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A/N: Sorry everyone for the lack of update. I've had a really rough month. My cat is very very sick and I had to have another one put to sleep. It's not helped that I've had terrible writers block. As I said before, I am now back at work full time, so updates won't be as frequent but I will try to be more frequent than this last one.

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.

The richness of the golden autumn hues waned into the biting white of winter. The relentless rain and grey clouds matched perfectly with Hermione's mood.

Miserable.

The weeks had passed into mid-November, and she had been subjected to the same tedious routines. She woke up. Malfoy argued with her. She got ready for work. Malfoy argued with her. She left the flat, thought about Malfoy and how he constantly argued with her until, finally, she came home... and again, Malfoy argued with her.

The atmosphere in her flat was starting to clog her body like a cancer and she detested coming home. The first week consisted of typically petty and childish arguments. Usually about the noise she made or the smell of her cooking or something equally ridiculous. But they seemed to progress to hours long explosions of screaming and raging and blustering until Hermione had to give in and intervene with her wand.

Malfoys arguments now lacked the usual snark that she had grown accustomed to over the years. He had become far more spiteful than usual. It was beginning to take a toll on her mental well being.

This was all ever since she'd found him with that damned book.

To her knowledge, he hadn't touched it since that day. At first, she had assumed that he was just angry that she had bested him in their argument, but she had now come to the conclusion that it was the context of the argument itself that bothered him. That, and the fact that it had taken him three days to emerge from his room. In that time, nothing in her flat had moved or been touched even remotely. He didn't answer when she knocked, not even to tell her to piss off. He had obviously been mad, of course, for he had had no comeback to her point and he had not once brought up the book either, or tried to reignite the fight.

It's not the same, Granger! It's a completely different world with completely different circumstances!

Of course, it wasn't any different. She knew that. He knew that. And he had most definitely been lashing out at her about it.

So he argued. And he bitched and he moaned. He kept himself mostly locked away, emerging only to occasionally use the loo or get a drink. Even this, she could only tell because of his dirty glasses and her waning bathroom provisions, because he rarely ever did any of this whilst she was there. The only thing he did when he saw her was either blank her completely or argue the toss with her.

Well, she was fed up with taking it. Tonight, when she got home from work, she was going to put him in his place. She was going to-

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Hermione snapped her head up at the intruding voice and met Mari's quizzical gaze. She smiled faintly and stood up from her leaning position on the counter.

"I'm good, Mari." She replied solemnly.

Mari folded her arms and leaned casually against one of the book-logged shelves. "Whilst I am thouroughly convinced by your tone," she said sarcastically, "you've been giving your paperwork a death glare for the last twenty minutes. You're going to bore a hole in it before long." She smirked. "Something's obviously up."

Hermione sighed. She hadn't told anyone yet about her situation with Malfoy. The only ones who knew other than herself were Kingsley, Harry and Ernie Macmillan. It wasn't that she didn't trust anyone. It's just that there was nobody to tell, really. The people who did know were either too busy for her to vent to, or they weren't close enough to her to warrant her venting.

That, and they were all living within wizarding society and she preffered to avoid that at all costs.

Hermione gathered her thoughts for a moment before deciding that it couldn't hurt to vent to Mari a little. After all, she didn't know Malfoy and had no knowledge of the magical world. It was unlikely they would ever meet.

"Okay." she exhaled. "You see, I have recently taken in a... house guest of sorts." Hermione admitted carefully.

Mari's eyes widened along with her smirk. "Oh, I see," she wiggled her brows suggestively. "Finally forgetting about that 'Ron' then? Good on you, 'Mione."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Not like that, Mari. Honestly, you're a woman obsessed."

Mari laughed. "What can I say? I'm living vicariously through you. I don't suppose it'll be long before my man decides to step up and then I'll be completely spoken for. You can't blame me for playing matchmaker!" She flipped her hair and batted her lashes. "Is he cute?" she asked in a forced, girlish manner.

Hermione sniggered. "Twat. You don't even know if he's a he."

"True... So, is he?"

"Yes, he's a he." Hermione nodded.

"No. Is he cute?" Mari pressed.

