A/N:
Well… As you can see, I am finally able to find time to write my beloved story and with my improved typing skills, I can do it faster… Yeah! So, without any further ado, chapter 12 of "Who Knows"
Disclaimer: For the 12th time, I tell you I do not own Harry Potter… The marvelous J.K. Rowling does…
Who Knows
By: Carla P.
Chapter 12- An Unlikely Ally
Though it had looked that Draco was engrossed by whatever was written in the letter, he looked up and made eye contact with the person before him, who had asked the question he had been dreading and, at the same time, been waiting for and he placed his hands facedown on the table.
Hermione bit her lower lip as she looked at Draco after she made such a bold query, rather afraid that he would call off the truce they had so easily and recently made. Her eyes then widened when she noticed that his eyes weren't angry, as she had expected them to be. In fact, they were very serious as though Draco was gravely contemplating what to tell her.
Suddenly, he expelled the breath he had been holding, an action Hermione seconded. That was when they both realized that they had both been holding their breath. They smiled momentarily, figuring out that they were mutually nervous about what was going on.
Draco then looked down at his hands, looking more relaxed and, replacing his hands facedown on the table, said, "Well, you see, Hermione, I've changed."
Hermione had been staring at Draco very hard and she was suddenly and inexplicably startled out of her reverie at his answer. It took a moment for her to fully comprehend what he had said and when she did, her eyebrows shot up for what must have been the umpteenth time that morning.
Thinking that Hermione did not believe him, Draco suddenly changed from being happily contented to being devastatingly forlorn. At this transition, Hermione put her brow down and flashed him an apologetic smile.
She had, in fact, raised her eyebrow in question not in disbelief but seeing as she hadn't asked Draco that many questions in her lifetime; she couldn't blame him for misinterpreting her action.
"Draco, I'm sorry if I seemed disbelieving. I'm not. I do believe that you've changed. Come on, I mean, I've seen it firsthand just this morning. What I really meant is— why? Why have you changed?"
Draco then heaved a sigh, a heavy sigh that seemed to shake the very fibers of his being as he lifted his hands off the table and looked at it as though they could possibly hold the answers which he sought. His face suddenly adapted a worried and grave look as he sat there silently battling with himself.
Hermione, watching the play of emotions on her former enemy's face, suddenly became agitated when he didn't reply and thought that he still thought that she didn't believe him when she said she knew he had changed. Several times she thought to break the silence and tell him that she believed him a changed man but every single time, the sight of him staring blindly at his hands would stop her.
Draco snapped out of his trance and, instead, ran his fingers through his platinum blond hair. He had thought that it would be easy to tell her. Rather the contrary, he thought. He wanted to tell her. Just to spit it out but he couldn't. He had to find a way to tell her such that she would believe him for he couldn't afford her disbelief. His whole sanity depended on it.
He suddenly reached out, avoiding the worried looks from Hermione, which he could spy with his peripheral vision. He had reached for the book in front of him, he cracked it open and there was the letter. The letter that had given him the verdict, which explained why he was here in the library, gathering his courage and wit to convince Hermione of the truth. The truth that governed what would happen with his future.
He knew that he was stalling. Stalling because he was such an unmitigated fool. Stalling because he was a coward, a coward with his tail between his knees. He instead looked long hard at the letter, knowing that scared and stupid as he might be he knew what he had to do.
He folded the letter and put it back between the pages of the elf and goblin history book with him. And as Hermione spied it, she snorted, thinking how Draco wouldn't be caught dead with that book and wondering what was written in that letter knowing all the while that it contained the answers she was looking for.
For a split second she thought that Draco was just using her and that he planned to kill them all but she pushed it out of her mind, thinking she was jumping to conclusions and should, instead, give him the chance to tell her what was happening.
Of course, notwithstanding, she was starting to feel the slightest bit impatient at his slowness so she started to drum her fingers on the wooden tabletop after she pushed the book from its place before. She delicately raised her eyebrow (again) and gazed hard at Draco, who had the decency to, at least, look uncomfortable at her scrutiny.
Hermione opened her mouth to tell him off when he startled her by saying decidedly, "Don't worry, Hermione, I'll tell you everything, I just didn't know where to start a while ago… But I do now…" He looked at her, there rigidly sitting on a wooden library, cracked into a bemused smile, "Better relax, Hermione… This is going to be a long story."
Hermione quirked an eyebrow at how friendly and cooperative Draco seemed to be for the first time in her life to her. Not that it really mattered but it sure made a difference, a refreshing difference.
He merely smiled at her, as he seemed to be reliving some wonderful memories in his head. It took him some time and as Hermione glanced at the clock, she noted that he had been thinking for quite some time.
She began to tap her feet rather impatiently while simultaneously tapping her fingers on the wooden table. She had been doing it unconsciously as a result of her impatience, but it didn't go by unnoticed for Draco suddenly looked up and snapped into attention, taking in Hermione's patented 'impatient' face.
He smiled at Hermione sheepishly; she looked at her hands on the table and seeing that they had been tapping on their own free will, gave Draco a wide, toothed smile, which was followed by lifting her right brow as if to signify her unanswered question.
