Labyrinth of Life

Chapter 6: Seeing Pink

By coeurnoir

Hermione work the next morning still feeling tired. She had slept fitfully for the rest of the night, thankfully without dreams. The bed beside her was empty. She lay there remembering the night before.

It confused her how Draco acted so sensitive yet seemed embarrassed about it. Was that just a guy thing? Then before, when he had acted different until she spoke to him. It was almost he sat there making a decision to talk to her or not, an intense internal debate.

Looking over at the clock, she realised that if she didn't get up now, she wouldn't have time for a shower before breakfast.

Hermione discovered that the bathroom was beautiful. The marble tiled shower was huge and hot; the pressurised water massaged her back, leaving it relaxed.

Hermione never waned to get out, but remembering that she had to get breakfast and wasn't the only person who used the bathroom.

She stepped out of the shower; it was more like a little room, with a little bench in it, perfect to sit on while she shaved her legs. Steam swirled around her like an angel rising out of the steam and she wrapped herself into a fluffy towel as she brushed her hair dry with her wand.

No sooner had she stepped into her uniform, did Draco slouch into the bathroom without knocking. His clothes were muddy, so she assumed that he had been at quidditch practice.

"Morning Draco, thankyou so much for knocking!" he made a face at her and walked into the shower room, pulling off his shirt. She saw his perfectly chiselled abs and blushed. Once in the shower room, more clothes started flying out and Hermione ran out her eyes wide with embarrassment.

Draco had gotten up at the crack of dawn for quidditch practice and had gotten out of the bed quietly so as not to awaken Hermione, whom he knew was barely asleep. Slytherin's quidditch team had organised practice to start as early as possible, eager to win the house cup this year. It was a well-known fact among the Slytherins that Draco wasn't a morning person, not until after his shower anyway. So practice this morning was quiet, no one wanting to annoy him. Hermione was going to be quick to learn the fact.

Draco washed the mud out of his hair; slowly massaging his scalp before letting the hot jets of water rinse it out as the water woke him up. As he showered, he thought about the night before, cringing when he remembered how not to wake her up. He remembered the name that she had been screaming out. Connor. Her brother. She must have been having a rotten dream, he pitied her, and empathised as his sleep was commonly plagued with nightmares, many of which he didn't want to know about.

He remembered her scared look when she'd woken up, the tears that had been streaming down her cheeks. Her rugby top had fallen down off one shoulder, showing her collarbone in her pearly white skin. Her boxer shorts had ridden up when she kneed him, showing her small shapely legs… she had looked at him, pleading with her large, innocent eyes to stay with her.

Draco turned the water cold, snapping himself out of it. Why did she make him think of her so? She was an enchantress who was unawares of the spell she wove.

Frustrated, Draco turned the water off; he didn't want to be late for potions. It didn't matter how much Snape liked him, Godson or no, he would take points of him if he were late.

Draco slipped in the door just as the charmed bell pealed throughout the school, earning himself a glare from professor Snape. He glanced over to where the group of Griffindors sat together to see Hermione in her usual spot next to Harry and Ron. She looked tired and withdrawn. That was obvious to Draco, why not to two people who not only claim to be best friends, but also have known her for six years?

Today, Snape had decided to lecture them on their NEWTS and how potions was going to be extremely difficult and that he didn't have time to molly coddle ignoramuses who hadn't the foggiest clue what the difference between a cauldron and a quill.

Hermione only half listened to his lectures. She was daydreaming, uninterested in class for the first time in her life. She doodled on her piece of scrap parchment, flowers and stars making a border on her page.

Harry looked over and noticed that she hadn't written down any notes, (like Ron, he was in the habit of copying her class notes,) and thought that wasn't like Hermione at all. He actually noticed that she didn't look her normal attentive self.

"Are you okay today Hermione? You haven't even started taking notes, that's not like you!"

Hermione's eyes searched his face, trying to figure out if he was for real. Oh Merlin, he was. Hermione didn't even grace him with an answer, just rolled her eyes and started to take down her notes for the boil removal potion.

Snape kept up with his old habits, checking over students' shoulders. He made Neville so nervous that he burnt his arm on the fire under his cauldron, almost knocking over his ingredients.

"Longbottom, I don't want to sound like a broken record but it doesn't look like you're going to scrape by potions this year, maybe you should quit while you can. And while we still have our lives." The good old drawl was back again.

Rather than go and help him, which would have been her usual habit, Hermione kept her head down and continued with her and Ron's potion. So disinterested was she that she didn't notice Ron chuck in a whole cup of bobotuber pus at the wrong time.

Screams erupted all over the classroom as the potion exploded. It sprayed everyone in the vicinity. Luckily it missed Hermione as she'd been picking up the spoon that she'd dropped on the ground at the time. But Ron managed to receive a face full of it and his face had erupted into a bouquet of electric pink boils.

