DREAMS OF GREY

By Mizuki

Chapter Ten

It wasn't until Sunday afternoon than Hermione realised she had forgotten all about Malfoy the day before. Dreading his snide remarks, she sped to his tent, pressing the packaged dinner to her chest. She couldn't believe she had been so irresponsible...! He had probably been starving yesterday and all because of her being distracted.

A cold feeling washed over her at the memory of one of those distractions. Ron's good-bye kiss hadn't been worse than usual – customary stupid tongue flapping – but she had barely restrained herself from pushing away and running up to her dormitory in disgust. She'd spent three long hours agonizing over her behaviour, telling herself that she was being cruel, that her expectactions were too high, that it wasn't Ron's fault, and besides, it wasn't something to feel this bad about. It was just a kiss, for Goodness' sake.

She spotted the campsite and quickened her pace. Her book bag, lighter than normal, hit her hip to the rhythm of her steps, reminding her of the fact that she had dropped out of three important classes. She still felt uneasy about it – and Ron's jabs yesterday really hadn't helped the situation – but, she figured, she couldn't do anything about it now.

When she entered Malfoy's tent, he wasn't there. A bit perplexed – he didn't work on Sundays, did he? - she lifted the Disillusionment charm, walked over to the table and put the package on its surface. The book bag made a thud-like, tired sound as she set it down on the floor, settling herself on one of the available chairs. From where she sat, she had a good view of the entrance, so she wouldn't be strartled when Draco came back. She reached for her books, but thought better of it, thinking that since he wasn't here anyway, she might have a look around. The first time she'd been here wasn't exactly a good time for exploration, and during all the others Malfoy was with her, so it had been impossible to take a peek. There wasn't much to see – the place was small, far too small for a Malfoy, and quite bare. A single bed, the table she was sitting at, three chairs, a wardrobe and a bookshelf.

The latter was the object she was particularly interested in. It was filled to the brim with all kinds of books – hardcover and paperback, old and new, colourful and plain, thick and slim. During all the time she'd spend studying here, she had noticed that more often than not you could find Malfoy reading one of them, sometimes frowning in concentration, and sometimes even chuckling. And the most astonishing thing about it was that she was certain that they weren't textbooks. Was Malfoy reading Muggle literature?

Intent on finding out, she walked over to the bookshelf and started reading the titles. The Unspeakable by Tristan Bane,Bewitching Helen by Miranda Blockerhurst, Samhain Project by Marcus Malfoy...

'What do you think you're doing?' asked a cold voice, catching her off-guard. She whirled around, her heart in her throat.

'I...'

'I don't remember giving you permission to look through my things, Granger,' said Malfoy, stepping inside. He didn't look too well – there were circles around his eyes and his blond hair fell dishelved onto his forehead. A crazy thought entered Hermione's mind, but she immediatelly pushed it aside. It wasn't healthy to think about how transparent his skin was and how well it went with the fairness of his hair and his steel-grey eyes.

'I'm sorry,' she said hastily. 'I didn't mean to...'

'Save it,' he snapped, sitting down heavily on one of the chairs. 'I thought you have forgotten about our little agreement. But I guess I can't really compete with Potty and the Weasel, can I?'

The sneer he gave her somehow both hurt and infuriated her more than it would usually do. Probably because she already felt guilty enough about the situation without him adding his oh-so-kind comments.

'I'm really sorry,' she said, knowing that he wouldn't care. 'I had a really bad day yesterday and I forgot.'

He snorted, but didn't answer, reaching for today's dinner instead. It was fish and chips.

'Great,' he muttered, dejected, but quickly set down to eat, even though it was obvious that he would rather be eating something else.

'You don't like it?' she ventured tentatively.

'Of course I don't like it,' he said angrily after swallowing. 'At home I eat French cuisine, not this tasteless crude shit.'

'Oh, French cuisine is my favourite! But I also like Italian... and oriental is quite good, too, though I can't decide which I like better – Chinese or Japanese...'

'Definitelty Chinese. The idea of raw fish gives me the creeps.'

'But Japanese don't only eat raw fish, there are all sorts of other dishes, too...'

He shrugged and resumed eating and she took it as a sign that he didn't want to be interrupted anymore. She took out her Arithmancy books, but hesitated before starting her study session.

'Malfoy?'

'What?'

'I... I quit some of my classes.'

He stopped eating and looked her in the eye. 'Really? Which ones?'

'Potions, Herbology and Defense Against the Dark Arts.'

