Hey there!

Guess who's back, back again?

Here is the next chapter (I merged the first two chapters so it's a third chapter all over again, but with different content! Yay.)

Disclaimer: No Pansy I guess. That would be gross, really, but I won't tell you who I am. However here is an hint: I am not J.K Rowling. Unfortunately.

Chapter 3

Some moments are simply meant to change everything.

How ridiculous it seemed that a few hours ago, everything she was worrying about was a stupid little boy having a fling with a stupid little girl that wasn't her.

But then, a few hours ago, she still knew where to draw a line because that was just what she did. Drawing lines. For someone thinking as complex as she did, this was a fairly simple way to get out of trouble.

It wasn't as if she did not know, for she did. But her world was busy enough as it was, so she decided to ease the lingering pain about her uncertain future by creating a world with rules of black and white. It was either this or that. Good or bad.

See, Malfoy merely was a scared little boy. A pawn of the evil rising his ugly face to the world. He was all angry, prejudiced and acting like the spoiled brat he was but she believed him to be too much of a coward to really make a step into the darkness designed for him.

But he did and he took a piece of black with him, leaving behind a shade of grey in her perfectly structured world because it just did not fit. Fit him. Fit the image she had.

And now, standing before him, she closed her eyes, tightly so, because when she was younger, she believed in closing her eyes to make things go away. When you don't see, you can't be seen.

However, the grey was still there, breathing in and out, a swooshing sound drowned by the heavy rain knocking on the fading glass.
Outside, the last few rays of light were drifting into the tight blackness that was swallowing the purple clouds high above the sky.

She felt as if minutes had passed but it was merely a second, really, because he was speaking again, not being able to stop the hot fury from spilling from his lips.

"Now there, Granger. Lost your language, it seems. Tell me, where is your fucking Gryffindor courage? Or do you really want to tell me that you are scared now?"

It was a cruel laugh coming from a lost little boy and his outstretched arm began to tremble, a cramp drawing out the blue veins on his otherwise colorless skin.

"There you go, you and this big mudblood mouth of yours. You are right to be afraid of me Granger because it will be me who brings you down in the end. He has plans for me, great plans and it will be you who will be down on your knees before me, begging for the worthless life of yours."

And all of sudden, his voice died out, leaving nothing behind but the thunderous sound of the storm passing by and a brown eyed girl staring at him in silence.

This was a first time, it had to be, because there was not a single word she would have wanted to say, only one thought fighting its way through the grey chaos inside her head:

Some moments are simply meant to change everything.

She knew she should say something, anything, but it took her some time to understand. This was Malfoy and in any sense of normalcy, there was no reason for her to be afraid of him, because he was Malfoy, just Malfoy. He needed some creepy, brain-dead bullies to feel secure. He made fun of people who suffered because it was his way of coming to terms with his own life. In her structured world, this was Malfoy. He was like a barking dog, all angry and confused but still behind his fence of cowardice, hiding away from the fight to let other people take his role.

However, this world lay shattered before her trembling body.
There were thousands of shards gleaming in the dust of a shadow of grey surrounding her and now she had to ask herself: Who was this boy standing before her?

It made no sense, no sense at all and darkness was invading the room like a blinding force, swallowing him completely and her eyes tried to refocus, finding him in the shadows that were creeping from edge to edge. She felt a touch of fear licking at the sidelines of her mind, a feeling which made the little hairs on the back of her neck rise in cold anticipation.

She had to get away.
This was too much, in a very new and very different sort of way. It was no Ron kissing Lavender, no Harry telling them about splitting souls and immortal evil. It was a whole world being lifted out of its axes only to be turned upside down and left in a state of total chaos.

So she needed to get away from him and it was her body forcing her to run even before she could comprehend that she did the unthinkable: Fleeing from Malfoy.

A piercing shade of blonde blurred right in front of her, a blinding color tearing apart her world of grey and making her run even faster. With a deafening crash the heavy door clicked shut behind her and she ran. Still ran.

