Hey guys! New chapter today - and once again, massive thank you to snapplexo and my anonymous reviewer, I really appreciate your feedback :) Feel I should mention that I'm not JK Rowling in the light of her surprise novel - these characters, however, do belong to her. I'm just making them dance for me. :P Enjoy!
Hermione traipsed back up to the Head Girl's office in a state of shock.
She had just agreed to tutor Draco Malfoy.
She had just agreed – and willingly, too – to spend hours in his company, holed up in the library or some deserted classroom, where there would be no teachers to keep him in check.
She could have kicked herself.
She pushed open her office door and a nasty thought occurred to her.
There would be no witnesses either. If Draco didn't really want her help – and this was all some kind of ruse – there would be no-one to rely on if things got nasty.
She swallowed, nervously.
She was going to have to talk to someone about this.
She grabbed her bag and sprinted back to Gryffindor Tower.
Hermione counted her blessings that she was still allowed into the seventh-year girls' dormitory. She hadn't slept there in weeks – she was almost always in her office these days, it was only natural that she should sleep in there instead – but she did miss it. After six years of sleeping in other people's company, the silence of her office was more than a little unnerving.
She had many more nightmares when she was alone in the dark and quiet.
Ginny was lying on her bed, sprawled out on her stomach and scribbling a long letter. The end of the parchment was already dangling off the end of her bed, and as Hermione entered, she saw her eyeing a fresh roll.
"Hermione!" she squealed, "I haven't seen you in – what happened?"
Hermione glanced down at her uniform. It was covered in dirt, along with her hands, arms and face, and her back and shoulders were throbbing from where Draco had slammed them against the ground. Compared to her usual neat appearance – apart from her wild mane of hair, of course – she looked like she'd just tried to wrestle a troll.
And, in a way, she had.
"It's nothing," she said, brushing off the soil from her robes, "I just wanted to ask your advice on something."
Ginny sat up, eyeing her warily and rolling up her unfinished letter. "Go on, then."
"Well…don't spread this around too much, but I've sort of been talked into tutoring Draco Malfoy."
Ginny's face darkened immediately. "And this is what that slimeball did to convince you?" she spat, gesturing at Hermione's dirty clothes and face, "where is he? I'll curse him 'til his ears bleed!"
Hermione laughed. "No, it's not like that. He didn't threaten me, or anything like that. We just had a bit of a disagreement before I agreed to do it."
Ginny's eyebrows shot up. "A bit of a disagreement?"
"Come on, Ginny! You know I can look after myself."
Ginny folded her arms, and for a split second Hermione was reminded forcibly of Mrs Weasley. "And this was what you wanted to talk to me about, was it?"
Hermione nodded. "It seems like he's really trying to change – he actually apologised to me for the things he did in the past, and he hasn't called me a Mudblood once. But…well, it's Draco Malfoy, and after everything that's happened – everything he did – I'm just a bit nervous."
Ginny pursed her lips, deep in thought.
"Well," she said, slowly, "if you're set on tutoring him there are ways to make sure you're safe. If you make sure you meet in a public place, when you know there are going to be people around, it'll mean he's a lot less likely to try anything. And if you're still nervous, you can check in with me every time you have a lesson. I've still got the old DA coin, we could use that."
Hermione smiled. "Thanks, Ginny."
"Of course," Ginny continued, "I don't think you should be tutoring him at all. If I were you I'd ask one of the professors to do it or turn him down completely. He's so creepy, I don't know how you can stand to be around him!"
"I can't do that, you know how busy the professors are. Besides, he's actually quite intelligent, so I probably won't be tutoring him for long."
Ginny fiddled with a strand of her long, red hair. "Hmmm…have you told Ron about this?"
"No, I haven't heard from him in a while. He was supposed to Floo me earlier in the week, but I suppose he was too busy."
Ginny pursed her lips again.
A blush crept into Hermione's cheeks. She cleared her throat, almost nervously.
"I don't suppose you've heard from him, at all?" she said, doing her best to keep her voice casual.
"No," Ginny said, frowning, "I've heard from Harry, though. He sends his love, by the way. You know, I think I ought to write to Mum, see if she's heard anything. Ron's never been a great writer, but if anyone can get him to write to us it's Mum."
She grinned up at Hermione, pushing her fiery hair out of her eyes.
"Don't worry. I'm sure he's fine."
"Yes," said Hermione, rather more quickly than she meant to. "Thanks, Ginny. I…I'd better get going."
She left the dormitory without another word.
It had been weeks since she'd properly heard from Ron.
He'd sent her letters, yes, but Hermione wouldn't really call them letters. They were more like brief, scribbled notes, ink splattered all across the page as Ron scrawled down his message before he went off to his training. He assured her that he was fine, promised he'd write her a longer letter and swore that he'd Floo her the next day, when he had more time.
Hermione never got those longer letters.
She never got the Floo call she was promised, either, even though she waited for it. She'd sit up for hours, staring at the fireplace in her office, waiting for Ron's face to grin up out of her fireplace.
She sighed, and cast a dirty look at her empty fireplace.
She needed to have a good, long talk with that boy.
It wasn't just the scraps instead of notes – one had been written on the back of an envelope, for Merlin's sake – no, she needed to sit Ron down and really talk.
But it had all happened so fast that they'd barely had a chance to talk.
She'd been swept up in the fear and excitement of the war against Voldemort, seeing only him and Harry for however many months, and by the time the Battle of Hogwarts had rolled around she wasn't sure how she loved him – as a friend, or as something more. But she'd been so afraid, and so full of adrenalin, and so confused that there'd been nothing left to do but kiss him, in case she never got a chance to do it again…
She blushed.
But then he'd left, and she'd gone back to school, and neither of them had a chance to decide what it was that they really wanted, and suddenly Hermione had found herself Head Girl, war hero, and the girlfriend of a man whose face she hadn't seen in months.
And then Draco Malfoy had appeared, apologetic and arrogant and bringing flowers, of all things…
She'd kept them.
She hadn't told anyone, though. She had a vague sense that it was somehow rude to throw out flowers that a man had given you, though she couldn't remember where she'd picked that up.
And besides, they were beautiful flowers.
She threw down her quill, glaring into space and fuming over Ron. Her eyes fell on the beautiful, elegant red lilies, and she felt a little of her anger ebb away.
They really were beautiful flowers.