Chapter Two

Hermione's POV

She wasn't sure if she was angry or concerned. Malfoy was alive, but completely unconscious and Loxley was still in a panic over it. His whimpers over his fallen master unfortunately forced Hermione to be logical – no matter how fast the list grew of hexes that ran through her mind that were at the tip of her wand. She stepped toward the broken house elf and aimed her wand at the helpless Malfoy. With a swish, she whispered, "Mobilicorpus."

Malfoy's body followed the path of Hermione's wand with ease; irritation cultivated inside of her seeing the way the night was panning out. Quietness and emptiness that filled her flat and shop was exactly where she longed to be. After Loxley could breathe normally again, Hermione's plans were to return to her shop and crawl into her bed and fall fast asleep and forget all the unfortunate events that had unfolded.

Loxley stood by his master's bedside with worry, "Those evil things… we thought we were past such things." He shivered at the breeze that snuck through the open window. He rushed over and slammed it shut filling the room with a loud bang; Malfoy slowly turned his head, but stayed asleep.

Hermione inched towards the bed and stared at Malfoy for a long minute. Raggedness covered him, tiredness engulfed him, and emptiness surrounded him. From the ruffled blond hair to his calloused palms, nothing Hermione saw seemed familiar with the boy who teased her and fought against those she loved. She snapped back to reality and disregarded the thoughts of the past. She tried to convince herself the twisting and turning of her stomach would subside. Malfoy's chest calmly rose and fell as if he had chosen to take a peaceful nap.

Loxley was on the opposite side of the bed, "Oh, Master Malfoy. Wake up soon, I will get some eggs ready for you. And toast. You like toast." And without warning, Loxley Apparated out of the room.

In a surprising instant, her attention switched from exploration to frustration. Her freckled nose wrinkled as her cheeks ran hot. Without thinking twice, she slapped Malfoy across the cheek hard enough to leave a red mark across his face and her palm tingling. Her hand curled up in a fist to help ignore the shock when he shot up in his bed cursing.

"In Merlin's name! Why?!" He angrily rubbed his cheek. He searched the room for answers and found Hermione Granger standing at his bedside with disgust and irritation in all aspects it can show through body language. Her fist was curled in a ball ready for another swing, but this time she started to calculate all of the options. "Granger? What?!" Malfoy wasn't sure if he needed to be more shocked about why she stood in his room or why she slapped him.

Draco's POV

Granger closed her eyes and took a deep breath in and released it with a nasty retort, "Why is it always you? Why do I always find you behind all the bad? You disgust me Malfoy! It isn't surprising you would stoop so low and start kidnapping people!" Draco's expression switched from fury to confusion. She cut him off before he could interrupt, "NO! You snake of a person! You can't even be a man enough to do the work yourself, you have to give orders to others to do your own dirty work!" Draco blinked in utter confusion and searched for any word combination that could calm her down and talk to him rationally. When something came to mind, it was too late. Hermione Granger had Apparated leaving Draco in his quiet room, alone and completely bewildered.

Draco grabbed his jacket and pulled his shoes on while yelling for Loxley. "Get up here now!" Draco was filled with too much blistering heat from being sideswiped in his own home, to be anything but level-headed. Loxley appeared a couple of feet away from Draco holding a silver platter with some toast and juice on it. "Loxley! Why in the world, was Granger here slapping me back to consciousness?!" He angrily stepped toward the wide eyed elf who was speechless. "She mentioned that someone was doing my bidding for me? What was that Loxley?!" The platter started to shake from Loxley's nervousness. He had never witnessed his master this way. Without thinking, Draco flung the platter out of the house elf's hands and it and its contents were scattered across the floor. "TELL ME, NOW!" Draco heard the voice of his father.

"…your… brew…" Loxley couldn't breathe, and when he released those words, Draco glared and then Apparated. Loxley fell to his knees and covered his face in shame and fright.

