Chapter 5:

~Draco's POV~

I lay in bed, thinking. I had been laying there for god knows how long, just running things through my head. It had to have been a couple of hours, because it had been quite a long time. I just could not sleep after what happened earlier in the evening, in the common room.

Why had I said that? Why had I done that? It wasn't her fault I was mad. I don't even know why I had gotten so angry. It didn't make any since; it was like a natural reaction, me always getting blamed for everything, like at home. But now since it was not my father accusing, I could lash out as much as I wanted to. Little did I realize whom I was lashing out on. It is my entire fault. Wait, why do I care so much about what granger is feeling? I mean, she is the enemy. She is the kind of person I am supposed to be yelling at, out of everyone. I mean, if it were Blaise, or anyone in the Slytherin house, then maybe I should feel a little bad, but not much. But this is Granger that I am losing precious sleep over. She is definitely not worth a second of my thoughts, yet I have been spending the last few hours thinking of nothing but her.

She is a mudblood. I need to keep telling myself that. Mudbloods are bad. Mudbloods are the enemy. But why? Why are they so bad? Why am I any better than Granger, when she has way better grades then I will ever be able to have? Truthfully, she is better than me, when you think about it. So why have I been taught that the Mudbloods are so inferior? I am just so confused. What am I supposed to do?

The only thing I could think about was the look on her face. The look of hatred, sadness, and pain all rolled into one. The look she gave me before she burst into tears and fled the room. The second I spit that last word out, I regretted it. The image of her pained face will haunt my dreams forever, I know it. Especially now that she hates me, well if she didn't hate me before that is. But she has always hated me, so what's the difference? Yes, that's it. I do this kind of thing to her all of the time; I have been for the past six years. She already hated me, now she just has another reason, it's not like anything I said really affected her that much. I'm sure she's run off crying over what I've said before; I just am being such an arrogant prick I don't stick around to see.

I rolled over in bed, looking at the wall. I had figured it all out, but I still couldn't get her face out of my head. I needed to apologize to her. Tomorrow I would apologize. I closed my eyes, hoping to fall asleep, but still the sleep never came.

~Hermoines POV~

Last night I cried myself to sleep. I don't know why I had taken everything so offensively. I just had. I don't know, if I wasn't mistaken I had thought we had been acting somewhat civilized towards each other until he stormed out and everything. I had started to think that there was some good in him after all, but boy did he prove me wrong. I woke this morning, my eyes completely swollen. I tried to use as much makeup as I could manage, but I still couldn't get the puffiness and redness to go away.

I went down to breakfast, and took my spot in between Ron and Harry. I didn't say anything but immediately started to shovel food into my mouth. I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, to avoid any questions regarding my delicate and fragile state. There was a very thin and taught anger line inside me, and I was sure anything would set me off. I thought I was doing a rather well job of hiding it, until I felt eyes peering into me. I couldn't tell who was watching me, but it could have been anyone. So I glanced up from my plate, and saw it wasn't Harry or Ron, as I had thought. It was Malfoy staring at me from across the great hall. He had his fork firmly in his hand, and was looking at me. Not with a glare mind you, but with a concerned look, a look I don't think I have ever seen on his face.

"Hey, Hermoine. Sleep well?" Harry said, finally noticing my existence. I tried to swallow my food, and tried not to burst out crying as soon as I opened my mouth.

"Alright I suppose," I managed.

"I guess you can't sleep too well knowing that Malfoy is across the hall, can you?" Ron said, shoving a mouthful of pancakes into his mouth.

"You have no idea," I said quietly, trying not to draw very much attention to the subject. "So, which class do we have now, I forgot to look?" I was really trying to get away from the subject.

"Oh, Transfiguration. Then later Care of Magical Creatures," Harry answered, not even paying me much attention, or else he would have noticed that I was trying hard not to cry, and my eyes were completely red and puffy. Finally Harry looked over and noticed I was shoveling food in about three forkfuls a second. "Wow, Hermoine, what's the rush?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to get to class early, to avoid another weeks worth of detention," I lied.

"Speaking of detention how was that? I've served detention with Malfoy before, and it was complete torcher," Harry responded. This was not the conversation I had planned out.

"Oh," I tried to choke back my tears, trying not to make it to evident. "I just avoided him pretty much."

Ron looked up at me, wanting more details, but caught sight of something I was hoping to go scot free with. "Hermoine! What's the matter!" he asked, dropping his fork stacked with pancakes. I tried to look down to hide my face, but he had already seen.

"Nothing, I better be going," I said, making the motion to stand up, but they both took a grip on my shoulders shoving me back into my seat.

