Disclaimer: I can think of a lot of things I'd like to own. Not least among them is the Harry Potter universe. Actually, if I owned that, I could probably buy all the other stuff I want. Hmm, now that's a plan . . .

A/N: First of all, I would like to apologize for the following piece of crappy writing (don't get mad at me, Lorett, it really is crappy):

"She cast her gaze down quickly, and therefore missed the look of puzzlement Malfoy sent her as a wave of gratitude washed over him, as cool and soothing as the breeze in spring."

This confused several people, for the simple fact that it wasn't clear, and I'm sorry. The gratitude was Hermione's because she was grateful to him for not bringing up that whole suicide thing, and who can blame her? It washed over him for obvious reasons, he was puzzled for equally obvious reasons, so on and so forth, forever and ever, amen. Sorry for the confusion.

Here's the next chapter. I'm debating about whether it's too romancy for this point in the story, but I don't think it is. Let me know, because I can always throw in a little Draco-the-pure-blooded-prat scene and slow this train down. Onto the chapter!

Chapter 13: Beautiful Enemies

In the familiar silence of the deserted library, they worked.

Despite his initial reluctance, Draco was soon as lost in the journals as Hermione. The first one he'd picked up, though ultimately unhelpful in his search, contained an extraordinary number of rather brilliant Healing potions and charms. Draco quietly prided himself on being well-versed in Healing magic (a necessary skill to acquire when one's closest relatives and circle of friends had the unfortunate propensity to get themselves into skirmishes with Aurors, Order members, and each other), and he was therefore aware of exactly how beneficial and ingenious her research really was. In some instances, her creations were now obsolete or redundant, the medical wizarding world having found ways to achieve the same result by different means, but many of the things he came across could change the face of mediwizardry as they knew it.

Pulled out of his reverie by the tingling shock waves of awed enthusiasm pulsing across the table from Hermione, he glanced up at her with curiosity. She was feverishly scribbling down notes on whatever Healing magic she had just come across, her excitement palpable even without the aid of their odd link. He seemed to remember that he had once overheard her chatting with Madam Pomfrey about the education and training required to become a Healer, and remembered the ease with which she had healed his aching head the morning before. It was little wonder that she was poring over the journals with such fervor; to a future Healer, Delilah James' research would be worth its weight in powdered horn of unicorn.

So engrossed was she in what she was doing that she didn't seem to feel his eyes on her, which she had often been able to do even before they'd taken the blasted potion that started this whole bloody mess. Draco took the opportunity to study his long-time adversary, and, perversely, the person who knew more about him than anyone else in the world.

Hermione Granger looked much the way one would expected a brainy, serious sort of girl to look. Her hair was wild and hopelessly unkempt, and a very common and unremarkable brown. She now wore it most often in a messy knot of untamable curls at the back of her head. Beneath that distinctive explosion of hair, her features were even and regular, but certainly not the sort of pretty that turned many heads at Hogwarts. Her skin was pale from too many hours cooped up with homework and dusty books, and her eyes were an unexceptional shade of golden brown. Though it was hard to tell beneath her voluminous and perfectly up-to-dress-code school uniform, she seemed to have a slight, petite build, and was perhaps an inch short of being exactly average in height.

In other words, therefore, she was almost painfully ordinary in every way. Who would have guessed, he wondered idly, that beneath her utterly common exterior lay so much complexity, so much depth? Far worse than discovering this unsettling information was the fact that knowing it seemed to have transformed her common features in his eyes into something greater than they were, something . . .

Beautiful.

He immediately balked against the idea, which had seemed to drift to him on a whisper of air, a product not of his mind but of someone else's entirely. She was not beautiful, not even really pretty. This wasn't an opinion born of malice or anger; it was the truth.

Despite this knowledge, Draco could not force the word from his mind. He studied her harder, watched her brush a curl from her face and then continue writing with her brow furrowed in concentration, and the word grew larger in his head. Beautiful. Not beauty of face, certainly, but the word seemed to apply, in a deeper and more meaningful way than his life and experiences had given him the capacity to appreciate.

Suddenly he shook his head and blinked, absolutely appalled with his train of thought. What the hell was he saying? Hermione Granger -- self-righteous, stubborn, insufferable, pain-in-the-ass Mudblood -- beautiful? Not hardly. Not even close.

He was tired. That had to be it. He hadn't slept well at all last night, his dreams having been plagued by demons of both the actual and psychological varieties, and he had awakened more exhausted than he had been upon falling asleep. That was the only explanation. Surely he wouldn't be thinking such traitorous and alarming thoughts otherwise.

"What's the matter?" He blinked, startled out of his thoughts. Hermione was looking at him with mild puzzlement, and her concern wafted over the table, gentle and annoyingly sincere.

"What do you mean?" he asked, faking ignorance before he remembered that she could see through him as easily as glass. She frowned reprovingly.

