As I stared out the window of the Hogwarts Express, I thought about what my father had said to me before I got in the train. His hurtful words resounded in my head: "Don't go talking to that mudblood Granger. If you want to stay a Malfoy, you will have nothing to do with her. I want to hear nothing more of this girl, ever again, do you hear me, Draco?" When I just nodded, he said, "Good. Then, get out of my sight." I looked at my mother but she did nothing, though she looked hurt too. I stepped forward to give my mother a hug, but my father put his cane in front of me, and without looking at me, he said, "Go."
I stared at the scenery whizzing by and thought about my summer. At the end of our third year at Hogwarts, I had cornered Hermione. She simply pushed me aside and headed toward the Gryffindor common room. "Granger," I called. She kept walking, and I called her again. I sped after her and grabbed her wrist.
She turned around and glared at me. "What, Malfoy?" she asked angrily.
"Please, just give me a minute," I pleaded.
"What would you want a minute for? To make fun of me?" she asked, tears filling her still glaring eyes.
"Hermione, please," I said.
Her face softened at my use of her first name. "What?" she asked, but not unkindly.
I swallowed as I tried to piece together what I wanted to say. "I...I like you, Hermione, and I'd like us to be friends," I said, not looking at her. I felt her liquid brown eyes on me and I felt the heat rush to my face.
"Really?" she asked. I looked at her and nodded. "I...I like you too, Draco."
I was shocked at her reply. I looked at her skeptically, but her eyes repeated back to me what her lips had said. I smiled at her and she smiled back. "Maybe we can keep in touch over the summer," I offered.
"Okay," she replied enthusiastically. She turned to leave, but thought better of it and turned to face me. She quickly kissed me on the cheek and we both blushed. "I've always wanted to do that," she said and ran away.
And so Hermione and I started dating in secret. We wrote to each other everyday over the summer. I enjoyed getting her letters because she talked about the odd muggle things she and her parents did. We were doing a pretty good job hiding it until I got a letter from her while my father was in the room. He snatched it away form Hermione's owl before I could take it. He opened and read it, and seeing that it was from Hermione, he ripped it up and yelled at me for an hour. He asked how I could betray the family by dating a muggleborn.
After that, he didn't talk to me again until I left for Hogwarts. I sighed and put my head in my hands. What would Hermione think? I didn't get a chance to write to her again after my father found her letter. She'll surely hate me now.
Just as I thought about how odd it was that I had a car to myself, the door opened. I looked up to see Hermione with a fierce look in her eyes. Anger glinted in her beautiful eyes as she stepped into the car and slammed the door shut. "Hermione, please, let me explain," I began, jumping up, but her eyes softened and she put her finger on my lips to silence me. Then she wrapped her arms around my neck in a hug. I was confused now; if she wasn't angry at me, then who WAS she angry at?
I hugged her back around her middle, and after a few seconds, she pulled away. "I saw what happened on the platform," she said. I looked down, embarrassed. "What happened over the summer? Why didn't you respond to any of my letters?" she asked. She sounded hurt.
I looked up at her and saw tears in her eyes. I pulled her into another hug and began my story. I hugged her and we swayed with the train as I told her how my father found one of her letters and ripped it up, then began checking every owl that came through and left. Not wanting to make her feel any worse, I left out that my father had hit me that one time I tried to write a letter to Hermione. He hit me with his cane across my back; I still had the bruise.
When I finished my (poor) explanation, Hermione pulled back and looked at me. "I thought something might have happened to you. Or you didn't want to be with me anymore. Or at all." She mumbled the last thing under her breath, but I heard it.
"Hey, what do you mean, 'or at all?'" I asked.
She looked at me and bit the inside of her cheek. "Well, over the summer, I started thinking that this was too good to be true. So, that got me thinking that you really didn't like me, and you were just playing with me until you got bored."
I gaped at her. "Why on the bloody earth would I do that?" I asked.
She laughed and shrugged. "Because you're Draco Malfoy," she said with another laugh. "So, we're still together?" she asked me.
"As long as you want to be, I'd like to be," I said.
She smiled at me and hugged me around my middle. I yelped in pain as she pressed on the bruise on my back. "What?" she asked, fear in her voice.
"It's nothing," I said, trying not to show any pain on my face.
