Complicated

Complicated - Chapter 5

January 26, 2003

The next morning at breakfast, Hermione sat chewing absently on her sausages and biscuits. She was trying to pay attention to Harry and Ron's heated conversation over who was meaner: the Dursleys or Professor Snape, as well as watch the Slytherin table out of the corner of her eye for Draco, and appear natural at the same time. It wasn't very easy. Still, Hermione managed to avoid anyone noticing her lack of being all there, and breakfast passed by without anything really interesting happening. Draco never appeared.

Just as Hermione was standing up to take her usual Saturday morning trip to the library for after breakfast reading, a rush of wind and the sound of numerous hoots stopped her. The mail had arrived. Hermione settled back into her chair to wait the steady flow of owls out. Any Hogwarts student knew better than to try to move while the mail was delivered, unless they were in sudden need for a concussion or a talon through the head. Hermione didn't really want either, so she waited.

No mail ever came for her, save for the Daily Post she received once a week, but that was on Mondays. Hermione didn't own an owl and her parents were too nervous of the reliability of owl post to actually use it. Because of this, mail time wasn't as thrilling for her as it was for most of the other students. All down the Gryffindor table, students were exclaiming over what they had received. Harry had just been delivered the latest issue of Quidditch Monthly, and he and Ron were absorbed in it as soon as he had ripped the plastic covering off. Hermione rolled her eyes. She thought Quidditch to be a real waste of time and only went to the games because Harry played.

The flow of owls had waned, and Hermione started to stand up once more. She was startled by a large, grey owl swooping dangerously close to her head and dropping a rolled piece of parchment into her lap. Hermione picked it up and stared after the owl. It was definitely a school owl, that much she could tell. Who would send her something through a school owl? She looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Most of the people around were engrossed in their mail. Ron and Harry were currently "oohing" and "ahhing" over some player on the Wimbledon Wasps, too distracted to notice a bomb going off beside them, let alone Hermione getting mail. Leaning over, so as to stop anyone from reading whatever it would say, she pulled the string that held it together and unrolled the fresh piece of parchment in her lap.

Glistening green ink scrawled across the parchment forming a brief, simple note.

Come to the lake at midnight tonight - bring no one.

DM

"Draco?" Hermione whispered.

Draco Malfoy wanted to meet her by the lake at midnight - alone. Slipping the parchment into her robes, Hermione said an unheard goodbye to her best friends, who were still too deep in their magazine to notice, and headed to the library to think.

~

Draco watched her read the note from his place outside the door. She had seemed shocked to see mail for herself, which made him laugh. Stupid mudbloods - never taught their parents right. When she stood up and started toward his hiding spot near the main doors, Draco quickly hid behind a statue until her figure had bounded out of sight, in the direction of the library.

Ignoring the slight pains in his heart for what he had to do, Draco sauntered into the Great Hall for some breakfast, arranging the usual cold, smug look back onto his face.

~

By 9:00 pm, Hermione had been in the library twice, outside a dozen times, and paced up and down nearly all of Hogwarts, excluding the dungeons. She had turned the thoughts from last night over and over, and over yet again, hoping to find a loophole through which she could escape the predicatment meeting Malfoy at midnight would put her in. But, no matter what, her overall curiousity at just who Draco Malfoy might really be outweighed all other notions, and she finally decided, while reciting the password (gobbledy gook) to the Fat Lady, that she might as well give in and go.

Although the common room was filled with people and noise as usual, all was quiet in the corner Hermione sat, calmly reading a novel. Or, at least she appeared calm. Inside, Hermione was running again through her mind the miniscule contents of the note and everything Draco had ever said to her, all while trying to figure out how to ask Harry for the use of his invisibility cloak without raising any suspicions.

When the common room began to empty at quarter to ten, Hermione caught Harry by the arm and asked him to look over her essay for Snape's class. This wasn't as unusual as it might be for any other class - Snape was equally brutal with all Gryffindor students, so Harry followed without question. She handed him the assignment (Hermione didn't want to have to tell too many lies that night) and impatiently watched the straggling first years finally make their way up their respective stairways while he read it over.

"Well, I think it's great, as your stuff usually is, but you know Snape. Most likely he'll find half of it incorrect and at least one reason to take five points from Gryffindor in it," Harry said when he finished, handing the parchment back to her.

"Thanks, Harry," Hermione smiled.

Harry nodded and started to walk to the stairs. "G'night, Hermione."

