Upon reaching her room after getting finished with dinner, Hermione sighed a little as she slowly closed her door and sat down on the bed, the incident between Draco and Professor McGonagall from earlier today was still fresh in her mind.

She thought about what Ron had said to her when she sat down at the table in the Great Hall.

"Malfoy's not that bad huh?"

How could she possibly defend him after what he did this morning? Over the past week the two of them had gotten along better than she could have imagined…almost to the point were she could consider him a friend…kind of.

Hermione knew deep down that something was troubling Draco. It was something deeper than what he had told her about being forced to train as a Death Eater under Lord Voldemort. She knew there was something more to it that, but how on earth could she get him to tell her what it was?

Draco's door was closed and she hadn't seen him since Transfiguration class, he hadn't even come down for dinner. Hermione grabbed her book off the nightstand and decided to pass the time by reading until he finally came out.

However, inside the other bedroom, Draco had been sitting in the same spot for hours. He just sat there in the dark, waging a war inside of himself. Part of him just wanted to go to sleep, wake up the next day and continue on with his life, but the rest of him seemed to know already that he wouldn't. That eventually he would be drawn back to the Dark Lord.

He slowly closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.

"Come back to me Draco..."

"What do you want?" Draco asked.

The Dark Lord smiled as he walked closer towards him.

"To help you of course."

"Help me how?"

"You're not happy here. You and I both know that."

He walked a few steps closer and Draco didn't back down even as he came to stand right in front of him.

"Draco..." Voldemort began. "Don't come at me as an enemy...come to me as my son."

After about another hour, Draco finally forced himself to his feet and crept from his room, quickly saying the password and exited the dorm, heading down the staircase that would take him to the front entrance of the castle. As he walked down the steps, he began thinking if he had any real reason to stay.

Hermione?

"She's just a mudblood. She doesn't care about you."

Little did he know that Hermione had heard every step he made and was following him at a safe distance. She had been determined to get him to talk, and she was going to go wherever he went. She kept following, down staircases and through hallways until Draco approached the main foyer and Hermione then figured out that he was leaving and began running over to him as fast as she could.

"Draco!"

He spun around in surprise when he heard someone yell his name and narrowed his eyes when he saw who it was.

"Granger. What are you doing?"

"I uh…" Hermione began, a little uneasy because of the look on his face, and the fact that he had referred to her by her last name. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"Well I don't want to talk to you." He snapped at her. "Stupid mudblood."

Hermione looked at him, her once fearful eyes quickly becoming that of a furious glint. She realized the boy standing in front of her right now wasn't Draco, he was Malfoy.

"How dare you? Who do you think you are?" Hermione's hands were clenched into fists and she began to tremble with rage. She couldn't believe that just twenty-four hours ago she defended him, considered him trustworthy. Here he was, acting like his old self again.

"Me? I'm not the one who's a mudblood."

Hermione's anger then took over her and she lunged towards him before she could stop herself. She threw her hands at him, trying to hit him but Draco managed to back away before she connected and he grabbed her hands, staring at her in shock.

"I hate that name! I hate it so much! How dare you call me that?" She struggled against him but he held her hands firmly as she trashed in his grip. "How dare you call me something so vial when you were only a step away from being a Death Eater! I hate it, and I hate you!"

"Well you won't have to put up with me anymore, will you Granger?" He whispered before letting her go.

"What are you talking about?"

"Because I'm going back to the Dark Lord."

The anger that Hermione once felt quickly faded away as she looked at Draco in shock.

"What? You…you can't do that. You can't go back to him."

"Don't tell me what I can or can't do." He snapped.

"So what?" Hermione snapped back. "Are you going to prove everyone who thought you would become a Death Eater right? Are you going to become just another minion for Voldemort?"

Her voice than got quieter as she finished.

"Are you going to kill people just because they're muggles?"

Draco just stared at the the large front door in front of him before closing his eyes and gently putting his hand on it. She didn't know, didn't understand the power of the Dark Lord.

"I have to." He finally said. "I've always had to…it's just that I didn't want to accept it until now. You belong here, Hermione. But we both know that I don't."

"You could." Hermione snapped. "If you really wanted to, you could. You're not one of them Draco."

He turned back around to face her.

"How do you know that I'm not one of them?"

Hermione looked at him for a moment before she stared at the ground, trying to come up with an explanation. But after a few seconds, she just shook her head and looked back up at him, deciding to go with the simplest answer.

"I just know."

"Well that's not good enough."

"Draco please…" she knew it was dangerous to keep pressing on, but carried on regardless. "You need help. You need someone to help you figure things out."

Hermione then reached out and gently took one of his hands in her own. Draco glanced down at her soft grip of his hand and looked back at her and right then, he realized that Hermione wasn't pretending to care at all.

She really did.