The Day After Tomorrow

SECRET KEEPER

12 - SECRET KEEPER

trigger warning: self harm

HERMIONE had shut the door, she didn't need her parents seeing the bloody towels and asking questions. She had finished mending his arm and now he sat, too alien in her little space examining her room.

It felt like he was leaving little fingerprints all over her personal possessions, and she wondered what he thought of it all. The crowded bookshelves, the stained table and printed curtains.

She'd watched in silence when his forehead had scrunched at her laptop and almost felt herself smile. How could something so simple as looking make her feel like he was taking a peek into her soul. "Malfoy?" She said finally, willing him to stop picking apart her life and look at her and then when his grey eyes met hers she almost wished he'd keep looking at her laptop.

It was a look she'd never seen on him before, direct and clear, a grey sky without fog or clouds. She wished she had been brave enough to keep his gaze because for once she thought that for the briefest of moments, the curtains had once shielded his true feelings had been drawn back and she was finally getting the chance to capture a glimpse of his true emotions. "Why did you come?" And more importantly Hermione wanted to add, how do you know where I live?

Before she could continue, Draco interrupted her. She was sat on the edge of her bed like a bird ready to take flight if startled. "I didn't feel safe at the castle." He saw her eyes widen, she obviously hadn't expected him to reveal himself as so vulnerable and to be honest neither had he. "And you're the only one I know who's proficient in healing." He added almost reluctantly, as if his constant being number two were something he wasn't proud of.

"What about St. Mungos, surely they would have helped you."

He nodded, spinning a little on her turning chair. "Then they would have called my mother and I can't have her leaving the house."

"Why?" Her voice was soft and curious when she asked.

He shook his head, light hair curling. "Because she's on house arrest and if she leaves that mansion after curfew, which I know she will if she knew I had been attacked, she would be sent to Azkaban and you know what happens when Malfoy's are put in Azkaban. They end up dead."

The way he put it so simply made her heart hurt because she knew he was right. During the Battle of Hogwarts, Narcissa had lied to Voldemort and every single Death Eater on the battlefield when she'd pronounced Harry dead, all to save her son.

There was nothing she wouldn't do for her son. "Won't they tell her when they see you've gone missing?" She asked curiously, hadn't a condition of him being exempted from Azkaban be that he not leave the school without permission.

He shrugged and in it she saw his resolve. "I've told who I needed to." Hermione knew he was talking about Blaise, Theo and Pansy then. "Unlike you, I leave notes with my friends when I up and disappear." Though the words were cutting there was a faint smile in his voice when he said it like he wanted to make sure she didn't get offended.

"So are you going back?" Hermione sank down into her bed, refusing to acknowledge the moments before her untimely exit from Hogwarts.

"To Hogwarts?"

She nodded.

Draco snorted, picking at his stained shirt. He wondered if asking for a t-shirt was overstepping her boundaries and thought who was he kidding, he'd done that a long time ago when he'd met her in that hallway. When he'd crossed the invisible line in the Great Hall and stepped over that unwritten rule and spoken to Potter.