I'm going to kill him,' Harry threatened, his green eyes, sparking with open hostility as he laced in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room.
I winced at the aggression in his voice. Harry always had a hot temper, and even though he was not a naturally aggressive person, I still winced at the fiery anger in his eyes.
'Are you alright, Hermione?' he asked, seeing my flinch. 'Do you need healed? A pain potion?
I shook my head. 'No. Malfoy healed me?'
'Malfoy? Why would he do that?'
'I don't know,' I sighed, wondering the answer to that question myself. 'He was just there.'
Harry stopped his pacing, to look down at me, his face speculative. 'But he hates you.'
I flinched again, not because I was in physical pain, but because of a different type of pain. Harry was right. Draco Malfoy did hate me. He always had. No doubt he always would. Yet I was the idiot who had been so sure that he had been about to kiss me.
I closed my eyes, fighting off the image of grey eyes glittering with blues and green staring into mine. Of the feel of his breath ghosting across my face. ' Yes, Harry, I know.'
'Well then, why would he help you?'
'I don't know, Harry!' I snapped, suddenly very, very tired. . 'You'd have to ask him.'
I turned my eyes away, to stare into the fire, watching as the flames leaped and twirled in a fiery dance. I could feel the heat lick at my skin, but inside I felt cold, frozen and numb. I didn't want to feel it, because if I felt it then I might feel other things. That burning ball of fear, and anger and helplessness that I had pushed away to the back of my mind, might burst free and if it burst free, I didn't know if I would be able to contain it.
'Hermione,' Harry said gently, all traces of his anger gone. 'Are you sure you're alright? Do you want to go to the hospital wing? Or… or do you want to talk about it? About what happened?'
I shook my head, not sure if I was able to form any words. I could feel that ball swelling inside of me and my lip trembled as I struggled to keep it contained.
'It's okay to talk about it, you know. It might help.'
I shook my head, not wanting to talk about it, but the pain inside of me swelled so big that it had nowhere else to go but to break free. Harry sat down beside me, pulling me into his arms as the pain exploded in a series of tears and choking sobs.
Harry held me tightly to him, stroking my back. 'I've been such an idiot,' I sobbed, my tears soaking into Harry's jumper.
'Hermione, this is not your fault. You know that right?'
I could only nod at Harry's words, although deep down I wasn't sure that was true. I had let my emotions take over and I had lost control. However inadvertently I had led Cormac on. I had tried to play a game that I could never win. If it hadn't been for Draco Malfoy, I didn't even want to imagine what would have happened. But I had seen it. I had seen it in Cormac's eyes. If it hadn't been for Draco, he wouldn't have stopped. So as Harry continued to hold me tightly, rocking me back and forth, allowing me to cry all over his shoulder, I eventually fell asleep in his arms thinking of how much I owed to Draco Malfoy.
Pain. It was the first thing that I felt when I opened my eyes. Malfoy might have healed the external wound, but I had hit my head pretty hard, plus I had cried myself to sleep. I really should have taken Harry up in his offer of a pain potion.
Everything came back to me in one overwhelmingly rush. I had been attacked last night. It hadn't been a dream. Images of Cormac's face leering down at me, his hands on my legs, the weight of him pressed against me, made my chest constrict with anxiety. I shook my head, trying to shake out the memory, reminding myself that I was safe.
I lay in bed for a few minutes wondering if I could just stay there for the entire day. Harry had woken me up from the couch in the common room just before midnight and I had stumbled my way up to my bed. I had been so exhausted that I had fallen asleep straight away; too tired to even change out of my clothes.
'Morning, Hermione,' Ginny said coming towards me, 'Merlin, you look awful,' she said in concern upon seeing my face.
I didn't even have it in me to argue with her. I knew I looked awful. I could feel it. My head still throbbed and my eyes were still feeling puffy from a night of crying. My hair felt tangled at the back, matted with the dried in blood that I didn't have the energy to wash out the night before.
'Are you okay?' she asked, sitting down on the end of my bed, a concerned look on my face.
'I'm just not feeling well today. I've got a headache.' I think I might just stay in bed. I'm not really up for classes today.' It wasn't technically a lie.
'Is this about Cormac?' Ginny asked, suspicion filling her brown eyes.
'What?' I asked sharply, wondering if Harry had told her what had happened. 'What do you mean?'
'Hermione,' she sighed. 'You can't keep avoiding him forever. If you don't want to go out with him then just tell the poor guy, but to be quite honest I really don't see what the problem is. He's a nice enough guy.'
