Harry jumped on Draco and proceeded to punch every part of him he could reach, ignoring Ginny, who was screaming at him to stop.
"Potter, stop!" Draco shouted, but he wasn't fighting back. He would rather Harry hit him than Ginny – even if he didn't like the girl, he didn't agree with men hitting women.
"Why? So Ginny can take your side and help you, while telling me that hitting you was the wrong thing to do? News flash, Malfoy: Ginny cheating on me with you is wrong," Harry said, punching Draco as hard as he could.
"Harry James Potter! You stop this nonsense right now. I did not sleep with Malfoy – hell, I've never slept with anyone, so get that silly idea out of your head," Ginny snapped, having finally had enough.
"Hermione! Help!" Ginny bellowed as loud as she could. Hermione ran out of her room, still in the dressing gown, and gasped when you saw the scene.
"Harry! Get off him right now," Hermione shouted, running over to drag Harry off of Malfoy.
"Hermione, move, before you get hurt," Harry warned.
"What is all this about?" Hermione asked, still trying to pull Harry off Draco.
"Harry thinks I slept with Draco," Ginny exclaimed, running over to help Hermione.
"Why would he think that?" Hermione asked, pausing her actions.
"Because when he came in we both had messy hair, and I was red in the face," Ginny said.
"Well, that's ridiculous, Harry," Hermione said, still attempting to pull Harry away from Draco.
"Why is it? She won't answer me," Harry said, throwing another punch at Draco and hitting him squarely in the nose.
"Harry, stop!"Hermione cried when blood began to spurt out of Draco's nose.
"Why – should – I?" Harry asked, punctuating each word with a punch.
"You'll end up killing him!" Hermione screamed. Now blood began to trickle out of Draco's mouth. Hermione finally managed to pull Harry off, with Ginny's help.
"Harry, go to my room. Ginny will be there in a minute," Hermione said angrily. She and Ginny watched as Harry walked into Hermione's room in anger. There was blood, both his and Draco's, all over his hands.
"Gin, tell him everything – except that I was in Malfoy's bed. Please," Hermione pleaded. "I'll sort Draco out."
"Okay," Ginny agreed, walking into Hermione's room and leaving Hermione to heal Draco.
Hermione waved her wand and levitated Draco to the sofa. There was a pool of blood where he had lain seconds before, and a ring of crimson was slowly forming around the couch.
"Why didn't you fight back?" Hermione asked while she worked to heal most of the wounds.
"I thought if I started fighting back it would get serious, more than it was already, and the Weaselette could get hurt, or you," Draco answered truthfully.
"But you don't like me or Ginny," Hermione pointed out.
"No, but you're girls. The one thing my mother taught me was that girls should never be hurt by a man, accidentally or otherwise," Draco said, moaning. His side hurt a lot.
Hermione finished waving her wand and placed her hand on his arm to hold him down. Many of Draco's cuts were healed although there were the odd few that she couldn't heal, mainly because he kept moving because of the pain and she didn't want to hurt him. Her hand still rested on his arm; both of them had noticed, but neither said anything. Hermione looked into Draco's eyes and found him looking back into hers. His eyes really were beautiful. She could hear Harry and Ginny arguing in her room. Her eyes dropped to one of the cuts she couldn't heal, and she moved her hand off him. They fell into an uncomfortable silence.
"Go and get a bath, get rid of the blood, and I'll clean up in here," Hermione told him softly, trying to break the awkward silence. She waved her wand and muttered a strong cleaning spell to Vanish the blood on the floor and couch. When Draco had been in the bathroom for about five minutes, Harry and Ginny came back out of the bedroom. Harry looked ashamed, and Ginny looked angry.
"How's Malfoy?" Ginny asked softly, avoiding Harry's eye.
"He's fine, he's in the bath getting rid of the blood," Hermione said, glaring at Harry.
"Harry, don't you have something to say?" Ginny prompted.
"Yeah, but Malfoy isn't here," Harry said, looking down at the floor.
"Well, then you can tell Hermione instead!" Ginny muttered, nudging him ungently.
"Will you tell Malfoy that I'm sorry and I didn't want to hurt him that much?" Harry said, unable to look up from the ground.
"I'll tell him, but I think you should leave before he gets out of the bath and you start again," Hermione whispered, unable to look her friend in the eye.
"Yeah, Hermione, I'm sorry. I was a total idiot and I really didn't mean to hurt him," Harry said, and she could hear the sincerity in his voice.
"It isn't me you have to say sorry to," Hermione said, smiling sadly.
Harry nodded and walked out of the common room with his head down. Ginny walked up to Hermione and hugged her before following Harry out of the portrait hole. Hermione watched them leave and shook her head. She wondered what Ginny had said to Harry to make him apologize to Malfoy; as hard as it was to imagine, she must have been mean.
