Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Harry Potter. Otherwise I wouldn't bother writing a disclaimer!
Author's note: Thank you so much for reading my story. It certainly isn't the best but I'm trying. Please do comment, I want to know what you think. Once again, Thanks! -Cosmae
Draco sauntered down the slim hallway to one side of the train compartments. But when someone passed him, he didn't smirk, he smiled. A genuine smile. He had wanted to change after the Battle of Hogwarts. He'd wanted to escape the person that his Lucius, that Voldemort had compelled him to be.
Draco wrestled with the rusty-hinged car door. Grimacing when he realised it was the Gryffindor sector. If he walked through, Draco would want to apologise to every single person he passed. Honestly, he was disgusted with himself. Avoiding mirrors at every turn, just so he wouldn't have to see the ghost living in his eyes.
Draco took a deep breath and stepped onto the scarlet clad floor. But as he crossed the threshold, a terrified scream rent the air. Draco ripped past every compartment until he had located the bloodcurdling noise. There were four students inside, two boys and two girls. And one girl lay splayed on the floor, her hazel hair fanning out like a halo. Draco practically dove to her side, before anyone else had time to react. Checking her pulse and sighed to find the blood pounding in the vessel on her slender neck. He clutched her face in his hands, easing her eyes and mouth open. Draco snapped his neck upwards to the others, "It's Dragon poison, we need-" He stopped abruptly when he came face to face with the Chosen One.
"Potter…" They both stared uncomprehendingly. Draco turned uncertainly back to the girl draped on the carpet. He immediately recognised her as the bushy haired witch he had tormented. Granger. Draco snapped out of his short lived trance, "The poison is too strong for a bezoar stone, we need moonseed. It will calm the poison." When Harry continually gawked like an idiot, Draco yelled "Now!"
Hermione was thrown back into consciousness. Her lungs were on fire with a deep rooted burning. The light was blinding and she could see four fugues looming over her. The blur of sounds became more distinguishable and she heard her name from all directions. Hermione lifted up her hand to touch the face in front of hers, their lips speaking her name. She touched his cheek, her eyes still drowsy. But she pulled her hand away when she saw the blizzard of ice raging in his eyes, the waves of blonde sweeping across his forehead. And the green robes he wore. Malfoy.
Hermione blacked out again in Draco's arms. When the train grinder to a halt, Draco lifted her with ease and followed Harry out into the corridor.
Harry had offered to carry her but was still recovering from an injury in his wrist and back. Besides, Crookshanks refused for his cage to be handled by anyone else than Harry. All those nights alone with Hermione and Crookshanks at Grimmauld place had really brought them closer. Maybe it was just the entrails that Kreacher insisted on feeding him.
Draco could feel her soft mousy hair between the tips of his fingers. Hermione was light and he could carry her gracefully. Draco grinned as he pictured Weasel heaving just to get her off the ground. As he stepped carefully off the train onto the sooty platform, an eruption of noise ensued. Gasping and whispering echoed throughout the crowd. The Slytherin prince side by side with the Chosen one, Hermione Granger unconscious in his arms?
Draco noticed that the obnoxiously red tuft hair was nowhere he could see. The Weasel had a habit of disappearing when it suited him. A flaming temper to match his hair.
Draco walked passed the crowds on the woodland path, cloaked in darkness. Potter refused to leave Hermione so they tolerated walking in proximity. As the carriages neared, Draco inhaled sharply. Seeing the thestrals like he always did. Looking back to the hoards of students, he saw the shock and bewilderment in the faces of some and the sadness in others. The Angels of death were finally visible to all, the curse of its alleged beauty. Draco boarded a carriage with Potter. He held Granger in his arms while staring away from Potter's gang. When the carriage stopped and everyone marvelled at the restored splendour of Hogwarts castle.
The staff had obviously been working furiously to repair it for the school year. Surprisingly, Hogwarts had just as many students. Parents had apparently felt that their children were safe at Hogwarts with the dark forces gone. Everyone had been made aware of the precautions and additional protection to the school. Stone knights patrolling the boarders, sensory spells placed all around the grounds.
Draco had been completely unprepared when he received his admissions letter. With everything that happened, he was sure he would never step foot on those grounds again. His father was on trial and his mother on house arrest. Why would he be allowed to attend Hogwarts for their 8th year? It was beyond him. But he was ecstatic and eager for a second chance.
After stepping through the grand archway marking the school's entrance, Hermione was whisked away to the hospital wing. Draco felt the weight in his arms lift but a strange weight had began to settle on his chest.
Light streamed through the sterile white curtains. Hermione blinked profusely. She was lying in an infirmary bed, in the hospital wing. Her bedside table was smothered in painfully brightly coloured packages. Hermione turned, groaning at her sore neck, to stare at the dust dancing through the rays of spring sunshine.
Harry slouched in a padded chair pulled up close to the bed. From his tousled hair, Hermione guessed he had slept there. She radiating with warmth. "He must have spent the night by my side." Hermione smiled. "Wait! That means I've been here all night." She tried to concentrate on collapsing the previous evening. It was a blur of images and noises. The only thing that stood out was Draco. Seeing him bent over her, swaying as he carried her. Draco had smelt of leather, pine and the musk of old furniture. It was so different from the way Ron smelt.
Ron!
Hermione realised she hadn't seen him at all the last two days.
