As Draco walked, he even felt that, were this road to go on forever, he could happily walk it forever too.
He could hear her steady breathing, light as a feather brushing his ear... She must have had such a long, exhausting night, he thought, with real tenderness.
Realising this, Draco quickened his step. He passed swiftly through the knots of anxious wizards and hurried back towards her tent.
Harry and Ron stood waiting wearily outside their own tent, close by.
"What is wrong with her?" Harry asked, yawning.
"She is asleep," Draco said softly. "You two get some rest, I shall take her back."
"Oh, next door," Ron said, rather sleepily, gesturing to one side. "We shall turn in first, then..."
"Yes, goodnight," Draco said quietly, giving them a nod, in rather good spirits, before hurrying towards the neighbouring tent.
The red-headed girl stood at the tent's entrance. He stopped before her and asked bluntly, "Where is her bed?"
Ginny Weasley froze. She raised a stiff hand, pointing wordlessly to a spot inside the tent.
She could hardly believe her own eyes... that wicked young Malfoy heir, carrying Hermione all the way back to her own bed, without a single complaint.
How could this be? Something must be wrong here, Ginny thought, astonished.
Though she often teased Hermione about it openly enough, Ginny had always harboured her own private suspicions about Draco Malfoy.
It was hardly surprising she should be suspicious; he was not, after all, known for his kindness. Rumours circulated constantly at Hogwarts: cross him, and he would give you a cold little smile on the spot; a few days later, some inexplicable misfortune would befall you.
You would never find proof of anything he had done. But everyone would know exactly whom you had crossed.
Within Gryffindor, very few indeed were on friendly terms with Malfoy. Perhaps only Hermione, with some inexplicable certainty of her own, firmly believed this particular Slytherin to be a decent boy at heart; Harry, for reasons of his own, always seemed willing enough to greet him; and her brother Ron would occasionally reassure her, "Do not worry about Draco, he has always been decent to Hermione."
Ginny, however, had always put it down to naivety, a failure to grasp quite how wicked human nature could really be.
Perhaps he had some ulterior motive, in growing close to Harry and his friends. The Malfoy family had always carried a notorious reputation... despising blood traitors and Muggle-borns alike, so why would they ever befriend such people so readily?
That silly girl Hermione, whatever did she see in him, utterly smitten as she was! It was far too dangerous!
And so, distrustful of a Malfoy's character, and, still more, out of concern for her closest friend's safety, Ginny slipped quietly behind the curtain at the entrance to Hermione's part of the tent, to watch what he was up to.
Then she saw it. Malfoy was carefully laying Hermione down upon her bed, removing her shoes, and gently tucking a thin blanket around her, folding the corners in with care.
That movement... was really rather practised. As though he had done this more than once before.
This was simply outrageous! Ginny's mouth fell open, her mind quite unable to process what she was seeing.
However could he do such a thing?
Was Malfoy not always arrogant, overbearing, looking down on everyone at school? Even his own childhood friend, Pansy Parkinson, was often driven to cursing at him.
She had heard some girls fancied Malfoy. He was handsome enough, certainly, and with his distinguished family, his fine grades, and his position as Slytherin's Seeker, Malfoy certainly had cause enough for arrogance.
But listen to what the students of Hogwarts actually said of him: aloof, arrogant, cold towards girls, utterly merciless towards boys... a veritable Hogwarts ice machine. Clearly, a boy like Harry was a far more likeable sort altogether!
And yet here was this very same boy, looking at Hermione with an expression gentler even than Cedric's, that senior so famed for his warmth and kindness. That cold face of his, actually softening like that... it was quite absurd!
What was more, his obviously expensive suit had been thoroughly creased and rumpled by Hermione, and he did not seem in the least bit angry about it. Was that even normal?
This did not match his usual reputation at all... nothing like that overbearing, untouchable young master at school, forever ready to hex anyone who crossed him, or trip them up afterwards; instead, he seemed like some great cat, wanting nothing more than for Hermione to stroke its fur, radiating a kind of docile contentment entirely his own.
Startled, Ginny held her breath. Through a gap in the curtain, she saw him gently lift a lock of Hermione's hair, breathe in its scent, and a satisfied smile spread across his face.
Well? What was going on here?
Was this the "ordinary friend from the neighbouring House" Hermione spoke of so casually?
Ordinary indeed! Merlin's stinky socks!
But that was not all! In the flickering candlelight, the young Malfoy's silhouette fell across the fabric of the tent beside the bed. That silhouette hesitated, then leant slowly towards the girl's peaceful, sleeping face, as though studying it.
He paused there a long while.
Just as Ginny was growing impatient, the silhouette reached out, gently brushed the hair back from the girl's forehead, and, softly, reverently, pressed a kiss to it.
Then he suddenly straightened, as though startled awake from his own thoughts, and glanced at Ginny side.
Ginny Weasley whipped round at once, ducking back behind the curtain, quite breathless.
Staring wide-eyed, thoroughly astonished, she swore to Merlin that if she ever again believed a single word of Hermione Granger's nonsense, that the two of them were nothing more than "ordinary friends from the House next door," she would happily turn herself into a toad.
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