DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with JK Rowling or any of the the Harry Potter franchise, nor do I own any of their characters or lines. All I own is my own imagination.

Unbelievable

Hermione has seen much of Draco Malfoy.

She was going into her second year at Hogwarts. Her parents had allowed her to go to Diagon Alley by herself and she had never been so excited to be on her own. A flash of familiar blonde hair flitted across her vision and her eyes fell on his twelve-year-old form. His back was pressed to a wall and his chest was going up and down with the quick breaths he was taking, eyes swiveling back and forth, scanning the crowd.

She tilted her head and watched from a distance as he relaxed visibly, put his fallen hood back over his head and slipped into the nearest shop. Tugged by her curiosity, she followed him into it, a glance telling her it was Honeydukes, the best candy shop Wizarding Britain had to offer.

And all of a sudden she realised that Malfoy had never been into Honeydukes in his life, and that he had sneaked away from his parents in order to see it, because in the middle of the candy store a blonde second year was staring open-mouthed at all the sweets and lollies before him with an expression of wonder and childish glee on his pale, angled face.

On the platform 9 3/4, she was waiting for her parents to pick her up and take her home for the rest of the summer. They were planning on going to France later this month, and then she'd get to studying for the upcoming third year.

"Look at the lost little mudblood, Draco," a sneering voice sounded somewhere behind her and she turned to see Lucius Malfoy and his son, walking together. "That's the kind of scum you have to be sure not to associate yourself with. If anything, stay far away; you don't want to catch any of their filth on your robes."

She felt like tearing up as Malfoy nodded dutifully and followed his father out of the station, listening to Lucius continuous stream of words.

Just before they exited, he turned his head back round for a split second, and in that split second she saw that his eyes were full of uncertainty.

Sometime in the March of 1994, she heard voices in the hallway. Marcus Flint, Gregor Farley, and Yurika Haneda were bullying Pansy Parkinson because she was a half-blood. She felt the sting of shock; she'd always thought Parkinson was a pureblood. It was strange hearing the girl who'd normally call her bad names be called them herself.

"D'you see that? The half-blood thinks she's as good as the rest of us."

"Ha! The stain of mud in your blood's never going to clear away, Parkinson."

"Try all you want, Parkinson, but your blood's just as dirty as any filthy muggle's."

There was a sniffle and she knew Parkinson was trying hard not to cry. The jeering voices grew louder and harsher until she heard a familiar sound.

"Why don't you pick on someone else, eh Flint?" Malfoy shouted, and the shuffling of robes and feet let her know he had run forward and placed himself in front of Parkinson.

"What's this? Come to the half-blood's rescue? Never thought Malfoys associated themselves with-"

"She's not a mudblood, is she?" he barked. "She was sorted into Slytherin like you were and Slytherins are the most powerful of the lot and not mudbloods. And I'm sure my father wouldn't mind cutting off the funds he's giving the quidditch team." His words were venomous and the older students retreated quickly.

He and Parkinson started dating the next school year, and she remembers seeing Malfoy trying to break up with her for the next two years. He never managed, because his face would fill with guilt every time Parkinson gazed up at him with adoring eyes.

At the end of their sixth year, she saw him at the Platform again. His mother, with her blonde hair and sharp grey eyes, waited for him near the train. He walked towards her in his stiff, unnatural gait, face dark and pulled together and his hands trembling.

Narcissa opened her arms to him, mouth upturned in a sad smile, and he practically fell into her embrace, wrapping his arms tight around her, face buried in her hair. He breathed deeply as his mouth curved slightly at the words his mother was whispering into his ear.

When Malfoy finally pulled away his eyes were rimmed with the red of tears.

She was on the floor in Malfoy Manor, and Bellatrix Lestrange was hovering over her with a knife and a manic gleam in her eyes. With the knife, she was carving letters into her forearm. She didn't need to look to know what was being written there - it wasn't like she could, anyway, because the Cruciatus Curse does things to you that make you scream and thrash and throw your head everywhere, anywhere, in the hopes that it would just please, please stop.

And he was standing a few metres away from her with his parents. His gaze was fixed firmly on the floor, but that changed when the blood pooled onto it and he redirected his eyes to the ceiling. Through the haze of agony she saw him flinch at every one of her screams and saw his jaw clench and unclench.

Every time he saw the scars he shuddered as if seeing a ghost.

