Note1: I know that those of you who are offering me opinions on past matters are just trying to help, but can we just... let it go now? I'd like to focus on the story instead.

Note2: I'm tired. Just felt like sharing that.


Draco was feeling a little bit woozy, but generally better, as he made his way to lunch. The wound had begun bleeding a little when he had had to yank the shirt from it, obviously, and cleaning it when he showered had been pure agony, but he had finally managed to make the bleeding stop, and now he was famished.

He made his way over to Blaise, who was already merrily eating his lunch, and plopped down next to him.

"Ah, there you are," Blaise jovially said. "I was going to check whether you were still alive after lunch."

"You were going to check if I was alive… after lunch… Thanks, mate," Draco muttered sarcastically.

"Hey, food is important," Blaise said with a shrug and a small smirk. "I didn't want your dead body to ruin my appetite."

Draco truly believed that these were Blaise's priorities. He had never known the other boy to miss a single meal in his life. "Just pass me something…" he said with a sigh.

Blaise reached out and got Draco a plate of Brussels sprouts. Nothing else.

"Eh…" Draco said, pushing the plate away, "something else, please."

"No," Blaise said, "eat it. You still look like shite; you could use the iron."

Draco frowned in annoyance. "I'm fine, Blaise. Stop mothering me and get me some real food."

For a second, Blaise didn't respond, and Draco glanced at him to see that his attention was caught elsewhere. Draco followed his look to see that it was Tracey, making her way down to the other end of the table. She didn't even glance at Blaise, but was merrily chatting with Daphne about something. Draco looked back at his friend to see that his eyes were now lowered, and he was staring at his plate as if someone had just filled his plate with Brussels sprouts.

Draco felt a pang that he had a hard time identifying. Pity? But Blaise had known what he had gotten himself into at the time, so he had really been asking for it… hadn't he?

"Why don't you just reach for it yourself if you're fine?" Blaise suddenly asked, raising an eyebrow as if several seconds hadn't passed.

Draco blinked. Blaise was obviously going to act as if nothing had happened, as if the girl he wanted didn't now spurn him at every chance she got, as if his greatest interest at this point was to get Draco to eat Brussels sprouts.

Draco found that he didn't mind that Blaise was pretending. He wouldn't know what to say if he started talking about Tracey.

Of course, the thing was, Draco couldn't reach for the food, because he wasn't fine, and he was afraid that his wound might burst open if he stretched too far. He sighed. "Would you just give me a break, Blaise?" he weakly asked.

"No," Blaise clearly stated. "Eat them, or I'm telling Theo… and Granger. Which would be worse?"

Draco swallowed. He didn't really know who would be worse. Probably Theo. Granger just wouldn't understand, and he had no idea how she would react to the news. She was so damn unpredictable sometimes. She probably wouldn't slay him, though.

He just felt responsible for the whole thing. He knew he should have left her alone. He'd just been so annoyed with her, and he'd known that she found watching his Quidditch training extremely boring and that the cold would make her uncomfortable, so he'd made her go… to bother her.

It was so stupid. He deserved the bloody wound in his shoulder.

Theo, however, would completely misunderstand the whole thing. He would think that Draco also liked Granger – which he didn't, of course. He just never intended for her to be seriously hurt. It was all just some stupid game, a way of establishing who was in charge. He had never wanted physical harm to come to her. He wasn't really the violent sort. It was true that he had broken Potter's nose last year, but he'd had it coming for a long time for sticking it where it didn't belong in the first place.

He sighed again.

Theo would think he was trying to be competition. As if that would ever happen. As if he would be any real competition if it happened. As if….

"You're not eating it," Blaise interrupted his thoughts.

Draco scowled and began forking over the foul-tasting vegetables.

Blaise was smirking in a very self-satisfied way, making Draco think of all the ways to slowly and painfully kill one's annoying friends.


Hermione made her way to the Great Hall. She would be just in time for lunch. Her injuries hadn't really been that bad; she had known that Malfoy had overreacted. Madam Pomfrey had also overreacted a bit at first, hurriedly giving her a blood replenishing potion and cleaning and closing the wound, but it hadn't really bled much at all. It had begun closing up almost before she had even made it to the hospital wing, and even though the shock had worn off sometime during the night, and she had begun feeling her cuts and bruises and the soreness of where her rib had bent, it hadn't really been that bad. She didn't even have a scar.

Draco Malfoy was just a wuss. No news there. The strange thing was that he had been a wuss on her behalf.

Oh, well. It had looked more serious than it had been, and he had probably been scared of how it would end up reflecting on him. He had forced her to be there after all.

