It was far too cold for a trip to the Forbidden Forest. The cool breeze in the dungeons was always a telltale sign of the harsh northern climate that awaited beyond the castle walls, and if that was not convincing enough, there were the unavoidable and positively nauseating whimpers of wealthy Slytherin girls. Pampered by house-elves and gifted with blankets of Italian wool, Slytherin heiresses spent most of the winter curled up by the common room fireplace, asking boys to bring them sweets and promises of storybook romance. Draco, before his darkest destiny called upon him, had done just that. Alas, Pansy Parkinson was no longer his problem—at least not in the romantic sense.
"For a castle full of house-elves, this place really isn't very accommodating, is it?" said Pansy, pulling a beige blanket close to her chin. To Draco's surprise, she was sprawled across the sofa, her head in Evan Siftwell's lap as he tossed a shrunken Quaffle into the air. "You'd think they'd put in some extra effort to keep the dungeons warm considering we sleep down here!"
"Would if we were in any other house, wouldn't they?" Siftwell growled. "Couldn't allow their precious Gryffindors to be left in the cold."
Standing on the last step of the dormitory stairs, Draco knew that the group could not see him through his powerful Disillusionment Charm, yet his pounding heart told him otherwise. Siftwell was already disgruntled, and Draco did not want any form of confrontation—especially since Pansy's allegiance seemed to have shifted once more.
"Aren't the Hufflepuffs in the dungeons too, though?" Astoria Greengrass pointed out.
"And their common room is riddled with enchantments to keep it warm, unlike ours," Daphne replied, her nose barely peeking over the edge of the thick quilt she had wrapped around herself. "When I was dating Elijah Vinnhorn, he snuck me in there and it's nothing like it is in here. It's well-lit and comfortable and the spells even make it look like there's sunshine..."
Astoria, who had opted for a thick cloak rather than a blanket, crossed her arms. "What's stopping us from making our common room the same way? Last I checked, there's no rule saying we can't spruce it up. Maybe a couple of charms, a few extra candles, perhaps some Mrs. Bebble's Cozy Spray..."
The conversation would, hopefully, give Draco the cover he needed. He slunk through the room in the shadows as Astoria started rambling on about her decorative intent, but there was one problem—and her name was Pansy.
His childhood girlfriend appeared to see right through his spellwork, and the grave look on her face asked him for one favor: not to ruin the social status that she had clearly reacquired.
"The point is," Daphne said, "Slytherin House hasn't been in the good graces of Hogwarts for a very long time now, and it's only gotten worse since the war. Now that another Gryffindor is in charge, we should expect the cold to be the least of our worries."
"It's gotten so bad that McGonagall made Madam Hooch change the Quidditch schedule," Siftwell claimed, throwing the tiny Quaffle at the wall. "Said it was because she thought we might beat up on them, but she obviously just wanted to give Weasley more time for her team to practice."
"I hate that bloody girl," Pansy snarled.
Draco finally reached the door at the other end of the room, stepped out, inhaled deeply, and canceled the Disillusionment Charm. If there was anything he didn't miss about spending time with Pansy, it was conversations like the one he had just witnessed. He had grown beyond such talk.
Glad to leave the dungeon, Draco basked in the warmth of the main level of the castle. The corridors were crowded, mostly with younger students that spoke of lunch and nursing their first Hogsmeade hangovers of the school-year. As usual, they eyed and dodged him as he passed them by.
Unlike the castle, the grounds were barren—except for two first-years on Silver Arrows and Madam Hooch, who was tailing them on a rather ratty Cleansweep Four. It had been all too long since Draco had been on a broomstick. In another universe, perhaps he would be talking with Quidditch recruiters rather than trudging across the Hogwarts grounds for the eighth year, and in that universe, he would not be meeting with Hermione Granger. Bizarrely, he was not sure if that was a universe he feared or preferred.
Regardless of his fears and his preferences, his childhood rival had been pushing Draco to spend more and more time by Rubeus Hagrid's hut near the forest. Black clouds cut through the fog-grey sky where the gamekeeper's chimney burped smoke, and to the right of the outbuilding, there stood a familiar slim figure with impossibly large hair. As he drew closer, he saw the exasperated look on her face—and the bloodstained bucket in her hand.
"You really are taking your time, aren't you?"
"Pardon me. My legs tend to lock up a bit when it's effing freezing out."
