yayyyy. it's a pretty short chapter compared to the rest but I've been meaning to update. please review, good or bad. =] I wrote this chapter...ugh probably three different times in three different ways. This one won out in the end. The others were too sappy.

Chapter Seven

The Magic In the Storm

Part II

I never thought I'd change my opinion again,

But you moved me in a way that I've never known.

You moved me in a way that I've never known.

Savage Garden - Break Me, Shake Me

The cemetery was pitch black, aside from the occasional bolt of lightening. The rain was pouring harder than ever all of a sudden. Malfoy released himself from Hermione quickly and set off toward the left somewhere. The direction didn't mean much, as Hermione could barely see two inches in front of her.

"Do you even know where you're going?" She called over the rain and thunder.

"They've had their plots since the first war." Malfoy said as he paused and turned halfway around. "Now, are you coming?"

He turned away again and Hermione jogged to catch up. "I don't know if…it doesn't feel right." She slowed alongside him once she met him. He shrugged, which Hermione took to mean she could leave, but she didn't.

They walked in silence for a minute or two, though it seemed like ages. Hermione felt uncomfortable, but she had promised the Weasleys there would be no problems and she was already breaking the rules without knowing why. Ten feet away, she stopped; the large ivory stone was outstandingly somber above the fresh mounds of dirt.

Malfoy continued walking, but slower. Once he was close enough he stood there for a long time, hands in his pockets. The rain would let up and stop momentarily, and then start again with a vengeance. Like a pendulum, going through the motions. Hermione didn't know exactly how long it had been; minutes, hours. Measurements of time began to bleed together.

"It's getting late," Hermione called. There was no reply. Malfoy didn't even move. The rain poured harder, and Hermione tightened her hood and glanced at the sky as it flashed. "Malfoy?" She thought she saw him nod, or make some other head movement. But the dark and the lightening and thunder were messing with her mind.

She saw Malfoy bend down slowly, reaching for something on the ground with his good arm. He picked something up carefully in his hand. Hermione couldn't see what it was and stepped closer, anxious. Just as she did, he reeled back momentarily, chucking a large rock at the face of the headstone. A huge crack sounded, and in the flash of lightening, she saw a hole where a chunk of granite was only seconds before.

Just as Malfoy went to pick up another nearby rock, Hermione raced to him. "What are you doing?" She shouted above the weather. She held back his arm as he prepared for another launch. "Just stop." She told him.

"Don't tell me what to do, Granger," Malfoy hollered. He paused a moment, and then chucked the second rock at the center of the headstone.

"You're being stupid," she said quietly. Malfoy didn't reach for another rock. He turned around sharply without taking another look at the graves and glided past Hermione quickly.

"Malfoy!"

He kept walking, ignoring her as she tried to keep up with him again.

"What aren't you saying?"

"Nothing worth hearing, I promise."

"Why can't you just talk to people?" Hermione whispered, now stopping where she was. Malfoy stopped a few feet in front of her, not turning around.

"You don't understand. And I promise, you never will," he said, sighing. "At least, I hope you never do."

"Don't you, though?" Hermione snorted. And then she regretted it. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"You're right. Most people would think that. But contrary to popular belief, I'm not a bad person," he said, and then took a deep breath. "I'm not really evil. I could never be evil." Hermione sat down a few feet away from him on a nearby bench, and he stood in the rain. Hermione just sat, and she listened. "My parents, my...father, was a bad person. He was an evil man. But he thought what he was doing was right. And...so did I, for a time. Even through last year I still had faith that what he was doing was for the best, and everything he told me was what everyone should and would believe...if they had any sort of intelligence at all. But now I know for sure...that they were wrong."

"Why now? All of the sudden?"

He laughed. He actually laughed. It wasn't a big laugh, but a small one, with a surprised, amused smile. "You, actually." He didn't let her interrupt. "Even though I never wanted to admit it, you're one of the smartest people I've ever met. And when my parents died, I thought about that. Because if the intelligent people were doing the right thing...why weren't you doing what we were, why were you muggle-born? And I knew I was wrong my whole life. And my parents were wrong."

"Those are some big words, Malfoy," Hermione said. She didn't know if she was willing to accept those things yet.

"I know. I don't expect you to believe me."

