Chapter Nine

Closed eyes

Romeo save me, they try to tell me how to feel

This love is difficult, but it's real

"What has…" Draco started but Madam Pompfrey appeared beside him.

"Eat this," she pushed a large box of chocolate into his hands.

"But Hermione," he replied not taking the chocolate. Madam Pompfrey pushed it back into his hands.

"She will be fine," she said much more sensitively "but she has lost a lot of blood. From what Mr. Potter said you-know-who used a spell on her that drained her non-magical blood."

"That's…" Draco began but he was interrupted.

"Miss Granger is a muggle born so the spell should have drained all her blood, on a half-blood they would loose half their blood and you Mr. Malfoy would remain unaffected."

"She lost all her blood?" he asked astonished.

"No," Madam Pompfrey said seriously "that would have killed her instantly it appears that Miss. Granger has some wizarding blood in her family she retained barely half a pint and that kept her alive for the time it took Professor Dumbeldore to get to her. I am reintroducing blood to her slowly she will come round in a few days."

"Days!" Draco shouted.

"Mr. Malfoy," Madam Pompfrey started then lowered her voice "if we introduce blood too quickly there is a very real risk that she will have a heart attack." She faded away as though that was he end of the matter. Draco sat on the end of Hermione's bed.

"You really do love her don't you?" Harry asked Draco. Draco was about to rush up and defend himself but remembering what Professor Dumbeldore had said he simply responded.

"Yes I do,"

"What were you doing tonight?" Harry asked. Draco considered not telling him but was so sure that Hermione would anyway.

"I proposed," he said simply.

"What?" Harry asked shocked.

"You heard me Potter," he snapped a little sharper than he meant and he heard the last thing he thought possible.

"Congratulations," Harry said smiling at him. Draco was grateful Harry had not quizzed him.

"Look Potter I know I have been a git in the past." Harry's left eyebrow was raised slightly. "I might have been a pompous prat for a while but you have no idea what it was like growing up in that house. I was told things for as long as I can remember but long before they pushed me into the Death Eaters I saw how fake he was." He looked at Hermione "I love her and I have hid it under sneers and jibes and rudeness but when she found out who I was she just accepted me."

"What are you talking about?" Ron asked as he walked over to them. Although his reaction was different from Harry's when told of Draco and Hermione's engagement he still said a polite

"Congratulations" before saying "I saw what you did tonight mate no one can doubt who's side you where on when it mattered."

Several hours later and unusual dawn broke over the hospital wing it found Ron, Neville, Harry, Draco, Lavender and a newly awoken Ginny laughing over a story Ron was telling.

"And then I said you're a witch Hermione you don't need wood," and they all fell about laughing. Hermione had no idea how it happened but somewhere along the lines the five people who mattered to her most in the world had become firm friends. It was not a friendship like her, Ron and Harry's but they were more than cordial and Draco would occasionally shake his head and say,

There's no wood honestly" and giggle has as he said it.