"That's not nothing, Draco. What is it?" Hermione asked.
"Nothing, I'm fine. I just...I have a backache," I said quickly.
She narrowed her eyes at me and said, "No it's not. Malfoy, if you can't even tell me what's wrong with your back, how can we expect to have a good relationship? If you lie about little things, who knows where you'll stop."
"Me?" I exclaimed.
She sighed and said, "No, not you. Just you," waving her arms around, "in general. People."
"Oh..."
She stepped a little closer so that her face was close to mine. "Please," she whispered, "Just tell me what's wrong."
I knew she would keep pestering me until I told her. That was one of the things that attracted me to Hermione in the first place: her determination. I sighed as I grabbed Hermione's hands and sat down. She sat down next to me, and I started. "The reason why I didn't try to send you an owl was because the one time I did try after my father found your letter, he..." I paused. I looked away from Hermione as I said, "He hit me with his cane."
"He what?" Hermione jumped up and looked down at me, still sitting down with my back straight and off the back of the bench.
"I-it's nothing. I'm fine, Granger, please, just let it go."
"Let it go?" she screeched. "How can I let this go? Draco, why didn't you tell someone?"
"Who am I supposed to tell, Hermione?" I cried. "My mother? She's afraid of my father!"
Hermione looked at me sadly. "I don't know. It's just that...muggles, they go to the police. I didn't realize wizards didn't have that," she said.
"It's alright," I sighed. "Don't tell anyone. I don't want my father finding out, and then coming to hurt you. He would do that," I said as her eyes widened in surprise. I stood up and pulled Hermione into another hug. She was careful about her placement of her hands this time, putting them near the small of my back. She looked up at me, and looked into my eyes. I looked down into hers, and before I knew what was happening, she had leaned up on tip toe and kissed me. It wasn't a little peck on the cheek like she did last year. Her soft lips were on mine, and we stayed there for a few seconds before she pulled away. She put her head on my chest and hugged me, and I hugged her back, happy she was finally here with me.
After a while, we sat down again and I closed my eyes again. I felt her move and opened my eyes, then looked down at Hermione. She had her own eyes closed and her head was in my lap.
I was running my fingers through her bushy curls when it suddenly became quite dark outside. I looked out the window and saw dark, menacing clouds hanging above the train. A flash of lightning struck something in the distance, and seconds later, a clap of thunder boomed over head, vibrating the train and waking Hermione. She sat up with a start and looked from me to the window.
"What happened?" she asked.
"You fell asleep, and some thunder woke you up," I said.
She looked around the dark car and sat down again. "How much longer until we get there, do you think?" she asked me.
I laughed and shrugged. "Quite a while, I'm sure. The lunch trolley hasn't even arrived yet."
No sooner than the words had left my lips did we hear it making its way down the hall.
Hermione looked at me, and even though I knew what she was going to say, I asked, "What is it?"
She stood up and said apologetically, "I have to go. Harry and Ron are going to wonder where I've been."
I closed my eyes at the mention of that Potter boy. "Okay," I said and stood up.
"You're angry," Hermione said.
"No, it's fine. Go. They're the last people I want to find out about us," I said with disgust.
She smiled and giggled a little, then kissed me on the cheek and said, "Thank you. See you later, Malfoy. We'll see how well you can act." She pushed me back down on the bench and I laughed and groaned at the same time. She left the car, and as she closed the door, she gave me a wink.
I let out a content sigh and turned to stare out the window again. The rain was pouring down the window, leaving little tracks that intertwined with each other. The car door opened behind me, and I turned around. Standing in the doorway, mouths agape, were the two Weasley twins.
"Well, if it isn't Weasley one and Weasley two. How may I be of service, boys?" I asked coolly.
"What were you doing with Hermione?" one asked; I think it was Fred.
"Granger? What would I want with a mudblood like her?" I asked. It hurt to hear that, especially since it came from my own mouth.
"That's what we're here to find out," the other said.
"We saw her come out of this car," the one I thought was Fred said.
"Yeah, and she wouldn't answer our questions either, asking what she would need with a weasel such as yourself," said the one I assumed was George.
"Come on now," Fred said, "we can keep a secret. You should know that."
When I said nothing and just stared at them, they both leaned back with sly smiles on their faces. "We already know what's going on between you two," George said.
