Reformed

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Goldensnitch18

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Rated M for Scenes of a Sexual Nature, Language, and Violence.

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Summary: Draco Malfoy is released from Azkaban and sent to Hogwarts for his eighth year where he has a year to show that he can be reformed. Hermione Granger, and her friends, are struggling to come to terms with what has happened to them and move on, but she has agreed to be Malfoy's Muggle Studies tutor anyway.

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Disclaimer: I am not profiting from this story.

Anything you recognize belongs to the great and mighty JKR.

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Chapter Four:

Monday, July 20th, 1998

Molly Weasley was making dinner. She was always doing something. She never stopped moving these days. It was as if she believed that if she just kept cooking, or cleaning, or knitting, or nagging then she would never have to think about Fred. That wasn't true. Ginny had held her mother as she cried just the same as everyone else. Ginny knew that as soon as she hit her bed that night, the tears would start.

Ginny hated it. She knew it was horrible, that maybe it made her a terrible daughter, but she hated her mother's tears. It was horrible to feel that pain, the pain of knowing there was nothing she could do for her mum on top of the pain of missing Fred. It was just one more reason for Ginny to stay with Harry as often as possible.

"Have you seen Ron?" she asked, trying to break the tense silence. This was an iffy subject to get into, but she was curious, and she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"This morning. I still don't know where he's going if that's what you mean," her mother replied. She was peeling potatoes. She had an actual metal peeler in one hand and a potato in the other. It was slower that way. It filled more time that way.

"Hermione has been a mess," Ginny told her. "She's … Harry and I try, but she wants Ron." if she was going to be honest, Ginny was quite angry with her idiot brother. He had barely been home, barely spoken to any of them. She hated that he just vanished without telling anyone where he was going, and she hated that Hermione hurt so much because of it.

"I know." The older witch was frowning now. "I don't know what is wrong with that boy." She stood abruptly, leaving her tool and potato on the table. She shimmied across the kitchen to slam a pot down on the stove, which caused Ginny to jump. "Is Harry going to be here for dinner?"

"I don't know. I can ask him if you want," Ginny offered, not wanting to upset her further.

"It would be nice to see him," her mother said, her entire body tense.

"I'll floo over and ask him when Bill and Fleur get here," Ginny offered.

"And you are staying here tonight." It wasn't a question.

"Mum," Ginny began with every intention of arguing.

"Ginevra," her mother snapped.

"He barely sleeps when I am there. When I'm not, I know he doesn't sleep at all," she insisted, her own heart seizing at the thought. Harry was struggling, they all were. If there was something she could do to help him, the man she loved, she was going to do it.

"He can stay here. We have plenty of room," Molly insisted.

"He doesn't want to stay here, Mum." And, it was so true. Harry needed space and not to be smothered by her family every moment of the day.

"You are sixteen years old Ginny!" Her mother had pointed her wand at the potatoes on the table, and they zoomed across the room to land in her pot with a large plop and spray of water.

"I'll be seventeen by the end of the summer," Ginny insisted. She would be an adult, free to make all of her own choices.

"You know how your father and I feel about you staying over there Ginny. It is not appropriate." Ginny knew her parents were traditional. She knew that Fleur and Bill had slept in separate rooms before they were married, but Ginny was too tired to care about their etiquette. Harry needed her, and she didn't give a bloody damn anymore.

"I don't really care. I love him."

"I know. Dad and I love him, too," her mother insisted, but it wasn't the same. They couldn't possibly understand what it felt like to be away from him at night right now.

"He needs me," she insisted.

"Ginny," her mother sighed out, exasperated.

She couldn't contain her frustration any longer. She broke. "I'm all he has left, Mum. Hermione is back at Hogwarts, and Ron is off doing Merlin knows what, and I'm it, and I can only do this for him for a couple of months, and then he is going to be all alone, so just stop!"

"Ginny!"

But Ginny was still shouting. "Maybe this is why Ron is never here! Maybe so you don't constantly harp on him about every decision he makes!"

"Young la…"

"I'm leaving. Harry won't be here for dinner." Her chair toppled and fell on its side as she stood, but she didn't bother scooping down to pick it up.

