Chapter 2.

Hermione sighed and hung her head. What was Harry and Ron going to think? They were going to get back to the field finding their tent invaded by death eaters and find her gone.

Draco lay still on the ground panting.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked timidly. He opened his eyes and looked down at the scar where his open wound had once been.

"Surprisingly yes..." He said confused fingering the scar. "Where has my shirt got to?"

"I had to take it off to heal you Malfoy, and you had lost an awful lot of blood so I performed a blood cell multiplication charm too. I hope you don't mind but I didn't have a choice, you were going to die otherwise."

Draco just looked at her shocked. "You saved my life even though I hate you!?"

Hermione frowned. "Don't worry I don't expect you to return the favour. It's not as if I would expect a death eater to save a mudblood." She seethed.

"I'm not a bloody deatheater Granger! I'm not that big of an idiot!" Draco yelled leaning up on his hands.

Hermione scoffed. "Could have fooled me."

Draco lunged at her and pinned her to the ground.

"Listen mudblood, incase you don't recall the death eaters were chasing me. We weren't just playing a lovely game, they were trying to kill me. If I was on their side I'm not exactly sure how that would make any sense." He said viciously.

Hermione filled with anger.

"I will call you a deatheater until you stop calling me a mud blood!" She spat back at him. "And why were they chasing you!?" She said pushing him off.

Draco fell back on the floor beside her and crossed his arms on his chest.

"What were you doing in the middle of a field in Germany?" He snapped back.

"I asked you first! And more than likely I think you know what I was doing there."

"I don't really feel like telling you." He said pompously.

"Oh you've got to be kidding! I save your life and you don't even want to let me in on what I saved you from!? You're such a prat Malfoy." She said getting to her feet.

Draco sighed. "Fine if you must know I let a prisoner go… amongst other things."

"A prisoner!?"

"I do believe I just said that." Draco smirked

"What do you mean amongst other things? What else did you do!?" Hermione asked turning on her side and holding herself up with one hand.

Draco paused as if wondering whether or not he should be telling her.

"I was supposed to take the dark mark tonight but I chose not to. Instead I ran."

Guilt flickered across Hermione's face for accusing him of being a deatheater.

They sat silent for a moment before Hermione asked softly, "How did you get hurt? Why were you bleeding!?"

"Oh I almost forgot to mention… I may or may not have attacked the death eater torturing the prisoner." He said calmly looking around the room.

Hermione's eyes went wide at this.

"And they stabbed you!?"

"Not really…They were performing the cruciatus curse on me and I happened to be flung back into a suit of armour which stabbed me. Mild difference… but still." Draco said as if he was talking about the weather.

"How can you be saying this so calmly! They used an unforgivable curse on you Malfoy that's terrible!!" Hermione cried kneeling next to Draco.

"It's not the first time Granger." He sneered and stood up.

Hermione felt a little piece of her cry for Malfoy.

"Is this your bedroom Granger? My god it looks ghastly!" He said fingering the items on her dresser. Her walls were an off-shade of pink and all the furniture was in a matching colour. Instead of being piled with girly trinkets as one would expect, there was books piled upon every surface. The book shelf seemed unable to contain them all, instead they spilled onto the floor, piled up on window sills and the dresser.

Hermione didn't even hear him.

"Malfoy who was the death eater?" She asked softly. She was no longer angry with him, just thoroughly confused.

Draco stood still and dropped his hands into his pockets. She saw the muscles on his back flex with tension as he stared at the ground.

"My father." He said so softly that if it wasn't so quiet Hermione wouldn't have been able to recognise he even said anything.

Hermione put her hand to her mouth and turned away unsure of what to say. She stood up and walked over standing next to him.

"Who was the prisoner." She said even softer, afraid that if she said it too loudly all the tension in him would erupt on her. He continued to stare at the floor.

He cleared his throat and mumbled the name.

"Draco I haven't a clue what you just sai.."

"Longbottom alright!" He yelled.

"I rescued longbottom…" And he turned towards the door.

Hermione grabbed his arm.

"Draco I …"

"I'm not your friend Granger." He sneered.

