Chapter VI - Amber

December 13, 1999

Molly Weasley had called everyone in the safehouse to the table. The silence was broken by her plea, begging them to join in the fight. Four Order members had fallen at the last battle, but she didn't know who, because all the deaths were beginning to blur together. The war was drawing closer to a dark climax. Draco didn't think their side stood a chance anymore with his father and Bellatrix both on the loose.

But still, he volunteered to fight. Five of them had volunteered by the end of the solemn discussion: Granger, George Weasley, Blaise, Lovegood and himself. He didn't see how only a mere five wizards could help in a battle where the other side had become so numerous, but he kept this silent. Granger seemed to share this thought, because she caught his glance from across the table, a sad and defeated look present in her amber eyes.

"When's our first mission, then?" Draco asked the question they all had been scared to.

"Tomorrow morning," Molly answered.

The five volunteer soldiers felt their insides churn in the most unpleasant way possible, as if they knew their bodies knew of the deaths they would witness, or that they would experience. Draco wasn't sure what would be worse.

.

"Hey," Draco murmured to her.

She flinched, apparently startled. "I've already told you to stop sneaking up behind me."

"Blaise and I were wondering whether you'd fancy joining the rest of us that are going fighting for a few drinks down by the water," he offered awkwardly. "And you should say yes, because they made me be the one to invite you. I assure you I'm just as uncomfortable as you are right now."

"I'm not, really," she chuckled under her breath. "Although I do enjoy your discomfort. Maybe I should make you get down on your knees and-

"Kinky, Granger," he smirked, and she blushed at how her words had sounded.

"That's not what I meant," she stammered, trying to remain composed with the images of exactly what he had implied flashing through her mind. "You shouldn't have interrupted me."

"Who's uncomfortable now?"

She felt she was breaking the law for the way she thought of Malfoy at that moment. The images still remained, and she was only now realizing how devilishly handsome he really was. He had signature Malfoy features, but they were not quite as harsh as his father's. His blonde hair had darkened slightly from the white it had once been, and it was typically messy in the most desirable way possible. His ivory skin made him appear to be a Renaissance statue; he certainly had the aristocratic nose that most of those sculptures had. He was extremely tall and slender, but she reckoned that he was at least somewhat muscular from his years as a seeker. And his eyes… perhaps that was what caught her the most. They made her breath hitch. Their silvery grey gazes were always intense, smoldering. When he wanted to, he could make her breath hitch. His eyebrow was arched half the time, and that accompanied by the cocky smirk on his face made her think of things that she shouldn't, particularly about Malfoy.

"Well, when you're done staring," he broke her trance, his smirk growing at the deepening pink of her cheeks. "You're welcome to get your coat on and meet us down by the beach. We've already started a bonfire and cleared some of the snow."

"We're not supposed to use magic-

"There are protective charms around the whole area," he assured her. "Every one that I could think of. No outsiders will be able to see us or our fire."

"This was your idea, wasn't it?" she accused, narrowing her eyes.

"Actually, it was Blaise's," he corrected. "He figured that if we die tomorrow we might as well live our last night doing something other than imagining how it will come to be."

"That's pessimistic," she frowned.

"I'm not going to lie and pretend that it's sunshine and rainbows outside of this safehouse," his lips twisted to a slight grin. "You know me well enough to know that."

She hummed in thought at the last words. You know me well enough to know that.

"Get your coat on, Granger," Draco smiled one of the few genuine smiles she'd seen from him, but then it reformed into the mischievous smirk. "Don't make me get on my knees."

He was standing too close now, and she could feel his body heat radiating against her skin. She looked up at him, suddenly aware of the at least 1 ½ foot difference in their heights. She had never noticed how white his teeth were, or how long his eyelashes were. The heat of his body was giving her those thoughts again. She almost wanted to tell him to do it, but she figured her mind knew better than her most primitive impulses. Ron had never made her feel like this.

"Fine," she said after taking a minute to compose herself. "On the condition that you don't get into a screaming match with me tonight."

"I won't initiate one," he promised. "I'm not going to promise that you won't initiate one."

"Fair enough," she nodded, putting on her peacoat jacket. "But one more condition."

