Summary: It's Draco's sixth year at Hogwarts and he's already plenty busy with the Dark Lord's ridiculous requests. He doesn't need to hear there's a new bully roaming the halls and that he's chosen Hermione as his main target, but the least Draco can do is help her after a very long day.
Draco was tired. He'd spent the past four weeks staying up late to work on the Dark Lord's project and with exams coming up, he'd spent what remained of his free time studying. Out loud, he could never say he hated the work the Dark Lord gave him, but he definitely loathed how stressful it was. Hogwarts was well protected so hiding not only his Dark Mark but his work for the Dark Lord from all the teachers were getting to him. So yeah, Draco was tired and dragging his feet as he walked from the Shrieking Shack back to the Slytherin common room.
He was passing the lake, grumbling to himself, when he heard something swim past. He glanced at the lake, finding nothing except a small area of bubbles and disturbed water. The giant squid had been getting restless recently, so often when Draco walked past, he would hear it come up to the surface for a brief moment.
When the sound happened again, Draco looked over with a frown. The squid never came up more than once, but when he looked towards the sound, it wasn't the squid breaking the surface. It was a person.
The darkness made it difficult to see, but when Draco squinted and cast a Lumos charm with his wand, he immediately recognised the person as Hermione Granger. He blinked, staring at her in shock for a moment. Surely the girl knew how to swim; that was a common muggle thing to do, so why wasn't she doing it now.
Hermione struggled to keep her head above the water for a few more seconds while Draco watched, waiting for her to just swim to shore. However, a second later, her head slipped under the water and she didn't come back up.
"Granger," Draco snapped, walking closer to the lake until his shoes got wet. "Granger, come on. You know how to swim."
No response except for her fingers coming up and breaking the surface. Quickly looking around, Draco slipped off his shoes and dropped his wand. He tossed his cloak away from the water before none too elegantly trotting into the water. Darkness surrounded him and the moon was behind the clouds, making it difficult to see. With a groan, he summoned his wand and used it as a light source to find where Hermione had last popped up. He took a deep breath before ducking under the water and forcing his eyes open.
The water stung, but he quickly forgot it when his wand light showed Hermione drifting slowly down. Her eyes were closed and she was limp, sending a jolt of panic through Draco before he hastily swam towards her. He wrapped his arm around her chest and hurried toward the surface. Just before he got to the top, something tugged Hermione out of his grasp and he struggled to keep ahold of her. He looked down when it tugged again and saw a long tether wrapped around one of her ankles.
He was quickly running out of breath, but he gasped out a spell to cut the tether holding her down and choked on water. Once Hermione was free from whatever had been keeping her down, Draco pulled her up to the surface and gasped for air. He made sure her head was above the water as he swam both of them to shore, glancing at her often to make sure she was alright.
As soon as Draco could stand on the bottom of the lake, he rearranged Hermione so he could carry her out of the lake rather than drag her. If anyone else was around, he wouldn't have hesitated to tug her up the bank by one arm, but no one else was nearby and he was allowed to show just he worried he was that she wasn't actually breathing.
Draco didn't even bother taking her that far out of the water. When he reached an area where there was enough dry area to lay her on, he dropped to his knees and set Hermione down. His knees sank into the mud a bit, but Draco was more focused on summoning the water from her lungs. The stream of water that came out of her mouth was concerning, but then she gasped for air and Draco felt his panic slowly subside.
Her eyes didn't open immediately and her breathing was ragged, but Draco sighed in relief, looking up at the sky before closing his eyes. At the sound of her coughing, his attention was immediately drawn back down to where Hermione was. Her eyes were squeezed closed as she coughed and shivered and Draco glanced up to where his dry cloak was lying. He summoned it without a second thought and helped her sit up.
As soon as he touched her, her eyes shot open and she fell into another bout of coughing when she inhaled sharply. She was suddenly very tense, but Draco continued to help her sit up before he wrapped his cloak tightly around her.
When her coughing finally died down, she just stared at him. Unsure what else to do, Draco stared back, waiting for her to force him to leave or somehow blame him for her near-drowning.
"Thank you," she said instead. Draco blinked, not having expected that to be the first thing out of her mouth.
"Why didn't you cut it yourself?" Draco replied, kicking himself mentally for it. Hermione frowned and pulled his cloak tighter around her as she shivered with the wind.
