When Enemies Interact

Chapter 9: Their Own Little Place.

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Draco woke up the next morning with his head pounding and his vision blurry. He groaned loudly and closed his eyes again, wanting to go back to sleep. He faintly heard Hermione's voice calling to Madam Pomfrey that he was waking up and realised he was in the hospital wing. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten there or why he was there in the first place, however.

"Come on, Mr. Malfoy, don't go back to sleep yet," came Madam Pomfrey's voice from above him. Draco groaned again. "Mr. Malfoy, I have to give you this pain-relieving potion." Draco slowly opened his eyes again and saw an unclear figure of Madam Pomfrey leaning over him.

"My head hurts," he said dumbly.

"Of course it does," Madam Pomfrey said distractedly, placing a hand of his forehead to take his temperature. "You were hit in the head with a Bludger."

"I was?"

"Yes and you've got a concussion to say the least. You might have had some memory loss, too," Madam Pomfrey replied. "Never mind that now, though, Miss Granger will fill you in on what happened in a moment. Right now, we have to get this potion into you."

Madam Pomfrey helped Draco into a sitting position, while Hermione placed several extra pillows behind him to help support him. She then handed him a goblet with a bright purple potion in it. "Drink it all, Mr. Malfoy, I guarantee it will help."

Draco slowly raised the goblet to his lips and drank it. The slimy substance tasted terrible and Draco shuddered as it moved down his throat, but he drank every last drop of it before handing the empty goblet back to Madam Pomfrey.

"Can't you make that stuff taste better?" he asked with a look of disgust.

"No, Mr. Malfoy, I can't, you'll just have to stick with it the way it is," the matron replied in annoyance. "It should take action very soon." Draco groaned loudly again. "Oh, stop the whining, Mr. Malfoy, you're lucky that Bludger didn't kill you!" Draco just scowled at her and she walked away, muttering to herself about bad attitudes and manners.

Hermione sat and looked at Draco's pale face, which was expressing that he was in quite a lot of pain. She bit her lower lip and sighed inwardly. She suddenly felt as if it had been her that had caused this pain, for some odd reason, and wanted to be the one to make him feel better.

"How are you feeling?" she asked softly. Draco turned his head to the side looked at her.

"Are you talking to me again?" he asked her coldly. Hermione looked down at her hands and nodded quietly. "Well then, how do you think?" Draco continued with a sneer. "I've been hit in the head with a Bludger, I've got a concussion, I have to take awful tasting potion and knowing Madam Pomfrey, I'll be in here a week, if not longer. In other words, I'm feeling absolutely wonderful." His voice had been full of bitter sarcasm as he stated this.

"There's no need to get snappy with me, Draco," Hermione said irritably. "I'm sorry about the way I've been acting. I've been acting childish and I shouldn't have reacted that way. It was just so -"

"Wrong," Draco finished for her with a small amount of spite in his tone. "I honestly don't see why you keep reminding me of that, Hermione. In fact, I'm beginning to think that you're trying to convince yourself to believe that."

"I already do believe it, Draco," Hermione said. "I know it was just a kiss, but it happened too soon. You know it did."

"Whatever," Draco said without a hint of friendliness.

Hermione looked down at her hands once more, feeling suddenly close to the verge of tears. "I really want you to forgive me for being such an idiot, Draco. That's exactly what I've been and I'm really sorry."

Draco continued to look at her with a vacant expression. He recognised a hint of guiltiness in the way Hermione was acting. It was strange how such a thing caused him to just want to kiss her again - a feeling Draco was getting quite familiar with.

"So," Draco said, wanting to change the subject and clear his mind of the thoughts of kissing Hermione again. "What happened in the game? Gryffindor won most likely."

"Actually, Slytherin did. You caught the Snitch just moments after the Bludger hit you. You won a hundred and ninety points to a hundred and ten," Hermione replied. "Harry's not very happy about it. Both him and Ron are now even more upset with me, because I seemed to care more about you being unconscious than Harry's broken arm."

"Potter broke his arm?" Draco asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, the Bludger hit Harry in the arm right before it hit you," Hermione replied rather carelessly. "I'm not saying I don't care, I mean, I can't just stop caring like that. I rather feel he deserved it." Draco raised his eyebrow again. "I'll never forgive them, or apologise for that matter, unless I become suddenly desperate. Sure, I slightly miss having them as friends, but they've been pure bastards and deserve to rot in hell!"

