Fake

Fake

Chapter One

The Dream

It was never dreams that lasted.

The girl lounging uncomfortably on the library chair knew this.

She also knew that reality was the only permanence in life. It was a harsh permanence.

Glancing down at the book in front of her, she sighed.

She was supposed to be reviewing the material for the Transfiguration test tomorrow.

But something - something she couldn't pinpoint - was stopping her.

It was nudging her with soft palms towards the land of dreams.

Hermione sighed.

Brushing her exaggerated waves from her face she imagined them into a set of bouncy locks.

Shifting her un-womanly body - she imagined it morphing into a sensuous body of a temptress.

Dreamily, she tickled her flat lips with her quill, pretending that the feather had adorned them in a seductive red instead of simply irritating them.

Oh yes, she knew that reality would carry her through life, but it was dreams that set her on the cloud that would take her there.

Right.

"There's no harm in dreaming," Hermione thought to herself pensively, and continued to dream.

The hands faded from her shoulders.

Hermione was unaware, as the strings of Time and Fate melted into her and dragged her through.

Reality then became dream-like.

The ancient bookshelves gradually faded, their color draining until everything was purely white.

The gritty texture of the library air turned into a sweet, honey-like substance that seeped into her mouth like caramel, filling her lungs.

The wooden seat that she had been sprawled upon turned into a cushion of fluff.

The air, once dusty and flat, became genuine, resembling a flowing creek in everything except tangibility.

She sank into the depths of the dream.

And suddenly the god-like fog started to dissipate. Slowly at first, so slowly that it seemed illusive as Hermione strained her eyes to see her fingers.

Clamping down her eyelids - the rationality that was imbedded in her willed her to count to ten.

She only got to six.

Strange warmth overtook her in sharp feeling.

The back of her eyelids lit up in a brilliant - fleshy red.

So she opened her eyes at six.

What she beheld was wonder in its purest form.

Shadows shifted like an army of marauding demons.

Behind jagged cliffs stacked with books covered in their fingerprints, they hid their demonic bodies.

They yearned for fear, it was their alcohol.

So Draco tried his very best to pretend he wasn't afraid.

Sneaking into the library at night, at a time when one could hope that the rest of the world had been mauled silently to death, was not an intelligent choice.

If not intelligent, at least it was a choice.

A choice that he had to desperately make.

Earlier in the night Draco had faked an ill-feeling stomach and had retreated to his room.

It wasn't exactly the most secure of places, but it was the best he had been able to get at such short notice.

During dinner he had heard Blaise whispering to Pansy.

Draco, overtaken by a curiosity surge, had listened.

"Do not be late, Pansy. And don't forget to bring Draco, it's expected he be there, but don't tell him where you're taking him. He hasn't seemed like himself lately."

Blaise had been right.

So Draco had hidden in his room.

Pansy, being a fragile sort of girl, had given into his excuse: a flip of chocolate hair, drowning him in her soft green eyes, a blown kiss; then she had let him be.

Pansy reminded him of the rabbit.

A rather intelligent -sadistic- Kneazle had been lying out in a field, meowing to the heavens from underneath the tree Draco had been lounging in. Its limbs had been thrown out in several odd directions and its pitiful cries had echoed through the field, weaving its way through the grass and the occasional wild flower.

Draco, not wanting to break the spell the tree had settled on his soul, had refrained from climbing out of the tree to end the creature's misery with a well aimed tree bough.

He didn't know how the creature had gotten there. He had been erasing bad memories when its yowling took their place.

After a few minutes of non-stop mewing, Draco had reached his wits end and had started to climb out of his tree.

He had been hanging upside down, readying himself to grab the underlying branch, when he had spotted the movement.

He had frozen; the prospect that the movement came from a ravenous beast - ready to gobble up the death ridden kitty - had seemed very real.

He had almost fallen from his branch when he saw it was only a bunny.

The bunny, a rich mixture of cream and golden corn, had inched its way out of the protective veil of plant fiber.

Draco hadn't been the only one to spot him.

