The look of his mother's eyes was heart-breaking, directly pointed at him. Begging, with motherly love for him to disappear and to never come back, even if it meant sealing her and his father's destiny. "I won't, mother," Draco said, merely a whispered. The ambient in the Manor was never wrenching and a mere whisper, hiding at the night in his room was a dangerous act. Treason even.

"I won't lose my only boy to… that. Draco, I'm begging you." She said, holding his hands hard.

"Pathetic."

A voice talked behind him and he did not need to turn around to know who that was. Her mother kept her firm grip on him, still with begging eyes. "Draco…"

"Oh Narcissa, why did you force me to be like this?" He said in an icy and vicious tone. "There's no running away from me. Not now, not ever and Draco knows that is, don't you Draco?" He asked him but he was too afraid to turn around. He listened to small and desperate small behind him, those kinds of cries that only happen after your body are exhausted, after screaming and crying the living out of you and there is nothing left other than just little moans of pain. He did not want to look behind and face it. The violence. The same terror he faced all summer. The same poor muggles, whole families falling in the hands of this sociopath.

"Be brave Draco… For me." A voice talked behind him, a women's voice but something was terribly wrong with it. It sounds like someone he knew but with a strange and violent tone that he did not recognize.

With a last look at his mother, Draco breathed out and faced all his fears. It was her. On the floor, with blood on her face, her hands, and her clothes. Tears and blood mixed in her perfectly shaped face that he grew fond of. At her side, it was him and his bloody snake surrounding Hermione. Hissing and threatening her, with hungry eyes, just like his master.

"What did I tell you about fucking muddlebloods, Draco?" He said amused at himself and at this theatrical of horror. "Do you fantasy a future with this filthy girl? Having a family with her?"

He could not answer, his eyes were fixed on her. He merely said, only for her to listen. "I'm sorry."

"Kill her!" Voldemort screamed with hatred and his vicious snake attacked her.

Draco woke up screaming out loud, grabbing his own trousers until his knuckles turned white. He felt something stuck in his throat and he could not breathe. Something was making pressure on his chest and he thought he was going to drown on it.

"Keep it together, Draco." He said to himself. He knew what was happening, he just needed to breathe. But images of that awful nightmare were crashing in his head, images of her. Bloody and destroyed. Images of her mother. He was suffocating.

The door opened wide and out of breath, Hermione walked in, closing the door behind her. Draco was holding his chest with his hand and he immediately drops it, pretending everything was fine. Of course, she noticed something was wrong.

"Hey… Draco, are you okay?" She asked, approaching him quietly. He felt himself backing away from her. "Draco?"

"I'm fine." He said perhaps too harshly. "I just need a fucking minute, alright?"

Hermione crossed her arms in her chest, feeling suddenly defensively. "Okay." She said walking to the kitchen. She needed a cup of warm tea. Maybe something stronger.

She listened to him move behind her, quietly, feeling his eyes carved in her head, almost like she had grown two heads. Hermione prepared two cups of tea, maybe that would calm him down. She would never admit it, but she started to enjoy the quiet moments spent with him in the coach drinking some tea or hot chocolate. Watching him frown at her cat and mumble something under his breath.

Hermione returned to the coach with two cups of tea and looked at him, who was standing in the middle of the room, clearly still disoriented and paler than usual. His forehead was sweaty, and his eyes were wider like he feared something.

"Draco, can you please sit down?" She asked quietly. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

He glanced at her like she was the strangest woman he had ever seen. Only if she knew that her face was the one hunting his dreams to the point that made him sick being with her after that. He felt his heart slow down a little and finally was able to sit down. She offered him a cup and like always he was touched and surprised by the gest.

"What's going on?" She asked after he accepts the cup. He still was tensed around her, every moved he made was calculated. "Or you do not have to tell me, really. I just enjoy the silence and the deadly looks you give me from time to time." She teased a little, hoping she could get him to smile.

To her surprise, she saw his lip curled up a little. "I'm flattered by your smile."

"Don't." He said smirking at her. Now he looked much more like his usual self and Hermione found herself smiling. After a long moment of silence, Draco took a sip of his tea, his hands still trembling a little and he finally spoke, like it was the hardest thing for him to do. "I have this… dreams. Vivid dreams. Sometimes it's hard to wake up."

"Nightmares?" Hermione asked and he nodded. She felt like he was pushing him too much, but she could not help it, she wanted to help him. "About you-know-who?"

His jaw clenched at that name and she could see how much that unsettled him. "Yes. Most of the time." Hermione waited for him to elaborate a little more and thought of touching his hand but after last night she was not sure how to behave near him. "He does horrible things and I have no control of what happens…. Of whom dies, because of me." He said quietly, merely a whisper. "I blame him for everything." He said with such hatred that it was clear on his face.

"Your father?" Hermione asked.

"Yes. I hate how weak and how selfish he really is. How desperate he became for a place that could cost him his family." Draco snorted. "Pathetic."

Hermione could not stand away from him for any more minute, she reached his hand and squeezed hard. He looked at her, like he was finally returning to reality, and recognized that she by his side. "They are just nightmares. Is not real." She said, trying to sound reassuring but she had her own nightmares and they scared the crap out of her.

Draco kept his gaze at her, a conflicted look like he was debating saying something or not. "I dream of you sometimes. You always die in my dreams, because of me." He said harshly. "And then I wake up and you are here, around me, being gentle and nice with me. Do you understand that I can't do this Granger?"

