Author's Note: I have revised up to this chapter and I believe it's gotten much better than it was before, I would like to thank those of you who have gone back and read all of the chapters over and also those of you who are reading this for the first time, and I hope you like my story!

Pairings: Draco and Hermione

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Draco Malfoy had always hated that Harry Potter and his two best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and the hatred had magnified since they had landed his once highly-esteemed father in the wizard prison Azkaban. That was why nobody would put it past him to feign injury in order to torture Hermione Granger into doing his work for him in the name of vengeance on Potter. But what happens when an emotion much stronger than revenge begins to take hold? Could it be that fate has other plans?

Disclaimer: If I said I owned this, would you believe me? If so, then Joanne Kathleen Rowling is just a 16-year-old American girl who likes Eminem and writes fanfictions based on my work. Idiot.

Shadows of Light

Chapter 7

Whispers followed Draco as he climbed the stairs towards Transfiguration class, his last class of the day. He caught glimpses of his classmates' conversations.

"Yeah, Pansy Parkinson saw the whole thing."

"Pansy? I heard it from Neville Longbottom. He saw Malfoy jump into the water."

"But why would Malfoy want to save Hermione from the squid?"

"That depends, why would the squid attack her?"

"Parvati Patil said she saw Malfoy sitting with Hermione on the opposite shore, whispering something to her and then getting up and walking back up to the castle."

"But why would Malfoy save Hermione?"

"He obviously didn't want to be seen. He jumped in right before Hagrid, and Hagrid being so huge blocked him out," Neville murmured to a group of Ravenclaws.

"I don't understand. Why would Malfoy want to save Hermione? He hates Muggle-borns."

"I don't understand how only three people could have seen him. He wasn't exactly discrete, if the rumors are true."

"Malfoy's more secretive than that. It's not something he would do, just walking away in plain daylight." "What if he wanted to be seen?"

"I still don't understand why Malfoy would save Hermione!"

"And his arm in that sling!"

"He did it single-handedly, that's pretty impressive."

"Oh shut up, he's obviously faking the injury, like last time he hurt his arm. It's only a ploy to get attention."

"No, he has a magical aneurysm, not even Malfoy could pull that off. Madame Pomfrey announced it; he is waiting for the draft that will restore his arm."

"But how could Malfoy save Hermione single-handedly?"

"Why would Malfoy want to save Hermione in the first place? If you ask me, it's a bit dodgy."

"Well, I can tell you one thing; the Slytherins aren't happy about it."

Wasn't this the truth? Draco thought gloomily, slamming his books down onto his desk near the back of the Transfiguration classroom. Professor McGonagall gave him a stern look from her desk in the front. No, the Slytherins were a bit more than 'not happy'. They were very angry at Draco for saving the Mudblood that hangs on Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Shouldn't-Have-Lived.

Pansy Parkinson was the only Slytherin that had seen Draco. Frankly, he was disappointed in that fact. Slytherins were supposed to be observant. Draco was also impressed with his own unintentional subtlety. He hadn't been trying to be inconspicuous. In fact, quite the opposite... of course, one would never have known that by looking at him. However, all of the Slytherins knew now. This was the part Draco that had been dreading; the reaction of his house mates. Draco Malfoy had rescued a know-it-all Mudblood from a deserved fate.

The second that the Care of Magical Creatures class had let out, the Slytherins had stormed angrily down to their dungeon common room to see Draco sitting on the couch in front of the dying fire. Draco taken a shower and put a quick drying spell on his robes and uniform. He knew this would not deter the Slytherins' accusations. The fact that Draco had beaten them to the common room in the first place would be reason enough to believe what was true. Draco knew he could have taken precautions to stop the rumors from starting, but then, he wanted the Slytherins to know. He wanted them to put two and two together as only Slytherins could.

Pansy Parkinson raced to him, tears streaming down her chubby cheeks. "What the hell is wrong with you Draco?" she demanded, wasting no time. "Why in the name of Salazar Slytherin did you save that Mudblood? I saw you go up to the castle!"

