CHAPTER TWO.
"Why does he always wear the same clothes?"
Nobody needs to ask Ron who he's talking about, they've probably all noticed. Usually they mind their own business but sometimes something pops up. There are rarely any judgements anymore, and for that, Hermione is grateful, disliking confrontations more than just about anything. The ones about her, that is.
"Dunno, maybe he's got a lifetime supply of those black shirts and trousers," Seamus Finnegan answers.
"They're probably 50 galleons each," Ron huffs out.
"Have ye seen his shoes? I haven't seen something so clean and new for weeks!"
"Bet those laces are worth ten galleons–" Dean Thomas joins in.
"Each!"
Hermione smiles. After weeks of silence, she's glad to hear the boy's gibes and Ron's frequent scorning over anything good. However, she keeps to herself that Draco even sleeps in those clothes, thinking it too awkward to explain that.
–
The silver chain glints off of Harry's neck, just below his protruding collarbones. The locket at the end of it is tucked within his sweater, but Hermione knows exactly what it looks like, she knows how it feels against the skin of her chest, cold as ice atop of a lake. She remembers how it sometimes seemed to hum, right next to her heart. Like it was yearning for something, something alive, something beating. That instead of being safely encased inside its ribcage, the locket wanted her heart for itself instead. It wanted to cage it inside its enclasped metal instead.
"Hermione."
The necklace shifts, moving against his flesh, not unlike a snake, the 'S' on the locket. Hermione closes her eyes, the thought unpleasant in her mind.
"Yes, yes," she answers Harry, shaking her head, clearing her mind.
"We've got something coming up. It might be nothing. Do you want to come–?"
"Of course. Of course, I do, Harry," Hermione answers.
Harry looks less than convinced, pausing a while to look rather carefully at Hermione. Hermione smiles, motioning for Harry to continue on.
"All right, I'll fill you in then."
But in her efforts to look so sure of herself, Hermione doesn't realise what agreeing will actually entail for her to do. She forgets that she hasn't used her wand for two weeks. She forgets that she hasn't stepped out of the house for longer than an hour a day in two weeks. She hardly remembers what it's like anymore. So when she needs to collect her wand, she stares at her bedside table for longer than usual, as if willing the drawer to open by itself. And when she musters up the willpower to do so, it is with a shaky hand does she tentatively slide the handle of the drawer towards her.
Her wand, vine and dragon heartstring, lies in the midst of papers, exactly how she left it a few days ago. 'It's fine. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine,' chants in her mind as she reaches to pick it up. And when she does, she shoves it in her pocket, not liking how it feels so natural to hold the wooden stick. However, she still feels the hum of its power at the side of her leg, as it presses against her pants, inside its wand holder. (It's fine, it's fine, it's fine.)
She steps outside to where the others are waiting, the cold bitter air clutching onto her quickly. She holds in a harsh gasp, realising she should have put on warmer thermals.
"You good, Hermione?" Harry asks.
"I'm fine. Never better," she answers, hoping Harry didn't catch the chatter in her words.
"You look cold, do you need a jacket?"
"I'm fine, Ronald, honestly!"
"It's not too late to stay–"
"Don't be ridiculous, Harry. Of course, I'm going."
"All right. All right."
After a last concerning look, one by one, they begin to disapparate, but before Harry does, Hermione holds her hand out. Harry looks down at it for a second, and for a split moment, Hermione's heart stutters, in fear of rejection. But she feels his hand clasp around hers not a moment later. He grips firmly, reassuringly. Hermione sees his almost grass-green eyes, so different than the glassy ones she encountered earlier, and she pours her trust into them. They dissipate with a snap.
–
She isn't prepared. From the moment they landed at their destination, Hermione could feel last night's supper threatening to upchuck. It burned the back of her throat, and she had dropped Harry's hand, in favour of the ground as she supported herself. She swallows dryly, her head spinning in all directions as hot tears creep up to her eyes. She closes her eyes tightly, scrunching up her face to stop the banging, banging, banging.
