Chapter Twenty-four
Hermione could see Malfoy waiting for her at the edge of the forest. He was looking out over the lake, the wind ruffling his hair, looking pensive. She shifted her bag on her shoulder and glanced into the trees as she hurried past them. Was this really a good idea? Perhaps seven years of being friends with Harry and Ron was rubbing off on her in a bad way. She bit her lip and took a deep breath, attempting to steady herself as she neared Malfoy. When she turned away from the trees she found him facing her, a faint grin on his face. He lifted his hand and called a greeting as she neared.
"Hi." She returned the greeting with her own small smile. Spending time with Malfoy was starting to feel more natural. Perhaps it was because she'd grown up with boys as friends, but it had rarely bothered her to spend time alone with one; especially when they were working on a project.
Shaking off the residual feelings that arguing with Ron that afternoon had stirred up, Hermione stopped in front of Malfoy and cast a glance around where they stood. True to form, Malfoy had been in waiting for her near the tree he'd been sleeping under. Unable to help herself, Hermione found her eyes drawn to the tree, and then the ground in front of it. Was it her imagination or could she still see the indent their bodies had made in the lush grass?
The sound of someone clearing their throat pulled Hermione from her memories and she looked quickly back at Malfoy. His small grin had shifted into a catlike smirk. She flushed and lifted a hand to push her hair out of her face, any excuse not to meet Malfoy's knowing look in that moment.
"Let's get to it then, shall we?" Without waiting for him to respond, Hermione turned an about-face and marched toward the forest. She refused to give Malfoy the satisfaction of admitting she still thought about their encounter of course he had to see right through her, considering she'd easily found his mystery meeting spot this evening.
They walked in silence for a minute, Malfoy a step behind her as Hermione strode purposefully down one of the winding paths. She thought she remembered taking this trail once, back in her first year, when she, Draco, and Harry and Ron had all had detention together. The path was nearish to Hagrid's cabin, which made her feel safer.
"I'm not exactly sure where we need to go," Hermione said after they'd been walking in silence for a minute or two; she'd kept her eyes straight ahead as she walked next to Malfoy, afraid to look at him again in case that stupid smirk was still on his face. "I suppose any spots with dark magic won't be near the edges of the trees though." At her words, the boy next to her stopped walking and Hermione was forced to come to a halt and finally look over at him. She found Malfoy drawing his wand out of his pocket and placing it horizontally on the centre of his open palm.
"I'll do a modified Point-Me spell," he said in explanation, holding his broad palm out in font of them over the path. "I was actually thinking about this situation earlier, and playing around with some incantations." He turned his attention back to his wand and muttered a few words, a moment later the slim shaft of wood glowed a faint purple and Malfoy closed his fingers around the end to hold it out in front of them. As he swung the glowing tip back and forth, the light flared and dimmed—Hermione didn't fail to notice the subtle intensifying when the end neared Malfoy, and the diminishing light when it neared her—considering the backgrounds of many of the students in the Slytherin dorms, not to mention Malfoy's own home, she was unsurprised to see that he had brushed with dark magic at some point or other.
Hermione followed Malfoy as he now took the lead, his wand out in front of them, guiding them both deeper into the trees. Though Aragog was long dead, Hermione kept one eye out for any of his descendants, among the slew of other dark creatures that made the forest their homes. Despite her determination not to show fear, she soon found herself walking right next to Malfoy, and flinched in spite of herself when the back of her hand brushed his knuckles. She pulled back quickly, refusing allow herself to remember the way it had felt when Malfoy had taken her hand to help her down the bluff by the lake the other night.
"Um, are we almost there?" she asked to break the silence, and to distract herself from the way she'd been seized, for one wild, inexplicable moment, with the urge to slip her hand in Malfoy's just then. It was just her uneasiness from being this deep in the woods, Hermione told herself, it was only natural for one human to seek out safety from another.
Malfoy looked over at her, the tip of his wand sputtering and flaring as he swung it back and forth between them. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Do you really expect there to be flare ups this close to the edge, Granger?" He paused, then the corner of his mouth quirked faintly. "Or are you admitting you're nervous about going too far in? This was your idea, you know. I wanted to go out to the highlands. But, being the gentleman that I am, I agreed to do what you wanted…"
Hermione huffed, and almost rolled her eyes, but Malfoy's teasing had done the trick and she took a deep breath, straightening her shoulders and gathering herself together. "I'm fine. I only meant, that is, which way do we go from here?" She pushed past Malfoy and his smug, knowing look, and strode purposefully down the path, looking about the trees as if she could see the spot they were heading for. She thought she heard Malfoy chuckle lowly at her bravado, and ignored him as he closed the distance between them. "Well?" she asked impatiently, refusing to meet his eyes.
