Disclaimer: Once Again, I have used lines from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone strictly for continuity purposes. Every character and every line from that story belong to J.K. Rowling. It is not my intention to infringe on anyone. I just want to bring my incorporated ideas to life.
It's really tough writing for Hermione's dark side and Draco's Gryffindor side. I'm trying to blend the personalities of their past life with their inherited traits from their current life, but it might not come out as smoothly as hoped. Still, I hope you enjoy
Chapter 3: Conflicted
"I'm sorry, Lucius, but the rules are absolute." Professor Dumbledore replied calmly to Mr. Malfoy, who was most livid.
"This is an outrage," Lucius spat. "Our line have been in Slytherin for centuries, and you presume to put my only child in– Ravenclaw."
Professor Dumbledore rose from his seat and Lucius couldn't help but back away a few steps. "Rest assured, Lucius, that Hermione is in the best house for her needs."
Realizing there was nothing for it but to accept defeat, Lucius Malfoy marched furiously from the headmaster's quarters.
Hermione stood tentatively at the foot of the steps as she waited for her father to return. When she spied his enraged expression as he descended, however, she backed away nervously.
"Come here," he called to her in a quiet but commanding tone.
Hermione immediately walked over to her father. "I'm sorry, father, I tried."
"Do you realize what you've done?" Lucius shouted, grabbing her by the neck of her robes.
"Oi, let her go," a boy's voice rang out from behind.
Lucius let go once he saw the boy: blond, blue-eyed, very much like the son he'd hoped to one day have. It only fueled his rage. He turned to his daughter, whispering in a threatening tone, "Do not disappoint me again." Then he stormed off, leaving Hermione and Draco alone in corridor.
"Hey, are you all right?" Draco approached her cautiously.
"I don't need your help," Hermione glowered at the boy and stalked away. He was only a muggle-born after all.
Things only got worse for Hermione as the weeks went on. Millicent, Blaise, and every Slytherin she'd previously befriended gave her the cold shoulder. She was no longer one of them, and yet the Ravenclaws treated her no better. She was a Malfoy, a bigoted pureblood know-it-all who no one cared to associate with.
Then there were the three boys she'd met on the train. Draco and Harry turned out to be naturals on a broomstick, and Ron was close behind. Harry even made the Gryffindor House Quidditch team.
Ron might have gotten jealous if he hadn't earned his own bit of fame at Halloween.
It was a wretched day for Hermione. She sat silently in charms class next to a fellow Ravenclaw. Nearly six weeks had passed since she'd been so wrongly sorted into that house, and the isolation lingered. Terry Boot looked most uncomfortable to have to sit near 'misfit Malfoy', as she had been so loutishly nicknamed.
Hermione's eyes glanced over at Harry, who sat with a sandy-haired boy named Seamus as they attempted to make a feather fly. Then she peered to Ron and Draco who seemed to be having equally little luck with their levitation charm.
"Miss Malfoy, you haven't picked up your wand," Professor Flitwick's eyebrows furrowed. "Why don't you give it a try? And remember, Swish and Flick."
The class quieted somewhat to watch, but Hermione felt too deadened to care. She raised her wand without a smile and uttered the words clearly, but quietly, "Wingardium Leviosa."
Her feather rose promptly from the desk, just as she knew it would, but the loneliness around her stayed put. Secretly she had hoped it would lift as well.
Draco watched Hermione from across the room. She had achieved what none of the other students had, but she received no pleasure from it. She hadn't even seemed to hear the professor congratulate her.
"She must be having a harder time than she's let on." Draco remarked to Ron and Harry as they exited class later.
Ron rolled his eyes. "Serves her right, if you ask me. She was a right good prat that day on the train. Can you imagine if she'd gotten into Slytherin. It's no wonder she hasn't got any friends."
Someone knocked into Draco as they hurried past him. It was Hermione. Draco caught a glimpse of her face – and was startled to see that she was in tears.
"I think she heard you," he mutterly softly as the three walked on.
Draco tried to spot Hermione in their next class, but she seemed to disappear the rest of the afternoon. He grew slightly worried when she hadn't arrived for the Halloween Feast that evening.
"Hey, it's Padma, right?" He tapped a Ravenclaw's shoulder at the next table over who he knew to be Parvati Patil's twin sister.
"That's right." She raised an eyebrow curiously.
"Have you seen Hermione?"
Padma rolled her eyes indifferently. "Last I saw she was in the bathroom crying. She's been in there all day I expect."
Draco nodded and turned back to his food when Professor Quirrel, the Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. "TROLL – in the dungeons – thought you ought to know."
He then sank to the floor in a dead faint.
Screams filled the Great Hall, but before everyone could panic fully, Dumbledore silenced the students and instructed the prefects to lead them back to their dormitories.
But Draco got a sinking feeling as they made their way upstairs.
"Ron, Harry, hold up." He paused in the hall as several other students rushed past.
"What's up, mate?" Ron stirred impatiently.
