Updated version of the chapter! Thanks to my lovely Beta 'JayneA7x'. Chapters will make a lot more sense from now thanks to her much appreciated assistance :) I will try and have the next chapter up either tomorrow or Tuesday. Sorry for the long wait! I've seriously been SO busy. Thank you for your lovely reviews and patience! Xoxo.

Chapter 10: Hakuna Matata

We walked.

I held onto his hand so that I had some assurance that I could stop him in case he went back. Not that I'd probably have the strength to, judging by what he just did.

We moved briskly down the corridor, Draco half pulling me along as I tried to keep up.

Luckily, it was after curfew so most students who had stayed at Hogwarts for the Christmas holidays would already be in their common rooms or beds.

I turned to look at Cormac's gasping figure on the tiled ground – his colour was returning.

He looked at me, and then at Draco. He scrambled backwards, before standing up and retreating in the opposite direction, fear on his face.

That was the last time I saw him in a while.

We walked in complete silence for at least fifteen minutes.

My eyes kept returning to Draco's face, but his expression never changed; complete concentration and determination.

We reached the portrait of an old fat wizard who appeared to be sleeping, when all of a sudden Malfoy stopped.

It took me by surprise as my hand, still connected to his, jolted abruptly in reaction to his halt.

I turned to him, taking a few steps closer.

He didn't look at me as he said, "I'm sorry about that..."

Not knowing what else to say I replied, "Do you want to talk about it?"

He continued staring at the floor. No answer.

"I mean, not here obviously," I said, looking over at the portrait of the portly old wizard, "We don't want fatty listening in."

I looked back at him to find him watching me, a small crooked smile playing on his lips.

"That's not a very Hermione-ish thing to say," he replied with a smirk.

I shrugged, "What can I say? You've made a profound impression on me." Realising how he could read into that as something more, I quickly turned to hide my reddening face and added, "Come on, let's go," before dragging him down the corridor.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked for the third time since I had dragged him off.

"You'll see," I said as I turned to lead us down a flight of stairs, still pulling him behind me.

I heard his stomach grumble quietly in the silence "Come on Hermione, I'm hungry. Maybe we should just go back to the Head's Dorm; at least I have food there!"

"Didn't you eat dinner?"

"No," he groaned, "I was busy doing an assignment and didn't feel hungry at the time. Now I am."

"No matter," I said, "We're here."

In front of us, hanging by itself on the wall, was a large painting of a bowl of fruit.

"What...?" started Draco, but he fell silent as I had just tickled the pear in the painting, causing it to wriggle and the painting to swing open.

I stepped in, pulling him through afterwards.

"Where are we...?" he mumbled.

"The kitchens" I said with a smile.

We spent the next 20 minutes explaining to the elves that we didn't want the one hundred and one million things that they were trying to give us, just a small amount of food that we could take.

Eventually, we left with a basket full of food in hand.

"Now," I said, "Where to?"

We ended up going into a small classroom on the first floor, our wands illuminated as we ate the food that the elves had provided.

We finished up and soon enough she spoke, her hazel eyes peering kindly into mine "So, explain."

I don't know what made me tell her.

I guess it was partly because I needed to get it off my chest after all these years...

And partly because I needed to explain why I acted the way I did.

Also, I found her presence so comforting... She was so easy to talk to. So understanding and accepting.

I told her about the countless times my father abused my mother when he was drunk.

How I despised myself for never having defended her.

How I knew he cared about her, but still he took his drunken rage out on her.

And that when she had told me what Cormac had done, all the anger that I had towards my father and myself, mixed with my hatred for Cormac, seemed to come out and take over.

"And what I hate even more about it all is that father's traits seem to have rubbed off on me. As much as I hate what he did to Mother, and what Cormac did to you, I'm a hypocrite. When I'm angry or frustrated, I take it out through violence. Once, when I was dating Pansy in fourth year, she was pissing me off. She always seemed to know how to do it just right – it was how she got attention. One night, I couldn't hack it anymore and I broke up with her. Over the next few weeks she kept trying to get back with me. It frustrated the shit out of me. One night, she was trying to come onto me. She took it a bit far and actually forced herself on me. I pushed her into a wall pretty hard. So hard that she cried and didn't speak to me for a week, which is a record for her. Even though I've never liked her very much since we broke up, I still regret ever doing that to her..."