For a split second, the Kneazle had stopped its pitiful tirade. The bunny had also stopped inching.

Then a low simper drifted from the Kneazle's jaw - low enough to make its own sun colored fur stand on end. White teeth had flashed in the summer light. But the bunny was hooked.

It lopped toward the fallen comrade, after all they were both fluffy and bright, and came up slowly to sniff at the cat's imaginary wound.

The cat had let out a whimper.

Then it let straighten out a leg that had, a mere moment ago, looked irreparable.

Draco almost shouted at the fluffy idiot bunny to retreat, but then at that moment, a spider decided to drop on his face.

Yelping and flailing at his face, he jerked his legs a little too much to the left and lost his hold.

The tree, a large oak of some kind, had many strong-thick branches, many of which Draco collided with on his way down.

The creatures, too surprised by the falling object, hadn't thought to move.

When the universe finally righted itself, it found two idiots crushed by the force of another moaning idiot clawing at a broken arm.

He hadn't moaned because of the arm.

Pansy reminded Draco of that unfortunate bunny from the summer holidays.

It wasn't a very flattering memory to compare her to.

But one day, just because she was a little too ditsy to notice, she would end up dead because of her kindness.

She would either be prematurely dead from a force right in front of her nose, or one she never thought to get out of the way of.

It was slightly depressing, but Draco didn't have time to be her hero.

Some part of the selfish being he had been - as close as the beginning of this year - was still there.

He had to save his skin first.

Like right now.

Draco just knew, with a gut-wrenching knowledge that the rumors he had heard of, had manifested into a truth.

It didn't matter that this was Hogwarts.

Or that the Boy-Who-Lived was sleeping in the same approximate area.

No.

The fools were planning a 'Junior' Death Eater meeting anyways.

This was in a time that the whiff of such an activity could earn them a bit more than detention for life.

Azkaban anyone?

Pansy would get herself eaten alive.

The common room had been deserted when Draco had snuck out.

The thought had just exploded in his drowsing mind.

His hair had been stuck in an array that closely resembled Scar-head's and he had already slipped into his cotton sleeping pants, enjoying the blessed feeling of seclusion with his arm, and the shadow that painted it, uncovered behind his closed curtains.

Yet, insanely, the thought of the Transfiguration test the next morning had come.

And there was a certain book, Time Travel: the Dangers, Intricacies, and the Large Role of Fate - which wasn't in his ownership - that was the key to that test.

Terrible timing.

The universe was plotting to turn him into a mad-magician.

The house-elves were finally coming to get him.

Those thoughts had all came to mind.

All excuses.

For above all those petty things, it was that face that haunted him.

He wouldn't have been able to face the nightmares this night.

So, he had rolled off of the bed and onto the floor, groaning.

His mind still fuzzy, Draco had felt under his bed for his folded cloak.

Successfully resisting the urge to slam himself into unconsciousness with the aid of his floor - since that could temporarily solve all of his problems- his fingers had finally hooked onto his school robe and he had pulled it on in several grunting, sleepy movements.

Attaching the robe clasp in the front to cover his bare chest, he had slipped out of his green sanctuary out into the darkness of a dead Hogwarts.

But not before he left a note on his night-stand for Pansy.

It was probably unnecessary, but just in case....

Now, here he was, afraid of a library after having braved the forlorn and pressing eyes of the Hogwart's halls.

The strings that had been tied to Draco's soul for so long seemed almost obvious, but all he felt was a dull thrumming he dismissed as nerves.

"I should have insisted that I go to that school in India," Draco muttered to himself, as he slowly padded past the front tables. "It would have saved me a whole lot of trouble."

Upon reaching the blurred outlines of the shelves, he finally risked lighting his wand.

With the light, what had been hidden in a dangerous darkness was suddenly thrown in sharp relief. And the inner thrumming stopped.

For a moment Draco thought she was dead. He hadn't even heard breathing.

But the slight rise of her chest proved him wrong.

Draco just had to smirk. Here in front of him, deeply sleeping, lay the filth of the Gryffindor Threesome; asleep alone in the library.

