Title: Brown
Author: SMARTALIENQT
Summary: Writer's Anonymous Color Challenge. "But he realized now that he preferred her as a Gryffindor. After all, brown goes far better with red and gold than with silver." One-shot, by SMARTALIENQT
Disclaimer: I'd like to state for the record that I am a hyperactive, bespectacled teenager with a fondness for chocolate. I am about as far from being a richer-than-the-queen mother of children and various characters as you can get. Keep this in mind.
A/N: This is a response to a challenge on the Writer's Anonymous forum. I like experimenting, and Dramione intrigues me. Don't worry, I won't make it a habit.
Brown
It wasn't as if he actually liked the color brown. It just… reminded him of her.
Oh, he'd heard the whispers, the comments made in the Quidditch changing rooms by the rookies. He'd read the notes, the diary entries, the pieces of poetry that fluttered to the floor when some student didn't snatch up every paper in their haste.
Most of it was utter dosh. While some of the things described within the pages of a schoolboy's journal might be entertaining to certain people, he would have none of it. A lot of it was too sappy for him. The paper seemed to drip with long, flowing prose about her "pools of liquid cinnamon" and her "hair, flowing like a chocolate waterfall". He wouldn't have minded, really, but to have every single piece contain at least on of those over-used phrases somewhere gave him a headache. Not that he didn't agree with them, at some level: he did.
The first thing you noticed about her, he'd found, was her hair. It was like a plume, a bush, thread-thin twigs gravitating towards the sky and locking together. If you looked closer, you saw her skin – the palest of browns, so light as to be unnoticeable in a crowd of summer-tanned goddesses at King's Cross come September. And then her eyes. They seemed lit by their own inner fire, flashing lightning bolts at enemies and gazing serenely at friends a moment later-
Great. Now he sounded like the poetry he'd read. But you had to admit it was everywhere, from the smallest, one-eighth-Muggleborn geek to people like Marcus Flint and Theodore Nott. Yes, it seemed that every boy in Slytherin was infatuated with Hermione Granger. And quite frankly, Draco Malfoy couldn't blame them.
It had started as a simple rivalry, between their Houses, their intellects. She was the only person in his year equal to him at Potions. She was in his Arithmancy class. He'd failed Care of Magical Creatures third year (not that he'd told anyone), while she had sailed to head of class, along with Potter and Weasel. He remembered gasping as he read his exam grade, and glaring at her across the table. That stupid animal had tried to kill him, and he'd failed the class. He had tried putting all his anger into that stare, the expression clearly saying, My father will hear of this, just you wait! She hadn't noticed, he'd thought, being too interested in her toast to notice the annoyance at the Slytherin table. But then she'd looked up, just for a moment, brown eyes meeting blue ones, time held in suspension as he felt the glare ease. And then she was back to her former self, chatting with the rest of her gang.
Then it had gotten deeper. She and the Weasel had started being together more. He'd caught him leaving her a box of chocolates on her desk in Arithmancy, when no one else was looking. They were the milk chocolate truffle kind – her favorite. That was when he'd written the song. He'd told himself that it was just another way to get Potter annoyed, to get Weasley nervous and miss the Quaffle, a way to score points with the Slytherins. But somewhere, in the back of his mind, that little voice kept saying, You are jealous of him. You want to be him, for you to be the one laughing with her in the halls, walking her to class, studying with her before exams. You know it. The song is really for her, isn't it, Draco? Because Weasley is her king…
So maybe he'd gotten a little jealous of the Weasel. After fifth year, though, he'd started wondering if maybe he'd been wrong. What if he'd loved her since first year? He thought back, to the times he'd taunted her, when he'd called her 'Mudblood' second year, when he'd ratted on her to that Skeeter woman. And while he felt he shouldn't – a Death Eater knows not remorse – he felt guilty.
And so Draco had watched her, in her classes, in the halls. He'd often wondered how it would have been, if she had been in Slytherin: a pureblood deemed worthy of him – even if he wasn't worthy of her. He'd tried imagining a different Hermione: dressed in Slytherin robes of green and silver, discussing Potions or something, but with him.
He'd spent hours working it out, they way it should have been. First, they would have met on the train. He would have offered her his arm, and his friendship, but she would have laughed at him, and tossed her head crowned with chocolate curls in derision. She would have been sorted into Slytherin, and perhaps had classes with him, and maybe she'd have adjusted. After a while, they would have become friends. She definitely would have been better than Pansy, who simpered at him and always pouted if she didn't get her way. Hermione would have disagreed with him, fought with him, but always, always, she would have stood up for herself. He might have asked her out for the Yule Ball, and have the entire school know that he, Draco Malfoy, was the one with the hottest date in school.
What if she'd decided to date him? What if she'd been the one to help him through the pressures of being a Malfoy, convinced him not to join The Dark Lord? She could have been the girl to tell him not to worry while his father was in Azkaban, the one he should have shared his first kiss with. But she hadn't, and so he dreamed.
But he realized now that he preferred her as a Gryffindor. It made more sense. She was brave, braver than he'd ever be. She walked with confidence in the sunlight, and would have lost that delicate brown tan if she spent her time in the dark, shadowy world that a Slytherin inherited. And she looked far better in Gryffindor robes.
After all, brown goes far better with red and gold than with silver.
Fin.
A/N: Please review. I like reviews. I need reviews. I crave reviews. I crave them like chocolate, and, like chocolate, they are what I give my plot bunnies when they get overactive. I wouldn't mind, but they keep me up at night in their hamster wheels… anyway, remember, kids: friends don't let friends lurk and leave.
A/N 2: I'd like to thank Rhea Silverkeys and the Writer's Anonymous forum for hosting this challenge, to all the people who've reviewed, and to my absolutely fantastic beta hooloovoo-too, for making Draco better than he was. Kudos to you all!