Hermione watched me, her expression stayed unchanged through my entire revelation.

"I've...uh... never really told anyone any of this... about my parents and stuff... so if you could..."

"I won't tell anyone, I promise." She said with assertion.

"Thanks," I smiled at her, glad that I knew I could trust her. Despite us having been enemies once, something told me that I could trust her.

That explains why he was so aggressive. Knowing that someone had hurt a girl had brought back the memory of what Lucius had done to Draco's mother when he was growing up. The anger of that just took over, and it was kind of like getting revenge on Lucius in a way.

His blue eyes studied my expression, looking for something. "Also... I'm sorry about that time... in that classroom, when I was asking for you to forgive me? And I held you against the wall like that? See, that's my problem; I go and nearly kill someone for hurting you, yet I've done the same thing to you..." he said, his face etched with regret.

"Are you nuts?" I said in bewilderment," You never hurt me! Not one bit."

Actually, to be honest... I kind of enjoyed being held against the wall by him...

Oh my gosh I did NOT just think that...

"Really?" he asked, relieved.

"No!" I laughed, "Plus, even if you had, you and Cormac had completely different intentions... You were begging for forgiveness and civility. He was forcing himself on me. Your reasoning is much more noble. But regardless, you didn't hurt me anyway."

I thought back to Cormac's tongue being shoved in my mouth and shuddered. "Trust me; I would never compare you to him."

Draco's expression softened and a small smile played on his lips.

He looked so attractive like that... "MEOWWWWW!"

We both looked over.

"Oh shit..." said Draco as he stood up.

It was Mrs. Norris.

Her large yellow eyes watched us as she gave another loud, "MEOWW!" before trotting out the classroom door.

"Oh no!" I squealed, looking over at Draco.

He picked up ours wands, handing mine over, "Come on, we gotta get out of here!"

We ran out the door, looking left and right for any sign of Filch and then, "Students out of bed!" came his voice, ringing down from the left side of the corridor.

Draco nodded his head right and we started to run silently down the corridor.

Suddenly, I felt his hand on mine as we ran.

I didn't know whether to feel confused or pleased or what. So I just focused on getting away from Filch.

We ran to the end of the corridor, turning right at the end and the left at the end of that one.

I saw a cupboard door, "Draco!" I whispered "In here!"

We quickly ducked inside it, Draco quietly closing the door behind us.

It was dark and I couldn't see a thing.

Not to mention there was hardly any space at all and even with us both leaning against opposite walls there was hardly much room between us. I could tell because he was still holding my hand, and the distance wasn't very much at all.

We waited in silence.

A minute or so later, a light shone faintly under the cupboard door, accompanied by shuffling footsteps.

"Come on Mrs Norris, we'll find them." came Filches voice as he walked past, "Blasted kids..."

The footsteps soon became distant.

I waited a minute before speaking. "That was close..." I whispered.

"Yeah, and I don't think we should risk going back out there just yet in case he comes back," replied Draco in a whisper, letting go of my hand. I heard him slide his back down the wall and sit on the floor.

I shuffled over and leant against the wall, sliding down next to him.

"Back to our conversation," I continued in a whisper, "Why do you blame yourself for what your father did? I don't really understand..."

"I could have stopped him. But I didn't. I just let it happen. Like a fuckin' useless coward." He replied, his voice raised in anger.

"Shhh," I hushed him, "Filch or Mrs. Norris might hear... But that's what I mean Draco, you were a kid! Of course you couldn't have stopped him."

"But I still didn't try."

"But you didn't know any better!"

"I knew enough to know it was wrong! I have a conscience, despite what many people think."

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

Then I said something I never thought I would have, "You've become a much better person, Draco."

He didn't reply straight away, but after 10 or so seconds he whispered a quiet, "Thank you." And we drifted back into silence.

After sitting in the cold, dark cupboard for 5 more minutes I started shivering, I wish I brought my cloak...

"How long do you think we'll be here for?" I asked.

