~ Draco and Hermione ~

"The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters.
We've all got both light and dark inside us.
What matters is the part we choose to act on.
That's who we really are."

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters and settings belong to J.K Rowling.

Enjoy!

Chapter 10

Early the next morning, Draco was woken up by someone kicking his mattress from underneath him. Being on the top bunk, he knew that it was Hermione who was doing the kicking. They were feeble kicks, and were barely moving him, but he was a light sleeper and it was enough to wake him.

"Wake... up...!" he heard Hermione say weakly.

"I'm awake. You need to work on them thighs though, you kick like a child," Draco yawned as he wiped his eyes and started to get up. For some reason, he was in a pretty good mood. Probably because he wouldn't have to put up with Harry or Ron as much, now that Hermione was finally awake.

"That's because my right thigh is aching. Can you come down? My shorts are covered in blood, I've got a scar on my thigh and I can't remember anything," said Hermione. She sounded worried, scared even, and completely drained of energy. Draco had a bad feeling that she might have caught a cold. He slowly got up and climbed down to the floor, pulling a chair over to sit next to where Hermione was lying. She laid on her side under the covers and looked at him questioningly.

"Well, we kind of clashed heads at The Burrow during the attack... and you got knocked out," said Draco with a slight smirk.

"Yes, and that's the last thing I can remember," said Hermione grumpily.

"Everything after that was Weasley's fault. He apparated us to Albania of all places, and it's freezing here. You got splinched really bad. We stood in the snow for twenty minutes while they put the tent up," Draco continued, feeling relieved at finally being able to inform her on how much of an idiot Ron was.

"Wait, were you carrying me?" asked Hermione curiously.

"Yeah, I had to. The other two were putting the tent up and I didn't have a wand, so..." Draco trailed off.

"It's fine, I was just wondering," said Hermione.

"By the time the tent was up, you were freezing cold and had lost a lot of blood. That's what the scar is," Draco explained, leaving out most of the details. Hermione knew that there was more to it, as she'd been healed and lovingly tucked into bed.

"And?" she asked, indicating for him to continue.

"It was pretty gory, Weasley moved away because he's a pussy. I used Essence of Dittany to heal the gash, then Potter cleaned away most of the blood," explained Draco.

"Who carried me to bed?" asked Hermione next.

"Sir Weasel, your Gyrffindor knight," said Draco bitterly.

"You seem angry about it," Hermione in amusement.

"Because it was his fault you got splinched in the first place, yet he still acts like a white knight."

"I'm guessing there were lots of arguments?" asked Hermione, sounding disappointed. She had hoped that maybe they'd somehow get along.

"Out of everyone in Hogwarts, I think I hate those two the most. They seem to expect you to cook too, by the way," said Draco as he got out of the chair and stretched. He was getting hungry and planned on making himself breakfast before the others woke up. Hermione remembered the last time they were hunting horcruxes, and how she often cooked for the other two. Mrs Weasley had always spoiled them with her cooking, and food was therefore always an issue.

"I'm starving, but there's no way I can cook. Can you make breakfast?" Hermione asked.

"For myself I can," said Draco.

"For me?" she continued timidly. There was a slight pause as they looked at each other. Hermione was giving him a puppy eyes expression that he'd never seen her use before. He was almost immediately just going to agree.

"What do I look like, a house elf?" said Draco as he turned to leave the room. Hermione glared after him. Typical selfish pureblood, she shouldn't have even bothered asking him. But after the past couple of days, she'd expected at least a small degree of niceness from him.

"Did I say you were a house elf?" she piqued.

"No, but you ordered me to make breakfast," replied Draco.

"I asked you politely!" said Hermione in exasperation as he walked out of sight.

"So? House elves are 'asked politely' to cook too," came his reply. Hermione rolled her eyes. She couldn't believe him.

"I've been nice to you, the least you could do is be nice back," Hermione called from the room. She sounded upset, and her voice seemed strained to speak loudly. She pushed herself up into a sitting position but her head span with dizziness. Draco was already in the kitchen preparing what smelt like bacon and eggs.

"I'm a pureblood, Granger, remember? Superiority and all that jazz," Draco responded sarcastically. He obviously intended to cook her breakfast for two reasons: she was his only ally in the group, and it would piss off Weasley. He wasn't going to be overly nice about it like Weasley would, and it certainly wasn't going to become a habit, however. Maybe there was a third reason that he didn't want to think about, too. She was still injured, she could get sick, and he cared about her. But he pushed this from his mind.

