DISCLAIMER: NOT MINE, NEVER BEEN MINE. NOT MAKING A SINGLE KNUT.

Hermione woke up feeling better than she had in months. Her mood was heightened even more when she remembered that luckily September 1st had landed on a Friday, so the students first morning at school they were allowed to sleep in.

I love weekends, Hermione thought. Weekends were when students were allowed to wear "normal" clothes instead of the standard Hogwarts black robes. She took a quick shower, and started getting dressed. Looking in the mirror, she started to fix her hair.

Having finally getting fed up with it and having nothing to occupy her time over the last year home alone, Hermione had come across a few spells to help tame it, and had also gotten it trimmed. It was just below her shoulders, but it was now shiny, and she could make it lie flat if she wanted to or tamed curls, and feel silky.

Satisfied with her hair, she donned a pair of snug fitting jeans and a simple deep red form fitting shirt.

Walking into her commons area the next morning, Hermione noticed Draco sitting on the couch by the fire. He turned when he heard her door close, and smiled at her.

"Morning. I figured even though it's Saturday, it would still be good to show up at breakfast together the first morning. Mainly, of course, to prove that we haven't killed one another," Draco drawled, putting aside his book and standing up. Draco had grown, also. He now had to be a good 6'2, at least, and he towered over Hermione's small 5'4 frame.

"Yes, I noticed quite a few surprised stares when Professor Dumbledore told the students who the dynamic duo would be," Hermione replied, smiling when Draco grimaced at the nickname.

"Quite. Shall we?" Draco offered her arm and stuck his nose in the air, wearing the haughtiest look he could muster.

"Yes, let's," she formally responded, grabbing his proffered arm and trying her hardest not to laugh.

When they entered the Great Hall, the students who were in there all tried to hide their surprise and Draco decided to play it up until the end, by escorting Hermione to her seat at the very front of the Gryffindor Table, taking his time walking her there.

Harry sat waiting for her, a slight glare on his face as he watched the pair approach.

"Hey Harry," Hermione greeted her best friend.

"Hermione. Malfoy," Harry responded as way of greeting, and went back to his bacon.

Draco narrowed his eyes at Harry, and then schooled his features back to his haughty look. He bid Hermione good day and bowed deeply to her, finishing off with a twirl of his hands. Hermione just laughed and swatted him on the arm.

She turned back to Harry, still laughing and rolling her eyes.

"That man, I tell you," she said. "He's actually not so bad. I think I may just survive this year living with him."

"That's nice," Harry replied, not taking his eyes off his food, and not sounding nice at all.

"What's your deal?" she asked.

"Nothing. Tired. Annoyed. The usual," he shot back. "See you later. I want to go unpack more of my shit. I didn't do much last night; I pretty much passed out." With that, he stood up and walked away.

As she stared after her best friend, she heard someone say, "He wasn't doing too well last night…"

She turned and saw Seamus and Dean looking at her.

"What do you mean?" she asked them.

Dean looked at the door Harry had just walked through, then back at Hermione with sadness in his eyes.

"They never move us to new rooms, you know. We always stay in the same rooms; same beds. Except, of course, when someone doesn't come back. Ron's bed is gone. Well, Ron's bed was always right across from Harry's. They used to talk to one another all the time before bed. From what I saw, Harry didn't pass out; he was still awake when I fell asleep," Dean told her.

"Yeah," Seamus added. "He was just lying there, staring at the space where Ron's bed used to be. They didn't even attempt to fill the void with a dresser or anything; it's just a big hole. He wouldn't turn away or anything; just stare. He wouldn't talk to any of us when we tried, so we finally gave up and went to bed." He shrugged.

"Well, it's bound to take some time…," Hermione said, and tried to go back to her breakfast. Another ten minutes she was finished pretending to eat, so she figured she'd go and unpack too.

Not watching where she was walking, Hermione had just left the Great Hall when she bounced off what seemed a wall of black fabric. Looking up from the floor, the frame of Professor Snape looked even taller.

"Oh my god, Professor Snape, I'm so sorry!" Hermione blurted out from her place on the floor. "I wasn't paying attention."

"That much is obvious," Snape answered, and then rolled his eyes as he held out a hand to help her up. Ignoring her surprised look, he pulled her up as if she weighed 10 pounds. "Kindly look around you next time you walk. There are other people living in this castle."

"Oh! Yes, sir!" Hermione answered. "I guess I'll be seeing you Monday for NEWT Potions, sir. It's probably a good thing Neville opted to not even try testing into it." Hermione gave a tentative smile.