"I dunno... I mean, now that Filch knows there's students out of bed in this general area, he's gonna keep a good eye on it for a while. I say we try to leave in about half an hour. He would probably have given up by then." replied Draco.

"Mmm," I agreed disdainfully. I wasn't too keen on sitting on this cold hard floor for another half an hour, but I was even less keen on getting my Head of House duties stripped if we were caught.

"Draco..?"

"Mmm?"

"If you don't mind me asking... What made you decide to change? Like, from bad to good?"

What harm could it do to tell her? Maybe she would understand me better if I told her everything.

"Well... It wasn't exactly an on the spot decision. It's been building up for a while. I've never really been... a "bad" guy per say... I just grew up in a Death Eater environment. Not to mention I gained some of my Father's Malfoy traits... as you know.

My mother always taught me decency, but the Malfoy decency and morals are quite different to those of general Wizards. After the Dark Lord ordered me to kill Dumbledore under the threat of death to myself, my Mother sort of detached herself from Voldemort's followers. She was never really completely loyal to him again. No one really knew it though, not even Father. She told me about it after the Dark Lord had fallen. But she wasn't the only one who wasn't really loyal... I never really like the idea of being involved in any of it... In fact, if I could have, I probably would have joined the other side. Your side. Not that they would have trusted me anyway though. So I just went with it. But that was mostly because I was a coward. Last year taught me quite a bit though... I realised a lot of things. Like how we are all equal – purebloods and Muggleborns. It was more so how the ministry went about things that proved it to me. Once I heard about them saying that all these Muggleborns had "stolen the wands, not bought them" and had been subjecting them to the Dementor's Kiss for it, I realised how ridiculous it all was. It's not possible to do that! Wands don't work for you unless you have magical blood. So they can't have "stolen them". It was lunacy. It was just bits and pieces of things like that that made me realise how wrong it all was. Then, when the Dark Lord was dead, Father was in Azkaban and Potter had Mother and I cleared of our charges, I decided that it was a chance to change my life. I didn't have to worry about Voldemort or my father – or even my Aunt Bellatrix. So I changed my ways. It was hard due to my past... After all, I'd grown up with being against muggleborns. Then all the Slytherins started hating me for changing, calling me a traitor and shit. But I learnt that if you want to get anywhere in life, you gotta put your past behind you. So I did."

Then she said the weirdest thing I had ever heard.

"Hakuna Matata."

I was silent for a few seconds.

"…What?" I asked, confused.

She giggled, "You gotta put your past behind you. When the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world. Hakuna Matata. It means no worries." She laughed again.

"Uhmm..."

"It's from a mo- it's a Muggle thing." She said then added, "I might show you sometime, if you'd ever be willing to go to the Muggle world?"

Then I remembered.

"Speaking of the Muggle world.."

And I told her about what McGonagall had said about Professor Foley and us having to get the items.

"Oooh, that'll be cool. Hmm... the best place would probably be Aberdeen. It's the closest big city in this general area..." she said with a shiver in her voice.

"Are you cold?"

"Yeah... I forgot my cloak."

I took mine off and shuffled over to her, covering her with it.

I leant back against the wall, our shoulders touching.

"Thanks."

We continued talking about the camping trip and the trip to the Muggle city for a while. I was telling her about how I heard of these things Muggles had in their shops for getting around called alligators. I asked her how they worked and didn't get any response.

"Hermione..?"

I heard heavy breathing coming from her direction.

I smiled. She was asleep.

I closed my eyes and drifted off too.

I woke up the next morning to a small figure lying on my shoulder, immersing me in an abundance of soft, brown, curly hair. She gave a small, quiet snore.

A/N: Phew! Big chapter! Just letting you know that by alligator, Draco meant elevator ;) Just in case ya didn't pick up on that. Also, notice they've started referring to each other as "Draco" and "Hermione"? I don't think they've even noticed that themselves yet! I loooooove the Lion King by the way, hence the quote that I added haha. Pleeeeeease let me know what you thought ;o Loving all the wonderful reviews, you have no idea how much they entice me to write. I appreciate them so much! MORE MORE MORE :P x.