Hermione huffed. "If you think a spoiled little rottweiler is cute." She muttered under her breath.

"A rottweiler?" Mari asked, sounding mildly flabbergasted.

Hermione chuckled. "Unfortunately not, I was just being snarky. He's a person"

"Hm. I did wonder. You used to have a cat before. I didn't peg you for a dog person."

"I'm not." Hermione took a deep breath in the silence and noted that Mari was still looking at her questioningly, obviously waiting for her to continue. "So, I volunteered for this program, you see..." she supplied carefully, leaning back on the counter. "I've been tasked with looking after him and... ingraciating him into... modern society."

"Modern society?" Mari pushed off the wall and wandered over to the counter, leaning across it with her. "What do you mean?" She asked, her interest clearly piquing.

Hermione thought carefully before opening her mouth. She didn't want to reveal that Malfoy was a charged criminal. Mari might start asking questions she couldn't supply answers for, being a Muggle.

"Well, he's sort of... Like an exchange student? But not really. What I mean to say is— um... h-he doesn't come from this world as it were—" Hermione fumbled over her words, beginning to sweat. Really, she had no idea what to say that would not sound too weird but still trod the lines of safety. Mari was beginning to furrow her brows with a look of utter beffudlement.

"Like, he's an alien?" she giggled.

Hermione cleared her throat and tried to hold her eyes to Mari's so as to stop looking nervous. "No, of course not," She chuckled fakely "he knows nothing about the world we know. I have a year to teach him how to live correctly before he's sent back home."

Mari's expression had become no less confused as she stared at Hermione's rambling mouth. "So... He's like... Amish or something?" she asked, leaning her head in her hand, blowing her hair out of her eyes.

"Yes! Er, I mean—"

A little too enthusiastic there, Hermione.

"Yes, something like that. Not exactly Amish, but he might as well be." She was glad to grasp at the straw Mari handed her with the Amish comment, if not a little irritated by herself for not thinking of such a simple explanation first.

Really, it covered everything she might need for her weird situation with the ferret. Any unanswerable queries she could now put down to his... newly-found heritage.

She smirked, wondering how Malfoy would react to the idea. Though he never need find out, of course.

"So, you still never answered my question, 'Mione." Mari said, interrupting her musings again. "Is he cute?"

Hermione stood up straight, fixing Mari with a playful scorn. "Absolutely not."

.


.

Malfoy laid on his back atop his lumpy mattress with his hands cradling the back of his head as he stared mindlessly into the stark white ceiling of his room.

Futilely, he tried to keep his thoughts blank but, as he had done for weeks now, he kept drifting back to that day with Granger and the argument they'd had over that damned book.

It had been a mildly interesting read— not that he would have ever admitted that aloud— but he couldn't bring himself to finish it. Not now. Not now that he knew the horrors within had once been a reality.

Between Grangers supercilious tone prattling in the back of his head, mocking him for his lack of knowledge on this 'Second World War' and his ever-growing feelings of contempt toward Muggles, he had found himself unable to quell the niggling ache he felt at the plight of Dita and the other prisoners he had read about.

He wanted to switch it off. Desperately. He wanted to push it down, down into the recesses of his mind as he had when he had been under the rule of The Dark Lord. He felt as though he was swimming against the tide. He was physically and mentally exhausted...

But he couldn't shake it. Not this time.

He wasn't sure if it was the part where he actually felt sympathy for those Muggles, or if it had been Granger...

The way she had looked at him. She was obviously taken aback by his ignorance that day, but, when he thought about it, it was her eyes that he couldn't tune out. Her bloody eyes, so concerned and gentle and... and...

Draco just didn't fucking like the way she had looked at him. And now, he couldn't look at her at all without seeing that little glimmer of sorrow in her gaze, even when they argued. It always brought him spinning back to that argument, where she'd tiptoed around him with her words as if he were a cornered cat. It had almost been as though she was trying to... comfort him?

Well, it made him feel fucking sick. Fuck her and her pity, her sad eyes and her bullshit book. And fuck her for turning it around on him.

Because there was the other part of the problem. That she had forced him to relate his past to theirs. The comparison she had fed him had hit far too close to home for Draco's liking, because the fact was that no matter how much his mind fought against it, or how hard he tried to reason with himself that it wasn't true, he was just the same as the Prison Officers.