There was no one in the common room, Hermione saw with relief. "Harry, wait!" she called after him.

He turned at the bottom of the stairs. "Yeah? What is it now, Hermione?"

"Okay, um, well, um ...," Hermione wasn't sure how to say what she needed to say without telling Harry where she was going. "Harry, you're my friend, right?"

"Um, sure." He looked puzzled.

"Well, I need a favor from you. I need to borrow your Invisibility Cloak, and I need it tonight. I can't tell you why or where I'm going to use it, but I trust that you're a good enough friend not to ask."

Harry seemed to be contemplating what she said. "Are you going to be doing anything dangerous?"

"No, nothing dangerous at all!" Hermione lied.

"But you can't tell me?"

"No. Listen, Harry, please, trust me on this. I'm not doing anything dangerous and I will have it back to you before you wake up in the morning. I just need it to not be seen. Do you trust me?"

Harry looked at her, his green eyes alive and sparkling. Finally, he sighed. "All right, you can borrow it."

Hermione grinned and gave him a short hug. "Thank you so much, Harry!"

She waited while Harry crept upstairs and then back down, silvery material billowing over his arms. He handed the cloak to her and she hugged him once more. When he was halfway up the steps, Harry turned back to where Hermione was still standing, the Invisibility Cloak draped over one arm.

"Hermione, please, be careful. I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't get yourself into danger on purpose, but please, just watch out. You know what Hogwarts is like after dark." His eyes were pleading and Hermione knew in an instant how much her friend cared for her. As an afterthought, Harry added, "Stay away from the dungeons. Snape likes to roam."

Then he was up the stairs and Hermione was alone in the warm, cheery common room, with only herself as company in the long wait from 11:02 to 11:45. She sat in the chair she had occupied most of her time spent that night in the room, occasionally pacing back and forth in short rampages of thought. Crookshanks came down to visit her once, around 11:25, but left when Hermione went into one of her pacing routines. Finally, 11:45 rolled around and, donning the Invisibility Cloak, Hermione creaked open the portrait hole (barely disturbing the Fat Lady, who only sleepily mumbled, "Who's there?" before returning to her slumber) and began to creep down the numerous halls and staircases that would lead her to the giant wooden front doors.

She was feeling quite lucky as she reached the entrance hall, having seen no sight of Filch, Mrs. Norris, Snape, or even a ghost. Unfortunately, luck never quite works out. Just as Hermione was started the short walk across the marble floor to the doors, the sound of singing approached, growing louder every second. Hermione scuffled behind a statue, just in case it was someone who could somehow see through the cloak. Within a minute, Peeves bounced into the room.

He was singing some song or another, Hermione failed to catch more than a word or two. She waited, barely breathing, as he bounced around the room, giggling maliciously as he spray painted naughty words on the walls. Filch would have a fit for this, but Hermione suspected Peeves didn't really mind. He seemed to be having a lot of fun, and it was a relief when the poltergeist finally bounced and hummed his way out of the room and down the hall, apparently to wreak havoc elsewhere.

Hermione quickly crossed the hall and slipped quietly out the doors. It was chilly outside, but not all that bad for the time of year. She ran across the cold, hard ground, her footsteps echoing in the silent night. When she reached the edge of the trees that bordered the lake, Hermione slowed to a walk. She passed through the trees and reached the clearing where the lake was.

He was standing on top of one of the large rocks that littered the banks of the lake. A silver moon hung in the sky, its reflection glittering in the lake surface below. She stood beside a tree, watching his figure breathlessly, contemplating why she was even there. Finally, after a moment that felt like a lifetime, she stepped out of the shadows, purposely snapping a twig.

Draco whirled around, maintaining perfect balance on top of the rock. "So, you showed up," he said, staring down from his superior high place with a look that made Hermione shiver.

"What do you want?" She hoped her voice didn't give away how nervous she really was.

He crouched and hopped lightly off the rock, leveling himself with her. There was a good six inches difference in height between them, but Hermione held her head high. Draco stepped toward her and then stopped, the look on his face one of contemplation.

"What the hell do you want, Draco?" she asked.

Well, the tone was mean, but she had used his first name, which was a start. Draco sighed, raked a hand over his perfectly slicked-back silver blonde hair, and then pierced her with a look from his cold, gray eyes.

