I couldn't sleep. Again! But this time it wasn't from nightmares. This times it was because of Draco Malfoy. Because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get his words out of my head. It wasn't the end of our conversation; I could have dealt with that part. Unfortunately, it was what he had said before that. About me. About me being a coward. About me not telling anyone about what Cormac had done. About what would happen if it happened again, to someone else, all because I hadn't spoken up. All because I was too scared to admit what had happened.
I tried to forget his words. I tried to focus on his cruel barbs, on his sneering face, but every time I did, I just kept coming back to one word. Coward. My stomach twisted at the thought. I didn't want to be a coward.
Which was why I found myself up early the following morning having decided that the only way to get his voice out of my head, was to do something about it.
However reluctant I might have been to admit it, he was right. If the same thing happened again because I had stayed quiet, then I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. So, I did the only thing that I could do, the thing I should have done after it had happened. I went to see Professor McGonagall.
Everyone was still in bed after a late night of partying and the common room was quiet. No one would be awake for hours. I walked through the corridors quickly, determined to get it over with before I changed my mind. All too soon I reached the griffin statue which concealed the head teacher's office. Giving the same password that I had used when I was sent here to receive my detention, I was half relieved, half disappointed, when the griffin slowly started to spin to reveal the staircase behind it. Reaching the top of the stairs and before I could back out, I knocked on the wooden door and entered the room.
'Ah Miss Granger,' Professor McGonagall said, sitting behind the large desk in the middle of the room, looking at a piece of parchment in front of her. 'Good morning. I hadn't expected to see anyone from Gryffindor for hours yet. It was nice to start the season off well. Not that I'm biased of course, but even though I'm headmistress,' she dropped her voice almost conspiratorially, 'Gryffindor will always be my house. Now what can I do for you?' She gestured for me to take a seat.
My hands twisted into the folds of my robes and I cleared my throat, taking a deep breath to settle the sick fluttering of nerves in my stomach. 'I wanted to report something. An... an attack.'
Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, but her voice remained steady. 'An attack on whom?'
I swallowed deeply, forcing myself to say the words. 'On me.'
'Mr. Malfoy?' she surmised immediately.
'No,' I replied quickly, feeling the sharp stab of indignation on his behalf. If anyone had done any attacking between the two of us, it had been me. Not just once, but twice. 'No, not him. He actually helped me.'
The Professors eyes shot up at my words. 'Helped you how?'
'He...' I paused, unsure of how to continue. I took another deep breath, filling my lungs with some much-needed oxygen, before forcing myself to admit the words. 'He pulled him off me.'
Outwardly there was no change to her physical appearance. No obvious indication that she had heard my words. Yet behind her eyes I could see her mind working as she processed the impact of what I had said. She leaned forward in her chair, resting her clasped hands in front of her. 'Miss Granger, just what sort of attack are we talking about?'
I tried to stop the trembling of my lip. I tried to stop the tears from filling my eyes. I tried to keep my voice steady as I uttered the words, but I couldn't. 'I was...' I swallowed deeply, finding the courage to say the words. 'I was assaulted.'
'Miss Granger,' Professor McGonagall said in a softer voice than I had ever heard her use before, 'perhaps you had better start at the beginning.'
So, I told her it all. All about the party, avoiding Cormac, his visit to the library, and that night in the corridor. I told her of Malfoy's intervention and Harry's appearance. By the time I was finished, Professor McGonagall's lips were so thin, they had virtually disappeared.
'Not that I doubt your word, Granger, but do you have evidence? Would you be willing to have your memories examined?'
I nodded and placed my wand to my temple, before pulling out the wispy, shining tendrils of my memories and pleased them in the pensieve that Professor McGonagall had brought over from a cabinet to sit on the table.
'Do you wish to accompany me?' she asked, pointing to the pensieve that had started swirling with grey and silver mist with the addition of my memories.
I shook my head, not wanting to relive that moment again. It had been bad enough going through it the first time, I didn't need to see it all play out again scene by scene. Professor McGonagall disappeared into the pensieve, returning a few minutes later.