"I think another five or ten minutes walking should put us in the right depth," Malfoy said a minute later, eyeing the brightness of his wand. "Come on, this way looks promising."
They eventually broke through the dense trees into a small clearing, and Malfoy pronounced that a good place to stop. Hermione was glad to have the small ring of trees at her back, feeling a modicum of assurance that any particularly large beastie would have trouble getting through their trunks to harass them if it ambled nearby. When she turned back to Malfoy, she found him pulling notes out of his school bag and shuffling through them. His wand lay on the ground, the tip glowing a bright purple in the direction across the clearing. He passed her a piece of parchment and self-inking quill, then spent the next few minutes pacing the clearing, trying to find the spot with the densest concentration of magic.
"Here," Malfoy said, finally stopping in front of a tree on the furthest side of the clearing. Hermione came up beside him and squinted at the trunk. There were small runes carved into the wood, and the whole of the trunk for about two feet in either direction was a mixture of charred wood and something that looked like purple and orange mould. "Celtic Curse Marks," Malfoy explained.
Hermione frowned. She sort of recognized the individual marks from her Ancient Runes classes a few years back, though none of the combinations made any sense to her. An unsettling feeling seemed to permeate the wood, and she shivered slightly and took a step back. Malfoy looked over at her.
"It's not the sort of thing they teach up at the school," he said with half a grin, that was really more of a grimace. "Though Auntie Bella thought they made for a fun summer project when I was in fifth year." He pointed at the trunk. "These were probably carved during the Battle when Death Eaters were in the woods. The general meaning is a curse of misfortune on the enemies of the carver."
Hermione sucked in a small gasp as Malfoy brushed his fingers across the carvings, and he looked back at her. "Do you think it's safe to touch them?" She anxiously fingered her wand in her pocket, wondering if she ought to cast some sort of protective spell.
"The curse will have run out by now. The energy only lasts for a few hours before it burns out. Quite literally." He pointed at the charred bark Hermione had been inspecting, then stepped away from the tree. "Anyway, there should be some residual traces of dark magic remaining, and I thought we might be able try the cyphering aspect of the Charm on the tree."
Hermione nodded, looking over their notes and finding the comments they'd made on wand movements and potential incantations. Then she withdrew her own wand from the pocket inside her robes and stood opposite Malfoy on the other side of the massive tree trunk. "Ok, I'm ready when you are." He gave her a solemn nod and raised his own wand.
They worked for several long minutes, murmuring under their breaths and pacing around the tree, running their wand tips gently down the trunk and over the grass at the base of the tree and surrounding area, and focusing all their attention on whether or not there was any improvement whatsoever on anything the curse runes had affected.
Crack.
Hermione jumped slightly, startled, and glanced over her shoulder. Malfoy stuck his head around the trunk and gave her a questioning look. "Everything ok?"
Hermione looked behind her again but the forest was silent. "It's nothing, I just thought I heard something."
Malfoy looked around the clearing himself, pausing to listen, then turned back to her. "I don't hear anything."
"Right. It's nothing. I'm just a little anxious, I guess." It pained her to admit it, but Hermione had to consider where they were working, even if they were doing important work. They continued to circle the tree, murmuring incantations, and this time Hermione let out an excited gasp when she jumped back from the tree.
"What now, Granger?" Malfoy demanded, coming around the tree once more, looking vaguely annoyed.
Hermione didn't care, the bark on the section of the tree she'd been working on had suddenly flared icy blue, and the charred bark began to flake off, rising into the air in sparkling bits like ashes over a camp fire. Beneath it, the cursed area of the trunk was glowing, new bark expanding over the ruined area until that section matched the rest of tree, healthy and fresh. She turned to meet Malfoy's eyes. "I—I think it worked, Draco!" she cried excitedly, turning to face him fully.
xXx
"What?" Draco said sharply, coming closer to the side of the tree where Granger was hovering, her face aglow in that way she had whenever she solved a difficult problem. "What did you do?"
He moved closer, his heart rate picking up in nervous excitement. Could it possibly be that his Charm had really worked? He wasn't sure how to feel about things. His life had been shrouded in such darkness and anger for so many years, the idea that a soul as torn as his own had had a hand in creating something that healed was… magical.
