Harry Potter 1. An Unexpected Discovery

**Chapter One**

**An Unexpected Discovery**

* * *

She sat alone in the Room, her warm, moist breath fogging the glass of the window by which she sat.

Her chest rose and descended softly against her bent knees, rhythmically, as though following the silent beating of the rain on the window. Her shoes and socks were off, and her feet seemed naked and frozen to a pale, milky color against the blaring red nail polish that was smeared on her toenails. The Gryffindor crimson and canary yellow scarf was wound around her neck, bringing her little warmth compared to the searing tears that were now flowing stealthily down her ruby cheeks.

Her dark eyes closed in painful reverie, her head slid sideways against the window, the cool of the glass warming against her.

She could almost hear the silence downstairs.

She felt like she should have been down there when the fight had still been raging, felt like Lupin and Tonks and Kingsley and McGonagall could have used an extra hand or two in keeping them at bay.

But this had been inevitable, hadn't it? What indeed had they expected?

_Surely they didn't honestly believe we stood a chance?_

No Dumbledore, no Harry, no Ron – this invasion had been inevitable. Who were they fighting for, anyway?

Who could she fight for?

"Who is in here?"

She heard that distinct drawling voice emerge all of a sudden, and a cavernous fear grew within her. How had the Room betrayed her after all these hours?

Well, she had always underrated their Side, simply placing her hope in the belief that life would surely always have a happy ending - and it was not as though that turned out to be completely untrue and blasphemous.

The belief simply neglected to specify just _who_ would be happy in the end.

"Who's in here? Show yourself!"

Her eyes closed again, her shoulders turned limp as though she had turned completely to liquid from her frozen statue.

It was a nice change.

"_Granger?"_

The inescapable exclamation came, and she felt her eyes open despite herself.

He stood there clothed in jet-black velvet robes, his wand perched at a perfect forty-five degree angle toward her, his blonde hair tousled and grey eyes wide in disbelief. He looked so gapingly large to her at that moment that she was reminded distinctly of how little she had seen of him in the course of that year.

It left little to the imagination as to what he had been up to in that time.

His feet seemed rooted to the kaleidoscopic carpet underneath them that she was almost tempted to laugh coldly.

"What - what are you doing here?" he spluttered when she didn't say anything.

"I thought it would be obvious that I am sitting."

He very nearly smirked, but seemed to remember just who it was that he was talking to, and caught himself just in time.

"Evidently the idle do seem to find ways to pass the time," he mocked.

She sighed and looked back at the window.

"I'm in no mood for your petty banter, Malfoy."

He lowered his wand.

"Well, what else shall we do to pass the time in here then?"

She looked quickly back at him then, the fire suddenly blazing in her chest, and regarded him icily.

"I don't know what _you_ will be doing, but _I_ was enjoying the scenery before I was somewhat rudely interrupted, so I'll just continue with that."

"Granger, you're no fun."

"Well-spotted."

She closed her eyes tightly then, feeling another bout of tears coming on. She saw faintly from the corner of her eye that Malfoy was sitting down all of a sudden, and his eyes were roaming her form with an amused expression on his face.

She met his gaze with her own steely one.

"The wandering eye soon gets caught Malfoy, and you wish to risk that?" she said, suddenly very pissed off.

"Have you not thought that it may be worth the risk in this case? Or thought that I'm not afraid of what you will do to me _if_ I get caught?"

He smirked at long last, and she felt a pang in her stomach at the sight of it.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think about you _that_ much Malfoy," she muttered quickly, rather unnecessarily she realised later.

"Touché," he responded, his eyebrow raised questioningly at her.

She tied the scarf around her neck tighter, wondering how long it would be until he finally hexed her into oblivion and that would be the end of that. She voiced this to him, and saw that he shook his head at her.

"Granger, Granger, _Granger_," he said mock pityingly. "Here I was enjoying our little discussion, and you wish to end it so soon?"

"Just eager to know when to prepare for the inevitable," she replied sourly. "I want to be fixed in my favourite pose, you see, when the time comes."

"I shall oblige a notification then," he nodded, and she felt a dip in her stomach at the sudden gravity of her situation.

She half expected him to deny that he was indeed going to kill her but – this was Malfoy! Of course she could expect no mercy.

Nor did she really want it from _him_, anyway.

"Granger, I've always wanted to ask you a couple of questions, but we've never found the time to have a proper chit chat, have we?"

She couldn't tell whether he was joking or not.

"No, our chit chats usually consist of several ingenious hexes and a bloody nose or two. Hardly genial, nor an environment that could spur discussion."

He nodded his assent.

"I take it that's a yes from you that I may ask my questions?"

Despite herself, a smile tugged at her lips, but a feeling of unease swept her. Why did she feel like she knew Malfoy all of a sudden? She steeled herself.

"Why was Potter so stupid enough to rock up to the Department of Mysteries two years ago? Surely he would have known it was a trap? Or was it on your counsel? Because after an incident like that, we can stop wondering why the Hat didn't put you in Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor."

She felt a searing hatred erupt in her body. How could he _dare _to speak of Harry that way, while he was in his grave right now? He evidently had little respect for anyone or anything, the chiding smirk on his face a tell tale sign of his arrogance and conceit. But to speak so brashly about a thing he knew nothing about – what was he playing at?

"Screw _you_, Malfoy," she muttered before she could stop herself, loathing him with every fibre of her being.

"Why, thank you Granger, don't mind if I do."

And he suddenly got up and she felt fear erupt in her body all of a sudden. He was walking towards her now, and she felt all of a sudden that he was not above the prospect of forceful contact, not at all.

But he merely sat on the pane next to her feet, his grey eyes holding dark storms within them that she found momentarily startling.

"Don't look so shocked, Granger," he spoke, his grave face suddenly breaking into amusement. "Someone just might think you can't take a joke."

She drew her knees even closer, suddenly wishing that she had been wearing a pair of socks as Malfoy regarded her feet.

"Red doesn't suit you, Granger. A bit scandalous, one might think. But then again here you are in Gryffindor, eh? But still, it doesn't suit you."

She raised her eyebrows at him.

"What would you know about me, anyway?"

"Try me," he said mysteriously, looking back up into her eyes. "I know more about you then you might think."

"Okay," she said slowly, not knowing what he meant or where the conversation was going.

"I know that you have brown hair," he began, and her confusion only grew more. "It used to be bushy, but now it's more wavy. You have really brown eyes, and freckles on your nose, which become obvious when your skin is really pale like it is now. You're quite tall, and a bit too skinny if you ask me."

He paused, and she was very tempted to say "is that _it_".

"But these are all very superficial," he said slowly, as though he were dragging the conversation out for his own sake, and she was embarrassed to note that she wanted him to do so as well. "You want to achieve something in your life, but your resolve has been dampened now since you feel you don't have a purpose anymore. You lost yourself when Potter and Weasley died, but you're stronger than you think. And of course,"

He stopped briefly, noting the slight sparkle in her eyes,

"of course, right now, you are dying for me to kiss you."

Her face was in awe until she finally realised what he had said, and she drew her head back in shock.

"W-what!" she managed to splutter, and Malfoy laughed.

"You looked like you were in a trance, Granger! I just wanted to wake you up."

She shook her head slightly, her cheeks a flushed scarlet. What was wrong with him today?

What was wrong with _her_?

She suddenly felt very uneasy as he ruffled his hair.

"You know, I am supposed to kill you," he said softly, so softly that she almost missed it.

She felt a pit in her stomach, and swallowed. His gaze was on the patch of carpet in front of his knees.

He looked at her suddenly, and she half expected to see a maniacal glint in his eye, and felt slightly uneasier when she didn't see anything even slightly maniacal in them at all.

He just looked downright depressed.

"I don't care, Malfoy," she assured him rather matter-of-factly. "I don't care if you kill me. I have nothing left to live for, and at least you'll be in Voldemort's good books if you do kill me."

He winced slightly.

"Do you think that's all that matters, Granger? Being in Voldemort's – _good books_?"

"Well, at least that's all that matters to _you_," she said, before she could stop herself.

He looked at her coldly, and the sadness had disappeared from his eyes.

"It's nice to see your opinion of me at long last… _Mudblood_," he said ruthlessly, and she was the one to wince this time.

"You've never given me any reason to believe otherwise, Malfoy!" she retorted, recovering from her moment of disbelief.

He rose from the pane and took his wand from his robes pocket. She felt her heart dip slightly all of a sudden.

This was it, then.

"Go," he whispered, facing away from her.

She didn't hear him.

"What?"

"Go!" he said, more loudly. "GO!"

She rose from the pane, alarmed at his sudden vehemence.

"Malfoy, what do you –"

"Get out of my sight, and don't stop running until you get to Hogsmeade – and keep that damn hood on your face the whole time."

She gasped at him, looking into his painfully neutral eyes with her own tear-filled ones.

"Malfoy, how am I - "

"Don't worry about that," he said, more softly, "I'll make sure no one stops you."

She made her way mechanically towards the door of the room, too scared to look back and see his expression behind her.

"Granger?"

Her hand stopped on the iced doorknob.

"I was wrong."

She looked back at him, knowing at that moment that he would not hex her into oblivion at all. His features seemed softer, his eyes sparkled very slightly.

"What do you mean?"

He looked out the window briefly before turning back to answer.

"Red does actually suit you."

* * *

**Don't forget to review :)!**


	2. And We Meet Again

**Chapter Two**

**And We Meet Again**

* * *

Her hand closed into a fist around the note in her robes pocket, as she trudged on toward the Blue Lodge.

When had she decided to go along with all of this? It seemed like an eternity from the time she had received his letter and this very moment when the lodge was in her field of view. His letter had been tattered, tea-stained and brief.

_I need to see you_.

It betrayed no longing, no desire. He had not said 'I _want_ to see you'. Nor had it been left open-ended and up to her to decide whether she would go or not. He had not said 'I _wish_ to see you'.

Maybe that's why she had decided to go, for he _needed _to see her.

Yes, that was probably why.

She felt goose-pimples erupt from her skin and she shuddered, thinking of his smirk, his directness and vehemence that day in the Room. She had not seen him since he had banished her from the Castle – was banish the right word?

He had _saved_ her. He had been her saviour, and now she was indebted to him.

Was this his plan all along? To lure her into some pact of eternal gratitude that would compel her to sate his needs forever?

_Give me death any day._

It was evening, and the clouds were still dim around her. She had always known that the Dark Side would assume control of the world, but she had envisioned their reign to be more of a sweltering hellhole of flames and heat rather than this bleak tedium that had instead enveloped them.

She rather preferred the inferno; at least physical torture would allow her to forget the past…

She raised her hood over her head and entered the Lodge, finding it to be so incredibly muggy that she almost thought she _was_ in a kind of hell.

_Almost_. It felt more like a limbo.

Nobody even looked up to regard her inside, and she was somewhat relieved to note that the crowd gathered in the main entrance was sparse and half-drunk anyway. It would make her passage much easier, and she knew exactly where to go anyhow, he had told her very explicitly in his letter.

She soon came face to face with the door of his room, and her hand hesitated on the doorknob.

Was this such a good idea? Was she going to be ambushed as soon as she walked in?

The thought was almost alleviating, and she opened the door.

She hadn't known what to expect, and neither it seemed, had he.

He was seated at the table at the far corner of the room that overlooked the window. His face was very pale and his eyes glistened hauntingly, boring into her own eyes with unnerving resolution. His long, nimble fingers were wound around a handsome eagle quill, the nib dripping dark jade ink onto his parchment.

She felt all of a sudden as though she were intruding on him.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, turning back around.

Her hand grasped the doorknob and she was about to walk out when she felt a slight pressure on her body and looked down to see his hands on her waist. She felt a twinge in her stomach, and swallowed, not wanting to consider exactly how he had reached her so quickly.

He spun her around to face him, and her hood either seemed to fall away or he had pulled it off her head very gently. Her eyes were downcast, but he raised her chin so that they met with his.

"What are you sorry for?" he whispered, very slightly as though he had lost his voice momentarily.

She brazenly regarded his face, her eyes flickering from his moist forehead to the fair, perfect arches of his eyebrows and his sharp nose.

"Granger, what are you sorry for?" he said loudly, and there was impatience in his voice as he shook her slightly.

She pulled away from him, intensely hating him all of a sudden.

"I don't know, many things!" she said, her volume growing to match his. "I'm sorry I interrupted you, I'm sorry I barged in without knocking - "

He laughed softly at this, and she was only more enraged.

" - I'm sorry I seem to have troubled you so much by sticking in your mind –"

He seized her then in an iron grip, and drew her face within inches of his own.

"I'm sorry," he responded coldly, looking carefully into her eyes, "but I don't think about you _that_ much, Granger."

For the umpteenth time, she could not tell whether he was joking or not, but then he smirked slightly and she felt her heart expand again.

"I'm glad you came," he said, his voice softening slightly.

Her cheeks went slightly red.

"Can you please let me go?"

She was determined not to look him directly in the eyes. He smiled, and she was taken aback at the change it made to his pale face.

"How can I deny such a well-mannered witch her request?"

And he let her go, but he did not move away. She felt trapped and very vulnerable, the back of the door pressing slightly into the small of her back.

"Why did you want me to come here?" she said, keeping her voice light, knowing full well that he could probably do anything to her at that point and she would have little defense ready.

He seemed to be thinking, and then he turned his back on her and walked back to his table.

"I'm not too sure, come to think of it," he said, equally as light.

She thought he was crazy, his tone of voice seemed to change so flippantly with her.

He looked back at her, and his hands were in his pockets as though he were an innocent schoolboy. She forced the endearing image out of her mind, and regarded him icily.

"I just wanted to see whether you were alive," he said casually.

"Well, I guess I am," she replied rather bashfully, not knowing what else to say.

"Evidently," he said, continuing to eye her. "Well, you're free to go now if you want. It has, after all, been confirmed that you are indeed alive and well."

He sat back at his desk, but his eyes lingered on her, almost daring her to move. She felt like a marionette puppet that had all of a sudden become detached from its strings. It was all rather disorientating.

She glanced briefly outside the window before replying.

"If you wouldn't mind," she said, "I'd rather wait here until daybreak, that way it's safer to walk. We wouldn't want your sacrifice to have gone to a waste, would we?"

His eyebrow rose very slightly, but he looked as though he were holding back a grin.

"No, we wouldn't, not at all," he nodded, pointing to the chair opposite him.

She slowly walked over and joined him at the table, noting the messy spread of parchment and broken quills and bottles and bottles of emerald and jade ink next to them.

"No one would wonder which house _you_ were sorted into at Hogwarts," she remarked, rather in awe of the magnificence of the elements of prose that lay before her.

She had been itching to hold a quill for a long time, she hadn't written anything for a couple of months.

He smirked at her, and offered her a striking eagle quill and a bottle of ink. She accepted them gratefully.

"One would think you were tempting me over to the Dark Side, Malfoy," she murmured, smiling slightly nevertheless at his sudden thoughtfulness.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Granger," he responded, rather seriously. "You're too decent for our liking."

She dipped the nib of the quill into the inkpot before realizing that she had nothing to write about.

Nor anyone to write to

It was a strange feeling that she had never experienced, let alone comprehended.

Malfoy seemed to notice her hesitation. She looked up at him.

"I don't have anything to write," she said, and it sounded very feeble to her own ears.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Hermione Granger," he began, and she frowned at his use of her first name, "finally lost for words. I never thought I would see the day."

She felt a searing pain through her body.

"I meant," she said, her voice oddly composed, "that I have no one to write _to_."

His expression became inscrutable, and she felt like she was going to cry again at the thought of Ron and Harry.