"Hermoine, it's not, 'nothing'," Ron said. I didn't like how this was going. "What is the matter? We're your friends, you can tell us."

"Yeah, Hermoine, whatever it is, you can tell us anything," Harry tried to reassure me. But I didn't want them to know the awful things he had said. I knew how they would react. They would go threaten him, and someone from either party would end up in the hospital wing.

"Look, I'm fine, ok?" I said, firmly.

"No, your not!" Ron shouted, making a few people at the table, and at the surrounding tables turn and look. I felt extremely uncomfortable sitting here, eyes watching me. "Hermoine, I have never seen you like this before, there is something wrong!"

This was it, the thin line had snapped in two. I jumped up from my seat and towered over Ron for once. "Look Ron, when I say I'm fine, then I'm fine! Stop pestering me, and leave me alone!" I screamed, making the entire hall look at me as I stormed out of the great hall, tears streaming down my face. I couldn't help it. I couldn't take it any longer. I ran right out and into the bathroom. I stayed there, in one of the stalls, sitting on the toilet. I cried again, everything is so screwed up, and we were only into the second day of school.

I had been there about five minutes, when I heard a knock on the door of the stall. I stopped crying for a few seconds. "Harry, Ron, go away!" I screamed at the door. I didn't hear the door open or close, so they were still here. "I said, go away, both of you!"

"Its not Harry or Ron," a voice said from the other side. I recognized the voice, but my mind was too jumbled to put a name on it. I looked under the door, and saw that there was only one pair of feet there, so it wasn't Harry or Ron. But they weren't making any attempt to go away either.

"I don't care who you are. Leave me alone," I muttered.

"Hermoine, please open the door."

"What for?" I spat.

"Just…please…I need to talk to you." The voice was pleading. I thought, well I might as well see who it was. So I got up, unlocked it, and opened the door. The second I saw who it was I tried to slam the door back into his face again. But he stopped me from closing the door and pushed it back open. "Wait, please!"

"Go away, Malfoy! You are the last person I want to see right now!" I screamed at him. I felt my tears flowing again, uncontrollably.

"Look, Granger, I wanted to tell you something," he snapped, putting his hands on his hips snottily.

"Don't you think you said enough last night?"

"No, I need to say something to you."

"Don't even waist your breath, because I don't want to hear it."

I pushed past him and out of the bathroom, leaving him there. I didn't want to hear anything he had to say, no matter what he was going to say. Nothing good was ever going to come out of his mouth. So why bother even listening for it?

It was good I got out then, because I walked into Transfiguration just before class was to start. I didn't even want to look at Harry or Ron, so I took a seat next to Hannah Abbot. When she opened her mouth to say something, I already knew she was going to ask about the scene earlier, so I held my hand up. She closed her mouth again, and I sat through the rest of class in a bad temper. I went to Care of Magical Creatures all by myself, and sat with a Ravenclaw girl, who I didn't know, but it was better than sitting by myself.

Harry and Ron didn't even try to talk to me all day, which was probably for the better. I'm sure I would have just bitten their heads off anyway. I guess they know me well enough to ride it out with me. But then I remembered, I have another long night of detention tonight. At least this time it's all by myself, instead of with that git Malfoy.

After dinner, I went to the dungeons. Once I stepped into Snape's office, the chill of the night air made the hair on my arm and neck stand on end, and little goose bumps sprout on my skin. I hugged myself as I slid down the wall, trying to cover as much of my legs with my skirt as possible. I had the idea of running up to the common room for my cloak, but would have been late by doing so. Suddenly the door opened, I thought I was Snape, so I quickly tried pulling myself to my feet again. But fell back down against the cold stone floor when I saw who it really was.

"Malfoy, what are you doing here?!" I said astonished to see him here. He was wearing a big cloak around his shoulders, and looked extremely smug.

"Well, Snape assigned me detentions the rest of the week, for ditching yesterday, so here I am," he said, waving his arm in the air. I gave him a death glare, and hugged my knees to my chest. Well, I have the rest of the week's detention with Malfoy. That's a whole two more days, and I won't be able to live with it, I know it. At least my detentions will be over, but him being here makes them seem so much longer.

"Cold, Granger?" he smirked. I turned away from him, not wanting to look at his face. "You know, you should learn, it gets quite cold in the dungeons. I know, considering I lived down here for six years. Maybe next time you'll be smart enough to bring your own cloak wont you?"

"You know, I am not in the mood for your shrewd comments at the moment, so just go sit over there and be quiet," I waved him off just as Snape swept in. I stood up as he swiped our wands away, assigning us the same duty from yesterday. We still were given the task of cleaning out his enormously gross and disgusting closets. This was going to be a long task, because we had only gotten through two out of seven yesterday.

