I do not own Harry Potter or any of J.K. Rowling's characters or ideas. This plot is merely my own active imagination at work.

Our Differences

The library had always been a place of refuge for Hermione. It was more than just a quiet place to study or write papers. It was a quiet place to think. Whenever she was upset, mad, or lonely, Hermione retreated to the farthest corner of the library. Back there it was darker and the books were older and smelled of dust and mold. Just to see her work, she had to light candles or bring a lantern. The square wooden table where she slung her canvas bag every day was pitted with chips and stains from old inkwell spills. The nook was by no means a perfect place to study, but it was Hermione's personal space. She felt a familiar kinship with the darkness of her corner, as if the pressing shadows were enfolding her in a warm embrace.

She had found it in her third year during her fight with Ron over the Crookshanks eating Scabbers affair. When he had once again ignored her as he walked by in the corridors between classes, Hermione had blindly run through the maze of books, delving deeper and deeper into the library's belly. She had come around the edge of a tall bookcase and almost ran into the old table in her urgency. Collapsing in a lopsided armchair that at one point had probably been red, she finally let out her frustration and sorrow. She let the tears stream down her cheeks unchecked as she sobbed. She cried over Ron's harsh words, Harry's apologetic glances, and her own consuming loneliness and unending stress. The weight of her extreme workload settled heavily onto her shoulders. The tears gave her a release.

As Hermione slowly quieted, she had absently fingered the cool time turner beneath her robes. Hiccuping slightly as she stroked the smooth glass, she found comfort in its solid feel. When she had calmed, Hermione had looked up at the dark shelves surrounding her, the ancient table, and the bench against the wall with the faded navy cushions. She breathed in the gloom as if it was her life force. She sat up, her tears dried. And Hermione had smiled.

Now years later, Hermione still visited her corner almost every day. Today she hurried there after an argument with the male members of the Golden Trio.

"Come on, Hermione! Please?"

"We just need another foot. Can't you let us read just a little bit of your essay?" Ron had implored. Harry smiled encouragingly with wide, beseeching eyes.

Hermione shut her textbook forcefully. A few other students sitting in the common room looked up. "If you two would actually pay any attention to Professor McGonagall, you would easily be able to write two and a half feet on transfiguring a pillow into a cat. It's not that difficult. I did three feet four inches without much effort," she exasperately retorted.

Ron glared at her. "Not everyone has their nose permanently glued in a book. Harry and I have quidditch, and lives, for example! It would be nice if every once in a while you could come back to this world and bloody help those of us who aren't such geniuses!"

Harry shook his head. "Ron, don't…"

Standing up so fast her chair fell over with an abrupt crash, Hermione clenched her fists and turned toward Ron. Her cheeks were red and her plain brown hair frizzed around her face. Now everyone in the common room watched.

In a low, carefully quiet voice, she forced out, "How dare you say such things to me, Ronald Weasley! How dare you! For years I have pulled you through school by your beltloops, and this is what you say in return? That I have no life? I do have a life, Ron, but I spend most of it attempting to help you pass school so you don't ruin your life. At least I know where my priorities lie. I focus on my studies instead of flying around on a little broomstick with my head in the clouds. Maybe you should take a page out of the books I always have my nose glued to! If you expect my help anymore, you'll be sorely disappointed!"

Ron had paled during her speech, but Hermione didn't give him a chance to reply. She haphazardly gathered her quill and papers, picked up her textbooks, and marched out the portrait hole, slamming the painting as she left. She didn't pay any attention to the muffled whispers and stifled questions of the other Gryffindors.

She rushed down the stairs, skipping some and dropping papers at the same time. She stooped to pick them up, then continued hurrying on. Her rage was almost tangible as it radiated off of her in hot waves. If someone had been around, they would have heard Hermione Granger, top student at Hogwarts, murmuring words that no one would have guessed she even knew. It would seem, at least in her opinion, that the entire male species had come from hell and that they should have stayed there.

Hermione finally came around the last bookcase and slammed her things on the closest end of the table. In her haste, she didn't notice that someone was already there until they spoke.

"Watch it, Mudblood! I'm working here," Draco Malfoy sneered.