I had seen Professor McGonagall angry on more than a few occasions. When she found us in a bathroom after fighting a troll; when she found us out of bed after we'd delivered Norbert, when she'd been arguing with Umbridge to name but a few. All of that was nothing compared to the look of pure fury I saw on her face now.
'I will of course have to speak to Mr. Malfoy and Mr. McLaggen, and I suppose Potter too. However, I assure you, Hermione, that behaviour like this will not be tolerated at Hogwarts. Hogwarts is a safe place for all students. I'm sorry that this happened to you, but I assure you it will be dealt with so that nothing like this happens again. Is there anything else that I can do for you? Do you need someone to talk to? A counsellor perhaps?'
I shook my head. 'Thank you, Professor, but I'll be fine. I just want to make sure that he can't do this to anyone again.'
'I understand. If you change your mind, please don't hesitate to ask. Now, if you are sure, then perhaps you could find Mr. Potter for me and ask him to come to see me. I'll send a note to Mr. Malfoy for his statement too.'
'I will.' I stood up and turned to go, hesitating as I reached the door. 'Professor, Malfoy won't be in trouble, will he? For what he did to Cormac?'
Professor McGonagall looked at me, and I felt somewhat uncomfortable under her assessing gaze, before she answered. 'No, Miss Granger. I don't think that will be necessary.'
With a sense of relief, I left her office and made my way back to the Gryffindor common room to find Harry.
I was surprised to find that Harry and Ginny were awake and sitting in the empty common room when I returned. I didn't imagine that I would see Ron for a few hours yet after the amount he'd had to drink the night before.
'Where have you been this early?' Ginny asked, a hint of suspicion in her voice, as I approached the two in front of the fire.
I just had something that I had to do,' I answered evasively. Turning my gaze to Harry I asked, 'Can I have a quick word?'
Harry looked at me in surprise whereas Ginny looked at first confused and then put out as we walked together to the common room entrance.
'What's up?' Harry asked, looking at me with both bewilderment and a hint of concern in his gaze. Concern that was nearly my undoing. I forced myself to get it together, straightening my back and keeping my voice steady.
'I've told McGonagall what happened. She wants to see you. To ask you about what you saw. She's in her office waiting for you.'
'You did?' He asked in surprise, before he quirked his head to the side. 'What made you change your mind?'
I hesitated for moment, debating what to say before I finally settled on the truth. There had been too many secrets between us already. 'Malfoy actually.'
Harry eyebrows flew up in surprise, disappearing under his dark messy hair. 'Malfoy?'
'Yes,' I answered shortly. Not wanting to share anymore details and before he could question me any further, I said, 'Anyway you'd better go. She's waiting for you.'
'Alright,' he said with a look that made me think he knew exactly what I was doing. He turned to leave, taking a few steps before he stopped and turned back to me, 'And Hermione.' He leaned in to kiss me lightly on the forehead. 'I'm proud of you.'
I smiled at him as he walked through the portrait hole before I turned back to where Ginny was still sitting and I flopped down beside her on the couch, feeling that heavy weight resting on my shoulders begin to lighten, until I felt Ginny's gaze burning into me.
'What was all that about?' Ginny asked, nodding to the portrait hole where Harry has just left. I looked at her face, at the doubt and suspicion there and I knew that I had to tell her.
I took a deep steadying breath. 'Ginny, I have something to tell you. Something I should have told you a while ago.
And so, I told her everything. I told her about Cormac, about Malfoy and about Harry. By the end of it I was crying in Ginny's arms. But after it was done, I felt lighter, like that weight had been lifted from my shoulders and that open wound I had been carrying around for weeks, felt like it was finally starting to heal.
Cormac was removed from school that same day. Professor McGonagall sent me a note saying that unfortunately his removal wasn't permanent and a two months suspension was the best that she could do. I didn't know what Cormac's father did, but he talked about him often enough with a sense of self- entitlement that made me think he had a job high up in the ministry and he had probably had some influence over things.