She put the quill down, and shuffled herself around the chair so that she sat sidesaddle, staring out the window. She was desperate to feel the coldness of the air outside; it was far too warm inside for her liking, the fire within Malfoy's room blazing overwhelmingly as though it had access to a permanent supply of fuel.

She pulled open the glass door then and stepped outside onto the balcony, holding the edge of the railing. Her eyes stared resolutely, trying to discern a horizon, but the sky was too grey and melded flawlessly with the deep ocean beneath it.

It felt all of sudden like she, and the rest of the world, were enclosed in a capsule.

She sensed Malfoy lean on the railing beside her, and she sighed, looking down into her palms that hovered above the ground that was a fair few feet below them.

"Is that the only reason why you wanted me to come here?" she said, knowing that she sounded as though she had little purpose in life other than to discover the answer to this question. "To check if I was alive?"

His frown was unmistakable beside her.

"You act as if that means nothing at all, Granger," he responded softly.

She looked at him.

"Is it _supposed_ to mean something?"

He looked back at the landscape before them and sighed.

"Granger, I don't know," he said, exhausted.

She didn't know how to respond to this, and decided that she didn't care about him or his motives. If he were going to kill her or call ambush on her, she was more than willing to comply.

Or resign. Whichever of the two were most applicable.

"I _am_ alive, Malfoy," she started slowly, not knowing why she was answering a question that he had not posed. "But only just."

He did not answer immediately. His features were contorted as though he were thinking about something very deeply.

"If I have some debt," she furthered, "then I am willing to fulfill it."

He looked at her quickly.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well," she continued, not knowing whether she truly cared about what she was saying or whether she just simply wanted to capture Malfoy's attention. "It's a bit like 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine', only this time it's more like "I save your life, and you're forever indebted to me' ."

She didn't know how he was going to react and frankly she didn't care. She had not told him this to elicit a specific response.

Merely, _a_ response.

She knew she probably sounded manipulative and crazy, and that she was surely asking for it. But at that moment, she felt a strange vindication.

He swore at the wind.

"You know Granger, the more I talk to you, the more I get the feeling that you think I'm scum."

She raised a finger at him and started to speak, but he cut her off.

"And don't you _dare_ tell me that I've given you no reason to think otherwise," he said to her in a dangerous voice that nevertheless encouraged her protestations. "So you think the only reason I saved you was because I wanted you to repay me? What kind of repayment did you have in mind? I thought maybe you would consider me a respectable sort of guy from then on, but I suppose that was too much to ask."

She felt alarmed as to how seriously he had taken this, but his tone of voice was so superior and arrogant that she couldn't help but retort back.

"No, you know what Malfoy? Let me spell this out for you, and you decide whether my beliefs have been unreasonable. There I was many nights ago, minding my own business - "

"Wallowing in your own self-pity," he interjected, but she didn't wish to dignify it with a comment.

"- and I was interrupted by a busy-body who had no business meddling in my life after we had hardly talked at school. He is supposed to kill me and I want him to, but in the end he just ends up telling me what he thinks my deepest thoughts are, gets very angry, tells me to get lost and assures me that no one is going to stop me as I trot off to Hogsmeade with my hood over my head. Then there I am, walking for days and hiding out in godforsaken places, when an owl swoops down and delivers me a message from the very same guy who had once upon a time told me to get out of his sight. I was stupid enough to comply to his wishes as expressed in the jade-ink-laden letter, and here I am, arguing with him about nothing of importance."

She breathed very deeply after this, knowing full well that her cheeks were flushed scarlet. Malfoy's raised eyebrow never flickered on his face.

"Are you quite finished?"

"No," she said immediately, "and I never will be! I will never stop ranting and raving and telling you off until you – until you _kill_ me and let me leave and go find Harry and Ron!"

He faltered slightly at this, and she realised that she was speaking no sense and that it just felt good to yell at someone.

"Am I stopping you from doing that?" he said softly. "Forgive me, but I valued your life so much as to risk my own in the process of saving you."

"Nobody asked you to," she snarled back, knowing she sounded completely ungrateful. "I didn't ask you to Malfoy, so why did you do it?"

His face mangled into a frown that was full of pure loathing.

"Good question, Granger," he replied back, his voice so cold that her eyes widened slightly. "Finally one of your questions is warranted, and not just a sign that you are a blithering know-it-all that can't stand not knowing something so she just has to fling her hand in the air and enlighten herself. Bravo, indeed."

And he stepped back into his room and walked straight out the door, leaving her on the balcony and alone in his lodgings.

Only later did she realize that he had not in fact answered her question, and felt forlorn as she pondered what she could possibly do next.

* * *

Well, it's no longer a one-shot and I hope people are enjoying it just as much as I enjoyed writing it. **Don't forget to review:)**


	3. A Debt Unfulfilled

**Chapter Three**

**A Debt Unfulfilled**

* * *

She was back inside his room now, the sky outside no longer a dull grey, but now a dark indigo colour. It was rather empty and strangely serene now that she was alone in Malfoy's quarters. No one to glare at, no one to argue with.

Serene? No, it was more frightening.

Where was this place exactly? She didn't really know, she had just followed the flight of his owl from the time she had received his letter, but then she had lost track of it and somehow emerged from the forest on her own. She had darted for the first building that looked remotely in use, and had felt a sense of relief when it turned out to be the Blue Lodge after all.

His letter still lay crumpled in her robes pocket, the writing faded slightly now due to the number of times she had smoothed it out in the hopes of discovering a hidden meaning within its depths.

But it was always the same sentence that captured her attention.

_I need to see you_.

But why?

It did not sound like a plea to see an old friend after many years, nor did it sound, like Malfoy himself had resolutely rationalized, as though he were trying to discern whether she was alive or not.

So what was so urgent, so pressing, so imperative, that he needed to see her for?

An argument? That was all their interaction ever seemed to amount to. Malfoy must have been sorely bored or lonely if he was so desperate for contact. Or he was a very sick person that thrived on conflict.

The latter seemed the most likely.

But what could she possibly do now?

She did not want to impose herself further on him – though the prospect of imposing and thus annoying Malfoy would have certainly pleased her, she wanted to have as little communication with him as was possible.

But it was quite dark outside…

She rose from her chair, the idea of relying on him, and thus being near him, completely repulsing her. To fight with him again would be tiring, though it was undeniable who had been the cause of their last quarrel.

She exited his room and paced down the corridor, straightening her hair out somewhat as she came upon the main entrance.

She made slowly towards the door, feeling more nervous than when she had entered before. She didn't know where she was heading this time, and the masses of people – yes, there were now _masses_ of them - were no longer in a drunken stupor. It seemed like there was a lot of arguing going on and that everyone was riled up over something.

Her heart dipped in fear; the exit door seemed all of sudden very far from her creeping form…

There was a fierce tug on her arm, and she was wheeled around.

"Just where do you think you're going?"

Malfoy stood there, his face so blotchy that she almost wanted to laugh at finally seeing him in an unbecoming state. But she soon realised that there was nothing remotely comical about the rage that was emanating from his form.

Before she could answer him, he whispered a few words and her lips clamped together firmly. He pulled on the hood of her cloak violently so that it covered the top half of her face, before he hauled her back towards their room.

No – _his_ room.

He opened the door and practically thrust her inside, before charming the door to lock itself behind them. He glared at her then, and she felt rage boil within her own body that would have surely matched his. She desperately wanted to roar at him, but because of his curse, could not even open her mouth by half an inch to respond. He seemed to notice this, and his face suddenly contorted into a smirk.

He seemed no longer to be angry.

"Once again, you're lost for words," he said amusedly. "I'm starting to quite like this change in you."

But he nevertheless pointed his wand at her and spoke an incantation, and she felt her jaw muscles relax again, but not for long.

"That's pathetic, Malfoy!" she snapped. "Hexing someone when they can't possibly retaliate? Haven't you ever heard of dueling etiquette?"

"I never held much by etiquette," he shrugged, pulling off his cloak and tossing it onto his bed. "And besides, I didn't realise we were dueling. And I would never duel with you anyway."

She felt placated.

"So you admit I would win then, and you're too afraid to see yourself defeated?"

He looked back at her then, and smirked.

"No," he said slowly. "I just think we should preserve the last surviving member of the famous Gryffindor trio for a while longer, don't you think?"

She felt as though he had winded her.

"Go to hell, Malfoy," she said, making her voice as malevolent as possible.

His eyes flashed dangerously then.

"That reminds me," he said, his voice turning very cold. "What is wrong with you, Granger? Are you the one that actually wants to go to hell, trying to escape tonight after you had told me you would stay?"

She couldn't tell what had angered him more; the fact that she had wanted to leave or that she had not kept to her word.

"What do you mean?"

He moved swiftly toward her, and grasped her upper arms tightly in his hands. She felt as though he were squeezing her like an empty toothpaste tube.

"Are you that thick?" he hissed, glaring at her. "Walking out without your hood on – no, wait – walking out _in the first place?_ You got here safely because I _enabled_ it, Granger! I was the one that sent the owl; I was the one who placed a Reverie Charm on the crowd downstairs. If you had been left to yourself, you would have died before even setting foot in this place."

She looked alarmed at this, and it seemed to infuriate him even more.

'It is not candy and roses out there, Granger!" he bellowed. "This is the world now as taken over by the Dark Lord and you are in danger every breathing moment, you understand me? Your place in my quarters must remain a secret – _our_ secret. You are a – _muggleborn_ – and that means you are at risk."

That did it.

She pulled away from him, feeling on the brink of hexing him to oblivion before he would even know what hit him.

"Say it, Malfoy," she said, her voice dangerously low. "Say it, dammit! Say what you have been dying to say ever since you saw me again! Say that I'm a good-for-nothing _mudblood_ that doesn't deserve your help, but here you are, noble enough to save me over and over again from guaranteed mortal peril!"

Her breathing grew ragged, she knew she probably looked like a raving lunatic, but she was not going to sit there and take his insults lying down.

If he had wanted an argument, he was definitely going to get one.

"I don't get you at all, Granger!" he roared, his voice disbelieving. "Don't you realize how difficult it was to smuggle you to safety, how much jeopardy I am placing myself under just so that you can draw another breath?"

"Yes!" she hissed back. "You are indeed noble and merciful, and I am indebted to you, and – "

He smirked at her, and her voice faltered.

He folded his arms around his form, his hand loosely clutching his wand that was now pointed at the floor. She had never seen him lookthis self-righteous in all of their interactions before. It was indeed a spectacle not to be missed.

"Yes – about that," he said, his voice dripping with smugness. "Since you _so_ seem to want to repay me for the - services – that I have rendered, I thought perhaps that, yes, the wizard's debt must be fulfilled in order for the two of us to proceed further in life at all."

In other circumstances she would have probably corrected him that it was a 'wizard _and_ witch's debt', but her innate feminism was on hold as she realized the implications of what he had actually said.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"I thought your rescue was a selfless act?"

She didn't attempt to hide the sarcasm in her voice. He smirked.

"I thought you believed me incapable of selflessness?"

She glared at him.

"Does it matter what I think?"

"Precisely," he said, seeming pleased to note that she had cottoned on so quickly. "No matter what both of us think, even I, Granger, with my superior knowledge of the Dark Arts, cannot invalidate the wizard's debt. I'm afraid,"

He continued, disregarding her when she rolled her eyes,

"that neither of us may live contentedly until you save _my_ life, and thus repay your debt to me."

The wizard's debt was a very binding contract that could only be fulfilled if the bestowed repaid his debt in exactly the same terms with which the bestower had displayed his charity. She knew he was not making this all up; she would definitely have to repay him in the same way that he had given to her.

It would be a serious moral sin to leave the debt unfulfilled. She knew she would have to perform the duty in the end. It had not even struck her mind at the time; she had thought that Malfoy was doing this for his own selfish reasons.

She was very sick all of a sudden. She, having to save someone else's life?

If only Harry were in her position, he would have been better at this. Though he would probably have harboured qualms about it if it were Malfoy that he had to save.

Malfoy seemed to be smirking again, and she swore before asking him why he found all of this so funny.

"Anything that may cause me the slightest distress seems to cause you the greatest delight, does it not?" she snapped haughtily.

"Now, that's just an understatement, isn't it?" he winked mirthfully, walking towards the table in the corner of the room.

She felt very isolated.

* * *


	4. As A New Dawn Approaches

**Chapter Four**

**As A New Dawn Approaches**

* * *

The next morning had crept on her like a thief, the sunlight stealing her sleep as it filtered through the glass doors of Malfoy's quarters and onto her sleeping form on the double bed. It was not a bright sunshine, for the clouds still hung grey and dim in the sky like a strainer that allowed light rays to pass through only intermittently

He had been obliging enough, the previous night, to sleep on the sofa so that she would have the comfort of a cushiony bed. It was a gallant gesture, she supposed.

But he could've been nicer about it…

* * *

"So," he started, when the silence around them had become almost deafening.

They were both once again seated at his table, seemingly calmed after their argument, she facing the balcony and he busy scribbling something on his parchment. She could feel his eyes on her form every now and then, and she decidedly chose against acknowledging him.

So this was how it was going to be from now on? Either an atmosphere of fully-fledged fighting and animosity – or this unbearable silence?

She had been musing over this wizard's debt that she owed Malfoy. At first, it had been surprising to even be a part of it, and then it seemed utterly ridiculous and beyond her talents.

Yes, Hermione Granger could get top of the class, top of the year, Head Girl - but could she save lives?

Maybe she had been put into Gryffindor for a reason. And this would be a moment of reckoning.

It scared her beyond anything.

She glanced over at Malfoy, a bit startled at him having disturbed her from her daydream.

"Yes?"

"Are you hungry?" he asked, eyeing her a bit too severely, it seemed, after asking her such a simple question.

She felt a pang of annoyance.

"No."

Her stomach rumbled. But she didn't want anything from him.

"Suit yourself," he answered, shaking his head and musing back over his letter.

She hadn't eaten anything substantial for days - the last two days she had eaten nothing at all, the sweets that she kept in her pocket having depleted or grown sticky after her third day of traveling.

He pointed to the quill that he had given her before.

"It's a sugar quill," he said simply.

Eyeing him carefully, she picked the quill up and stuck the feather end into her mouth.

It tasted…

Like an eagle.

"Screw you Malfoy," she spat, while he laughed somewhat heartily before her. "What are you trying to do, make me throw up?"

He shook his head.

"Just trying to see how many times I can get you to tell me to screw myself," he said amusedly. "I believe our count is up to three?"

"Two," she corrected him morosely.

"Ah yes," he nodded. "'Go to hell' doesn't count, does it?"

She rolled her eyes.

"I'm not normally this vulgar," she said, not knowing why she wanted to defend herself to him. "But really, you just make me so – "

"Aroused?"

"_Annoyed_, I was going to say," she stressed, raising her eyebrows at him

The thought of feeling aroused because of Malfoy was… simply unthinkable.

Who would ever fall for his… large stature, blonde hair, swirling grey eyes…

Not she, at least.

"Here," he said, getting up and going over to the fridge in the other room.

He scanned its contents, shuffling things around within it before he returned carrying a bottle back to the table.

She frowned.

"I don't drink, Malfoy," she said disapprovingly, when he levitated two glasses towards them from the kitchen bench.

"Don't be daft, Granger," he almost snapped. "I'm not stupid enough to offer you mead. That would be like practically asking for rejection. This is butterbeer."

She couldn't keep the eagerness from her face at the thought of drinking the sweet, warming butterbeer, and he couldn't help but grin a bit.

"Don't wet yourself," he said amusedly as she keenly grasped the tall glass now filled three-quarters with butterbeer.

He toasted her.

"To the wizard's debt," he said serenely, downing his glass in one go.

She was astonished.

