Chapter Twelve
By the next day, unspoken boundaries had been put in place.
Draco and Hermione each sat in separate chairs; if Draco was on the couch, Hermione was in an armchair. They also chose to completely avoid talking of anything but the riddle and kept the riddle's answer as a passing word only with very little discussion whatsoever.
At lunch, they left for the Great Hall separately and they avoided looking at each other at all. Hermione even told Ginny not to bring up Draco Malfoy or any other Slytherin, therefore allowing her brain to rest and think of something else for the first time in weeks.
"But this is serious, Hermione!" Ginny stated impatiently through clenched teeth.
"I don't want to talk about it even for a second, Ginny!" Hermione retorted in a hiss.
Ginny shut her mouth and changed the subject.
"What about Ron?" she asked. "Are you upset he slept with Lavender?"
"I wasn't surprised," Hermione said, relieved at the change of subject. "He and I broke up months ago. I haven't thought about it much."
"Because of Mal-?"
"I said no, Ginny!"
And with that Hermione got up and headed out of the Great Hall towards her Arithmancy class.
Reaching the corridor, she slowed her pace and continued onwards hesitantly when she saw Draco leaning on the wall by the door.
"Granger," he acknowledged as she reached him.
"Malfoy," she nodded.
"Have a good lunch?"
Hermione looked at him, pursing her lips tightly. "The pie was especially tasty today."
Draco nodded.
"Look, Granger," Draco pulled himself away from the wall, "I r-"
Lavender Brown's squealing laughter traveled around the corner at the end of the corridor, immediately followed by the blonde girl herself.
"Won-Won, don't tease me like that!"
Hermione looked away and avoided Draco's eyes.
"I'm not teasing, I'm promising," came Ron's much quieter tone.
"Ooooh I can't wait!"
"Hermione." Ron's voice cracked in noticing her and he came to a stop.
"Hullo Ron," Hermione said in a scathing tone. "Best not tease; poor Lav-Lav will go purple with anticipation."
"I – yeah – right," Ron said, his ears red. "I'll see you later at dinner? Yeah – later…"
The redhead continued down the corridor with his girlfriend clinging to his arm and whispering in his ear.
"I thought you were over him?" Draco said, wishing at that moment that his smirk would obey him and appear on his lips.
"Not that it's your business but I am," Hermione snapped. "I just don't need the constant reminder as to how it went wrong in the first place."
"He's a Weasley," Draco sneered. "It was bound to go wrong."
Hermione looked at Draco with narrowed eyes. "The Weasleys are my friends –"
"That doesn't mean they have to be mine, Granger."
They gazed at each other a moment before looking away abruptly when a new group of students came round the corner towards them.
ooo
"… How about the Astronomy Tower?" Draco suggested. "A secret closet?"
"Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw make a secret closet?" Hermione repeated disbelievingly. "I think they would have had more taste than that."
"Fine – Ravenclaw has secret quarters like these ones," Draco said impatiently. "Granger, we're pulling ideas out of thin air here –"
"That's precisely what brainstorming is, Malfoy," Hermione snapped. "All the ideas are within reason. I mean a closet is a little unflattering for them but being a closet connecting to the Astronomy Tower I suppose it's quite romantic."
"I never thought of you as the Astronomy Tower kind, Granger."
"That's because I'm not," Hermione retorted. Her tone relaxed as she continued in a mumble. "Lakes and trees do it for me."
"Really?" Draco smirked. "How very alike you and I are, Granger."
"I thought we agreed not discuss these kinds of subjects, Malfoy?" Hermione questioned uncomfortably.
"I don't remember us coming to any agreements, Granger."
These words were followed by silence. Hermione sat there, scribbling ideas onto parchment while Draco laid back on the couch, his ankles crossed and his hands crossed behind his head.
In between thoughts of the riddle, its answer and where Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw may have hidden a stone containing Slytherin's power, Hermione thought of the one thing she had been trying desperately not to think about: Draco.
As she sat in the armchair grabbing random ideas out of the air, she couldn't help but realise that her relationship with Draco had become exactly how she could imagine Ravenclaw's and Slytherin's would have been. True, she and Draco had never held a friendship like the one described in books on the founders. But they had always had their differences in opinion, beliefs and mannerisms.
