Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to JK Rowling, except the title of the chapter. That belongs to Dean Friedman.. kinda. I switched the wording around a little, the actual lyric is "Lydia, if only you knew how much I love you" but it makes more sense for the story the way it is now :].

Author's Note: Hooray for the fact that I managed to write two chapters over the weekend.. hence why you're getting a chapter two days in a row. I'm going to do my best to get another one up on Thursday but we'll see if my muses will work with me.

Chapter Ten – If Only You Knew... Lydia

"Checkmate."

It was the sixth night in a row that Hermione Granger sat in the bedroom that was currently being occupied by Draco Malfoy. Nearly a week ago he'd begun to teach the young woman how to play the game of chess, though up until tonight it had always been via parchment. Tonight was the first night that they were playing with an actual board, and for some reason Hermione couldn't seem to remember how any of the pieces were allowed to move. The blonde in front of her had already won a handful of times. But she was determined to beat him eventually.

"Again." Draco chuckled at home demanding Hermione could be when she wanted to beat someone at something. He'd have figured she'd've given up by now until she could get the gist of the game better, but she seemed to think that by playing it over and over again she was going to figure out how to play. It had to be the first time that she'd ever acquiesced that hands on experience was better than trying to learn from a book.

"Fine, but this is the last game." Draco looked over at her pouting and chuckled again. Who'd have ever thought that he'd have so much fun beating the girl at something as simple as chess? The two teens watched as the pieces settled back on the board in their rightful places. "Tell you what, I'll even let you go first," he offered.

"Fine," she said sticking her tongue out at him. "pawn to H3."

And so the game began. Draco matched her move for move, a grin on his face when he saw an opening after only a handful of moves. "Queen to G5," he whispered loud enough for the pieces to hear him, but low enough that none of the other house occupants could hear. His grin widened as his queen knocked her knight out and dragged it off the board. Her face fell and he almost felt bad for getting the first piece – almost. Not bad enough that he didn't take one of her pawns with his knight only a couple moves later. "Check."

Hermione was beyond disappointed that they were already in check and she studied the game board harder than she had for any of the other games. It had only taken a few minutes for Malfoy to win each previous game, she was determined to at least put up a fight during this one, even if she couldn't win. A smirk that would have made any Malfoy proud graced her face as she called out to her queen. "Queen to C2." Her own queen took out the knight that had just taken her pawn and she felt like cheering.

Sadly it didn't last long. "Bishop to C2." Draco's bishop took out Hermione's queen before she even knew what was happening and she felt her shoulders slump. She'd been so excited that she could take one of his pieces that she hadn't even looked to see if when she moved he would be able to take hers back.

Another handful of moves and she got to take another piece, one of his pawns, but not before he took her knight, and right after managed to take one of her pawns. She straightened up to study the game board, moving only when she felt somewhat secure about the moves, but she was running on little sleep from the past week and it was starting to catch up with her. She didn't even notice when he took her rook. But her eyes did pop back open when she saw that she could take his pawn during her next move. "Check! Check! Check!"

She bounced happily on the bed, knocking into Draco's leg and he let out a hiss of breath. Hermione stopped bouncing immediately and put her hand against his leg. "I'm so sorry, Malfoy. I didn't mean to hurt you again." She'd made a habit when they played of sitting on the bed with him, but it seemed that every time she did she ended up banging one of his wounds. You should probably take that as a hint to stop sitting on the bed with him while you play, smarty-pants, she scolded herself silently.

"It's okay. Just play the game." By the time Draco called checkmate it was closing in on six o'clock in the morning and Hermione's head was laying on the cast on his leg. Thankfully the hard cast didn't let him feel the weight of her head, otherwise he was sure his broken bones would be screaming. As it was, the only thing screaming at the moment was his knee. He needed to straighten out his legs and get comfortable, but he wasn't able to do that with her sitting where she was. "Granger, come on Granger, open your eyes."

