DISCLAIMER: NOT MINE.

A/n: I know, I'm a lousy update-er, but I've been busy this past week! I swear! Sorry sorry sorry sorry!

This chapter is kinda confusing, and slightly ooc, but essential nonetheless, hope you guys enjoy it!

October 18

Lying there, his emotions being hidden in the dark, he knew that he shouldn't have been thinking about Granger.

He knew that he should have been proud of the damage that he had obviously wrecked on her psyche. He knew that the tiny twinges of guilt that he felt every time he saw her should be cast away, buried under the deepest recesses of his mind. He wanted to ignore those little extra feelings-feelings that he knew would have easily gotten him killed.

But in the dark, he could pretend that he wasn't Draco Malfoy.

He could pretend that it was okay to be bothered because he upset someone in a class that was socially and financially lower than he was in.

He could pretend that the only thing stopping him from apologizing was his pride. And that the only thing that stopped him from groveling for her forgiveness was the fact that his reputation would go down the toilet if he did so.

This was it. He was officially going bonkers.

He was a disgrace to his Pureblood ancestry.

His father had already told him as much. The old man had pitched a fit when he learned that Draco wasn't even close to befriending Granger, but he had reasoned out that she was proving to be stubborn to crack and the bastard and dreadful excuse of a father that he had pointed out the consequences of failing the mission.

Not only he would die, but also his mother would be tortured and then killed, most probably in front of him.

He couldn't have that.

But with his eyes closed, he could almost begin to consider measures that would get him back in the good graces of company that he knew he didn't deserve.

He allowed himself to fear the future, to fear what would happen to Granger if he picked up his ruse and befriended her again. But there was just something about her that made him hesitate to use her. There was a part of him that didn't want to involve her in the Evil Git's dastardly plans. There was a part of his conscience screaming at him to stop toying with her and to leave her alone. It would be hard getting back into her good graces, but the stakes were raised higher this time. And this time, he couldn't let his emotions get the better if him. This time, he couldn't afford to fail.

He opened his eyes with a start.

There was a loud banging sound coming from the common room. Immediately, he grasped his wand, making his way silently down to the source of the crashing sounds. slowly, he descended through his book case, alert and ready.

The sight almost made him laugh his balls off.

There was Hermione Granger, picking out books at random from her bookshelf and screaming loudly in frustration. She was probably trying to get into her room, but in her obviously drunk state, couldn't remember which book she chose as her password.

'Hermione Granger drunk. Who knew I'd see the day.' He smirked to himself. But then he frowned as he remembered the slight disagreement that they were having. Okay, so slight might be an understatement. She was still furious at him, and it bothered him. And it disconcerted him that he was bothered. He was going mad.

She had ignored him since that night. The atmosphere between them had reverted back to the usual tensed rivalry, but this time, she was resigned and dare he say it, sad. Needless to say, he was flabbergasted. A furious, screaming, insult-throwing, face-punching and hotheaded Granger, he could handle, but one who only looked at him with those sad, brown eyes when he insulted her unnerved him to his very core. His plan had backfired on him, and instead of getting his usual dose of her derogatory comments(which he had matched with equal fervor) he had gotten none at all-save of course for her retorts during their epic fight. It was making him crazy that she was ignoring him, and not just the ignoring-his-insults sense, but in the ignoring-him-completely sense.

He knew he had disappointed her.

What he didn't know is why he was bothered by her reaction.

"Malfoy!" Hermione drawled as she noticed his leaning form. "What are you doing here?"

"It looks like your inebriation has addled your brain, Granger, too much FireWhiskey at that stupid victory party?"

"i think they spiked the punch." She giggled, then she gave him another frown. "You still haven't answered my question, you know. Why are you here?"

He snorted, crossing his arms. "In case you don't recall, I live here."

"Right." The witch mumbled as she tried to pull another book. Then, she turned to him, eyes bright and smile wide, making her way unsteadily towards him. What is it with her and emotions? One moment, she was sad, disappointed, then she was happy, then angry, now she was happy again.

It was scary.