She, Harry, and Ron were racing through the throng of fighting students, teachers, creatures, and Death Eaters. Spells were zipping through the air, and she was somewhat reminded of a sound and light show. A curse burned her hair as it narrowly missed her, and Ron swore as a slicing charm found its way to his arm, created a gash where it had been.

In the corner of her eye a Death Eater raised his wand arm towards them and fired a flaming orange curse at them. She tried to deflect it but her wand caught in her robes and it was coming too fast, too fast-

And another spell, a deep cobalt blue, flew towards it and met it in tiny explosion of smoke and sparks, extinguishing the flames. She whipped her head around to find their saviour and it was him, a chunk of blonde hair hanging out of the hood, wand arm outstretched.

Their eyes met he nodded at her once, curtly, before turning and flicking his wand to fire a spell at a Hufflepuff student. It did nothing except splash water in his face - a nonlethal spell if she ever saw one.

She turned to rescue Parvarti from an enormous acromantula and when she looked back behind her, he was no longer there.

After the war she started working at the Ministry in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Later she resigned and started working in Magical Law Enforcement, and it wasn't until she saw him talking to Kingsley about a new case that had come up that she realised he even worked there.

Most mornings she saw him making coffee in the back room, downing cup after cup of it through the dark circles under his eyes and the ever-tired look of his face. When Renalda Wood, the head of the department, told him that the people in their section were complaining about the coffee always being gone, she started seeing him pour cups for everybody else and leaving them out with a heating charm before taking the entire pot with him to his desk.

He had cups for everyone, even the people who openly hated him for the crimes he had committed in the Second Wizarding War. In fact, he always placed a sugar cube next to the cups of those who despised him more.

She had to admit, he made the best coffee she'd ever had.

She sat at her desk for a full six minutes before glancing up and realising he was standing in her doorway.

"Malfoy? What are you doing here?"

He looked incredibly awkward as he shifted his weight and put his hands in his pockets. "Can I have a word with you?"

"Sure. How can I help?" She placed her quill down and folded her hands on the desk. His eyes fell to her exposed forearm and went a shade paler. She pulled her sleeves down to her wrists. His eyes flicked back up.

"Er... I came here to, uh-"

"Spit it out, Malfoy, I've got work to do."

"I'm sorry."

"Excuse me?" her voice went up an octave as her eyebrows similarly jumped to her hairline.

"I said, I'm sorry." He ran a hand through his hair. It was the least composed she had ever seen him. "For everything. Really, really sorry for everything that I've ever done to you. I shouldn't have called you a mudblood and bullied you in school, or let my aunt do what she did to you, or..."

"You don't have to remind me of all those things," she said dryly. "I recall them very well."

"Right," he stopped abruptly. "Of course. I'm sorry."

They stared at each other for a long moment.

"Why are you apologising now?"

He shrugged in a way that made her certain it had simply taken this long for him to work up the courage. "Please, please forgive me," he almost whispered. "I just need someone to forgive me."

It occurred to her that he had blamed himself for every bad thing that had happened to the students of Hogwarts since he let the Death Eaters in during their sixth year. Another thought struck her: nobody had ever forgiven him for anything.

"I forgive you."

She never forgot the way his head snapped up at his eyes widened to the size of tennis balls. Especially not the way he, for one scary second, looked like he wanted to hug her.

The next week she saw him sitting at the table in the back of the cafeteria where he always sat, alone, eyes down and fixated on eating for ten minutes before getting up and leaving just as silently as he came. Nobody went near him, for fear of being associated with an ex-Death Eater.

She hesitated a moment before excusing herself from the table she normally shared with Heather Grimly, Natasha Piersky and Hartford Larkin, and carried her tray to the far end of the room.

And sat down next to him.

He jumped and stared before nodding once in his curt manner. "Granger."

"Malfoy," she replied.

He thought she hadn't noticed him watching her for the rest of their meal.

There was a new intern in their department that had been assigned to their section. His name was Harris Brody, and he would not stop ogling her. He wasn't exactly subtle about it, either.

She was working late one evening when Harris stopped at the doorway to her office. "Hey, Hermione."

"Brody. How can I help you?"

"Well, you could go on a date with me," he said, confidence oozing from every one of his pores.

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to say no to that."

"Oh, come on. Why not?"

"I'm a bit busy, as you can see," she said apologetically, not wishing to hurt his feelings.

"Next week, then."

"Brody, no."

