A/N:

So there I was sitting at my computer with a warm cup of Starbucks, ready to work on the next chapter of So Past Traditional (I dare you to read that too). I pulled it up on MS Word, and quite something quite nasty started nibbling at me and wouldn't quit until I gave in. That something nasty would be—you guessed it—the idea for this story.

Anyhoo, I've never done anything Draco at all, so I figured this would be fun. He's an interesting character.

It's mostly just dialogue—I tried to keep actions to a bare minimum here—so you'll have to fill in the gaps yourself (I know you can do it). I put dates for a reason, by the way. They'll give you a little insight into emotions and feelings, etc, seeing as I wanted to not just state that outright. But enough babbling—though it is quite fun—and on with the fic.

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Conversing Hatred

(If you know me at all you'll know titles aren't my strong suit)

By TasteOfCinnamon

Part One

October 10

It started off so innocently. He was sitting in the table for one under the stairs of the Boar's head, downing his third glass of ale, having developed a taste for it a few weeks ago. Around him witches with fingernails that were too red and too long chattered about things he's rather not think about, and shady wizards, goblins, and dwarfs made even shadier transactions beneath the secretive confines of their cloaks. But he wasn't there to watch them, or listen to them, or have anything to do with them.

He was there to drink his third glass of ale that night and let himself get more and more drunk as he stared at the carved letters at the table in front of him:

Lucida Jenkins

1765

Dimly he wondered who Lucida Jenkins was, or why her name was carved in that table, and how many other pitiful, worthless fools had also sat here in the same seat and drank the bartender's same murky ale and stared at the same name carved into the wood.

"That young man over there in the corner?"

"Yes, that's him. Thank you."

He looked up to see the bartender pointing him out to a woman—almost a girl, really—that looked too much like…

Oh Crap.

He pulled his hood lower over his eyes and reached into his pocket for a coin to throw on the table, suddenly desperate to leave the godforsaken place, but he wasn't fast enough.

"Draco?"

He found it all too easy to pull his lips into the familiar sneer he had worn for so long.

"Granger," he sneered, "What the Hell do you want?"

The young woman who had been talking to the bartender tucked a strand of hair behind her ear nervously.

"People have said that you're frequenting this tavern. You're going by…Jay now?"

He stared up at her coldly.

"I'm glad that—that I found you."

"So what do you want then, eh Granger? Eh, Mudblood? So you read the paper and come to gloat, have you? Come to point and laugh at poor Draco because now he's the one what's got nothing, is that it?"

"Draco—"

He felt a bolt of anger run through him and he stood up, clenching his wand so hard that he was sure it would snap. "You've won," he hissed at her, "Yeah, I'm not too high and mighty to admit that, but you know what? You're still a filthy little Mudblood. You're still nothing."

How she kept her temper in check he'll never know. "Draco—"

"DON'T SAY MY NAME!" he bellowed at her.

"—I only want to talk."

He reached into his pocket and fished out three knuts, which he threw on the table as payment for the ale. "Yeah? And what makes you think I'd want to talk to you?"

Half the tavern was staring at the two of them by now, but he didn't care. He wouldn't be coming back, in either case.

"Wait," Hermione called, "Draco, please!"

But he was already gone. Apparated. No longer there.

---

October 12

He was on his way home—if you could call his little rented room at the inn a home—when he ran into her again. She looked excited to see him, and he instinctively shrank away. He tried to push past her, but she grabbed his arm.

"The Hell's wrong with you, Granger?"

"They told me lived in one of these rooms," she said cheerfully.

"And when I get my hands on this 'they', I'll force feed them poison," he muttered under his breath. Louder, he said: "You need to get your filthy nose out of my life, Granger."

"I just thought—"

"That I'm an arrogant bastard who should just roll up and die. Yeah? Well I think that about you too, and your prat friends."

"No, of course not," she replied a bit irritably.

Draco sighed, and his temper boiled down considerably. When he spoke next, his voice was calm and weary, tinged with exhasperation.

"Look," he said, "I don't want to fight anymore. With you, or with Potter, or the Weasels. Not like at Hogwarts. I'm tired. I don't want to do it any longer. You want to laugh at me? Fine. Bring everyone here and let them have a good laugh, but after that," he wrenched his arm from her grasp, "you need to leave me the Hell alone."

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October 13

"Jay."

It took him a moment to recognize his name, and he did, he looked up to see her. Again. Why the Hell wouldn't she leave him alone?

He'd been sitting on a bench in London station, staring listlessly at the departures board and wondering if it would be worth it to buy a train ticket just because he had nothing else to do.

"How the Hell do you keep finding me?"

She flushed. "I actually hadn't. I was seeing a friend off and I saw you sitting here."

She looked earnestly at him.

"And why couldn't you have just let me sit here?"

To his utter disgust, she took the seat on the bench next to him. He edged away. "You just disapparated last time, Draco—"

"Jay."

"Jay. I wanted to talk to you."

"No."

"Why?"

Draco stared at her as if she were mad. "Are you addled, Granger? I don't associate with people like you, much less talk to them."

She gave him a wise look. "Oh but I think you will," she said with that same know-it-all tone she had used every time she answered a question in class.

He tried not to look too repulsed. "What makes you think I will?"

"Because you've got no one else to talk to."

Draco felt a whoosh somewhere deep inside him and knew that she had struck a chord that he didn't even know existed. But she was right. He hated how right she always was. Fuming, more at his own weakness than at her, he tried to regain the upper hand.

He tilted his chin up and tried to look unaffected. "I'd rather talk to no one than to you, Mudblood."

The next moment she was staring directly into his eyes and somehow she had managed to scoot closer to him. Her perfume was too sharp and made his nose itch, and he was frightened of somehow drowning in her big busy tangles.

"You're lonely." Hermione said matter of factly, as if she was merely commenting on a Charms essay.

"I'm—"

"You're lonely. You've lost everything and you don't know what to do, or where to go."

"You just be q—"

"All your friends are dead, or gone. Everyone you've had half a relationship with—"

"Crabbe and Goyle—"

"Are being tracked down by the Aurors as we speak. Your mother hasn't been seen for months—You're right, I read the paper—and your father—"

"Don't you dare say anything about my father," he snarled, leaping up from the bench.

"Your father is in the hospital—"

"Granger—"

"—drifting in and out of consciousness—"

"I said—"

"No one is allowed to see him, or speak to him, or visit—"

"I SAID, SHUT UP ABOUT MY FATHER!"

Around them, the station had fallen silent save for the whistling of trains and clicking of ticket machines.

After a long silence Hermione gave him a smile that looked terribly like pity.

"I'm the only one you can talk to, Draco. The only one."

His chest was heaving now in anger, but some part of him buried deep inside was reaching out to comfort, any comfort, from a Mudblood or no.

"Why?" he said quietly.

She smiled. "Because I knew you. I saw who you were, and I see who you are now, and it's pathetic."

And once again, she was right. He was. And suddenly, he felt weary, so incredibly tired and so incredibly done with the world that he didn't want to hate anymore.

He was silent for a long, drawn out moment, and when he spoke finally, he could feel the world collapsing around him.

"Fine," he sighed, "Fine."

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I'm not used to writing Draco, and I'm trying very hard to make him believable. How'd I do?

For those of you wondering if this is a Draco Hermione ship, I wont answer that just yet (seeing as I'm still working out a little something). I don't actually support that pairing, but I enjoy writing stuff I don't support.

Psst…if I get some reviews, I may just be happy enough to write faster xD

And check out Tell Me Again the Meaning of a Merry Christmas (long title, I know). My excuse for this shameless advertising—I'm writing the two fics at the same time.