Draco doesn't know when he started to take notice of Hermione Granger. He doesn't even know when it was that he realized he'd been watching her, keeping tabs on her for years.
She was everything he hated. She was brave and logical and compassionate. But she was stupid. And he knows he is probably the only person ever to say that about Hermione Granger.
Draco Malfoy learned at a young age not to love anyone. He had seen it too many times. You do stupid, stupid things for them. You put yourself on the line to make them happy, to make them safe.
He remembers his mother, now. She was dead, of course, despite his best efforts to save her. At the hands of his own father. She had died protecting him. Draco knows that if she hadn't loved him, she would still be alive. He also knows that if she hadn't died, he would have. Because he loved her.
Stupid.
And the Granger girl was just the same. She would suffer, suffer at the hands of those she loved so much. He had already seen it. All the casualties of the war, each one of them left their mark.
Bags under her eyes, a sleepless night and a wish. Plagued by dreams, dreams of the people she loved.
Draco had suffered once, when his mother had died. But he would never again. Oh he had learned his lesson.
But he can't stop himself watching her anyway, the Granger girl. It's curious, the way she never learns. She continues to love. And she continues to loose. And then there's the inevitable pain.
He wonders how long until she will finally be conditioned. It was like watching a mouse be electrocuted each time it went for the cheese, and yet continuing to try for it day after day.
Something about it was so tragically beautiful.
One night he sees her, out at a nightclub. It's not particularly great or well known, but Draco goes there for the anonymity. He wonders why she is there.
She's alone. And dancing in a manner that he never would have thought she had the ability too. Her tight, red dress clings to her body and for the first time Draco realizes that she is actually more than just a poor casualty of love.
She is a fucking gorgeous casualty of love.
And he watches her dance and drink and finally, leave. In the arms of a man Draco is pretty certain she had never met before that night.
So he goes back to that place, night after night. And sometimes she is there, and sometimes she isn't. But every time she is there, he watches her. And he sees her drink and dance and then leave, a new man every time.
He doesn't quite know when he decides that next time; he wants to be that man.
So when she comes in tonight, he doesn't quite know what to do at first. He approaches her, and before long they are dancing. And her hands are roaming his body, and before long she is pulling his arm, and apparating them to her apartment.
She surveys him with an appraising eye, and Draco isn't used to feeling uncomfortable like this. He wants her to feel the same.
"I've watched you , you know. I've seen you at that club a few times. A different man every night, Granger? What happened to the prissy head girl?"
Her eyes darken. She is pissed off now.
"Well, she died at Hogwarts along with everyone she loved, didn't she?"
Her voice doesn't break. She doesn't seem sad. She is just stating a fact. Draco suddenly realizes that he doesn't want to get to know her. He doesn't want to know why her brown eyes are so sad and full of pain. He doesn't want to know where those faded, pink scars across her wrist are from.
So he grabs her, and pulls her too him. And it's messy, not at all like Draco usually likes it. When they kiss their teeth clash, and sometimes they lose the rhythm. She scratches him a bit too hard, and it return he holds her just a bit too tight.
No, it's not picture perfect. But it's raw and carnal and pure, unbridled passion. Afterwards, he holds her, and waits for her to fall asleep so he can sneak away. He doesn't really notice when his eyes begin to rake over her sleeping form. He doesn't really notice when his fingers reach out to trail the raised, misshapen scar on her arm. He doesn't really notice when his eyelids begin to flutter closed, and he drifts into a fitful sleep filled with dreams of the night she received it.
He isn't quite sure how it happens, but he wakes up in her bed and she isn't there. He scrambles around, searching for a note and finds there isn't one. Her side of the bed is cold. She is long gone.
And he realizes that this bothers him.
He sees her again at the same place a week later.
"You snuck away before I woke up," he whispers in her ear from behind.
She jumps, and for a moment her face is apologetic. Just a moment.
"It was a one night thing, Malfoy. Just leave it alone."
Her eyes are cold, and she turns from him then, disappearing into the crowd. Draco is furious when he realizes he is upset.
So he grabs her and apparates her to his apartment and rejoices internally when she turns to him confused, before her brown eyes fill with rage.
Because maybe she is angry, but he would rather see her eyes full of anger than full of the pain that they usually are. And she is angry for a while but then they are fucking again. He asks her to stay that night, and she says she will. But when he wakes up she is gone, and her side of the bed is cold.
And like a fool Draco goes to that same club again, and again. And the same thing happens again and again and it's killing him inside because he knows she is using him to forget. He knows because he asks her one night.
"Why do we keep doing this? Before me it was just a handful of random strangers. But you keep coming back to me."
And she tells him that he helps her to forget the best. She tells him that when she is with him, she doesn't think about the war. She doesn't think about the orphans and the widows and the broken promises and shattered engagements. All she thinks of is Draco.
And that's something, at least.
Because Draco realizes one day that he is the fool. He loves her, and he knows this will be worse than his mother. Because from the way that she disappears before he wakes up every time they are together, Draco can surmise that apparently Hermione finally learnt her lesson. She won't love him and because of this, he knows he won't be afforded the mercy of losing her just once. He will lose her every morning.