But the smirk quickly faded as he unconsciously studied her, and his light drew nearer.

She was slumped over in a rather uncomfortably looking ladder-back chair.

Her face was nestled against one arm, which was holding down those frizzy curls of hers.

Her features were turned toward him. The other arm fell limply at her side.

She looked... different.

Well, it wasn't exactly like he got a good look of her... ever.

He had never allowed himself.

This creature in front of him did not resemble the image of her in his mind.

In his mind, what stood out was a pair of large teeth, hate filled eyes, and not forgetting, a rather resilient hand.

Ugly.

Yet, he couldn't see any of it as he studied her now.

Dare he say it... she looked pretty in his wand light.

That thought almost made him run for the door.

From there he could have found the nearest loose stone and smashed some sense back into his fogged mind.

His beliefs hadn't changed that much.

But he was on a mission.

He would find that Transfiguration book even if it destroyed him.

Which it would, if he couldn't find it fast and then get back to sleep.

He didn't wake the Mudblood up; once he found the book he would leave. She could get caught and get detention in the morning.

She was not his problem.

An hour later, a frustrated Draco found himself back at the still sleeping girl.

He would have sworn on the Dark Lord that the idiotic book had been here earlier.

An earlier when he should have gotten the book - admittedly.

McGonagall would mutilate him, throw his body to the Gryffindors to trample on, and then call his mother once she graded his test to find that the test had not only defeated him, but demolished him into tiny, insignificant particles after he got every question wrong.

At least his father wouldn't be able to harangue him.

In cases such as these, Draco was almost sure they had a grade lower than Troll - maybe Floor, or Wall...

Huffing silently, Draco was led into a chair by a grasp he could not feel, onto the other side of the Mudblood's face.

He would Crucio the person who had checked out that book.

Minutes later, Draco still hadn't come up with a decent enough course of action. He needed that book, and he wasn't willing to leave the library without it.

That was that.

"Damn you Mudblood for picking such an uncomfortable place to sit..." Draco whispered to himself as he shifted in the chair.

The old strings round his body softened, changing somehow, and then tightened in triumph as he unconsciously flinched.

He didn't notice when he drowsed off - slumping next to the sleeping girl.

Hermione thought she would die. The sight in front of her wasn't allowing her to breath.

She was on a cloud, literally.

Around her in clumps and lumps, lay cloud.

Hills, meadows, mountains: they were all of cloud.

Blue, such a clear stunning blue was all else that could be seen.

It was overwhelming in the way as when one enters a kitchen of freshly baked cookies.

"This isn't logical..." Hermione almost voiced.

But then she just stuffed that voice right back where it belonged, in reality. Right now she wanted to enjoy her dream.

Draco didn't know where he was. Usually, his dreams were haunting, lately - horrifically so.

They were always filled with beastly men swathed in black with white masks and monstrous deeds that, like this dream, were so clear they seemed real.

Excluding the more recent ones.

The ones that were just as clear, but unlike the others, ones he could not simply adapt and bluff his way through by simply calling them silly nightmares.

No, he hadn't been able to ignore those dreams - and so they had changed him.

But this - it was awing.

For once, he had truly stepped into a dream.

He never wanted to go back to reality.

Mountains of cloud towered over him: soft and pure; he was nothing to these drapes of Mother Nature with his ruined soul.

But they didn't crush him; it was more like they were cradling him, protecting him.

It surprised him.

It was a feeling that he had yearned for his whole life, searched for, yet he had never fully achieved it.

Sure, he had caught glances. A brush here, a sweet whisper there, but never had he grasped it; he had never had a chance to cradle it back.

The clouds swirled around him for a few moments.

A hand formed briefly, and grasping his shoulder reassuringly before it faded away.

He didn't physically feel it.

But there he stood, eyes closed toward the heavens.

He stayed that way for quite some time.

Hermione wadded through the fluff, her blue dress, a hint lighter than the brilliant sky, hiked up to her knees.

The clouds, at the moment, were acting like a stubborn sludge. Nevertheless, Hermione was enjoying herself. The clouds were illuminating against her skin, leaving beads of fine moisture.

