Hello this is my first DMxHG fic, but I've worked hard on the plot and everything. I hope I'll finish it because I have issues finishing things. I'm okay with all types of reviews. I believe this is an original story, I'm pretty sure no one has the same plot and the same way of writing it. But then again there might be some references to stories I've read before. This story was written like over a year ago when I was really bored and I felt like I needed a creative outlet. It's written in Hermione's point of view.
This is just the prologue. And I also think it's going to not follow the books as much. I'm not sure yet. So anyway enjoy! Please, please, please, tell me what you think just take a minute to review PLEASE. Thank you :)
I suppose he always knew the effect he had on me.
He had seen the light shining in my eyes hinting at the emotion I refused to let my lips express. He had noticed the way my lips parted in a gasp of awe to replenish the air that had have left me at the sight of him. He had definitely known the way my knees buckled at the strange glint in his eyes when they fell upon me, always calculating and cold. Back then I just gave myself too much credit as being an expert at hiding my emotions to acknowledge his keen observational skills.
He knew all those things then, but he can't possibly know the effects he left on me now.
I could never get myself to be as perfectly guarded with my emotions as he could. Before him, I never really had the need to hide what I felt. But with him, it was impossible not to be guarded. He picked up the tiniest telltale signs of emotion and used it against others. He must have had some twisted built in radar to detect fear. After all, it was his favorite emotion to manipulate. Any sign of weakness and he pounced on it. He was a predator, one that played with its food before finally eating it. It was the game he lived for, the food just kept his body alive. In the same way, Draco lived for the chase, for the manipulation. The people he terrorized, they just fed his reputation.
What was it that people called him? The Slytherin Prince. He was no prince, a perfect example of the ideal Slytherin and an arrogant one to boot, but certainly not a prince.
Especially, not in the beginning. No one, not even the Slytherins, had respected him but no one had feared him either. They had simply feared his name. They had feared his name almost as badly as they had feared Voldemort and they had hated him just as much. They had talked about him, in hushed whispers, or else in angry tirades between each other but all had been behind closed, highly charmed, doors.
Surprisingly he somehow seemed to know everything. Whether it was the tiniest implied insult or the most secretive gossip uttered in the girls' bathrooms, if it had to do with him, he knew all about it. He certainly was no fool. He always knew the other Slytherins talked about him. He had always known how much they hated him and wanted to teach him a lesson.
The only two people who had been stupid enough to not hate him back then, but to actually want his approval were his two lackeys: Crabbe and Goyle. They became his most trusted "friends." I don't suppose he really considered them friends, I don't think he considered anyone a friend, but they were certainly the most loyal. Even now, what wouldn't they do for him? The two were "taught" by their fathers to respect "the Malfoy brat" and were too stupid to realize the underlying tone of the message. But of course "the Malfoy brat" had changed it and gained what he at first didn't deserve.
When he first entered Hogwarts as an arrogant, bossy little prick, the older Slytherins were very much unified in the thought of breaking his little ego to pieces and putting him in place. The stupid little git was getting all the wrong ideas and much too cocky. They weren't going to let a first year rule them even if he was the Malfoy heir.
At eleven, he was a scrawny little punk. Skinny and without any hard muscle, he couldn' t do much but rely on the protection of his two lackeys. In fact, he had such a picky appetite he rarely ate and was still rather skinny in his later years. He often took a beating, several in fact. He never screamed, resisted, or cried. If at the end he was conscious, he'd laugh at his tormentors in all his bloodied glory. In the end the Slytherins thought he was rather insane, but at some point it developed into admiration. Go figure. Slytherins would admire insanity, I suppose.
He wouldn't tell me all the details, but he had said that as time went on he somehow overcame the "disrespect" and in the end, earned his title as the Slytherin prince. I laughed at his referral to himself as a prince but especially at his lame and evasive ending. He glared at me, catching the latter part of my thoughts and spitting out rather coldly, "No, you stupid bitch. I didn't get any help from daddy dearest." I didn't know if I had hurt his pride or if he simply realized how chummy he was being with me and decided it was time to back away.
