In The Head Lights - Chapter Seven

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, they belong to the astounding J.K. Rowling.

A/N: Okay, it took me a really long time to actually know what I was going to write for this chapter, especially for the beginning. I just couldn’t seem to get into the zone, and I also got carried away with another story which popped into my head. I hope this chapter is okay, but I’m not too sure of it. Anyway, enjoy!

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“What the hell did you do, Malfoy?” Blaise asked, rushing over after Hermione had run from the room. Draco put his head on the desk, closed his eyes, and hoped it had all been a bad dream. When he looked up though, he was sorely disappointed.

“I messed up. Big time,” he mumbled, returning his head to the desk.

“What, by upsetting Granger? That never used to bother you before. You used to do it for fun, if I remember,” Blaise said with a shrug.

“Yes, it never used to bother me, but it bothers me now,” Draco snapped, looking up momentarily.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you two were so buddy-buddy,” Blaise shrugged and went back to work on the potion which Potter had abandoned.

“Shit,” muttered Draco again, closing his eyes and forgetting about the potion, his mind consumed with thoughts of Hermione.

***

“Hey, Hermione! Hermione, slow down!” Harry ran up the stone steps after his fleeing friend, following the sounds of her sobs as they echoed off the stone walls. He came to a skidding stop when he saw her crouched down beside a wall, her body shaking as she wept silently. He knelt next to her, pulling her quaking body to his and letting her tears stain his shirt. “What did he do?” Harry asked soothingly.

“He called me a mudblood,” Hermione managed to choke out between tear-stricken sobs.

Harry felt anger bubbling inside of him, and every fibre within his body was telling him to go back to the dungeon and punch Malfoy’s lights out. But Hermione needed him right now. He held her until her cries stopped, at which point he led her up to her dormitory and made her a strong cup of tea.

“Tell me everything that happened. Please,” Harry said once Hermione had her hands wrapped around the steaming mug. “Starting from the night of the ball. You haven’t been the same since then.”

Hermione looked up at him with bloodshot eyes. “It was perfect. It just felt right. Him and me. We went out into the garden and we kissed, and it was perfect, but then I thought about Ron. I didn’t know what to do, and I felt so emotional. I knew that I shouldn’t have kissed Draco, but it all felt so right,” she said, her eyes moistening. She took a gulp of tea. “And then I broke up with Ron, because I realized I didn’t love him like I used to, and then I broke down again and spent that night crying as well. Then this morning Draco asked me what was wrong, but I didn’t feel like talking about it even though he was being so nice about it all, and I told him that it wasn’t his fold again and then I got angry at him. Then, in Potions, he was acting really distant, and I was really confused so I told him that he didn’t do anything, and then he-“ she broke off with a loud sob, and Harry winced as he watched his best friend cry.

He had absorbed the information and had surmised it into one small thing: He had no idea what the hell was going on.

“Hermione, I’m going to run and get Ginny, okay? She has this line off, and she’ll know what to do. Just stay here,” Harry said, and after a nod from Hermione he ran out of the room and to the Gryffindor common room where Ginny was curled up in front of the fire with a book.

“Harry! Aren’t you meant to be in Potions?” she said, frowning at her boyfriend.

“Well yes, and I should probably get back there, but Hermione’s really upset. I have no idea what she is going on about, but I think that a woman’s touch may be more useful in this situation,” he hinted, and Ginny raised her eyebrows at him. “Please?”

“Of course. Is she in her common room?” Ginny asked and Harry nodded once. She said goodbye to him with a swift kiss which he returned greedily. “No, Hermione needs me more,” she said, putting a finger to his lips as the kiss threatened to turn into something more.

He released her with a sigh and she giggled before heading to Hermione.

“How bad is it?” she asked Eve, who sighed in response.

“Not good, she’s been crying her eyes out since that Potter boy left, and it’s been keeping my little one awake.” This was indeed true, because Eve’s baby was waving a little fist around and fussing in his mother’s arms.

Ginny frowned. “Bassinet,” she said and Eve swung open. “Oh, Hermione!” she cried, and ran over to her best friend who was still at the table where Harry had left her, mug in hand. “What happened? I need to know so I know who I should go and hex,” Ginny said, trying to lighten the mood.

