Chapter 10

Snape motioned for Draco sit, and proceeded to pace. Draco slowly sat, and stared up at the man whom he so admired.

"It all began my first year at Hogwarts. I was not a very well liked boy, I never have been. But, I fell in love with a girl. This girl was everything I was not: beautiful, popular, talented with a wand, and she had muggle blood.

"Her great grandmother had been a mud-blood. Since then her family had married into wizarding families who did not object to muggle blood. Anyhow, this girl was in Ravenclaw. She was beautiful, and everyone who knew her loved her. I was not the only boy who haunted her steps, her gazes, watching her with desperate desire.

"My fifth year, I worked up the courage to ask her out. I remember it clearly; she was standing on the steps, with her friends. I approached them, and asked if I could speak to her alone. Her friends laughed, but she smiled and asked them to leave. I asked her if she'd like to come with me to Hogsmeade that weekend. She was very polite, but said that she wanted to go with her friends. She said she'd be interested some other time.

"So, I went to Hogsmeade with my friends. We entered the Hog's Head, and guess who we saw? This girl whom I loved better than life, was sitting at a table with the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain. I hated her more than anything else right then, and I wanted to kill her. My friends restrained me, and she never even saw me enter.

"A few weeks later her Quidditch Captain came down with a debilitating rash that scarred his pretty skin. She didn't seem to mind however, and she married him a few years out of school. I haven't trusted mud-bloods since. They're all backstabbing trash," Snape spat furiously.

"I'm sorry Professor," Draco said truthfully. Snape looked at him scornfully.

"Draco, you've never been denied anything in your life," he said. "Don't you dare say you're sorry, you have no apathy. Nor do I desire your pity. I had my magic."

"Isn't love supposed to be one of the best things in the world," Draco said, watching Snape closely. "That's what my mother says."

"The only person your mother has loved is you," Snape said tiredly. "She knows nothing of love and loss. All she has ever known is Lucius, the man she has been promised to before her birth. Narcissa has never lived."

"Have you?" Draco asked.

Snape was quiet for a moment. Finally, he turned back to his cauldron, and as smoke billowed up towards his face, he answered.

"No."

Hermione hurried up to Dumbledore's office.

"Chocolate frogs," she said cheerfully. The door swung open and she raced up the stairs. Draco was already sitting at Dumbledore's desk, his back to her. She plopped down in the chair next to him.

"Sorry I'm late," she sighed. "I had to finish my jelly donut, or I would have been unhappy all day long." Draco was silent.

"Thank you for coming, Hermione," Dumbledore said, giving her a wink. "We appreciate it very much. But now, we must get down to business."

"Yes," Draco said resolutely, looking up determinedly.

"There are many choices for you to take. You will not be safe, unfortunately, in any other place under the protection of a fully trained and capable wizard who has had extensive dark magic experience," Dumbledore said carefully. "Your father will no doubt go to great lengths to get you back."

"He will," Draco murmured. "No doubt."
"Well, there are a few families, or wizards I was thinking of. You could stay with Neville Longbottom and his grandmother. She owes me a favor. Both Professor McGonagall and Professor Binns have offered to take you for the summer. Also, Professor Snape has offered to care for you over the summers."

"I'll go with Professor Snape," Draco said immediately.

"The school has a certain amount of money set aside for special cases like yours, and it will be used-"

"I have money," Draco interrupted smoothly. "My parents did not control my cash flow. I had a large inheritance from my mother's parents."

"Good," Dumbledore said, looking at Draco over his glasses. "Now, Draco, I hope you will take this opportunity to get to know people without your previous judgments.'
"Yes Professor," Draco said.

"You may both now go," Dumbledore said, waving them out the door. They both hurried out, spilling down the stairs, and out into the hallway.

"You can come with my family when we go on vacation," Hermione said cheerfully. "My dad always wanted a son."
"Hermione, I don't want the charity," Draco said through clenched teeth. "I'm not some stupid little case you can take on and-"

"You stupid ass!" Hermione snapped. "It's not charity! I want you to come with us to France this summer. I'm not inviting you just because I feel sorry for you."

