Baton Rouge

- 22 -

"Oh? Right now?" she asked confused, meeting his gaze when he turned his head. Malfoy seemed melancholy in a strange way.

"You don't know how much time we have left," he said tersely, and Hermione felt goosebumps on the back of her neck. He was right.

+.+.+

Hermione balanced on a small wall on the banks of the River Thames while Malfoy followed her down the sidewalk a few yards behind. He was quiet, somewhat absent-minded, and didn't seem to share her enthusiasm in the slightest. Hermione, on the other hand, was blissfully happy. Her outings in the last year had been limited to a few visits to Knockturn and Diagon Alley. Never would the Ministry allow a supervised Mudblood like her to enter the Muggle world unattended. The risk that she would go into hiding or - even worse - confide in someone was far too great.

The water of the river murmured soothingly a few meters below her and Hermione kept pausing to point the tip of her nose towards the sun. At any other moment it would probably have driven her insane that Malfoy wasn't talking to her, but right now she just didn't care.

She knew she was short of time and wanted to enjoy every second of it. Still, she was grateful to Malfoy for complying with her wish. She hadn't expected him to actually deign to leave the house with her, but he hadn't even protested.

A family with two little children, each happily holding an ice cream cone, crossed their path and Hermione looked after them longingly for a few seconds. Then she continued on her way, watching the cars, the people strolling completely clueless through their very own world, and the richly decorated shop windows on the opposite side of the street. She greedily sucked in all the impressions in order to be able to remember them later.

"Granger."

When Malfoy said her name Hermione snapped out of her musings. She hadn't noticed that he had moved away from her, but now he was walking straight towards her from the street. She looked down at the ice cream bowl he was holding out to her and was speechless for a moment.

"That's for me?" she finally asked, stunned, raising her head. He avoided her eyes.

"I thought since you stopped throwing up..."

Hermione carefully took the ice cream bowl from his hand, being careful not to touch his fingers in the process, which was actually ridiculous. But for some reason she had the feeling that Malfoy was uncomfortable with his own behavior. And so as not to embarrass him even more, she deliberately refrained from further words.

"Thank you," was the only thing she said before reverently shoving a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. She grimaced appreciatively.

When had been the last time she had eaten a scoop of ice cream? That must have been when she had been in school. She wanted to tell Malfoy how lucky he was. After all, he was able to enjoy this every day if he felt like it. But she held back. She could hardly expect more friendliness from him and she didn't want to provoke him.

Instead, she dropped onto one of the benches by the riverbank, and after a few minutes, Malfoy sat down next to her.

"Where did you go yesterday?" Hermione eventually asked boldly, even if she didn't want to try his patience too much. Malfoy had left the apartment the night before without letting her know and they had hardly exchanged a few words since then. „Back to the Ministry? Bitching about Umbridge again?"

She had achieved her goal, for a very faint smile crept onto Malfoy's face now. He shook his head. "I met up with Blaise."

Hermione raised a markedly questioning eyebrow as she popped another spoon with absolutely delicious chocolate ice cream into her mouth. Malfoy snorted (apparently she was once again too curious for his liking) but then continued.

"I thought it would be a good idea to reassure him that I'm fine. That I won't totally freak out, as he'd probably put it." He gave her a meaningful look and Hermione had a feeling she knew what he was up to.

"You want to lull him into a false sense of security while you're not seriously looking for Harry anymore," she deduced and he fell silent for a few seconds.

"What do you expect of that, Malfoy?" Hermione would indeed like to know, for she still thought Malfoy's plan, if it was a plan at all, was an utterly stupid idea. "You said it yourself: your oh-so-great Aurors..." She let out a derogatory noise. „... have been looking for Harry for years and have had no success so far." She shook her head slightly. "Even though you're now convinced that you don't want to be a part of it anymore, which I really don't get, I doubt it would change anything."

The look Malfoy was giving her now made her shiver. His storm gray eyes were flashing and his lips were pressed into a thin line. Apparently she had once again managed to say exactly the wrong thing, and she was already regretting it. She shouldn't have interfered at all. Although she had been so pleasantly surprised the day before that Malfoy had spoken so openly to her, it wasn't really up to her to judge his inner motivations.

"I think this conversation is over, Granger," he hissed. "Come to think of it - what I do or don't do is none of your bloody business. And I swear to you, if you are toying with the idea of telling a living soul what we talked about yesterday, you better watch out."

And there he was again. The Draco Malfoy that Hermione remembered from school. The one she might even have been afraid of. From whom she had wanted to flee when he suddenly had stood in front of her in the Baton Rouge.

At that moment, she took him at his word that he would make her life hell if she got in his way. He might have opened up to her a bit, allowed her a glimpse into his mind, treated her well - but whatever had made Hermione seriously think that some sort of trust, maybe even some kind of attraction had formed between them inevitably collapsed like a house of cards.

Malfoy had stood up. The way he clenched his hand in his robe pocket told Hermione that he was clutching his wand tightly. And she instinctively knew that her outing had come to its end. She rose silently, threw her empty ice cream bowl into the wastebasket by the bench they had been sitting on, and inwardly berated herself for having destroyed the peace between them with a few thoughtless words.

Of course he didn't care what she thought, let alone that he wanted to hear it. She was just the Mudblood. A drug addicted whore. If she was lucky she might stay clean, but she was still... the scum of this country. His words.

Hermione sighed and followed the blonde wizard who had already turned away from her and was now crossing the street with long strides.