Disclaimer: This is only a fangirl's random brain child. All rights to Harry Potter and its characters and concepts belong to J.K. Rowling

Short Story – Malfoy's downfall

"You know", Hermione said casually, "I never did like that book."

With those words, she turned around, not thinking twice about the destruction of her property. Really, Moby Dick might be a classic, but, despite having read it several times, she was never able to put her heart into it.

Stunned by the lack of reaction, especially from the girl who treated books as a treasure any other day, all Draco Malfoy could do was stare at her back stupidly.

This, he later determined, was the start of his downfall.

He was curious. The mudblood who always preached and fawned about the greatness of books, as if they were sacred objects, disliking a book. Was the world going to end? 'Maybe she was just hiding her anger?', he speculated, but then banished that thought as illogical. She had never hesitated to try putting him in his place, so why do it now?

No, either the book was a truly outrageous, or just something her tiny brain couldn't appreciate. Draco decided to put his galleons on the latter.

Thus, he pulled out his wand and, with a flick of his wrist, repaired it.

-This is a line-

Cursing his curiosity and his stubbornness, Draco threw the book across the room, into the open fire place. He completely ignored the strange glances his fellow Slytherins threw his way. This… this atrocity would be destroyed. He briefly played with the thought of oblivating the memory of reading it from his mind, but then decided against it.

Instead, ha huffed in annoyance and left the common room. He had a mudblood to find. Actually, it wouldn't be much of a search, he mused and rolled his eyes. He would eat his broom if she wasn't in the library.

He was proven right. Obviously. He stalked over to the table she was reading at and plopped down across from her.

"Granger", he drawled, not having the patience to wait for her to acknowledge him. He was a pureblood and his time was precious. "How could you carry around such a monstrosity? You should have burned it the first chance you got."

He himself didn't know why he had felt the need to seek her out. Or read the book for that matter. He attributed it to sheer boredom and temporary lack of judgement.

Confused, Hermione looked up at him, blinked and set down her book, marking the page before she closed it.

"Malfoy? What are you talking about? Actually, why are you talking to me at all?", she asked. She didn't sound accusatory, just honestly confused.

"Because I can, Granger.", he drawled. "I am referring to that… book… I destroyed the other day."

"Oh", she blinked. Malfoy had never talked to her before, only thrown insults or snide comments. Not knowing what else to do, she answered the question. "I just finished re-reading it, so I was going to send it back home. Not that it matters anymore. Since you called it a monstrosity, does that mean you read it?"

"Yes.", he admitted, unashamed.

She could not believe it. Malfoy. Reading muggle literature! Did the sun rise from the west today? Her lips twitched as she looked at his deadpan expression.

"If I knew you were interested in muggle literature", she started carefully, trying to keep a straight face, "I could have recommended something actually worth reading, you know. No need to be so sneaky about it."

Draco sputtered denials. He was not interested in muggle literature, thank you very much!

"Here", Hermione said, smiling brightly as she grabbed a random book from her bag and put it down in front of him "Try this one instead."

Then, before Draco could regain his composure and return the stupid thing, she grabbed her bag and quickly left. He could swear he heard her burst out laughing outside. Stupid mudblood.

-I, too, am a line-

Not willing to risk vengeance from Madam Pince for destroying the book right there, he had no choice but to take it with him. Unwillingly.

He was definitely not curious. What kind of name was Sun Tsu anyways? Chinese? He doubted the mudblood could find anything the muggles wrote that was interesting enough for him anyways.

-Lines are nice -

He had read it. The Art of War.

He had not wanted to admit it, but he was curious what kind of book the mudblood would recommend.

He had not expected something like this. And by Merlin, it was a good read, once he had given it a chance. Great even. He had never read anything remotely like it. The author really knew what he was talking about.

Draco had read the whole thing thrice, fascinated by the concepts within. He wondered what else Granger would recommend. If there were more works like this, he would admit that some muggles weren't a waste of space after all.

He traced the letters on the cover with his finger. It wouldn't hurt to ask. That was the first of many times Draco Malfoy would swallow his pride to talk to the resident bookworm. It was also not the last time he was proven wrong.

It was, however, the first of many times there was a smile on his face as he thought about Hermione Granger.

Unknowingly, he had already started falling. He would not be able to stop.

-The End-

Author Note:

Hullo world,

I couldn't sleep so I decided to write out one of my plot bunnies into a short story. This is the first time I post anything on here, and English is not my mother tongue so please keep that in mind as you read. Sadly, I don't have a Beta for it, so if you notice any mistakes I missed, please let me know. This newbie author will be happy about any feedback you want to give me.

I hope you enjoyed the read and good night!