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Chapter 20: The Change of Heart

Snow crunched under Draco's shoes as he walked over the foot of snow, trying not to sink into it. Hermione was on his left eyes, her arms held out on either side of her as she tried staying on top the blanket of snow as well.

"Why are we doing this?" Draco laughed. "I could just put a charm on our shoes and we wouldn't have to try so hard just to walk."

"It's not as fun that way," Hermione said, laughing as well.

"I'd hardly call this fun," Draco said, rolling his eyes.

Hermione laughed harder. "Well, the snow will melt in a few months, and then everything will be back to normal!"

"A few months is a long time, Hermione."

Hermione smiled at Draco. "I happen to like snow."

"So I," Draco replied. "I just don't like falling into it."

"You mean like this?" Hermione inquired innocently.

"Yeah like-oomph!" Draco fell face first into a pile of snow. He rolled over to find Hermione standing over him, her face alight with glee. Draco sat up scowling and brushing snow off his face. But once he saw Hermione's face, he couldn't help but smile. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her eyes were bright.

"Sorry," she said. "I must have slipped."

Draco threw a handful of snow at her. She returned the favor immediately, conjuring a snowball from nowhere. Draco scrambled to his feet and dashed behind a tree. He pulled his wand from his pocket and waved it over a pile of snow, resulting in a fleet of snowballs that hovered in front of him. He counted to three in his head, then flicked his wand, sending a dozen snowballs flying toward Hermione.

"Is that all you can do?" She called to Draco, laughing, a snowball in her hand. She dropped it and pulled out her own wand, waved it, and sent three more snowballs toward Draco. Draco tried to dodge them, but they followed him. Hermione had charmed them to do so.

"Not fair!" Draco cried as he ran away from them. They chased him around the tree for five minutes until the charm wore off.

Draco stood in front of the tree with his hands on his knees, panting. He walked up to Hermione, and tried to say something before she burst out laughing.

"What?" he asked, looking around to see if more snowballs were flying toward him.

"That was...so...funny!" Hermione gasped between breaths. She clutched her stomach as she laughed harder.

"Maybe for you," Draco grumbled. Hermione laughed even harder, falling to her knees and lying in the snow in her back, her hair spread out around her head.

"Why is this so funny?" Draco wondered aloud.

Hermione's laughing seemed to slow down and she slowly got up again. "Sorry," she said with a giggle. "Just, watching that was hilarious!"

"Was it?" Draco asked with a smirk.

Hermione nodded.

"Okay then," Draco said. He waved his wand and sent his own charmed snowballs after Hermione. She shrieked and ran away and around the tree once before heading back toward Draco and straight into him.

"Aah!" Draco exclaimed as Hermione knocked him over. He fell backwards into the snow, sinking a few inches into the ice. Hermione fell on top of him, her hands clasped atop his chest. Draco heard the snowballs hit the back of Hermione's coat and explode into a shower of snow. "There's no beating you, is there?" Draco asked, lifting his head out of the snow to look at Hermione.

"Nope," she said, brushing snow out of Draco's hair. She rolled off of him and into the snow. Draco got up and looked at her. Her eyes were closed and her expression was peaceful. Draco lay back down in the snow for a minute until the cold crept up through his shirt. He stood up quickly, trying frantically to brush the snow off his back.

Hermione laughed and she sat up. It had started to snow. She held out her hand and Draco took it, heaving her out of the snow. She stood in front of him for a split second before both of them leaned forward and their lips met. The taste of snow was mingled in the kiss, cold and sweet and salty at the same time.

They broke apart, their hands linked. Draco smiled at Hermione before she turned back to look over her shoulder.

"Shoot," she muttered under her breath.

"What's wrong?" Draco asked.

"Harry and Ron are coming this way. Go, quickly," Hermione whispered urgently. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before pushing him slightly. Draco hurried away from her, his head down and his shoulders hunched against the cold.

A few days later, it was February first. That day would have been a Hogsmeade trip, but the trip had been cancelled because of what had happened to Katie Bell.

Draco felt personally responsible for this, but he hadn't told anybody about his part in the attack. Not even Hermione.

Draco strolled through the corridors that day, having woken up early in the morning. The castle air was cold, and gusts of wind whistled by his ears from the open windows. Why the windows were open, Draco had no idea. Probably because of Peeves. He seemed to have taken a liking to trying to keep the castle as cold as possible that year. Draco thought it was rather stupid. Then again, so was Peeves.

For breakfast that day, Draco sat at the corner of the Slytherin table, eating a plate of bacon, a chocolate chip muffin, and an apple. He washed it down with pumpkin juice, then scanned the hall. He spotted Hermione at the Gryffindor table, and gave her a small smile, which she returned.

Draco slid out of the hall and went upstairs to the common room to read. Eventually though, he got fed up of all the glaring coming his way from Theo, Blaise, and Pansy, and left the common room for the Room of Requirement.

Once within the Room, Draco curled up in one of the armchairs and continued reading. An hour later, he heard his stomach growl, and he got up to head down for lunch.

At lunch, he heard some rather peculiar things. Snippets of conversation floated by him, including the words "Ron Weasley" and "poisoned".

The words made the hairs on the back of Draco's neck stand up, but he wasn't sure why. He got up after eating his lunch of salad and mashed potatoes and returned to the Room of Requirement.

Overall, Draco thought it had been a rather dull day.

Twilight edged the windows in the Room of Requirement, and Draco realized it was getting late. He rubbed his eyes, then picked up his bag and headed for the door.

