Pedestrian
by: epiphanies
A Draco Malfoy interlude. Very weird. Don't ask.
Draco Malfoy didn't like people. No, he didn't like people in the least.
People were stupid. People were sheep. People were normal. People were boring.
People liked to rough him up. People liked to call him names, make assumptions and beat him at Quidditch.
People sucked.
Not that he didn't call people names first, or make assumptions, or get beaten at Quidditch just like they liked to do. No, he had to admit, these things were relative. And relevant.
But it didn't matter THAT much. If people were so great, then why couldn't they ignore a snide remark? An assumption? A victory?
Nope, people sucked. Not that he would ever actually say that out loud, that would make him sound pedestrian. No, he preferred to say things like "Society is at the mercy of it's occupants" or "The world is out to get me" with just enough dramatic flare to get him out of Divination Class.
He could only think of two people in the world that didn't suck.
Both girls. One he enjoyed the company of. One he hated.
The one he enjoyed the company of was Pansy Parkinson. She was a genuinely interesting character. She wasn't pretty, but she had a remarkable sense of humour, a vivaciousness that few would expect and a voice, surprisingly, like an angel's. Ever since they'd been young, Pansy had sung to him on every birthday. It would be something he looked forward to this coming November, as every other November stacked in his memory. Pansy really didn't suck.
And the one he hated? Well, that would have to be Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger certainly didn't suck. Not in the ways that most people did, anyways.
After all, most people would have spread around that Draco was enrolled in a Muggle Studies class. Hermione Granger hadn't spread it. She'd given him a surprised look, and laughed a little to herself and shot him wondering looks in the hallways occasionally, but she hadn't spread it. And he knew that she wouldn't spread it.
And the reason that nobody else knew was that he wasn't taking it in regular class. He was taking it as an extra course. An extra course that his father knew nothing about.
Hermione Granger only knew about it because she'd missed class one day and showed up at he and the teacher's private study time. But she hadn't gone off gloating to her dream team, she hadn't told the youngest Weasley (who, for some reason that Draco thought might have been started in his own second year, seemed to shoot him loathing looks every day in passing.) She hadn't told -anybody-. And he admired her for that. Respected her for that.
He still hated her, though. Because she was a person. And not in every way, not in a pedestrian way, but still in a way that he knew was only because she was a Gryffindor and a girl and had a remote sense of intellect, she sucked.