Chapter 5: Friends
Hermione stayed in her room for the whole night doing homework, completely forgetting about dinner, when she hears a knock at the door. Although she's extremely annoyed, she still gets up and answers the door. There stands Draco Malfoy.
"Your not like most girls you know that?" He says not even looking at her.
Hermione stares at him staring at the floor. "Do you want to come in?"
Draco walks in and sits on the bed. Hermione closes the door and sits next to him, feeling absolutely no danger.
"Did you need to talk to me?" She asks him after a few too many awkward moments.
"I just don't understand Hermione."
'Did he just call me Hermione?' she asks herself.
"I mean," he continues, "just about every girl in this fucking school would kill to have me touch them and you push me off. I honestly don't understand."
She looks at him for a minute before saying, "Your right about one thing Draco, I'm not like most girls." He looks at her in amazement. He obviously caught the 'Draco' thing.
"Sex is not that important in my life. I'm mature enough to live without it, so you can't try to offer me your body but not your soul. Sex without intimacy is completely empty. If you're willing to be nice and respectful, then I would love to be your friend. Maybe it can grow off that, but I don't want to jump directly from enemies to fuck buddies. Do you understand?"
He looks at her for a seconds at laughs a little to himself then says, "You know that won't be easy for me. I do like you Hermione, but you don't understand how hard it is for me to be your friend. My father hates muggle borns, I have never had a female friend I wasn't fucking, and I hate your best friends."
"Well, if you really like me, what does it matter where I come from, or if your father will like me, or who my friends are? Why can't you just like me for me?"
He let out a deep sigh and lay back on the bed.
"I think you could use a girl friend Draco. You need someone to listen to you without judging you. I think you need to learn the difference between friends and sex."
"I don't know Hermione. I think I need to think about it. I'll be out in the hot tub having a smoke." With that, he walked away.
Hermione sat by herself. 'I hope he will let me be his friend. I know Harry, Ron, and Ginny will be upset, but they'll understand.' She thought to herself.
Draco sat in his room drying off after his dip. He needs to clear his mind. He decides to pull out his sword and practiced some martial arts he's been practicing since he was about 4. He takes off his shirt so he was just wearing his jeans and with a quick wave of his wand, the room cleared, the lights went out, and candles appeared from nowhere.
He sat in the middle of the room with the blade lying flat in front of him and meditated for a second. Then, with his eyes still closed, he picked up the blade and began a quick routine he learned many years ago.
He continued swinging with his eyes closed until he suddenly sensed a presence where he was about to swing and stopped dead in the air. He opened his eyes and saw Hermione standing inches away from the edge of the blade.
"I-I knock b-but no one a-answered so I j-just walked in." She stuttered from the shock of almost getting her head cut off by a mad man swinging a sword around blindly.
"Hermione, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" He asked dropping the sword to the ground.
"I-I'm fine," she lied, "What are doing with that thing?'
He looks down at his sword and smile. "That's my pride and joy. My first sensay gave this to me when he thought I was strong enough to use it properly. I was 13. Soon after he taught me how to use it, he died." He looked Hermione in the eyes. "Cancer."
"God, I'm so sorry." Hermione said, not knowing what else to say.
"Hey, it's okay. It was years ago; I'm over it. But since that day, I've cherished this sword and have spent the last 4 years mastering it."
"Is that why you knew I was here?"
"Yah, I've been practicing so long, I can tell when the energy around me is disturbed by a human force. By the way, why are you in my room?"
"Well, I got lonely in my room by myself so I was hoping you wanted to talk or something." She said so quietly he could barely hear her.
He looks at her with a soft expression on his face. He realizes he has never felt so comfortable around another human being. He looks at her. 'She really looks beautiful.' He thinks to himself.
"I guess we can talk or something." He says softly.
"Good," She says shyly, "Does this mean you're willing to be my friend?"
He lets out a deep sigh. "I guess so, but you'll have to be patient Hermione. I've never just been a friend with a girl so I don't open up very well and I always initiate sex whenever I can; just to warn you."
"I can handle that." She smiled.
A few minutes into their conversation, they start to talk about their families.
"My parents are dentist. I was raised as a muggle until I was 10, Dumbledore himself came to my parents and told them I was a witch and should attend Hogwarts. He said I had a lot of potential."
"You still do yah know."
"Thank you," she blushed, "Anyway, my parents accepted the fact with almost no hesitation and agreed to send me here. I always got along with my parents and they always wanted what was best for me."
