3rd Person POV

Draco huffed out a panicking breath, quickly walking down the hallway. he was sweating, itching all the way down his body. He needed to get this stupid white dress shirt off. His tie felt too tight, his trousers rubbing against all the wrong spots. The lighting in the corridor was dim, straining his already hurting eyes. They were tear filled as he turned the corner and into the girls bathroom. 

Draco tugged on his collar, ripping the tie out from under the fabric and throwing it to the ground. Moaning Myrtle must have been feeling as upset as he was because the sinks had already flooded the bathroom floor, the sprinklers overhead on as well. His socks were now soaked, the freezing cold water rushing through his black dress shoes. He tugged off the black vest overlapping the white dress shirt as he reached out to one of the sinks, leaning against it. Tears were threatening to pour just as the sprinklers were doing now. 

The look on Katie's face made him realize he was not up for this. He was no murderer, he was no assassin. He knew it all to well that his parents expected to much from him, especially in such an evil way. 

He was a bully, nothing more. 

Not a murder. 

He loved to make fun of and tease nerds like Granger. 

Not kill anyone. 

He could feel his pulse thudding through his ears as he begun letting out cries. Cries of relief, pain, anger, humiliation, confusion.

"I can't- I can't," he cried, his burning eyes looking up to the mirror in front of him. He felt like the old mirror, cracked and used. His parents had made him who he was now. His father beat him, hit him, not even caring if it was in front of his friends. Even when others saw, they were too cowardly to say anything. 

No.

They were too afraid. 

His father was the most powerful man in the wizarding world. 

All because of his dumb money.

Dumb money his mom actually had.

He was broken now, as the shattered class of the mirror was. He wish he could start over, get adopted by someone else, poor or not, Pure-Blood or Muggle Born. He didn't care. He just needed someone. 

But he knew there was no going back now. Harry Potter had seen him. Potter knew what he had done. He knew what Draco was trying to do and he would do everything in his power to stop it. For Potter saw Dumbledore as a father figure in a way and would do anything in his power to stop the inevitable time of death from coming.

"What do I do?" Draco cried. "What do I do?"

The sound of splashing came from behind him and he turned, his eyes widening in fear at the sight of Potter raising his wand. The tip pointing straight at him. 

"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, but the spell missed, hitting the water filled sink beside Draco and splashing water in his face. Draco scrambled to grab his wand from the vest which had been thrown to the flooded tiled ground. But now that they were both in the room, the sprinklers only seemed to pour more water down on them, making it almost impossible to see. Draco jumped out of the way at the sound of Harry's echoing voice. 

"Expelliarmus!" he shouted from somewhere in the bathroom. Draco quickly dodged the red spell, ducking behind one of the bathroom stalls. He was breathing hard and his throat was dry as he tried to get his shaking self together again. Every breath he took shook in his chest and his ears were either filled with water or he was about to faint. Hyperventilating had never been a problem for him, but the situation at hand now was making him panic.

The sound of splashing came near him and Draco gulped, his face shooting in the direction.

"Incarcerous!" Potter yelled over the splashing. Draco pushed himself up against the door to the stall, pleading for Harry not to hear him. He had never felt so powerless, even with his wand held to his chest. But suddenly, the door to the stall seemed to unlock itself and he slipped, tumbling backwards and hit his head on the toilet, the rest of his body being soaked by the inch of water flooding the ground as he collapsed into it. The sound of head on porcelain was loud but Draco's groan of pain was louder. Harry's footsteps quickly came to the door of the stall and Draco made one last attempt, raising his wand with shaky hands and numb tipped fingers. 

"Expelliarmus!" Harry quickly shouted, the wand being thrown from Draco's grip. The gifted boy caught it and raised his wand again. 

"Sectums-"

"Expelliarmus!" a different voice suddenly shouted. Harry's wand was knocked out of his grip, flying to the right of the stall and out of Draco's view. Potter's eyes turned to the person and narrowed in confusion, anger quickly flooding the boys facial expression. 

"What are you doing, Harry?" the person hissed at him, their tone filled with confusion and hurt. Draco's hearing was going in and out and the only thing he could really zone into was the sound of water hitting the porcelain of the toilet behind him and the splashes of the droplets joining the river of water below him.

"He's been planning it from the start!" Harry shouted back at the person, but his voice barely audible over the echoing rain. "He's the one who's been trying to kill Dumbledore-"

"And your trying to kill him!" the person shouted back.

"He's trying-"

"Harry!" the person shouted. "He may be a big bully and have no respect for anyone but himself but you can't change because of it!" they shouted. "You aren't a murderer just like he isn't!"

"How do you know that, Hermione?" Harry asked. 

So it was Granger who was defending him. He could hear it now, the determination and hurt all mixing together to create a tone that could break anyone. 

"Because he is just a boy who has been kicked to many times and the waves have crashed against him two many times as well, just as life has done to you, Harry," Hermione told him. Her voice was breaking now and Draco could hear it even over the water.

Harry seemed speechless, but he was able to let out a huff of frustration, stomping out of Draco's view. the sound of the doors slamming shut once again as he exited, then, Hermione walked into his view. 

Her normally puffed up hair was soaked and was uneven on both sides. Her darkly tanned skin was soaked as well, water dripping from her face and open arms. She was wearing a pink muggle sweatshirt along with a pair of tight jeans. Her wand was in hand, Harry's nowhere to be seen. 

"Are you okay, Draco?" Hermione asked. the soft question made his head ache a bit in a way. 

