"Pathetic. Lazy. Poor." Snape was naming all the worst possible adjectives to describe the results of their potions assignment. "I gave you more than a month to finish this, to refine it and still you handle me garbage." He said looking down at the class.
Every single student in this class was used to the disappointment look in Snape face and his harsh words to the point they started to mean nothing. But not to everyone, certainly not to Hermione Granger. Draco glanced at her, who was sitting right next to him, curved to the point she looked even more smaller that she used to. She was biting her nails nervously and her eyes were about to come out of her face, fixated in Snape's discrete hand gestures. She had black circles around her eyes, and she did not even bother to brush her hair this morning, just enough to make it seems proper decedent to the eye. Last night was a long and difficult night, for various reasons. Between finishing up the potion before the full potency of the moon vanished and writing a 10-page report on the results and ingredients used, Draco and Hermione were exhausted, only with two hours of sleep in the coach. Besides, he practically professed to her his dreadful mission.
Glancing at Granger, who looked like a terrified child, ready to receive her punishment, made him anxious. Without anyone noticed he touched her hand gently down in the table. She jumped a little at their touch and glanced at him. Her lips curved in what looked like a smile and she grabbed his hand tightly. Too much tightly. She returned to her focus-position, looking quite scary and mad if Draco would be honest.
"Your grades will be in the Great Hall during the lunch break." Snape said. He always did that. Tell them how bad the grades were at the start of the class, only to handle them two hours after, leaving them anxious and scared the whole time. "Now, turn to page 789." He said turning around to his desk.
"This is awful… What if we missed a few steps? It was quite late, damn it." Hermione whispered to Draco, who was trying hard not to laugh or smile at her adorable fury.
"It's fine." He just said and Hermione looked at him like he just grown two heads. "Hey, we didn't miss it, okay? Now, take a breath, because I think you will pass out if you don't breathe in the next minutes." To that Hermione breathed out loud. He squeezed her hand one last time and returned to writing some boring stuff that Snape was telling it was extremely important for their safety, since they all were too dumb to understand anything complex, they should knew the basics of magic.
It feels very surreal for him to be in the classroom like nothing was happening in his life and in the world in general. Like his family was not being kept in the Manor, under the rule of some maniac that wanted their heads like trophies of conquest. For what? A world without muggle-born, without half-bloods? What would that world look like? Draco often wondered about that hypothetical world, since this ideas and beliefs become something present in his daily life, in his group of friends and during dinner with his parents. He remembered the bizarre tales about Voldemort being alive and his eventual return. His father used to tell him about His returned, with proud and anxious eyes, waiting for something to happen, but to Draco they sounded like haunted stories to tell before dark about a man that most people feared and respect enough to kill for you, to leave their homes and families. And when he returned, weak like a infant, like something dead that didn't belong in this place, Draco knew something terrible was about to happen, because the myth that he was, turned to bones and flesh.
Still, he was torn in what the dead walking man preached. His father taught him about the disease that were muggle-born and about the real magic that only old and noble families like their possessed. The royalty and sense of pride fascinated him, without understanding the real consequences of what it truly meant. But he came to the realize that power was bloody and it usual meant the fall of something else or someone. While growing up the thought of being responsible for the fall of someone was something he grow accustomed. He wanted to be the best in everything, to be the chosen one in something that mattered and when he was so close of achieving that, he understood what it meant. It means the death of a thousand of people that did not know about magic or Voldemort, the death of thousands of people that were just living their lives and didn't even thought about honorable magic. Ordinary people, with people they cared about and protected like Draco did.
He wondered a lot about that mad world that Voldemort would create. If he survives all of this, surely, he will become a Death Eater, like his friends. Blaise, Pansy, Theo. In a blink of an eye, murder would become part of their world like it meant nothing, like it was their job, something banal like checking in the office and doing paperwork. He would be a killer and he didn't find any honor in that.
He glanced at Hermione who was focused on the book, practically drinking all the words on it. It meant her death. He did not know the exact moment where everything changed between them. Maybe she was just a sign, a reminder of what his acts meant to most people. Maybe she was just a getaway of all the awful things he had to do. And now, she was holding his solution and his family safety. A part of him felt stupid for trusting someone that much, with the faith of his family and his. Lucius would be laughing at his face, dishonoring him for what he was about to do for his family. Trusting all his faith in an old bat and in the last girl he thought he would be linked to.
The class ended without Draco paying a single moment of attention. Passing the year with good grades become something trivial, too small for him to care about. Like most things, he lost the passion or enjoyment for it. Potions was one. If it were not Granger and her annoying rants about the value of education, he would not even do his homework. Most days he wished to stay in bed.
"Ready to find out our grade?" She asked him terrified. This was the same girl that got into adventures with the Potter and saved the world, a dozen of times. Amazing.