Fluttering papers that were caught by the brisk wind were the only movement in Diagon Alley. Clouds covered most of the sky hiding the moon creating an eerie darkness that tried to distract Draco from finding out the truth. His nerves were on edge shifting his focus from one shadow to another ruling out any possibility of it actually being another Dementor hunting for its prey. The chill in the air was similar to the emptiness that transpired earlier that night – he had hoped such events had ended a long time ago. This was another reason for Draco to abandon all sense of the word, hope. It never fulfilled any promise or satisfaction. Wanting more than to solve the problem he didn't want or need, he unfortunately knew he had to fix the new problem first. He flipped his hood up and blocked his peripheral vision, decreasing the amount of shadows that could toy with his mind.

Finding his way to Granger's bookshop, he stopped in his tracks when he found the door ajar, shelves turned upside down and broken pieces of glass outlining the ground below the front window. Examining the scene, all of the cells in his body had screamed and ached to Apparate away from the wreckage and forget everything and return to his comfort zone of being alone. As his heel started to pivot, there was a moment where he felt a minuscule tug to root his stance. When he saw a head full of curls pop up from under the window, he rushed inside without giving a second thought.

"Granger? What happened?" He swung himself through the door and slid to Granger who was knelt down sobbing. Completely blind sighted and betrayed by his actions, an instant of regret washed over him. Snide remarks were loaded at the tip of his tongue, but the willingness to spew them out had seemed to dwindle.

She whipped her head towards him showing her tear stained cheeks and red puffy eyes. Anger was attempted but sadness consumed her reply, "Why…does it always… have to be you?"

Draco tried to reach for her clenched fist to help her relax but she flinched away. He tightened his jaw from the rejection and silently cursed himself by reaching out to her in the first place. Draco had never been comfortable with expressing or conveying any form of emotion through physical touch. It took all he had to even console his own mother. It was when he had witnessed (only once) a single tear roll down his mother's cheek. But she had been grateful for his comforting touch by allowing her lip to curl into a small smile. Neither Draco nor his mother had ever been brought up since.

Hermione's sharp tone cut him back to reality, "How dare you?! Leave me be!" She continued to sob as she flung from her position and hurried to the back past the counter, almost ripping the curtain from the hooks.

When the jaw-clenching sobs exited the room, Draco's strong urge to leave had his cells in a raging fit as he pulled out his wand. Glass pieces from both sides of the door and window came together like puzzle pieces and closed up any openings leading to the outside. A multitude of past events have left him regretful and calloused, but he loathed being in debt and was absolutely positive he was going to have a clean slate by the end of the night with Hermione Granger. Making sure the locks were unbreakable and the blinds were shut, he stood staring at the opened door leading to the staircase up to her flat. He only wanted to clear his debt, and that didn't mean he needed to make her feel better. Then, it all changed when a shriek came from the stairs.

Flying up the stairs, Draco found a weeping Granger on her knees holding a broken wooden box. The bedroom was completely ransacked: the sheets were torn, clothes lay everywhere, and drawers flung open. Draco's blood started to pump. The sight was appalling no matter what blood ran through their veins. His stomach started to twist with empathy, "She means nothing to me, what's this matter to me?" Draco's mind cut back and forth, and in some occurrences, he heard his father's voice in his head instructing him what to do. He shook it off when the cries ceased.

As tiny broken pieces of wood slipped through her fingers, it took all of her emotion with as will. Her breaths were short and her eyelids were nearly swollen shut from the hidden tears waiting to be released. Draco felt the knives go through him when she locked eyes with him.

"Get…ou," before she finished her command, her knees gave out and gravity took place. Draco flung himself forward and grabbed her before she hit her head on the side of the desk. He was at a loss as he held an unconscious Hermione Granger in his lap.

The warmth from her body made his skin burn, but how it burned was questionable. Trying to find something else to focus on, he cleared off a spot on the floor with his foot and slid her onto the clean area wrinkling his nose up with distaste. Many questions ran through his mind as he examined the small upstairs flat. "Why would anyone want to break into this place? There's nothing here. Ugh, what am I going to do with her?" He spotted a spiral journal on the desk that appeared very well used. He flipped through the very filled pages trying to find any contact she knew that could help her. The more pages Draco flipped, the more he started to realize it was a diary. He slammed it closed and dropped it back onto the end table wanting to forget some of the information he picked up. "Potter is too far away to reach by owl tonight, and she obviously is living alone so there isn't a relationship going on there. Her family! Does she have any family?"