Corridors and pictures were fading away, a whirl of grey in a world of grey while any noises were drowned by her own heavy footsteps echoing through a thick silence. She didn't even know why she was on the run, because it was still just Malfoy. But not the Malfoy she knew. Not anymore.

It was then that she could feel him behind her, feel rather than hear. A soft vibration mixing with her own, clumsy one, making her stumble forward and she had to cough, her breath rushing away in a hurry while her feet where carrying her up the many flight of stairs leading to the astronomy tower.

With a sudden loud crash, her journey came to a forceful halt while her small body collided with a nearly unyielding piece of wood. Only a second later and with a low squeak, the door was pushed out of its angles to reveal the circular platform of the astronomy tower. The sudden loss of balance made her stumble again and in a moment of carelessness, she lost her footing and fell.

Her eyes closed, her senses became aware of the icy cold rain drowning her thin clothes and coating her pale cheeks with a small touch of rosé while she waited for the impact to come.

However it never came.

Instead she felt long fingers around her wrist, catching her before she could come in contact with the hard stone floor and lifting her up on trembling feet. Out of instinct, she looked up and brown eyes met grey ones, fear and desperation fixed in a moment made for eternity.

Then she broke away from him, brushing past him only to push him away from her tiny frame while she stumbled right into the pounding rain that was mercilessly drowning her in a flood of water.

"Get away from me, don't you dare touch me!" Her voice was much to shrill in her own ears and just to make him understand, she backed away some more, leaving a huge space between the two of them.

"Granger…" he tried to get closer while his former attitude of rage and hate seemed to have crumbled upon the cold stone floor beneath his feet but her next word startled him enough to make him stop.

"No!" she nearly screeched, a cry fading away in the harsh whispers of wind and rain and the little drops were painting thousands of tears upon her rosy cheeks while her expression told him about the chaos reigning inside her head.

"Granger, listen…" he tried again, only to be interrupted by a trembling wand of the very same brown eyed girl who now was with her back to the balustrade, her hair a screaming mess flowing right along the stormy waves of wind passing by.

It was a scary sight to behold and it made the following words so much more threatening:

"Don't come near me, Malfoy or I will kill you. I swear, I will" and she did not know whether she was more shocked from the truth laced between these few words or him, looking at her with his eyes wide open.

It was still raining though and she began to tremble, a biting cold clawing at her exposed skin and finding its way inside her cloak to punctuate her neck and arms with thousands of icy needles. Her eyes were holding his stare, a steady brown drowned in confusion.

"You…" He stumbled upon his own words, "you won't… ", but he did not finish his sentence because in all honesty, he did not know anymore. The unspoken question was floating in the air between them but neither seemed possible to answer.

She won't, right? She would never, never ever kill someone. She won't.
But then, and it was the first time she really dared to think about it, she would. There was a war at the edge of her world, looming in a visible distance and she would, because it would be either living to kill or dying while resisting the irresistible.

"I..." she stammered and while she searched for something to answer, she also searched for this feeling of rage that had been building inside her for the last hours but she came out empty handed. No words. No rage. Nothing but a strange nothing and a lingering feeling of despair and sadness.
She tried to look him in the eye but found that she couldn't anymore because looking at him made her insides squirm with fear and sorrow, with anticipation for the things to come. So instead she stared down to the ground, a pattern of grey where the raindrops were painting little dots onto the dark stone.

"Hermione", he whispered and there was a touch of something in his words that made her look up again. Her name coming from his lips did sound wrong in so many ways but it only worsened the sadness worming its way through her body.

His face was set in stone, not a single emotion etched into his pale skin but his eyes. His eyes were so full of fear, full of unspoken words and she broke. Right this moment, she broke. For him. The first salty tear was streaming down her cheek, mixing with the rain that was masking her pain.

She closed her eyes and tried to reason but failed because she just did not know why she was feeling so incredible sad. Maybe it was because of her world, lying in shambles before her. Maybe it was because she had to realize that this was war, even though she was behind the wall of a school she had been calling home for more than five years. And maybe it was because of Malfoy, who was nothing more than a pawn in a game that was much too big for him.