Hermione’s face broke into a watery smile and she managed a wet chuckle. “Where do you want me to begin?”

“From wherever you think this all began,” Ginny prompted.

Hermione launched into the story again, this time not skipping any of the details. Ginny absorbed it all, cringing at the right moments and smiling at the others. At the end of the story, Hermione seemed to have regained her composure, and she wiped her damp cheeks on her sleeves and took a deep breath, waiting for Ginny’s solution.

“How do you feel about Malfoy?” she asked finally.

Hermione bit her lip and looked down before she spoke. “I think I really like him, but then he goes and says stuff like this and I hate him. I just don’t know,” she looked defeated.

“Well...” Ginny began, but then stopped because she truly had no idea how to continue. She paused for a moment, searching for the answer to Hermione’s problems. “I think he likes you, but he has no idea how to act towards you because of that. You two have been enemies since your first year, and I’m sure that living with his father who disrespected muggleborns at every opportunity would have rubbed off on him some day. I honestly don’t think he meant to call you mudblood, judging by how you’ve explained the situation. Then again, you never know with Malfoy,” Ginny said, sighing.

Hermione nodded along with everything Ginny was saying, and just as she opened her mouth to say something the portrait swung open and Draco walked in, looking seriously depressed and downcast. When he noticed Hermione sitting at the table he cringed.

“Hermione, shit, I’m so sorry. I really, really, really didn’t mean it,” he said, dropping his books and walking quickly over to Hermione who stiffened slightly. Ginny waved and quietly left the dormitory, leaving Hermione alone with Draco. “Please, please forgive me, even though I know what I said was unforgivable. I forget myself sometimes. I grew up with a man who thought anyone who wasn’t pureblood was utter scum.”

Hermione looked at him, her eyes appraising his face carefully as she drank in the image of Draco Malfoy begging her for forgiveness.

“What you said to me was inexcusable and unforgiveable, you’re quite right about that. But I want to be able to forgive you. I want to be able to let you in without you whipping around and hurting me like you did today,” Hermione whispered after a while, and Draco knelt beside her chair, taking her hands in his.

“I swear that I won’t hurt you again like that. I don’t know what came over me, I just forgot myself and my place and said that word, and the moment it came out of my mouth I regretted it.”

“I want to know everything,” Hermione said, looking at Draco and feeling the familiar warmth that being in his presence caused her to feel.

“Everything?” he questioned, tilting his head to one side so he looked like a confused puppy.

“Everything about you. Your family, your house, everything. I need to know what to expect when I’m around you, because I don’t want to be hurt anymore, and I’ve cried too much these last few days than I should have,” Hermione said with a defeated sigh, and Draco smiled softly at her. He pulled her to her feet and led her over to a sofa where they sat together. After a moment she leant into him, and they adjusted themselves so they were comfortable, Draco holding Hermione while she rested her head on his chest.

“I grew up in Malfoy Manor, which is in Wiltshire. The house...well, it is outlandishly extravagant. My father always liked to make himself seem better than others, and that is clearly evident at my home. The grounds are huge, and Father has white peacocks roaming the grounds at random. There is a large fountain when you head up the drive, and the gates are enchanted to only let certain people in.

“The inside is just as ridiculous, if not more so. We have a ballroom as well as a drawing room, then there are other rooms which are just for comfort. Everything about the house screams expensive and extravagant seeing as my ancestors let no galleon go to waste when they were decorating it. The house has been in my family for generations, and the walls of the entrance are lined with their portraits. Despite how incredible it is, I don’t want to return. It has so many horrible memories, and I don’t want to make any family I may have grow up there.

“As for my family, well you know the gist of it. They were all pureblood mania, which has been something that was very strongly enforced within my family. All of the marriages have been arranged, and each person married into the family has had their ancestry checked to make sure there are no blemishes which may mark against the record. My father was, as you know, obsessed with keeping the wizarding world entirely pureblood, and I suppose it has rubbed off on me, as much as I hate to admit it. He was a cruel man, and there isn’t really much to say about him other than that.