"Fine then. I hope you're proud of yourself," Hermione snapped grumpily from the bedroom. He missed getting on her nerves, and found himself trying hard not to laugh at her next frustrated comment. "You damn git."

Just as he finished cooking the bacon and eggs and was putting it onto two plates, he saw Hermione limping out of the bedroom. She reached the nearby lounge and clutched it to stop from swaying too much. Her thin arms shook with the effort and her knuckles were white as she gripped the edge of the cushion. She looked like a complete mess in her bloodied short shorts, bare feet and white singlet, and she was so skinny he could see her collarbones. He couldn't help but notice that although she looked like a mess... she was an undeniably cute mess. Another thought he pushed from his mind. The next thing he noticed was how startlingly pale she was.

"What are you doing?" Draco asked in alarm.

"Getting breakfast," she said faintly.

"I just made you some!"

"You said you weren't going to."

"I was being sarcastic Granger."

"Oh," she said in faint surprise. He grabbed her plate and nodded towards the bedroom as he crossed the tent. She limped back in and collapsed on the bed, shivering under the blankets from the cold. As he set the plate down beside her with a knife and fork, she smiled tiredly up at him.

"Thanks Malfoy," Hermione said sincerely.

"Don't get used to it," he responded, looking uncomfortable. "I only did it because you can hardly stand up."

Later that day with Hermione still resting and the other two Gryffindor's still in their room, Draco decided to play chess against himself. There was a simple spell used to animate the chessboard and play against oneself, which he did. He heard footsteps from his bedroom and watched as Hermione left the bedroom dressed in much warmer clothes, and with the blanket wrapped around herself. She put her plate in the kitchen sink and cast the same automatic cleaning spell that Mrs Weasley did, before quickly making herself coffee.

"Ron won't be happy with you using his chess set," she said in concern.

"What's he going to do about it?" snickered Draco, but he went silent after that as he began to concentrate.

"Do you want coffee?" she asked, taking him by surprise.

"Uh... sure. Why?" he asked suspiciously. He didn't get a response until she walked over with a cup of her own, which she was sipping, and a cup that she put in front of him.

"You made me breakfast. And because, why not?" she said with a shrug.

"I made you breakfast because you're still recovering," he said defensively. She rolled her eyes.

"Well I don't need reasons to make people coffee," Hermione said as she relaxed into the seat opposite him. She watched in amusement as the little wizarding chess pieces smashed each other to bits. Draco was slowly but surely losing the match against the enchantment, and the noise from the chess pieces battling one another must have woken the other two Gryffindor's. Sure enough, moments later they heard stomping footsteps coming from the other bedroom and out came Ron.

"That's my chess set!" the redhead growled.

"Shut up, I'm concentrating," muttered Draco, scratching his chin and staring intently at the board.

"I don't care, it's mine," said Ron as he walked over.

"I find that hard to believe, you can't afford a chess set," Draco drawled without looking up.

"My mother bought it for me!" snarled Ron.

"Must've taken her years to save up for it, how generous of her," Draco said sardonically as he made another move. Ron went red with anger and looked as if he was going to pull his wand out.

"Malfoy!" exclaimed Hermione angrily.

"Shut your mouth ferret, or I'll hex you," Ron threatened.

"Pull your wand out Weasley and see what happens," said Draco darkly, glaring up at him.

"Both of you stop! Malfoy just give Ron his chess set!" said Hermione. Draco glared at the other Gryffindor before standing up from the table. He didn't really care much about the chess set. Really he just wanted pay back for them being pricks the day before.

"Get it yourself," Draco said as he left the tent completely. Harry had just walked into the room and was watching in amusement.

"I'm going in for a shower and getting changed, we should leave soon," said Harry, hoping to change the subject and start pursuing horcruxes again.

"I should have hexed him," Ron growled to himself as he packed up the chess set.

"I can't believe you could get that angry over a board game, Ron," Hermione hissed as she got up to leave the tent.

"He offended my mother!" he shouted after her. But Hermione didn't listen and simply left to find where Malfoy had gotten to.

Inside the tent Harry and Ron were having showers and getting ready for the day. The plan was to leave before it got dark, but they couldn't go to Hogsmeade yet. It was best to go there in the morning, to avoid being caught by any Caterwauling charms. And if they left in the morning, that would give them the most time to get into Hogwarts and find the Elder Wand and horcruxes. Meanwhile outside the tent, Hermione quickly put some shoes on before walking over to where Draco was sitting on the snow.