"Look!" Granger was saying, her face no longer anxious about working in the forest, no, now she was fully focused solely on their project and the fact that they seemed to have succeed. She reached over and tugged on Draco's sleeve, pulling him closer to where she stood, and he felt a little shiver of pleasure at the fact that she was starting to touch him in that same, casual, manner that she had with Potter and Weasley. He watched as Granger lifted her arm and made a few flicks with her slender wrist, brandishing her wand across another area of charred bark, the same icy blue light flaring as the cursed bark healed once more. "See?" she cried, turning to face him, eyes bright.
Draco lifted his own wand and mimicked the movements Hermione had made. The bark flared slightly, but when the light dimmed it was still blackened. He turned to look down at her, feeling shame bloom across his cheeks. Of course he wasn't able to do it. It had been folly to hope. Granger was goodness and light. He was… not.
"You forgot the incantation," Granger said gently, placing a hand on his arm, and Draco looked back at her, his heart tripping once more, unsure what he was feeling just then, only that there was a lot of it. He cleared his throat roughly, trying to regain control of his spiralling emotions.
"Ahem, right." He lifted his wand again, then turned back to her, a question in his eyes.
Granger stared blankly at him for a moment, then a faint flush appeared on the apples of her own cheeks. "Oh, um, right. The incantation I used was Sana Cresco."
Draco felt his heart expand. Sana Cresco had been one of the incantations he'd come up with; it meant something like let the healing spring forth. He had been somewhat worried deep down that he was too broken to create a spell that healed, but together with his words and Granger's wand movements, they'd managed to bring forth something amazing. He lifted his wand and cast the charm across another section of charred bark, then stood and stared in awe as that part of the tree was made new. He looked back at Granger and felt a grin break out across his face. His whole body felt light with the possibilities that lay before them. Granger smiled back, and Draco took another step forward, feeling his arms start to rise, reaching for the girl across from him…
Crack.
This time they both looked around, gazes wrenched from each other and out to the trees that surrounded them. Draco took half a step toward Hermione, a trickle of apprehension sliding down his spine. "It's probably nothing to worry about," he began, but another crack sounded and Granger cut in.
"Nothing sounds like it's coming closer," she said, moving toward Draco, and he hesitated, not wanting to move away from her. The creature, whatever it was, had just ruined the moment they were sharing and he wasn't pleased about that.
"We're not that deep in—" Draco began, and was interrupted by several more cracks as branches were broken beneath the feet of the creature moving nearer to where they stood. "Just the same, maybe we should move a little closer to the Wiggentree on the other side of the clearing."
Hermione nodded, and they hurried across the grass to stand next to the tree, both resting a palm lightly against its trunk. A couple of Bowtruckles scurried across nearby branches, peering down at them, but neither bothered the students seeking protection from their tree. After another minute of silence, Draco felt silly for overreacting, and was about to make some crack to Granger about letting the forest get to them, when voices sounded nearby.
"Why do we have to meet here?" grumbled a boy's voice, sounding aggrieved. "We have a perfectly good common room."
"Because, you prat, the common room is common. There's other people there," a second voice answered, this one vaguely familiar to Draco, "and we don't want to be interrupted."
"It's not like most of them would care," a third boy said, sounding petulant. "We're all Slytherins, they'd probably ask to join us."
"That's the point," the second voice snapped. "We can't allow just anyone to ask for a cut. Not everyone is a dedicated as we are. Certain people are even, dare I say, sympathetic?"
There was some assorted muttering, then one of the boys spoke, sounding disgusted, "I could name a few. That Phil bloke for one."
"Draco for another," added the first boy.
Draco tensed, his entire body coiled to spring into action and confront the boys coming nearer through the trees. But there was Granger to consider right now. He glanced over at her, and found her white-faced, her small hand pressed hard against the trunk of the Wiggentree. She looked over at him too, and he could see the uncertainty in her eyes. Draco looked back across the clearing, his heart thudding, knowing that the boys from his house could come upon them at any second. Then, before he thought better of it, he grabbed Granger's wrist and pulled her around to the other side of the Wiggentree, pressing her against the trunk and hovering in front of her, his body a shield from the other side. Whoever was about to come out into the clearing, Draco knew it would do neither of them any favours if he and Granger were discovered together.
