CHAPTER19

Draco was walking through the crowds of the Diagon Alley, thinking. He never ever thought that he would have fun with mudblood but just now they were sitting and laughing just like friends. "Not good", he kept repeating under his breath.

He didn't know where exactly he was going but the other day, while walking around with Pansy, he noticed some kind of a park at the end of the Alley. As he was slowly making his way there, a newspaper booth caught his attention. Well, it wasn't the booth; it was the headline of the Daily Prophet. It said, "A man murdered by …?" There was a picture of the man that was killed and it seemed familiar to Draco. Draco bought the paper and opened it on the spot. The article was rather small…

This night at 2:56 am a corpse of a man was accidentally found in the Knockturn Alley by Mr. Ayden Hoover. Our special experts say that the man by the name of Tritton Frogg (identification document was found in his robes) was murdered at the time of midnight by an Avada Kedavra curse. Who murdered him or why was he murdered are the questions that stay yet unanswered. However, there is a bit of background information on Mr. Frogg. There were rumours that he was once a Death Eater…

Draco stopped reading. Yes, he remembered the face of the man. He came to his father last summer and begged not to return to Voldemort and not be killed. Draco remembered that he thought the man was a fool to think that Voldemort would have mercy on him. But that wasn't it, something else bugged Draco, he thought he saw the man more recently than last year…

…but this time anonymous sources tell us that he didn't in fact return to the services of the Dark Lord. So there might be a possibility that he was killed by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself. The article was written by Griffia Podd.

When Draco finished reading the article, a sudden though hit him like a flash of lightening. He looked at the picture of the man again, who was looking around himself with fear and weariness and hiding around the frame the moment he saw any sudden movements. Yes, the man looked a lot like the one that attacked Hermione yesterday. That was an interesting discovery, thought Draco. "Maybe I should show this to Granger", he thought, "If I see her, of course, I won't be running around and searching for mudbloods, I am a Malfoy and Malfoys don't run after women, women run after them". After he said that in his head, Draco thought that it sounded a lot like his father. And he didn't want that so he shook the thoughts in the back of his head and proceeded with his destination.

When Draco reached the place, he saw a girl sitting on the most distant bench with her back to him. He recognized her as Hermione; he was no fool to make the mistake again. He quietly approached the seat and asked in a lazy drawl, "Mind if I seat down?"

Hermione turned her head to him. It looked as if she wasn't really surprised to see him and even if she was, it was a pleasant surprise. She smiled and shook her head, indicating that she didn't mind at all. Draco sat down. After an awkward silence that lasted for about a minute, he was first to speak, "So, Granger, what's up?" He felt really stupid saying that. It was so lame that he almost blushed, ALMOST.

Hermione giggled, "Well, nothing's really up, just sitting here and reading a book… what about you, Dr-, Malfoy?" She blushed, she almost called him Draco.

"Strolling around the streets, alone, boring", he took this question as an opportunity to show Hermione the paper, "Here, maybe you could find this interesting", he said, giving her the paper.

Hermione took it with a thankful smile and scanned the article quickly. Her face paled as she read on. She remembered the realistic vision from last night… could it possibly be that she… "No, no, no! Of course not, impossible, I refuse to believe this". When she was finished, there was an expression of unawareness of anything around her on her face. Draco didn't like this and asked, "Are you okay?"

That seemed to snap Hermione out of her thoughts and she muttered, "Everything is fine…" But it didn't seem so to Draco, she was still pale and shocked.

Draco felt a bit guilty, "I shouldn't have showed you this, I thought that's the guy who tried to rob you yesterday and you would like to see this, but now I think it was a stupid idea… and I'd better go", he said standing up, about to walk away.

"No, stay", said Hermione urgently, as if she cared but then, totally realising what she just said, she reddened and, shyly fixed her eyes on the ground, muttered rapidly, "I… I mean if you want but you probably have something more important to do than seat around with me".