"How about 'to the _fulfillment'_ of the wizard's debt?" she corrected, sipping her drink more slowly in order to savor its flavor for longer.

He shrugged. She raised an eyebrow.

"You can't seriously tell me that you're _enjoying_ all of this," she continued, incredulous.

His face went slightly red.

"What would make you think that?" he snapped, corking the bottle and levitating it back to the kitchen bench. "I was welcoming your correction."

He stood up from his chair and yawned widely.

"Go to sleep," he said coldly, indicating the double bed in the middle of the room.

She stood up as well, slightly alarmed.

"I'm not sleeping with _you_, Malfoy!" she shrieked, her eyes wide at him.

"What the – " he said, gaping in shock at her. "Granger, you moron, I meant you can take _my_ bed and _I_ will sleep on the sofa."

Her heart settled slightly, and she paced towards the bed, her cheeks flushed a deep scarlet. She climbed inside the covers, her eyes passing over him casually to find that his gaze had not shifted from her.

"What?"

"You're weird, Granger," he shook his head, as though he didn't even want to try to fathom the chaos that was her mind. "Not to mention bawdy."

Before she could protest, he had collapsed onto the sofa, his legs spilling over the armrest and his head nestled into a cushion. A faint snoring sound emerged from his form after a few minutes, and she giggled at the fact that he was a snorer.

"Thanks, Malfoy," she couldn't help but say to the couch at her feet, staring at his splayed body over her toes.

He merely grunted in reply.

* * *

And now it was daybreak, and she felt very alone with Malfoy sleeping on his stomach on the sofa, the room otherwise lifeless. The fire had died down, the embers glowing slightly from the fireplace, and she stretched before clambering out of bed.

She made herself a cup of strong cocoa with a hint of butterbeer, before walking out onto the balcony, inhaling the crisp cold air outside with vigor. She felt jaded as she glanced at the sky, the clouds nowdarkening to a charcoal colour. It would be another bleak day inside this capsule, with many more to come.

His letter was still in her robes pocket, and she pulled it out, smoothing it over, desperate to elicit some sense of purpose from its faded words.

_I need to see you._

She sighed, and flung it over the side of the balcony.

She heard the glass door open behind her, and glanced back to see that Malfoy was coming to join her, tying his dark jade bedroom robe around him and carrying a blue one over his shoulder.

He ruffled his hair and regarded her carefully. She felt a twinge in her stomach as he handed her the blue robe.

"For you," he mumbled, his voice still groggy from sleep.

She was touched by his thoughtfulness.

"I thought we were getting into the spirit of Hogwarts house colours?" she inquired lightly, wrapping the blue robe around her.

He nodded.

"I still believe you should have been in Ravenclaw," he said, leaning on the railing beside her.

She shrugged.

"The Sorting Hat wanted to put me there," she said simply, looking back at the dull grey sky above them and noting how it once again melded in color with the ocean beneath them. "But in the end, it decided on Gryffindor."

"Fair enough," he replied.

After a while, he said, "I've heard that it takes the Sorting Hat the most time to sort the best people."

She raised an eyebrow in question at this, and he continued.

"Well, if you think about it," he ventured musingly, "the best people are often the most well-rounded. The most well-rounded are the ones that have many differing qualities, and the Sorting Hat finds it difficult to determine your most dominant trait."

She frowned.

"But, the Sorting Hat was so quick to put you in Slytherin. Are you saying that therefore you yourself are flawed or deficient?"

He regarded at her carefully, and the passionate storms in his eyes became more evident than ever, not because he was angry, but because he was thinking.

"Sometimes," he said softly, "it takes one some time to develop oneself."

He looked back at the ocean, but she found that her eyes simply would not stray from him…

"Anyway," he continued, the tone of his voice noncommittal once more. "I have some business to attend to out of town today, so I won't be here until evening."

She shrugged.

"That's alright. I suppose I could explore the town, check out whether – "

He looked at her quickly, his eyes flashing slightly, and only then did she remember.

She couldn't leave his quarters. What was she thinking?

She found herself nodding, and Malfoy began to look placated. This was exactly how she had envisioned married life to be; the wife, staying home to tend to the house and children while the husband went out to earn them a living.

But of course, she and Malfoy weren't married.

There was a chunk of solid cocoa remaining in her cup, and she walked mutely back into the room, toward the kitchen. A lump formed in her throat as she washed the cup, a lump of loneliness, helplessness… hopelessness…

What was she expected to do to while away the time today? And the next day? And the day after that?

Of course, Malfoy couldn't stay with her as a permanent source of arguments and pathetic jokes. Of course, he had a life to get on with.

But what did _she_ have to get on with in the mean time?

She brought another cup of cocoa out for Malfoy, who was now inside, packing some things into his bag.

He seemed surprised at her thoughtfulness, but did not thank her as she handed him the cup. His mind seemed preoccupied, and he all of a sudden looked as though he were in his late-twenties, not a mere boy of eighteen.

It was amazing what war could do to anyone.

"You make a mean cup of cocoa, Granger," he said, his eyes closing in pleasure as he drank the warm brown liquid.

She grinned.

"Secret ingredient – butterbeer."

He smiled slightly, but the frown lines did not disappear from his face as he absent-mindedly slipped out of his robe right in front of her, drawing his ebony cloak on the other side of the table towards himself.

She blushed at the sight of his bare chest, and would have looked away to allow him some privacy (though he clearly didn't care for it), but she then saw a large burn mark on his arm that spanned about four inches. It was in the shape of an oval, and it looked very painful.

She reached out a hand to touch it distractedly, but he quickly withdrew his arm.

"Malfoy, what was – "

"Nothing," he said quickly. "Battle scar. My very own memento."

He attempted a grin at her, but there was something in his voice that she couldn't help but notice.

Shame? Secrecy? Deception?

Maybe a combination of the three.

"Let me heal it," she said, drawing her wand from underneath her blue robe, but he hauled his bag up and moved towards the door.

"Don't bother, I need it," he said cryptically, and he was out the door.

There was that word again. _Need._

* * *

_**Reviews **as always are welcome :)!_


	5. And When You Decide To Return

**Chapter Five**

**And When You Decide To Return**

**

* * *

**

She sat staring at the pale cream colored walls that hemmed her inside his room, watching her shadow slowly change shape as hours and hours passed by with no sign of night approaching.

She sighed, and set her mug of tepid butterbeer on the table, wrapping the blue robe around her form tighter.

She wished dearly that an owl would knock on the window, or that a rat would emerge from beneath the bed or even that a fire would start in the kitchen. Something, anything, that would quell the dreary silence that befallen her existence over the past few days.

Where was Malfoy? It had been at least three days since she had last saw him, she had counted as each night had fallen, and as each sun had risen to beckon her from her scarce slumber, before becoming engulfed in grey clouds once more.

It was almost tedious without someone to argue with. She had just begun to realise how their arguments had been a form of sustenance for her.

Maybe it wasn't the arguments, but just the nature of interacting with someone, anyone, regardless of whether it was with _him_. Yes, that sounded more normal.

His refrigerator seemed to be self-stocking of its foodstuffs, readily replenishing its stores of butterbeer, cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties when she had downed said food items in a ravenous display of utter hunger.

She groaned, simply for the sake of wanting to break the silence, and moved towards the shower.

The hot water was soon cascading down her form and she felt like crying in relief and joy at the thought of taking part in regular activities like eating and bathing. She increased the flow of hot water and felt the temperature increase two fold, as she soaped herself and quickly got out before dressing herself in some of Malfoy's old clothes.

She quelled her feelings of revulsion as she climbed into his large jade shirt and black pants, but knew that she would have to deal with it until she could get some clothes of her own – which would probably be never, given the fact that Malfoy would never let her out of the Lodge.

As she squeezed the excess moisture from her dark curls, she heard a door open, and she felt a sense of trepidation as she quickly grabbed her wand and paced to the main living area.

It was Malfoy.

He put his bag on the table, and it seemed he had not noticed her standing there at all, while she was in his clothes with her wand pointed squarely in his direction. He was muttering to himself, and the frown lines around his eyes seemed to have deepened as though he were many years older than he really was.

"Uh, Malfoy?"

She thrust her wand inside her pocket as he looked up at her, and he smiled very slightly, painfully, and she could not help but raise an eyebrow at his unusual expression.

"Granger," he greeted swiftly, and he collapsed onto a chair and let his head loll back so suddenly that she gasped in fear at his splayed form.

She sat beside him, and thrust her mug of butterbeer into his hands, which he downed quickly and slammed back onto the table, wiping his mouth as his eyes opened to regard her.

"Thank you," he murmured, and she wondered what had come over him to behave so politely.

He chuckled at her expression of bewilderment, and said, "I think you just might have saved my life then, I haven't eaten anything at all for the last few days."

She looked away from him then, the pain of realisation stinging her eyes and heart.

'Don't be so fickle with your words."

She stood up, and took the empty mug from the table and trudged towards the kitchen sink, feeling cold water flow down her hands as she rinsed the mug over and over again.

She heard a sigh behind her, and then two hands came to rest on her shoulders, massaging them very slightly with warm circular movements.

"I don't want to fight, Granger," he muttered, his voice lifeless and dreary.

She felt a dip of disappointment in her heart; it was almost as though he had very seriously meant those words.

"Get away," she said, a hint of malice to her voice. "I am left here for three days – no, you _leave_ me here for three days – and when you come back, you expect me to act as though nothing at all has happened? It is a ridiculous expectation, of me and of anyone. You don't want to fight? Well, you have certainly given me much to fight about."

The cup cracked in her precarious hands, and she muffled a sob as Malfoy spoke an incantation to repair it.

"I'm sorry, Granger, but I thought if we are both going to live here for a while, then the atmosphere might as well be civil- "

"Or empty," she snarled. "There might as well be no atmosphere, no interaction between us, until perchance I actually _do_ save your life, and not through stupid things like ending your so-called three day famine with a sip of butterbeer, like you so amusingly suggested in your little joke back there."

"Granger, it's so tempting just to tell you to lighten up!"

"And I see you've done just exactly that!" she hissed, drying her hands on the dark jade shirt she was wearing and turning around to face Malfoy behind her.

"Granger, why is it so difficult for you to take a joke?" he said, exasperated.

"And why is it so difficult for you to be serious? You once told me that this world is not full of candy and roses, but you seem to all of a sudden just be full of that!"

"You know what, I really can't stand this anymore," he yelled, shaking his head furiously at her before walking out. "You are utterly confusing and convoluted Granger, with nothing but cotton wool between your ears!"

She laughed coldly.

"Now that's such a fitting thing to say to the valedictorian of your year, Malfoy!"

He looked back at her, his lips thinning to an almost evil half-smile, his blue eyes flashing dangerously.

"That fact is yet to be proven, as there was not even an end-of-year feast in our seventh year," he said coolly

And he moved towards his study room, pausing just has his hand touched the doorknob.

"Oh and by the way – green kind of suits you. Maybe you weren't made for Ravenclaw, either."

And as he locked the door behind him, she felt as though he had struck her with a body-bind curse.

* * *

He had slept inside the study room that night, she had surmised, as she woke up the next morning with the sofa at her feet once again empty and crease-free. She stopped herself from groaning as she recalled their argument the previous night, and went to the kitchen to make some toast and a cup of cocoa.

She glanced outside the window as she made her way to the kitchen, noting with a strange sense of foreboding that the sky was still grey and dull, observing as plump rain droplets merged to form thick rivulets that streamed down the glass of the window with delicate ease.

She returned to the table soon after, her pale fingers shivering as she clasped the steaming mug of cocoa within them.

He had struck a chord in her by his comments the previous night. The acknowledgement that Hermione had not indeed been made official valedictorian of their year – or indeed, the _lack_ of acknowledgement of her magical prowess – brought moisture to her eyes, and she closed her eyes in reverie as she put the mug down on the table she was seated at.

Why did she even care what he thought? She knew she would definitely have been announced as the smartest student in their year, she had worked very hard for it though she had not had as much time to study what with helping Harry capture the Horcruxes and such. And Malfoy himself was never around in their seventh year anyway, so it was not as if they were once again competing against each other in the academic sense.

No, he had been far away and very busy, gaining practical knowledge while she had been forced to remain in the castle, studying theory and communicating with Harry through encrypted letters while getting to know Ron a lot better.

She felt her cheeks flush slightly, and she took a swig of cocoa, feeling calmed as the hot liquid scalded her throat.

"Gee Granger, you look like as red as a Gryffindor this morning," she heard a voice speak, and she quickly opened her eyes to see Malfoy stepping out of the study room with his blonde hair very tousled and his eyes bloodshot.

She raised her eyebrows at him.

"And you look…"

"Absolutely wasted?"

"Yeah, pretty much," she said, fighting a grin from emerging on her face.

He smirked and shook his head.

"Can't possibly look as bad as I feel," he said matter-of-factly, taking a seat opposite her and pinching a slice of toast.

"Late night?" she asked, bewildered as Malfoy managed to stuff half of the slice of bread into his mouth.

"Oi wou'a say 'at," he choked, and she thrust her mug of cocoa at him in exasperation.

He grasped it in his left hand and took a swig before grinning at her.

"Very elegant," she said sourly.

"What I meant was, 'I wouldn't say that'," he continued, taking another bite of toast and chewing thoughtfully. "I haven't really slept at all these past few nights."

"Speaking of the last few nights," she answered, eyeing him carefully. "Where exactly have you been? I suppose it must have been a place without food or beds?"

He chuckled and brought his right arm steadily to rest on the table. She noticed how stiffly he seemed to move it, and instantly remembered the scar she had seen on it four nights prior.

"I can't exactly tell you," he said slowly, and now his eyes regarded her own and she could clearly see how truly worn out he was.

She raised an eyebrow.

"I don't see any harm in telling someone like me. After all, who could I possibly go rabbiting off to tell, if I must stay in here all day and night?"

He rolled his eyes.

"A cleverly disguised guilt-trip," he said almost admiringly, wagging the index finger of his left hand at her. "But, no, Granger, I shan't divulge and you will desist from asking me."

"And _you_," she snapped immediately, "will desist from ordering me around!"

He sighed, exasperated as he rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

"Must you take everything as an attack on your pride?"

"Well, isn't that precisely what you were trying to achieve?"

He looked back at her, and a smirk came to his features.

"That's hardly the point, I think."

* * *

"So, Granger," he said, once they had sat in an awkward, malicious silence for quite sometime. "I think I will have to leave you again now."

He got up and started to put slices of bread and bottles of butterbeer in his bag, and she felt the anger well up within her.

"You mean I'm stuck in this room again for another three days? Or perhaps more?"

"Or perhaps less? Did you even think of that?" he groaned, securing the fastens on his satchel. "This shouldn't take very long, if all goes to plan."

"As things rarely do," she spat, watching as Malfoy tightened the clasp of his cloak. "Oh forgive me – things did work out for you Death Eaters, didn't they?"

He looked at her very quickly then, and his eyes flashed a steely grey colour.

"Don't talk about things you don't understand," he said very coldly, and she suddenly felt as though a frosty-cold hand had frozen around her neck, and was slowly tightening its grasp around her throat and airways.

She pushed his shoulder back in alarm, massaging her throat as Malfoy fell to the ground, his eyes clenched shut and his hand grasping his arm in pain. She raised an eyebrow at him as the ache around her neck subsided; surely she had not hit him so hard so as to cause him injury?

Well, if it had caused injury, she supposed that would have been better than had it not.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Malfoy hissed through clenched teeth, managing to get up, glaring at her as he massaged his shoulder.

"What do you mean, what's wrong with me?" she snarled back, raising her wand at him. "At least I don't use wandless magic against you, so you can see when the blow is about to come!"

