Summary: Draco wanders around after hours and finds the Mirror of Erised, and in it, he sees his deepest desire. What will he see? D/Hr.
Genre: Romance, Drama, Angst.
Author: dramione917
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Enjoy the story!
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Draco Malfoy was again wandering the empty, silent halls of Hogwarts, trying to figure out one of its many secrets, when he found the room.
It was an empty class room, by the looks of it, and he thought that it had probably never been used before. It was cold and damp, and dust was collecting, along with cobwebs in the corners.
He had been here many a time—this was not his first time here-when he just couldn't sleep, or felt like wandering the halls for lack of anything else to do.
Or, if Draco just wanted to see her face again.
It was like she was his drug, and he just couldn't get enough of her. Her laugh drew him to her like a moth to flame, her warm chocolate brown eyes gleamed so innocently at her friends, but when fixed on him, they were only ever filled with hatred.
He felt like breaking into pieces.
Everytime she glanced or smiled his way it sent butterflies to his stomach-big, fluttering ones, too.
Only to realize that she was looking past him to smile at a fellow Gryffindor.
The sinking sensation made him feel like he had just stabbed and ripped apart every butterfly that had been fluttering around in his stomach. Their delicate torn and ripped wings drifted slowly to the ground, just like their hope. Extinguished. Hoping for someting to happen was like a small flickering candle flame to a bucket of cold water.
No hope.
Draco made his way slowly towards the mirror, having eyes only for the girl whom he saw within the glassy surface.
Draco stared into the mirror. The girl reflected in it turned around, but Draco had already knew who it was.
It was always her. Every time he looked, lo and behold, there she was, staring back at him with those lovely chocolate-coloured eyes.
Always.
It was the girl who had haunted him ever since the beginning of his first year here at Hogwarts—no, even before that. When he saw her at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, he was drawn to her like a magnet. He couldn't approach her, of course, his father would have seen. But still, his father couldn't stop him from dreaming. He dreamed about her, and what it would be like if he was someone else.
Not a Slytherin, but someone else.
Like Potter, or the Weasel.
When he had seen her around school, laughing about with those gits, it was plain to see that both the Pott-head and the Weasel had a crush on her, both glancing at her every five seconds.
Oh, how he wished and wished and wished. Every night at the first sign of a star, he chanted that stupid saying. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight. . . .
He knew it was hopeless. The idiotic chant having no meaning or help at all. But his mother had taught him that saying and he remembered what she said that night. "As long as you wish, you can have hope. You never know what might happen. There's always hope."
Draco would do anything, say any chant, sing any song, if only to see her smile at him. Not past him, but smile directly to him and mean it. But it was impossible.
"She hates me," he whispered. His fists clenched and he closed his eyes as he remembered what had happened that morning.
(Flashback)
Draco had woken up as usual, went down to the Great Hall to eat breakfast, and then went back up to his room to put on his emerald green Quidditich robes for practice. He had complained earlier to Flint, but he had gotten up anyways. The Slytherin team had gotten special permission from Snape to train. Him, specifically. He was the new seeker for the team, and as a special bonus, his father had given everyone on the team each a new 'Nimbus Two Thousand and One's. Hn, that'll show the Pott-head.
Draco smirked as he did up his laces. Money can buy anything. Even love.
He grabbed his broom and headed down to the pitch with his team. But, as they neared the pitch, he could see people clothed in bright scarlet red flying around.
"Hn, must be the Gryffindors trying to get a head start on their training because they know that they can't beat us," Flint said, arousing ugly laughter from the rest of the Slytherins. Draco joined in, but looked around anxiously.
He was looking for her. His reasoning went something along the lines that if Potter was here, then the Weasel must be, and that definitely meant that she was there.
Draco saw Wood shoot across the field towards them. Wood dismounted angrily and began shouting at the Slytherins. "Flint! This is our pratice time! We got up specially! You can clear off now!"
"There's plenty of room for all of us, Wood."
Draco thought this was actually really very nice and considerate of Flint, but Wood didn't seem to take it that way.
"But I booked the pitch! I booked it!" Wood was now practically spitting and his face had gone red in rage.
Flint took out a slip of parchment and held it out to Wood to read. "Well we've got a specially signed note from Professor Snape. I, Professor S. Snape, give the Slytherin team permission to use the pitch to train their new Seeker."
"You've got a new Seeker? Who?"