It was now that Hermione realized how she and Draco had seemed to have put the majority of that behind them. She no longer felt the need to slap his face or laugh at him about being turned into a ferret. In fact, Hermione realized, Draco had helped her to grow up, accept the past and look only to the future.
"Oi, Granger," Draco suddenly said, "have you still got that mirror that got fried by the basilisk?"
"No, I don't," Hermione said tiredly. "Do you honestly think I wanted to keep that as a reminder of what I saw?"
"Just thought maybe it might help us," Draco replied offhandedly.
"How could it possibly help?" Hermione questioned, looking at Malfoy with narrowed eyes.
"Well it's related to Salazar Slytherin and there's a mirror in one of the memories –"
"It's related to Slytherin because I made it be!" Hermione snapped. "Now if you're not going to be of any help – leave!"
Draco smirked and only made himself more comfortable.
ooo
A week later Hermione was in ruins. After months of slowly adjusting to life after the war, Hermione found herself falling back into misery. Her world was once more filled with images of Voldemort, Harry's presumed dead body lying at Hagrid's feet, Fred lying lifeless covered in debris from a crumbled wall and Draco lying on the ground, coughing and spluttering and choking out Vincent Crabbe's name.
Hermione often contemplated what was causing it. The images appeared in her mind so clearly, as though she was watching it all over again. She had stopped carting one of Salazar's stones with her, believing that perhaps it was these that were causing her to relive them so vividly.
"I thought you'd stopped having crazy moments, Granger," Draco suddenly said, noticing from across the common room.
"Why don't you hang around with Goyle anymore?" Hermione asked abruptly. "He hasn't been here for ages…"
"Well after Crabbe –"
"He's dead," Hermione said, "Goyle isn't."
"I still hang with him in class –"
"But not as much as you once did."
"Granger, is it really your business?" Draco suddenly snarled. "The war changed everyone even if some of us can't admit it. I changed. I don't want to be part of any of it anymore."
Hermione fell silent and allowed the memory of the Room of Requirement from the year previous filled her head.
"Don't kill him! DON'T KILL HIM!"
The words were followed by the scene with Draco hiding behind a wardrobe and then Draco dragging Goyle's stunned body as quickly as he could, away from the fiendfyre. Then she saw him clutching Goyle on top of a tower of charred desks.
Hermione came back to earth and saw Draco standing over her, looking at her closely.
"You asked them not to kill Harry," she said softly, looking at him.
"Granger –"
"Whose side were you on?" Hermione whispered. "You told me you wanted Voldemort gone but did you really want Harry to succeed?"
"Yes," Draco said firmly. "From the moment I pointed my wand at Dumbledore on the tower, I was on Potter's side. I was just too scared."
Hermione watched him as he slumped down onto the couch beside her.
"I was a coward," Draco continued. "You saw me at the manor; I didn't know what to do. In the Room of Hidden Things, I was caught between seeing you, Potter and Weasley die at the hands of my friends or handing you to the Dark Lord and hoping you'd escape and kill him. You call me wise… Well I'm not, Granger."
"You are," Hermione insisted. "The war has helped you mature, Malfoy. You stand on your own two feet now."
Draco looked into Hermione's eyes again. "Weasley's not wise at all."
"You know to stay clear of that subject, Malfoy," Hermione warned.
"I was just stating the obvious, Granger," Draco replied. "His every action reflects it."
Hermione smiled as she tried to block out images of herself and Ron from the last three years. She was unsuccessful; her mind flashed from images of watching him make out with Lavender in the common room days after she asked him to Slughorn's Christmas party, to the night he abandoned her and Harry the year before, to the time they kissed in the Room of Requirement. Finally her mind paused on watching him walk away with Lavender clinging to his arm outside her Arithmancy class.
"I should have shot birds at him again..." As the words left Hermione's mouth, Draco laughed, causing Hermione to do nothing but stare, surprised.
He stopped abruptly when he noticed her gaze and as their eyes connected, they each looked away.
The unspoken boundaries had been broken again.
