Chapter 6: A Part that's Not in the Movie or Book

Draco slept very badly that night, very badly indeed. First, it wasn't easy to sleep in a suit made of tin. He performed a spell to soften the blasted costume considerably, and it worked to a point, but for authenticity purposes, it was still a tin suit, making him still a tin man, who supposedly didn't have a heart.

This also made him a liar.

He had lied to her. Perhaps that was why he had trouble sleeping last night. Perhaps it wasn't the discomfort of his suit, but the discomfort of his insides, because his long dormant morals were being brought to surface, which caused him to toss and turn all night, although his morals had long been a part of his life, and had never caused him to lose sleep before. It was probably because his morals used to be a tad twisted, and now they were running a bit on the good side.

He walked off by himself to think, wash, eat and take care of other bodily functions, and when he returned to the little grove of trees where they all slept last night, he felt her presence long before he saw her. He turned around and there she was.

She was the stuff dreams were made of. She was the stuff writers wrote about, dreamers dreamt about, poetics rhymed about, singers sang about, artist painted about, and lovers loved about. She was goodness and light and beauty and intelligent and she was much too good for Draco Malfoy, but he was just selfish enough to want her anyway. Perhaps his morals were still a bit on the flimsy side.

She smiled at him, asked him if he slept well, then turned around to have a nice laugh and chat with the Harry and Ron clones, (or was that clowns?). He had an instant ache deep in his fake hollow chest cavity. He wanted that. He needed that, or he would cease to be. Who needed a heart to live? Not him. He needed her, or he would shrivel up and die.

How long had he felt this way? Perhaps for a long time, probably since they were kids. He started thinking of her as more than an annoyance when they were out of school. In fact, if Draco Malfoy was an honest man, (and most people would say that he was not) he would say that he could recall the moment cupid's arrow hit him clearly as if it happened yesterday.

It was a year after the war ended. Most of the trials had already begun, and their world was starting to heal. His father had already been sentenced, but due to the fact that he gave up the identity of many of his fellow Death Eaters, and because he gave the Ministry some much needed cash (in other words, a large bribe) he was sentenced to only seven years in prison. He had already served five of those years, so he had two more to go.

His mother got off much better. Because Harry Potter testified that Narcissa helped him during the last battle, the Ministry showed leniency toward her and she was sentenced to eighteen months of house arrest and five years probation with restrictions regarding the use of magic.

Draco, because he was underage during the war and under duress when he committed his crimes, was given a full pardon for all his transgressions, even for what happened regarding the death of their Headmaster. Most people thought that it was an unfair verdict, and that he deserved more. He didn't care what they thought.

A year to the day after the final battle the Ministry declared a formal holiday, and called it "A Day of Healing". They had a gathering at Hogwarts, revealed a memorial for the fallen, and honoured the living that fought for the light side.

Draco went back to Hogwarts that day. He didn't go to hear the bloody, stupid speeches. He didn't go to see the stupid stone memorial they had erected. He didn't go to honour the living, or to mourn the dead. To be truthful, he didn't know why he wanted to go. Going there was one of the hardest things he ever had to do. He was a coward at heart…he could easily be the cowardly lion in this story, but he wasn't a coward that day. He bucked up the courage, because he knew he had to face his demons and bury his past, before he could build a future.

Some people made crude or rude remarks to him that day. If he had a galleon for every time someone called him a Death Eater that day, he would have been a wealthy man, if he wasn't already a wealthy man.

A few people even told him to leave. Told him he had no right to be there. Told him he should be rotting in prison right next to his Father.

But not her.

That day it was 'All hail the effing Golden Trio'! Everyone was shaking their hands, and smiling at them and wishing them well. Everyone who made a speech had to mention the name of 'Harry Potter', and in the next breath, add on 'Hermione Granger' and 'Ron Weasley'. It almost made Draco sick, except for the fact that all three of them seemed embarrassed by the attention. None of them gave a speech. None of them stood up on a chair and said, "Hey, look at me, I saved our world!"

And when some stupid git threw a glass of punch in Draco's face and called him a dirty, rotten, bastard Death Eater who killed their Headmaster, Draco could only pull out a handkerchief, dry off his face, then clench his fists to his sides and walk away.