Draco, who had been hiding in the back, walked out to face the Gryffindor team, smirking. "You should see our new brooms too, Weasley. A gift from my father. Brand new 'Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones'. It can easily out-strip the old one."
Flint suddenly diverted his attention from Wood to across the field. "Oh, look. A pitch invasion."
Draco suddenly moved himself from the position he was in to see who it was who was coming on the pitch. Sure enough, it was his favourite Gryffindor, as well as his second-least favourite.
"What's going on? Why'd you stop practicing? And why is he here?" Ron asked Harry, pointing over at Draco.
"I'm the new Seeker, Weasley. And they were just all admiring the new brooms my father bought our team."
Ron gaped, suddenly noticing the seven brand-new brooms that the Slytherins held.
Draco smirked smugly at his expression. "Good, aren't they? But perhaps the Gryffindor team will be able to raise some gold and buy some new brooms too. You could raffle off those Cleansweep Fives, I expect a museum would bid for them."
Draco heard laughter coming from behind him and smirked even wider. That was, until she decided to intervene.
"At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," Hermione said sharply, "they got in on pure talent."
Draco eyes widened slightly. Why did she always have to come in and do. . . what she does! Whenever the Gryffindor showed up in his daily life-even as much as he wanted her in it-she always managed to make him speechless. What is wrong with me? Say something!
"No one asked for your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood!" Draco's eyes widened in surprise. He didn't know why in bloody hell he said that. Did he want to infuriate her? To make her hate him even more?
At once, the entire Gryffindor team lept up at his words and would have pounced on him if it wasn't for Flint, who had dived in front of him.
"How dare you!" Alicia shrieked at him.
Ron pulled out his wand and pointed it a Draco, yelling, "You'll pay for that, Malfoy!"
There was a green jet of light and Draco heard a loud bang, but the light didn't hit him. It turned out it had backfired and hit Ron in the stomach. The red-head was now on the ground, Hermione and Harry kneeling beside him.
"Ron! Ron! Are you alright?" squealed Hermione.
Ron opened his mouth but inside of words coming out, he gave a giant belch and several green slugs dribbled out of the corner of his mouth.
He laughed as Ron continued to puke out the green slugs.
The rest of the Gryffindors circled around him, not willing to touch him, but still wanting to show their support.
"We'd better get him to Hagrid's, it's nearest," Harry said to Hermione, and the two of them carefully picked him up by his shoulders and supported him up. They started walking away and Draco saw Harry being bombarded with questions before he brushed the tiny Gryffindor off and continued off to Hagrid's hut.
Draco could only watch as the three best-friends walked away, the two supporting the third on either side. He could only wish he was one of them.
(Flashback ends)
He raised his fist and was just about to break the mirror—when a voice came from behind him. Draco spun around, and he looked around to find Albus Dumbledore smiling gently behind half-moon glasses.
"Are you sure you want to do that?" asked Dumbledore calmly, as if he was taking a stroll in the grounds, rather than being angry at being somewhere else that was not his bed at 2 AM. "Break a mirror, seven years of bad luck."
Draco didn't think to ask how or when he had gotten there. "My luck can't get worse than already is, now can it? The only friends I have are those goons, Crabbe and Goyle, and in any case, they're only friends with me because of my father. This Pansy girl and some others have been drooling all over me despite the fact that I tell them to go away every time they touch me.
"The worst part doesn't even begin to compare with these three," Draco looked into the mirror and once again, saw the girl that haunted his dreams. Not in a bad way, either. He liked her there, it was like a reassurance that it wasn't reality, that they weren't separated from each other, and that she loved him, as well. Maybe love was a strong word to use, but it well described his feelings of her. He knew that they could never be, but still, he gazed at her every second he could. "No, it doesn't even start to. We could never be together. I have to give up on her, or it'd just be worse, for the both of us."
He stared longing into the mirror, wishing himself to join her there, in oblivion, away from anyone who would harm them, just themselves. Alone. He let out an anguished noise, and swung his fist again and again at the surface of the mirror, trying break it, to let out his feelings. To make her as broken as he was.
The satisfying sound of glass breaking echoed through out the room finally reached his ears, and Draco wondered whether anyone else in the castle had heard. The pieces fell to the ground; it reflected his very soul. Shattered. Broken. Destroyed.
But as soon as he looked down into the jagged pieces, he could still see her reflected in them. She can't be broken. She is perfection.
"Reparo."
The glass instantly reformed itself, and the image reflected in it was once again perfected.