XXX

Wednesday, July 22nd, 1998

Hermione was sitting at the library in the Muggle Studies section when she heard someone approaching. She didn't really think much of it. She was sure it was Madame Pince putting books away. Draco had been hiding in his room when they weren't meeting. So far they had been meeting for two hours a day in the library at this table going through lessons for Muggle Studies, and then he would retreat to his room to work on his own. Hermione had finally met with McGonagall this morning and gotten her approval for practical lessons, so she was working on developing plans for the rest of the summer.

"Hermione?" She heard an uncertain male voice, a voice that she did not recognize, and looked up to see Benjamin Crowley staring at her. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I'm … well … Professor McGonagall asked me to come tutor Malfoy." She let her eyes linger on his dark hair, which he had grown out a bit, and his piercing blue eyes. He was tall, but probably not quite as tall as Ron, and his smile was kind.

"Oh!" he declared, his smile turning into a broad grin. "She told me she was going to find someone. I didn't realize she meant you. I guess … with your history..." he trailed off.

"He's actually being sort of decent," Hermione said with a tone of surprise. The whole thing had been better than she expected. "I'm sure a desire not to return to Azkaban plays a huge part in that," she admitted.

Ben pulled out the seat next to her and sat down as he said, "I'm sure it does." He leaned over to look at what she was reading. "Recipes?"

"I got the approval for practical lessons. We're going to use the kitchens next week," she told him excitedly.

"Will the house elves let you in there?" He grinned, and she realized he was teasing her. She smiled back and shook her head.

"My guess is they will give us a wide berth. Most of them aren't crazy about me, " she admitted.

"Their loss." He grinned again, and Hermione suddenly realized just how close they were. She looked down at the page and felt a flush rise in her cheeks. She wasn't certain, because honestly it hadn't happened all that often, but she thought he was flirting with her.

"Yes, I suppose," she mumbled back, trying to force her eyes to focus on the scones recipe in front of her.

"So, are you going to be here for the year?"

"Yes. I wanted to get my seventh year in."

"That makes sense, though I doubt you need it. Most brilliant witch of our age, isn't that what they always say about you?" he teased.

"Errr, well, yeah, but …"

"You could probably teach this stuff better than I can." He moved one hand onto her book, inches from hers.

"I doubt that, I'm sure you will do a great job," she assured him.

"I'd like to hear how your practical lessons go. That might be a good thing to add in. Muggle Studies has always been a bit dull." They both laughed at the truth of those words.

"Is that why you want to teach it?" she asked with a smile, opening up to him.

"A teaching position at Hogwarts isn't something you turn down at twenty years old. It opens a lot of doors."

"No, I suppose it isn't. What doors are you hoping to open?"

"Doors in the Ministry," he told her.

"That is where I would like to end up as well. I think maybe in Magical Creatures." She had been thinking a lot about the changes that she would like to see made in the Ministry. She had considered several different departments actually, but she was leaning towards Magical Creatures. It seemed to be the department in the most immediate need for someone with half a brain to come in and actually accomplish something.

"Seems appropriate." He gave a small laugh. "What else are you thinking about teaching practically?"

"Gardening for sure. I'm not positive about the rest. Muggle currency I suppose will be easy to do." She bit her lip as she finished speaking, her mind turning over ideas.

"I wonder if I could get the shops in Hogsmeade to go along with something," he mused.

"Madame Rosmerta might be willing, or Aberforth."

"I'll have to speak with them."

"So what were you looking for here?" she asked.

"What?" He frowned, apparently confused by her question.

"Here. In the library," she told him, motioning around them with a small smile.

"Oh, I was just coming to get working on lessons. The, uh, well, the Death Eaters destroyed everything. McGonagall had to replace the books in this section of the library. She knew I would need them so they were made a priority," he informed her.

Hermione looked around at the books, trying not to imagine what had happened to the originals. "I wonder how many she wasn't able to replace." She glanced back at him. He'd given her a small amount of her personal space back, but not enough to make her comfortable.

"Too many," he sighed softly shaking his head.

Hermione frowned with him. "I wonder how long it will take before this place feels like Hogwarts again."

"I don't know, I suspect it might never feel the same again," he said, speaking her fear aloud.

"I know. I … I wanted to come back, but … it's hard being here. Worrying about how my friends are really doing out there in the real world."

"Are Harry and Ron coming back?" he asked.