"I didn't even do anything!" Malfoy snapped, his eyes flashing in bewilderment. "You're the one that meddles in things that shouldn't concern them. You can rest assured that whatever I am doing is for the benefit of us both, and you need question neither my intentions nor my motives!"

She raised an eyebrow at his bafflement, but felt the anger rise within her.

"I need question both your intentions, your motives as well as your purposes and aims!" she retorted, hating him all of a sudden for expecting her to put blind faith in him. "You have never given me any reason – "

"To believe that I act in your best interests?" he whispered, his voice deathly cold.

She swallowed her retort, and felt an apology come to her lips, but Malfoy cut her off as he thrust a book on the table from within his satchel, before swinging it slowly over his left shoulder.

She could only make out the gold lettering of _A Thousand Magical Curses and Enchantments_ on the cover of the ebony-black bound book that he had left, before she heard the distinct slam of the door that made her jump slightly in alarm.

* * *

Sorry this took so long to update – but maybe I shall be quicker next time, if you **review**! Thanks :)


	6. Magic and Memories

**Chapter Six**

**Magic and Memories**

* * *

Hermione was alone once again, and as she sat at the table, massaging her cold hands and staring out of the glass door to the balcony, she felt as though it had been days since she had said a word, even though in truth it had only been a few hours.

This was exactly how her life was going to be from now on, she surmised bleakly as rain began to pour from the dark, low lying clouds outside. An icy cold hellhole, if that were at all possible, filled with nothing but harsh words and aching memories that caused an endless torrent of tears to spill from her weary, tingling eyes.

Her fingers moved to the book that Malfoy had left for her earlier, _A Thousand Magical Curses and Enchantments_. It was a black leather bound edition, with gold filigree edging and lettering that made it look exquisitely antique and valuable.

She opened up the book, scanning each page idly as she came to it.

Dark Magic Curses, Magical Bindings, Everlasting Hexes… 

Her interest piqued, she smoothed the page on _Everlasting Hexes_ down before saying a quick "Lumos!" to grant her some light as she began reading the long page of writing that followed.

_Everlasting Hexes:_

_The hex (bearing likeness to the 'curse' or 'jinx') is a procedural term for any spell producing negative effects on the object that it is directed towards. In usual circumstances, curses and hexes alike produce affects that are temporary, and there is usually a counter-curse to reverse the undesirable effects of every hex. Yet for some hexes – those termed, the Indomitable or Everlasting Hexes – there is no apparent counter-curse and thus the effects of such hexes, indeed, seem to be everlasting. _

_An obvious example of such a curse would be the Avada Kedavra 'killing' curse, but this spell, along with the infamous Cruciatus and Imperius curses, is in a class of 'Unforgivables' entirely separate and all at once more deadly than the Indomitables that are spoken of in this section._

_Essentially, and in theory, nearly every hex in existence may potentially become 'Everlasting'. In most cases, a jinx becomes 'Everlasting' when the prefix 'Eternus' is uttered before the spell itself. For example, the Furnunculus Curse, which causes sweltering boils to emerge on the object that it is directed towards, should in theory become 'Everlasting' when instead of simply uttering 'Furnunculus', one were to utter 'Eternus Furnunculus'. _

_The theory of Everlasting Hexes cannot be so easily attributed to any jinx however. The Furnunculus Curse, as used above, is in actual fact not compatible with the charm 'Eternus' and to utter the Furnunculus curse as an 'Everlasting' curse would not produce the desired effect. A spell must first be compatible with the charm 'Eternus' before it can potentially become Everlasting. _

_In determining whether curses are compatible or not, the trial and error method has thus far been used as there appears to be no discernible rule that can be applied to all curses (ie: both seriously harming and mildly harming curses can become 'Everlasting' with some seemingly random exceptions, and both mind-altering and physically-altering curses can become 'Everlasting' with some seemingly random exceptions, etc., so no true decree has thus far been discovered that is applicable to all spells). A list of some tried and tested compatible spells follows._

_The Everlasting Hexes must be used very cautiously, however, as any use of them directed towards an object leaves the spellcaster vulnerable to the same spell, emerging from the object that was initially attacked, with an intensity ten-fold that of the original spell. Thus Everlasting Hexes are best advised to be used occasionally, with less well-known spells and an indisputable incorporation of non-verbal spell casting techniques._

Hermione folded the corner of the page to mark it in the book, before perusing further, yawning as she turned each page in a dull monotony…

Offensive Spells, Defensive Spells, Daily-Use Spells, Levitating Charms… 

She sighed, closing the book before conjuring up some bluebottle flames to rise within the fireplace, feeling the temperature of the room steadily rise to tolerable levels of bare warmth and hospitality.

She took a swig of warm cocoa, suddenly wishing that Harry were here to ask her advice on the Horcruxes, or that Ron were here to pester her to help him finish his Advanced Charms homework…

* * *

"_Well, Ron, who asked you to take Advanced Charms anyway?"_

_She had been peacefully reading her biography of Weston Warlock in the corner of the Gryffindor common room, the corner just adjacent to the fireplace that served to be the most comfortable part of Gryffindor Tower; warm, cozy and away from most of the chatter of the other Gryffindor students in the common room, when she had been interrupted by a rather anguished-looking Ron._

_Ron, it seemed, did not share the feeling of tranquility that she felt so rarely these days, and kneeled beside the sofa that she was seated at, with a look of mortification on his face._

"_Hermione, that doesn't exactly matter right now! What matters is whether I'm going to pass Advanced Charms or not!"_

_She rolled her eyes and closed her book shut, sighing as she placed it on the windowsill beside her._

"_Okay, what do you need help with this time?"_

"_How about everything?"_

_She snorted._

"_Right, so I have exactly three days until our exam to basically teach you seven years worth of Charms do I?"_

"_Only 'you' could possibly be capable of doing that," he said sweetly, opening his charms tome and sitting cross-legged in front of her._

_She half-smiled and turned slightly red, pressing her cold hands against her face in an effort to counter the flush of her cheeks._

"_How about we start with the thing you're having most difficulty with?"_

_He opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off._

"_And don't say you can't do a levitation charm, or I will seriously levitate you back in time to our first few charms lessons at Hogwarts so you can learn it from scratch then and there."_

"_But I thought time travel was a serious proposition that can't be meddled with unless in the most dire of circumstances," Ron recited, lifting his hand up in the air as if he were speaking an oath._

_She laughed._

"_Shut up you, and hurry up, I want to get this biography finished today so that I can start studying tomorrow."_

_He eyed the particularly thick text lying on the adjacent windowsill, and looked back at Hermione._

"_I was just about to say that you are utterly and completely mad, but on second thought, that probably isn't the wisest thing to say to someone who is kind enough to teach me the Advanced Charms course, now is it?"_

"_No, it probably isn't," she half-grinned, shaking her head as Ron winked at her before finding the right page in his textbook._

_She scanned the section in the textbook, and was just about to raise her wand to show him how to do the charm he was having difficulty with, when the door to their common room broke free with a strongly annunciated 'Bombarda!', and Professor McGonagall entered, her witch's hat slightly lopsided, her hair frayed and her glasses askew._

_Hermione rose quickly from her seat, and felt Ron rise next to her, feeling slightly calmed as his arm went around her waist as Professor McGonagall called for silence in the room._

"_Students!" her voice rang loudly, as people settled into chairs and on the floor as she unrolled a scroll of parchment to read from. "The Headmaster has just informed me that the school is under siege."_

_There was a panicked murmur in the room, and Hermione felt her knees weaken just as Ron tightened his grip on her._

"_The school is under siege," she continued, ignoring the ramble that had just begun to form in the room. "I urge all those students third year and above to follow me to the Great Hall, where we will help the Aurors to fend off the Death Eaters for the time being. It will be better off for the more faint-hearted to remain here, until we raise the signal that all is well within the castle. Please go to the Great Hall, the rest of you."_

_Her voice seemed to suggest that all would definitely 'end up' being well in the castle eventually, and everyone, including the first years, seemed to pace out of the common room and move towards the Great Hall, their young faces glassed over in shock or determination, their wands poised high at the ready._

_Hermione escaped Ron's grasp and moved towards Professor McGonagall, feeling her heart sink as she regarded the Head of their House._

"_We're under siege? But, how could – "_

"_I'm sorry," Professor McGonagall, eyeing Hermione carefully, her eyes filled with sorrow and apology._

_Ron came beside Hermione, and supported her shoulder as he looked at Professor McGonagall with confusion on his face._

"_You're sorry for what?"_

_Professor McGonagall took off her glasses slowly and folded them up, placing them in her pocket. Her face took on a very wearied and wizened expression, her dark eyes seemed watery as she gazed back at the young witch and wizard before her._

"_I'm sorry, but Harry has not succeeded. We are fighting a losing battle now."_

_She felt her heart sink even deeper._

* * *

Thank you, and please **review**:) 


	7. A Debt Unheard Of

**Chapter Seven**

**A Debt Unheard Of**

**

* * *

**

Hermione shook herself from reverie, and moved towards the kitchen with her empty cup of cocoa and a stomach rumbling for pumpkin pasties.

As she said a heating charm while pointing her wand at one of the pasties, she suddenly felt as though she were on the Hogwarts Train again, and she, Harry and Ron were eating pumpkin pasties, cauldron cakes, Fizzing Whizbees and those delightful chocolate frogs that she now desperately ached for.

A lone tear escaped her eye, and she sniffed slightly as she put her clean mug on the counter to dry, feeling forlorn as she glanced out the kitchen window, noting with despair as the clouds seemed to suddenly darken to a charcoal colour.

She let out an anguished cry, feeling her knees weaken as she somehow managed to crawl back to the kitchen table, her hands rubbing her stinging eyes viciously, without mercy.

It would never again be a sunny, warm day, she knew, as she put her head in her hands in hopelessness.

She knew she would have to stay here endlessly, because when would the chance to save Malfoy's life ever come up if she was forever cooped up in this Lodge with nothing to do all day but to drink butterbeer and cocoa and read a spellbook?

The Wizard's Debt would surely be the death of her in the end, in one way or another, no matter if Malfoy were kind enough to save her life once.

He had certainly picked the wrong person to save, she mused sourly, massaging her temples as a throbbing emerged in her head. She never had the capacity to save people's lives, and that would mean that she and Malfoy were stuck, bound together, for an eternity… until, of course one of them died, and _that_ all of a sudden seemed a comforting possibility for her.

She sighed, and brought Malfoy's book towards her again, her eyes half closed in a daze as she flicked through the book aimlessly.

Theories of Witchcraft, The Art of Casting a Good Spell, Dark Magic Curses, Useful Healing Spells, Magical Bindings, Everlasting Hexes, Mind Manipulation Jinxes, Disarming and Disabling Charms…

She sat up quickly in her chair, flicking back pages as a thought suddenly struck her.

Magical Bindings?

Would that have possibly included the certain magical binding that was at present causing her so much grief?

Namely, the Wizard's Debt?

Her finger trembled as she sped read the section on Magical Bindings, encountering lengthy clarifications of concepts like _Priori Incantatem, Marriages and Maternity Bound in Magic, Death of a Wizard_ and _Household Protection Charms_, but as her finger steadily reached the end of the passage, she felt her heart sink as she quickly turned to the index of the book to check there as well.

But there was no mention of the Wizard's Debt in the entire book at all.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_"I suggest that the two of you come down to the Great Hall now," Professor McGonagall continued, her eyes full of pity as she saw Hermione's eyes close in despair._

_So Harry was no more, then?_

_How could they possibly stand a chance now?_

_Professor McGonagall placed a comforting hand on Hermione's shoulder, before she spun around and exited the common room, leaving Hermione and Ron alone in the room._

"_Hermione, I –"_

"_He's dead, Ron," her voice croaked, turning around to face Ron._

_Ron's face was dull in gloom, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Hermione felt a torrent of words come to her mouth in an unstoppable inundation._

"_He's gone, when he was so close to killing Voldemort for good! All the horcruxes were gone, and I kept telling Harry that this was a sign that we would win, that we would triumph, and he kept telling me that there was always a chance that Voldemort would not be defeated, and I told him to stop being daft, that the Dark Side couldn't possibly win! I told him to stop being daft, Ron, I said that! And look who's been proven wrong now!"_

_She screamed in distress, and fell to the ground, Ron capturing her and coming down with her as well, as she sobbed on his shoulder, feeling tears pour and pour down her cheeks, her throat choking up as Ron rubbed warm circles on her back and patted her head._

"_Hermione, we couldn't do anything –"_

"_We could have!" she screamed back, her shoulders collapsing forward so that the posture of her body resembled a very sore 'C'. "Ron, we could have done so much and yet all we cared about was our exams!"_

"_Harry would never have let us follow him!" Ron roared back, and Hermione sobbed harder as she heard his loud voice pierce her ears with its harshness. "We both know that, Hermione, he would never have let us follow him to Voldemort, and that is nobody's fault, least of all yours!"_

_He rocked her in his grasp for sometime, until they heard a small explosion in the rooms underneath them, and they both sprang to their feet, startled._

"_We have to go and help them," Hermione said, moving quickly toward the common room door, but Ron held her back._

"_You're not going down there, Hermione," he said slowly, and her eyes flashed up at him in anger._

"_Ronald, don't you dare tell me –"_

"_No, Hermione!" he said loudly, as steely determination settled in his eyes. "We cannot lose you! We can lose this battle, at least for the time being, but we cannot lose you!"_

_She looked at him, bewildered, as his grasp on her arm loosened slightly._

"_What are you talking about, Ron? We, as in who?"_

"_We, as in, our side, the good side," he said, rather exasperated at her lack of understanding. "Voldemort might win this battle for now – I reckon he probably will win – but there will be an uprising soon, a resistance, will form eventually, like it always does, and we need you for that, we need you to ensure that we win in the end –"_

"_Ron, I don't understand –"_

"_Hermione, go to the Room of Requirement and stay there," Ron said, with a note of finality to his voice as he took his wand from his pocket. "I'll go to the Great Hall, and you just concentrate on staying alive."_

_He kissed her lightly on the forehead, and moved toward the common room door, leaving Hermione alone inside the room._

_She hugged herself, feeling a sense of cold isolation._

"_Ron, make sure you fight for the both of us."_

_But he was already out the door._

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Hermione pushed the book away from her angrily, deciding that it was not a very useful text if it had absolutely no mention of the Wizard's Debt at all, she heard the door open, and Malfoy entered the room. 

He looked much calmer than he had when she had last seen him; his right upper arm seemed thicker in the sleeve of his robes, as though it had been wrapped up in swathes of cloths.

"Granger," he said, nodding at her before coming to the table she was seated at and placing his satchel on it.

"Malfoy," she returned swiftly, pulling a chair beside her out for him, but he took a chair opposite her instead and seated himself in it.

She felt an awkward silence was looming around the corner, and suppressed her pride as he decidedly chose against regarding her face.

"Look, Malfoy, I'm really sorry."

He looked quickly up at her, and his eyes were no longer bloodshot, but a shimmering silvery grey colour.

"Come again?"

She almost felt like laughing at the expression of incredulity that was plastered across his face, but shook her head instead and even smiled ruefully at him.

"I said I'm sorry," she repeated. "I suppose I really should give you the benefit of the doubt… _sometimes_," she naturally couldn't help but add.

He chuckled a bit, before getting up to go to the kitchen and bringing back two tankards of butterbeer for each of them to drink.

"Whatever you say, Granger," he toasted, drinking up before sighing and placing his mug on the table and idly running his fingers through his hair.

"So," she began, as Malfoy's eyes seemed dazed all of a sudden. "Are you going to tell me where you've been going the last few days?"

He looked at her quickly and smirked.

"Nice try, Granger."

