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(Chapter Two)
She was freezing. It was what woke her up – that, and the pounding migraine she felt pulsating all over her skull. It took her some time to get used to the weight of her head – God, it felt like a million pounds – sitting on what felt like a jelly pipe and was really, by definition, her neck. Her first observation was that somebody – somebody strong and wearing a black coat – was carrying her, and her second observation was that it was still raining, but none of it was hitting her.
"What the fuck?" she heard herself say. She sounded like she was a million miles away.
The stranger glanced down at her through his nose. She recognized that nose.
"Oh, look. You're alive," he said monotonously.
"Malfoy?" she said, squinting at him. And then she paused to think, calculating the chances that Malfoy would be carrying her through the rain in real life. "Oh, shit. I'm dead, aren't I?"
"Unfortunately, no," he answered. "But you might be concussed, so stay awake, Granger."
That seemed like a very good idea, but a feeling of warmth passed through her body and she felt her head give way again. When he noticed, he immediately shook her awake again.
"Jesus Christ," she distantly heard him mutter. "I said stay awake, Granger. I thought you lived to follow instructions. Why don't you blather on about something?"
She followed his orders. "My friends think you'd be a good kisser," she blabbed. "They don't think you'd slobber all over them like other boys do. Nice boys, I mean. Nice boys always slobber."
He looked at her with his lips tightly pressed together. She couldn't figure out if he was trying to hold back a laugh. Dreamily she wondered how that would sound, Draco Malfoy laughing at a joke that wasn't purely intended to hurt somebody's feelings. Did it sound any better?
"They're right," he told her. "I don't."
"But I bet you did, once upon a time," Hermione scoffed, her eyelids drooping. "Nobody's born a great snogger."
"Well," he said gruffly, shifting her a little in his arms, "I'm not just nobody, am I?"
He shook her awake again, and she opened her eyes to see that they were nearing Hogwarts.
"I'm taking you to the hospital wing," he told her.
"No, don't," she insisted. "I feel fine. Honest."
"Fine? You've got a head wound that's bleeding all over my favorite coat," he snarled at her.
She raised her hand to touch the throbbing part of her head, and then looked at the blood coating her fingers. She willed herself not to pass out. "It's just a scratch."
But Malfoy being Malfoy, he swore at her while he carried her through the doors of the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey came rushing to her aid. He set her down on the hospital bed and she hazily whispered to him, already half unconscious, "You could have left me there, it would have been fine," to which he said nothing. She watched him at the foot of her bed, her blood barely distinguishable against his black coat but had stained his white shirt and hands.
"Stay awake, Granger," he firmly ordered.
Two seconds later, everything went black.
ooo
"Do you think she tried to kill herself?"
"Madam Pomfrey said she slipped in Hogsmeade and hit her head."
"Did you hear who found her? Malfoy, out of all people!"
"Honestly, Ron and Harry! How could you forget you were supposed to meet her at the Three Broomsticks? You two are impossible!"
She spent a good three and a half minutes listening to her friends argue about her state and circumstance before she finally decided to let them know she was awake. She opened her eyes and she was greeted with jolly – yet concerned – salutations and awkward – yet well-meaning – hugs. She looked at Ron and Harry at either side of her bed and she could tell that the both of them were particularly eaten up with guilt.
"Merlin, I'm so sorry, Hermione – we are such idiots, we didn't—" Harry was saying, while Ron was also blathering on: "Neville had challenged me who could win wizard's chess sloshed, and you know me and challenges—"
"It's okay," she said to both of them. Her head still ached and she couldn't take both of them talking at once. "It's not your fault, really. I'm not angry."
Ron perked up at this, but Harry didn't seem to buy it.
"How are you feeling, Hermione?" Ginny asked.
"My head still hurts," she said, wincing as she found the tender spot all bandaged up. "But other than that, I think I'll live."
"What happened?" asked Harry.
"I was walking back from the Three Broomsticks," she explained, leaving out the part where she was a little sloshed, "and I slipped and fell and hit my head. That's all I remember."
"Oh? You don't remember who rescued you from dying all alone in the alley?" Ginny insinuatingly asked.
"Not at all," she lied. She remembered, all right – more than enough to feel stupid about, at least – and she didn't feel like sharing any of that just yet. Or ever.
"Oh," Ginny said, disappointed. "Well, word in the halls is that it was Malfoy."
"Which I don't believe," Ron said, adamantly. "He would sooner chew off his own hand than touch Hermione. Git." Then he looked at her. "No offense, Hermione."
