26Author's Note: This was written in response to the 50 Different Friendships or Less Challenge on HPFC. At the moment it is a one-shot, but it is highly likely it will become multi-chaptered, as I have a few ideas for other prompts floating in my head. I've never attempted a challenge before, so I apologise if this was done incorrectly. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read this. :)
Prompt: forbidden (26/50)
October 1999
War changes you. They've both accepted this as fact, just like they've accepted this strange sort of friendship-that-isn't as part of their lives, at least for the next few months. It doesn't make any sort of sense at all, that Hermione Granger would voluntarily be in the company of Draco Malfoy, nor he in hers, but then again, the world doesn't make sense, and why should it have to?
Sometimes Hermione wonders if they're even friends at all, if they don't acknowledge each other at all during the day. Theirs is an acquaintance founded on loneliness and coincidence. They agree without words to keep it a secret, because even if it's not forbidden, it most definitely won't be approved of. She's with Ron and he's with Astoria (sort of) and even though they're just friends (companions, acquaintances, something like that) these late night meetings have a hint of something improper, simply because of the secrecy involved.
Does this make them bad people?
She asks him this once, and he just looks at her and says, with a hint of his old arrogance, "You think too much, Granger." So she'd left it at that, keeping her more contemplative thoughts to herself.
It starts in the second week of term. Hogwarts has just reopened, a little more than a year after the Battle, and everyone – staff and students alike – is a little bit fragile. Hermione is having trouble sleeping, so she tip-toes through the castle in her dressing gown and slippers until she reaches the Astronomy tower.
She finds it humbling to be up so high, frequenting it when she needs a quiet place to think, or a place to just be, without judgments or interruptions.
Malfoy's shadow becomes visible before he does, and it's only the many months of peace and apparent safety that stop her from Stunning him straight away.
"Granger. What are you doing here?"
"I might ask you the same question." There's dark circles under his eyes, and she doesn't think she looks much better. They've both obviously been caught in a moment of vulnerability, but neither wants to admit it.
"I – I come here when I can't sleep." His honesty surprises her; she'd been expecting some scathing remark, at the very least.
"Oh. So do I." She realises she's still pointing her wand at him, and lowers it quickly, revealing, as she does so, a light pink 'O' and 'D' - part of a scar she will have forever, courtesy of Bellatrix Lestrange.
It clearly makes him uncomfortable. "Sorry about what she did to you."
"It's not your fault." There's an air of awkwardness to their encounter now – what do you say to someone who has been, to some extent, your enemy since you were eleven years old in a situation like this one?
They both leave shortly after, but they meet again the next night, and the night after that, until there's a pattern to their encounters that neither of them acknowledges.
Hermione already owls Ron, and Harry, and her parents frequently – perhaps more frequently than she should – and there are some things she doesn't want to bother Ginny with when she's already got enough on her plate. So it happens that she finds herself confessing her nightmares to Draco Malfoy, and he in turn confides in her.
Their friendship is precarious and conditional, they're both aware that it won't last beyond this year, and it might not even last beyond this term, but for the moment they're both in need of company, and they find it in each other.