No Reason

Draco apperated back to the gates of Hogwarts after his meeting with the Dark Lord. He irritably brushed the dust from his robes that collected there when he had knelt upon the floor of the dingy shack, and dug his broom from underneath some dead leaves.

As he started on the short flight back to his room, he was careful to keep to the shadows of the towering trees the Forbidden Forest provided. Before he’d even managed to get halfway back, a strange wailing noise split the chilly air and he looked up sharply towards the sound’s origin.

Curious, Draco climbed higher, flying so low over the treetops that he felt the upper most leaves brush against the material of his pants. He soon came upon a small clearing amongst the trees, and the sound came again, from a cloaked figure that sat upon a large stone.

Draco was mildly surprised, he’d expected to see some sort of unusual dying animal, but this close he could clearly make out that it’d come from a human. He landed quietly on the edge of the clearing, using the darkness to his advantage, and peered from behind a tree at the scene in front of him.

The cloak’s hood covered much of the face of whoever it was, but Draco could just barely make out long hair.

“Just some chit that’s crying over some trivial bullshit.” Draco thought with a snort.

He was just about to hop back on his broom and leave, when the girl turned her face skywards and the brightness of the moon illuminated her features more clearly. So it was Granger alone in the woods, so far from the protection of the castle and Potty and Weasel.

He watched her for a short time chuckling to himself over her tears, and noticed a giant spider creeping up slowly behind her, obviously intent on a meal. Draco smirked and quickly weighed his options. Save golden girl from the big hairy beast and possibly be hexed by the Gryffindor spitfire for spying on her, or return to the castle and pretend he’d never seen her out there.

Sighing in exasperation, Draco decided that, though he’d really like for the bitch to get eaten, an act of saving her life might prove useful if he ever needed to get closer to Potter at the Dark Lord’s bidding. He reluctantly pulled out his wand, made a small circling movement, and muttered, “Incendio.”

The spell created a ring of blue fire around Granger who screamed as it flared up, and screamed even louder as she realized the huge arachnid just outside the circle. Frightened by this strange new blazing light, the creature reared back on it’s hind legs, pincers clacking furiously, before scuttling back to the safety of the forest beyond.

Countering his own spell as soon as he felt the danger had passed, Draco walked idly into the clearing, quickly checking around to make sure the spider hadn’t brought friends for dinner. When he was sure they were alone, he advanced with a mischievous Slytherin smirk towards Granger, who wiped away all evidence of her tears.

“Fuck Granger, you look terrible.”
“Sod off Malfoy.”

He watched her look past him in the woods, as if she was expecting Potter or Weasley to come storming out of the forest to protect her from him, and sneered.

“Scarhead and the peasant aren’t here, Granger.”

Hermione eyes widened a fraction of an inch before she hastily stood and exclaimed, “Leave me alone Malfoy!”
“What, no thank you? How rude of you, mudblood. I’ll remember that the next time your sorry ass is about to be devoured by a gigantic spider. I really should have just left you alone.” Draco retorted, seething.

Hermione bit back her anger and hung her head. It wasn’t in her to be rude and unkind, even though Malfoy was admittedly a Death Eater.

“Thank you for helping me Malfoy.” she said curtly, and not without strain, sitting back down and turning away from him.

Draco snorted loudly and walked away from her, back to the place he’d tossed his broom.

“To hell with the bitch anyway.” Draco muttered underneath his breath.

He halted his take off when an angry male voice sounded from the clearing he’d just left Granger in.

“What the…”

Draco squinted his eyes, and could make out a man standing next to Granger. No, standing over Granger, who was now on the ground. Hadn’t she been sitting on the boulder only seconds ago?

Draco moved a little closer to the edge of the clearing so he could catch the conversation better, questions racing through his head. He heard Granger’s voice first. Not strong and unafraid as it had been with him, but weak and frightened.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you’d be awake tonight, that’s why I wasn’t there, I would have been there first thing in the morning, please Harry.”
“Well I’m awake aren’t I Hermione?! Yet here you are wandering around like a bloody moron in the forest.”

Smiling as he realized Potter and Granger were having a little lover’s spat, he was kind of surprised, as Potter struck him as a sissy when it came to arguments with girls after the whole Cho Chang thing. Was the mudblood so unbearable that she caused the Boy-who-wouldn’t-die to snap?

