The last of the snow had finally melted away. The winter season was coming to an end and everyone knew that spring was beginning its tentative approach. However, winter had yet to give up it's grasp of the Hogwarts' grounds. The light that was streaming through the trees did little to warm the air. A frigid chill hung about them and yet Draco was enjoying himself.
"Here, try it this way." He turned Hermione's wrist so that her wand angled to the right. "Now say it again."
Hermione looked nonplussed and repeated the spell. Her voice lilted musically over the words that seemed like they should be sung instead of spoken. A green mist, more like a haze than anything else shot from the end of her wand and permeated the ground at her feet. They held their mutual breaths and watched as tiny shoots of green grass began to spring up around her boots. As they continued to watch in awe, the little sprigs of grass withered away to dull brown bits.
"It's sad," Hermione spoke after a moment, "We give them a push to live but it's just too cold out. I feel like I've betrayed them somehow."
Draco looked at her in amusement, "Hermione, it's just a bit of grass."
Hermione glared at him halfheartedly and sat down on a large rock. Several books and scrolls of parchment were scattered around her. Draco watched as she pulled off her glove and dug through her bag looking for a quill. She groaned in frustration and began to dig even deeper.
Draco felt in his robe and pulled a black quill out of one pocket. "Here," he called tossing it to her. "What are you doing anyway?"
"I'm writing it down on the `useful spell' list."
"Didn't seem that useful to me," Draco looked down at the ancient book in his hand and the notes that he had made himself. "All it did was make some grass grow."
"Honestly," Hermione looked up at him in consternation. "If it doesn't set something on fire or go boom you think that it's useless. Really, all boys are the same, Gryffindor and Slytherin."
"That's not true," Draco, countered, "I liked that one spell that you did earlier, you know, the one that almost sucked your robe right off."
Hermione blushed darkly and looked away. "But really, this is a very important spell if it can make plants grow faster. Can't you just imagine what Professor Sprout could do with a spell like this?"
Draco was still smiling about the memory of Hermione almost losing her robes. "I suppose so, if she could make her plants grow faster then I suppose that you wouldn't have had to spend so much time in the hospital wing our second year."
Hermione looked up in surprise, "how did you know that was in the hospital wing?"
"Well everyone knew. Virtually the whole school was in a panic over that whole `heir of Slytherin' thing." A nostalgic smile flitted across Draco's face.
Hermione looked at him in annoyance.
"Well it's always good to keep tabs on your enemies." Draco said.
Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a penetrating gaze.
"Now don't get any ideas, it isn't as if I liked you then or anything." Draco added nervously. The way that she was staring was beginning to make him very uneasy.
"Do you like me now?" Hermione was still watching him with that penetrating gaze but her voice had gotten very quiet.
Draco stared at her with mouth agape and tried to think of something to say. He couldn't just come out and say that he liked her, could he? He was never entirely sure. Draco knew that he thought about her often, but was that what she was asking?
"I think we should try this one next." He said standing up suddenly, a book clenched tightly in his hand.
Hermione looked away from him quickly and nodded. Draco turned away from her and started to recite the spell in his head over and over again. He tried very had not to notice that the smile that Hermione had been wearing virtually all day was gone now and her eyes, that had been brilliant and open, were now guarded.
Draco was inwardly kicking himself. He never knew what to say. Around most girls he was the epitome of calm and collectedness, but with Hermione he often felt that he could never get his foot of his mouth. But what did she expect, really? That he would just kneel down and confess undying love or some other such nonsense? Draco would rather kiss a blast-ended skrewt then do any of that ridiculous romantic stuff that Pansy had always wanted. And now Hermione was asking him to do the same thing. Wasn't she? Draco wasn't sure what she wanted. He grumbled lightly in frustration.
Hermione sat back down and began looking through her notes. "Yes, I suppose we can try that one if you want. What does the translation say about it?"
With relief Draco read from his notes, "holding green".
"That's your translation?" Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. "Not very explicit is it?"
"Well the ink on that page was splotchy." Draco argued in his defense. "And we'll find out what it does in just a minute anyway." He added quickly as Hermione gave him a look that resembled Professor McGonagall a bit too closely.
Draco pulled his wand from his pocket and looked around for a suitable target. Next to the rock that Hermione was perched on was a small, dried up bush that hadn't survived the harsh winter. Draco smirked slightly and pointed his wand at it.
"Inligo!"