Rumours flew around the school that he'd had a family emergency. That he was ill. That he had been expelled. That his father had pulled him out of school because of his dismal results. No one mentioned my name. No one mentioned the truth.
With Cormac gone, even temporarily, I felt like I could finally relax again. With the truth out in the open, Harry and Ginny were back to being a nauseatingly happy couple. Even Ron and Lavender seemed to be back in a good place. Harry had dialled down on the quidditch practices for a while. Their next game wasn't until well into the new year, so they had months to get in plenty of training. For the next few weeks, things were feeling more like normal, even if being around two happy couples was continuing to make me very much aware that I was alone. But I forced myself to smile my way through it and pretend that it didn't bother me.
Two weeks after the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw game, it was the turn of the other two teams. With Malfoy playing seeker for Slytherin, he was excused from our Saturday detention, having to do it on the Sunday instead. Which is why I once again found myself alone in an empty castle. Except this time, it truly was an empty castle.
The others had of course gone to the quidditch game, two couples, having fun, while I once again headed to the library. The hours passed slowly as I worked in the eerie solitude of the deserted library. By the end of it, I would have even welcomed Malfoy's presence beside me, just to have someone else there.
When my time in the library was done, I didn't want to go to the empty common room, so I did what I had done all summer. I went for a walk. In the distance I could hear the cheers and shouts from the quidditch pitch, but I tuned them out. I could go and join everyone, but I would have to squeeze in to find a seat and no doubt once I got there, the match would end anyway. I briefly thought of visiting Hagrid, but I was sure he would probably be at the game too. In the end I walked around the whomping willow and ended up at the shore of the lake. I stared into the water for a while, looking for a glimpse of the giant squid, but even it was leaving me to be alone today. I settled on the flattest rock I could find and pulled a book out of my bag, determined to try and forget about my loneliness for a while by losing myself in someone else's story.
I had managed to read a few chapters, only stopping briefly to cast a warming charm on my cloak as the sun started its descent. I was so gripped by the story that I didn't hear him until he was close to me. It was the flash of green that I saw first, just out of the corner of my eye. He was still wearing his quidditch robes, his usually perfect blonde hair windswept from flying, his cheeks stained pink with the cold. It was strange to see Malfoy look anything other than perfectly put together.
Without a word, he walked across the pebbled beach and sat down on a rock near to me. Not next to me, not close enough to touch, but close enough that it wasn't accidental that he had chosen that spot. We hadn't spoken in two weeks. Not since he has said those things to me and I had stormed away from him, sending a whole aisle of library books cascading down on him. I'd been half expecting Madame Pince or even McGonagall to pull me up about it, but strangely they never did. Malfoy seemed to have kept that altercation to himself.
For two weeks, things had been awkward between us, not a word spoken, not one bit of eye contact. Nothing. It was like each of us was pretending that the other didn't even exist. Once or twice I had thought he had been about to say something, but he never did. He had stayed resolutely silent. Which begged the question, what was he doing here now?
I waited for a few moments, giving him an opportunity to explain what he was doing, but no explanation came.
'You know Hogwarts is over 400,000 square feet,' I informed him.
He took a deep breath before he flicked his eyes to me, staring and waited for me to elaborate. 'You're telling me this why?'
I rolled my eyes. 'My point is this castle is huge. Could you not find somewhere else to sit?'
'Probably,' he shrugged, returning his gaze to the water. 'But I like the view from here. Besides the lake is big enough. I'm sure we can manage to ignore each other just fine.'
We sat in silence for a long time. Me pretending to read my book, while he stared out at the water, his elbows resting on his knees. I surreptitiously tried to watch him out the corner of my eye, wondering what he was up to, but he just sat still as a statue, staring at some fixed point in the distance.
'I'm sorry.'
The voice was quiet but clear. Yet even though I knew what he had said, even though logically I knew that he must be saying it to me, I still found myself asking. 'Excuse me?'
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply as if the words were causing him physical pain. 'I'm sorry.'
