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 Six
Friday, August 7th, 1998
The Headmistress seemed to almost fall into her chair. If she thought it would do any good, Hermione would ask the older woman how she was doing, but it was clear that she was exhausted, overworked, and had no intention of slowing down.
"So, how are your lessons progressing?" Professor McGonagall asked, sliding her hand across her brow as she spoke as if to brush away a loose piece of hair.
"Well, actually. We are able to get along well enough to get through his lessons." It had been nearly four weeks of lessons, and they had moved into a stride now. Hermione found that most of the materials that Muggle Studies class covered were utterly ridiculous. They talked about Muggle games and other trivial nonsense. It was no wonder that Arthur Weasley was able to obtain an O.W.L and have next to no actual knowledge on the subject. She was incorporating this information into her plan for their lessons, but she had also expanded in the areas she believed were most likely to appear on the exam, or that she thought particularly important for him to understand.
They were doing practical lessons on Monday, with assignments for him to do upkeep in the greenhouse on his vegetables throughout the week. It was clear to her that Draco was frustrated with the pace that this project was taking on. He had asked her the week before if they could charm the soil to quicken the whole thing up and "get it over with." She had explained that the time was the entire point of the assignment, and he had frowned the rest of the hour as she made him conduct soil samples and determine how the varying amounts of direct sunlight and moisture levels was affecting the growth of lettuce. It was dull and time consuming work, but that was really the point of it all. She had finally convinced the house elves to let them into the kitchen, so she was working on a plan to start that soon.
On Tuesday and Wednesday they discussed Muggle History, a subject that was extremely lacking in the Muggle Studies curricula. She had ordered Draco several texts to read. That was one thing she never had to worry about. When Hermione gave him a text, Draco inhaled it, no matter how onerous it may be. He still wasn't sleeping, and he wasn't leaving their dorms unless they had a lesson. He seemed to be living and breathing this subject, which she wasn't entirely convinced was healthy for him. They weren't exactly friends though, and it didn't feel safe to argue with him about it, so she just remembered that she was getting her job done and let him be.
On Thursdays and Fridays they discussed the more trivial things that needed to be covered, as well as current culture. They played games and discussed the rules, and begun to study Muggle fashion trends. They would be moving into theater, music, and film next, followed by how to use a telephone and a computer. So far, these were the hardest days to get through. Draco seemed to be more irritable than the other days which were more lecture oriented. He had grown frustrated and asked her "Why are we doing this?" more than once. She mostly ignored him, moving on with their lesson until it was complete.
"Good," the Headmistress sighed. "I'm so grateful that you are making this work, Hermione."
"It's been fine," Hermione told her. The truth was that she was grateful to be here. She had been nervous at first, terrified that this would be a disaster, but working with Draco hadn't been nearly as bad as she had expected, and it kept her from having to be around Ron in the wake of Harry's birthday. She and Ben had taken to working in the library in the evenings. It wasn't every evening, but three times in the past week they had ended up in the Muggle Studies section working at the same table for hours before one of them packed up, heading for bed. She was avoiding being alone with him. She accepted and owned that truth, but she wasn't sure that she was ready for whatever came after this innocent flirtation.
"You'll let me know if that changes, won't you?" Professor McGonagall asked, her eyes seeming to see much more than just Hermione before her.
"Yes, of course," Hermione told her, sure that it was a lie. Even if things did change, there was little chance she would be able to add more to the Headmistress' plate.
XXX
Tuesday, August 11th, 1998
Despite the six years Harry had spent sharing a room with Neville Longbottom, it had become clear to him in the past half an hour that his girlfriend was a much better friend to the other boy. When Harry had asked her about her birthday, Ginny had seemed solemn, likely due to her continue estrangement with her mother, and told him she just wanted to do something low key with Neville and Luna, her two closest friends.
The idea of this hadn't bothered him until he was faced with the actuality of their friendship before him. With Neville and Luna sitting across the table, Ginny lit up, her smile coming easier than it had it months. A conversation between the three of them was like a perfectly awkward and odd dance which forced him to think about the shattered state of his own trio.
Ron and Hermione were his family. There were others he loved and cherished, but these two were the core of the odd mixture of friends who had become his family. Ron had told him in the vaguest terms possible about what had happened in Hermione's bedroom and their decision not to be together. Harry wanted to feel for them. He did, sort of, but was also struggling to see past his own selfish motives in the situation. The idea of his family falling apart, again, when everything had finally seemed to come to some resolution, was suffocating. He needed them, both of them, and they needed him, just like Ginny needed Neville and Luna.
