Duet 7 mihnn and xfsista
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Title: Semantics
Author: mihnn
Rating: G
Word Count: 4318
Summary: There has never been a moment in Draco’s life when he had felt nothing but pure curiosity. Of course, Hermione Granger would change that.
Warnings: None.
Author's Note(s): To my recipient, I tried to incorporate your second prompt, which was that someone couldn’t swim. This story morphed into something different than what I expected, but I hope it’s something that you would like. Thank you, Jess, for being an awesome beta like always. And thank you to the wonderful mod who’s running this exchange. ningloreth, you’re amazing at what you do.
There has never been a moment in Draco’s life when he had felt nothing but pure curiosity. His life was simple, for the most part. He was born into a wealthy pure-blood family, was provided with luxuries that most wizards could not afford, and the future of the Malfoy family name had been placed on his shoulders as he was the only heir. He attended the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for most of the year, attending classes, doing his homework, torturing Longbottom and dreaming about the demise of Harry Potter as he and his friends enjoyed their youth. There were no mysteries to be solved and no worries that kept him up at night. His life was nothing if not predictable, in every sense of the word.
However, she was everything but.
Draco stared in surprise as she passed him in the hallway, her steps slow and purposeful without any of the usual frenzied movement that he had come to associate with Pothead’s favourite lackey. He had done what he always did: smirked and thrown an insult her way just so he could watch her glare at him and try her best to suppress her anger. What was disappointing was the way she didn’t even acknowledge his presence as she kept on walking. Draco was even more surprised when he saw emptiness in her eyes.
Had it not been the final match for the Quidditch Cup, and had Slytherin not been knocked out of the running thanks to Harry-bloody-Potter, Draco would not have found himself so bored (because he had refused to attend the match between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, obviously), that he followed the so-called Brightest Witch of Hogwarts at a close distance away.
He watched the bounce of her unruly curls as she left the castle and started for the grounds. His curiosity was piqued further when she calmly, and without pausing, kept walking until she was at the edge of the Black Lake. What was she going to do? Was she going to practice a new spell? Was he going to witness the brilliant Hermione Granger do another brilliant spell so brilliantly, that the professors would clap their hands and say how brilliantly brilliant she was? Was he wasting his precious time watching her excel in another class?
A few minutes of silence and Granger’s straight-backed stance as she stood at the edge of the Black Lake only agitated Draco more. What had he been thinking? Was losing the chance at the Quidditch Cup so traumatic that he had turned daft? Sighing at his own behaviour, Draco prepared to leave only to stop suddenly when she finally moved.
Granger looked over her shoulder slowly, her head low, before raising her eyes to meet his. Draco stiffened. Because of the distance between them he wasn’t quite sure, but her eyes didn’t seem quite right. He stared in surprise as she turned her head just as slowly away from him so that she was looking over the Black Lake in complete serenity. Then, she jumped.
What-?
“Granger.” Draco whispered her name, hardly noticing that he was doing it in the first place. His feet carried him forward as he ran towards the edge of the Black Lake. “Granger,” he said louder. There was no movement, no ripples. The Black Lake was deathly calm. “Granger!” Still, there was nothing.
Truly panicking, Draco looked towards the Quidditch pitch. He could run and get help, but would she last that long? His glance kept moving from the loud, raucous sound of the Quidditch pitch to the calm blackness of the lake. He could wait a bit longer. The match sounded like it was over. Someone was bound to pass this way soon and save her.
How soon, his inner voice asked him. Draco hadn’t even realised that he had made a decision before he braced himself and dove in.
The water was so cold that it felt like a thousand needles pricking into his skin. It was an effort not to let out his breath from the moment the water hit him, the freezing cold pushing against his chest so hard that it was an effort not to let his breath escape him. His robes felt heavier as the invisible current under the calm lake pushed and pulled him in different directions.
Forcing his limbs to tighten so he could get some semblance of control, Draco finally opened his eyes. As he expected, he couldn’t see anything more than a few feet in front of him. The darkness surrounded him completely. Even though he knew what resided in the water, he couldn’t see proof of any of it.
He pushed himself up until his head broke the surface of the water. He took a large, gasping breath, his ears filling with sound of a large crowd closing in, before he dived into the darkness and tried once again to search for her in the cold lake.
Once under, he swam forward, then to the side, until finally, a hand caught his attention. He didn’t waste time before he grabbed onto her waist and pulled her with him to the surface, his limbs already tired from the freezing cold lake. Tightening his hold around her so that her head was above water, he swam towards the edge of the Black Lake, each stroke feeling like it could be his last. Finally, when he did reach the bank, that’s when Draco noticed the countless students dressed in red and gold, while some sported yellow and black, as they stepped forward.
It was Potter and Weasley who took her from Draco, their hands lifting her gently as the concern on their features betrayed exactly how they felt. They left him on his own as the crowd followed Potter, who carried her a few feet before getting on his knees and placing her lightly on the grass. Draco was left sputtering and coughing water while he stepped out of the lake without help, his body shivering and his teeth chattering.
He saw how Potter propped up her head on his own hand while he whispered her name over and over. The only thing Draco did register, besides the fact that Granger’s body was stiff, and her hair a darker shade of brown, was how her skin was pale but not blue. He knew well enough that blue skin in cold meant death. He couldn’t help but have the unsupported belief that she was very much alive.
