Because of you

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I walk back to the common room with a ridiculous grin on my face. Hermione and I had a long conversation after the initial awkwardness of the first few minutes. It was nice and we talked about a lot of different things. We would've have stayed in there for longer except Hermione realized that it's a little bit past curfew. Now I'm just strolling back to the common room and I couldn't be happier.
When I finally reach my common room, I sit on the couch and stare at the ceiling. I'm too happy to sleep. Besides I have a room to myself because no one else came back. It's relaxing because I have a lot of time to think, but I often have nightmares and there's no one to wake me up. The nightmares used to be short because my mum would always wake me up. Without someone to wake me up, they can last for hours.
I shake my head to clear the bad memories out. To keep myself from falling into the crushing pain, I walk up to my room. When I'm alone I pull out a picture of Hermione that I took during sixth year. She's sitting by the black lake and laughing. Harry and Ron were with her, but I found a spell to edit them out. It's not that I don't like them, I just wanted a picture of her.
I lay down on my bed and just look at the picture. It makes me smile and I chuckle. Seeing her happy makes me happy. The longer I stare at the picture, the sleepier I get. After a few more minutes of looking at the picture, I place it under my pillow and fall asleep.

I wake up and get ready for the first day of classes. It's going to be a long day, it always is. After I get ready, I walk down to the Great Hall. I'm in no big hurry, I'm not really that hungry even though I didn't eat dinner last night. Besides, I can't sit with Hermione so I don't really have anything to look forward to. No one else talks to me anyway, but if I did sit with her everyone would freak out.
I sit at the end of the Slytherin table and put a little bit of food on my plate. As I start eating, I look over at the Gryffindor table. Hermione notices me looking. She smiles, but doesn't acknowledge me otherwise. Last night we both decided that keeping our friendship is the safest option. More for her sake then mine. The only retaliation I would receive would be from my father, but she could lose a lot of friends and I don't want to hurt her.
After a while, once I'm finished eating, Professor McGonagall starts passing out our schedules. I look at mine and groan. Double potions right after breakfast. Maybe I shouldn't have eaten. I don't enjoy potions and since Severus isn't the teacher, I do poorly in the class. It doesn't help that Slughorn doesn't like me. The only good thing about having extra long potions is that it's with the Gryffindors, so Hermione should be in my class. Not that we can really interact at all, but I still like being around her. It's makes me happy when we're in the same room.
Once breakfast is over, I grab my bag and head down to the dungeons. I walk as slow as I can without being late. Potions is probably the worst class that I have and it's the only class that I do exceptionally poorly in. That has something to do with the teacher, but I'll stay off of that topic for now.
As I'm walking down to the classroom, I feel someone grab my hand. It's only for a second before the feeling of soft skin is replaced with coarse parchment. I look up and see Hermione just in front of me. Smiling, I sneak the note into my pocket and decide that I'll read it later. She turns around and covertly smiles at me. I return the gesture as we both walk into the classroom.
I swear that I must be the luckiest guy on earth. It seems that Hermione and I were the last ones in the classroom. That might not sound important, but there's only one desk left so we have to sit with each other. Hermione pretends to hate it and I smirk. This class might be better than I thought.

I sit down next to Draco and I can see everyone turning in their seats to look at us. Ginny looks at me and rolls her eyes. Last night I told her that Draco isn't really as bad as he seems. I didn't exactly tell her that we're friends now, but then again she didn't ask how I knew that Draco was a nice person. Neville looks at me like I'm going to explode or burst in to tears. I give him a look that says "I'm fine" and he turns around. The rest of the class is just watching is to see who will protest first.
As Professor Slughorn starts his lesson, everyone turns towards the front of the class. Draco plops his elbow on the table and places his head in his hand. I resist the urge to laugh even though the expression and posture is funny. He looks over at me and rolls his eyes. I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing. He's really adorable at times.
"Read the letter." I whisper to him while Slughorn explains some potion that we're going to be making tomorrow.
Draco just looks at me and pulls the letter out of his pocket. I watch him read it. His facial expression never changes, but his eyebrows move subtly as his emotions change. He doesn't seem to be aware that he's doing it so I take a note to watch his eyebrows if he's hiding his emotions. When he's done with the letter, he simply folds it up and nods quickly. It's going to be interesting to see what happens in the room of requirement tonight.