"Well, somebody saved her last night, and we should be grateful, whoever it might be," Harry sighed. "Madam Pomfrey said she'll keep you until tomorrow morning for observation, but we'll be back after classes."
And with that, her friends left the hospital wing and she stared up at the ceiling, sighing. She remembered Malfoy and bleeding all over his coat, stumbling out of the Three Broomsticks warm from the firewhiskeys, and most of all: the confession she had whispered to him before she had passed out for the night. Everything about that night seemed so unlike her that she felt as if she had been watching another person that looked remarkably like her through a foggy window. And why had it been Malfoy, out of all people, to find her unconscious and bleeding away in the alley? It almost seemed too bizarre to be an accident.
She looked at the hospital doors and she realized she was suddenly petrified. What if he came to visit? Should she pretend she didn't remember anything at all? What would she say? What would he say?
But she had no reason to worry about that. Because for the rest of the day, she watched her housemates walk in and out of those doors, with not a single Slytherin Head Boy in sight.
That night, as she began to drift off to sleep, she reached behind her head to try to fluff up her pillow. As she slid her hand through beneath, she found a folded up note tucked inside. And all it said was:
You owe me a new coat.
ooo
She kept the note in the pocket of her robes. Sometimes she snuck her hand inside just to feel the crisp paper against her fingertips. She didn't know why she did this – especially since the note was evidence of a bad night. But it was also evidence of something else. What that "something else" was, she wasn't sure yet, but it definitely was something else. Something else so far from normalcy that it flustered her to think about it, but also comforted her, because for the first time since she'd heard her mother was dead, she knew that she wasn't alone.
"You're not brain-damaged, are you?" Ron said to her, chewing through a tough leg of ham. "Because you've been really distracted lately. It's not like you. Genuinely, it concerns me."
"No, I'm not," Hermione deadpanned. "At least, as far as I know."
"Ignore Ron, Hermione," Harry said from beside her, without looking up from the Daily Prophet. "He was born severely tactless."
Throughout the entire length of breakfast she resisted the urge to look across the hall to the Slytherin table. The flash of blond in the corner of her eye teased her incessantly, and her only respite was when breakfast was done and they all stood to gather their things and continue on to class. She managed to catch a glimpse of him, then, and realized she had no idea what she had been expecting. He looked exactly the same: the same curled lip and bored, superior demeanor. Had she expected anything different?
"Something wrong, Hermione?" Harry asked her, catching her gaze towards Malfoy.
"No," she said quickly, suddenly feeling very stupid. "Not at all."
Harry looked at her for a long moment, and she cast her eyes down, fiddling with her napkin. "Have you heard from your dad?" he asked.
"No," she said, almost automatically. She knew she shouldn't feel bitter about it, but she was. Even prison inmates were better at responding to letters than her own father. "Not even once."
"I'm sure he's fine," Harry said, giving her a careful smile, before going back to his paper. Which was nice of Harry, but she had sent him seven letters. How many letters had to go unanswered until she could officially say that no, her father was not "fine"? Over the last few weeks, even she realized she had to reacquaint herself with the definition of what exactly "fine" was, especially with McGonagall and her friends checking in on her every so often. It seemed like such a safe word – neither here nor there – and it said absolutely nothing about anything.
ooo
It was impossible not to hear the rumors going on the halls about Malfoy having saved her that night. One particular version had her passed out in the Forbidden Forest in the nude, and another had her in the abandoned bathroom, having slit her wrists over her mother's death. The speculation didn't bother her so much – even though Hermione had always hated scandals – but there was nothing she could do about it, except wait for everyone to get bored with it and move on to the next remotely scandalous thing. So that's what she did.
During Herbology, everybody was in the field tending to their projects, dressed in protective gardening suits. She had been checking the root growth of her project when she suddenly felt something cold and heavy shower down on her head.
She looked up to see Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bullstrode, and Lacey Larkin standing above her.
"Oops," Pansy said, holding an empty bucket. The two girls behind her snickered.
Hermione gritted her teeth and shook the dirt out of her hair. Just this once, she wished Madam Sprout had allowed them to bring their wands with them to the field. Just this once.
"Look at the little Mudblood, covered in dirt," she smirked. "So natural, don't you think, girls? The little Muggleborn in her natural habitat." Pansy crouched down a little, her face hovering just inches from hers. Her eyes twinkled with delight. "How do you think your mum likes it, Granger? You know, buried six feet deep in the soil, where she belongs."
And then with a twitch in her smile, she stood back up. Hermione sat there, watching after her as she sauntered away with her group, flipping her hair. She didn't know what came over her then. At first she felt paralyzed with both anger and hate, and then the next thing she knew, she was back on her feet and walking after her.