"I thought so too," she answered swiftly, miffed as she took her empty glass back to the kitchen to be washed.

When she was in the kitchen drying up the glass, she said over her shoulder, "Oh and by the way, I tried to look up the Wizard's Debt in the book you left behind, but it isn't mentioned in any section."

She heard a slam in the next room, as though Malfoy had put down his tankard very quickly.

"That book must be terribly out of date, then."

She went back into the living room, and found that Malfoy was taking a box out of his satchel.

He looked up to see her, and regarded her neutrally.

"For you," he said, indicating the box.

She raised an eyebrow at him, and smiled slightly as she brought the box closer to herself and raised the lid.

It was filled with sweets; lemon drops, sugar quills, chocolate frogs, Every Flavour Beans and Nougat Galleons.

She picked out a frog and beamed up at Malfoy, and he reluctantly returned the smile.

"How did you know I wanted these?" she said, unpeeling a chocolate frog and taking a bite just as Malfoy took a Sugar Quill and began sucking on it.

He looked at her thoughtfully then, and with the sugar quill in his hand he looked all of a sudden like he were a magical scholar.

"Dunno, just a hunch, I guess," he shrugged, and she laughed, as his gawky comment suddenly seemed out of synch with his scholarly image.

He laughed as well, and she sat down, sifting through the contents of the box eagerly as memories of Hogwarts flooded back to her.

"So this is where you've been all these days, in a candy shop?" she exclaimed lightly, but she saw Malfoy out of the corner of her eye shift rather uncomfortably, and he discreetly rubbed his shoulder before taking a Nougat Galleon from the box.

"If only this world really were made of candy and roses, Granger, then I could say yes to your question," he said, a smile coming to his face that did not quite reach his eyes.

* * *

Thank you very much for your lovely reviews, and please don't forget to **review** this one as well:) 


	8. A Sweet Tooth Or Two

**Chapter Eight**

**A Sweet Tooth Or Two**

**

* * *

**

Hermione rose from sleep the next morning with a stomach ache, and she groaned as she thought of the mounds of chocolate frogs, Every Flavour Beans, Nougat Galleons and other such sweets that she eaten the night before.

She and Malfoy had had a very pleasant evening; sharing opinions on which sweets they missed the most from their Hogwarts days, how Malfoy had once tried blood-flavoured lollipops and that they weren't so bad once you got over the distinct metallic taste, and how Hermione always kind of wanted to try cockroach cluster ever since she found out that it wasn't made from real cockroaches, but that she had always been too afraid to…

She sighed, reaching her hand out for the chocolate frog card on her bedside table, twiddling it between her fingers as she felt her heart sink slightly inside…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"_Blood-flavoured lollipops?" Hermione gasped, while Malfoy reached for another chocolate frog._

"_I'm serious," he resolved, opening the chocolate frog from its wrapper and discarding the card inside. "Ah, another Warlock! But seriously, if you are ever going to try one sweet in your life, Granger, it has got to be a blood-flavoured lollipop."_

"_Malfoy, that is beyond disgusting!" she exclaimed, taking the Warlock card from the table and glancing at it. "I was just reading a biography on this guy a while back, just when –"_

_She stopped abruptly, the memory of Ron, Professor McGonagall and the school being under siege suddenly flooding back to her. She coughed and threw the card back onto the table, taking a vicious bite from a chocolate frog and feeling calmed as a feeling of warmth spread over her body._

_Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her._

"_When what?"_

"_Oh, nothing," she said, her voice a little high-pitched that betrayed her façade of calmness._

_Malfoy folded his arms across the table, and she managed a dismissive shrug in his direction._

"_No I just meant – the day you found me in the Castle, I had been reading a biography on Weston Warlock, that's all," she muttered briskly._

_Malfoy frowned, and popped a Nougat Galleon into his mouth._

"_I see."_

"_So, anyway," she continued, quickly managing a smile at him. "Cocoa? Butterbeer?"_

_She rose from the table to move towards the kitchen, but Malfoy had swiftly reached across the table and grasped her forearm in his hand. She looked at him quickly, feeling a sense of dread settle in her body._

"_No, I'm good," he answered, looking at her carefully, and she sat back down in her seat and clasped her hands nervously._

_An awkward silence passed between them, and she couldn't help but shiver even as a fire blazed in the room._

"_I still don't understand why you spared me that day, Malfoy," she felt herself say all of a sudden, her eyes intently focused on the flames dancing in the fireplace._

_She felt Malfoy reach over to grab another chocolate frog from the box beside her, and she glanced at him, and as their eyes met, she could see the grey centres of his eyes flash an iridescent silver, and then he looked away as though she had stung him._

"_And I still don't understand why I can't answer you, even when you ask me a question so politely," he whispered slowly, his eyes decidedly looking away from her own._

_She frowned at him in puzzlement, and silently beckoned him to look her in the eye so that when he did, she felt a bolt of electricity flow through her as though he had indeed registered her telepathic message._

_He twiddled the card that he had just extracted from his chocolate frog wrapper in his fingers, and Hermione sighed as she faced him over the table._

"_Don't you think I deserve an explanation?"_

_He regarded her quickly._

"_Oh, I know you do," he agreed readily, nodding his head slightly. _

_His assent was so casual that she was rather startled by it, and he took the chance to change the direction of the conversation, massaging his shoulder as he looked up at her again._

"_You mind if I take the bed? My shoulder is just hurting more than usual today," he asked, and she was brought out of her thoughts as he silently winced in pain._

"_No, it's all yours," she concurred quickly, gathering the sweet wrappers on the table into some pile of organized chaos. "Are you sure you don't want me to heal it?"_

"_Thanks for the thought, Granger, but this is really one wound that can't be healed, not even by you," he said, and she raised an eyebrow at his acknowledgement of her skill at spell-casting._

_He chuckled at her expression, shaking his head as he rose from the table._

"_I know you're good at healing and charms in general, Granger, or why else would I have left you a spell book to muse over during the day while I'm not here?"_

_She felt herself grin at him, as she too rose from the table._

"_Or even while you 'are' here, even though reading a spell book could never be as riveting as talking to you."_

_He laughed loudly._

"_Touché, Granger, touché," he said, raising his hands in surrender at her. _

_She rolled her eyes at him, just as he passed her his chocolate card over the table._

"_You might want this."_

_She looked at it. It was a card of Dumbledore._

_She felt her eyes begin to sting, and she looked up at Malfoy._

_He was regarding her carefully._

"_I have far too many of these," she laughed croakily, feeling guilty as she crumpled up the card quickly and added it to the pile of sweet wrappers waiting to be discarded._

_Malfoy's gaze didn't waver from her._

"_You didn't need to do that."_

"_No, I did," she returned swiftly, looking back up at him with neutrality in her eyes. "I definitely did."_

_He shrugged, and moved towards the bed, taking off his cloak so that a large bandage, wrapped tightly over his right upper arm, was revealed to Hermione. She felt sympathy rush over her as Malfoy sat slowly on the bed and looked up at her._

"_You know, there's room on this bed for the two of us," he said casually, and she had to suppress a frown from forming on her face._

_She scanned the breadth of the bed quickly._

"_I guess there is," she forced herself to agree, savouring the expression of surprise that formed on Malfoy's face._

_She laughed._

"_You look quite shocked, Malfoy. I'm not a prude, you know."_

"_Now that's a newsflash that I definitely missed," he said, overcoming his surprise and yawning before climbing into the bed._

_She rolled her eyes, before going to the kitchen to fill up a glass of butterbeer of herself and for Malfoy._

_The sky as visible from the kitchen window seemed to have darkened to an indigo colour, and the stars seemed to sparkle like jewels from an otherwise perpetually dull and grey air. It was almost as though the stars couldn't be shielded from their view, not by smoke or desolation, and she felt slightly heartened as she went back into the main room with the two glasses of butterbeer._

_But Malfoy was snoring already on one far side of the bed, and she noted that it was far past her own bedtime as well. She levitated the two glasses back to the kitchen before yawning and climbing into the same bed herself._

_Only a few minutes had passed before she felt something gnaw at her conscience, and before she knew it, she was out of bed and headed for the sweet wrapper pile. Her hands smoothed over the crumpled chocolate frog card, and she watched as a radiant Dumbledore smiled and waved at her from his panel, and she couldn't help but smile back, as she placed it on her bedside table before submitting to a good night's rest and peace from the world around her._

_--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

She forced herself to place the card back onto the bedside table before Dumbledore could be beckoned to appear on the panel, and she turned over, expecting to see Malfoy fast asleep beside her.

But he was instead seated at the table, his quill moving rapidly on a large scroll of parchment, his eyes sometimes looking out of the glass door to the balcony before coming back quickly to regard the parchment he was writing on.

She half-closed her eyes, willing him not to notice that she was indeed awake, and she scrutinized his form; the messy mop of golden blonde hair that sprouted in an unruly fashion from his head, the cream-coloured bandage that was wrapped very tightly around his right upper-arm, which he was nonetheless writing with, and a steaming mug of cocoa that sat in front of him, the tantalizing aroma of which was wafting towards Hermione as she could not help but rise from the bed.

He looked at her then, and kicked out a chair for her to join him.

She sat next to him, as he poured some of his cocoa into another glass for her, and she lifted it up to her nose and inhaled the subtle scent of chocolate as it rose as steam from the cup.

"Exactly what I needed," she couldn't help but say, as she drank the warm brown liquid as Malfoy smirked at her.

"A bit early to be writing letters, isn't it?" she said, glancing over at the parchment laid before Malfoy as he dipped the nib of his quill into some jade ink.

He looked at her, before continuing with his neat cursive script.

"Never too early to pen a love letter," he returned, and Hermione coughed on some cocoa as she struggled to focus her eyes on Malfoy.

He laughed loudly, patting her on the back vigorously to stop her from choking further.

"Just kidding, Granger, I'm all yours," he assured mirthfully, and she frowned at him before rolling her eyes in an attempt to look casual.

"How comforting," she responded, but she couldn't help but try to read his letter anyway, and he hastily rolled it back up into a scroll.

"So where are you off to today?" she said slightly sarcastically, as he put the scroll of parchment into his satchel for later perusal.

He smirked at her and clinked his cup against hers before raising it to his mouth.

"Nowhere, actually," he said, after he had finished drinking up.

He looked at her carefully then, and she had to quickly cover her expression of curiosity before he could notice it. But he _had_ noticed it, and he raised an eyebrow at her as she swiftly followed suit by taking a swig of cocoa herself.

"I can't believe your services aren't required anywhere," she said lightly, and he chuckled before levitating their glasses towards the kitchen.

"No, I'm staying right here to make sure you don't run away and risk grave injury to yourself," he yawned, and Hermione was very tempted to ask him why he cared so much anyway. "A noble man's work is always cut out for him, isn't it?"

"I hope you don't mean yourself," she half-snapped, rising from her chair and moving towards the shower.

He called her back.

"There's only enough hot water for one of us to have a shower," he said, looking out the glass door to the balcony. "With the sun only shining through occasionally, it's been difficult for the Lodge to provide hot water for all of its guests."

"Right," Hermione said, frowning at Malfoy. "So what do you propose we do?"

"Share?"

She stared at him, irritation rising within her.

"_Share?"_

Malfoy looked at her quickly, frowning suddenly as he regarded her.

"No, thank you, Granger, I'd rather not have one at all," he said slowly, looking at her as though she had gone mad.

Her eyes flashed in bewilderment and annoyance at him.

"But you're the one who suggested it!"

"What?" he smirked, his tone one of mock incredulity. "I think you need to get your hearing checked out, Granger."

She gaped at him, as he smirked back at her, and only then did she realize what had gone on.

She felt like throwing a million Everlasting Hexes in his direction.

"Oh, screw you, Malfoy."

He erupted into laughter before her.

"So that brings us up to three now, does it?"

* * *

**Please note: **I forgot to address last time what someone asked me in their review for chapter six – namely, why I don't write Author's Notes at the end of each chapter so that I can better clarify the story that I'm writing. Well, I'd like to think that my story _itself_ conveys to you all the meaning of what I am trying to get across! And a bit of mystery never hurt anyone, huh? 

Anyway, thank you very much for your (rather scarily, I must admit!) insightful reviews and please **review** this one in the mean time, too! Peace :)


	9. Some Not So Small Talk

**Chapter Nine**

**Some Not So Small Talk**

**

* * *

**

"So, do you remember in the castle when I said that I always wanted to ask you a few questions?'

They were sitting opposite each other, Hermione on the bed, Malfoy on the sofa, the box of never-ending sweets beside Hermione as she choked on some butterbeer before him.

This had been the first time that he himself had brought up the happenings in the castle.

"I thought you'd exhausted that privilege, when you already asked me your questions that day?" she said casually, though she innately couldn't help but wonder what other things Malfoy wanted to know about her.

"Well, I thought I earnt it back when I saved your life," he swiftly returned, self-satisfyingly taking a bite from a chocolate frog before her.

She couldn't help but sigh.

"You know, Malfoy, I'm starting to think that the reason you saved my life is just so that you could hold it over me for the rest of it."

"But I haven't made you my slave yet, though, have I, Granger?" he asked simply, wagging his finger at her, and she had to agree that he had not really taken full advantage of his apparent 'hold' over her.

Well, not _yet_, anyway.

"Okay, point made," she gave in. "So, go ahead then, but only if I can ask you my own questions as well."

He smirked and nodded at her, savoring the mound of chocolate in his mouth so blatantly that Hermione had to quickly pop a Nougat Galleon into her mouth to quell an odd feeling that had formed in the pit of her stomach.

"Well, well, _well_, what shall I ask you first then, Granger?" he deliberated slowly, and she had to suppress herself from rolling her eyes at him.

"And here I thought you actually had something in mind that you were _dying_ to ask me."

He looked at her.

"It's like a buffet, Granger. Too many questions, waiting to be picked all at once."

She couldn't help but laugh at the analogy.

"How about _you_ go first?" he said, looking at her carefully.

She had to swallow quickly. So this had been his objective.

"Alright, then," she said, determined to rise to the challenge. "Why did you save me that day, then?"

He rolled his eyes at her.

"Couldn't you be more imaginative than that?" he said, shaking his head at her. "And here I was, thinking that you actually wanted to know more about _me_, rather than about my actions."

She hid a chuckle at the mock-hurt look on his face.

"But the best way to judge a man is by his actions."

"And the best way to judge one's actions is to know one's motives to those actions, and to do that, you must know more about the person in question," he said, cutting her off from returning her opinion on the matter. "Okay, since you're questions are irrefutably dull and tedious, I suppose _I'll_ just have to go first instead. How do you always beat me in every subject, even though we probably do about the same amount of work?"

She narrowed her eyes at his double-edged flattery.

"I think what you were meaning to say was 'how is a _mudblood_ beating a pureblood in every single subject', right?"

He raised an eyebrow and frowned at her disbelievingly.

"How is it that all of my compliments turn to ice every time you receive them, Granger?"

She glared at him.

"Oh, and as if you compliment me so often that you can make that judgement, Malfoy!" she half-snapped. "How about I reel off a set of your classic tributes, eh? Mudblood, buckteeth, nerd? My, my, we _are_ the king of flattery, are we not?"

"And _we_ certainly are the queen of sarcasm," he responded promptly, but Hermione could not be subdued.

"Oh, and I distinctly remember the time when you asked Ron why he would ever choose to go out with someone like me, before you realised who you were talking to and then said that two people as vulgar as us were probably meant for each other anyway."

He looked at her carefully then, and she willed her cheeks into staying ashen white under his blatant scrutiny.

"I must have been blind, then, to call you vulgar," he said almost lazily, his gaze penetrating her. "You're actually quite pretty."

She felt a frown form on her face.

