This is a work in progress. It's evolving in my heart right now, from kind of an ugly duckling that I found hiding among all of my older, tossed out, "junk" fanfictions, and I've since revised it into something of a beautiful butterfly. : ] I'm pretty happy with how it's revising, and I hope you will be too. Overall I'm glad I didn't toss it out completely.
It's Dramione, and it will be a mature fic, but for now, it'll be rated T. However if you don't dig M fics, then you should just leave now, because eventually it will have lemon and bad language.
Please review. : ] It makes me feel appreciated. And if you feel the need, I'll accept criticism. You guys are great.
Rating: T for now
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Goal: New chapter should be up in a week actually. Editing it now, so I should have it up soon.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, but I think everyone knows who does.
Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.- Buddah
You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me. There was no way that this intriguing creature standing before me was the same as the horrific thing that was there just the year before. There's no possible way that she could have changed so very much in such a short amount of time.
Surely, this was not the same Hermione Granger as was the prefect last year. Surely this wasn't the same bushy headed girl I knew for years and years. It was inconceivable.
If it was indeed the same girl, she must have traded something incredibly expensive in return for this new form of herself.
It wasn't that her bushy hair was gone, or her boring brown eyes were any different than just that, but her previously disproportionate body, chubby with baby fat was now quite lean. Not anymore were her teeth wide spread, they were strait and her smug grins were much more effective in humiliating and irritating me. Her skin was no where near as fair and freckled as it used to be, but now was tanner slightly, making the colored in circles across her face and collarbones lighter. She was a sight to behold, still an unconventional kind of attractive, but it could be argued that she was appealing in some way. This could not possibly be the same Hermione Granger. Not the same mudblood I'd known for so long. No sir.
I felt my skin prickle as she made her way to the Gryffindor table. I watched her the entire way, my eyes zooming in and focusing like a hawk on it's prey. The others seemed nonexistent. Only after I saw her eyes connect with mine did I jerk them to a different direction, anything but her. I focused slightly on whatever else it was, not Granger, that I was looking at. Dumbledore. Good, my eyes subconsciously did what they were supposed to.
He was speaking of something about the forbidden forest, like he did every year, for the new first years. Small kids this round. I don't remember myself ever being so damn small. Funny looking animals.
He continued on and I tuned him out only too eagerly. Well, until I heard a familiar name.
" …Hermione Granger, and Draco Malfoy," I watched Granger stand a little awkwardly, but cheerfully and lower her head. I jerked to follow, never quite losing my outer composure. She glanced at me before returning to her seat, and it was an odd glance. Void of emotion. Her eyes were blank with no sign of hatred true, but also, no sign of anything else. It fueled a strange and absurd curiosity within me. "Memorize their faces younger years, for they will be your new head boy and head girl. Go to them if there are any problems. If you two would like to meet me just a bit later, we'll attend to business." I nodded gruffly and Granger smiled at him solemnly. Goody-goody.
He returned his attention to the rest of the students and I quickly went back to ignoring him. My mind was drifting about the memories of previous years. Memories of Granger mostly. Of the Granger that she used to be, not whoever this woman was now. Surely the break had been very kind to her, whatever activities it was that she took upon during the summer.
My eyes honed in on her as I thought back, comparing her for the trillionth time since I'd seen her this year, to her former self. She had changed so dramatically that I couldn't understand it. It literally boggled me, stumped me, mystified me. It was like looking at an otherworldly mystery of some deliciously interesting nature.
Across the tables she whispered every so often to Weasel or Potter, but otherwise paid attention to Dumbledore's annoyingly consistent speech…For a while anyway. However as I watched her- This thought should disgust me -, I observed things about her. She began to lose focus on Dumbledore. Her eyes shifted to the table just in front of her and hazed over. She stopped listening completely. So, maybe she wasn't such a goody-goody after all…
Careful not to draw attention to myself, I shifted in my seat swiftly, lacing my hands just in front of my face to peer over my knuckles at her. She was so complicated it was astounding.
Weasley appeared not to notice her lack of attention, and though for the most part Potter didn't seem too interested, he would glance at her every so often from his place beside her on the bench. His eyes grazed over her and then returned to Dumbledore reluctantly. Maybe all hope wasn't lost for Saint Potter. He seemed to possess enough awareness to recognize the difference in his companions alteration of mood.
I heard that buffoon of a headmaster speak some more of the rules before the final chirpy wish of another great year at Hogwarts. With a sigh, I followed pattern with everyone else as we stood up. Another great year, right?
I pretended that I wasn't watching Granger as I showed my kids their way to the door. Though, feeling strangely hospitable, I did nod to her before I pushed past her with my kids. It wasn't necessarily a friendly nod, but it was meant to be a defense of my superiority. She didn't nod in return, however she did stop her younger years behind her so that mine could persist to make way first without sparking a confrontation. I took it as a positive sign towards the year to come.
There was something about the way her eyes reflected a vacancy. She seemed shockingly indifferent towards me this year. Like she didn't really care about anything at all really, and it surprised me.
