The hallways were dark and a chill pervaded the air as I hurried towards, and then into, the library, careful to not knock my bag against any hard surfaces. Nearing my destination, I stopped just out of sight of the meeting table and attempted to straighten out my clothing and hair, then gave up and proceeded towards that night's encounter with the Slytherin.

"I'm sorry I'm late," I said, still panting slightly as I placed my bag on the table in the library.

"It's fine." Malfoy looked calm, as usual, his eyes a pale but clear grey, his mouth relaxed, his forehead smooth and free of furrows. I, on the other hand, had forgotten the camera that had arrived the day before in my room and had to rush back to the dorms after dinner to retrieve the items, and then all but sprinted down several flights of stairs to get to the library at a reasonably late time. Thus, my hair was almost certainly a veritable bird's nest of brown curls and my clothes were slightly dishevelled, but it didn't really matter since Malfoy probably didn't care how I looked, anyway.

I sat down and took out the camera, a vintage grey and black, Polaroid, and set it in the centre of the table.

"That's a camera?" Malfoy asked curiously, peering at the device with noticeable interest.

I nodded, and then picked it up, aimed the lens at him, and pressed a button, snapping a photo of him with a sharp click. The picture slid out of the front and I showed it to Malfoy, whose image had a slightly bewildered expression on its alabaster face.

"It's not moving," he murmured, examining the snapshot warily. "How strange."

"Muggles would find moving pictures to be strange, as well," I said quietly, placing the photo on the table. I then looked up and found him gazing at me in an odd manner, a slight crease forming in the space between his light blond eyebrows.

"So," I said abruptly, looking away from his suddenly intense, silver eyes. "What do you want to do with the camera?"

After a slight pause, during which I didn't dare to look back at him, he replied, "I'd like to figure out the exact mechanisms it uses to take pictures, and then maybe get a few more photos to show during my presentation."

"All right. Unfortunately," I started with a slightly annoyed sigh, "I don't know very much about cameras other than the basics, but I don't think we finished going through those books last time, so we could look through those again. As for the photos, you can have the camera, if you'd like, and take some pictures in your free time."

He nodded. "I think that would work. I'll return the camera to you in a few weeks, once the project is completed."

"You can keep it, honestly. I have a digital camera at home, and my parents wouldn't mind it if I gave this one to you."

He didn't immediately reply, and I bit my lip and began to wonder if it was strange to offer the camera to him since our relationship was still on rather uncertain terms. Finally, he simply said, "We'll see," and got up and headed towards the bookshelf we went to a week ago. After a few minutes, he returned with an armful of books and set them down on the table, then sat in his seat across from me, his silhouette blocking out the gleaming shine of the thin crescent moon from the windows behind him, and began to read. I pursed my lips, then grabbed the next book in the pile and idly flipped through the pages, not wanting to just sit and watch him read for an hour.

I had just reached a section on digital cameras when he suddenly asked, "What was it like, growing up as a Muggle?"

I blinked, surprised by the abruptness of his question, then thought for a moment. "I enjoyed it," I finally replied. "I read lots of books and went to school and watched shows on the telly." I shrugged, not knowing quite what else to tell him. "I had a pretty normal childhood, at least until my Hogwarts letter arrived."

"What did your parents think of the letter?"

"They were surprised, obviously." I tilted my head, searching through my memories for that fateful day in mid-summer. "I remember that they were really excited and kept saying that they were proud of me. We had loads of fun travelling around Diagon Alley the first time. My mum must've seemed batty to some of the shopkeepers there," I concluded with a laugh.

He didn't reply, although he looked vaguely amused, so I decided to ask him a few questions of my own.

"What was growing up like for you?"

He looked at me sharply, then sighed and leaned back against his seat. "I was a spoiled child," he finally stated matter-of-factly. "I got whatever I wanted, so long as I followed the orders of my parents. I thought my father was a god or something, and he could do no wrong in my eyes, not even when he punished me for disobeying him. Mother was a bit more aloof and didn't often show emotion, but I could tell that she loved Father and that, by extension, she loved me, just in a chilly sort of manner."

"That's sad," I said, then immediately wished I hadn't.

He looked at me, his gaze cautiously curious. "What is?"

I hesitated, trying to decide how best to word my thoughts so that they wouldn't offend him too much.

"Just… living with such cold people," I finally replied, examining his face for any signs of anger. While I didn't like either of his parents, I didn't want to insult them and get into another row, in the library of all places.

"Well," he started tersely. "It's not any worse than living in a world without magic."

I shook my head vehemently, my hair flying in all directions. "I think that living without love is worse than living without magic. Love is merely another form of magic, just one without wandwork and muttering."