For a moment nothing happened. There was no shot of light from the wand, no shower of sparks, nothing. Draco frowned. Then there was a sudden noise and the bush twitched. Hermione's eyes widened and she watched it distrustfully. This was very wise of her because it gave another twitch and then sprouted out in every direction. Dead, bare branches reached every which way. Hermione gasped and scrambled up the rock. The crawling branches followed her and grasped her ankle. Hermione struggled to free her foot but it seemed impossible. More branches were reaching thirstily for her and she cried out in fear.
"Finite! Finite Incantateum!" Draco cried out as he rushed forward to help having finally come to his senses.
The shrubbery stopped its dire advance but did not retreat. It laid still and dead once again. Hermione tried to wrench her foot out of its grasp, but even though the branches appeared to be brittle, she found it quite impossible.
"Here," Draco pulled a small black object from his pocket which turned out to be a little folded up knife. He easily cut the dry bough and helped Hermione off of her rock.
"You have a knife?" She asked.
"Lucius always thought it best to be prepared for anything. You never know when you might be without your wand and come across an excellent opportunity to use it on..." Hermione's eyes narrowed and Draco changed topics immediately. "Well that was certainly some spell wasn't it?"
"Oh yes very, I loved how the bush tried to eat me, very invigorating." Hermione snapped.
"Not to worry, it couldn't have eaten you, hasn't got a mouth. Would have just pulled you in and let you expire due to exposure to the elements." Draco grinned.
"That's very comforting Draco." Hermione glared at him but could only maintain her frown for a moment before she smiled back at him.
Hermione began to brush the remnants of dry twigs from the hem of her robe but stopped and then frowned. A distant rumble of voices could be heard approaching. Draco watched as she climbed back onto the rock and peered cautiously over the edge. Hermione ducked back and scurried down the rock, pulling her backpack with her.
"What're you doing?" Draco asked.
"Shh... They'll hear you." Hermione was putting things away in a rather haphazard manner. She finished and grabbed Draco's arm, pulling him behind her. The voices were becoming clearer.
"Who's going to hear?"
"Ron and Harry, they're coming this way." Hermione pulled Draco behind a great tree a few paces into the Forbidden Forest.
"So what? Wonder-boy Potter and that friend of his know that we spend time together. Or are they that slow that it's just now sinking in?" Draco felt oddly insulted. He didn't feel like hiding from Potter or Weasley.
Hermione, who had been peering around the great trunk, turned back to glare at him. "Of course they know, but after that incident in the hospital wing, I've been trying to avoid reminding them." She told him. "Although I think that Ron has just simply repressed the memory to tell you the truth." She muttered.
"Incident? What do you mean incident? You make it sound like it was nothing more than getting an answer wrong on your homework." Draco glared at her, insulted.
"It's not that big of deal." She whispered, the sound of footsteps could now be heard.
"Not that big of a deal? Of course not, your amazing little friends catch you kissing the enemy all the time. I'll bet they were thrilled, probably even threw you a party because you proved that you aren't nearly the good little girl that everyone thinks you are." Draco was furious now.
"Draco please," Hermione whispered desperately, "they're going to hear you."
"I don't care!" He snapped. Draco grabbed her arms and shoved her against the tree. He was so angry he could barely see her. He brought his mouth down upon hers hungrily. His hands squeezed her upper arms tightly and he pressed hard against her, roughly pushing her. A distant part of his mind could hear Potter and Weasley in conversation as they past only a few feet away. But Draco didn't let go of Hermione. He pressed harder, kissing her in much the same way that he had the very first time. She whimpered against him and Draco suddenly stopped. He let go. Draco stepped back slowly and looked at her.
Hermione was still pressed to the tree; her eyes were wide and fearful. Draco's mouth fell open as he realized what he had done. He had pulled the clasp of her robe completely off and the dark cloth lay askew on her shoulders. The red and yellow sweater that she wore under it was disheveled. He hadn't known that hands were wandering. That his hands had been roaming over her. Draco's eyes returned to hers and found that they were flooding with tears. He wanted to say something, anything that would stop them but his mouth had gone dry.
A tear slid down her cheek leaving a glistening trail in its wake and Hermione took a deep, ragged breath through bruised lips. She pulled away from the tree and edged slowly around Draco, careful not to touch him. Once she was past him she warily picked her bag up and backed away from him a few more steps before turning and sprinting back to the school.
Draco watched her go unable to say what he needed to say. Unable to tell her that he was sorry. That he hadn't meant too.
