Final examinations were over, and another eventful year at Hogwarts was coming to a close. Hermione stood in line, waiting to return the last of her books to the library. Thinking of her half-packed suitcase in Gryffindor Tower, she couldn't help but grin. Home may have been a little more boring than Hogwarts, true enough, but at least there she wouldn't run a chance of coughing up hairballs from being turned feline, or frozen stiff by a giant snake.

Or have the boy whose dark secret you've been carrying wish death upon you, Hermione thought bitterly. It had been eating away at her since Harry and Ron had told her. Oh, what Malfoy had said to them after they'd taken the Polyjuice Potion! She could almost hear his gloating tones as he spoke so easily of the basilisk to what he thought were Crabbe and Goyle, when he said, "As for me, I hope it gets Granger."

How dare he be so cold, so unfeeling, when I've been nothing but concerned for him! How could Dumbledore be so wrong about anyone? I never would have thought the world's greatest wizard could be such a poor judge of character.

"Returning your room key?" asked a cool voice from behind her. "I could have sworn you lived here."

Speak of the devil. Hermione turned in disbelief, protectively clutching her books to her chest, as if to make a defensive wall around her heart. She knew exactly who she would find there, staring back at her. "There are worse things, Malfoy," she quipped in reply, "like not living at all. Or did you forget that a giant serpent nearly killed me?"

Malfoy's confident smile faded. He remembered the sight of her, frozen in the dark, her eyes staring blankly upward as if they were made of glass. "I didn't forget."

"No?" she mockingly mused. "You're probably just sorry you weren't there to see it."

"That's not true," he retorted, his pointed face twisting.

"Really? Then why would you tell Crabbe and Goyle you wanted it to get me?" Let him ponder on that awhile, she thought smugly as she turned to walk away, slamming her books on the counter before Madam Pince could utter a word.

"Look, I don't know what you're talking about," Malfoy snapped as he dropped his own books off, chasing after her, "but it might interest you to know, I helped Professor Snape make the potion that saved you and all the others."

That stopped Hermione dead in her tracks. She turned on her heel, her jaw hanging slack a moment before she could speak. "What?"

"It's true." Malfoy strode towards her, his chin tilted high. "Ask Professor Snape if you don't believe me. No, wait, why would you believe anything anyone else says? You're too far up Potter's nose to see the light of day."

"Hang on!" Hermione said a little too loudly. People began turning and gawking at them, eyebrows raised at the unlikely pair speaking to each other.

Draco quickly realized how volatile his position was; it wasn't every day a Slytherin and a Gryffindor had it out, and too many ears would be eagerly listening for the juicy gossip they might hear. He couldn't risk it. Taking control of the situation, he grabbed the protesting Hermione's forearm and steered her out of the library. They took a swift right and another right into a deserted passage, where he promptly shoved her away from him.

"Now, do you think you can talk low enough to keep the conversation just between us?" he snapped, glancing back to make sure they hadn't been followed.

"Why, because you're ashamed to be seen talking to a Mudblood?" she barked back, tears in her eyes. "Or did you just drag me out here to curse me? I stood up for you, you know! Harry and Ron were sure you were the heir of Slytherin, that you were the one attacking Muggle-borns, and I told them it couldn't be you. Merlin, what was I thinking?"

"You… you told Potter it wasn't me?" Draco was taken aback. "Why would you do that?"

Hermione wiped at her eyes, angry with herself for having shown weakness. "Oh, come off it, Malfoy! I know you're not evil. You may bully people around to get attention, you may be cocky and selfish and rude, but I know there's good in you, even if you are too afraid to show it."

Draco baulked, his jaw hanging agape. Money and arrogance were the two walls a Malfoy could safely hide behind. He employed them well, fooling everyone else - but not Hermione. At the Quidditch field, she had slammed through the first of his protective walls. Now, she had just blasted through the other. That really took the steam out of his cauldron.

Merlin's beard… does she really see through me that easily? It was a recognition that filled him simultaneously with both hope and fear. His face pinkened slightly. He had to take the focus off himself, if only for a moment. "That basilisk must have addled your wits, Granger. What am I supposed to say?"

Hermione sniffed, regaining her composure. "You don't have to say anything. If what you say is true, if you did help Professor Snape, that's all the evidence I need to know that I was right. That you aren't evil. If you were, you would have wanted Muggle-borns to die and would never have done anything to help them survive." She wiped her cheeks; her eyes still stung, though the tears had stopped falling.

"But you thought there was good in me before I told you I helped Professor Snape," Draco reasoned aloud. "Enough to try to convince Potty and the Weasel it wasn't me."

"Their names are Potter and Weasley, in case you've forgotten," Hermione reminded him tersely.

"All right, fine, Potter and Weasley," he replied hastily, willing to make the sacrifice of calling them by their right names if it meant he could hear the truth. "I just don't understand why you'd stand up for me. Why did you?"

Hermione stared at her shoes. This wouldn't be easy. "That day, on the Quidditch field... I know what I said had to have hurt your feelings. I embarrassed you in front of all your teammates. If you'd been evil, you would have hexed me for that, or hurt me some other way… but you didn't." There, Dumbledore, she thought with relief, I kept my promise.

When she glanced up, Draco had turned away, as if unable to face her. "I called you Mudblood," he mumbled over his shoulder. "Was that not offensive enough? I don't know of anything worse."

"It was, I just...I know I'm not wrong about this. That day I met you in the library, I wanted to apologize to you. Then, of course, we fought, as usual..." Her shoulders raised in a sheepish shrug.

Draco whirled round. "You were going to apologize? To me? Since when do you care what I think? We're enemies. Aren't we?"

Hermione's head slowly shook from side to side. "I'm not your enemy, Draco. To be your enemy I'd have to hate you, and for some strange reason… I can't. Not really."