"It's hardly freezing. Crisp, sure, but not freezing..." She was kicking the dirt with the toe of her shoe and swinging the bucket back and forth—both signs of anxiousness.
"There's something you aren't telling me."
"It isn't anything major. We do need to make an extra stop in the forest for Hagrid, though." Her eyes would not meet his. It was almost as though she were afraid of disappointing him, but Draco knew how unlikely that was, so he assumed it was simply because she did not want to deal with his reaction. "It should be quick."
He could not look away from the bucket.
When he was forced to take Care of Magical Creatures, he remembered the giant always carried a bucket that looked quite like the one in her hand. From it, he would toss fish and rodents and slugs to his many terrible beasts, including the hippogriff that attacked Draco in his third year, and it was this that gave Draco a sobering thought: What if they were off to feed a hippogriff—or worse?
"I assume that bloody bucket will be involved somehow?"
"Unfortunately, yes." She held up the bucket and puckered her nose as the wretched smell hit her. Inside were at least a dozen dead ferrets, all stinking of blood and the early stages of decay. "They're for the Acromantulas."
"The Acromantulas," he repeated. "So we're doing his job, then?"
"I volunteered to do it today, since we were already going back there. Besides, it's to protect ourselves—in case they're hungry. They'll go after something that's already dead before they'll go after us." She grimaced. "Easy prey and all that."
"Or we could stay out of the forest entirely and find somewhere else to study—ideally, somewhere warm and Acromantula-free."
The library no longer seemed like a place he should suggest, considering what he had seen that morning. Draco had never had the audacity to involve himself with another girl during his time with Pansy, but considering her incessant and baseless jealousy, he had a feeling she and Siftwell would be going everywhere together for a long while. A smeared image was, quite possibly, her greatest fear, and she wasn't going to let a younger boy make a fool of her twice.
Still, there were other places—places that were hidden and free of his shameful history, places within the castle.
"I already told Hagrid I'd go, so we're going," Granger said, firmly. Stubbornly, she pivoted and started to march towards the forest, Draco's arguments be damned. "You look like you could get some sun, anyway."
"What sun?" Draco asked incredulously, chasing after her. "The sun hasn't been out all day!"
She shrugged and ducked under a barbed branch. "It might come out soon. You know, if you asked the horse-men, I'm sure they could tell you all about it."
"Are you really still on about that?"
"I'm not on about anything," she replied, hopping over a small stump. "I just think it's funny how you hide behind their statue and trample all over their land but you still can't seem to respect them."
"If I had it my way, we wouldn't be going anywhere near their land, so don't go blaming me for that."
Apparently, that resonated with her, because she said nothing. The only sound between them was the shattering leaves and cracking twigs beneath their feet, and as Draco followed her, he realized how different their path had become. Instead of moving straight east, they were teetering south, and before he knew it, they were on a trail that was all too wide for deer.
"You might want to keep your wand drawn." Finally, the self-righteous Gryffindor had broken the silence. "I doubt they'll come out since it's daytime, but it is their mating season..."
"Just leave the stupid ferrets so we can go."
"If you don't stop complaining, these aren't the only ferrets I'll be leaving here," she grumbled, running her free hand along a tree trunk. Her fingers moved upward before stopping in midair. Disgust etched into her face and she shook her hand violently, almost as though she were trying to get something off of it. "Uck!"
Then, Draco saw it. A glimmer of sunlight peeked between the cloud cover through the outstretched tree branches, and wavering in the space between the trunk and a twig, there was a thick web. It jiggled to and fro, disturbed from Granger prodding at it, whispering promises of the return of its maker. He took her advice and seized his wand.
"This is a good spot," she said, wiping the web-laden hand on her jumper.
Seeming strangely distracted, Granger shook the bucket until each rotting ferret had tumbled to the base of the tree. She mumbled a spell and the empty bucket vanished, but something was keeping her feet glued to the ground.
"Granger?"
The girl seemed spellbound—enchanted by a force Draco could not see. Confused, he drew his brows together and took a step towards her, eager to be far, far away from the breeding place of Acromantulas.
"Granger, we have to go."
She pressed a finger to her lips and continued glancing around. What she was searching for, Draco did not know, but he was not going to entertain her foolish games. The scent of dead ferret would reach the Acromantulas eventually, and when it did, he wanted to be nowhere near their territory.
"Come on, you bloody woman!" he exclaimed, reaching out to tug her by the forearm.