Professor Snape barked out a quick laugh.

"Pity. I think I'll rather miss buying and replacing cauldron after cauldron after cauldron after cauldron after cauldron after…," Professor Snape said, walking away, repeating himself all the way into the Great Hall, twirling his hand in the air.

Did PROFESSOR SNAPE just make a joke? And LAUGH? Hermione thought incredulously, staring after him.

XXX

"Need some help with that?" came a voice from Hermione's bedroom door, surprising her and making her lose her focus. Rubbing the spot where her painting had hit her head, she turned to see Draco leaning against her door, smirking. "You DO remember you have a wand, correct?"

"You're hilarious. Yes, of course I remember. I was practicing my wandless abilities. It gets harder to levitate the larger the item is," she retorted, and sent the picture flying to the wall to hang with a flick of her wand. "What's up?"

"Come on out here," Draco told her, and walked out to the common room. Sitting on the sofa, he grabbed his tea and turned to face the middle. When Hermione sat facing him on the other side, he gestured to the tea and plate of fruit. "I noticed you didn't eat much this morning, so I figured this would be nice."

"Yes, thank you," Hermione said, already adding liberal amounts of milk to her cup.

They sat in silence for a full minute before Draco decided to end it.

"Ok, so what happened? Did Harry get jealous? Did you tell him you've fallen for me and never want to see him again?"

"What're you talking about?" she asked, laughing.

Draco rolled his eyes. "You know damn well what I'm talking about. Harry practically ran from the Hall this morning, and not ten minutes later, you followed. You looked upset then, you look upset now, and Harry's looked upset since he walked into the castle yesterday. You've been really nice and everything, but you're looking odd," he told her. "It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. Although, I am pretty much a genius; but that's another subject altogether."

Hermione just stared at Draco, not knowing what to say. On the one hand, she really would like someone to talk to, and Harry wasn't exactly available at the moment, physically or emotionally. On the other, she still didn't know where she and Draco stood. After a few seconds, though, she was pouring everything out to him. Starting with her homecoming to her muggle house and ending with that morning in the Great Hall, she told him everything that had been bugging her: Ron's death, trying to master wandless magic, the discussion with her mom, coming back to the castle, Hagrid's death, Harry, Harry's inability to cope, Harry's unwillingness to talk to her, Harry's denial, her survivor's guilt, how she felt bad for feeling good about coming back to the castle, and about the mysterious letters.

"-and now Harry seems mad at me, and this time I didn't even MENTION Ron. I just don't know what to do. I know it all sounds so dumb but it's really eating at me," Hermione finished, sobbing by this point.

Draco set his cup down, reached across the distance, and pulled her into his arms.

"Shhh. It's ok," he said into her hair, rubbing her back. "It's not dumb at all. You put on a good face, but you have to let this out eventually. Harry will come around. You might need to make him, though. I know he won't talk about it, but you're going to have to make him. That's what Severus did for me. It works."

"Professor Snape?"

"Yeah, he's my Godfather." He explained what had happened to him over the last year. "After about two weeks in that house, he finally got fed up with me moping around, and made me talk to him. I didn't want to, but he made me. He's very…uh…persuasive that way."

"How do you mean?" she asked.

"He pissed me off. Bad. Started saying how I was acting like a little girl, how I didn't know what I wanted in life, how he would've tried to do away with me like my mom tried,-"he ignored her gasp and continued- "how I was so out of it, and how I was such a selfish brat that nothing that happened affected me at all."

"That's terrible! How the hell is that helping?"

Draco laughed. "I'm very grateful, actually. At the time I wasn't, I assure you. But after about a week, I realized what he'd done; he forced me to live through what I had been putting off. He made me talk about it. I'm not telling you to intentionally piss Harry off; Severus knew what made me tick and that it'd work. I'm not Harry; you'll know what's best. But I got everything out to him. I told him how I was ashamed of being a Malfoy, and how my mother sealed the deal in my head."

At Hermione's confused expression, he explained. "You see, when I first came over to the Light, I had ulterior motives." He felt her tense, and rushed on. "I wasn't planning on going back, don't worry! Nothing like that. It was just…I knew that I wasn't cut out to be a Death Eater. And in my position with my family's…uh…political agenda, if I wasn't a Death Eater, I was useless." He sighed and hesitated before continuing.

