Author's note: My first story! This is very exciting. Some background that you WILL need to know: This is canon up until the end of the Deathly Hallows, not including the epilogue, which sucks. The only change I have made is that Hermione and Ron never got together at all. This first chapter is just setting the scene from Hermione's point of view – the story will start in the next chapter. I fully intend on trying to keep the characters as close to their normal personality as I can, but they will probably need to change for this story to happen at all. I'll leave you to it now. Goodbye, and happy reading!
Unintentional
Spawn of Malfoy
Chapter 1: Meetings
It was September the first, 1991, at precisely 2:44pm, that Hermione Granger first met Draco Malfoy. She was halfway between the toilet and her compartment, on a train that was taking her to her new life. Hermione Granger was a witch, and she was proud to be one, albeit afraid. If there was one thing in the world that Hermione hated, it was the unknown. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was definitely an unknown, and therefore it was frightening.
Even more frightening was the series of events that had brought her to this point. Like that time, in her second year of primary school, when she'd wanted to tie up her hair for the annual school photos. Her mother had refused, because Hermione's unruly curls were 'glorious and beautiful and just like Grandma's', and Hermione had gone to school muttering under her breath about oppression and right to free speech. However, when the photos were handed out a month later, there was her hair in a neat ponytail. Her mother was furious, but Hermione couldn't explain it – she hadn't tied her hair up at all.
Or there was the time just last year when Hermione's teacher, Mr Gladstone, had been handing out the previous week's Maths test. Hermione could see her paper on the bottom of the pile, and she was devastated. How could she possibly wait till last to know how she'd done? But, miraculously, Mr Gladstone had called her name first, and she'd looked at it and it said 'Hermione Granger, 20/20, well done'.
In each case, she'd been completely terrified, not of what she'd done, but of how she could have possibly done it. She had been so relieved when Professor McGonagall had appeared on her doorstep and explained everything. Finally, a known!
But now, walking down the crowded corridors of the Hogwarts Express, Hermione was feeling that fear again. She hurried down the corridor, lost in thought, and this was how she came to run headlong into somebody else. A startled cry escaped from her throat; the copy of Hogwarts: A History she'd been clutching crashed to the ground alongside her. From her low position, the boy she was looking up at seemed taller than he was, even though he was tall already. White blonde hair was swept back from a pale forehead, under which a pointed chin gave way to a slender body in an expensive-looking grey dress shirt, black suit pants and polished black shoes. He radiated an aristocratic air, but it was not this that Hermione first noticed. It was his eyes – grey, almost silver, and penetrating, as though he was seeing straight through her and into the floor. There was confusion in his eyes, masking a flash of anger she couldn't decide whether she'd seen or not. He looked at her, sprawled on the ground, for a few moments, and then the corners of his mouth lifted in an inexplicable smile. And then he walked away and she sat on the floor, dumbfounded.
It was still September the first, 1991, at precisely 7:26pm, when Hermione sat on a little wooden stool and felt an old, patched hat drop over her eyes, and listened to that old, patched hat tell her how it would love to place her in Ravenclaw, but how it couldn't ignore those streaks of bravery and loyalty. She heard it shout 'Gryffindor' to the crowd, and she practically ran to the table, which had exploded into noise. She was slapped on the back by people she'd never met, and patted on the head by a regal-looking ghost, which was probably one of the strangest experiences she'd ever had, so far. In that moment, she felt she belonged with these people. She looked down and discovered her tie and the edges of her sweater had turned red and gold, and a crest with a rearing lion had appeared on her robes, and suddenly she was sure she belonged.
A few names later, she watched the blonde boy from the train sink onto the little wooden stool with an air of nonchalance, and she heard the old, frayed Sorting Hat shout 'Slytherin' the second it brushed his hair. She watched him stand and walk down the marble steps, and then his head turned and he was watching her, too. For a few moments, their eyes remained locked. Suddenly he smiled at her again, but it wasn't like the last smile. It was meaner, somehow, less happy, and Hermione supposed if she had to call it something, she'd call it a half a smile, half a sneer. His eyes left hers and he sat at the far table in his new green and silver trim, with his new serpentine crest, and Hermione felt confused.
It was September the second, 1991, at precisely 8:15am, when Hermione sat at a long, wooden table in her new red and gold uniform with a whole bunch of other people that were dressed the same. She listened to them talk about where they'd come from, laughed at Seamus' description of his father's face when he told Seamus about the day he discovered his wife was a witch. She giggled with everyone else as Dean drew his father's face on a scrap of parchment, on the day he saw Dean accidently turn the cat orange. And when it came to Hermione's turn, she told them about her Muggle parents, their dental practice, the school photo incident and the test paper incident. As she talked, she felt a whisper of movement behind her, as though someone was passing by. As everyone else guffawed at Harry's imitation of his uncle's shouts in a small shack in the middle of the sea, Hermione turned and once again looked into the eyes of the boy Professor McGonagall had called Draco Malfoy, and this time his smile was definitely a sneer, and hardly a smile at all.
