AN: So this has been bouncing in my head for a while. And odd concept really. Its supposed to be Draco/Hermione, but its pretty fluffy, focuses mostly on Draco, and really has nothing directly pertaining to a relationship! So I guess its pre-romance maybe? Who knows. Point is, that is the intended pairing. I hope you enjoy, this is the first bit of HP fanfiction I've ever written, and indeed the first piece of fanfiction I've written in a VERY long time!
Disclaimer: Its not mine. Am I a millionaire? Do I own a castle? Am I a published author? Didn't think so.
Draco Malfoy was a lot of things. He was a pureblood, the Malfoy heir. He was raised to view things a certain way. The purebloods were superior to halfbloods, and mudbloods especially. And of the purebloods, the Malfoy's were surely the best of all. Draco Malfoy was the perfect little pureblood, in every way-except one. The little, tiny fact that the Malfoy's weren't quite as pure as they claimed to be; oh sure, they had genealogies going back generations to show just how 'pure' they were, but conveniently those genealogies didn't go back quite far enough. For somewhere, back in the Malfoy line there was the blood of a magical creature. Now, it was so diluted that really the effects were minimal, but it was there. And those so-called 'minimal effects' were not really quite as minimal as Draco's father made them out to be.
No, they were nothing as insane as Draco being a veela who needed a mate, or a vampire who needed blood; no, thank goodness it was not that bad. In fact, it was quite beneficial. The Malfoy's could 'see' magic. No, they could not see it literally, for magic is not a tangible thing. It was more of a feeling, a feeling that projected in image into the young Malfoy's mind, and this image was always in the form of a dance. There was no better word for what Draco saw in his mind, the movements of the almost wispy thing. For example, when Draco 'looked' at his father's magic, he saw a stiff, almost pained dance that was aristocratic and firm. Never a step out of place or a hair out of bounds, his magic moved with an unchanging pattern and rhythm. Draco too saw that his magic was edged, as though sharp and dangerous, and that there was a something that seemed to cling to his father's magic.
It was many years before Draco learned that the thing that clung to his father's magic was a taint of evil.
Draco spent very little time looking at people's magic. It took an effort to do so, he could not simply cast a glance around and see the magic of a group, that would be impossible. He had to individually focus on a person for a period of time to see their magic. He had no reason to look twice, for it was always the same for that person, and nearly always boring. His little pureblooded friends all had similar dances, in that they were stiff and formal, never welcoming or warm. Their dances were not edged or tainted, and were altogether boring. And so far as Draco knew, that was how all dances were. Until he met her.
Draco had always been taught that mudbloods were inferior, that their magic was weaker, less powerful and that they were little more than squibs. Draco had been taught that mudbloods did not matter, that they would taint the magic of the purebloods and drag them down. And yet his ideals began to be challenged when he met her.
He was eight, and though he would never admit it, had managed to fumble his way through the floo system, completely butchering a word, and had ended up in a muggle town. Oh Salazar help him, how would he survive? This lot wouldn't know Diagon Alley from Hogsmead! A bunch of gibbering idiots they were! So there he was, stuck in a muggle town, where all the gold galleons in the wizarding world wouldn't help him, and there wasn't a single intelligent owl in sight. So, confused and disoriented, Draco Malfoy wandered about a muggle small town, finally coming to a stop by a bench, all but throwing himself down upon it. His feet hurt, his muscle's had never been so sore before! Bored out of his mind, he watched as the muggle walked by him. He was wrong: His friends dances weren't so boring: at least they had magic! This lot was a useless as a bunch of old-wait, what was THAT? He had caught sight of something in his mind, apparently he had been looking for magic without really thinking of it. Where had it been coming from? Over there maybe? His gaze traveled to the font of an odd looking building that had a picture of smiling teeth-not a smile full of teeth, smiling teeth, crazy muggles- and to a girl of about his age, sitting outside of the building, on the ground. He brown, bushy hair nearly obscured her face, but then again it did not need to, for the book she was holding did the job for it. Draco blinked. She looked like just any other muggle-that meant she was a mudblood. Well, that wasn't any help, she wouldn't know how to get to a wizarding area any better than they would! Draco hmphed, leaning back into the bench. No help at all! He glared at the girl, for no other reason then that she had gotten his hopes up.