This trio, this group of people who had become so close, were going off to Hogwarts in a few short weeks. They would be together, able to support one another and work through their wounds together.
He would be here, at 12 Grimmauld place with Ron, likely ignoring their problems, and Hermione would be at Hogwarts. They were broken. Harry had nearly demanded that Ron move in, hoping that they would have a shot at fixing whatever was wrong. They would be working together as well, but he wasn't sure if that would help. Ron hadn't just left Hermione. He had checked out from his family, from Harry, from everything. Harry knew he wasn't much better. He had gone on auto pilot, signing up for Auror training and pretending like everything was okay, but it wasn't okay. He was still living his life in that perpetual state of tension, wondering when the next bad thing was going to happen. It had almost been easier before because he had known what the enemy was. Now he had no idea where the next attack would come from, because it would surely come. It always came. Every time he let himself feel happy, the world was swept out from beneath him. Why would this be any different?
So he tried to talk and pretend like this broken connection wasn't eating away at him, but he felt out of sorts and his mind just kept jumping from the conversation at hand to his inner frustration at not knowing how to fix it. After they had eaten pudding and Neville and Luna had said their goodbyes, promising to meet them at the platform on September the 1st, Ginny sighed heavily, her hands still on the door, lingering there as if she could hold onto the joy of the evening just a moment longer.
She turned to him, her mouth turned down at the corners. "Where are you?" she asked.
He ran a hand through his hair, moving his eyes anywhere but her. "I don't know."
"You didn't seem to want to be here tonight." She finally moved her hands, sliding them around her body as if she was giving herself a hug.
"It wasn't that," Harry said. He should tell her. He knew that was probably the right thing to do in this situation, trust her enough with this, but he didn't. They were still getting to know one another again. It had been so easy for a while, when they were losing themselves in each other as often as possible and had no responsibilities. Then Hermione had left, Ginny had stopped speaking to Molly, he had started working, and the day when they would be apart again was ticking ever closer, taunting them.
"I can't help if you won't tell me what's wrong," Ginny insisted.
He looked at her then, determined to tell her, to be honest about it all. He opened his mouth, and the words wouldn't come out. Harry closed the few feet between them and ran his hands up and down her arms. "It's nothing," he said finally. "I'm just tired."
"Okay," she whispered, defeated. He could see the disappointment in her eyes, but he pushed it away.
XXX
Friday, August 14th, 1998
Ben was already standing in front of the greenhouse by the time she walked up. He smiled broadly at her, his infectious ease instantly making her feel more comfortable. "Morning," he told her.
"Good morning," she responded, not able to stop the stupid grin that fell across her lips. He had finally forced her to concede to showing him the process their vegetables were making the previous evening as they sat at their table amongst the Muggle Studies stacks.
"Are you going to take me inside?" he asked, chuckling at her as she realized that she was still watching him.
"Of course," Hermione said quickly, shaking away her memories of him sitting across the table as she worked. He made her feel like an insipid little girl, lost in a romantic fantasy. It was ludicrous. She had never been so dumbly besotted with the idea of a boy in her life, but there was no denying that the more she was around him, the more he made her want to spend more time in his easy company. She pushed open the greenhouse door, leading him inside.
She felt him follow closely behind her as she stepped inside and led the way past rows of magical plants. She and Draco had taken over a rather large area of the back of this greenhouse, but Professor Sprout insisted that it was fine. Hermione came to a stop at the edge of their work.
"What all do you have in here?" Ben asked, moving passed her to get a closer look.
"That is lettuce," she said, pointing towards the small green leaves already sprouting. "We have broad beans, tomatoes, asparagus, and cucumbers. Professor Sprout has helped me to charm each area to be appropriate for encouraging growth, but the actual growth isn't any quicker than it would normally be."
"And, what are you going to do with it all?"
"The main lesson is the overarching theme of time that Muggle Studies seems to focus on. Everything takes longer for Muggles. That is the heart of nearly all of the lessons, but I don't care for the way the text leads you to feel about that." It was just one more thing about the subject that frustrated her.
"You mean that we ought to pity them?" he asked, his fingers gliding over the edge of one of the beds.
"Yes, exactly. I'm hoping that, through these practical lessons, I can give Draco a sense of why Muggles choose to garden or cook from scratch or make their own clothes. I'm pairing each practical lesson with a more intensive study, of course. He's been reading about agriculture, food shortages, wars fought over food and water access, but my belief is that the Minister wants him to do more than just pass Muggle Studies."
"You want him to understand them at a much deeper level," Ben said, a clear tone of respect in his words.
"Yes," Hermione sighed, wondering for the hundredth time if she was crazy, fighting a battle that she had lost before she began.