"Just one date, 'Mione."

"Don't call me that," she snapped, anger flaring.

"Merlin, get that stick out of your-"

"Finish that sentence and we'll have a problem," a voice drawled.

Brody whipped around to face the much taller Malfoy. "What kind of problem?" he taunted, though he took two steps back.

"The kind you don't want to have with a Slytherin without qualms against cursing a pathetic intern into St. Mungo's." There in his very stance was the coldness, severity and smirk that she was all too familiar with.

Except now he was doing it for her.

Owen Hashfield was having an enormous row with his co-worker Robert Chang. Eventually the argument escalated into a duel and with Wood in a meeting with the other Department Heads, it got progressively more dangerous.

Unfortunately, she chose to walk into the office at that moment and was caught in the crossfire.

Two spells hit her at once and she let out a yelp of pain before falling with the bones in her left hand missing and boils covering her skin. Mid-fall she saw a tall figure dive for her and catch her before she hit the floor.

He performed a swift inspection with a couple flicks of his wand before issuing loud, succinct orders. "Get her some Skele-Gro and a Cure for Boils! Ferula," he added, waving his wand and conjuring bandages for her hand to keep it still.

She watched him make quick work of her injuries and wondered just when he had changed so much.

His mother passed away. She knew because he received the owl at lunch and she had been sitting with him when he opened the letter and his face crumpled at the words. He'd shrugged off the hand she placed on his shoulder, and pushed his food away from him.

They sat in silence. He avoided her concerned eyes.

"She's been depressed since Lucius was carted off to Azkaban," he said, by way of explanation. He hadn't referred to Lucius as his father since he took the Ministry job instead of the one heading the Malfoys' company. "She got sick and didn't tell me until it got to the state of being terminal. She's been in St. Mungo's for two months, hanging on by a thread."

The flow of words - it was ten times more than how much he usually said - ceased all of a sudden and he swallowed thickly before focusing his eyes on his hands. They were curled into fists, and his knuckles were turning white.

She took them and loosened his fingers, and placed her hand in his, her own meal forgotten. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I know, but... I know how much you cared for her."

He said nothing, but his hands were trembling again.

It wasn't until three months later that he finally pulled out of his miserable shell to arrange the funeral. Knowing he had literally nobody to guide him in it, she offered to help and go with him to the funeral.

She wasn't sure why the quiet smile he gave her made her feel like she'd just saved someone's life, but it did.

She sat in the front row, studiously ignoring everyone's glares (all the attendees were relatives or friends of the Malfoys who, though reformed from their Dark ways, still hadn't completely forgiven her and most of the Ministry for putting a lot of their loved ones in Azkaban).

Throughout the eulogy she kept her eyes on him and became his anchor whenever his voice wavered or if he started fidgeting in nervousness. When he sat back down next to her he found her hand again and gripped it. She had the feeling he was holding on like it was a lifeline.

After the funeral they apparated to her apartment, where she'd let him stay in for the night, because she had known he wasn't able to bear being in his now-empty Manor. She closed the door behind him and held out her arms with a sad smile like she'd seen his mother do.

And he collapsed into her embrace like she'd seen him do.

And forever seared into her mind will be the warmth of his body and the smell and feel of his silvery blonde hair and the alabaster of his skin and the crisp fabric of the dress shirt under his robes and the steel grey of his eyes.

They sat together at lunch again the next day. By then, their coworkers had gotten used to the peculiar sight of Golden Girl Hermione Granger sitting with the infamous ex-Death Eater Draco Malfoy.

"This food is horrible," he proclaimed one day, out of the blue.

She looked up. "Why do you say that?"

"They serve the exact same thing every week. You'd think they'd come up with other dishes to feed us; they're wizards, for Salazar's sake." Draco poked at his mashed potatoes with a frown. "I'm starting to detest potatoes."

"I got sick of them half a year ago," she said. "I've been charming them to taste like different foods since then."

He gave her an incredulous look. "You've been charming your food?"

"I wasn't going to eat potato for the rest of my career," she defended. "And I don't appreciate that judging look."

If he hadn't been raised in stuffy pureblood society he would have been gesticulating wildly. "You can't just mess with your food like that! That's disgusting!"

She rolled her eyes. "Alright then, come over to my place and I'll make you something not potato."

He blinked at her, neck turning slightly pink. "You're inviting me for dinner?"

"No, I'm inviting you for quidditch."

