She decided to wait until that night to escape, planning to use the rest of the day to memorize the layout of the cottage so that she could easily slip out without getting lost. As Draco was handling his burned hand, she wandered back into the living room and slowly made her way towards the doorway she had seen earlier.
Pausing in the doorway, she stared around the room in front of her; there were bookcases lining the walls, filled with hundreds of books. In the center of the room were a few armchairs and a long couch with a small table in the center of them. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.
She was momentarily distracted, running her fingers along the nearest shelf as she looked over the books. They didn't seem to be in any kind of order, and didn't seem to be any sort of genre in particular. What surprised her the most however were the sheer amount of muggle books that were on the shelves, placed here and there between wizarding books. There were books on science, astrology, psychology, medicine, potions theories, romance, science-fiction (which thoroughly confused her), fantasy, spell books; the list was never-ending.
The sound of someone clearing their throat made her jump and she looked to see Draco standing in the doorway, his hand bandaged by his side while his other hand was in his pocket. He looked at her for a few moments before nodding towards the bookcases.
"I don't know what you like to read," He started quietly. "There's a bit of everything in here though."
"I see that," She managed to say, looking back towards the books. "Are they all yours?"
"Most of them," He said, stepping into the room and walking towards one of the bookcases. "I was surprised by some of the subject matter that I ended up liking, so I started blindly buying books every time I went into town."
Now she was intrigued. "How often would you come here?"
He sighed heavily but continued looking at the books. "I bought this a little over a year ago, during sixth year. I spent all of my Christmas break here just to get away from everything. I wasn't able to visit as often as I thought I would though; I didn't realize how...busy I would get."
She heard the bitter tone in his voice as he said this but she didn't respond, instead turning to lean against the nearest bookshelf to look at him. He was standing calmly with his back turned to her, and for a brief moment she could see long scars tracing around his arms. She wondered where they had come from but didn't wonder long as he turned then to face her.
"Aren't you worried they'll come looking for you?" She asked, crossing her arms against her chest.
"No one knows where this place is, not even my parents," He said in an unnervingly calm tone. "I doubt they'd come looking for me anyway."
Her brow furrowed slightly. "You don't know that."
He forced a half-hearted laugh before saying, "I do. While my parents care about me, they care more about not being in trouble with him. Especially since he's taken up residence in their manor, and has my mother's sister has his second-in-command. They're prisoners in their own home; even if they wanted to find me, they wouldn't be able to escape."
"So what makes you think you're any safer here?" Hermione asked. "You don't think that he'll come find you?"
"He has more important things to do than look for a defected Death Eater," He said with a shrug. "Especially a brand new one that couldn't even complete the one task given to him."
She gave him a confused look but he didn't say anything else on the subject. He turned away and went back towards the doorway leading to the kitchen, pausing to look back at her. "Want some tea?"
She blinked at how nonchalantly he asked, before nodding. He nodded in return and disappeared into the kitchen, and she hesitated for a moment before looking around the room.
There was another doorway in the corner that she hadn't noticed before and she quietly walked towards it. As she peered around the corner, she found exactly what she had been looking for: a door that led outside.
Her heart pounded in her ears as she checked to make sure he hadn't walked back into the room before she quickly walked through the doorway. There was another doorway on the other side of what she assumed was the front door and she paused, hearing noises from the kitchen coming through that doorway. She wasn't sure where that one led to, but that was not a concern at the moment.
She went to inspect the front door, finding that it had multiple locks on it. After unlocking the ones that she could, she tested the door and held her breath. The door didn't open but she felt it give a little bit. There were more locks on it somewhere, ones that she couldn't see at the moment.
Footsteps caught her attention and she quickly locked the door as quietly as she could, returning into the library just as Draco returned to the doorway.
He paused, raising an eyebrow at her as she tried to look as if nothing was wrong. After a few seconds of silence, he asked, "What kind of tea do you want?"
Quietly taking a deep breath to calm down, she asked, "What kind do you have?"
"Do you want to come look?"
He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb and she hesitated. When she didn't move for a few moments, his hand dropped and he asked, "Would you rather me just pick something out?"
"I..." She faltered, trying to figure out what to do. She was going to need time to figure out how to fully unlock the door without the chance of Malfoy walking in on her, but the only time she could think of for any chance of uninterrupted inspecting was during the nighttime when he should've been asleep.
With a sigh she said, "No, I can come look."
The rest of the day dragged on for her as she impatiently waited for any moment alone to go inspect the door again. Those moments were few and far between however as he rarely left the same room as her, which not only unsettled her immensely but kept her on edge; the fact that he had still made no moves to harm her or do anything to her for that matter had completely thrown her off at that point, and she noticed that she would always make sure he was within her line of sight just in case.
