CHAPTER 26- DRACO AND HERMIONE
A/N – Song recommendation for this chapter – Hurricane by 30 seconds to Mars. Apologises for the very late update, I lost the thread with this story :(. I've been suffering from awful writers block. Anyway I'm almost finished with this one. Read and review if you like. :).
HERMIONE POV:
It had been three weeks since Hermione had seen Draco cry, for she was sure now that was what had happened. Draco Malfoy had cried in front of her. A few months ago she wouldn't have believed he was capable of such depths of emotion but she knew better now. She knew he had in him the capacity to feel pain as boundless as the ocean, that that was exactly what he was feeling at the moment. And there was nothing she could do about it. He was avoiding her, for want of a better word. She could feel him sometimes staring at her, but whenever she looked up, desperate to meet his silver eyes, he was looking anywhere but at her. He was deep in conversation with Pansy, he was joking around with Goyle, he was making out as if nothing had ever happened between them.
'He's freezing me out.'
She pushed away her toast, feeling as though her breakfast was trying to choke her. She couldn't eat, she was barely sleeping and Ron was still throwing icy glances her way, even though she was pointedly ignoring him. It was growing harder to be around Harry with Ron constantly staring at her as if she'd just revealed she was a Grindalow. Harry tried his best but it wasn't the same, she knew he agreed with Ron on some level. Nothing felt the same.
"I'm going to head to Potions early." she offered the excuse to nobody in particular but Harry nodded at her anyway, before returning to Ron's overloud conversation about Quidditch season. She kept her head down as she made her way out of the Great Hall; she knew her and Draco were the gossip of the other houses. After his kiss at the Christmas Ball, everybody was probably wondering why they were never together. She had heard some Ravenclaw boy's in the library, musing on what she was like in bed. They hadn't known she was there, just a table across, her head buried in a book so they wouldn't see the tears streaming down her cheeks. She was every guy's wet dream now. Before Draco most of the boys at Hogwarts had barely noticed her, she could have been a piece of furniture for the notice they took of her. She pulled herself together as she marched from the hall, her head held high. She refused to glance at the Slytherin table as she passed by but she could hear them calling after her, jeering. They probably thought it was really funny that the Mudblood had a thing for Draco Malfoy. Maybe they'd never know the truth. He was in love with her. Or, at least, he'd loved her. Of that she could be sure.
It was coming close to the end of term, the corridors of Hogwarts teeming with students heading for the grounds as the sun finally broke through the clouds. It was a beautiful end to the year but Hermione could find no joy in the weather. Her and Ron were on the politest of speaking terms, which meant they never mentioned anything to do with anything important and Hermione had been invited to the Burrow to celebrate Bill and Fleur's wedding. It all seemed a bit strange. The weather, a wedding coming up. It seemed so normal but underneath the surface, everything was not as it seemed. Dumbledore had been away from Hogwarts for two weeks, Hagrid had come back (thankfully not with a half brother this time) no less bloody than the less time and Professor McGonaghall deducted house points like it was going out of fashion. The teachers were on edge and it was beginning to affect the students as well. Many of them knew that the Dark Lord had returned, although it had been a struggle to get some of them to see Harry's point of view. Hermione stared into the messy depths of her trunk and sighed. She always hated packing up at the end of term. What made it even worse was she didn't know if she'd see her dormitory again; it was terrifying, she was even going to miss Lavender hogging the mirror for an hour every morning. She cast a quick spell to tidy up her trunk and tried not to think of the items hidden beneath her clothes. Madam Pince wasn't the most observant of librarians and so far the objects Hermione had transfigured to look like books had stood the test of time. She would have to charm them so she could carry them, otherwise she'd spend most of the time trekking after Harry and Ron like a pack mule.
Her fragile alliance with Ron had only came around at Harry's bidding. He had warned them that if he was to spend time with the both of them in such small quarters he didn't want the two of them at each other's throats. He had sounded so much like Mrs Weasley's that even Ron had grinned. If she was honest, she was happier than she'd been in a long while now she had Ron's friendship, however tentative back. He was good to talk too, and could keep her mind off other things, namely a blonde boy who she hadn't seen in over a month. She snapped the lid of her trunk closed and flopped onto her bed. She didn't want to be outside with the other students, no Hermione just wanted to relax with a book, the window open so she could feel the summer breeze in her skin. She was going to miss Hogwarts but she hoped that when she left, she could leave some of her memories behind her. She didn't want to drag them with her on the hunt for horcruxes.
