"Malfoy?"
"You're so beautiful..." I said awestruck.
"What? Are you having a heat stroke or -" Hermione looked up at the oncoming mob of reporters. "Shite...Come on."
Hermione grabbed my hand and everything erupted into light again. She helped pull me up and still holding onto my hand, starting running along the winding alley. Colors whipped by me and I was too engrossed in everything to say anything - Hermione Granger, the girl I had once treated as an enemy was now the gorgeous woman who was going to "save" me.
She looked behind her, her eyes meeting mine for a split second before traveling back to the mob of people trying to catch up to us.
We quickly ducked into a small alleyway and she told me to hold on. The familiar pull of apparating overtook me and next thing I knew I was standing in what must be Hermione's flat.
She let go of my hand and the world slowly lost most of its color - it was so mind boggling; she was in color and what I guessed things she had recently touched had streaks of color on them - small blue finger prints were on an abandoned coffee mug sitting on her kitchen table, the musty yellow of the Daily Prophet had streaks from where she had scanned over some of the articles and turned its pages. Pictures lined the walls and the large open shelved divider in the middle of the room had dull, colorless frames with her smiling with men and women I didn't know, two people who had to be her parents and several of her, the Weasel, Weaselette and the Boy Wonder, who were all in monochromatic tones but her...splashes of all different colors met his eyes from all over the room.
"Malfoy?" Her voice...I had never realized it sounded so angelic. What was I thinking? This was Hermione Granger I was talking about but she no longer had buck teeth, no longer was the hair framing her face beyond managing and frizzing out of control or a thin body that was always hidden under robes.
She was now a woman, who in my eyes literally gleamed with radiance. As she bustled around the kitchen making tea, her shoulder length curls gleaming golden brown hair that had fallen out of her messy ponytail bounced and swished as she went around her small kitchen.
I couldn't take my eyes off of her.
She turned around and met my eyes; all this color was sending my brain into overdrive. I couldn't stop staring at her face and then saw her perfectly formed pink lips moving. I didn't hear a single thing she said...all I could do was stare.
"Malfoy?" she said louder literally less than an arm length's away from me.
I could have reached out and touched her.
What am I doing? This is Hermione Granger...what is going on with me? Was I really going mad? But then...she could possibly make my world come alive again.
She reached out and touched my shoulder. Everything around me flashed in brilliant color again and I gasped like she had burned me and moved back. All around me, objects slowly turned back to my normal hues of grays.
"Draco..." I stared at her in disbelief. Granger...I mean, Hermione...just said my given name.
I glanced up into her worried eyes.
"Malfoy...You're really starting scare me. Do you need to go to St. Mungo's? Are you alr-?" Her voice, just like everything I had never noticed about her, until this moment, was beautiful.
I didn't let her finish before my lips crashed to hers. Fireworks of color exploded behind my closed eyes. I yelled out, pulling away with my head in my hands.
"Draco? Draco?"
Everything went silent and black.
My head was resting on a lumpy pillow. I know my pillows are softer than this...I'll have to have Binky grab some new ones from storage.
My head was throbbing along with my heartbeat. I groaned.
" - don't know what happened; I was making him some tea at my flat and he...he..."
"He what?" Both of those voices sounded familiar.
"Well, he kissed me and then he grabbed his head and fell to the floor yelling out in pain. I got him here as soon as I could, Nick."
Hermione...Nicholas was here too? Why was he here?
I tried to open my eyes. I noticed how bright it was...not from light but from the color I could see through my squinted eyes.
I cautiously opened my eyes wider.
My first sight was of her. Her hair had been let down to tumble over her shoulders, her arms were crossed in from of her chest and she was talking to my friend and personal healer, Nicholas "Nick" McPherson. She looked worried and absorbed in everything my friend was saying.
" - since Mattie died, so I'd say about four years and I could never find anything wrong with him. He's completely healthy in all ways except -"
"I don't know about all that, Nick." I said gruffly.
Hermione jumped a little and Nicholas turned to me and laughed.
"Glad to see you back, Drake." He held up his wand and waved it in front of my eyes.
"How are you feeling?"
"I can see, Nick..." That's all I had to say. His eyes widened in shock. He started waving his wand around my head in a flurry of movement and I could tell an image of my brain had come up above my head. I didn't care about any of that - all I could look at was her.
She still looked extremely worried and she was looking up at whatever scan Nick was doing of my brain at that moment.
"Nick..."
He was muttering in amazement to himself. " - four years! All of a sudden? What changed?"
"Nicholas," I said louder and more clear. I cleared my throat. "Could you give us a minute?"
"Oh...of, of course. I'm running some tests and getting data when I come back though." His voice was full of astonishment.