"Especially when you're angry."

She instantly smiled sweetly at him.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just as she returned from the kitchen after refilling their glasses with butterbeer, she saw Malfoy with a fresh pile of sweets by his side on the sofa and an ever-growing pile of chocolate frog cards on the armrest.

"Are you trying to make a tower or something?" she said sardonically, indicating the pile of chocolate frog cards beside him as she sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed.

He rolled his eyes at her, and idly began sorting out the cards into different piles on the sofa.

"So, _you _haven't asked me a question yet," he said neutrally, not looking up at Hermione.

She swallowed hastily and picked out a chocolate-looking Every Flavour Bean.

"Right," she began. "Why were you always such a prat towards us at school, then?"

He didn't look up at her.

"I think that is a question with too obvious of an answer. Next?"

She felt the anger rise within her body at his dismissal.

"How does it feel like to be a ferret?"

He now regarded her frostily.

"How does it feel like to have buck-teeth?"

"But I don't have buck-teeth anymore!"

"Nor am I a ferret any longer!" he snapped. "And don't you dare tell me that that fact is debateable!" he said, seeing Hermione open her mouth in protest.

She rolled her eyes and bit savagely into the Every Flavour Bean. It _was_ chocolate.

"Okay, back to other questions, then," she said. "What black magic did you use to get Parvati to go out with you at the beginning of seventh year, anyway? We've all always been wondering that."

"Glad to know that I was a topic of conversation in Gryffindor Tower," he said amusedly, and she glared at him.

He stopped chuckling and regarded her with scrutiny, and she felt a strange sensation rise in the pit of her stomach. The heat rose to her cheeks as Malfoy suddenly crawled from the sofa towards where she was seated on the bed, and her limbs turned to stiff iron as he kneeled before her and regarded her eyes with his torrential grey ones.

"It wasn't black magic, Granger," he said slowly, his throat sounding a bit hoarse as he took her hand in his own all of a sudden.

She felt her eyes widen, and cold dread settle within her, but she couldn't move away, not with her arms and legs as heavy as lead and her eyes seeming to be locked onto Malfoy's, the pools of silver of his irises deep and swirling as he brought her hand to his lips.

"It just took a bit of this," he murmured, kissing her hand, his eyes never straying from hers.

She closed her eyes in fear, her throat choking up as Malfoy's kisses moved up from her hand to her forearm.

"And a bit of this," he whispered, rising up from the floor onto his knees, his kisses moving from her arm to her neck.

She swallowed and remained motionless, feeling utterly uncomfortable and inexperienced all of a sudden, realising that the only person that had touched her in this way had been Ron, and it had certainly not felt as dangerous as it was suddenly feeling now.

His kisses moved to her jawbone, and as she quickly glanced down at him in panic, she saw that his eyes were closed, and he had brought his bandaged arm up so that his hand was thumbing her cheeks so that they were on fire, and her whole body and soul felt on fire as his lips made their way slowly, teasingly, to her own.

She gasped and pushed him away gently, and he pulled away a little, his eyes coming to regard her own, and she swallowed as she saw that they were no longer grey, but a dark raven-black colour.

"Malfoy, please don't," she whispered, her voice croaky as his hand pulled away from her face and he withdrew his burning eyes from her frightened stare.

He managed, all of a sudden, to chuckle hoarsely.

"So, that was what I did," he said nonchalantly, and only then did she remember the question she had asked him before, and blushed in response. "Not really a form of black magic, but I accept the compliment, anyway."

And he walked away from her, back turned, towards the sofa, and an awkward silence remained for the rest of the day. She tried to will herself into forgetting what had happened earlier, an odd sensation sweeping perpetually over her heart and mind as they once again slept in the same bed that night, but this time, in utter and complete stillness.

* * *

Well, I hope you enjoyed that one :). Sorry it was a bit short, but I conveyed all I really wanted to in less words, so I wanted to keep it that way (but next chapter is a long one so not to worry!). Thanks for your amazing reviews, and please **review **this one as well :) ! 


	10. When You're Not Looking

**Chapter Ten**

**When You're Not Looking  
**

**

* * *

**

Hermione rose early the next morning before Malfoy could stir, and as she climbed outside to lean against the metal railing of the balcony, she sighed, looking out at the vast expanse of greyness and cloud above her.

The Lodge was too asphyxiating, but being outside was not much better, she mused, a cold feeling of dread settling in the pit of her stomach as her eyes failed in distinguishing a horizon, once more, in the distance.

She tried not to remember what had transpired the day before, tried to tell her stomach to stop feeling as though it would drop out of her body. She was stuck here for the rest of her life - well, until she saved Malfoy - and she didn't want to get into something in the meantime that was too overwhelming to keep up with.

_But he had called her pretty... and 'that' suddenly made all the difference in the world..._

_

* * *

_

_She turned over to see that he was still lying in bed beside her, his body propped on its side so that he was facing her._

_But his eyes were closed, and his pale lashes swept over his fair cheeks as he shuddered slightly in his sleep, his hand clutching his bandaged arm as though it were giving him immense pain. _

_She felt her heart dip for some reason, and she stretched her hand out towards his arm as the grey clouds outside suddenly lightened as though allowing her eyes passage to see him more clearly._

_But there was an invisible barrier between their bodies, and her hand could not move much further than the mid-point of the width of the bed. He had obviously placed a barrier charm there, and she frowned, wondering whether he had done it for his peace of mind - or for hers._

_Now 'there' was something to consider - Malfoy paying heed to her feelings?_

_No, she forced herself to think, withdrawing her hand and scrunching her body up for warmth beneath the covers. It had probably been safest for him anyway to put a barrier between the pureblood and mudblood, lest, God forbid, he be tainted by her._

_But of course, 'kissing' a mudblood was exempt from that rule, wasn't it? It had certainly been the case for him the previous night._

_She passed a hand over her lips and closed her eyes, thinking of the pure agony he had rendered her under with his slow kissing and hoarse whispers the night before. What had gone wrong with him, anyway, and why was he acting as though they were more than just friends? _

_For that fact, more than just 'enemies'?_

_And he had called her 'pretty'. Not foul, not buckteeth, not mudblood. 'Quite pretty', though she didn't exactly __know __ how that was different from if he had just called her 'pretty' alone. _

_She felt an urge to get up from the bed all of a sudden, and she moved towards the bathroom, braving past her inner protests as she closed the door behind herself and regarded her face in the mirror._

_This had been the first time in a while that she had been superficial enough to scrutinise her facial features, and she sighed, noting the stark paleness of her taut skin, the dark brown circles that had manifested themselves below her blazing brown eyes, the dryness of her curls and thinness of her cracked, pale pink lips._

_And she knew then, with a grimace at her weathered face in the mirror, that there was no way in hell that a person who had gone out with Parvati Patil, would ever seriously look twice at a plain Jane like her._

_Unless that person were the epitome of virtue and decency._

_Or blind, of course._

_

* * *

_

She sighed, hating herself for caring about his opinion so much, but it suddenly mattered to her_, he _suddenly mattered to her, like he had never mattered before, and maybe that was because they were the only ones in this together, or that she couldn't help but start to feel... _alive... _ever since he had kissed her and touched her in those ways.

And that suddenly seemed to sustain her, like it had never done with Ron, a time when she had had her dreams and goals to keep her going as well.

A lone tear escaped her eye, and she felt like crying, feeling as though all of her ambitions, her hopes and aspirations as a young witch in Hogwarts had suddenly dissolved to the mere goal of one day saving Malfoy's life, so that she herself may die peacefully in the knowledge that she was no longer indebted.

And with no information from the spellbook to aid her in reaching this goal, she knew that she was doomed, that _they_ were doomed, to live like this forever, for surely Malfoy couldn't have been enjoying this any more than she was despising it.

Perhaps'despise' was too harsh a word, she granted, for it had been bearable, sometimes even pleasant, talking to Malfoy sometimes. Apart from yesterday, when it had been downright frightening.

But he was not Harry or Ron, and a tear escaped her eye as she clinked her empty mug of butterbeer on the metal railing, looking down at her pale, ashen hands as she ached to hold them close to her and hear their voices once more.

True, she had only seen Ron a few weeks ago, but Harry… it seemed like eons since she had last seen his emerald eyes glisten from the bottle-frames of his glasses…

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Hermione was making her way to the boys' dormitories in Gryffindor Tower early evening that day, finding it hard to ignore the rather exasperating insinuations and protests from Parvati and Lavender that she was only going up there for one reason, and that it was unfair that she should exercise her power as girlfriend of Gryffindor House Captain in such a manner._

_She rounded on them angrily, sparks flying from her form as she glared at them._

"_In case you two have forgotten," she began, controlling her fury as Parvati and Lavender stood before her, looking as clueless as ever. "In case you two have forgotten, I myself am Head Girl, and thus any power held by Ron as House Captain is surpassed by my authority as Head Girl. And my visit has nothing to do with frivolous romantic pursuits, anyway."_

_Parvati and Lavender looked at each other, smiling conspiratorially._

"_Oh, but of course, Hermione, we forgot," Parvati said grandly, looking at Hermione again with a glint of amusement in her eye. "You and Ron have the pick of the Captains' as well as the Heads' rooms. Of course you wouldn't choose the Gryffindor boys' dormitories for such matters."_

_Hermione rolled her eyes at them, and they giggled furiously, as she briskly swept past them and made her way to the boys' dormitories._

_Harry was busy putting clothes and food into a small bag, as she had repeatedly advised him to do so despite his dismissive opposition to it – "Hermione, I'm going to go and fight Voldemort, do you really think it will matter if I'm wearing fresh underwear or not?" – and she was placated as she saw that he had indeed taken her advice. Ron was sitting on Harry's bed, and as he saw Hermione come in, he smiled and patted the space on the bed next to him for her to join them._

_She sat down, feeling calmed as Ron put his arm around her shoulder, and she clasped his hand in hers, desperately telling herself not to start crying._

"_So, you nearly done?" she asked Harry briskly, and as he finally realised that she was there, he smiled distractedly at her._

"_Yeah, I suppose so," he murmured, turning around quickly to go to his drawer before returning with the photo album containing his parent's pictures in it from when they were younger._

_Hermione stiffened, and swallowed the sob that was slowly climbing its way up her throat, and Harry tried to smile reassuringly at her._

"_I might need it now more than ever, eh?" he said lightly, placing the album gently into his bag._

_Hermione exchanged glances with Ron quickly, a sense of sympathy passing between their eyes, as Hermione placed a hand over Harry's hand, and saw his eyes close suddenly._

"_You're not alone in this, Harry," she began, and he opened up his eyes to look at her, and she suddenly realised that they seemed red and swollen under the firelight. "I know you don't want us to come along with you, but you're not alone in this, so make sure you take Hedwig with you so that you can write to us if you need anything."_

_Ron remained silent, and Harry laughed croakily, withdrawing his hand from Hermione's grasp to do up the clasps on his bag._

"_I know, Hermione," he said quietly._

"_Just because you go alone, doesn't mean that you 'are' alone," Hermione emphasized, looking at Harry carefully._

"_I think he gets the picture, Hermione," Ron started gently, but Hermione felt as though he had winded her in the stomach, and fell silent._

_Harry saw that she had suddenly become withdrawn, and he sighed, moving over to where Hermione and Ron sat to kneel in front of them on the floor._

_He took one of Hermione's hands in his, and she reluctantly looked down at him, suddenly hating the pull of gravity as noiseless tears poured down her cheeks in an unstoppable flow._

"_I thought you told me to stop being daft, that everything was going to be alright?" Harry said delicately, and Hermione laughed amid her tears, rolling her eyes at him. "And you're absolutely right, Hermione, you hit the nail on the head, like you always do. I'm going to find those last Horcruxes, Voldemort is going to die and then we can all start living, really 'living' our lives when I get back."_

_His use of the word 'when', instead of 'if', made her sobs more audible, and Harry sighed, before reaching a hand to her face to wipe away the tears._

"_You've got to be strong, Hermione, you and Ron," he urged her, and she looked at him quickly as a tear suddenly escaped his own eye. "Please, I'm asking you that you stay strong, because if I don't have your support, I'll be defeated before I even leave this room."_

_She felt herself nod quickly, anything to compound Harry's sense of determination at that point. Ron placed a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder._

"_We're with you all the way, mate," he said rather sturdily, and Hermione knew that he was stopping himself from becoming teary too._

_Harry smiled and nodded, before giving Hermione's hand a final squeeze as he rose from the floor, pulling his bag over his shoulder. Hedwig clinked her beak against the metal cage she was housed in, and Harry gave her a morsel of food before turning around to Hermione._

"_You think Hedwig would follow me, if I let her out of her cage?" he asked._

_Hermione laughed, wiping her face with the sleeve of her robes as she rose from the bed to move towards Harry._

"_Of course she would, Harry, she adores you," she said, smiling at Ron as Ron came to stand next to her._

_Harry grinned, patting Hedwig on the head in her cage._

"_I just don't think this is the time to keep her here in a cage," he mused._

_Hermione looked at Harry bitterly._

"_No, neither do I," she said pointedly, before she could stop herself._

_Harry looked back at her, and his gaze had become less open and warm._

"_Hermione, don't get like that," Ron said, speaking for Harry as she looked to him instead. _

_She sighed, feeling utterly helpless as she kneeled before Hedwig's cage to pat her on the head._

"_I'm sorry, Harry, I know I can't come," she submitted finally. "You know I will miss you a lot, though."_

_Harry laughed, just as Hermione captured him in a hug before she could stop herself, beckoning Ron to join them, as he somewhat reluctantly came forward._

"_And I'll miss the two of you," Harry conceded, as they all let go. "But I'll expect you to organize a massive Gryffindor party when I get back."_

_This time Hermione managed to suppress her tears, as Harry patted Ron on the back with one hand while squeezing Hermione's hand with the other, and then he was off, clutching his bag and Hedwig's cage._

_Hermione felt Ron kiss her on the forehead as he pulled her towards him._

"_And he's gone, just like that," she said forlornly, and Ron sighed and only squeezed her tighter._

_--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

She gasped, suddenly feeling the need to inhale volumes of air into her body, if only to chill the gnawing sense of sorrow that had begun to manifest itself within her. Her body shook, and she was shivering, as she looked at the ground below the balcony as suddenly inviting and beckoning.

A hand came from behind her to wrap consolingly around her neck and shoulders, and she knew it was Malfoy, as she turned to limp jelly in his hands so that he had to hold her up.

Her sobs became more violent, as she thought of Ron, and how _he_ had held her like this when Harry had left them forever. That was when their trio had been split, that was the last time she had seen Harry, and it ached her very bones that she had not done more to ensure the success of his mission.

They could have been celebrating now, the three of them, up in Gryffindor Tower. But instead, she was the only one of three that was alive, and she couldn't help but think why she had been chosen to continue with her life, why Ron had believed that she was capable of ensuring Voldemort's defeat in the end.

She couldn't think of anyone more unworthy.

"_Hermione_," she heard her name escape Malfoy's lips, and she was too upset to care about feeling startled.

"Why did you save me, Malfoy, _why_?" she cried, her body racked with sobs and anguish as her hand squeezed his forearm wrapped around her. "I don't deserve it, so many other people could have been saved –"

"Hush," he said softly, and she inhaled air deeply, as Malfoy spun her body around and brought her closer towards him in a hug.

She grasped onto him for dear life, breathing in and out forcefully, feeling cold air rush within her and escape out as warm air, knowing that she was still very alive, as her heart pounded within her chest as Malfoy's hands supported her head and back.

"Why can't you answer me?" she hissed to his neck, her throat choking up as she felt Malfoy's hands tangle themselves within her hair. "Why did you do it?"