The brunette turned her head into the cast so that her hair covered her face and Draco felt his annoyance build. He shook his leg a little but she still refused to move. "Hermione!" He spoke loudly enough that he knew if anybody else was awake on the floor that they would have heard him calling her name. Thankfully it managed to do the trick, and nobody else came into the room to find out why he was calling out for her.

She stretched her back, covering her mouth with her hand as she yawned and then finally noticed that she was in his way. Apologizing profusely she got up off the bed and moved to the opposite wall. Her head was already hanging low by the time she made it there and Draco sighed to himself before speaking out loud again. "You should go back to bed, Granger. It's late enough that you should be able to sleep without any nightmares." He was glad that she was awake enough that he could call her by her last name again. Calling her Hermione had reminded him of the letter, which in turn reminded him of Lydia, their supposed daughter.

He tried to picture the little girl, what she would look like. Would she look more like him, or more like her? Whose eyes would she have? Whose hair? Would she be a Gryffindor or Slytherin? He rubbed his face to try and push away the thoughts of a child that didn't exist.

Hermione nodded and headed out the door, shuffling her feet as she went. When she reached the door she put a hand on the frame and turned back to look at him. "Night, Ferret," she whispered to him with a small wave. It was a teasing gesture that she'd started up the second night she'd come to his room. He looked back at her and nodded, his eyes somber.

"Night, bookworm."

The minute she left the room his thoughts of Lydia returned in full force. He wasn't sure what to do about that anymore. He still had another couple of weeks to be stuck in bed before Granger would let him up to walk around on something she called "crutches." She wasn't sure what they were, but when she'd tried explaining that they were pieces of wood that you put under your arms to help you walk he couldn't help but think they sounded extremely unpleasant to use.

He fell asleep dreaming of crutches and a little girl with brown curls and blue eyes. And of Hermione Granger, who had invaded his dreams as well as his life. Even if was only to play chess in the middle of the night so that she didn't have to have so many nightmares.

Hermione made her way into the bedroom that she shared with Ginny and let out a sigh as she lowered herself into the bed. She wrapped herself in the small blanket that she'd switched with the redhead because the other girl tended to get colder at night than she did.

"Where've you been?" The brunette let out a stifled scream when someone spoke to her in the darkness of the room. When her eyes adjusted she noticed that Ginny was sitting up in bed, her eyes trained on Hermione's bed as she waited for an answer.

"I couldn't sleep." It was probably the most truthful answer she could give without giving away where she was actually going in the middle of the night.

Ginny pushed the blanket off of her legs and swung them around so they sat on the floor. Looking over at her best friend and waited another few minutes for a less vague answer, and when she didn't get one she sighed. "I know you couldn't sleep. You haven't been sleeping for weeks. But where have you been? I checked the library and the kitchen and didn't see you at all."

Hermione debated on whether or not to tell her where she'd been. She knew better than to hope that the redhead would understand why she went where she went, but she secretly hoped that if she did tell her that it could just be their little secret. She wanted to tell someone what was going on, someone besides Malfoy. "I..." But she just couldn't get the words out.

"You've been going to Malfoy's room, haven't you?" Hermione's head snapped up to look at Ginny and the girl laughed as she got out of bed and walked over until she was close enough that she could sit on the edge of the brunette's bed. "It's either you're going into Malfoy's room every night, or you're sleeping with my brother. Since I haven't heard Harry say anything about seeing you every night, I have to assume it's Malfoy."

Hermione sputtered at what Ginny was implying. "I am not sleeping with Malfoy. You're insane." Ginny shrugged as if to say that it was the only feasible idea, but Hermione shook her head vehemently. "I'm not sleeping with him. I've been in his room but not to sleep with him." Her face had turned bright red at the current topic, and she couldn't seem to will it away.

"Then just what have you been doing with him?" Ginny asked with a teasing smile, knowing that Hermione most likely wasn't doing anything untoward with Malfoy, but she loved riling the girl up. It was too funny how easy it was to embarrass her considering that she was older than Ginny was.

