The day couldn't have passed fast enough for Hermione, she was counting the hours till dusk. Malfoy was nowhere to be seen all day long. Last night she waited for him to come out of the bathroom; she wanted to apologize for asking that question. For the first time Hermione had done something she wasn't proud of, she mused at the turn the events had taken.

Never had she thought that someday she will feel obliged to apologize to...out of all people, Draco Malfoy! But he spent so long in the bathroom, apparently he was avoiding seeing her, she finally fell asleep and she couldn't tell whether he slept in the room or not; when she woke up he wasn't there, neither was a note from him.

She paced the floor, trying not to worry so much about what was coming ahead. Her mind kept thinking of all the horrible things that could happen if they got caught. And it didn't help that Malfoy had disappeared. Had they found out about him? Did he have second thoughts about helping her and decided to hand her over to Voldemort instead? Was he even still alive! Hermione couldn't bear thinking about it anymore, the more time she spent thinking, the darker her thoughts became. So she went to her last resort; books. And for the first time, even reading couldn't distract Hermione. When the evening came, Malfoy finally appeared, holding dinner on a silver tray. He placed the tray silently on a nearby table and turned to walk out of the room.

"Draco Malfoy you stand right there and talk to me!" Hermione ordered loudly, the strain of the past days finally catching up with her, she had enough of being ignored and imprisoned in this room like some sort of pet. She had every right to know what was happening around her.

Draco looked at Hermione in amusement, she looked...frantic. Her hair wasn't tied this time, it was cascading down her back, disorderly, giving her an air of fragility. Shorter than it used to be, he noted. And it annoyed him that he actually noticed such a trivial detail about her. She kept running her hand through her hair nervously while pacing the room, taking deep breaths. He was still trying to figure out what was bothering her so much but he couldn't tell. Was she nervous about leaving?

"Stop it, Granger!" he ordered "What is wrong with you? You look like a frightened deer!" he frowned at her.

"Everything is wrong, how could you not see that? How juvenile could you be, Malfoy? I understand that you're mad because of that stupid question, you made it very clear. And I said I didn't mean to...I even tried to apologize but you insist on avoiding me." Hermione snapped at him
"But all this doesn't matter, it shouldn't have anything to do with the fact that we're leaving a house full of death eaters in a few hours and instead of staying around to explain what our plan is -because it happens to be that you're the one with enough information in this situation- you just chose to pretend I don't exist." her face turned a light shade of red as she glared at him.

"If this situation was reversed, I would have had the decency to at least let you know what I was up to." she added finally.

Draco, who was leaning on the door, patiently listening to Hermione as she yelled her heart out, paused to think about what she just said before finally speaking.

"I understand that my absence in such a...sensitive time might have been misinterpreted on your side." he spoke

If he kept talking like a politician I swear I'm going to hex him to death, Hermione swore silently.

"But it's not what you think, I wasn't out trying to avoid you...well partially. But mainly it was because my aunt needed me, and there were some things I had to take care of before we left." he explained. "And yes, I think you should know what's going on but that's a long story. I'm supposed to be searching for you. My aunt assigned me this mission, normally, a single person shouldn't be on a search on his own, but Bellatrix had grown very suspicious lately, she can't trust anybody else and she's afraid if she let any of the other death eaters out of her sight they would run and report your escape to the Dark Lord."

"But it's great that I'm doing this on my own, it gives me more time to stay away from home, which means more time to spend on convincing the Order that I'm actually trying to help, because we both know this is going to take some time." he added after a thoughtful pause.

"I'll do my best to convince them, I think they would listen to me."Hermione promised

"That's not what I'm worried about." Draco replied

"What are you worried about, then?" Hermione asked

"I'm worried about them not trusting your words. They might think I'm threatening you with something, maybe even have you under a spell. They would expect the worst out of me, and you can't blame them." he brooded.

"Leave that to me, I know them well enough to convince them." she insisted "But Malfoy, if you weren't up to this trust, if you betrayed us, I swear I'll be the one to kill you." she threatened, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Well then that would be much better than most of the deaths I had thought of." he smirked at her.

He moved to a cupboard at the corner of the room, opened it and took out a broomstick out of it. His eyes gleamed proudly as he held the broom in his hand. Hermione rolled her eyes at him, she had seen that look on Harry's face before, but she would never understand the peculiar affection boys seemed to have towards their broomsticks!

"Firebolt, highest speed, superb balance and great stability, it's perfect." Draco explained proudly.

Did he just puff his chest? Hermione mused.

"How is the wand treating you?" He asked suddenly as if he just remembered the question.

"It's very obedient actually, sometimes it's too powerful but all in all, I think it's fine." Hermione answered, feeling eternally grateful for the fact that she had a wand once again, living without magic for two days made her appreciate it a lot more.

Draco was about to say something when they heard a knock at the door, Hermione hid in the far corner of the room, it was probably one of the house elves. Draco opened the door slightly and the figure that walked through the door definitely didn't belong to a house elf; it belonged to a very familiar witch.