Love and Hate
Hermione was lying in bed, fast asleep. It was a week before school would start, and she was getting all the rest she could, so she could be ready. Between studies and her nemesis, Draco Malfoy, it would be a very exhausting year. Sixth year. Ron had cheated on her with Lavender Brown over the summer. He had broken her heart, Harry was supporting him, Ginny was off with some other boy, no Gryffindors wanted her around, and Malfoy certainly wouldn't help. Sometimes she just wished she was dead.
She was suddenly awoken by a loud crash downstairs. Her heart stopped. Was someone breaking into the house? She heard her parents' voices downstairs, and began to feel more easy. They'd be calling for her if there was trouble. Then she froze as she heard her mother address someone who wasn't her father.
"Oh my gosh, Narcissa! Are you okay?" "Yes. We're fine," came another woman's voice. Narcissa. The name sounded familiar. Hermione just couldn't place it. Probably one of her mom's school friends. She had told lot's of stories from her school days over the years. Hermione didn't pay much attention to them. Half the time they didn't make sense, or sounded exaggerated. Names meant absolutely nothing to her.
Suddenly, her father spoke, and Hermione recognized who Narcissa was, to her horror. She also realized that, if these people were her mother's old school friends, lies that had been told to her her entire life mounted to about one hundred zillion. "Draco! Get up!" "Sorry." There weren't many people with that name she knew.
"I still don't understand why you had to hide with Muggles," came Lucius Malfoy's voice, "And I hope you feel very stupid, Draco." "You have absolutely no idea," Draco replied sarcastically, "Of course I feel stupid! I've been calling a Pureblood a Mudblood my entire life for God's sake!"
Hermione slumped over, hoping that she was having a nightmare, or that Draco was drunk. Preferably a nightmare, seeing that if Draco was drunk, he would still be in her house. That was certainly not a good thing.
"We still don't know how she's going to take it," her mother whispered. "We should just get it over with. Fast," Lucius replied, "Who cares? She doesn't have a choice." "If you even think of hurting her," Draco snapped, "I'll kill you." "I didn't intend on hurting her." "You're acting like I should seduce her." "If she doesn't agree, then you have to." "I'm not doing that!"
"Shhh!" her father broke in, "We're going to wake her up. And Draco. You're father's right, you know." "You'd do that to your own daughter!" "It's Pureblood tradition, Draco." "I hate arranged marriages," Draco growled, and Hermione fainted.
-(:)-
Hermione woke up the next morning, hoping it had just been a dream. "It was nothing," she whispered to herself, "You're not Pureblood, the Malfoys weren't here, and you're absolutely not marrying Draco Malfoy." The thought just made her sick. Althought, he was rather handsome, in an evil sort of way.
She quickly pushed the thought out of her mind. "Idiot!" she hissed, "There is no way he's handsome. Not one possible way." She broke off as new thoughts flooded her head. What would it be like to lay beside him in the dark? To feel him hold her when she was scared, comfort her when she cried? To hear him whisper to her in the night?
She mentally slapped herself. 'No!' her mind screamed, 'No! You can't think such things!' But her heart was saying something entirely different.
She headed downstairs and found her parents already up. If the Malfoys had been there the night before, they were gone. Her father look up from his newspaper and her mother glanced over, then looked away.
"Sit down, Hermione." She obeyed her father wordlessly. He leaned forward with his chin in his hands. "We need to tell you something, Hermione. Something important." Hermione knew what it was before he spoke.
"No!" she yelled, "I'm not marrying him! You can't make me!" "Come now, Hermione. Be reasonable." "Be reasonable?" she screamed, tears coming to her eyes now, "Be reasonable? I've told you how he treated me! You know! If you cared about me..."
Her father's eyes narrowed, and when her mother spoke, she had tears in her eyes. "Hermione, dear. We simply thought it was for the best. "For the best? Why didn't you tell me? After all these years?" Too angry to continue, and not wanting to listen to her parents' explanations, she ran up the stairs. Her parents sat in silence before they heard the door to her bedroom slam shut.