"Stay here and don't come out until they're gone," he hissed in a low voice, looking down at Hermione. She hadn't fought him when he pulled her behind the trunk, nor pushed him away when he blocked her in against it, even now she stood perfectly still, barely breathing, waiting for him to finish speaking. "I have a feeling that whatever meeting is taking place here, no one is supposed to know about it. Even more so anyone from a non-Slytherin house." He waited until Granger nodded, then stepped back from her, even though his entire being screamed at him not to leave her unprotected. "I'll try and lead them away. If you can, head back to the castle, or go to Hagrid's. You know the way from here, right?"
Granger nodded again, reaching into her robes and slowly withdrawing her wand, then she met his eyes once more. Draco moved out from behind the tree, hurrying back to their book bags. He'd barely reached them when a group of boys in various states of Slytherin dress broke through the trees into his clearing. They stopped short when they spotted him. Two of the boys exchanged glances, and Draco figured they were the ones who had just been talking about him and Phil. Then a taller boy stepped forth from the back of the crowd, his form pristine, as if even the trees of the forest didn't dare to muss his robes.
"Draco," Blaise said coolly, his tone mild but his eyes calculating. "Fancy meeting you way out here."
Draco met Blaise's eyes unflinchingly. "Blaise," he said calmly, as if he didn't have a care in the world. "Cartwright, Anderson," he nodded at the two boys standing on Blaise's right and left, just like Crabb and Goyle had done for him on so many occasions, "though I don't believe I've had the pleasure of meeting your other friends." He shot Blaise a pointed look and Blaise smirked faintly.
"Blakely," he nodded toward a sturdy boy with a Beater's build, "and Burlington." This time he nodded his head at a thin, somewhat weedy boy, who sneered at Draco as if he were the mud beneath his feet. He didn't offer any other information, likely calculating the odds of whether or not Draco had overheard anything they'd been saying.
Draco nodded at each boy in turn, resolutely refusing to so much as glance toward the Wiggentree behind him to see if Granger was still there. He didn't want to draw any attention to her if she were, and there were already five pairs of eyes staring in that direction. Instead, he moved back toward the tree with the curse runes etched into it, not all of them had been charmed away yet. "Well, I know why I'm out here," he said with emphasis, giving Blaise a pointed look as he covertly kicked his book bag so that it fell over top of Granger's, hiding it from view. "Though I'm about finished up."
Blaise finally looked away from the Wiggentree and over to Draco with a raised eyebrow. "Just what are you doing out here, Draco?" he drawled, ignoring Draco's look and question. He scanned the tree, his eyes widening slightly when they saw the runes. "Celtic Curse Marks? Interesting homework."
Draco rolled his eyes. "It's not school work and you know it, Zabini," he muttered, casting the other boy a disdainful look. "One can't let the old ways slip entirely."
Blaise's expression eased, the suspicion Draco had seen earlier slipping away as he moved closer to the tree to inspect the runes. "For Corner?" he asked, an edge of excitement in his voice.
Draco felt his stomach clench, but he pushed the sick feeling aside. "Who else?"
Blaise nodded approvingly. "Seems I was wrong about you, Draco." He flickered a glance at Cartwright. "Certain other people were starting to feel like you were losing your touch."
Draco sent a steel-laced glare over at Cartwright, then across the assembled group in general. "Certain other people would do better to stay out of my way."
Blaise chuckled, enjoying the animosity, and Draco fought to keep his own expression blank. "We were just discussing how certain values have begun to fall by the wayside in the past six months," Blaise went on, and Draco raised an expectant eyebrow, waiting for him to elaborate. "Since the end of the battle, I mean." He raised his own dark brow, sending Draco a meaningful look, demanding he make of that what he would.
"I see," Draco said, schooling his features into neutrality. It wouldn't do him any good if Blaise suspected Draco was ok with these changes. "What is a man if he has no values, after all?"
Blaise smirked. "No man at all."
"Well, I'm done here," Draco said, reaching for his book bag and shoving parchments back inside, carefully slipping Granger's bag into his satchel as well. "If you gentlemen wish to join me, I plan to see if Fieldright and her friends can be tempted into a swim before dinner."
"Bit cool for that, ain't it?" Burlington asked, his voice as oily as his hair.
Draco cast the boy a look that said: if Draco were the mud beneath Burlington's shoe, then Burlington were a slug crawling in that mud. "That's the point, mate. Get the girls into the lake, then they'll need some warming up. And I know just what to do for that." He smirked, letting his expression do all the insinuating for him.