She didn't seem like the Granger I remembered even in the slightest. It seemed that I would have to work much harder to put her back in her place. Perhaps I had been feeling strange lately, and hadn't really devoted enough time to making her miserable. She had simply forgotten how much of a terror I could be, and just how lowly she really was. I would have to work harder than normal to put her back in her place.
Besides, it was rather disturbing to look at Granger and see that her far more acceptable anger, was gone. The rebel, fighter, resentment in her was the only thing I would ever consent to. Clearly, I have a lot of work to do this year. What a bother.
I admitted my children into the dungeon, and waved them along with a bland expression. I didn't feel like wasting the time on them tonight. To be honest, I wasn't sure why I got the job anyways.
Sure, I was intelligent, and respectable. If there were ever a slytherin capable and deserving of the job, our nit of a headmaster was right in assuming I was the one. However, I had already tired of doing the task, and it was the first day. This responsibility was annoying, and it was grinding on my temper.
"Alright. No questions I presume." I recognized that my tone was pegged only a notch lighter than being threatening, and none of the students before me spoke up. "Good. I'll be around," I turned to leave through the gap in the wall opened through the portrait, "If you have need of me." I added, and disappeared into the shadow, feeling surprisingly cool and mysterious as I heard a few feminine, first year gasps.
I did not dwell on the feeling long. It was a lengthy walk up to the headmasters office, and I spent it with a frightening amount of reflection on Granger, and a deep frown on my face. It isn't strange to think about Granger, I had done so for years. But this kind of thinking was something that almost alarmed me. Interest, intrigue, curiosity, there are a million words for what it was in my chest when I thought of her. Another that should be promptly noted; Disturbing. Just plain wrong. Incredibly questionable and strange. These thoughts were an invasion of my good common sense, and finely engrained upbringing.
There was little else I could do besides ignore it for the time being.
As it turns out, ignoring Granger was far easier said than done when said Gryffindor appears suddenly at the base of the spiral staircase that lead into the headmasters office. It was a likely place for her to be, considering we were both requested to be there, but it still startled me nonetheless.
I was certain that she didn't notice the tiny falter in my steps, and I gathered my composure and pasted on my best sneer. "Granger."
She took this typical interaction to be a greeting- and maybe it was in some way- and gave me a very small frown. "Hello Malfoy." She did not offer her hand or any sort of camaraderie, but she did offer silence, and a stiff angling of her shoulders away from my general direction.
Proceeding up the staircase, she did not pause for me to follow, and she did not look back at me. The echoing of our footsteps was the only sound of communal quality between the two of us as we rounded up to the office.
This was all expected in some way. Awkward silence, and restraint was something that I was happily able to tolerate.
Normally that was. However with the thoughts that had been invading my mind for the past several days, I simply could not stand to let it continue any longer. I found words springing to my lips, and my forehead creased into a frown as I fought to contain them.
In the end, I lost a battle that I had been fighting for a very long time; The battle to keep my opinions, no matter their nature, to myself. "You know something Granger," I began, and my voice hit the constricting walls of the staircase in a way that sent them reverberating back at me at a heinous volume and at astounding quantities. Those four words repeated about twenty times before they fell silent. I again considered if I wanted to continue, before ultimately deciding to do so. "I'm not surprised that I got stuck with you as head girl this year." Again the words bounced across us, between us, against us, like golf balls of tense distaste. Granger during this time, was offering me only the slight trembling of her shoulders, and the tight white-knuckled fists at her side as a buoy to keep this assault afloat and on target. Once the words died down again, I continued on, this time fearlessly plunging forward. "Seems like I've finally hit a spell of bad luck. To be trapped with you all year." I said snidely, and the words rippled unpleasantly, remaining stagnant in the air throughout the rest of the time it took to reach the door to Dumbledore's office.
Granger throughout all of this infraction, did not turn around and yell at me as expected. She offered me a stony, deep and infesting kind of silence.
I didn't like it at all. Granger and I, we were meant to be corrosive, poisonous, grating kind of people. It was just the way we were made to be. Opposites in the most satisfyingly predictable kind of way. I could always count on the two of our personalities combining into an acidic, explosive, negative and damaging sort of interaction. It was the kind of thing that I comforts me in some sick way.
There weren't many things I could count on in my life. Not really, truly. But this, this one fucking thing, I would place stake on. Granger and I, we weren't good for each other. If I spit fire, most people just burn and shrivel up, turn to ash. Granger would never be burned so easily. She takes it in, and it feeds her long enough for her to turn those flames back on me. It was a thrilling experience that I had began to welcome.
If she was suddenly becoming placid, matte, unresponsive, then what was this world coming to? I had nothing if I didn't have the expectation, the knowledge and faith that she would know just what to say to keep this toxin between us burning bright in the most ugly way.
This was disturbing more so than anything I could think pleasantly about her. At least those thoughts could be written off as sick sort of fantasies. This however, this hole that she was digging in my chest by something as simple as ignoring me, was distressing.
She didn't bother knocking on the door, she just pushed it open and practically ran into the room. Her eagerness was no doubt fueled by her need to be away from me.
I slowly followed, dreading the interaction with Dumbledore, as well as chewing on the thought that Granger had just willingly avoided an argument.
What was this world coming to?