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Daylight	By : pepperdoc Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 13120 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter Universe, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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She woke groggy and sore all over. She was outside, she saw as soon as she opened her eyes. It was night. There was a campfire in front of her. The tall grass was stamped down into a makeshift camp. She moved slightly and felt cloth move over her arms. She heard movement and when she tried to move her head, an agony unlike anything she had ever experienced erupted through her skull.

“Woah, don’t move,” She seemed to know the voice, but couldn’t remember who it belonged to. More movement and rustling and suddenly there was a head of fire-lit blonde hair in her vision. “How do you feel?” He asked as he came closer. His normally stern face was softened by worry.

“Like I’ve been run over by a truck, Draco. What happened?” She answered, she could hear a slight slur to her speech as she spoke. Her tongue felt fuzzy.

His brow creased further, “What do you remember?”

“I remember going into the town and everything was on fire. You cast a spell on my horse to block out the scent so she wouldn’t bolt,” She could feel her throat swelling in suppressed emotion as she continued, “Checking all those people to see if they were alive. And then… You gesturing to go back the way we came…” She was struggling to remember what happened next. “I… I thought it was afternoon, why is it night? Why are we still away from the school?” She tried to sit up again, she was panicking. She had lost some of her memory, she needed to find out what happened. Now.

He pushed her shoulders back gently and looked at her for a second, as though willing her to calm down. Her head felt like it might be splitting in two with the attempt to rise from her position. He stared into her eyes and then let her shoulders go. “You had a pretty bad head injury. A wall of a building fell on you, I guess from the supports falling apart. Here, drink this,” He handed her a transfigured cup with a straw in it so she wouldn’t have to raise her head to drink from it. She took a slow sip, not realizing until then that her throat felt raw and burned. She licked her lips and they were cracked and hot from burns.

“What happened, Malfoy. Was I horribly burned.” Her voice was like a monotone, she was preparing herself for the news that she was horribly disfigured.

“No. You breathed in some smoke is all. You were knocked unconscious by whatever hit you in the head. Probably the wall, since little else could make a dent in that hard head. You’ll be fine,” His tone was almost affectionate. If it was anyone other than Malfoy, she might actually believe it was meant in a sweet kind of way.

She felt weary still and stared up at the Milky Way, trying to wrap her head around her injury. She mentally groaned at the thought of how she had gotten to the clearing, trying not to think of how stupid she must have looked while unconscious. She thought instead about how sometimes one lost a few seconds of memory before the incident, which explained her inability to remember. She took a deep breath, successfully forcing her body to relax. “Ok. Why are we not in the hospital, Muggle or Magical?” She asked finally.

He sighed and sat next to her head. She saw that his face was still covered in soot and so were his hands and arms. He looked like he had been through a war all over again. “I sent the two people from the town with paramedics to the Muggle Hospital, but with the laws such as they are, I couldn’t send you there. At the moment you are an undocumented immigrant essentially. They would have arrested you. I… hid you. Your body scans came back fine. No internal damage or anything,” He was defensive. He looked guilty.

“Ok,” She said, “But what about the school?”

“I’ve sent word. Long ago. I haven’t gotten an answer. I… Think there may have been an attack there, too.” He said haltingly.

She closed her eyes, trying not to cry at her immediate thought that she might be the reason for these attacks. “So what about this head pain?” She said finally.

He pulled out his wand and waved it a few times, muttering different spells. “Just pressure from the swelling of your bruise, it looks like.”

She opened her eyes quickly and asked, “Bruise?”

He reached out toward her head and- after she nodded her permission at his questioning look- he touched the side of her head in her hair. His touch was brief and gentle, but she was in agony. “You must have been knocked out from that one. I can bring down the swelling, if you’ll permit me.”

She nodded with tears of pain in her eyes. He whispered a spell and touched the swollen side of her head with the tip of his wand. She let out a strangled cry of pain and felt the tears falling from her eyes from his touch but the pain quickly began diminishing.

“Feel like sitting up?” He asked, still leaning slightly over her.

She nodded. He wrapped an arm under her shoulders as she attempted it and pulled her upright with little effort. Her sweater rolled off her arms and she put it on the right way without looking at him, but she could feel his stare from right next to her. She wasn’t cold, but she wanted the comfort of something which smelled familiar.

