Wondering

Disclaimer: We're just a bunch of scared teenagers who like to play around with the Potterverse, and we know that JKR owns Harry Potter, so PLEASE DON'T SCARE US!

A/N: I am working on Welcome Back, Hermione, I promise, but this burst into my head after my youth pastor told me that something similar to this that happened to himself, except that it was his mom who yelled at him.

When Draco was a child, he wondered about a lot of things. He wondered how you knew that the earth was round, and why the book said so even though the earth seemed perfectly flat to him. He wondered why Father said Muggles were inferior to wizards when little Terry didn't seem inferior to him at all, besides the magic part of course. He wondered why Dobby had to do everything he said even though he didn't have to do a thing Dobby said. But mainly, he wondered about his father.

He wondered whether his father loved his mother. He wondered whether his father was always right. He wondered whether his father would be angry with him that night. But most of all, he wondered if his father really loved him.

So one day, he asked his father. They were in his study. Lucius's silver-topped cane was leaning against his chair, the snake's head hissing softly in what Draco assumed was Parseltongue. The flames were flickering, leaping slightly on the embers as Lucius paged through a book. From time to time, a spark crackled in the fireplace, breaking the otherwise quiet of the study, as Draco did not dare disturb his father when he was reading. Finally, Draco summoned up the courage to ask,

"Father?"

"Yes?" Lucius didn't even look up from his book as his long white fingers turned the parchment, swish, swish, swish, swish.

"If—if a criminal burst in Malfoy Manor, and he pointed a wand at me and shot the Killing Curse at me, would you take it for me?"

Now Lucius did look up, his gray eyes inscrutable. "What kind of question is that?" he sounded, for the first time in Draco's life, vaguely defensive.

"I—I just wanted to know," Draco murmured, his eyes downcast.

"Malfoy Manor is impenetrable; its wards are incredibly strong. Since a criminal would never make his way within a fifteen mile radius of this place anyway, the question is moot," he snapped angrily, his white blond hair almost crackling, his grey eyes snapping.

"But would you?" pressed Draco, not sure why he was doing this even though he knew it was suicide for him to continue questioning his father when he spoke in that tone, his grey eyes desperately searching his father's for some sort of clue, for anything really, because he just had to know...

Lucius looked away and did not reply, and Draco had his answer.

That night he cried himself to sleep.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

When Draco turned eleven and was finally old enough to go to Hogwarts, he wondered about a lot of things. He wondered if his mother would really miss him, or if she would just pretend, and was afraid that he knew the answer. He wondered if he would finally meet the famous Harry Potter, who everyone thought was so great. He wondered if he would be very good at Potions and if his godfather would be proud of him. He wondered if he would really be in Slytherin and hoped that he would. But most of all, he wondered if he would make some true friends there.

Then he boarded the train, and was taunted by the Weasley about his name—stupid really, why pick on someone's name when your own surname meant Weasel?—and was publicly rejected and humiliated by Potter, and thought that Hogwarts would be no different from Malfoy Manor after all. You had to keep on your mask, or you would fall.

And the Sorting Hat placed him in Slytherin, for which he was thankful.

And he made friends with Pansy Parkinson, and Blaise Zabini, and strengthened his friendship with Vince and Greg, and thought that maybe, just maybe, he finally had someone who would like him for who he was and not what his name was.

He liked the way Pansy fawned all over him, her blond hair drooping over his arm, her blue eyes staring up into his like Father's dog stared up into his eyes, and the way she was so concerned everytime he was even late for a class, and the way she always gave him presents he wanted at Christmas, and the way she was always there for him, and thought that surely she loved him, if she did all this for him.

So he asked her one day, as she lounged on his bed while he did his Transfiguration homework, playing with her long blond hair.

"Pansy," he asked.

"Hmm?" she murmured, her supple fingers—so talented, when winding in your hair while you kissed her—still toying with the braid she had now made.