It was May the twenty-third, 1994, at precisely 4:48pm, when Hermione Granger first felt the urge to slap Draco Malfoy. Stupid git. She watched him laugh with his friends about Buckbeak, delighting in his imminent execution. She thought about his innate ability to piss off everyone he ever came into contact with. She thought about Buckbeak, Scabbers and Sirius Black, and everything else that had happened, and her blood began to boil. Her dirty, Muggle blood, as Malfoy would no doubt remind her the minute he caught sight of her. Her anger boiled over, and on May the twenty-third, 1994, at precisely 4:49pm, Hermione Granger slapped Draco Malfoy in the face. Her hand turned red and stung where it had made contact with Malfoy's cheek. But that was nothing compared to the satisfied glow that was welling up inside her as she watched a brilliant red handprint materialise on his pale, nasty, pureblood face. He staggered, and it irritated her; what business did he have looking shocked when he knew how much he deserved it? Her rage rose again and she shouted at him, raised her hand once more. Harry and Ron tried to stop her, and then she pulled out her wand, and everyone backed away. She pointed the wand at his face and looked into his eyes, challenging him to retaliate, and she was shocked to catch a momentary flash of pain that was quickly buried under a mountain of anger and hate. She heard him mutter "C'mon" to Crabbe and Goyle, and then they were gone. She stood very still, and thought about the first time she'd met him, how she'd looked at him and he'd smiled like he was thinking about being her friend, and suddenly she felt a little bit guilty.
It was August the nineteenth, 1994, at precisely 3:23am, when Hermione ran into Draco Malfoy in the bush near a Muggle campsite. Behind her, a crowd of hooded, masked scum trampled tents while four helpless Muggles twisted in midair above them. She saw the way his grey eyes glittered with malice. She heard him insinuate that a Mudblood such as herself deserved to spin above the heads of the crowd, too. She felt the hatred and rage boil again, but she pushed it back because she was older and better than that. She held Ron back, channelling all her anger into the task, and she found she wasn't so furious anymore. Just a little angry, a little sad, and a little disappointed that Malfoy had turned out the way he had.
It was May the third, 1997, at precisely 4:52am, when Hermione Granger first learned that Draco Malfoy was indirectly responsible for the death of Albus Dumbledore. She felt sad, angry, upset, disappointed, melancholy, enraged, drained and furious, and then she felt nothing at all.
It was March the sixth, 1998, at precisely 9:28pm, when Hermione was dragged into the drawing room of Malfoy Manor, bound to her friends and allies and expecting to die at any moment. She saw the expensive rug on the floor, the crystal chandelier, the portraits of Malfoy ancestors adorning the walls. She heard Narcissa Malfoy send for her son and she knew, in that moment, that her life would soon be over. She watched Draco Malfoy cross the room to identify them, and when she looked him in the eye defiantly, he was unable to meet her gaze. She closed her eyes, waiting for death, and then she distinctly heard him say it.
"I can't – I can't be sure."
Hermione could not believe her ears. She waited for him to change his mind, waited to be revealed, but nothing came. She listened with bated breath as he was questioned, the air thick with the excitement and hunger of the other Death Eaters. She heard him deny, again and again, that he was looking at Hogwarts' Golden Trio, and she saw the smallest chance of survival.
Later, when Bellatrix Lestrange pointed her wand at her and shouted questions that bounced around in her ears, and Hermione screamed and tried to hold onto her sanity through the pain, she looked at Malfoy again and he still averted his eyes.
It was April the twenty-second, 1998, at precisely 12:01am, when Hermione felt that feeling she hadn't had for three years – the urge to slap Draco Malfoy. It was ridiculous, really, that she should feel that way when they were so close to the diadem, and Crabbe was the one that had just tried to kill her in the Room of Requirement, but feel she did. She shot her next Stunning Spell at Malfoy, because she needed to relieve her feelings and because she couldn't get close enough to hit him. She charged at him, and then she skidded to a stop and screamed at Harry as a wall of flame erupted behind him and rushed towards them, gaining momentum as it wrapped, snakelike, around the mountains of rubbish. Hermione ran for her life as the fire burned hotter, higher, and she didn't even think of her fear of flying as she climbed onto the broom behind Ron. She helped drag Goyle up behind her, and then they were coughing in the corridor, and this time Malfoy didn't bother to hide the pain that was turning his face to marble and his eyes to cold steel.
It was still April the twenty-second, 1998, at precisely 5:46am, when Hermione looked over the heads of hundreds of jubilant people, rejoicing in the defeat of Voldemort and the triumph of Harry Potter, and looked straight into the grey eyes of Draco Malfoy. They stared at each other for several long moments, and he looked lost, then looked away, and she couldn't interpret his expression at all.
And it was August the fifth, 1998, at precisely 3:22pm, when Hermione Granger learned of her impending doom at the hands on Draco Malfoy.