Blaise grinned devilishly. "Burlington wouldn't know what to do with a girl even if he could manage to corner one," he said smoothly, his voice more cutting than a shearing charm, and Burlington flushed angrily. "Go enjoy your swim, Draco. I'll see you at dinner."
Blaise lead his group out of the clearing, past the Wiggentree, and Draco hefted his satchel onto his shoulder, bringing up the rear of the party. When he passed the Wiggentree himself, Draco cast a quick look to his left, breathing a sigh of relief that Granger was long gone. He hoped she had left before she overheard too much their conversation; leading a double life was starting to wear on Draco's nerves.
xXx
Hermione burst out of the trees at a fast walk, her heart racing as Hagrid's cabin poked into the air over the curve of a hill nearby. She wasn't sure why she was she was so anxious, it wasn't like she hadn't put up with nastiness from bigoted Slytherins before. There had just been something about the way Malfoy had reacted that had made her listen to his commands.
As she neared Hagrid's cabin Hermione thought back to the way Malfoy had acted in the clearing before the others—whoever they were—had shown up. His Charm had worked, she recalled, a little thrill shivering through her. All the work they'd done over the past two months had paid off. She had been excited and pleased when it had worked for herself, but watching Draco perform the cast and syphon the darkness from the cursed tree had cause a warmth to bloom in her chest like she had never felt before. The darkness in his own eyes had seemed to ebb away along with the cursed runes. And then there had been the way he'd looked at her just before they'd heard the voices. He had started to move toward her, his hands lifting as if maybe he meant to hug her, or…
" 'ello 'ermione!" called a cheerfully gruff voice, pulling Hermione out of her thoughts, and she looked up to see Hagrid waving one of his over-large hands at her from the middle of his pumpkin patch. "Out for a walk, are yeh?"
Hermione lifted her own hand in a wave, still feeling a phantom tingle of the thought of what might have been if she and Malfoy hadn't been interrupted. "Good evening, Hagrid."
To be honest, Hermione didn't really want to stop and chat, so she gave the groundskeeper a smile but continued her pace back toward the school. She wanted to find someone to help her work out what was going on and, frankly, Hagrid wasn't going to cut it. She felt less shaky now that she was out of the forest and back out in the open, especially now that she could see a scattering of Gryffindors heading back up to the castle from Quidditch practice, and a group of Ravenclaws sitting together under a tree, even if one of them was Micheal Corner. When she spotted a flash of red hair in the crowded entry hall full of students heading toward the great hall for dinner, Hermione hurried toward it.
"Ginny!"
The owner of that name turned to look over her shoulder curiously, eyes widening when she saw Hermione hurrying toward her. "Hey, Hermione, everything alright?"
Hermione caught up to Ginny and slid an arm through her friend's. "How would you feel about eating al fresco tonight? I need to talk to you about something."
xXx
"Ok, spill," Ginny said twenty minutes later, after the girls had finished waiting for the house elves to send up dinner to the house tables, and then picked up their plates and slipped out a side door to a gently sloping hill on the side of the castle.
Hermione set her plate on the grass then slipped out of her school robes and flicked her wand at them to transfigure the material into a soft picnic blanket. Then she sat down and smoothed her skirt over her knees. "So I've been spending a lot of time with Draco Malfoy recently," she began, somehow still feeling uneasy about confessing this, despite the fact that Ginny knew all about it already, and had promised to try and be understanding.
"I kind of expected you wanted to talk about him when you didn't want to eat in the hall," Ginny replied mildly, picking up a drumstick from her plate and tearing off a bite with her teeth. "What happened?"
"Well, we've been working on a project together, a really great project, something that could potentially change everything for those who were affected by dark magic during the second wizarding war."
Ginny chewed and swallowed, her full attention now on Hermione. "Malfoy and dark magic isn't something that most people would think was a good partnership," she began, and Hermione could tell Ginny was striving to remain neutral and not accuse Malfoy of anything.
"No, of course not," Hermione agreed. "But it's not what you think. He spent the entire summer drafting a Charm to try and syphon the dark magic out of a blighted object and channel it into a purification process that would output healing and restore the object to its former state."
Ginny blinked, her chicken leg dangling forgotten from her fingers. "He did what?"
Hermione felt the smile growing on her face as she thought back to the long nights they'd spent pouring over ideas and formulas, and the success they'd had today. "He's changed since the war, Ginny, and he wants to do something to benefit wizarding society, to prove to everyone, including himself, that he's really grown."
