A/N: this chapter's told from Draco's perspective, and a bit of Pansy's. It's a bit short, sorry about that... thanks as always for your wonderful feedback and favorites/alerts. :D
No matter what he did, he could not get the girl out of his head. It was like sixth year all over again, except he felt even more out of his mind this time.
Draco Malfoy sat on a sofa in the Slytherin common room, twirling his wand absently in his hand, staring into the fireplace, lost in thought. Blaise was behind him in an armchair, lost in a book, and Pansy was in her dorm. They spent most of their nights like this. Blaise kept to himself these days, despite he and Draco having been best mates before, leaving Pansy his only choice for company usually, which would have been fine if not for the fact that he'd had to reject her romantic advances on their first day here. She'd always had feelings for Draco, and he had indulged them in the past when it suited him, but for a while now he found that he didn't have it in him to use the girl anymore. Pansy had taken his rejection fine, and they had even had a long conversation thereafter where Draco told her a bit about his history with Hermione, but she had been keeping her distance more than usual since then. He couldn't blame her. Nobody wanted to be very close to him these days.
But then he remembered his encounter with Hermione earlier that day, and how he had come so close to kissing her. He'd been in shock that she hadn't hexed him into next Wednesday just when he walked into the room, and when she had thrown her arms around him he was sure he must have been dreaming. Why would this girl, who he had hurt so badly in sixth year and hurt even more by silently witnessing her torture, not hate him with every fiber of her being?
A little more than a week ago, when he had arrived at Hogwarts with his mother, he had watched Hermione closely when they first saw each other. Her eyes had been hard, and he could see the anger there, but he didn't see the hatred he had anticipated. Then she had kissed that hideous Weasel, and he'd never wanted to punch the ginger freak so badly before in his life.
Watching them was nauseating, and he was grateful they didn't seem to be much for PDA. She could do so much better than him, he thought to himself. Even Potter would have been a better option, in Draco's view.
Draco shook his head and refocused his thoughts. He went back to trying to figure out why she didn't hate him like he deserved to be hated. When he had planned his apology in his head, he had imagined her screaming at him, throwing things, demanding to know how he had the audacity to apologize after all he had done. He would have deserved all of that and more, but yet, she had hugged him. Hugged him.
Of course, she was a bleeding heart Gryffindor. But no other Gryffindors were throwing their arms around him and comforting him. They were all merely tolerating him, mostly by pretending he didn't exist. His heart had performed gymnastics at the idea that she still had feelings for him, and that that was why she had reacted as she did. The idea had compelled him to act, to test the theory, and he wasn't disappointed with the results.
He thought about how he'd kissed the soft skin of her cheek, and how he had felt her shudder in his arms. It felt so good to hold her again, and all he'd wanted was to taste her lips again, to lose himself as he used to in her, and he nearly had before Potter had interrupted him.
He wasn't even angry at the blasted Boy Who Apparently Couldn't Die - after all, Potter had done him a favor and warned him of the Weasel's impending arrival. Not that he was opposed to the idea of Weasley catching him kissing his girlfriend - perhaps he should have felt badly about his attempts to make Granger a cheater, but he was a Slytherin, and when he wanted something, he would do whatever it took to get it.
He sighed. So now he was admitting it, even if only in his own mind, that he wanted Hermione Granger. Having been raised as he was, Draco couldn't help his knee-jerk reaction of slight shame and of never wanting to tell a soul, but he quickly reminded himself that even his own mother had told him recently that she had rejected the blood purist ideology he'd been indoctrinated with since birth. Still, it was difficult to part ways with beliefs you had held your entire life, and it didn't help when your father would sooner sprout fairy wings and call himself Tinkerbell than change his beliefs.
But he had to cast those prejudices aside, as his mother had, and overcome his past. There was a lot to overcome, not the least of which was the tattoo on his left forearm, which was exposed at the moment by his lack of sleeves. He looked down at the fading Dark Mark that marred the pale flesh of his arm and felt the usual pangs of revulsion and regret that came when he looked at it, but this time he compared it to the coward scar on his other forearm. If the Dark Mark was the proof of his foolishness and of his error when it came time to choose sides in the war, his coward scar was the proof that his heart had never truly been in that choice.
At least, he thought, the scars balanced each other out, but they were also symbolic of his lack of a place in the new post-war wizarding world. He was an ex-Death Eater who hadn't defected until the final battle, and had never been respected or valued by the side he had served in the war, nor had he done anything to redeem himself to the Light side, unlike his mother. Indeed, the only reason he was free and not locked in a cell next to his father was Potter, and he despised being in his debt. That was why he was at Hogwarts, doing such ridiculous things as planting grass and filling holes in the ground; he had a debt to pay, and it seemed fitting that he should help rebuild what he had also helped to destroy.