He may not have been put in charge of a death camp, he may not have killed anyone either, but no doubt existed in his head. He had chosen the side of evil. He had chosen the side of oppression. Yes, it was to save his family and himself, but he had still chosen the side that killed, murdered, maimed, slaughtered.

He couldn't pretend that at one time he hadn't wanted to join them. He had thought as a child that the scourge of Muggleborns should be dealt with. He believed they were scum and should be put out of their misery. He believed they didn't deserve their magic.

He still believed that. That they didn't deserve their magic, anyway. To an extent, he still saw them as scum. But not as much. Not after what he had witnessed at the hands of The Dark Lord. He couldn't wish death on them. He wouldn't wish that on anyone. Not anymore.

Except maybe Granger with her stupid book...

No. Not even her.

Damn, that fucking book...

What had she done to him? He couldn't stop the thoughts.

He was one of them. A Nazi. A Death-Eater. He may not have fired the Avada, so to speak, but stood on the side that did. The Dark Lord didn't just kill Muggles and Muggleborns but all kinds of people... He had killed children.

And I stood with him...

Draco growled sitting up rather quickly and in doing so, making himself feel sick. He couldn't remember the last time he ate or slept decently. He was rife with nightmares and could barely think about food. He couldn't even find anything to take his mind off of things, especially now he dare not touch any more of Grangers books. The thin, blank walls were sinking in on him faster and faster every day. He was going fucking insane...

He locked his waxing detrimental thoughts aside and took a few composing breaths. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and rushed out to the living room for some water.

As he plucked a glass from the high cupboard, he heard the front door click open as Granger barged in and noisily relieved herself of her coat and bag.

Great.

Draco didn't turn to look at her, choosing instead to continue pouring his drink, hoping against hope that she wouldn't try to speak to him. He had no inclination to speak to her anyway, but right now the idea of conversing with her in any way was even more jarring. He purposefully ignored her, even as he heard her timid little voice address him.

Taking a sip from his freshly filled glass, he turned on his heel, not looking in her direction and stalked back to his open door, only to have it slam abruptly in his face before he could cross its threshold.

Dracos shoulders slumped and he let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a growl. He turned around to face Granger, finding her stood before him with her wand aloft and pointing to his door. Her eyes bore a challenging stare.

"What do you want, Mudblood?" he deadpanned.

She said nothing, her face contorted angrily as she tucked her wand into the sleeve of her cable-knit jumper, never once taking her eyes off of him. She huffed sharply through her nose and scoffed before finally parting her lips.

"I want you to stop doing what you're doing to me."

He had been afraid of this. Draco was pretty good at reading people and Granger had some very obvious tells. The way she forcefully held his gaze and folded her arms tightly across her middle told him that she was very uncomfortable. He assumed she was building up to this little confrontation. It was inevitable, really. Bloody Gryffindors, just can't leave well enough alone.

He regarded her carefully, walking a few paces towards her and bringing himself up to full height, trying to intimidate her with his stance. It didn't seem to work, unfortunately. She clearly wanted to have this fight.

He just wanted to be left alone.

"I don't have any idea what you're—"

"STOP!" She yelled suddenly, making him flinch. "Just... stop. Stop treating me like shit, Malfoy. We're not in school anymore. I have done literally nothing to wrong you!"

Her voice conveyed anger but her eyes betrayed her. She looked hurt. It shouldn't have irked him, but it did for some reason.

"You're alive, Mudblood. That's enough to have wronged me." he snarled vicously, turning once again to retreat from her, not wishing to see the damage from his words reflecting in her eyes.

"DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM ME, I'M NOT FINISHED!"

"Oh, we're finished, Mudblood." he retorted flatly, still never turning back. "As I told you weeks before, I have no interest in conversing with you." he turned the knob on the door, almost scot-free.

"Just because you can't stand the fact that I pointed out what a hypocrite you are, that does not mean—!"

"Hypocrite?!" That done it. Clearly, she wanted to do this, so fuck it. Draco slammed the door loudly and rounded on her. He crossed the room in three strides and leant his face in close to her afeared one.

