Chapter 16-
AN- Hello all. I just want to apologize for taking so long to update. You know Christmas and all….Well, here it is…
Draco saw a girl standing towards the edge of the hall. He paused only a second before he took a deep breath and continued his journey. He tried to figure out who she was as he approached, but being that it was night, she was shrouded almost completely in shadows. When he finally reached her, he saw that her head was down and she was standing perfectly still as if frozen. He took another deep breath and raised her head slowly. What he saw shocked him more than anything else…It was Hermione Granger!!
"Hermione?!" he asked in total shock.
"Draco?!" she said in the same dumbfounded shock that he had.
"Hermione, what are you doing here?" Draco asked, realizing that she must have just been patrolling. 'But why…?'
"I am…waiting for someone. You?" she asked. 'He must be patrolling, but why would he be here this late?'
"Me too. Who are you waiting for?" Draco replied. 'She can't be… Scarlet Cat…can she?' he wondered, secretly hoping she was.
'He can't be…but it fits…' she thought, pausing a moment before finally replying. "Well, I am meeting this guy…Are you Green Dragon?"
Draco smiled inwardly before saying, "Yes, and you're Scarlet Cat! Duh! It all fits! I can't believe that I didn't see it before!"
"Yeah…" Hermione said quietly. She wasn't sure that she was comfortable with him being her pen pal.
Realization suddenly hit him. "Oh Hermione. I am so sorry." He immediately wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. "I never meant to hurt you."
"Wait…" Hermione said, pulling away. "In one of the letters, you said that you…loved…" Hermione trailed off.
Draco looked away for a second before turning back to her. "Yeah…"
"So, what do we do now?" Hermione asked.
"Well, we can just pretend that it never happened or we can…"
"What?"
"We can be…we can like go out?" Draco said, his words uneasy with a girl for the first time in his life.
"We can?"
"Not if you don't want…"
"Well, I think that it could be okay…if you want?" Hermione made it a question more than a statement.
"I think that we could work something out…"
"Okay."
"Okay."
"Does this mean that you forgive me?" Draco asked after a moment of silence.
Hermione thought about it for a moment and said, "No."
"Huh?" Draco asked in shock.
"But I do know what you can do to make it up to me." she said with a huge smile and an evil glint in her eyes.
Draco was slightly taken aback before uneasily saying, "And what is that?"
"Help me get my friends back."
Draco looked puzzled, but asked her to continue.
"Well, I figured that you would probably want to keep this a secret seeing as you got a reputation and your father is…Well, am I right?"
"I suppose that that would be best…why?"
"Well, if I can't hang out with you in public, then I need to have friends, right?" Draco nodded. "Good. And you are going to help me."
"Okay, what do I do?"
"Well, here's the plan…"
Harry and Ron were walking down the dungeon hallway after potions when they heard a loud female voice coming from around the corner.
"Was that Hermione?" Ron asked Harry.
Harry stopped him and put a finger to his lips. They both peeked around the corner to see Malfoy and Hermione fighting.
"You stupid Mudblood Bitch!" Draco yelled at her.
"At least I am not a Slytherin Prat like YOU!" Hermione retorted.
"Why don't you just go kill yourself?? It would make a lot of people happy. I mean it's not like your life is worth living anyway!" Draco said smoothly. "I mean you have no friends, your dad beats you, your mum died on you, and you are a filthy, worthless MUDBLOOD!"
Harry saw tears well up in Hermione's eyes as she faced Malfoy. "You ungrateful FERRET!"
"Ungrateful? I'm ungrateful???"
"Yes YOU! I SAVED YOUR LIFE, I TOOK CARE OF YOU WHEN YOU WERE ALMOST DEAD, I EVEN HELPED YOU GET BETTER!!!!!!!" Hermione yelled at the top of her lungs, refusing to let the tears fall.
"Whatever!" Draco said before turning his back on her and sauntering away.
Harry turned to Ron and said, "I think that you were wrong about Hermione."
"I know." Ron said, looking at the ground sadly. "What are we going to do?"
"We are going to apologize to her." Harry replied, gesturing towards Hermione.
Ron gulped and nodded. He then took a deep breath and turned the corner to find Hermione sitting against the wall with tears falling slowly down her cheeks.
"Hermione?" Ron said quietly.
Hermione jumped and began frantically rubbing at her eyes. She looked up and tried to hold back her tears.
