For a moment it felt like Draco was sixteen again. Like his life was in constant danger, and he had to endure each day being nauseous with fear. He couldn't even hide behind a stupid impulsiveness. He had actually thought this through for the better part of two weeks…

While he stood by what he had just done, the walk from the entrance of the Great Hall to the Slytherin table had never been so long, and he had never been so acutely aware of the fact that people were talking about him.

His legs led him to his usual spot at the table of their own accord, where he was met with Daphne Greengrass and an empty spot beside her. Draco sat down across from her and glanced at the empty spot before raising an eyebrow in confusion at his classmate.

"Where is Nott?"

Greengrass picked up her goblet. "He went to sit with the sixth-years," she replied after taking a sip of her pumpkin juice. "He didn't want to be around you after what we just had to witness."

Draco felt his lip curl up. "Then what are you still doing here?"

She put down her goblet and shot him a cold glare. "I'm fine right where I am. Besides, I don't usually concern myself with what you do. It has nothing to do with me."

His anger immediately deflated. He hated these mood swings. It was one of the annoying side-effects of having unlocked his long-suppressed emotions, and one thing he could really do without.

"Thank you," he muttered stiffly.

"Don't mistake my apathy for approval or support," Greengrass answered coolly. "In my opinion, you are just needlessly antagonising your social circle by fraternising with her."

"Thankfully, I never asked for your opinion," Draco bit out on reflex.

Her eyes narrowed as she set down her fork, and Draco couldn't suppress the regret that bubbled up in his chest. Another dreadful side-effect of his counselling sessions. Suddenly he was capable of feeling guilty.

Greengrass brushed her hair over her shoulder without breaking eye contact. "And thankfully, I don't feel the need to ask your permission to share it," she shot back, her tone sharp. "Don't you think I've spoken to Pansy during the holidays, Malfoy? I know my opinion might not carry much weight for you, but surely hers does?"

The unease in his chest spread. This was uncharted territory; he didn't have this kind of relationship with Greengrass. They didn't usually talk to each other this way, and it was one of the things he appreciated about her. They stayed near the surface. She didn't meddle. Or at least, she didn't used to.

Right now, though, it was clear that she wasn't just throwing rhetorical questions his way. She was actually waiting for an answer.

"Of course it does," he finally sneered, though it was weak.

"Then what the hell are you thinking?" Her question sounded accusatory, and her blue eyes bored into his.

Draco inhaled sharply. "I thought you said you didn't concern yourself with that."

"I don't. I concern myself with Pansy. And with Theodore, for that matter."

There was a determination to her tone that he was wholly unfamiliar with, and Draco was struck by the realisation that he was only just now getting to know who Greengrass was. He didn't appreciate what she was doing, and his instincts were urging him to put her in her place, but for some reason he found himself unwilling to give in to it.

She leaned forward a little. "You don't do well in isolation, we have all seen that. And it has been obvious how much you're struggling without Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle around. But seeking refuge in Granger, of all people? How can you expect everyone to simply stand by and pretend like this is normal?"

"It's not normal," Draco finally snapped. The mention of Crabbe had riled him up, and he could no longer suppress it. He glared at the girl across from the table, briefly feeling like his old self. "You don't know what I've been through, Greengrass. Not really. None of you do."

He glanced away in an attempt to collect himself and clenched his jaw. She was quickly getting under his skin, and he didn't like having her there.

"Get it through your head. I don't get to go back to normal. I pledged allegiance. I was an active participant in this war." He turned back to her. "And so was she. Which is why normal is no longer applicable to me. Or her."

Greengrass stared at him, her eyes carefully studying him as she listened.

"I nearly killed her this year. You were there. And somehow she managed to get past it before you did. I don't care anymore, Greengrass. Despite being on opposite sides for the past few years, Granger has gone out of her way for me. I'm done fighting it. Without her help I probably would have been out of here before Zabini."

