Chap 4

"Harry, wake up!!! You're going to sleep your life away if you don't get up." Hermione urged him to move. "Harry, I'm going out. Do you need anything?"

"Yeah, sleep!"

Hermione was annoyed with him at the moment, so she went about her business and ignored him.

Hermione was just about to leave, when she walked right into a soaking wet Draco with nothing but a towel on.

"Umm… I'm going out for a while. Do you want any thing?"

"Yeah… to come with you."

"Erm… okay. You'll have to get dressed, first. Going out in public with no clothes on is frowned upon."

"You are not dragging me into a book store."

"You're the one that asked to come."

"Yeah, 'cause I have to get some clothes"

"With what money?" she asked. He said that he wasn't going to become a free loader, and part of being a free loader is borrowing money.

"I'll find a job."

"That's a good idea. I have to get one too."

At the unemployment office

"Hello," said the woman with the mole from behind the desk. "What kind of jobs have you done in the past?"

"I haven't worked. I never really had to," replied Draco.

"Oh I see. What school did you attend?"

"Hogwarts."

"Really. My son is in Gryffindor. What house were you in?"

"Slytherin."

"Oh," She said blankly. "Well, Mr. Malfoy, how well do you type?

"Umm… Type?"

This interview was not going so well.

"How did it go?"

"Not so well. I'll probably be working retail for the rest of my life."

"I'm sorry. You can try again another day. But for now, we can go some where. A movie perhaps or…"

"I need to stop somewhere, could you come with me?"

"Yeah."

They took a cab to the country side. It was beautiful there. Draco looked like a stone figure: cold, stiff, very harsh and severe. She wanted to know where they were going. Then in the distance were the remains of Draco's house. Hermione couldn't find anything to say, so they stayed silent until the car stopped.

"Is this-" Draco got out before Hermione finished her sentence.

His hands were shoved in his pockets as he walked among the ash. This was his house. The only thing he was proud of. The only thing left of his life when it was normal. It was special. Now he had nothing. No house. No job. No money. No nothing. A lonely tear fell down his cheek. Hermione was left helpless a few feet behind him.

The entire ride to Diagon Ally was silent Hermione spent the ride thinking about the burnt down ruin.

'I can't believe his father would burn down his house. It's just too awful. Almost half of the wizarding world has been burnt down. Damn Death eaters. I'm lucky I still have my apartment. You'd think that Death eaters would be a little more creative. I mean anyone could burn a house down. Damn death eaters.'

There was a traffic jam on the road to Hermione's flat.

"What's the hold up?" asked Draco

"I don't know."

Hermione looked out the window. A sharp jab of panic hit Hermione like a baseball between the eyes. She got out of the cab and ran the block and a half to be stopped by the yellow tape around her apartment building.

Hermione was having a strange felling a déjà vu. There she was in St Mungo's minor injuries ward again with someone walking beside her, worried. She knows that he's alright, but just being in the hospital that makes her cringe. The person beside her isn't Ron this time, it's Draco (no-duh). Her apartment building was burt down by the entzünden spell; what makes this spell so awful is that if you try to put the fire out it will spread even further.
"Harry! How are you?"
"I'm fine Hermione, apart from the third degree burns on my arm."
She looked at his arm. It was disgusting. The image of Harry's burnt arm would be in her head forever. Well, it was bandaged, but still not tightly enough.
"How'd you get that, anyway?" "I woke up and neither one of you were there so I just went to the kitchen and the stove was lit, so I turned it off. Then it turned on again, so I turned it off again"
"That sounds like something you would do Potter."
"Shut up! Malfoy. Anyway I thought if I used a cooling charm, it would go out. But the whole stove caught alight. I tried every ice charm I could think of; it just kept spreading."
There was an awkward silence, but Draco finally said what everyone was thinking.
"So what do we do now? We have nowhere to stay. No money as far as I know and…"
"I'll find somewhere," said Hermione as she left the room.
"Where the bloody hell is she going?" asked Harry
"I don't know. Charlotte is here."
"What? How?"
"Hermione and I went to pick her up before we came here but she's not allowed in here."
"Harry, are you hungry?"
"Yeah. But I don't trust you with my food."
"Fine! I'll have a healer bring it for you, but I am going to get some thing decent in the cafeteria."
"Good luck. 'Cause there is nothing decent here anyway."
After Draco left the room, Charlotte and he went to get food. Thank Merlin, that everything in the cafeteria was free. They stood in line with trays; to Draco it was disgusting to think about how far he had fallen in the past 2 years. From high-born citizen to eating in a cafeteria with a muggle. He did like Charlotte, and the food was… edible…kind of.
"Charlotte what is that?" he pointed to something on her tray that looked like jello with fruit, but he wasn't sure.
"Um... to be honest I don't have the foggiest. But it looks better than what you have."
"Hey! This is… ah, I know what this is. I swear I do, I can't think of it at the moment, but it's edible. I think."
"Oh, you sound so sure of yourself," Charlotte teased.
After a long convocation about the mystery food, they moved onto other things like music, books, and even sports.
"Does this count as a date?"
"Lordy, I hope not and Draco you're nice, but a little too nice. I mean, the way Hermione described you, you were a pompous jerk who made her life hell, but you're not. Have you ever read that book 'Nice guys finish last, but get out on top'?"
"No."
"Well, neither have I, but the title says it all. You were bad and now…I'm sorry. This must sound awful, but this just won't work for me." She said. Then she left the commons and waved goodbye.
'That is this last time I try to date a muggle.' He thought.

"Open up!" Hermione yelled while banging on the door.
"What do you want?"
"Umm... are you mad at me? You told me you were going to come by five days ago and you never showed."
"That's because I found out that Malfoy is living with you. You don't need me around any more. Harry has got a new best friend and you... you have probably fallen head over heals for Malfoy."
"You have no right to say something like that." They were screaming at each other so loud now that the people in the surrounding apartments had started to come out.
"Let's take this inside."
20 minutes later
"God Ron, when did you get like this? I swear if you come near me or tell me to quiet down one more time; I'll hex you in to next year. You know what? You don't have to worry about that, I'm leavening!"
"Fine by me."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"F. I. N. E. o already."
"Fine!"