"Hermione doesn't know about the troll."
"Who – Malfoy?" Harry looked disappointed in his friend. "Who cares? She can take care of herself."
"I have a bad feeling," Draco stared at his friends earnestly. "C'mon, I know where she is."
Ron bit his lip. "Oh all right, but let's hurry."
Harry didn't move. "I'm not risking my neck for her."
Draco somehow knew they didn't have time to argue. "Fine, we'll meet you back upstairs. Cover for us."
Harry nodded and took off upstairs as Ron and Draco headed for the girls bathroom.
Just as they rounded the corner a bone-chilling scream rang out in the hall.
"Hermione!" Draco rushed to the bathroom and wrenched the door open.
He and Ron had little time to act, but quickly succeeded in confusing the troll as Hermione shied as far away as possible. Then Ron brandished his wand, the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" He pointed his wand at the troll's club and watched with pleasure as in fell with a sickening crunch, atop the troll's skull.
Hermione huddled in a corner by the sink as she watched Draco and Ron save the day. She was grateful, but when Draco tried to help her up she remembered what he was.
"Get away from me," she spat.
"What's wrong with you?" Ron shouted. "We just saved your neck, and all you can do is sniff your precious little pureblood nose up at us."
Hermione's face fell. Two sides of her mind seemed to fight one another as she gazed at the two boys before her. "I – I don't know…" was all she could reply.
Two weeks later Draco strolled outside when he spotted her by the lake, huddled in snow.
"It's a bit cold out here, Malfoy." Draco sat beside the witch quietly. "I'd offer to teach you a few fire charms, but I wager you already know them all."
"What do you want, Draco?" Hermione glared as her robes enfolded her knees while she sat.
He started to speak but paused, another more pressing question forming in his mind. "Why do I feel like I know you from somewhere?"
Draco expected a witty retort, perhaps even a blow to his lack of a proper family line, but to his surprise Hermione gazed at him, perfectly serious.
"I've been wondering about that too, you know." Hermione bit her lip. "Like maybe we're…"
Connected somehow, were the words in her mind, but she never got to finish.
"Oi, Malfoy." Blaise Zabini stalked over. "This mudblood bothering you?"
Draco sprang to his feet. "What did you call me?"
"You heard – Mudblood. Now get lost."
Hermione kept her expression passive as Draco looked to her for aid, but it soon became clear she wasn't going to offer any.
"I guess I didn't realize who I was talking to." Draco stalked away furiously. Whatever he had thought about Hermione Malfoy was all wrong. She might not have been sorted into Slytherin, but she'd never befriend a – mudblood, he shuddered at the name.
It seemed the Slytherins were finally willing to take Hermione back under their wing. And though Hermione's uplift in mood was apparent, it came with a price.
"Blimey, Neville, what happened?" Ron tripped over his fellow Gryffindor's body as he made his way to breakfast a week later. Unfortunately, Neville couldn't speak, only able to move his eyes around wildly.
"What happened to Neville?" Harry joined Ron's side.
"Body-bind curse," Draco shook his head, knowing full well who had probably cast it. He quickly whipped out his wand and performed the counter curse.
Neville rose shakily to his feet. "Thanks, Draco. I ran into Malfoy and her gang just a minute ago. She said she'd been looking for someone to practice that on."
Harry clenched his fists. "I've had enough."
"But Harry, she's a girl." Ron trailed after his friend as he stormed into the Great Hall.
"I don't care what she is," Harry yelled. "You don't mess with one of us and get away with it."
Hermione pursed her lips coyly as Harry, Ron, Draco, and finally Neville approached.
"Well if isn't the dream team – here to teach me a lesson, are you?"
"You owe Neville an apology," Harry seethed. He hadn't fully grasped what table Hermione was sitting at until several of the Slytherins rose beside her.
"Is that so?" Hermione's eyes glimmered deviously. "Well I have several classmates who would tell you otherwise. I'm not even in their house. And what Slytherin would lie for a – Ravenclaw," she spat, more at the thought of her house than at Harry.
Harry wasn't deterred and brought his hand to retrieve his wand, but Draco blocked Harry's hand with his arm.
"Hey, it's not worth it, Harry. She's not worth it."
Harry clenched his fists again a few times, but finally exhaled and turned to leave.
Hermione was left with a bitter taste in her mouth at Draco's parting words, but the Slytherins soon made her forget.
It shouldn't have bothered her what Draco Granger of all people had to say, and yet – his words came back to haunt her over the holidays and into the following term. By the end of the year she could scarcely go a day without it popping in her mind at least once.
The only ones who kept her mind off of the Gryffindors in fact were the Slytherins. She might have been sorted into Ravenclaw, but that wouldn't stop her from engaging her Slytherin side – as deeply as possible.
I sincerely despised Hermione this way, but something will happen in 2nd year that will set a change in motion. I'm concerned with the flow of the story. If you think I should add more bits from the books to make it flow better then let me know! Thanks. :)
