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Draco could still feel the feathers inside of his throat even though it had been six hours since he’d accidentally ingested the Canary Cream. He had no idea why it had affected him so badly, especially when he had had the chance to read the label himself. Either way, he had found himself admitted to the Hospital Wing where Madame Pomfrey had told him that he had probably experienced an allergic reaction. This reaction had meant that instead of him being in bird form for only sixty seconds, he had been a great big yellow canary for all of sixty minutes. This had meant that his classmates had been able to witness him humiliated once again, but that was something that at this point of his life he should have been used to.
He was grateful to Granger though. Instead of laughing at him like he deserved, she had escorted him to the Hospital Wing and insisted that he get help, all while he was coated in feathers and unable to talk for himself. She had stayed with him while he had to wait it out, while he had waited until his feathers had moulted off and he became a human man once again.
She was still there now, six hours later, asleep in the chair beside his bed while he’d been taking some sort of antihistamine potion every few hours and having his vitals checked by Madame Pomfrey. They hadn’t said anything to each other and for that reason he had assumed that she would have left. They weren’t exactly friends, after all. And in fact he was pretty sure that Hermione and her friends hated him, but he did his best to stay away from them so he couldn’t be absolutely certain.
Slowly Draco pushed himself up into a sitting position, his eyes flickering between Hermione and the glass of water on the table over his bed. He had been slowly sipping on it over time, hoping that it would have taken away the taste of feathers, but that didn’t appear to be the case and it made him think that he should stop drinking altogether but at the same time he was so unbelievably thirsty.
“Malfoy?” He heard his name before he realised that Granger wasn’t asleep. His heart was pounding in his chest now and he knew that he had to shake that off because she would sense it. She was far too observant for her own good.
“Granger.” He said softly, giving her a smile. “You can go to bed, you know.” He added, hoping that all she needed was the permission to do so and the reassurance that he was okay.
“Where are your friends?” She asked as she glanced around her. They both knew that he had no friends and that no-one else was coming. They both knew that once she left, he was going to be alone and that that was deserved. He had done some pretty awful things and it had left his ostracised by most of society, by both the society that he had once been apart of and the society that he wanted to be a part of.
“It’s late.” He said inestead. “It’s late and you should get some rest. I’m fine now and I’m grateful that you stayed with me but I don’t need you to stay and hold my hand.”
“I’m not going to hold your hand!” Granger all but yelped, almost as if she had been burned by his words and he immediately wished that he could take them back. He all but recoiled in on himself and wished now more than ever that she would leave him alone. “I just… I wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
Draco frowned a little, his nose wrinkling up as he tried to figure out why she would care so much. He was a mess, that was true, but he didn’t think that she ould have cared about his mental state. If their roles were reversed, he doubted that he would have sat with her, but then he supposed that she would have had someone there with her while she was laid up. Whenever she’d been in the Hospital Wing before, she’d always been inundated with outpourings of love and support.
“You don’t believe me?” He heard her ask and he didn’t need to look at her to know that she was somewhat disappointed in him for that.
“We’ve been mortal enemies for how long?” Draco asked as he allowed himself to face Hermione now. The muggle born would forever confuse him and he didn’t think that that was a good thing.
“I wouldn’t call us enemies.” He was surprised to hear her say. “Sure, we’ve never gotten on but I wouldn’t call us enemies.”
“We literally fought on the opposite sides of the war.” Draco pointed out.
“A war that neither of us, especially not you, had a choice about being involved in. I believe that in another life we could have been friends.”
“Friends?” Draco repeated. He’d never considered it before and he honestly didn’t know why because as much as he had been conditioned to hate her, he didn’t. She was unbelievably smart and with some exceptions, they held the same ideals for the most part. They had the same priorities and they had always been academic adversaries.
“Yeah. I suppose this is another life now so we could be friends now, if you’d like.” Granger suggested and Draco found that he could only stare at her. Should he have said something? Should have agreed immediately?
“You want to be friends?” Draco asked slowly. “Even though you know who I am?” He couldn’t seem to quite wrap his head around that. It was almost as if he was speaking an entirely different language because although he understood the words separately he didn’t understand them all together as they were meant to be.
“Yes. I think you need friends and I need friends who… I need different friends.” She told him. There was a small smile on her face, one that he definitely didn’t comprehend but he knew that he had to try. He had to try to understand her because for some reason he felt compelled to. There was something about Granger and there always had been, he had just never been able to put his finger on whatever that something was.
