Summary: The moment would've been insignificant had it been anybody else. But through the eyes of Draco Malfoy, it meant everything— to him, it is a beginning.

Standard disclaimer applies here

And I dedicate my first ever Dramione fanfic to rxs isawesome (levymcgardxn on tumblr) because she just gets it.

Gentrify

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v. to renew; to restart; to begin again.

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She doesn't like me.

It's nothing surprising, really, considering all the terrible things I'd done that lead up to the war. In the shadow of my family's actions, I now take the blame because there is no one else who will claim responsibility— my father is dead, my mother is dead, my aunt is dead; everyone who'd pressured me as a child to follow and preserve the pureblood ideology have left me out to rot and to suffer on my own. They tell you that family always sticks together— so why have they left me here, by myself, living in misery?

She doesn't like me.

I can tell by the way she constantly ignores me even when I'm in the same room as her, barely standing three feet away. I can tell by the way she makes excuses to leave early every time she's left alone with me. I can tell by the way her body remains guarded and her eyes steel over, showing no emotion, when she absolutely has to communicate with me.

The war has showed me that she trusts me, but she doesn't like me. But then again, she— they— had no choice, and I'd been their best option.

But every day I watch; I wait for the crack in her titanium armor, which stretches and coats and hides her body, closing her off from everyone and anyone, especially me. I wait for her to look me in eye— exposed, vulnerable, like our former days in Hogwarts— and I wait for a sign of acceptance, of liking. It's like a one-sided game I'm playing, me versus her.

She proves to be a hard opponent, however. She's impossible to ignore. Her very presence takes my breath away, and when she's around I feel as if I have tunnel vision— nothing matters except for her.

Back when my Slytherin title was everything and my name paved my destiny, back when I lived in naivety, thinking that the world was black and white, never shades of grey, back when I thought I had all the glory and power and fame, I'd never hesitate or bite my tongue to push an unwanted comment her way. She'd been my favorite insult sparring partner, after all. Potter was too much of a dimwit to have any fun, and Weasel was too rash, too impulsive. But her? She was perfect.

But now, it's like the words get stuck in my throat every time I want to speak to her, and I end up saying nothing. Maybe it's because I no longer know what to say to her— my scathing words from adolescence are buried so deep in the past they're out of reach. I don't want them now, anyway. Maybe it's because I never get the chance to speak.

…Maybe it's because I'm always waiting for her to break the silence first.

My job at the Ministry can either be a curse or a blessing, depending on my mood. It's a much better option than a cold prison cell in Azkaban, I must agree, but the isolation is the same. My interactions with my co-workers are limited, at best. The employees in the Ministry are wary of me still; they go to great lengths to avoid me as if I were a dark plague, and many still refuse to look at me. The only person who'd speak to me freely is Harry Potter; he is also the reason I hold a position in the Ministry. After all, everyone likes the hero, never the villain.

I don't exactly know what I do each day— I feel like I'm working through the motions, day by day, counting down the time before I join my family in the deepest parts of Hell. I look at stacks of parchment every single day, scanning over whatever was written on it in black ink, and then I hand them over to the secretary. I go for lunch and I come back and work some more. I go home and I lie in bed, staring at my bland ceiling in my empty Manor. Had I been Nott or Zabini, I'd have gone for a quick shag, but I don't have that in me anymore. So I lay awake each night, counting the minutes before I fade away. Insomnia is one of my side effects of war, and I haven't gotten a proper rest in ages— but no matter.

The haunting silence would keep me up until the silvery moon vanished from the sky, and black would be replaced by flaming red-orange, like someone setting ablaze the sky.

But somehow it feels more like a repeated, endless cycle than the beginning of a new day.

I don't know what day it is exactly, but it is noon hour when I decide to pack up and leave for lunch. I hadn't eaten anything for breakfast, and despite myself I feel famished. I place my wand into my briefcase as well as files and parchments that needed further review and I straighten my tie.