Resisting his pull, she looked the other way, peering between the trees. If the war was not over, he might have thought she was trapping him.
Then, he heard it. Skittering legs—far too many of them—sounded against the forest floor. Battle and keen ears had trained him for that moment, and as two gnashing fangs drew closer to Granger, he shouted a curse.
Where there was one, there were more, and this realization must have caused the sudden change in Granger, because she had wrenched her arm away from his, only to grab his hand and sprint towards the trail they had come from. He buried the hot feeling in his throat as her fingers brushed against his flesh.
Granger wove between the trees, still holding onto his hand, and he immediately understood what she was trying to do. The Acromantulas were far too large to fit between the forking birches. Once they had made it through enough small spaces to feel safe, she stopped and sucked in deep breaths, her hand no longer cuffed around his.
"I thought we brought the ferrets so they didn't want to eat us," Draco complained, clutching a stitch in his side.
"They are, but it doesn't mean they wouldn't if they got the chance. Acromantulas are hardly friendly," she explained. "I told Hagrid he shouldn't have gotten mates for them, but—" She stopped. "Never mind."
"Are you telling me that he is letting them mate?"
"Forget I said anything," she said, thickly. "He means well, he really does—"
"He means well? He has students feeding man-eating spiders!"
"It's only because I asked!" she said, exasperated. "And we're hardly everyday students, Malfoy. At the risk of complimenting you, I daresay we can both handle ourselves."
Under any other circumstances, Draco would have mocked her for complimenting him, yet he was too worried about the issue at hand. Why she was willing to risk his life was obvious, but why was she willing to risk hers?
"You never actually explained why you asked. It's not exactly normal to want to associate with those—those things."
She groaned and leaned against one of the narrow birches. Had she been a healthy weight, the trunk would have bent.
"Professor Slughorn—I—I thought he might let us off sooner if I replaced the Acromantula venom I dropped. During mating season they tend to—well they tend to kill each other...and I thought maybe I could find a dead one and—oh, it was silly of me."
"You volunteered us for this just so you could suck up to Slughorn?"
"Well I thought—"
"You're barking mad!" Draco shouted. "We could've been killed!"
"Don't be so dramatic," she scoffed, rounding back in the other direction. "It was for your benefit too—and all the noise you're making will only attract them."
Draco paled and followed her. Even yelling at Granger wasn't worth facing a group of hungry Acromantulas.
Before long, they found the same clearing where they had settled during their last meeting. Granger seemed much less bothered by its intended purpose than the last time, as she stepped past the trees and spread out a blanket by a young jack pine. If he was not so worried about the beasts of the forest, Draco might have taken it as a victory.
"I've been doing rather well in Potions, really," she said, fishing through her small satchel. Since she had a blanket stored in there, Draco assumed she had charmed it to carry much more than it appeared to. "Ancient Runes sort of took up all of my time yesterday so I didn't quite get to study much else, but I am familiar with the potion we're doing this week. I thought we could review it briefly and then take a look at your Arithmancy essay."
Draco mulled it over as he settled onto the boulder and fingered Exceptional Potions for Exemplary Students. Granger's dangerous gamble with the Acromantulas certainly did not make him want to spend any more time in the Forbidden Forest, yet he could not stand the embarrassment of a failing Arithmancy N.E.W.T. either.
"Fine. Tell me what you know, then."
In her usual insufferable fashion, she rattled off several facts about the potion they would be working on next class. It was a salve for burns, an intermediate-level potion that Draco had made during the war; Granger, he imagined, likely had experience with it for the same reason that he did.
"Well, as long as you can remember all that, you should pass," he muttered, tiredly. "Just don't get in your own head and muck it up."
"Right. So, Arithmancy, then. Did you finish your essay?"
Draco, a bit too ashamed to admit his shortcomings, nodded.
"Let's have it," she said, holding her hand out.
Begrudgingly, Draco pulled a leaf of parchment from between the pages of his Arithmancy book and Granger used "Accio" to summon it towards her. Her large umber eyes darted back and forth as they moved from line to line, lulling Draco into a trance he was too weak to avoid.
If his father knew that he was accepting help from Hermione Granger, there was no telling what he would do. The man had been warning Draco of the girl since he was a small boy, and even after losing the war, his father's prejudices remained.
"Impressive marks, Draco," his father purred. His silver eyes were fixated on the parchment in his hands. "I am almost inclined to tell you that I'm proud of you."