"No," she frowned down at her recipe again. "They are both starting Auror training."

Something about her voice or the way her body changed must have shown him that she didn't want to talk about it, because when he spoke again it was to change the subject. "Do you mind if I work here also? It's easier with the books being here."

She normally prefered to work alone. She did most of her revising alone. Even when Harry and Ron had been at Hogwarts with her, she spent more of her time in the library without them than with, but lately, she had been lacking human contact. Malfoy was trying not to be vile, but he wasn't exactly good company. They didn't have conversations past what she was tutoring him on. It was nice to have someone her own age that seemed to enjoy her company. "Sure."

XXX

Thursday, July 23rd, 1998

"I talked to Ben yesterday," Granger said.

Draco looked up at her words, trying to figure out who she was talking about. He ran the name through his memories, but nothing clicked. He didn't want to admit this to her though. She clearly thought he should know who she was talking about. "Oh?"

"Yeah. He seems like he will do a good job." She shrugged, and Draco saw something in the way her lips curved at the side that made him think that she was thinking something she wasn't telling him.

"Good." He still had no idea who she was talking about, so he just looked back down at the page in front of him. It was telling him about hangman, which sounded like a pretty stupid game to him. It was apparently commonly played by Muggle children, and they lost when an entire dead body was drawn hanging from a pole. It was pretty disgusting.

"I mean, I know he's young, but, well, maybe that will be good. This place could use some fresh ideas." He wished she would stop yammering or give him something that he could use to figure out what she was talking about so he wouldn't look like a bloody idiot.

"Hmm," he said noncommittally. She bit the edge of her quill. He watched her out of the corner of her eyes as she stared at the books and sucked at the end, clearly thinking.

"I told him we were going to be implementing some practical lessons, and he seemed interested in using the idea. That would be great, I think."

"Can't do worse than Carrow," he said, hoping that he was right in his assumption that this Ben fellow was replacing Alecto as the Muggle Studies Professor.

"I suppose that is very true," Granger said sadly.

They fell back into silence. That was their normal state, and he was much more comfortable with it. He preferred it when she was quiet and chewing her quill. She spoke too much. She tried to fill the silence with words, and facts, and information about Muggles, and he just wanted her to stop talking. He knew he needed to listen to her to learn all of this, but it just seemed so dumb. He was learning about Hangman, and she was prattling on about the new Muggle Studies Professor and … wait … "Did you call him Ben?" he looked over at her, his eyes wide.

"Oh, well, it's habit I suppose." There was no denying it this time. She was blushing. Granger was blushing about a Professor.

"He's a Professor," he told her.

"He's only two years older than us," she said defensively, crossing her arms as her voice rose.

"You like him." It came out as a sneer. He didn't try, and he regretted it the moment it came out of his mouth. It was habit. Trying to get under her skin, to unnerve her, to destroy her, was second nature to him, and this little gem had just been too perfect. Her entire face was red and her bushy hair was doing nothing to block the indignation in her eyes.

"I think he will be a great Professor," she countered, and he couldn't help it. He snorted. She was a ridiculous liar.

"You are a terrible liar," he told her, trying to look back down at the book, but she huffed, and his eyes moved back up to her.

"Well I'm sorry that I actually enjoyed someone's company around here. It's not exactly fun being stuck with you every day!"

That was a low blow. Sure, they hadn't been having fun, but for them, the past week had actually kind of been a miracle. They hadn't argued. They hadn't raised their voices. They hadn't even called each other names, and now she was trying to imply that he was such bloody awful company that it was his fault she was getting all strung up about a bloody Professor of all people. "And what will your boyfriend think of Ben?" It was condescending. The way he dipped his head to the side and dropped his quill mixed with his tone, and his entire demeanor was the definition of the word. He knew it.

"What? I … You … Not …" she spluttered on, searching for words. "I don't have a boyfriend," she finally spat as she pushed her seat back. That was news. He'd seen them at the battle. She and Weasel. They had definitely been something that day. What had changed?

"What? Did Weasley dump you for some bimbo brought on by his five minutes of fame?" She was already leaving. It didn't really matter if he went for the low blow. She had done it also, telling him that he was such terrible company.