His eyebrows travelled upwards, beneath the white-blond bangs. 'Why?'

She averted her eyes. 'Like you said... it's better to do less things well than to do a lot of things badly.'

When she looked back at him, he was smirking. 'Good to know that you finally see my wisdom.'

She decided to ignore the comment, focusing on what she was going to say next.

'Since I won't have so much work anymore, I thought that I might go back to the common room to study,' at his alarmed expression, she continued. 'I'll bring your dinner as agreed, though, you don't have to worry.'

An awkward silence filled the tent. Malfoy looked kind of weird, first panicked – she didn't dare think the word „freaked out" - then, for a second, determined and finally strangely aloof.

'You can stay here, if you want, Granger,' he said with a shrug. 'In fact, it would be better if you did.'

'Why?' she asked, a bit suspicious.

'Because then I won't owe you anything for the food. We'll be even.'

She regarded him guardedly, but he was back to his normal, indifferent self, no trace of that odd uncertainity she'd seen just seconds before.

'All right,' she agreed finally.

'Good. Now can you stop interrupting my meal? I'm trying to eat this, even if it's inedible.'

She smiled in amusement and opened the Arithmancy text book. It was her most difficult subject, and if she wanted to get into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she had to have the highest grades. Therefore, she had to work hard, even though she had less to do.

If you didn't count the moment when Malfoy started laughing almost hysterically at something he read in one of his books, the rest of the evening passed without incident.

It soon became apparent that with her reduced workload Hermione gained a lot of free time. She had always been quick and efficient in her studies, and the added bonus of a full eight hours of sleep each day resulted in her finishing her tasks in half the time she would have needed before she dropped out of some of her classes. At first, she wasn't entirely sure what to do with the free hours, especially since Harry and Ron were not here to hang out with and Dean and Neville were too busy with their own N.E.W.T. preparations, but finally decided against originality and went to the library in search of some light reading.

'Granger, what is that large, ancient book doing on my table?' Draco asked on Wednesday, pointing to a particularly interesting, old volume about the theory of magic. She had found it in the depths of the library two hours earlier and had to spend full five minutes on persuading Madam Pince to let her borrow it.

'Oh, it's too big to fit in my book bag,' she said matter-of-factly.

'Ever heard of a shrinking charm?' he sneered. When she started to protest, that it was too valuable a book to simply shrink it, he waved it away. 'Nevermind. Why are you reading it, anyway? It doesn't have anything to do with school, does it?'

'I'm reading it for fun,' she stated crisply. 'You should know, you do it all the time.'

'Do you honestly call reading an obscure book half in Middle English and half in Latin fun?' he cried incredulously.

'What's wrong with that?'

He snorted. 'I don't know, maybe the fact that you're a freak?'

'I am not!' she snapped.

'Yes, you are, Granger. Normal people read novels.'

She gaped at him. 'You mean that those books... Those are novels?'

'Yeah,' he shrugged. 'Why are you so surprised?'

'Well, maybe because I never thought you would read something written by a Muggle.'

He frowned. 'What gave you the idea that they are written by Muggles?'

'Uh...' she hesitated. 'Well, because there is no wizarding literature, is there?'

Malfoy surprised her by looking mortally offended. 'That's why Mudbloods shouldn't be admitted to Hogwarts!' he spat. 'They don't know anything about our world!'

Anger and hurt made her lose her composure. 'Don't call me a Mudblood!'

Malfoy froze, his eyes wide, his mouth still open. For a moment he stared at her in confusion, before flushing and looking away. 'Sorry.'

Silence fell over the two of them. Hermione watched him stare ahead, hardly able to register the fact that he had just apologized to her, too absorbed in his sharp profile and the faint blush on his otherwise pale cheeks.

Before knowing it, all of her righteous anger evaporated and she suddenly felt guilty.

Eventually, she was the first to speak.

'I'm sorry that I didn't know about wizarding literature,' she said quietly. 'But I was never interested in it, anyway...'

'You mean, you've never read novels?'

'Of course I did. I read everything assigned at school and all the classics everyone should know, but... no, I don't remember reading novels for pleasure.'

He frowned. 'Then what do you read for pleasure?'

'Textbooks,' she answered with a shrug. 'Things you can learn from. My parents never read novels, too. They always said that they were impractical.'

Malfoy's expression was impassive as he watched her. After a moment, she started feeling uncomfortable under his close scrutiny. 'What?'

