Sorry for the wait...Have you ever been in marching band? It's time consuming. Here you are. I'm sorry if it's not as good as you were hoping, but I hope you'll like what I have planned in the next chapters. 3 Tori

Chapter 9

It was cold; cold and wet. Her body shook slightly with the chilling wind and moisture.

"Her-Hermione?"

Someone was calling her name, but she didn't move from her dreamless sleep. Feeling a small and gentle push at her side, she opened her eyes slowly.

"Hermione, what are you doing out here?"

The sun peaking in over the opposite side of Hagrid's hut blinded her. Rubbing the sleepiness from her eyes, she looked up at the person in front of her. He was bright red-haired, wrapped in his red and gold sweater.

It occurred to Hermione that she had been there, against the outside wall of the school, all night after what had happened.

Tiredness left her and she flowed with anger, then relief, and suddenly, sadness.

"Are you okay?" Ron asked her, helping her up. Her robes were moist with the springtime dew.

"N-yes." She gained her balance back and brushed herself off. "Yes. I'm fine. I just…got carried away with the studying and fell asleep."

"Are you sure?" He asked, and the word sure made her want to say no, because on the inside she felt beyond broken.

"I just fell asleep, Ronald! Why do you keep asking me that?"

"Because," he leaned towards her and traced his finger down her cheek, starting from her eye and stopping at her chin. "You've been crying."

Hermione reached up immediately and touched her face. She gasped. The events of the night before came to her mind and she wished insanely and desperately for them to permanently remove from her head.

"C'mon. Let's get you something to eat." He led her up the hill and around the castle.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sitting and staring at nothingness, Draco swore at himself. How could he have let himself get so attached so something that was so meaningless, only to find disappointment?

He tried telling himself that he knew it from the beginning. But he knew that he didn't.

He tried telling himself that he never felt any unconditional feeling for the person in the pages, but that was a lie.

And he also scolded himself over and over for being so bloody stupid, and he deserved to be disappointed.

Granger!

He would have never guessed, in his whole life, and even of hatred of her, that she was the one that he was talking to, let alone feeling so different for.

He knew it was real. He knew it was really her that was in the Diary. He just wanted to deny the ashamed feeling that flowed from him. He was frustrated, he was angry and he was confused. He was relieved, but he was empty.

He almost felt betrayed. Betrayal, because he felt almost as if there were no more feelings or secrets inside of him because he gave them all to her, only find that she was the one person he loathed.

Draco sat under the tree in front of the lake. He watched the dark water slash against the bank in front of him. Inside, he longed for the will to sink into the chilled water and stay there, drowned to darkness of the territory where no one could find him.

Why was he wishing for such a dark and twisted end, he did not know. He didn't know if it was because he was emotionally unstable, or that the reality that he had no way out of officially starting the serving of the Dark Lord in four days.

The one person he once thought would somehow be a salvation and help him out of this mess was really the one person he knew wouldn't even think of it.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hermione knew three things: Draco was the one in the Diary, he was going to be a Death Eater, and he was crazily suicidal.

She didn't tell Ron or Harry any of this; as far as they were concerned, she was studying. However, she wanted so badly to speak, but found she couldn't verbally do anything. There were so feelings that were inside of her. She couldn't even begin to explain to herself mentally how it felt.

She couldn't eat when she was sitting in the Great Hall. She didn't want to say anything; she couldn't. Her eyes wandered from table to table, searching subconsciously for Malfoy at the Slytherin table. It didn't surprise her when he wasn't there. She had not been expecting it, but she knew he'd be too ashamed to even face himself.

Draco Malfoy was unhappy with the life he was living. She knew why, and she knew how badly he wanted his life to be over. What scared her was her will to want to help him.