Sorry for the late update! I was really ill.
Enjoy.
Hermione stepped onto the platform, gracefully and calmly. Ron and Harry rushed in behind her, Ron accidentally missed a step and face planted the ground. Hermione laughed half-heartedly. Once boys. Always boys. She tucked her trunk in the corner of the compartment and sat down. Ron and Harry slid in soon after she did, Ron groaning in pain and holding his nose, which is dripping with blood. Hermione gasped.
"Ron! Can't you be more careful? Thank Merlin that I have a healing potion in my bag. Here you go. " Hermione swiftly reached into her small beaded bag and handed a small vial of purple liquid to Ron. Ron drank it quickly, feeling faint from the loss of blood. He lay down on the seats, getting comfortable as the bleeding from his nose stopped abruptly. Ron's moaning stopped, as he relaxed.
"Thanks, Hermione. You are a life saver! " Ron spoke gratefully, taking some napkins from Harry and whipped the dried blood from his nose and his chin roughly. Hermione sighed. how many times does she have to save Ron's life again? He was no doubt the clumsiest person she had ever met. She looked around the small yet spacious compartment and locked eyes with Harry, who blushed furiously and looked down at his hands. Hermione looked out the window, sighing for the second time in two minutes.
Harry had a crush on her for a while now. It wasn't very obvious to her at first because she always saw him as a close friend, but then it soon was clear when he had asked her nervously to go to the Yule ball with him, but she had guiltily said no due to her reservations with Krum. Harry shrugged it off like it was nothing and walked alway, but Hermione knew that Harry was very upset as she did not see him for the rest of the day. Then there was his attempt to kiss her, after the Yule ball, outside on the Quidditch field. Hermione had pushed him away once more muttering sorry, guilt eating her alive. Now their friendship is on the line as they don't speak to each other as much as they used to. Didn't joke around like they used to. The laughs they shared recently were hollow, empty and fake. Yet Ron being clueless as he is had no idea that his two best friends had put some distance between themselves, and went on being his usual self. She watched the grey skies and the rain outside with sadness. She wished Harry would understand, she said no to him because she was with someone else, someone she isn't supposed to be with.
Draco Malfoy. Harry and Ron had no clue, she figured that if she had informed them they would immediately dislike her for going out with their archenemy. Hermione understood them. She hated Malfoy with a passion before as well, but in their third year, she had found him deeply intriguing and attractive. However, he was still an arrogant, boastful Slytherin who was a proud pure-blood and was rich. But Hermione still dreamed that he would be good under all those things. And she was right, somehow. Yet she was very angered when Malfoy had told his father that Hagrid's hippogriff, Buckbeak had attacked him. It has, however, the only reason that the hippogriff attacked him was because he threw insults at Buckbeak after Hagrid advised everyone not to. Malfoy brought it on by himself. later on, His father Lucius had informed the ministry of this incident and the ministry sentenced to execute Buckbeak. When Hermione heard the news from a tearful Hagrid, she was furious. Hermione, Ron, and Harry then found Malfoy with Crabbe and Goyle behind the school and punched Draco in the nose. And Draco ran away, screaming foul names at Hermione. Hermione sighed as she remembered when she visited Draco in the infirmary at the end of the day.
She pushed the door of the infirmary open, expecting to see Madame Pomfrey, but found no one there. She walked in, breathing in the aroma of healing potions and a familiar scent of cologne that she knew belonged to him. She looked around, all the beds were empty, besides one with its curtains were drawn. by the dancing flames from the fireplace, she could see a faint shape behind it. She walked towards it nervously, her heart in her throat. Breathing deeply, she pulled open the curtains.
Her eyes opened wide, her mouth forming an O. In the bed lay Draco with the covers tightly wrapped around him, sleeping like an angel with his usually neat hair ruffled on the side, his usually malicious features calm and soft and his mouth slightly open and his breathing slow and steady. She smiled to herself, seeing Draco differently for the first time. She reached into her pocket for the get well present she had brought. It was nothing fancy. She had gotten it in Hogsmeade last weekend. It was meant for Harry, but she changed her mind at the last minute.
Plus, it would suit him better.
She left the little wooden box on his bedside table and walked back to the bed. Crack! She gasped, looking down at her feet. She had accidentally stepped on a piece of biscuit. she quickly lifted her head to look at Draco. He stirred, turning sideways, blinking his eyes. She panicked. She hurriedly backed out of the little space and closed the curtains frantically. Before she fully closed them, she stole one last long look at Draco and ran out of the room.
She remembered the next day at breakfast. Draco strode into the great hall, his uniform spotless and wearing her present on his ring finger proudly. it was a beautiful antique silver ring that had a gleaming piece of emerald with a Slytherin S that Hermione embedded into it by magic. Her heart did backflips in her body as she looked at him. He looked as if he never had been punched in the face the day before. And his malicious features back on his face once more, But they had a relaxed and happy edge to them that made her feel happy too. But her happiness disappeared as he sat down next to the pug-faced girl, Pansy Parkinson. Her body was aflame with jealousy as Pansy placed a wet kiss on his pale cheek. But Draco looked like he didn't seem to acknowledge her as he spoke to Theodore Nott, a fellow Slytherin. He boastfully showed off the ring to his friends. Hermione watched them with intense interest out of the corner of her eye the whole time twiddling her thumbs, her breakfast ignored and cold on her plate. Harry and Ron didn't notice Hermione's odd behaviour as they spoke to each other excitedly about the upcoming Quidditch match against Ravenclaw. Just then Draco stood up and strode out of the hall with Pansy following him like an obedient puppy. Her cheeks reddened in embarrassment as she remembered the night before in the infirmary. She was incredibly thankful that no one else was there whilst she was. She focused back on Draco. Just as he was about to exit the great hall, he looked back and his gaze found hers.
They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, warm brown piercing into stormy grey. Draco frowned. What did Granger want? Hermione blinked breaking the gaze as her cheeks reddened into a deep scarlet. Draco shrugged his shoulders carelessly and walked to his next class, ignoring Pansy as much as he could.
"Hermione? "
She spun around and met Ron's curious eyes. Blinking a couple times to refocus her eyes.
"yes? " the brunette asked, glaring at him. She was exhausted. She didn't have much sleep last night at number twelve, Grimmauld place and she hated being interrupted in her sleep. Ron's eyes widened at her attitude and began to speak hurriedly.
"We are nearly there, thought I'd woke you up so you have time to get changed. " Hermione calmed down at those words, understanding that she must get changed. She rubbed her eyes and exit the compartment to where she placed her trunk.
She walked down the corridor between the compartments, tired and careless. She turned to look at her and turned back around quickly and smacking her face into something hard. She gasped in surprise, before narrowing her eyes at what she had bumped into and widening her eyes in disbelief.
Draco Malfoy.
A thousand thoughts whirled around inside her head. Out of everybody here she could have bumped into, it was him. Him with his soft, pale skin and mesmerizing gray eyes, him with his power to make every girl fall at his feet. Him who made her smile when she was upset. He looked back down at her, brows raised. She coughed, trying to form a sentence to disguise her surprise.
"Sorry. " that's all she could barely say before her mind set off again, filling her head with memories of both of them together. Laughing, Chatting, stolen kisses.
Memories that he don't remember.
"Watch where you're going, Granger. " He spoke with his powerful, icy voice that she knew all too well. She shook her head and walked around him to get her trunk, leaving him in the middle of the corridor, staring at her as she walked away.