A/n- Well again! Anyway, hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: A toast.
Jackknifed
"I didn't think you'd meet me here."
"I didn't think I'd meet you here either…"
"Well," Draco smirked. "You did."
Malfoy watched as she set down her book bag upon the stone atrium of the Owlry, leaning against the building, face tilted towards the Hogwarts grounds. Malfoy stood opposite, hands in his pockets, barred against the slight chill of the evening.
He had arrived from Hogsmead just a few minuets before.
"You can warm yourself by the fire." Blaise had told him, obviously still believing his fabricated illness. "Pansy 'll keep you company."
Draco had flatly refused the offer, but when Zabini urged him further, Malfoy had had enough. Uttering a weak groan he pushed past his fellow Slytherins along the Entrance Hall, his hand grasping his right side.
"Think I'll go to the Hospital Wing." He had told them.
As they moved to follow he held up a hand and gave them an icy glare.
"I don't need help." They stopped in their tracks. "I'll meet up with you later."
Restraining himself from breaking into a sprint, Malfoy rounded the corner into the narrow passageways, away from his mates.
As their chatter died away, Malfoy's falsely pained face became oddly pensive, his hunched shoulders rolled back to being perfectly strait.
He didn't drop his hands though, they still grasped his side. The Butterbeer bottles clanked dully as he held them within his cloak's inner pocket.
He wasn't waiting long before Hermione had ascended the Owlry steps.
He cast a glance over to her. She looked, almost in rapture, at the waning sunset disappearing over the horizon behind him.
Draco couldn't discern whither or not he was disgusted by the look, or enthralled by it.
Slowly, as if the darkness was breathing life back into her again, Hermione took a shuttering breath. Malfoy watched as her shoulders relaxed and her arms dropped from their crossed position in front of her chest.
She looked at him then, for the first time since climbing the stairs. She looked at him with the same gaze one would give a friend after being gone for a terribly long time. Draco tensed.
"Thank you." She said, plainly, as if the words were so easy. Draco knew they were not. "For being so kind today."
He puzzled at that for a moment, her statement creating a turmoil of confusion and panic that swelled within his stomach.
Malfoy averted his gaze, running a hand thorough his white-blonde hair. Slowly he stole a glance back at her.
She was still looking at him, that nearly manic gleam ever present in her soft brown eyes.
"You're…welcome." The sounds felt foreign on his tongue.
Hermione let a small smile crest over her pursed lips.
Draco looked away, as if her gaze burned him.
Hermione sighed to herself, shifting her position against the wall. Tugging a lock of wavy hair around her finger she stared off into space.
For an instant Malfoy felt oddly warm as he thought of the events at The Three Broomsticks; at the look of utter forgiveness Granger had given him. But as he scoffed as that memory, that feeling it melted away, leaving him feeling cold and bitter.
As if the motion would warm him, Draco pulled out the two butterbeer bottles from his cloak, resting them on the thick stone railing. He heard Hermione push off the wall and walk up next to him.
"Where'd you get those?" She questioned, nearly disapprovingly, but with a hint of sarcastic humor in her voice.
"I brought them." Malfoy said simply.
"What for?"
It was nearly rhetorical.
"Gesture of good faith."
Hermione let out a sharp laugh of disbelieve. Draco pouted sardonically .
"Now, Granger, I would have guessed you'd think all the better of me, bringing these here to share with you." He clutched one of the bottles and tilted it against his hand, his Slytherin crested ring sliding up under the bottle cap.
With a quick flick of the wrist the top flew off and a small noise of carbonation escaped the newly opened bottle. Draco smirked. It had sounded as if the jeweled snake around his ring had given a low, tinny hiss.
He handed the bottle to Hermione who accepted it, almost awkwardly, as Malfoy opened the second bottle.
He watched as Hermione leaned against the railing, looking first at the bottle, then at Draco. What was she wondering?
Malfoy chuckled bitterly.