Draco was very surprised by this. He had never thought Hermione as someone to wish the two people she had once called her best friends to "rot in hell!" He was rather impressed by this attitude, nevertheless.

"Their attitudes about everything to do with me lately has really hurt me and it's made me feel quite miserable. They don't understand; they're just being childish gits," Hermione continued in a tone full of hateful spite. She took a deep steady breath in an attempt to calm herself and her voice relaxed as she continued. "You're the only person who will really even have me as a friend at the moment, Draco, whether you can call me that or not."

Draco continued to be silent, still shocked and surprised about her attitude about Harry and Ron's behaviour.

He had listened to every single one of her words, but with every sentence, he continued to just want to grab her and kiss her. He inwardly cursed his rapid-growing feelings for her and searched his head for something relevant and sensible to say. What he said wasn't as sensible as he would've liked, though.

"Friends usually don't go and kiss each other like we did, Hermione," he said. He mentally cursed himself again. He had to bring up the kiss, didn't he? He felt a faint tingling sensation around his groin area and immediately forced himself to think of something different; hoping nothing would become noticeable.

Hermione gave a small smile. "Harry and I did," she stated grimly. Draco nodded absently, causing Hermione to frown slightly. "Is everything alright, Draco?"

Draco turned his head back to look at her abruptly. "I'm fine. I think the potion's finally kicking in," he said quickly. "Everything seems to becoming a bit ... clearer." He moved uncomfortably, wincing slightly in pain. "Why don't you go back to your common room, or something?" Hermione continued to frown, confused by his sudden strange behaviour. "I'm not trying to get rid of you or anything, it's just you must have something better to do than sit around and watch someone groan and complain about a terribly sore head..."

Hermione continued to frown deeply, now slightly amused. "I want to stay," she said quietly. "Besides, Madam Pomfrey will probably come in soon and make me leave because you need sleep."

As if on cue, the door of Madam Pomfrey's office opened and she exited. "Come on, Miss Granger, Mr. Malfoy needs sleep and lots of it."

"I told you," Hermione whispered to Draco as she stood. "I'll come and see you later, Draco." With that, she then exited through the infirmary door and heading towards Gryffindor Tower.

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It took a whole week for Madam Pomfrey to finally become satisfied with Draco's condition and let him leave. He got quite a surprise, however, when he exited the infirmary and found Professor Dumbledore standing outside with an anxious looking Hermione by his side.

Dumbledore smiled warmly at Draco when he saw him. "Feeling better, Mr. Malfoy?" he asked kindly.

Draco nodded. "Yes sir, I am."

"If you would please follow me," Dumbledore said, his blue eyes twinkling and a smile still on his face. "Both of you." They started following him, both curious as to where he was going to lead them and why he wanted them to follow him.

"For the past month or so, the other teachers and I have been working hard on some student quarters, as one might call them, for you, the Head Boy and Girl to share," Dumbledore began to inform them. His eyes gazing mostly in Draco's direction in a meaningful way as he said this. "In these quarters, you will have your own common room, study, bathroom and your own, separate bedrooms." Draco exchanged interested looks with Hermione. "It is of course your choice if you want to move into there or stay with your houses."

Both Draco and Hermione didn't know what to say; they just kept following Dumbledore until they stopped in front of a portrait of a woman in a red ball gown, who was dancing elegantly with a dark, handsome man wearing black velvet dress robes.

"This is Daniella," Dumbledore informed them, indicating the woman, "and that is Iain." He indicated the man.

The woman, Daniella, broke away from the man, Iain and turned to them. "Password?" she asked in a rich English accent.

"Petrificus," Dumbledore said with a smile. Daniella nodded and the portrait swung forward to reveal a set of burgundy-carpeted stairs. They entered and headed up them, the portrait closing behind them by itself.

When they reached the top of the stairs, the room that met them caused Hermione to gasp loudly and Draco to gape. It was absolutely magnificent.

Everything was made up with black or burgundy-coloured velvet. The polished furniture made the room look elegant. The marble fireplace was placed in the middle of the wall opposite them, with a warm fire blazing merrily in it, and there was a door on either side of it. A couch sat straight in front of the fire and on either side of the couch was an armchair, all of which were facing the fire. On the walls to their left and right, were two more doors. Oil lamps ran along the walls in a decorative way and it seemed that everything in the room was in complete symmetry.