The blonde averted her eyes for a moment, seemingly processing. Draco closed his own eyes and took a deep breath, desperately trying to calm himself. He hadn't planned to unleash on her. He hadn't planned on telling her anything at all. None of this was her business. He was usually above explaining himself to others.

And yet…

There was no regret. He was finally starting to see what Madam Medens had tried to instil in him during all those sessions in which he hadn't participated. Speaking thoughts took away some of their power. Perhaps sharing them didn't have to be as bad as he had always thought.

"Malfoy, if you're honestly planning on investing in this… thing… with Granger," Greengrass said softly, pulling him from his thoughts, "then please be sensible about it." He met her eyes again. The lines on her face drew a picture of aversion, and he had to fight against his instinct to curl his lip.

"Pansy is worried about you becoming an outcast." She glanced along the Slytherin table, briefly focusing on Nott, seated at the other end. "And in his own way, so is Theo. He is one of your oldest friends, and that means something to him. I know it means something to you, too, even if neither of you is willing to say it."

She then got up from her seat and frowned at him, leading him to realise that he hadn't even bothered putting on a poker face. His annoyance was crystal clear.

"I apologise for overstepping my bounds," Greengrass finished in the indifferent manner he had become accustomed to over the years. "But someone has to look out for Pansy's interests in her absence."

She held his gaze for a moment longer before moving away to join Nott, and Draco stared after her, wholly uncomfortable with the fact that absolutely nothing seemed to stay remotely familiar to him.

~ X ~

Despite Draco's attempts to compartmentalise his discomfort, he had not been able to shake it once he made it to his dormitory in the Slytherin common room. He had seriously considered staying in the Head's Tower instead, but he had not been able to deny that Greengrass' words had left an impact.

Though it felt foreign, Draco realised that he was not the only one who was attempting to adjust to this new post-war reality. Had all this happened two years ago, everyone would have simply shunned him. Instead, they were showing some form of concern. Even Nott, who had resorted to lashing out at him.

It was something he, until very recently, would not have recognised for what it was. Perhaps he would soon be able to appreciate it.

"I would have bet a fortune that you wouldn't dare showing your face down here," Nott sneered upon entering the dormitory as well. He crossed the room towards his bed, shrugging off his robes as he moved.

Draco couldn't completely fight back a glare, though he was trying. He felt utterly uncomfortable. Having to listen to Greengrass had been difficult enough, but to initiate such a conversation himself was infinitely worse.

"Don't you have anything to say?" Nott snapped. There was a look of utter contempt on his face, and the glare he sent his way was unlike any Draco had ever received from him before.

"Anything in particular you're hoping to hear from me?" he snapped back, unwilling to be talked to this way.

His dorm mate raised an eyebrow. "At this point I'm just hoping for an Imperius curse," Nott said in a low voice. "I refuse to accept that you're of sound mind after that little performance earlier."

Draco raised his chin. His old self would have whipped out his wand at this point, but right now he could decipher the concern in his friend's statement. Nott was unable to vocalise it in any other way, much like he had long been unable to see past the words. This wasn't what they did. It wasn't how they communicated.

But right now they had to.

"Are any of us of sound mind at this point?" he muttered after a lengthy silence. He registered the brief surprise in Nott's eyes. "How long are we going to pretend that going back to normal is an option for us?"

When Nott continued to glare in silence, Draco let out a sigh. "Our normal is no longer serving us."

"Which means what?" Nott hissed. "That my only option of having a future is finding myself a Mudblood girlfriend as well?" He then let out a humourless laugh as he tugged at his tie until it came undone, tossing it away from him. "You're actually flinching at that word now? Who the hell have you become?"

"Someone who is trying to come to terms with the fact that things are never going back to the way they were," Draco shot back. He was aware that his voice had dropped lower and his tone had become more hostile. This was a mistake. It was impossible to explain himself when he had barely made sense of his own thoughts.

Nott then rose from his bed. "What, you think you're the only one who's noticed the world has changed?" he all but snarled. "You think you're the only one struggling with prejudice? How do you think it's been for me?!"

