Deny

Much to his chagrin, Draco awoke with a pounding headache. He stood and frowned as he made his way out of his room and towards the loo, trying to ignore the pain. As he entered the bathroom, out of the corner of his eye he saw Hermione in the hallway as well. He stopped and turned to look at her.

"Did you have to use the loo first?" She stared silently at him. He shrugged and went inside. "I won't be long."

Hermione was still in the hallway when he emerged. He stared at her. "What? Is something wrong?"

"N-No," she stammered finally, shaking her head. "It's just..."

"What?" he asked, aggravated. "What have I done now?"

"Nothing! It's just that you were - you were -"

"Spit it out," he snapped.

"Polite," she breathed, frowning. Then she added, "Which you're not being now."

"It was a momentary lapse," he said, pushing past her. "Won't happen again." She followed him into the kitchen and put her hands on her hips.

"Look, you don't have to be so nasty about it! If you're going to be stuck here for any length of time, we're going to have to learn to deal with each other." He poured a cup of coffee silently, and then took a sip before he turned to look at her.

"You're right, of course. As usual. But I already have a plan." Her eyebrows shot up.

"You do?"

"You don't have to sound so surprised, Grang- Weasley," he corrected himself. "On occasion I have been known to formulate exceptional schemes."

"Of course," she said, shaking her head. "Well, what is it, then?"

"I'm going to ignore your existence, which you're going to return the favor and do for me, as well." Her mouth fell open.

"That is the stupidest plan I've ever heard in my entire life," she said. "And believe me, I've heard some stupid ones."

To her surprise, he grinned.

"I imagine you must have, what with spending all of your waking moments around Potter and Weasley." Her eyes narrowed.

"Let's get one thing straight right now, Malfoy. You will not utter one derogatory syllable about Harry or my husband - or any of the Weasleys, for that matter."

"Is that so?" he asked calmly, finishing off his coffee. He rinsed the mug out and placed it upside down on a tea towel to dry. She didn't have time to register her surprise at his cleanliness before he turned back to face her. "Let's get something else straight, while we're at it." He took several slow steps towards her.

"What are you doing?" she asked, an edge of hysteria in her voice. He kept advancing, and she kept stepping backwards, until her back was pressed against the wall and she couldn't move any further.

"I'm setting the record straight," he said, his eyes glittering strangely. "I couldn't care less what you and the Weasel had going on. I couldn't care less about poor, pathetic Harry Potter, going and sacrificing himself for the greater bloody good. What I do care about is the fact that you don't know me anymore, and I'm not going to let you stand there and think that you're any better than me, because you're not."

"What are you on about?" she asked, her voice rising.

"You know nothing about me," he hissed, his eyes narrowing into slits. "So don't condescend to speak to me as though I'm nothing more than the dirt beneath your shoes."

"What?" she screeched, her cheeks turning pink. "You started in on Harry and Ron, and I'm not going to let you just stand there and do it! Not in my house! And you won't say anything bad about any of the other Weasleys, either!"

"I won't," he conceded calmly, stepping away from her. She blinked. "But not because you told me not to." He turned his back to her.

"Then why?" she asked hesitantly. He froze for a moment.

Without turning around, he said, "Because I loved her." Before she could voice her astonishment, he was gone. She stared after him for a long time, pondering his words. He had to have meant Ginny - there was no one else he could possibly have been talking about. But the thought of Draco in love with Ginny Weasley made her stomach rumble uncomfortably.

What made her even more uncomfortable was the thought that Ginny might have returned his feelings.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

It was past ten o'clock, and Draco hadn't emerged from his room since their confrontation in the kitchen - not even to eat or to use the loo. Hermione began to pace. She'd thought hard about what he'd said, and it still made her stomach roil uncomfortably to think about it.

But if what he said was true, then they had a common thread. She winced. They had more than that in common. They had both loved a Weasley, and both of their beloveds were gone. Draco may have thought that she was stupid, but she'd caught the past tense of the word "loved," and she knew what that meant. As sad as it made her, she knew what it meant.

Both of their loves were dead.