"I can't believe …" Granger was shoving things in her bag as her hair flew around her, her lips quivered with anger, her fingers trembled. "I thought you were sort of human." She spun on her heel, dragging her bag behind her, pulling it over her shoulder as she stomped away from him.

Draco watched her go, and then realized that he was going to have to fix this. McGonagall had told him that she was pretty much his only hope of passing this fucking class. He picked up his book, slammed it shut, and threw it as hard as he could at the bookshelf in front of him. "Fucking Mud … Just … Fuck." He buried his fingers in his hair, and his elbows hit the table.

XXX

Sunday, July 26th, 1998

Hermione wasn't sleeping. That was nothing new. She hadn't been sleeping since the battle, since Ron essentially vanished, but it was getting to her now, and things with Malfoy were messed up, and it was stupid. They had done it for a week. They had met for six two-hour long sessions and managed to work without shouting or being vile, and then Thursday had happened, and she had stomped out on him.

She had been furious. It wasn't even really him that she was furious at. He had just been himself. She was furious at herself and very furious at Ron. She had been stupid and forgotten who she was dealing with. She knew better. She shouldn't have let that happen. She had pitied him, started to think that perhaps what she had seen in his eyes as she had been held down on the floor of his drawing room had been something that felt bad for her, something that didn't want her to suffer.

And Ron. Stupid, sodding Ron. He had kissed her. KISSED HER. They had been working towards it for years. Each interaction, each word, each touch a dance, and then it had happened, and she had thought that they were together, that they were Ron and Hermione, finally. She had been wrong. She had been wrong about Malfoy and wrong about Ron, and Malfoy had known exactly what to say to get her … well … acting like a ridiculous child.

It didn't matter that he had been right. She did like Ben. He'd made her laugh. He'd made her feel like a real person again, one that wasn't just Harry's sidekick or whatever the world saw her as now. She was just her, just Hermione again, and it had been wonderful. She could still remember the shiver that had run up her hand when he had brushed it as he leaned past her to grab a book she had finished using. He was a Professor, but he was only two years older than her, and it wasn't like he was her Professor. She didn't take Muggle Studies. Also, it wasn't like she would ever do anything with him, honestly. But, something about Malfoy being the only person in her life close enough to even realize that she had felt something between them in the library the day before had been impossible to handle, especially when it was coupled with the way she was agonizing over Ron's vanishing act. She had skipped their scheduled tutoring on Friday. She couldn't bear to see Malfoy. She had hidden in her room for the past two days, avoiding him.

She was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and pondering all of these things, on top of her normal musings about Harry and Ginny, and the Weasleys, and Teddy, and her parents, and everyone else that she cared about. Her brain wouldn't shut off. It wouldn't shut up. She tossed, and turned, and fluffed her pillows, and resituated her blankets, and tried to read, and just kept staring at the same words over and over again. It was infuriating, and it was three in the morning.

Hermione crawled out of the sheets and pulled on her robe and slippers. She was going to go for a walk, get something to drink, and maybe then she would be able to sleep. She needed a change of scenery. She needed out of this room.

She padded across the room and pulled the door of her bedroom open, stepping out into the common area. Draco looked up from his spot on the sofa. "Granger," he said, clearly startled by her emergence.

"Sorry," she found herself saying. "I didn't think you would be out here."

"I didn't think you would be either." He was holding a book, just sitting there staring at her in his pajamas.

"I should..." she said.

"Look, Granger," he started at the same time. She stopped talking and waited. "I'm sorry."

Hermione dropped her hand from the door and stared as her mouth fell open. "What?"

"Don't make me say it again," he said, frowning.

"I … okay."

"I won't bring it up again." She wasn't sure if he meant Ben or Ron or both, but she found that she was too shocked to care. He'd apologized to her once before. The first day, but that had been over almost nothing, just a small misunderstanding. This had been a real argument, and he was apologizing for it.

"Okay," she told him.

"Okay," he replied.

"I'm going to go get a drink now."

"Fine." He looked back down at his book, and she moved towards the exit of their common room as quickly as she could imagine was acceptable. He was sorry. Draco Malfoy was sorry.


A/N: Thank you for continuing to support this story! I appreciate it so much. As some of you have guess/observed/asked this story is taking its merry little time getting these two together. It won't be crazy long, but it is going to take some time. We're slow burning over here guys.

XOXO

Meg