"Oh, Hermione. I am soo sorry." Ron said, crouching down next to her.
Harry did the same on her other side. "Me to, Hermione. Can you ever forgive us?"
Hermione looked up at the two boys for a few long seconds before saying, "Why?"
"We want our best friend back." Ron replied.
"What, so I can do your homework?" Hermione asked, sniffling.
"No! I miss being friends with you. The 'Dream Team' just isn't the same without you." Harry said.
Hermione studied them again before nodding. "Okay."
"Good. Let's go somewhere." Ron said, helping her stand.
Hermione smiled and let them lead her out of the room.
'Well, if that wasn't a brilliant performance then I don't know what is!!' Draco thought as he paced the Common Room and waited fro Hermione's return. Soon however, he got tired and laid down on the couch. 'Where is she?' After only a few minutes, he fell asleep.
"Well, I think that I am going to turn in. It's already after midnight." Hermione told Harry and Ron with a smile after spending the day catching up with them.
Harry and Ron nodded. "Can I walk you?" Ron asked her.
Hermione smiled happily and nodded. "Sure. That would be very nice."
Ron jumped up from the couch and offered her his arm. Hermione laced her arm through his and he led her out of the Gryffindor Common Room. He turned and winked at Harry before disappearing through the portrait hole. Harry cocked his head to the side but smiled anyway.
"Hermione?"
"Yes Ron?"
"I wanted to apologize to you. I jumped to a lot of conclusions back there and I want you to know that I am very very sorry. I can't believe that I would ever think any of that about you!" Ron said, not meeting her eyes.
"Oh Ron! You have no idea how much that means to me!" Hermione said, tears filling her eyes. "I love you Ron and that will never change."
"Really?"
"Of coarse."
"Good. Hermione, you really are a good friend."
Hermione smiled and kissed his on the cheek. "Good night Ron. See you tomorrow."
Ron smiled and watched her disappear through the portrait hole. "Goodnight."
Hermione walked through the portrait and immediately saw Draco laying on the couch. 'Ah…he waited up for me! How sweet!' she thought as she stood there and watched his sleep for a few minutes. Smiling, she walked over and shook him gently.
"What? What happened?" Draco said, sitting up and looking around. When his eyes finally focused, he saw Hermione and realized that he had fallen asleep. "Oh, hey Granger."
"You know, since we are going out now, you can call me by my first name." Hermione said with a laugh.
"Nope. I think that I prefer Granger."
"Fine, Malfoy."
"Ri-ight." Draco said as he moved so that she could sit down next to him. "So, how'd it go?"
"Great! They fell for it!"
"I don't understand why you want to be friends with them anyway." Draco replied. "I mean honestly, if any of my friends treated me the way they treated you I wouldn't want to be friends with them. In fact, if it was me I would get revenge."
"Well, I am most definitely not you, and I wouldn't be able to make it through this year without any friends." Hermione replied matter-of-factly.
"So what? I am not your friend now?" Draco asked, pretending to be hurt.
"Yeah, yeah. You are my friend in secret. What am I supposed to do when we aren't in private? What am I supposed to do during classes, dances, and meals??"
"Look at my sexy body?" he asked slyly.
"Ha ha ha, very funny."
"Fine. You can be friends with them if it makes you happy."
"Thank you fro your permission." Hermione said sarcastically as she dramatically rolled her eyes. "Well, it's getting late and I am going to bed."
"Me too. Your room or mine?" Draco replied casually.
"I know! How about I sleep in my room and you sleep in yours." she replied as she started heading towards her room.
"Nope. I don't think that I like that idea very much."
"Darn. Then I guess I will sleep in your room and you can sleep in mine." she said changing her direction.
"Whoa there missy. I got a better idea." he said as he grabbed her wrist. "How about we both sleep in your room?"
"No."
"But-"
"No." Hermione said putting a finger to his lips. "Go to bed, Malfoy. Alone."
"Fine." Draco said with a smirk. "It was worth a try."
"No, it wasn't." Hermione replied, grinning.
"Whatever. Goodnight, Granger."
"'Night, Malfoy."
With that, they both went to bed. Alone.
AN- That is al for now! How was everyone's Christmas?? Mine was great!!!! Hehehe!!!
I want to thank all of my fabulous reviewers! You all a great!!!!!!!!