"Hermione! Hermione! Are you all right?"
"I–I can't–" ('breathe!')
"Harry, it's an ambush!" Remus Lupin calls somewhere in the distance, and soon there are snaps and zaps and blinding light as cries emit.
"Hermione, you have to go. You have to go now."
('No, no, no, no, no!') Harry lifts Hermione's palm and presses something against it. Then he lets go, and he's gone as Hermione feels the pull of the portkey. She lands again, opening her eyes to a different location, just making out the familiar surroundings of the lounge.
"Shit." She hears someone mutter under their breath.
Then someone's lifting a cup to her lips, and she drinks reverently, feeling the cool water slide down her aching throat.
"Thanks," she says as she lies there, still curled up in a ball. (Nothing hurts, but everything does.)
"Are you hurt?"
His familiar voice is a shock. Draco's deep drawl holds a hint of concern and if Hermione wasn't curled up on the ground, she might have laughed at the absurdity of that back in their Hogwarts years.
But instead, she says, "No. Nothing hurts."
She doesn't expect anything more. Hermione would be fine left as she is at the moment, waiting for her head to stop spinning. She certainly doesn't expect to feel herself lifted under sturdy arms and carried towards the couch. Draco lays her down slowly, sliding his arms out from under her. Her head lies on a pillow, soft and supportive for her seemingly engorged head. Only then does she realise some tears must have escaped, her cheeks sticky and salty. She brushes her hair away, her thick mane windswept and tangled from the apparition.
He's standing, towering over her when she see's him, like he's wondering what to do next with a girl rolled in a ball on the couch.
"They didn't forget about me," she says, only half aware of herself, and his mercury gaze catches hers.
"What?"
Hermione closes her eyes, for a beat, two, then opens them again, Draco's eyes as intense as before. "They told me about the mission, everything, because they thought I was ready. But I wasn't. They didn't forget about me. Not about you. They were just telling me what they thought I was ready to hear."
"I don't know what you're–"
"I'm sorry for swearing at you."
Draco stares at her, before a twitch at his lips catches her attention. It quirks upwards, just a fraction. And it looks – nice, not at all unpleasant. Without his arrogant stare, and his infuriating smirk, Hermione thinks Draco Malfoy actually looks decent. Who would have thought?
"Decent," she utters, before succumbing to the hammer in her head.
–
The familiar sound of apparition alerts Hermione.
"Harry! Ron!"
"Oomf, 'Mione!" Ron catches her as she lunges at him, her scrawny arms tight around his neck.
"Is anyone–"
"No one's hurt."
"It was quick, just as a warning, I think," Mr Weasley says.
"That's good," Hermione breathes a sigh of relief, as she hugs Harry too.
His glasses knocks askew and Harry rights them as Hermione pulls back a bit.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's fine. We're fine."
She lets go and Harry gives her a last reassuring smile. When she looks up, she sees him, in all his black glory, Draco's piercing eyes on her. She should be used to his presence by now, after being here a few days already, but she still feels a small shiver run down her spine whenever his cool gaze catches her own. She feels too exposed, wanting to hide from his line of vision, when Hermione realises the irony of things.
Draco had sought to make her life a living hell whilst at Hogwarts. He goaded her and pushed her with his atrocious sneer and cutting words. But she never let him. Hermione remembers how she was always so strong and adamant of herself back at Hogwarts. She remembers how she landed one on him in their third year, his nose crunching under her first in the most satisfying way imaginable. But now, out of Hogwarts, his sneer and arrogance is gone. And with that, is her strong and courageous behaviour. It's aggravating, how she feels about this all. But she can't help it and she doesn't know why.
–
He's looking at her strangely and she doesn't know why.
It's been more than a few days, more than a while and Draco is still living here. Nobody else seems to notice or care. She observed one of what she thought would be the unlikeliest conversation of her life a few days ago when Draco entered the room and noticed Hermione and Neville sitting at the table. Neville had just finished telling her how he had started to grow feelings for Luna and it had been going on for well over a week now. Hermione was shocked to say the least, never foreseeing Neville and Luna, but she was so glad for them.
