Chapter Five
Red eyes
Romeo save me, they try to tell me how to feel
This love is difficult, but it's real
Don't be afraid, we'll make it out of this mess
"Hey," came a light knock on Hermione's door. Although Hermione was glad to see Ginny the two girls had not had a decent conversation in a while she had been thinking of having a nap to clear her head.
"Long night?" Ginny smiled.
"Yes," Hermione replied, "but not what you think."
"If it was the library why did you need Harry's invisibility clack?" Ginny smiled.
"I wasn't going to say the library I just we weren't well you know,"
"So you where with your mystery boy?" Ginny asked.
"Yes," Hermione replied, "I was but we just talked."
"Have you found out who it is?" Ginny asked.
"Yes," Hermione said quietly but stopped.
"And…" Ginny asked barely able to contain herself although Ginny was not as fond of gossip as Lavender or most other girls she was curious to find out who had brought this change to her friend.
"It's," she paused "don't judge," and Ginny silently shook her head. "Draco Malfoy," she said the room was quiet Ginny thought she had misheard.
"Sorry?"
"Draco Malfoy," she said louder and looked across to Ginny's shocked face "and I am in love with him Ginny and I don't care what anyone else says."
Ginny looked into Hermione's face and knew immediately she wasn't joking which had been her salvation.
"Hermione?" she said cautiously "have you thought this through. I mean you can't have known who he was for more than a couple of weeks."
"It doesn't matter what his name is I loved that boy in the mask I don't care who is underneath."
"Haven't you considered that he might be using you?"
"No," Hermione said angrily "he hasn't tried to take advantage of me at all I spent last night talking with him. He fights for the light but I knew that wouldn't make any difference to anyone else. You just look at his name." During this monologue her voice had risen to a shout and if anyone else had been in the room they would have been shocked to hear Hermione Granger raise her voice.
"Herm look I don't doubt your feeling for him and it's not his name I care about but I don't want you to take this too far too quickly and don't do it because you feel isolated from us." Hermione laughed,
"I have not thrown myself at the first boy I saw because I have no friends."
"Why don't you spend tonight with me doing homework or something instead of with him." This was quite possibly the worst thing Ginny could have said for Hermione thought incorrectly that Harry, Ron had concocted some plan to keep her and Draco apart. Of course apart from anything else it was only Ginny who knew about Draco and then she had only found out ten minutes earlier but Hermione in her anger was not thinking straight. In fact it was not the fact that it was Malfoy Hermione was spending so much time with but that she was neglecting her schoolwork and friends that Ginny was for more concerned with.
Hermione however had left the room whilst Ginny had been thinking. She walked down the corridor to the common room entrance until she reached the main corridor outside when she melted in with the student body most of whom where heading to dinner. It was unlike Hermione to answer a question in such a way but she had thought, like Draco himself, that everyone apart from her and Dumbledore thought bad of him.
When it came to the great hall she spilt off from most people and headed to the dungeons. Unlike her own head girl chambers to reach Draco's head boy chambers you didn't have to go through the common room and because of this it had been in his room more often than he had been in hers. She whispered the password to a snake that entwined into a tapestry that obligingly rolled itself up and allowed access to Draco's room. After passing down a small corridor, the two rooms held a small common room stuffed with bookcases and messy parchment across the floor of the room. She lifted the hatch on the door that was Draco's bedroom, as she had supposed he was sat at his rather large desk attempting to write his charms essay.
"Was Kershaw American or Canadian? I always forget," he asked her not even looking up.
"Canadian," she replied but something in her voice betrayed her emotions and Draco before even writing the word looked up concerned.
"What's up?" he asked.
"I think they're trying to tell me how to feel," he said pushing back tears with the back of her hand. "I told Ginny about us. I thought she would be supportive but she said I should spend less time with you, that I was neglecting my friends which is complete rubbish." The last part was said rather fiercely. Draco pulled her in and kissed her on the forehead.
"Hermione had got a question wrong in arithmancy earlier in the day he thought. "Spending all her time with me she has spent less time with her friends." But out loud he said nothing just kissed her temple and let her cry a little in his arms.
They spent that night differently to any other so far. They didn't talk, do work together or sleep together as they had that first night. Hermione feel asleep in Draco's arms and he placed her gently in the middle of his bed and continued with his work. Occasionally he glanced over his shoulder to see her sleeping and saw her chest gently rise and fall. Although he thought how uncomfortable it would be sleeping in her school clothes he also thought waking her would be unkind. It was this night that Draco thought over his burgeoning relationship with Hermione.
"She is better off without me," he thought although it broke his heart to even think these words. "She deserves so much better than I can give her." I am the son of a death eater and his trophy wife brought up in a cold and unloved home. I am a product of my environment." He had done the very thing Hermione had thought wrongly that Ginny had done.
He had judged himself by his name alone.