"You can start on the bottle organizing, if you can handle that," I spat at him, pointing to the untidy shelves.

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I'll start trying to sweep away the cobwebs, and try and scrub away this potion spill on the floor," I said, grabbing a bucket and a rag. We sat there, organizing and scrubbing away. We had been there maybe an hour, not saying a thing to each other. We were completely silent to each other, just trying to get the task done as fast as possible.

I thought we were making the best out of the situation. Really, we were standing each others company, wanted or not, and we hadn't started bickering or arguing yet. But I still wanted him to leave. I had finished with the spill on the floor, when I started on the one that was on the top of one of the taller shelves. Malfoy was on the ladder, a couple shelves above me labeling and organizing. I set the bucket on the shelf and started to scrub away at the unknown potion. All of a sudden I felt something tickling my hand. I thought it was just the rag or something, but it was moving around on my hand as I scrubbed at something above my head, that I couldn't see. I pulled my hand out, and started screaming at the top of my lungs at what was resting on the back of my hand. A giant tarantula looking spider was sitting there, with its fangs sticking out. Malfoy jumped off the ladder at my screaming. I started thrashing about, and waving my arms around, trying to shake it off. I didn't know if it was really gone or not, but I still continued to scream and wave about. Malfoy ran up to me, wondering what the commotion was all about.

I was running over so fast he slipped on the wet and soapy area I had just been scrubbing on the floor. I saw it out of the corner of my eye as he slid past me and hit the shelves I had been scrubbing. Before I could react, I felt the cold wetness wash all over me. The bucket of water sitting on the shelf had fallen off and spilled all over both of us. I stopped screaming, and fell to my knees, completely drenched. Malfoy sat up, and I saw he was drenched as well.

"Why the bloody hell were you screaming?!" he demanded.

"There was this giant spider, and I think it bit me, on my hand," I said panicked. He scooted over towards me and took my hand. He held it in his, inspecting it.

"It looks like it did bite you. I guess you can go to hospital wing to get it properly inspected when we're through with detention," he said, throwing my hand back at me, and standing up disgusted. "Girls." He muttered, resuming his position at the top of the ladder. I didn't know what to do now. I was wet to the bone, in the dungeon, and the whole closet was wet. Well, it would dry eventually. I filled the bucket back up with water, and continued to scrub the shelf, watchful of unwanted creatures.

I felt my body shivering, ice cold. I could see my breath in front of me, and my hands could barely move anymore. I felt frozen, my blood was ice. My lungs felt raspy, and I was having a hard time breathing. I fell back to the wall, and slid down, too frozen to do anything. Apparently getting water poured all over I wasn't exactly the good thing to do when it was this cold down here. My teeth chattered, and I trembled with cold. I didn't know what to do.

I saw Draco climb down from his ladder and lean down in front of me.

"Granger?" he asked. "You alright?" he looked a little worried, sitting there in front of me.

"I'm so cold, I can hardly move," I managed to whisper. I saw his coat slip off of him and wrap around me. It felt so warm around me. It was hard to believe something this warm could come from someone so cold. He put his palm on my cheek.

"You are ice cold, Granger," he commented, removing his hand. But I wished he would have put it back. It felt so warm and good against my ice cold cheeks. "Here, I'm sure sitting in a puddle of water isn't helping much."

I felt myself being lifted off the floor, and being set on one of the desks outside of the closet. Malfoy pulled his cloak tighter around me, and I felt warmer. He put both of his hands on my cheeks, and I felt immediate warmth pulse through my body. I wanted to pull him to me and use up all of his warmth, because he seemed to have so much of it, but I resisted.

"There," he said triumphantly. "You sit here, and I'll go back and clean."

"But, you can't do it all by yourself."

"I'll manage," he stated. He disappeared into the closet, and I sat there, staring at his figure moving about inside the small room. I was getting warmer as I tugged the cloak around me. I was definitely remembering to bring my cloak tomorrow, in case of falling buckets of ice cold water. I had been there about fifteen minutes, and was feeling pretty much back to normal. I got up and walked over to the closet. The candles were flickering inside, making the gray in his eyes glisten.

"Here's your cloak back, you must be freezing," I said, holding his cloak out for him. He turned towards me, but didn't make an attempt to take the cloak.

"Keep it. I'm used to the cold, being down here so long. Plus, father used to make me sleep in the cellar when he was upset with me. I'll live."

I felt a sudden pain of guilt for him. "Your father made you sleep in the cellar?" he looked away, blushing a bit. I could tell he hadn't meant to say that exactly. So I didn't speak of it anymore. He turned back to the shelves, and started to arbitrarily switch bottles around. "You know, we have been here over two hours, don't you think you should take a little bit of a break?"