"If—if Sirius Black burst into Hogwarts, and he pointed a wand at me and shot the Killing Curse at me, would you take it for me?"

Her head flew up, startled, her blue eyes going wide, wider than he had thought possible, her fingers dropping the braid. His eyes watched it idly as it unraveled, small blond strands untwisting and poking their way free.

"Wh—what kind of question is that?" she asked, the same old defensiveness creeping into her voice, a slightly whiny tone to it, even though she was fifteen and old enough to know better.

"Would you?" he pressed, his cold grey eyes holding her, gauging her reaction to determine whether or not she was telling the truth.

She hesitated slightly, her blue eyes sliding away from his and meeting the wall for only a split second before shooting back to his, remembering her training—stupid girl, never look away from someone while you're lying to them—and said, "Of course I would!"

Her lips took on a pouty expression as she whined, "Of course I would Draco, why wouldn't I? You know I love you."

"Do I?" he asked, his face expressionless, and she whined later when he refused her offer of a good snog before they went to bed, and he shoved her out of his room and to the girl's dorm, and he locked the door behind him, because that split second of hesitation had told him all he needed to know.

And for the second time in his life, Draco Malfoy cried himself to sleep that night.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

When Draco Malfoy was seventeen and he defied his father's orders to take the Mark and he turned up, bedraggled and droopy, his clothes mussed, circles under his eyes, at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, he wondered about a lot of things. He wondered if his father hated him now. He wondered if everyone in the world hated him. He wondered if anyone in the Order even trusted him after what he had done to Dumbledore. He wondered if he was going to die. He wondered if their side was going to lose.

And then he met his father in one of those skirmishes, and he saw those trademark cold grey eyes, and he saw his father raise his wand and shoot a green jet of light at him, which he side stepped just in time, and he knew that his father hated him.

And then he felt the cold in his sheets, and the sand in his food, and the looks thrown at him by the Order, and the shoves down the stairs, and he didn't wonder anymore about whether his father hated him, or whether the whole world hated him, or whether the Order trusted him, because he knew the truth now, and if he didn't think about it it didn't hurt so much.

And after a while, he just didn't think at all. Just did his job, day in, day out, and chewed his food without tasting it really, so that the sand didn't matter, and wore his clothes whether they had been washed or not, because he was dirty, he had to be for everyone to hate him, and so it didn't matter whether or not his clothes were dirty, and slipped under the sheets whether they were cold or not, because he was cold inside, and so it didn't matter whether or not his sheets were cold.

The cold inside was never going to go away.

But he couldn't kill himself—never even thought about it, because why think about something you couldn't do? He was too scared, too much of a coward. And he couldn't, because the Light needed every person, every fighter, if they were going to win. Even if they despised the aforementioned fighter.

And he never, ever, asked the question again, because he had sworn to himself that he would never, ever do it again, because to do so was to invite pain, and that was stupid, and Malfoys didn't do stupid. Even disowned Malfoys.

And then one day, Granger came up to him and said hi.

It wasn't much, really, just a quick hi when they were going down the stairs to lunch, but it was the first word anyone had spoken to him when they hadn't had to, and he froze in his tracks, his eyes wide as he stared at her, half-suspicious, but longing so bad not to be, because he was tired of being suspicious, and the ex-Death Eater, and the Malfoy whelp, and he just wanted to be—Draco.

She smiled at him mysteriously, and waggled her fingers a bit, and passed him on the stairs. Draco stood there, staring after her, until something shoved into him behind, and he almost fell down the stairs as someone barked, "Move!"

After that, it happened more and more often, Granger just passing him and nodding at him, saying hi in the corridors, until one day, Draco let himself out a little bit, just a little, and mustered up his courage and said, "Hi," back.

And then it was Granger's turn to stare at him a little, before she smiled blindingly, like the sun lighting up the sky, and Draco had a split second to think that he had never seen anything so beautiful before in his life before she said, "So, how was your day?"

