Draco and Hermione: Lust or love?

..Snapes Office..

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"Miss. Granger. If you would come in." Hermione walked in to the potions room and found Draco there, too.

"What am I supposed to do?" she asked, not giving even a Draco a glance.

"You and Mr. Malfoy will be brewing a potion for the third years. I will be back in two hours and I would like to have this potion done."

"What potion?" Draco asked.

"The polyjuice potion. I will trust you two not to blow up the room." Without another word, he left the silent room.

Hermione looked over to Draco, who looked back at her. Then Hermione got up and walked over to the cabinet where all the ingredients were. She grabbed all of the ingredients and set them on the table by the cauldron.

"Let's get started." Hermione mumbled to herself. She sat down and rolled up her sleeves. She grabbed the first ingredient and put it in. She looked up to see what Draco was doing. He was sitting on a table staring at her. His eyes were empty, like he was dying inside.

"Do you plan on helping me or just sitting there watching?" Hermione asked, making it come out a little ruder than she meant.

Hermione watched him slide off of the table and came to sit across from her. He looked in the book for the next ingredient but Hermione had already grabbed the ingredient. She waited the five minutes that she was supposed to wait before putting the knotgrass in. Draco looked down at the book in his lap with a frown. How did she know this potion?

"How do you know the knotgrass goes in now?"

"Because I've already done this potion." she told him, reaching over for the fluxweed that was picked at the last full moon. She looked at her watch and mumbled to herself that she had to put it in the half done potion in twenty minutes.

"You have? Who'd you turn into?"

"Nobody. I did it for Ron and Harry who turned into Crabbe and Goyle." she told him, annoyance in her voice. Then she gasped, a hand going to her to mouth. "I mean… I…" she bit her bottom lip.

Draco chuckled at her. "And you brew a potion because they wanted you to? Why did you need them to change into Crabbe and Goyle?"

"I don't know." Hermione looked down at her lap, scared Draco'd get mad.

"Yeah, you do. Come on, Hermione. I already know that you brewed this potion for the guys to turn into a couple of Slytherins."

Hermione looked at her watched then sighed. "Fine. It was in the second year when all the muggleborn were getting petrified. We thought it was you so we turned into Crabbe and Goyle. We knew you'd tell them anything and you did. You told Harry and Ron that you didn't know who it was."

Draco frowned trying to remember then he smiled. "But you weren't there."

"Yeah, that's 'cause I turned into a cat instead. I had to go to the infirmary because the potion only wore off if it was a human thing you took. I took a cat hair not human."

Draco just stared at her then started to laugh.

"Shut up." Hermione said, not really meaning it. She wanted to smile but couldn't. She had to stop talking to him. He had a bad soul, evil soul. But he had shown her another side of him. The nice side. The nice side always won but when Hermione saw the evil in him, she was terrified. Hermione peered down, ashamed to know that side of him, to have to see that side of him. Why did he have to be like his father?

"Hermione?" Draco whispered. She looked up from the table and into his pale grey eyes. "I'm sorry for what I've done to you over the years but I can't take any of it back. I wish with all the good in my soul that I could but the evil wont let it go. You have to understand that."

"I don't want to understand that, Draco. Why cant you just hide that evil? Why don't you let people try to take the evil away? You have so much anger in you that you can't let it all go. You keep it locked up. Just like your heart."

Hermione expected him to turned away, try to deny it. "I know," he whispered. "But there is nobody in this world that can understand me, can take the evil with the good. I can't show my heart to the world, Hermione. I learned to lock it up from the world for so long and I still haven't unlocked it. And now," he paused, "I don't know how."

Hermione's own heart broke for him. She wanted so much to help him, to try to take away that that sorrow, all that evil.

"Draco, I don't know how I could help you. Every time I try, that evil inside you comes out more and more. Each time more fierce than before. I'm scared of you, Draco. I can't help it." Hermione shook her head. "There is no way I can trust you not to let all the evil out and hurt me."

"I'm trying to let it out, Hermione, I really am trying." He stared her dead in the eye when he said that. "I am not a monster, Hermione. I'm just a scared shitless kid, trying to live with himself when everyone rejects him." Hermione looked down, tears in her eyes. "I cant let go of who I really am. I was taught to hate men, to hurt men. And that feelings never truly gone away. It is burned into me, it is part of me."

Hermione wiped the single tear that rolled down her cheek.

"I try with my whole being to let it go. You have to be okay with yourself to let the bad go away. That is why the evil and the hate will not go. I have nobody to help me through this, nobody to see who I am." he looked down. "Nobody for me to love and be loved by."

"What about your parents? Your mom must care."

"She doesn't care enough. It isn't strong enough that I can lean on her for support. And my father," he shook his head and snorted softly, "he only wants me to kill his enemies. But I can't Hermione. The next person who I have to hurt will kill me. I can't live with myself this way."

"I'm sorry." Hermione whispered, her voice almost to quiet to hear.

"And nobody will give me a chance."

Hermione looked up. "I did. But you threw that chance back in my face. I almost gave you my heart, Draco. But you just didn't want it."

"That isn't the reason I reject you, Hermione. I can't ruin your soul."

"If it helps you then why cant I?"

"Because it'll break you down more than you can imagine. I can't let myself do that to you, Hermione."

"And why is that?" she asked, anger flaring up. Why did he always do this to her? She'd help then he'd just blow her off again. Then she'd offer her help because he asked and he'll always say no, that he couldn't ask for her help. Was hers not enough?

Draco looked her dead in the eye. He didn't answer her question. Hermione was about to ask it again when he answered. It was barley loud enough for her to hear. "Because you'll take my heart and you wont be able to give me yours."

Hermione got up from the table and walked over to the other side of the room. She put her hands to her face and cried. He didn't know that her heart was his to take. Maybe he thought nobody could love him so he didn't see her feelings, didn't want to see her feelings. Did he not see the pain when she told him that she couldn't cry for him when he died? Hermione sniffed a wiped her eyes on her sleeve. She went back to the table and finished the potion. Not looking up at Draco, not talking to him. Inside her heart was breaking for him and him only.

That was what he didn't understand.

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Chebetta.