"Yeah, you can run all the tests you want...just...just a few minutes?"
He immediately stopped whatever diagnostic spell he was doing and excused himself.
My eyes had not left Hermione.
She bit her lip now that we were alone and quirked her head at me.
"So..." Her voice was soft.
I raised myself up off the bed and itched; looking down I saw I was in one of those infernal hospital gowns.
"So, Hermione Granger...what do you want to know?"
She looked into my steel grey eyes and hesitated for a few seconds.
"Everything."
I spent the next hour telling her about the last four and half years of my monochromatic life and how she had, for some reason, made me see again.
After I had finished, she stared at me with a look of disbelief. She didn't say anything for a long while.
Hermione finally got up and crossed her arms across her chest again. She started pacing back and forth across the room.
"I - I...that is to say...I..."
"Hermione Granger with nothing to say. I'd say this is a first."
She rounded on me and magic seemed to crackle through her hair. I just want to run my hands through those gorgeously messy curls.
That thought made me shake my head a bit. What had she done to me? I hadn't seen her in years.
Her voice brought me back from my thoughts.
"Oh, trust me, Draco Malfoy, I have plenty to say and ask. Like, for one, why me?"
"I don't know, Gra - Hermione. I really don't know. This is as strange to you as it is to me."
"I really doubt that, Draco."
"How do you figure?"
She stared at me like I had three heads with Dragonpox. Hermione began pacing again.
"You tell me all of this about not being able to see colors since your wife died but I, for some strange reason, I am the one that is able to make you see the world in color again? You've hated me for years, Malfoy. I'm a Mudblood in your eyes," I flinched at the word that now grated at me.
"Don't use that word, Hermione..."
"What? That's all you ever called me!"
I sighed and tried to explain. "I've changed. When...when what happened at the Manor..." I fell silent as she closed her eyes.
I cleared my throat and tried again. "Anyway, after everything, after my father went to Azkaban, I really began to think what had been instilled in me by my family and I realized how ridiculous it all was."
Hermione opened her eyes again to stare into mine. The orbs of deep chocolate were welling with tears that threatened to stream down her flawless skin.
A long pause followed again. She moved towards me and I felt the magic crackling in the air around us.
She stared at me for a long moment before sitting down on the side of my bed.
I cleared my throat and began to move my hand slowly towards hers; it felt wrong not being close or touching her.
"Did you feel it?" I asked quietly.
She looked me straight in the eyes and stared for what seemed like an eternity.
"Feel what, Draco?" she asked. I knew she knew what I was talking about. Granger...always with the questions.
"When I kissed you..." Her cheeks reddened with a blush and she turned her head away. "When I kissed you...the world felt right...I have never felt so right. I have never felt that much magic before..."
"I broke your curse..." she said, almost a whisper.
I sat up in bed coming closer to her - a rush of vanilla and wildflowers washed over me. I breathed in the heavenly scent and I felt absolutely at peace.
"In that instant, the world stopped for me. Everything felt right in the world and all I wanted to do was to be close to you. I wanted to tell you how amazingly beautiful you are and that you are stunning, talented, albeit a know-it-all but a gorgeous know-it-all...everything from your hair to your lips to your tiny beautiful feet is amazingly gorgeous to me. I wanted to feel your lips against mine and to tell you how I feel."
It all came out in a rush and I had no intention of telling her that much.
She turned her head towards me and gave a small gasp when she realized we were now mere inches away from each other.
"You are stunning, Hermione."
A tear leaked down her face. I reached a hand up to her face and she leaned her head into me as my thumb wiped it away.
The magical crackling in the air was becoming stronger and palpable by the second.
She looked down at my lips before looking back up into my eyes. Hermione gave a small smile before she slowly leaned in and brushed her lips against mine. Everything felt so right and perfect kissing her. We continued to give small chaste kisses back and forth until I couldn't take it anymore and pressed my lips more insistently against hers. She wasted no time in kissing me back. Even though we were sitting at uncomfortable angles with each other, neither one of us seemed to care.
Each of us pulled back and our breathes mingled I leaned my forehead against hers. She smiled and bit her bottom lip.
"Hermione Granger, will you do the honor of allowing me to take you on a date?"
Her smile widened as she nodded, "Yes, Draco Malfoy, I would love that."
She got up from my bed and as I was about to protest, she motioned me to move over as she laid down in the bed next to me. I wrapped my arm around her protectively and gave a kiss to the top of her head.
All was right with the world at that moment.
"Wait..." She leaned up so she could stare down at me. "How do you know what my feet look like?"
I laughed and pulled her back to me, kissing her lips quickly.
"That's a story for another day." I continued to chuckle as she glared up at me.
Everything was the way it should be.