Hermione didn't even go to her classes that day. She refused to leave her dormitory as the memories ran through her head over and over again. Her best friend was murdered right in front of her. Which meant Hermione was officially on her own to complete the task. The pressure caused her to break down as she stared out the window in her dormitory. Sometimes, even the brightest witch of her age wasn't not sure what to do.
She opened Ginny's trunk and saw a familiar photo album that she bought her for her first year of Hogwarts.
She opened the book and saw that the first picture was her and Ginny on the train. Apparently Harry and Ron never made it on the train that year, and she forever wondered what happened to them, until Ron told her the story of nearly getting run over by the train, flying a magic car, almost having Harry fall out of the car, and getting attacked by a tree.
The second moving picture happened to be the two of them enjoyed chocolate cauldrons. Hermione brought Ginny back a present from Hogsmeade and the two of them decided to split them together. In the end, Ron ended up shoving between the two of them and took a chocolate cauldron for himself.
The next one was one that Ginny must have taken when she wasn't looking during the Yule Ball. It was her and Vikor Krum dancing in the middle of the Great Hall, but there was also something in the background that caught her attention. Draco Malfoy watched her and Krum dance, and had an almost furious look on his face. He glared at them for a minute before angrily walking in the opposite direction. On the paper below the photo read, 'Guess Viktor wasn't the only one who thought you looked amazing'. She automatically recognized it as Ginny's handwriting, and wondered why she never noticed this that night.
She turned the page again to see her and Ginny with the castle in the background. 'Guess you were never a fan of flying', were the words written on the page. She remembered how the six of them flew on threstrals to the Ministry to save Sirius, and let's just say she did not enjoy it.
The next one was the two of them with Ron in the hospital bed beside them. 'Family is forever'. As Hermione reached the last two pages she felt her eyes tear up. The first one was Ginny and Neville sitting on the Hogwarts train. 'It's not Hogwarts without you'. Both of them had sad looks on their faces as they looked into the camera, and the last one was the six of them, Ron, Harry, Hermione, Luna, Neville, and Ginny right before the battle begun. 'We're in this together'.
She closed the book in anger before tossing it back in the trunk and slamming it shut. She was slowly losing all her loved ones. At this point she didn't even know where Luna was. The tears rolled down her face as she fell to the ground. She didn't even attempt to stop her sobs as they grew louder and louder.
Suddenly she heard the door close and her sobs eased. "I don't know what you want, and I honestly don't care right now. Leave me alone." Hermione curled up in a ball on the bed, not even wanting to be seen, and she was thankful to take the polyjuice that morning.
She faced the window as she felt the bed dip. He placed his hand on her arm and rubbed it back and forth to soothe her then moved his hand to her cheek. "We can do whatever we want for the rest of the day. Snape and him went to London for something with the Ministry, and it probably won't be a pleasant sight with how the Ministry looks now."
"I don't even want to think about that right now." Hermione moved to sit next to the window, and Draco joined her. Both of them sat on the window sill with their legs in between each other's with Draco's left side facing the window. "Draco, does it ever scare you? The fact that everyone is dependent on you? Like the year you had to kill Dumbledore. Did it ever scare you that you couldn't complete the task?"
"Everyday of my life. He put his faith in me to make up for my father's mistakes, but he put the task on me for a reason. He knew that I would fail. He gave the responsibility to me on purpose because he knew that I couldn't complete it. Just so he could kill my family for our mistakes. It wasn't our fault that saint Potter always escaped. So I had to keep telling myself that Dumbledore needed to die. I spent months trying to come up with ways to do it, and as usual Potter had to figure everything out, but the worst part wasn't the dark lords punishment. It was the disappointed look on Dumbledore's face when he saw my wand pointed at his heart. I just couldn't do it after that. It's like he saw a second Tom Riddle, and it hurt to think that was what I had become." Hermione watched him stare out the window as he spoke.
"Draco, long ago I knew a boy who made all the wrong choices. Let me help you."
"It's like he knew the situation I was in. He never said I made wrong choices, but I think he saw that I had no choice." He finally turned back toward her and saw her looking at him with sad eyes.
"I'm so sorry Draco." Hermione felt a rush of affection toward him. It wasn't pity at all. He loved and cared for his family, and would hate for anything to happen to them.
"Don't pity me." Hermione wasn't a Slytherin, but she knew that they rarely showed their true feelings. Seeing that Draco was able to express how he truly felt must have been very hard for him.