He then started to fidget with his fingers that belied his outward calm and cool demeanor. She smiled inwardly at this for she had never seen Malfoy, uh, Draco nervous before. Smug, yes; Arrogant, definitely; Annoying, always; why, even scared but never nervous, and now that she saw it she could ascertain that he, indeed, had nerves inside that-ahem, 'cold-blooded'- body.
"Oh fine, I'd go right ahead and say it. I'm sure that we'd get nowhere if I just keep on dilly-dallying all day here." Draco said resolutely.
Hermione nodded her response and gestured for him to go on with her right hand.
"Actually, Hermione, it's Ginny." Draco said, avoiding Hermione's gaze as he blushed.
"Ginny?" Hermione responded, bewildered, "What about Ginny?" she questioned, putting her hands down on the table.
"Actually, it has everything to do with Ginny. She's my girlfriend now, but that's a secret, of course." Draco replied, this time looking at Hermione in the eye, the sincerity and humility adding dimensions to his otherwise hard-contoured face.
"Ginny… your – uh – gi-girl-girlfriend?" Hermione blurted out suddenly, her eyes wide in disbelief, her voice dripping with incredulity.
Draco barked a laugh and responded, "You don't have to sound so supportive Hermione!" He looked at her then; seeing that she didn't get the joke, he proceeded gravely, "Seriously though, Ginny's my girlfriend. Has been for a while."
He looked to see if Hermione had anything to say and seeing that she had none, he plodded on, "Well, she told me that it would absolutely not work out between us unless I have courage enough to try to make amends with one of your three and confess to that person about our relationship. I, also, must not be cursed, shouted at, beaten up or any other act of violence. In short, I have to convince one of you that I am indeed serious about Ginny."
Hermione nodded to show she was listening and Draco continued, "Well, I thought about it for quite some time, too. First I thought of Harry, but then seeing as he's my 'mortal enemy' and all he won't give me a chance to speak beyond cursing me for even attempting to speak to him."
"Of course, Ron was absolutely not the one to approach seeing as he's the brother of the girl I'm in a relationship not forgetting all the insulting things I've said about him and his family."
Hermione's eyes widened at what he said as though she were seeing things for the very first time, but still, she remained silent.
"That left you, Hermione, I decided that even if I called you Mudblood" –at this both of them cringed outwardly, Malfoy in guilt and Hermione in chagrin- "And made the lives of you three miserably awful, since you're a girl I reckoned you'd be sensitive and more understanding. And, anyway, I was certain you'd be the least likely to curse me into oblivion even if you are the smartest witch in our class."
He looked into her eyes then and she saw that he was absolutely, entirely sincere about the whole thing and still glowing from being called "the sensitive, understanding girl", she said in a warm voice, "I'm happy for you and Ginny, Draco. Really, I am. I mean Ginny is a very good friend of mine. She's much like the sister I never had. And now that you're my friend, I have no right to begrudge you the congratulations and happiness."
"But what had you hoped on achieving by telling me about the two of you?"
Draco answered, "Well, Ginny wants her friends to become my friends and her family to be my family and I couldn't deny her that, could I? Ginny showed me how it was to love deeply and truly. She's my life, Hermione. I'd do anything that she says if that will ensure me of our future together, one that would last forever." Draco then buried his face in his hands and Hermione knew that he was in despair.
She reached to grasp his hand reassuringly saying in a soothing voice, "It's going to be fine, Draco. I'm sure you'd be all right seeing as you seem to love Ginny terribly. I'm sorry to tell you, though, that there's nothing I could do."
Draco's head snapped back up at these words, "Why?"
Hermione said simply, "We had a fight."
Draco pointed out, "You always do, even I could see when you do," he raised his eyebrows, then, having just acquired the action from Hermione.
"Yes, but now it's different since it has to do with matters of the heart."
"Oh…"
"Yeah, 'oh'…"
They remained in that silence for a quite a while when Hermione broke it, "So, Draco, tell me: how."
"How?"
"Yes, all the how's about you and Ginny. How you met. How you fell in love. How you ended up together. All those hows."
Draco contemplated this and suddenly with a mischievous smile he answered, "I'll tell you Hermione, but you have to make a deal."
"A deal?" she asked, bewildered even as she answered his mischievous smile with her own.
"Yes. When I tell you about me and my Ginny, I want you to tell me what happened between you and those two prats you call your friends." He said in a voice with a teasing lilt in it.
Hermione was shocked for a moment having heard Draco call Harry and Ron "prats" in that totally amusing way, grinned; then held out her hand in a handshake, "Deal."
Draco reached out and grasped the proffered hand, "Deal."
And so for the entire morning, those two spent their time talking with a person they had never ever expected to be able to converse with. Add that to the fact that they were in a library alone, with only a librarian, who had cleverly made herself disappear…
Who would have thought?
A/N:
So, do you think that Malfoy was believable? Tell me what you think. I, of course, know what happens but it would be interesting to find out how others would interpret it…
Of course, I have to thank those who reviewed chapter 11 and I hope you like 12 just as much… Oh, and a big shout out to my beta, Janelle :D Thanks!
R&R please.