I stared at Ginny, wondering what she would do if I told her the truth. I nearly smiled. Whatever Malfoy had done to Cormac would be nothing compared to what Ginny Weasley would do if she knew the truth. But she wasn't going to know the truth because I wasn't going to tell her. I couldn't.
'It's nothing to do with Cormac,' I lied. It had everything to do with Cormac, just not for the reasons she thought. 'I just don't feel very well.'
'Well tough, you have to come to class today. We're continuing human transfiguration today and you know you can't miss that. I'll meet you downstairs in ten minutes.'
I groaned loudly. I had forgotten about that and Ginny was right. There was no way that I could miss it. Human transfiguration always came up in NEWT exams. I sighed knowing that I didn't have a choice. I would just have to put my brace face on today.
I didn't meet Ginny in ten minutes. It was closer to twenty by the time I finally made my way to the common room. Once in the bathroom, ignored the reflection of the pale face with the puffy eyes staring back at me and headed for a shower, resolutely ignoring the red streaks running down the drain as I rinsed my hair. I scrubbed at my skin until it was red raw, removing every trace from where his hands had touched me. If only it was so easy to remove the memories from my brain.
When I emerged from the dorm room, I was relieved to see Harry was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, giving me a bright but still concerned smile as I walked up to meet him.
'Hey, how are you this morning?' he asked quietly, looking deep into my eyes as if trying to read the answer there.
'Oh you know, been better,' I said shrugging my shoulders. I didn't have the energy to lie to him and besides what would be the point.
'Yeah, I figured as much,' he nodded. 'I also figured you could use some moral support for this morning.'
'Thanks, I guess I'm going to need it,' I said trying and failing to give him a small smile. I looked around before asking, 'Where's Ginny?'
'She said she would meet us in the great hall, she had a book to get out of the library or something.'
'Good because I wanted to talk to you alone. Harry, I want to thank you for last night. You know how much it meant to me, but I really need you not to tell anyone about.'
'What do you mean? Hermione, you have to tell someone about he did to you. You can't let him get away with it,' Harry said, his voicing rising with incredulity as he realised what I was saying.
I moved towards Harry, taking hold of his hand in a desperate attempt to try and calm him down. He was looking really angry and his loud voice was starting to attract more than a few unwelcome stares.
'Harry, please, this is my decision and I just… I can't deal with this just now.'
I could see that Harry wasn't convinced. That he was looking at me like I had gone insane. He opened his mouth to argue with me, but I held out a staying hand.
'Please, Harry,' I said, forcing my voice to sound strong. 'This is my decision. This is hard enough as it is but I am dealing with it. Please just trust me.'
'Hermione,' Harry sighed, hand going to his hair in frustration.
'Besides, Cormac got what he deserved last night, thanks to Draco. Believe me, he won't try anything like that again.'
At that Harry gave me a look that clearly said he disagreed with me.
'And I really don't need you to make this worse,' I added, knowing I was close to persuading him. 'I'm dealing with it.'
Harry gave a loud sigh and gritted his teeth as he answered, 'Fine. But I'm not happy about it. I really think you should tell someone. He can't get away with this.'
'I know, but I just need you to do what I ask. Please, promise me,' I said stopping him and forcing him to look me in the eye.
Harry stared straight back at me, but I held firm until he finally sighed and conceded, albeit reluctantly. 'I promise you Hermione, I will not tell anyone…'
'Not even Ginny,' I interrupted him.
'I will not tell anyone, not even Ginny, but Hermione, you need to promise me that if he so much as looks at you in the wrong way then you will tell someone about what happened.'
I nodded my agreement, not wanting to make Harry a promise that I wasn't sure I would be able to keep.
We walked down to the great hall together, Harry staying right by my side the whole way, acting like a makeshift bodyguard. It was really quite sweet how protective he was. He was the big brother that I never had, despite the fact that I was actually older. As we walked into the great hall, I could feel that familiar feeling of dread building up deep within my chest. My whole body stiffened as I spotted Cormac straight away at the Gryffindor table. He wasn't hard to miss. He was still covered in cuts and bruises from Malfoy's punches. He looked bad. 'Good' I thought bitterly, he deserved it. I want surprised to note that he clearly hadn't been to the hospital wing to deal with Madame Pomfrey's questions as his eye was still swollen and purple.