"That is quite a task you've take on," he told her.
"I know," she admitted, "but, I think he might be capable of it. There are these small moments when I feel like he isn't who any of us think he is."
Ben moved back towards her slowly. "If anyone can do it, it's you."
"Thank you," she told him, watching him closely as he closed the gap between them.
"I'm really enjoying getting to know you better, Hermione." He was less than half a foot from her when his knuckles reached up to brush against her cheek. She closed her eyes at the sensation, letting the part of her brain that was already losing herself in him shut off entirely the logical part that cared that he was a Professor. She needed this. She needed something good and easy, something to push away the nightmares.
"Me too," she whispered. Her eyes remained shut, but she felt him moving closer. His free hand touched her hip, wrapping around her back. His lips brushed against hers slowly, a whisper of his own. She gasped softly at the unexpected lightness of his touch and sighed as his mouth settled a small kiss at the corner of her mouth.
"I find myself thinking about you a ridiculous amount," he breathed against her lips.
"Me too," she said again, her heart was beating rapidly, her fingers moving of their own accord to clutch at the fabric at his sides, pulling him softly towards her. Finally, blissfully, he pressed his lips fully to hers, and she sank into him. Her mind raced with sensations as he softly, slowly slid his tongue across her lips, pulling them apart so that he could explore her more fully.
It was several long minutes later when he pulled back, moving his mouth to her ear, still breathing heavily. "Promise me that I can do this again," he begged, his words sliding into her ear with an electricity that shot quickly through her body and elicited a soft moan from her lips.
XXX
Monday, August 17th, 1998
Draco stretched out on his bed, stomach down. His history text sat open before him. He had been reading it, working his way through twenty dull pages before he heard Hermione return to the common area. Her listened for the sound of her door, but it never came, so she must still be out there, perhaps reading herself. This in itself wasn't anything to cause alarm or concern. This wasn't why he had read the same passage four times without comprehending it. The reason for this was that he wanted to go talk to her.
Despite her blood, and the war, and everything between them, over the past month, she had been his only companion. He hated it. Every time he looked at her, or thought of her, which was too often for his own comfort, he was reminded of his original Muggle Studies lessons, the ones his father had given him, the ones that made him hate her for seven years. When she smiled at him, a polite gesture that she probably performed without thinking, his immediate impulse was to sneer or smirk in return. When she spoke to him, her voice steady and controlled, he wanted to snap at her that he didn't need her help, but that was a lie. Not only was it a lie, the lie ran deeper than needing her help. He wanted it.
Somewhere lost between those moments of forced restraint towards her, Draco had started to depend on her presence. She was broken, shattered just as much as he was, and under his impulse to use that against her was a burning desire to be in her company, to know that he wasn't alone. When he was alone, he had to think about all of the terrible things he had done and seen. When he was alone, he hid from sleep as if it was waiting to attack. When he was alone, his nightmares woke him in a state of terror.
When he was with her, he was given the opportunity to prove to himself, over and over again, that he could change. It wasn't easy. He bit his own tongue sometimes to achieve that control, but he was doing it. He was learning about Muggles and their foreign way of life in a new way that went against everything he had ever known, but that was welcome. Everything he had ever known was why his father was in prison, his mother was alone, and he had experienced and witnessed so much terror and pain in his short life.
His idolization for the Dark Lord and his philosophy had taken a quick, cold shower in his sixth year. His mother had been used as leverage against him, and he had truly realized for the first time just how dangerous Voldemort could be, even to a family as pure as the malfoys. He had gone into survival mode after that, trying to do everything possible to stay unnoticed and out of the way. He had known it was pointless to fight or resist. He knew the Dark Lord. He knew what Voldemort was capable of, just as he knew what Potter was capable of. He hadn't believe that this was even an option, this world without Voldemort, but here he was. When Potter, Granger, and Weasley had shown up in his house, it had temporarily jarred him from his stupor, and he hadn't known what to do. He had lied then, for what reason though? He still didn't have an answer.
He wanted to get up and cross the room. He wanted to open the door and settle himself on the couch opposite her. They might talk, or they might just sit in the same room, but it would be so much less lonely than this room, this more comfortable prison that he had taken up residence in. He wanted to do this, but he was sure that Hermione Granger would never see him as a friend. He was so sure that he stayed on his bed, stomach down, and began to read the passage for the fifth time.
A/N: Hope you are enjoying! Thank you for taking this fic on with me! Side note ... if you are looking to expand your fanfiction life, you should look up Home Away From Hogwarts on the book of faces (Facebook). There are some pretty awesome files of fic recs waiting for you. . .
XOXO
Meg