The words were louder this time, but I could see the effort those words cost him. I had a feeling that he had probably uttered them only a handful of times in his life, and that he probably had never expected to be uttering them to me. Yet I couldn't help myself but ask, 'For what, specifically are you apologising for?'
His lip quirked up and I wasn't sure if it was because he found my question amusing or if he was amused that I was finding fault with his apology. Yet his amusement pricked at my annoyance.
'For saying that you despised me, when all I was trying to do say thank you. For calling me a bitch?' I asked. 'Or for saying that I deserved to be assaulted.'
He visibly winced but he still wasn't looking at me. 'I didn't mean that.'
'No?' I questioned, shrugging. 'You still said it.'
His eyes flicked briefly to me before flicking away again. 'I was being a dick.'
I gave a scoffing noise of agreement, before we lapsed back into a strange silence.
We sat awkwardly for a few more minutes as the waves lapped against the shore and a few owls flew overhead. He broke the silence again, speaking, but still not looking at me. 'You told McGonagall. About McLaggen.'
I looked at him for a moment, wondering why he was asking. 'Yeah, I did.'
He nodded. 'Good.'
I stared at him again, wondering why he would even care. I took in his profile as he once again stared out at the gentle waves. His face was its usual blank mask of emotions, but something was working behind his eyes. Some inner turmoil was working within those grey depths and I couldn't help but wonder what it was. He reached down and picked at a spot on his quidditch glove. Presumably, the match was now over, but that begged the question even more, what was he doing here with me.
'Did you win?' I found myself asking, thinking that maybe he had lost and had been trying to escape for a while. But to my surprise, he nodded.
'Congratulations, I guess.'
'Thanks,' he said, not looking like a person who had just won a quidditch game. Not looking in the slightest bit happy at all.
Confused and wondering why I was prompting a conversation, I found myself asking, 'Shouldn't you be in your common room, celebrating?'
He shrugged again. 'Didn't feel like it.'
I frowned over at him, wondering what on Earth what was wrong with him. Draco Malfoy usually relished any opportunity for public adoration. Although now that I thought about it, it had been a while since I had seen him in quidditch robes. 'Didn't you quit playing quidditch?'
'Yep,' he said simply.
I waited for him to elaborate and he sighed again when he saw me looking at him, waiting for him to explain.
'I didn't have much time for quidditch in sixth year. My mind was rather preoccupied.'
'Right,' I said simply. Of course, he had been too busy for quidditch back then. He had been rather preoccupied, trying to kill the greatest wizard of our time. Something that he hadn't been overly successful at. At the time, Harry and I had both noted how ill he looked that year. How pale and stressed he had been as he struggled with his mission. Although in his clumsy attempts, he had ending up cursing Katie Bell and even poisoned Ron too. If it hadn't been for Harry's quick thinking, Ron would be dead.
If he had noticed me blanch, he didn't acknowledge it. 'My mother made me try out. Get things back to normal.' He sounded bitter about it.
'Is it working?'
For the first time since he had come to the beach, he turned around to look again me and the blank expression he so carefully crafted, shattered.
'No. It isn't working. Nothing is working. I hate being back here. I can't stand it. Everywhere I go, everywhere I look. It's like a prison. Like I can't breathe. I think they knew. I think they knew what it would be like for me here and this was just their way of punishing me even more.
He reached down and picked up a stone that was beside his foot and launched it towards the lake. It soared high through the air before splashing into the water, a few metres away from the shoreline.
'Sometimes I wish they'd just put me in Azkaban. Sometimes I think it would have been easier than having to come back here.'
I stared at him as he spoke, barely breathing, equally mesmerised and horrified.
'My life feels like it's falling apart. Like I'm just sitting there every day, as life carries on around me and I just don't get how people have forgotten everything so quickly. How they can just act like nothing's wrong. None of the others can possibly understand what I've been through. They don't get it. They were kept safe by their parents, safe because of their pure blood, safe because they were a Slytherin,' he said with dry disgust. 'They don't have a clue what it was like.