The majority of the other workers have left already; I heard them down the hall earlier on, walking down in a large group, all chattering about going to some restaurant together. I don't bother with them and they don't bother asking if I want to join. To them, I am simply an outsider they must deal with, because hero Harry Potter does. It is okay, however— by now, I'm used to eating alone and being alone.

I'm halfway out my office when I hear them— two male voices talking high and haughty, as if they knew the answers to all the mysteries in the world. They're voices I don't quite recognize; from that, I conclude it's the two new workers called in to the Ministry a few days prior, having transferred from Egypt or Rome or wherever the hell in the world.

I slink back by my office desk, not because I'm afraid of them; quite the opposite, really. I'll wait until they leave so I can walk out of my office in peace, without them staring daggers into my back while whispering harsh words to test my patience.

"Can you believe they let that Malfoy scum work here?" one of the males says loudly, foolishly, thinking nobody is around. I freeze.

The other male scoffs. "Old fools they are, thinking that that Death Eater has changed!"

The first male says confidently, "Scumbags like him are nothing but filthy trash. He probably bought his way in, with all of his dead daddy's money." The two of them snicker loudly.

I'm nearly blinded with rage. I'm gripping my office desk so hard it nearly splinters under my fingertips, and I can see nothing but red. Fury seeps into my blood and suddenly I'm pushing forward, furious, ready to kill, out of my office when the loud sound of high heels silences the snickering fools.

I halt at just by my door, a centimeter from being exposed, when the first male says, "Ms. Granger! How lovely to see you. You look exceptionally beautiful today." His voice is flirtatiously sweet and it unnerves me to think that he'd use a voice like that to court Granger.

"What are you two still doing here?" I hear her ask. "It's lunchtime." I imagine her with her hands on her hips, looking at them questioningly, but I don't risk poking my neck out the office door to confirm that.

"Oh, we're just leaving," the second male drawls. "Would you care to join us?"

I narrow my eyes and edge closer to hear her answer. "No," I hear her say, and her voice sounds a bit exhausted. She's a hard worker, and no doubt have been working herself tirelessly. "Thank you for your offer, but I have some work I wish to finish. You should be on your way, though; lunch hour will be over shortly."

"Alright; we'll cash in your rain check next time, then?" The first male says. I assume Granger must've made some indication, because the bloody git continues talking. "Anyway, we were discussing that Malfoy lad. I can't possibly imagine your horror that they would let a traitor into the Ministry! That broken excuse for a lad working under the same roof as you; doesn't it make you feel uncomfortable?"

"I heard you were tortured in his Manor, miss," the second male adds in, "how can you even look at that bloody Slytherin filth? Surely the sight of him must fill you with disgust—"

"Don't." she says. Her voice is so calm it's unsettling; like the calm before a storm of fuckery. Her voice, which had been so sweet and kind and pleasant just moments before, is now edged with steel. Cold. It's as sharp as a knife, slicing through emptiness of the hallway. I so desperately want to see her face, to see all her emotions displayed in her eyes, but I refrain. Instead, I listen to her voice. I want to know what she says about me. Would she agree with them and all their twisted, harsh views of me?

"Don't you dare talk about Draco Malfoy like you know him. You have no idea what he's been through. You have no idea how much he's suffered." Her voice is so deathly quiet it shocks me.

One of the males scoffs at her words. "That bloody traitor has no heart. He's a bloody coward, I tell you."

"A coward," Granger hisses, "would never be able to do what Draco has done for us. A coward would never put their life on the line for others." The atmosphere is suddenly thick with tension; suffocating, waiting, a warning lingering in the air.

The first male, with a slightly quivering voice, speaks up. "We had Harry Potter. We didn't need Malfoy."

"Were you in the war?" Her voice is low, dark— almost threatening.

"N-no, miss."

"Then you know nothing. Don't spew your discriminative nonsense on topics you know nothing about."

"B-but—"

I hear a loud exasperated sigh. "That's enough. Go get your lunch. I have paperwork to do."

"B-but miss—"

"I said that's enough."

"But miss," one of the fools coughs out after a moment of astonished silence, "how can you defend that broken piece of shit?"