"Why don't you just write a contract?" he groaned. "They're waiting for us. We don't want them to think that we're shagging or-

"No more comments like that," she scolded, feeling he had just proved her reasoning for that amendment.

"Relax," he let out a breathy laugh at the blush he had been deepening for this entire conversation. "I just relish your discomfort."

Lies, he thought. He was becoming all too aware that he wanted to shag Granger, and that he probably had for the a while now. He wasn't sure if it was her lovely appearance and sharp wit or his own abstinence for the past year that was fueling his forbidden desires. He preferred to think it was the latter. He wanted to believe that perhaps some of his sanity remained.

But he wasn't entirely sane, and he wasn't at all when it came to the likes of Hermione Granger.

.

They were all a few shots deep when Blaise had decided a question game would be a fun game to play. Draco was somewhat surprised when Blaise said he wanted to get to know everyone; Draco wasn't particularly fond of Weasley and didn't want him to know his secrets. But of course, Blaise passed the first turn over to Weasley.

"Hmm. I'll start out light. What is everyone's favorite color?"

"Color?" Draco scoffed. "You couldn't do better than that?"

"This isn't about your opinion of my question," Weasley snapped.

"You remind me of your younger brother. He was sensitive, too… Always so desperate for my approval, he…" Draco stopped when he saw Granger's wince. He mouthed an apology to the witch beside him, and she nodded. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her anymore than he already had.

"Well, I'll answer the question," Lovegood mused in her usual dreamy tone. "I like lavender."

"Green," Draco and Blaise said simultaneously.

"Of course," Weasley muttered. "Wouldn't expect any different."

"I like grey," Granger said quietly. "It's a good color. I feel like it's almost a metaphor. It's between what is used to represent the most pure and the most impure."

Draco was somewhat surprised by her answer. He had been expecting red or gold. Most people he had known had replied with one of their house colors. He hadn't expected it from Lovegood, as she had always been odd compared to the rest of the world. He had expected some normality from Gryffindor's Golden Girl. But she was also deeper than most of her counterparts, and much more intelligent.

The questions went on for a couple of hours, and the sky had grown dark. Draco couldn't help but notice Granger's beauty in this lighting. The dim light highlighted the amber in her eyes, the soft crevices of her lips, her small nose and its small freckles, the pink of her cheeks, the way her wavy hair framed her face.

"Do you still hate me, Granger?" Draco asked when his turn came again.

She had never seen his expression be so innocent, and so vulnerable. His eyes did not look hardened, and despite the honest softness to them, the grey pools seemed to hold all the secrets in the universe.

"No," she whispered. "I can't hate you anymore."

"You should," he replied firmly. She had expected his expression to be content, but instead his face looked sad and forlorn. "I haven't changed much. I'm still a snarky, arrogant bastard-

"True," Weasley interjected.

Hermione had forgotten that the others were here; she had been studying Malfoy too intently. She wasn't sure what he was thinking. His eyes returned to their usual completely unreadable state, and they looked at no one and nothing. He was looking into his own thoughts, she decided. She felt an odd urge to grab his hand, to tell him that he shouldn't be guilty anymore, but he was unpredictable. She was never sure how Malfoy would react, and the last thing she wanted was to end up in a screaming match to him on the night before they went to battle. She didn't need extra stress.

Blaise gazed at his Muggle watch and frowned. "Shit, it's midnight."

"I think we should turn in," Weasley suggested. "Besides, I'm starting to get a headache."

"Maybe if you hadn't drunk all that firewhiskey…" Draco trailed off, smirking.

"You're one to talk, Malfoy," Weasley snorted. "You drank more than anyone here."

"I object," Blaise slurred.

Blaise, Weasley and Lovegood were all getting up to leave, but Draco and Granger didn't get up. Weasley looked at them impatiently, but Lovegood and Blaise had already started towards the cottage.

"Aren't you two coming?" Weasley urged, looking between the two of them and then resting his eyes on Granger. "I don't trust him alone with you, Hermione."

"Just leave us here," Granger reassured him. "We'll be back in a couple of hours. I'm not tired and Malfoy seems lost in his own thoughts."

Weasley eyed Draco suspiciously, and then turned away towards the stairs up the bluff. He went back to Shell Cottage without another word.