Draco looked at her until she raised her head and looked in his eyes. "She has beautiful eyes", he noted, it reminded him of melted chocolate. He nearly said this out loud but stopped himself just in time. "Earth to Draco! This is Granger, the mudblood, a friend of Potter! Listen to me, you idiot, it's your inner voice speaking! Malfoy, if you this instant won't come to your sens-mphmmm…" He shut his inner voice, which was actually a miracle, he just wanted the moment to last a bit longer, just a bit…

"Khm, well, I don't have anything important to do", he said but turned his eyes away, "So if you don't mind I can hang around… with you".

Hermione beamed but then stopped, she didn't want it to seem obvious that she grown found of Malfoy, in a normal way of course (that's what she kept telling her self, but in truth, who knows…).

So they sat down on the bench and just talked about different things. Then they decided to go and get something to eat because it was well past lunchtime. They sat in a café. The one in which Malfoy sat with Pansy the other day and Hermione was with Weasleys and Harry. Hermione and Draco spend the whole day together, just having fun, in a normal way of course. They talked about their lives. Hermione was pretty happy with hers but Draco hated everything about his.

"Ok, just tell me one thing that you think is good in my life", Draco argued with Hermione who thought that his life was perfect.

"Well, you are rich", she said thoughtfully.

"Ha! Money is not everything; of course they bring certain pleasure but still... I thought you'd be smart enough to figure that out", he said with a smirk.

"Okay, then… your family has great influence on people, so there are more perspectives in life for you", she said.

Malfoy smirked again, "You call death threats influence, good influence Malfoys have, don't they?"

"You have lots of friends and a girlfriend, a pureblood as well", Hermione urged.

"You mean Pansy? Are you serious? She is not my girlfriend, well, okay, she thinks she is but I don't like her. My father wants me to marry her when I'll be 18 because she is a pureblood and rich and other crap, I hate that! Besides she is getting too much on my nerves sometimes…" He was quite heated by the memory of his father and Pansy.

"Hm… fine! But you still can't convince me that your life is that bad! There's got to be something good", she pushed on.

"One thing I can think of so far is that… that my father had some business and let me stay here alone for a month. Freedom is great; here I am not under his control. I didn't want to come first because I thought I'd bore myself to death here but as I see it now", he looked at Hermione, "It's gonna be an interesting summer."

She just laughed and blushed but didn't turn away from his eyes, those icy blue-grey gleaming diamonds…

They went back to the pub when it was dark already. Hermione and Draco decided to change their clothes and meet up for the dinner. They ate in peace because there were only a few people in the dinning hall. After dinner, they finally asked Tom about their corridor with changing doors. Tom told them that it was the Enchanted Corridor, followed by Draco's little comment under his breath, which only Hermione heard, "Like we didn't figure that it is enchanted". She found it amusing and giggled silently. Tom said that he didn't tell them before because he was afraid that the customers wouldn't want the rooms there. In the beginning there were two simple rooms, which were in one corridor with others but then they rebuild them more luxuriously and separated them from the main corridor. Why it was enchanted nobody knew but there was a rumour that some evil wizard put a spell on the small piece of land, on which the corridor was build, because he wanted to punish somebody, who had a house here long time ago.

After hearing the legend, Draco and Hermione went upstairs to their room, discussing the subject. Reaching the doors and making sure which one is 12 and which 13 is, they were saying good night to each other.

"Are you doing anything tomorrow?" asked Hermione, blushing.

Draco considered for a moment, "Well, we had a nice time today and I've got nothing to lose", he thought. "No, not really, do you want to go somewhere, hang out or something?" Draco said.

"Yeah, why not. Then see you on breakfast?"

"Is 11:30 fine?"

Hermione nodded her head, "'Night then, Dr-Malfoy", she said and put her hand out for a shake.

"It was a pleasure knowing you better, Miss Granger", he said in the most gallant voice, taking her hand but not shaking it, kissing it.

Hermione giggled and her cheeks went pink.

"Oh and you can just call me Draco, Hermione", he said with a little comic grin on his face, "And good night to you, fair lady". He said the last words gallantly as well. Both of them turned, opened their doors and entered, taking one last look at each other and smiling before closing the doors.