“I… I don’t know what to say.” Draco admitted as he pulled his legs up to fold them underneath himself. “I’ve spent the last six months of being at this school believing that I wasn’t worthy of having friends and it’s going to take another six months for me to even start to believe that I am now.”
“I can wait.” Granger said quietly. “I’m willing to put in the work to help you to believe and… I… It’s purely selfish, I guess.” She paused for a moment before she shook her head slightly. “I don’t know what it is about you, Malfoy. But I want to be your friend so if I have to put in the work to become your friend then that’s something that I’m willing to do so will you just accept that if nothing else?”
Draco let out a soft laugh. He didn’t mean to but it had just sort of slipped out before he had the chance to push it down. “Okay, okay. We can try this. But you should still go to bed.” He said with a determined nod. He couldn’t help but think that if they were friends, or at least going to be friends one day when he got over all of his insecurities, that they should be looking out for each other.
“You’re bossy, huh?” Granger’s eyebrow was raised as she quite obviously looked him up and down.
“You’re only just learning this about me now?” Draco asked. He couldn’t help the way he was. He had been brought up to expect everything to be handed to him on a silver platter and when it wasn’t he had been given the privilege to demand for it to be handed to him.
“No, I guess I’ve known it for a while..” She paused again before she shook her head. “I suppose it makes sense at the end of the day and partially explains why you didn’t have any friends…”
“I…” Draco wanted to argue that he’d had friends but he knew that wasn’t true. He knew that he’d never actually had friends and that was why he didn’t know how to have friends in the first place. He’d had cronies and he’d had acquaintances, but never friends. “You don’t pull punches, huh?”
“And that’s something that I expected you to know.” Granger said simply with a shake of her head. “You’ve been at the receiving end of my physical punch, after all, have you not?”
Draco laughed again. “Yes. That’s very true.” He hummed. “Now are you going to do as you’re told or are you going to listen to me?”
Granger tilted her head slightly as she regarded him for a moment. Draco expected her to slap him or maybe to even throw his glass of water in his face but instead she simply moved onto the bed in front of him. She was on her knees which put her at about the same height as him and allowed him to look straight into her eyes. He didn’t think that this was a good thing. He was pretty sure those brown eyes of hers went straight into her soul and it made him feel uncomfortable in a way that he definitely hadn’t been prepared for.
“I want something first.” She said in a soft whisper. “I want a ‘thank you’ from you for being here. I want a ‘thank you’ and I want you to mean it.” It was a simple request but for some reason it made Draco’s heart skip a beat.
The next thing that he knew was that his hand was on her cheek and he was leaning forward to press a kiss to her lips. The voice in the back of his head was screaming that he shouldn’t be doing this, that he needed to abort the mission before he ruined any chance that they might have had at a friendship developing.
But his body didn’t want to listen to this voice and he found that he was kissing her anyway. She didn’t push him away when their lips met, almost as if she had meant for this to happen, almost as if she had wanted him to kiss her. Was that how she had wanted him to thank her? Surely not, but then again she was the one that had moved to sit on his bed. His body had interpreted this as an invitation and he had been powerless to stop it.
Draco pulled back after a sweet moment or two, whispering a “thank you” as he leaned back against the headboard. He tried not to stare as Hermione blinked a couple of times, quite obviously trying to figure out what had happened but she didn’t look disgusted and so he decided that he was going to take that as a win.
“You’re welcome.” Granger whispered back before she slowly got up from the bed. “Get some rest and I’ll swing by in the morning.”
Part of Draco wanted to beg her not to leave him, to stay with him for the night but he knew that he was already overstepping with the whole kiss thing in the first place. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He managed to make himself say instead, glad that she was making a promise to come back to see him.
Granger flashed him one last dazzling smile and a wave before she walked out of the Hospital Wing. Draco watched her as she left, his head tilted to the side ever-so-slightly before he allowed his eyes to close. For the first time, and probably the only time, he found himself thinking that he was lucky that he had slipped a Canary Cream that day. It had been his good luck charm, even if he had had some sort of allergic reaction to it.
He pulled in a slow deep breath before he tried his water again in the hopes that he would no longer be tasting feathers. He was also hopeful that at some point he would be able to sleep but he had no idea how to make him sleep here when it was such a vulnerable place to be - especially when he was so used to being in a private room.