AN: Another flashback to Malfoy in the hospital wing.
It's the same day.
--
He'd helped her get a glass of water, when it hurt too much too move, then gone straight back to cleaning. Stopping only every now and again to stretch out the kinks as the manual labour took its toll on his body. He ignored them both now, a few hours later, and Ron reciprocated.
But she couldn't stop watching him. He'd helped. Malfoy never helps. He makes snide comments and goes out of his way to be hurtful. But he'd helped… of his own free will.
Sure, he was forced to be in the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey had explained about that before he'd shown up that morning.
As well as the little clause that he could do no harm or in any way aggravate them without incurring more punishment time.
But she hadn't said anything about him being nice. In fact she'd gone out of her way to avoid mentioning that.
It was common knowledge that Malfoy and Harry, and his friends by extension, didn't get on, in the most understated way possible
Don't look. Ignore her. She's not worth your notice. Don't Look! It had become his mantra.
He could feel her gaze on him.
Don't look!
Could feel it since he'd helped her get a simple glass of water. You'd think he'd handed her the world on a platter.
Can't! Won't! Get over it!
He cleaned and scoured every surface he could reach in an effort to ignore her.
In truth though he didn't know what had stopped him. He'd been ready to hex her, but something had caused him to falter. It wasn't the fact that he'd have earned extra time on the hourglass.
That had only occurred to him after the fact. That was the only reason he wasn't cursing himself for not hexing her while he had the chance.
It had hurt him, almost physically, to see the terror on her face.
Granger had never looked at him that way. She had openly despised him, and been livid with him on occasion, he touched his cheek as if remembering the smack she'd given him in third year, but she'd never been afraid of him.
So he kept working in the hope that if he kept busy he wouldn't have time to think on the basis of his actions. He was currently washing the windows in the vain hope that having his back to her so openly would discourage her from seeking out his gaze, as he could feel her doing.
She had thought he was going to hex her and she'd known she was too weak to stop him.
And he would have. At least before…
"What do you know of our Masters history, Draco?" Lucius asked his only son as the strode along the halls of Malfoy Manor. Well Lucius strode, Draco's young legs nearly ran to keep up with his fathers long legs. Each of the portraits - the lesser known Malfoy's, none of the Lords or more renown ancestors were placed in the halls but were displayed in drawings rooms or ballrooms, according to stature - saluted as they passed.
"They say he was the greatest wizard has ever known, second only to Dumbledore himself" Lucius sneered. "As if they knew the full truth. What our master revealed was only a fraction of his true knowledge. Because even then, Draco, while studying at Hogwarts, he had been delving into what narrow minded people term the dark arts."
He spared a glance for the young boy staring up at him with abject devotion, only seen in the eyes of the young as the watch their parents without the slightest thought that they were just people too and without a fleeting idea that they could be anything but infallible.
"Simple people still scared of the shadows and what they hide." Lucius continued
"There is no right or wrong only power and those to weak to get it. He taught me that."
They had reached their destination, a private library belonging to the Malfoy Manor and enlarged with each Lord who had taken residence. It was a smaller affair than the Hogwarts library but more select and mainly pertaining to one area of study.
Though the library was large and seemingly without order (a rather complex charm that enabled only the current Lord of the Manor to find anything) Lucius seemed in search of a particular book and walked fairly precisely. He traversed the aisles with Draco in his wake, sometimes running his fingers along the binders of the tomes, almost lovingly, even as some zapped him with magical zings of electricity, until he came to an incongruous looking book.
A diary of some sort.
Draco looked confused even as a malicious grin spread across his fathers face.
After all what harm could a diary cause?
Draco stepped down from the window sill pushing his hair, lank from hard work and toil behind his ear, then grimaced as he get even more grease water on it. He caught sight of Hermione on the opposite side of the room, she seemed to have given up on him and was lying back resting. She still looked pale and weak, and Draco had to remind himself that he didn't care.
She's just a stupid little Mudblood!
The first one wasn't! That niggling little voice in the back of his mind reminded him.
He glanced over at Weasley, as if the red head could read his thoughts.
His sister, the little one, remember her? She wasn't a Mudblood. She was just handy!
He shook his head, trying to clear his mind of this traitorous voice, the one that went against everything that he'd ever been told, everything he'd ever been taught by his father.
Ya, that same father who tried to kill not one, but two students. The voice whispered conspiratorially, do you care?