"Let me think how best to put this," Draco said softly, taking a deep breath.
To steady his own nerves, he calmly took out a handkerchief and wiped his hands clean; then he took her hand, produced another handkerchief, and wiped hers clean as well.
He is stalling. But he cannot stall forever.
Hermione paid no attention to his hand-wiping.
She was too busy watching him with her wide, round eyes, hoping he would offer her a reasonable explanation.
Draco could delay no longer, once the handkerchiefs were done with.
"Tell me," she said, watching him closely, "what method did you use?"
"Do you know of the Tracking Charm?" Draco murmured.
"Oh, I have read of it in a book somewhere..." She stopped abruptly, struck by a sudden, dreadful possibility.
"I must confess something... I put a Tracking Charm on your ring. That is why I was able to find you so quickly that day. I was only worried about you at first, you know, with Peter Pettigrew, the Dementors, and the werewolf about..." He lowered his head, studying the toes of his own shoes.
Hermione remained silent.
"I am ashamed of it, and I will not try to excuse myself. I only want to say that I never once used it, not until I found you had gone missing..." he said nervously, feeling rather like Crookshanks after tearing up Hermione's parchment, furtive and guilty.
The silence around them was complete. It only made him more afraid to look at her.
"In short, it was not the act of a gentleman." His ears reddened, and he forced himself to go on. "If you wish to be angry with me, to blame me, even to punch me again, I would think it perfectly fair."
Had Draco looked up at Hermione just then, he might have seen her own face colouring.
Hermione had been furious when she first heard of the "Tracking Charm."
Who would ever wish to be watched like that, without their knowledge? She wore that ring every single day!
Draco Malfoy! Quite possibly the most controlling boy in the whole of Hogwarts, with no proper sense of boundaries whatsoever.
Honestly, what a shocking thing to do! For a girl as fond of control as Hermione Granger, being monitored like that felt like a needle pressed straight into her most tender spot.
However, on hearing him voice his worry for her, Hermione suddenly felt a small flicker of happiness.
Did he care about her that much? So very much?
She felt an odd little flush of pleasure, though she knew perfectly well the feeling was not altogether healthy, nor entirely reasonable.
He was probably not entirely beyond hope.
Hermione studied his ashamed expression thoughtfully; after all, he had owned up honestly to his mistake, and his manner about it was fairly good.
And in doing so, he had, quite by accident, saved her life. He had thrown himself in front of that terrifying werewolf for her sake.
Besides, he looked rather sweet with his ears gone so red! How could she possibly stay angry with him?
Draco stared at the toes of his shoes for so long that he could not resist looking up to steal a glance at her, just before he heard Hermione's reply.
"I... I do not care for being watched like that. I am rather taken aback by it," she said slowly, her voice a little shy.
"However, I think I can understand your worrying over me, because I was every bit as worried about you, before I found you on the Astronomy Tower that day. If I had had a Tracking Charm, or something of the sort, I might well have wanted to try it too. And I am glad you were willing to admit your mistake."
Her voice did not sound so very angry after all. Draco could not help glancing back at her, and noticed a smile in her eyes. "Suppose we cancel this charm, and cast a new one instead, the kind that lets us signal one another? That way, we could still get in touch."
Draco's heart, which had been pounding with dread, finally settled.
He suddenly realised how absurd his earlier guilt seemed, next to this present ease.
For a moment, he did not feel like some withered soul reborn.
He felt, instead, like an anxious, foolish boy again.
He ought to have been honest with her long ago. She had never truly been furious with him at all.
She was remarkably tolerant of him, even excessively so. Yes, she might hold a grudge, but she was also very easily moved to sympathy.
"We could devise a charm that makes each other glow, to signal one another; or even a charm to carry sound, rather like that Muggle telephone you used over the summer holidays," Hermione said, quite taken with the idea, admiring the ring on her finger.
"The only difficulty is, I do not know whether such a charm actually exists."
"Oh, as to that," he looked at her with gentle grey eyes, and smiled slowly, "we shall find a way."
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