Saving Each Other - Dramione

Malfoy

We are just finishing the last of the chocolate frogs when the compartment door is opened by Seamus Finnigan. Seamus used to constantly be happy and smiling. He was forever joking and always blowing things up, accidentally of course, but now all that is gone. The man standing in the doorway now is someone completely different. This man has scars, both visible and on the inside. This man has known the brutality of war and it has sunken his eyes and wiped the smiles off his face.

We all greet him cheerfully before Seamus turns to me.

'Professor McGonagall told me to come and get you, Hermione,' he says in his Irish accent. 'She wants me to take you to her compartment at the front of the train.'

'Alright,' I reply. 'Do you think I will come back here before we get to Hogwarts?'

'I think that's what she meant. It didn't sound like this would take that long.'

So I tell the others that I will see them later and follow Seamus out into the corridor.

We make it through an entire carriage walking in silence, but I can tell Seamus has something on his mind. Finally, he stops walking and opens his mouth and his words come out in a rush.

'How do you cope Hermione? With everything. You've been through way too much but you're still the same strong, powerful person you always were. I'm dying Hermione, and I didn't do half the stuff you had to do. How is it that you're not completely broken?'

'That's the thing Seamus, I am broken, on the inside. I jump at the slightest movement and flinch if anything touches me. Everything I see and hear brings horrible memories to my mind. Not only memories but feelings too. feelings of dread and despair that spread through my whole being and it's like there is no hope left in the world. Some things bring back pain as well. My own pain, as well as the pain of watching others suffer and die. It is the worst kind of pain to look back on someone's death a think that there was something you could have done to save them.

'So no Seamus, I don't cope. I put on a face and pretend that everything is back the way it was because there are so many people who either look up to me or have too much to worry about without having to think about me as well.

'I know that one day I will probably break down and everything I have bottled up inside of me will pour out in a river, but not now, not today.'

With that, I start off walking down the train again. To be honest, I'm surprised I even admitted that to myself let alone to Seamus. Somehow it feels good though, to admit, out loud, that I am broken.

'Wait,' Seamus calls from just behind me. 'I need to get him too,' he gestures to the compartment just to my left.

Looking through the window in the compartment door I can just see inside. A man, with blond hair, sits with his back to the compartment door. He is alone. his shoulders are hunched and he looks exhausted even from the back.

Seamus opens the compartment door and the man turns around. That's when I see his face and I wonder how I didn't recognise him. There's only one person with hair that blond. It's Draco Malfoy.

But this is not the Draco Malfoy I once knew. The person before me now is completely different. Just like everyone else he has changed.

Seamus speaks to Malfoy in a monotone voice that immediately says he doesn't trust him.

'McGonagall wants me to take you to her compartment at the front of the train.'

'Alright,' Malfoy's voice comes out in a sigh that makes it sound like he has resigned himself to everything that has, and will happen to him. 

He stands up and follows us out of his compartment and the three of us make our way to the front of the train so we can see Professor McGonagall.

When we come to the door with the words -

Headmistress: Professor Minerva McGonagall

- emblazoned in gold letters. I knock and a sharp, crisp voice from inside tells us to enter.

Malfoy and I step inside but McGonagall tells Seamus that he can go back to his compartment.

Professor McGonagall sits behind a neat desk and she smiles at us. She looks older than when I last saw her, she has more lines around her face, but other than that she hasn't changed.

'Well I assume you know that you are both here because you are our head boy and girl...' but before McGonagall can finish I cut her off

'What!? You mean he's head boy!' My voice comes out almost like a shriek.  

'Yes, Miss Granger, Mr Malfoy is head boy for this year and I think you realise that you are head girl. Now, will you please calm yourself and take a seat,' she gestures to the two chairs on the opposite side of the desk from her.

As I sit I look over at Malfoy's face. He is not wearing the satisfied smirk I thought he would, his face is just blank, unreadable. I turn back to Professor McGonagall.

'Now, I am not going to explain my reasons for choosing you two but know that I have them. I trust that, despite your pasts, you will at least be able to get along with each other.

'As head prefects, you will have both duties and privileges. You will have to coordinate the other prefects in the patrolling of the corridors and you will also have to take part in that yourselves. You will also have to organise other school events including Hogsmeade trips. You have the right to deduct points from students who break the rules, a right that I hope you will not abuse. You will also be able to access all four house common rooms as you will be required to visit each one nightly to ensure the students are both safe and well behaved. As you are head prefects you will be permitted to be out of your dormitory at any time although I do suggest that you get plenty of sleep otherwise you will not be able to concentrate in class. You also have your own private common room where you will be able to sleep...'

'What!?' Malfoy and I shout at almost exactly the same time.

'We have to share a common room?' I continue.

'Well, you are not necessarily obliged to use it, you will still have a bed in your house dormitories that you can sleep in if you wish. You will, however, have to hold prefect meeting in your common room at least once a week.

'Now, I think that is all I need to discuss with you for the time being... Oh, and you will need to help the younger students find the boats and the carriages when they get off the train. Then can you please help show the first years to their house dormitories when the feast is over. After you have done that please come and meet me back in the entrance hall and I will show you the head prefects dormitory.

'You may now return to your compartments for the remainder of the journey,' Professor McGonagall finishes, waving us towards the door.

With that, both Malfoy and I stand up and head towards the door. Malfoy gets there first and he opens the door and then holds it for me. This sudden act of chivalry surprises me but I nod my head as I walk through the doorway and mutter a small

'Thanks Malfoy.'

Even more surprising is when he responds with, 'you're welcome Granger.' He says is politely too, not sarcastically or like he's making fun of me but like he genuinely means it.

As I walk back down the train to my compartment, a million things are running around my head and I feel quite overwhelmed. I cannot focus properly on any one thing. Nothing about this is right. Malfoy is head boy! After all that he's done. I know McGonagall said she had her reasons but personally I can't see what they would be. And even more confusing is the fact that he spent ten minutes in a room with me and didn't once call me a mudblood or make any other snide comments about me.

The war changed me, maybe it changed him too.