He scoffed. "What a Gryffindor thing to say, Granger."

"It's true," I said, looking at him imploringly. "Love, Malfoy, is one of the most pristine and powerful things in this world. A mother's love, for instance, can protect a baby from the wrath of an evil maniac."

"That was just luck," he said, rolling his eyes.

"It was not," I argued, annoyed with his cynical and inaccurate perception of the world. "Love can overcome anything. It's the only thing that can destroy hate, the only thing that gave Harry the ability to defeat Voldemort. If love didn't exist, if it wasn't as powerful as it is, you and I would not be sitting here, having this conversation. For Godric's sake, Malfoy, you and I might not even be alive if not for Lilly Potter's last action as a mother."

He sighed heavily and slumped into his chair. "You're more idealistic than I thought you were."

I scoffed. "And you're more of a pessimist than I thought you were," I retorted.

"How can you be so sure that everything you support is right, Granger?" he shot back. "It could be that Voldemort was actually correct in his thinking, you know."

I blinked. "Are you saying that you think that a murderer, an evil, maniacal, killer, should be ruling the world?" I asked in utter disbelief. "You must be barmy."

"Not all of us were like him," Malfoy snapped angrily. "He was insane, consumed by bitterness and anger from his childhood. But some Death Eaters only joined him for the power and the blood purity agenda, and didn't agree with all of the killing. All right, there weren't many who thought like that," he conceded at my sceptical expression. "But I, at least, didn't enjoy murdering people."

"But you still…?" I trailed off, looking at his downcast face and uncertain expression, already knowing what his answer would be.

So you did kill people, I thought, with a slight pang of disappointment.

"Why would you do that?" I asked, a note of distress in my voice.

"You wouldn't understand," he said in a voice made of flint and steel and all manner of sharp, flat, materials. "I had to," he continued. "It was me or them, and I sure as hell did not want to die."

"You killed people," I stated, looking intensely at the boy – no, man, I suppose – in front of me.

"And you didn't? It was a war, Granger."

I shook my head adamantly. "I only stunned or petrified. I couldn't bear to kill anyone. I still can't, honestly."

He laughed a cold, mirthless laugh and said in a hollow voice, "Such naïveté."

"I've seen horrible things, too, Malfoy," I said quietly. "I've seen death and pain and blood, and I've heard screams that would send chills down your spine, the screams of the dying and the wounded. Do you know how bloody hard it is, sometimes, to look around and notice all of the life-sized gaps in the world?" I paused to regain my breath, and wondered why on earth I chose to tell Malfoy, of all people, about these thoughts of mine, then concluded that it was because I saw that he had that same haunted look about him at times, a sort of ghostly pallor that no one besides the two of us seemed to be suffering from. Yes, Ron and Harry and everyone else were still reeling from the deaths of our comrades, but recently, they seemed as if they were more able to move on with life than before. They were more convinced of the finality of the victory, while I sometimes wondered if I was merely carrying out an alternate existence, and that my former self was actually long dead, killed by some mask-wearing murderer, dumped unceremoniously into a dirt grave. I still thought about those bleak days, huddling around a frail fire for warmth, praying that the Snatchers or Death Eaters wouldn't find us. I still remembered Bellatrix's knife cutting those hateful words into my skin and the numbing agony of the Crucio. I still remembered my shock as I noticed the bodies that lay unmoving on the floor of the Great Hall after Voldemort fell, and how I cried over the injustice of the severed lives of the fallen. Why did they have to die for the world to be at peace?

I didn't particularly like these thoughts running amuck through my brain, or the strong, slow-burning flame of hatred I held for that sneering monster, but I couldn't help but blame him and his cackling followers for everything that had happened to me and those I held dear to my heart. If only, if only, if only…

Neither of us said anything for several minutes; we just sat and stared and felt and remembered. And then Malfoy robotically picked up his quill and turned his mercury gaze to his book, and the only sound that could be heard for the next quarter of an hour was the scratching of his quill on the parchment.

I watched him as he took notes, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration as his eyes flickered over the pages of the book. I wondered about this strange, mysterious, pale-haired wizard and his fathomless grey eyes and biting, yet hollow words. He was an enigma, a puzzle that I had not yet figured out, and I had but a nebulous concept of his true self.

We're both so broken, I mused to myself. So fragmented by the horrors we endured, and so unable to let go of the past and our choices.

I wanted to reach out to him, to take a hold of his soul and learn about him and his fears and goals. He was fascinating, strangely enough, but very closed off and remote, his eyes impenetrable steel structures that kept his secrets in and my queries out.

Finally, after the quiet became unbearable, I decided to say something, anything, to relieve the discomfort. What exactly, I had no idea, but all I knew was that I did not want to sit in such a tense atmosphere.