A slight, peaceful smile graced her lips.

But in some far corner of reality, Hermione was wondering why she had never experienced a dream so real before.

She couldn't see the humanoid shape through the clouds watching and skipping besides her.

Her inner voice was suddenly silenced.

Hermione had just emerged out of a thin sheet of fog that acted like a door for the thicker wall to her sides.

She had walked into a sun-lit valley.

From all sides, colossal mountain clouds ranged, sweeping deep down into its land.
Shafts of light pierced down through the valley's shadows, dappling the whole area in white and gray.

And right in the middle, under a particularly wide shaft of light, stood a young man.

He wasn't an angel; he could have never held up the wings.

Yet, the light so perfectly framed him that he appeared to Hermione as an angel.

Narrow shoulders seemed to lead to an even narrower waist, but it was all stretched into a lean, tall body.

His blond tresses were turned a golden white by the sun as they lounged across his face, matching the white clothes he was wearing.

He seemed relaxed, and perfectly peaceful, with his eyes shut, as if he was gazing at his creator.

His arms were tense though, his hands turned into contradictory fists.

Hermione stood there, stunned. She... well, he was creature she should never touch.

And he seemed too untouchable, like a breath of wind that would be gone as soon as she reached out to try and feel it; he seemed so unreal.

Just as she thought that - her contracted throat released a low pant, which to her embarrassment, sounded more like a moan.

She wanted to touch him.

And that was when he opened his eyes.

Oh, what kind of storm did they hold?

Hermione almost faded out of existence when those eyes met hers.

They were filled with guilt, despair, forgiveness, and others; they just swirled in those unimaginably deep blue-gray eyes, a perfect storm.

They were just a hint darker than the sky.

They struck Hermione so deeply, so strongly, that she took one step backwards and fell to the ground.

It had been so wonderful, for just once, to not think.

Draco had let his mind float, letting his mind sink below the currents, jump above the waves.

It didn't let him stop feeling, though it had let him relax.

Then he had heard her.

A guttural moan, an unknown spice that was viscous in texture and drawn out beyond sound.

The resonance was so low that it made his spine shake.

When he opened his eyes to gaze on the intruder, his nerve cells paralyzed themselves.

If they hadn't he surely would have died.

Her eyes were that of the earth.

A brown of skin and sun that with a glance, showed the world.

She belonged to the earth.

They way her body curved resembled the hypnosis of standing atop of a mountain and looking down.

Yet her face made him want to fall off that mountain just to touch her.

Her face was soft, yet hard underneath and so full of character.

It wasn't an ordinarily beautiful, or an oddly beautiful; it was just full of a passionate personality that made him want more, and more... until he was pulled under by her force of will.

But before he could commit unintentional suicide in her presence, she took a step backwards and fell.

She made even that seem right.

It gave Draco just the opening he needed.

He restrained himself from bounding to her side; instead he opted for a less enthusiastic gait.

He still made it in record time.

It seemed like she was disinclined to rise though.

Maybe she was still falling.

Her eyes were squeezed shut; she was an intricate clock hand, frozen only as long as Draco gazed upon her.

So Draco kneeled next to her.

Her oak colored curls were damp, though as the sun explored her hair it lit a path of gold, claiming her as its daughter.

Draco couldn't help himself; he reached, touching a curl on the side of her face.

And that's when she opened her eyes.

And for the life of both, all they could do was stare.

Hermione's mouth slightly parted in surprise.

Draco's hand, an unmoving caress against her cheek.

"Hermione..."

"Draco..."

In one sweeping movement, the clouds covered them both.

And down they fell, back to reality.

Their strings of Fate and Time were tied.

Fate was pleased - their plan was healthy.

Now all was up to Time.

Hermione's eyes were jolted open like the curtains in a lover's bedroom, so sudden and unwanted lest the sunshine dissipate the atmosphere.

It was strange when she found there was no sunlight.

Encompassing her tense form were books. But that wasn't all; a warm presence also inhabited her space. She could feel it.

Then she heard his breathing.