He felt like a tin man that day, because apparently everyone around him thought he didn't have a heart, or any emotions whatsoever, or even a shred of humanity, because of the way they were all treating him. He started to leave when she approached.

He remembered the way her hand felt on his arm, even through his jacket and shirt sleeves. She put her hand on his arm, and he turned around quickly, ready for a battle, ready to finally use fisticuffs to ward off the enemies, when he saw it was Hermione Granger.

She flinched when she saw his fist, and removed her hand from his arm. He lowered his fist. He frowned. She smiled. He said, "Sorry." She said, "That's alright." Then, she did the thing that made him fall in love, or at least, the thing that started the ball rolling, or in his case, the arrow zing toward his heart.

She reached up for his face. She brushed away his bangs first, and then her hand went gently to his cheek, brushing away a few last drops of the red punch from that wanker's glass.

The touch of her hand on his face made his normally absent heart pump back to life that day. She cocked her head to the side and said, "Some people can be so heartless sometimes. Forget about them. You're a bigger and better man than that man, Draco Malfoy. You came here today, not to cause trouble, but to heal, and I think that's a very brave thing for you to do. It takes a lot of courage, a lot of guts, and most of all, it takes someone with the capacity to forgive and forget. What I'm trying to say is it takes a lot of heart. Never mind the naysayers, just let your heart heal, Malfoy. Let your heart heal."

He swallowed the lump in his throat. Her hand slid from his cheek to his forearm, and he looked at it quickly. As if embarrassed, she removed it just as quickly. She smiled once more and then said goodbye and was on her way. She left him.

And she was wrong about something. His heart would never completely heal, because she left it with a hole, a hole that only she could fill, but which she probably never would, especially because he was lying to her.

He had to tell her the truth.

"Draco?" He looked up and she was before him. "We're ready to go. I don't know if we have a long day's journey ahead of us or not, but we should get started."

"I have to tell you something first, Hermione," he said, taking her arm.

She nodded and urged, "Go on."

He looked toward the others and asked, "May we have a moment alone?"

The Scarecrow and the Lion picked up the basket and the cat and walked away from the little grove of trees. Hermione smiled at him, just as she had that day at the celebration at Hogwarts. "Please, what do you need to tell me?"

Hermione felt her heart tumble around in her chest while she stared at the Tin Man. He looked so much like Draco Malfoy. He could be his double. He also seemed troubled by something, pensive, and upset. She recalled Draco acting the same way one time before, a year or so after the war, when they had that memorial at Hogwarts.

Draco had seemed so handsome that day, though he also seemed menacing and had a predatory air that she found sexy. He frowned the entire time, much as he was doing now, but she still found him incredibly attractive, of course, the man in front of her wasn't the real Draco Malfoy, but he was still handsome.

His gaze traveled down her body and then came back to her face. He placed his hands on her arms. She couldn't remember the last time she felt this excited by a man. He pulled her closer, and she felt no apprehension, just anxiety and anticipation. Her body was pressed up against a suit made of tin, for goodness sakes, yet she was imagining it was hard muscle, and the lean frame of a man she had a crush on, but still party despised. She found herself with an odd mixture of emotions: annoyance, lust, and confusion.

And she had the sudden urge to kiss him! Instead, she reached up and pulled off his little funnel hat. She reached for his hair. It was soft and silky. How odd. They were so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. She stroked his hair back once more, smiled at him, and said, "What is it, Draco? You can confide in me."

He pulled her into an embrace, and her stomach flopped. He whispered into her hair, "I think there's been some sort of mistake. The spell that trapped you here went crazy. You have to understand, I didn't plan this. I didn't know this was going to happen." He was whispering right in her ear, and she shivered again, because the feel of his arms around her, and his breath on her neck, was too intimate, too much, too soon.

He gave into the urge and kissed her earlobe, since his mouth was so close. She sucked in a breath.

The thought that he might kiss her made her quiver with anticipation, and it also made her mentally slap herself. Though there was a remarkable resemblance, THIS WAS NOT DRACO MALFOY, IT WAS THE TIN MAN!

His lips grazed across her neck and he said, "I'm really Draco Malfoy, not the tin man."

A/N: And I must say…Dum, Dum, DUM!