"Look at you, standing there bold as fucking brass as though you've never done a damned thing wrong in your life! You and all your lot wouldn't recognise your own hypocrisy if it spit in your fucking faces!" he was suddenly engulfed by her overpowering floral scent as his nostrils flared and he had to take a step back, coming over giddy.

He used this as an excuse to give her a condescending once over. "Are you bothered, Granger, because you find me a hypocrite, or are you bothered that I brought to light what a disgusting bunch of cunts your precious Muggles really are?" he asked, sneering down his pointed nose at her.

Granger winced visibly at his use of that swear word, but he continued.

"Either way, you can fuck off with your judgemental bullshit because I won't stand for it! You're not judge, jury and executioner, you're a fucking Mudblood. A waste of space and air. You're nothing. Nothing to me, and going off your consistent lack of company, you're nothing to anybody else either."

She had dropped her head sometime during his rant. Thankfully. Draco didn't think he could take her pitiful crying right now. It only made him more angry.

She raised her head, but she wasn't crying. Her eyes had no emotion in them what-so-ever. He couldn't tell in that moment whether she was angry or trying to cover her hurt with anger instead.

"Are you finished?" she asked, brow raised.

Oh, she was really pressing his patience today.

She raised her hand dropping her gaze to examine her fingernails. "You know, the angrier you get... The more you insult me... The more you prove my point." She said calmly, focusing on her hand.

"The thing is, Granger, I don't give a damn what your point actually is."

"No, of course you don't." She snapped her head back toward him. "Because my point hits a little too close for comfort, doesn't it, Malfoy?" She quipped, smirking wickedly.

Draco scoffed and rolled his eyes at her, falsifying indifference. Still, his fingers tightened around his glass of water. "You would think that, wouldn't you? That you got me, Mudblood?" To be fair, she had hit the nail on the head, but he wasn't going to let her know that. He bared his teeth in a mocking sneer. "The trouble with you, is that you think you know me, but you don't. You think you know everything, but you don't."

"I know I touched a nerve just now. And before. Its pretty easy to draw conclusions that that book bothered you. And the conclusion I've drawn is that it bothered you because you see yourself in that book. You see your own past, your own problems and your own failures—"

"What did I just fucking say, Granger? Who the fuck are you to judge me?" he raised his voice an octave, stepping up to her again.

"I am someone who almost ended up a victim of your Masters tyranny!" She yelled louder than him. "But it doesn't matter now, does it? Because he's gone and here you are, left with nothing but your regrets and—"

Draco laughed cruelly. "Regrets? Don't be so sure of that, Mudblood."

"—and your failures! You feel remorse! I know it! I saw it in your face when I told you that the story was real. You weren't faking it! Don't even try to lie about it!"

"What you saw was nothing more than disgust for your kind! What those Muggles did was bloody barbaric! You're the one that tried to compare it to what The Dark Lord had done. It's nothing alike! Muggles fight over petty bullshit and it's nothing compared to—!"

"Yes, because wizards only fight over sophisticated world issues!" she snapped, rolling her eyes. "And he's not The Dark Lord, he was a dictator throwing a glorified hissy fit over an outdated ideology that Muggleborns weren't capable of possessing skills similar to himself!"

"Muggleborns are more than just incapable, they aren't even in the same league as Pureblooded wizards! And neither are Half-bloods—"

She laughed wildly then, actually tearing at the corners of her eyes. Draco faltered, failing to see what was so funny.

"You do know that Voldemort was a Half-blood, right?" she asked, still laughing manically.

Draco snorted. "Yes, of course. The eradicator of lesser-blooded witches and wizards, leader of all things Pureblooded was himself, a Half-blood. Of course he was, Granger. Pull the other one." He shook his head.

She laughed harder then. "See, and you think you're not a hypocrite when your own Lord himself was the greatest of all hypocrites! Much like Hitler, he himself wasn't as pure as you all thought. His father was a Muggle."

Draco gaped at her like a fish for a moment, feeling that sickness start to creep back. Granger didn't seem to be lying. But she couldn't be telling the truth...