Draco glared up at his dorm mate's angry face, his doubts quickly fading to the back of his mind. A strangely hopeful feeling spread through his chest.

"Your father managed to snake through the cracks of our justice system, but mine was killed in an Auror pursuit. Forever a Death Eater," Nott spat out bitterly. "You think the people in our society jump up and down in excitement when the son of an actual convicted Death Eater announces their love for their daughter?"

Confusion rapidly replaced the hopefulness. "What are—"

"You think I'll be embraced as a part of the family?" Nott interrupted him harshly. "Or do you think it more likely that the daughter in question chooses the safety of her trusted family over this blatant blemish on their family's legacy?" He gestured wildly at himself, a look of disgust on his face. "Do you think that maybe it's more likely that I will end up alone, instead of ending up with the witch I've loved since I was fourteen?!"

"Greengrass?" Draco muttered, more to himself than to Nott.

Suddenly it all made sense: the inexplicable feeling he had had that Nott and Greengrass were closer than he had realised before, her silent sadness during his absence, and Nott's void response when he had told him that Greengrass had missed him during his leave from school. Even Greengrass' meddling from earlier had a new meaning to him now.

"And now you're suddenly openly courting Potter's Mudblood," Nott continued, not bothering with responding to his vocal realisation. "With absolutely no regard for the rest of us. Do you think it wins any of us any favours if we turn a blind eye to it? Has our social circle not shrunk enough? And now you're willingly removing yourself from the equation, too, like you're better than us?"

That statement hit harder than Draco was willing to admit, even to himself. There had been a time when he had genuinely thought himself to be superior to his friends, but that time was long gone, and he could barely reconcile himself with that part of his past. He had been thoroughly proven wrong, hadn't he?

"I don't think I'm better," he finally managed. He glanced up at Nott with difficulty. He seemed to be finally calming down again. "Do you think I'm happy with any of this? Don't you think I fought this for as long as I could? You think I have any illusions that my family is going to be accepting of this?"

Nott sank back down on his bed, rubbing a hand over his face, radiating discomfort.

"I was forced into a position where it felt like it was my responsibility to redeem my father in the eyes of the Dark Lord," Draco continued quietly. "You don't know what I've done, how involved I was. None of you do. After a while it just didn't matter anymore who could relate. It matters that there is someone who can."

"You're telling me that Granger understands?" Nott sharply emphasised her name, as if to carefully draw attention to the fact that he wasn't referring to her by slur. It almost felt like a peace-offering.

Draco let out a sigh. "Yes." He finally removed his own tie to give his hands something to do; to have an excuse to not look at Nott. "She's probably the only other person in this school who was as involved as I was."

The dorm was quiet for a long time. Draco pointedly avoided any eye contact, instead focusing on removing his robe and kicking off his shoes. He felt drained. He barely had any energy left to feel uncomfortable about having an open conversation with Nott for the first time since they knew each other.

After a long silence, Nott cleared his throat and Draco reluctantly raised his head.

"You're making things very difficult for all of us," his dorm mate eventually muttered, a seemingly forced accusatory tone to his voice.

Draco inhaled slowly. "We can either bend, or we can break." Nott's brows formed a frown as they stared at each other in discomfort. "I would say we're broken enough, wouldn't you?" he added softly.

There wasn't an answer after that, though Nott's frown had turned into something akin to defeat. Neither of them seemed willing to pick up their conversation again, instead opting to quietly get ready for bed. Though they both pretended, neither would be able to sleep for a long time.

Wednesday, 21 April 1999

Weirdly enough, not very much seemed to have changed in the two weeks since they had returned to school. Apart from Nott and Greengrass, no one had confronted him about his very public kiss with Granger, though people had been staring at him everywhere he went. It was a strange contrast to the earlier months. Before the holidays, his fellow students tended to ignore him as much as possible.

Nott and Greengrass had both gone back to treating him with a cool nonchalance. There had been no more snide comments; no more sharp insults. No more slurs. Draco had decided to not question it. The whole thing with either of them had been uncomfortable, but if this was the acceptance they were able to offer, it was enough for him. In return, he made an effort to spend more time with them.