"I've been thinking about the other night," he began, stopping and scrunching his brow before continuing. "I mean, not that I think about you at all, because I don't. But anyway, I've been thinking and I just wanted you to know that I didn't mean it - what I said. I was just playing around, messing with your head. Trying to see how far I could go with a dumb Mudblood like yourself, you know. And you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker." He laughed at this, a short, false laugh that Hermione saw through in an instant.

"You brought me all the way out here, in the dark of night, to tell me lies?"

Draco swelled up in indignation. "Of course not. I'm telling the truth. Why would I ever care for you, or even seem like it?"

"I don't know, but Draco, I don't believe what you're saying to me. I don't believe it because I've seen you, I saw the way you were that night, and I know it was real. I know you were real - maybe for the first time in your life."

He seemed at a loss for words at this. After a moment, though, he spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. "How - how can you tell such a thing?"

Hermione filled most of the distance between them and looked deep into his eyes. "Because I saw a light in your eyes that's never been there before. The light that everyone else has that you usually do not. I saw it, and that's how I know you were real. You might act like the world's biggest prat to everyone else, even to me most of the time, but I know you're not all that you crack yourself up to be. You're more. Draco, you have so much potential to be good. I don't know what's happened to make you the way you are, but I do know that you don't have to be mean all of the time. You can be charming, and kind and caring. I know you can."

~

They were barely an inch apart, eyes boring into each other's. Draco tightened and clenched his jaw. He wasn't prepared for this - wasn't expecting her to say such things. He thought she would yell, rant a little, and definitely call him a horrible prat. But tell him he was kind and nice and that she could see a light in his eyes, one that everyone has, but he never did before? She knocked him off balance, and he had no clue what to say.

So, being a typical sixteen-year-old teenage boy, he said the complete opposite of what he wanted to say. "Yeah? Well, that's too bad because I can't and I won't and you'd be better off forgetting that conversation, as well as this one. Whatever Muggle romance books you've been reading, you better stop because they're affecting your judgment in what is real and what is fiction. Reality? People don't have lights in their eyes!" He was yelling by the end, and had stepped around Hermione and backed into the shadow of the trees, where she had stood but just a few minutes earlier.

She looked at him, almost mournfully, and softly said, "Fine."

"Fine," Draco said, turning and starting off towards the castle to brood in his dungeon room.

"Oh, Draco?" she called.

He turned around, pasting his most convincing scowl on his face.

"If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me."

Not having anything good to say to this, Draco nodded, then turned and continued in his path. He stalked up the hill, up the stone steps, and through the giant wooden doors, not caring whether he was caught or not. Snape loved him, and would listen to any foolish excuse Draco gave him. And Snape was exactly who Filch always ran to first, seeing as he was in the running with Professor McGonagall for the worst - and most irrational - punishments. Fortunately, Draco didn't run into any of the mentioned three, and made it safely to the Slytherin common room, where he flung himself into the most comfortable piece of furniture there, an over-stuffed forest green loveseat right in front of the black marble fireplace, which was still lit.

Leaning his head back and closing his eyes, Draco tried to think about what had happened and what he was going to do about it. He sat there for hours, mulling over this and that, but the main thought running through his head was the least likely for typical Slytherin badass Draco.

"She saw a light in my eyes?"

~

On the other side of the castle, footsteps echoed through the halls of Hogwarts without a body to accompany them. Underneath the Invisibility Cloak, Hermione was carefully making her trip back to Gryffindor Tower. She didn't know exactly what she had expected Draco to say when she received his note, but she had hoped it wouldn't be what he did say. Still, she hoped she had gotten through to him, even a little. If Hermione knew anything, it was sixteen-year-old boys, what with being the best friend of two, and she had learned long ago that Ron or Harry would say exactly the opposite of what they meant or wanted to say, strictly to keep their dignity. Mush didn't have a very good appeal with guys, and Hermione guessed that was doubled in Draco's case.

As she wearily climbed into her bed after giving the Fat Lady the password (gobbledy gook), leaving the cloak outside Harry's dorm room door, and creeping into her own dorm, Hermione resolved that she would keep her cool around Draco. He would come around, but until he did she had to remember exactly who he was: Draco Malfoy. The same boy who had taunted and tortured her and her friends for nearly 6 consecutive years, heir to the man who was one of Voldemort's trusted servants. She couldn't lose her head over a little bit of light in the boy's eyes - surely even Tom Riddle's had held some sort of light at one point in time. Drifting off to sleep, Hermione's mind was filled with only the image of silver hair and jewel gray eyes.