood mute, as if seeing her for the first time. Then, he began remove his robe, setting it off to one side, leaving him standing in his white collared shirt. He started to unbutton the cuffs. Hermione's gaze immediately went to his bandaged left arm and wondered if that had anything to do with what he was trying to show her.

Draco then started to remove the gauze. He had wound his arm so tight with the stuff that no traces of blood showed on the outer layers. Only when he unraveled it more that Hermione glimpsed at the blooming red-soaked strip of cloth.

Hermione closed her eyes, not wanting to know what was under all those layers of cloth. Not wanting to let herself believe in the impossible... for it had to be impossible. He would never... She only opened her eyes when Draco called out her name.

And then she saw his handiwork. The whole inside of his left forearm had been sliced off to the bone, as if it were a piece of meat that was filleted. Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth, tears leaking out of her eyes. The flesh was still red, though it had stopped bleeding. She wasn't so sure if he would heal.

She looked up at him and saw him looking back, as if he was showing her something other than his recently cut arm. The ordeal had not taken more than a few minutes and the pain had simply been endured – with the purpose of winning her.

And her heart.

The reasons for his sudden change of outlook were too many to mention, and too wrapped up in themselves to identify piece by piece. He didn't just cause himself a lot of physical pain in the process of removing the cursed mark, he was putting himself in danger of retaliation. By his former allies, no less.

But he'd changed. One memory of her made him think twice about his loyalties. A handful of glimpses of her in school made him want to denounce his heritage. And all his thoughts of her made him want to change the world.

"I removed it because of you." Draco stated. "Because I couldn't think of anything else that would please you."

Hermione felt her heart soar. To please her? He did all that just for her? The thought of it made her smile. She boldly walked up to him, stopping only a few inches away from where he was standing and gently took mutilated arm in her hands, cradling him. She then reached for the bandage and performed an antiseptic cleaning charm on it before she started to wrap it around his arm again. Once she'd finished, she looked up at him.

And somehow, they both knew.

Draco bent his head, cradled her face with his good hand and gently kissed her. Hermione kissed him back, trying to send him all the things she felt with just her lips touching with his. She wanted to comfort him, to tell him that she understood what he had just done and that she was proud of him. Draco on the other hand wanted to take away her hurt, to take away any traces of distrust and to thank her for believing in him.

It was all they could do.

They didn't need words.

THE END