"Well, no actually, we still have a lot left to do, and Snape should be here in like a half hour."

I pulled my wand out and muttered a cleaning charm. Everything went clean, and all the bottles rattled as they all arranged themselves in the right order.

"Where did you get that?" he demanded.

"Oh, I gave Snape one of the Weasley fake wands. That's how I managed to clean up that mess yesterday before Snape walked in," I smirked.

"Then I guess I could take a little bit of a break," he said, pushing past me at the door and sitting on top of one of the desks, and stretching out. I went and pulled out a chair and sat down in it. There was a very uncomfortable silence, where you could drop a needle and they would have heard it all the way in America. I decided to break the silence.

"You sure you don't want your cloak back?"

"Granger, are you deaf? I said I didn't want it," he snapped.

"Well sorry. I was just trying to be nice, you don't have to bite my head off or anything," I said, crossing my arms across my chest.

"If you would just listen in the first place, then we wouldn't have to argue all the time!"

"No, the reason we have to argue all the time is you and your rude comments!"

"Well, you wouldn't be on the receiving end of those comments if you would just mind your own business and keep your smart alleck remarks to yourself!"

"Malfoy look!" I yelled at him. "You hate me, I hate you. So why don't we just leave it at that and get all the arguing and disputes out of the way?"

"I never said I hated you," he said back immediately. I was about to open my mouth, but shut it after hearing that. I thought it was another insult, but when it had processed, I realized what he had said.

"What do you mean you don't hate me?"

"Do I need to spell it for you Granger?"

"Malfoy, I am not in the mood to be screwed with at the moment, so stop messing with me!"

"I'm not messing with you. I don't hate you, I have never really hated you."

"Well you have a funny way of showing it."

He smiled. Not his smirk, but I thought I recognized a real smile underneath it. It made his face light up, and I liked how he looked much better.

"I always had to, that's what my father expects of me. I didn't want to ruin my family's reputation. I have to act a certain way around other people, you know, to uphold the Malfoy name. I have to show my worth, so I can be accepted."

"Accepted?" I asked. I didn't even know why I had asked, I already knew the answer. But he looked away, not wanting to answer. So I answered it myself. "You mean accepted by Voldemort?" he still wouldn't look at me. He scared me right then. He was the son of a death eater. He was a servant of the dark lord. But a burning question plagued me. I just couldn't hold it in, now that we were actually having a civil conversation, for once. "Are you going to be a death eater?"

He looked up at me, his eyes cold as ice, yet warm and inviting at the same time. "I don't really have a choice. My father expects it of me. Voldemort expects it of me."

"I guess that wasn't the right question. Do you want to be a death eater?" this one took him a little longer to answer to. But he finally looked up again and spoke.

"No." that was what I wanted to hear. He really wasn't as evil as I thought he had been. He really did have a softer side. Even if he was only showing it now in the middle of the night, when he was obviously groggy. Surely tomorrow he will go back to cursing me. But I didn't care. I still could not believe he just told me what he had. He has never hated me. How is that possible? He has always acted like it. But I guess looks can be deceiving. Anyone can act different if they want to. Look at our entire defense against the dark arts teachers. They could all pretend pretty darn well to be someone else.

Suddenly the door burst open and Snape strode in. looking as greasy and slimy as usual. "Why are you not working? I am guessing you aren't done yet," I said.

"Just taking a break professor. We were rather cold, and figured you would be back pretty soon anyway."

"Likely Mr. Malfoy." He handed over the wands and shooed us out of the room. We walked back up to the common room in silence. We said the password and entered through the little girl in the painting. We stopped in the common room, and I handed over his cloak.

"Thanks," I said. He took it in his hands and looked down at it. Then something came to mind. I remembered that he had wanted to talk to me before. I suddenly wanted to know what he was so persistent to talk about. He was just about to turn and go to his perspective corner of the common room when I stopped him. "Malfoy, you wanted to tell me something earlier, didn't you?" he stopped and turned back around.

"Yeah, yeah I did," he replied, scratching the back of his head, and looking everywhere but where I was. I could tell what he wanted to say, wasn't going to come easily. "I guess, I just wanted to say…"

"Yes?"

"Imsorryforwhatisaid," he kind of slurred all together.

"What?"

He took a deep breath before answering again. "I am sorry for what I said last night. I was just really angry, and I took it out on you, and I'm sorry."

I smiled happily. "Apology accepted," I smiled and turned towards my room.

"Good night Hermoine."

"Good night Draco."

Ok I know that was a real long chapter, but oh well! Please review please!!

~Taylor~