He returned to the large rock where they had been practicing and sat dejectedly on it. He could almost pretend that she was still here and that the last few minutes hadn't happened. It was a much more pleasant thought than knowing that she was somewhere far away in Gryffindor Tower hating him. Draco stood up and began pacing. Really, he had manhandled her like he was some type of lovesick teenager. There were many things that Malfoys did and did not do. Acting lovesick, or like a teenager were both taboo. But there he had been, pawing at a girl without a care as to what others might think, let alone Hermione. And to make everything worse, he had been so angry at the given moment that he could hardly remember it properly. There were his hands holding her arms, then sliding up onto her shoulders and then down again. Draco stopped pacing and stared up at the distant school with a slight look of awed surprise.
"She's never going to forgive me for that," he said aloud.
The next several days were long and gray. Time seemed to tick by in increasingly larger intervals. The sky had opened up and the rain seemed that it was never going to stop. Not that rain affected the dungeons any. It was always rather cold and drafty. The stone walls of the Slytherin dorms were damp and a faint trace of mildew always seemed present on the air no matter what the house elves did to get rid of it.
None of this was helping Draco's dire mood. He sat in a high-backed chair brooding at the fireplace. He had spent the early part of the morning amusing himself by summoning the homework out of passing first years' bags, but after an hour, that had lost its appeal. Crabbe and Goyle had wanted to go flying. Only they would be dense enough to try and fly in weather like this. Part of Draco was hoping that a strong gust of wind from the south would blow them away, but he doubted that he would ever be so lucky.
What he really would like to be doing at the moment would be to sit somewhere warm and dry with Hermione Granger. He would be happy to just sit somewhere quite with her and read, or discuss Potions homework, or hell, she could glare at him if that's what she wanted to do. Draco glowered darkly at the fireplace; he always hated it when she avoided him. And he hadn't the slightest idea how she managed to be so good at it either. They had classes together, they were doing a project together, and he went out of his way to try and corner her somewhere alone. But the blasted Gryffindor seemed to know every twist and turn of the school and she used it to her advantage every time, slipping quietly down some hall and then doubling back in the crowd. Or, as if that wasn't bad enough, she would constantly surround herself with other Gryffindors. Some of them she didn't even like. Draco knew for a fact that Hermione could barely stand that Lavender Brown girl and yet just the other day,
when he had finally caught up to her in the library, she had sat down at a table with Brown to discuss Divination. Draco laughed derisively; he knew that she loathed that class.
"Something wrong Draco?" A syrupy sweet voice whispered near his ear.
Draco didn't start; he sat completely still, pretending that he had known of someone sneaking up on him. "What do you want Pansy?"
The blonde Slytherin slide into the chair next to Draco's. She crossed her legs slowly and brushed a crease out of her robe. Her blue eyes glinted mischievously when they met his.
"I just wanted to offer my condolences, I just heard." She leaned forward and placed a cool hand atop his.
Draco made no comment; he knew that if he waited Pansy would simply tell him what she was going on about.
Pansy's smile did not waver and she tightened her grip on his hand, "if you need anyone to talk to..."
For one wild moment Draco thought that perhaps she was alluding to Hermione, but he knew that was impossible. "What are you talking about?" He asked sourly.
"What? Don't you know?" Pansy's smile left her face but her eyes were twinkling merrily, she was enjoying this conversation. "No of course you wouldn't know. How silly of me to forget, you burn all the letters that your father sends you."
Draco stiffened and glared at her sharply. He always made sure that he was alone when he destroyed his letters. Pansy must be spying on him.
"Oh Draco, I don't know if I'm the one who should be telling you this, but your mother is sick." Pansy struggled not to smile as she said this.
"You're lying," he said simply, struggling to not strangle Pansy with his bare hands until she told him everything that she knew.
"Oh Draco," she whispered softly, feigning hurt. "I would never lie to you. Remember, our mothers go to Rue De Champs every year in Paris, but not this year. Your father told my mother that Narcissa is very sick and is seeing a specialist in St. Mungos."
Draco didn't say anything; he knew perfectly well that his mother and Mrs. Parkinson went Paris every spring for a week of shopping. They had been doing it for years and his mother would rather die than miss it. Pansy was still sitting with him, her hand delicately draped over his, a small smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. She was enjoying this, she liked seeing him upset. Draco had always considered Pansy to be shallow and brainless, a little on the malicious side but she was a Slytherin after all. But for the first time, Draco could see something else in her, a shrewd cruelness that had somehow escaped his notice.
"Is there anything that I can do?" She asked softly. Her voice was kind and gentle; it was the type of voice that had never come from Pansy before.
"No," Draco said standing up abruptly; he knew who he needed to talk too, even if he was going to have to use a stunning spell on her first.
"But Draco..." Pansy's voice trailed off as he left the common room. She waited until he was gone before sinking back into her chair a triumphant giggle escaping her lips.