"So, do you wish to live here?" Dumbledore asked. Both of them nodded, not taking their eyes off the room. "I'll leave you here to explore then; I shall have Hagrid move your belongings up here." He turned, a small smile still playing on his lips and proceeded out of the room.

"Can you believe this?" Hermione asked breathlessly. "We're going to live together."

Draco had made his way over to one of the doors by the fireplace and opened it. The sight of the room behind it caused Hermione to gasp again. She made her way over.

It was a bedroom, with a four-poster bed, almost twice the size of the ones in their dormitories. There was a mahogany wardrobe in one corner and a small desk in another. Other pieces of furniture in the room included a bedside table and a dresser with a mirror. Everything in the room seemed to be black in colour.

With a look in the room bedside it, they found it was another bedroom, exactly the same to the other, except for the fact that everything was burgundy instead of black.

The room behind the door to the right of the original entrance was proved to be a large bathroom. It was very much like the Prefect bathroom, only it was bigger, better and all theirs. It had a large, rectangular, swimming pool-sized bath in the middle and to the right were two more rooms, which were found to be smaller bathrooms, each with a shower, toilet and basin.

The room behind the door opposite the bathroom could be nothing but a large study. The walls were lined with virtually empty bookshelves and there was a large polished table in the middle of the room with a chair at each end.

Hermione smiled to herself and headed back out into the common room, with Draco following. She was curious about something, however.

"I wonder what made Dumbledore do this," she said thoughtfully.

"I think I know," Draco said, sitting down on the couch. Hermione looked at him to see him just staring into the fire with a passive expression. "My father's been coming up to the school to - to punish me. He's become school governor again, like he was in second year, so it's quite easy for him to do so. I decided to take a bit of a leaf out of your book and went to Dumbledore and told him about it. He assured me he would do anything in his power to stop this from happening. I'd say this is his way of doing that without my father finding out about it."

Although she had already suspected that his father had been the one punishing him while he was at school, Hermione was rather shocked now Draco had confirmed her suspicion. Shock wasn't all she felt about the situation either, she also felt fear. Fear that perhaps Lucius would find him and bash him while they were in these "quarters". She didn't know how she would react if such a thing happened.

"I saw the bruises while you were in the hospital wing and I had a feeling it was your father that caused them," Hermione said quietly, a slight emotion showing in her voice. "Your father really is evil."

"I'm his son. I'll most likely end up like that," Draco muttered, his voice full of spite.

"You won't if you don't let yourself," Hermione reminded him.

They both went silent after that. Even after what Draco had told her, Hermione couldn't help but feel a little bit happy about this arrangement of living with Draco. She wondered what Harry, Ron and the other Gryffindors would do or say if they found out she was living with Draco Malfoy, but she couldn't care less at that moment.

This was their own little place...

*

Hermione sat in the study that night, working on the Study of Ancient Runes assignment. Dean and Seamus had given it to Hagrid to give to her, as they had done a fair amount of the translation and thought it wise to give it back to Hermione to look over and finish, which she was very close to doing.

Draco had left her alone to take a bath, as he had been working hard on the essay they had been given to do on the Polyjuice Potion. It was due in their next Potions lesson, when they would be testing the Potion.

The Potion had taken a bit longer than it should've. Snape had been an idiot and given one of the students the duty of picking the fluxweed. Rather unsurprisingly, the student had picked it on the wrong day (it was supposed to be picked on the full moon), causing it to take longer.

Neither Draco nor Hermione were really looking forward to testing it, as it meant Draco would take Hermione's form and vise-versa. Neither one of them liked the idea of taking the form of someone of the opposite sex, but they knew they had to and do so sensibly.

It was strange how everything seemed to have become "civil" between them again. They hadn't really brought up anything along the lines of the subject of her dodging him etc. In fact the only time they had had been that time in the hospital wing. Their feelings for each other hadn't subsided a bit, though, but they seemed to be slowly, very slowly, becoming more obvious to the other, even when they didn't want them to.

The only real problem they were facing at the moment was the idea of testing the Polyjuice Potion...

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