"Same with my parents. Of course as you know, my parents don't have the best of reputations. Yes they hate muggle borns and yes they raised me the same way for the longest time, but you have to look past all that. They were the one who taught me how to ride a broom and read me bedtime stories when I was young. They took care of me when I was sick. I can't change what they believe in, but they're still my parents and I love them with all my heart. I've heard the rumors about how they beat me and how I'm forced to be mean to all muggle borns, but the truth is, after being around that kind of prejudice for so long, it rubs off on you. It took me almost 16 years to realize it was wrong."
After a couple of hours, they were so deep into their convesation, Hermione never evern noticed Draco wasn't wearing a shirt. They got on the subject of Harry and Ron.
"You know I love Harry and I really like his girlfriend, but there's something about her that bothers me."
"What's that?"
"Well," she started, feeling a bit hesitant to continue, "It's just, when we were fighting earlier, she knew about it before I told her. Apparently she's some kind of psychic, but it just bothered me she could read both of our minds."
"Wait, she was reading my mind too?"
"Yes, that's how she knew you cared about me."
"Really," he started, "Well, I guess if she's psychic she doesn't exactly have complete control of her powers and she might not have even tried to read our minds in particular, so I can't get mad."
"Right." Hermione said knowing very well that Jenny knew exactly what she was doing.
"Well, it's getting pretty late, we better get to bed." Draco said.
"Right, we probably should. I'll see you in the morning. Goodnight Draco."
"Goodnight Hermione."
She walks down the stairs across the common room and up her stairs to reach her room and crawls back in bed. All she can think about is how much he opened up in only a few hours. She crawled into bed and fell into a deep, deep sleep.
Hermione woke up to a beautiful Saturday morning. She climbed out of bed and went to go take a shower.
When she got out of the shower and went into the common room in nothing but her towel, she found Malfoy sitting on the sofa reading a magazine. As she enters the room, he looks up at her and smiles, not smirks, but smiles.
"I thought we could go to breakfast together." He says to her looking at her eyes and not her body.
She smiles at him, "That sounds great, give me 10 minutes to get ready and I'll meet you back down here ok."
"Take your time." He says, returning to his book.
Hermione rushes up to her room and quickly finds an outfit. She found a pure white tank top and some short jean shorts. She figures it's the quidditch game today and she should be prepared for the heat. Then she quickly put a straightening charm on her hair and threw on some lip-gloss and came back down to see Draco.
"I'm ready."
He looks up and smiles. "Great, lets go." He says offering his arm. She grabs it without a second thought and they head for the great hall.
As they walk down the hall, they get a lot of confused glances, but neither of them could care less. They were actually happy to have someone to talk to. For her, someone who wasn't too busy with their girlfriends to acknowledge her existence. For him, someone who would listen without instantly judging him and using that information to blackmail him. They were in heaven.
They enter the great hall and she turns to him questionably. "Now what do we do? I can't ask you to join me because my friend will tear you apart, and I can't join you because your friends will tear me apart."
"They're not my friends…but your right. I guess I'll see you at the game."
Hermione just sighed. "Yah I guess so." She pulled him down so she could reach and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and headed for her friends.
"Hey guys."
"Oh, hey Hermione. How was your night?" Harry asks.
"Actually, it was great!" She squeaked. Everyone turned and looked at her. "Draco and I becameri friends. We talked for hours in his room and it was just so comfortable.
"YOU DID WHAT!?" Harry and Ron screamed.
"What?" she asks innocently.
"How can you make friends with him. He's spent the last 6 years making our lives miserable. You can't be friends with that." Ron yelled.
"Well yah know what, I'm mature enough to look past that and try my best to enjoy my last year at Hogwarts and that won't happen if I absolutely hate my roommate. Am I right?"
They both just sat there and pouted.
"Hermione," Harry started. "People don't change over night! You can't trust him, at least not yet.
"Look I don't want to argue about this right now. Let's just eat our breakfast in peace. You two need to have your strength for today's game."
"Slytherin and Gryfindor are tied 50-50 and it seems that neither one of the teams seekers can spot the snitch." Roared the voice of Colin Quinn over the loud speaker at the quidditch game. Hermione stands in the stands cheering on her team and Draco. It's pouring down rain and she's stuck in her almost see through top and tiny shorts. She's freezing and can barely feel her fingers, but she stays out there and cheers her boys on.
"Draco Malfoy spots the snitch! So does Harry Potter." The voice roared.
They spin around and weave between one another desperately trying to grab the small golden ball.
"Ooh, Harry barely dodges a quaffle headed directly for him."
They do into a deep nosedive falling further and further. They're only feet from the ground when the both pull up and barely hover over the ground before they both pull up. They fly around until suddenly, out of nowhere, Draco's broom nosedives for the ground. He drops about 30 feet before he falls off his broom completely and hits the ground hard.
"DRACO!!!"