This Is War

Fight For Somebody

He pressed her lips into a tight line again, making her brown eyes zero in on the silver ones she was controlling. He watched her carefully, looking deep in his eyes to find her there. 'Yeah, Granger, you're right. You have as much magic as they do and you use it better.'

She released the air she didn't realize she was holding. She had been waiting for him to retaliate, to tell her once again, like all those years ago, that she was not rightfully a witch, but it never came. There was this light in his borrowed-eyes that almost looked like acceptance; like he believed what he said.

He was changing, she could see it. Little by little he was seeing the fight for her side; he was seeing that there was no difference in a Muggle-Born and in a Pureblood. Magic was magic.

'So, did I tell you Pansy Parkinson snogged me?'she muttered to him casually, trying to ease the tension. She leaned against his borrowed-shoulder again. 'She's going to have a fit when she knows it's been me all along.' 

He laughed at that.

Maybe it's the fact that she was taken as a fool that's bothered her. Maybe it honestly has nothing to do with the Malfoy of it all. She is Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of the Age—how was it possible to be okay with being stupid and naive? She believed him; believed in that part of her heart that always told her there was light in every single soul.

So he was going to fight for his side, fine. Who cared, anyway? Certainly not her, that's for sure. He was just another Death Eater; one of the many she'd been fighting for years now. This was going to be nothing new. She had known for ages that Draco Malfoy was on Voldemort's side, that wasn't going to change because he was stuck in her body, was it? She'd been prepared to fight him ever since he first called her a Mudblood their Second Year.

Nothing had changed.

"For fuck sakes, mate, are you still moping?" Without realizing that someone had opened the door to the lonely dormitory she was hiding in, Hermione blinked her borrowed-eyes at the entrance and found a pair of emerald ones narrowing at her.

"You've been this way for two days now," Blaise continued disapprovingly. "I'm the one who's a bloody orphan, stop being dramatic."

Hermione inhaled through Malfoy's nostrils, telling herself she needed to muster all of Malfoy's rubbish characteristics and use them. But after a moment, after trying to come up with something foul or angry to retort back at Blaise, she exhaled with resignation. She had no fight left.

Blaise raised an eyebrow at his blonde friend. "All right," he said dismissively, sounding a little confused. "If I didn't know any better, Drake, I'd say you were having witch problems."

Hermione let out another frustrated sigh.

"It can't be Pansy, you've been brushing her off since the term began," Zabini commented mainly to himself as the blonde Slytherin slouched on his four-poster and refused to meet his eyes. "The only girl I've seen you with is—Oi! Don't tell me you fancy Daphne?"

Captured inside Malfoy's pale body, Hermione snorted loudly at that.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," Blaise continued. "Daphne is my ex-girlfriend. You wouldn't cross that line. Well, you would, but certainly not with everything that's going on this year."

To herself, Hermione rolled her borrowed-eyes. Not only was Malfoy an arrogant prat who was determined to be a foul Death Eater, but he was also a horrible friend and a slag.

"It's Granger, isn't it?" As soon as Blaise let it slip from his mouth, he watched as his friend shot back up into a sitting-position on his bed. His eyes were wild, confused, and scared—all flashes of emotions that the Slytherin Prince would never let the world see.