Still, five minutes later, he was as bored as ever, and the girl was still sitting there, and his curiosity had long ago stopped nagging him, and had started all-out pushing him to take a look at her magic! He wanted to know what it would be like: if the mudbloods were as weak as his father always told him (and Draco thought he might be exaggerating a tad, as all stories usually were), then her magic aught to reflect that. He wanted to know the difference between her dance, and the dance of his father and friends. So, finally relenting to his truly cat-like curiosity, he looked.
It was not what he had been expecting. It was wild, there was no other term for it, oh, it had a pace, a beat, a rhythm, a pattern, but it was not stiff, formal, or even set in stone. It was warm and elegant, it seemed to weave into itself, constantly forming a new way of dance. But it was by no means a delicate dance: It had its own, ferocious edge, that threatened to pounce when threatened, to bare it's claws upon the attacker without warning. But the dance's warm side was there as well, and right now it was purring contentedly, as though curled before a fire. This girl, this little, mudblood girl seemed to challenge everything Draco knew: And all she did was sit there! It was aggravating, to say the least. Draco wanted nothing more than to hurl something out the window – and the only reason he did not was because he had neither a window, nor an object to throw. So instead, he just sat there, dumbfounded.
"Draco." Draco blinked and looked up in surprise at his father. "You are lucky I found you so quickly, now come, we are late as it is…and from now on, do remember to speak clearly." There wasn't an ounce of warmth in his father's voice at finding him, the man was simply pleased that he could get back to visiting the stuffy group of friends they had been going to meet in the first place. And Draco simply nodded and got up, not speaking a word of what he had seen.
Draco met a few other muggleborns in the next several years, and he went out of his way to examine their magic as well. Slowly, Draco was beginning to understand how his sight of magic worked. The level of power of a wizard or witch was an almost abstract concept, and it took a long while before Draco began to understand. And once he did, he made a very sudden realization: While the dance of the other muggleborns he had met was not near the intensity of the girl he had seen, but it held power in its own right. Simply speaking, the muggleborns he had seen were no less powerful then his own, pureblood, well-bred and aristocratic friends! It was a startling discovery for him.
So when Draco started at Hogwarts, he felt torn in a way. If that girl had indeed been his age, she would be at Hogwarts this year, and his rather overbearing sense of curiosity was demanding that Draco find out what made her so different from the rest. But if he did that, and became friends with her, reports from his 'friends' were bound to reach his father, and then he'd land himself in far more trouble then he'd like to think about. He was further torn as the sorting ceremony went on, and yes, there she was, her hair just as bushy as it had been three years before, and watched her become sorted into Gryffindor, and he into Slytherin. He watched his friends around him, making jests about the girl-for she was clearly muggleborn, no pureblood had a last name like Granger-or muttering rude remarks, or things they'd like to do to her dorm room. Slowly, and uncertainly, Draco Malfoy made his choice.
Years later, he wondered if he had made the right choice. If it had been the right thing to do. He had friends, people he could count on and trust, and that was more then others could say. But was it worth it, to give up what he had wanted?
A voice dragged him back to awareness, forcing him out of his musings, and he turned to look at a pair of warm brown eyes. "Draco, you have got to stop spacing out like that you goose!"
He had given up his father's approval.
Grey eyes taunted the brown ones. "Don't call me a goose! I'm the Malfoy heir, the prince of-"
And most of Slytherin's support.
"Yes, I know, the prince of aristocracy and pain. Now get of your aristocratic, goosey arse, and for Merlin's sake, come!"
Even his Godfather disapproved in some way of his choices
"Alright already, Hermione!"
Yes, he decided, as he raced down the halls from the library, bursting his lungs to reach transfiguration class in time. It had been worth it.