Chapter five
The next day Harry and Hermione decided they were just going to do homework, truth be told harry was a little put off yesterday by Malfoy's sudden burst of magical knowledge. Harry knew he was the son of a death eater and he also knew that he has the second highest grades in their year. But he did not know that he knew so much dark magic. Deep ... deep inside of harry he wanted to ask Draco to help him train, who better to train him then a boy who was trained to fight alongside his enemy? Harry knew that Draco had no reason to help Harry and would probably rather see him dead.
Harry was sitting in his room, the Weasley parents would be coming home late tonight to pack their things and move back to the Burrow. The wards had been upgraded and they had asked harry to be their secret keeper. Ginny and Ron would be coming to stay with Harry and Hermione tomorrow morning.
Hermione was in the library researching new charms, when she realized that in all the commotion from yesterday she left the book in the room. She stood up and went to the book shelf where the lever was, the wall shimmered and she entered. It took her a second before seeing the book on the table in the back where she and harry had been practicing the day before. As she went for it she saw movement and heard a wince from over by one of the doors the turned and saw Malfoy duck in to one of the rooms. Her curiosity got the better of her and she followed. She wasn't sure if he had seen her or not, but when she got to the door and saw that there was blood on the handle she became alarmed. Was it his blood or did he hurt someone? She reached for the door and saw that it was unlocked. She was surprised; I guess he didn't see me, she thought to herself as she turned the knob.
He turned, startled, he seemed jumpy.
She noticed right away that the blood she had seen was freely flowing from his clearly broken nose.
And upon a closer look she saw that he was also favoring his left leg and his right wrist seemed to have been snapped in two.
"Oh …. My god Draco, what happened?" Hermione said trying to hold back tears. She had a fairly good idea of what had happened and seeing him turn away and try to leave the room, she stopped him.
"Ok its fine, you don't have to tell me a thing, just … just let me help. I studied a lot of healing charms. And you know you can't do it yourself with that wrist of yours. "
He said nothing but he clearly didn't have the strength to fight her off, and he heard the determination in her voice. He just looked at her and blinked.
She took his lack of response as a positive sign and motioned for him to sit. They were in a courtyard that could be used for Quidditch if necessary but she just saw it as a relaxing place.
"What hurts the most?" She asked in a voice full of concern.
"My… my ribs are broken." He said, his voice nasally because of the blood still pouring out of his nose. She knelt down before him and looking up used the charm to fix his nose before casting scorgify to clear the blood.
"I'm going to need you to take off your shirt." she said trying to keep her voice professional but knowing she couldn't stop the shaking he reached up to undo the buttons with his good arm and undid them slowly . When he had undone all of them she noticed quite a few things at once. Firstly, he seemed extremely nervous and second, he had a perfectly chiseled six pack. The last thing Hermione noticed was that it was covered in scars, small wiry scars that reached across his stomach and on to his back. Hermione absentmindedly ran her finger along one of the scars, thinking that they were beautiful in a morbid kind of way. She snapped out of her stupor when he winced as she touched on of the broken ribs.
She looked up apologetically and saw he had a look of shame on his face she gave him a reassuring smile and they both let out a breath they didn't know they had been holding. She took out her wand and got to work on his ribs, three broken and one fractured. She moved on to his wrist without another word. When it came to his leg, after using an internal examination charm she saw it was broken in two places and she could see bone scars that suggested that it had been broken several times before, at least three.
She thanked both the room for providing the pain potions to help him because she would have to set the bone. And she thanked the medical section in the Hogwarts library for giving her the knowledge to help Draco.
Speaking for the first time in about an hour she told him she was going to have to set the leg, he seemed to already know this because he braced himself without a word.
The pointed her wand at the leg a regrettably muttered the setting charm. And for the first time that day she heard him cry out in pain and she dropped to her knees and poured another pain potion down is open mouth. He was crying. Draco Malfoy was crying in front of her. She couldn't help the tears welling up in her eyes as she sat on the bench next to him as he tried to compose himself. For some reason she could not recall later, Hermione reached out and put both arms around him.
This boy sitting in front of her had always seemed like he was sitting on top of the world, better then everyone. The purebloods seemed to have it so easy, Draco seemed to have it so easy but in the last two hours she had seen a side of him she was moderately sure that no one had ever seen before. The helpless boy.
Draco sat there and as much as he tried to convince himself that it was wrong and that he didn't need her, he couldn't bring himself to lift his head off of her shoulder and he couldn't seem to speak either.
She seemed content to sit in silence with him for as long as he needed it.
It was about twenty minutes before he decided what he was going to say to her. For some reason he didn't feel the need to hold back.