"I didn't want to die, Hermione. I knew that if I didn't join however, death was imminent. If I did join, then I would be killed anyway, whether by an auror because of my poor skills and reluctance to defend Voldemort, or by Voldemort or one of the other Death Eaters because of my reluctance to participate in any activities they may have planned. I had thought about going to Dumbledore before, but I hadn't decided yet and I had no one to talk to. I didn't know Severus was a spy; he played his role well. I thought he was the real deal."

Draco laid his head back against the sofa, and Hermione looked up at him.

"…go on…what happened?" she asked.

He let out a chuckle and said, "Nothing heroic. I told you; I didn't want to die. One night I just….decided…that I really wasn't cut out to be a Death Eater. I went to Dumbledore right after a meeting, took some Veritaserum, and poured out my selfish little heart. Oh, I told myself that I would be doing good in the world; I would eventually restore the good name of Malfoy. But I knew the truth: if I fought for the Light, I would be protected. I would not only be protected by a wizard even mightier than Voldemort, but also by Severus and you, both of which are extremely talented." He smirked at her small blush, and then looked away from her and paused. When she peeked at him, he had a shameful expression on his face.

He let out a sigh, and continued. "I also knew I'd be on Harry's side. And there's almost no other force that's as strong as the one protecting the Boy Who Lived. People were willing to die for Harry. Everyone knew it'd come down to the Boy Who Lived and the Man Who Failed. They were willing to die to protect Harry so he'd have his chance. I knew that if I were on his side of the playing field there'd be a better chance of me seeing my 20's. I hid behind Harry; I'm not proud of it. Anyway, I was 99.9% positive I was on the right side, for more than one reason. That other .1% was made up for me when I saw my mom throw her curse. I couldn't even think of a way to defend myself." Draco looked back at Hermione, old cocky smile hitched back up.

"And you know the rest. The curse missed because I was rugby tackled by Harry, and my mom got hit with another by Moody. The moment Harry pulled me down, my mind caught up and it was much clearer. Suddenly, it wasn't about my safety; who cared about that? It was about defeating the…man…who started it all. I got up and didn't spare a glance backwards. I started dueling harder than ever, and didn't leave Harry's side until we were all separated by that damn smoke and dust. Ron and I flanked Harry until that point though."

Hermione smiled, and wiped her eyes. "Thanks, Draco. Can I ask a question?"

"Do I have a choice?" he asked, while reaching for some grapes.

Ignoring the jibe, she asked, "What made you decide?"

Draco froze for a second, and then popped some grapes in his mouth. "Weren't you listening to a word I said? I know I'm breathtaking but damn, witch. I'm selfish, remember?"

"No, no. Not that, the other reason; the deciding factor. What happened at the meeting that made you sure about leaving the Death Eaters for good?"

Again, Draco didn't meet her eyes, and hesitated before dropping the rest of the grapes back on the platter and standing up. Wiping his hands on his jeans, he told her, "Sometimes, Hermione, you know you won't be able to do something. Sometimes…you know that you'd rather die than to even attempt." He gave her a little smile, sauntered off to his room, and shut the door.

XXX

The next morning at breakfast, Hermione didn't see Harry. Dean and Seamus told her that he had said he wasn't hungry and went to go fly for a bit. Deep in her thoughts about how to get Harry to talk to her, she didn't notice the black falcon flying towards her amid all the owls, nor did she see the three pairs of eyes following the bird's flight path.

The letter was dropped in front of Hermione, breaking her out of her thoughts. Looking down at the letter, she felt the blood drain from her face, and her hand shook as she went to grab it.

Glancing around herself to make sure no one noticed her lapse in control, she opened the letter. She was again grateful that it was a Sunday morning, so not many students were up. As she started reading, she felt her breakfast churning in her stomach.

Hermione, my dear,

How long it seems since I last wrote you, although I know it was only 2 days ago. One day, very soon, we'll meet again. One day, I will make you feel what I've had to feel the last couple years. No one is without pain or sorrow, Hermione.

You think you know pain? You think that losing that pathetic friend of yours and a few others means you know of hardship? Try losing much, much more. Try losing your whole life.

Listen to me, getting caught up in myself. Ah, well, soon it won't matter. Soon, you will redeem yourself and be able to help me rebuild this world. I need you, Hermione. And I will have you.

Until then.

Rather than let the Great Hall see a repeat of her breakfast, Hermione jumped up and walked briskly out the doors, not picking up on the form following behind her.

Turning a corner into an empty corridor, Hermione slowed to a walk and allowed a small sob to escape. Suddenly, someone grabbed her and pulled her into a dark alcove. She didn't even have time to scream.