Hermione quickly withdrew her hand.

"Sorry Malfoy. My mistake." She said coldly before walking out the door.

Draco instantly felt guilt. There wasn't even anybody around for him to keep up appearances for yet he was still being a git.

"When I get back I want you dissapparated!"

She yelled as she walked away down the hallway.

Draco ran out after her. "How am I supposed to do that! I don't have a wand!" Hermione turned around and glared.

"Fine. The front door's downstairs. I guess you'll just have to leave on foot." She said coldly.

Draco stood motionless. His face went grey.

"Granger I don't have anywhere else to go." He said softly.

"You have no-one? No where?"

He shook his head and stared at the floor.

"I turned my back on them all when I rescued Neville and announced I didn't give a shit whether somebody was mudblood or not." Draco said coldly before walking past her in the hallway and heading down the stairs towards the front door.

Hermione was shocked to the core.

She ran down the stairs after him.

"Malfoy where are you going!" She said

"I haven't the faintest clue. I don't even know where your house is located actually." he said as he opened the door with a puzzled look on his face.

"Malfoy you don't have to leave. You can stay if you promise not to hurt me."

Draco felt guilt fill his every morsel. He leant his forehead against the door closing his eyes.

"Granger I'm sorry." He said letting out a big breath of air.

"You're not really going to hurt you me are you!?" Hermione said panicking as she felt in her pocket to make sure her wand was still there.

"No of course I'm not going to hurt you! I'm apologising for making you feel that I would." He said softly.

Hermione closed the front door and Draco sank to floor in front of it. Hermione sat down next him.

"I just don't know what I was thinking all these years. How I couldn't see that all of what my father said to me was pure shit. That the death eaters weren't patriots with the wizarding world's best interests at heart at all. Just sick demented freaks whose minds were poisoned by the world's biggest prick." He said the last bit with emphasis as he lent his head back against the door and closed his eyes.

Hermione began to laugh and Draco opened his eyes startled.

"What's this? I do believe I have made the girl with the largest stick up her arse laugh, if that was ever possible!" He smirked.

"Yes, yes. Everybody clap for Malfoy the world's biggest prat." She said hitting him hard against the chest.

Draco cringed and clutched at his chest.

"Watch it granger! I was stabbed there today!"

Hermione looked back startled.

"Oh sorry." She said guiltily.

Malfoy laughed.

"Granger that didn't really hurt. Your weak hands? Please." He drawled before standing and offering his hand to Hermione.

She stared at it for a second unsure of what he meant…

"Granger I'm not going to bite you. And I don't have a wand so hexing you in any way unfortunately seems out of the question."

Granger was shocked to say the least at that but she looked up to see Draco was smiling. Not smirking as he usually did but smiling. It made him look different. Nice. Hermione would even say he looked handsome if she was game enough to admit that to herself but of course she wasn't. But she smiled and accepted his hand.

"So where is the kitchen in this place Granger? I'm famished."

"Famished? What century do you live in? Nobody even says that anymore!" Hermione snorted as she led him to the kitchen. To her surprise he had not yet flung her hand away, so she simply continued holding his hand as they walked down the hall to the kitchen.

"I say famished Granger as you are now clearly aware. And since I don't make fun of the way you recite whole chapters from books when someone asks you a simple question such as, which way is the wind blowing, I would prefer you didn't make fun of me."

"You do make fun of me when I do that!"

She had a point.

"Well then. Not tonight. If you do any book reciting I shall simply tune out and fall asleep without making fun of you once. You can then wake me up an hour later when you have finally finished."

"Oh you git." Hermione said although she herself was smiling.

She opened the fridge and pulled out a jug of milk before grabbing a large tin on the countertop and jumping up onto the kitchen bench. Draco stood there his hands in his pockets watching her. 'How have I never seen her so… vivacious before?' He thought as he watched her dip her cookies in her milk.

"Well sit down already or I shall eat all these cookies by myself and grow large and fat!" She said only half joking.

"It's too late for that Granger." Draco said jumping up and sitting next to her on the bench.

Hermione looked up with daggers in her eyes.