Just then, Weasley looked up from her stiff form and his eyes fell on Draco. “You!” he hissed. “You did this to her.”
Draco sneered at the allegation. But before he could say anything in defence, Weasley had taken the few steps needed to stand right in front of him before shoving his shoulders hard. Draco nearly lost his balance, but he was not going to be accused of something he didn’t do just because the Weasel was upset over his friend’s near death experience. Besides, he did not like accusations and altercations occurring in public. It was distasteful.
“I didn’t do anything to her.” And just for good measure, Draco shoved him back. He was a bit disappointed when the redhead didn’t teeter violently the way he had when he was first shoved. He was even more disappointed when a small circle of curious classmates formed around them.
“Yeah?” Weasley asked in a tone that completely betrayed the fact that he didn’t believe him. “I think you did.” Draco was shoved once more. Even worse, he could see even more students thickening the crowd to watch their fight.
Lips twisted in irritation, Draco pulled out his wand and aimed it right at Weasley’s chest. “What was that you were saying?”
Weasley glared at him. “Always have to pull a wand out, don’t you, Malfoy?” He stepped close as his hand fumbled in his own robes for his wand.
Draco pushed his wand against Weasley’s chest. “Go on, then. Let’s get this over with.”
“Ron!”
Weasley turned around, his altercation with Draco forgotten when Potter called him. Immediately he rushed towards his friends while the crowd around Granger and Potter parting to let him through.
Draco watched as Granger sat up weakly, her back resting against Potter’s chest as she coughed up water. Potter held back her hair and patted her back gently until she let out a shuddering breath and heaved a sigh of relief.
“Blimey, Hermione,” Weasley said breathlessly as he took a knee in front of her. “You nearly died.” He touched her arm gently, yet awkwardly. “What happened?”
Like everyone else, Draco watched silently as Granger shook her head. “I don’t know.” She coughed and Potter rubbed his hands up and down her shuddering form. “The last I remember, I was in the library. Then…” Her gaze rose slowly until she met Draco’s. Slowly, everyone turned to face him, as if he suddenly had all the answers.
Before he could tell his schoolmates where to shove it, Granger started coughing once again, successfully drawing everyone’s attention away from him. Using the distraction to his advantage, Draco snuck out through the dense crowd the only way a Slytherin knew how. Once he was a safe distance away, he dried himself with a charm and started for the dungeons. He had a feeling that what he had done would probably end very badly for him even if the whole school thought he tried to save her rather than tried to kill her. He couldn’t please everyone, after all.
* * *
As he suspected, Draco was met with silence wherever he went. The silence was something that usually followed colourful tales and whispered opinions before all talk stopped once he entered a room. The Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs thought he had tried to kill her while the Slytherins didn’t know what to think. Some thought he tried to save her, others thought he tried to kill her only to save her at the last moment when he couldn’t go through with it, while a few thought that he had every intention to do her harm, but when things started to look dire, he changed his mind and took the coward’s way out instead. The important fact that remained was that no one thought to ask him what happened. Everyone was happy with coming to his or her own conclusion. After a few days, Draco didn’t mind one bit, especially because his attention was drawn elsewhere.
It wasn’t long before Granger went back to her usual, irritating self. She excelled in every project that was placed in front of her, she raised her hand before a teacher could finish a question, and even carried piles of books to and from the library. It was as if that moment where she tried to commit suicide never happened. And because she was back to normal, everyone around her seemed to forget the same thing. But, Draco didn’t.
The instance where she had looked over her shoulder and glanced at him still haunted his dreams. There was something not right with her, and his conviction only succeeded in making him stare at everything she did.
He saw the way she hurried from one place to another, rather than walk; a fact that he had known was a characteristic of hers, but never paid too much attention to. He saw the way she rolled her eyes in disgust whenever Weasel did something unseemly, such as talk with his mouth full; a fact that he fully understood, being the son of a rich pure-blood who placed an importance on appearance and propriety above everything else. And he even noticed how she scrunched up her eyebrows whenever she was confused, the way she bit her lower lip when she was in a state of agitation, and the way she nibbled the tip of her quill when she was thinking deeply about something. Draco had been staring at Hermione Granger so hard and for so long that he could practically hear what she was thinking just by one glance. She was completely fascinating, and Draco wished he knew why. He even cursed her name silently whenever she did anything to draw his attention.
It wasn’t until a week after the incident at the Black Lake that something similar happened. They were all studying the constellations while having their usual class at the Astronomy Tower. Draco yawned through the lesson, even as he saw Granger scratching away with her quill, her attention focused wholly on the subject at hand. He would never admit that he was jealous of the way she could keep her focus. He usually got distracted five minutes into every lesson. It was always an effort to keep his attention from wavering.
The class dispersed with little noise as everyone sleepily collected their things and proceeded to leave. Draco took his time packing his items, his shoulders drooping and his eyes tearing from the need to sleep.
When he was finally ready to leave, as sleepy as he was, he couldn’t help but notice the familiar silhouette of the person he had been staring at all week, while she had her back to him. By then, the combined lesson of Slytherins and Gryffindors had left, leaving only him and the class know-it-all at the top of the Atronomy Tower.