"I haven't poisoned it."
"I never said you did."
"You we're thinking it." His piteous smile grew wider. "And here I thought it would be a nice gesture between friends."
"You said we weren't friends. You said you were using me."
"And if I was and this is just another lie? Just another ploy?"
"Then I'd walk away. I don't need your drink nor your company."
"Then why are you still here?" Malfoy's voice was a growl within his chest, a feral sound. His shoulders hunched forward as he leaned across the few feet between he and Hermione.
"Because I know you want friendship." Hermione's voice was just as dangerous, if not matter-of-factly. "You yearn for what I have with Harry and Ron." She pointed a finger at him. "I know it."
"You don't know anything about me."
"I know you, Malfoy."
"You know…" He said in a sickening voice, holding a tone that was fringed with murder. "what I want you to know. What the world thinks they know. You know nothing about who I am."
"Then I guess this is my chance to learn." Hermione folded her arms over her chest, the butterbeer bottle hanging limply from one hand. She leaned back onto her heels.
Draco was amazed at her.
She could do no wrong.
He didn't know if he wanted to curse her or embrace her. Either of the two would obviously deteriorate her already shortened fuse.
"I-" Malfoy halted his words. Hermione's gaze broke a fraction, her eyes swiveling to meet his. Draco's gaze was sharp, sharp and unnaturally bright against the din. With a slow movement, feeling as if he was reacting without fully realizing so, Malfoy nodded, once.
"A toast then." Hermione continued at the look of near relief and resignation on Malfoy's face. "To a newly hewn friendship."
She uncrossed her arms and held out her bottle, cocking it slightly in her hand.
Draco looked at it, that bottle. The way the light shone through the glass and stained Granger's hand was enthralling. It created a cast of amber, making her dusky skin glow orange, Malfoy's hand a contrasting ghostly white. Slowly, he outstretched his hand, the two glasses nearly touching.
With a quick look he tore his eyes away, stopped his motion, as a dread overtook him.
The bottles were mere centimeters apart.
Why was he stopping now when he was so close?
He glanced back at Hermione, his eyes, alight, bore into hers.
In a fleeting gesture, Hermione reached out to Malfoy's free hand which was resting upon the stone railing. She barely grazed his sleeve, her fingers creating small creases in the cloth.
She didn't touch his skin.
"Do you know what your doing, Draco?" She asked softly, eyes to the ground, hand still hovering over his, not daring to touch him.
Did he?
Draco looked out over the lake.
Did he know that, by doing this, he was becoming a blood traitor? Denouncing his father, his pride, and his name? Taking all that he had stood for, and throwing it away?
Did he know this was impossible? Wretched? Unimaginable? Him and the muggleborn, becoming familiar.
Did he know that, if caught, he would be disowned? Disgraced? Or worse?
Did he know that?
"Yes." Malfoy thrust his chin up, looking back at the butterbeer bottles, defiant. Hermione drew a steady breath.
With a small, nearly chaste smile, he closed the distance and clinked the bottles together, brining the rim of the glass to his lips.
Hermione watched him as he tossed his head to the side, hair swinging out of his face. Draco threw his chin back and gulped the drink down, eyes screwed shut. His neck made a column of chalkiness in the darkened air.
Hermione also downed her drink, never taking her eyes off Malfoy.
Drops of the sweet liquid stained their lips.
As Draco slowly opened his eyes and fixed them upon Hermione's fawn gaze, they cast their first glances upon each other as friends.
Both grinned.
A/N- Ha, sorry this took so long! Hope it was worth the wait. Sorry If there were any mistakes, my beta reader was out of town for the weekend and I felt like you guys had been waiting too long! My apologies!
This chapter was actually really emotionally draining. Every time I'd write a little more of it, I'd become really weary- not because I was bored- but it was like the intensity of the situation was wearing me down.
Weird.
Anyway, I'll start the next one soon!