Harry must have sensed the change in my demeanour as he took a step closer to me and put his hand protectively around my shoulder, steering me towards a seat as far away from Cormac as possible. Harry sat beside me, his whole body tense. I watched as he kept on shooting murderous glances in Cormac's direction. It was quite unnerving to see him so angry. Harry was usually very calm and composed and he was not one to get irrationally angry.
'I should go over there and curse that guys bits off,' he hissed as his fist clenched so tightly around his fork I was worried that it might bend in two.
'Harry,' I said in a warning voice, 'you promised me, remember.'
He finally tore his gaze away from Cormac and looked at me, the anger in his eyes slowly ebbing away, until he gave a defeated look and let out a long sigh. 'Fine.'
When Ginny finally joined us ten minutes later, the atmosphere was still tense. I was trying desperately not to look to my left and avoid even thinking about the wizard sitting there. Something that would have been much easier if Harry hadn't been shooting near constant murderous glances in that same direction. I tried to distract him by filling the silence with small talk. Not that it was working as Harry's fists curled around his cutlery until his knuckles turned white. Ginny of course noticed that something was wrong as her eyebrows shot together as she stared at her boyfriend, shooting me questioning looks that I tried to ignore, finding the food on my plate completely fascinating as I pushed it around.
When we finally stood up to go to class, Ginny finally asked the question that she had been so evidently desperate to ask for the last twenty minutes.
'Do one of you want to tell me what's going on?' Ginny said giving a questioning look to both me and Harry.
I could feel the guilty look that was on my face and my whole body tensed. If Ginny knew something was wrong, there was no way she would let it go. I knew Ginny. She was like a dog with a bone. Once she got her teeth into something, she would not drop it until she had worked it out. I shot Harry a nervous glance. Would he tell her?
'Nothing's the matter, Ginny. Just a bit of a disagreement, that's all,' Harry said. He was us using my strategy. Technically he wasn't lying.
'About?' Ginny asked questioningly, clearly not happy with that response.
'Nothing important. Look we really need to go or we'll be late.'
'Right,' Ginny said slowly, following Harry, her face full with questions and doubt.
I let out a relieved sigh and followed them. Harry had kept his promise. For now. I could only hope that Ginny would forget about it the whole thing and not question me or Harry again. Harry may have promised me, but if Ginny was suspicious, then it was only a matter of time before she brought up the subject again and there was only so long that I could lie to her for.
The rest of the day passed quickly and I welcomed the distraction that the classes brought.
I had been so preoccupied with thoughts of Cormac that I hadn't even had time to give much thought to my rescuer. Of what it would be like to face him again. However as soon as I walked into the Potions class at the end of day and saw the blonde head bent over the desk at the front of the classroom, my heart faltered and I stumbled forward, cursing my bodies clumsiness.
Trying to act as naturally as possible, I slid into the seat beside him yet the more naturally I tried to act, the more aware I became of every move that I was making. I put my hair behind my ear at least five times before realising that it showed off more of my face, so I quickly flicked it back round so that my face was hidden. I shifted between having my legs crossed and uncrossed, my hand on the table or on my lap, my hand up at my face or holding my quill. I had never felt so uncomfortable or self-aware in all my life.
All the time however, I was desperately trying not to look at Malfoy, which was actually just about the only thing that I was managing to achieve so far. It had been working whilst we were listening to Professor Haven and I was able to focus my attention on her, but when she stopped talking and announced that we were now ready to start making our 'Draught of Peace' potions, I had nowhere else to hide. I would have to look and talk to him, sooner or later, but right now, I was opting for later. I only had the next hour to get through without speaking to him. It shouldn't be too hard right.
Once Professor Haven had finished talking, I jumped down from my seat and without a word, went to the store cupboard to get the ingredients where I met Harry.
'So what's going on with Malfoy?'
'What do you mean?' I said a little too quickly, wincing at how high my voice had gone. If he hadn't suspected something before, then he soon would.
'I mean after last night.' My eyes widened and I nearly choked. 'I mean he stopped McLaggen, right.' I sighed in relief as I realised what Harry was asking. 'Is he going to say anything to anyone? He hasn't given you a hard time about it, has he?'
'No, he hasn't said anything at all actually,' I said, coming to the realisation that he had been oddly quiet. 'I doubt he will anyway. Why would he? He'd only get himself into more trouble.' I looked along the shelves and took some belladonna from the jar before passing it to Harry.
'I guess not,' he agreed, 'He must have done a pretty big number on McLaggen though, judging by the state of his hand.'