Draco knew he should have ignored her and left, but something kept him rooted to the spot. Perhaps it was curiosity, or maybe he was subconsciously waiting for something to happen, but Draco took a step closer to her before stopping. This all seemed eerily familiar: the way she stood straight, the wind whipping her curls behind her. She was standing too close to the edge of the Tower.
“Granger.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move.
Draco took another cautious step towards her. “Granger.”
Slowly her head turned as she looked over her shoulder at him. Like last time, Draco found himself frozen by the way she moved. But unlike last time, he was close enough to see her eyes. They weren’t brown, the colour he knew her eyes were, but dark as night with a fleck of gold in them. They weren’t warm and friendly, but cold and dead. Her eyes were so unlike her that he felt like he was looking into the eyes of someone who wasn’t Hermione Granger.
Slowly she turned her head away from him so she was looking straight ahead. Knowing what she was going to do, Draco dropped his bag and lunged for her. He caught her around her waist seconds before she tried to jump. He thought she would probably struggle, but instead she went limp in his arms. Panicking, Draco turned her around only to see her eyes closed and her breathing even.
“Granger.” He shook her, gently at first, while he held up her limp form. “Granger.”
Her breathing was laboured before her eyes suddenly flew open and she looked up at him. Her eyes were her own once again; brown, warm, and very much Granger. Draco stiffened as he suddenly realised how they stood. She was pressed up against him, his arm around her waist while his free hand was circled around her neck. Her eyes widened just as his did. He could feel her heartbeat quicken under his thumb.
“Hermione?”
Granger jumped away from Draco just as he staggered back. If Potter and Weasley suspected anything, they didn’t try hard enough to hide it.
“Sorry… I lost track of time,” Granger said, stuttering through a nervous laugh.
“Lost track of time?” Potter asked incredulously as he threw a suspicious look at Draco. “You said you forgot a book. We were waiting for you.”
Her eyes widened. “A book. Yes. Sorry.” She nervously pushed a few unruly curls behind her ear. Looking between all of them, she quickly grabbed her bag. “We should go.”
Still keeping a distrusting eye on Draco, Potter nodded. Granger sent him a nervous look before she turned to leave the Astronomy Tower with Potter following behind her. Weasley stayed where he was, his eyes narrowed as he waited until both of his friends were out of hearing distance. Once Granger and Potter turned a corner, Weasley sneered. “Stay away from her.”
Draco watched as Weasley turned and joined the other two. Regardless of the threat and the second mysterious suicide attempt, all Draco could think about was how those brown eyes had widened and how her heart had skipped a beat.
* * *
Draco found it unnerving that for every second he watched Granger, Granger watched him. Whenever he raised his head, she would suddenly look away, a blush on her cheeks and a small smile on her lips. Draco Malfoy found himself becoming bloody self-conscious.
He told himself that the only reason he was remotely interested in someone so wrong was because of the mystery that surrounded her. Twice her eyes had darkened and she tried to kill herself, and twice he had been there to stop it. But was he being thanked for his heroic effort? Not in the slightest.
Each class was torture because all he wanted to do was to study her and wait for the next peculiar episode. He watched her every move, and whenever he looked away, he knew that she was watching him just as carefully. It came to a point that after three days he could barely keep himself from staying away from her.
And on the third day when she sat next to him at Ancient Runes, Draco didn’t say a word.
They worked silently, as if there was an invisible barrier keeping the two of them on their own side of the table. Books were placed carefully along the invisible line and pieces of parchment stopped short of rolling over it. It took her elbow knocking his for their attention to be drawn to their seating arrangement.
She looked away from him. “Sorry.”
Draco opened his mouth to call her a stupid Mudblood, but the words that came out were, “S’okay.”
She looked just as surprised as he was. And when she blushed, he looked away for fear that he might keep staring when he shouldn’t.
Draco picked up his quill and went back to the exercise at hand, his mind elsewhere rather than on the different types of runes. He frowned when he saw her staring at him from the corner of his eye.
“What?” he snapped as he looked up at her in accusation.
Granger didn’t seem fazed by his tone or his expression. “I don’t remember any of it. I blacked out.”
Draco went back to his runes. “Why should that interest me?”
“Because you were there. Because you stopped it.”
“I didn’t stop anything.”
She shifted closer to him and dropped her voice. Draco hated the fact that he was aware of exactly how far she was from him. “I went into Borgin and Burkes a few weeks ago. I touched something I shouldn’t have.” She leaned even closer. “I think I might be cursed.”
“Shouldn’t you be telling this to Pothead and Weasel?”
He saw the way she pursed her lips in irritation, but she didn’t chastise him for insulting her friends. Her actions definitely proved that she was seeking his help, not just his advice. “I can’t tell Harry and Ron. They wouldn’t understand.”
Dropping all pretence of working on his runes, Draco looked at her. This was getting more interesting by the second. “What wouldn’t they understand?”
Granger looked to the front of the class to make sure their professor had his back to them before she turned towards Draco once again. With a determined expression, she rolled up the sleeve of her robes on her left arm. The moment Draco saw the thin gold band with intricate work across her forearm, he knew what it was instantly. He had visited Borgin and Burkes so many times that he knew the history of nearly every item on display. This was not an exception to the rule.