Draco got out of the bath a few minutes later, free of blood, and his hair was no longer a mess.
"Feeling better?" Hermione asked him, smiling.
"A bit. Er – I just wanted to say thank you, Grang– Her– Hermione," Draco stuttered out, making Hermione beam.
"You're welcome, Draco," she said softly. "Oh, Harry said he was sorry. He didn't mean to hurt you."
"Stupid git. I always hated him," Draco muttered.
"You weren't saying that in first year, when you asked him to be your friend, were you?" Hermione smirked.
"I was eleven!" Draco exclaimed.
"Where do we go from here?" Hermione asked seriously. The Christmas holidays were coming up soon, and if the truth be known, she didn't want to be away from Malfoy. He made her feel safe.
"Well, I'm going to the kitchen. You can go in the bathroom and have a bath – you look a mess," Draco said with a straight face.
"Oh, aha." Hermione rolled her eyes.
"I'm serious. You have panda eyes and your hair is stuck up everywhere. It's scary," Draco said, shielding his eyes.
"Shut up!" Hermione glared, swatting his arm. She ran into the bathroom and locked both the doors quickly. She turned the taps on and sat on the side of the tub, waiting for it to fill up. It was quite a large tub – correction: it was a massive tub. It was like a swimming pool; in fact, Hermione was sure all the Gryffindor girls would be able to fit into it. It filled up quickly, and Hermione turned the taps off, took off her robe and nightie, and stepped into the bath. She lay down in it, her headache starting to go away. She pushed her head back, and rinsed her hair. She came back up and rested against the side of the bath; her eyelids got heavy and before she knew it, she was asleep.
Draco had been sitting by himself for over half an hour. How long did she have to take? he wondered. He decided he would check on her. He knocked on the bathroom door but got no answer, so he muttered, "Alohomora," covered his eyes, and walked in.
"Gra– Hermione, are you okay?" He whispered, so as not to scare her. When she didn't answer, he looked through a gap in his fingers. He couldn't see her – the bath was full, but she wasn't in it. He fully removed his hand and looked at the bath again. Now he could see her hair; it was just under the surface. She was under the water!
Without thinking, Draco ran and dived into the bath. He went straight to Hermione and heaved her out of the water. Her head was above the surface now, but she hadn't opened her eyes.
"Granger! Wake up!" he said, panic evident in his voice. He began to shake her, but it didn't help. She didn't move. He was starting to panic. She couldn't be dead. Thoughts were running through Draco's head too quickly for him to catch them.
Did she do it on purpose? Was it an accident? Did she want me to find her like this? Is it a joke?
Hermione, please wake up, his mind begged, as if she could hear him.
He shook her again, not caring that he sat in a bath full of water, fully clothed, while she had nothing on. She couldn't be dead; he could see her breathing and could feel a pulse. He needed to wake her up. He got out of the bath and pulled her out with him. He put her on the floor and ran out of the bathroom to get his wand. When he ran back in, she hadn't moved and she was getting paler, her face turning ominously blue. He grabbed the red towel she had taken in with her and covered her body with it.
"Ennervate!" Draco muttered, pointing the wand at Hermione's chest. If he had been asked why he was doing this, he would have said it was because he didn't want Harry or Ron to think he'd killed her – but really, he did care. He did have a heart. It was just surrounded by ice because of the way he'd been brought up.
A small cough brought him back to earth. Hermione had awoken. Shaking slightly and coughing up water, she saw Draco standing over her with his wand pointed at her and whimpered, pulling the towel more tightly around herself.
"What happened?" she asked.
"You'd been ages in the bath, so I knocked, and when you didn't answer I walked in and saw you under the water. I dived in and pulled you out but you didn't wake, so I had to use a spell to wake you up," Draco explained.
"Oh. Thank you," Hermione said in a small voice.
"It was no problem. Don't do it again," Draco muttered, looking anywhere but at Hermione.
"I'm going to go and get dressed," Hermione said at last. She pulled the towel around her and walked out of the room.
A/N: I know, it's late. I'll tell you why. Did my Authors Notes, saved it, went on FF. Couldn't find the finished file anywhere. Re-did it, wouldn't let me save. I could have cried... and now, I just lost another one - explaining in proper detail why it is late. So, I'm a bit narked off. Explains my mood. Oh, and another reason it is late - is because I was working on a comedy... and I've posted it. It's called "Come Out Of The Closet, Dumbledore!" (shamless advertising, I know.) And, I am happy. It's got more reviews in 2 days, than this did in nearly a week.. I think I got 3 reviews, the first two weeks this was out - Thank you all, for changing that, I do love you all, in a sisterly way. xxx