Chapter Seven

The next morning, the Great Hall was busy with chatter. Hermione was sitting, stony-faced, next to Ginny, who was talking rather animatedly with Lavender. Hermione only began really listening when a familiar name escaped Lavender's lips.

"Have you heard about Malfoy?" she asked, in a hushed voice. "Pavarti said that she over heard Pansy telling Millicent Bullstrode about a letter that he received last night. Apparently, his mother passed away. I can't help feeling somewhat sorry for him. I mean, I know he's been terrible, but no one deserves that sort of thing. Now, if it had been his father, I wouldn't much care."

Hermione hadn't been completely sure what had been ailing Draco the night before when she had walking into his room and found him sitting at his desk with a look of outmost distraught plastered across his pale face. They had stared at each other for a long time, Hermione in shock and Draco in sorrowful resentment.

"What do you want, mudblood?" he'd snapped. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

Hermione had opened her mouth to say something but found that there was nothing to say. The look on his face when she had walked in, so full of raw emotion, had startled her into speechlessness.

"Well, if you've got nothing to say, get out!" Draco had stipulated.

Hermione tried to form a sentence again but didn't have much success. She retreated back into the bathroom, closing the door. She stood silently in the lavatory without saying a word, before leaving the common room all together and heading for the Infirmary to get her arm patched up, as it had been bleeding rather profusely after she'd been attacked by Draco's owl. After Madam Pomfrey had applied ointment and a bandage, Hermione returned to the deathly silent common room.

"So that's what it was," she murmured, looking up at the enchanted ceiling thoughtfully.

"What, Hermione?" asked Ginny, looking at the brunette curiously.

"What? Oh, nothing, Gin," Hermione replied. "Just thinking."

Ginny didn't seem convinced but she continued on talking with Lavender. Hermione looked up from where she sat and turned her gaze to the Slytherin table. Draco was sitting between Pansy and a boy that Hermione recognized from Potions class to be Blaise Zabini. His face was sunken and he seemed distracted. It was obvious that he was ignoring Pansy's flaunting attempts to comfort him. Hermione just looked for a moment and soon, Draco's eyes met her gaze and Hermione looked away quickly. She tried to focus on her food but found it nearly impossible as she could feel a pair of slate gray eyes peering into the top of her head.

"Classes are about to start," Ron said through a mouthful of eggs. Hermione gave him a distasted look and he them down, looking sheepish.

Hermione shook her head slightly and gathered up all of her things, casting another wary glance at Draco before exiting the Great Hall with Harry and Ron flanking her. Draco, however, took his sweet time. He picked up his back slowly and, as if robotically, he got to his feet, scanning the Great Hall once more before sweeping down the table and exiting through the doors with Pansy, Blaise, Crabbe, and Goyle all following behind him.

Hermione felt rather distracted through all of her classes. During Arithmancy that day, Draco had been called away by Snape, undoubtedly to talk about a departure that the young Slytherin would be taking for his mother's funeral. He did not return for the rest of the class, nor did Hermione see any trace of him at Care of Magical Creatures or Potions, two classes that she had to share with the Slytherins that day. His absence caused a mighty stir among the Slytherins, though only few new the actually cause of his nonattendance. She sighed and continued to cut up her Boomslang skin during her last class of the day when she figured she most likely was not going to see anymore of him that day.

For that reason, she was mildly astonished when she saw him sitting silently in a green armchair in the Heads' common room after dinner. His blonde head was unmistakable. She made a move to come toward him but he held up his hand to halt her.

"If you think me some lost boy who needs you comfort, Granger," he began, in a rather low, raspy drawl, "I advise you to reassess. I don't want anything to do with you right now, nor do I want anything to do with the rest of the school. I'm sure Potter and Weasley are having a good hardy laugh about my suffering but I certainly do not need your sympathy."

"Malfoy…" she murmured.

She thought about going against he wishes but strode past him and entered her room, dropping her things on the floor, and at the moment, forgetting about her homework. Something was terribly wrong with that picture. For some reason, she felt a great swell of pity for him smothering her heart. She closed her eyes and sat on the floor. 'This is Malfoy we're talking about,' she thought. 'He's been nothing but a spoiled, womanizing prick to Harry, Ron, and especially me since the day we stepped foot in Hogwarts. He doesn't deserve my commiseration…but then, why do I sympathize with him?'

Hermione sighed and opened the door to look out. Draco was still sitting on the armchair, staring thoughtfully into the fire. When he heard Hermione's door creak open, however, he tore his gaze from the flames and made eye contact with her. She gulped, stood up to her full length, grabbed her bag off the floor, and walked back out into the common room, feeling rather unnerved as his solid, steely gray eyes followed her as she cross the room and sat on a crimson cushion that lined on of the tables. She pulled out a book, opened it, took out a piece of parchment, a quill, and some ink, and got to work on her Potions essay.

