Renegade

Disclaimer: Harry Potter ain't mine.

III.

Draco was moping in the common room for three straight days, to Hermione's great annoyance. Ever the optimist, she wanted to slap Draco silly and bring some sense into him. Whatever he was feeling, it couldn't be that bad.

But a tiny voice at the back of her head was telling her otherwise. This was Draco Malfoy that she was talking about. Nothing ruffled his composure. There must be a good reason that, day after day, she saw him with bloodshot eyes which indicated that he was either not sleeping or that he was spending all his nights crying.

The image of Draco sobbing his eyeballs out terribly disturbed her, but it was also good to know that despite the uncaring exterior and the foul attitude, he was actually a human being.

That was enough for her to want to help him.

So there she was outside his room, wondering if she should knock and how she was going to talk to him, when he opened the door.

His eyes narrowed at her, and at the parcel in her hands.

"And to what do I owe your unsightly presence?" He asked. His voice was hoarse again, his eyes red and swollen. Like he had been…

Hermione resisted the urge to finish her thoughts with 'crying.' She still wasn't sure about that. Did Malfoys even have tear ducts?

'Human being.' She reminded herself sternly, and she forced herself to smile.

"I went ahead and got myself…this." She told him, as she showed him the contents of the parcel. Inside was a thick, hard-bound book, its pages already yellow-brown with age. It wasn't in great shape, as it was already tattered, and there were loose pages that could barely be contained with the rest.

"Do I look like I care?" Draco asked her, sounding annoyed. "Because if I don't, that's exactly what I feel right now."

"I bought this book with your money." Hermione said. Her patience was wearing thin.

'Human being.' She told herself again. But something was making her refuse to listen to herself. Probably Draco Malfoy's incredible arrogance.

"You had to use my money for that?" He looked disbelievingly at the book in her hands.

"Yeah. I bought it on an auction. It actually costs quite a lot. Close to my allowance for a whole year." She said. "I've wanted this book for quite a long time. So thank you."

She paused. "We're even now."

She knew he would remember. He once told her that he would never forget.

"Thanks." He said, automatically. He looked as shocked as she was by what he said.

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but Draco recovered quickly.

"That's Slytherin slang for 'You're pathetic.'" He told her, with a sneer. He was about to slam the door in her face when Hermione stepped into his room.

"No." She hissed. "You're pathetic. Look at yourself!"

Her eyes blazed at him.

"You've been doing nothing but mope for weeks, and I know you won't want to admit it but I think that you've been bawling your eyes out every single night! Now I go here as someone who genuinely cares and what do you do? You push me away like I'm not good enough! No wonder you're all alone and have no real friends, you sicken even me with your disgusting attitude. I try not to judge people but I really can't stand you and I just have to say—you're an asshole, Malfoy."

And with that, she left, leaving Draco alone and wondering why her words actually stung him.

That night, it was him that was waiting outside Hermione's room, a parcel in his hands. He raised his hand to knock on her door, and missed it by a few inches.

He frowned. He'd only had a few shots. The tequila that the House elf brought was probably a bit too strong than what he'd been having. Or did he really just have a few shots?

He adjusted his hand and knocked on her door. He heard her slamming a book shut and finally, she appeared in the doorway.

She was wearing pajamas, and Draco had to force his laughter down. She even had pink bunny slippers on, for heaven's sake. And to think that he had actually been a little scared of her.

"What do you want?" She grumbled.

"It's Christmas eve." He said, simply. He showed her the contents of the package, as if they explained everything.

Her eyes narrowed at the bottles in his hands, and she looked up at Draco's expectant face. This was probably the way that devils said 'Sorry' in their sick, demented alternate universe. She sighed.

"Okay." She conceded. "But I'm not going to drink."

He smirked.

30 minutes and two bottles of tequila later, Draco and Hermione were stoned.

They both knew that they shouldn't be drinking that fast, but Draco had started a Slytherin v.s. Gryffindor war and Hermione was not going to back out of that.

It had started with an innocent, 'Why don't you drink?' on Draco's part. Hermione had answered with an 'I'm a responsible person who takes care of my body' speech, to which Draco had snorted and said,

"Gryffindors are just sissies."

Indignant, Hermione took a tiny sip from her shot glass. She didn't like the taste. She never had.

"What's that, Granger? That's how much an ant would drink." He scoffed. He downed the contents of his own shot glass and poured himself another.

"Oh, that's right, you're a Gryffindor. 'I'm brave and strong enough to slay monsters in the Chamber of Secrets and face the Dark Lord, but I'm afraid of a teeny tiny shot glass of tequila.' Pathetic."

"Fine!" Hermione said, finally giving in to his taunts. The liquid burned as it slid down her throat.

"I bet you can't drink as much as I've had." Draco said, pouring her another shot.

"You're on, Slytherin." She replied.

Pretty soon, they were insulting professors, saying completely random things at each other, and playing a game of 20 questions, all in a drunken state that Hermione was sure her normal, sober self wouldn't approve of.

"So I was telling...Harry." Hermione hiccuped. "That maybe I would just stay with the Weasleys next Christmas."

"Why are you even here?" Draco slurred. "Why didn't you go back home for the holidays?" It was Draco's 16th question. Or maybe not. They were both too drunk to count.

"I felt sorry for you." Hermione said.

"Really?" He asked. It took a great deal of effort for him to lift his head, but he was able to do it.

"My turn to ask a question." She said quickly. "What did you do during those three days?"

All the blood seemed to have left Draco's face.

"I'm not ready to talk about it yet." He said. His brow furrowed, but he didn't let it lose his composure.

