Hey. Im trying to make up for the lack of updates by writing two in a night. Enjoy

Chapter Ten

Hermione was enjoying the scent of a slowly simmering stew. Fred and George were making quite a few side dishes and the stew was perfuming the whole downstairs. She figured she better go check on the patient. What else was there to do when two good workers slaved at a task she usually did alone? The twins just smirked when she said she was going upstairs. "Have fun up there." George was laughing. "Don't do anything we wouldn't do." Fred laughed at that.

Hermione was laughing as she walked out of the door, but a thought came to her. She peeked around the corner. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do." They didn't find that one funny at all. It disgusted them actually. "That's what I thought." She was giddy then, laughing almost too hard to walk up the stairs. It wasn't until she made it to the floor were Draco slept that she pulled it together. She needed to be quiet incase he was still sleeping.

Why her? Why hadn't someone else stepped up? Why had Snape brought him here? It might be best for him, the best care he could get, but not best for her. She knew it would get better. She opened the door to see him sitting up, awake and reading some book that she hadn't known he had been given. Snape must have left it, no one else would have. He didn't look up when she entered the room. Or even when she sat in the chair by his bed side. "Is it good?" She asked as quietly as she could, trying not to frighten him overly much. He still jumped like a hare, shocked by the voice and the fact that the speaker was so close without him noticing her entrance.

"Quite," he said, seeming genuinely courteous. "It's simply fascinating. Snape told me what you did to save me, he brought me this book." He seemed in awe of the book, because the book told him to be in awe of a girl born to muggles. "Did you really risk your life? For me?"

The look on his face. It was like the look of a boy looking at his childhood hero, so open and honest. It was beautiful and so sad. It broke her heart. Who grows up and is shocked when someone would die for them? Or was she just off, traveling around with Harry she had had more than her fair share of near death experiences. "Yes. I did." She would have said that it wasn't important, but that would feel like condescension to him and he didn't need that. If it had been Harry she would have said that it was because somebody had to save his sorry ass. That was closer, but that would remind him of all the some bodies that should save his sorry ass that clearly didn't.

He didn't say anything for awhile. She wasn't sure whether to even expect a response. He turned to face her and set the book down. He looked deep into her eyes. "Thank you." He closed his eyes, trying and failing to keep his emotions in check. A slow tear made its way down his pale cheek leaving a trail of darkness. The poor thing. Her heart was shattering and she did as she would have done for any other patient in this house. She sat on the bed next to him and pulled him to her chest. She rubbed his back as he let out what must have been years of repressed feelings. He needed a friend, and if he didn't have a friend here, which he didn't, and if he didn't have a friend out there, which he didn't appear to, it would fall to her to take care of this wounded soul.

"Hush. I will be there for you as long as you need me. It will be ok. I can't tell you how, or even when, but it will be ok." His sobs didn't fade and she just sat there stroking his back and telling him that it would all be all right in then because it had to get better. She would make it get better. He had to be told, because he had never had a parent that would just tell their kid it was ok.

Once the tears had slowed and the need for her had diminished he pushed away just slightly, and she released him, leaving one arm around his back for moral support that he desperately needed. "Why did you save me? I was always so vile, not just to you but to everyone like you. Why would you save someone wretched like me? Why risk yourself for the opposite of everything you want to be and do in the world?" He gave her that same shocked look. In Slytherin house helping others was the quintessential flaw and in Gryffindor in was the rule. It was the design. How could he understand risking one's own life for any other, much less someone as cruel as he had been?

"It was the right thing to do. It was what Snape and the Order needed me to do. It was what the light is supposed to do. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had done nothing to save you, and once I had started it didn't matter because all I could think of was saving you. I knew I could, so I had to." She looked at him, trying to explain what she couldn't say. "I had to save you. And so I did."

"I understand why you had to try. It was what you were raised to do, save lives and be good. But if you knew you could die, then wasn't your life an important factor? Shouldn't your good life be worth more than mine? As repugnant as I am, it would have been easy for most to let me die. Harry would have, yet he isn't evil. You weren't obliged, so why?" He was trying to get it. She could see the wheels turning and could almost smell the acrid smoke as he tried to make the problem work confined in his ingrown system.

"Your life matters. You are validating my decision now, by questioning my choices and your former self. Your life is just as important because we can all change who we are. You deserved that chance. Harry, once again you prove me right by calling him that, wouldn't have let you die. He could have. He didn't need to call me. He knew Madame Pomfrey wouldn't be here in time to save you, and yet he called me. He called me to save you. He wouldn't have let me risk myself, had he known that that's what it called for, but had he been able to he would have risked himself. I wasn't obliged though. You are right there. No one would have blamed me for letting you die, but I would have. I wouldn't have been able to look at myself. Wouldn't have been able to stomach my reflection. You are a life and if I have the means to save a life I must, or else I might as well play act as a god. No one should have power over life and death, and when we do have the power we must use it justly. It didn't matter that I knew you. I didn't want anyone to die, and given a person to save, I saved them, saved you." She smiled at him. "And with all this," she gestured broadly to him, "I feel I made a very good choice."

A/n Made it to chapter ten...personally i didnt think i would with this fic. Im dancing, you just can't see it. Love you all.