-1If you're confused to if this is a CMHG shipping, please take the care to read my profile in detail. You'll find out everything there. However, I take away the bit about Malfoy. Some of the fan fics I have read lately have made me see him in a new light; but Snape… he's just the same. (HATTEE!)

Hermione's POV

I look out onto the countryside, still not quite believing that Ron - Ron! - actually made the first move yesterday. Well, he's certainly taken his sweet time about it. Still…

I wonder where we're going next. There's absolutely no way that Harry will want to stay here; it's too… comfortable. And comfortable, after a while, begins to mean permanent. Harry was comfortable at Hogwarts. It became a pretty permanent feature of his life, but it was a necessary feature. This is definitely not high on his priority list, or so I'm willing to bet. It's probably not even on the list. Sometimes I just want to hit him. Knock some sense into him. He's so pessimistic about the world! Sometimes. But now… especially. I guess he has reason to be.

"CONSANT VIGILANCE!"

A bark that sounds spookily like Moody's sounds behind me, and I jump out of my seat by the window. I look around with my hand to my heart, honestly thinking that I am about to have a heart attack.

"Oh, god. It's only you, Ron."

And I'm very pleased to see you, too.

"Only me?" He says jokingly. "I take offence."

"Well, maybe I don't really care." I say, playing along.

"Well, maybe I think you should care. Maybe I think you show a certain lack of concern for people's feelings."

"Do you now? Well, maybe I think that it's not that I can't tell them; it's just that I don't particularly have the desire to tell you about it…"

"Well, maybe I find that quite rude…"

"Well, maybe I think you have a very strange perception of what 'rude' means…"

"Well, maybe I think you need to go re-read your dictionary, if I didn't know there was already one installed in your head…"

"Well, maybe I think it's time you went out and actually bought a brain, never mind the dictionary…"

"Will you two stop arguing?" Says Harry, climbing down the stairs. Oh, God. He looks tired. Didn't he sleep? Did Voldemort try and get to his mind while he was vulnerable last night?

"Hey, Harry," I say warily. "What happened last night? You didn't… Voldemort didn't…?"

"I look that awful?" He responds evasively.

"Harry, you look tired out of your brains," says Ron, finally putting in some input.

"Well, maybe I think that you've got the wrong end of the stick entirely," he says jokingly; but then realising that we're utterly serious, he says: "Oh, alright then. I was dreaming last night… it was something really pathetic, like all the other times…"

"I don't like the way this is sounding," I say, and hurry over to the table where Harry has seated himself.

"Don't worry," he says. "It wasn't Voldemort… but it was a Death Eater. And it was a Death Eater with a scary suggestion… you won't like it at all." For some reason, he looks pointedly at me and Ron. What…?

"Who was it?" I say in a hushed voice. Already, my brain is racing with possibilities. None of them match.

"It was… Malfoy."

No way!

I can't believe it. "Oh my gosh, Harry! Did he try and hurt you or something…?"

"No," groans Harry. "You're going to hate me though. It's worse than that…"

"Nothing is worse than him trying to hurt one of us, Harry. Got it?" Ron says pointedly. Oh, long have I waited to actually hear him say wise words…

"He said… he said he wanted to join the Order."

There's a silence in which we all reflect in our own shock. Malfoy, join the Order? I don't understand. I don't want to understand. Last year, when he joined. He was so boastful, so full of his own power, because he'd finally joined up with daddy's gang. And now, out of the blue, he wants to join with the Order? Harry seems to know the thoughts racing through my head.

"I know, Hermione. So, what if he only wants to so he can go report back to Voldemort on everything? That's what I said. That's what I thought. And then…"

"What?" I snap. I don't like my flow of thought to be interrupted. What could possibly make Harry have doubts about Draco Malfoy's vileness? He's the scum of the earth. He tried to kill me, for goodness' sake…

"…Then he gave me the proof I needed." He looks up at me, and our eyes lock. Mine reflect complete and utter revulsion and disbelief. His are full of certainty and some kind of sadness… directed at me.

"What on earth could have made you believe him, Harry!" I say angrily. It's just like all those other times. "It's like all those times you tried to make us believe that Dumbledore was wrong about Snape - and what happened? He was wrong, Harry, wrong; and that's what brought the death of him! How can you, in your own proof, even suggest that a ferret like Malfoy could want to join us…" Oh god - am I yelling that loud? Harry looks upset - hurt, even. But I can't help the tirade, and now he has a harsh glimmer in his eye that suggests he has perfect evidence for his opinion.

"Oh, for god's sake, Hermione! Don't you think I never thought of that? I did! It all crossed my mind in a second, and I was ready to doubt everything he said! But -" Harry's own angry outburst started to slow.

"What?" I say through clenched teeth.

"…Then he started crying…"

Malfoy? Cry? Absurd! I take my seat, only just aware that I'm standing. Ron leaps up behind us.

