What Once Could Never Be...

What Once Could Never Be...

Chapter 4: Tears of Sorrow

Hermione lay face down on her wet pillow crying. She didn´t understand why Harry and Ron were being so mean to her. She had never done anything to cause them pain or grief. The appearance of girlfriends within their close knit group had put a strain on their friendship, but she never would have believed that it would end it all-together. They didn´t even care if they hurt her feelings anymore. It was simply none of their concern and they acted like it never was. This thought brought fresh tears and made her cry harder. Her mind was working overtime to find where she had gone wrong. She didn´t know how she could be friends with someone for five years and still not know them very well because she had obviously missed something about Harry and Ron. What was making them act this way?

She gasped and forced herself to stop crying. She crawled out of her four-poster bed and crossed her room to the window. Having been made a prefect, she had her own room in the Gryffindor dormitory. She gazed out across the grounds at the beautiful night sky. The trees in the Forbidden Forest looked as if they were reaching to touch the glittering, diamond stars embedded in the vast black velvet. Suddenly, a shooting star floated out of the breathtaking scene. Hermione watched it and remember the muggle tradition to make a wish. She took a deep breath, realizing that it couldn´t hurt. I wish that I could find someone for me. That made her think of Draco.

Draco. Draco Malfoy. The boy that had been her enemy for the past five years was the same boy that had sat across from her on the train and offered her comfort without anything asked in return. She surely had been wrong about him. She had misjudged him more than any one person could be. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. I have a found enemies in my friends, and a friend in an enemy. I just hope that my enemy continues to be my friend. Draco had been so nice to her today. Almost as if he was trying to make up for everything he had done to her in the past. I never realized he had it in him. But then, there were many things about Draco that she didn´t notice until today. She had never noticed how handsome he was. His silver, blonde hair that fell across his forehead in smooth pieces. His stormy, gray eyes with silver flecks that shined when he was happy. His pale, angular face with perfect cheekbones. His lips and the way they looked when he smiled. I wonder what it would feel like for him to press his lips against mine. AHH...WHAT AM I SAYING?? No matter how much he´s changed, this is STILL Draco Malfoy! I wonder what he´s doing right now.

"What time is it anyway?"

She glanced over at her bedside table where her clock stood. The numbers read 10:30 p.m. Draco´s probably leading the first years back to their dorm. Her eyes grew wide. The fight I had with Harry and Ron made me completely forget about my prefect duties. Professor McGonagall is going to kill me!

She took one look in her mirror and tried to hide the fact that she had been crying. Her eyes were still red.

"What´s the matter, dearie? Did a boy break your heart?" the mirror asked.

She ignored it and went racing out of her room and out of the tower. She had to go find Harry. She didn´t mean to abandon her duties as prefect. She exited through the portrait hold and went running down the corridor. She turned a corner on the way to the Great Hall and ran directly into something. She looked up from her position on the floor where she had fell and it was none other than-

"Draco!"

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Harry had just finished taking the first years to the common room and explained where everything was located. They had dispersed and the common room started to fill with students of other years. Harry walked over to where Ron was sitting with Lavender and Ginny.

Ron looked up when Harry sat down. "What´s the matter? Being a prefect got you down?"

"No, it´s not that, Ron." Harry responded. He looked over to where Ginny and Lavender were sitting. They were talking animatedly about something else. He looked back up at Ron with his eyes full of seriousness. "Ron, Hermione didn´t come back."

Ron wasn´t affected by this statement. "What do you mean she didn´t come back?"

"I mean she didn´t help come back to help me with the first years."

"But she loves the idea of being a prefect."

"Exactly. I think we need to apologize to her."

Ron´s eyes suddenly went cold. "You can apologize to her if you want since you are a fellow prefect, but I have nothing to say sorry for."

"Ron, -"

"No, Harry. If she wants to be around that filth, then I´m not going to be bothered by her."

The look in Ron´s eyes made Harry stop his argument. He wasn´t sure what was going to happen, but some way he had to make the two of them come to terms. They can´t have been friends for this long to let something like Malfoy come between them. Why was she with Malfoy? And an even better question: Why was she defending him?

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"Hermione! What are you doing sneaking around like that?"

Draco was shocked to be walking down the corridor when he approached the corner, something came flying around it and collided with him, knocking themselves down. Getting a better look, he realized that the 'something´ was Hermione Granger.

She looked up at him from the floor, surprised written all over her face. He was the last person she thought she would run into.

He offered her a hand and pulled her up from the floor. He took a good look at her. Her hair was messed from where it looked like she had been lying on it, and her eyes were bloodshot as if she had been crying for quite a while.

"Thanks. I was looking for Harry. You wouldn´t happen to have seen him, have you?"

"No, and why would you want to be looking for him? After what he said to you in the Great Hall?"

She flinched at the mention of the earlier argument, but quickly composed herself. "I was simply trying to find him to fulfill my prefect duties. Has everybody left already? Professor McGonagall is going to be furious with me."

He gave her a small smile. "Yes, everybody´s already gone back to their dorms. However, if I were you, I wouldn´t worry too much about McGonagall."

She met his eyes and felt her own grow wide with shock. "What?! Why?!"

He continued to smile. "I told her that you weren´t feeling well so you decided to go back to the dorms early. She wasn´t upset, just concerned for your well-being."

Without thinking, she threw her arms around Draco´s neck. "Thank you for covering for me. I didn´t know what I was going to do."

Draco was stood frozen for a moment, befuddled by her actions, before wrapping his own arms around her waist. A sudden thought occurred to him.

She drew back after she had felt his arms go around her. She had enjoyed the feeling of being in his arms, and wouldn´t mind getting lost in that feeling. She drew back because she didn´t want to get caught up in a falsehood. They were nothing more than friends.