"Draco," Granger murmured.

He snapped out of his thoughtful daze and looked at her, questioning. His body felt warm from all the alcohol, and he decided that thoughts and drunkenness don't mix. He still felt disconnected from his surroundings, but Granger's murmur had brought him back into reality. She hadn't said his first name before; he decided that he liked it more than Malfoy. He had a newfound appreciation for his name.

Her eyes looked golden, her cheeks flushed a deep pink, and her pupils were dilated. It was good to know that Granger was drunk as well, as drunken people have a tendency to not care when others embarrass themselves. But numbing of inhibitions in both of them was dangerous, if Granger did feel attracted to him.

"Call me that more," he hummed. "Why did you stay with me, Granger?"

"Because I thought you were upset," she bit her lip. Telling Malfoy how he felt was never a good idea.

"You should've left with the others," he reprimanded, guilty about his words coming out more harshly than he had meant them to.

"Fine, Malfoy," she hissed, an iciness to her tone that he had never heard from her before.

She started to get up, grabbing her jacket off of where she had set it on the sand when she felt a firm hand wrapped around her wrist. She looked down at him with a glare, but he met her with a soft gaze. Her eyes soften against her will, and she internally cursed Malfoy for looking so good. She had never seen his cheeks flushed before, and she decided that it suited him more than the statuesque appearance of his ivory skin. But both suited him. Stay, his eyes seemed to say.

She sat back down next to him, and he released her wrist fast enough to have been recoiling from a stovetop.

"You know what I was thinking, Granger?"
She shook her head. She never really knew what Malfoy was thinking. When he felt something he didn't want anyone else to know he was feeling, his face became stoic, unreadable.

"That you should hate me," he muttered, looking straight at her with an intensity that made her heart flutter. "After all the shit that I've done to you, you should hate me. You should despise me."

He took another shot of firewhiskey. It no longer burned his throat; he had drunk it so much lately that he seemed to be numb to the burn. When he set his shot glass down, he looked her in the eyes again. His vision was blurred, his head spinning.

"You haven't done anything but name calling. You've never-

"You don't understand, Granger," he uttered darkly. "You'll never understand what I've done. I could've killed Dumbledore that night-

"You wouldn't have," she cut him off. "I know you wouldn't-

"Shut up," he snapped, his voice rising now. "You don't know. You'll never-

"Malfoy-

"Shut up!" he yelled, and her mouth closed. His tone became quiet, mourning. "I could've saved you."

"What do you mean? You have saved me, Draco. You saved me just a few days ago."

"You know what I'm talking about," he said, and there was a raw pain in his voice that she couldn't ignore. "At the manor. Bellatrix was torturing you on the drawing room floor, and I just stood there. The whole time you've been here, I've never been angry at you. I'm angry at myself."

"You could've been killed," she soothed, grabbing his hand. "Look at me."

He didn't pull his hand out from under hers, but he didn't clasp hers in return either. His breathing was shaky like he was choking back sobs. He met her eyes as she had asked, putting in his best effort to mask the raw pain hidden within them.

"You could've too," he spat. "That's why I hate myself. I'm a coward; I'm selfish."

"Why do you try so hard to make me hate you, Malfoy?"

"Because you're in my nightmares," he blurted. "Your screams, your blood, everything. You're in my nightmares-

"That isn't going on anymore," she objected. "It's not real."

"It was real," he pointed out. "But that's not my only reason. I-

"Then what is it? Why do you-

"Your eyes," he mumbled drunkenly, still meeting them. "Amber."

They both sat there for a while in silence. He could feel the gears in Granger's inflated brain turning, but his were too sluggish at that moment to wonder what she thought of his slip of the tongue. She was biting her lip like she always did when she was thinking, and her white teeth enticed Draco more than they should have. He was suddenly very aware of how close they were sitting beside each other, of her dainty hand against his firm one, and of the warmth of her body. Dangerous.

"I feel like," she paused, still pensive. "I feel like there's a barrier between us. I've tried to break it but I've had no success. It's a kind of like glass… you allow me to see glimpses of you but you're still distant, somehow."

"Why do you want to know me, Granger?" he questioned. "There isn't much good about me to know."