"Oi, Granger!" someone called out as she was passing the Slytherin table. Puzzled, she stopped and turned. Zabini? What…? "How's your shoulder?" he asked.

She frowned slightly. Why would Zabini care? Why was Malfoy frowning even harder at him? "Uh…" she slowly said, her eyes flickering between the two Slytherins. "It's fine, thanks." Why was Malfoy eating nothing but Brussels sprouts?

Zabini beamed at her. "Good, good. Carry on."

She slowly turned away just to hear a loud clank and swirl back around. They were inconspicuously eating their lunch. She narrowed her eyes. Was Zabini just wincing?

Malfoy looked up at her innocently. "Did you want something, Granger?" He looked tired.

She frowned again and shook her head, before going to her own table.

"Hey, how are you doing?" Harry asked as she sat down.

She shrugged. "Fine, really. It wasn't that bad."

"Must have been bad enough," Ron interjected without really looking at her. "I hear Vaisey lost his spot on the team."

"Who?" she asked, feeling a bit confused.

"You were hit by a Bludger, weren't you?" Harry asked.

Hermione nodded.

"Vaisey," he calmly explained. "Is… was… one of the Beaters on the Slytherin team. One of their most talented players and the team captain. They'll have to have late season tryouts for a new Beater and make someone else captain. It will mess up their game real good."

"You reckon Malfoy will be next in line for captain?" Ron asked.

Harry shrugged. "Might be why he turned him in. But he should know that it would reduce their chances of winning the House Cup to almost nil."

"It was Malfoy, who turned him in?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged and Ron returned to his food. "We don't know," Harry said, "but who else would it be?"

"It was Malfoy," Ron said without looking up from his food. "Trust me."

"You think he really wants to be captain that badly?" Harry asked, sounding intrigued.

Ron stopped eating, pushed his plate away, and for the first time looked directly at Hermione. "No," was all he said, and then he got up and left.


They were meeting at the library again. Draco sighed. He didn't want to. He could, of course, just choose not to show up and then make up some lame reason why he couldn't be arsed to go, but he was afraid Granger would notice something was wrong. From the way Theo had looked at him after lunch… he couldn't risk it.

He couldn't wait until the bet was over, but at the same time he dreaded it. He dreaded the bleakness.

He dreaded it to the point that he was considering things he shouldn't. Like getting back together with Pansy so she'd wear it. It was pathetic. It made his stomach churn to think of exploiting Pansy in that way… and worse, he didn't really want to. He wanted Hermione to keep it on.

She would never keep it on. Not even if he offered her all his father's riches. Heck, he could offer her the entire world, and she wouldn't keep it on. He knew she hated wearing it. She detested it. The way the bracelet seemed to annoy her was even in her body language. She would move her arm, and as the bracelet moved against her wrist, she would frown and her movements would turn impatient and jerky. She would rejoice when it was off.

He would have to deal with it.

He walked up to the table, where Hermione was predictably already seated with several big volumes, and carefully took off his bag. His shoulder was thudding dully.

"You're late," she said reproachfully.

He smirked at her. "It's my prerogative. When you wear the ring, you get to call the shots."

"Then, by all means, hand over the ring," she coolly said.

He snorted. "How's your wound?"

"Healed. How's your head?"

He blinked at her. What?

"Theo told me you bumped it yesterday."

Oh. "It's fine," he muttered. She had been talking to Theo? When?

She smirked. "Yeah, I didn't figure you'd suffer any real damage."

He scowled. "Watch it, Granger." He sat down heavily. "What are we doing today?"

She frowned disapprovingly at him. "You don't even know? Do you even care about doing your homework?"

"No," he sighed. "Quite frankly, I don't. But I'd better get it done, haven't I?" He bent down and began pulling out books from his bag.

She crossed her arms, narrowed her eyes, and pursed her lips, as she clearly tried to figure him out. Great. Only Hermione Granger would find lack of enthusiasm in homework odd.

"Let's just look at my Potions essay. I swear, Slughorn is out for my blood," he said, finding his quills.

"No, he's not," Hermione contradicted him. "He just wants you to do well."

Draco snorted. "Yeah… whatever you say, Granger."

"Give me that," she said, snatching the parchment with the assignment from him. "Oh…"

He raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair.

"Well…" she said, glancing at him. "This is slightly… difficult."

He was hard pressed not to laugh at her prim way of not quite conceding that she had been wrong.

She frowned at him again. "Stop laughing at me and start looking things up."