"What are you doing, Granger? I don't like that expression." Draco muttered, raising his wand at her, but she just giggled and stumbled towards him, and in a fit of complete lack of self preservation, he reached out to catch her fall.

He shouldn't have.

Electricity surge through his hands as he grasped her shoulders, steadying the witch. He inhaled sharply as her scent mixed with the strong odor of alcohol assaulted him, making him dizzy and light headed. Seeing his reaction to her proximity, he concluded that his body must have been appalled by her closeness. That was the only plausible explanation. He refused to acknowledge anything else.

"Hi." She said gaily, plopping down to the sofa and bringing him down with her.

He only raised an eyebrow, confused, but curious as to what she was obviously trying to do. He wanted to throw her off his arms, but he remembered his task. He frowned before slapping on one of his trademark smirks. "Hello to you too, Granger. Alcohol really did addle your senses. Last time I checked, you wouldn't have touched me with a thirty foot pole."

"Nah, I was only slightly angry at you." She babbled. "I was more on disappointed, silly!" It was like a slap to the face, having to hear the words out loud. "And that's why we need to talk."

The brunette frowned seriously, but the image she was trying to project was ruined by her hiccuping and then proceeding to giggle madly. Draco tried to wrench her arm from her hand, but she had a death grip on him, which was surprisingly strong for someone so pissed drunk.

"Let go of me, your filth is ruining my robes!" He exclaimed, before he could remind himself to be nice, still trying to pry off his arm. "Why are you even drunk? I thought you were too prissy for this sort of behavior?"

She frowned, obviously trying to think of an answer and ignoring his pleas for freedom, "I think... I think that Ron gave me the wrong cup! You see, I always make a point of purifying my drink before drinking. Yeah, that's right! Then everyone kept giving me drinks and I downed about... Ten! No, twelve! I drank twelve of them before Ron brought me back here! I should better go and thank him!"

Before Draco could even process what she was saying, she let go of him and shot off towards the door. He observed her, amused by her apparent loss of direction. Suddenly, she turned back towards him, eyes bright but slightly off balance.

"Maybe I should kiss him! Yes! Parvati told me that it was proper to kiss anyone who was really nice to you!"

In an instant, Draco had dragged her back to her seat, arm firmly clamped around her waist, preventing her from standing up. "You," he said through gritted teeth. "Should stay here. We have to talk, remember?"

"Yeah." She hiccuped. "But I have to kiss Ron! And maybe Theo too! He also helped me get here, you know."

His grip tightened around her. He was disgusted at the mental images that she was forcing him to visualize. Her, kissing the weasel. Her, kissing Theo. It was too much. It was disgusting. He shuddered with contempt.

She was struggling in his grip, and he had to think fast to make her stay. "You can do that tomorrow. What did you want to talk about?"

"Everything and nothing and oh, I can't seem to remember!" Hermione giggled, almost knocking Draco's head off as she stretched her arms out in exasperation.

"Well, I haven't got all night." He sighed, still keeping her in place.

"And that's why I have to thank Ron and Theo now, because it would be too late later!" She said, rising up and this time, she was too quick for him to catch. Even as pissed drunk as this, Granger was as flighty as a fox.

He watched her zigzag across their common room, squashing a scale replica of a thestral that she had been building and toppling a rather tall stack of books that were placed near her desk. Grinning in amusement, he decided to let her find the door, knowing that in her state, she most likely never would.

It was a bad idea.

As soon as Draco sat back and relaxed, Hermione tripped over one of her precious tomes and proceeded to fall headfirst, bringing down a vase of flowers with her. With the resounding crash, he wouldn't have been surprised if half the Hogwarts population woke up and stormed to their rooms.

"Look at the mess you've made!" Draco growled in frustration. He expected her to get up, but she didn't. Then, he noticed that she was rocking back and forth, cradling her hand as tears fell down from her half concealed face.

She lifted her face up to him, and his breath hitched as he took in her tear stained face and large, pleading eyes. "Malfoy," she whimpered, sounding like a little girl. She sat down abruptly pulling him closer with her uninjured arm, forcing him to look at her hand which had a large shard from the vase poking out.