"Malfoy?"

He jerked his head up at my sudden voice, and then asked, cautiously, "Yes?"

I opened my mouth and blurted, "We should take some pictures," and then promptly felt like knocking my head against the table.

Really, Hermione? I asked myself in slight despair. Out of all the things you could have said, you randomly asked him to take pictures with you?!

He stared at me quizzically with his mouth half-open and his eyebrow raised. "Does this mean that you won't give me the camera?"

I sighed, then wracked my brain for an explanation for my odd remark.

"No, you can still have it. I just thought that, uh… it might be best for me to show you how it works before you go off on your own."

Nice save, my inner self smirked.

Sod off, I fired back, then felt like an idiot for arguing with myself.

He looked at me a while longer, then shrugged, a bemused expression on his face. "Sure," he replied. "I think I've got enough notes, now, anyway."

"Erm, all right then. I guess we should put the books back, first." I looked down at the pile that he had amassed, then quickly grabbed a few of the tomes and sped off, shaking my head over my lack of social graces. He followed me at a more leisurely pace, and once we had returned all of the books, I picked up the camera.

"Cameras are really pretty simple. Basically, you look through this little frame here, aim at whatever you want to take a picture of, and then press this button. The only other thing you need to know is that to replace the film, you pop open this compartment and put in a new roll of film."

"And the pictures come out the front?"

I nodded, then handed the camera to him. "Here, you try."

He carefully took the camera out of my hands, looked closely at the buttons, then aimed the lens at me.

Click.

The photo slid out, and Malfoy pulled it from the slot and scrutinized it before smirking slightly.

"Your hair's still as bushy as it was first year," he stated, apparently very amused by his observation.

I rolled my eyes and snatched the picture from him, looked at it, and winced. My hair was, indeed, very bushy, probably from all of my running around.

"Oh, give me that camera," I snapped, a bit embarrassed, then proceeded towards the window. The moon was beaming down through the inky black of the night and slightly illuminated the darkness of the Hogwarts grounds.

"I've always felt at home at night."

I looked to my left at Malfoy who had joined me in the bright flood of moonlight at the window.

"I've always liked daytime better," I said. "The moon, though, is quite beautiful."

"I find it sad that the moon gets all of its light from the sun," he replied, his pale skin glowing in the silver light.

"Perhaps," I mused, leaning against the windowsill. "But it turns the sunlight into another form of brilliance, one that's equally radiant, so it's not really that sad at all."

"I suppose that's one way to think about it."

We lapsed into a surprisingly amiable silence, bathing in the cool light of the moon, and I wondered why I felt so comfortable with him when I knew that he was both a murderer and a bigot. Was it because I was perpetually optimistic about people? Or was it because I felt that he was intrinsically good, that he was forced into killing and cursing by unfortunate circumstances, and that the real Draco Malfoy, whoever he may be under that harsh veneer of spite and prejudice, was rather nice to be around?

I looked over at him again, tracing the outline of his face in the glowing moonlight, then stealthily lifted the camera and snapped a shot of him gazing into the distance, his face at peace.

Click.

"Did you just take a picture of me, Granger?"

I laughed softly and smiled. "Yes, I did."

And then he smiled back in a quiet and warm manner with his lips curving ever so slightly and his eyes the colour of light mist on a rainy day, and something fundamental between us changed.

Not too long after that moment, we gathered our things and headed back to the dorm, neither of us saying anything.

Nothing needed to be said.

We quietly stepped through the portrait hole and into the empty Common Room, exchanging an amused grin at Percival's grumpy response to the password, then headed up the stairs that led to the dorms. At the top of the stairs, we stopped, both of us reluctant to end the night, to forget the feeling of harmony and understanding that had briefly touched us by the window.

Finally, he murmured, "Good night, Granger," then turned and went into the boys' dorm, and I headed towards the girls' dorm on the other side of the stairs, feeling a peculiar sense of loss at the sudden lack of his presence.

I waved at my roommates who were still awake and placed my bag by my trunk, then headed towards the bathroom to take a quick shower. Just before getting into bed, I noticed a white paper lying on the ground near my bag, and when I picked it up, I saw that it was the picture of Malfoy that I had taken earlier by the window. As I looked at the image, I could feel something stirring inside of me, something hopeful and fluttery and light, and I knew, yes, I knew, that that night had shifted the world a tiny bit, and that something magical, as cliché as that sounds, had occurred while we stood under the gaze of the glowing silver moon.

A/N: I'm sorry this chapter is so late! I've been crazy busy with school, and will be for the next month, so updates will be a bit slow until after the second week of May. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, though! :)