365 days [d.m. + h.g.]

[six]

267 Days Later

"What the hell were you thinking?"

She stuck her chin up, looking at him down her nose. She just walked into his hospital room and he was already yelling at her.

"Wow, no 'thanks for saving my life', I just get scolded, good to know."

She was slightly dosed up on whatever potion they gave her for her char-filled lungs, as all her external wounds were already healed up. Thanks lycanthropy.

"Yes, you get scoldedbecause you risked your life! Five times, are you stupid?"

"Malfoy! I heal faster and I wasn't going to leave a single member of my team behind to die!"

"You should've left me!"

"Last I checked you bloody git, you are part of my team. I will never leave one of my own behind to die!"

"You could've died!"

He was seething and his face was red, and his breathing was ragged when he tried to stand up from the hospital bed. When he faltered slightly, she was by his side, laying him back down. He ripped his arm from her grip and continued to glare at her. She stumbled back from him due to the sheer powerheld in his slate grey eyes. She couldn't discern the emotions fighting within them though. Anger, concern, something else.

"Oh, get off of it, Malfoy. My team is more important!"

"Stop being so bloody self-sacrificial and moral! You're such a Gryffindor!"

"And you're such a Slytherin! I would have thought your self-preservation skills would be worshipping me at my feet for saving your life."

All Hermione wanted to do was make sure he was okay. That was all she wanted when she wandered into his room. She had to do some digging to find the room number and it wasn't her proudest moment when she snuck into the healers' cubicle and searched his name in the logs, but no one had to know.

"Oh, yes, forgive me for my lack of manners. I should be on my knees because you saved my life after risking yours several times! Forgive me for caring about you and not wanting you to die!"

She faltered again and nearly tripped as she steps towards the wall behind her. She was breathing so heavily that her shoulders were stuttering up and down as she struggled to pull air into her lungs. Her fists were clenched around the fabric of her jumper and it was taking everything in her not to cry at the sheer fact that he said he cared about her.

She knew she cared about him, she valued her team and their lives more than her own most of the time. Hermione was almost certain that this war would kill her, but she'd be damned if she didn't save each and every single one of the members of her team. She knew that she'd give all of her for the people she loved, and this only increased when she became a werewolf. She wondered if the lycanthropy made her exist only in the extremes or if that was the war.

"Granger, are you okay?"

"Yes," She was still reeling at his confession, but she shook her head to snap herself out of it. "Yes."

"I care about you, it's hard not to. Please don't risk your life for mine again, promise me." His voice was firm, almost harder than it had been when he was yelling at her and she almost preferred the loud, angry Malfoy to the quiet anger that was in front of her now.

"I can't promise that."

She didn't look at him or wait for his response, she just left the room, gave him a taste of his own medicine for once. She couldn't promise him that she wouldn't lay her life down for him, but she was coming to the realization that she also wouldn'tpromise it.