Things escalated after that and before he knew it, he was having conversations with her, real deep conversations that weren't forced by necessity or the War, conversations that she had because she wanted to, and Draco found himself telling her things he had never told anyone before.

And he thought he was pathetic for spilling his life story to the first person who passed the time of day with him—was he really that desperate?—like a bloody Gryffindor, but he couldn't help it, not when he was greeted with cold stares and a sneer by everyone else, and he kept right on doing it.

Then one day he just got back from a mission, and he was late by four days because Lucius Malfoy had been in that battle, and Lucius Malfoy was vicious when it came to his son, and he stumbled in the door with a huge gash on his side and bruises all over his face and a broken arm and blood-drenched hair.

Before anyone knew what was happening, a brown blur sped past everyone else and flung herself into his arms, brown bushy hair everywhere, and she kissed him full on the lips, a real full-blown kiss, not the type a sister gives to her brother, but a real beautiful kiss, and Draco thought he was in heaven.

And he found himself thinking that her heart-shaped face and brown bushy hair and wide chocolate eyes were the most beautiful sight ever.

And then, he began scaring himself, because he began thinking that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to ask her the question after all. And that was bad, because that was weak, and weak meant asking the question, and asking the questionmeant getting hurt.

But he couldn't help himself, and the urge just kept building up inside him, and growing and growing and growing! Until he thought it would choke him if he didn't ask it.

So he decided that it would be okay after all, because if he asked that, she would understand just how weak and pathetic and desperate he was, and she would break up with him, which was good, because he was getting much too attached to her, and that was bad bad bad, because that meant he was going to get even more hurt when she rejected him.

They were in her room. The fire was crackling again, little sparks punctuating the silence like little fireworks, but that was okay, because this silence wasn't a forced one like the one with other people, but a nice cozy silence. A comfortable silence, the kind between old friends who don't need to talk at every moment, because they know that it's okay no matter what.

She was reading again—when was she not reading?—and Draco was lying on her bed staring at the ceiling, which was a nice shade of ice blue that he really liked, with cracks in the paint that made it look like real ice. He loved studying her paint job, because his room was little more than a small closet up in the attic, which he had been given because no one wanted to share a room with the ex-Death Eater, and there was no paint job on it whatsoever, unless you counted the spiderwebs.

"Hermione?" he asked, still studying the cracks in her ceiling.

"Yeah?" she asked distractedly, her eyes still on the book she was skimming.

"If—if a Death Eater burst into Number 12 Grimmauld place, and pointed a wand at me and said the Killing Curse, would you take the curse for me?"

Silence. Draco kept his eyes on the ceiling. It didn't hurt so much if you didn't think about it. A long crack led into a shorter crack, which fed into two forks, one wide and one jagged, and if you studied hard enough, it looked like the head of a dragon who was scowling, and –

"You bastard!" Ah, she was angry. He had hoped that the break-up would be peaceful, but maybe it was better this way. This way, she would hate him like everyone else, and there would be no awkward silences.

He looked up, preparing to take the blow.

"You utter prat! How dare you ask that question? How dare you?"

He opened his mouth to try to tell her that he hadn't mean to presume, but she cut him right off.

"Of course I would take the Curse for you!"

His jaw fell open, and he stared at her. She was still fuming, her breath coming in angry snorts, her mouth clenched into a thin line, her hair sparkling with static like it did when she was angry. She glared at him for a long moment, chocolate eyes scathing the grey, before she gave an audible, angry huff and a snort and returned to her book, her finger snapping the pages back angrily for a while until she calmed down enough to turn the pages normally.

It was quiet for a long time after her outburst, but inside Draco was reeling. She had been angry. And she had said yes. And, still more incredible, he thought he might believe her.

For the third time, Draco Malfoy cried himself to sleep that night. But that was okay, because they were happy tears. And because he thought that he would never have to cry himself to sleep again, or at least if he did, Hermione would be there to help him.

And Draco Malfoy didn't wonder anymore.