Chapter Three
It may have been the next day or the next week. The scene changed around Hermione and she found herself in the library in a quiet aisle of books. Ron was leaning against the shelves complaining about the amount of homework he had yet to do and Hermione promised her help. With an improved attitude he waved her off to join Harry on the Quidditch field. Hermione didn't spare him a glance; she raised herself on her tip toes attempting to reach a faded brown book until a pale spidery hand brought down for her.
Shocked, she unmannerly asked, "what do you want, Malfoy?"
"You tried to help me last night." It was a statement and a poor one at that.
"And obviously you are helpless. Aren't you afraid your friends will see you with a mudblood?"
"Granger," he whispered, drawing closer than he had ever been to her, she could see the specks of silver in his eyes. "Why did you try to help me?"
Checking their surroundings to be sure that they were alone, she whispered back, "it's the human thing to do, Malfoy. It's something you know nothing of."
"You're right," he said so honestly she gaped, her eyes and mouth wide before slight disbelief in the crinkle of her brows took over. "Thank you," he added.
Hermione staggered, blinking furiously. "You - You're thanking me?"
He was without expression, his visage like stone, his lips pursed tightly together. "It has been a very long time since someone helped me." Cautiously he glimpsed over his shoulder, and bowed further over her. "I've spent months with the world on my shoulders, a weight only you can understand."
"What makes you think I'd understand that?"
"Because you're friends with Potter, and anyone who is friends with Potter would be scared for their lives and everyone in them. You should be, if you're smart, and you, Granger, are very smart."
"Are you feeling well? You hate me," she said as if reminding him.
"I thought I did." His face was one of no emotion but then he blanched, hating himself. "I don't know if I do anymore. It's maddening, but there's a lot I don't know anymore. Everything is nothing that I thought it would be. Nothing will be the same again..." He seemed to be speaking to himself. Blinking he brought himself back, looking down at her, tapping his finger on the cover of the book he got for her. "My grades are failing. Will you help me? On the Astronomy Tower tonight. I promise not to throw you over."
"It's going to take more than one promise."
"What else then?"
"That this will not get around. We have to keep this secret. For both of our reputations."
The present Hermione understood why she said she what she said. Harry at the time had a theory forming about Malfoy, that he had become a Death Eater. Lest that she knew then, that Harry had been right. Yet, she didn't want her own friends to know, to judge her. Helping Malfoy was her own adventure, and none of them would understand.
"Not a problem." He left, his cloak swishing egotistically.
Hermione worried for herself, but she knew that they were memories and whatever had happened she was safe in the present. It made her wonder if Malfoy had changed, and none of them knew it. Harry had pardoned them for changing sides at the end of the war, but she didn't think that Malfoy had changed as much as he had before he became another scared boy on the wrong side.
The scene dissolved and reformed. She saw her and Malfoy study, their books laid out on the stone floor. Nights passed and they conversed longer and he began walking her to the corridor of her dormitory. The next night he would meet her on the steps of the tower. Always half-way, always as a gentleman, and Hermione knew that she had to know then, where it was going, what was happening between them. He discussed his friends and his family, childhood stories of how he would steal his father's wand to set off the doors in the hallway of their mansion to drive his mother bonkers. She shared her own stories, how she hadn't had sweets until Junie's fifth birthday party and she got sick.
It was that way time after time and the present Hermione flew through four months; on the tower she watched the orange leaves of the Forbidden forest fall and she watched as the air frosted the trees. Although it must have been freezing, her past self and Malfoy continued to meet outside, herself creating a bubble of warmth around them. They surrounded themselves with their school books and parchment, bottles of Butterbeer and laughter until it was well past their curfew.
The present Hermione was stunned. Chips of memories spanning months were lost. She could remember her classes, and how that winter Fred and George attacked Malfoy and his mates with snowballs and enchanted snowmen. What she didn't remember was being there with him and she didn't know how to feel because Malfoy was everything she knew him to be, but there was another layer. Beneath the ego and hatred there was a dawn. Malfoy was realizing what it meant to be him and he didn't want it. He wanted... Her. She knew it wasn't her that had changed him, it was himself, it was that in a moment of almost taking his life, he decided he wanted to live because the things he was taught to hate had saved him.
"I don't want to work for the Ministry," Malfoy confided as he snapped a book closed after another long study session.
"Your father is pressuring you again," she asked, placing her own books into her bag.
"Yeah, it's boring work. I think I want to do something more exciting."
"What is it that you want to do?" She carefully rolled up her homework and put it with the books, clasping her bag shut.
He took a swig of Butterbeer. "Tell me, Hermione, what do you want to do with your life?"
"You didn't answer my question."
"And you know why."
She knew why, her face showed it, the pain in the crinkles of her brows. "Do you have it?" Her voice crack with emotion as if the very thought might break her.
Malfoy shoved his left sleeve up showing the skull and snake embedded on his pale skin. The present Hermione watched herself closely. It was the very moment that she learned that Harry had been right, the moment that she learned that the man she had been with signed an agreement with the devil. Despite that, she felt a tear, a wravel and a pull of a thread she didn't know existed, to know that Malfoy had made his choosing. It didn't make sense, because it was a memory. Hermione knew what would happen to the boy that sat there. He would fight against them, he would be a coward pleading to anyone to spare him. He would grow to be a man, and she would never hear from him again. He was a loathsome wizard that she had the displeasure of being an acquaintance.
Except, she wasn't an acquaintance. She had been more than that. She questioned then, if he had taken her memories, if he had realized how disgusting it was to be there with her the way he was, and he erased her knowledge of his goodness. Maybe he changed his mind. The question was, why would anyone want her to remember? How did she write to herself?
"It doesn't mean anything, Hermione," he told her.
"How can you say that?"
He pushed the sleeve back down, covering the symbol of hatred. "Don't hate me. You don't understand. You have the freedom to do whatever it is you want. I'm bound to duty. I have to use this to protect my family. He'd kill us." With the heel of his thumbs he wiped away her tears, streaking them across her cheeks. "Don't cry. Don't hate me."
"I don't hate you. I feel sorry for you."
His face hardened. "I don't want your sympathy either."
She held his hands. "I do understand, Draco. You feel like you don't have a choice, but you do. I can help you -"
"Stop it, Hermione. I let you in, don't make me regret it." His fingers tightened on her palm, and he helped her up, gathering her toward him. "Forget about the future, my mark - everything. Right now, it's about us. Between us, there is no blood, no hatred, nothing." He held her hips, swaying them to a tune only they could hear. "If I had a choice, it would be you."
Embracing him, she rested her head on his chest, inhaling him, the stars, and the one night in which they finally came together.
Their noses touching, their eyes half shut, he touched her lips. He wrapped his hand in her hair, bringing her flush against him. It was gentle and passionate. She gasped in his mouth, and he parted from her.
"I won't hurt you," he hushed to her.
She cried, and Hermione wondered if she had known then that he would.
