The days in October continued to tick past and with every day that passed I felt more and more that I had made a mistake.
Every day Draco and I sat beside each other in Potions class and the wall that I had put up firmly between us had doubled in strength, except this time it was his wall, his barrier keeping me away. I knew why he was doing it. I had hurt him. He had told me the truth, he had bared his soul to me, opened a window and allowed me to see inside and I had. I had looked inside, I had seen all of him, all of his fears and worries and I had slammed that window shut and walked away. I had rejected him. I had hurt him. Just like people had been doing to me.
In the days that followed I found myself watching him more and more. He was often alone. Sitting apart from the other Slytherins. Occasionally he would sit with Pansy or Blaise, but other days he would sit completely alone. He would eat his meal; sometimes he would stay and do schoolwork, other days he would leave the second his fork hit his plate. The more I watched, the more I noticed the reactions that the other Slytherins had to him. Some flinched back from him any time he came near, looking almost afraid, others looked at him with open hostility. But he didn't once show that it bothered him. But I knew differently. I knew deep down that he was struggling and it wasn't hard to see why. I at least had my friends around me, even if it did feel like there was a strange rift between us. He however, had no one.
One evening when we were sitting having dinner; one of the rare occasions when it just Harry, Ron and me, I found myself looking over at him again, I couldn't help but ask the others what they thought, needing to voice the thoughts swirling around my head before they drove me crazy.
'Have you noticed that Malfoy always seems to be on his own?'
The others turned their heads to glance over at the Slytherin table.
'I hadn't really noticed,' Harry said slowly, giving me a strange look.
'Who cares,' Ron muttered through a mouthful of food. 'Who would want to sit beside such an evil git anyway?'
I glanced back over my shoulder to Malfoy who was still eating, his eyes fixed on the table in front of him. I turned back around to find that Harry was still watching me.
'Why do you ask?' he probed.
'I don't know. I just noticed that's all.' I gave a small shrug trying to seem like it was nothing and helped myself to another bread roll, simply for something to do, but I could still feel Harry's eyes on me, watching. As I pulled a piece of the roll apart and put it into my mouth, I looked at Harry to find that he was still watching me.
'What?'
He looked over to the spot behind my shoulder that I forced myself not to look too, as he raised an eyebrow at me in question.
'I was just curious,' I defended. 'I just, I mean, do you think that he's changed?'
Harry's eyes widened slightly before they furrowed and his face was no longer speculative, it was worried.
Ron scoffed into his cottage pie. 'Yeah right. A hippogriff can't change its feathers.'
Ron's opinion was to be expected. Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley were two people who were destined to always hate each other, regardless of what happened between them. Draco could literally sprout angel wings and Ron would still think he was the devil in disguise.
'Harry?' I asked, looking to the one person whose opinion I truly wanted. The person I could trust to give me an honest and rational answer.
'I really don't know, Hermione. I mean you remember how he used to be. All of the things he used to say to you, to me, to Ron.'
'But do you think it's possible?' I prompted. 'I mean do you think it's possible for people to change?'
Before Harry could begin to answer, to verbalise whatever thought was in his head that was making him look at me in the way he was looking at me, Ron finally seemed to have dragged it face out of his dinner and tuned into the conversation.
'Why are we even talking about this?' he said, anger clouding his expression.
'Why are we talking about what?' Lavender asked, as she slid into the table beside Ron, sidling up to him, stealing a green bean off his plate and slipping it into her mouth.
I slumped back away from the table, knowing that any attempt at a serious conversation was over.
'Hermione is just singing Malfoy's praises. Trying to convince us all that he's changed.'
Both Ron and Lavender looked at me, giving me a look that made me want to crawl under the table and hide.
'That's not what I said.'
'So, you think that Draco Malfoy has changed?' Lavender asked and I could feel all of their eyes on me, watching and I squirmed under their judgement. 'The Slytherin, the one who killed Dumbledore, the one who let death eaters into the castle, the one who became a death eater himself and did Merlin knows what else. That Draco Malfoy?'
Lavender's voice had been increasing in volume as she rhymed off her list. I leaned over the table, keeping my voice low, trying not to cause a scene.
'That's not what I said. I never said that I thought he had changed. I was just making an observation. I just asked a question.'
She leaned into the table matching my gaze. 'Well, maybe you should keep your observations to yourself. In case you've forgotten, he's not the victim here.'
Ron wrapped his arm around her shoulders, looking at her sympathetically. Lavender had been lucky to survive the battle at Hogwarts, even if she hadn't come out of it unscathed. She often wore scarves or high-necked tops but a few times at night, I had seen the tops of the scars at the base of her neck.
