A/N: Woah, it must have been over a month since my last update, so sorry guys. I wouldn't be surprised if most of you forgot what this story is even about, I'm awful at updating stuff. This was originally going to be joined with next chapter to make a single chapter but the next half was taking me so long I decided to split them.
The night was warm and still as Hermione lay awake staring at the ceiling in the dormitory. June had crept up on them and although they'd done OWLs the year before, and NEWTs weren't until the year after, the summer weeks had flown by leaving barely any time to relax. She sat up, considering taking another quick look through her charms theory book, but when she opened the book the words scrambled together on the page and floated meaninglessly around her head. The moonlight filtered into the room through gaps in the curtains and threw beams across the sleeping figures. Hermione gave up and resorted to her habit of a late night stroll. The map in her tight grip showed the 7th floor almost abandoned. She scanned the rest of the tattered pages, another habit she found hard to shake, but no names caught her attention.
She knew exactly where to go.
The door slid open a crack in silence and she slipped through the small gap. Recently the room had become a comforting hide-away. Even when Draco wasn't here, sitting in the forgotten armchair reading or wandering around the room strewn with lost and forgotten items was treasured alone time that Hermione had begun to depend on.
"You know, it's just, they have each other." she explained one night, curled up on the armchair as Draco worked. "Harry has Ginny, Ron has Lavender, and even when they're on their petty break-ups he has his family and his quidditch team. What have I got? Books and a secret room with a secret...friend."
Draco looked up from the old textbook he was leafing through, a look of awe passed across his features before he regained his unreadable mask. "Yeah...I see what you mean."
"They never really notice when I'm gone, which is a good job too seeing as I'm here practically all the time." she continued with her explanation, her monologue on what was going on with her and her friends, a decent distraction for the boy making all the wrong decisions.
Despite an aching want to be left alone, seeing that she was not alone did not dis-hearten the Gryffindor. In fact, she counted being with Draco as alone enough. If she wanted quiet she got quiet, as long as there wasn't a fight going on, and if she wanted someone to vent to then so long as Draco could stand listening to more talking she would vent. There was always a bit of a balance. They could rage and shout at each other, or sit in each other's silent company and be just as at ease.
He was the best, and yet the least likely, company for the Gryffindor princess. Draco sat hunched over running his fingers through his hair. It stuck up at random angles, Hermione noticed, as though he'd been running his fingers trough it for a while. She also, rather begrudgingly, noted how she liked the way it looked ruffled up and messy, as if he had just woken from a long deep sleep. With all the calculating looks she was sending at Draco's hair she barely had time to notice the calculating looks being directed back at her.
"Can I help?" His voice was rough from dis-use but the malice behind it was still clear.
"Oh, I don't know, can you?" She sat herself down next to him with a playful wink. Their banter tended to bring out her witty and rather flirtatious side, sometimes she even surprised herself.
He wasn't impressed, or he just wasn't in the mood, and turned back to staring at the wall opposite them.
"What's up? Drakey run out of things to say?" she mocked at him, fighting to get the slightest reaction from his stone cold face.
"Maybe I have." he replied flatly, his eyes never leaving the wall. The quiet defeat wasn't the reaction she was after, and a snappy reply hung on the tip of her tongue. In the silence that followed Hermione realised just how drawn out and pale he had become. How scarily dark his eyes were. How his lips formed a thin line closer to a scowl than a smirk and looked as if they were made that way, carved frome stone. And she realised just how beautifully weak he was. He was broken, and she suddenly didn't know whether to reach out for him or sit here and let him bleed. She reached out a hand towards him but he flinched away so she sat back.
Continuing to watch his face, he didn't show any sign that he appreciated the company, but he showed no sign that he was against it either and so she stayed.
"What's wrong?" The seconds had drifted into minutes, and the minutes had drifted by uncounted. It felt like they had frozen there, and Malfoy wasn't about to break it.
He shrugged.
His continued ignorance was clawing at her patience. What could make him be like this? Hermione's mind started to whir with solutions, problems, situations, but nothing clicked. He was never subdued like this. He never went down without a fight, so what fight had he lost? "Tell me. I have a right to know."
He merely looked down at the floor.
"You better tell me this instant what has got you so pissed! Are you listening to me? Are you listening?"
He looked at his hands. This puzzled her, it confused her more than anything and nothing confused Hermione Granger. This boy was a puzzle, and she wasn't about to give up on him.
"Fight back, damn it!" She launched herself to her knees and pushed him. She threw her fists at his chest. "Fight back, WHY WON'T YOU FIGHT IT?"
"How dare you?" he whispered.
She almost grinned at her victory, he was fighting back. There was a light in his eyes that hadn't been there only moments ago, but her fear started bubbling under the surface.
"You have no idea." His voice raised into a shout and he stood with the most speed and grace Hermione had seen. He was a good few inches taller than her, but even if he weren't, his Quidditch trained muscles showed through the translucent school shirt that clung to his frame and there was a new darkness to his eyes that made Hermione wary.
"You don't know what I've done, what I'll do. I'm dangerous."
And for a split second she believed him.
"You're a good man." she whispered, and looked up into his eyes with earnest.
"No! No, I'm not! You don't understand, you don't even know me!" he fumed and raged, moving towards Hermione's petite form. "What would you know about the dark arts? Raised by Muggles, the Gryffindork, always got your nose in a book, but you know bnothing/b of the real world!"
"You don't know me! I've been fighting the dark arts since I was eleven!"
"I've been part of the dark arts since the day I was born!"
They were left face to face gasping for air.
"We-we don't have to fight...oh look, we could read or try fixing that old thing again."
The vanishing cabinet stood in the corner, a pretty reminder of what brought them both to the room and kept them both coming back. Hermione stepped out from behind Draco and walked towards it.
"Beautiful isn't it..." she muttered to herself, tracing her fingers along the handle.
"It's finished...nothing more to do to it." he snapped.
"You cracked it! You worked it out, Draco!" She turned to face him with awe. "Brilliant!"
But Draco wasn't looking at it like it was beautiful. It wasn't a pretty reminder for him. It wasn't pretty at all. He looked at it like it was the most painful reminder possible.
"What is is, Draco? What's wrong?"
He turned away from the cabinet and walked deeper into the room through the make-shift corridors and round countless corners following only the light of the moon. Hermione dashed after him, barely keeping up with his long strides. The boy would never stop being a puzzle to her.
A/N: Read and review? What do you think of it? Is Hermione's relationship with Draco too confusing? Is it just right? Are they in character enough? And what do people think I should do about next chapter, do you want Draco to re-consider then break the cabinet or to go ahead with it and leave Hermione behind or to change his mind right in the middle? I keep going between the different ideas with this one so let me know what you think.