Severus Snape had redeemed himself, Draco reminded himself, so it was not an impossible feat. Of course, Snape had also lived his days in mostly solitude, being generally horrible to everyone whose path he crossed, while those on each side whispered about where his true loyalties may lie. Then he had died hated by the side he truly was serving, and would still be hated today if not for Potter's vindication of him. If that was what Draco had to look forward to, then he thought he may as well go and start over in some country where nobody knew who he was and start over completely.
But he wouldn't give up, he decided. He would work hard to redeem himself, even if admitting his faults and errors had always been near impossible due to his enormous ego. That would have to be put aside, but he suspected it wouldn't be so hard as long as Granger was by his side. If she believed in him, nothing else in the world would matter.
He would show her that they could truly be something great. He would show her that she deserved better than to settle for the Weasel and a life of boredom. He would treat her as he should have the first time around, and make sure she never felt the need to settle for a life with a dim-witted mop of greasy red hair.
"Draco?" came Pansy's soft voice. Draco looked up and saw his friend sit beside him on the sofa in front of the fire. He gave her a nod and turned his eyes back to the fire.
"First time I've seen you without sleeves," Pansy said, eyeing both of his forearms. She'd never seen the coward scar before, and her eyes widened when she saw it. "How did you get that one?"
"My aunt," Draco muttered. "Because I wouldn't kill Muggles."
Pansy exhaled and stared into the fire with Draco. She tried to think of something comforting to say, but she had never been good at doing this. A few moments passed before she spoke again, opting to change the subject. "I talked to Granger. I'm going to be working in the library from now on."
"Good," Draco replied. "With any luck so will I."
"It would be nice to be with a friend," Pansy said.
Another moment passed. "I talked to her today. And apologized."
Pansy's eyes widened just a bit. "And?"
"We talked a bit. She hugged me. And then I tried to kiss her," Draco said as if he were recalling what he'd had for lunch.
Pansy's eyes were bulging now. "Are you serious?"
Draco couldn't help but crack a smile and snort with a small laugh. "Yeah. And she would have let me if Potter hadn't interrupted."
Pansy paused for a moment, stuck between jealousy and her desire to see her friend happy. But Draco had never returned her feelings, she knew this, and she deserved better than a boy who only used her when he pleased then forgot about her. Still, they had grown up together, and she had always planned for her future to include him. Letting go of that dream wasn't easy, but she had to do it. Now he was just her friend, and she wanted her friend to be happy. At least that's what she told herself. "You seem pleased."
Draco smirked. "We'll see what happens."
Pansy stared at Draco, wishing the fire that she could see flickering behind his eyes was for her. "You're really in love with her."
Draco paused his twirling of his wand and looked at Pansy. He could see the hurt in her eyes that she was trying to mask, and for the first time in his life, he felt bad for how he had treated her throughout the years.
Pansy was fighting an urge to resort to cruelty, which had been her default ever since she could remember. She could go for the mudblood angle and berate him, and plant fears in his mind about what Lucius would do when he found out. She could scoff and ask what a war hero like Granger would ever want to do with an ex-Death Eater like him. She could think of a million hurtful things to say and she knew which ones would cut him deepest.
"I'm sorry, Pansy. I've been a prat. And I knew I was a prat to you, I just never cared."
Draco was just as shocked as Pansy was by what he'd said. If either of them had looked behind them, they would have seen Blaise peering wide-eyed over his book as well. "Are you ill, Draco?" Pansy asked with a breathless laugh.
He shrugged. "I'm not particularly enjoying all these apologies, trust me." It was true - for a Malfoy, heartfelt apologies were about as enjoyable as eating coal. Saying the words out loud made his skin crawl.
"Well," Pansy said, her vindictive thoughts having melted away at Draco's odd moment of sincerity, "be better to Granger than you've been to me, if you want a chance with her."
Draco turned his eyes back to the fire. "I've already mucked things up so bad in the past. I don't know how she doesn't hate me."
"That's a Gryffindor for you," Pansy muttered. "Ridiculous bleeding hearts. She has more reason than most to hate me, too, and yet she's been so nice. I don't know what those people are made of."
Draco shook his head. "Can you imagine what we'd have said if someone had told us when we were little how our lives were going to turn out?"
Pansy smiled sadly. "I would have said they were a complete nutter."
Draco had thought prior to Voldemort's defeat that his fate had been determined long ago, and that he had little to no say in his own future. He didn't know how he was still breathing, or how he was inside Hogwarts again, the place he had unleashed Death Eaters into just a year prior. Somehow, he had been given a second chance, in spite of it all.
"Well, I'm off to bed," Pansy said, getting to her feet. "See you tomorrow."
"Yeah, see you," Draco said, feeling more cheerful tonight than he had in longer than he cared to remember. Just knowing that he still had a sliver of a chance with Hermione, and that somewhere inside of her she still cared for him, made him feel better than he could have imagined.
He went to bed with high spirits that night. Granger would be his, and he would do everything in his power to make it happen – consequences be damned.