"I think there's good in you somewhere," she hummed. "I just think that you refuse to admit it to yourself. Why are you afraid to be good?"

"I haven't redeemed myself. I won't allow anyone to think I'm good until I've redeemed myself."

"You're so close to your redemption, Draco," she whispered, and he shivered at her breath against his ear. "Closer than you know."

He eyed her again, questioning. He could still feel her breath in his ear for a few moments after her mouth had moved away from his ear.

Suddenly and without a word, he pulled his hand out from under hers and began making his way up to Shell Cottage.

Hermione stayed at the fire for another hour, wondering what he had meant by his comment about her eyes.

.

.

December 14,1999

The battlefield was the same as Draco had remembered it. The sounds of screaming, explosions, and spells whooshing by. A stench of death, sweat, blood and vomit hung in the air around them, but it somehow relieved him. Because this was reality; this was not the shelter that Shell Cottage brought to him. This was what the wizarding population was going through every day. He found some comfort in knowing something of the truth rather than the white lie the safe house was all together.

But some things did not relieve him. He was distracted, and he was beginning to learn how inconvenient it was to care about anyone in a war. He thought that maybe that Blaise or Granger would be his one weak moment in which he was killed, but oblivion seemed like a gift compared to current circumstances. But Draco wanted to live. He wanted to earn his redemption. He more than just Lovegood, Granger, Blaise and Molly at his funeral. He wanted to be worth remembering.

He was unsure whether his first Killing Curse hit one of his old friends; he didn't care enough to ponder it. His conscience was clean when it came to killing Death Eaters. But he waited for them to try to torture or kill him; something that usually happened almost instantaneously. It was when a voice he recognized to be Marcus Flint sent a killing curse flying his way that Draco killed someone whose identity he knew behind the mask. He had expected to feel nothing, to know it was only self defense. But he tasted the 'Avada Kedavra' on his tongue. It tasted like bile, like death. And then there was a numbness that engulfed him, but it was an empty numbness rather than the pleasant one one could acquire from downing a bottle of firewhiskey. He would have collapsed and perhaps thrown up, but when he saw out of the corner of his eye that only a few feet away, a Death Eater Granger had gotten up and started to sneak up behind her.

Frantically, he ran and grabbed her out of the way of the killing curse, knocking both of them both down into the ravine at the edge of the forest. He had no idea exactly where he was, but he assumed it was somewhere not far from Hogwarts. The trees did have the same coloring and shape as those at Hogsmeade.

She had landed on top of him, and she immediately drew her wand and pressed it against his Adam's Apple. "What the bloody hell are you doing, Malfoy?" she seethed. "You are spying for you father. I fucking knew-

"Actually, Granger, I was saving your fucking life," he spat back. "You would have gotten killed without even knowing what had happened if I hadn't pulled-

"Pulled would be a light word," she snapped, holding out her palm so he could see the thorn caught in her hand. "I don't get how you could have fooled me all this time while being a fucking spy-

"What?" he breathed, his eyes widening. "Granger, I would never-

"Give me one reason that I shouldn't petrify you and leave you here-

"Well for one, I just saved your life," he shouted, though it only sounded like talking in the midst of the volume of the screams and explosions. "Be rational! You shouldn't have accused me of betraying you! I would never-

"You shouldn't have startled me like that!" she yelled. "You should have at least shouted something or-

"There isn't time for that! I could hear that curse fly by us in the time we were in the air. There wasn't time to be polite. If you can't handle having your life saved, and you can't handle killing instead of stunning, you shouldn't be here. You've almost gotten yourself killed."

"Be more understanding, Malfoy! I-

"It's kind of hard to be understanding towards someone who currently has the tip of their wand jabbing into my throat and-

He interrupted her, clutching her wand and apparating them back to Shell Cottage. She was still screaming at him when they landed.

"Who are you to pull me out of battle, Malfoy? Who are you to-

"I'm someone who doesn't want you to die," he exclaimed, finally winning the struggle for her wand. "This clearly wasn't good for you. You're fucking hysterical! Molly shouldn't have let you go in the first place!"

"I was watching you! I was watching you fight! You aren't fit! You'll kill without the blink of an eye!"

