The Seed

Often it occured that the boys of the House of Slytherin sat together with some illegal firewhisky to talk about girls. This was one of those nights but it was one which was slightly different for one of them brought a topic up nobody would have dared to: muggle-born witches and what if they were not.

Of course it had been Blaise Zabini, one of the more open-minded purebloods among their group although he mostly did it to increase his selection of girls he had not had yet.

As it was expected from him Draco snorted and raised a platinum eyebrow at his friend. He had always known that the dark skinned boy was not as picky as himself when it came to girls but that was just unbelievable.

To think about those girls as possible shags, friends or even worse girlfriends was a no-go for people of his status – purebloods. Sure, all girls had the same body parts but being together meant stooping to the lowest level, losing your image and dishonoring your family so there was no way Draco could have let the conversation go further in this direction. With a nasty remark he changed it but it was already too late.

The idea had been planted in his head like a seed and was only waiting to bloom.

The earliest signs that the seed would grow and not wither away were not very clear. His eyes only stayed slightly longer on the muggle-born he despised the most and when they would run into each other out of class he would look more closely at her.

For once he considered the things she said and he hated it. It was not because of what she said for he already knew all of it was true but she dared to speak up against him, the superior. In her presence he sometimes felt so small and his superiority was crumbling and only the most vicious insults could put him above her again.

Mudblood.

The word came past his lips less easily than before but he realized it when the damage was already done.

The seed had sprout into a small flower.

Every day he lay wide awake in his bed while the others were asleep and guilt gnawed on him. His words really were harsh and he could clearly see how they hurt her. More and more often he thought about the effect of his words and actions. Although he did not notice it but he tried to be nicer towards her.

After all he knew that she was no bad person. Unlike most other girls she did not care about wearing the perfect outfit much less any make up. Hermione Granger was intelligent and proud of it. But it was also this intelligence that intimidated him for she had surpassed him in such a short time. All his life he had known about his magical heritage and she had learned all of it since they entered school together.

The strangest thing happened to him several days after the topic had come up among them. For the first time in a long time he had not lain awake thinking but had gone straight to sleep. In his dream he remembered something he had long forgotten: the first time he had seen Hermione Granger.

It had been at the station when they had waited for the train to bring them to Hogwarts for the first time. King´s Cross was huge and you could loose each other easily and so both of them had lost sight of their parents. Way too excited to be finally able to use a wand he had ran off into the crowd not even caring about all the muggles there. In the mass of people he got lucky to find a girl with her Hogwarts letter in her hand so even if he did not find his parents in this mess he would get to the platform where there were less people around. Without thinking twice he approached her and sat down next to her on the bench.

Her smile was sweet when she turned towards him. A simple hi was her greeting. The next thing she did was trying to hide her letter but he shook his head.

"I got mine, too.", he said and pulled out his letter to show it to her.

"Oh, wow. I´m already so excited that I read Hogwarts A History over and over again." Bumping up and down on the bench she beamed at him with her big brown eyes. Never had he met such a cheerful person before and it got to him so a tiny smile stole itself onto his lips.

"Ah, I´m so rude. My name is Hermione and yours?"

"Draco.", he answered and shook her hand. Strangely, she did not let go of his hand after hearing his name but held it tightly.

"Draco like dragon or like the Greek person?" Curiosity sparked up in her eyes and he smirked.

"No, Draco like the constellation. It´s a family tradition." Only then did she let go of his hand.

"That´s nice." When she smiled that wide you could see her teeth and as soon as he stared at them she stopped and looked at the floor. From the floor her eyes wandered to the box on her lap.

"Do you like sweets?" A little confused with her sudden change of topic he frowned at her but replied none the less.

"Yes, I certainly do." From one moment to the next she was back to her cheerfulness and opened the box to reveal chocs inside. Draco sure knew chocs but the ones he knew had different shapes and not just round of square like the ones in the box so he figured that it was muggle chocolate. Realizing this, his look became more wary and although he had a real sweet tooth he did not even think about taking one. This girl was either half-born or in worst case muggle-born.

"Is something wrong?", she asked and leant her head to the side to have a better view of his face.

"No, I just don´t feel up for something sweet anymore." Although he felt like fleeing his manners forbid him to do so, after all she could still be a half-blood. Shrugging she took one and bit into it.

"See. It´s filled with nougat cream. Are you sure you don´t want any?" She had turned the piece so he could see the cream inside and he could feel his mouth water. Seeing the hunger in his eyes she appreciatively put the rest into her mouth and took another but offered it to him.

"Take it." Too tempting to withstand it he took it and put the whole thing into his mouth so it could melt on his tongue. It was sweet paradise and he could not suppress a mmmmmh. The girlish giggle from beside him made him come to his senses again and his Malfoy façade did not snap into place but a small smile played around his lips.

Yet this soon disappeared at the sight of his parents nearing them. With one glance Lucius Malfoy had realized the girl´s blood status and was everything but happy about finding his son together with her. In no time Draco was on his feet and hastily biding good bye to the girl before marching towards his parents.

The last thing that happened before Malfoy awoke from this strange dream was his father pointing the wand at him.

Sweaty and breathing heavily Malfoy awoke and sat upright in his bed. Had it been a dream or a real memory. It had not been like his usual dreams but felt so real. The taste was still fresh on his tongue. The two scenes – the dream and how he remembered his first meeting with Granger – rebelled in his head and caused him a huge headache. Throughout the breakfast he was reasoning with himself whether his father had truly erased this memory or if it truly had been just a dream. In the end he decided that it had been a dream although a quite realistic one at that.

Afterwards his behavior towards people of a lower status than him changed back to normal. He even hexed the mudblood´s front teeth to grow to wipe away the image of her smile.

Until sixth year the thoughts about muggle-borns would not change but what did change them was the sign of his loyalty to the Dark Lord on his left arm. Suddenly when he was on their side everything seemed wrong and he questioned his education.

And for one split second he thought about the outcome of him if the dream had been reality.

/ so I already read plenty stories in which Draco had a crush on Hermione during their school days and then I mostly thought that the explanations were quite shallow and not too realistic so I thought about the posibility of it and ended up writing this story. I hope you like it and think that Draco is not OOC for that is certainly not was I was aiming for. Unlike most of my stories Blaise is just some womanizer here.

Review, please?