Hermione let out a breath she did not know she was holding on like she did a lot of times when Draco was talking or just dangerously near her. The whole world went silent, everything moved slowly or did not move at all. She knew by now that Draco simply did not admit things. He did not talk about his family, even less about this father and he did not just bluntly admit he dreams of her. She knew something was going to break. An end of something." Do what?" She asked, afraid of the answer.

"You know what. Whatever this is." Draco got up abruptly, moving his hands in the air. "This… friendship. I do not fucking know. I just know that we have to face the truth." He said turning around to look at her. His eyes looked cold as ice and she dreads every word he was going to say. "I'm a death eater and you are a muggle-born. And not just your regular muggle-born, you are Potter's best friend, for fuck sake."

Hermione finally found the courage to get up and face him. Sometimes she loved how taller he was but now she just hated the distance, how small she felt standing right in front of him, hearing him say goodbye. Merlin, she was looking for him, like a madwoman running down the corridors just to tell him to give this a chance. "Draco, you are a lot more than that."

"Don't say things like that!" Draco said out loud, hopeless. "Don't you dare forget who I am. I made your life a living hell for years. You hated my guts and I hated yours. And now I am on the wrong side of the war. There is nothing left here for you, Granger. No fucking pieces for you to pick."

"Why did you kiss me then?" Hermione said approaching him, feeling her temper rise. "I know why I kissed you back. Because for a moment I was not thinking about the war or my parents or if we are going to live or die at the end of this. For the first time since the year started, I was not afraid of anything. I only feel this way with you, and I doubt you don't feel the same." Draco did not say anything. She did not even know he was listening. "Am I that bad just because I want to hold on to something that makes me feel alive?" She said confidently of every word. "Whatever this is. Call it friendship, call it war syndrome, I do not care. I think we can figure this out."

"I can't watch you die because of me, Granger. I won't." Draco looked defeat and she dreads to see him look like this. He touched her face and she succumbed to his touched. Hermione would never admit this to him, but she just loved the shape of his hands, she found herself looking at them, admiring it a lot of times. "Maybe in another crazy life, we could be friends. Properly" He paused. "Maybe even more."

"I don't know why you think you have to go through this alone." Hermione said, more desperate than she would like to admit. She felt like she was fighting for something that was escaping her bare fingers. "I already told you, we can help you. The order…" He interrupted her.

"I'm afraid there's no-way-out Granger." He half-smiled at her. "And it's for the better if you don't know too much."

Dozens of plans and arguments floated through Hermione's head to convince him that things do not have to be this way, that he did not have to walk this path alone, with a death threat hanging over his head. But it seemed that no matter what she might say, he was determined to finish this on his own, whatever that was. Hermione feared for him, for his life and the impossibility of helping him, made her feel sick to her stomach. She thought about that defining point that changed everything for them. Maybe it was that night when they found that dying unicorn and he saved her life. Somehow, she felt like it was a lot sooner and not because of some heroic act that involves saving her own life. Maybe it was at the beginning of classes when Snape gives the assignment, those first days spent in the library – arguing and arguing, but growing close, finding little things about one or another. Maybe it was just his bloody laugh when she made him laugh for the first time.

"So, that's it then?" Hermione said. "One last assignment and we are back to hating each other? Are we supposed to pretend that nothing ever happened? That you did not save my life that night? That we do not hang out together? That…. we didn't kiss each other?" She spoke quietly.

Draco said nothing. "Is that what you really want?" She asked, afraid of the answer.

"I'm trying to be a good guy Granger. Just give me this, please." He said. "I'm trying to do the right thing, for once."

The silence came again between them and Hermione could have sworn that years had passed. "This is a goodbye then." She said, fighting some tears that were beginning to lurk in her eyes. Fuck. She did not want to cry, not in front of him.

A tear streamed down her face and it was too late for her to hide. Draco brought his hand to his face and wiped it. Her hand stayed there for a while, long enough for Hermione to open her eyes again and find him next to her. "Yeah." He said, quietly. Hermione could not stay here, so close to him, knowing this little part of her, of her new routine that she has grown so fond of, was going to end, just like this.

Before she could walk away, Draco put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her to him, her lips touching his, hard and quickly Hermione landed in his arms. They kissed passionately, more intensely than the night before but there was something different this time. Probably because he could feel the tears in her smooth face. Probably because they both know this was a sort of goodbye and did not change anything. Until it did. It changed everything. Last night's kiss was desperate, reckless, and sloppy. Draco wanted her more than anything but somehow there is something else that he could not point out. His chest was tight, every muscle of his body ached and there is something falling in his stomach, over and over again. They broke off the kiss and looked at each other but instead of walking away, embarrassed with what happened, Hermione smiled, and Draco found himself vulnerable for the first time in his life. She could do whatever she wanted with him and he would obey. He hated this feeling, this weakness that was growing in him. His weak legs, weak mind. Just weak. But that did not matter.

Hermione took a step back; her lips were swollen and red. She was out of breath and desperately trying to put herself together when she just wanted to crawl into her bed. "Tell me again why this is a bad idea" She said, trying to break the silence.

"Sometimes I don't know." He said honestly and smiled at her. He reached for her hand and she let him, he interlaced their fingers together. "Thank you for…" She did not know what he was talking about before she could find out Ginny entered the room, her face as red as her hair. Panting and with startled eyes, as if she had seen something that frightened her deeply. She looked at Hermione and Draco, a mixture of confusion and surprise crossed her eyes but clearly, this was not the time to question the strange dynamics in which her best friend was.

"Hermione, It's Ron. He was poisoned." Ginny hurriedly. "Harry is with him."

"What?" Hermione said, puzzled. "What do you mean, poisoned?"

Draco knew that everything had changed for him after that kiss and that everything would change for Hermione when he really knew who he was.