"Shit, Granger." He said, taking her light small hand into his and poking it carefully. "This has got to hurt."

"It does." She sobbed, acting like a little girl and piercing him again with those large, dark, pleading eyes. "Draco, Draco, it hurts."

Something in him snapped. He didn't know if it was her tears, or if it was the way she sobbed out his name, or if it was something in her gaze. Draco Malfoy didn't know, but suddenly, the panic and anxiety at seeing her hurt was pushed back in his mind and was replaced by a sense of eerie calm.

"Let me look at you hand again, Granger." He whispered, reaching for her hand, but she recoiled, looking at his outstretched hand warily.

"No." She gasped, fighting back another choked sob.

"And why the hell not?" He asked, slightly irritated now.

"Because... Because when you pull out the shard..." She said, "You're going to see my blood."

"A little bit of mud can be washed off, I'm sure." He said, but he shuddered inside. Touching her blood would stain him in ways that he never would want to be stained. But he took pity in her, he didn't know why, but he did.

"Why do you think that my blood is filthy?"

"Because you're muggle spawn."

"Why do you hate muggles so much?" She asked, still cradling her hand away from him.

"Because I was taught to hate you." He sighed, "What's with all the questions?"

"That's not enough of a reason," she argued.

"I'd have you know that my ancestors had a right to hate those putrid muggles." Draco snapped, glaring at his pissed drunk companion, forgetting her injury as he rose to defend his ancestry. "Care to remember the famous Roman witch persecutions? I'm sure your larger than life brain knows all about that era!"

"Those were harmless!" Hermione exclaimed her child like self gone, now that she was in the heat of an argument, not noticing Draco's expression turning into stormy rage. "True witches could have protected themselves adequately! The only ones who got harmed were muggles!"

"Harmless?" Draco hissed. "You call wiping out dozens of wizarding families' mothers amd daughters harmless? Have you ever read a history book?"

Hermione looked offended. "Of course I have!"

"You've read the wrong ones, then, If you don't know." Draco sneered. "My ancestors coexisted with yours peacefully, until the start of the attacks. They helped those good for nothing muggles with their everyday needs, even tried to teach them magic! And what do they get? Our of the 170 women burned that day, 12 of them were Malfoys and our immediate family. Eighty other women were witches ratted on by their stupid jealous muggle neighbours. You have no right to judge our hate on those vile creatures. They left my ancestors motherless, childless, and betrayed!"

"That was a thousand years ago, Malfoy!" She said, blushing from the heat from drinking the alcohol. "That isn't true today! Muggles aren't as deluded as they were back then?"

"Tell me, Granger, would they hesitate to cut me open to find out where my magic comes from? Would they hesitate to abuse my powers? Would they hesitate to rob us of our magical knowledge?"

That shut her up.

"No, they won't." He said smugly. "They're still as barbaric as they were a thousand years ago."

"As barbaric as murdering innocent people because of their blood?" She scoffed, quickly drowning another drink.

"Don't you understand, Granger?" Draco hissed. "I grew up to hate your kind, the same as my forefathers did because of the actions of your kind! You can't judge me for hating them, because I have good reason to do so!"

"But I can judge you if you take that hatred and turn it into fuel for killing!" She screeched, eyes dark as she staggered towards him, still cradling her injured hand. "You group muggles into categories, like you could create stereotypes, but you can't, Malfoy! You can't. It's not all black and white. There are a hundred shades of gray, you of all people should understand that, since it's pretty obvious that you're toeing the line of good and evil! You can't say muggles are evil because of the actions of a minority. You can't generalize people because they aren't meant to be grouped together and judged! Not every muggle acts like the swine you say they are, the same as not every pureblood acts like the perfect human beings you think you are. Look at Goyle and Crabbe, my cat has more brain cells than those two put together!"

He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "I'm not finished yet!" She shouted. "You go and follow your little old Voldemort, but you fail to even comprehend that your precious leader is a halfblood. His blood is half mud, yet you still follow him! He's a hypocritical bastard."