"Playing Chess." Hermione groaned out the answer and Ginny's brows knotted together. "Yes, Ginerva. Malfoy has been teaching me how to play chess. When I can't sleep I go in there and he teaches me how to play. That's all we've been doing. Honestly." She shook her head softly, her curls bouncing around her head as she lay back on the bed, pulling the blanket up over her face. "But he's not as bad as he used to be."

Ginny wasn't about to let her go with that statement without explaining it so she grabbed the blanket and yanked it off the girl. "What do you mean, he's not as bad as he used to be?"

Hermione couldn't help the shrug that came up as an answer. "I mean just that. He's not as bad as he used to be. He's actually..." she paused as she tried to think of the right word to use. "Nice. A lot of the time. And patient."

Hermione was once again reminded of the other night when he'd carefully explained just what each piece did. She'd always prided herself on being a quick learner, but chess just didn't come easily to her. She'd had to have him repeat every piece three times, and that was before she tried to actually put his information to practice. Once they'd started using the sheet of paper he'd had to repeat it all again a few more times, and he hadn't once gotten upset with her. Sure he'd made cracks about how she was supposed to be the brightest witch of their generation, but he hadn't said it meanly. He'd simply teased her, like Harry or Ron would tease her.

"And he's a little strange sometimes," she said quietly as she thought of two nights ago. They'd finished their "tutoring" session on the game and he had curled up to get comfortable so that he could go to sleep. She knew that she should feel bad about keeping him up so much at night, but she was too happy that she wasn't having nightmares to worry about whether Malfoy slept during the day or during the night.

She'd just been about to leave the room, sure that he was slipping under the spell of sleep when he'd turned his face in her direction. He didn't bother opening his eyes, he knew she was there. She always said goodnight before closing the door behind her and she hadn't managed to do that yet. Just as she was about to open her mouth to say "goodnight, Ferret," he'd opened his own. "What do you think of the name Lydia?"

She'd been so shocked by the question, unsure of how to answer, that by the time she had an answer for him – though it was only going to be that she wasn't sure – he'd fallen asleep. His soft snoring the only sound as she whispered "goodnight" to him before closing the door. He hadn't asked her again, and she wasn't about to bring it up since she still didn't have an answer for him. What did she think about the name Lydia?

She tried to think of it in simply the facts first, thinking maybe she could figure out why he was asking. She knew that Lydia had been an Iron Age kingdom in Turkey. She knew that it meant "noble kind, or of noble sort." She knew that it was a name in the bible. She knew that it was a character in Pride & Prejudice, which had always been one of her favorite books.

But somehow, she knew that wasn't what he meant. Did she like the name Lydia? She didn't dislike it. She'd honestly never even thought of the name Lydia before. It wasn't as if she knew anyone with the name. She wondered if he was planning on getting a new pet this school yet and he was trying to think of names for it. Lydia might be a nice name for an owl, she supposed.

"Well as long as that's all you've been doing." Hermione had nearly forgotten that Ginny was sitting on the edge of her bed when the redhead spoke. She watched the girl get back off of her bed and walk back to her own bed and lay down. "Get some sleep, 'Mione."

And the brunette did just that, falling asleep thinking about the name Lydia, and trying to figure out how she felt about it. But more than that, trying to figure out why Draco Malfoy wanted to know how she felt about a name. It wasn't as if they were friends, he shouldn't need her opinion. Or was it? Had they been turning into friends over the nights that she spent time with him playing chess? Or were they both just two teenagers trying to get away from nightmares, and using whoever was convenient at the time?

Her last thought before the darkness took over was that she fervently hoped it was the former, even if it was just baby steps. It would be nice to know that she was breaking through Malfoy's armor and getting to see the boy he was inside instead of the jerk he showed the world.

Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who commented on the question I posted last chapter. A bunch of you like seeing Malfoy bed-ridden, so I shall accommodate for another chapter or two.