I'm not exactly sure what happens next, but I hear the loud contact of a slap resounding down the hallway. It's like an explosion or a breaking point, full of emotion. Overflowing.

"Don't you dare speak about Draco!" she spats angrily. "I am not defending him; I am telling you the truth. Stop being so prejudice towards him! Can you not get it through your thick skull that he was on our side. His role for the Order made our victory possible. He risked his life for us. Can your dimwitted, miniscule brain process that? Would you be able to spy on your family and lay your loyalty to your friends? Would you be able to resist Voldemort? He is broken," she seethes, "but we are all broken! If you were in the fucking war and you can look me in the eye right now and tell me the war didn't break some part of you, I'd call you a bloody liar. Ask Neville. Ask Luna. Ask Harry, for Merlin's sake!" She's nearly screaming in rage now.

"S-sorry, miss—"

"If I ever catch you or anybody else talking shit about Draco and treating him with anything less than the respect he deserves, fuck magic. I will personally kick your arses into the next century. Do I make myself clear?"

"Y-yes, Ms. Granger, w-we—"

I can nearly feel her furious wrath prickling the hairs at the back of my neck.

"Consider this the one and only fucking warning you're going to get. Now go grab your bloody lunches and get the fuck out of my sight. Now."

There's the sudden scrambling of feet bustling down the hallway, bustling past my office door. They don't see me standing there, frozen from Granger's words.

Had it been anybody else, the moment would've felt insignificant. But for me, it's everything. It's everything I've been waiting to hear since the day the war ended— that I am important, that I am valued. And maybe it's because she didn't even know I was standing there, or maybe it's simply because it's her, but I feel something in me come back to life.

Just a sliver, though— a fraction of something I can't quite place. I don't want to be too hopeful, in case it'd been meaningless in the end.

I fought for the Order during the war. I can't exactly say when I got a change of heart, but it may have been when I was in the Astronomy tower, hesitating from fulfilling my mission of killing Dumbledore. Although I should've felt relief when Snape finished my former headmaster off, I felt nothing but pure horror. I was responsible for disarming Dumbledore, and I shared the blame for his death. Not only did I have blood on my hands, I'd wiped my bloodstained hands on Snape. And so the domino effect happened, and Snape was murdered by the Dark Lord.

My change of heart may have happened as I watched my aunt Bellatrix, whom I've never really liked, torture Granger. I'd called Granger "mudblood" countless times, I admit; but for me, it was like a childhood taunt. It wasn't very nice, but at the time I didn't see the insult as a bigger picture, but rather as a quick exchange of verbal abuse between opposing houses. But when I saw my aunt carve the word into Granger's arm, hitting her over and over again with Unforgivable Curses, something inside me twisted and broke. I felt helpless, like I couldn't do anything to save her. Saving Granger meant betraying my family, and father always said that family was the most important thing (ironic, really, since they've all left me to take the brunt of the blame).

I didn't officially switch until I bumped into Granger one day at the graveyard. With her pale skin and dead eyes, hollow cheeks and filthy hair, she should've looked like the dirt stuck to the bottom of my shoe. But she didn't. Instead, in that very moment, she looked like a savior; my savior, my pathway to redemption. And with her sharp words and calculating eyes, she peeled me back piece by piece, tearing me apart with her logic, ripping away my world from under my feet. She led me out of the hazy fog in which I'd been wandering, disillusioned by the seemingly invincibility of my family name. She made me the person I am today— free from the shackles of prejudice, a person who is able to choose what to do with life. My father no longer held power over me. Nobody did.

And from that day onwards, she became my single goal in life. I wanted to survive the war because of her. I wanted to throw my life on the line if it meant she was going to live, because she deserved that kind of happiness and I didn't. I wanted her to smile again, to laugh, and to feel like she belonged. I wanted the world for her.