It wasn't that he was close to his mother. But Draco did care for her. She was his mother after all, and you only get one of those. She did spend most of her time away from the Manor with friends or shopping. There was the club that they belonged to where she greatly enjoyed playing, ponticulus with Pansy's mother. But she'd had a lot to put up with, being married to Lucius, and looking back on it, Draco doubted that he was the easiest son to raise. He didn't want her to be sick.
The school was buzzing with students about to start their mid-afternoon lessons. Draco had been planning on feigning sickness and spending his afternoon sulking in the common room. Now he was starting to feel strangely ill and he couldn't find Hermione.
"Where the bloody hell is she?" He muttered under his breath.
She should be coming up the hall any minute now to go to Transfiguration, but so far he hadn't seen her. Gryffindors were pushing past him, watching him warily, but he paid them no mind, she had appeared at the end of the hall. She was walking with Potter and Weasley.
Draco walked forward to meet them, "I need to talk to you." He said quickly.
Hermione stared at him in surprise and Potter and Weasley both glared.
"I don't think that's such a good idea Malfoy," she said quietly, glancing around at the other Gryffindors who had stopped milling about and were now watching with a keen interest.
"I need to talk to you now." Draco said firmly, an edge of some distant panic seeping into his voice.
"Go away Malfoy, she doesn't have anything to say to you." Potter said coldly.
Draco didn't have to look around to know that he was in hostile territory, he was surrounded by Gryffindors, but he needed her. "I wasn't talking to you Potter," he hissed coldly.
"Go away Draco," Hermione tried to push past him but Draco grabbed her arm and jerked her back.
There were shouts from Potter and Weasley and the other Gryffindors were sputtering with rage.
"Please," Draco whispered, "please, I need to talk to you."
Hermione's eyes widened and for a moment Draco thought that she was going to simply walk away. In what seemed like forever but was only a breath she finally nodded.
"All right," she whispered, seemingly surprised by his ferocity and by her own surrender.
There was rush of whispered voices amongst the people watching and Draco tightened his grip on her arm afraid that she might change her mind and bolt into the classroom after all. Potter and Weasley were glaring at him but they made no move to stop him as Draco pulled Hermione past them and away from the Transfiguration hall. People were staring, of course, as he pushed the gawkers out of his way. By the time he had found an empty classroom, Hermione's face was red from a deep blush.
"I hope that you have a good reason for all of this." She snapped angrily as the door shut behind them and they were alone.
Now that he had her, Draco didn't quite know what to say. As he looked into her fierce russet eyes he was suddenly unsure of why it had been so important to talk to her.
"Well? I do have a class to be at you know. We're studying Devoveo spells today and I just know that they're going to be on the exam." Hermione sat on a desk and crossed her arms, glaring at him.
Draco turned away and looked at the large window that took up most of the back wall. It was still raining softly, the humidity making the window steam up slightly at the edges even though it was still very cold outside. It was a dissatisfying rain.
"Well?" Hermione's already thin bit of patience was about out.
"My mother might be sick." Draco said softly.
Hermione uncrossed his arms and stared at him, "What? How do you know?"
Draco turned and faced her, "Pansy told me, she let it slip," he said derisively. "Probably thought it was some grand game."
Hermione stood up and walked over to him, "well just because Pansy told you doesn't mean that it's true. She's probably lying. And besides, if your mother was sick Professor Dumbledore would tell you."
"Of course he would." Draco told her sarcastically. "He's known for being open and straight-forward about things."
"He would tell you. I know that he would." She said softly, and reached out to touch his arm.
Draco stepped back from her, just out of reach. "Tell me Granger, has the amazing Headmaster ever told you what was wrong with precious Potter when the wonder boy ended up in the hospital wing?"
"That's not fair," she snapped and pulled her hand back. "This has nothing to do with Harry."
"Everything has to do with Harry and your silly ideals." Draco didn't even know why he was saying these things. He couldn't stop the emotion that was dying to pour out of him any way that could.
"Was there something that you wanted Malfoy?" Hermione's voice was low and professional.
"No, I didn't want anything from you." He hissed.
"Fine," she turned and opened the door.
Draco turned back and stared out the window, the afternoon landscape was lost in a dark, gray mist that looked like he felt. He was suddenly very tired and wished that he had just stayed in his common room by his fire.
He didn't hear her turn back or approach, but quite suddenly, a pair of delicate arms had wrapped around him from behind. He stiffened automatically but breathed out in relief when he felt Hermione press her cheek against his shoulder blade.
"It will be all right you know," she murmured.
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