"Sure." He said. Draco looked around; his friends were waiting for him close the door. Only Blaise was looking at him interested in their conversation. Sometimes Draco wanted to smash his friend for being so nosy. Hermione soon realized where he was looking at and gathered her things and left without a single look at him. He felt a pinch of anger and something he could not put his finger on rising in his chest.
"Granger." Blaise said acknowledging her presence with a smile.
"Blaise." Hermione responded walking past him with her head in the books.
"Draco! Let's go." Pansy yelled for him. "I'm starving." Draco grabbed his things and joined his friends, ignoring the curious and playful look Blaise gave him until the Great Hall.
"I can't believe it!" Hermione was screaming for the past five minutes or so. "We had the best grade in class! Draco! This is huge. I never had a A- for Snape. Ever." She landed in the coach a little too harshly. "Ouch."
"Be careful, miss sunshine. We deserved that grade." Draco said proudly.
"That's truth. I'm so tired, I just want to sleep the rest of day." Hermione said. "But I have to go check on Ron."
Draco notice how tiny her eyes were, and the hair just got crazier during the day. It was after dinner now, after a long day of classes and of avoiding Blaise conversation about something very urgent, his own words. This was the first day since the beginning of the school year that Draco did not thought about his task or went to the Room of Requirements to work in that stupid cabinet, hours after hours. It feels nice, even if only for a few minutes, almost being free of that burden.
They agreed to talk to Dumbledore during this weekend. Hermione was totally confident in that old men, but Draco was suspicious of him and did not think, not for a second, that he would get a warm welcome from him and the other professors. Not after they knew about what he did. Probably they would kick him out of school. He did not like being left in the dark, begging for salvation and a part of him did not know why he was doing this, but Granger was too damn convincing and stubborn.
"You already did. I think that Weasel can live a night without you." Draco said bitter.
"Oh my. Draco, are you jealous?" Hermione teased him.
"Of Weasel? Please, Hermione. Don't offend me like that." He said clearly annoyed by the way he was avoiding her eyes.
"My bad." Hermione said incapable of erasing the smile on her face. "Tea?"
Draco eyed her with a curiosity and reluctance. "Fine. Go to ben then, it's my turn."
"Are you sure?" Hermione asked.
"I can make tea. Besides, you can barely stay up. And honestly your jaw is always so freaking tense. It's annoying in the classroom." Draco said.
"Well, my brain is my weapon of choice, like an old and wise man would say." Hermione said rumbling.
"What? What old and wise man?" Draco asked.
"Merlin…" She said, starting to blush.
"Go to sleep, please, before you humiliate yourself more." Draco said playfully.
"Alright. But I am right, look it up. Merlin, a biography. Section 789 for the library. What a wonderful read. Did you know that…" She continued.
"Hermione." Draco said, interrupting her.
"Fine. No story for you then… Jerk." She mumbled to herself going to her room. Draco smiled at watching a very out of balance and sleepy Hermione go to her room. Still rumbling something under her breathe. Draco prepared some tea for both while he heard her drop something to the floor and sshh'ed herself. He was afraid of watching her drunk because a sleep deprived Hermione was unstable enough and a lot more fun.
After a few minutes, he entered her room with two mugs of tea. Draco learned that she drinks her tea with a splash milk and a bit of brown sugar. A child's drink, he always teased her.
Hermione was already under the covers, with her tamed hair in a high ponytail.
"Thank you." She said drinking the first slip of the tea.
Draco lay down next to her, in her comfy pillows that smelled like her. He never had been in her room and surely not in her bed. It was like he imagined to be, though. Covered in books, all around the place. A photograph with her parents, they were both smiling. A photograph with Potter and Weasley laughing while trying to stay in pose. More books. On another occasion, being in her room would be uncomfortable or awkward but he was too tired for thinking about that and so was she.
"Do you want to sleep here?" She asked. Okay, maybe she was more awake than he was. He jumped out of bed slowly, trying to catch her sleepy eyes.
"I would like the company." She added biting her lip.
"Sure? I have a suspicion that you snore." Draco said smirking. "Or worse. Your hair may try to kill me."
Hermione gave him her typical I-will-fucking-kill-you look, and Draco just smiled. "I'm offering you a nice bed, with comfy sheets in a room that has some light unlike yours that look like a cave!"
"I like the darkness." He responded. "Is a man's cave."
"Of course you do. And snakes too, I bet."
"Jerk."
"Idiot." She replied.
