The Right Choice

Chapter One

Their sixth year looked to be quite unpleasant. Voldemort's return was known to everyone and there were regular disappearances and deaths, the dementors were growing restless, and Harry Potter suspected Draco Malloy to be a Death Eater after seeing him in Borgin and Burkes just before term started

Today at breakfast he sat down between Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, his best friends.

"I know you don't believe me, but I have a strong suspicion. He's become one of them." He said.

Hermione sighed and looked up from her copy of the Daily Prophet.

"Honestly, Harry, you really should stop obsessing over him." She said.

"I'm not obsessed." Harry replied, "He was in Borgin and Burkes before the start of the year, now he's lurking about the castle and keeps disappearing off the map."

"Some magic can fade away. Perhaps the map is starting to fail." Rob suggested.

"The map is never wrong. He's up to something, and he's leaving the school to do it." Harry answered.

Hermione rolled her eyes and went back to reading the paper, certain that Harry was wrong about his suspicions. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone leaving the Great Hall. She looked up to see Draco hurrying out. He looked quite distressed, but Hermione thought nothing of it.

She looked in her bag for a quill, and realized she'd left hers in her dormitory. She got up to leave, telling her friends where she was going and that she would see them in class.

As she walked past the boys' lavatory on her way to Gryffindor tower, she heard a pained sob. She stopped in her tracks to listen, and sure enough it was coming from the room she normally wouldn't dare enter. But as a prefect, if someone were hurt, it was her duty to assist them. She took a deep breath and turned around.

Slowly and cautiously, she entered the bathroom and looked for the source of the sounds. As she rounded a corner, she spotted a familiar head of white blonde hair. Draco Malfoy was crouched over a sink, his body shaking from his sobs. Hermione was just about to leave, but the sound of her footsteps alerted Draco of her presence. He turned around, shocked that someone was here, even more so that it was her.

They simply stared at each other, wide eyed. Hermione finally spoke.

"Draco..." she began, "if you're distressed or in pain you should see Madam Pomfrey."

Draco was far too surprised at her use of his first name to move at first, but when he finally found he could feel his feet, he rushed out of the lavatory. Hermione was left alone and awestruck. Finally, she decided to just leave and put it out of her mind, as she was sure it was of no use to mention it to anyone. Harry would just go deeper into his obsession. And she knew that if Draco had a say in it, he would not even have her know what she'd just seen, the boys would immediately waste their time in humiliating him. Unlike them, she would not tell all of her fellow classmates that she had seen Draco Malfoy crying in a bathroom. Whatever the cause of his distress, he surely did not need more piled on. After all, he didn't seem to be harmed in any way. She sort of felt bad for him, he was a prat but he was probably expected to follow in his father's foot steps.

Hermione went about her day as usual, but in each class she had with him, she could see Draco looking out of the corner at his eye at her every so often. Perhaps he was checking to see if she had told her friends. But their conversation was far from what had happened that morning. In fact, they were discussing quidditch.

Harry and Ron were deeply immersed in the subject, while Hermione tuned in and out. She could feel Draco watching her, and it irked her. Why was he doing this? Surely he knew that she hadn't told them, if she had they would be laughing and every other Gryffindor in the room would have been teasing him by now, because Harry and Ron would have certainly told everyone within their vicinity. She supposed Draco was just astonished at her showing him any sort of sympathy, even if it were her prefect's duties that originally drew her into the bathroom. She would normally never even attempt to speak to Draco at all, given the amount of emotional hell he had given her. But she felt that anyone who was to be found crying alone shouldn't be left to their own devices, even him.

She chanced a glance at him, he immediately looked down at the book on the desk in front of him.

"Hermione?" She heard her name, she jerked back to attention.

"Yes?" She asked of whoever it was.

"What is it?" Ron asked. He looked in the direction that her head was turned, Draco again looked down quickly.

"Oi! Malfoy! Problem with Hermione?" He guffawed.

Draco was silent, he didn't even acknowledge that Ron spoke to him.

"Ron, it's fine. I was just thinking." Hermione assured him.

"Probably about those bloody N.E.W.T. exams already." He replied with a smirk, much to Harry's amusement.

"There's no harm in being prepared, Ronald." Hermione scolded him, relieved that he had practically invented her excuse for her.

The last thing she needed was more questions. She was already contemplating going to Dumbledore, maybe he could help Draco, but she didn't dare tell her friends.