After the altercation in his bedroom on the first day, and his dismissal of her for days afterwards, Hermione stopped bracing herself for cruelty. Sometimes, she even caught him staring at her, his expression impassive but his eyes oddly intense. Malfoy still swaggered through life with a haughty air of superiority as he always had done, but she could see no hint of malice or cruelty in him. Hermione thought of Pansy and how much Hermione liked the woman she had become. Was Draco Malfoy not the monster the Order had been led to believe he was? She chewed over this idea for another week, watching him surreptitiously.