Her laughter subsided. He pushed aside his shock as she wiped away the evidence of her mirth and he puffed out a disbelieving breath. "Bullshit."

She sighed then, dropping her arms by her side and shaking her head lightly. "It's not bullshit, Malfoy," she said, losing the edge to her voice. "Think about it. You come from a long line of Pureblooded wizards. You've studied your family's history as long as you've lived as have the generations before you. Tell me, did you ever see any sign of the name 'Riddle' on any of those family trees?" she quirked her brow at him her face softly curious.

Draco stopped for a moment. He tried to wrack his brains as his mind flicked through his thoughts like the pages of an old tome, but even after several silent minutes under her watchful eye, he could come up with nothing. His head swam in circles, his stomach curdled and he had to inhale sharply and swallow the rising bile threatening to expell itself.

He was shaken. The Dark Lord... He can't have been a Half-blood. He just can't...

"That's what I thought." she said when he didn't answer, bobbing her head and crossing her arms with finality.

The sick feeling he had was replaced with a sudden rush of irritation at her tone laced with bloody pity. Again.

He hurled his glass across the room, narrowly missing Grangers bird-nest head, feeling an odd sense of satisfaction when it shattered into a million pieces against the kitchen cupboards.

"Oh, go fuck yourself, Mudblood. I'm sick of you always thinking you know everything. You don't know shit! And I'm sick of you talking to me like you feel sorry for me one minute, then brutslising me for my life choices the next! You and that bloody fucking book of yours—!"

She closed the gap between them quickly and stared him down, her eyes sparked with gold-tinged ferocity.

"Don't you forget, Malfoy, that you're the one who read the book in the first place!" She jabbed her finger hard into his chest. "I didn't force it into your hands!"

"Don't fucking touch—!"

She jabbed him again. "You're the one who decided the atrocities in the book were exactly that. Atrocities."

He could smell her again. It warped his senses and he felt dizzy, but he stood firm, still enraged by her words. Her audacity.

"And you're the one who can't help but draw parralells between those horrific Muggles and yourself!" Her eyes burned a hole straight through his own as she stared him down like an angry Hippogriff.

He wanted to retort. To shout and scream, but he was dumbstruck. By her. By her conviction. By her words. Her eyes...

Her scent.

"I may have made the point, but you decided on the conclusion yourself. For weeks you've been treating me like dirt!" her hazel eyes sparkled, threatening to waterfall down her gently flushed cheeks. She drew a breath to compose herself, blinking the tears back.

"I may be used to your poor treatment. To you trying to stamp out my spirit with your prejudiced shoes, but I won't have it! Not anymore! And certainly not because you are too immature to recognise your own short-comings! It stops. Now!"

He daren't move for fear of collapse. Her words had struck him like a harp string but no anger came as he expected. Instead he felt awash with indignance and a conflicting counterpart of shame.

Shame.

Nausea overwhelmed him. He couldn't stand there any longer. He had to get away from her. She was suffocating him.

He took a step back from her but she followed. He backed up again. "Get away from me Granger." he warned.

"No, I won't." she matched his steps as he continued to walk backwards until his back hit the door. "You need to stop treating me so badly." She said firmly. "It's not my fault that you feel this way. It's not my fault that you read that book."

His breathing began to labour. He could feel his brow sweating and Draco had to press his back against door as dizziness started to creep into his head.

"Malfoy, I'm more than happy to leave you alone, believe me," she emphasised. "But I'm through with you jabbing at me at every twist and turn to caress your own guilt-ridden conscience." She flipped her hair over her shoulder and Draco breathed in a fresh wave of her. It was akin to standing in an spring-bloomed orchard amongst a lightly wisping breeze.

He felt the little colour his face held drain into his feet and he drew in a shaky breath, still striving to hold his face in check.

"Malfoy, please," Her voice lilted softly and Draco felt an odd tingle in the base of his neck. "I'm not asking you to like me. I'm just asking you to be a little nicer..."

She lowered her head briefly before resetting her eyes on his, staring straight into him like she was trying to see into his soul. Her eyes teetered with a fresh set of crystal teardrops as she parted her lips and softly asked.