"It's a bloody war! It's kill or be killed! Now isn't the time to force your Gryffindor nobility on me! Are you really dense enough to think that hexes will keep you safe? Blaise and I were both reluctant, but we had to-

"That's because you two are carbon copies of your fathers!" she shrieked.

He tossed her wand back to her, balling his hands into such tight fists that his nails drew blood from his palms. "I was going to keep this from you to keep you safe. I was going to keep you from going back to battle," he muttered far too evenly. "But fine. If killing Death Eaters, keeping you from returning while you're in a state of hysteria and saving your life still makes me my father, I'll let you make your own call. Just know that you aren't safe out there, and I won't be going back. I'm done fighting for a redemption with someone who thinks I'm unredeemable. I'm done trying to make whatever the fuck this is work when you won't even meet me halfway."

And then she disappeared. He hated himself for still worrying about whether she would come back from this alive.

.

The moment he went back into his bedroom, he swiped his whole arm along the top of his dresser. The mirrors and empty firewhiskey bottles smashed the moment they hit the floor, while the rest of his possessions scattered. He kicked his desk over. He punched a hole through the wall where it sat.

Draco had never felt so overwhelmed. He was exhausted from all the hours of battle, and anxiety over Granger's safety was still wearing on him. He felt some sick sense of guilt for killing Death Eaters. "What the fuck is happening to me?" he cursed.

And then he broke down in sobs and collapsed to the ground; a mixture of anxiety, anger, exhaustion and sadness drowning him.

.

He drank himself to a point that he couldn't stand up. He just sat on the couch pathetically, staring at the door and praying to a deity he knew didn't exist that Granger, Lovegood, Blaise, Molly - and hell - even Weasley, would walk through it.

But by the time it was seven in the evening, Draco passed out, overtaken by his exhaustion and firewhiskey consumption.

.

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December 15, 1999

Draco opened his eyes that morning to see Blaise Zabini coming in through the front door, followed by Weasley, Lovegood, Molly and then Granger. He tried to look away from her when she entered, but the pure and honest surprise he felt that she had survived on the battlefield while in a state of raw hysteria made it impossible for him to do so. She looked rather beat up; there were bruises on her, and there was a rather deep cut on her lower lip.

But she was alive. And that was all he needed to know.

Before she could notice his stare, he averted his eyes to Blaise, who grinned triumphantly at him before pulling him in for a long hug.

"Why did you leave?" Blaise asked him before falling onto the couch beside him.

Draco scanned his surroundings to make sure the others had returned to their rooms before he spoke. "Granger pissed me off."

"You look more brooding than angry, mate," Blaise smirked. "Did you two have a lover's quarrel?"

"We aren't lovers," Draco objected too quickly.

Blaise's smirk only widened at this. "But you want to be, don't you? You stare at her like you want to push her up against the wall and shag her senseless."

"Drop it," he had to pause to regain composure. Blaise's comment had caught him off guard. "I saved her life."

"Oh?"

"She's fucking mental. After I saved her life, she screamed at me like a bloody banshee and compared both of us to our fathers."

Blaise frowned, thinking for a moment before speaking. "That's…"

"Annoying? Fucking insane? Infuriating? All of the above?"

"Yes," Blaise agreed.

"I'm on square one with her, Blaise," he sighed heavily. "I didn't think that it would bother me. I wish that it didn't bother me. But it does. She has… grown on me."

"I know," his friend smirked at him knowingly. "I think everyone does. That's the reason Weasley was shitting himself over the idea of you two staying out alone together. Gryffindors may be daft, but no one here is stupid enough to miss sexual tension when they see it. Petty gossip is all we really have to entertain ourselves with."

"Well, marvelous, I find joy in being the centerpiece of petty gossip," Draco drawled sarcastically. "Fucking nosey arseholes, all of them."

"No one's arguing with you there, mate."

.

.

December 18, 1999

Hermione was guilty; more guilty than she had been in a long time.

"That's because you two are carbon copies of your fathers."

The words had left her before she thought of what the effect of them would be. But he had not sought her out since she had returned from battle, and she was starting to go mad. It had been a while since they had gone three days without even exchanging a glance. She had tried to catch his eye at every meal, but his grey eyes remained cold and unwavering, despite their knowledge of her staring at them.

