Draco's confrontation with his mother was the talk of the school by breakfast the next morning. If Hermione had to guess, she'd say it was probably the talk of the school the night before, and she just hadn't been privy to the gossip.
"Did you hear?" Ginny asked, sliding in next to Hermione. "Apparently Malfoy had a massive fight with his mum in the middle of the corridor last night."
Hermione nodded. "It's all anyone is talking about," she said.
"I heard you were there," Dean threw in. "What did you think?"
Several heads turned to face her. People had been passing on second and third hand stories, and now they had the opportunity for a firsthand account. They weren't about to pass that up.
Hermione shrugged uncomfortably. "I think I've been the subject of enough gossip," she said quietly. "It's put me off the pastime altogether."
Ginny looked torn between sympathy and curiosity, but Luna just patted Hermione's hand.
"We could go for a swim in the lake," the blond offered. "We might even be able to meet some merpeople."
Hermione smiled at the offer, though she had no desire to accept it. She noted that the students around them returned to their speculation at a somewhat muted volume. She didn't know if it was out of respect for her or because she'd made them feel guilty, but she was glad the din had subsided somewhat.
Draco was sitting alone in the Room of Requirement, debating exactly how cowardly it would be to spend the entire day in hiding. He could simply skip lessons. Of course, as he'd made such a production of wanting to continue his education, it wouldn't make any sense at all to follow it up by avoiding it.
He lay on the bed, looking at the blank space on the wall where his painting had sat for such a short time. Hermione had taken it back with her when she left that morning. She'd set a little alarm for herself and been off before the sun came up.
Draco wondered idly if he should consider the alarm a good sign or a bad one. On the one hand, it might mean she intended to sleep there regularly, which was all to the good. As far as he was concerned, the more time spent in her presence, the better. On the other hand, it meant she was still bound and determined to keep him a secret. He couldn't exactly blame her for that, though, given his history with literally everyone she liked and cared about.
He wondered what she would think, if she knew he was considering hiding from his problems. She wasn't the sort to do that. She faced everything head on. Her courage was one of the things he'd always admired about her.
He tried to mentally prepare himself for what he was going to face. It was nothing he hadn't dealt with before. He had faced the whispers, the staring, the feeling of being trapped in a beehive, the sinister buzzing making his skin crawl. He'd seen it first when his father was taken away to Azkaban in his fifth year.
At the time he had armored himself with righteous indignation, the sting of injustice making his hatred for Potter and Dumbledore and all the rest burn even stronger.
But then life had only gotten worse from there. Somehow the war had made his shoulders weaken under the load they bore. He'd used his last ounce of strength to force his mother to let him return to Hogwarts, and then begged whatever fates might hear him to just let him pass through unmarked.
And then Hermione had walked into the classroom he was hiding in, and blown his plans all to hell. He thought back on that first encounter, knowing now how completely out of character it had been for her. Of course, he wasn't the only one the war had weakened. Anyone with eyes could see how much it had changed her.
He rose and set about dressing, deciding the only thing for it was to put one foot in front of the other. And remind himself, whenever the walls tried to close in on him, that he would see her that night. Whatever the day brought him, the night brought him her. He just need to get through it, get past it, and he would be back here, wrapped in her warmth, surrounded by her scent, tangled in her arms.
He took a deep breath and stepped through the door.
After a moment's deliberation, he decided to swing by the kitchens and get a bit of bread off of one of the house elves. They still gave him scraps if Hermione wasn't a factor, and he couldn't bring himself to lie and pretend it was for her. Something about using her name to get house elves to do something they didn't want to just seemed wrong.
He made quick work of the detour and munched on his old bread, keeping to back ways on his trek to class. He had no desire to face the crowds of ill-wishers until absolutely necessary. When he did reach his first lesson, he was pleasantly surprised to find his reception relatively normal. Perhaps there were a few more glares than usual, but for the most part the Slytherins just kept up their icy disgust and left it at that.
He'd slipped, of course, in their estimation during the war. His family was no longer prestigious, and suddenly all the students who had once made efforts to ingratiate themselves with him were loath to admit he existed at all. He found himself oddly grateful for the respite. Hermione may not have started changing his view on muggles until recently, but he'd hated the war and everyone associated with it long before it had ended. He just hadn't seen a way out.
By the time Draco got to potions, he was beginning to think he would escape the whole day without much damage. He slid into his usual seat, at a table by himself. Slughorn had accepted his request to work alone at the beginning of the term, taking it for ambition rather than misanthropy. The truth was, Draco just couldn't imagine having to speak to anyone in the room on a regular basis.
He scanned it now, noting the one obvious exception. He hadn't known that at the time though, and didn't think it would do at all for him to get stuck working with Hermione Granger. He had thought her a priss and a teacher's pet, and felt no guilt for either assumption. They were rather accurate, he decided, smiling to himself.
He watched her arrange her things, distracted by his musings. She wasn't always prissy, of course. She had a lovely ability to have fun, which he never would have guessed. Even with Potter and Weasley, she'd always seemed to play the prefect, chastising them for misbehavior, warning them off poor decisions. But now he knew the sound of her laugh better than he could ever have imagined. He could play it in his head at will, and it never failed to draw an echo of joy from somewhere inside him.
She wasn't such a teacher's pet anymore, either, and he found it rather concerning. He watched as Slughorn leaned down to offer a bit of instruction on the potions they were brewing. It was a long term project, and Hermione's – of course – was the best in the class. She didn't glow or preen under his attention, however, as Draco could recall her doing so many times before. He thought it took more to bring pleasure out in her these days. He wished he knew how better to manage it.
Draco returned to his own efforts at brewing, which he was pleased to note nearly mirrored Hermione's. There was no better measuring stick, for his money. He was just giving it a final stir when Slughorn swung his great body around Draco's desk to look at the result.
"Perfectly adequate," he said, before moving on.
Draco proceeded to make his notes, amused that he'd actually rated a comment that day. Slughorn made a practice of ignoring him whenever possible. He glanced around and noted several sets of eyes trained on him, as mouths moved in whispered speculation. Mixed classes were netting a great deal more attention than Slytherin ones. Probably because the Slytherins wouldn't lower themselves enough to be seen discussing him.
Draco noticed that neither Hermione nor her partner, Ginny Weasley, were engaged in the conversations going on around him. He gathered from Weasley's repeated glances that she would prefer to be, but didn't trust the reception she would receive from Hermione. He let out a slow breath, feeling a sense of calm steal over him. So Hermione wasn't pretending to hate him. That was something.