An abundance of accusing eyes bore into Draco's silver ones. "I have my reasons," he drawled to the annoyance of most in the group. A few, Crabbe and Goyle included, just looked baffled that Draco would rescue a Mudblood, particularly one that he hates. More Slytherins poked their heads out of their respective dorms, curiosity taking over at the storm brewing in the common room. Draco showed no fear or anger. It did not bother him in the least that in a very short time, the entire house would despise him for bringing disgrace to the name of Slytherin by sparing the life of a Gryffindor and Mudblood.

"She's a fucking Mudblood!"

"And a Gryffindor!"

Slytherins streamed into the room now, expressions of disgust and outrage plastered over their evil faces. A few of the Seventh years, who hadn't paid much attention to Draco in previous years, were now noticing him. Draco fought back a smirk. He stood up now and faced everyone's glares with cool indifference. "The Mudblood will serve her purpose soon enough for the Dark Lord. I have my reasons," he announced coldly. One Slytherin, a year older, whom Draco had seen at a few of the Death Eater meetings, fought his way through the crowd to the front. His black hair was disheveled and his malicious inky eyes were blazing in anger.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded, anger tingeing his words. "You've betrayed the Dark Lord as you have betrayed the House of Slytherin! What purpose could one Mudblood serve that another couldn't just as well? They're all the same!" He looked as if he wanted to get closer to Draco, scream in his face, hit him, and hex him; however Adrian Pucey stepped between him and Draco.

"Let go of me Adrian!" he hollered struggling against the confinements that were Pucey's arms.

"He has dirtied Slytherin pride and honor!"

"Look at this boy! You, Diablo, are so close to our Master, yet so far away if you cannot see that Draco was chosen for this assignment. Calm down. He has his reasons for saving the piece of filth as we shall all see when the time is right." Adrian bellowed heatedly.

Diablo stopped struggling and Adrian released him. "Besides," he added, "we still need him as a Seeker." The other boy straightened his robes huffily, turned on his heal, and left the common room.

These encounters had become more common as the story spread throughout Slytherin House. Draco had plopped back down on the couch and most of the Slytherins had dispersed muttering to themselves and shaking their heads in disbelief and shame.

Draco was just relaxing when he heard the swish of a cloak very close to where he lay. He jumped up; his wand poised expertly in his hand aimed at a third-year's startled face. Draco recognized the boy as Malcolm Baddock, a boy that had always been much bolder than was wise, with two parents in Lord Voldemort's inner circle. "What are you doing Malcolm?" he asked in a quiet deadly voice.

Malcolm shuddered and looked at Draco's wand tip which was aimed right between his eyes, lowered his own wand, and took a shaky breath. "You saved a Mudblood," he murmured, and then gathering his nerve, he rambled on. "Everyone is upset about it, about--about how you disgraced the name of Slytherin."

Draco looked into the boy's fathomless pale eyes dropping his own wand. "You listen to me, Baddock," he said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "Rescuing that Mudblood may seem uncharacteristically nice for the work of a Slytherin, but trust me, when I'm finished with her, the nice thing to do would have been to let her die in the lake. If you ever try to attack me while my back is turned, you will wish for her fate. You should do well to remember that."

Malcolm gulped and backed out of the common room. If there was one thing Draco had learned in his years at Hogwarts, it was never ever attack someone while their back was turned. The ferret incident still burned brightly in his mind, but it seemed, to his immense relief, that nearly everyone else had forgotten about it. Everyone, that is, except Potter and his friends.

