Draco entered the dining hall and sat down next to Blaise. "How are your morning classes so far?" His friend asked.
"Fine, yours?" Draco asked, more out of courtesy than anything else.
"Fine," Blaise replied shortly. There was a pause between the two friends. Not uncomfortable pause, but one in which they both realized that they weren't sure how to proceed in the conversation. So both, silently agreed to stay quiet.
"Hi Drakey!" Pansy said loudly in his ear and hugging him from behind. Draco jumped and sloshed a little of his pumpkin juice on the table.
He glared at the shallow, giggly girl.
"Drakey? Seriously?" he heard someone snicker a little way down the table. It was Theo Knott.
Draco rolled his eyes at him and then confronted Pansy. "Stop. Giving. Me. Nicknames," he said pausing between each word so she got the message. Pansy frowned.
"Awwww, but that's what's so fun! I look forward to coming up with something new and exiting every d- ..." Pansy was cut off.
"Pans. He said enough." Blaise didn't even have to raise his voice to make Pansy listen. She just did what she was told, no questions asked. That was mostly the reason why Draco never consented to dating her. He wanted someone to do what they wanted with out being told what to do, and he knew Pansy could never do that. After the many years Draco observed his mother obeying his father with no regard to her own wants he had decided he would never take on a wife like that. Of course, it wasn't all his mother's fault. His father could get violent if he didn't get what he wanted, that was something Draco knew all too well about.
He shook his head, trying to clear some of the foggy memories out of his head. Then he excused himself and headed straight for his dorm, but as luck would have it someone skipped into him and knocked him down. "I am SO sorry!" the girl said breathlessly. He looked at her the same time she looked at him. "Oh…" Hermione Granger said.
"Do you EVER watch where you are going? As clumsy and oblivious as you are at this time I'm surprised you survived the war!" Draco yelled getting up and dusting himself off. He picked up the bag that he'd dropped and stormed away before the Gryffindor could react.
When he made it to the corridor where the door to his dorm was he yelled the password and burst through the door. Then he stopped, and took a deep breath. This is what he was reduced to? Angry outbursts every time something popped into his mind about the past? Or every time that annoying girl bumped into him? He needed to regain his resolve. He used to have it so down pat and practiced. He supposed that he had lost that when Voldemort had broken him and his family. He'd lived in fear and on the edge of death for the better part of a year. There was no use for any kind of resolve with someone prying into your mind on a regular basis.
Draco threw himself onto the leather couch and opened one of the pockets in his bag. He pulled out the signet ring that his father had given him before the downfall of the Dark Lord. His father had believed that he wouldn't survive the war, and so gave the ring to his only heir. Draco had never put it on before, but he slipped it on his left middle finger where is father had always worn it. It was a very handsome ring. It was goblin made. The family emblem, an M with a snake flowing across it, encrusted with emeralds and rubies, in a cast of silver.
Draco remembered being a small boy and admiring the ring. Always hoping that one day he would wear it just like his father. Now Draco hardly thought it was of any value.
"That's a pretty ring," someone said behind him. He looked. It was Granger.
"What's it to you?" he replied blandly. Draco smoothed his facial features into a blank mask, letting his old familiar resolve smooth over his emotions.
The girl shrugged. "I just thought it was nice…" she paused. "I came to apologize. Actually, I came to give you a piece of my mind, but now I really don't see the point in starting a useless argument."
Draco waited for her to say more, but she didn't. She just stood there awkwardly.
"I didn't mean to blow up at you." The words fell out of Draco's mouth, surprising both of them.
Granger blinked a few times before giving him a small smile. "It's okay."
An awkward tension began to build and Draco stood up and went to his room, leaving Granger in his wake. Where did the need to apologize come from? More accurately, where did the need to apologize to Granger come from? Of all people. He threw his bag on his bed and walked toward his bathroom. He needed a long shower to think about things.
He removed his clothing and threw them in the general direction of his hamper. He flicked his wand in the general direction of his shower and the water started to flow. He walked over to the mirror and looked at himself. His eyes were drawn to his forearm where the dark mark was burned away when the Dark Lord had fallen. It had left an ugly red scar in it's place. He pulled his eyes away from his arm and looked at his face. It had been so long since he had taken the time to look in the mirror. His blond hair was disheveled and fell into his eyes. His eyes had dark circles under them and his mouth was drawn into a critical frown. He looked older then his actual age. Somewhere in the darkest years of his life his youth had been drained from him. The boyishness to his face he had hated when he turned seventeen had disappeared and was replaced with a hardness that Draco couldn't place. His eyes traveled down to his well sculpted chest and stomach. Many deep scars blemished the fair skin he gazed at.
