Draco wasn't excited about his meeting with Hermione Granger.
And yet he was. He found himself thinking about seeing her again, and about the magic he'd seen her perform with relative ease. He was excited to delve further into darker magic, and to talk more with the mysterious girl who occupied the thoughts of most of the boys at Hogwarts.
It wasn't that she was insanely beautiful, or that she was flawless. No, it was more that beneath her pleasant face swam an ocean of depth and mystery, and the pronounced curves of her physical body certainly attributed to the school's obsession with her.
And that was why he wasn't excited about their meeting. Because he was looking forward to it. And he was unused to such earnest and vulnerable feelings. It scared him that he was investing his time and genuine interest in something.
He wrestled with the idea of just not going.
But of course, he did.
Because had to know more.
When he arrived at the library, his face was a mask of exterior indifference, but his insides were curious and more than a little bit jittery. As he went to enter the library another student opened the door, surprising Draco out of his tumultuous thoughts for a second.
He recognized Luna Lovegood behind the unfamiliar student, and he acknowledged her greeting with a brief nod as they passed each other. He didn't stop to engage, he didn't entirely have time for her oddball tendencies, though he did inwardly wonder why she was carrying several pygmy puffs in varying shades of violet and pink on her shoulders.
He found Hermione Granger in the back of the library, right beside the Restricted Section, and he approached her with as causal an air as he could muster.
"I'm here." He announced with a slight tinge of annoyance after he'd stood at her table for a few moments and she still hadn't looked up from the open book in front of her.
After a long pause the Slytherin girl finally looked up from her book and met his silver gaze with her steely brown eyed one. Her unruly curls fell about her face as she lifted her head and he couldn't help but notice how disinterested she seemed that he was there. Already just his slight annoyance made him look like a well of emotions compared to her.
"Sit." She said simply before gesturing to the stack of books beside her. "Look through these books, I'm trying to find reference to a potion."
Draco bit back a sigh and sat down opposite her. "What potion?"
"Draught of Living Death." Hermione replied without looking at him, her gaze already returned to the pages she'd been scouring.
Draco frowned as he picked up a book. "Didn't we make that a few weeks ago with Slughorn?"
This time Hermione looked genuinely irritated a she again looked up from her book to stare coolly at Draco.
"Those instructions were useless, none of our potions worked. There must be a better recipe in this library, or a clue to improve it."
Draco had to concede she was right. He himself was talented at potions, but his concoction had resulted in a lumpy black sludge rather than the expected crystal clear liquid. He was surprised to hear the Granger girl's potion had failed as well, he couldn't remember this having happened before.
He was curious about why she wanted to succeed at the potion. Based off the intensely dark magic he'd seen her performing in the Forbidden Forest he was almost certain her desire to remake the dangerous potion wasn't for academic purposes.
"Fine." Draco replied aloud and opened a book titled, Difficult Potions for Overly Ambitious Wizards.
Draught of Living Death put its drinker into a deep and death-like sleep that could only be likened to fairy tales such as Sleeping Beauty. A cure did exist, the Wiggenweld potion, Draco remembered making it in first year. Draught of Living Death wasn't scary because it couldn't be cured, it was dangerous because there was only that one way of waking up. If someone was unable to administer the Wiggenweld potion to the victim, they would remain in the sleep forever, unchanged, neither living nor dead.
Besides that, brewing it was insanely difficult. Even Professor Slughorn struggled with it, he had told the class that in his entire teaching career only one student had produced a perfect Draught.
Draco idly looked through the book, often glancing up at the Slytherin opposite him, inquisitive questions burning inside him as he watched her pour through her own book with ferocious intensity.
After a while of fruitless search, he became frustrated. He thought they were going to practice dark magic. He thought she was going to show him how to do the advanced spells she could do. After all, he was keeping her secret, wasn't he?
Couldn't he go to their head of house, Severus Snape, right now and spill her secret Fiendfyre casting and collection of the subsequent Ashwinder eggs to him? Hell, he could have her expelled.
And yet here he was, sitting in the stuffy library, rifling through dusty old books, squinting at scribbly handwriting, and searching for something that she wanted, something that he could not care less about.
Having had enough of this boring exercise Draco snapped his book shut with a puff of dust and put it aside roughly. He reached across the table and pulled the book from Granger's hands abruptly, surprising her into looking over at him with an infuriated glare.
"What are you doing?" She demanded, her voice low and angry.
"I don't want to look through these books." He told her arrogantly as he tossed her book aside and crossed his arms on the table. "I want you to show me more magic."
"I don't take orders." The fellow Slytherin replied, her eyes flashing angrily as she took her book back.
"Well I don't need to keep your secret." Draco mentioned, glancing around suggestively. He felt more confident than he had in the Forbidden Forest. There it had been her against him, alone. Here, the librarian and several other students were dotted around the library. They would witness anything heinous she might do to him.
