Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of it characters.

AN: I intend this to be a oneshot but if it is requested of me enough I will make this a multi-chapter story. But as of right now it is complete. Enjoy!

Dear Miss Granger,

If you may, please excuse me from refraining from addressing you by your first name. I am not yet comfortable with calling you Hermione nor do I think I deserve the right to do so. But I refuse to refer to you with any title that expresses anything less than respect. You, of all the women in the world, deserve nothing less than that.

I know for a fact that this seems quite odd to you. Firstly, I, Draco Malfoy, have chosen to send you a letter that contains no insults or threats or anything else of the like. Secondly, I am complimenting you in earnest. All in all, if I were you I would be afraid for my sanity.

However, with the war over and the pair of us returned to the school to finish our education I have found that with fewer familiar faces around than there were before the war, my eyes have drifted to you more often than they should. I have very few friends anymore, with most of them having withdrawn from school or rejecting me for leaving the battle like a coward. And honestly, I was a coward. I ran away from a battle that I had helped to start and didn't have the balls to stick through to the end. If I was a decent human being I would have died for my beliefs, wrong as they were. At least that way I would have stood for something instead of cowering with my tail between my legs.

You on the other hand fought more bravely than I could have dreamed of myself in my entire lifetime. A muggle born witch stood where a pureblood wizard dared not and came out victorious. That is extraordinarily admirable.

These past few months since our return to Hogwarts I have been noticing you more and more. The war hero, Hermione Granger, caught my eye initially. She stood proud and served as a beacon of hope alongside Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, our guides into a new, peaceful world. You put on a smile to shine against the sadness and you carried on with your schooling like the war had never happened. I could see students taking after your example and slowly returning to normality.

But after she caught my eye, my attentions focused on someone else. The eighteen-year-old girl, Hermione Granger, who was exhausted by the weight of all of the people looking to her for guidance. You hide it quite well, but I spend too much time looking at you to have not noticed. You are tired, Miss Granger, and I don't mean tired with the fight or tired of being who you are, but just plain tired. There was no time for you to rest or heal because you were helping others rest and heal.

Now don't get me wrong. I can still see fight in you. There is still strength in your spirit and there is steel in your eyes but your soul is in need of a rest. You have spent far too long protecting others and being a support that you have failed to find support for yourself. Of course you have your two boys, but even they cannot lean against you in the way you need them to. They cannot hold you as you cry just to relieve the tension in your bones. They cannot pick up the glass that you shatter when the twitch in your fingers has become too much to bear. They cannot rub the soles of your feet after you have stood so strong for so long. And they cannot whisper to you soft words to slow the beating of your speeding heart.

So with this I would like to strike you with a proposal. Allow me to do these things for you.

I have never been a kind person and I don't know how to take care of others. But, unlike you, I am tired with the way I am. I am tired of being a coward, of being the person that everyone hates, of being ashamed of myself, and of not being useful. I have done and said a great deal of hurtful things to you and for that I am truly sorry. It has been slow but I am trying to be a better person, please believe me. If you will allow my, please let me learn how to be your support beam. Teach me how to take care of you when you need to rest and let me stand behind to catch you when you may fall. I don't need everyone to like me, I just need you. If others come to forgive me then I will owe it all to you and I will not leave your side for it. It will be a long a hard road, but I can assure you that I will be with you every step of the way.

If you believe this is some way I have found to repent for my wrongdoings then you are right. But this is also my way of becoming a better man. I don't wish to be a coward anymore. For the woman who protects everyone in need I want to be the one to protect you. At the end of the day, after you have saved the world, please allow me to save you. I don't wish to be a pureblood, nor a wizard, nor a coward. I want to show to you that I can become a man. So if you will permit it, let me take care of you.

Sincerely,

Draco Malfoy.