"I didn't say that. I said they're big words." She stood up and took his arm. "It's pouring out here, lets go back."

Hermione was going to turn to apparate when Malfoy kissed her. Somehow, they still managed to apparate back to his room where the had come from. It seemed like it was ages ago, when it had only been just over an hour.

"I-" Hermione stepped away very quickly. The kiss only lasted moments, the time it took them to return, and a short moment after. "I have to go. Now," she said. And with a foggy, confused head, she left the bedroom. And even though she could just barely hear Malfoy ("Wait, Granger, I-") in her ringing ears, she ignored him, taking off down the hall into her own bedroom.

When she got there everything silenced. The ringing stopped, and although her heart was still beating quickly, it stopped pounding audibly in her chest. She sat down on her bed, glanced once at the clock and flopped onto her back. Not bothering to change her clothes, she found comfort in snuggling deep beneath her comforter and closing her eyes, inhaling the familiar scent of her pillow.

In the other room, Malfoy lowered himself to the floor, leaning against the wall beneath the window. Lightening still flashed and thunder still shook the delicate building. "Damn," he muttered to himself. And he could still smell the faint traces of Jasmine as he rested his head in the crook of his good arm. He wasn't about to sleep, he was too wired. He had gotten the closure he needed from the visit to the cemetery, for now at least. And now he didn't want to think about it. So he stood up, getting off to an okay start, but falling into his doorway as soon as he swung the door open and had to lean against the door jam to catch his breath, his heart beginning to speed up and his throat slowly becoming scratchy and swollen. He coughed a few times and let it pass, slowly padding down to Hermione's room. He knocked once.

Inside, Hermione was still wide awake, though desperately trying to fall asleep and escape to somewhere...anywhere else. But she knew that if she closed her eyes that she would be thinking about the day, about the night. And everything she didn't need or want to be worrying about. Like the fact that she nearly enjoyed.... So she didn't answer. She pretended to be sound asleep.

"C'mon, Granger. I know you're not asleep already. You're not that tired," Malfoy called through the closed door.

She held her breath and the majority of her silently wished him to go away. Of course, the rest of her wished him to keep trying.

"Just say I can come in," He said quietly, gentler than before. Still she was silent. "Just say I can't come in," he said in the same tone, trying to catch her in a trap. It worked, she was once again silent.

So he opened the door. Hermione was curled up in her bed, facing the wall, in a fetal position. Her eyes were wide open, staring into space. Malfoy didn't bother to shut the door behind him. But he sad down on the edge of her bed and turned halfway to face her.

"I'm sorry that happened," he said, though it wasn't exactly true, and Hermione knew it.

"You scare me," Hermione said.

Malfoy snorted, only to keep himself from laughing. "Did you miss the speech I gave back there? I thought-"

"No," Hermione said, a slightly nervous laugh following her words. "You scare me. You scare me because you don't scare me. Because I'm not hexing you for sitting there right now. Because I don't want to be afraid of you anymore. We still have days left to deal with one another...it's too much work to keep our guards up all the time."

Malfoy stared at Hermione, who was still staring at the wall or into space. She didn't want eye contact. If they made eye contact, neither one knew if they would be able to keep themselves from doing something regrettable. So he stared at her, and she stared at nothing. His eyes traced the outline and shape of her face. Her browbone, her nose, her chin. And she drew pictures on the wall in her mind. Pictures from the past. Laughing with her friends, her brief moments of terror for their lives in the past. Her parents, vacations with them in the countryside, at the beach...anything that came into her mind was a mural before her very eyes.

After many minutes, she spoke. "You kissed me," she whispered.

"I did."

"And..." She was fishing for words. But from him or herself, neither of them knew. It hadn't been planned, it hadn't been foreseen. But there was a knowledge in Hermione's brain that she couldn't deny: she wasn't afraid of it. And that terrified her the most of all. She knew she could never tell anyone. Until now, she never kept secrets from her friends, but now she knew she would have to because this would break them.

"I apologized. But it was a formality," Malfoy sighed. "I'm not sorry."

"You should be, though, right? You should be ashamed. So should I."

"But you're not."

The room was quiet. It was hauntingly quiet. The storm outside had stopped completely, there was no sound from insects or animals. The only sounds were inside their minds; the screaming and the protesting. They still refused to look at one another, to stare the truth in the face.