She sat down heavily on the sofa and put her head in her hands, trying to ignore the sharp spike of pain that shot through her every time she thought of Ron's death. Instead she tried to focus on Draco's situation. How had Ginny died? Had she been murdered? Oh, Merlin - had Draco been the one who'd killed her? The thought left just as quickly as it entered her mind. Dumbledore may be an old fool, but he would not be protecting Draco like this if he'd truly done something wrong.

She tried to picture Ginny wrapped in Draco's arms, but the image that came to her mind made her shudder. She fought down the bile that rose in her throat. She couldn't have loved him... could she? If she had loved him, it would have meant one of two things - either Draco had coerced her over to his side, or she'd coaxed him over to theirs.

If Draco had joined the Order, though, why hadn't Dumbledore told her in his letter? She frowned. He hadn't told her who she'd be harboring, so why should he have told her that? She knew in her heart of hearts that if he'd told her it was Draco he was referring to, even if he had told her that he was part of the Order now, that she would have refused to help him. There was too much bad blood between them to forgive so easily.

Then again, he had been in her house for almost three days now, and he hadn't necessarily tried to start any fights. With a start, she realized that she'd done that herself. Shame flooded through her. Even if she didn't like him, that was no reason to intentionally pick a fight. The worst thing he'd done since he'd been there was to turn the telly on at a loud volume, and that could be attributed to the fact that he'd never been around one to know what was considered too loud for most people.

She was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of his footsteps moving through the hallway. She looked up just as he entered the room, and saw that his eyes were red and puffy. When he met her eyes, he turned as though to return to his room. She stood quickly.

"Wait," she said softly. He stopped, but did not turn around. She shuffled her feet nervously. "Are you hungry?"

"A little," he admitted.

"What do you like?" She moved towards the kitchen. "I don't have a lot, but I'm sure I can find something you like." He turned and stared at her back as she disappeared into the kitchen, and after a moment's hesitation, followed her.

"You don't have to pretend to be nice to me just because of what I said."

"I'm not pretending."

He arched a suspicious eyebrow. "Then why?"

"We have something in common now," she explained quietly, rummaging through her pantry closet.

"So everything's all right because of it?" he asked, his voice tinged with anger. "They both die and we're suddenly friends?"

"That's not what I meant, and you know it. You're smarter than that. Think about it." He glared at her.

"Explain." She turned to face him, visibly flustered.

"Look, we're not suddenly friends. I still don't like you, and you still don't like me. But we're stuck here together for a while, so we're going to have to put up with each other. If you want to ignore me, that's fine. I just thought that -" her voice trailed off.

"Thought what? That we'd be bosom buddies?"

"No!" she stomped her foot angrily, and his trademark smirk returned.

"It is," he said, his eyes dancing with amusement. "That's what you thought, isn't it? That now that we share something in common, we'd be friends."

"No!" she said again, narrowing her eyes. "I just thought that if you needed someone to talk to about it, you could." She turned her back to him and went back to looking for something to eat. His expression softened a bit, and he folded his arms over his chest, and stared at the floor.

"She always told me that you were her best friend," he said softly. She froze, then turned to look at him incredulously.

"What?"

"She used to talk about you and her brother all the time," he admitted, still not meeting her eyes. "She missed you." Hermione's lower lip trembled, and she stared down at her feet.

"I missed her, too. After Ron died, I just couldn't bring myself to leave the house. I couldn't bear to see her, or anyone else in his family, for that matter. They all reminded me of him - of what I'd lost." A pregnant silence loomed between them until he spoke again.

"I don't want to be friends, Weasley." Disappointment that she couldn't explain flooded her and her chest constricted.

"I know." He sighed. Ginny was still private for him; talking any more about her felt like he was sharing her, and that was something that he didn't want to do. He hadn't even told Dumbledore everything, and the old man was his closest ally right now.

"But thanks for trying." Her head snapped up and she eyed him carefully, searching for any trace of non-sincerity. When she found none, she nodded slowly.

"Well, if you ever change your mind... I'm here."

"I know." She went back to fixing dinner, and he went into the other room.