"That's great, and all, Hermione," Ginny began, "but it will take a lot for people to start believing in him again. I mean, I'll admit that he seems to have made an improvement this year, but creating a healing charm? That's huge. Do you think he can do it?"
The smile on Hermione's face grew almost painfully wide. "That's just it, Ginny," she said, feeling that same warmth in her chest that had bloomed there when she'd watched Draco perform the charm an hour ago. "We were in the forest before dinner. Draco had this idea of a place where we could test out our potential options—don't start, Ginny," Hermione added, seeing the worried look start to rise in Ginny's eyes, "we didn't go that far in, we were only ten minutes or so from Hagrid's, and anyway, that's not the point."
"And the point is?" Ginny asked, returning to her chicken leg in an obvious attempt not to say anything else.
"It worked, Gin!" Hermione said excitedly, memories of icy blue light and fading runes filling her vision. "Draco found this tree with Celtic Curse Marks on it, left over from the war, and we tried various wand work and incantations on it, and one of them actually worked. The runes disappeared and the tree returned to a natural, healthy state!"
"It really worked?" Ginny asked, her tone doubtful, but tinged with hope. "Are you sure it was something Malfoy did?"
Hermione resisted rolling her eyes, knowing that this was something that Malfoy had been worried about: other people thinking that Hermione had done all the work and he had only tagged along for the glory of association. "Yes, Ginny," she said firmly, giving her friend a no-nonsense look that said louder than words not to question her. "Draco did ninety percent of the work, I only helped him fine tune things. It was his incantation that brought everything together."
"That's…" Ginny began, food forgotten again as she processed everything Hermione had said. "I mean, wow. That's kind of amazing. Especially considering where he's come from. If he can really create a spell like that, well, I mean, people would have to give him the benefit of the doubt, right?"
Hermione picked up her own cold chicken leg and took a big bite, swallowing the savoury meat and then taking a sip from her goblet of water. "He did create a spell like that. And it's going to mean great things for him."
"And you," Ginny added, placing a slice of cheese on her buttered roll and taking a bite.
"I suppose," Hermione agreed, "though I'm not going to let anyone try and push him out of the picture. Draco did the work here, and he should get most of the credit."
They ate in silence for a while, enjoying the evening breeze and the setting sun over the tops of the trees. Then Ginny looked over at Hermione with a small smile on her lips. "You're saying that with a lot more ease these days, you know."
Hermione looked over at Ginny, a questioning look in her eyes. "Saying what?"
"His name," Ginny said simply.
Hermione felt heat rise in her cheeks. It was a simple thing, a name, but depending on which one you used, it meant so much more.
xXx
Draco lifted his arm and waved to Blaise and his cronies as they headed up toward the castle, turning and making his way down toward the lake. His stomach rumbled in protest, not at all pleased that Draco was going in the opposite direction that the food was; but it couldn't be helped.
He'd been all kinds of lucky tonight, he thought as he picked his way over the rocky bluff that lead down to the water's edge. If he and Hermione had charmed all of the curse marks off the tree before Blaise had arrived; if Hermione had refused to leave when he'd told her to; if Blaise hadn't believed Draco had really been out in the woods to set a curse on Corner… Well, he could have been spending his evening an entirely different way.
Of course, he thought, nearing the water and stopping on the sandy shore to watch the waves gently lap at the sand, the evening hadn't been entirely bad either. His charm had worked! Draco felt a grin break out across his face. All that planning and theorizing, and when they'd finally come out to test things in person, it had all come together! He remembered the surge of joy that had filled him when he'd murmured the incantation and watched as the bark on the tree had healed. He'd looked over at Granger and seen the same excitement mirrored on her face, the joy in her eyes making her look so beautiful that he'd found his body moving toward her, his hands reaching out for her. He'd meant to embrace her, propriety be damned, and he wasn't entirely sure that in that moment she'd have pulled away from him either.
But then Blaise had shown up.
Draco felt his mood sour. Blaise seemed to have a knack for causing problems when Draco and Granger were together, always around to make some needling comment under his breath, or leading suggestion to Draco or others around them. He knew that Blaise thought Granger was just a lark Draco was playing out; he didn't take any capacity of 'relationship' between the two seriously, beyond the pleasure he seemed to get out of harassing Granger and bugging Draco. Draco didn't know what was worse: the idea that Blaise didn't care about Granger, or the idea that he did. Either way could be dangerous.
xXx
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