A few hours later she had failed on two counts; she was not asleep and she was failing miserably at not making a sound. It was bitterly cold, nearly as cold as it had been in the room below this one but she did not have a blanket and the clean clothes that she had put on were even less warm than her old battered and torn ones. Consequently she was freezing, shivering violently and her teeth were chattering very loudly. She had tried to clamp her jaw shut but it was no good. Hermione did not miss the irony; when it had been colder and there was no one with her downstairs, her teeth had not made a sound.

"Cold Granger?"

She didn't respond.

"I bet you are wishing you had that blanket now."

Still she did not reply.

After a while he broke the silence again, "Come here."

'No way' she thought but said nothing.

"Granger," he said, a little exasperated, "if you come here than we can share our body heat and then we will both be warmer."

Hermione was not impressed with that idea and didn't move.

Two hours later she was forced to reconsider; she was so cold now that her teeth were chattering to such an extent she wondered if they would shatter. Her head throbbed and she had lost feeling in her exposed feet, her fingers tingled. All she could think about was how cold she was and how much warmer it would be if they huddled like penguins do in the Antarctic. But the thought of coming so close to him filled him with dread. In the end though she had no choice.

She stood up slowly and walked over to him, and sat down nearby. For a while she wondered if he were sleeping because he did not move or seem to acknowledge her presence. Closer to, she could see that he was shivering; "Come to your senses?"

Saying nothing she scooted closer to him.

Ten minutes later she found herself in a situation she never would have dreamed of two hours ago. She was sitting between his legs and was leaning against his front, his arms wrapped around her waist. She was certainly warmer; he was like a hot water bottle compared to her and it was surprisingly comfortable.

She did not know how long they sat like that, but now she was getting sleepy and her eyes closed of their own accord.

"Granger," Malfoy said softly, "Granger, I'm sorry."

"For what?" she said roughly, anger building up inside her at the memory of earlier. "Kidnapping me? Kissing me? Threatening to do more? Threatening to kill me? Trying to kill my friends?"

There was a very long pause before he replied, so long that she thought he wasn't going to but eventually she heard his voice, "I don't know whether I could have ever truly harmed you. I tried to lock you up and just forget about you, but I couldn't. Father saw that weakness in me and is uninterested in having a son like that."

She raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean by that?"

"I thought you were supposed to be the clever one, Granger, what do you think I meant by that?"

Hermione glared but as she was not facing him of course he could not see it so she said, "So you just thought you were assert your authority over me? Just to make yourself feel better?" As soon as she said it she knew she had spoken the truth, she could feel that he had tensed and that his grip on her had loosened somewhat.

"I'm sorry; I should never have done it."

"You've got that one right!"

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

She was not sure what to reply; this did seem like a sincere apology but could she really trust him? How did she know this wasn't some elaborate plan? And besides, she had been so scared that he was going to rape her! A simple sorry (or three) certainly did not solve that! Even though she didn't want to admit it, she was afraid of him and his humbleness puzzled her; it just seemed so out of character and she found it hard to trust it. But now… now she was exhausted and needed to sleep.