“I know what it is,” Granger said with a low voice. “I found a book about it in the library. I know that I am probably the last person you would ever do a favour for…” She looked at him hopefully. “But, could you please remove this?”
Draco eyed the gold band warily. “You should have never touched this.”
“I know.”
“It wasn’t meant for people like you.”
“I know.”
Draco shook his head, his voice cold and unyielding. “I can’t remove it.”
Granger didn’t look surprised, but more determined. “What do you want?”
Draco stared at her for a moment before his inner Malfoy spoke for him. “What will you give me?”
Granger looked around in a panic before her eyes settled on their piled homework. “I’ll do your homework for a week.”
Draco scoffed.
“For a month!”
“Granger, I hardly think that I need your help.”
“What then?”
Draco thought about the possibilities before he thought about what she would never do. Leaning forward, he eyed her suggestively. “Fifteen minutes.”
Granger shifted in her seat nervously. “Fifteen minutes?”
Draco smirked. “Fifteen minutes for me to do anything I want to you.” His smirk widened. “Anything.”
Granger stared at him incredulously. “No! Absolutely not.”
Draco shrugged before he went back to his runes. “Fine. Good luck finding someone else who will take that band off.”
Granger was silent for a few minutes before she spoke. “Five minutes.”
“Fifteen.”
“Seven.”
“Ten.”
“Okay.” Granger nervously rolled down her sleeve and tried to go back to her runes.
Draco watched her from the corner of his eye. “Meet me at the north staircase leading to the Dungeons after lunch.”
She nodded and stayed silent for the rest of the class. When the lesson was over, she gathered her things and rushed out before Draco could say another word.
* * *
When Granger came to the place where he told her to be, she found him standing with a very annoyed Blaise Zabini. Draco had to stoop to blackmail, an action that he didn’t regret, in order to get Blaise to do this favour for him. Unfortunately for Draco, this favour came at the cost of telling Blaise exactly why he couldn’t be the one to remove the band, as well as telling his housemate exactly why he wanted to remove the band. Both reasons were met with a scowling shake of his head as Blaise stated in no uncertain terms that Draco owed him for the rest of his life.
Blaise glared at Granger. “Let’s get on with it, then.”
Draco simply raised an expectant eyebrow. “Go on, Granger. Show us the band.”
Confused, Granger rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm.
Blaise looked at Draco. “Are you sure?”
Draco nodded and Blaise stepped forward. Blaise sighed before he touched the clasp and it easily popped open. Pocketing the band, he turned to face Draco, completely ignoring Granger. “I’ll be keeping this.” Then as an afterthought, Blaise turned his attention to her. “Mudbloods aren’t supposed to touch pure wizarding gold. Now you know why.” With a final pointed look at Draco, Blaise took the staircase down to the dungeons.
Draco stared at the way she rubbed her forearm where the band had been. “Now begin the fifteen minutes,” he said with a smirk.
Draco expected her to argue that they had agreed on ten minutes, but she was too confused for that. “Why didn’t you remove it?”
His smile fell. “Why do you care?”
She stepped closer to him. “Why did it have to be Blaise Zabini?”
“Don’t you know anything, Granger? I don’t like doing things for myself. I prefer it if others do it for me,” he said cockily.
She looked far from convinced. “No,” she said thoughtfully. “You could have easily removed it yourself.” Her eyes widened. “Unless you couldn’t. You said you couldn’t.”
Draco’s jaw tightened in annoyance. She was coming dangerously close to the truth. “Yes, I couldn’t,” he drawled. “I couldn’t be bothered.”
But she was looking at him like she was seeing him for the first time. “Pure wizarding gold can be touched only by those who are from a pure-blood lineage. To ensure this, a curse was placed on most types of jewellery where if it was ever touched by a Muggle-born, it would bind itself to that person and stay bound until he or she dies.”
“Thank you, Granger,” Draco said dryly. “History has always fascinated me.”
“The only way to unbind the gold from a Muggle-born,” she continued as if hadn’t said a thing, “is for a pure-blood wizard who believes in the purity of blood to remove it.” She looked up at him in surprise. “You don’t believe in the purity of blood any more, do you, Malfoy? That’s why you said you couldn’t remove it.”
Draco scoffed. “You’ve done the impossible. You’ve bored me faster than Binns.”
Draco started to move away when she caught his arm to stop him. “Whatever the reason,” she said sincerely, “thank you, Malfoy.”
Cautiously, she moved forward to peck his cheek lightly. And against his better judgement, Draco raised his free hand, circled his fingers around her neck to hold her still and placed his lips on hers. He couldn’t have been more surprised than when she got on her toes and kissed him back, her lips moving slowly against his.
Draco pulled back and eyed her carefully. “This means nothing. I’m simply claiming my fifteen minutes.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Semantics.”
This time when he kissed her, Granger’s arms surrounded him as she pushed herself closer to his body. Draco wasn’t sure how long they had been snogging in the stairwell like crazed teenagers, but when McGonagall caught them and sent them off to detention, he couldn’t help but look at Granger’s plump lips and think it was worth it.