He blinked a couple more times before smirking. "Sarcasm doesn't become you. That's a Slytherin thing."

"Is that a yes?" she raised her eyebrows impatiently.

It was his turn to roll his eyes. "That's a yes, Granger."

"D'you remember that time you invited me for seafood pasta at your apartment?"

"And all the times after it because you liked it so much?"

"Hush, Granger."

"What about seafood pasta, then?"

"Come over to the Manor and I'll make you something not potato."

"The, uh, Manor?"

"What? Oh, shit, I didn't think. I'm so sorry, I take all of it back-"

"Draco."

"You don't have to go, I'll take you out instead. What do you want to eat? French? Greek?"

"Draco, I don't mind going to the Manor."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely."

Coffee wasn't his only specialty. His roast beef put her seafood pasta to shame.

It was one weekend when they were having coffee in the Manor that she came up with the idea. "I want to take you to London."

He raised one blonde eyebrow. "We go to work in London five to six days a week."

"No, Muggle London." She grinned at the widening of his eyes and the way he sat up very straight.

"No way in hell."

"Why not? Scared?" she taunted with a smirk (so sue her, spending time with him means his habits rub off).

He narrowed his eyes. "You're getting far too Slytherin for my tastes."

"I thought Slytherin was your taste," she said as she stood up, reaching out a hand.

"What are you doing?"

"Muggle London, remember?" She grabbed his hand herself and apparated into an alleyway, before stepping out right into the middle of bustling Muggle London.

The rest of that day she spent watching him learn about muggle food and muggle sports and muggle transportation and muggle money with begrudging curiosity and fascination (though he swore up and down he would never, ever, go back into the terror that is the London Underground).

He apparated back to the Manor laden with muggle candies, magazines, and CD's.

Their so-called friends confronted them five months into their friendship (she decided the day they "officially" became friends was the day she started calling him by his first name).

Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini teamed up with Ginny, Harry, and Ron to corner them on their way out from the cafeteria one friday afternoon.

"Hermione, since when have you been friends with the ferret?" Ron, ever the blunt one, blurted out.

"Oi, watch it, Weasley," Zabini warned him.

"Draco, I didn't know you were associating yourself with the Princess of Gryffindor over here," Pansy accused, hands on her hips.

She'd exchanged exasperated looks with Draco and turned back to them. "I can be friends with whomever I want, Ronald."

"I can't believe all of you are ganging up against us," Draco muttered, surveying the odd group before them.

"But after everything he's done, how can you forgive him?" Harry asked, genuinely confused.

"You hate her," Zabini said.

"You hate each other," Ginny added, just as puzzled.

"I forgave him a long time ago, Harry," she sighed. "Honestly, he's sorry about everything and he's changed now. Let it go."

"We clearly do not hate each other," Draco rolled his eyes. "I would've thought that was obvious enough. Or have you all forgotten how to think since we last met?"

"Not helping, Draco," she hissed, elbowing him as the three Gryffindors, plus Pansy, bristled while Zabini simply returned the eye-roll.

"Malfoy's been harassing you since second year! And he didn't do a single thing to stop the others from making fun of you or calling you a you-know-what - hell, he let all the Death Eaters into Hogwarts and he watched while Lestrange tortured you!" Ron had turned a nasty shade of purple as he ranted, pointing a finger at Draco while the Slytherins grew increasingly furious. "He's probably manipulating you right now, playing nice, pretending to be your friend, you know, to get information for his Death Eater friends or - I don't know, to get into your pants or something-"

She opened her mouth to say something back, to defend Draco as angry tears sprung to her eyes, but suddenly Draco's arm was around her shoulders, long slender fingers pressing into the skin of her left arm and holding her to him protectively.

"I know what I've done," he said, cold and full of fury. "And it agonises me every day when I look at the people I almost killed, indirectly or not - including Granger. But I am not exploiting her in any way, shape or form. I would never. Did you really think I could? Granger's the smartest, most brilliant witch of her age, and twenty times better than I could ever be, and you really think she would allow someone - me especially - to take advantage of her? If you think so you're not only real fucking stupid, but also a very, very bad friend."

And there was stunned silence and she had never felt more like kissing someone in her life.

He showed her his childhood room at Malfoy Manor, because she asked (okay, begged and annoyed him enough for him to agree) to see it.

She followed him down one of the many hallways of the enormous mansion, and soon he opened a intricately carved mahogany door into a room the size of her living room.

