Chapter One.
Moment
It was a dreary Monday morning when Hermione realised the horrific truth.
Monday the 16th, to be precise.
In hindsight, it had been unseasonably cold for April.
Yes, it was at exactly 6:16 am when Hermione Jane Granger came to the highly disturbing conclusion that she was absolutely and infuriatingly attracted to Draco Malfoy.
Indeed, the word 'horrific' didn't even come close to describing the damning magnitude of the situation.
She'd evidently sniffed one set of cauldron fumes too many and it had driven her mad. Stark raving mad. There was no other rational explanation. She'd simply lost her marbles and was well on her way towards becoming balmier than Professor Trelawney.
It was enough to make her wretch in disgusted fury. That is, if her mind hadn't already been more agreeably occupied day dreaming about some wild, alternate reality in which the stupid boy was actually a decent human being.
Oh well, a girl could dream couldn't she?
What angered her most was that the situation had been wholly avoidable.
Or at the very least, highly put-off-until-later-able.
These feelings probably wouldn't have been realised if she'd foregone the library this morning. If only Snape hadn't brought forward the due date for her essay on the 'Effects of Wolfsbane on Small Magical Marine Dwellers', she might have remained blissfully unaware. That tiny seed of love would never have grown in her heart.
But it was all too late now. It had already deep-rooted itself like a pesky weed.
If only she'd slept in.
Hermione felt her shoulders ache as she walked reluctantly down the corridor, her feet dragging behind her, her eyes bloodshot and bleary with sleep. As much as she loved the library she must have been insane to even think about getting up at six, let alone actually doing such a blasphemous thing.
If Ron knew he'd probably burst an artery.
With that thought in mind she trudged on, trying to keep her eyes from slipping shut, her body melting into the floor. In fact, it did look rather comfortable. Was it her imagination, or had they just gotten new carpetin-
Thump.
Suddenly Hermione heard a muffled curse sound from a room directly to her right. Turning briskly on her heel, she tip-toed towards the offending doorway in utter silence. The door was slightly ajar, and bright flashes of silver blinked before her eyes. Hermione felt curiosity well within her like a pool, growing deeper and deeper with every flash that scored her vision.
It wasn't until she placed her eye to the slit against the wall, the wood oddly warm against her cheek, that one of the most astounding scenes she'd ever witnessed, danced before her in glorious, decadent splendour.
God help her, it was Malfoy.
Hermione couldn't help the flush that stained her cheeks, her mouth slightly open in amazement. Every fibre of her being told her to back away slowly, but something held her prone.
He was standing in the centre of the room, his hair whipped up about his face like gold filings caught in the sun. His eyes were closed, his robes suspended about him as if picked up by an invisible breeze, his wand poised at the ready. He looked unearthly, almost ethereal as he stood there in near darkness. His skin glowed with pale light, as if he was covered in a thin film of silvery dust.
Hermione looked on with awe, her eyes unknowingly caressed the sweep of his brow, the masculine line of his jaw.
How had she never noticed how beautiful he was?
Oh wait. He'd been too busy calling me a mud-blood and calling for his minions to put me to death.
Hermione shoved that niggling thought to the back of her mind. She only wished to suspend reality for a minute, a second. Sure, he had verbally abused her so often she'd thought her ears would cave in, however, right now he wasn't the Malfoy she knew.
He touched her.
Her train of thought was abruptly broken as Malfoy's voice broke from his lips like a torrent, the words running over her like satin, "Expecto Patronum!" His eyes suddenly opened wide, shimmering disks as intense as a winter storm, burning with determination.
From the tip of his wand came a silvery thread of light. It was as fine and delicate as a spider's web as it wound itself around Malfoy's lean frame. Hermione watched as the tiny wisp of string appeared to flesh out before her eyes, becoming a beautiful, patterned silver python wrapped lovingly about his body.
Hermione saw Malfoy's mouth flicker with the hint of a smile, a look of triumph riding his features.
With the ease of a practiced artist, Malfoy flicked his wand in a vaguely circular motion causing the exotic creature to uncoil itself with elegant dexterity. Malfoy's gaze rapidly diverted from the snake to a finely crafted mirror standing in the corner of the room.
Hermione watched with a mingling sense of dread and astonishment as Malfoy swung his wand arm in a wide arc, his bottle green robes flying about him in splendid disarray. His gaze hardened with purpose as he sent the beautiful beast to its glittery end, crashing straight into the mirror. Shards of broken glass seemed to burst into the air, only to shower down in a waterfall of sparkling rain and disappear.
It was hardly more than a second.
A moment.
Where Draco Malfoy stood replete, like a heathen, bathed in patches of reflected light. A living, breathing paradox; a blond Satan bathed in a luminous glow.
Hermione shoved herself away from the door, air seeping from her lungs at a rather shocking speed. Her hand came up inexplicably, to rest upon her chest. She felt rather than heard the primal palpitations of her heart resonating deep within herself. What was this?
Bloody hell.
Sweet Hinkypunk on a stick.
No. It couldn't be.
The realisation struck her with the force of an Unforgivable, stealing the breath from her lungs.
She felt ill. Particularly since she harboured a niggling feeling that this revelation hardly came as a shock. At least that would have insinuated a fickle, superficial nature to Hermione's rather uncharacteristic turn of heart. Rather, Hermione suspected that this had been a long time coming.
She had noticed him. Oh, how she had noticed him.
And hated herself for it.
But when had it happened?
When had her abhorrence melted into something so un-abhorrent that it made her want to hide under a rock?
By Merlin's foot, he was such a bastard!
Hermione sighed with frustration, blowing a loose curl off her face in distracted annoyance. She lowered her face into her hands, murmuring in a voice that was oddly unstable, "Oh, bugger it all."
Suddenly the noise from the room halted unnaturally, and everything went still. Hermione's stomach dropped to the floor when she heard the steady tread of even footsteps pacing towards the door.
His lazy drawl ricocheted about the empty room, "I know you're out there, you know. I swear if that's you Pansy, I'm going to go good on my promise and give you some rather clumsy cosmetic surgery!"
However by the time Malfoy made it to the doorway, Hermione had already hurried around the corner. She curled up against the wall like a tiny ball, her head buried in her knees.
In a parallel universe, Malfoy might have walked off thinking he'd been hearing things. However, today was to be a day of revelations.
If she'd just looked around the corner, just for a second, just for a moment-