'He shouldn't even be back here.' She turned her glare to the Slytherin table. 'None of them them should. If it were up to me, they would already be in Azkaban. Or better yet, get the dementors to give them the kiss.'
'That's a bit extreme don't you think. Most of them weren't even at the battle.'
'Cut the head off the snake before it has a chance to strike. That's what I think.'
'But don't you think-' I began, ready to argue with her, ready to try and defend all of the Slytherins who were only in their first year and were already treated with suspicion; for all of the Slytherins who weren't pure bloods and didn't follow their beliefs; for all of the Slytherins who had been brought up by parents who had instilled in them one set of beliefs and didn't know any better. But I didn't get that chance, as Harry cut across me.
'Lavender, did you see Ginny in the common room?'
My mouth hung open and I turned to Harry, ready to chastise him for cutting me off, but I saw him give me a small shake of his head, giving me a warning and I sighed in defeat. He was right. This wasn't the time or the place and Lavender and Ron certainly weren't the people to have this debate with. Both of them had lost so much, they would never be able to see the Slytherins with anything other than mistrust, fear and anger. But as the conversation continued around, moving onto more trivial matters, my mind was preoccupied. Because I never did get an answer to my question; had Draco Malfoy truly changed?
Harry continued to watch me after after that and I had to force myself not to look in Draco Malfoy's direction. Not that there was anything to see. In class he was as remote as ever. Our Saturday afternoon detention was more of the same, only with our close proximity and with it just being the two of us, it was fuelled with a strange tension that I didn't understand. There was no sign that he was angry with me, but he was still cool and distant. He continued to read from the list of books, ticking them off diligently as I located them and assessed their condition. But I couldn't help but think that he looked tired. Tired and alone.
Feeling even more ashamed of myself, of my treatment of him since that day when he had confided in me, I suddenly realised that I wasn't as intimidated by him anymore. He seemed more human, more real, because I understood him and for the first time in what felt like a very long time, it seemed like someone understood me.
He was in pain and for whatever reason, he had decided to share that pain with me. I knew he was angry with me and he was probably right to be so. Which is why I knew deep down that it was time for me to be brave.
I put back the heavy book on the shelf and with a deep breath, I turned around to face him, knowing that it was finally time to take a chance. 'I have nightmares, too.'
Draco's head popped up to look at me, his quill stopping in mid movement from where he sat at a table.
'Not every night. But most nights. That makes it worse, I think. Because I never know when they'll appear. Most of them are about what happened at the battle, sometimes it's your aunt and more recently Cormac.'
His eyes were watching me, but his face still had that eerily blank expression. 'You don't have to tell me this.'
'I do,' I insisted, although I didn't fully understand why. 'I want to.'
He gave a nod, but his expression remained the same.
'I hate being here. I feel guilty all of the time. Ever since I came to Hogwarts it's been my job to help Harry, to solve the puzzle, to put the clues together. But this time, the most important one, I took too long. I didn't figure it all out until far too late.' Thinking back to those nights in the tent, the endless days of hiding and fighting for survival, all the while trying to understand the mystery of Tom Riddle, it all seemed like it was from another lifetime. Like it had happened to somebody else.
'We used to listen to the radio every night and they'd read out the list if the names of people who were dead and I knew that it was partly my fault because I was taking too long. Because this was one puzzle that I couldn't solve.
'Then we came to Hogwarts and I thought it might be easier. That I might be able to forget about everything that happened and get life back to normal. But that didn't happen. I keep seeing all those faces, all of those people who didn't make it and again I feel like it's my fault. Like I should have done more.' I forced myself to blink back those memories and with them the tears. 'And being back here I just feel lost. Because for years I've always had a purpose, a focus and now it's all gone, and I don't know who I am or what I'm supposed to do.'
Understanding entered the hardness in his expression, giving me enough strength to continue.
'I just feel so alone. Everyone else seems to just be able to get on with things but then Harry has Ginny and Ron has moved on with Lavender and that's totally fine because I don't think we were right for each other anyway, but it still hurts that he just ignored me when I needed him, especially after he kissed me and I still don't know what I did wrong or what changed.'
Something flickered in his gaze, but I didn't stop to wonder what it was, because I was on a roll. Every thought, every worry, every bad feeling that I'd had was pouring out and I was helpless to stop it.
'And then things with my parents…' I paused as the words stuck in my throat.
'What happened?' he asked, his voice hoarse as some other emotion entered his eyes.
My lip trembled, and I looked away, knowing that if I looked at him, then I wouldn't be able to get the words out.
