A/N: Cassie, where's my disclaimer?

Cassie: holds it up right here. singing Draco and 'Mione sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love, then comes-

A/N: SHUT UP!

Disclaimer: Owns nothing that Warner Bros. or J.K Rowling owns.

Cassie: Oh, and even if she thinks she owns me, she doesn't.

Cassie: I see you've finally managed to update...and just what exactly where you doing whilst the readers where waiting?

A/N: Don't cross examine me...wait-did you just use the word "whilst"...I thought I was the only one that did that...

Cassie: JUST GET ON WITH THE DISCLAIMER!

A/N: That would be nice, Cassie, but YOU HAVE THE FRIGGIN DISCLAIMER!

Cassie: sheepish oh...right...

Disclaimer: She owns Cassie, her mice (Tyson and Max), the cookie in her hand and...nothing else. Therefore, she does not own anything to do with Harry Potter...

Ebony Crystals

Chapter Two
"Murderer"

Blood. The substance is brought out so easily. Meerly a scrape can break the skin. Broken skin, like a broken heart...both seem to draw the deadly red substance from the body. But which is more painful?...a broken heart or broken skin. Most who've experenced it feel that the broken heart is most excruciating. Is that why they prefer the Cruciatus over losing the one they love? The only explination for broken skin is a broken heart; humans, muggles, and wizards alike seem to use blood to heal the heart; they use physical pain to try and cover up the emotional. That is why there is blood on their arms and scars on their wrists.

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, correct? Well, what if a fox, some sneaky vixen, caught that apple just as he was landing and she ran off with him, sinking her teeth into his perfect skin. Mybe now that apple will look past all of the "imperfections" of others that his fatther, the Great Apple Tree, had drilled into the poor apple's core.

Draco shot up in his bed, regretting that he had. He moaned and clutched the back of his head, lowering himself down onto his pillow still shaking with the effects of a nightmare. Whimpering in pain, he looked around for Hermione...didn't she say that he'd feel better when he woke up? Then he spotted her, she was hard to miss seeing how she was sound asleep in a chair right next to his bed. He was about to wake her and scold her for lying to him about hte pain when an oul swooped down and dropped a letter on the nightstand next to Hermione.

Lifting it up, he noted the Hogwarts Crest and the Head Girl pin. He made a move to open the letter when the long forgotten safety pin tumbled out of his grasp and onto his bedsheets.

His breath caught in his throat as he watched it shimmer in the light of the evening sun. He cast a quick look at Hermione before setting her letter back down.

He reached for the safety pin, every now and thene looking ot see if Heriome had stirred.
Turning his pale arm over he gazed at his skin, free of any imperfections...with the exception of the Dark Mark. His eyes shifted up to Hermione once again. Why the fuck did she even care? It ws probably so she wouldn't lose her job. She didn't give a rats ass about him, did she? And he couldn't exactly blame her, either.

"I killed my mother." he repeated the words that had been drilled into his head. He seemed almost brainwashed as he spoke with no emotion. "I killed my father. They were good people; they didn't deserve to die...I did."

He brought the now open pin down to his skin and made a quick jabe. He cried out in both surprise and pain. The stinging wasn't what he had expected and he quickly pulled the pin away. He glared the the microscopic wound the bled not even what a papercut would before repositioning the pin.

The silver of the pin blended well with his paled skin. He placed the tip below the small hole he had made and dragged the pin roughly and slowly across his wrist. The pain wasn't that immense but it hurt like a bastard...and it didn't help the ache in his head...or heart. Blood seeped from the wound and poured out on his arm...not rushing like a river, but calmly and yet in a semi-rush to escape the fleshy barrier that had been keeping it captive.

"Malfoy, what do you think you're doing?" Hermione scolded, hurrying to snatch the bloody pin from Draco's shaking grasp. Surpisingly to Hermione, Draco didn't resist when she attempted to stop the blood. She growled in frustration and stood.

"Where are you going?" Draco demanded.

"To get a Healer. I can't deal with you anymore, Malfoy! You're way too much for me to handle...you can be somebody elses problem from now on!"

Draco sat up, ignoringg the pain in his head and in his wrist, as Hermione headed towards the door. "No, please!" he shouted. "They'll think I'm crazy...they'll lock me up...please..."

"You ARE crazy, Malfoy!"

Draco shook his head vigorously. "No I'm NOT!" he protested.