They spent most of their time in the library room, sitting in separate arm chairs; she made sure to take the one directly facing him so that she could have ample time to react in case he did anything. But he didn't; he just sat there, reading calmly while she would shift constantly in her chair and try to subtly glance towards the hallway that led to the front door.
Why was he keeping her here? And why was he so calm about the fact that there was a war going on? Did he not know about the consequences of what could happen if Harry failed? Or maybe he did know and just didn't care.
His words from earlier echoed in her mind. I am tired, and I'm sure you're tired as well. What did that even mean?
"Are you alright?"
She looked up to see him watching her quietly, concern clear in his eyes while his expression was otherwise calm. Shifting once more in her chair, she looked away towards the doorway to the kitchen. In truth she wasn't alright; she was confused and anxious about what was happening. But at the same time, she didn't know if she wanted to tell him that in case he used it against her.
Him sighing and shutting his book caught her attention and she looked back towards him as he said, "I understand that this is all very confusing right now but-"
"No, I don't think you understand that," She interrupted then, her brow furrowing.
He didn't say anything, shifting to pull one leg up so that his ankle was resting on his opposite knee, and he leaned against the arm of his chair.
"How can you be so calm right now?" She demanded. "You know everything that is going on and yet you're choosing to ignore it."
"Can you blame me for choosing to ignore everything, after I was forcibly shoved into the middle of it?" He asked quietly. "Do I not deserve some peace for once?"
She gaped at him. "You think this is peace?"
He shrugged. "It is compared to living at the manor. You can't tell me this isn't a peaceful place."
Words struggled to come together for her and she clenched her jaw shut angrily. He wasn't wrong; the cottage and the beach radiated peacefulness. But she couldn't enjoy it knowing what was going on outside of the cottage.
"Regardless of whether or not this place is peaceful, and regardless of whether or not you deserve peace..." She started slowly. "There is still a war going on, and it's not going to just go away simply because you choose to ignore all of it. You need to let me go; I need to get back and help Harry."
"Why?" He asked calmly.
Staring at him, she said, "What do you mean, why?"
"Why do you need to help him?" He asked. "Potter may be unobservant most of the time but he's smart."
She continued to stare at him, and her reaction caused a slight smile to form at the corner of his mouth.
"Yes, I realize I just paid him a compliment but you know I'm right," He said. "He'll save the day, just like he always does. I'm surprised you don't have more faith in your own friend."
Her stare turned into a glare then as she slammed her own book shut. "It's not a matter of me having faith in Harry or not. You have no idea what we have been doing this entire time, how we have been trying to defeat him. There's so much more to this than you would ever know, and there's a lot of pieces to the puzzle that we are still working to solve."
"And why do you have to be the one to solve it?" He asked quietly.
"Because Harry is the only one who can defeat him, and if I'm not there to help him figure things out-"
"Aren't you exhausted, always helping him figure things out?"
She gaped at him. "Things can be figured out faster if there's a team of people working on it together!"
There was a very slight hint of amusement in his eyes that drove her insane as he asked, "Is there a time limit to figuring everything out?"
"I would think the sooner the better to end all of this," She said through gritted teeth.
"So if there's no time limit to figuring out everything, why not give yourself a well-deserved break?" He brought his arm up to rest on the chair's arm, propping his chin up in his hand as he smirked at her. "I don't think I've ever seen you take a single break in the years I've known you."
"You know what I think, Malfoy?"
"I don't; why don't you enlighten me?"
"I think you're a coward."
Any amusement he had immediately disappeared from his expression at this. She didn't give him time to respond as she continued: "You've lived a cushy life growing up, never having to know hardship. Now there is a war going on that could very well mean the end of the wizarding world as we know it should the wrong side win, and what do you do? You go and hide in your cushy little cottage in Merlin-knows-where to get away from it. You don't seem to care that hundreds of innocent people are losing their lives every day simply because of who they are, and you think that everything will just go away on its own while you sit here doing absolutely nothing!"
His face was completely devoid of any emotion as he watched her, his jaw clenching every so often as the silence hung in the air between them. She found herself breathing heavily, waiting for him to say something, anything in response to her small outburst.
But he didn't. And if anything it infuriated her more.
She stood up from her chair, angrily leaving the room and instead going to the room he had designated as hers. She half-expected him to follow her; the old Malfoy would never have backed down from an argument with her. But when she slammed the bedroom door shut and heard nothing else, she found herself standing there, waiting for a reaction that never came.