One of Diamond, One of Stone

Je Cherche Une Femme...

(I'm Looking for a Woman)

It was strange for it to be so dark, so quiet. It felt as though he was the only one there, the only living being in the whole huge castle.

But the silence only served as a comfort to him; it always had. At home, he was used to shouts, screams, tears and pain, and at night, when everyone finally slept, he could finally find peace from the constant fear that surrounded him during the painfully long hours of daylight.

Only those closest to him knew how he felt about his home life, and those people were few and far between. He had his pride, the pride that came with the name he bore, and there was no way he could turn his back on who he was like that, as much as he often found himself wishing to.

Turning down another familiar corridor, still well hidden by the cover of darkness, he mentally berated himself for thinking that. He couldn't feel that way, he wasn't allowed to.

A part of his mind, some distant, soft-voiced part, murmured that he had rights to his own feelings, that it didn't matter who he was meant to be, but the voice of reason, the echo of his own father's voice, silenced it. He would do what he had to do, be who he had to be...or else...

Pushing the door of the library gently open, willing it to make no sound, he stepped into the now dark area. It seemed almost sinister at that moment, towering shelves casting impossibly dark shadows onto the already pitch black areas around them. Regardless of this, he moved hastily through the maze of bookshelves, finally reaching his goal. There she was, at a table in the very back corner, moonlight shining down on her through a crack in the heavy velvet curtains of the window above, giving her an almost ethereal look, far from her usual appearance. If they weren't...who they were, he would have considered her beautiful, but he couldn't feel like that towards her.

Stepping closer, trying to maintain the quiet, he was able to see her face. She was asleep, head lying between the pages of an open book, another stack of texts next to her. Even in sleep, her forehead was marred with the lines that came with the constant pressure she put herself under.

Catching himself before he managed to brush away the wisp of hair that had fallen on her face - you can't feel that way towards her; never - he moved round behind her and put one hand on her shoulder.

At this, Hermione awoke, sitting straight up, propelling him back until he'd almost hit the wall behind him.

'What was that for?' he snapped, one hand reaching up to check the lump he felt growing on the back of his head before allowing the look of pain on his face to morph back into his trademark smirk.

Shaking her head to clear the fog of sleep from her brain, she squinted at him. 'Malfoy?!'

AN - I don't really know whether to continue this or just leave it for the birds, so I await your opinions.

I'll just sit here by my e-mail account, pressing refresh... there should be one any minute now... yup, sometime soon... Aw, I'm outta here. No, wait, just one more minute...

Nah, I'll publish more regardless of opinion, but "Feedback paves the way to a writer's happiness," as one of my fave authors, Charisma, once said...