“Where’s my wand?” She asked. He picked it up from next to where she had been laying and handed it to her. “Thanks. How long was I out?”

“About five hours.” He answered, still staring at her.

“What?” She asked after a few seconds.

“I think… Well, nothing. Never mind.” He looked away and stood up. He busied himself transfiguring things into cookware and filling pots with water using his wand.

She tucked her knees under her chin and stared into the fire for a few minutes, allowing her mind to work through what Draco had told her happened. Wait, Draco? When did he become Draco? She thought, disconcerted at her thoughts. When he saved your life. Maybe you should thank him for it. Her conscience whispered to her. She frowned. Thank Malfoy? How does one even do that? She had manners and she was damn well going to use them, she instructed herself sternly.

“Malfoy?” She said quietly. He didn’t hear her as he was setting water on the fire to boil. “Malfoy?” She said louder.

He looked up at her from across the fire and she was half-startled to find his face utterly handsome in the firelight. The rich gold caressed his skin like a loving hand, the flickering light playing off his features so that Hermione was forced to realize how he was no longer the boy she barely remembered. She shook her head to clear these traitorous thoughts, and told him, “Thank you. I think you saved my life.”

He smiled lightly and she could see the tension of his face vanish, making him-if possible- even more handsome. “You’re welcome. We don’t have any food or means of getting any for right now. I’m putting water on to wash with. Scourgify does not work with this soot for some reason,” He answered as he straightened and sat near her.

Taking another long sip of the water, she frowned. “It doesn’t? That’s weird.”

“But, I see that water does.”

“What do you mean, you see?”

He pointed to her face, “You’ve tear tracks.”

“You mean you didn’t think to wash your hands off in water,” She asked, disbelieving.

“I had other things to worry about besides how nice my nails look. I only just thought of it again,” He answered, sounding frustrated.

“Like what?” She asked, curiously.

“Like that your horse is dead under the rubble. That you almost died under the rubble. That there was someone I had to fight before I could get to you. That no one has come to help us,” He was growing more agitated by the second, “Because the person I had to fight probably tried to enter the school, and all of my friends might currently be dead. And that you looked like you were dead, even though my bloody wand told me you were alive. Is that enough for you to forget to wash your perfect little hands?”

“Someone was there?” She whispered. A little piece of memory seemed to be trying to get her attention, but she pushed it roughly back. It seemed that Draco was on the verge of telling her something vital.

His voice was still harsh, “Yes someone was there. Screaming for me to yield to him so he could finish the job he started. I know his voice. It was the man who sent me here.” She gasped, the memory broke through the barrier and the silhouetted figure when she turned, the light shooting at her. Waking up under brick and mortar to her Draco sobbing her name while he was trying to dig her out and then passing back out, or was that a dream? She couldn’t even imagine him crying.

“I think I remember,” She said excitedly. She was used to people being angry when they were stressed, so she hardly acknowledged his ire.

He seemed to slide his mask back into place, his face became closed and his angry expression all but disappeared. “What do you remember?”

“I heard a whisper so I turned. Then there was a figure with fire behind them and they were raising their hand. There was a purple light that came out of their wand and it missed me, I think it hit the wall,” She left out when she believed she may have woken up, since it was possibly a dream.

He frowned again. “It’s rare that someone who has been knocked unconscious to regain their memory from about ten seconds before the trauma. Are you sure you’re not imagining it?”

She looked at him completely astonished. “Are you accusing me of lying?” Her voice came out in an almost whisper. Rage was boiling below the surface and she gripped her wand tighter in her hand.

“For fucks sake, Granger if I wanted to call you a liar, I would! It’s a reasonable fucking question!”

Her grip loosened on her wand and she suddenly stood. She bent over to yell in his face where he sat. “You stop cursing at me right this instant!” She screamed, pointing her finger in his face.

He roughly grabbed her wrist and pulled her further down towards his face. Rather than being scared like she probably should have been, the adrenaline had long since taken over and she became even angrier. Then he growled, “Stop fucking accusing me of insulting you. Maybe then I’ll stop bloody cursing at your precious little face. Saintly Granger doesn’t like bad words? Well the evil Malfoy hates being accused of shit he didn’t say.” He shoved her backward and released her wrist.

