AN: I feel so sad, I think the rest of my readers has lost their interest. :( But at least there are still some people who continue to read and review! Thank you so much for everything:)
Hermione blinked and gave a soft gasp, her eyes wide and big.
"I'm Draco Malfoy." He said again, smiling even more. "What's your name?" He asked her.
You have beautiful eyes. I have beautiful eyes. I have beautiful eyes?!1?
This kept playing over and over inside Hermione's head, and apparently it blocked any room for comprehension. This was actually saying something, because Hermione still had her boils and someone could still complement her? Let alone Draco Malfoy?
This is not cool.
Draco was sitting at the bed, looking straight at Hermione, with a dumbstruck Fred, George, Harry, Ron and Ginny staring open mouthed.
"I'm. I'm." Hermione started. Draco looked at her and smiled some more, and for some reason Hermione seemed to have been incapable of speech. She started to stammer. "I'm-I'm-you don't…? Yes, of—of course.. Any—anyway—"
"You can just tell me your name." Draco said in a gentle tone and chuckled softly. "I can guess if you want." He said in a mysterious tone, cocking his eyebrows, and to Hermione's point of view, it looked kind of…sexy. Hermione shook her head at the thought of it.
"No?" He suddenly said in a disappointed tone.
"I—wha--?" Hermione said. "Oh no! No! It's just that you won't actually guess my name, trust me." She forced a smile at Draco and the rest chuckled. Draco nodded and said, "Alright, go on then." He said.
"I'm Hermione. Hermione Granger." She said in a rush.
Draco suddenly broke into a wide grin. "You're right, I've never heard that before." He chuckled and Hermione simply smiled.
"Anyway." A loud sniggering voice said. "Before there might be anymore moments, please be advised that it's time for bed." They all looked around to see Fred laughing.
"Who are you?" Draco asked confused.
"Me? I'm George." Fred said, "George Weasley." And he smiled.
"And I'm Fred!" George suddenly added, "I'm his twin!" And they gave identical grins.
"I'm Ronaldo by the way! I'm their cousin." Ron said smiling goofily.
Ginny stomped on his foot. "You prat, that's such a lame line." Then she straightened up and said, "Hello, I'm Pansy Parkinson!" And gave a smile. Ron gagged at her.
Draco simply nodded and looked as if he was trying hard not to forget. "How come my dad doesn't like you?" He suddenly asked, a bit cold, and Fred answered,
"Well, aside from the obvious reason that he's a big fat pra—"
"—There will be plenty of time for that tomorrow." Hermione suddenly said hastily, shooting daggers at Fred. "It's time for bed." She said.
"Oh. Okay." Draco said airily, as though unaware of his surroundings, and started to get up dreamily, walking towards the stairs. They all simply watched, until he came to a halt and said. "By the way, where do I sleep?" And he faced them with a lost expression.
Hermione couldn't help but admire the lost and humble-not-so-arrogant Draco Malfoy, but then pushed the thought away. She forced a smile and said, "Oh, we share a room." She said rather quickly.
She could feel her cheeks burn red as she said the words, and Draco looked at her with a startled expression.
"Really? Why so?" He asked confused.
"Oh that's because you guys have been going at it for quite—"
"—Because of this." Hermione said, pointing at herself and cutting George. Draco looked at her boils, didn't say anything at first, then, opened his lips and said,
"Those boils on your skin remind me of the stars." He smiled and said vaguely.
Ron gasped and said in a whispered, yet audible, tone, "Oh my god he's gay!!" His mouth was open. "He is soo gay!" And he ogled some more. "Who the hell says that!!?"
Ginny rolled her eyes and stomped on his brother's foot.
"You're the one who's gay Ron! Look at the way you speak!!" She said viciously. "Anyway, it's a long story Draco, but we'll explain it to you tomorrow. But you and Hermione sleep in the same bed because of her boils, it's nothing to worry about, there's an alarm anyway for…. Hanky panky." She finished, trying to hold back fits of laughter.
Harry finally spoke up when he saw that Draco was trying to digest this piece of information, "Look, let's go upstairs and go to bed, shall we? Now." And they all nodded and went upstairs, Draco still glued at the spot.
Hermione was the last to go upstairs and she stopped as she passed by Draco, gazing unfocused. "Draco? Look, let's just go through the night, okay? Tomorrow everything will be clearer." And she gave a reassuring smile in the hopes of having him convinced.
Draco looked at her for a while, gray eyes boring into brown ones, confirming his trust. "No problem." And he smiled to seal the invisible communication. Hermione smiled back, although still feeling weird at the prospect of acting all polite towards Draco, memory tucked in or not.
They climbed the stairs side by side, Hermione taking in all the awkwardness of the situation and silently blessing the fact that he won't have to remember all of it the moment he is cured at Hogwarts. Draco, in the mean time, was constantly looking at Hermione, Hermione being unaware and oblivious as she was deep in thought.
He watched her, her face screwed up in incomprehensible thought and silent thinking, and he marveled at her brown eyes that seemed to be reading something invisible imprinted in her head, and the way her lips would suddenly smile or move based on whatever it was she was thinking.
"Is it okay with you if you shared a room with me?" He suddenly asked the girl beside him.