"You didn't have to say that about Ron's mum," said Hermione from behind him.

"You didn't have to come out here and tell me that," countered Draco without turning around.

"Well I wanted to. Why can't you just get along with him?" she asked next as she sat down. Thankfully it wasn't as cold as the day before, and the hot coffee she clutched in her hands helped to warm her up. There was no snow or rain falling, just crisp morning air. Draco shook his head in frustration. How couldn't she understand? Everything about Weasley angered him. He just did not and would not ever like the guy.

"I'm not going to get along with him," said Draco firmly.

"Because you're not trying."

"And I don't plan to either, can you stop talking about it?" said Draco irritably as he looked at her. Hermione sighed and looked away. He noticed that her colour was returning quickly. The sleep, breakfast and coffee must have been helping. There was silence as they were both absorbed in thought. Draco was thinking about how he'd ended up being able to talk to her like this. Even though they were disagreeing, it felt almost like they were two friends arguing in the Slytherin common room. He thought back to their early Hogwarts years and realised that there was a reason they got along better. Hermione had never really done anything bad to him. He bullied her and called her names for years on end, because she was the know-it-all mudblood. In return, the only negative thing that she did back to him, was punching him in the face in their third year, which he probably deserved anyway. The memory brought a smirk to his face, as he reflected on his naive thirteen year old self. After that however, he and Hermione rarely had any serious conflict. It became a more dangerous rivalry between himself, Harry and Ron. The duelling, breaking Harry's nose, being ordered to kill Dumbledore... it all went downhill towards the later years, but not between them two.

"Harry and Ron are probably hungry..." Hermione began in an attempt to start a conversation.

"They can eat shit," muttered Draco.

"Why do you get like this?" Hermione demanded as she looked at him.

"If Weasley suddenly dropped dead, I wouldn't give a damn. That's why Granger, I just don't care," said Draco.

"You seemed to care about me last night, and this morning," said Hermione quietly. There was an awkward silence after that, as Draco didn't know how to respond. She'd got him there. He couldn't lie to himself, he had cared last night when her life was in his hands. And this morning, when she could hardly stand and looked pale as a ghost. The fact that she felt the need to bring this stuff up, and seemed to constantly want him to acknowledge that he was being nice, frustrated him. Without knowing what to say, he just got up to leave.

"Malfoy wait, I shouldn't have said that," continued Hermione, but he'd already walked into the tent. She sighed, questioning why she'd even brought it up. She returned to the tent moments later to get out of the cold, and heard the shower running. Draco and Harry were sitting on opposite sides of the living room, refusing to communicate or acknowledge each other. Harry looked as if he'd just gotten out of the shower because his messy black hair was still damp.

"We're going to go somewhere else before it gets dark Hermione, we don't want to stay in one place for too long. Tomorrow morning we'll go to Hogsmeade," said Harry, quickly breaking the silence.

"Sounds good to me. Malfoy, are you going in next?" asked Hermione, gesturing towards the bathroom and shower. Draco raised an eyebrow at her.

"I haven't got anything to change into," he answered.

"What about Ron's or Harry's stuff?" Hermione suggested.

"I'm not wearing their filthy clothes," said the Slytherin.

"Nor are we giving him any," said Harry immediately afterwards.

"You guys are so childish, honestly," said Hermione as she glared at them. Neither replied, so she continued, "Fine, we'll have to go and get you some muggle clothes Malfoy."

"I'm not wearing muggle clothes!" Draco growled in outrage. All his life he'd only worn wizard clothing, and it was incredibly strange seeing Hermione and Harry always walking around in muggle clothing outside of Hogwarts. Ron usually wore wizard clothing because his family were purebloods, though they weren't as strict as Draco's. For the Malfoy's, it was almost a family rule to wear expensive wizard robes regardless of the occasion. Hermione crossed her arms and glared at him.

"Wizarding shops will be under watch, they're too risky. Muggle clothes or no clothes Malfoy, you decide," she said forcefully.

"Oh you'd like that wouldn't you?" Draco snapped in reply.

"Because we haven't got time to waste, we need to be ready to go to Hogwarts first thing tomorrow," Hermione continued, ignoring his comment.