Draco hated Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, had always done so. At first it was the fact that Potter had refused his friendship to be friends with a Muggle-loving Weasley. But Draco's hatred had intensified over the years. He seized opportunities to make Potter's life miserable along with Weasley and Granger. But Draco wanted to claim revenge on them. He wanted them to suffer as he suffered when they landed his father in Azkaban. He wanted to see Potter squirm under the Dark Lord's wrath. He wanted Potter, Weasley, Granger, female Weasley, Longbottom, and that other girl Looney Lovegood to suffer for what they did to his father and a group of the Dark Lord's high-esteemed Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries last year. And they would…

But it was Hermione that Draco detested the most at the moment, even more so than Potter. What right did a girl with no Wizarding heritage have to be excelling over Draco's own exceptional marks? She had even beaten him out in Potions. Her work was so damn annoyingly perfect that even Snape couldn't find anything wrong with it. She was a bushy-haired know-it-all Mudblood, and that slap still burned his cheeks three years later, not from pain, but from humiliation: being hit across the face by a Mudblood, the foulest of Wizard-kind. What right did Granger have to be witty? What gave her the right to be clever and beautiful, two qualities so many eligible Pureblooded girls lacked?

"Mr. Malfoy!" Draco snapped back into attention to look into Professor McGonagall's livid face. Her lips were very thin as she glared at him. "I was just asking you the proper way to pronounce the spell that will turn a feather into an owl. If you would be so kind as open your book to chapter 47, you might know what we're talking about!" She stalked back up to the front of the class and resumed her teaching.

Draco gathered his books when the bell rang. As he made his way up to his common room to drop his books off before dinner, he allowed his thoughts to wander.

He had been practicing the unforgivable curses for six summers since he had been accepted at Hogwarts; his father, before he was captured, had thought that it was significant that Draco know these curses and Draco couldn't help but agree. It had been an easy task, therefore, to make the usually docile squid attack Hermione specifically. Draco had mapped out the area the previous night after his unproductive session with Granger.

Things went predictably smoothly. The only flaw in the plan was how Draco was going to be able to convince people that he saved Hermione single-handedly while also fighting the squid, but Hagrid had fixed that for him. Draco sat down on his four poster bed, no one in Slytherin house spoke to him anymore, not even Crabbe and Goyle, and he liked it that way.

Draco pulled off his sling and stretched his sore arm, flexing his fingers and moving his sleepy muscles. Hermione, whether she liked it or not, owed her life to Draco. A smirk played at the corner of his lips. Draco made it seem as if something beyond his reasoning had propelled him to rescue her from a terrible fate.

He knew what Hermione was thinking; she was attracted to him. He could see it in her eyes that night in the library. Draco knew what she would think about him after he rescued her life and played it off as if he hadn't meant to. She was pathetically predictable and Draco knew he was sending her into a state of all kinds of confusion. But Draco was a Malfoy, pure and simple, and incapable of any feelings toward a Mudblood, save the feeling of repugnance she gave him. Besides, nothing would please Draco more than to see her shocked expression when he delivered her to the Dark Lord at last. People were so easy to manipulate. All Draco had to do was sit back, which he did, cradling his head in his arms as he lay down on his fluffy mattress, and let Hermione come to her own conclusions.

----

Hermione made her solitary way to the library at 7 o'clock clutching her heavy bag. Her thoughts were racing as she stepped into the library and headed for the secluded corner she had reserved the night before. Hermione set her things down on the table and began pulling out books. She tried to focus on the open book before her, but the days events flooded her mind.

The squid plucking her off the ground and swinging her high into the air had been the most frightening sensation of her life. Hermione could still feel the slimy purple tentacles wrapped around her frigid body. She could still feel its clammy suckers attached to her skin. She gave an involuntary shudder. Hermione had never felt more afraid of heights in those brief terrifying moments in the air, the threat of falling great. She had screamed for help, but no one had heard her cries.

Hermione was still shivering after she had gotten out of the lake. Somewhere between hitting the icy water that scorched her sensitive skin and being pulled out to shore where her hair was plastered to her frozen face and her robes clung to her, providing no warmth, Hermione had lost consciousness. The last thing she remembered before blacking out was something moving swiftly towards her in the murky waters, something enormous.