Because he was still a child as was she.

They were children and even though it should be easy, there was no black and white anymore. It was all grey and confusing and so she cried while above her, the clouds followed suit.

It was then, with her eyes still closed, that she felt cold, insecure fingers grasping her own ones, holding tight but instead of running away, which should have been her only option, she stayed, her body numbed.

"I don't know what to do."

His whisper was a cold breeze near her ear, a whiff caressing the moist little hair on the back of her neck, causing her to shiver beside his body. She felt his warmth pressed against her, his cheek nearly touching her own and her fingers were gripping his even tighter while her breath was deflagrating from her mouth in small cloudlets.

"I don't want to, really. I don't, not anymore"

"Then don't!" And her words cut right through his voice, a fierce determination underneath each syllable. She could hear her own tears, a slight quiver while she spoke but she did not care.

"You don't have to do what he wants from you. You don't!" She wanted him to see so she opened her eyes, searching his for any signs of comprehension and found a stormy sea of fear and despair drowned in icy grey.

She brought her face nearer, trying to understand what was in front of her and as if through a veil she could feel him lift his other arm, soft fingers that were caressing her wet cheek slowly while she could only stare at him.

"You are crying. Why are you crying?" His voice broke and the question was hanging in the air between them, unanswered.

"I envy, you know" he started again a small and sad smile gracing his otherwise set features, "I tried to hate you because I was told to. And when your ancestry wasn't enough reason anymore, I started hating you for your life."

While he spoke she could sense his fingers trembling against her cold skin and she felt like the air around her was trying to suffocate her with the truth his words were spilling from his soul. It was too much but nevertheless she was paralyzed.

"You may live the life you want to whereas my life was laid out before me the moment I was born. I have nowhere to go, only the path chosen for me" and while all these words were leaving his mouth he found that he did not care. She was a muggle. She was the enemy, really. He hated her because that's what it's supposed to be between the two of them. And here he was, breaking in front of a stranger because all in all, what did he know about Hermione Granger?

It was pathetic.

However he found that he could not care less and while he thought that maybe he should stop, he talked, still.

"I want what you have because you don't have to be scared. You have friends. Family. You are not alone." The last sentence a mere whisper was drowned in the thunder rolling high above them and they still stared at each other, a warm honey-brown melting the sea of icy grey.

In her rational world, all dominated by black and white, she would have been running right know because he was black and she was white and there was a line between them, marking good and evil. However she had one foot on his side while he was part of her side and all that was left was a shade of grey, capturing the both of them in a moment of utter insanity.

He was breathing hard now and she could feel his hot breath brushing against her lips. Too close. He was much too close but instead of leaning away, she felt him pulling her even closer and there was no resistance, none at all.

Her mind was screaming at her because it was Malfoy holding her but her heart was set to beat for him, only this one time and only for him so her eyes fluttered close while the unsteady rhythm of her own breath was echoing inside her ears.

There was one more second still while his eyes graced her soft features and then his lips touched hers lightly, a fleeting contact that left a tingling sensation where his skin was meeting hers and his mouth was leaving, travelling along her chin to stop right beneath her earlobe.

"Thank you."

A mere whisper and then he was gone.

With her eyes still closed, she simply stood there in the pouring rain, left with a sense of total chaos and confusion and a dozen of questions inside her head.

Why? It was the most important and yet mostly unanswered question that was screaming insanity from every direction of her mind.

It was a kiss, it really was but she still hoped to wake up anytime soon because there was no such universe in which she would kiss Malfoy – or let him kiss her.

Except there was because he had kissed her.

Opening her eyes, she let out a small groan and even though she tried not to think about it, she understood that now, she was a part of a secret she never wanted to know in the first place.
And she had to do anything, everything to make him see because deep down she had this feeling that maybe there was a reason for insanity.

Maybe she was supposed to find out to help him.

Or maybe she was simply stupid but then, this was no option at all.

All action again - but we have to go a little slower from now on ._."

And I would be very happy to receive a review - or two. Really! :D