THE END
Title: Semantics
Author: mihnn
Rating: G
Word Count: 4318
Summary: There has never been a moment in Draco’s life when he had felt nothing but pure curiosity. Of course, Hermione Granger would change that.
Warnings: None.
Author's Note(s): To my recipient, I tried to incorporate your second prompt, which was that someone couldn’t swim. This story morphed into something different than what I expected, but I hope it’s something that you would like. Thank you, Jess, for being an awesome beta like always. And thank you to the wonderful mod who’s running this exchange. ningloreth, you’re amazing at what you do.
There has never been a moment in Draco’s life when he had felt nothing but pure curiosity. His life was simple, for the most part. He was born into a wealthy pure-blood family, was provided with luxuries that most wizards could not afford, and the future of the Malfoy family name had been placed on his shoulders as he was the only heir. He attended the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for most of the year, attending classes, doing his homework, torturing Longbottom and dreaming about the demise of Harry Potter as he and his friends enjoyed their youth. There were no mysteries to be solved and no worries that kept him up at night. His life was nothing if not predictable, in every sense of the word.
However, she was everything but.
Draco stared in surprise as she passed him in the hallway, her steps slow and purposeful without any of the usual frenzied movement that he had come to associate with Pothead’s favourite lackey. He had done what he always did: smirked and thrown an insult her way just so he could watch her glare at him and try her best to suppress her anger. What was disappointing was the way she didn’t even acknowledge his presence as she kept on walking. Draco was even more surprised when he saw emptiness in her eyes.
Had it not been the final match for the Quidditch Cup, and had Slytherin not been knocked out of the running thanks to Harry-bloody-Potter, Draco would not have found himself so bored (because he had refused to attend the match between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, obviously), that he followed the so-called Brightest Witch of Hogwarts at a close distance away.
He watched the bounce of her unruly curls as she left the castle and started for the grounds. His curiosity was piqued further when she calmly, and without pausing, kept walking until she was at the edge of the Black Lake. What was she going to do? Was she going to practice a new spell? Was he going to witness the brilliant Hermione Granger do another brilliant spell so brilliantly, that the professors would clap their hands and say how brilliantly brilliant she was? Was he wasting his precious time watching her excel in another class?
A few minutes of silence and Granger’s straight-backed stance as she stood at the edge of the Black Lake only agitated Draco more. What had he been thinking? Was losing the chance at the Quidditch Cup so traumatic that he had turned daft? Sighing at his own behaviour, Draco prepared to leave only to stop suddenly when she finally moved.
Granger looked over her shoulder slowly, her head low, before raising her eyes to meet his. Draco stiffened. Because of the distance between them he wasn’t quite sure, but her eyes didn’t seem quite right. He stared in surprise as she turned her head just as slowly away from him so that she was looking over the Black Lake in complete serenity. Then, she jumped.
What-?
“Granger.” Draco whispered her name, hardly noticing that he was doing it in the first place. His feet carried him forward as he ran towards the edge of the Black Lake. “Granger,” he said louder. There was no movement, no ripples. The Black Lake was deathly calm. “Granger!” Still, there was nothing.
Truly panicking, Draco looked towards the Quidditch pitch. He could run and get help, but would she last that long? His glance kept moving from the loud, raucous sound of the Quidditch pitch to the calm blackness of the lake. He could wait a bit longer. The match sounded like it was over. Someone was bound to pass this way soon and save her.
How soon, his inner voice asked him. Draco hadn’t even realised that he had made a decision before he braced himself and dove in.
The water was so cold that it felt like a thousand needles pricking into his skin. It was an effort not to let out his breath from the moment the water hit him, the freezing cold pushing against his chest so hard that it was an effort not to let his breath escape him. His robes felt heavier as the invisible current under the calm lake pushed and pulled him in different directions.
Forcing his limbs to tighten so he could get some semblance of control, Draco finally opened his eyes. As he expected, he couldn’t see anything more than a few feet in front of him. The darkness surrounded him completely. Even though he knew what resided in the water, he couldn’t see proof of any of it.
He pushed himself up until his head broke the surface of the water. He took a large, gasping breath, his ears filling with sound of a large crowd closing in, before he dived into the darkness and tried once again to search for her in the cold lake.
Once under, he swam forward, then to the side, until finally, a hand caught his attention. He didn’t waste time before he grabbed onto her waist and pulled her with him to the surface, his limbs already tired from the freezing cold lake. Tightening his hold around her so that her head was above water, he swam towards the edge of the Black Lake, each stroke feeling like it could be his last. Finally, when he did reach the bank, that’s when Draco noticed the countless students dressed in red and gold, while some sported yellow and black, as they stepped forward.
It was Potter and Weasley who took her from Draco, their hands lifting her gently as the concern on their features betrayed exactly how they felt. They left him on his own as the crowd followed Potter, who carried her a few feet before getting on his knees and placing her lightly on the grass. Draco was left sputtering and coughing water while he stepped out of the lake without help, his body shivering and his teeth chattering.
He saw how Potter propped up her head on his own hand while he whispered her name over and over. The only thing Draco did register, besides the fact that Granger’s body was stiff, and her hair a darker shade of brown, was how her skin was pale but not blue. He knew well enough that blue skin in cold meant death. He couldn’t help but have the unsupported belief that she was very much alive.