'Nothing,' he said. 'I was just thinking... Are you willing to read something from my collection?'

'Why?'

He pursed his lips. 'Yes or no?'

She pondered the question for a moment, before coming to a conclusion that she had nothing to lose. 'All right.'

She was once again caught off guard by the small, boyish grin that immediatelly appeared on his face. Something fluttered inside of her stomach as her eyes followed him to the bookshelf. The feeling didn't leave her even when he returned, still smiling, and gave her a book approximately five hundred pages long.

'The Unspeakable,' she read, realizing that it was one of the books she'd seen on Sunday.

'It's one of my favourites,' he said proudly. 'Tristan Bane is a really great author. His characters are so well-developed that you hardly notice that they are fictional. And the plot twists... Simply marvelous.'

She regarded him in awe, watched as his normally cool expression became animated with interest and passion. He was finally showing a side of himself that she could really, honestly like.

She smiled as the fluttering in her stomach came back.

'Thank you,' she said. 'I'll read it as soon as I can.'

She was rewarded with a wide, unguarded grin and decided that even if she didn't like the book, it couldn't be a waste of time if it gave her the opportunity to see it.

'I finished it,' said Granger upon entering his tent on Friday. She was smiling.

'And?' he asked, trying to appear indifferent, while inside experiencing a heavy case of the recurring flip-flop. He was starting to suspect that it had to do with Granger, but couldn't really bring himself to think further about it, lest it brought him to potentially unpleasant conclusions.

'It's great!' she cried, sitting down next to him on the bed. His breath got caught in his throat, but she seemed unaware of his discomposure.

'I've never thought I would enjoy reading a thriller!' she laughed. 'But this was exceptional work. I mean, it had everything.'

Draco agreed. The reason he liked The Unspeakable so much was because it covered a variety of subjects in such a subtle way that even the Ministry's censorship hadn't managed to put a finger to it. It was a story about an accomplished Unspeakable who, by accident, discovered a secret that should never have been discovered. He was then found out by authorities and had to run, because they wanted to shut him up, no matter the means. There was a note at the beginning, assuring the readers that the plot was purely fictional, but every intelligent person could see references to the Ministry's corruption and to the general state of the wizarding world. It criticised the old-fashioned, pureblood scholars and their aversion to new discoveries, but also mentioned that people shouldn't rush into new things without thought. All in all, it was a very good book.

But it wasn't what Draco was thinking of at the moment.

All of his thoughts were full of Granger.

'I especially liked Anthony. He was such a multi-dimensional character, you could never tell what side he was on...' she said excitedly. 'Like that time when he released Fitch from his cell without any explanation. I still can't really understand what were his reasons.'

'It's simple,' he managed to say, grasping at everything that would take his attention off the newfound awareness that she was sitting almost tigh to tigh with him. 'He was half-heartedly with Fitch, but his materialistic nature told him to follow the more reasonable path of not opposing the authorities.'

'But how can you do such a thing half-heartedly?' she asked heatedly. A drop of sweat made its way from her neck down her front, disappearing behind her shirt. Draco followed its descent with his eyes and when he realized what he was doing, it dawned on him that something very weird was happening and it would probably be better to move away. But when it came to it, his body didn't budge.

'I know you are different from all of us,' he said with sarcasm. 'But normal people do a lot of things half-heartedly.'

Like half-heartedly trying to end this madness, he thought frantically.

'Really,' she pouted. 'But this was an important issue!'

He looked away. 'If you can't muster enough interest, then you can't, no matter how important the issue.'

She was quiet for a moment. 'You're right. It's not something you can control, is it?'

There was something weird in her voice that made him glance back at her face. She seemed lost in thoughts.

'Being really interested in something is a very rare thing, isn't it?'

'Yeah,' he nodded. 'Actually, I don't think I have anything that really interests me.'

She looked up. 'That's not true.'

'What?'

'It can't possibly be true,' she said, staring pointedly into his eyes. 'Those books... I've only read one, but I would really like to read more, if you'll let me... When you talk about them, I don't know... you're different somehow.'

He frowned. 'Different? Give me a break, I'm the same.'

She bristled. 'I don't know. Maybe I'm being stupid...'

'Wouldn't be the first time, you know.'

She glared at him. 'All I'm trying to say is that you seem like a different person when you talk about those books. More relaxed. Open.'

He felt panic and confusion swell at the back of his brain. What was she talking about? Was she insane? She had to be. A normal person wouldn't be saying things like these to him, would they?