What had changed, though, was that McGonagall had revoked their access to the Head's Tower after their first day back, reiterating what she had said in January about secluded quarters and teenagers. The Headmistress had not said much else about the developments between him and Granger, though she had seemed generally disapproving.

They were both disappointed that their Tower privileges were now gone, though Draco was sure Granger's reasons were vastly different from his. She had begun to scale up the time she spent studying for the N.E.W.T.s, which meant that if he wanted to find her, he had to look in the library.

Unfortunately, despite their almost-kiss there back in February, Granger was staunchly against snogging in the library out of fear they would get caught by Madam Pince and be barred entry during the exam preparation period.

They still snogged, of course, though not nearly as often as Draco would like. Their weekly patrol rounds ended, almost religiously, in the same corridor where they had shared their first kiss, and each week he would push Granger against that same wall with a smirk. She would smile up at him, brightly and invitingly, and he would slide his hand up around the back of her neck and pull her close.

Other than their weekly patrol rounds, the occasional stroll over the castle's grounds, or the evenings in the library, they didn't see very much of each other. The exams were around the corner, and so was the dreaded first Memorial Day. Everyone seemed stressed and tense, and the both of them were constantly called upon by both teachers and prefects to help out somewhere.

It had brought out an entirely new sensation in him, Draco realised. At first, he thought it was simple greed, to see more of her. But he didn't just long for her physically. He had begun to crave their conversations. Granger's lack of obvious judgement during his journey of self-rediscovery, and her encouragement, had awakened something in him that had laid dormant since he was a child: a foreign, distant hopefulness.

He entered the library that evening, leisurely making his way through the aisles until he reached the table in the far corner. Granger was surrounded by books and scrolls of parchment, her hair pulled together in a messy bun on top of her head. Her face was a mask of concentration, all frowns and focus, as her eyes darted over the page in front of her, and her left hand was carefully massaging the palm of her right.

Stepping forward, Draco pulled the chair across from her backwards and sat down, carefully taking in the studious Head Girl. She hadn't so much as glanced up at him. When he dropped his book down on the table she jumped in her seat, her eyes snapping up to meet his.

He couldn't fight back a smirk. "It's just me."

Her shoulders relaxed a little. She brought her hands up to her face and rubbed her eyes. "Sorry," she murmured, sounding tired. "I was caught up in the Conjuration diagrams."

"As if you haven't already memorised those since mid-September," Draco snorted, amused. He felt his smile leave his face as he took in Granger's vacant gaze as she stared, unseeing, at the books in front of her. She hadn't even acknowledged his quip. "How long have you been here?"

She glanced up at him. "I'm not sure. What time is it?"

"Nearly nine."

Granger closed her eyes and sighed. "Since Arithmancy. And now I've missed supper."

A foreign feeling spread through Draco's chest as he narrowed his eyes at her, passively trying to decipher the feeling as he studied her again. Granger was pale. The skin beneath her eyes was slightly darker than he was used to. Her eyes were dull, lacking their normal brightness. She looked exhausted. She was clearly overworking herself.

The foreign feeling began making sense. Worry.

This was new.

Draco considered his options. He then reached out and gently pulled her book towards him. Granger's eyes snapped up at him. If she hadn't been so tired, Draco was sure she'd have looked annoyed. He snapped the book shut.

"Let's go," he murmured. She opened her mouth, undoubtedly to protest, but he rose from his seat and raised an eyebrow. "No," he said firmly, not giving her the chance. "Now."

Granger glowered at him for a moment, but then she sighed again, admitting defeat, as she began gathering her belongings. Draco took the book to Madam Pince, signing it out in Granger's name, and then waited by the door until she appeared from the rows of bookcases.