'And I can't go home. They won't let me just leave. But even if they did, it wouldn't be any better. It would be trading one nightmare for another, because that house is filled with memories too. I hate what happened there.' His face twisted and cold hard anger filled his voice. 'I hate that my parents let it happen. I hate that because of them I got dragged into it. I hate that they won't even talk to me about it. Like if we just carry on and pretend that none of it happened, then everything will just go back to normal and we'll all just be okay when clearly we're fucking not.'
All of the anger left him, deflating him, until he sagged forward as if all of the energy had been sucked out of him. A tear splashed down my cheek before I could stop it and I brushed it away quickly before he could see.
'I can't sleep. Every night. Always the same. Every single night. I just… can't.'
I was overwhelmed. It pressed down on my chest, making it hard for me to breathe. Because I felt like I understood. I understood him. After all I was feeling the same thing.
Draco sat up suddenly and his eyes narrowed on me. 'I haven't told anyone that.'
'Why are you telling me?' I asked, still unable to look away.
He contemplated me for a moment and for a moment I didn't think he was going to answer.
'Because I'm being haunted and I sense you know all about being haunted.'
Horrified that he could see that, I shook my head. 'You don't know anything about me.'
'I know lots about you,' he retorted, shifting slightly so that he was facing me, looking me straight in the eyes. 'I know that you hate being back here just as much as I do. I know that things aren't great with your friends. I know that you're barely managing to pay attention in classes, that you just stare at books,' he nodded to the book in my hand, 'that you just pretend to read them. I know that you have that scar on your arm that you always hide. And I know that there's a sadness in your eyes that you try to hide with a fake smile, but I can see it.'
He paused as I tried to recover from the shock of his knowing all of that information about me. He took that moment to lean in slowly towards me, looking deep into my eyes, stopping when he was mere inches away from me. When I didn't say anything- I couldn't for fear that the emotions swirling inside me would bubble over- he continued his words. 'Don't think that I know nothing about you, Granger, because I do. Right now, I'm probably the person that knows you the best. I would bet that even Potter and Weasley don't know any of that.'
As I looked up at him, unable to breathe, I examined his face and saw not a trace of amusement or mocking in his features or in his eyes. He looked so genuine and the words that he spoke were so accurate that it was if he was reading my mind.
'How do you know all of that?' I asked quietly, 'How do you know so much about me?' I added, hesitantly lifting my eyes to meet his.
'Because I've been watching you,' he answered, his mouth twitching in discomfort as he saw the confused shock on my face. 'I'm a Slytherin. I'm observant,' he added as if that was more than enough justification.
'Is there any particular reason that you've been watching me?' I asked questioningly, trying not to sound too discomfited.
'I was curious,' he said shrugging slightly. 'You just seemed different this year and then after the potions incident and McLaggen, I couldn't help but watch you. The more I saw, the more I needed to know.'
'What do you mean?' I asked surprised at his response.
At this he sighed and moved back away from me, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He was biting his lip slightly, as if assessing what he should say next. 'Because whenever I look at you, I see the same thing haunting you that's haunting me. And I can't help but think that out of everyone, you might understand.'
Part of me wanted to open up to him. To let it all out and be free. But a larger part of me wasn't sure that I wanted to. I wasn't ready to share it. Least of all with Draco Malfoy. I had lost so much in the last twelve months. I had lost so many people. So many people who were supposed to be there for me and weren't. So many people who I was supposed to be able to rely on who had turned their backs on me. But opening up to Draco Malfoy, opening my heart to him, spilling my secrets, my heartache, that wasn't a chance that I could take. Because I had already lost so many people and opening up to Draco Malfoy, letting him into my life, that would only ever end one way. I couldn't take that chance, because losing someone else, having someone else walk away from me, would break me.
'I'm sorry,' I pushed up from the stone that I was sitting on, nearly toppling over in my haste. 'I have to go.'
And so, I left him there. Alone. Sitting by the lake, watching me run away from him.
After he had just given so much of himself to me.
And I had never hated myself more.