The girl's sad face looked up at him and immediately, it brightened into a smile. She was talking animatedly now, waving her hands around, gesturing at nothing. She held out her arms to Draco, and as he reached across the empty space to touch her cheek, the image disappeared.
"Where is she? Bring her back! I want her back. Why can't I have her?" he broke out into tears. "Why?"
"Why not, Draco? Ask yourself that. Why not? What standards do you have?"
Draco looked up, and the image reappeared. She held her arms out to him again, and this time, he only looked at it bitter-sweetly. He knew that it was impossible. She looked confused, and crouched down to his position on the ground, looking him straight in the eye. Her honey-brown eyes reflected what she felt inside. Draco could see compassion, confusion, sadness, awe, remorse and affection, all mixed and jumbled up. She was talking, but he couldn't hear anything. She was reassuring him, telling him that everything was going to be okay, that there was no need to be sad.
Hogwash, thought Draco bitterly. Still, he smiled at her. A sad, bitter smile. Upon seeing it, she smiled back, happy that he was happy. Her two front teeth stuck out a bit, and he noticed that they were a little bit larger than other people's teeth.
"What do you see, Draco?" asked Dumbledore, soothingly. "It's all right. You can tell me about."
"You don't understand! She and I could never be together! She hates me, and thinks nothing better of me than—"
"Could this person possibly be Miss Granger, Draco?"
Silence filled the room, engulfing them. Draco glanced up and stared at the mirror, once more, not answering. His eyes caught on the top. He read the inscription carved around the mirror. Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. "What does the—"
Dumbledore didn't push him to answer his very, personal question. Perhaps he already knew the answer, just as Draco did. But, unlike Draco, the Headmaster seemed to welcome the idea of them together.
"The inscription? A guess, perchance? No? It reads: 'I show you not your face but your heart's desire.' The Mirror of Erised is a beautiful, yet dreadful tool. The happiest man on earth could use this as a normal mirror, but alas, he is yet to be found. It shows us our weakness and our wants. It shows us nothing but the deepest and most desperate desires of our heart. I see that you think that it is lying to you about that particular person, but search your feelings for her. It will make sense, when the time comes."
"I never said that it was that, that, Muggleborn!"
"Alas, you didn't. Forgive me. I made a mistake in assuming that she was." Dumbledore smiled and said, "We all make mistakes don't we, Draco? Some larger than others, but we all do."
Draco thought about the meaning behind Dumbledore's words, and came to a conclusion in his mind. He knew that Dumbledore was talking about this afternoon, when he had called her a— "I don't think that they would easily forgive that." He said, trying to worm himself out of the spotlight, which was now shining brightly down on him in very empty stage.
"Would you blame them if they didn't? After all, what you said to her was very rude, and very unnecessary."
Draco looked back into the mirror and thought about that question. Seeing her face laughing and smiling made his heart ache even more than it already was. It made him feel knotted up inside, guilty and ashamed to have caused her so much pain. Remorseful. It was new to him, that feeling. He had only ever said sorry to professors to get out of trouble, and even then, it was a quick and sarcastic one. He had only really said it and meant it three times in his life, and the prospect of having to say in to her, well. Saying anything to her at all without it being an insult was an enormous task already, never mind him having to be humble about, it! "I doubt that I could get the words out of my mouth, before she even hexes me!"
"Miss Granger—"
"I told you it wasn't her!" Draco exploded. All the pressure that had been mounting up in his life, personal or social, the dam had broken. "Why would you think of that Mudblood as my love interest? Maybe I could like an actual contributing society member, a Pureblood! She, on the other hand, is the resident bookworm, curled up in her own little worm-hole, coming out only for meals and lessons! She's so daft, but still, that Potty and the Weasel follow her around, fussing over her! It's clear to everyone but her that they both like her, but they don't know what they are talking about! That couldn't be true love! They don't even know the meaning of true love! But we're soul mates! We have to be, because—"
He grew silent, finally hearing what he had been yelling. Echoes from his yells bounced around them. 'But we're soul mates!' "I didn't mean that last part," he said, voice quivering slightly. "It just spilled out, I guess." He finished lamely, looking down at the floor.
Dumbledore's small chuckle brought Draco out of his slump. "What's so funny?" Draco asked.
"You two would be interesting together," was his only reply.
"What's that supposed to mean, then?"
Dumbledore spoke no words, but his crinkled blue eyes spoke volumes. "I think that it's time that you got to bed, Draco. After all, tomorrow is a brand new day, and maybe perhaps, a brand new start to your personal interests."
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