Hermione Granger had been thoroughly frightened.
It had all happened so suddenly. After Draco had gone, she had been listlessly fetching water when she heard a commotion in the crowd, growing steadily louder as it drew nearer.
This felt very wrong indeed.
She had decided to grab the water jug and hurry straight back.
But after only a few steps, someone running behind her had barrelled straight into her, knocking her down, sending a sharp pain shooting through her ankle.
I am done for, she had thought. She had her wand on her, but had no idea at all how to mend an injured ankle.
A wave of despair had washed over her.
That wretched Draco, being so unkind to her! Had he only come to say something horrid, just to upset her, and then abandoned her here all alone...?
How could she possibly like such an unreasonable, wretched boy?
She had struggled in the mud, thoroughly cross with herself.
Then, her unreasonable, wretched boy had come rushing back to her.
He had looked terrified, his neatly styled hair now a complete mess, nothing at all like the calm, composed figure he had cut in the box earlier.
The moment he saw her, a flicker of relief had lit his eyes.
He had turned back into the familiar, considerate, gentle Draco she knew, without any of his usual sharp tongue or sarcasm.
Like something out of a dream, he had tenderly helped her up, gently lifted her onto his back, and carried her away from the terrible, raging fire behind them.
She rested her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes, and breathed in that faint, warm scent of cedarwood, finding some peace within herself at last.
It felt so good, being close to him again. He always made her feel safe. His jacket wrapped round her, hiding her vulnerability entirely. It soothed her troubled feelings a great deal.
His back felt far sturdier than when he had carried her, back in second year, and his arms stronger even than the last time he had carried her, only a few months before.
His warm hands held her legs firmly, and he carried her a long way, his breathing steady and even the whole time.
"Draco, what happened?" His sudden concern for her brought a lump to her throat, and she found herself asking him, through her tears.
"Something terrible has happened. Those men in hoods and masks attacked some Muggles... the site manager's family."
Draco glanced warily about them.
Dark figures stumbled past them here and there, their shouts rising and falling in the tense air. Behind them, the campsite still rumbled, an eerie green light flashing every now and then.
"However could they? That family never bothered anyone, they are quite innocent..." Hermione sniffed; none of it made any sense to her at all.
"That was the work of Death Eaters. They never trouble themselves with reason. They take real pleasure in that sort of thing," Draco said, calmly.
"Those tents did not all catch fire at once. I think we ought to head a little deeper still, away from wherever those blasts are coming from."
The tents had not all caught fire at once at all... this was a targeted attack.
Draco would have staked his own hair on it: beneath every burning tent lay a Muggle-born wizarding family. Whatever danger Hermione, Muggle-born as she was, now faced was likely far graver than it appeared.
The girl sensed keenly enough what lay unspoken in his words. Her trembling hand gripped his shirt tightly, leaving deep creases in the smooth fabric.
She hesitated, then asked softly, "Draco, were your father and mother Death Eaters?"
"My father was, my mother was not. But both of them supported the Dark Lord."
His voice was as cold as the night sky above them. He glanced round once more and decided to carry her onward.
"Are they among the ones in hoods and masks tonight?" she asked, fearful, her sobs subsiding, though she did not really wish to hear the answer.
"To be honest, I do not know," Draco said, rubbing his hands together in frustration.
In his past life, his parents had never told him directly where they had gone that night.
But tonight, they had an engagement with the Bulgarian Minister for Magic, who had spent the whole evening pretending he could not speak a word of English, and Draco guessed that Lucius and Narcissa had probably not yet had the chance to torment any Muggles at all.
More and more dark figures gathered among the trees.
Rustling bushes, snapping branches, the faint cries of children, and murmured voices echoed all through the woods.
At a time like this, drawing too close to any unfamiliar wizard carried real risk. Draco looked round cautiously, meaning to find some quieter little grove in which to properly shelter his girl.
Sensing his unease, Hermione wisely changed the subject. "Draco... why were you not affected by those Veela tonight?"
"Oh, that." Draco finally allowed himself a small smile. "I never so much as looked at those Veela, back then."
He had been looking at her the whole time.
"Then why were you so angry with me tonight?" Hermione asked softly. Her lips were so close to Draco's that he could feel her breath against his cheek.
"It is nothing," he said quickly.
He suddenly became aware that only his own thin shirt, and her thinner top, stood between them, making every point of contact remarkably vivid. He could feel something soft pressed against his back, which set his heart trembling with every step he took.
"Stop lying to me, I know something is on your mind. Tell me!" she said urgently, her lips brushing, it seemed, right against his earlobe... as though the softness pressed against his back were not distraction enough already.
He was so startled by this that he very nearly tripped over a tree root.
The girl responsible, quite unaware of the effect she had caused, assumed his eyes must simply be struggling in the dark, and hurriedly drew her wand from her pocket, casting Lumos to light the rough path ahead of him with its narrow beam.
"It is all rather foolish... it has bothered me a little, that you chose to go and stay with Ron rather than keep to our own arrangement... I know it is wrong of me to feel that way..."
Draco had been holding this in for so long, he could only offer this rather sullen excuse, once pressed.
He could hardly admit he had been angry simply because she liked Krum, could he?
Not before Krum had even arrived at Hogwarts as part of the Durmstrang delegation; the reason would sound utterly absurd, quite indefensible.
Besides, his mind, just now, was in far too much of a muddle to think clearly at all, thanks to certain rather distracting sensations.
"You silly thing! If it truly bothered you that much, you might simply have invited me earlier, rather than leaving it to the very last moment..." Hermione whispered in his ear, half amused, half exasperated.
"All right," Draco agreed, a fresh wave of happiness rising within him once more.
"Wait, you were prepared to simply leave me there, over something so small?" Hermione's tone suddenly turned rather sharp again.
"I am sorry," he said, guiltily, not daring to look back at her, and simply kept walking on.
Looking back on it now, he too felt he had gone rather too far.
"Draco Malfoy! Never leave me standing somewhere like that again! Never!" she whispered fiercely into his ear. "It feels dreadful, being abandoned like that... I hate it!"
"All right." He answered her softly, but firmly. "I promise you, it will never happen again."
-----------
Support If you like me to continue it till end:
https://www.patreon.com/Daoist_Inkyug