How was it possible to feel so strongly for someone who did nothing but abuse you. He didn't hit me, or physically hurt me, but he hurt my pride. He often made me feel inferior and I never knew whether it was because he honestly thought I was inferior or if that's just the way he treated everyone around him. Perhaps, it was because I often took a hit at his pride. The more pride you hold in yourself, the much more hurtful a hit at it is. But did he have to hurt mine so often that it practically crumbled into dust? At those low points, I often wondered: How could I have chosen a Malfoy over sweet, understanding Ron?
It wasn't as though Ron was perfect either, but he was a much better person than Draco. Ron with his temper was nothing compared to Draco in his. And yet I chose to love him and reject Ron. Perhaps, it wasn't me that chose, but fate simply designated him to me. Or rather, it was that fate dumped the cold hearted bastard on me. Am I his caretaker or is he mine? If he's my caretaker, he's done a crappy job so far and yet, it's amazing that I still love him.
I find myself to be hypocritical. I suppose I come off as a person who is righteous, who'd choose personality over the outer appearance, but who can reject a dragon for his cold hearted cruelty when his physical beauty is so breathtaking. Who can choose a loyal, domesticated simple dog or cat, compared to my lovely, dangerous, untamable dragon?
He was so beautiful. He skin was smooth and cold like Michelangelo's marble sculptures, he was so blindingly pale he glowed. His hair was touched by the moon's rays and had a sheen that put the stars to shame. His face was angular, aristocratic and always pulled into a bored, careless expression. His eyes were what drew you to him. It was like staring into two enchanted pools of liquid mercury.
Liquid mercury was once called the Elixir of Life. It promised the naive long life and riches when in fact, it was a deadly poison. Mercury poisoning could result in tremors, hallucinations, emotional instability, insomnia or dementia. I must have been poisoned, because I had all those symptoms.
I never admitted it to the other girls, but I certainly agreed when they spent hours upon hours describing his every beautiful, graceful move. Girls from every house of every age talked about him, stayed up all night thinking about him but they always concluded their traitorous thoughts with, "It's too bad he's such a slimy git." Yet even with that sentence uttered repetitively like some sacred female mantra by every girl in the school, perhaps even a few guys, there were always a couple stupid girls who'd continue sighing and daydreaming. They believed that their beauty, their charm, their quirky nature or their intelligence could change his ways and be united with him as happy, perfect, soul mates. Master of detecting and manipulating weakness, he was always took advantage of these girls who happily threw themselves at him at any open chance. They always got their poor little hearts broken.
I never let myself fall into that trap. I refused to let my heart react to anything he said. I never believed his bullshit, bullshit so beautiful and romantic that it could even melt the Devil's frozen abyss of a heart, because deep down inside I knew people didn't change. He wasn't about to give anything up for me and I told him to get rid of any childish and improbable thoughts of my giving anything up for him. He laughed at me. I stuck my nose up at him and turned to walk away from him, but before I could get far, he had pulled me back into his arms. My traitorous body didn't put up much of a fight, and with a damned chaste peck of his lips against mine, I just melted into him. My mind, which at that moment was drunk off his smell and dizzy from his eyes, had seethed with anger when away from him. I wanted to prove to him I'd never give anything up to such a slimy git.
Well there went my pride once more, because after everything was over I realized that I ended up giving up everything, gaining nothing, and to what end?
Memories are like photos. They can be locked up in chests and hidden in the back of your mind until you forget they exist, or they can be looked at so many times the details fade like the corners of a photo, they can be destroyed, or they can be treasured. But memories of him, these "photos," are so numerous that I don't know what to do with them. I don't want to throw them out, or lock them away, but I certainly want to stop replaying them in my mind like some broken record. That's why I've decided to make an album, a scrapbook in a sense, so while keeping the memories safe, and able to constantly be looked at, they can't deteriorate or be destroyed unless the book itself is. Would you destroy my album?