Going through Hermione's room, Draco realized everything was a lot more bleak and simple than he would've expected. It was strange to only find the same two people mentioned throughout her belongs. And for Draco, both were unfortunately unavailable. He knew - he was sure - there was more about her than this bland taste that currently surrounded him. Even though she was obnoxious and arrogant, Granger wasn't ever alone. In her obnoxious attempts to out-answer everybody in class, people still adored her. Her arrogant aroma never repelled anybody which only caused more confusion for Draco as he stood at her bare desk.

Draco started to grow envious over the memories of how easy everything turned out for her. "Simply ironic. The one who had it all together was now surrounded by brokenness." All that he had grown up with aged him more than years could count, but had all those events truly been from him constantly being at the wrong place at the wrong time? Shaking the thoughts from his mind, Draco continued to search the room for any other contact he could reach so they could lend her their aid. Nothing came up. The picture frames held old photos, the latest date on the letter was from six months ago, and the loss of all hope blew out the open window. Hope – the simple thought of the word spewed venom down his throat.

Frustration captivated his mind and wanting nothing else than to Apparate back to the Manor, he took a quick glance down at the helpless girl on the floor and froze. "Um," he stared at Granger laying there with weak breaths. "Right." He took the thin blanket that was balled up on the bed and threw it carelessly over her. Satisfied, he Apparated to the Manor.

Standing in the middle of his room, he called out for Loxley. Seconds went by and still no sign of his house elf. He turned expecting him to be inches away, but only found empty space. Draco's eyes fell to spilled toast and Pumpkin juice that was spread across the floor in front of his bedroom door. Draco cursed himself and balled up his fists holding in anger that had been ignited by his own foolishness. He took a deep breath, then exited his room to search the grounds.

Loxley was nowhere to be found in the Malfoy Manor, and a mix of rushed irritation and embarrassment flowed through Draco's fast pumping veins. The night had just begun, and it was already the worst he has had in a very long time. He convinced himself Loxley would return at some point and there was no way he could track a house elf's magic. Going back to his bedroom, Draco bent over and cleaned up the mess he had created.

Hermione's POV

Entering the world slowly, Hermione blinked a couple of times to gather herself and collect her bearings. Everything in the room was sideways and she didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. The pounding headache restrained her from sitting up any faster than a turtle trying to purposely lose a foot race. The lazily placed blanket that she found over her had dropped to the floor when she tried to stand and fight the wobbliness of her knees and ankles. When Hermione's senses started to come back, she noticed the destroyed room that surrounded her. Everything was in its wrong place, and most of everything that was breakable was broken. Sadness trapped her where she stood, however there were no more tears to be shed even though she felt her chest start to harden.

When she regained enough strength, she charmed the room to mend itself. The broken glass from her mirror was put back into its place with no scratches, the pages that were torn out of her books were fit back into their rightful places, and her furniture were pieced back together to regain their functionality. As she double checked her belongings, she saw wooden pieces that still scattered the carpeted floor. Hermione knelt down and slowly picked each piece up and tried to mend it together by hand. After a few tries, she grew frustrated and threw them all on the top of her dresser. She sighed and examined herself in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot and were unbelievably dry. The curls that once were in a tidy ponytail had escaped and circled her head in many different directions. Tiresome and ready for sleep, she redid her hair and turned toward her bed. She couldn't get herself to move any further.

"My home was broken into… it doesn't feel safe anymore…" she crossed her arms seeking comfort. "Where would I go? Harry and Ginny are in Ireland and my parents are in Australia." Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a thud from a book hitting the ground from downstairs. Her wand at hand, she inched her way down the stairs. She mumbled a spell that released a tiny black ball from the end of her wand and traveled throughout the shop.

