Ahh, yes! I feel so accomplished with this fanfic. And, the reviews make me uber happy. (: Keep 'em coming, guys. Anywho, enjoy!
"Draco?" Hermione questioned when she reached the tree that he had seen her crying under.
"I'm up here!" He told her, laughing slightly.
She looked up and smiled slightly. He looked gorgeous sitting on a branch of the willow, his blonde hair reflecting the soft sunlight of the morning. "How did you get up there?" She asked.
"I'll show you," he told her, carefully climbing back down. When he reached her, he took her right hand carefully in his left. When she flinched slightly, he let go. "Do you trust me?" He asked her, looking at the ground.
She took a breath, steadying herself before she answered him. She gently put two fingers under his chin, guiding his face so he had to look at her when she answered. "Draco," she started. "I trust you – probably more than I trust even Harry or Ron right now, it's just hard for me to not react when a man touches me, even if I trust them one hundred and ten percent."
"Sorry," he told her. She smiled slightly and moved her hand from under his chin to touch his hand softly.
"I am too," she told him. She didn't want him to think that she didn't trust him. Truly, she trusted him more than she should, considering all that he had done to her in the past, but something about him made her want to trust.
He smiled. "Do you trust me to not let you fall from this tree if we climb it?" He asked. She gave a tight nod. Hermione had never really been one for climbing trees. She had fallen out of a small one when she was younger, playing with the muggle children, but that was about it. "C'mon, then. Do what I do."
It took twelve tries, but Hermione was finally sitting in the tree securely next to Draco. He had kept her promise, and hadn't let her fall. "Thank you," Hermione told him after a few minutes of just sitting.
He gazed quizzically back at her. "Thank you for what?" He asked.
She looked directly back into his bright blue eyes. "For making me live again."
He sighed, and suddenly his eyes seemed to gaze miles away. "I know from my own experiences what it's like to be a dead soul living in a live body."
Hermione looked at him. "Tell me your story now," she asked gently. "I don't want to wait until tonight to hear it, and there's not classes 'til after lunch today."
He sighed, his brilliant eyes darkening a few shades. "My story," he told her. "Is not one that any sane person would want to hear told."
She laughed sadly. "Lucky for you, then. I'm no sane person at all."
"If you were, we wouldn't be sitting here together," he agreed.
"Stop distracting me from you story. Tell me, please."
He sighed again. "Yes, alright. Well I was born much around the same time as Harry was. There was war everywhere, and my mother feared for my life. She felt that death lived in the house – in the form of Voldemort just as much as my father. She almost lost me, you know. Voldemort used the cruciatus curse against her in a violent fit of rage. He knew she was pregnant, but what did he care about the child living in her womb?"
Hermione sucked in her breath. She could be living without Draco to comfort her right now if Voldemort had gone too far with Narcissa.
"My mother, you must understand, loved my father once, but hasn't for a long time. She stays because I must stay, and she does love me. She never supported Voldemort, and she is not branded with the dark mark. Both her and I have fought long and hard to leave our arms unscathed." He sighed, "Perhaps it isn't enough, though. Eventually Father will grow tired of our rebellion against the Dark Lord. One day we may be forced to join his forces, and I fear that my day is drawing nearer, even as we speak."
"You don't have to join him, Draco," Hermione started, but Draco cut her off.
"No, Hermione. You don't understand. When the day comes that Mother and I will be forced to join Voldemort, there will be no choice. There will be no way out. It's fight until we are forced to submit, or die. Personally, I no longer favor the latter." He shuddered, his eyes still in a far away place. "My father," he told her, "Is an evil man. He does not care whom he hurts in his crusades with Voldemort, and he does not care about us. He used to beat me when Mother wasn't around. I was only three the first time I remember it. One day Mother came home early from shopping. My father was standing over me, a belt in one hand, and wand in the other. She screamed for him to stop. Begged him to think of what he was doing; what he had been doing without her knowledge. When he was done with her, he moved back to me. He always healed us afterwards; couldn't stand to let the Malfoy name be marred by the beating of his wife and child, but our wounds went more than skin deep."
Hermione could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn't believe the words pouring out of Draco's mouth. The cruel hands of fate hadn't just recently marred him; he had been suffering far longer than she ever had been. The only love he had ever experienced was his mother's, and though that love was more important than any other, how could he know how to be kind without the proper guidance from both parents? Now she understood why Draco was so cruel; it was all he had known since he was small. He didn't know how to talk to women, because the way his father treated them.
Draco turned back to her then, his eyes shining with tears. He wiped the pad of his thumb across her cheek gently. "I'm sorry," he told her. "I didn't mean to make you cry. I just wanted another living being to know what made me who I am today."
She hadn't realized that her tears had spilt over until Draco had pointed it out. "I'm glad you told me," she said. "You're the only person, muggle or magical, who knows what happened to me."
"You should tell Potter and Weasl – er, I mean, Harry and Ron – what he did to you. They can help, and I can tell that they want to. They're not stupid, Hermione. They know that something is wrong with you, and they want to know what it is. They've been your best friends since first year. Since that troll attacked you in the bathroom stall. Try to let them know."
Hermione sighed. "I don't know if I can do that," she told him honestly.
"Try," he urged her.
"I will. I just don't know if I can." They sat in silence for a while, just sitting and thinking about all they'd learned about each other in such a short period of time. To think, they trusted one another so much, and yet, they'd been on opposite sides of the line just a week ago.
Finally, the warning bell for lunch rang. Hermione jumped. "We really ought to go. Our friends will be looking for us," she told him.
Draco reluctantly agreed. "Yes, I suppose they will be. Here," he said, holding out his hand to her. "I'll help you down from here." She cautiously took his hand, allowing him to help her down from the tree.
"Should we leave separately?" She asked him. "I know you might not want to be seen with a filthy mudblood witch like myself. It might spoil the Malfoy name. What would your friends say?"
His eyes darkened again. "Never call yourself that, Hermione. You're more pure than most 'pure bloods' I've met, and a much better witch at that."
Hermione blushed, the red showing brightly against her pale cheeks. "Thank you," she told him. She looked down and noticed that they were still holding hands. She blushed deeper and let go.
"C'mon," Draco told her. "Let's get going."
Right-o! Longest chapter yet! Haha, reviews would be muchly appreciated. The more I get, the faster I write. (:
