Ultimately

Chapter Three

What had he done?
Draco felt sure that his heart was being compressed by his own lungs because he couldn't breathe, and his heart felt as though it were straining against the confines of his ribcage. It seemed that it took him a whole lifetime to reach her as she fell, is arms already outstretched, his fingers aching to hold her, to pull her up and save her. But he was too slow. Her head smacked the concrete with an unnatural crack, a sound so terrifying that all he could think was 'No, she can't die; she can't leave me'.
He fell to his knees next to her now motionless body and he slowly rolled her over. Her face, her beautiful face, was covered in mud all down the left side due to the way she had landed. Not able to cope seeing her beauty blemished in this way he gently rubbed the mud from her face with the side of his hand, as Pansy ran to find a professor.
Draco saw that her eyes had flickered open slightly and she was peering at him from under heavy lids. In the madness of the moment, not helped by his sheer joy at this closeness even under these circumstances, he said something he knew he shouldn't have said. Things which he later couldn't decide whether he regretted, or whether he was relieved that he had finally said them.
"I'm here Hermione. I'm not going to leave you; not ever. I want you to know that I'm yours; I'm yours body and soul".

Her eyes fell shut again after only a few seconds. He sat there on the frost-bitten ground next to her, with her hand in his, for what seemed to him like forever. He watched the blood pool around the cut on her forehead and realised that he couldn't wait for Pansy to come back now, where ever she had gone to. He had to do something.
He scooped her up in his arms, held her head close to his chest, supporting it as one would when holding a child. He could feel her breath, although weaker than usual, warmly dancing over the fine hairs of his chest. He strode as fast as he could without jolting her injured head too much; down the path he had just walked with Pansy, up the sweeping staircases inside the castle. People were noticeably staring at them; and really, he couldn't blame them. After all, it wasn't every day they saw Granger and him together, let alone see him carrying her about like this, blood falling gently down the side of her face.
When he finally reached Madame Pomfrey's wing, he lay her down on an empty bed, of which there were many; in fact, aside from Hermione, Pomfrey and himself, there was only a boy sat on the edge of the bed closest to the door holding an ice pack to his eye. Pomfrey ran over and began working on Hermione as Draco slid down into a chair, putting his head heavily into his hands.
He was bad for her and he knew it. This time he would stick by his promises he made to himself. He had to leave Hermione alone, for her own sake.

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Hermione's eyes first opened properly at around half past one in the afternoon the day after she had fallen. She cringed as the memory of what had happened the night before came back to her suddenly, an unpleasant epiphany. Even though she could not remember a great deal of what had occurred last night, and barely any memories of after the fall had survived through to the morning. But somehow, based on next to nothing, she knew that he had been kind; that he had been gentle; that he had been loving. He had run to her as she fell, that much she could tell from the desperate slapping of his shoes against the cold concrete, and the swiftness with which he had his arms around her as she lay. In the tenderness of his touch on her face she could feel how much he cared for her, and it made her heart swim.
But he was still a Malfoy. He was still the same boy who had teased her mercilessly in the past on account of her being muggle-born. He was still the son of a death eater. He was still the boy her two closest friends hated.
Just then Ron and Harry came running in through the doors of the hospital wing, Harry holding a handful of only slightly wilting wildflowers, presumably from the field surrounding the castle.
"What happened, Hermione? Are you alright?" asked Ron, as he sat down in the chair next to the bed.
"I'm fine, Ron. It's just a knock to the head, that's all. I must have slipped on the icy floor when I came to meet you last night. Just a clumsy accident."
"Oh I'm so sorry Hermione. We did come here by the way, we thought Madame Pomfrey would let us stay because we assumed you'd be on your own all night and we didn't want you waking up to an empty room'.
"What do you mean, sorry? I don't understand."
"Well we came, like I said, but Pomfrey told us to come back in the morning, you already had a visitor."
"What time was this?"
"I dunno...about midnight I guess. We left for Hogsmeade without you 'coz we assumed you'd forgotten to finish an assignment or something. Then when we got back and none of the girls had seen you, we got worried and went looking for you." Ron replied, his hand picking idly at the flowers Harry had brought her.
"Yeah," continued Harry, "but luckily we ran into Pansy Parkinson in the hallway and she told us you had fallen."
"Ah, okay..." Hermione murmured, her mind now elsewhere, almost drunk with this new information; he had stayed with her until at least midnight.
Then where was he now?