"Look, Granger," he hissed, rounding on her soundly. "I don't want to talk to you anymore. You're just a stupid mud-blood."

"Is that how you feel?" she yelled. "Fine then, just go and be stupid! I hate you!"

"I hate you too!" he yelled back.

"Fine then," she growled. "Be that way."

"I will," he replied, his voice low and menacing. She hit him solidly across the face, and stalked away, her hands shaking with anger.

Draco looked at his reddening cheek in the boy's bathroom mirror. The scars were white lines across his cheek, both ugly and disfiguring at the same time.

"Oh, god, what have I done?" he moaned, leaning over the sink. "How could I be so stupid?" His stomach suddenly lurched, and he rushed to the toilet and threw up noisily.

Hermione threw the pillow at the wall, and a few white feathers floated through the air. She got up and pressed her face into it, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"That stupid git!" she muttered once she had finished screaming. "And just after he had kissed me, and told me that he loved me!" She sat down on her bed, and wondered why she had ever fallen for his charming smile and devil-may-care attitude. She should have known that it would have never worked.

Hermione was doing her homework in the Commons Room when Harry and Ron came back from dinner. They were chatting loudly, and sat down on either side of her.

"I guess you two have resolved your conflict," she said calmly.

Harry looked sheepish. "I've decided that Ron is right. Draco has changed, he's not as bad as he used to be. And, you if you want to date him, I give you my blessing."

"Actually, Harry," Hermione said quietly, shifting her homework. Harry gave Ron a worried look. "You were right the first time."

"What do you mean?" Ron demanded. "You don't mean-?"

She nodded. Harry pulled her close and she let out a sob. As she cried, they simply looked at each other, hardly able to believe that what Harry had worried about for so long had finally come true.

Draco crept down to the dungeons, even though he knew it was passed curfew, because Snape usually left the dungeons sometime after twelve at night. Sure enough, Snape was leaning over a green smoke spewing cauldron, cursing as usual.

"What is it Draco?" Snape asked, without looking up. "This is the second time today you've come to bother me."

"Professor," Draco said nervously. "You know that I'll be staying with you over the summer?"

"Dumbledore told me at dinner."

"Professor, I have a question-"

"Is this about your muggle love?"

"Yes."

"She didn't come to dinner."

"Wha-?" Draco asked in disbelief.

Snape looked up from his cauldron, a disgusted expression on his ugly face. "You think I haven't guessed yet? Draco, you are a very smart boy, but sometimes you are terribly thick."

"She wasn't at dinner?"

"You weren't either," Snape said wryly, turning back to the cauldron. "I gather the both of you fought?"

"I called her a mud-blood."

"That didn't seem to endear her to you," Snape chuckled. "Try another name."

"It's not funny, Professor."

"When we're alone you can call me Severus, Draco."

"Severus," Draco said quietly. "I do love her. Even if she's a mud-blood, I can't help but love her."

"Draco, we can't help whom we love," Severus said; if it were possible, it seemed that he was musing. "It seems that the fates curse us to love those we should not."

"What should I do?"

Severus turned to his pupil seriously; his dark eyes reading more than met the eye. "Do what your heart tells you, Draco. You have one, don't you?"

"The thing is Professor, I'm not sure I do," Draco said solemnly. He turned and walked out of the room, knowing what he had to do.

Hermione was walking down the hallway alone that morning, wondering how on earth she was going to continue without falling over from exhaustion, when suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her.

"Hermione!" someone yelled behind her. She turned around to see Draco running toward her, a look that can only be described as elation on his handsome face.

"Go away Draco," she said shortly. "I don't want to talk to you."

"No, Hermione, please listen," he said, "This is terribly important to me, and I know what I said was wrong, I was just upset-"

"Draco," Hermione turned and glared at him. "Leave me alone. You come near me ever again and I will curse you so badly you won't be able to stand for a week. Get out of my life, and stay out!"

A/N: Well... Guess what happens next? I don't know either, we're all in the same boat! Okay, I'll figure it out, and everything will be fine... I think. I'll update tommorow, and thanks to everyone who reviewed, because you make my day. Please review if you haven't for this chapter, and and ideas in which direction this should go, you can email me about them.