Judging by the wild blush that was starting to bloom across her cheeks she must have noticed what she was doing.

'I... um...'

The awkwardness between the two of them was almost touchable. Draco was positive he could feel it rubbing on his skin.

Their eyes met and they both looked away with haste.

'I'm sorry,' she said eventually. 'I shouldn't be saying things like that.'

'Whatever,' he shrugged, feigning indifference.

'Right.'

They sat in silence for a moment before she sprang to her feet.

'Well then! Is there something you would recommend next?'

Glad for the distraction, Draco quickly put all of his conflicting thoughts aside and launched into a long, animate speech about all of his favourite books. He tried not to notice Granger's whisper of a smile when she looked at his face.

'Is that a Joshua Crane book?'

Hermione jumped in the common room armchair, tearing her mind and eyes away from a particularly action-packed page in Malfoy's newest recommendation. For a moment she was both aware of the two main characters defending themselves against an unseen enemy and of Neville hovering over her shoulder and looking curious. After a shake of her head and several blinks she was back to reality.

'Yes, it is,' she said, nodding. 'You know him?'

Neville looked sheepish. 'Actually, I used to read him a lot when I was younger. I liked to imagine that I was like Gades Woods, a powerful, compassionate hero everyone loves.'

She smiled. 'Neville, you are a powerful, compassionate hero everyone loves, you know.'

'I wasn't then,' he said, shrugging. 'Mind if I sit down?'

'No, of course not.'

He seated himself on the sofa across from her. 'I didn't know you read wizarding novels, Hermione.'

'Well, I didn't, actually. I've only recently discovered there were any. I really don't know how I could have missed that.'

'It's not a particularly developped area, really... Not many wizards read them and the authors aren't that appreciated.'

'Really?' she asked, surprised. Malfoy hadn't told her that.

'Yeah,' nodded Neville. 'But I'm glad that you're reading something else than school books.'

She pressed her lips together to keep herself from saying something unpleasant. Why was it that people always had a problem with her choice of reading material? She could read whatever she wanted, couldn't she?

'And I'm really happy that you stopped killing yourself with school, too,' he continued, oblivious to her rising discomfort. 'I was really worried, you know.'

The shy smile he sent her made her feel weird. As she looked at his slightly flushed, open face, she felt a sudden warmth in the pit of her stomach. Even if it was misguided, it was really sweet of him to worry so much.

'Thank you,' she said softly. 'But really, I'm fine.'

'You don't look it, though.'

Uncomfortable with the topic, she quickly drew him into a conversation about wizarding literature. It turned out that Neville didn't know much about it and the only things he'd read were his father's collection of action and adventure novels, most of them parts of the Gades Woods series written by Joshua Crane, and even those he had to read in secret, because his grandmother disapproved of him reading such 'mindless drivel' Though her curiosity was piqued, Hermione refrained herself from asking anymore questions. It would be bad if Neville discovered she'd gotten the book from Draco Malfoy. After her little faux pas during the carriage ride she'd decided to be more cautious about what she was saying. Really, she didn't want to feel anymore alone than she already did.

When she finally went to bed, it took her a long time to fall asleep. Her thoughts kept straying back to what had happened in Malfoy's tent. She still couldn't comprehend what had made her say those things to him. Thinking them was one thing, but actually telling him all about it could be rightfully considered mental. Maybe Ron had been right all this time?

Mucking about with her parents' memory hadn't been her sanest idea, throwing a tantrum over a completely justifiable grade also hadn't been a normal thing to do. Blurting her stupid thoughts to Malfoy could only be considered the cherry on top of a cake.

Did this mean that she was really crazy? But if she really was, then why did Ron want to be her boyfriend, anyway?

She thought about this for a moment and came to a conclusion that if Ron loved her despite of her being mental, then she should definitely try to appreciate it more and stop finding faults in everything he did.

She would try her best during Harry's party the next day. She really owed it to him.

Feeling a bit better, she thought a bit about her Ancient Runes homework before finally drifting off to sleep.

A/N: Hello everyone! It's been a very long time since I updated, hasn't it? I'm very sorry about that... But I do have a reason - the nasty Real Life has had a big part in me losing interest in the story. But I'm back now :) At least for a while xD But I think it's starting to get a bit better, even if it's still extremely slow :P

This chapter was not beta-read, so I'm very sorry for all of the mistakes.

Hope you liked it :)

Love,

Mizuki