"Yeah, George and I just happened to look inside as we passed, and we saw you guys sitting together," Fred said.
I swallowed, but kept a straight face as I said, "You will tell no one what you saw, or I will find a way to break you, whether it be physically, mentally, or emotionally, I will do it."
The twins looked at each other and smiled. "But what about Hermione?" Fred asked.
"Yeah, won't you hurt her feelings but hurting her friends?" George asked.
"If you tell anybody what you saw without us coming out about it first, it won't matter, because you won't be her friends," I said icily.
The twins' smiles wavered a bit and their eyes spelled defeat. "We have a clever one on our hands, George," Fred said.
"That we do," George agreed.
"We could use you," they said in sync.
I looked at them in utter disgust. "What?" I spat.
"Here's out proposition, Malfoy," Fred said. "Despite what you said about being Hermione's friend being true, we could still tell our friends-"
"And we have a lot of those," George interrupted.
"We could still tell our friends about you and Miss Granger. That could ruin you and your family."
"See, there is where your fault lies, gentlemen," I said calmly, even though my heart was racing. If they did tell, not only would they ruin me, but they'd also ruin Hermione. "You could. That doesn't mean you will. I know you Weasleys better than you think. You won't do it." I smiled coolly at them. "When you leave this car in a few moments, what is the one thing you want from me that will satisfy you?"
The twins looked at each other and smiled. "Nothing," they said together.
I gave them a puzzled look and asked, "So what is it that you're doing here?"
George sat forward and put his elbows on his knees. "What we want is to make bloody sure Hermione's found a guy that will take care of her. Congratulations. You've earned our trust," he said as he extended a hand for me to shake.
"I don't understand," I said. "How does blackmailing me prove anything?"
Fred laughed. "Stupid boy. The first thing you mentioned was not yourself, but her. You obviously care more about her than yourself." He smiled and got up. "You better take good care of her, mate," he said as he extended his own hand. I was about to shake two Weasleys' hands. For Hermione, I shook them both, and they left me in my car all alone again.
"The things you do for love," I muttered to myself.
"Anything from the trolley, dear?" the witch who ran it asked.
"No, thank you," I said.
She shrugged and kept moving.
I sat down and stared out the window, bored out of my mind. I had no idea where Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, or Blaise were. They usually found me. Oh well, I thought to myself. I didn't really like the first three anyway. Crabbe and Goyle were too stupid for me. I had to explain everything to those bloody morons. Pansy was so clingy. I felt like I couldn't breathe when she was around. Blaise, he was okay. He was smarter than those three morons, but we weren't as close. I liked him the best anyway, and as strange as it was, Hermione liked him the best, too.
With nothing to do other than wish I had a friend to talk to, I decided to get into my Hogwarts robes. I pulled my trunk down from the metal rack above and opened it, rummaging through my neatly packed things to find a shirt, pants, my tie, and my robes. I pulled out my wand while I was in there, not knowing if I would need it. I closed my trunk and put it back, then took off my jacket. I looked out into the hallway to make sure no one was coming. When the hallway looked clear, I took my shirt off and grabbed my white uniform shirt while facing the window. I had just put my arms in it when I heard the door open. I turned around and saw Hermione, standing wide-eyed in the doorway, looking from my bare chest to me.
"Um," Hermione said nervously. "Sorry, I left my lip gloss in here. Somewhere. On the seat, I think." She smiled sheepishly as she looked at my bare chest again, then back to my face. Her looking at me made me feel a little self conscious, so I quickly buttoned up my shirt. She grabbed a small tube of soppy pink glitter off the seat and held it up. "Um, that's it," she said with a nervous giggle. She stepped back into the door and fumbled with the handle a bit.
"Wait," I said. "Is it really that bad?" I asked, pinching at some flubber on my stomach.
"Bad?" she laughed. "Far from it, Malfoy, far from it." She let out a content sigh and quickly let the car.
"'Far from it?'" I asked myself. I quickly took off my pants and pulled the other ones on, tucking my shirt in on the way up. I quickly knotted my tie, but left my robes on the seat next to me. I started getting impatient, wanting to get to Hogwarts more that I ever wanted to in my life. Whenever we had double classes, it was with the Gryffindors, so I looked forward to that.
I just wished that Hermione and I could spend more time together.
I really do think I love her.