Hermione didn't continue until she heard someone curse, "What?!" the voice went silent and then thud – they had fallen to the ground.

When she peeked around the corner she noticed half of her store had been put back together. Behind the furthest bookshelf, she saw the pair of legs that had been tangled by her vine enchantment. Keeping her wand at the ready, she was ready to hex the intruder into oblivion. The body continued to struggle from the vines and the more they struggled, the more the vines tightened. Hermione leaped from behind the bookshelf and aggressively aimed her wand at the trapped intruder.

A head of blond hair and icy blue eyes shocked Hermione. "Malfoy? Really?" His red face was intensifying the more he struggled. His eyes were growing angrier, but eased his struggling once he noticed who hexed him. Hermione stood over the entangled Malfoy with arms crossed and carrying an unpleasant expression. "What on earth are you doing here?" She was too weak to have a full confrontation with him, but she didn't want him to notice this. Malfoy tried to frown angrily, hoping he would get her attention to release him from the vines. "Oh, yeah." The vines began to shrink in size and then disappear, the original color had filled his cheeks once more – even if it was never a lot to begin with.

Malfoy scooted towards the wall behind him and leaned against it, rubbing his throat. He started to cough, "Merlin… that could've killed me…" Hermione rolled her eyes and kept her wand aimed at him. "Lower that, why don't you? I'm not the one who you need to be hexing." She observed Malfoy as he recovered from the vines; he seemed different, grown. Anger was controlling him, but she could tell he was trying to fight it, something the younger Malfoy would have fed off of. Knowing who he was, she knew he had to be that same foul, loathsome, evil, little cockroach from before. No matter how captivating the definition of his aged skin radiated attractiveness, she had absolutely no interest in examining anything deeper than his skin. It was barbaric to even come across such a thought.

"What are you doing here? Why is my shop almost cleaned?" She relaxed her hand holding the wand, but kept a tight grip on it as a defense. "Didn't I tell you to leave?" Hermione tried to ask this in confidence, but couldn't fully remember what had been shared between them.

Malfoy brushed off where he still felt the tightening vines and leaned his head back to rest on the wall. He tried to control his words, "I did leave, and then came back. I needed to…" His pride quieted him. A white lie escaped his mouth instead, "I couldn't sleep so I figured helping you would be my good deed for the month."

Not expecting any more than a high class privileged remark she hissed, "Don't pity me Malfoy! You are the cause, every time! You need to accomplish more than one good deed a month to earn your place back into the world!" Malfoy heard the sorrow at the base of her anger and was curious on why she kept blaming him for anything, but then immediately disregarded it.

Malfoy rose to his feet in impatience. "Look here, Granger. If you have kept a three year old grudge, specifically about me, I'm flattered. But you need to get over it because some of us are trying to live with their mistakes and move past them!" Her reaction was unpredictable and completely caught him off guard.

Hermione's knuckles went white as she curled and clenched her fist. Her head hung low enough her loose curls fell in front of her face. "You are the reason..." She gritted her teeth, "he is dead." Her brows were pinned together with fury.

Malfoy stepped back and hit the wall, "What? Who?" Fear overthrew him. "I haven't killed anybody! If I couldn't kill someone that was ordered by the Dark Lord himself, who would I be able to kill?" He tried to search for answers through his memory, and then his stomach churned and twisted. "Granger?"

Hermione snapped. Before Malfoy knew it, he was pinned by his shoulder to the wall with her left arm, and she held her wand at his throat with her right. Her eyes were flooded with anger and malice, "I have waited for this moment." The tremble of her words echoed across the bookshelves, and having Malfoy in her grasp fueled the flame she had longed for.

Hey everyone! Thank you for reading the next part to my FIRST long "short" story. For those who are following, I am SO sorry for not updating sooner. I wanted to post this earlier this week, but I was waiting on edits (which didn't work out the way I wanted - so I finally just decided to give it to you!) Anyways, I hope you enjoy this next part, and I will be posting more regularly. Please leave a comment and let me know what y'all think! As always, you are ALL wonderful!

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or anything, just the plot. I'm not that good!