"I was kidding! My goodness can't you take a joke! As if you could grow fat! And even if you did I'm sure you'd still look nice anyway!"

Hermione's frown turned to a sly grin.

"Are you telling me you think I'm pretty Malfoy?" She said.

"I most certainly am not. I said nice not pretty!"

"Oh right, of course." She said smirking.

"Shut up and eat your cookies Granger." Malfoy said defeated.

Hermione giggled as she began to swing her legs. Draco simply watched her deep in thought.

"How come I've never seen you so happy Granger? I mean, humanity is hanging by a thread and you are still happy." He said curiously.

"Malfoy I'm always happy. The only reason you've never seen me happy is because usually the only time we talk is when you are abusing me. And I'm not exactly going to smile and say thankyou for your harsh words am I!? As for humanity hanging by a thread… I try not to think about that. It's better to simply enjoy the quiet moments I have instead of moping around feeling sorry for myself." She said dunking her cookie into her milk before flicking her hair over her shoulder and smiling at Draco.

He smiled back before turning it into a scowl and looking away.

"Stop smiling then Granger it's too contagious." He said.

They sat in silence for a while both hiding the grins which graced their faces.

"Where are your parents?" Draco asked as he dipped his cookie in the glass of milk in front of him.

"Probably working. They're dentists so even after they close up they're still working."

"Dentist? What in god's name is a dentist?"

"You know…like a healer… for your teeth."

"A healer who only fixes teeth? How absurd!"

"Not in the muggle world Malfoy." She said getting slightly annoyed.

"I think I'll take your word for it." He said as he yawned.

Hermione felt rather tired herself. In England it was only around 8 o'clock but since she had been in Germany for the last week or so she hadn't yet adjusted to the time change.

"This is so… strange." Draco said finishing off his cookie.

"The cookies? What are you talking about! They're my favourite."

"No not the cookies." Draco laughed. "This. Sitting in Granger's kitchen having milk and cookies. If you had told me an hour ago as I was running through that darned forest that I was going to end up here instead of dead on the forest floor I would have laughed at you, for the latter seemed so much more likely."

"I'll have to agree with you there. This is not where I expected to be. And I'm not exactly sure where I'm supposed to go from here." She said as tears began to fill her eyes.

"I mean I know Harry's quest is very important but I'm not sure I want to go back there. They never listen to me or let me help. I simply sit in the tent all by myself for weeks on end waiting for them to come back and once again inform me they had a false lead and there is no Horcruxes there." Hermione sighed.

Draco stared at Hermione large hazel eyes as if trying to read her mind.

"Stop doing that Malfoy it's creepy." She snapped, and he came out of his trance.

"Oh…Right. Well, go back to school. I was surprised to here you weren't going back. You would have been head girl you know."

"Would you come back to?" Hermione asked. She was hoping he'd say yes and she wasn't even sure why.

"If you went back I guess I would. Otherwise I'm worried my father would find me, I've got nowhere else to go remember?" He said, once again acting like he was talking about what temperature it was going to be for the following week.

Hermione nodded and looked down at her milk smiling. Draco looked down at his and smiled as well.

"Well I guess I'll see you in the morning then Malfoy. We can work out where to go to from there. My parents should be home soon and they don't even know I'm home yet so I'll wait up for them. You can use my bed, I can tell you're tired." Hermione said smiling.

She was right. Draco's whole body was exhausted and he would like nothing more than to lie down in a safe bed and fall asleep.

"Thanks Granger. For everything. If it wasn't for you I'm nearly entirely sure I would be dead right now. And as bad as this may sound, I'm glad Weaslebee and pothead left you alone in the tent. Because if you went with them I would have died in that field, and if they were their with you... Well more than likely I still would have died in that field." He said managing a smile.

Hermione waved goodbye as he walked out of the kitchen and headed upstairs to bed.

She liked this Malfoy. He was still the prat she knew all too well, he just wasn't malicious like she expected.

She closed her eyes and laid her head to rest on her arms as she drifted off to sleep at the kitchen counter.

A/N: Review you lazy buggers!... I mean.. sweet lovely sweet cherries whom I love!!! xoxo