She looked at him with a surprised expression, "Why do you ask? It's been going on for days now." She said heavily.
"It has?" Draco said quietly, gazing unfocused again. "Do I give you a hard time?" He suddenly asked.
This time Hermione almost tripped as she missed a step. Strong arms caught her and when she looked up, she found herself caught safely by a boy with an expression of amusement and admiration mixed and plastered on his smooth face… pale… complexion… a smile playing on his lips and his eyes… his eyes... soft and intense as ever…
Hermione couldn't pull away, but then she realized that she must've been giving Draco a hard time and stood straight hastily, not daring to meet his eyes. "Sorry." She said hastily as she climbed up the stairs in a quicker pace.
Draco was glued at first, looking up at the figure that was rising ahead of him quickly. She was something, very hard to understand –that's what he thought. He chuckled slightly and caught up.
"I'm sorry for making you lose your balance." He smirked in a friendly and teasing way as he caught up with her. Hermione found that this smirk wasn't quite as annoying as his usual ones, and she forced a smile. "Ha ha."
They had finally reached the landing and the twins bade their goodnights, not forgetting to tease Hermione and Draco and offering each love potions, while Ginny rolled her eyes and said goodbye in a sort of apologetic way, (Probably feels sorry for her brothers, Draco thought.) and Harry and Ron said goodnight while threatening Malfoy not to do anything stupid.
Hermione led Draco to the door, opened it and stepped inside, Draco close behind. "Well, here we are. This is your room." And she sat at the bed, while Draco took in his room and closed the door.
"Quite plain, isn't it?" He said conversationally, while Hermione chuckled.
"The normal you hated it, and hated the fact that you had to share it with me too." She said chuckling.
"The normal me? Am I not normal now?" He asked frowning. "And why would I not want to share it with you?"
Hermione stopped chuckling abruptly and said quietly, "Well, you never really liked me. But anyway, we'll tell you everything tomorrow, let's just get ready to sleep." She stood up and walked towards her trunk, pulling out a nightdress.
"I never really liked you?" Draco said quietly more to himself. Hermione nodded curtly and started changing while Draco looked away.
He was staring into space, when the words escaped his lips subconsciously. "Rubbish." He said it very softly to himself, although the girl changing was oblivious to what he had just said.
Draco then changed, but this Draco had a night shirt on, Hermione pointing out that the normal one was topless since he was so arrogant (She might've exaggerated there but they both had a laugh at it.)
They were both under the covers of the bed now, Hermione at the left as usual, Draco at the right, although he wasn't lying down like Hermione, he was sitting with his back flat against the wall of the bed.
"Aren't you going to sleep yet?" Hermione asked as she looked up to look at him.
Draco looked down and said smiling, "Oh no, not yet." He said and started to gaze into space again.
Hermione frowned, he was acting weird lately. The lights were off already, and they were in total darkness. They could only hear the other, sense the other, feel the other.
"So, how is this normal or old Draco that you speak of?" Draco suddenly asked her through the darkness.
Hermione smiled. "Well for one, the old Draco wouldn't ask that straight to me. He would've think it was… not his ways." She said to the darkness.
"Really now?" Draco suddenly asked, and she could tell he was frowning. "How come?"
Hermione smiled some more. "Well, it's a really long story." She said to him. "But to sum it up, we've been enemies for the past six years now."
Draco was quiet for a while. "Were we?" He said so quietly, Hermione thought the darkness might have ate up his words.
Hermione could hear Draco reach down for his trunk and get something out of it, and heard what seemed like the ruffling of pages and the scratching of a quill. She couldn't think what Draco would be doing at a time like this, quill and possibly a notebook, where it was impossible to see. He couldn't have been able to read nor write.
She nodded, even if she was aware he couldn't see her. "You never liked my friends, and you never liked me, especially since you don't like who I am." She said in equal softness, remembering the numerous times he had bad mouthed her for being Muggle-born.
She heard the quill stop abruptly, and she could tell Draco was frowning yet again.
"Why wouldn't I like who you were? What would make me despise something you had no control over?" He asked confused.
Hermione sighed. Dumbledore was right, it was their problem, what with coping with a seemingly clueless Draco Malfoy. She figured there was no point in explaining since he wouldn't even remember it in time, and they had plenty of time tomorrow.
"Good night Draco." She said suddenly, her voice final, and turned her back on him, so that she was on her side and not facing Draco, even if the darkness covered them.
There was silence for a while, where Hermione could tell Draco was holding the quill in mid-air, mid-sentence probably.
It seemed like minutes passed by in silence and Hermione was starting to drift off to sleep, when in fact it had only been a mere 15 seconds before the confused boy beside her finally said with a firm yet very soft voice,
"I would never do that to you."
But the girl beside him, he never knew whether she had heard him or if she was already dreaming, as her body slowly went up and down, slowly up and down, her breathing heavy.
His quill resumed it's scratching and there was silence other than Hermione's rhythmic breathing.
Farther away, not measured in miles nor distance, for she was neither here nor there, Hermione was already dreaming, though in her dream she distinctly heard a far away voice say something, but she couldn't remember nor understand; it was a boy's voice, saying something to her, but she never got the message. Soon all she could hear was a distant and far away scratching of a quill.