Chapter Two

Noise

Well.

He was here now, watching over her just as he had told Dumbledore he would. Malfoy spent several long minutes making sure she was tucked in properly, brushing her unruly hair out of her face, making sure she had a glass of water on her bedside table just in case she needed it and generally doing anything else he could to make sure she was comfortable. Every movement was slow, deliberate and very quiet. He took great care in touching her as little as possible – he had no desire to wake her. Looking at her also seemed unbearable at the moment. In his ministrations, he had glimpsed a small gash on her forehead. He didn't want to see the dried blood, not on her face.

Malfoy smiled a humorless smile as he completed the increasingly useless tasks for her comfort. She would call his muted actions noise, as contradictory as that sounded. Often were the times she would tell him to stop making so much noise, which she considered to be those mundane and banal tasks to which we attach such importance that keep us from thinking on the bigger questions of life, whatever they may be. It had something to do with mortality and love, but Malfoy wasn't entirely certain about that. He was positive that she had couched it in much more poetic terms. Either way, it had confused him then and it confused him now. He had often explained to her that action was sometimes better than reflection, just to get a rise out of her, but she would just smile that perfect little Hermione smile that suggested that he had no idea what she was really talking about, which of course he didn't.

Unfortunately for Malfoy, there was not exactly a lot for him to do for her, so he concentrated on making himself more comfortable. He found a blanket and some pillows and took much more care than was entirely necessary to make sure his fluffy chair was snug. He rolled up his sleeves and removed his shoes. He took an absurd amount of time trying to find the best place to store his shoes – under the chair, under Hermione's bed, maybe Pomfrey's office. In any case, it was just noise and Malfoy could not prolong it any more.

The chair was pulled as close as possible to her bedside without facing it and Malfoy settled in, trying not to look at her. Several more long minutes passed – hunched over, elbows resting on knees, eyes studying the lackluster floor.

Merlin, it was quiet in here. The silence was so complete, so encompassing that Malfoy found himself trying to quiet his own breath, as it seemed to echo in the cavernous room. He traced his foot along the lines of the floor tiles in a vain attempt to dispel the silence. The quiet made him feel a little out of sorts and he was unsure what to do with himself. Sleep was not an option, not when that boy was in the same room as his Hermione.

Hermione moved a bit in her sleep and her hand fell off the side of the bed into Malfoy's line of vision. Her hand sliced through the silence of the hospital wing and it suddenly became the focus of his entire world. His eyes swept over its lines and contours. It seemed an abstract, otherworldly thing to him – perhaps it was the moonlight that made it appear translucent like that. Tentatively, Malfoy reached out and lightly ran his fingers over the back of her hand, tracing her veins. A few more minutes passed and he took her little hand into his own. He grinned as he regarded her cute stubby little fingers.

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Seventh Year

Books and parchments were scattered all over the table in the center of the Head dormitory common room he shared with Hermione as he studied for Potions NEWTS. Was there anything worse in the world than Potions NEWTS? Malfoy liked to think so, but he knew from personal experience that it wasn't true. He strummed his quill on the table. He was having serious difficulty concentrating on the properties of moonstone and its subsequent reactions to bezoars.

Malfoy scribbled in the margins of his notes. On any other day, he would have long ago given up on studying and instead amused himself by dangling Crookshanks's toys just out of his reach. It really was quite a shame that more people didn't recognize the comic genius of Crookshanks. Malfoy had readily told Hermione that Crookshanks was his favorite person in the world. She just rolled her eyes at him and told him he didn't know enough people. Of course, Malfoy did know a lot of people, it was just that in comparison to Crookshanks, the animal was quite often the better person.

Today, however, he could not put off his revisions any longer. The NEWTS were looming ever closer. He still had a couple of months, but the professors seemed to take it upon themselves to drain any and all enjoyment out of the next several months by assigning far more work than was necessary. In some ways, Malfoy was grateful for the work, because it kept his mind off what was going on in the rest of the Wizarding World.

Firmly telling himself that he had to concentrate and must keep studying, Malfoy shook out his arms and reapplied himself with renewed vigor to the most fascinating properties of moonstone.

His resolve lasted all of four minutes. His mind had gently slipped away from him within those few minutes, wondering when Granger would reappear, wondering if there would be fruit crumble for desert tomorrow, wondering if he would ever care about the properties of moonstone.

He tried to keep his mind from wandering as it often did, but he did not have the strength to deny those wrenching memories from seeping into his mind. The stench of sweat and blood, the screams of suffering and the images of frightened faces occasionally slipped through his barriers reminding him of images and sounds he wished to forget, further imprinting his cowardice upon him.

The portrait hole flew open and a very irate Head Girl stomped through, throwing her books to the ground. Hermione Granger did not throw books anywhere. This could not be good. Malfoy did not consciously notice it, but those horrid memories slithered out of his mind immediately upon her arrival. They had a tendency to do that in her presence.

"What's wrong, Granger?" Malfoy asked in a tone he hoped was comforting but in reality was gruff and cold. He had not quite yet figured out the intricacies of a reciprocal, yet guarded friendship.

"No! Do I look okay?" she asked angrily.

If Malfoy were to be completely honest, he would tell her that she did not look okay – her clothes were rumpled, her hair seemed to have doubled in volume and sheer frizziness over the course of the day and there were angry red splotches on her face. All in all, she was not a picture of refined beauty. Still, he would really rather not answer that question. It was a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of any kind of good sense did not reply to such an inquiry from an angry woman.