It was swift and hurried, but with an underlying tranquility, just like hers.

Hermione did not move; the practical part of her mind feared this unknown presence feverishly.

So Hermione, being stuck in the impractical at the moment, lifted onto her elbows and turned her head.

"Malfoy?"

She was just as surprised as he that no hint of loathing touched her tone, only that of curiosity.

Unlike Hermione, Draco let the view of the world seep in slowly, letting his eyes flutter open.

Just like in the dream, they both stared.

They were shocked; the other's image was exactly, curve for curve, trace by trace, like the dream.

Certainly, they were shocked.

In reality, neither had wanted to really see the other.

It took a forced - desperate - collision of Fate's design, to make them see.

When a disembodied voice from afar floated in through an opening between the library doors, their gazes still did not break.

"Draco! Draco, where are you?"

Hermione was opening her mouth to answer it when Draco covered her lips with his hand.

Draco's hands, Hermione noticed faintly as he shook his head, were not elongated and spindly, but soft and not at all manicured like Lavender had insisted.

They were just kind of normal.

Hermione gave him a narrowed-amused look over his fingers. A look that he automatically returned.

"Draco!"

The library doors and darkness were all that held back the owner of the voice.

In a swift movement fit for a Seeker, Draco grabbed her wrist and lifted her out of the chair. The two of them seeped into the darkness.

"Malfoy," Hermione whispered, tugging at his hand as the sinister bookcases rushed by with Draco's robe flaring slightly, "the books..."

"Leave them."

His breath was no longer tranquil, he was panting. Adrenaline slugged through his veins, patiently filling him.

Neither felt much of anything other than a strange excitement, and a particular pleasure, forgetting that they were supposed to feel something else

This night was very strange.

Hermione was finally squeezed into a corner at the far end of the library. Well, it was more like a tunnel, Hermione reasoned to herself.

It was hidden behind a bookshelf, limiting the space.

Glancing toward the shelf, Hermione noticed that they were all of Muggle history, an area that was rarely used by the general school population if the dust pointed to any indication. But as the eye wandered the shelf, it would meet patches of displaced dust: a palm, a perfectly preserved cloth print, and recently, two fingers drawn in a long ragged line across the dull wood.

Concentrating, she kept her eyes on the books, though all she could see were the pages and she was unaware of the vulgar dusty patterns.

A safer rout it was, Hermione didn't want to dwell on how she had gotten into the corner. Though, that end point was very hard to ignore.

I must still be dreaming, Draco thought.

Here he was hiding from Pansy, and instead of sleeping, he was with Hermione Granger.

He already knew he was mad, but this was like throwing himself into a sixty foot tidal wave.

But pleasure was blooming in his chest, and he really didn't want to let it go.

That dream had been... amazing. This reality didn't feel any less like a dream than the dream had. Both had held reality, now it was just like the scenery had changed.

This girl in front of him had not changed from the deity.

In cliché, he wondered why he had never seen it before.

Oh, of course there was a part of his mind that was disgusted.

This was the infuriating Granger.

The perfect girl that caused his father to throw loathsome looks at him.

Purebloods had to be more perfect than Mudbloods.

Pet of Potter whose nose he had broken on the train in the beginning of the year.

He still sometimes chuckled at that.

He was supposed to be revolted by her very Mudblood presence.

But that part was only using a feeble lighting charm to attract his attention, one that was fading by the minute.

While the world outside, the girl included, had built a bonfire, drawing his soul into a whipping sensation of fire, joy, and innate feelings.

The magic inside of him felt afire.

All the beliefs he had been clinging to in avoidance of totally losing himself, caught afire, and crumbled into a fine gritty ash that was promptly swept into a shadow.

Draco had propelled her into the corner. So at the moment, he had her pinned against the wall while his hands straddled her.

Draco watched as her eyes darted among the volumes to her left and even in the dark, he could see how her hands were nervously clutching at her skirt.

Almost imperceptible, a smile forgave him.

He let loose a large grin.

