Redemption / DRAMIONE (COMPLETE)

Chapter Six

Ginny at once noticed Hermione's distance in the following days. She seemed... elsewhere. Only in a daydream, perhaps blissful, perhaps not. But, just to check it wasn't her causing grievance, she pledged the question.

"Is something off?"

Hermione looked at her friend with a million answers, but none to give.

"I'm trying to figure something out," she replied quietly. Malfoy's kiss had left tingling in her lips, and confusion everyplace else. She was bewildered by it, had been speechless for once, and couldn't begin how to tell anyone.

"To do with boys." Not even Hermione could fool Ginevra Weasley when the subject was to do with boys. She had plenty of experience. "You were licking your lips. Someone kissed you," she prompted, "and you don't know why. You're wondering what lingering feelings you have for them, and whether to begin a relationship." Hermione eyed Ginny again. "You can't trick me, my friend. That is my area of expertise, anyway: boys and relationships."

"Someone kissed me," Hermione repeated Ginny's words. The words sounded strange in her mouth. She didn't care for romance. Why was this affecting her? Had it been because Malfoy had actually cared enough, for once, to thank her?

"And it wasn't my darling brother or humorous Harry." Ginny looked thoughtful. "What house?" Hermione didn't answer. "It was Slytherin, then. Draco Malfoy, boss of bullies." Hermione nodded.

"How did you know?"

"Well, I guessed it wouldn't be Crabbe and Goyle, the beefy bodyguards," Ginny rolled her eyes, "I've got my eye on Blaise Zabini, and Theodore Nott is the stringiest-looking boy ever. I do have the brains required for Ravenclaw, Hermione. So, why? How'd it happen? Who acquired brain damage for this to happen?"

Hermione opened her mouth, closed it and opened it again. Rarely had she felt so void of words to use. Was she betraying him? She decided not to tell Ginny about Umbridge's words carved into his arm. She felt that he wouldn't want anyone else to know. "He was crying." Ginny looked astonished but didn't say anything. "A lot. I don't know why; I didn't ask. I put an arm round him, then he took my hand for comfort, I think. We didn't speak, really. I don't think he was in the right mind to form words: I believe he kissed me as thanks."

"Wow," was all Ginny could say.

Footsteps echoed against the stone flags, and Draco Malfoy rounded the corner. He had heard them talking, and because it seemed obvious, decided not to press the point. He held a white hand out to Hermione.

"Would you walk with me?"

Ginny honestly felt repulsed by Malfoy, and his hands looked, to her, like how Voldemort was always described by Harry: pale and spidery. But Hermione looked at Draco, saw no smirk ready on his face; only an offer of friendly communication. And she replied readily, as politely as he.

"Of course, Draco."

Ginny gazed, almost open-mouthed, as Hermione took his hand and the two turned the corner. What had happened to the world as she knew it? Harry was a Slytherin, Draco was nice and Hermione was trusting him. Also, her twin brother was a duffer in Hufflepuff. What more could go wrong?

*

"So, you told Ginevra then?" Draco leaned against the wall. "At last. She's been positively agog wondering why you're all in a flutter."

"You've been spying on me?" Hermione questioned. Draco nodded, inspecting his manicured fingernails. "I would suppose you would prefer to do that, rather than ask Ginny."

"Ginny." Draco looked curious at the name. "I always thought it was Ginevra."

"It's Ginny," Hermione explained. "Only her Auntie Muriel calls her Ginevra. She thinks it's a proper witching name."

"It is," Draco said bewildered.

"Yeah, but that's like Ron's proper name is Ronald, Bill's is William, Charlie's is Charles, Percy's is Percival, and Fred's is Frederic," Hermione shrugged. "Who wants the burden of a long, boring name? You're lucky you're just Draco. That's over in a second. Whereas, Hermione, is the most eccentric name in wizarding and non-wizarding Britain." She couldn't believe she was having a normal conversation with Malfoy: Draco Malfoy! It seemed so easy.

"So, back to the topic," Draco said nonchalantly. "You told her. It's a moronic question, isn't it? I heard you tell her."

"You're... you're not angry, then?" It seemed more than she could hope for.

"For what?" He raised an elegant eyebrow.

"For telling her," Hermione replied, amazed.

"She's your friend." Hermione had never heard Malfoy sounding so tender. "You are friends; you tell each other secrets and they, out of respect for you, keep them. It's simple, when you think about it."

"How would you know?" Hermione demanded, before she could stop herself. "Crabbe and Goyle are rocks of dim-witted muscle, you don't even like Nott, and you've insulted Harry for the past four years."

"I haven't lived with my own brother for the past fifteen years," Draco answered quietly, his voice full of emotion. "My own brother. Instead, I was left with a man who uses the Cruciatus Curse for fun_!" Draco seemed to realise what he'd said, snapping off immediately, but something more bizarre was happening. His hand was curving slowly to point his wand at himself. Hermione didn't stop to think.

"Expelliarmus!" Draco's wand clattered to the floor. His hand stopped moving, and he gazed at it with what seemed like fear. "What was that?"

"Nothing," Draco's eyes left his hand and stared at her. "Nothing whatsoever. To answer your previous question; I've been friends with Blaise since I was five. Before even I knew Harry."

"Why does your stepfather control you?" Hermione stepped forwards. "Why does he force you to harm yourself? Why don't you stand up for yourself instead of letting everyone else do it for you?"

Draco looked at her in silence. His emotions varied from pain, to anxiety, to bewilderment, to misery.

"Sometimes," he said, turning his back on her, "people walk over others, for all sorts of reasons, or just simply to bully them. And, occasionally, it's better to let them, and make it easier for them." Hermione vividly recalled Ron saying that very thing about Malfoy. She watched him with dread.

"What did he do to you to make you like this?" Hermione whispered.

"What do you mean?" Draco asked, swivelling to face her again.

"You've been exactly what you just described; Ron said it, back in our first year. You cursed Neville, the Leg-Locker Curse, and Ron told Neville that you're used to walking all over people, but that's no reason to lie down in front of you and make it easier. That's what you were, Malfoy. That's what you are. When I saw you, crying, on Ravenclaw tower, I thought you'd changed. And now I've found out why. You're tired of obeying someone who makes you like him, but going against him makes you bitterer, and more twisted. You realise what you've been, and hating him more makes Umbridge angry because it means you disobey her too. And being rebellious has its consequences: Lucius would be furious, savage, if she told him that you are no longer that perfect version of him."

"What do you know about my life?" Draco inquired, shaking with anger, but as quiet as Snape when livid. "What insight have you seen into it? None. You know nothing. You know nothing about what he's like; what I've had to live through. I was wrong thinking you might understand. You understood my pain, when I was crying for the thing that was lost, and you accepted my kiss as merely gratitude, when it was more than that. That's what you don't know." He stomped over to his wand, picked it up and shoved it in his pocket. He began walking away.

"What was lost?" Hermione called, shivering with the fear that had inhabited her body at his tirade. She thought he wouldn't answer, but he stopped for a moment, to look back.

"Myself." And he vanished with the casual personality that he'd briefly owned.

Nothing had changed. But she didn't know nothing. She knew him, and now, what was really underneath.