"Er-well you look okay, but uh, something seems to be the matter."

She stomped her way in front of him and thrust her hands in front of his face. Her petite angry form standing over his seated one felt oddly intimidating.

"Look at them. Just look at them," shrieked Granger.

He reached out his own hands to take hers, careful to keep the trembling under control. Thankfully she was too busy being angry to notice his reaction. He turned them over, making quite the show of examining every feature of her hands. Apparently, said examination required him to repeatedly run his own hands and fingers over hers, keeping as much tactile contact as possible.

"Well?" she snapped.

Recovering quite admirably from the effect her touch was having on him, he replied smoothly, "Granger, your hands are quite lovely. Except for a few ink splotches here, here, and well, this whole area over here, they are without fault." That ought to do the trick, he thought as he smirked up at her.

She sniffed and looked down at him rather disgustingly. Once again, Malfoy had incorrectly read the female psyche. "Look at my fingers. Are they not ridiculously short? I mean, look at them. Is this some sort of cosmic joke on Hermione Granger? Well, is it?"

Trancelike, he placed his hand palm to palm with hers. Now that she pointed it out, her fingers were stubby. Stubby, but cute all the same.

"How am I supposed to play Chopin with fingers like these?" she seethed, snatching her hands away from him. She spotted Crookshanks, swept the creature up in her arms and most inelegantly plopped down in her favorite chair.

Ah. The piano. It all made sense now. Hermione had reacquainted herself with the piano in an effort to ease some stress. Until this point, it had worked like a charm. She always walked away from the piano with a serene look on her face. Much to Malfoy's amazement, she even appeared soothed when frustrated with a particular song, giggling when her fingers struck a wrong note.

Malfoy loved to hear her play. Most often, she would not allow an audience in the dusty room that housed the only piano at Hogwarts. But on rare occasions, Malfoy would accompany her to the third floor, lie on his back on the cold floor with his head resting in his hands and revel in her company and the sound. Even when she played an exceptionally enthusiastic song, the gentleness of the sound wrapped around him. He could feel it flow through his being, and the floor didn't seem quite as cold.

He knew Potter and Weasley were invited to her private recitals more often than he was. He suspected that Weasley accompanied her nearly every time, but she did not offer this information, and he did not ask. A slight twinge of jealousy settled itself in his gut, but he did not mark it.

"Did you know that Chopin had abnormally large hands, and composed music for people with abnormally large hands?" she asked, sounding thoroughly exasperated and defeated. He smirked, and opened his mouth to comment on the size of his own hands. "And don't even say it Malfoy, I know what they say about large hands."

Exit smirk.

"I know I'm being unreasonable. I don't even particularly like the piece." She shrugged. "It's just that with the NEWTS coming up and…well everything. You know," she said quietly as she cast a glance at him across the room. It seemed to him that she was willing him to understand just what she was saying.

He knew what she meant. Everything. As in You-Know-Who everything. As in, the Dark Lord is coming to get you and maybe if you're lucky, you won't be subjected to obliterating torture and agony before he mercilessly slaughters you and everyone you love as he and his minions have done to countless others. Everything. A current of quiet fear coursed through the wizarding population, and he could fully understand her anxiety, especially when he considered the fact that she was best friend to Harry Potter. She hugged the discontented cat closer to her.

This was not like her. She said what she meant; she did not try to convey meaning with a vague description like "everything." This was not right. She comforted him, not the other way round. She had the strength, the understanding, the intelligence and a seemingly endless reserve of empathy.

The world itself didn't seem right if Granger was upset. But then, he supposed that she experienced pain, suffering and insecurity just like everyone else. It was just that this was the first time she let him see her vulnerability and Malfoy had no idea what to do with it.

The silence of the room closed in on him, suffocating him. Comforting another human being was something he did not understand, something he could not grasp. How was one to proceed in such a task? He did not know as he had never really done it. He simply did not care when another was in pain. But this was different. This was Granger, and that little fact made it different. Why that was, Malfoy could say. He just knew it was different.

Granger had comforted him before, but for some unknown reason Malfoy could not remember precisely how she had done it. He knew he needed to act, and try to form a plan of attack, as they say. But the only thing that he could grasp at the moment was the thought that she had the ugliest cat he had ever seen, with its bowed legs, squashed face and grotesque mass of orange fur.

Silent noise.

The quiet rapidly became more oppressive. Breathing became difficult. It was like a physical weight bearing down on him. Think. He could not disappoint her. For the first time in their thoroughly strange relationship, she was reaching out to him. Eyes downcast and unfocused, she gently stroked the now purring cat. Malfoy was desperate to reach out to her and yet entirely unsure of what to do. He didn't understand it – mere minutes ago he was trying to figure out the mystery of her hands and now she needed him, and he couldn't deliver.

Granger's eyes focused and she gently set a very happy Crookshanks on the floor. She sighed and stood up. Her slow sad walk carried her to the stairway that led to her room.

"Hermione, wait!" he called out to her frantically as he jumped out of his chair. It wasn't until she stood up that he realized that this was his chance. It could be his one chance to prove to her that he could be as good a friend to her as she was to him, that even though they had one of the strangest friendships Hogwarts had ever seen, they could make it work.

Hermione paused for a moment when he used her given name, but it was too late. "Goodnight, Malfoy. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" Her tone was quiet and gentle, but he was sure he could hear her disappointment.

He had failed her.