Hermione walked out of her dorm and into the sunlit common room to find Ron sitting there as usual. But he wasn’t scribbling last minute homework. He was just sitting there, staring at the empty couch, his back to the weak sun. Hermione recognized it as the couch they had been sitting in a few hours ago. As she walked further into the room, Ron started.
“Where did you go last night? Really?” He spoke quietly, very unlike Ron.
“I already told you!” Hermione said, trying to sound exasperated. She turned and started walking towards the door, afraid her face would give her away. “I couldn’t sleep, so I went out to do some patrolling.” As she neared the door, she turned back to face Ron’s disbelieving countenance. “Aren’t you coming to breakfast?”
Ron seemed to awake from his reverie. He looked down at himself to discover he was still in his nightclothes. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a second, just let me change.” And he dashed off to his room.
“Hurry, or you’ll have to skip breakfast altogether and go straight to Transfiguration on an empty stomach!” Hermione called after him, smiling slightly.
The threat seemed to have work though, since Ron fell out of his room seconds later, pulling on his trainers and heading for the door. He had disappeared through it before Hermione could heave her heavy bag onto her shoulder and head to breakfast herself.
Ron had caught up with Harry and Dean, who usually came through the seventh floor corridor to try and catch Ron and Hermione for breakfast. The group hadn’t noticed her coming out of the door, and she didn’t try to catch their attention. Hermione needed some time to think.
Hermione knew that both she and Draco had a break after Transfiguration, but she guessed Draco wouldn’t wait up for her. Not that he did before, since they kept their friendship under the radar, but now he would just run away. She was going to have to catch him and try and talk to him again. But what would she say?
”Hey Draco, I know you’ve joined the Dark side, but I still want to be friends with you.” Not only was that blunt, it was also a complete lie. She didn’t want to be friends with someone who was trying to kill her own friends. But that look on Draco’s face last night. Hermione knew he didn’t want to do whatever he was doing, and she severely wanted to help him get out of it.
When Hermione finally arrived at breakfast (she had taken the long way to get there to give herself thinking time), she glanced at the Slytherin table. Her one glance told her that Draco was sitting at the far end of the table, alone. She walked toward the Gryffindor table, keeping Draco in sight from the corner of her eye. She watched as Crabbe and Goyle edged into the seats across from him, but he said nothing. His eyes were fixed on his barely-touched breakfast.
Hermione sat down across from Ginny, her back to the Slytherin table. Harry, Ron, Dean, and Seamus were a little farther down the table, but they slid up to talk to her. Hermione chatted amicably with them all so no one would notice the lack of interest in her food.
“We should probably get to Transfiguration. The bell will ring soon, I expect,” she said, getting up. The boys followed her. A few minutes later they arrived at the classroom, Hermione a little ahead of the rest of the group. She took a deep breath and opened the door. Draco was already there.
Draco usually caught her eye and vaguely smiled in her direction nowadays when she walked into Transfiguration with Ron and Harry in tow. But today, he faced the complete opposite direction and didn’t even glance at her. Nor was he talking to Crabbe and Goyle. Pansy Parkinson was trying to catch his attention, but he paid her no heed.
Professor McGonagall came into the classroom and the lesson began. Hermione did everything McGonagall instructed them to, and she did it well, but her mind was focused on the lesson. What kind of task has he been assigned? How can it be so bad that he won’t even talk to his fellow Slytherins? she wondered as she helped Ron with the spell.
Before she knew it, the lesson was over. Draco was first to get up. As Hermione struggled to get her things back into her bag, he had disappeared out the door. Hermione speed-walked after him. She didn’t want to seem like she was following him on purpose.
She finally caught up with the back of Draco’s head turning onto the seventh floor corridor. The hallway was empty, so Hermione practically ran to level with Draco just as he entered the Room of Requirement. He took one look at her, but said nothing as she entered the Room with him. The door shut.
“Hermione,” Draco said, his back to her, but his voice was pleading, “why can’t you just let go?”
“No!” she said, striding over to him and yanking him around. “I want to know!”
They stared at each other for what seemed like a minute, grey on brown. Then, without warning, Draco kissed her. Hermione was not at all surprised and leaned in. After what seemed like hours, they broke apart. Draco took a step back. He was shocked at what he just did.
“This is what I was afraid of,” Draco murmured under his breath as he staggered into an armchair.
“You’re afraid of snogging?” Hermione said, trying to bring back some humor. Draco didn’t smile.
With his head in his hands, staring at his shoes, Draco finally confessed, “Look, Hermione, I am now The Dark Lord’s only spy in Hogwarts. Everyone else is gone. He’s depending on me! My father’s depending on me! I don’t think it’s safe to let them down.” He looked up at her, begging for her to understand.
“But what do you have to do?” Hermione yelled, hoping the Room of Requirement remembered to make the walls soundproof.
“I can’t tell you that.” And with that, Draco got up and walked to the door, leaving Hermione alone in the high-ceilinged room, the sunset sneaking in the window.
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Hermione awoke to a bolt of lightning that seemed to strike the school itself. She could hear the rain pounding on her window as if the lake itself was washing into her room. Had it all been a dream? A Draco-filled dream? Had she imagined the Room of Requirement altogether? She put her fingers to her lips. They felt different. As she slowly got out of bed to observe the storm further, the thunder crashed, bringing more rain. She crossed to her window and stared at her reflection in the rain-splashed glass. She no longer saw a never-been-kissed bookworm. She just saw a confused girl filled with conflict.
Teaching the Dark by BittersweetLove
Chapter Notes: A/N: I was listening to Frou Frou and Imogen Heap while writing this at 2 in the morning. Go figure. Isn't summer great??
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