"I follow him because my father does, Granger, and not because I believe that muggles are meant to be killed. Hated, yes, but killed? Even I cannot stomach anything like that. You go talking about prejudice and being judgmental, when you yourself group us pureblood children as stereotypical junior death eaters. Have you ever stopped to consider that we might not agree to all the bullshit voldemort spits at us? Do you ever stop to consider that we know we're in the wrong, but we're in too deep to even get out of the dark? Don't you think that we stay under his shadow because we have to? Not because we want to?" He stood up, glaring at her and daring her to say anything more. She gaped at him, bewildered. What she said had bothered him, but he saw that his words' impact was far greater than hers. His vision swayed, and he glanced at the now empty bottle at the table in front of them.

"I don't even know why I'm defending myself against you. You're a muggle. Your blood is mud."

He looked at her, hating her to her very core, and with the alcohol stripping him away of his inhibitions, he found himself wishing that her blood wasn't mud.

Maybe then, he could allow himself to not hate her.

But she was made of mud.

And that was enough reason to detest her.

She stood up, trying to catch his arm, but falling a foot short and landing in a heap of broken glass. He waited for her to stand up, to berate him of his actions, and to tell him off.

But she didn't.

Instead, she looked up at him, childishness back and anger gone. This woman had moodswings that could kill. Fixing her gaze at him again, she mumbled something incoherently, and she started to curl herself into a tighter ball.

"What was that again, Granger?" He said, barely keeping his fury in check. They were in the middle of an argument, for heaven's sake. He made a mental note to never let Granger drink ever again.

"I said," she exhaled, then she showed him her injured hand. "My blood's not made of mud."

And he saw it. Without the shard hindering the flow of blood, a steady ribbon was streaming out of the wound.

And Merlin, she was right, it wasn't mud.

He looked at her with surprise, trying to see if she had enchanted her blood to look normal, but in the state of her drunkenness, he doubted that even she could perform simple spells, much less glamour her own blood.

"See, Draco?" She said, voice soft and sad. "You're wrong. My blood's not mud. It's not."

Then, in a blur, she had brought down the shard to his own palm. "What the fuck are you doing Granger?" He said through gritted teeth as his own injury spurted out blood that was so much like hers.

"Trying to prove a point." She said, and she flashed him a smile. The kind of smile that she gave her friends, the kind of smile that he thought he would never receive again.

He missed that smile.

He kicked himself mentally, forcing to concentrate on his injured hand, and trying to find his wand. But before he could pull it back, she grasped him tightly, smile gone and staring at him instead.

He wanted to curse her, to berate her, to tell her to sod off. But he couldn't. He was still in shock, seeing tangible proof that everything he was taught to hate was not as disgusting as his ancestors had said.

If they lied about the blood, then what else did they lie about?

Thinking about it make him sick. He wanted to retch, to deny the fact that their blood was as alike as anything could ever be. He sat in silence as he was forced to reconsider his beliefs, beliefs that he had so steadfastly held on to even as his pureblood world crumbled around him; beliefs that he now knew was wrong.

She tugged at his injured hand, moving it closer to hers and comparing their pools of blood. "Now, Draco, do you still think that my muggle blood is any different from yours? That it's dirtier? They're the same, Draco. And no matter how hard you wish that they aren't, they are. In the end, we're all just skin and bones and blood. The same. Underneath, we're all the same."

Again, he wanted to prove her wrong, but the words wouldn't come. He wanted to look away, but her gaze held his in place. He wanted her to take back everything that she had said, but he knew that she wouldn't.

Because she was right.

"I... I'm sorry for thinking that you had a choice in following Voldemort." She mumbled, and he felt himself kneel down towards her, straining to hear her muffled words.

"I didn't." He said, tired all of a sudden. "And- I'm only saying this because you probably won't remember anything tomorrow- I'm sorry too."

"You're apologizing?" She asked, lifting her head slightly, enough to stare at him, surprise evident in her bottomless eyes.

"Don't sound so surprised," He grumbled, sitting on the floor by her. He finally found his wand by the couch, and wordlessly, he summoned it towards him. After cleaning up the mess that they had made, he reached out towards her, saying, "Give me your hand."