Hermione sighed heavily; this was not the Malfoy she knew. "Then why would you do that to yourself, are you...just stupid or something?"

"I...I just..."

"Spit it out!"

He began to cry. Crystal tears poured from now electric blue eyes and rolled down his slightly pinkend cheeks (as opposed to his dull grey eyes and pale skin). "They're dead...it's my fault...he keeps telling me...it's my fault."

Hermione's anger was frozen over by the sudden mess. No, this was certainly not the Malfoy she know. At that moment she knwe that there was nothing more heartbreaking in the world than watching a guy cry. How could she have been so cruel to him...his parents had just died!

She sat on the bed beside him and placed a hand on the side of his head. "Who keeps telling you?"

"V-voldemort." Draco stuttered, dropping his head into his hands.

Hermione ceased moving. "What do you mean?"

"Voldemort...he's in my dreams...nightmares...I never should've...the prohexy...look." he lifted up his sleeve,revealing hte shadowed Dark Mark.

Hermione gasped silently...it really didn'tk surprise her that he would submit himself to the darkness...but, after seeing how different he was now, she truely hadn't expected it.

"He a-always know where I am...he's always t-there... I-if I d-die then...t-then he can't...h-he..." Draco had let go of his emotions...dropped all of his gaurds; he didn't care if Hermione watched as he cried. "They're dead!...I could spend the rest of my life in Azkaban! I KILLED MY FATHER! I k-killed himn...I k-killed..." He made a strangled whining noise and grabbed at his hair. "My head...my head..."

Hermione's eyes shifted down towards his arm. "I have to bandage that." she stated, acknowledging his wound. She headed towards the cabinet that she had before and shortly returned with two viles and a coil of wraps. She gripped his hand to turn his arm over...not the rough skinned hand of a normal boy but the soft and silky hand of a boy who had never worked. And that wwas exactly what Draco was, Hermione thought, just a boy.

She held one vile over his arm. "This will hurt a bit." she said, pouring the potion over the bleeding wound.

Draco hissed in pain and tried to jerk his arm away from Hermione, who quietly wrapped it with the white bandage.

"Drink this." Hermione said firmly, pressing the second vile to Draco's lips.

Unlike the first time Hermione had done this to him, he allowed her to pour the liquid down his throat.

Hermione laid him back down on his pillow. "Your head shouldn't hurt still...I'm going to tell the Healers. I gave you a pain killer, by the way...this one wont put you to sleep."

Staring blankly at her, Draco blinked twice and turned his head away from her. Hermione left the room.

Boredom filled him bodily and embraced his being. Soft words theat his mother had prouduced hong ago as she comforted him out of a nightmare. Still semed to echo in his mind like a child's cry in the mouth of a hungry cavern. Draco shifted in his bed and let his gaze wander to the letter that had come for Hrmione. He stretched his arm out and drew the rolled parchment to him. He broke the seal and began to read the words that had spilled out.

Miss Hermione Granger,

We, the staff of Hogwart-school of Witchcraft and
Wizardry, are pleased to inform you that you have
been appointed Head Girl...

"Blah blah blah." Draco thought as his eyes scanned further down the parchment.

...As Head Girl Your duties, as well as
the Head boy's-Ronald Weasly-include...

Draco's face contorted. "Stupid Weasle." he muttered as he heard the door handle turn. And then he froze, had he felt a hint of jealousy that Ron had gotten to be headboy...or was the jealousy because of Hermione... "No." he thought sternly. "Bad brain...Granger is a stupid, fat, bitch-of-a mudblood." He lowered the letter to glace at Hermione for a moment as she walked in. She was carrying a tray that emitted the heavenly scent of syrup.

She set the tray on the night stand next to his bed and smiled slightly as he eyed the stack of hotcakes hungerly. "I thought you might hungy...what are you reading?"

Draco thrust the paper at Hermione adn sat up, releaved that there was little pain. He moved moved the tray to his lap.

"You read my letter!" Hermione exclaimed. "Why on earth would you do that?...it's againts the law to open somebody elses mail! I-"

"I got bored." Draco interrupted, his mouth full of food. "You were gone long enough to run to Russia, make these pancakes, and run all the way back. But at least the pain killer is begining to work."

Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed. "You really are a pain, Malfoy. Besides, I wasn't gone all that long. ALl I did was discuss some objectives with the Healers and then I-"

"All you have to say is 'I talked to the Healers and ran down to the cafeteria to get you something to eat'...you're not being graded, Granger"

Hermione stared harshly at Draco before shaking her head in defeate. "I can never win with you can I?" She cleared her throat. "Hurry up and finish...the Healers made me promis that I'd get you out in the fresh air."

Draco nodded. "You know, I've never had flapjacks for dinner."

Hermione raised her eyebrow quizically. "Are you complaining, Malfoy...because I can just take it back down the cafeteria and..."

"No!" Draco said. "Touch these pancakes and I'll stab you to death with my fork." He held the fork out in front of him defensivly, as if showing that he wasn't joking.

Hermione laughed. "Your fork is plastic."

"So...you wont be laughing when I poke your eyeballs out, now will you." Draco pouted.

Hermione burst out in another laugh, this time harder. The brat was actually pouting! Where was Collin Creevey and his camera when you needed him? "Malfoy, shut up and eat your dinner you prat."

"At least I'm not a penguin!"

Glaring with a fire, Hermione stared at him. She turned around and began to walk out of the room. "Wait here, I'll be right back."

Draco looked blandly at the back of her head. "Like I'm going to go anywhere!" he called after her.

Hermione returned with a large book. She sat down on the bed and place the book gently in her lap. Draco stared at the page as she pointed to a picture. "This," she said. "Is a penguin."

Penguin pen-gw any of various erect
short-legged flightless aquatic birds (family Spheniscidae)
of the southern hemisphere

"Oh." was all Draco had so say as he looked at the creatures. "Well, then I guess you are an 'erect short-legged flightless aquatic bird'."

Hermione's eyes downcast. "Fine, Malfoy. I'm a friggin penguin and you're an emu."

Draco stared at her for a moment. "What's an ee-mee-eeww?"

Hermione closed the book and looked up at Draco. "If you didn't already have a head problem I'd beat you with this book."

"Fuck you, Mudblood." Draco finished off his last hotcake. "So," he began. "Where are we going?"

Draco clung to Hermione's arm in his failing attempt to walk down the hall. Hermione had to surpress her laughter; he held a look of pure concentration on his face, looking down at his feet as if telling them that they had to keep on moving.

"Don't they look so cute togeather." A female patient whispered to her Healer.

The Healer nodded. "Yes, they do. Y'know what, I bet they're togeather."

Hermione blushed deeply and shot a quick glace at Draco who didn't seem to hear in the midst of his concentration. She allowed herself to brush it off and continue walking.

Sooner or later they made it to the balcony as the sun was begining to set. The sailor's sky was painted magnificently with streaks of pink and whisps of purple clouds. The yellow rays reflected off of the orange sun that hung fat and low in the sky and made a halo over the mountains. The moon was visable opposite the sun, shying into the great sky.

Hermione set Draco in a chair as his eyes lit up in amazment. Hermione's chuckle went unnoticed as she sat beside him.

Draco's eyes shifted to Hermione after a few moments and he gasped. They dim light from the sky had laced itself on Hermione's face. She had tied her bushy hair back away from her face and was biting her bottom lip in deep thought. Draco decided that she looked somewhat graceful...beaut- "No." Draco thought once again. "Damn it, no. I've gotta get off of this medication."

Losing my Mind

"Hey, Granger." Draco whispered.

"What?" she inquired, her gaze not moving from the sky.

"Tell me, honestly, do you think... I mean...I killed my father... Do you think that I'll have to go to Azkaban?"

Hermione's face became expressionless as she turned towards Draco. "Malfoy..." she began, not-so-gently. "You said youself...that you killed your father...and your mother..."

"Just...answer the question, Granger." Draco's face felt flushed as worry grew behind his eyes...worry that was going to morph into tears.

"Yes, Draco. I do think you're going to wind up in Azkaban. You're a murderer." She turned away from him.

Dejectedly, Draco let his head fall into his hands. Something bubbled near his diaphragm and rose steadily into his thorax and then behind his eyes, pushing the tears out as he exhaled raggedly. He was in no way looking for Hermione's sypathy...but he was looking for a way out of Azkaban.

"I...I'm a murderer." he whispered.

Cassie: What the hell is wrong with you Brittany?

A/N: Lots of things. Reveiw and I might make Draco feel better...at least for a little while!