Students were yelling and screaming everywhere, wiping potion off their skins, people yelling in pain as pink boils erupted where the potion touched them.

"SILENCE!!!" Snape's amplified voice rang out, freezing everybody in his or her tracks. There was pure venom in his voice as he continued on silkily quiet.

"Those who have potion on them are to report immediately to the Hospital Wing. Everybody else is to put on their dragon hide gloves and clean this mess up. Granger, 50 points from Griffindor for trying to disturb the class on purpose."

Harry and Ron fully expected Hermione to answer back and argue the unjust docking of points, but all that she did was look down, red faced and continue to clean up the mess.

Ron left for the Hospital Wing, along with a few others. Everybody else resigned himself or herself to cleaning.

Harry bent over next to her so that he could talk to her quietly. "That was Ron that screwed up the potion wasn't it? I know you wouldn't muck up a potion like that would you? What's wrong?"

Hermione looked up at him, shocked. "Something wrong? You want to know if something is wrong? Well if you can't figure it out now, you never will!" with that said, she stalked out of the classroom, just as the bell went, leaving Harry with a mouth like a goldfish.

Hermione continued to ignore the boys throughout Transfiguration that morning (Ron turned up half way through, minus the pink boils). At lunch they ignored her, other than to shoot a confused look at her every now and then. Hermione sat with the other Griffindor seventh year girls. It was at this lunch that the Head Boy and Girl were announced also. Hermione put on a good face for the couple of seconds that people looked at her and Draco.

Hermione left lunch early in order to pick up a book from the library. Unfortunately, Harry and Ron saw her and followed. Now that it had become blatantly obvious that there was something wrong with her, they wanted to know what.

Hermione walked into the corridor that led to the library. Hearing a shout behind her, she turned to see Harry and Ron catch up with her.

"Hermione, we wanted to know what's going on, now. You're ignoring us and you look upset. What's up? Did Malfoy do something to you? If he did, we'll bash him for you!" Harry's emerald eyes turned fierce. Ron didn't say anything, just cracked his knuckles with an expression on his face oddly similar to that of Crabbe and Goyle.

"No, he didn't do anything. Besides, what do you care? You two haven't bothered to give a shit what happened to me at all since the… since Connor…" She choked back a sob and turned to walk away. She couldn't believe the audacity the two of them had to giver her this after they had left her alone for so many months, going crazy in her depression. She started walking away. She instead found herself being swung back around by a tight grip on her upper arm.

She uttered a faint cry of fright and pain.

"What is wrong with you Hermione? We come to see if you're okay and you swear at us?" Ron's face was purple this time, not pink, but she thought it best not to point it out. Hermione shrunk back, frightened by the expression on her face and the grip on her arm. The two boys had never been the same since all the publicity they got from all the Voldemort escapades, their heads had grown big and they got used to acting as if everybody was beneath them. Hermione didn't notice the quick footsteps approach until they arrived.

"Weasel, Potty, I trust you have a good reason for assaulting the Head Girl before I give you a detention?" Draco stood there, an imposing figure with his arms crossed.

Harry had the sense to stay quiet, Ron didn't.

"Piss off you Ferret. Go shove your head up your arse." Ron yelled, advancing on Malfoy, he had let go of Hermione much to her relief. Draco merely raised an eyebrow, sceptical. This lack of reaction angered Ron, who was used to other students running away when he got angry. He went to punch Draco, only to be pulled back by Harry and back down the corridor, yelling abuse the whole way.

"Detention on Wednesday you two!" Draco called down the hallway after them.

He was shocked by the behaviour he had just seen. He knew the two of them had gotten big heads, but he didn't realise they had gotten that bad. He looked back at Hermione now, remembering her presence.

She was leaning against the wall, pale faced, her eyes closed and her hands shaking as they smoothed down her cloak. Draco moved towards her and went to put his hand on her shoulder. After first shrinking away, she let him touch her and then enfold her into a comforting embrace.

She looked up at him, her eyes were sadder than a lost puppy's. She clung to him and started sobbing.

Moving them into an empty classroom nearby, he held her and rocked her. He crooned nonsense in order to help her calm down. When her sobs turned into hiccups, which turned into soft breathing he pulled away a little and looked at her.

"It's almost time for arithmancy, we should go." She frowned and burrowed back against his chest. His breath caught. "You want to stay here? Ok then, though, I'm not sure what the students will think when I have to carry you into arithmancy." That did it. She sat up quickly and scowled at Draco.

Chuckling, he followed her out of the classroom.

A/N: what did you think? I was trying to develop the relationship more, still a friendship though. As you can tell I'm not a big fan of Harry and Ron. I have depicted them as having turned into not very nice, self-centred people who use Hermione as a study aid rather than a friend. Sorry if a couple of things in this chapter aren't 100 explained. I pumped it out a little fast…

Luv you all and I luv all of your reviews, you know I could always love more…!