It was night-time when she awoke, a heavy weight on her chest. She could hear the deep breathing of her classmates and she shifted, suddenly realising that her muscles were frozen and startled when the book fell from her chest to the floor with a thump. She scolded herself for being so frightened of the noise of a book falling and sat up, wiping the sleep from her eyes. She didn't know how long she had been asleep but her head was pounding dully and she wondered what had woke her up. She was normally quite a deep sleeper. When she saw the shadows move, she grabbed her wand and lit the tip, illuminating the features of a very startled looking Draco Malfoy.
"What are you doing here?" she felt her breath catch in her throat and cursed herself for sounding weak. She was supposed to be mad at him, as she was always supposed to be mad at him. How come she could hold such rage against Ron for something stupid but when it came to Draco, she forgave him at the drop of a hat. She gripped her wand more tightly, refusing to be a push over. He looked at her lost, and confused, dark circles beneath his eyes.
"They're here. You have to go." Hermione didn't want to understand the words he was telling her, she felt her stomach plummet to her toes and then he was gone, as if he'd never been there. She gripped onto her wand and ran to the window as a burst of light illuminated the night sky.
The Dark Mark was floating over Hogwarts. She did the only thing she could think of.
"Merib obmerta." she pointed her wand at the centre of the floor. A huge bang had her classmates starting out of their beds, some of them grabbing their wands in their haste to discover the source of the disturbance.
"Listen to me," Hermione's voice was quiet, she had never liked taking charge but her dorm-mates looked at her sleepily, wondering what the hell she was doing, "There's death eaters in the castle. We have to get as many out as we can. Don't try to fight, unless its absolutely necessary. Voldemort, " she ignored their flinching, "will have sent his best fighters. Shield charms. Get your stuff and head towards Hagrid's cabin. Hopefully we can use the tunnel to the Shrieking shack. Wake as many people as you can."
Hermione glanced around the ruined living room of the Shrieking shack and felt her heart constrict. Half the students had made it into the tunnel, the other half were still trapped at Hogwarts, under the care of McGonaghall. She knew they'd be alright as long as the witch was there to watch them but she wished she could have done more to help. Ron came up behind her and handed her a cup of water, it was the only thing they could make and they stared around at the heaps of bodies in silence. Some of them had been wounded, but most were fine and the ones with wounds were being tended by the 7th years. Fred was surprisingly capable with healing spells, much to everybody's surprise. He was bustling around sewing up cuts and staunching the blood flow from various wounds inflicted by the Death eaters. Not in her wildest dreams would she have guessed the numbers that would swarm on Hogwarts, it had felt as if there was a death eater for every student. She had managed to stun a few but there had always been more to take the place of the ones she felled.
"I need to lie down." she told Ron, smiling at him weakly and dragging a mouldy blanket into a dark corner. Everybody was shaken up at the Death eater attack but she was sure it was affecting her for a different matter. It had been the first time she had had a true glimpse in Draco's world, the world he was supposed to be a part of. Was a part of? She couldn't work it out anymore. He had woken her up and warned her about the Death eaters and then he'd disappeared. She didn't know if he was dead or alive, hurt and angry, whether he still cared for her as anything other than a girl he'd once slept with. She wrapped her arms around herself, scolding herself for being weak even as silent tears ran down her cheeks. When she felt an arm wrap around her, she leaned into it without opening her eyes. She breathed deeply; it wasn't him. Of course it wasn't him. She opened her eyes and looked up at George, his arm wrapped around her comfortably.
"You okay little one?" his voice was teasing but Hermione could tell there was genuine concern behind it. She nodded, swiping away her tears and pulling herself off George's shoulder, flushing slightly. She had always been friendly with the twins but she desperately wanted to be alone, to cry in peace. George probably thought she was crying over the uncertain future of her classmates. Shouldn't that be what she was crying for, instead of some Death eater who would probably betray her the first chance he got? She started to sob openly and before she could fight him off, George had crushed her to his chest.
"It's going to be okay. It's all going to be okay." he whispered into her hair and Hermione bit back the urge to ask him how he knew. Instead she let herself be comforted, wishing all the time that it was his warm arms wrapped around her. The thought only made her cry harder.