"I didn't have my wand," she mumbled. She brought her knees up to her chest and tucked them under Draco's cloak as well. Her bare toes peeked out from under the fold of his cloak and Draco frowned at them. Taking it as a frown at her, Hermione said, "What? Don't believe I didn't think of that myself? I couldn't do much without my wand in the darkness."
"No, I just—" he supposed he hadn't really thought about the possibility of her not having her wand. It seemed so absurd, he hadn't considered it. "Why didn't you have your wand?"
Hermione looked away from him and down at her toes. She pulled the cloak over them then looked at the castle, pointedly avoiding eye contact.
"Where have you been?" she asked. Draco frowned. Why would she care? "Harry thinks you're up to something and I'm not going to lie, you haven't been as big of a pain as usual, so where have you been?"
"Why do you care?" Draco asked. If he wasn't around to bother her and her ridiculous friends, then shouldn't she be glad? The way she'd said it, though, sounded more like she wanted him to be around more.
"I don't," Hermione snapped. Draco glared at her but she wasn't looking at him, so it didn't do any good. He quickly stopped and she turned to look at him. She was clearly trying to size him up, but Draco had always prided himself on having blank facial expressions so he knew she wouldn't get anything she was looking for.
"You haven't answered my question," Draco pointed out, getting bored with the silence.
"You haven't answered mine."
Draco ceded, considering it was a reasonable response. Rather than bite back at her like he would if they weren't alone, he said, "Fine. You tell me what happened and I'll tell you where I've been."
Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, but her shivering didn't make her all that intimidating. When she wasn't paying attention, Draco put a warming charm on his cloak wordlessly.
"Swear you won't laugh at me," Hermione said. Draco swore it and she nodded. "Avery, that git you used to hang out with. He lured me out with a fake note from Ron and Harry about the—Well, it doesn't matter what it was about. I came out here to meet them, but he was here instead."
"So he what? Took your wand and shoved you in the lake?" Draco teased. Hermione scowled at him, reminding him that she didn't have to tell him what happened. Instead of pointing out that wouldn't work in her favour either, he just nodded.
"But that is pretty much what happened," she muttered. Avery had also used a spell she didn't recognise to slowly pull her to the bottom of the lake where he told her she'd rot away. When she looked at him expectantly, Draco suddenly wondered if lying was an option. He figured she'd probably know if he did and as long as he didn't tell her everything, it was really fine.
"I have a mission," he said carefully. If the Dark Lord found out he'd told anyone, he'd be punished. However, that did not mean Draco wanted to flat out tell Hermione what he was doing. "It's from the Dark Lord and it's been keeping me very busy."
"You won't tell me what it is," Hermione said, more than asked. Draco shook his head, staring out at the lake as he thought about what waited for him at the Shrieking Shack.
They stayed by the lake for several more minutes before Draco figured they should return to the castle. It wasn't safe to stay out anymore and while he doubted anyone would attack him, he didn't particularly want to risk it. When he suggested it to Hermione, she nodded and climbed to her feet. Again, Draco spotted her bare feet and wondered how she'd lost her shoes, but figured they'd come off in her struggle to avoid drowning.
The walk back to the castle was silent. Draco was shivering a little by the time they slipped through the front doors, but he managed to hide it from Hermione. At least, he thought he had until she handed him back his cloak with a small smirk.
"Looks like you could use this back," she joked. Draco smiled and wrapped the cloak around his shoulders. "Thank you again," she said, fidgeting a little as she spoke.
"Please, it just gives me a good reason to beat up Avery when I get back," Draco replied. Hermione smiled back and nodded.
"My wand—"
"I'll send it to you," Draco promised. Avery was bound to have it nearby as a sort of prize, but after the beating Draco was going to give him, Avery wouldn't be able to keep hold of it very long. "Goodnight, Hermione," he said.
"Goodnight," Hermione replied before hurrying through the Gryffindor portrait and leaving Draco in the hall alone. As soon as he was certain she was inside for the night, Draco turned and headed straight for Avery's dorm in the Slytherin dormitory. Hermione was his to pick on and tease and his alone; clearly Avery needed a reminder and after the week he'd had, Draco was more than willing to give the git just what he deserved.