"Almost, Father?"
Lucius Malfoy sighed and placed the parchment atop his mahogany desk. Cowering at his heel was Dobby, the strangest and ugliest of their many house-elves.
"As a member of the Board of Governors, I am informed of all goings-on within Hogwarts, including the grades of the students there. Tell me, Draco, who is Hermione Granger? I'm afraid I do not recognize her surname."
Draco swallowed, his hands cuffed behind his back and his posture impeccable. By the age of six, he was taught he must look respectable, because if he did not, he would know the wrath of his father's cane.
"She's a classmate of mine, sir—from Gryffindor House."
"A half-blood?"
Shaking his head, anxiously, Draco stammered, "N-no, sir. She's—she's Muggle-born."
"Muggle-born," his father repeated, standing. "Your marks fell short of those of a Muggle-born?"
"She—she's a swot, Father!" Draco defended himself. "She's always in the library, and she hangs around Potter, so the professors favor her—"
"Enough!" Lucius shouted, slamming his palms against the desk, a violent threat that caused both Draco and Dobby to wince. "Malfoys do not come second to Mudbloods!"
"Mudbloods, sir?" Draco was nearly afraid to ask, but the question had already slipped out.
"Those with dirty blood, Draco," his father explained, drumming his fingers atop the surface of his desk. "Thieves of magic—foul, impure beasts that should not even be permitted to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"Muggle-borns," Draco said, understanding at once.
"Yes, Muggle-borns," Lucius replied. "Salazar Slytherin understood that they did not belong. Unfortunately, due to Dumbledore's foolishness, people like Hermione Granger will continue to be allowed to study at Hogwarts, and do you know what it means when her marks surpass yours? Do you understand the implications?"
"Yes, Father."
"And will you let it happen again?"
Lucius's long, menacing fingers stroked the cane leaning against his desk. There were few things that Draco feared more than that cane, and he was certain that his father knew it.
With a gulp, Draco answered, "N-no, Father."
"And because of all this—" He was wrapping his fingers around the cane, preparing it for its purpose. "—do you understand what I must do?"
Draco closed his eyes.
"Yes, Father."
"Well, honestly, I agree with most of your logic here," Granger finally said, knocking Draco back into reality, "especially the bit where you said numbers aren't all-knowing."
"Brilliant. I have the approval of Gryffindor's most arrogant swot. Someone alert the Prophet!"
She rolled her eyes. "It doesn't matter what I think. Vector would hate this. You didn't even add together your personality numbers!" She tapped her wand against the parchment and two entire paragraphs disappeared. "Instead of saying that they aren't all-knowing, write about how you haven't unlocked the potential of all of your numbers yet—and add the numbers together like you were supposed to."
Draco did not like doing what Hermione Granger ordered him to do, but he followed her direction, nonetheless. After all, he wanted to pass the class, and without better grades on his essays, he would be hard-pressed to do well on the N.E.W.T.
"I shouldn't have even taken this bloody class."
"Don't be silly. You just need some help," she said, flipping through her Potions textbook, "like I did."
It did not escape him that she had paid him yet another compliment, but again, he kept it to himself.
"Malfoy, this is actually really good! By Vector's standards, even." Granger said, nearly an hour later. "It's all applicable to your number charts too."
"I'm dreadful at those," Draco was surprised to hear himself admit.
"Well, I didn't get that Acromantula venom, so I doubt Slughorn will let us off this week. I can help you again next Sunday, if you'd like."
Of all the people in the world, Hermione Granger was treating him like a human—the same girl who he had watched his aunt torture in his home. Gryffindor women were notoriously hardheaded, and Granger probably more than most, yet for some reason, she was willing to work with him beyond the confines of Slughorn's punishment. Admiration was not a word Draco wanted to use, but he could think of none better.
"We'll see."
They were the only words he could manage. If he opened his mouth again, his reservations might have failed him.
"Yeah. Yeah, alright," she said, scratching the flesh above her eyebrow. "We should get back to the castle, though. It looks like it might rain."
Draco nodded, though somehow, even with the nearby Acromantulas, he wanted to continue sitting with her. Her company was better than none, and when he thought about it for too long, he wondered if he even enjoyed it.
Author's Note: I know I haven't put out an update in eight days, so this chapter is a bit longer. Reviews are appreciated, as always!