"I don't. I simply understand what you're saying, and not the situation. We have all had to suffer from difficult life or death situations. Plus, being an only child doesn't help very much. Having all the responsibilities on you is a lot of pressure, especially when you lose your friends." Hermione choked back her emotions as Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Neville came to her mind. It did hurt to lose a friend. She still remembered the sad look on his face when Draco dragged Crabbe out of the Room of Requirement. Losing a friend was basically putting you on your own. As he listened to her words he moved from his seat and sat right next to her.
"I guess the one thing I can't stop thinking about is the feeling a defeat. Yeah, the Order is still out there, but I feel like there's no point in living here anymore. He's basically won. How can things get any worse than how they are now?"
"Draco don't think like that..."
"How can I not?", he said as he got up and started to move around the room. "Parkinson, the amount of people within the Order is decreasing daily. Potter and Weasel are gone and Granger...." She froze as she heard his nickname for her. Draco started to pace around the room. "Granger hasn't been spotted in months." She listened to his words very carefully, and fought the urge to scream out 'I'm right here', but she couldn't. Even if Draco hated every single part of this world, she had to finish what the Order started.
Suddenly, Hermione changed her mind about going to her classes. The last thing Hermione wanted to think about was Draco's thoughts about the golden trio. "I'm gonna get my books and head off to potions." She moved away from the window and grabbed her bag before heading to potions class. She refused to even take a second glance at her best friends bed. She knew she would burst into tears if she did.
***
"Pansy, did you add the wiggentree twigs?" Hermione was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't hear Draco at all. "Pansy. Pansy! PARKINSON!"
"Blimey, Parkinson, are you day-dreaming about Draco again?", Blaise asked from the table across from them. "Look I know you two...", he said as he started to wiggle his eyebrows at her. Hermione knew exactly where he was going with that.
"Okay! Blaise, don't you have work to do?" Hermione said as she pushed him away. Today was the day that they had to brew the love potion antidote. When her focus was now all on the potion, an explosion nearly made her jump a mile in the air.
"Mr. Finnigan, are you actually trying to pass this class or is it your dream to blow up this entire school?" Seamus fell silent and refused to answer.
"He already blew up the viaduct. It wouldn't exactly be a challenge for him", Blaise whispered to her which caused her to chuckle. Blaise reminded her of Ron. Times like this she really missed her two best friends. Ron would always make her laugh on days that she wasn't feeling her best, while Harry's sass always seemed to put her in a good mood.
"Sometimes I wonder how you ever got an O in this class." Snape started to look at each of the cauldrons to see how each group was doing. When he reached Hermione and Draco's cauldron, all they got was a slight nod.
"So were you?", Draco whispered in her ear when Snape walked away. She raised an eyebrow in confusion and let Draco explain a little more. "Day-dreaming about me?"
"I'm going to go get the next ingredient. You should stir it for a few minutes then let it settle."
He waited till she was out of ear range before speaking to Blaise. "The Parkinson I know would've made a joke about that. Why is she shutting you out?", said Blaise as he watched Pansy grab the ingredients off the shelf, but then turned back to Draco. "What's wrong with her?"
"I don't know. We haven't done anything since term began. She hasn't even kissed me since I saw her. I hate to say it but I actually miss it."
"Maybe she's still upset from the war. Try to cheer her up."
Snape had looked at every cauldron in the class by the time Hermione returned to the table, however, he stopped in front of Seamus and gave him a cold glare. "Mr. Finnigan, should I even bother to take a look at this disaster?" Seamus had black soot covering his entire face, and luckily he eyebrows didn't burn off, nor the back of his hair. His potion was spilling over the rim of the cauldron and onto the floor, and Snape used a spell to clean up the mess before it caused any more damage. "Mr. Malfoy, Miss Parkinson, can you be the first ones to get the potion correct?" Snape looked into the cauldron and saw the red liquid bubble in it. He inspected the cauldron for a few minutes before passing a flask to Hermione that he had grabbed from his desk. When she pulled the stopper off, the smell of inked parchment and spearmint toothpaste filled her nostrils. She poured the contents into her mouth and suddenly all she could see was Draco and nobody else.
Blaise tried to hold back a laugh as Pansy was practically drooling over Draco. Her elbow was propped up on the table while her palm held up her head as she continued to stare right into Draco's eyes. "Well, is that what you wanted, Draco?", asked Blaise with a scoff. Suddenly she saw another flask being shoved in her direction. She swallowed the contents once again and looked at Draco with a look of disgust. That only caused Blaise to laugh more.
As Draco watched Pansy cross her arms over her chest, and pretend that Draco wasn't even there. He knew that something was definitely wrong with Pansy, and he was going to figure out what it was.