When Hermione had awoken, she was sopping wet and freezing, and Draco Malfoy was sitting over her looking at her anxiously. He was also soaked, his usual impeccable hair falling in wet strands over his gray eyes. He had told her not to speak a word of this to anyone. Hermione had wanted to ask him what happened, she had wanted to thank him, but before she could utter a word, he was gone, leaving her cold, wet and quite alone.

Hermione learned quickly the story. Neville had seen Malfoy jump in right before Hagrid. The entire class, Slytherins included, was buzzing about what had just happened. Apparently the squid had attacked Hermione, and Malfoy had saved her. Hagrid had jumped in as well, but he had not seen Malfoy precede him. Harry and Ron confessed to seeing a figure leap into the lake after Hermione but the hood flew up and the person's identity was concealed. They had been about to follow when Hagrid had stopped them. Everything sunk in.

Hagrid had wrestled the squid, while Malfoy rescued her from under his whiskery nose. The story had spread fast, and Hermione was sure the entire school knew by now everything that had happened. Draco Malfoy had rescued Hermione Granger from the squid. There were tons of rumors flying around about Malfoy bewitching the squid to attack her, but that was far too advanced dark magic for the likes of Malfoy. Besides, if he did want the squid to attack someone, why her? And more to the point, why would he save her?

Harry, Ron, and most of the Gryffindor class were highly suspicious of Malfoy's motives. Again and again, Harry accused Malfoy of bewitching the squid to attack her. And again and again, Hermione proved him wrong with logic. Malfoy had saved her life, pure and simple.

Hermione thought back to their first session in the library. Had Malfoy done what he did because he cared for her? Hermione shook her head forcefully in an attempt to stop the butterflies that had began to flutter in the pit of her stomach at the very thought. No he couldn't… could he?

----

"Does she know?" Theodore Nott questioned slowly, as if he was speaking with a rather slow child. He and Draco were walking down a deserted corridor. The window had blown open causing the hall to be drafty and foreboding, a perfect place to discuss evil plans and not be overheard.

"Of course not, you git," Draco spat. "If she knew, the entire plan would be ruined; do you take me for a fool?"

The other was silent. "Sometimes I wonder," he muttered. Draco's feet ceased to stride. He turned to look at the Nott with an expression of disbelief on his immaculate face.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" he demanded.

"Dunno," the other replied not meeting Draco's heated glare. "It just seems… well… weren't there any… better ways of going about this?"

"Are you questioning my methods?" Draco inquired feeling hot anger rise within him.

"Well…"

"Do you truly think they would have picked me if they did not trust my methods?" he demanded through clenched teeth.

"Er…"

"You listen to me, Theodore, the Dark Lord trusted my father, and now he has put his faith in me. I know what I'm doing, got that?" Before the processor could respond, Draco strode away grandly, his black robes billowing behind him.

----

Hermione looked at her watch. It was already 7:45 and no sign of him at all. Well, he had shown up exceptionally late the night before, maybe this was the case again. She was hoping his tardiness would not become an every-night occurrence, but it did give her a bit more solitary reading time. She turned to her studies. School, she thought, the only thing that makes sense.

At eight o'clock, Hermione packed her things into her bag and walked out of the library. Malfoy had stood her up. Just as well, Hermione would rather not see him. Because seeing him would force her to confront the ludicrous ideas dancing in her head and Hermione was not ready for such a confrontation.

She turned to go to the Gryffindor tower, but fate it seemed, had other plans. Hermione was too lost in her own thoughts to realize that there was someone ahead of her in the corridor, a flushed, angry someone striding towards her. It was only until she collided with him head on that Hermione was met with the silver gaze of the last person on earth she wanted to see…

----

Okay, that's all folks! Please don't pelt me with rotten tomatoes! I had to leave it on a cliffhanger! But if you are extra sweet and review, I'll write faster and post the next chapter as soon as I can! cough-review-cough