'What do you mean?' I questioned, frowning as I passed Harry another jar. 'What's wrong with his hand?'
'Dunno, but it's all bandaged up. He must have hit McLaggen pretty hard. Never thought I'd be jealous of Malfoy. Wish you'd let me do that. The guy deserves it.'
'That may be,' I said rolling my eyes, 'but like you said, Malfoy did more than enough.'
When I got back to the table, I laid out the ingredients and finally let myself look to my right, noticing that Malfoy's right hand was, like Harry said, bandaged up. For a moment I was confused. How had he hurt his hand? I had healed all his wounds before I left. Then the realisation hit me. After we had nearly…, well after what had happened, he had punched the wall.
My stomach twisted uncomfortably as I came to a horrible realisation. A realisation of why he would have punched the wall. The realisation that he must have been so angry, disgusted and repulsed with himself for getting himself into that situation. For getting that close to me. For nearly kissing me. Me. A filthy mud blood.
I wasn't sure why that the realisation stung and I felt the wave of disappointment hit me full force in the gut. Disappointment quickly gave way to annoyance. Annoyed at myself for feeling that way, and annoyed at him for making me feel that way.
I worked in an angry silence, lost in my own bitter thoughts until I heard a soft clatter beside me. I turned around to see Malfoy's knife lying on the floor. I saw the look of annoyance that flashed through his eyes, which turned quickly to anger when he saw that I had noticed. I looked over at what he had been attempting to cut and saw that he was failing miserably.
Going against my better judgement, I moved beside him and picked up his knife from the floor.
'Here let me do it,' I said making a move to start cutting up his mandrake roots.
'I can do it,' he snapped, trying to grab the knife back with his bandaged hand.
'Evidently, you can't.' I pointed to the mangled mess that he had made of the mandrake roots. 'I'm just trying to help you,' I hissed.
'I don't need your help,' he snapped back.
Why?'Because the oh so wonderful Draco Malfoy, couldn't possibly need help from a mudblood like me? Well screw you, Malfoy. If you want to make a mess of this potion, then go ahead. Be my guest.
It was then I realised just how close I had gotten to him in my angry rant. I looked up to find him looming over me as we stood nearly nose to nose. Had he always been so tall? The anger that I was sure was in my eyes instantly vanished the second that they met his shining grey ones. Standing this close and before I could stop myself I once again found myself searching again for the shades of blue and green that I had seen the day before.
I realised quickly that I was staring and swiftly broke the eye contact, feeling the familiar flush creep its way onto my cheeks. I started to back away and walked straight into the stool behind me, hissing in pain as I hit my ankle off of the metal bar at the bottom it.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Malfoy was once again watching me, clearly amused at my clumsiness. His expression was doing absolutely nothing to improve my mood.
'What?' I snapped, trying to cover up my embarrassment.
'Nothing,' he said simply, folding his arms and sitting down, a small smirk forming at the corner of his mouth. 'Go ahead.'
'What?' I asked confused.
'The potion,' he said slowly, pointing towards the knife still gripped in my hand.
I blushed again. I had forgotten I was meant to be doing that. I flicked my hair over my shoulder in an attempt to look nonchalant. 'Oh, right, sure,' I said turning my back on him and continuing where he had left off. I could feel his eyes on me as I worked and once again, when I was trying to be as natural as possible, I felt I was being anything but. I was so determined that I would do it perfectly and felt so on edge with his criticising eyes that I was gripping that knife so tightly that my knuckles were turning white.
'There, done,' I announced when I was finished, silently breathing a sigh of relief. I turned to add the ingredients to the potion.
'Thank you,' came a quiet voice from beside me.
My eyes flashed up to meet his face, convinced that I must have mis-heard him. Malfoy could not just have said thank you. In the whole seven years that I had known him, I had never heard him utter those words.
'Pardon?' I said in confusion. My brain refused to believe that he had just said those words. He was going to have to say them again if I was going to believe that he had just said that.
'You heard,' Malfoy said, rolling his eyes, running his hand through his blonde hair. I would swear that he looked a little uncomfortable. I would bet that he could count on one hand the number of times that he had ever thanked someone.
'Well, you're welcome.' I smiled back at him genuinely. A smile that only intensified when he looked away and a pink tinge appeared high on his cheeks.