She halted in front of him, eyebrows raised expectantly as she put the book in her bag. He held her slightly defiant stare as he contemplated, and then he moved his arm. Her eyes dropped down to his hand, held out for her to take, and then shot back up to his face, clearly taken aback. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, glancing down at his waiting hand, but then she reached out to close her fingers around his, albeit a little timidly.

Draco stepped out into the corridor, gently tugging her along, and set out for the Grand Staircase before descending with Granger in tow. She allowed him to lead her down another set of stairs, never bothering to hide her confusion, but he knew her curiosity was stronger.

At last, after walking the length of the broad stone basement corridor, they halted in front of a large painted picture of a giant fruit bowl. Draco glanced down at Granger as he reached out his free hand to tickle the pear. She glanced back, recognition in her eyes, and gave him a smile. He tugged at the green door handle that had appeared, and together they stepped inside the Hogwarts Kitchens.

He used to come down here often. At first, it was all in good fun, raiding the kitchens for parties in the Slytherin common room. In his sixth year he had resorted to sneaking in far past curfew, having missed supper in favour of mending the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Come and Go. He pushed back the unease he felt when he was reminded of his mission. He was here for a good cause, now.

"Miss Hermione."

They both glanced down at the unpleasant croaking voice, and Draco had to fight with all his might against the sneer that was tugging at his lip as he regarded the elf before them. A bulbous, snout-like nose, bloodshot eyes, many folds of skin, and white hair growing out of his bat-like ears. Though house-elves were no pretty breed, this one was especially ugly.

But he was trying to do a nice thing here, and Granger had a soft spot for these creatures. Distasteful as he found it, she was clearly familiar with this one.

"Hello Kreacher," Granger said softly, apprehensively. "How are you?"

The elf bowed down. "Kreacher is well, Miss. How can Kreacher assist Miss Hermione?"

She glanced up at him, still apprehensive, and Draco cleared his throat. "The Head Girl has missed supper," he told the elf, straining to sound polite.

The bloodshot eyes snapped up at him, regarding him openly. Then the elf bowed again, his nose nearly touching the floor. "Kreacher is honoured to meet the young Mister Malfoy, son of Miss Cissy of the Noble House of Black."

He couldn't fight the sneer this time. "Cissy?" he bit out with thinly veiled disgust. "You know my mother?"

Granger squeezed his hand, drawing his attention to her. "Kreacher is the house-elf of the House of Black," she murmured, her voice betraying her displeasure. "Harry… inherited him… when Sirius Black died. Harry's godfather."

"Kreacher will fetch a meal for Miss Hermione," the house-elf croaked. "It is Kreacher's pleasure to serve Miss, friend of Master Harry…"

Watching the elf shuffle away, Draco had to put up a tremendous amount of effort into maintaining his poker face. He was thoroughly disturbed that Potter had somehow come to inherit property of the Noble House of Black; his mother's House, a House he descended from. It wasn't right.

Draco took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled from his nose before daring to look at Granger again. He found her already studying him, her eyes guarded, and he couldn't repress the pang of discomfort that she had apparently witnessed his struggle.

He briefly glanced down at their joined hands and gently ran his thumb up and down along hers. "Not to sound insensitive," he then muttered, carefully composing his tone, "but how the hell did you manage to have an elf of the House of Black treat you with respect?"

Granger breathed out a hint of a laugh. "Relentless kindness," she answered, sounding a little proud. "And standing up for him to Harry."

Kindness.

Draco couldn't help but stare, disbelievingly. "You broke down a creature, thoroughly indoctrinated and bound by centuries of pureblood customs, with kindness?"

Her smile widened, and her eyes glinted with mischief. "As it turns out," she murmured, tightening her grip on his hand, "I'm getting kind of good at that."

Oh, that little minx…

He moved, closing the space between them, and grabbed her chin with his free hand, pulling her closer and lifting her head as he bowed down and kissed her, hard. He felt her arm slide around his waist as her tongue brushed against his lower lip, and he smirked against her mouth before snogging her properly.

Neither of them noticed Kreacher, standing only a short distance away with a carefully assembled dinner plate, looking deeply uncomfortable.