Title: Take My Hand
Couple: Draco/Hermione
Rating: M
Disclaimer: I do not own these wonderful characters, I just play with them.
Author's Note: I hope this isn't crappy. Please enjoy! The next chapter should be up soon. =)

Chapter 1

August 5th, 1996

Draco Malfoy sat there, leaning back on his palms with his feet jutted out before him, his long legs stretched out. The blades of grass tickled the flesh of his fingers and hands to the point that he grew itchy, but he didn't move. Instead he tilted his face up to the sky, his blonde eyelashes camouflaged with his pale skin, eye closed as the sun beat down on his face. The sounds of laughing voices and splashing water filled his ear drums, but he wasn't focusing on it too closely. His mind deep in the recesses of his thoughts. Thinking over the beginning of summer. When he had been given his mission. His mother's worry had been endearing, and with his father in jail she never had to worry about getting backhanded for speaking her mind. But, now she was dead, wasn't she? His mother. The one person who ever truly cared for him and loved him. She was gone. All because she'd made an Unbreakable Vow, for him. He, of course, blamed Snape. If he hadn't agreed to his Aunt Bellatrix's taunting words, his mother would be alive. Maybe he wouldn't be, because he was sure that he would have failed his mission. Even with being under the Imperius. But, his mother would have thrived and flourished.

A laughing shriek brought him out of his thoughts and he looked towards the lake, his lips tugging into the slightest expression of humor at the three people playing in the shallows of the Black lake where the residents of the murky waters couldn't reach them. It was amazing to see them actually happy. For almost six years they'd been nothing but puppets to their vindictive fathers. Made to think and say things that, once set free from the spell, they found they really didn't believe. Blood purity? Really? It was just a joke. Especially as Voldemort was nothing but a halfbreed anyways. In the eyes of their father's they were purebloods. But, really with the things they did, how they went about to be superior to those of halfblood or muggleborn ancestry, the purebloods really were the ones who had dirt running through their veins. At least those of the evil kind, those that wanted to maim and kill people just because they weren't pure.

Draco laughed and shook his head when Pansy waved and yelled for him to join them in the cool water. And then he ducked his head in laughter when Blaise and Theo tackled her into the water. They were his family now, weren't they? They were the only ones left who truly cared about him and really knew him. Gregory and Vincent, they took after their fathers. After they'd put on some big mans pants, they decided that they were just the type who could live through all the blood and murder they shed. But them, the ones who were currently laughing and splashing each other in the lake, they weren't cold-blooded killers. They had hearts and feelings that ran as deep as any ocean. He did too, for that matter. He still might be a dick at times, but deep down he could feel with the best of them.

Once again lost in his thoughts, the one that that brought him out and had him jumping to his feet in a fighting stance was the blood curdling scream of Pansy. He looked around frantically, seeing her standing their still with a hand over her mouth, eyes as wide as a cauldron. Blaise and Theo looking much the same, all of their gazed looking past him and to something he could only sense as horrible. Spinning around, his own eyes grew a couple sizes larger at the horrific sight before him.

Professor Snape stood there, his black robes making him ever the bat of the Slytherin dungeons, but it wasn't necessarily him that was the scary sight. The blood that trickled down the mans robes wasn't much a sight either, but it was the girl that laid in his arms. Her bloody hair matted to her face, her arms and legs fresh with cuts that looked as if she had been severely scratched by a human hand. The thought of fingernails actually doing this to a person, had acid climbing up his throat.

"What are you just standing there for, you insufferable half-wits!" Snape hissed, and it wasn't until his head of house spoke that he noticed the man wasn't in such good shape himself. He might hate the man, but it didn't stop him from running forward and taking the beaten creature in his arms, while the older man almost sank to the ground, if it weren't for Blaise and Theo running up and helping him. "Take her to the hospital wing, Draco. Miss Parkinson, get Professor Dumbledore," when no one moved, as Draco was too shocked by this sudden change, Snape bellowed out a loud 'now'!