He stood as Hermione rubbed her wrist. He had not actually hurt her, but it was tingling strangely. She was trying to convince herself that it was her magic coming into contact with his, not that she enjoyed any part of his body touching hers. Definitely not that she had a single second while his face was inches from hers where she wanted him- desperately- to kiss her. It definitely didn’t have anything to do with his rough grip or his anger. It was all because of the head injury she had suffered, that’s it. In the moment it took her to reason all of this, Malfoy had stalked over to the opposite side of the fire and was angrily poking the carefully stacked logs with a long stick.

She went to the edge of the firelight and stared off into the direction of the school with her arms crossed over her chest. She heard a slight rustle in the grass a little distance away and stiffened. She remembered the Chupacabras Rose had mentioned. If there was an attack on the school they could have escaped, or anything else Anthony was caring for. She took a few steps further into the circle of flickering light without turning. Another small noise, a bit closer to her. She was frightened. She had no idea what kind of animals could be in the plains around them. She only knew that there were rattlesnakes that lived in tall grass. “Draco?” She said, quietly while hating the frightened waver in her voice.

“What?” His answer was tense and frustrated. His voice was much louder than hers and she wished he had kept it down.

“Something is in the grass,” She whispered hurriedly, hearing another rustle, closer this time.

“Of course there is. Wild animals live all over this-” He was cut short by another rustling sound just past where Hermione was standing. She stepped back and held her wand before her defensively. Suddenly he was right next to her with a hand gently placed on her shoulder.

“It’s coming closer,” She whispered, ignoring the hand’s pressure and the soreness under it.

They both tensed, waiting for the creature to show itself. Hermione heard a small Meow just before Mjölnir stepped into the light. His eyes were half closed and he had the good sense to Meow once more and then sit before them.

“Mjölnir!” Draco cried happily crouching down and holding a hand out to the oversized orange ball of fur. The cat stood and walked over to Draco with his back arched and his face relaxed in apparent happiness. He stroked across Draco’s hand and Hermione’s legs.

Hermione knelt down and scratched the purring cat under his chin, noticing a small paper tucked into his collar. She took it and silently showed it to Draco. She stood and unfolded the small strip of paper while Mjölnir was purring happily against her legs. He stood next to her and looked at the small writing on the paper over her shoulder.

Whoever finds this:

The survivors of the attack are at the assigned meeting place. Perpetrator has not been caught. Aurors are on the way. If medical help is needed, use Charm assigned. Do not Apparate. Travel by foot. Use as little magic as you can.

P. Hernandez

Hermione looked over her shoulder at Malfoy who was leaning over a few inches from her.

“We need to get this fire out and wash the soot off. Now.” He ordered. She didn’t bother debating it, he was right. She knelt down as he turned and reattached the paper to Mjölnir’s collar.

“See if you can find anyone else,” She whispered to the cat. It seemed that Mjölnir could understand her because he turned and wandered back into the grass, flicking his tail.

“Hurry up, Granger. I hadn’t used magic until you woke up other than to check your health. Anyone can lock onto our location.”

She washed her face and hands off quickly, wishing she had soap to wash off the smell of fire from her skin. It took about five minutes for them both to rinse off their skin and douse the fire with the water. It was dark, even with the half-moon just rising. “Alright, we have to go about seven miles to get to the designated spot. Get on the horse so we can go,” Malfoy told her.

She looked at the shadow where his voice had come from indignant at his order, “I don’t need to ride, I can walk perfectly fine, Malfoy.”

He sighed in the dark, “A building fell on you. Get on the damn horse.”

She felt her face warming and knew she was blushing. “I don’t want to,” She answered stubbornly.

“Why not?” He asked, sounding tired.

“Because… I don’t…”

“Spit it out Granger,” He growled.

Exacerbated, she said, “I don’t think I can get up by myself.” She crossed her arms and felt humiliated at having to admit her body’s weariness to the tall blonde. She honestly didn’t think she could lift her body to get onto the gigantic horse a second time.

She could hear the smirk in his voice when he answered, “You, Hermione Granger, need help with something?”

She huffed, “No, I said I can walk.”

He walked over to the horse-shaped shadow and then they both came in her direction. She prepared herself to follow the shadows when they passed. When he came close to her he stopped the horse and suddenly she was lifted in the air by a pair of strong hands. She shrieked in surprise and tried to struggle. “Shut up,” He hissed. “And stop moving. You’re riding.”

