Hermione walked back into the Gryffindor common room with a smile on her face.
“So you hexed him then?” asked Ron.
“No,” laughed Hermione.
“Then why the giant smile on your face?” Ron looked a bit confused.
Hermione just looked at him. She was definitely going to tell the both of them, but knew that Ron’s reaction was going to be horrible.
“Ron, listen,” she began with a glance at Harry. “Draco is my friend. I don’t expect you to get why, I just expect you to accept it please.”
Harry expected as much, but Ron looked as if he had just had the wind knocked out of him. His mouth opened and closed as if to say something, but he was having trouble getting the words to come out.
“What?” he at last managed to gasp.
“Draco is my friend,” Hermione said calmly and resolutely.
“After all the things he’s done to us, after how he’s treated you all these years, now he’s your friend?” Ron could not believe what he was hearing.
“Yes,” answered Hermione. “Like I said, I don’t expect you to understand why Ron, I just want you to be ok with it.”
“And you’re ok with this?” Ron addressed this question to Harry with wide eyes.
“Ron, I’m ok with it because Hermione is my friend and I love her,” Harry answered. “And if being friends with Draco will make her happy, then I’m fine with it.”
Ron looked like the world had fallen in on him. Hermione hoped he wouldn’t, but Ron asked the one question she had been hoping to avoid.
“So,” he began. “So, you are his friend, or do you like him past that?” Ron was very pale.
‘How am I going to explain this to him? He looks hurt enough as it is, I don’t want to see him like this.’
“Ron, I,” she paused. “I’m not going to lie to you. I do like Draco, but I know he doesn’t feel the same way. We are just friends.”
Ron couldn’t stop tears from forming in the corners of his eyes.
“Draco Malfoy beat me, did he?” Ron didn’t understand. “He beat me. I’ve been your friend for so many years, but you choose him.”
“Oh, Ron, don’t -”
But Ron got up without another word and went up to the boy’s dormitories. Hermione’s mood, while happy five minutes ago, was now the opposite; tears were running down her cheeks.
‘Why can’t it be ok with people that I’m his friend? Why?’
“Don’t worry, Hermione,” Harry said soothingly. “He’ll come around, I promise. I’ll talk to him. Ok?”
Hermione only nodded.
*~*~*~*~
“And what are you so happy about?”
Draco jumped, and the smile he had had on his face when he walked back into the Slytherin common room vanished; Pansy had apparently decided to wait up for him.
‘Damn this girl!’
“Have fun strolling with the Mudblood?” she asked with an evil sneer on her face.
‘What am I going to do? Hermione will definitely be angry if I lie about it, but then again Pansy can make my life hell…well its not like its not hell now so what’s the difference?’
“Hermione is my friend, Pansy,” Draco said defiantly.
Pansy’s jaw dropped in shock. Then her eyes gleamed and a wicked smile crossed her face.
“Well, well, well,” she said. “Looks like I was right doesn't it? Your mother will find this news very interesting won’t -”
“You say one word to my mother and it will be the last thing you do.” Draco's face reddend with anger.
Pansy merely laughed.
“Fine, I will not tell your mother,” she said continuing to laugh. “But that won’t stop everyone else from talking about it. It will reach your mother eventually. I am sure she will be happy to hear that her son is a filthy blood traitor!”
She laughed all the way up to her dormitory.
‘Welcome to hell.’ Draco thought with a sigh, and headed up the stairs to his bed.
*~*~*~*~
Both Hermione and Draco received scorn and ridicule from their classmates over that next two weeks. Though hardly able to talk to each other during school, it was widely known that there no longer seemed to be enmity between them.
‘Honestly! What the hell is wrong with people?’ thought Hermione as she walked with Harry to potions.
“Ron still doesn’t want to talk to me, does he?” she asked Harry.
“No, but he’ll get over it, don’t worry.”
Hermione didn’t know if she really believed that. She knew that she had really hurt Ron.