"Do you really not see the comparison? That the things you read in the book were so similar to the rule of Voldemort?" Draco winced at her casual use of his name, but Granger ignored him. "Don't you see that the prisoners were comparable to frightened Muggleborns and the innocent men, women and children he killed? And the girl? The girl who could so easily have been... have been me?" she choked on the last word and clapped her hand to her face, pressing it over her eyes.

Draco could do nothing but prop himself against the door and try to regain his composure as he stared dumbly at the top of Grangers bushy head that she'd bowed into her hand. He hadn't expected her to cry like this. He had only ever seen her so fragile when his Aunt Bella...

The sickness brushed at his insides and he squashed the thought. He continued to watch her as her shoulders shook while she futilely worked to conceal her sobs.

After a moment, she raised her head and palmed away her tear tracks, once again locking eyes with him and releasing a sigh.

"Do you really..." she gulped thickly through her tears. "Do you really feel I deserve the same fate? Do I deserve to... to die?"

Draco fought down his gag reflex. He didn't want to look at her. He didn't want to listen to her but she had trapped him with her mournful gaze. He was sickened to the core by her questions. It was all too much.

His regret, his shame, his guilt all mixed in a volatile concoction with his new found sympathy for those faceless Muggles he had recently learned of, and her...

Grangers pleading voice and her big, tearful eyes and her flowery aroma...

He couldn't take it anymore. He was going to be sick. He had to get her away from him. He had to get away from her, now. Right now.

Not knowing how else to get her to back away, he dampened his dried lips with a flick of his tongue and slowly replied "Yes. I believe you deserve it. You don't deserve your magic. You don't deserve a place in our world. As far as I'm concerned, you deserve a fate worse than death."

He had ignored her other rambling questions and jumped straight to the punchline. He watched her as he spoke the words, her face dropping with every syllable be uttered.

"In fact," he breathed, fixing his signature Malfoy mask in place and lacing his voice with venom as he bent his face level with hers. "If I'd had the chance to kill you myself, Muggle-scum, I'd have only been too glad to do it." he quirked the corner of his mouth with a cruel smirk for added effect.

A moment passed with nothing between them but their laboured breaths as they stared each other down, neither one of them wanting to be the one to move first.

Then she broke the silence as she whipped her hand smack across his porcelain skin, so hard that Draco was seeing double.

He didn't know why he hadn't expected it, but the slap caught him so off guard that he stumbled back, clasping his stinging cheek.

"Agh! Fuck!"

"I hate you!" She screamed, her face red and stained with tears. "I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU!"

She was wild. Thrashing about and pummelling him with her fists everywhere she could reach. Draco could do nothing but cringe away, swatting at her angry hands as his jumbled head rang from her dizzying clout.

"Fuck! STOP! Get—get off me, Granger!"

"FUCK YOU, MALFOY! You utter, utter bastard!"

She was relentless. Draco couldn't get past her, he couldn't back away any further and he couldn't reach for the bedroom door handle incase she smacked his face again. In his panic, he could feel himself starting to lose control. The room was spinning. Her punishing fists didn't stop their onslaught as she cried and screamed and hurled insults at him.

She swung her arm back wide and made a fist when Draco's seeker reflexes suddenly tuned in and he grabbed her harshly by the wrist and flung her around. Using all of his leftover strength, he grabbed onto her other arm and slammed her roughly against the door. Still she screamed and writhed, trying to wriggle free and knee him in the groin.

"Let me go! LET ME GO! YOU FUCKING-!"

"ENOUGH!!" He roared into her face.

Obviously startled, she immediately ceased her movements and locked her distressed eyes with his. He could see it there, then. That gold-fire stare flecked with crazed-anger that made his pulse skip. He watched her heaving chest and tear-tracked face flood with even more tears whilst she puffed out laboured breaths.

He took in greedy lungfuls of air, noting that his hold on her was weakening, realising then that he was balancing on the pricipice of consciousness.

"Enough, Granger..." His eyes fluttered and he swayed dangerously as his grip on her loosened. "Enough..."

He closed his eyes, hearing his breath weaken as he felt himself let her go.

"Draco?"

Then he felt himself fall back. He heard her gasp.

Then he heard no more.