In The Arms of the Monster

Chapter Ten So?

Hermione's point of View

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"Why?" Ginny demanded when I went to my room to get my jacket. "Because." "Is this why you got an owl?" "Maybe." "Are you staying there?" "No." "Is he bribing you?" "No." "Do you like him?" "What?" "Are you friends?" She changed her question. "Maybe." "Do you like him?" "No." "So you're just maybe friends?" "Yes." "You're being evasive." "No." "Okay bye." "Bye." "See you later." "Yep." "I'll be waiting here." "Okay." "Why are you answering with only one word." "Because." "Okay, bye." "Bye." I apparate away, having dodged the bullet that was Ginny Weasley. I landed with a POP and walked to his door to knock. "Hermione." He says when I walk in. "Alright first off. Please call me Granger, its endearing and really your only redeeming quality." He snorted, "No." "Fine, call me Hermione." "I will, and by the way, reverse phsycology only works on stupid people, and we both know I have an I.Q. almost as high as yours." "Whatever." I roll my eyes to show I'm joking. He smiles. "What's for dinner?" I ask mockingly. "Mac and Cheese." "My favorite," I say sarcastically. "We're having steak, mashed potatoes, and corn. Is that okay Princess?" "Only a squib eats that food, but I think for tonight, with no witnesses to our shame, it will be fine." Malfoy was crying, he found me that funny. "Yes your Highness." "Will you stop references the fact that most people think of me as Gryfindor princess and go make food." "Sure ma'am." "Shut up!" I scream and use a spell to send a pillow flying at him. "Magic pillow fight? Really?" I nod. He sends one whizzing back at me, and pillows fly every which way. Eventually we both get hit and fall down faking to be dead and we stand up cleaning up. He grins, "That was fun. We should have dinner together more often, we could be childish together." "Alright this is not a date, and sure we can be childish." "Of course it's not a date, I'll go start the food."

Twenty minutes later he sat down next to me on the couch to watch TV. It was the news channel keeping everyone up to date about the latest in the murder investigation in Mr. Weasley's death, they even said they're was a new suspect. "And in more recent news, there is a new suspect in the case of Arthur Weasley's death. The Auror's are considering Lucius Malfoy. He is supposed to have broken out around the time of Arthur Weasley's death, although we can't know for certain because his absence wasn't noticed until a few days later, whether this is when he escaped or someone helped him escape is unknown. In other news..." Malfoy clicks off the TV and turns to look at me horrified. "My father escaped." "I know, it'll be okay Malfoy. He's not going to come for you." "Okay, I'm going to go check on the food and you can let the Weasley's know." "Okay I'll be right back." I apparate to 'the burrow.' "Did you see the news?" I ask popping into the kitchen. "What news?" Mrs. Weasley asks after she manages to stop being scared. "They have a new suspect in Mr. Weasley's murder. It's Lucius Malfoy, he escaped but they don't know when, not for certain, he could have broken out anytime someone might have helped him by making a copy and leaving it there. They don't know though." My words were met with silence, "I'll let you process, I'm going back to my friend's house. Don't wait up." Mrs. Weasley nodded and Ginny glared at me. I apparated away, landing back in Malfoy's house. "That was fast." He says, setting the food on the table. "Yeah it was they were all in the same place." "Let's eat." He declares.

I walk over to the table and he pulls out a chair for me. I roll me eyes but say thank you. He nods. I pick up a knife and for a while we eat in silence. But of course, Malfoy has to interrupt. "Do you like it?" "Yeah." I say, trying to focus on my food. "Do you think I could be a professional cook for muggles?" "Yeah." "Thank you." "You're welcome," I say and we lapse back into silence. I felt the need to ask him something. "You like me." I state, and he nods, "Why" I ask. "Because your brilliant, and beautiful inside and out." "Oh I didn't expect and answer." "Yeah. I didn't either." I nod. We eat the rest of the meal in silence and I offer to do the dishes. He smiles, "I'm not doing dishes the muggle way." "Okay." I say. I go to sit on his couch and turn the TV on it comes up on a weird channel, one I've never seen before. He walks in and doesn't bother to change it. He just turns it off. I turn to him, "Thanks for dinner. It was good." I say truthfully. "Thanks." He says, a little shocked. "Are we friends?" I blurt out after a few seconds of silence. "If you want to be." "I do want to be friends." "Then we're friends so you should call me Draco and I should call you Hermione." "Look, M," He glared at me, "Look, Draco, I don't know that that's wise." "Why?" "Because we used to be enemies, if I call you Draco Ginny will get suspicious." "Of course. We wouldn't want to make her suspicious." "Draco." I say smoothly, used to the idea now. "Hermione?" "Fine." I say, defeated by my own not paying attention nature. He smirks, the smirk says gotcha. He turns to the TV and puts it on the news channel again. We watch it with a little bit of space between us. I slowly fall asleep and I realize vaguely before I do that my heads on his shoulder and he hasn't shoved it off.

        I wake up in an odd place, then I remember that I'd fallen asleep on Draco's shoulder. I get up and see an owl sitting next to me. I pull the letter off.

        Dear Hermione,
       
            I understand that you fell asleep I'm not mad. Thank you for telling me as soon as you woke up and realized it was too late to come home. I'll talk to you when you get back.

                                                 From,
                                                Ginny

        I smile, that idiot did me a favor. I walk into the living room and see him sitting on the couch watching the news. "What is it about the news that so interests you?" "It keeps me up to date on all the things going on in the wizarding world." "Whatever." I roll my eyes and sit beside him. "I can't believe you fell asleep." He says after a while. "I can't believe you wrote Ginny a letter." "I figured she be mad otherwise." "Yeah." "Did you stay up all night?" "No I've only been up a few hours." "It's only ten in the morning. Why have you been up. For a few hours?" "Because I couldn't fall back to sleep." "Why?" "Because you we're right beside me, I don't have a guest bedroom." "Oh, I'll omit that part when I tell Ginny what happened." "You probably should Hermione." I hesitantly scoot closer, Draco's absorbed by whatever news is on so he doesn't notice until I right up next to him. He turns to look at me. I smile. He turns back to the TV and I lean my head on his shoulder. He tenses, because he knows I'm not asleep, but he doesn't make me get up and leave or anything. I grin, to myself, and put one of my arms around him from behind. He relaxes a little and puts an arm around my shoulders. I don't push his arm away, but I am a little shocked by his arm being around me. We sit this way to watch TV for a while before he turns towards me, not moving my head, arm, or his arm away from me or him. I turn my head too and I can see the look in his eyes, he wants to kiss me, but is afraid I'll run. So instead I kiss him, he kisses me back and it's subtly fierce. I gasp in a breath and his tongue finds its way into my mouth. I let him kiss me, as my lips move over him. He finally stops and he pulls his mouth off of mine. I gasp for breath. And he smiles at me. "So?" He asks and I know all the questions attached. "I need to think. I'll send you an owl, later, if you send me an owl with all of your questions on it." He nods but watches me go without saying anything.