Hermione groaned. This was so not her day. Tiredly, she asked, "What are you doing here, Malfoy?"

Raising a perfectly manicured blonde brow, he responded, "Me? I was studying, until you came along and disrupted me. I was here first."

She sighed. "I know that, but what are you doing here, in this part of the library? This is my spot!"

Malfoy laughed, but it was completely devoid of happiness. Instead, it was cruel, mocking. "Your spot? I always thought the library was a public place. If anyone should be restricted, it would be lowly little mudbloods like you."

Hermione's face instantly hardened. "Will you cut it with the blood speech? It got old a long time ago. Just because you're a 'pureblood' doesn't give you the right to demean everyone else. It doesn't make you superior! Your're still an arrogant, spoiled moron, no matter your parentage."

"Oh, and what does make someone superior?" asked Malfoy. "Loyalty, hard work, a good heart?" he ridiculed sarcastically. "Hate to break it to you, Golden Girl, but life's cruel, and to survive you have to be cruel with it."

Hermione brushed her unruly hair out of her eyes. "That's where we're different, Malfoy. You believe in being snide and hard with everyone. I believe in getting along through kindness and sympathy. You step on other as long as you get what you want in the end. I help others when they can't make it on their own. You lie. I tell the truth. I forgive and forget. You insist on reminding everyone of each and every one of their shortcomings. You look for the worst in people, and I try to find goodness." She breathed deep to fill her empty lungs after her tirade.

Malfoy's emotionless mask had begun to slip. "What do you know about me?" he bitterly, quietly said, as if to himself.

Hermione frowned and scrunched up her dark eybrows. "What was that?"

He looked up at her, his cold grey eyes meeting her ordinary brown ones. "We're not so different, Granger. We're both ambitious and take pride in our studies. We work for what we want. We both get mad at our friends. We argue, all the time. We're stubborn and proud. We fight for our beliefs."

She blinked. "Did the Great Draco Malfoy just compare himself to me?"

Malfoy sighed. "I know. I am appalled too. Who would have guessed, you and me having things in common."

Hermione didn't respond. She just stared at his angular, pale face. His eyes were now downcast, tracing a groove in the table. They were silent for several minutes, but it wasn't awkward. Just calm, for once.

Suddenly Malfoy smirked, or at least half-smirked. "But you were wrong about one thing. About looking for good in other people." Then he smiled at her. Only it wasn't a real smile. It was just an upside-down frown.

He carefully stacked his books, put his inkpot and quill in his bag, and stood up. He slid the old chair in, but paused before he walked away.

Hermione turned back towards him at his hesitation.

He finally spoke. "You can have your spot back." His words seemed weighted, meaningful.

The blonde Slytherin took a step away but stopped again as she inquired, " What did you mean about my being wrong about goodness in others?" Her sincerely curious expression convinced Malfoy she truly wanted to know.

He sighed again, deeply, as if he was breathing from the tips of his toes. It made him sound twenty years older.

"Granger, sometimes there is just no good to be found in a person at all." Before, she got a chance to question his dark statement, he turned away from her again and lithely moved to the bookcase that seperated the dark corner from the rest of the library.

Just as he was about to turn around the end of the case and disappear from sight, he stopped one last time. But now he didn't turn to look at Hermione. He simply spoke as if talking to the air in front of him. Quietly, only loud enough for her to barely hear, he completed, "You see, we aren't so different, Granger, because we both came to the library."

Then in the blink of an eye, he was gone. Only the swish of the bottom corner of his black cloak was visible in the split second it took him to leave.

Sinking into the red armchair, Hermione sighed again. She felt completely drained, both from her fight in the Gryffindor common room and her surprising conversation with Malfoy. But she couldn't help recalling his last words. He was right, for once. They weren't that different after all, the sleek-haired blonde Slytherin and the frizzy brunette Gryffindor. 'Our similarities,' she thought, 'might just outweigh our differences.' After all, they had both retreated to this library, this quiet place of learning and thinking.

And so Hermione smiled.

A/N: Please review and tell me how you liked it or if you didn't at all. I'm new to this and I'd really like some feed back.