The sudden lack of Malfoy was… startling, for lack of a better word. She had grown used to their banter, and she had grown used to the presence of the arrogant blonde. But now he had gone, leaving her with a void.

So she sat behind him late at night while he was watching TV, staring at him for a few minutes without a word. He didn't meet her eyes. In fact, he seemed unfazed by her presence. It was as though she was a ghost.

This was one of the things she had learned about Draco Malfoy; that he could appear to be anything he wished to so long as he had the will. But she had never seen him look this hardened, this apathetic towards her. He just watched TV like she didn't even exist, which enraged her to no end.

She tried clearing her throat to get his attention, but his eyes didn't waver. He didn't even blink. She cringed at the idea that perhaps this time she had pushed him away, and that perhaps he wasn't going to speak with her again.

"Draco," she murmured after a while.

"I don't recall inviting you to sit down, Granger," he mumbled, still staring forcefully at the television. "Or giving any indication that I want to talk to you, particularly when there's a movie on. I'm not in the mood."

"Well, I'm 'not in the mood' for you to ignore me," she snapped. "You haven't said anything to me for three days. You haven't even looked at me."

"I see no reason why I would have any desire to look at you," he said evenly.

"You're just going to shut me out, then? Sod all the conversations we had before our altercation, right? Am I that disposable to you?"

"I think you're disposable?" he laughed, but there was not a hint of humor within his laughter; it was cruel and merciless. "That's fucking rich, coming from you."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You know what it means," he sneered. "You compared me to my father. Nothing screams 'you're fucking worthless' the way that does."

"So this silence is all my fault?"

He looked at her, and she didn't think she had seen him look at her like this since their Hogwarts days. His lips were still curled into an unpleasant sneer, and his silver eyes were both cold and smoldering all at once.

"You at least owe me an answer to that, Malfoy. You at least-

"I owe you nothing," he hissed. "Not a damn thing. I saved your life without ever getting a thanks. And you know what? If it had come down to it, I would've taken that curse for you if I didn't think I had the time to push you out of the way."

"Draco, please, I-

"Don't call me by my first name," he snarled. "You have no right. Not anymore, Granger. I put my life on the line to save yours. I felt that curse coast by the tip of my ear. One more centimeter and I would've died for you. And what do I get for it? I get compared to a man who has abused my mother and I for all eighteen pathetic years of my existence."

"You startled me," she whispered. "I wasn't expecting-

"No one expects shit in a war. No one is ever ready to be rescued, to be killed, to be anything. You being startled is no excuse for that low blow."

"I-

"Shut up for a moment, will you?" he spat. "Do you know how many people I give a damn about, Granger? Five. I can count the number of people I care about on one hand. And for a moment, you were on my list. For a moment I thought you might have actually found me to be redeemable-

"You are redeemable," she interrupted. "You are-

"I can't be my father and redeemable simultaneously. That's not how it works."

"Draco-

"Can you just listen for one bloody minute of your life?" he clasped her wrists so tightly she felt that they might break under his grasp. "Listen to me, because I'm not going to repeat myself. I cared about you. I thought you were my friend. I thought that you thought I was worth saving-

"I do," she practically sobbed. "I do-

"Then why did you compare me to my father?" the tendons in his neck bulged, and he looked like he was in agony. "Why did you…"

"I was scared," she replied pathetically. "I just… I feel like we were on the verge of something happening. I don't want to throw whatever that something was a way just because-

"Just because of something you did? This isn't your call to make. This is mine. And I'm not going to drop what you said simply because you fucking tell me to. I'm done being your bitch, Granger."

And in the blink of an eye, he released her wrists and was gone from the room so quickly that she didn't have the time to ask him to stay.

She thought back to just four days ago, when he had told her he couldn't be close to her because of her eyes, whatever that meant. 'Amber,' he had slurred.

And now she wouldn't know what he meant. She had cut whatever that was short over being startled. She agreed with him, that no one was fit to fight in wars. But she was beginning to see that perhaps her, most of all, couldn't handle pressure.

Author's Note

Sorry I've been so inactive... Life is wild.

I rewrote this chapter and that's why I deleted chapter six pretty quickly.

I have a plan for the next chapter so it should be up soon. Happy Holidays/New Year! :)