It's nearly midnight when I find the courage to speak to her after so long, a real conversation that didn't involve work or the weather or anything so simply vague and foreign. Everybody in the Ministry had already left a couple hours ago, yawning and complaining of tomorrow before it even comes, but she is still here. She's so immersed in her work she doesn't see me leaning against the doorframe, watching her quill dip in the jet black ink and her pretty cursive flowing through the stacks of parchment.

It's funny how quickly the words used to come, when we were children. It's funny how simple it is for me to answer and speak to others, but never her. But with Hermione Granger, I am Draco. Never Malfoy. Never indifferent or rude. I am myself around her.

"Hi," I say finally, because it's the safest approach to a greeting, and she looks up at me momentarily in surprise before turning her head down back to her work.

"It's late," is all she says, still working. "You should be heading home." A light yawn escapes her lips as she says this.

I choose to ignore the fact that she doesn't want to talk with me right now, that she's busy with her work. If I leave now, I may lose my only chance to uncover her, to decipher her actions today. So I stand my ground, unmoving, and say, "I heard you today." She doesn't look up, doesn't acknowledge the fact that I've spoken, but I continue. "In the hallway," I clarify. "You…you defended me."

"I was simply telling the truth," she says. She doesn't look at me. She continues writing on the parchment, eyebrows furrowed and stopping occasionally, before a faint smile graces her lips and she carries on.

I stare at her, unwavering, for what seems like eternity, battling with myself. Finally, the big question tumbles from my lips— unconsciously, quietly, desperately. "Why?"

It's only then she stops writing and stares down at her parchment thoughtfully. I know she's not thinking about what she'd written but my question.

With careful, measured words, she replies, "Because it was the right thing to do."

"Even if you hate me?"

With this, she glances up at me with surprised eyes. "I don't hate you," she says softly, sincerely, and I believe her. "I don't hate you." Her pretty brown eyes drop back to the paperwork in front of her, occupying her desk.

"Okay." I shift awkwardly. My train of thought has completely crashed and I no longer know what to say to her; the only thing I know is that I want her to keep talking to me. It makes me feel real, like her voice is confirming my existence.

Then I remember that she hadn't eaten anything all day. And while my brain is telling me that it's absurd, she wouldn't say yes, it's too late, I find myself saying, "I'm having dinner tonight, and it would be a pleasure if you could join me."

She looks at me again, this time hesitant. "It's awfully late," she says, "and you're probably tired, so…"

"No, I'm not," I say. "And you haven't eaten anything all day, so I insist."

Her chocolate brown eyes snap to my face. "How did you know I didn't eat anything today?" she asks, but it seems more to herself than I, so I don't answer. "Anyway, there's no place open this late. Really, Malfoy, it's fine."

"I can always cook for you," I say softly, surprising even myself. "It's no trouble. You got to eat, Granger, or else you're going to fall over from all the work you do." I berate myself for sounding so stern, but damn it, it's because I fucking care.

And then she looks at me— really looks at me, for the first time in a long time— and I feel my breath hitch when I see her body relax and her eyes becoming transparent again, all her emotions swimming, exposed for me to see. Here, right before my very eyes, she is taking off the armor that'd kept her away for so long. "Okay," she says, standing up, laughing lightly. "Okay, you win." She puts her stuff away and walks over to me, standing beside me so close I can smell the faint smell of vanilla and rain, something fresh, and my revived heart sings. She places her hand on my arm and my skin welcomes the contact and my heart is beating so loud, calling for her, and I wonder if she can hear it.

This is a start of something.

This may not be anything except for that. This may be everything because of that. I don't exactly know now, but I'm willing to take that risk. Take a leap, and if I fall, I fall. As we apparate to my Manor, her skin on mine, I just know that I'll be able to sleep soundly tonight. Maybe she won't be beside me for always. Maybe she will. But I know— I know—deep inside me that when the sun comes up tomorrow, it'll be the beginning of a new day.

And I, Draco Malfoy, will begin again.

Fin.

note: yeah, i know. I couldn't help myself. but seriously, dramione is perfection. literally so sad because they're not together. (but never fear tho bc I like to think that Bex-chan's Isolation is canon. booyah.)

tell me what you think? love you's.

-A