Just then, Weasley looked up from her stiff form and his eyes fell on Draco. “You!” he hissed. “You did this to her.”
Draco sneered at the allegation. But before he could say anything in defence, Weasley had taken the few steps needed to stand right in front of him before shoving his shoulders hard. Draco nearly lost his balance, but he was not going to be accused of something he didn’t do just because the Weasel was upset over his friend’s near death experience. Besides, he did not like accusations and altercations occurring in public. It was distasteful.
“I didn’t do anything to her.” And just for good measure, Draco shoved him back. He was a bit disappointed when the redhead didn’t teeter violently the way he had when he was first shoved. He was even more disappointed when a small circle of curious classmates formed around them.
“Yeah?” Weasley asked in a tone that completely betrayed the fact that he didn’t believe him. “I think you did.” Draco was shoved once more. Even worse, he could see even more students thickening the crowd to watch their fight.
Lips twisted in irritation, Draco pulled out his wand and aimed it right at Weasley’s chest. “What was that you were saying?”
Weasley glared at him. “Always have to pull a wand out, don’t you, Malfoy?” He stepped close as his hand fumbled in his own robes for his wand.
Draco pushed his wand against Weasley’s chest. “Go on, then. Let’s get this over with.”
“Ron!”
Weasley turned around, his altercation with Draco forgotten when Potter called him. Immediately he rushed towards his friends while the crowd around Granger and Potter parting to let him through.
Draco watched as Granger sat up weakly, her back resting against Potter’s chest as she coughed up water. Potter held back her hair and patted her back gently until she let out a shuddering breath and heaved a sigh of relief.
“Blimey, Hermione,” Weasley said breathlessly as he took a knee in front of her. “You nearly died.” He touched her arm gently, yet awkwardly. “What happened?”
Like everyone else, Draco watched silently as Granger shook her head. “I don’t know.” She coughed and Potter rubbed his hands up and down her shuddering form. “The last I remember, I was in the library. Then…” Her gaze rose slowly until she met Draco’s. Slowly, everyone turned to face him, as if he suddenly had all the answers.
Before he could tell his schoolmates where to shove it, Granger started coughing once again, successfully drawing everyone’s attention away from him. Using the distraction to his advantage, Draco snuck out through the dense crowd the only way a Slytherin knew how. Once he was a safe distance away, he dried himself with a charm and started for the dungeons. He had a feeling that what he had done would probably end very badly for him even if the whole school thought he tried to save her rather than tried to kill her. He couldn’t please everyone, after all.
* * *
As he suspected, Draco was met with silence wherever he went. The silence was something that usually followed colourful tales and whispered opinions before all talk stopped once he entered a room. The Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs thought he had tried to kill her while the Slytherins didn’t know what to think. Some thought he tried to save her, others thought he tried to kill her only to save her at the last moment when he couldn’t go through with it, while a few thought that he had every intention to do her harm, but when things started to look dire, he changed his mind and took the coward’s way out instead. The important fact that remained was that no one thought to ask him what happened. Everyone was happy with coming to his or her own conclusion. After a few days, Draco didn’t mind one bit, especially because his attention was drawn elsewhere.
It wasn’t long before Granger went back to her usual, irritating self. She excelled in every project that was placed in front of her, she raised her hand before a teacher could finish a question, and even carried piles of books to and from the library. It was as if that moment where she tried to commit suicide never happened. And because she was back to normal, everyone around her seemed to forget the same thing. But, Draco didn’t.
The instance where she had looked over her shoulder and glanced at him still haunted his dreams. There was something not right with her, and his conviction only succeeded in making him stare at everything she did.
He saw the way she hurried from one place to another, rather than walk; a fact that he had known was a characteristic of hers, but never paid too much attention to. He saw the way she rolled her eyes in disgust whenever Weasel did something unseemly, such as talk with his mouth full; a fact that he fully understood, being the son of a rich pure-blood who placed an importance on appearance and propriety above everything else. And he even noticed how she scrunched up her eyebrows whenever she was confused, the way she bit her lower lip when she was in a state of agitation, and the way she nibbled the tip of her quill when she was thinking deeply about something. Draco had been staring at Hermione Granger so hard and for so long that he could practically hear what she was thinking just by one glance. She was completely fascinating, and Draco wished he knew why. He even cursed her name silently whenever she did anything to draw his attention.
It wasn’t until a week after the incident at the Black Lake that something similar happened. They were all studying the constellations while having their usual class at the Astronomy Tower. Draco yawned through the lesson, even as he saw Granger scratching away with her quill, her attention focused wholly on the subject at hand. He would never admit that he was jealous of the way she could keep her focus. He usually got distracted five minutes into every lesson. It was always an effort to keep his attention from wavering.
The class dispersed with little noise as everyone sleepily collected their things and proceeded to leave. Draco took his time packing his items, his shoulders drooping and his eyes tearing from the need to sleep.
When he was finally ready to leave, as sleepy as he was, he couldn’t help but notice the familiar silhouette of the person he had been staring at all week, while she had her back to him. By then, the combined lesson of Slytherins and Gryffindors had left, leaving only him and the class know-it-all at the top of the Atronomy Tower.