He was halfway down the corridor when he ran right into Hermione.

"Hey," he said brightly as he smiled at her,

Her expression was unreadable, but it looked as though she had been crying.

"I need to talk to you," she said, grabbing his arm and dragging him back into the Room or Requirement. She closed the door behind them and leaned against it, her hand still on the doorknob.

"Was it you?" She asked in a tone that was bordering on accusation.

"Pardon?" Draco asked, confused. He didn't know what she was talking about, but a sinking feeling spread through his stomach.

"Was it you?" Hermione repeated. "Who poisoned Ron?"

"No," Draco said. He could feel what was coming next.

"Are you sure?" Hermione asked, removing her hand from the doorknob and taking a step toward him. Draco didn't respond.

"Ron accidentally drank some poisoned mead. Do you know anything about it? Because Professor Slughorn said he'd meant to give the bottle to Dumbledore for Christmas," Hermione said. Her voice was calm, but there was a threatening edge to her tone. "And you're the only person I can think of that has a reason to kill Dumbledore at this point.

"I'm not the only one," Draco said.

"Are you sure?" Hermione asked again.

Draco gulped. He didn't want to tell her the truth. Not after she had made him feel like he wasn't a Death Eater. That he wasn't evil.

Hermione studied his face for a moment. Draco could feel heat rushing up from under his shirt and onto his face.

Hermione's eyes flicked over Draco's face one more time, then she stepped back away from him.

"It was you," she said. She stated it like it was a fact. Her breathing quickened. "I thought you'd changed," she whispered. She grabbed the doorknob and stepped out of the room.

Draco felt blood rushing in his ears. This couldn't be happening. He followed her out of the room and grabbed her arm before she could run away.

'I did change," Draco stated firmly, holding tightly onto Hermione's arm so she wouldn't run away. She didn't seem to want to, though. She stood in front of him, her expression angry, but her eyes full of curiosity.

"So why didn't you tell me about this?" Hermione asked. "Or about Katie?"

"How'd you..." Draco answered his own question immediately. "You aren't the brightest witch of our generation for nothing, are you?" Draco asked with a sheepish smile.

Hermione did not smile back. Her jaw tightened and she shook her head in disbelief.

"C'mon," Draco pleaded. "It was a mistake. I'm sorry. I'll-"

"It's not a mistake when it threatens the life of one of my friends."

Draco frowned. "Um, Weasley hasn't been your friend for the past two months now. I have. And I thought I was more than your friend," he added quietly.

"You thought wrong, didn't you?" Hermione said, her voice reaching an astonishingly high pitch at the end of her sentence. Tears edged the corners of her already red eyes. She had been crying earlier. Draco could tell.

He would have reached out and comforted her, but something held him back. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

"All right, Granger. So I thought wrong. At least now I know I was wrong," Draco spat.

"Excuse me?!" Hermione cried, her voice shrill.

"Yeah," Draco snapped. "I thought you'd changed too. You know, loosened up a bit. But you're obviously still a buck-toothed insufferable know it all who needs everything to be based on facts and not feelings.

"One mistake, Granger," Draco continued in a low tone. "Shouldn't decide something."

"What?" Hermione exclaimed. She narrowed her eyes at him. "You've made many mistakes before, though." She said angrily.

"No," Draco said harshly. "Those were intentions."

Hermione's face flushed and she clutched at her schoolbag. "Okay. Fine!" She cried. Her knuckles turned white as she held the strap of her bag tightly in her hand. "So I'll go intentionally tell everyone you're a Death Eater and a potential killer. See what happens then!"

Draco laughed coldly. "I won't," he said harshly. "Because you're not going to tell anybody."

"What makes you say that?!"

"You're too much of a Gryffindor," Draco sneered. "You won't betray my trust."

"Oh. won't I?!" Hermione almost yelled.

Draco smirked. "You won't."

Hermione was at a loss for words for a moment. She stood with her bag in her hands, nearly torn open at this point. She glared at Malfoy before storming off down the corridor.

Draco was too angry to understand what had happened just then. He reentered the Room of Requirement, smoldering. He sat on a chair so hard it nearly broke. He ripped open a book at random and ended up tearing a few pages. He stared at the words, which blurred together because, Draco realized, he had tears in his eyes.

He watched a tear splatter onto the page of the book, blurring the words even more. The spot where the teardrop had hit darkened, and the recent argument with Hermione came floating back to him.

He wasn't a potential killer! He wasn't a real Death Eater! She didn't know the half of it!

Except she really did, Draco realized. He had poured his heart out to her, rather like Ginny Weasley had done with the diary his father had given her. And because she had, she nearly died.

Did that mean he was going to die, too? Because he'd told Hermione everything?

Realization hit Draco like a brick wall. He stared into the depths of the small fireplace crackling in front of him.

He wasn't going to be able to fix the Cabinet without Hermione. He wasn't going to be able to finish his task or be able to evade Voldemort. He was going to fail. He was going to die. Alone.

Draco pulled his knees up to his chest and stared at the fire. He sat there for hours into the night, the fire burning bright, but his body still frozen.

Eventually, he fell asleep. When he woke up the next morning, he felt stiff. But he didn't feel as he thought he would. He thought he'd be sad, upset, lonely. Depressed, even.

Instead, he felt an odd, tight feeling in his chest. Like pride, even. Determination.

He wasn't going to die, he decided. He was going to live, going to complete his task, and he was going to show Miss Hermione Granger that he didn't need her help in the slightest.