"Can't you do your homework somewhere else, Granger?" Draco snapped, looking around the side of his chair to where she sat.

"I can, but I'd rather do it here," she said matter-of-factly. He scoffed and made to leave the room. "Malfoy…" He stopped and looked back at her. "Listen, okay?"

"Why should I listen to you?" he questioned, raising a sardonic brow. "So that you can jest at me about my current situation?"

"No," Hermione muttered, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. "I wanted to…to say I'm sorry…I'm sorry about your mum."

Draco was silent for a moment and then looked at her. "Yeah, me too." He retreated into his room and slammed the door. Hermione cringed slightly and went back to doing her homework, feeling slightly better than she had but also slightly worse.

"I'm beginning to feel rather sorry for these doors," she murmured, and began scribbling words onto the parchment with her quill.

After a few hours, Hermione was packing up her school supplies and homework. She was preparing to go to her room when she heard the bathtub turn on. She sighed slightly. She was going to take a bath but decided against it now that she knew that Draco was in it. She set her bag on her trunk in her room and went over to her dresser to pull some clothes out. She peeled off her robes and was unbuttoning her blouse when the door in her room leading to the lavatory burst open and Draco, clothed in nothing but a towel, burst.

"Bloody bird!" he yowled, taking no notice of Hermione's flushed face and running from the gray-feathered owl that was chasing him around. "Stop gawking, Granger! Get the parchment off its leg and let it out! Bloody hell!"

Hermione let out an exasperated sigh, buttoned her blouse up, and captured the owl as gently as she could. She pulled it over to the window, untied the rolled piece of parchment from the owl's leg, and released it into the night. She turned around and saw Draco, clutching his towel tightly around his middle and keeling over as he tried to regain his breath. Hermione tugged her pajama bottoms up her legs as his back was to her and started toward him.

"Here," she snapped, thrusting the parchment under his nose. Draco looked at it, cross-eyed for a moment, and then took it from her. He gave her an effortless sneer and went back into the bathroom, grumbling under his breath.

Hermione rolled her eyes her succeeded in changing her clothes completely. After a while, she heard Draco's door open and close and she took that as a sign that she could go into the bathroom. She pushed the lavatory's door open and found it empty of people. The warm water in the bath was draining and there was almost complete silence. Hermione picked up her toothbrush and brushed her teeth, absentmindedly staring at the reflection of Draco's door in her mirror.

For some small reason, she got the nagging feeling that she was being watched. She merely shrugged it off and rinsed her mouth out before lazily stretching and heading back to her room. She jumped onto her bed and rolled over onto her side. There was an odd unrest in her stomach and she stared out the window. She merely shrugged it of, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

Draco did not go straight to sleep after his bath, though. He stayed up for a majority of the night pacing his dorm, or packing his things. Too many things were happening and too soon. It was odd to him, though. Narcissa had been in striking good shape when he had left for school, but apparently, she'd died of illness. Draco wasn't sure whether to believe that piece of news or not. He'd come up with his own theories, one of which being that his father finally flew off his rocker and killed her, but something told him this was not the time to contemplate his fathers shortcomings. Instead, he ran a restless hand through his already muddled hair and continued packing.

The next morning when he woke up and got dressed, his trunk was already gone. He pulled his silver cloak over his shoulders and exited his room. He turned and found that Hermione was already awake. She was sitting in an armchair, clothed legs dangling over one side as she read over her homework. She only looked up when she heard him crossing the room.

"Leaving, Malfoy?" she asked, her eyes still scanning her Ancient Runes chart for mistakes.

"I bet that makes you so happy, doesn't it, mudblood?" he drawled. "I'm sure you're ecstatic to have two weeks Malfoy-free, aren't you?"

"Oh yes, Malfoy," she snapped, looking back at him. "I'm terribly looking forward to filling in and doing twice as long, double-rounds while I fill in for you. It should be shrieking good fun! Nitwit!"

"Have plenty of laughs and giggles over my misfortune with Potty and Weasel while I'm gone," he scoffed. "Maybe even throw a little party in my dormitory."

"You know," Hermione started through clenched teeth, "that's not a bad idea. I suppose I'll have to talk it over with Harry and Ron."

They each made derisive noises and then Draco started for the tapestry hole. "Remember to tell your little boyfriends to use protection, mudblood, though I doubt anyone would want to touch y—"

WHACK!

Hermione had picked up her Potions book from her book bag and hurled it at Draco. It smacked him in the back of the head and he stumbled out of the tapestry hole. Hermione huffily got to her feet and retrieved her book, only to throw it at the tapestry hole again for no particular reason.

"Stupid, pompous, womanizing, egotistical, slimy, perverted prick!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. She took a deep breath to steady herself and then retreated through the portrait of a lion and entered the Gryffindor common room.