Draco knew he should have ignored her and left, but something kept him rooted to the spot. Perhaps it was curiosity, or maybe he was subconsciously waiting for something to happen, but Draco took a step closer to her before stopping. This all seemed eerily familiar: the way she stood straight, the wind whipping her curls behind her. She was standing too close to the edge of the Tower.
“Granger.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move.
Draco took another cautious step towards her. “Granger.”
Slowly her head turned as she looked over her shoulder at him. Like last time, Draco found himself frozen by the way she moved. But unlike last time, he was close enough to see her eyes. They weren’t brown, the colour he knew her eyes were, but dark as night with a fleck of gold in them. They weren’t warm and friendly, but cold and dead. Her eyes were so unlike her that he felt like he was looking into the eyes of someone who wasn’t Hermione Granger.
Slowly she turned her head away from him so she was looking straight ahead. Knowing what she was going to do, Draco dropped his bag and lunged for her. He caught her around her waist seconds before she tried to jump. He thought she would probably struggle, but instead she went limp in his arms. Panicking, Draco turned her around only to see her eyes closed and her breathing even.
“Granger.” He shook her, gently at first, while he held up her limp form. “Granger.”
Her breathing was laboured before her eyes suddenly flew open and she looked up at him. Her eyes were her own once again; brown, warm, and very much Granger. Draco stiffened as he suddenly realised how they stood. She was pressed up against him, his arm around her waist while his free hand was circled around her neck. Her eyes widened just as his did. He could feel her heartbeat quicken under his thumb.
“Hermione?”
Granger jumped away from Draco just as he staggered back. If Potter and Weasley suspected anything, they didn’t try hard enough to hide it.
“Sorry… I lost track of time,” Granger said, stuttering through a nervous laugh.
“Lost track of time?” Potter asked incredulously as he threw a suspicious look at Draco. “You said you forgot a book. We were waiting for you.”
Her eyes widened. “A book. Yes. Sorry.” She nervously pushed a few unruly curls behind her ear. Looking between all of them, she quickly grabbed her bag. “We should go.”
Still keeping a distrusting eye on Draco, Potter nodded. Granger sent him a nervous look before she turned to leave the Astronomy Tower with Potter following behind her. Weasley stayed where he was, his eyes narrowed as he waited until both of his friends were out of hearing distance. Once Granger and Potter turned a corner, Weasley sneered. “Stay away from her.”
Draco watched as Weasley turned and joined the other two. Regardless of the threat and the second mysterious suicide attempt, all Draco could think about was how those brown eyes had widened and how her heart had skipped a beat.
* * *
Draco found it unnerving that for every second he watched Granger, Granger watched him. Whenever he raised his head, she would suddenly look away, a blush on her cheeks and a small smile on her lips. Draco Malfoy found himself becoming bloody self-conscious.
He told himself that the only reason he was remotely interested in someone so wrong was because of the mystery that surrounded her. Twice her eyes had darkened and she tried to kill herself, and twice he had been there to stop it. But was he being thanked for his heroic effort? Not in the slightest.
Each class was torture because all he wanted to do was to study her and wait for the next peculiar episode. He watched her every move, and whenever he looked away, he knew that she was watching him just as carefully. It came to a point that after three days he could barely keep himself from staying away from her.
And on the third day when she sat next to him at Ancient Runes, Draco didn’t say a word.
They worked silently, as if there was an invisible barrier keeping the two of them on their own side of the table. Books were placed carefully along the invisible line and pieces of parchment stopped short of rolling over it. It took her elbow knocking his for their attention to be drawn to their seating arrangement.
She looked away from him. “Sorry.”
Draco opened his mouth to call her a stupid Mudblood, but the words that came out were, “S’okay.”
She looked just as surprised as he was. And when she blushed, he looked away for fear that he might keep staring when he shouldn’t.
Draco picked up his quill and went back to the exercise at hand, his mind elsewhere rather than on the different types of runes. He frowned when he saw her staring at him from the corner of his eye.
“What?” he snapped as he looked up at her in accusation.
Granger didn’t seem fazed by his tone or his expression. “I don’t remember any of it. I blacked out.”
Draco went back to his runes. “Why should that interest me?”
“Because you were there. Because you stopped it.”
“I didn’t stop anything.”
She shifted closer to him and dropped her voice. Draco hated the fact that he was aware of exactly how far she was from him. “I went into Borgin and Burkes a few weeks ago. I touched something I shouldn’t have.” She leaned even closer. “I think I might be cursed.”
“Shouldn’t you be telling this to Pothead and Weasel?”
He saw the way she pursed her lips in irritation, but she didn’t chastise him for insulting her friends. Her actions definitely proved that she was seeking his help, not just his advice. “I can’t tell Harry and Ron. They wouldn’t understand.”
Dropping all pretence of working on his runes, Draco looked at her. This was getting more interesting by the second. “What wouldn’t they understand?”
Granger looked to the front of the class to make sure their professor had his back to them before she turned towards Draco once again. With a determined expression, she rolled up the sleeve of her robes on her left arm. The moment Draco saw the thin gold band with intricate work across her forearm, he knew what it was instantly. He had visited Borgin and Burkes so many times that he knew the history of nearly every item on display. This was not an exception to the rule.