When Draco entered, Hermione thought it would be a round of tenseness, as he noticed her sitting there awkwardly with a mug of tea halfway to her mouth. She had brought the cup to her lips but in her awareness of his presence, she had choked into the cup when the sweet beverage slipped down the wrong way, and had tea dribble down her chin. Neville was quick to produce a paper towel and mop her up, as her cheeks flared a bright red, rivaling that of a Weasley's head.
After the mishap, Neville had turned his attention to Draco.
"How's it going, mate?" Hermione remembers him asking.
"Can't complain," Draco had answered, and their pleasantries had Hermione observing them extra carefully.
"There's tea in the pot if you want a cup."
Draco had given a curt nod, making himself a cup, and that was the end of that. Neville had addressed him like he was addressing Harry or Ron or one of the other boys here, and Draco had replied like he hadn't been bullying Neville for the past few years of his life. Never in Hermione's wildest dreams would she have thought Neville would get along with him, much less offer him a cup of tea. Neville had excused himself shortly after, and Hermione, not wanting to be alone (with him) had left quickly after.
But in the kitchen, at the dead of night once again, he's sitting at the kitchen table, a mug and plate of biscuits in front of him. And Hermione no longer feels the energy within herself to feel shocked. She had gotten up to get food, having forgone it when everybody else was having dinner the previous evening when she stopped in her tracks, realising the small stove light was on. Had she noticed it earlier, she would have turned around back to her room again and waited for whoever was in the kitchen to finish.
But it's too late now, and her stomach's rumbling to no end, that she can't turn away. She avoids his gaze, not knowing why he's looking so intensely at her. She doesn't think he knows how to look at people without staring. Hermione vaguely remembers muttering something before she had fallen asleep when she had arrived back from the mission a few days ago but she doesn't recall exactly what she said. She thinks she would rather not know to keep her mortification level from shooting through the roof.
"There's food in that cold box thing." His eyes motion the refrigerator.
"It's called a refrigerator. But thanks," she answers politely.
"No, I mean, there is food inside it."
And Hermione lets out a reflexive laugh as she realises what he actually means. Her soft laughter fills the room and she just misses the small smile catch on Draco's lips as she takes out a pot of pasta.
"It keeps food from going off. It's a very, I suppose, muggle convention." She turns on the stove to reheat the pot of leftover dinner.
"You mean, you can re-eat food?"
"You can eat the leftovers, but I don't know if you can re-eat food," Hermione answers, a small smile playing at her lips at Draco's astoundingly limited knowledge of muggles.
Draco chews on a biscuit before speaking. "Leftovers?"
"Oh, right. You probably don't eat leftovers. What do you do with the food left over from meals?"
"I don't know. I guess the house-elves eat it or throw it away or something."
Hermione frowns at the mention of house-elves. She spoons the pasta into a bowl and sits at the table, opposite Draco.
"House-elves shouldn't eat something that would be thrown away," she mutters into her food.
"Ahh, right. Still going on with that spew campaign?"
Hermione looks up, surprised he even knows about her campaign, but his mispronunciation of the cause catches her attention the most. "It's S.P.E.W!"
"Of course. The Society of the Prevention of Elvish Welfare?"
"Promotion! It's promotion!" At his chuckle, Hermione wants nothing more than to give him a good whack at the back of his head as she often did to Harry and Ron.
But she smiles and she feels better, and she offers him some of the leftover pasta, explaining how the stove heats up the food to make it edible again. He offers her a biscuit and puts the kettle on, insisting on making her tea. He had learned how to when Neville showed him a while ago. 'Milk, two sugars', she tells him and when it's ready, she gives him a 6/10 rating. She delights in his refusal to accept her score, claiming he is physically incapable of doing anything less than a 9/10, but she likes how defensive he gets too much to admit her tea really is worth at least a 9/10.
A/N: Thank you for the reviews, favs, follows! I hope to update once a week.