Hermione could feel him staring at her. But she didn't do anything. She could hear a part of her preaching - having caught up after being left behind during the flight through the library- conjuring images of pain, towering monsters, disappointed friends and everything that was normal and comforting going down the drain.

It was so strange, strange that every other corner of her soul didn't care.

What was wrong with her?

"Draco? Are you here in the library?"

The voice called from the faraway door; it was lower now, as if to make up for the loudness of its calling earlier.

"Draco," Hermione whispered. The name was slightly foreign on her tongue. She inclined her face to his.

That turned out to be a bad idea.

Her question got sucked back down her throat. From afar he was unnoticeable (besides the hair), and when he would come toward you, it seemed to stick, unchanging. And to add to that, the image of a twelve-year-old boy with a too thin face spitting 'Mudblood' at her was how Hermione had come to see Draco Malfoy before the dream. She had thought of him for so long as plainly ugly.

Well, she had never noticed him change. She had never noticed she had been plain wrong.

Well, now she noticed.

His face, his features, were thin, they were angular, but so precisely lined that some higher being must have drawn him.

And obviously his idea of hair was screwed on backwards. In his younger years he had besotted his head with hair products. Now, with age, he had discarded them in favor of nothing, nothing at all. His hair fell around his skull naturally, wild grass swaying to an unseen wind.

His lips, well, Witch-Teen Weekly might call them pathetic, but Hermione saw that his lips were part of his trademark personality. And they were attractive, in a way; slight, making them slightly needy.

Right now she really wanted to give them what they needed.

But first she had to ask her question.

"Malfoy," she started again, avoiding his stare. For the moment, she didn't want to know what kind of look he was giving her. "Why aren't you going?"

Draco was trying to pick up his pieces.

Something inside of him had just exploded and he didn't know what.

All she did was look at him and say his name.

Apart, they created merely a rumble of disquiet. Together they were dangerous.

He wanted her to do it again, then again, again, and to keep going.

Her features and face were so soft, oval in nature, looking as if they would melt into his touch; he knew they would.

The curls that swam across her features, mussed by sleep, were sharp and defined in comparison. They were wild and he wanted to explore that uncharted desert, for it would scorch him. He would enjoy it.

Her lips would be his fruit.

And....

Then she broke his scrutiny with her question.

"I don't want to belong there."

His eyes met hers.

Her eyes, they were brown and round,

Filled with fire and earth transfused.

His eyes, they were grayish blue and slightly slanted,

Air and water amalgamated in his soul.

"And I don't want to go. There are only so many things one can be made into doing. At the moment, I'm made to do something that I don't particularly want to do. And I won't be made into anything else, if I can help it."

The voice gave another unintelligible cry, cutting at his ramble. It was at the opposite end of the library.

His voice dropped down.

"Do you act?"

"No."

Her voice was a stir of air.

Silence reigned for a tick of minutes.

"Granger... Hermione, why are you not leaving?"

"I... don't want to."

"I never thought of you as anything different." Hermione's voice was thoughtful and deliberate.

"And now you're standing out from the scenery I had planted you in.

But it's like the scenery has changed, and now there's a chance to explore it, explore you. Can I take it?"

Oddly, a blush was absent after her speech.

"I can't see why not..." he said, tempting, leaning toward her.

Hermione, detangling her hands from her now wrinkled skirt, laid her hands lightly against his chest.

When her hands suddenly found bare skin, she started as if the wind had blown a puff of air that, unintentionally, lifted her skirt.

Her hands drew back and tunneled to her stomach, and now her cheeks burst into a deep and passionate flame.

Draco stopped his slow, but steady advancement. A smile hinted in his face.

"Is something wrong?"

"Maybe..."

Draco knew his voice was getting husky.

And his body was... reacting.

Suddenly, a thought struck him.

A pale, but strong hand; she was figuratively reaching out to him. How he was brought up, and his family's beliefs told him not to take that hand, at all costs.

But he wanted to.

And as he thought about it, why shouldn't he do what he wanted?

He didn't necessarily want to please his family anymore.

Not after he had seen his own view of the truth.

He was spoiled, but with possessions, not care.