They entered the dungeon classroom to find Ron determinedly staring at Slughorn, waiting for their lesson to start.
Hermione looked over at Draco who smiled and waved; she returned his greeting like wise.
‘This is so wonderful. I can’t believe he is actually my friend. I do wish it could be something more, but I guess that’s asking too much,’ Hermione mused. ‘But, I can’t help but notice something in his eyes when I look at him. I wonder what -’
But she was forced to quit her musings as at that moment Slughorn began the lesson on antidotes.
*~*~*~*~
‘Wow she is beautiful. But she will never feel that way about me, so I might as well quit hoping.’
Draco was only half listening to the instructions that Slughorn was giving him.
‘Plus, I’m a death eater,’ he thought for the thousandth time. ‘So it would never work. She will go back to hating me the moment she finds out. I doubt that I could make anyone see how much I really don’t want to be doing this.’
Torn between his desire to be more than just Hermione’s friend, and to keep her as far away from him as emotionally possible, Draco began working on his antidote.
*~*~*~*~
The next few weeks went by quickly, and soon Draco and Hermione were almost as inseparable as Harry, Ron, and Hermione used to be; Ron was still looking very depressed.
It was Thursday; Draco’s night to patrol, and this meant that Hermione would get to see him alone for a few hours. It was during their patrol hours that Draco and Hermione really got to know each other. They could talk as freely as they wished, because no one was around to listen.
“Harry, I need to talk to you,” Hermione said as she sat down in the armchair next to him.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Ron still won’t talk to me, I have tried everything, and he still refuses to even look at me!” she began sobbing. “He’s one of my best friends and I really need him.”
“Hermione,” Harry said soothingly. “It will be alright. Honest, Ron will realize that he shouldn’t be acting like this eventually.”
Hermione could only cry.
‘Why do I have to lose one friend in order to gain another?’
*~*~*~*~
That night Draco noticed that something was wrong with Hermione. She wasn’t talking as she usually would but just walked along side him in complete silence.
‘I told her that it wasn’t worth being my friend! Now she’s miserable because Weasley isn’t talking to her anymore.’
“What’s wrong?” Draco asked.
“Nothing,” she lied.
Draco glared at her.
“I don’t think so. We usually are talking about all sorts of things by now, and you haven’t said more than two words since we began patrolling.”
‘She’s probably changed her mind, really does hate me, and just can’t figure out how to tell me. I don’t blame her because I’ve only cost her one of her best friends.’
“Nothing is wrong. I just have a lot on my mind that’s all,” Hermione answered, hoping that he would decide to change the subject.
There was a silence that lasted for several minutes, then, Draco spoke in a whisper.
“I understand if you don’t want to be my friend anymore. I know Weasley hasn’t spoken to you since we started hanging out. It’s ok really.” He didn’t look at her.
“No, Draco, that’s not it,” but as she said it he saw tears beginning to form in her eyes.
Draco didn’t press the matter, and they finished patrolling in silence. When they reached the entrance to the Gryffindor common room however; Draco always walked her back, Hermione burst into tears.
“He’s just being ridiculous. He won’t even look at me anymore. He is my best friend and I really need him but he just -” Hermione was overcome by tears at this point and couldn’t continue.
Draco looked at her crying.
‘I’m the reason she’s feeling so much pain.’
He pulled Hermione into a consoling embrace. Hermione’s tears soon died away and she looked up into his icy blue eyes.
He stood there holding her, looking into her deep brown eyes; searching. He was very aware of how close they were to each other, and noticed that she had not backed away from him. Then, as if they both realized exactly how close they were, they let go of each other.
The silence now was highly uncomfortable.
“Well, goodnight, Draco,” said Hermione. And she turned and went into the Gryffindor common room.
“Goodnight,” Draco said to the now empty hall before going back to his own common room.
Your Eyes: The Beginning by GryffindorsHeir
Chapter Notes: Sorry for the long wait guys! I hope you like the update!