"Because," he started, and she quickly looked at him, startled that he had decided to answer. "Because… you didn't deserve to die, and I couldn't bear that stain on my conscience."

His eyes regarded her face, his blue-grey orbs sweeping over her tear-stricken red cheeks and bloodshot eyes. She knew she probably looked very unattractive, and she pulled away from him suddenly, feeling a sense of isolation and unease as she considered herself being held by him only seconds before.

"But so many others," she said, her eyes flashing disbelievingly at his logic. "So many others died that day, and before. Did they deserve to die? Did they not deserve some mercy as well, Malfoy?"

He looked away from her, as though she had struck him.

"I told you before, Granger, that sometimes, it takes one some time to develop oneself," he started, his eyes meeting hers once again. "This is not my excuse, but my folly, for not knowing myself and my true dilemma earlier on."

"It doesn't take much to distinguish evil from good, Malfoy!" she chided coldly, feeling a sense of satisfaction mixed with guilt at the thought of Malfoy crumbling under her words.

He sighed.

"Perhaps you are right, that that is the intrinsic ability of humans. All I can say in my defense, is that, that ability was squashed out of me at a very young age. Only now am I beginning to get a grasp of what you say everyone should inherently know."

An image of Lucius Malfoy passed through her mind, and she couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for Malfoy.

"You have sacrificed much, and I don't wish to prove that it was in vain," she said, looking away from Malfoy as he regarded her crumpling body before him with sympathy. "But I am _dying_, Malfoy, in my heart, and if I stay in this Lodge any longer, I think I shall be dead very soon. Please let me go with you, wherever you go, and I promise not to prove nuisance or be critical of your journeys."

His pity-filled eyes suddenly hardened, and his lips thinned to a perfectly horizontal line on his face.

"My intention," he began, his voice very cold and his eyes flashing scarily, "by keeping you here, was not to prompt your death, but to keep you alive."

Hermione started speaking, but Malfoy cut her off.

"For once in your life, shut up, Granger!" he roared, and Hermione felt her lip tremble as she quelled the sobs from reaching her mouth. "You are… a bloody _freak_, Granger! I save your life, and this is how you act? There must be something intensely _wrong_ in your head, and –"

"_Malfoy!"_ she exclaimed, her eyes narrowing to a glare. "Stop, before you say something you might regret."

He looked at her, his gaze the embodiment of frost.

"I think I might have done much already, that I now regret," he said icily.

And he swept past her, roughly taking his bag from the room and slinging it over his bandaged shoulder, before exiting and slamming the door behind himself very hard indeed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hermione muttered some harsh expletives in the general direction of the door to Malfoy's room, before taking her empty cup and lunging it from the side of the balcony to the ground below.

She cursed, realizing suddenly that the mug in question was actually a reasonably good one, and she sighed, before repairing it and levitating it back to herself on the balcony.

She did not want to smash the cup as much as she wanted to smash a certain other thing, she mused coldly, walking back into Malfoy's room and washing the cup vigorously under cold water.

"Well, that was certainly the last straw," she snarled, placing the cup to dry on the counter before taking a swig of butterbeer straight from the large bottle itself.

It did not seem to have its usual calming affect on her, and she groaned, wondering what she could possibly do to pass the day until they could continue their argument after he would return later that night.

But would he indeed return? He had certainly looked very angry, and more enraged than usual after one of their fights.

She rolled her eyes, and sat down at the table, facing the empty cream wall before her.

So what if he did not come back? Did that mean that she was stuck in here forever?

No, she mused, a thought striking her as she glanced out the window.

Today was a lovely day, compared to the black clouds and cold zephyrs that had consumed every other day that she had been here.

A lovely enough day, she contemplated, to take a walk in the village.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Hermione exited the Lodge, she could not help but raise her hood over her face, as Malfoy's stern reprimand kept playing over her mind.

_It's not candy and roses out there, Granger!_

Though she didn't quite care for his regard for her, there was no doubting that there was some truth in what he had said; this world certainly was _not _made of candy and roses.

Or, not _anymore_, anyway.

She suppressed her feelings of guilt at leaving the Lodge, glanced around left and right suspiciously, before continuing on her way, clutching the clasp of her cloak around her neck very tightly as she walked on the cobblestone footpath that she presumed would lead her to the village.

This was an ancient magical town, she knew, she had seen pictures of them in the books she sometimes perused over in Hogwarts. They were very few of these towns left, Hogsmeade being one of them. But this was certainly not Hogsmeade, or maybe it was, as she knew that Hogsmeade would certainly not look as quaint and idyllic had it been surrounded by the dark clouds and inescapable sense of foreboding that now enveloped her and her surroundings.

She shivered, walking faster as she saw in the near distance signs of smoke emerging, and she desperately hoped that it was smoke from a chimney rather than the smoke from a razed city of desolation and ruins.

She was relieved to note that her hopes were indeed confirmed, as she happened upon a small village that seemed to be rather busy with noise and commotion.

"Looking glasses!" a voice called, as Hermione entered what she presumed to be the village markets.

She gasped and raised her hood further over her head, taking in her surroundings as her heart sank within her body.

So this is what life was like after Voldemort had triumphed.

Certainly, there were markets, and people were still alive.

But the atmosphere was quite medieval, and people roamed around wearing torn garments while children cried incessantly from the edges of the dark and winding streets. The village was rampant with smoke, dust and debris, and she found it quite difficult to breathe, as she intrinsically moved away from the city centre, bumping into a pole behind her.

"Ah, a fragile girl like you, you look like you might need some Evil Repellants!" a man said, as Hermione turned around to regard him.

He was sitting in front of what seemed like a hut, with many intricate objects laid before him on the ground. His face was obscured with grime and oil, and he grinned up at Hermione, and she gasped to note that he had only a few teeth remaining.

"Evil _what_?"

"Henry, don't prey on little girls like that!" a woman's voice came, as a middle-aged portly woman emerged from the hut behind the man.

She looked at Hermione, raising a thin eyebrow and directing a steely, malicous gaze towards her.

"And you, get out of here!" she snapped, raising her wand up at Hermione.

Hermione quickly moved away, her heart pounding as she bumped into something else as a strange, musty smell entered her nose.

"Watch it, woman!" a voice snarled at her, and she saw a man behind her with a pale and pointed face that looked just like Malfoy, so much so that she sprang away, startled by the resemblance.

But his hair was more of a dirty blonde colour, and he seemed not to have a left arm at all, and Hermione mumbled a quick apology, before running away from the village, back towards the Lodge.

So this is what Malfoy had been protecting her from, she thought, as her heart pounded in her chest as she ran and ran. The village had been horrible, utterly grotesque, with its darkness and medieval surroundings.

But as she was soon safely inside the Lodge, and closing the door of Malfoy's room behind her, she remembered Malfoy's last words to her. And among the feelings of disgust and repulsion she felt for the village, she was somewhat placated by the way that she had extracted some revenge on Malfoy at long last.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed that rather long chapter, and please **review **:) 


	11. A Desire Unspoken

**Chapter Eleven**

**A Desire Unspoken**

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**  
**

Hermione wrung her hands in anxiety as she washed her empty cocoa cup in the sink, feeling a sick sense of helplessness build up within her as silent tears poured down her cheeks.

She had been alone in the Lodge for the past four days, with no word from Malfoy as to where he was, or when he would return.

_When_, did she say? She had meant _'if'_, because if he were still as angry as he had been the last time they had seen each other, he might never come back.

Hermione knew this, and it made her achingly troubled.

What would happen if she were locked up in here forever, with no one to talk to and nothing to do? She would surely go crazy, if nothing else, and it would certainly not help her along the path to saving Malfoy's life and fulfilling her debt to him, not at all.

She would be back to where she had started, at the beginning of this maddening roller coaster ride, and would have to die with a pending Wizard's Debt to her name. It was almost too unbearable to even consider.

She sighed, and moved towards the shower, not caring about Malfoy's prior heeding as to the water situation in the Lodge, savouring the feeling of the boiling water that cascaded down her form and turned her skin a pinky colour.

She gasped, feeling her throat choke up at the thought of her loneliness, and she helplessly struck the glass pane of the shower repeatedly in her fury, sobbing uncontrollably as her curly hair turned to dark tendrils that flowed down her naked form and clung to her pale skin.

It was too much to consider, too much bear, too much to contemplate, all of a sudden, like it never was before. And her heart ached in her chest, at the thought of Voldemort winning, at the thought of her here without Ron or Harry, or even Malfoy for that matter, when she felt a hand wrap around her neck slowly and support her waist as she heard the glass door of the shower open shudderingly.

She turned swiftly to see Malfoy behind her, stepping into the shower while still in his black cloak, his blonde hair turning a dark straw colour as water droplets dripped onto his face and bloodshot grey eyes, from his wet strands.

She felt an odd twinge in her stomach at the thought of him seeing her naked, and felt a strong urge to scream at him and push him away from her, but he pulled her towards him briskly, continually whispering, "_I'm sorry, I'm sorry_," into her hair as her protests suddenly subsided to limp compliance.

"Don't leave me here again," she whispered back helplessly, as he pulled his cloak around to cover her as well, and their forms came to an even closer proximity than she would have dared imagined.

His hand massaged the small of her back, and she couldn't help but sigh slightly as she thought of how good it felt to be swathed in someone's arms after so long.

He inched even closer to her, if it were at all possible, and the tiled wall of the shower collided softly with her back just as an explosion of senses was ignited within her, and she looked at him fearfully, not knowing where this would go next, not even wanting it to go anywhere else but here, at all.

He met her gaze, and his eyes were an impossible shade of ebony, his face no longer a pale milky colour but now a hue of faint magenta, the water pouring down his form as he took off his cloak and shirt all of a sudden, so that Hermione came to see his firm chest underneath that sported faint crimson scars over it, in some places.

She absent-mindedly fingered the scars, and he winced, and without realizing it, trapped her further in towards the wall, and she felt her breath catch as his trousers bulged against her belly button.

"You're much too thin, Granger," he sighed, fingering her cheek lightly as the palm of his other hand traced the inward curve of her waist. "I think I might just have to start feeding you a little more."

His index finger traced the circle of her belly button, before plunging boldly inside, and she cried out, stifling a moan on her teeth as his hand then rose to rub the slight swell of her breasts, moist and red from the water fall of the shower.

"Malfoy," she somehow managed to whisper, forcing herself to calm down, and he looked at her quickly at the note of apprehension in her voice.

His eyes seemed to shine with an infinite question, and she couldn't help but smile a little, shaking her head at him somewhat long-sufferingly.

"This is not the way, this isn't right," she started, aware of his eyes regarding her face in a scandalous way, before she choose to clarify with a sigh, "this doesn't make things right between us."

He didn't move for a few moments, his eyes still regarding her as though he had not heard her speak at all, and then he moved away, and she felt her body temperature plummet as his cloak was no longer wrapped around her, his hands no longer roaming her form.

He laughed almost coldly, muttering a quick drying charm on himself as he slammed the bathroom door as he left, and Hermione grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself as she swiftly followed him as he made his way towards the kitchen.

"I probably should have got you drunk first before I tried anything, right?" he said coolly, downing a bottle of butterbeer and slamming the refrigerator door as he swiftly pushed past her as she stood in the frame of the door.

She felt the anger rise up within her as he plunged down on a chair at the table, wiping his mouth on his sleeve as he drank more butterbeer.

"You know I don't drink, or are you just daft?" she snarled at him, pulling a chair out for herself with a _thud_ and snatching the bottle away from his hands.

She felt a cold sense of isolation form within her as she glared at him; what had happened to his gentleness, his tender caresses that had not even passed just a few minutes ago?

"Granger, give that back!" he roared at her, and she turned and threw the bottle at the kitchen floor, feeling a sense of vindication as it shattered into pieces before their eyes.

He lunged at her then, and she gasped in fear as she was overthrown from her chair as they collided with the floor, his arms pinning her arms down and her waist filling the valley of his spread legs as she fought to free herself from his iron grip.

He glared at her on the floor underneath him, and she couldn't help but glare back.

"It's a pity you're so beautiful, or I would have thrown you out by now for all the crap you've given me," he spat savagely at her, and she only glared back at him, completely oblivious to the fact that he had just called her beautiful.

She pushed him back, taking him unawares as his enamored eyes passed continually over every crevice of her face. She whispered a Body-Bind Curse at him as she sat over him just as he had done to her, his eyes the only part of his form that continued to move to alert her that he was willing to listen to anything that she had to say.

"Malfoy, you better listen to me, and listen good," she began, venom seeping into every single word that she uttered, as his eyes widened at her from underneath her body. "I don't care if you're drunk or just plain stupid, but you are going to remember every thing I say to you now, as if you were going to take a test on it, you understand me? _Never_ ambush me in the shower, _never_ say I am too skinny for my own good and _never_ try to trap me when you know perfectly well that your physical strength will never be a match for my spell-casting skills. You got that?"

She knew he couldn't possibly show his agreement for her words whilst under the Body-Bind Curse, but she didn't care, just being on top of him like this gave her the sense that he would have had to have been completely thick to not agree with everything she had to say at that very moment.

And she knew that even though Malfoy was a lot of things, he certainly was not completely thick. Not _completely_.

She looked down at him then, at his firmly fixed facial features and his fear-filled roaming eyes that were now set on her.

He looked impossibly good looking to her then, and she couldn't help but absent-mindedly caress his lips for a moment with the tip of her index finger, before realizing what she had just done. She coughed, muttering a quick "idiot," at Malfoy, before getting up to repair the precious, broken butterbeer bottle that still lay scattered on Malfoy's kitchen floor.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm sorry it's short and it took so long to put out, but I think some of you have been waiting for this for a while. Please **review**, and hopefully then the next one won't take as long to get out:)


	12. These Secrets That We Keep

**Chapter Twelve**

**These Secrets That We Keep**

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **

Hermione arose the next morning to the ominous beating of the rain on the window.

She sighed, sitting up on the bed and bringing her knees close to her chest, drying the tears that poured down her cheeks, as she watched, as the glass of the window turned translucent with rainwater in front of her very eyes.

It must have been weeks, even a month or so, since she had last been inside Hogwarts. And though she had always loved it dearly, for the acres of wisdom and knowledge that it held, she had never quite felt that same need to prize open a book and inhale the sweet smells of learning, that she suddenly felt now.

She was deathly cold, and her heart hollow, filled to the brim with grief, but also of something else, something more, that had only just now come to the surface.

A feeling of… utter longing?

She looked at Malfoy, who lay beside her, still dazed from the day before. He looked very pale, indeed more ashen than usual, with a deep furrow to his brows and his lips pursed in thought.

Many weeks prior, he had seemed like a man of thirty to her, whereas just yesterday, a mere boy.

And now once again, he looked downtrodden, exhausted, and many years past the late teens that he actually was.

His eyes opened slightly all of a sudden, and on seeing Hermione seated on the bed with her knees drawn up to her chest, he rubbed his eyes and rose to sit beside her, his legs crossed and eyes struggling to open.

Hermione looked at him, and felt an odd pang as her stomach seemed suddenly to knot itself over, and over again…

"What day is this, anyway?" Malfoy managed to croak, glancing out the window with a frown to his face.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Hermione replied, sighing in dismay at the thought of time passing her by while she remained stagnant within the Lodge.

Malfoy looked at her and rubbed his temples, and Hermione suddenly felt obliged to elaborate, though the tone of her voice was evidently a little sour.

"If you'd care to stretch your memory back, you actually returned yesterday after four days of leaving me here, and I think you were more than just a little drunk, too."

"Ah, that would explain the blinding headache then," he mused, and she rolled her eyes at him. "But other than that, doesn't ring a bell."