She reached out her hand and pulled Pansy's hair, yanking her head back. Pansy screeched in pain, before whirling around, her hair disheveled and her eyes narrowed and dark.
"You bitch!" she screamed, before lunging at her.
Hermione had never been in a physical fight before, so she assumed whatever came over her then was purely primal. Pansy lunged at her, and soon she found herself pushed down on the ground, with Parkinson straddling her. She was screaming, and Hermione had her hands on her face, clawing at whatever she could reach. She even punched her, which made Pansy's hands fly up to her face, and Hermione took this opportunity to switch their positions.
"Who do you think you are, you pureblood skank?" Hermione hoarsely yelled at her, before she suddenly found herself getting picked up from behind, lifting her to her feet and restraining her.
A group had formed around them now. Madam Sprout came rushing through the crowd, and Blaise Zabini was holding Pansy back, who was still screaming and trying to break free to get at Hermione.
"You fucking Mudblood! I'll kill you, you hear me?" Pansy was shrieking. "You're dead! Just like your dead mum!"
Professor Sprout stopped dead in-between them. If Hermione hadn't already begun to feel the wrongness and humiliation of her actions, she would have laughed at the sight of Pansy. Covered in dirt, with her hair sticking up all over the place, and a purple shadow under her eye – a sign of a pending bruise. And what a beautiful bruise that would soon be. If only Hermione could wear it on her jumper as a pin of achievement.
"Girls!" Madam Sprout said, in horror. "What kind of savage behavior is this? What in Merlin's name has gotten into you two?" She glared at Pansy, and then at Hermione. "Granger, you are Head Girl. Have you forgotten?"
Hermione swallowed hard. She wanted to say, "Yes, Professor, I had forgotten. I'd forgotten that as Head Girl, I was supposed to let the vilest girl in school make fun of my dead mother." But she didn't. Instead she just looked away.
"Detention for the both of you," she said. "You'll be meeting with your Heads of House for this. Malfoy, Zabini, lead them to their offices. Everyone, get back to work. Stop your gawking," Sprout said, barking at everyone.
Hermione froze and found herself almost holding her breath when she realized who it had been to drag her off of Pansy and restrain her. Malfoy?
Zabini lead Pansy away first. He let her go, and with one last withering glare and derogatory statement, he led her away. As soon as she was gone, she felt the tight hold on her disappear, and they began walking back to the school, to her Head of House's office. She snuck a glance at who it was beside her. Sprout was right. It was Draco Malfoy.
"I have to say, Granger," she heard him drawl, "I didn't think you had it in you."
She didn't know why, but she was afraid to look at him. She looked straight ahead with her hands balled into fists. Her neck felt sore, and the side of her face stung. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought Pansy kept her nails long on purpose.
"You're decent with a wand, but when it comes to Muggle fighting? Your Muggle ancestors would be proud." His voice was dripping with mockery.
She turned her head to glare at him. "Shut up, Malfoy."
He even had the gall to pretend to act surprised.
"You saw what she did," she hissed at him. "You saw her and her stupid posse pour that bucket of soil over my head, and you did nothing. Some Head Boy you are!"
He rolled his eyes. "I don't think you're in the position to be pointing fingers at superior Head student skills right now. Might I remind you that I'm the one who has to accompany you on your walk of shame after you nearly clawed out Parkinson's eyes?"
"If you'd done your job as Head Boy, you wouldn't have to!"
His eyes flashed when he looked at her, his upper lip curling in annoyance. This was more of the Malfoy she recognized. Finally, something familiar in a world so different from the one she remembered leaving, all those months ago.
"Don't blame me for your lack of self-control," he sneered at her. He stopped in his steps, nodding to their left. "We're here."
She looked. He was right. They were standing in front of McGonagall's office. Briefly, as she looked at him, she remembered him from that night, standing at the foot of the hospital bed with his bloodied shirt. You owe me a new coat.
He gave her one last look before he turned and resumed walking back down the hall. She stood there for a few moments, watching after him. It was true, Malfoy had always been lax when it came to his Housemates. He tended to turn his head away in feigned ignorance whenever he caught his own House up to improper ordeals – so why had she expected any different today? Of course he would have stood by and watched Pansy pour dirt over her head and mock her mother, only stepping in when things got really serious – and only then to save his position as Head Boy. He was Draco Malfoy.
So then why had she been holding on to this bizarre idea that he had changed?
The office door opened, and she heard her Head of House's voice summon her in. Taking a deep breath, she straightened herself up and walked through the doorway.