Summary: Hermione, the ex-Gryffindor Princess and bookworm, yearns for love. Not just the ordinary everyday type of love but the gut-wrenching, heart breaking, all you can give love! The type she's read about! At the age of 25, however, she is beginning to despair about ever finding it. Draco Malfoy, on the other hand, has become a sceptical shell of what he was. Love to him is something he doesn't deserve and he never will! Will these two souls prove to each other that love is possible?

A/N: This will be about books but given how obsessed Hermione is, I'd say it's appropriate. Please bear with me. This idea has been in my head for a long time and it simply won't go! I don't own Harry Potter! JK Rowling does!

Hermione Granger had always been a bookworm and in her heart, she loved it. To others books weren't something you base your life on, they were an annoyance. Something you use because you're forced to! Not because you love them. It's hardly surprising that Hermione believed love should be like the ones in books, too. Despite the fact, that Hermione knew that the right way to decipher things was to use logic, she knew that love was an exception but love was hardly rational.

Being the bookworm she was she had devoured books from the age of 6. It was at this age Hermione first discovered the tale of Cinderella. Despite her young age, she had been enthralled by the romance of a prince rescuing a damsel in distress- a notion which had never really left her! Even though, with her intelligence and logic, she would hardly be described as a 'damsel in distress.'

As Hermione grew so did her love her novels. Not just any novels, of course, but rather ones containing romance. Being the true bookworm she was, she read every kind of book under the sun and whilst she really loved reading, there was always one genre her heart always seemed to call to.

Throughout her teenager years, much to the surprise to Ron and Harry, Hermione began to read novels which not only were classics but ones which had brilliant love stories. The romance between Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy all showed Hermione the power of true love and whilst she knew, real life was different to stories she hoped love was the same.

It was around this time when Hermione realised that she wanted love to be more than just an emotion but to be gut-wrenchingly passionate and even potentially heart-breaking love just like the love stories in the novels. At the same time, though, she knew all woman wanted that but she was determined that her faith in finding it would never be shaken.

At the age of 25, however, her faith was indeed shaken. Right to its core! The war had made her desire seem childish and not as important as she had thought it was. It had meant that in the years that had followed, she didn't try and find the man of her dreams as she had thought that perhaps she had been deluding herself.

This is where we found our heroine now!

"Is this is yours?" A man asked Hermione, as she began to walk past him. He was holding out a book.

Hermione looked at the book in the man's hands and began to blush. She had obviously dropped it and not realised it.

"Oh, yes it is. Thank you for telling me." Hermione told the man softly, before reaching out to reclaim her book.

Hermione's words had, of course, been heartfelt as the rain had begun to pour when she had been in the café but seeing the rain getting heavier she had decided it would be best to head home. The man had obviously been caught in the rain as the black coat was soaking wet.

She tried to juggle her umbrella so she could get a clearer view of the man as she reached for her book and as she did so, she realised who the man was.

With the man's now thoroughly soaked blonde hair and lifeless grey eyes, Hermione knew it was Draco Malfoy. It seemed he hadn't realised it was her given how he had addressed her but her curiosity seemed to get the better of her.

"Malfoy, is that you?" Hermione asked the man, holding her umbrella slightly a little more tightly as the window picked up.

The man reacted unusually to her question as she could see the man's back stiffen in displeasure and something else Hermione couldn't quite decipher.

"Granger." Draco Malfoy acknowledged her with.

Hermione didn't know what to say to him but she knew she had to do something in reply. So, she simply nodded to him.

She hadn't seen him since the war had ended with was 8 years ago. Hermione looked him over discreetly and she noticed little things about his appearance. Draco's hair which in the past had always been slicked back (especially, before the war) now hung loosely and was now near shoulder length. Hermione knew that she was being rude staring at him but something about his appearance kept her eyes glued to him.

As she caught Draco staring at her, too, she cleared her throat uncomfortably and looked at her feet.

"Erm, I'd better go. You know, get out of this rain. Thanks for the book, Malfoy." Hermione told him, a few seconds later before continuing walking.

At her words, Draco looked slightly shocked. Whether it was due to Hermione addressing him politely or just seeing her again he could hardly decide.

From the moment he had noticed it was bookworm Granger, he had prepared himself for cold indifference or perhaps a little disagreement which had seemed as if it was the only way they could interact.

In the past, he hadn't minded that. At all. He had enjoyed annoying her; it was somewhat like a sport. Something he did when he was bored and needed to amuse himself. The sight of her face reddened by her fury had always made him smirk but he didn't want to infuriate her, antagonise her or upset her. All he had wanted to do was give her was her book back!

Draco had caught the before he had handed it back to Hermione and he couldn't help but smile his thought of the title. He could have guessed really. Wasn't Hermione Granger iconic for reading books which everyone else finds boring?

Either way, when Draco Malfoy finally remembered where he was and that he was being perpetually drenched with rain he resumed his journey to flourish and Blotts to get his own book his head was full of thoughts about Hermione Granger and her book!

A/N: This is my first ever harry potter fanfiction so please, be nice! These characters may be out of character but I wanted to play around with them!