**** Hi everyone. I'm so sorry I haven't updated in so long! I'll try harder from now on, I promise, but I am at school so it's pretty hectic. I hope you all have had a wonderful Easter holiday period. This chapter is a bit longer – yay – so I hope you enjoy! R&R xxx****

Healed and refreshed, I walked into the Great Hall. Wishing I was with Hermione, currently seated in the scarlet and gold bannered area on the far side of the enormous hall, I took my seat at the Slytherin table. I gazed at her lone form. She was tucked up in a corner of the table reading a thick volume, a spoon halfway to her open mouth. Hermione started as a swooshing sound filled the great hall and a brown owl carrying the Daily Prophet landed before her. As she exchanged the leather bound book for the paper, I wistfully imagined my arms around her. Glumly, I returned to my own breakfast, omelette. I was half-heartedly pushing the food around my plate, lost in thoughts of Hermione, when a boy suddenly smacked me on the back, in a welcoming gesture.

Panicked, my mind whirred into overdrive, interpreting the jovial swipe as an attack. I fell backwards off my chair, sprawling on the ground and shielding my face, ready for the next blow. As I cowered on the floor all the Slytherins up and down the long table guffawed cruelly at my weak behaviour. I lowered my hands from my face and straightened up. The oddly warped sea of snickering, leering faces, sent me wheeling from the Great Hall. I hastily departed, imagining their malicious taunts.

"Draco Malfoy, arrogant pureblood, spooked at a mere pat on the back!"

"Draco Malfoy's such a coward."

"Draco Malfoy's a loser."

"Draco's Malfoy's scared."

"Draco…"

These thoughts reverberated around my brain as I stumbled through the corridors and up the stairs, replaying until I started to believe them myself.

How weak was I to be scared at a friendly gesture?

How weak was I to fall to the ground at a single touch?

I was scared. I was pathetic. I was weak.

I blundered into the common room, ran up the stairs and slammed my dormitory door behind me, locking it for good measure. Sliding down the smooth wood, my head fell into my hands. I stayed like this for a long time, hunched against the onslaught of my thoughts, contemplating the pitiful being I had become. Lucius had broken my will as his mind had broken in Azkaban; painfully and completely. I didn't stand up for myself, I complied, for fear of being punished. I was constantly jumpy, my tormented mind ever alert for the smallest of danger.

I was unclear how many hours passed before my whirling thoughts jolted to an abrupt halt, a loud knock sounding on the hard wood behind me.

"Draco? I know you're in there. Please let me in. I saw those prats laughing at breakfast. Don't listen to them. Don't let them get to you." Hermione's sweet voice seeped through the cracks in the wood.

Caving to her demands, I shifted slightly to the right in order to remove myself from the doors path, unlocking it with a quick flick of my wand.

Hermione tentatively crept inside, peering around the frame. I lifted my lowered head as she sat, cross legged before me. We sat in silence for a long time, simply staring into each other's eyes. She was so beautiful. How could I have treated her so monstrously for all those years? She would always be better than me. Always had been.

Voicing my thoughts I uttered, "How can you stand to be around me?"

My voice rasped like a plough on dry ground.

Hermione, taken aback at my sudden speech, simply stared at me in stunned silence, mouth agape.

"I am so weak. So pathetic." I continued, barely audible. "You should just leave Hermione. I'm not…not good for you. You'll only suffer. There is nothing decent left in me. Just go."

Her shocked eyes burned with pain as she burst into indignant speech.

"You think I care that you're scared? You think I care that you're frightened of being hurt again? You are hurting, Draco. You are scared." Her furious eyes pooled with tears. "But it isn't a weakness. It shows that after all the anguish you have been through, all the pain, you can still feel, love, hurt. You're not an emotionless shell. So what if you're jumpy? I don't care. You were beaten by your own father, Draco." The tears spilled down her cheeks, but she continued, "I'm surprised you aren't scared of me, your old foe. We used to despise each other, yet just yesterday, you revealed your weakness to me. You will never be pathetic. You are brave. I refuse to let you think otherwise." Hermione fed me strength as she talked. She was the only one that mattered. The only one I cared about. "But now, you need to show me your courage. I will not let you hide yourself away because of fear. You cannot let it control you. Show me your bravery Draco and accept that you're scared, but never pathetic. Show me."

I suddenly became aware there were tears streaming down my face. Never before had someone cared about me this deeply, so openly. Hermione's genuine belief in her words made my heart soar. Maybe I wasn't weak, wasn't pathetic. No one understood, that was all. No one except Hermione. I felt physically weakened. The love and emotion she had displayed to me was overwhelming. I did not believe anyone could have felt for me the way she did.

Hermione leant forward and embraced me as the sobs racked my body. She whispered softly in my ear, "Promise me you won't ever think you're pathetic. Promise me Draco." I gulped and leant back, hands still at her waist, staring steadily into her eyes.

The world seemed to still as I waited for my shuddering breath to slow and my hands to cease shaking before replying, "I-I promise."

The arms I had around her waist contracted as I pulled her towards me, making her scoot forwards across the carpet. She slid into my lap, legs on either side of me, staring into my steely, grey eyes. Gently, I pressed my lips to hers.

Warmth exploded in my chest as for the first time in my life, I knew love other than my Mother's. My mother's affection was vital, necessary; a rock to provide sanctuary and protection from Lucius. She picked me up when I had fallen, only the way a mother can. And while she loved me, I knew she loved Lucius more. I would never replace him in her heart.

As we pulled apart and gazed at one another, Hermione's hands around my neck, mine at her waist, I knew that this feeling inside, this warmth, was love. It was not skewed. It was not second. It was real.