It wasn't long before Draco burst into the hospital wing in a sprint. "Madam Pomfrey!" he yelled as he laid the girl out on a cot and then backed away nervously as the nurse came, gasping before she hurried forward.

"Oh, my," she said, waving her wand to situate the girl, and then began casting healing spells. "Who is this girl?" she asked, and before Draco could tell her he didn't know, the girls hair moved out of her face. He felt as if he'd been punched in the gut, the girl he'd taunted and teased for almost six years laid there bloody and bruised. Madam Pomfrey was quick to shove him out of the way and bring a curtain around the cot, muttering something about privacy and dignity.

Granger?

/-/-/-/

August 13th, 1996

They had all been thoughtful for the past week. Draco hadn't spoken of what happened, but he sure thought about it a lot. And he knew the others did as well. They shared looks whenever they saw Professor Snape or Dumbledore.

Every night Draco hovered around the hospital wing, the first couple days it had been silent, but then he heard the ranking sobs from inside. And Madam Pomfrey would poke her head out and tell her she was fine. But, her words weren't ever soothing when he heard the despair coming from behind those doors.

It was a nice morning at breakfast, and Theo and Blaise were talking about playing Quidditch. Of course, he knew it was only a ruse to get their minds off of the Granger girl. There talk suddenly went quiet and he followed their gaze over his shoulder to see Professor McGonagall slowly walking to their table, with a form close behind her.

Her hair was clear of blood, bushy and brown, and it was clear she hadn't run a brush through it that morning. Her body was covered with baggy clothes, jeans and a large gray sweatshirt. She was pale, paler that Draco and that didn't seem at all healthy. It was her eyes that struck him the most, those know-it-all eyes that always had life sparkling behind them were now dull and hollow. Lifeless, she quiet literally look like the walking dead.

He noticed how her body stiffened when she saw them, how her eyes flickered with a bit of apprehension. She flinched when McGonagall placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Miss Granger," the older women told her, her usual strict tone soft for the other girl. The professor didn't move until Hermione finally took a seat a couple feet away from them, then the head of Gryffindor left to join the other professors at the staff table.

He couldn't take his eyes off of her, he knew it wasn't right to stare, but he couldn't help watching her every move. She sat still for a long time, her back straight as a rod, her eyes lost in the mahogany of the table, hair hiding her face from view. It wasn't until a plate of breakfast appeared before her that she actually moved. Slowly she grabbed her fork and began to eat, taking small bites.

/-/-/-/

August 17th, 1996

The four Slytherin's saw more and more of Granger as the days passed, and each time she looked as distraught as the last. Whether she ate meals, was seen studying in the library, or sat out at the lake staring into the water like it would swallow her up in it's murky abyss. They all watched her closely, and they knew she noticed them. But, no one spoke. Not them. Not her.

Draco was walking the corridors of the third floor, lost in his own mind when he felt the impact of running right into another form. He heard her squeak of surprise, and before she could fall, his hands shot out to steady her, one on her hip the other at the base of her elbow.

She was as stiff as a board when she looked into his eyes, with her own widening slowly. Realizing who I am... he thought sadly.

"Sorry, Granger," he said, letting his hands fall back to his sides now that she wasn't in danger of falling over.

She just stared at him, wrapping her arms around herself. It was like she was waiting for the insult, she was expecting it. "See you at lunch," he told her, with a small nod of his head, before he turned and walked away.

/-/-/-/

Hermione watched as his blond hair disappeared as he turned a corner and then she was left staring down the corridor, alone. Since the moment she first saw all of them in the Great Hall she was surprised. She'd expected being accosted, sitting at their table. But she only felt their stares.

It was unsettling, it almost made her skin crawl being under such inspection. Were they waiting for the right moment? Did they want to get her alone? Surely they wanted to finish the job their Death Eater role models started. But, then why did Malfoy just leave her. And where was his overly exaggerated insult? He had to know what happened to her. Why wasn't he toying with her? Why weren't any of them toying with her? Why weren't making fun of the fact she was now an orphan? Why didn't they loudly wonder if she enjoyed being underneath their masked brothers?

Their silence, their looks, it was almost as if they were different people.