"Malfoy? Cry?" He says in disbelief. "Oh, come on! Don't you think that he could have easily put it on?"

"No," says Harry immediately, taking his time with the words. "It was real. Then he said, if he couldn't join the Order, he wanted me to look after someone. That's what made me have second thoughts. And he kept calling me 'Harry'…"

"So, he's finally learnt your name," I say impatiently; "who did he want you to protect?"

Harry looked up at me, and I knew the answer. I just didn't really want to hear it.

"Well… you, Hermione…"

XXXX

This can't be happening. This can't be happening. This can't be happening. This can't be happening.

Maybe if I tell myself that over and over, it'll go away. Just when I've finally realised that I love Ron, always have, Malfoy comes along and spoils it all. I feel like screaming; pummelling anything in sight. Malfoy has feelings for me. It's enough for me to rip his heart out and leave it to be trampled on. After all the hardship he's brought on us. All the sadness, the remorse. The hate. Making us loathe him for all these years and then finally realising he likes me. Why me? I've only ever held him in contempt. I hate him. I loathe him. I… want to tear him to pieces with my bear hands…

I mumble from inside my hands, shaking all over. "What are we going to do?" I say through gritted teeth, every cell of my being hoping Harry won't conjure up the answer I know he'll offer.

"We… I don't know. But I think we should trust him for now."

Those are the words I never thought I'd hear Harry say, but they are words that I expected to hear from the moment he started doubting Malfoy's contentment at being in with Voldemort.

"No," I say shortly. "Not without the consent of others, Harry. It's enough for me alone, Harry, but I won't let you put the rest of the Order at risk because you decided to trust some Schoolboy Death Eater. I won't! We're paying the Order a visit; and whether you like it or not, you're coming to tell them exactly what you just told Ron and I."

"You didn't think I wouldn't give them the chance to say yes or no?" Says Harry angrily. Then he sighs. "I guess I've evaded them for long enough, too. But if they try to pull me back into school, then I'll be off again, don't you worry…"

"Fine," I say. I smile at him and Ron, as if reassuring myself that they still are the same people. They are my best friends. The two people I can trust with anything important. The two people that make up the stitches of my being. Without Harry and Ron, I'd just be some book-reading know-it-all with no friends. Friends are important; I don't envy Malfoy. His only friends are more like slaves. But it is his fault.

"Well, I'm not sure about anything you just said," says Ron sourly. "Firstly, when I come back to the Order, mum will kill me, dig me a grave, then dig me out again so she can do it again; and secondly, without having your dreams, Harry, I'm still completely mystified as to what to do about Malfoy. As far as I can see, he's just whining. And besides, why'd he ask you to protect Hermione? He's only ever seen her as a muggle-born."

He still hasn't figured that one out? Poor Ron. I look at them both. "Well," I say, keeping my unwavering smile, "I'm going to get Ginny out of bed and explain things to her, and in the meantime, you two can be getting ready. Besides… when we get back to the Order, we'll be the last thing they expect to see…"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxXXXXX

We apparate to Headquarters, just outside. I don't really want to go in. With a mixture of nausea and doubt in me, especially about the Malfoy scenario, I'm finding it hard to do anything but tremble with anticipation. I hope they don't let him become one of the Order. I hate him… I hate him…

Harry looks at me with regret in his eyes. "Sorry, Hermione. But… I just know something isn't right. We've got him wrong…"

Poor Harry, trying to give everyone a chance. I desperately want him to realise that once Draco Malfoy is in with the Order, he'll be merciless. Can't anyone see that but me? Even Ginny seemed reluctant to go ahead with my plan and just leave him be; she said everyone deserved a second chance. But he doesn't. No one like him could ever deserve anything like equality between normal, kind-hearted wizards and witches and himself.

I hate him…

Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

The door materialises between the other two apartments like always, elongating, pushing the doors and windows of the other rooms into the corners of the central room. Even knowing how it had been achieved, I can't help but feel amazed that the people in the other rooms had felt absolutely nothing as their whole apartment was uprooted from the floor and shoved aside…

Ginny, Ron, Harry and I, all exchange a nervous glance and approach the door together. T doesn't seem like the refuge of safety we previously thought it was before; it's more like approaching the gallows like a criminal on the day of his execution. It's a horrible prospect, walking through that door. Because I know, just like everyone else, that Harry hasn't only been trying to hide from Voldemort or his Death Eaters while he tries to find all the Horcruxes, but he's been running from the Order. The Order, who so wish to help him and aid him in his journey to defeat Voldemort; so eager that they've become protective - more of a hindrance than a help…

We enter the door, but we don't even have the time to step over the threshold as a scream rings out from the first floor.

A/N: There you go. Hermione's reaction. Oh, and thanks AnieeX3 for the review. -glomps-

Had to upload this twice because I was really bad with my 1st person.. Kept switching to 3rd. Ah well, life goes on.