NUMB WITHOUT YOU | Draco Malfoy

| 03

Hermione Granger is considered a lot of things. She is a know-it-all. She is the brightest witch of her age. She is tenacious, hard-working, caring, and thoughtful. The one thing Hermione Granger cannot be described as is concise and to-the-point. It took her three excruciatingly long hours to explain to Draco and me what took us both five minutes to understand.

Draco was to perform his own round of wizarding community service, still to be determined, and I was to be his sponsor throughout the year to check up on him and make sure he was staying on track. The rest was up to the two of us to work together as best we could. Hermione had plenty of her own suggestions of things we could do, such as me teaching Draco how to ride the Tube like a proper muggle, much to Draco's chagrin.

I kind of liked the power this whole set up gave me. I was the deciding factor on if Draco Malfoy could be welcomed back into wizarding society. Me. I could reject him at the end of the year, simply out of spite, and no one could say otherwise. Of course, Hermione might object, but I could work on wearing her down if necessary.

Hermione asked to speak to Draco alone for a while leaving me to eat breakfast by myself while they sat off in a corner of The Leaky Cauldron together talking very intently.  Every once in a while they would glance in my direction, so I knew I kept coming up in conversation quite a bit.

Eventually the two of them came back my table to regroup. Draco sat down across from me, and Hermione remained standing while she put on her jacket. It was clear that she was abandoning me to be alone with Malfoy. "I think that's everything then!" She exclaimed. She looked back down at her muggle watch and frowned, "I do have another appointment, but I'll be checking in on you later, Rory, to see how things are going. Take care you two. I'm so glad you are doing this, Draco. It really means a lot to us working at the Ministry to give our little program some much needed legitimacy."

"Always a pleasure, Granger." Draco droned sarcastically, his voice aggressively deadpan. His eyes left my face for only a second to glare at the girl who had been selflessly helping him for the past few hours. She didn't seem to notice, or at least she didn't let on that she did. For Draco, there was clearly still some animosity left over from our school days that absolutely would not dissipate. He reminded me so much of myself when Hermione first latched on to me, but the girl was relentless in wearing me down until we became genuine friends. I couldn't imagine Draco and Hermione as friends in the same way. That seemed impossible because every single thing the girl said or did annoyed Draco to his very core.

Hermione shot me one last fleeting smile before she hurried out into the streets of London. Draco and I sat in silence while I ate the rest of my breakfast. I took my time only to test and see if Draco would grow impatient with me, but he never once wavered. When I finished my meal, I shoved the plate off to the side for the staff to pick up, and I looked at Draco, finally taking in his very angular features.

He returned my gaze and leaned back in his chair lazily as he absentmindedly traced with his fingers where someone had carved their name into the wooden table. I noticed he was still wearing the same ring on his hand that he had worn since he was thirteen years old. It gleamed as the light reflected off of it. So much had changed about him, yet so much had stayed the same. I knew the same could be said about me as well.

"I assume you want to know why I'm doing all of this?" He asked me sort of expectantly. He seemed intent on explaining himself. He never did like people making their own assumptions about him.

"Go on then." I scowled and waved my hand in the air flippantly, "I would have thought the deal your parents made with the ministry that kept all three of you out of Azkaban with the rest of us would have excluded you from the rehabilitation program they created as well."