"And this is smaller than the one you have now?" she gaped, staring.

"Well, my current one has an attached bathroom and study and library and it leads to the gardens."

"Right," she said, looking around. In the corner was a twin sized bed wrapped in green bedsheets that had little broomsticks in them charmed to fly around the emerald background. The walls were painted a light grey and from the ceiling hung a chandelier, emanating golden light. "I like your bedsheets."

His lips tightened. "I had those when I was ten and my mother was too nostalgic to get new ones," he said as if justifying himself.

"They're cute," she said, and her smile grew as he frowned.

"I don't do cute."

She held up a stuffed dragon with enormous blue eyes, soft fur in the pattern of scales, and velvet horns that was lying on a dresser. "This is pretty cute," she said, grinning.

He scowled, but she caught the slight quirking of his mouth. "Give that back," he ordered.

"You don't get to boss me around," she replied, dancing back as he stepped forward.

He paused, and she relaxed, but then he launched himself through the air towards her (in a distinctly rugby-player fashion that let her know he'd been indulging in the sports magazines far more than he had been admitting), bringing them both to the carpeted floor.

She wriggled beneath him, giggling shrilly. He pinned her wrists above her head and plucked the dragon out of her grasp, tossing it onto the bed. He gazed down at her, propped up on one of his elbows as the hold on her wrists slackened. "You asked for it," he said, but his voice was strained.

She wondered why until she realised her knee was resting against his crotch and his pupils were rapidly dilating, filling up the grey of his irises. "Oh," she breathed.

He swallowed, the adam's apple going up and down and all of a sudden she wanted to catch the skin of his neck between her lips and suck. "Oh," he echoed.

His silvery hair had broken out of its normally perfect placement and was flopping down over one eye, and she reached up to brush it away from his face because she really wanted to see his eyes - both of them. He grabbed her hand before it got to its destination, however, and they lay, frozen on the floor.

They both moved at the same time but at different speeds: he lunged while she hesitantly lifted her head. Instead of meeting lips their noses bashed against the other's and they shared an uncomfortable laugh before Draco held her face between his hands and kissed her full on the mouth.

His lips were warmer than she'd expected and the kiss felt like fire.

The week after that was filled with embarrassed glances, electricity-charged air, burning touches, and much avoidance from both ends. She confided in Ginny and the youngest Weasley threw a fit before declaring she would get them together if it killed her.

She knew he talked to Blaise because suddenly she kept seeing the latter and Ginny whispering to each other and exchanging glances whenever she and Draco were in the same room.

As a result, she started hanging around Harry and Ron, who she knew would not start meddling with matters between her and Draco, and Draco started spending time with Pansy, who never really talked to any of the Gyrffindors anyway, and put all her thoughts in her fiancé Theo Nott.

But then one day she walked into the back room to wash her hands of some ink that she'd spilled when Draco was making coffee for himself (and everybody else). She almost backtracked and ran but he turned around that second and she didn't want to be so obvious, so she stayed.

They stared at each other, him with coffee stains on his fingers and her with indigo ink blooming on the light grey of her skirt.

Fuck it, she thought. "I love you."

He looked like someone had hit him in the stomach with a troll's club. "What?"

"You heard me."

"You can't say things like that, Granger," he said, voice low and almost trembling. "I'll think you mean it."

In a wave of Gryffindor bravery she strode up to him and wrenched his head up to hers. "I love you, Draco, and I mean it."

He exhaled very slowly. "Granger," he said.

"Yes?"

He looked like he wanted to say something (she hoped to Godric that something was what she thought it was), but then he swallowed his words, and leaned his forehead against hers. "Granger," he repeated.

"What is it?" she responded, her own voice barely above a whisper.

His mouth opened and closed before he shook his head with a small smile. "You're unbelievable, you know?"

"I suppose."

He kissed her, slow and deep and ever-so-warm, and his arms curved around her waist and her fingers tangled themselves in his hair, and she realised she didn't need him to tell her he loved her, because he could show it to her.

Hermione has seen how Draco Malfoy is good.

AN: I don't think this was my best work, but I had this plot bunny in my head and it wouldn't go away, so I had to post it.

This is the first HP fanfic I've posted (and my first Dramione fanfic ever) but I hope it goes over well!

Please review and tell me what I did right and wrong so I can come back and revise this so that's it's BETTER!

Love, Stormy.