"Alright I get the point, mudblood!" Draco snapped. Even though wearing muggle clothes would be a pain and an act against his pureblood nature, he was willing to do anything to leave the tent and be away from Potter and Weasley for a while. He'd been calling Hermione 'Granger' more often lately, and her eyes narrowed when he'd used the word mudblood instead. While it meant nothing to him whether he called her Granger or mudblood, he knew that the latter got under her skin, and he felt the need to let out his frustration in one way or another.

"Call me that again and I won't help you shop for muggle clothes. You can go to Hogwarts in your pyjamas for all I care," Hermione snapped as she went into the bedroom to get a towel and change of clothes. That shut him up. As much as he detested the idea of wearing muggle clothes, there was no way in hell he'd be returning to Hogwarts in his pyjamas. Harry grinned in amusement at seeing Hermione shut Malfoy down, and a few moments later Ron had finished his shower and it was Hermione's turn to go in. When Harry told Ron that Hermione and Draco were going to get muggle clothes later, he suddenly wanted to go as well.

"I'm not letting her leave with you alone," Ron said firmly.

"What am I going to do, bully her to death?" said Draco in exasperation.

"You're still a Death Eater, you could take her to You-Know-Who," continued Ron, who seemed to have been thinking about this for a while.

"If I wanted to do that why the hell would I escape with her in the first place?" asked Draco rhetorically. Ron paused for a moment, but before he could reply Draco continued.

"And you don't know anything about how the Dark Lord thinks, don't talk about things you don't understand," said Draco in frustration. The truth was, that Voldemort wouldn't care about Hermione or Draco anymore. They were just two teenagers, a mudblood and a blood traitor. If he showed up with Hermione and handed her over, he'd just be killed for betraying Voldemort and she would be kept as leverage against Harry. There really was no turning back at all for him, which was something Harry and Ron didn't understand. He couldn't just hand over the mudblood and be rewarded like a hero, it didn't work like that with Voldemort.

"Yeah, you understand how he thinks because you're on his side," snarled Ron.

"Shut up Weasley,"said Draco, not bothering to continue. His parents were wandless, defenceless and at the mercy of Voldemort. Their son was considered a traitor, and for that reason they were likely being punished, perhaps even going to be killed. The Malfoy's had been treated poorly by Voldemort long before Draco's escape and even before Dumbledore's death, mainly because of Lucius' failures as a Death Eater. The other two Gryffindor's knew none of this though, and there was no way Draco would talk about his parents in front of them. He didn't want to talk to them about anything at all, period.

"I'm right, aren't I? That's why you haven't got anything to say!" continued Ron eagerly as he pointed an accusing finger at Draco.

"I haven't said anything because my situation is more complicated than your puny brain can handle," Draco snarled back. The argument worsened as time went on. Ron seemed convinced with his own idea that Draco was really acting undercover to find out what they were up to. Of course this was ridiculous, but it made sense in Ron's eyes. Harry was trying not to get involved with the arguing, but he was still siding with Ron regardless. Draco was doing his best to ignore Ron because they were touching on a delicate subject. The main reason he'd joined them on the stupid horcrux quest was to end the war and be reunited with his parents. The more reluctant Draco seemed to talk about it, the more convinced Ron was that he was secretly still on Voldemort's side. And that's what it was like for the next twenty minutes. Draco couldn't wait for Hermione to hurry up so that he could be out of the tent. At last she got out of the bathroom already dressed and ready. Their expressions and body language told her that they'd been fighting.

"Hermione, I've got to get some clothes too so can I come?" Ron began to ask quickly.

"He wants to come because he thinks I'm going to kidnap you and hand you over to the Death Eaters," Draco explained in a bored voice. There was a short silence as Ron glared at Draco and they all waited for Hermione's reply.

"If he wanted to do that then he wouldn't have left the Death Eater's with me to begin with..." said Hermione in confusion.

"Like I said," Draco agreed.

"He's lying!"

"Will you just stop fighting? Ron you already have heaps of clothes packed, you don't need any more. And besides, I'm sick of listening to you lot argue over the smallest things," said Hermione as she searched the bag for something.

"Are you sure you're even ready to travel? You lost a lot of blood yesterday," Ron went on, determined to somehow be involved.

"I'm fine. We'll apparate in, grab some clothes, and apparate out. It won't take long," said Hermione with a shrug as she took out the Invisibility cloak. At that Ron sighed in defeat, knowing that Hermione was adamant about going without him to avoid any fighting. After a few more minutes of conversation, and listening to Harry urge them to be quick so that they can go to another place before it got too dark, she and Draco were ready to leave.