"I … I went back to say goodbye to my mother." He said looking down he was still in pain but continued.
"My father was a regular ranked death eater before his downfall." He had venom in his strained voice when he referred to voldemort.
"Father was able to convince the ministry that he only accepted the mark in return for the promise of my safety. He paid for a new wing to be build in St. Mungo's and walked away with a slap on the wrist. " He took a deep breath and saw she was listening intently to every work he was saying. He relaxed a bit and continued.
"For years growing up I heard stories, of killings and murders done on the behalf of the man my father worshiped. He swore that he would come back. Mother and I thought he was losing his mind some of the time. Father always said Malfoy blood is littered with seers. I idolized my father. I wanted to be everything he was. I wanted to fight like him and I prayed for voldemort return so father could be happy."
Hermione was surprised to hear Draco say his name. Not many people were brave enough to say it.
She looked up at him. He looked like he was in pain. She silently handed him another potion.
He took it, downed the bottle and continued after giving her a grateful look.
"I was taught to hate, hate all people who my father hated, all people voldemort hated." He took a breath. She knew that was his way of apologizing for everything he had done. She had forgiven him hours ago.
"I learned to fight, kill and do my father's bidding. I wanted to make him happy. I was eig…eight when the beatings started. " she knew how hard this was for him. "My mother had been dealing with it for as long as I could remember, but not me. It was when I told him …. When I told him I wouldn't kill again."
He looked grateful that Hermione didn't look angry or scared that he had killed someone.
"I was in bed for about a month, and he wouldn't heal me magically until I swore my loyalty to voldemort."
"In my eyes I was beginning to believe he was never coming back. But he did. And father was his most loyal of all death eaters and presented me in the summer of fourth year to voldemort. Since then, he has hit me every time I showed signs of disloyalty. It wasn't until this summer I discovered the refuge room, that's what I call it because only someone with Black blood can enter, so father cannot follow me in. I went back to say goodbye to Mother, she was the only one that ever showed genuine care for me. I couldn't tell her about the room he would read her mind and make her come in and retrieve me. He caught me in my room just as I was reaching for the latch. " he took a deep breath clearly grateful to get that off his chest.
"And now here we are," he said, signifying he was finished speaking.
Draco's story and the vulnerable look on his perfect face made Hermione want to comfort him, but she knew that there was little she would be able to do. A sudden thought occurred to her, and in a moment of madness, she knelt over the face belonging to the boy who, up until a few hours previously, had been one of her least favored people in existence, and placed a gentle peck on his lips. When she came to her senses and pulled away, she looked down, covering her face with her long brown hair, waiting for his wrath to spill over her. But to her surprise, he did not respond with disgust or anger. The never-silenced Draco Malfoy had nothing to say, and she finally had to know if he was even still there. When she looked up, she saw him resting comfortably on one elbow, a surprised, yet not displeased look on his face. He moved her hair from her face wordlessly and, asking permission in a way Harry had not, brought his lips just inches from hers, allowing her to close the gap or refuse him.
Hermione, of course, pressed her lips lightly to his again. She only had Harry and Ron to compare to, but she was quite certain that later in her life, she would continue to remember Draco as an excellent kisser. He molded his lips to hers, pressing with a sense of possession that thrilled her to the core. His lips parted at just the right time, at the end of each kiss, so she was never sure if it was about to end, or if he would deepen the kiss. His fingers curled through her bushy hair, while the other hand met her waist, drawing her down into a half-laying position beside him. Hermione's own less sophisticated reaction was to wrap both arms around his neck, throwing him off balance so that he landed on top of her. This graceless motion, followed by a moment of disorientation was enough to bring the pair crashing back to reality. They disentangled themselves and stood up, keeping a careful distance from one another.
Draco muttered an apology before saying something about being tired and Hermione said she should be getting back to Harry, he would wonder where she was. She noticed the hurt expression on his face before she saw his usual stony demeanor pass over his face once again. He asked only that she not mention their conversation to anyone. She nodded before he turned and left the court yard. Leaving her standing there.
She left a few minutes later, determined to tell him nothing was going on between her and Harry. When she entered Draco's refuge room, he was nowhere to be found she assumed he went into one of the rooms. She went over to the table, grabbed the book, and went to the door. When she left she nearly collided with harry, who appeared to be entering the room.
"Where have you been? I have been looking for you all night." He looked at her, clearly not happy, but Hermione didn't know what to say to him.
AN: We can thank my amazing beta for the kiss between Draco and Hermione. She is amazing. She also vamped up the kiss between harry and Hermione in chapter 2 so go read ….
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