He returned to her bed and lay next to her, this time facing her sleepy face. There was something utterly intimate and vulnerable facing her like this. Face to face, all their flaws and tiredness expressed in their faces. Draco would see some acne scars on her right cheek that he never did noticed before and a small scar in her forehead, probably from a bad fall in her childhood. Her lips were a little chipped, probably from all the biting during Snape's class. And he also grown accustomed to her little red nose. Allergies, she said. He did not know what that meant only that she looked quite beautiful with her pink noise. She looked real and it scared him in a strange way, especially when she was looking at him like this. Like he mattered, like he was also a real person facing her. Suddenly she made everything look more real, more present, rawer. He was not sure he liked that. The intensity of life, of looking at her.
"Sometimes I hear you scream at night. Nightmares I assume." Draco immediately looked away from her gaze ashamed and angry at his stupidly for not putting silence charms. But she touched his chin, demanding him to look at her. "I would like the company too. My dreams are not really pleasant too since the year started."
"I can stay." Draco finally said. "If that's okay for you."
"Thank you." Hermione said. He grabbed her hand slowly, unsure of himself and mesmerize by her small hand.
She knew what was coming and welcome the kiss that she had spent all day waiting. His lips felt more and more familiar to her, like she had spent a thousand years kissing him and still wanted more, each time. From all the kisses, Hermione learned that Draco usually liked them more passionate or harder but from time to time he kissed her quietly, just a touch in the lips, moving slowly to the point she could catch his breathe. The world always seemed quieter when he kissed her like that.
He interrupted the kiss, to give a little one in her noose. Hermione felt like a silly girl, with her smile spreading from ear to ear like she had no control in herself. Since their talk last night, she wondered why she was doing all of this for Draco. Why she simply did not go to Dumbledore and exposed him, certainly her best friends would be delighted. But no, she was practically standing right beside him, to beg for a chance to save him and his family. But then all this doubts would disappear when he would look at her from across the table in the Great Hall or when he squeezed her hand in Snape's class and especially now when he was looking right through her and everything felt just right. This terrified her, it was like she was falling through a hole, hard and fast, and no one could catch her.
"Ready to sleep?" He asked, still very close to her. His breathe felt hot in her cheeks and his hands were playing with the base of her neck, making her ticklish.
"Are you sleeping with your clothes on?" Hermione teased. She had no idea where this kind of flirting was coming, but she was just rolling with it. Blame it on the sleep deprivation or whatever.
Draco eyes light up and a smirk appeared on his face immediately. "I don't want to intimate you, Granger."
"I already see your dick, Malfoy. Remember?" She said. "In a context that I don't wish to remember it."
"I'm sorry about that." Draco said dropping his usual smirk.
"It's okay. I know you and Pansy have a long story and…" Hermione said, suddenly very conscious of herself. She avoids thinking about him and Pansy for a reason. Since they were kids, it was kind known to everyone that they would get marry someday, have a lot of pureblood kids and live happily after in their little world. A part of her was not naïve enough that he would ever consider marrying her. But here they were. Whatever this was.
"Not like that. I mean, I do not love her that way and I always felt like shit after being with her. But I did anyways, so I'm not playing the good guy card here." Draco said. "But we're some sort of friends. I feel responsible for her in a way."
"So… I'm not sharing you with Pansy?" Hermione asked already fearing the answer.
He grabbed her chin lightly. "No, Granger. You are not. What about me? I'm sharing you with that Weasel?" He asked failing to keep his tone neutral. Even saying his name made him angry.
"No, Draco." She said smiling. "I used to like him, more than friends, for a while. But not anymore, not since everything become more real. The war, I mean. I think the possibility of being killed, puts things in perspective, don't you think?"
"I don't know. I just gave up, honestly. I don't think there's a way out for me." Hermione reached for him and was about to say something. "But I find something in you. Call it a peace or something else."
"I feel the same thing about you, Draco." She said reaching to kiss him lightly. "Now, please take your shirt off?"
"Don't beg anymore, love." Hermione tried to smash him, but he got away. "Asshole."
Nothing happened that night, even if a part of her wanted to and she noticed a part of Draco also wanted. But instead, they just talked to each other until they both fell asleep in each other arms. Hermione wake up near five a.m., with the sound of birds singing and the wind gently touching the window. She looked beside her, and he was still there, for her surprise. He looked peaceful, not frowning or screaming like she heard him do a lot of nights. She felt a need to protect him. She knew now why she was doing all of this, why she was choosing him over almost everything. Not because it was the right thing to do but because she wanted to, because if she did not, she was saying goodbye to this. Tomorrow she will stand in front of Dumbledore and defend Draco, risking every relationship she has. There was no going back, not after this. For neither of them.
Draco mumbled something in his sleep, too quietly for her to hear but he pulled her to himself, grabbing her waist. He kissed her neck gently and returned to his dreams. For the first time he did not dreamt of death or ashes or blood covering him from head to toes. He just slept.