“My mother, on the other hand, is the most incredible woman I have ever met in my life. She was married into the Malfoy family, and was not nearly as obsessed with blood status as the rest of her family was. She was never branded with the Dark Mark either, because she did not believe how the Dark Lord was handling the situation to be appropriate. She was lovely, kind, caring, beautiful, and all around incredible, but my father stamped that out of her not long after I was born. My earliest memories of her are her singing softly to me, and her looking young and bubbly. Now my memories of her are of a meek woman who is too afraid to defend herself for fear of her husband.

“I knew I was a wizard from the time I was tiny. I could do the usual thing, the wandless magic. You know, making things happen when I was angry or scared. The most damage I did was smashing a plate one day when I was sick and my father told me to stop slouching at the dinner table. My father wanted me to build up my strength, so he would often make me stay sick for days at a time before getting the house elf to give me the cure.

“I spent a lot of my free time flying. My father was constantly buying me the latest broom, but I never had anyone to fly with. I would just hover around the manor, watching everyone move around below me. When I wasn’t flying I was often in my room reading, or practicing potions. Snape came to our house all too often, seeing as he was a good friend of my father’s, and he would teach me. I enjoyed potions, but not with the same passion that Snape did. I was too young to really control my magic, and I wasn’t allowed a wand until I was eleven, but before then I just read old spell books.

“Other than that, I don’t really know what to tell you about myself,” Draco finished. Hermione had remained silent while he talked, her head on his chest as she listened to the steady rhythm of his heart.

“Wow,” she mumbled, tilting her head to look at him. He was staring right back at her, smiling demurely. “I never knew there was so much to you.”

“What, did you think I was all cold mask and no warm and fuzzy interior?” he teased, and she giggled. “Your turn.”

“My turn? But I had the most boring life up until I got my letter from Hogwarts. I would bore you to sleep,” Hermione protested, but Draco just lifted an eyebrow.

“Hermione, I know nothing about muggles, so anything you tell me is going to interest me and be new.”

“Fine then,” Hermione muttered and heaving a large fake sigh which made Draco laugh. “I grew up as an only child with my two parents in a little house which could probably fit into the entrance of your house. I was considered a ‘miracle baby’ of sorts. My parents had been told that it was very unlikely that they would ever have children, and then I came along. Seeing as I was the only child I was spoilt, but it’s far more than likely that you were much more spoilt than I was.

“As I said, my house was tiny. There were three bedrooms, but one of them was turned into a study type room, and the main living space was just one large area. My favourite part of the house was my room. It was small, but it had all the space I needed. One of my walls was entirely covered in books, and the rest were painted light blue. I would spend hours in there just reading.

“We were never rich enough to have any maids or nannies. My parents were both dentists. They’re Healers, like at Mungos, but they look after people’s teeth. They worked a lot, but I didn’t mind, because that meant that I just got more time to myself. Because of them and their jobs, I probably have the best teeth in the world.

“I never really had any friends, nor did I really want them. I didn’t seem to fit in with people. I was quiet whereas the other girls were all loud. I spent my time reading while they spent their time playing with dolls. I never really had true friends until I came to Hogwarts, but I didn’t mind. As I said, I liked to spend time by myself more than anything else.

“Instead of having friends, I seemed to have the opposite. People teased me because of my teeth or my hair or the fact that I never really hung around with anyone. I ignored them, found solace in my books and focusing on school work, and as a result became top of the class.

“The day I got my letter from Hogwarts was the happiest of my life. My parents were amazed that a whole other world existed, but I knew that there had to be something outside of the simple world we lived in. I immediately believed it was true, and of course it all became real when I went to the Leaky Cauldron and Tom the landlord showed me and my parents how to get into Diagon Alley. We met someone from the Ministry there, and they explained everything to us and helped me buy all my school books.

“And then I was at Hogwarts, and everything happened and my life changed in a way which I could never have imagined, but now I couldn’t be happier,” Hermione ended shrugging. Draco lay there, absorbing everything she had just said for a little while.

“I can’t imagine not knowing magic. It’s just always been such a big part of my life,” he murmured after a little while.

They lay there for the rest of the night, talking and asking each other questions about their lives before each other, and eventually they drifted off to sleep, Hermione still resting her head on Draco’s chest, his arms tight around her body.

***

A/N: N’awwwww! I hope you enjoyed it. Admittedly I didn’t know where this chapter was going when I started it, but I’m happy at where it finished. Enjoy, and R&R!