He plopped her on the saddle without even making a noise of effort. She tried not to remember the feeling of his hands on her hips and she was most assuredly not imagining what they would feel like on her bare skin. “You’re such an ass,” She told him as she settled into the saddle. She lifted her nose and was determined to not speak to him ever again.

He sighed, sounding weary, “Probably. And you are a haughty little bitch.”

She was seething with anger and biting down retorts, deciding that silence was the best way to respond. I’m not speaking to you. She thought over and over again. About fifteen minutes went by with Malfoy holding the reigns and leading the horse beside him.

Suddenly he spoke, “You don’t have any clue how to ask for someone’s help, do you Granger?”

She tried to ignore him. Of course she never needed anyone to take care of her. Why should that matter? No, ignore it. He’s just trying to get you to talk to him.

“No,” He sighed sadly, “I suppose you wouldn’t. You were always helping others. You never needed anyone to take care of you.” The moon had risen more and she could see him in the dim light better. He lowered his head and continued, “I know the feeling. Being a Malfoy means you’re above others’ help. To have to lower oneself to ask for help is not the Malfoy way. When I came here… I just wanted to go back. I had an empire which had suddenly become mine to run. My parent’s wealth had been divvied up like all the other Death Eater’s. But the companies we own and the stocks we had still needed to be managed. It was my duty.”

He paused for a moment and raised his head, proudly. Hermione remembered the stance from when they were children suddenly. It was him preparing to attack. Should she be worried?

“I’m a proud man, Hermione. When I came here, I was broken and didn’t even know it. My parents’ were dead, I had only one person I considered a friend, and nothing but ridicule to return to in Britain. I was drowning out everything in Firewhiskey and waiting for someone to throw a killing curse at me on the street. There were threats, even though I turned on the Death Eater cause in the end. Regardless, I deserved it, I think now.

“But these people, they didn’t care. Mr. Greene took one look at me and accepted who I was without a second thought. I told him I wanted nothing he could offer. The Dark Mark did not faze him. My parents’ death was the next thing I tried to get him to leave me alone. He told me your parent’s don’t determine who you are. ‘Look at me, a midget from full-sized parents,’ He said. And I’ll never forget, he told me, ‘And you, a giant heart from a pair of midget ones.’ I thought him insane, how could he know anything about my heart, he’d only known me for ten minutes. So I asked him, and he told me that he just knew. He offered me a job I was too proud to take. I had never worked a day in my life.”

He paused as though remembering, Hermione stayed silent. She was marveling at his openness. She had expected to never learn the circumstances of his arrival in America. Now, here he was explaining it without her asking, without reservation. She remembered Rose’s evaluation of him again.

“You think you know me, Granger. Because we lived in the same castle for seven years and had a few classes together. You have no idea who I was then, nor who I’ve grown up to be. Just the same as I have no idea who you were or who you grew up to be. You have no idea why I stayed. You have no idea how much it pains me when you assume that I’m nothing more than who you imagined me to be in school. That was ten years ago.”

She felt horrible after his speech, guilty beyond measure, and incredibly ashamed of her actions. He was right, she was judging him based on her experience from ten years prior. Before she could respond with an apology, he continued speaking. His lonely voice in the darkness made her heart go out to him.

“And don’t you dare apologize. Don’t you dare fucking pity me,” He spit out the word ‘pity’ like it was a rotten egg. “If it weren’t for the shit I’ve been through, I would never be the person I am today.”

“Malfoy, I’m sorry for calling you an ass,” Hermione said, anyway. “I was just pissed at your audacity.”

He snorted. “Leave it to Granger to figure out the loophole in my forbidding you to apologize for ... Fine, I’m sorry for calling you a haughty bitch, even though you are sometimes.”

She giggled, “Truce?”

“Truce.”

They continued walking through the grass in easier silence. Hermione kept a watch around them for anything out of the ordinary, and Malfoy was listening to the crickets chirping in the distance.

When they came to a grove of trees about half an hour afterward, Hermione asked him to help her down so she could make use of the bushes. She was proud of herself for finally feeling comfortable with him taking care of her. He had explained it as though- in her mind- he was simply paying it forward. He had been helped in his time of need and now she was in need so he helped. He pulled a bottle of water from one of the saddle bags and handed it to her. “Dilute it,” He said, sounding as uncomfortable as she felt hearing it. “Don’t want to leave traces.”