"Don't worry Weasley, I'll take care of her," Draco mocked, knowing it was the perfect time to have a sly stab at him. Ron looked furious and Hermione rolled her eyes as they left the tent.

They apparated to a muggle town in London of Hermione's choosing, under the Invisibility cloak. Hermione lead the way towards the door of a clothing store that she knew was closed on that day of the week. It was evidently a quiet afternoon, and the witch and wizard used this to their advantage. After unlocking the shop door with a whispered, 'Alohamora', they entered the shop. When they were sure that the shop was empty, Hermione locked the door with magic to be safe before taking the cloak off of them.

"I'm choosing the clothes," said Draco firmly as he looked around. To him, everything looked quite strange.

"What do you know about muggle clothes?" asked Hermione.

"Nothing?" responded Draco, as though it didn't matter.

"Exactly, I'm the muggle girl to you after all, so you should take my fashion advice," said Hermione. After learning his clothing sizes, she began walking around the shop taking shirts, pants and jackets that she thought would look good on him. He protested a few of them, but after a while just let her choose. He rarely went shopping even for wizarding clothes. He preferred shopping for Quidditch gear and new racing brooms, or joke and prank objects like the ones from 'Weasley's Wizarding Weezes', which was the only good thing the Weasley family had ever come up with, in his opinion.

"So what exactly was Ron saying when I was in the shower?" asked Hermione curiously as she inspected a nice looking jacket.

"Going on about me being a Death Eater spy, which is ridiculous because he doesn't know anything about it," Draco answered, leaning against the wall beside her.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Hermione, glancing at him.

"Forget it," said Draco shortly. He didn't want to tell Hermione all about his personal anxieties and worries about his family either. She already knew enough of it. They might be getting along, but they weren't close enough for that. Hermione suspected that he was keeping things to himself. It made sense. She hadn't told him anything about her parents and where they were either. But she did know that he wasn't a spy, because at Malfoy Manor he and his parents were treated terribly. And the main reason he agreed to join them was to help his parents.

"Well... if you ever feel like it, you can talk to me about it," suggested Hermione, glancing at him. Her openness and willingness to just talk about anything with him was both irritating, but at the same time comforting nonetheless. He simply nodded, and she continued inspecting clothes. He later tried on some of the muggle clothing, feeling completely foolish.

"What is it with muggles and vibrant, mismatched colours? If it's anything like blue, white, red, I'm not wearing it. I look better in black, or dark blue or green," Draco was ranting at one point, causing Hermione to burst out laughing.

"We aren't at Hogwarts, Malfoy. The colour of your clothes doesn't really matter."

"That's not the point. I don't like wearing these vibrant colours," Draco said firmly.

"I suppose you're right," said Hermione with a smile.

"And is this jacket considered expensive by a muggles standards?" Draco asked with distaste, indicating towards the jacket she'd picked out for him.

"Not really? It's just middle of the range..." Hermione said, as if it wasn't important.

"Do I look like a 'middle of the range' kind of guy to you, Granger? I want the most expensive clothes," Draco demanded.

"Oh, and you're going to pay for these expensive clothes with what money?" Hermione asked with a laugh.

"Who said anything about paying? We're here to take clothes, not pay for them."

"We're not thieves, Malfoy!" said Hermione crossly. As she glanced at the amount of clothes she'd picked out for him, and a few for herself as well, she realised she wouldn't even be able to afford what they had. Draco could tell what she was thinking, and smirked.

"We should at least leave some money," she said at last.

"Why? They're only muggles," said Draco with a shrug.

"Stop talking about them like they're inferior, Malfoy!" said Hermione, casting him an angry glare.

"But they are. We're magical, they're not," he retorted.

"It doesn't matter whether they're magical or not. I'll leave a hundred pounds," decided Hermione, leaving the money beside the cash register. She knew that was nowhere near enough, but at least they weren't just taking it for nothing. And that was almost all the muggle money she had left. Draco shook his head with a mutter of, 'totally unnecessary, Granger...' as they put on the Invisibility cloak and left the shop with bags full of clothes. The sun was getting quite low and it was already beginning to get dark, so they clasped hands and quickly apparated back to the tent.

Thank you for reading! If you liked this chapter, please feel free to review and add to alerts/favourites! :)

Check out my other stories!

Draco and Hermione - s/5661111/1/Draco-and-Hermione

The Soul Connection - s/9868543/1/The-Soul-Connection

The Time-Turner Division - s/12337018/1/The-Time-Turner-Division