Draco softened; a light scoff escaped him. "Do you realize you just called me by my name?"

I did, she realized with a flush, before realizing something even more astounding - he was actually smiling at her. She gave him a tentative smile back.

Aware he'd been caught off guard, Malfoy hurriedly folded his arms, resuming his sneer. "So…what do you want, then? A truce? Your boyfriend Potter wouldn't like that."

Hermione rolled her eyes, the moment broken as he resumed the outward show of loathing. "Honestly, why does everyone think that? Harry's not my boyfriend. Anyway, I'm not asking him, I'm asking you."

Draco reflected for several long, anxious moments. Hermione's brows raised hopefully as she saw the inner struggle play out across his facial features. His heart is not filled with hate… Dumbledore's voice echoed in her mind.

At length, he made his barely audible reply. "It wouldn't work. All the Slytherins hate you, and all the Gryffindors hate me. It's not as though we could ever be bosom companions, you know? Besides, you're a…"

"A Mudblood?" she snapped furiously.

He gave a noncommital shrug. "Well, yeah."

Despite her resolve not to lose her temper, her ire sizzled. "And what does that have to do with anything? I'm just as much a witch as you are a wizard."

"I never said you weren't. But to some people, blood means everything."

"By that, you mean your father, don't you? You act like you idolize him, but how can you, when all he's ever taught you is how to hate and to hurt?" Hermione caught her breath. She had come too close to revealing what she knew.

Draco's gray eyes flashed like steel. "What do you know about my father, Granger? You'd best steer clear of him, if you know what's good for you."

She stepped forward crossly, reaching for her wand. "Is that a threat?"

Draco grabbed her wrist, pushing her wand back down to her side. "It's a warning. My father knows how to fight and he doesn't fight fair. You wouldn't stand a chance against him."

Hermione flushed for an instant, glancing down at the long, pale fingers of his hand clasped about her wrist. He had never actually touched her before this. What's more, Hermione suddenly realized that his words hadn't been meant as an affront. They were protective.

He's trying to save me from going through what he does, she realized with a start. She and Draco glanced down at the skin where they touched as though it were the strangest of sights, and he quickly let go, backing away a step.

"I'm not going to be afraid of him - or you," she added to break the awkward silence, pocketing her wand as Draco released his grip.

Draco had thought a Mudblood's hands would feel slimy, or dirty somehow - but they were smooth and warm, their only mar some smudged ink from her quill. He gave an involuntary shiver at the awkwardness of their touch; luckily it was concealed beneath his robes. "Just don't give him a reason to come after you."

Hermione shook her head in disbelief. "Malfoy, your father doesn't need a reason to attack anyone. Look what he did to poor Ginny Weasley, giving her You-Know-Who's diary. It made her hurt all those people and in the end it almost killed her."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Father gave her that?"

Hermione nodded. "That day before school started, in Flourish and Blotts. We all saw him handle her books."

Draco remembered. He didn't want to believe either that Lucius had been in possession of the Dark Lord's diary and hadn't told him, or that he would slip it to an unsuspecting little girl, but he also knew that Hermione was the honorable sort who would never lie.

"She's just a child," Hermione went on as he stayed silent, shaking her head. "She hadn't done a thing to him. What kind of monster hurts a child, anyway?"

It was that last that made the glacier of Malfoy's heart begin to crack. His only defense against her was to be offensive, but even that was wavering. Something about Granger's words had rung all too true. The more she spoke, the more it seemed his world was bound together by a circle of lies, tightly knotted together - one it would be dangerous to unravel. He had to get out of there, now.

Malfoy leaned treacherously close, whispering so low that she could scarcely hear. "You've got your truce, Granger, on one condition. Speak a word of it to Potter, or anyone else, and the deal is off."

ooo LL ooo

Malfoy sped down the hall, leaving a baffled Hermione in his wake. His limbs were shaking almost as badly as they did in his father's presence.

Hermione can't know, he assured himself, I mean, Granger… Legilimency is advanced magic, too advanced even for someone who's read every textbook we have at least three times. She can't be reading my mind.

Yet those brown eyes had been wide and full of concern as she had said those striking words: "What kind of monster hurts a child, anyway?" She could have no idea how deeply those words would assail him.

My father is not a monster, he struggled to convince himself. He sees that I could be more, and when I fall short, of course he gets angry. He's pushing me to fulfill my potential as a Malfoy. That's all. And as for Ginny Weasley, surely he didn't mean for her to have that diary… no, it had to have been some awful mistake; sure, the Weasleys are blood traitors, but even Father wouldn't try to kill a defenseless little girl…

But he was no longer so certain of himself, or his father, or even what he truly believed. What kind of power did Granger have over him, anyway? How was it only a few words from her could shake him to the core and make him question everything he'd known to be true only moments before?

Something was happening to him, something he couldn't control. Because of her. He'd felt it before, drawn inexplicably to the hospital wing and to her bedside. He'd stared at her in the dark, those brown eyes that had seen straight through him unable to look back and see the angst in his expression. Before Madam Pomfrey had frightened him away, a mysterious impulse had grabbed him, and he had knelt at her side, whispering words he could not even repeat to himself for fear he'd be overheard.

What are you doing to me? he'd thought desperately then. It was the same thought he was having now.

Draco was making his way back to the Slytherin common room when his father came storming down the hall towards him. The young Slytherin caught his breath. He had never seen his sire so enraged.

"F-father?" Draco dared. "What's the matter? What are you doing here? And where's Dobby?"

"You'll be doing your own packing from now on," Lucius snarled, his venomous glare all the prompting Draco needed to keep quiet. "I suggest you get to it, and mind your own affairs."