She left to take care of her business. When she came back, Malfoy was affectionately stroking the mare’s nose. Even in the low moonlight, he could see the soft and unguarded expression on his face. She told herself she should remember this one image of him. His pale skin glowed softly in the moonlight and his hair had fallen over his brow. He seemed to be comforting the horse with soft words which Hermione could not hear. He glanced in her direction, his expression changed to his normal one, and she found herself saddened by the return of his mask.

“Ready?” He asked as she walked toward him.

She nodded and he lifted her again as though she weighed next to nothing. She allowed him to and when she was settled, she said, “Don’t you think lifting me like that will get tiring?”

He was picking up the reigns when she asked and he smirked up at her, “No. You are not heavy.”

She rolled her eyes and didn’t comment. She was used to people talking about her petite frame as a compliment, but really she hated when people brought it up. She always had to get her clothing tailored whenever she went shopping because the stores never seemed to have her size in anything. It was mildly irritating. She expected him to say something like what others were always telling her. Instead, he said without looking at her, “If it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll figure out a different way to get you up.” She was surprised and grateful he didn’t use it as a way to compliment her.

“No, it… It’s fine.” She said awkwardly. She didn’t want to admit that she kind of liked to be manhandled. He lifted her so easily and some part of her brain tried whispering naughty things he could do to her, but she squashed the imaginary voice. She didn’t want to admit that she kind of liked that he hadn’t made the petite comment she had been expecting. That she kind of liked- Nope. That’s enough, Hermione. Stop right there. You can respect him but you do not kind of like him. Not going to happen. She was frowning at herself for her almost admission as they entered the tree line. She definitely must have hit her head much harder than she thought.

“Only about half a mile to go,” Malfoy told her in a low voice.

She leaned down next to his head, “Do we need to be quiet in here?” She whispered.

He didn’t turn, “Somewhat. I don’t know if they have enough people to have lookouts. Also, there might be some animals we wouldn’t want to meet without the use of our magic,” He answered in the same low voice.

She sat back up and was nearly hit in the face by a branch. She leaned toward the horse’s neck. After getting hit regardless she whispered, “I should get down.”

“Why?” His voice sounded curious.

“Well the trees are trying to kill me and also I would be an easy target up here if we were to come under attack.” She answered hurriedly. He stopped and lifted her from the saddle to the ground. They continued in through the silent trees.

A male voice challenged them, “Identify yourself or be restrained.”

“Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger.” Draco answered.

“Oh thank Merlin,” The voice was coming closer as it spoke. “We were so worried he found you.”

“Who’s ‘he’?” Hermione asked.

The voice’s owner was right in front of them and struck a Muggle torch pointed towards the ground. In the glow from the beam of light, Hermione saw it was Luis. “He said his name was Justin, he had two last names and he was here to give your punishment for war crimes.”

“Finch-Fletchley?” Hermione asked, surprised.

“I think so. There was some other stuff goin’ on, I didn’t quite catch it.”

They followed Luis towards a single tent hidden in the woods. A Mediwitch was in the process of talking to Rose and fixing some rather nasty cuts on her face when they entered. Hermione could see that there would be little scarring of the witch’s pale skin. They must have brought a magically enlarged tent to the woods which would also hide their lantern lights from the outside.

The Mediwitch looked in their direction, saw Malfoy, and threw him a white coat and told him she needed help. He nodded and slipped his arms into the coat and pulled out his wand from his jeans’ pocket. He glanced at Hermione in the dim lantern light and asked her, “You know enough healing spells to help?” Hermione tried not to ogle him, the white coat made him look even more handsome- if that were possible. She nodded in answer and he called out to the Mediwitch, “One more jacket, Dawn.” The witch threw one from a nearby bed where there was one more coat waiting to be filled. Hermione got to work and wondered about why in the world Justin Finch-Fletchley would think she or Draco were guilty of any war crimes.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Remember, I have a forum post goin’ on. If you leave a comment with a question, I will respond there (http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php/topic/51078-daylight-review-replies-n-discussion-thread/).

To my lovely reviewers who are leaving comments telling me they like it: Thanks so much every one of you! I’m not leaving you out, I promise! Thank you so much!!

Rating/Reviews are awesome and I read and appreciate every single one! You should leave one too!
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Daylight