Bittersweet Symphony: A Harry Potter Fanfiction

AN: Rated M for: Sexual Situations, Harsh Language, Underage Drinking, Drug use, etc., Main characters are going to be slightly out of character. Set one year after the final battle.

Chapter Three

Hermione watched in a drunken stupor as Draco Malfoy walked slowly and quietly toward her hiding place, his pale eyes steady and ready. She knew she didn't have a chance.

"Granger, will you come out? I know you're there."

"Go away!" Hermione was trapped and she knew it. Her mussels were still tense from Harry's stray spell, so she probably couldn't out run Malfoy. He knew she was here anyway, all he would have to do is dance over to McGonagall and tell her that Hermione was out after hours and she would be dropped as Head Girl for sure.

"I'm really in no mood for this, Granger, please come out." Hermione felt something melt inside her with the way Draco had said 'please'. She had never heard Draco beg for anything; Especially begging for anything regarding her.

After taking a quick breath, Hermione stumbled out of the bush, thorns cutting her arms and sticks stabbing at her legs. She wondered how she had gotten in there so easily the first time.

It was silent for a moment.

Hermione was trying not to pass out from standing up too quickly and cursing Seamus to high heaven, and Draco was trying to remember when Hermione Granger had gotten so bloody attractive.

Even in her uniform she was a sight for sore eyes.

Hermione was wearing her skirts a little higher these days, just above the knee. And her bust line was a little more pronounce, the first four buttons of her white shirt where unbuttoned, reveling her pale collar bones and flushed chest.

Draco sighed and looked out into the forest. "You might as well come out too, Potter."

It was silent for another moment before Harry stepped out from behind a large oak.

"Well this is awkward, isn't it?" Draco suddenly gave a small leer, looking a little more like himself. "Out after hours and by the smell of Granger, drinking on school grounds."

"Like you've never left the castle after hours!" Draco's smile dropped. He starred from Harry to Hermione for a couple seconds before walking to the edge of the tree line.

"Are you coming? Or are you planning to camp out here?"

Harry looked at Hermione then stepped through the trees after Draco. She took a shaky step forward before Harry came back through the trees and wrapped a sturdy arm around her waist.

There was an awkward silence as they picked their way through the Forbidden Forest.

"So...What where you doing out here anyway?" Harry asked, his tone was casual but his face was suspicious.

"Not that it's any of your business, but I was on border patrol." Harry figured as much. After all he had been at the Malfoy's trial, and hadn't he voted to go lenient on them?

Harry remembered that day with precise detail. For some reason the image of the grim look on Mrs. Malfoy's face had stuck with him even to this day. He also still remembered her voice when she had pronounced him dead to Voldemort right in this very forest.

But what had really made him vote for community service instead of an Askaban sentence, was that Harry had always felt sorry for Draco. Not so much in his earlier years, but after a while he started to see that Draco was forced into something he didn't know the magnitude of.

"I see you've ditched the rats nest." Draco said, nodding toward Hermione's hair, sounding more conversational than rude.

Hermione self consciously patted her new hair-do, "I guess I did." She slurred.

Draco chuckled. He never thought Granger would be the type to drink on a school night. She was more rebellious than he had previously thought.

He had always secretly held a little respect for Granger. She was top of every class and still managed some sort of social life. Maybe it wasn't respect, but a little bit of jealousy. Not that he would admit that to anyone.

They were stepping through the last line of trees before Hogwarts broke into view, casting a long shadow against the rolling hills that led passed Hagrid's now dark cabin.

Draco started ahead without a pause, never taking in the view like Harry always did. Harry wanted to remember everything about the castle and Draco just wanted to forget.

"Not that I care," Draco started, not lookin back at them as they walked up the sloping lawn, "Why did you bother walking all the way into the forest to drink when you could be sitting in one of those chairs you Gryffindor's are always moaning about?"

"That's none of your business." Hermione said glaring, pulling nervously at the wisps of hair at her neck, wondering just how much trouble they would be getting in tonight.

"Actually it is." He countered, shooting them a familiar snake-like grin.

"Why so you can go tattle to McGonagall?" she shot back, imagining Draco grinning from ear to ear telling her about what her favorite head girl had been up too.

"Who said I was telling her?" The group paused outside the large oak doors of the castle. Hermione's head spun.

"You're not going to tell her? But you hate us! You have the perfect opportunity to get us in detention for the rest of the year and decide to do nothing?" She asked in an incredulous, drunken whisper.

Draco chuckled humorlessly. "You'd think that you'd want me to tell her. I was just going to escort you back to your common room."

Harry narrowed his eyes. Draco's tone sounded sincere. But it never had before. Harry didn't know how he felt about that.

Draco pulled open one of the heavy front doors open and waved them in, shutting it quietly behind him. The walk to Gryffindor common room was an more awkward than the one from the forest. Hermione's shoes kept squeaking against the floor and the watch around Harry's wrist ticked to the beat of their footsteps.

"I'd say you two better find somewhere else to do your...activities," Draco said when they paused in front of the portrait of the fat lady, who was looking pretty peeved to be woken up. "McGonagall's starting to tighten security out there."

Harry, not knowing what to do, gave a curt nod and pulled himself through the portrait hole, leaving it cracked for Hermione.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, locking her brown eyes with his steel gray ones.

Draco starred into her eyes for a moment before holding the portrait open for her, signaling he wasn't going to answer. "Oh, Granger?" He asked when she was half way through the hole.

"Yes?" She half turned back, hoping that he was going to answer all the questions that had been brewing in her mind. He answered only one.

"I don't hate you."