We worked in a comfortable silence until the end of the lesson when Professor Haven tested the potions, before reluctantly admitting that mine and Malfoy's potion was the top of the class and awarded us five house points each. With his injured hand hindering him, we were the last to tidy up our bench and leave the classroom. He left the classroom just ahead of me as I returned our cauldron. Gathering my belongings I exited the classroom, finding Malfoy standing with Pansy Parkinson, her leaning in close to him, saying something in his ear. Just as I was debating whether or not to retreat or hastily rush past them, he stiffened at her words, his back going ram-rod straight. He leaned down towards her, his face hard and I was fairly certain I heard his low voice telling her to piss off, but I couldn't be sure as she then threw a smirk over his shoulder, looking straight at me, before waltzing off down the corridor.
Wondering what on earth I had just witnessed, I realised that Malfoy and I were alone. Sucking up my courage, I realised that now was as good a time as any to have the conversation that I knew would have to happen sooner or later.
'Dra...Malfoy, can I have a word?'
He turned around towards me, his face completely blank of all emotion. 'What?'
Slightly perturbed by his bluntness, by the change in his demeanour from just moments before, I blinked twice at him, before continuing. 'Well,' I began, taking a deep steadying breath, 'I just wanted to say thank you, again, for what you did last night. I wanted to say thank you for helping me.'
'I didn't do it for you,' he scoffed, with an anger in his eyes that I didn't understand.
'Well,' I swallowed hard refusing to be deterred, 'whatever your motivation was, I'm still grateful.'
'Great' he said blandly. 'You done?'
I didn't know why I was so determined to overlook his blatant rudeness, but I carried on regardless. 'Look, I know that we haven't always seen eye to eye, and even though you didn't have to help me, you did, so I wanted you to know that I'm grateful and if you ever needed anything then-'
'What the hell could I need from you? He interrupted.
I stepped back at the harshness in his voice. 'Nothing. I just... I don't know.'
He stared at me, his face impassive, although something was working behind his eyes. 'So what now?' he shrugged. 'Do you expect me to fall at your feet, because the great Hermione Granger deigns to give me her thanks.'
'No, I just thought-'
'Thought what? That everything would be fine? That we would be friends?' He spat the word as if it offended him.
'Of course not. It's just-'
'Just that you like playing games with guys? Teasing them. Getting them to crawl around after you. And all to make Weasley jealous. It's pathetic!'
'Excuse me?!' I recoiled from him, stung at his words.
'Let's get something straight, Granger.' He leaned in towards me, his face level with mine, full of an anger that I didn't understand. 'I despise you and you despise me and you are not drawing me into this bullshit. You want to make Weasley jealous, go ahead. Just don't complain when things get out of your control.'
'You think I'm playing games?' I asked stunned, trying not to let him see that his words were hurting. 'You think I wanted that to happen to me?'
He shrugged as if he didn't have a care in the world. 'I really don't care what happens to you, Granger.'
His words hurt, especially since I had spent the whole day wondering about him. Of course I wasn't about to let him know how much his words stung. 'Has anyone ever told you, you are the most despicable, horrible, obnoxious, judgemental fuckwit that ever existed?' My chest rose and fell with my rage.
Malfoy's expression darkened, contrasting with the twisted smirk that appeared on his lips. 'A fuckwit? Surely you can do better than that, Granger?'
I closed my eyes, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. I had never been an overly violent person. As recent events had shown, I clearly had a temper, but on the whole I was not quick to violence. Despite all that, I had never wanted to hit someone as much as I wanted to hit Draco Malfoy in that moment.
'I can't believe I actually tried to say thank you to you. To treat you like a normal human being. ' I looked him up and down giving him a look that could leave him in no doubt of my feelings. 'What the hell was I thinking?'
I turned away, wanting to escape from that corridor and forget that Draco Malfoy ever existed, but he couldn't even give me that.
His grip pinched my upper arm as he tugged me back to face him, and the blood drained from my face as the forceful aggression triggered memories. Cormac's face suddenly flashed before me. His breath on my face. His hands all over me.
'Let me go,' I whispered in panic, tugging away. 'Please let me go.'
Malfoy's hand immediately fell from me and he held them in front of him in the gesture of surrender. I shook my head to rid myself of the flashbacks and forced my eyes to refocus on him. I could see that Malfoy had paled too. The anger was gone from his eyes and if I hadn't known better I would have sworn it had been replaced with concern.
'Granger, I'm not going to hurt you.'
I made a scoffing sound because it was too late. He already had. 'Stay away from me, Malfoy,' I managed shakily. 'You, Cormac, Ron- you're all the bloody same.' This time when I turned to leave, he let me.