Draco took her by the hand and led her down a corridor and into an unused classroom. He turned and faced her before sitting down in an old chair.

She looked at him with a confused expression at him having led her here. She waited for him to speak hoping for an explanation at why they were there.

He motioned for her to sit opposite him in a chair matching his. While watching her take a seat, he began to speak. "I´m glad I ran into you. I was going to look for you anyway because I wanted to talk to you."

She looked surprised at this information. "What about?"

He suddenly looked serious. "Tell me what happened in the Great Hall."

Tears filled her eyes as she rose from her seat and turned to leave, but he was quicker.

He jumped up and grabbed her shoulders holding her against him. His voice came out soft and caring. "Hermione, please tell me."

She turned to face him. She peered into his eyes and saw them full of concern and something else she couldn´t quite make out. She resumed her seat and swallowed her tears. Her voice came out just above a whisper. "Harry and Ron no longer consider me a friend. They told me themselves that since they saw me with you, they no longer wish for me to speak to them."

He looked distraught at her words. "If you don´t want me to be around you anymore, I´ll understand."

"No! If you leave me, then I´ll have no one," she cried. He nodded at her words and then mumbled something under his breath that she didn´t catch. "What did you say?"

"They don´t deserve you."

She just looked down at the ground in front of her feet. Just noticing how cold it was, she shivered. She didn´t have her robe, having left it in her room, and was wearing only a skirt and a short-sleeve blouse.

He saw her shiver and stood up to take off the cloak he was wearing. He put it around her shoulders and clasped it at the opening. He looked at her to find her watching him closely.

His kind gesture made her think back to her thoughts while in her room. She definitely misjudged Draco Malfoy. "Thank you."

"Your welcome." He took his seat again and sat for a moment, studying her. "If they hurt you again, I will kill them if want me to."

She was floored. "There will be no killing! I appreciate your concern, but I can handle myself."

"Hermione, I just want to help. If they do anything, anything at all, that hurts you, I will protect you. Whatever happens, I will be here."

She choked back a sob. He truly cared about her. She didn´t think anyone did. "Thank you." Looking for a way to change to subject, she looked around the room. "Where exactly are we anyway?"

He gestured to the room with his bare arms. "This is the old prefects common room. They stopped using it when -" He broke off. She was staring at his arms. He tried to hide them, but the damage had already been done. She had seen.

She closed the space between them and kneeled in front of him. Touching him gently, she lifted his arm to look closer at what she had seen. On each arm, three red slashes stood out against his pale, alabaster skin reaching from his wrist to the crook of his elbow. She looked up into his face. He was looking away from her, eyes full of shame. "Draco, what happened to your arm?"

"I fell."

She now grew concerned and serious. "Draco, who did this to you? Please tell me. I won´t tell anyone else. I´m just worried about you."

He finally looked into her eyes, his eyes were full of pain. "Trust me. You don´t want to know about all the horrible things I´ve been through."

Her voice was calm and soothing. "Draco, I just want to help," she said using his words.

He gave in. "If you want to know, then I have to start at the beginning."

She nodded and gazed around the room and saw a couch. She stood up from her spot on the floor and led him to the couch. She sat down and he sat next to her. She looked over at him to let him know she was listening.

"Usually, the first feeling that a child is able to distinguish is love. The love they give and receive from their parents. The only feeling I can remember was fear. Fear of my father and fear of what my father would do to me if I didn´t obey. I didn´t always believe in what we were doing was right, I was just taught to accept it. I was taught to accept many things. Like purebloods are above all else. For as long as I can remember, I was taught to hate. Hate for muggles, hate for mudbloods, hate for anything that was good or untouched by evil. My father was an sympathetic teacher. He didn´t believe that little boys should be disobedient so every time I wouldn´t obey I would be punished. Sometimes I would be whipped and beaten to where I had to lay on my bed to heal for weeks." At this, Hermione gasped and put her hand on Draco´s shoulder which had started to shake. "Sometimes I would be locked up for weeks at a time without food to eat until I obeyed. My father was training me to learn the Dark Arts. I had to learn how to use all the Unforgivable Curses by the time I was ten. By the time I had came to my first year at Hogwarts, the only things I knew were hate, fear, and evil. I was full of loathing and selfishness. I never knew love or compassion or even friendship. That´s when I met you three. You made me see what I had been missing for all those years. The way you would sacrifice your life for each other, for love and friendship. That just made me hate you even more than I already did. Sometimes I wish I could go back to my ignorance, but I know that I never could." He looked down at the ground at his final words. He was trying to hide the tears that were slipping down his cheeks.

Hermione was speechless. Not only was she grateful at that moment for her own parents, but Draco Malfoy was crying in front of her. She reached out and pulled him to her, encircling him with her arms. "I´m sorry, Draco." Her own eyes were beginning to fill with tears. "I never knew."

"How could you? It´s not your fault. It doesn´t matter anymore." He returned her embrace by slipping his arms around her waist while laying his head on her shoulder.

"It still doesn´t explain how you got the slashes on your arms."

"Oh, that´s my punishment from my father for refusing to become a Death Eater." He gave a mirthless chuckle through his tears. He sat back up and wiped his face with the back of his hand. He leaned against the back of the couch looking at her. "Well, enough about me. I´m sorry to have kept you for so long. It´s probably really late by now. We should head back."

She leaned against him, her head upon his chest and her arms around his waist. "Draco, I´m proud of you."

He couldn´t respond to her words for they had brought fresh tears to his eyes. No one had ever said that they were proud of him. They stayed like that, crying in each other´s arms, until they both fell asleep.