“I know what it is,” Granger said with a low voice. “I found a book about it in the library. I know that I am probably the last person you would ever do a favour for…” She looked at him hopefully. “But, could you please remove this?”
Draco eyed the gold band warily. “You should have never touched this.”
“I know.”
“It wasn’t meant for people like you.”
“I know.”
Draco shook his head, his voice cold and unyielding. “I can’t remove it.”
Granger didn’t look surprised, but more determined. “What do you want?”
Draco stared at her for a moment before his inner Malfoy spoke for him. “What will you give me?”
Granger looked around in a panic before her eyes settled on their piled homework. “I’ll do your homework for a week.”
Draco scoffed.
“For a month!”
“Granger, I hardly think that I need your help.”
“What then?”
Draco thought about the possibilities before he thought about what she would never do. Leaning forward, he eyed her suggestively. “Fifteen minutes.”
Granger shifted in her seat nervously. “Fifteen minutes?”
Draco smirked. “Fifteen minutes for me to do anything I want to you.” His smirk widened. “Anything.”
Granger stared at him incredulously. “No! Absolutely not.”
Draco shrugged before he went back to his runes. “Fine. Good luck finding someone else who will take that band off.”
Granger was silent for a few minutes before she spoke. “Five minutes.”
“Fifteen.”
“Seven.”
“Ten.”
“Okay.” Granger nervously rolled down her sleeve and tried to go back to her runes.
Draco watched her from the corner of his eye. “Meet me at the north staircase leading to the Dungeons after lunch.”
She nodded and stayed silent for the rest of the class. When the lesson was over, she gathered her things and rushed out before Draco could say another word.
* * *
When Granger came to the place where he told her to be, she found him standing with a very annoyed Blaise Zabini. Draco had to stoop to blackmail, an action that he didn’t regret, in order to get Blaise to do this favour for him. Unfortunately for Draco, this favour came at the cost of telling Blaise exactly why he couldn’t be the one to remove the band, as well as telling his housemate exactly why he wanted to remove the band. Both reasons were met with a scowling shake of his head as Blaise stated in no uncertain terms that Draco owed him for the rest of his life.
Blaise glared at Granger. “Let’s get on with it, then.”
Draco simply raised an expectant eyebrow. “Go on, Granger. Show us the band.”
Confused, Granger rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm.
Blaise looked at Draco. “Are you sure?”
Draco nodded and Blaise stepped forward. Blaise sighed before he touched the clasp and it easily popped open. Pocketing the band, he turned to face Draco, completely ignoring Granger. “I’ll be keeping this.” Then as an afterthought, Blaise turned his attention to her. “Mudbloods aren’t supposed to touch pure wizarding gold. Now you know why.” With a final pointed look at Draco, Blaise took the staircase down to the dungeons.
Draco stared at the way she rubbed her forearm where the band had been. “Now begin the fifteen minutes,” he said with a smirk.
Draco expected her to argue that they had agreed on ten minutes, but she was too confused for that. “Why didn’t you remove it?”
His smile fell. “Why do you care?”
She stepped closer to him. “Why did it have to be Blaise Zabini?”
“Don’t you know anything, Granger? I don’t like doing things for myself. I prefer it if others do it for me,” he said cockily.
She looked far from convinced. “No,” she said thoughtfully. “You could have easily removed it yourself.” Her eyes widened. “Unless you couldn’t. You said you couldn’t.”
Draco’s jaw tightened in annoyance. She was coming dangerously close to the truth. “Yes, I couldn’t,” he drawled. “I couldn’t be bothered.”
But she was looking at him like she was seeing him for the first time. “Pure wizarding gold can be touched only by those who are from a pure-blood lineage. To ensure this, a curse was placed on most types of jewellery where if it was ever touched by a Muggle-born, it would bind itself to that person and stay bound until he or she dies.”
“Thank you, Granger,” Draco said dryly. “History has always fascinated me.”
“The only way to unbind the gold from a Muggle-born,” she continued as if hadn’t said a thing, “is for a pure-blood wizard who believes in the purity of blood to remove it.” She looked up at him in surprise. “You don’t believe in the purity of blood any more, do you, Malfoy? That’s why you said you couldn’t remove it.”
Draco scoffed. “You’ve done the impossible. You’ve bored me faster than Binns.”
Draco started to move away when she caught his arm to stop him. “Whatever the reason,” she said sincerely, “thank you, Malfoy.”
Cautiously, she moved forward to peck his cheek lightly. And against his better judgement, Draco raised his free hand, circled his fingers around her neck to hold her still and placed his lips on hers. He couldn’t have been more surprised than when she got on her toes and kissed him back, her lips moving slowly against his.
Draco pulled back and eyed her carefully. “This means nothing. I’m simply claiming my fifteen minutes.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Semantics.”
This time when he kissed her, Granger’s arms surrounded him as she pushed herself closer to his body. Draco wasn’t sure how long they had been snogging in the stairwell like crazed teenagers, but when McGonagall caught them and sent them off to detention, he couldn’t help but look at Granger’s plump lips and think it was worth it.
THE END