"I'm sorry." Hermione said, apologetically, although she didn't feel too apologetic. Not in her state. "That was rude of me. Let me ask another question. Do you have a girlfriend?"

"Why?" He smirked, as if he didn't hear the question about what he had done during the three days he was gone. "Are you interested in me?"

"No! That was the first question I could think of." Hermione replied, with a frown.

"I don't have a girlfriend." Draco sighed, groggily. "I'm pathetic."

"You're not pathetic." Hermione slurred.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" He asked her, more to throw the question back at her than out of curiosity.

Hermione thought about the way Ron was acting towards her lately, and his whole "Maybe we should date other people" speech.

"I thought I did. But I'm not really sure."

Draco shrugged.

"Why do you care so much about me?" He asked. It was a question that she knew he would never ask if there weren't more than 12 shots of tequila in his belly, and it caught her by surprise.

"Because you're a person." She said simply.

And then, maybe because she was drunk, or maybe because she felt sorry for him, Hermione asked:

"Do you want to be friends?"

Draco didn't answer her for a while, and she thought that he had fallen asleep. She started to stand up so that she could go back to her room, but she found that her limbs were incapable of following her brain at the moment.

"Okay." She heard him say, a moment later. "Let's be friends."

They both fell asleep in their respective places on the floor after that.

The next day, Hermione woke up with a huge headache and muscle pains on her back and other parts of her body. Groaning, she opened her eyes to see Draco trying to stick something into her mouth.

"What the hell are you doing, Malfoy?" She yelled, swatting his hand away. She moaned in pain as her head felt as if it was being pounded by hammers.

"Geez, Granger, I was just trying to cure your hangover. But if you want to feel shitty all day, be my guest."

Her head throbbed, and she was not in the mood for arguing.

"Okay, fine, give it to me." She said.

Immediately after the medicine dissolved on her tongue, Hermione felt better. She stood up and stretched. She felt normal again.

"Thanks." She told him.

Draco rolled his eyes, as if to say 'I told you so.'

"I'm going out to jog." He said.

Hermione was surprised. Sure, it was probably already 10 o clock, but at least Draco was making an effort to go back to his routine.

"Sure." She replied.

"Don't touch my tequila without me." He added, with a smirk.

Hermione threw her shoe at him, but he dodged it, and then he was gone.

That night, they went down to the Great Hall to attend the feast together, although they didn't talk much along the way. They were both surprised to find out that aside from Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, they were the only ones who hadn't gone home for the holidays. Even most of the teachers were vacationing somewhere.

The two of them ate in silence, as the two professors were discussing some matters that did not involve nor include them. Finally, Professor Dumbledore stood up and addressed them.

"Well, Minerva and I have some matters to attend to. But that doesn't mean the two of you shouldn't enjoy the rest of the evening!"

He clapped his hands, and the lights of the Great Hall dimmed. Fake snowflakes started to fall from the enchanted ceiling, and the two teachers took their leave.

The doors of the Great Hall shut with a loud thud, and romantic music started playing from God-knows-where.

"I think they've totally misunderstood about us." Hermione said.

"Whatever." Draco replied. "Let's go."

They made their way to the entrance, and Draco pushed the door. He frowned.

"Did you bring your wand?"

"No, did you?"

"No. And that's bad."

"Why?"

"Because that old fag locked us both in here."

Shocked, Hermione pushed at the door with all her might. It didn't budge an inch.

Suddenly, the fake snow disappeared, and mistletoes started popping out of the walls and ceilings.

"What in the world…?" Draco muttered, looking very irritated.

Hermione looked from the door to the mistletoes, then from the mistletoes to Draco.

"Oh. My. God." She said, and he could see the horror on her face.

"What is it, oh smart one?" He drawled, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It's the mistletoe spell. Fred and George used to do this to me and Ron all the time."

"I've never heard of that spell. What does it do?"

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. This was not happening. Maybe if she pinched herself hard enough, it would all disappear and she would discover that she was just having a nightmare.

When she opened her eyes and saw Draco looking at her, she suppressed a sob.

"You get locked in a room, until you can make the mistletoe, or in our case, mistletoes, disappear." Hermione said.

She looked around the room. There were hundreds, no, thousands of mistletoes in it. Hermione wanted to cry. She wanted to get out so bad to send the Christmas letters she had prepared to her friends and family, but that meant...

"And how do you make them disappear?" Draco asked. He was getting more and more annoyed with every minute of being stuck with her in the Great Hall. Hermione couldn't tell him. She didn't know how to.

And then it dawned on him.

"I am not kissing a Mudblood." He hissed.

"You don't have a choice. I'm the only one here." Hermione hissed back.

"Never!" He roared, backing into a corner in a very un-Draco Malfoy-like manner.

"I am going to get out of this room, even if I have to kill you with my bare hands and kiss your cold, lifeless body." She said, in a deadly voice.

It took them approximately three hours to make all the mistletoes disappear.

Lol. I leave the three-hour kissing marathon to your imagination, for the moment. Details in the next chapter. (*evil grin*)

Thanks for the reviews :) They make me smile. I'm glad that you're enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it. See how fast I updated? It's coz I'm excited for you to let me know what you think, so R&R! ^_^

Sorry, I'm having too much fun writing the flashbacks, so I'm extending it to another 2-3 chapters. (Promise, I'll try not to extend anymore! It's just that I write so long). I'll get along with the plot soon, and more explanations in the later chapters but for now, I haven't said all that I want to say about Draco and Hermione's relationship yet. So please bear with me! :D I promise I'll try to make it good ^_^

See you soon! Enjoy~