"Fine," he responded, getting onto his elbows in the water. His rolled up sleeves were soaked now as well. 

She reached a hand out to him and he looked at it for a moment. His head was burning now, a bruise definitely forming under his platinum blonde hair.

He grabbed her hand and was surprised by her grip as she helped him to his feet. He couldn't help but smirk when he was standing all the way up and noticed their size different. He had never been this close to her, but now that he was, he could tease her for another thing. He was about half a head taller than her now, and she didn't seem to care. 

As he took a step to follow her out of the bathroom, the pain in his head spiked and he winced, his hand immediately darting to the back of his head. His fingers pressed against the skin in his hair and he could feel something squishy. When he drew his hand away, red covered his fingertips and he couldn't help but yelp at the sight.

Hermione twirled around, peering back into the stall and her eyes widened at the sight of blood. Draco gulped down a breath at the feeling something running down his neck and it did not feel like water. His eyesight went blurry, the last thing he was able to see was the blood on his hands.

It wasn't a play on words nor Dumbledore's as he thought it would be one day. 

It was his own.

Pain was what made him wake up. He was sitting in a chair, his head resting against something soft. To his surprise, his head was also wrapped in a bandage, or that was what it seemed to be. He was lazily wrapped in towels, though his clothes were still wet, but not soaked anymore. 

When he looked around, he found himself in a what looked to be a dormitory. The walls were red and the beds had golden outlines so he assumed he was in a Gryffindor dormitory. There were three beds, which meant the room was specially requested. But his eyes wandered to the bed farthest away from him. A girl sat on the neatly made bed, a book open in her lap and her eyes wandering along the words on the old pages. 

The girl was Granger. 

She was still soaked, her hair seemed to be the most wet thing. But then again, Draco couldn't imagine her hair drying in less that a month. 

"Granger," Draco barked. She looked up at him. "What am I doing here?" he asked, his hand reaching up to the bandage on his head. 

"You hit your head," she said, her eyes narrowing on his. "On a toilet."

He huffed, removing the white bandage from his head, messing with a hair a bit, his fingers ran past the wound. He cried out, his eyes immediately stinging with pain at the feeling. Hermione rolled her eyes, closing her book and setting it on the bed. Then, she hopped off, walking over to him. She snatched on of his hands which was holding the bandage. Then, she pried his other hand away from his wound, holding them on either side of his head. 

"Stop touching it, your germs will get it infected," she told him. He stared up at her for a moment and his eyes self-consciously moved to their hands. She was holding his by the palms, her fingers digging into his skin. 

She must have noticed his wandering eyes because she let go of his hands just as quickly, turning around an walking back towards her bed. But she did not go for the book, she, instead, opened the drawer in the bedside table next to the mattress. 

"Why are you helping me?" Draco asked her. She didn't respond, pulling out a role of what looked to be gauze. "You always seemed to resent me-"

"I wonder why," she mumbled with the role of her eyes, turning towards him again. She cut a strip of gauze from the role and set the materials back into the drawer.

"Why do you have a role of gauze in your bedside table?" he asked her as she walked towards him. 

"I've never seen you so curious Malfoy, what caused the change?" she asked, her eyes still hard. He stared up at her for a moment as she begun to mark where she would tie the gauze. "Ron gets bullied a lot more than you think, Draco, and not just by you," she told him, cutting the strip of gauze a bit more. Draco's eyes dropped a bit at the name. 

"Right, Weaselbee."

"Don't call him that!" Hermione shouted at him. "You always call him names."

"I can do worse," Draco said to her. He liked it when she got annoyed, the small wrinkle which appeared between her eyebrows was amusing. 

(Translation: Amusing = Cute)

"I know you could," she said back to him. He narrowed his eyes on her as she wrapped the gauze around his head. She tied the gauze in the back tight and he winced, his hands reaching to her waist to squeeze in pain. His muscles tensed when she paused.

"Uh, Draco-"

"Don't say anything," he told her, a blush rushing to his cheeks in humiliation. But his fingers continued to gently massage the skin of her stomach. His hands slipped under her white shirt, which must have been under her sweatshirt, to feel her skin. 

"Draco-"

"Please, I just need to feel something," he told her. "I've been numb for to long."

But he still looked up at her for confirmation that it was okay. She looked back down at his eyes. His eyes looked so tired and so sad. So, she nodded. 

Draco placed his cold hands on her skin, finding it still a bit damp. 

"Why haven't you dried off?" he asked her. Hermione looked down at him for a moment. 

"I've been a bit busy trying to get you in here without Harry seeing you," she told him with a small smile. He stared up at her and watched he laid only a pad of his finger on her wet skin. A shiver ran down her spine and he couldn't help but lick his lips at the sight.

But he knew it wasn't healthy for her to be wet for that long, so he pulled his hands out from under her shirt. 

"Won't you get sick? Isn't that what happens when you stay wet in a cold area?" he asked her. She looked back down at him for a moment and her eyes widened. She looked a step back from him, and then another, twiddling with her fingers. 

"Yeah, I should probably get dried off," she told him, reaching up to her hair. He took the towel off from over his shoulders, standing up to his chair on shaking feet. 

"I should probably leave before you boyfriend comes and kicks me out," Draco told her, wrapping the towel around her shoulders. Her eyes turned angry again and she glared up at him. 

"He's not my boyfriend!" she said to him. 

"Alright, Granger, whatever you say," he told her with a smirk.