"I'm not laughing at you," he objected, fighting in vain not to grin.

"Oh, you are," she said. "Just because this isn't easy, doesn't mean that I'm wrong."

"Of course not," he politely responded, and at the exasperated glance she shot him, he actually laughed out loud.

"Isn't this interesting?" a voice said, instantly stopping Draco's laughter.

Theo. What was he doing here?

Draco glanced at the other boy, who was looking as inscrutable as ever. "What's up, mate?" he asked, forcing his tone to be light and hating himself for being forced.

"I was stopped by Professor McGonagall, who wanted me to give you this," Theo said, directed at Hermione, passing her a scroll. "I believe it has to do with the injury you sustained yesterday." He looked back at Draco. "They're looking thoroughly into the matter."

Hermione frowned again. She seemed to do that a lot today. But as to her emotions, there weren't any great change. "Nothing really happened," she said. "I was hit by a stray Bludger; it can't be the first time that happens."

Theo looked back at Hermione. "The teaching staff may not know exactly what's going on, but they aren't stupid. They've realized that something is different and that you've now been hurt twice in a very short time span with Slytherins involved both times. They've also noticed that you have been behaving out of character, that you've been spending much more time around Slytherins than anyone would expect a Muggleborn Gryffindor to, et cetera."

Draco felt his heart begin beating uncomfortably hard and fast. He had eight days left. They couldn't be putting a stop to it now. He wanted the time he had been promised. He needed it. He swallowed convulsively, telling himself he was overreacting.

"I haven't been breaking any rules!" Hermione objected. "They can't just give me the third degree because I act differently than what they expect."

"Give you the what?" Draco asked.

Hermione blinked. "I mean, question me. They can't just pry into my personal business like this!"

"You're the Head Girl," Theo reminded her. "And you have been harassed. Of course they can look into the specifics."

"But I wasn't harassed," Hermione insisted. "Malfoy, you were there. Tell him it was an accident!"

Theo turned to look at Draco and raised an eyebrow. Draco opened his mouth and then closed it again. What the hell did they expect from him? Granger had to be the only one at this entire school who had doubts that Vaisey had done it on purpose.

"Malfoy?" she prodded.

He sighed. "Don't be daft, Granger," he said in his most condescending voice. "Of course it wasn't an accident. Vaisey aimed for you and he got you."

"So it was you, who reported him then?" she asked, her eyes wide.

Oh, for fuck's sake!

"No," he said, technically not lying. Blaise had done the reporting. "But we all knew he did it on purpose. He wasn't happy about you being there. He thought you'd tell the Gryffindors all our secrets. Never mind that everyone at Hogwarts knows that you can barely tell the Snitch from a Quaffle."

Hermione's cheeks went pink. She never liked being reminded that there were some things she didn't master perfectly. "Then it's really all your fault, isn't it?" she asked in a cold voice.

Draco didn't respond. It had been his fault. He knew it. Yet, having her say it like that…. He clenched his teeth, unable to break the eye contact. Yes, it had been his fault, but he didn't like her blaming him. He'd done everything he could to make it right. He'd taken her pain. He'd taken her wound. He'd had Vaisey reported, knowing it would most likely cost Slytherin the House Cup, and knowing that his own precarious standing with his house would get infinitely worse. And all she had for him was a cold gaze that told him he was less than the dirt on her shoe.

He tried telling himself that she didn't know any of this, but it didn't help. It still hurt. He knew it was stupid, but somehow he had expected her to sense what he had done… for her.

"Right," he finally said. "Got somewhere to be." He stood and began throwing things into his bag, not caring whether he was acting strange or not. He just wanted to get the hell out of there. That was what they wanted anyway – to be alone without him.

He threw his bag onto his shoulder, ignoring the sharp pain when the strap hit the wound and the weight pressed down on it. Wrong shoulder. Too late to remedy right now. He turned to leave and had almost gotten to the door, when he heard Theo calling out to him. He stopped. What now? Couldn't they just… leave him alone?

"What is it?" he irritably asked.

"I'm thinking," Theo calmly said, "that you should go to the hospital wing. You're bleeding."

Draco looked down at his shoulder and saw the red stain spreading.

Oh, FUCK!


Preview:

"What did you tell her?" Draco asked after they had left the hospital wing. "It worked brilliantly. I don't think she'll report any of it."

Blaise shot him a quick glance. "That's what matters, isn't it?"

Something about the cautious tone of the other boy's voice alarmed Draco. "What did you say?"

"You'll just get mad."

"I won't get mad."

"Yeah, you will."

"What did you say?"