'I had to change their memories to keep them safe. I couldn't just make them forget about me because they could still be found and used against me. I had to change their entire memories. I had to change their entire lives. I had to make them forget that I even existed. I wanted to make them happy in case I didn't come back. But I did it too well. Because now they have two realities in their heads, and I know that if they had a choice, they'd choose the life that I created for them. The life where I don't exist, and I know they resent me for bringing them back here. I feel like I've lost everything, and I don't even know if any of it was worth it.'
There was a long moment of silence where I was afraid to look at him. I had behaved horribly to him in the same situation. I was almost expecting for him to retaliate in kind. But he didn't.
'It was.'
I looked up at him, startled to see him looking at me, with something like regret in his eyes. 'Pardon?'
He stared at me for a moment as if debating what to say. 'It was worth it. If you hadn't done what you did, they would be dead.'
I shook my head at him dismissively. 'You can't know that for sure.'
'Actually, I can. They found your house. Hampstead, right?'
I felt my chest tighten as I nodded, stunned, because he was right. My house was in Hampstead. But he couldn't have known that, not unless…
'He sent a group to investigate but they didn't find anything. If you hadn't sent them away, they would have been killed and it wouldn't have been quick. You saved them.'
On a breath I found myself asking. 'You're sure.'
He gave me a long and weighty stare and then nodded.
The guilt I had been trying to keep buried was eviscerated by relief, by the sense of vindication that I had been right. That it had been worth it, even if it had cost me everything. But as the guilt vanished, it just left space for raw grief. It felt like my ribs were being crushed with the weight of it and I sank to the floor as the tears let loose, spilling down my cheeks one after the other.
I was crying so hard that it took me a moment to realise that Draco had got out of his chair. I heard his footsteps, felt his presence behind me as he sank to the floor beside me. He didn't touch me, he didn't need to. I could feel the heat of him beside me, the comfort of his warmth and his presence bringing out even more of my tears.
Even when my sobs calmed, we just sat there. Not speaking, not touching and yet somehow I felt more peaceful and more calm than I had in months.
'Hermione! Earth to Hermione. Come in, Hermione. Hermione!'
I blinked, at the sounds of my name, jolted out of my thoughts to find myself sitting in the great hall with an exasperated Harry and a bewildered Ginny in front of me.
'What does that mean? Why are you giving her the earth?'
'I'm not,' Harry sighed. 'It's a muggle thing. It means- you know what never mind,' he said to Ginny, before turning back to me. 'Where the hell were you? I said your name about three times.'
Not for the first time, my mind had gone back to that moment in the library. I had tried not to think about it, but it was proving too difficult. I kept going back to that moment where I had opened myself up to Draco Malfoy and made myself completely vulnerable. After all of this time, I had chosen someone to finally be open with, to be honest with. I had probably told him more than I had ever told Harry or even Ron and they were the people I trusted most in the world. Yet for some strange reason, the person I had chosen to open up to, had to be the one person that I knew could hurt me more than anyone else. He had done it so many times before and he could easily do it again.
'Sorry. I was just thinking about my arithmancy homework,' I lied, offering an explanation. 'I think I may have made a computational error in the question on on the Ostanes Theorem.'
'Right,' Harry said slowly, shooting a bewildered look at Ginny. She simply shrugged her shoulders back.
'Don't look at me,' she said. 'I don't know what she's talking about either.'
'Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out.' He stood up and grabbed his bag from under the table. 'Shall we get to class.'
As we made our way to potions class I was distracted and jumpy, waiting for my first sight of him. As I sat in my seat, I kept watching the door, looking for that first flash of blonde. I hadn't seen him since I had left the library after our detention, nearly two days before. We had eventually both shot to our feet when we heard Madame Pince's voice in the next aisle, giving someone into trouble for placing their ink too close to an open book. Then she came to us and told us that our detention was over, and we had both gathered our things and left without another word.
It wasn't until after I'd left that I worried about what I had done. About the fact that I had made myself vulnerable. Yet alongside the worry, I felt relief. Relief that I never expected to feel. I had told him all of my worst fears, all of my deepest secrets and about the guilt that I had been holding close to my heart and he hadn't run away. He hadn't looked at me like I was a bad person. He hadn't looked at me like I was responsible for everything that had happened. He hadn't looked at me in pity. He hadn't looked at me like I deserved to be alone.
As if my thoughts had conjured him into existence, he appeared at the doorway to the classroom, stopping in his tracks when he saw me watching him. He held my eyes as he made his way to his seat. When he sat down, he peeked over at me and one side of his mouth quirked up. But not in a sneer, not in a smirk, in the first genuine smile I had ever seen Draco Malfoy give. It was a smile of shared understanding. A smile to ask if I was okay. It was a smile, that as I met his eyes, I returned.