Though an only child, his parents had always had other things on their mind.

Even more so now.

They only seemed to care that he was theirs and would be molded to their liking. He was their clay; they cared for him like they would a prized project. If it suddenly disappeared or was broken, they would mourn, scorn the heavens, but would get on without it.

And he would not leave a place in their hearts that would never fade. Contrary, his place would fade into a 'that would have turned out so well'.

'He would have made us proud as a Death Eater.'

He didn't want that at all.

They had a place in his heart, imprinted and permanent.

But he would not do what they wanted.

He would do what he wanted.

Because in the end, it would only matter to him.

So, maybe he could... change, just a little bit more.

But that seemed like such a foreign word.

For it never really seemed like changing - after he started having the dreams. The ones that made him loath the Dark Lord.

Just realizing.

He never used to loath the Dark Lord because he never really registered what the Dark Lord did.

Or was.

Killing Mudbloods seemed more real when the screams echoed in your ears and their faces were all your pupils could focus on.

Especially, in an unobserved paradox, your unseen hands passed right through their bodies when you tried to staunch the muck of vivid red blood.

It was realizing, not that word...changing.

It made him nervous. So, instead he decided he wouldn't think about that and just ride down the bloody waterfall and take hold of that figurative hand that might help him where nobody else could.

Life had been rushing him along a steady-turbulent stream that he didn't necessarily want to follow, so why not go down the shallow side rout, even if it ended in a waterfall?

It was his choice.

And in a way, it was like he was always waiting for it to manifest itself.

A choice.

Fate and Time laughed at him.

Draco was frozen for a whole minute. Hermione didn't bother him, his eyes seemed far away.

She was too nervous to do anything anyway.

The voice was still calling, coming ever closer when it suddenly stopped short.

And here was her life's opposite, in too many manners to mention, leaning towards her, bare-chested beneath his robe in a deserted library.

The real surprise was that he was still here.

Should she too stay?

She had thought she knew the facts, but it seemed she didn't.

Not one bit.

"Who blacked your eye, Granger? I want to send them flowers."

That made her pause. Maybe she did know his bits.

Or maybe his bits were changing.

And so she would also stay, as long as the enigma in front of her stayed away from what she thought he was.

Because what she knew of him before this strangeness was not pleasing - not pleasing at all.

She always heard that people could never change too.

But then came the question, have they ever seen anyone do it?

Maybe it was rare, but Hermione knew that if someone wanted to change, they could.

If they really wanted to, they would.

When she looked back up, Draco had changed.

He no longer looked tense.

Hermione remembered a Muggle man from a newspaper. He had accomplished suicide.

Draco's expression reminded her of the dead man's, a picture of him a day before his death.

The man had just let go of life, he had been ready for death.

He had already let go.

"What did you let go of?"

Hermione whispered to Draco, curious.

It certainly... hopefully, wasn't his life.

"Expectations."

Draco gave her an equally curious look.

"How did you know I let go of something?"

"Your face." Hermione smiled.

And to her surprise, he bestowed upon her a most brilliant smile. The stars twinkled downward and lit up the inside of Hermione's eyes. He had never smiled like that.

Not in her sightline.

"I don't have to act anymore, I guess."

"Sure..."

His mouth was an inch from hers. Now a few mini-inches.

And there was heat.

A feather of soft warmth against her lips it was.

It grafted against her skin.

His skin, yielding yet rough, wanted to merge with hers.

Yes, she wanted it.

Then he was forced away from her.

"Draco! I know you're in here. Please, just come, I see the books."

Then a pause.

"Did you know what they were going to do?!"

The voice was close, and now Hermione could hear the tears.

For a moment, Draco looked like he was going to ignore the voice and just kiss her.

"Draco, please... just please," the voice begged, sobbing now.

"You should go to her," Hermione whispered, lightly pushing him away.

He barely moved.

Then his chin slowly dipped.

Leaning back he asked, "Do I have to act with you?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Can you meet me here tomorrow during breakfast?"

Hermione nodded.

Draco nodded.

Then he left.