He raised his index finger towards the kitchen and muttered an incantation, and a bottle suddenly flew towards him.

She raised an eyebrow at him, and he chuckled groggily at her.

"No, not more drink, I think I've had enough to last me about a decade or so," he reassured, bringing the bottle to his lips as he took a swig. "Pepper-up Potion."

His face suddenly seemed vivid, his eyes no longer bloodshot, as he put the bottle by the bedside table before nestling back into bed with the covers drawn above his face.

"Oh, and I think I forgot to mention," a voice came from beneath the blanket. "You have a damn hot body, Granger."

She could feel the blood rush swiftly to her cheeks.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Now, I sincerely hope that that was said in sarcasm."

They were seated on the bed again at midday, the box of sweets between them, Hermione munching on Nougat Galleons and Malfoy chewing a chocolate frog.

"I'm serious," Hermione reasserted. "I've never really liked flying at all, and it definitely came as a relief when I realised that flying lessons were only compulsory for first-years."

"Yeah, well, one would have thought that, given flying was a form of an educational lesson, and you being you, you would have strived to be good at it by the end of first year."

"I think you're starting to get to know me quite well," Hermione laughed, realizing what she had just said and turning a faint shade of scarlet as she quickly popped a Galleon into her mouth.

His eyebrow was raised at her, and she hastily tried to change the subject.

"So, what was the great Draco Malfoy's flaw at school?"

He looked at her quickly.

"See Granger, when you say it like that, I don't know whether to be offended by your sarcasm or pleased at your final acknowledgement that I am the one and only," he mused, and she suppressed a smile as she rolled her eyes at him.

"If you really believe the latter, then maybe you don't know me at all," she returned swiftly.

He gazed at her carefully.

"Or I know you too well, perhaps?"

She felt as though his stare was penetrating her, and that perhaps she had said or done too much, before he spoke once again, in a low voice.

"I believe you were a willing participant yesterday."

The suddenly serious, even sinful, nature of their conversation about the shower yesterday, hit her hard, and she felt like her stomach was doing somersaults as she strived to maintain a severely neutral exterior.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"One would think you could hardly remember clearly, given your – _intoxicated_ – state of mind at the time."

"Intoxicated by more than one thing," he agreed readily, and she felt her heartbeat start to pick up its rhythm in her chest.

"I don't like you, Malfoy," she said abruptly, and it sounded very childish to her own ears.

He laughed before her.

"Yes, but you don't dislike me, and that's the most significant thing at the present time."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He was placing food and clothes into his satchel, and Hermione, leaning against the door frame of the door to the kitchen, was watching him solemnly, a cold feeling of isolation forming within her at the possibility of not seeing Malfoy again for another stretch of four days, possibly even more.

Well – it was not the fact that she would not be seeing Malfoy, but the fact that she would not be seeing anyone, that disturbed her more.

Yes, that was it.

"Where are you going, anyway?" she decided to venture, if only to break the silence that had manifested itself between them, though she knew that he wouldn't tell her anyway, and that it was all a futile attempt.

"I think that might have been a perfect question to ask me yesterday, when I was utterly inebriated and my defenses completely knocked down," he chuckled, and she felt a deep feeling of longing to reverse time, settle in the pit of her stomach. "But really, Granger, I'm afraid I can't tell you that just yet."

He sighed and pulled his bag over his shoulder, before walking towards Hermione, just as she instinctively stepped away from him.

"I won't bite," he reassured amusedly, a smirk on his face, and Hermione forced herself to roll her eyes at him.

"I know you wouldn't bite, but you just as well might do other things," she said briskly, and his smirk deepened before her.

"Well, I can't promise anything about _that_," he said frankly, and she hated him for enjoying torturing her.

He moved forward, and tucked a stray strand of her curls behind her ear, and she felt the need to gasp at his sudden gentleness, given that he was evidently not drunk anymore and could very well tell that he was indeed touching a muggleborn.

"What do you do in here all day when I'm gone, anyway?" he said softly, tracing her hairline with his eyes in a kind of wonder that made Hermione feel guilty as she thought of her flight to the village the last time he had left her here.

"I think of Hogwarts, of Ron and Harry, and try to maintain my sanity," she half-lied, determined not to admit to him that she had not heeded his warning about leaving the Lodge.

He stiffened at that, and moved away from her.

"I won't be long," he said shortly, even coldly, before he briskly swept away from her and was out the door.

She sighed and settled down at the table, feeling a sense of sour vindication at the thought of keeping at least one thing private from him, but utterly powerless at the thought of the secret about his whereabouts, that he too had kept from her.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the lovely reviews, and kindly **review** this one too!


	13. As I Lie Awake At Night

**Chapter Thirteen**

**As I Lie Awake At Night**

* * *

**---  
**

Hermione wrapped a towel around herself as she got out of the shower, tying it tightly before moving to the kitchen. She popped two pieces of bread into the toaster and muttered a quick warming charm whilst pointing her wand at a glass of butterbeer on the counter.

Yawning, she moved towards the dining table, her head colliding with the surface of the table as her bones cried out in sleep deprivation.

What was the matter with her? She hadn't slept properly for the last two days, and despite the fact she was exhausted, she still remained awake, staring at the ceiling above the bed, as thoughts kept swimming around in her head.

She would never admit to having these thoughts, she mused, blushing, as she quickly brought the mug of butterbeer towards her lips to hide her sheepish smile.

But to hide it from whom? She groaned, hating the fact that she was all alone in the Lodge, and that Malfoy had been out of sight, but certainly not out of mind, for the last two days.

Her eyes closed then, and her mind became submerged once again in the dreams that had started to engulf her over these last few days….

* * *

---

_She was walking in the woods, on a narrow pathway surrounded on both sides by tall, green, leafy trees. This place seemed unfamiliar, and yet her body seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere, though her mind had no idea where she was going._

_Swiftly, her pace quickened in an instant, and she was all of a sudden jogging, running, craving for air as the image of the woods suddenly disappeared, and a new image replaced it._

_She was now in the Room of Requirement back at Hogwarts, sitting in the panel of the large windowsill, her knees tucked up to her chest, that heaved as she took deep breaths, in and out, in an attempt to quell her nerves._

_She could hear the fighting, the curses being thrown at people floors below her, and her teeth chattered at the thought of Ron there, battling Voldemort and his entourage without she or Harry._

_Would he also be fated to join Harry, wherever he was now?_

_HE'S DEAD, HERMIONE, she yelled at herself, scrunching her eyes up so that the world around her became black, a reflection of the utter gloom she was feeling in the depths of her heart._

_She got up all of a sudden and pulled her wand out, keen to come to Ron's aid, going over a few choice hexes in her mind, before memories came flooding back to her._

"… _Harry has not succeeded… we are fighting a losing battle now…"_

"… _Harry would have never let us follow him…"_

"… _No, Hermione… we can lose this battle… but we cannot lose you…"_

"_WHY?" she suddenly screamed, the shrillness of her voice annihilating the silence that had fallen around her. "WHAT USE COULD I POSSIBLY BE OF?"_

_Her body shook violently with sobs, sobs that sounded horrible and cacophonous to her own ears. _

_Why was she behaving this way? Why had Ron behaved in that way? Why was everything the way it was right now? How could Harry possibly be dead when there was still a "Dark Lord to be vanquished"?_

_The image of the Room of Requirement suddenly vanished, and a new image was replaced in its absence, an image of Hermione with buckteeth as she was being outfitted for robes at Madame Malkin's in Diagon Alley._

_She was very small then, and all the robes that the salesman had picked out for her had proved to engulf her tiny body so that she disappeared beneath them. _

_Just then, a small, pale-looking boy with bright blonde hair walked in, she judged him to be of around her age, and her cheeks coloured at the thought that she looked much too skinny and tiny in the ebony robes she was currently swathed in._

_She saw him glance at her from the corner of his eye, and as her mum moved away frustratingly to find other robes that could actually fit Hermione, the boy decided to walk over towards her, and she felt her stomach knot itself._

"_Those robes are awfully ill-fitting," the boy mused kindly, surveying her carefully, and Hermione's cheeks coloured even more if that were at all possible. "Why don't you try ones that actually fit? Oh no, wait, you're still too young for robes anyway, aren't you? Where's your mummy?"_

_Her cheeks were now a dark shade of crimson, as anger boiled up within her that seemed to overshadow her feelings of embarrassment._

"_Excuse me?" she said, sparks flying from her eyes. "I am not a child, I am entering Hogwarts this year, thank you very much."_

_The boy stepped back in shock._

"_But you're so small and skinny!" the boy exclaimed, his voice no longer kind and his eyebrow raised at her appraisingly as though she were fibbing._

"_You're not exactly big yourself!" Hermione retorted, feeling worse about herself as each minute passed._

"_If you come to Hogwarts, you'll get trodden over by the other kids the minute you enter the Great Hall!" the boy snorted, his nose raised mockingly in the air._

_She felt tears come to her eyes then, as she pulled the robes off herself and threw them in a big bundle at the boy as she ran off crying, just as another image replaced this one in her mind._

_She was no longer in her early teens, but was now in the Lodge, standing opposite Malfoy at the foot of the bed._

_His hand moved towards her face, and he tucked a stray curl behind her ear, as her face seemed to burn with need. Her hands were on his cheeks all of a sudden, bringing his face down to hers slowly, as their lips met._

_An explosion of senses and sensations burst in her stomach, and there was suddenly fire within them, and fire being exchanged through their mouths, as their flaming tongues fought a mighty skirmish. _

_She grinded her hips into the bulge of his pants, and he groaned loudly, throwing Hermione savagely onto the bed before climbing on top of her._

"_Granger, how can you keep doing this to me?" Malfoy gasped, ripping open her shirt and kissing her neck desperately._

"_Doing what?" she said, the calmness in her voice agonizingly forced, as her lustful need to be near his body was overshadowed by her need to know why he was doing this with her._

_His kisses intensified, moving down her chest as Malfoy kissed the slight swell of her breast, as she gave out a cry._

"_Making me lose my senses, making it hard for me to resist you, bewitching me, doing these sort of things," he spewed out in a long string of words, sounding as though she should know 'exactly' what he was talking about._

"_I'm doing no such thing!" Hermione suddenly yelled, anger quelling the racing beat of her heart as she pushed him strongly away from her on the bed._

_He looked at her, utterly bewildered by her sudden outburst of anger, before moving back towards her, climbing over her to resume kissing her face and neck._

_She pushed him away again, however, this time even stronger than before, muttering a loud, "GO AWAY!" as tears began to pour down her cheeks._

_This image of the Lodge then dissolved, replaced by the same image of the woods again, but this time she was not walking but hovering in the sky above the woods so that she could see down._

_Her eyes roamed around, knowing she was looking for something, while her mind remained blank._

_And all of a sudden, she spotted him._

_She would recognise that blonde hair anywhere._

_But why was he holding his arm that way? Why was his face wincing in pain? Who was that in the dark robe before him? Why were other people lying stiff on the ground, as if immobilized by the Body-Bind Curse?_

_Why was there a green light surrounding the dark-robed man and Malfoy?_

_She attempted to hover closer to the action. But the green light was bright and blinding, obstructing her vision. She could only hear their voices, but it sounded as though she were trying to make out their voices through terrible reception. She could only hear snippets of their conversation…_

"…_defy orders, then you go against me?"_

_The response to this was muffled by screams. Hermione moved closer. Then, the same voice continued._

"_This is just a warning. You were my best envoy, but that doesn't mean you will be my best enemy."_

"_Oh, no?" a voice gasped amidst heavy breathing. "We still have the Granger girl."_

_A silence._

"_What? That is not possible. I was told she had been finally killed, after your betrayal."_

"_Your informants are wrong. Or maybe there are others in the group trying to mislead you…"_

* * *

---

"Hermione?"

She felt a pressure on her shoulder, and she jolted awake, a feeling of cold dread settling in the pit of her stomach.

She looked behind her, and relief spread through her.

It was only Malfoy.

She almost grinned, but stopped herself as he looked suspiciously at her. It was as though he could look through her eyes, and read her thoughts and see what she had just dreamed.

She drew her eyes away from his, chuckling hoarsely as she gathered the plate of toast and mug of butterbeer in her hands.

"Sorry, just haven't been sleeping the last few days. When did you get back? I didn't even realise you were here," she said, forcing evenness and humour into her tone of voice.

As she moved towards the kitchen, Malfoy grabbed her hand swiftly, and the pate of toast and mug of butterbeer suddenly clattered to the floor.

She felt her nerves wring themselves, as she moved down shakily to pick them up, but Malfoy steadied her.

"Hey," he said softly, smiling at her slightly and propping her up back on her feet. "You look pretty tired, you know? Why don't you get some rest?"

"No!" she said quickly, thinking that the dreams would come back to her if she dared to lie down again. "Just… just wait here, and I'll get you some breakfast."

"I'm not hungry," Malfoy said simply, his eyes searching hers for answers.

The fatigue came back to her limbs then, and her back gave way to a sore 'C' shape as she crumpled into Malfoy's arms all of a sudden, feeling exhaustion hit her very core.

He lifted her up easily into his arms, and laid her on the bed, drawing the covers up around her body. He somewhat awkwardly leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek, as though he had thought twice about it before daring to. His lips were ice cold against the warmth of her forehead.

"I think you might be getting a fever," he said worriedly, frowning at her as she attempted to smile back at him.

"I feel fine… much better than the last few days, actually," she said truthfully. "I know this will sound strange, but… I'm glad you're here, Malfoy."

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Yes, that _does_ sound strange," he admitted slowly, looking at her as though she were a lunatic.

She chuckled hoarsely.

"And, I know you won't indulge my curiosities, but will you answer one question for me?"

He sat on the bed beside her legs, and looked at her carefully.

"That depends on what you ask me. I certainly won't agree to answering any old question you may have."

She rolled her eyes at him, before thinking how she should phrase her question.

She looked at him watchfully.

"What were you doing in the woods over the last few days?"

His face remained painfully neutral.

"That's an odd question," he said carefully, looking at her.

She met his gaze with equal detachment.

"No, it's not odd at all, because I know you were there, and I believe I have the right to ask why."

"You believe you have a right to do a lot of things, don't you?" Malfoy suddenly snapped, evidently abandoning his attempt at neutrality.

"So do you!" she hissed back at him, leaning forward so that their faces were merely inches away. "You believe you have the right to keep me here, you believe you have the right to leave me and go wherever and whenever you want –"

"I believe I earned those rights when I saved your life, Granger!"

"Dammit, Malfoy, no one ever asked you to do that, least of all me!" she screamed at him. "And now that you have done that, let me tell you that saving someone's life doesn't grant you ownership of that life! I'll admit, you did a nice thing, but what you are doing to me now is hardly nice!"

"Oh, so keeping you ignorant, and thus blissful, is not a nice thing? Telling you every goddamn, shitty thing that happens in the world nowadays, is somehow going to make you happier than you are right now?"

Their faces were now almost touching, their eyes glaring hatefully at each other.

"Keeping me in the dark about everything is not doing me a favour at all, if that's what you think!" Hermione snarled, her eyes blazing with electricity and malice.

"Okay…" Malfoy whispered loathingly, his eyes narrowing coldly. "Do you want me to tell you everything, then?"

Hermione almost jumped at his sudden assent to the innumerable times, over the last weeks, that she had asked him to tell her everything.

She breathed out slowly, steeling herself for the things he was possibly about to tell her.

Was this what she truly wanted? To know everything that he had been trying to keep secret from her? Was this the moment of revelation, of unraveling, of exposing secrets that she had thought about and gone over a million times in her head?

She looked at him carefully.

"Yes, tell me everything."

* * *

---

What a lovely place to end on! ;) Please don't forget to **review**:)


End file.