"What are you going to do with it?" She asked suspiciously, but nevertheless extending hers towards him.

"I'm going to put the dark mark on it." He said sarcastically, as he examined it again. The blood flow had lessened, but blood was still gushing out of the wand. "This is going to itch, Granger."

He healed the cut, now not caring that his own hand was covered in her blood. Her blood that wasn't mud. He knew that the shock would wear off and the implications of everything that he had found out today would haunt him time and time again, but he would deal with that tomorrow.

He was in the process of healing his own injury, when the brunette beside him spoke up and said, "That's it? You're not disgusted of me anymore?"

"Why should I be?"

"Because you hate me."

"I'm in shock," he shrugged. "I'm probably going to be in denial tomorrow, but tonight, I can't deal with anything. Too much information. I'd probably go back to hating you in a day or two, when I'd have verified that the only lie father taught me was that muggle blood was mud."

She bit her lip, watching him for a second before saying, "But... I don't want you to hate me."

He raised an eyebrow at that, but he didn't comment. Here was another surprise. This girl was going to give him a heart attack from all the revelations that she was feeding him. He could see that she was uncomfortable, but there was a resolve in her eyes that tipped him off that she wasn't going to back away from this conversation.

"I want to be your friend."

"You want to be my friend?" He asked skeptically.

"Yes." She slurred, and he remembered that she was still pissed drunk. It wasn't obvious though, but judging from the way her movements were slow and uncoordinated, she was still inebriated. "I still think that you're an arrogant asshole, but I'd like us to cooperate."

"So you think that the solution is us being friends?"

She nodded, "it's the easiest option. I could always tie you and threaten to feed you to the Giant Squid if you don't help me with our duties."

He snorted at that, "We might as well be, seeing as I don't think that the Squid would be adverse to eating human flesh. And right now, I'm still in shock and therefore, don't hate you as much as I normally do."

He told himself that his eagerness to accept her offer of friendship was because it was the only way to keep his mother safe. But even he couldn't convince himself that that was the whole truth.

"Friends?"

"Friends." He nodded, "But I still think you're an insufferable know-it-all.

"I wouldn't expect less, you pompous git." She smirked.

He helped her up, seeing as she looked like she was going to topple over once she tries to stand up. "Now, do you remember your bloody book password?"

"No," she giggled, back to being a child again.

He sighed in frustration. He was going to make sure that she would never as much as taste anything alcoholic again. This night took years away from him, what with the outbursts of emotion and information.

He felt her collapse at his side, and when he glanced at her, he was sure that she had passed out. He cursed at her, trying to wake her up, but she was dead to the world. Letting out another frustrated sigh, he pulled her close, carrying her towards his room.

"Granger, I'm going to let you sleep in my room, okay?" He said with softness that surprised him. Since when did he talk to his enemies kindly? Good thing that she was knackered enough to not even remember him being so nice. His reputation would go down to the toilet otherwise.

He set her on the bed, taking off her shoes and tucking the duvet at her side. Who could have guessed that he would be doing this for the enemy that he had despised mere hours ago? It was all messed up. He called for an elf and made him transfigure her clothes into green and silver bed clothes.

he watched her for a few more moments, taking in her appearance and smirking at the events that unfolded. He might have discovered that his entire belief system was based on lies, but he got to be friends with her again, therefore keeping his mother safe.

At least for the moment.

he transfigured his armchair into another bed, he climbed in, stripping his clothes before collapsing underneath the comfortable duvet. He sneaked another glance at his unexpected roommate.

She would be shocked at her state of clothing and location when she woke up from her deep slumber.

She was bound to kill him tomorrow.

He chuckled at the thought.

A/n: There you go!

Elased: Hi! :D thank you! I love present Draco too :) yes, this is a drama, and no. A tradgedy. This is also not a ghost story. And this fic is DHr until the end. That being said, I guess it's pretty obvious that all is not as it seems :) You'll find out in the next few chappies! ;) thanks for the review!

Francie: Most of my teachers say that too :/ thanks for pointing it out, though :) I promise to work on it! :)

Review pretty please? :)