He stepped away from the mirror and the stranger he had become. He was once so arrogant. He thought he had knew everything about himself. Now he was sure about nothing accept the fact that remorse controlled his life. He took off his ring and sent it to his bedside table with his wand. Then he walked to the shower and adjusted the temperature of the water to close to freezing and jumped in. He yelled in shock as the cold water raced over his body. He gasped for air and forced himself to remain under the freezing spray. Then, using his wand, slowly adjusted the temperature until it was nearly scalding. He scrubbed himself from head to toe until his skin was raw. It was a mechanical thing. Perhaps, subconsciously, he believed he could wash, not only the scars, but the pain away.
When Draco was satisfied he turned off the water and wrapped a towel around himself. The bathroom was completely filled with steam, as he walked toward the door. He swirled his wand a few times and the steam disappeared. He then flicked the wand one more time and everything in the bathroom was dried and returned to its original state.
He stepped into his room, dressed quickly. He pulled on a white button up shirt, a pair of gray slacks, and put his robes over it. He didn't bother tucking in his shirt or tightening his tie too much, his liking for a more casual appearance was one thing he had kept from his younger years at the school.
He looked at the table beside his bed before he left the room. He picked up the signet ring and his bag and left his room.
As he slipped on the ring he wasn't surprised to see Granger had gone. He went to the wall where the invisible door was and tapped it with his wand. He paused only a moment, remembering that Granger had asked him for help so quickly, with out even trying to figure it out herself. Ridiculous. 'Potter and Weasley probably did everything for the girl on their many adventures.' Draco thought to himself. 'She's gotten spoiled, much like I was.'
He turned the doorknob and exited into the corridor. He used his wand and twitched it a little and a voice sounded, telling him what time it was. He loved this spell because he was the one that invented it. The wand said it was 2:05pm. That was just enough time to get to Advanced Arithmancy without being late.
Draco walked down the hallway and through a few passages to get to the classroom as quickly as possible. He arrived at the same time the Professor did. The female Professor smiled kindly to him and it was only then that he realized that the male teacher he had first seen sitting at the Professor's table on the first night was not who Draco thought he was. How could he have forgotten who Professor Vector was? Had it been THAT long since he had been at Hogwarts? But then who was the male teacher he'd seen sitting at the table?
"Hello class and welcome to Advanced Arithmancy: Year Seven! I am Professor Vector, in case you'd forgotten."
"I didn't forget, Professor!" someone said at the back of the classroom, while closing the door. Draco turned and saw Granger. Surprise, surprise. "Sorry I'm late, I was helping Professor Bellamy with his class. Someone managed to jinx themselves and… well, it was a mess…"
"That's okay, Miss. Granger. Have a seat," said Professor Vector smiling broadly as her favorite pupil sat as close to the front as possible. She landed in a seat diagonal to his table.
After the interruption Professor Vector started to prattle on about some of what they'd be learning, he couldn't help but notice how avidly Granger took notes. Biting the tip of her quill in her brief pauses. Crossing and uncrossing her legs. Shifting her papers restlessly. It was ridiculous.
Draco shook his mind out of observation and let his mind wander during the rest of the class. When it was time for them to leave Draco was the first student out the door.
'Alright,' He thought to himself. 'Only one more class to deal with!'
He took a short cut down an empty passage and, oddly, he heard someone's heels clicking behind him. He looked behind him at his follower and saw Granger. "Better be a little more stealthy if you're going to follow me Granger," Draco said. Not many people know about this short cut. He doubted Granger had known about it before.
"I'm not trying to be sneaky or anything. I'm following you because I have to give you the schedule plans for our head duties. I wrote up a pretty good plan, I think," she paused, with a small smile. Was she being friendly? Draco threw up his resolve.
"I'm sure it's fine. You don't need my approval, just pass it in," he said with no emotion. And continued walking at a brisk place toward his destination.
"The Head Boys and Girls are supposed to collaborate!" Granger called after him. Her legs were a lot shorter than his so it was hard for her to keep up. Draco took no action to slow down.
"It's fine," Draco said coldly, and he entered the classroom and shut the door in Granger's face for the last time.