"You're upset," she told him, as if he didn't know. "Unnerved. What's the matter?"

"It's nothing," he replied more gruffly than was strictly necessary. She felt a flash of irritation, but didn't let it show on her face. She continued to look expectant, and nauseatingly concerned.

"Really?" she asked cynically.

"Really," he confirmed. He found he didn't have enough energy to keep the hostility in his voice. "I'm just tired. I didn't sleep well." She smiled at him, a real sort of smile that she had never before deigned to bestow upon him.

"I know," she said quietly. Her smile disappeared, and her eyes grew troubled. "Dark dreams."

"Dark dreams," he echoed. They continued to look at one another for a moment, and something passed between them that Draco wasn't entirely sure he understood. He dropped his eyes back to the journal in his hand and went back to his search. He was too lost in thought to realize that she didn't do the same.

Hermione allowed Draco to go back to work without comment, but that didn't mean she bought his excuse. Being tired did not cause people sitting quietly in a deserted room to suddenly be surprised and unsettled. However, whatever had disturbed him had obviously been something he didn't want her to know about, and she was firmly clinging to any façade of privacy that remained between them. She wouldn't press the matter.

Now that her attention was drawn away from the journals, however, she hesitated to go back to them. As fascinating as they were -- and they were quite fascinating -- her curiosity was currently less concerned with what amazing medical achievement she would uncover next than with a certain Slytherin with a blank face and a troubled mind.

Funny, but she realized she had never really looked at Malfoy before. She had seen his hateful, angry eyes and his trademark smirk, had even born witness to looks of shock and pain and unhappiness which she doubted he had shown to very many others,if any at all. She had seen these things, but that was all she had seen, all she had ever allowed herself to see, she supposed.

As well as she knew him now, she would have been at a loss to describe him if someone had asked her to. How odd it was to know a person's soul and yet be unable to picture his face. She decided to rectify that incongruity now, before she realized how utterly ridiculous it was to want so badly to be able to call more of his appearance to mind that his distinctive hair and baleful, haunting eyes.

Malfoy was leaning forward, one forearm on the desk and the journal in his other hand. He sat in a beam of pale sunlight that had found its way into their secluded corner. His silvery, baby-fine hair, which was now long enough to brush the collar of his robes, hung in his eyes and caught the light, shimmering like strands of stardust. Long, white-gold eyelashes brushed his pale cheeks when he blinked, momentarily robbing his face of all color until his quicksilver eyes were visible again. His pale, aristocratic features were too sharp, too angular to be handsome, but there was something in the line of his cheekbones, the shape of his mouth, that was almost angelic. He had the slim, light build of a Seeker, and Hermione knew him to be only a few inches taller than herself. He moved with even more grace on the ground than he did in the air.

How pretty he was, Hermione thought with detachment. How terribly lovely, and how very, very sad it made her to know how little that beauty reflected the torment and ugliness he had inside. He was so angry, so blinded by his past and his prejudice, so troubled and lonely.

Oh yes, she knew he was lonely. It was deeply buried beneath all the other emotions that swirled around him, but once she had begun to get used to sifting through all the mixed up things he was feeling, she had felt it very clearly. It was piercing and terribly familiar. She had known much loneliness in her life, much more than her share, and she suspected that, in that respect at least, she had found in Malfoy a kindred soul.

Seeing the depth to which he had been scarred by his troubled past, knowing without a doubt the sincerity of his blind and ridiculous hate, should have, in her opinion, made him seem less angelic, but it didn't. If anything, when contrasted with his inner darkness, his beauty seemed more luminous, more exquisite. In the pale light of the autumn morning, he possessed all the cold, radiant beauty of a January dawn.

He frowned at something he read, and then scowled as he tossed the book aside in frustration, and the spell was broken. His beauty was still there, but it was harsh and jagged-edged, making her think now of a tarnished, broken angel. She frowned, inexplicably saddened by the image. Malfoy's steely eyes were on hers in an instant.

"Now what's wrong with you?" Malfoy asked.

"Nothing," she said, all but daring him to push the issue. She didn't think he was dense enough to really think she'd believed his ridiculous excuse earlier, and she fully intended to call him on it if he tried to question hers.

Mercifully, he simply quirked a golden eyebrow and sent a wave of cynicism across the table to her. He picked up the next journal and went back to his search without comment, and, breathing a sigh of relief, she did the same.

Two beautiful enemies sat in a secluded corner, surrounded by books and unsettling, unwanted thoughts. In the familiar silence of the deserted library, they worked.

A/N: So this author's note isn't about the story, it's about the review responses below. Most of them have to do with people's responses to my HBP query. If you're interested in my take on the subject, you might read through them. I was going to post one general paragraph with my opinion, but I realized it was mostly included in all my responses (three pages of responses, good grief!), so I didn't bother. If you have any questions for me that weren't answered, just ask me in a review.