Eyes snapping up when he heard a noise that resembled a slap, Draco’s jaw dropped as he observed Granger stagger back from Potter.

“Please don’t do this Harry,” Granger whimpered, clutching her cheek and cowering away from Potter as the raised his hand again threateningly, “It was just an accident, and I wasn’t avoiding you.”

Draco continued to stare unbelievingly and shook his head. “She has her bloody wand in her hand; why doesn’t she curse the bastard?”

When Potter grabbed her neck, Draco levitated a small stone from the ground and sent it careening towards a tree trunk on the other side of the clearing. Though he was a Death Eater, he received no enjoyment from watching what was happening here; torture and murder were never really one of Draco’s strong points.

In the dark, Potter and Granger didn’t notice the rock, and it collided with the trunk with a satisfying CRACK that made them whip around towards the sound. After a few more heated words from Potter that Draco couldn’t hear, he grabbed Granger by the arm and marched her out of the wood. Obviously he wasn’t about to stay and find out if some carnivorous creature had made the noise; it was the Forbidden Forest after all.
Draco languidly went to mount his broom. He’d actually felt bad for the mud blood and he’d saved her ass twice! Shuddering, as he thought of what his family would have done to him if they’d seen him do something like that, he took flight and was back to his room in no time.

When he lay down in his cool, expensive silk sheets, he longed for sleep to rest his aching body. The unforgivables really did take a lot out of a person, no matter how many times they’d experienced it. Try as he might, and though he had many much more important things to be thinking about than the mudblood, Draco couldn’t seem to get his mind to cooperate with him and he lay awake most of the night dwelling on Granger and what he’d seen.

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Hermione had been lead out of the Forbidden Forest hours ago by Harry, not that she’d had much of a choice, and she now sat on her bed shaking ever-so slightly, gripping a pillow to her chest so hard her knuckles were white, the past few hours replaying over and over again before her eyes.

Harry had led her through the halls under his invisibility cloak to hide them in case Mr. Filch and Mrs. Norris had been out patrolling. Harry had held her arm in a vice grip that made her fingers tingle, and though she was afraid, her mind wandered off. Had Malfoy of all people really just saved her? She tried in vain to grasp the meaning of it.

What could the ferret possibly gain from saving her? The question left her so bemused that she didn’t notice when Harry led them further and further away from the Gryffindor common rooms.

“Harry, where are we?” she whispered, as she tripped on a crack on in the floor.

He didn’t acknowledge her question, and continued pulling her along, stopping at a classroom’s door, which Hermione recognized to be dusty room he’d managed to get her into a few times before. Panicking slightly, Hermione tried to rip her arm from Harry’s grip, who tightened it considerably.

“Get the fuck in there Hermione.”
“Please Harry, don’t do this.”

Harry looked quickly up and down the hall to make sure no one was coming and pushed Hermione hard into the empty room. Almost falling, Hermione caught herself and started crying, begging Harry to not hurt her.

He laughed at her and shook his head as he closed the door and cast a silencing charm. “Why shouldn’t I hurt you Hermione? You’ve been avoiding me for two days now. Is that any way to treat someone you love?”

Voice quavering, she answered, “I wasn’t avoiding you. I’m afraid of you.”

Harry’s face darkened and he ran over to her, spinning her around and pushing her up against the wall. “How about I give you a reason to be afraid of me?”

He wrapped his arm around her neck and pulled back, cutting off her air so that she was gasping and flailing uselessly against him. She saw stars as her vision failed her and everything went black.

She didn’t know where she was when she woke up, but felt very cold. As her memory returned, she sat up quickly and saw that all of her clothes had been removed. She fearfully glanced around the room, but it appeared that she was alone. With shaking hands she checked her most private area to make sure she hadn’t been violated and was relieved to find her virginity still intact.

It still remained, however, that she had no clothes on. What had Harry done to her? She fought tears as she searched frantically for her clothes, eager to escape the room, a place she hated. Finding them thrown in the corner of the room, she pulled her shirt over her head and pulled her pants on, not caring that they were inside out and disheveled.

She ran all the way back to her dormitory, praying to meet no one on the way back. She didn’t know if she could face a teacher in her current condition and keep calm. She’d thankfully made it to her room without running into anyone and she’d sat down on the bed, and there she remained, not daring to sleep for fear of what her dreams would bring.

AN*: Yup that's chapter 6. Stay tuned and review if you have time.