Why is Harry here and not Ron? I mean, Harry's like a brother but isn't Ron meant to be my boyfriend? This is the kind of thing that boyfriends are meant to do. To check on their girlfriends who have been hospitalised. Look after them when they're sick. Carry them home. Carry them...
Hermione thought how that was exactly what Draco had done. Then she groaned at who she was thinking of.
You can't be thinking about Draco, you have a boyfriend! And if that's not enough, it's Draco Malfoy! Slytherin royalty. Death eater. Imagine what it would do to Ron if he knew what you were thinking! The sharp curve of his jaw, chiseled cheekbones. His smooth beckoning lips. The slenderness and firmness that reflected in every aspect of his body…
Hermione gasped. She honestly had no idea where all of this was coming from.
"Snap out of it!" Hermione grimaced, holding one hand over her mouth. She'd just spoken loud enough to wake up the entire wing. Running her fingers roughly through her hair, Hermione fumbled in her pocket to stumble across a miscellaneous pencil. She could almost laugh at the sight of something so, so Muggle in the majestical aura of something as spectacular as Hogwarts. Hermione knotted the frizzy clump of her hair and stabbed the torrent of ochre with said pencil. She pulled her knees to her chin protectively, effectively rocking back and forth. Harry almost jumped out of his chair. After the wide-eyed scare Harry slumber back and furiously rubbed his drooping eye lids.
"Mione, you're awake?" Harry looked like he'd slept well, the bed head he was sporting had his hair in a hurricane type style. Hermione could even see where a slimy trail of saliva had stain the side of his cheek.
"Yeah," Hermione replied. "But my head is killing me." Reaching tentatively up to her unruly main to massage her aching brow. "What happened last night?"
"Well," Harry began with a hint of mischievousness leering in his voice.
"What."
"Wanna guess who came to your much needed rescue?" Harry jeered.
"Who? Are you going to tell me or-" Hermione's hand flew to cover her mouth. The leather, pine needles. The shockingly blonde hair. The rocking as he had carried her gently in his arms. "Malfoy!"
Harry smirked from ear to ear, Hermione had both hands clutching either side of her head.
After coming to turns with the fact that Malfoy of all people had been her knight in shinning armour, Hermione's stomach began to complain, loudly. She had worried so much about Ron that she had forgotten about the turmoil unfurling inside her empty stomach. Looking over to her right, Hermione could see that Harry was at the minimal qualification for 'awake'.
Hermione had dressed into the school uniform draped on the cushioned chair to the left of her bed. When bending over to fasten her shoes, Hermione noticed a small package amongst the others. According to the stacks of badly wrapped 'get well' gifts, news of Hermione's incident had spread like wildfire across the school. This particular package caught Hermione's eye when she spotted the cursive name embossed on the note. Draco Malfoy was splayed across the slip of parchment.
The blistering cold seeped through the stone walls, penetrating the fabric of Hermione's clothes. She desperately prayed that the Great Hall had insulated heating. Harry walked with Hermione practically shoulder to shoulder all the way down the winding staircase. They hadn't encountered any one yet which settled Hermione's anxiety of facing everyone. However the peace that had been left undisturbed was short lived. As soon as the duo pushed open the towering wooden doors leading into the Great Hall, they were assaulted with a wave of students.
"You're alive!" A rather over excited 5th year announced loud enough for every one to hear.
Hermione blushed as she was bombarded with encouraging affirmations. Harry steered her forcefully over to the red bannered Gryffindor table stretching the length of the hall. As she was crossing over to where Ginny sat contently, someone brushed a hand tentatively to her shoulder.
Hermione spun to face Draco with a concerned expression creasing his smooth brow.
"Hey, um," He mumbled. One hand scratched the back of his head nervously. "Are you feeling any better?"
Hermione smiled gently, "Yeah. I feel way-" She was cut off abruptly as Ron stepped suddenly between them.
Ron glared at Draco with as much ferocity as her could muster. "Why are you talking to my girlfriend, Ferret? She doesn't want anything to do with you."
Hermione felt kind of offended. "Ron, really. It's fine. I still want to say thank you." There was a note of annoyance in her voice as she replied.
"No, Hermione. You owe him nothing." Ron scowled.
Draco smirked, a mocking smile curling on his lips. "You don't know, do you?"
"What." Ron bit back.
Draco crossed his arms casually across his chest. "Hermione was poisoned last night on the train. You didn't bother stopping by the hospital wing last night. Wondering why she wasn't snoring like you in her dorm? You didn't know, did you."
Ron stuttered, his face plunging into an embarrassingly shocking shade of red. He recovered momentally to jab back. "Well, Ferret, what's that got to do with you?" Ron phrased it as more as a rhetorical question, nearly falling over when Draco answered.
"I would know because I carried her out of the train." Draco spoke so smoothly, no detectable hint of humour in his voice. Hermione wanted to die of embarrassment. Everyone had settled in their seats and all eyes where on the two bickering boys and Hermione who remained the only ones standing. The Hall was filled with silence aside from the occasional murmur which broke out.
Ron blushed even more looking, lost, back at Hermione. She stared down at her shoes, the embarrassment clearly radiating off her face. She could feel the eyes of every one in the Great Hall training on their every move. Ron opened his mouth in shock as if to begin apologising for being so oblivious. But instead, he remained silent.
Draco dropped his venomous attitude to lean over, looking past Ron who was still steaming. He looked directly at Hermione and said, "I really do hope you feel better."
Hermione stood awe-stuck as Draco glided fluently to his own table, one whose banners fluttered evergreen.