Hermione Granger pursed her lips and knitted her thick eyebrows together, visibly unimpressed by his threat as she continued to glare at him.
"Okay." She said eventually, her words forced out from behind gritted teeth. "Follow me."
She got up quickly and immediately headed for the exit, Draco had to scramble to get up and follow her into the hall. He rushed to catch up with her before she lost him amongst the immense and often changing halls and staircases of Hogwarts.
The confidence to bring up keeping her secret he had built up with his mental pep talk was melting away fast as she briskly led him through the castle and outside onto the sprawling grounds. He clenched his wand in to his robes pocket and tried to keep his nerves at bay.
Being the dismissive, popular and confident Draco Malfoy was usually easy. The place it was hardest was in his own home, and right now as the Granger girl strode ahead of him, her form radiating hatred and power, he couldn't help but shrink from her as he did his own father.
Though he was increasingly a loner and the cocky arrogance of his childhood was long shed, he wasn't often kind to or interested in others. Blaise was one of the few people he could tolerate, and he was still dismissive and uncaring to most of his classmates, though he never actively bullied any of them. He was cold. And yet somehow the girl in front of him was colder.
But somehow, she was the point of difference. Her darkness spoke to the darkness inside Draco himself. And he was as scared of her and he was interested in knowing her better.
He followed her all the way to the Great Lake. They didn't stop of the pebble beach where most students usually went, no they continued around a bend until they were in a rocky nook that was mostly protected from view from elsewhere on the grounds.
Here Hermione stopped walking and started clambering up the rocks, her all back outfit and curly hair almost insignificant against the dark grey rocks. Draco followed her, shielding his eyes from the setting sun across from them best he could, entirely unaware of how the blaze of light set his silvery locks alight with a hearty orangish glow.
Eventually Hermione Granger stopped at edge of a round edged rock and waited for Draco to join her. They were standing several feet up from the lake, far enough over it that the freezing water was deep enough to jump in, but too far up for most people to want to do so.
"Have you brought me here to kill me?" Draco asked, successfully masking his fear with a sarcastic tone.
"No." Hermione said sharply as she pulled out her wand. "I'm going to teach you a spell."
"Why here?" Draco asked, relief flooding him as he pulled out his own wand.
"Because we need space." She replied, her tone suggested her answer was obvious as she rolled up her sleeves, seemingly unbothered by the cooling evening air.
Draco nodded and the Slytherin girl seemed to take this as his consent to begin the lesson.
"This spell isn't taught at Hogwarts, it's very advanced and many wizards can't cast it successfully." Granger sounded more like she was challenging Draco than cautioning him.
"Alright, lets have it then." Draco bristled at her tone and crossed his arms. "Impress me."
The curly-haired Slytherin smirked as she raised her wand. Draco watched her, transfixed despite his irritation, as she stepped forward, took a breath and then threw her shoulders back as she shouted an incantation and thrusted her wand into the still air.
Draco was agape as shimmering white magic erupted from her wand and exploded silently across the Great Lake and sent the waters up into great roaring waves. From her wand a shimmering white light shaped like an otter emerged and the glowing creature jumped and swam through the air for several minutes until it and the rest of the shimmering magic dissipated.
Granger turned back to Draco, her face glowing, her eyes wild with elation as she took in his dumbfounded expression. "I take it I impressed you." She mocked him lightly, her glee easily the most emotion he had ever seen from her.
"That, was insane." Draco choked out, still entirely taken aback by the beauty and power she had just created. "What was it?"
"A Patronus charm." She informed him as she tucked her wild hair behind her ears and the euphoric glittering in her eyes subsided a little. "You can use them for light, communication and a few other things, but primarily they're a defence against Dementors."
Draco shuddered, the mention of the disgusting and terrifying guards of Azkaban shaking him back to normal. "I've never even heard of the spell." He admitted, somewhat mad that defence against the hideous creatures wasn't more commonly known.
"I'm not surprised." Granger told him, though this time it didn't seem as if she were mocking him.
"To produce the a Patronus you have to focus on a truly happy memory and say the incantation, Expecto Patronum." She continued, explaining the spell as she tucked her own wand away.
"Will that make an otter like yours did?" Draco asked dubiously, inwardly wondering if he had a happy memory handy.
"Maybe. From what I've read, everyone who can do the spell makes those shimmering waves, but only some people can produce the actual Patronus, which is what my otter was. The example in the book I read was a lion not an otter though." Granger shrugged. "I haven't found much more information than that. I'm just assuming Patronus's are unique."
Draco shrugged as he took this information in. His excitement over the spell had immediately died when the Granger girl had mentioned using a happy memory.
Sure, he had some of those. But Granger had looked deliriously happy when she finished casting her spell. He couldn't recall anything that could bring out a similar look on his own handsome features.
"Expecto Patronum." He muttered quietly, rolling the new words over his tongue to familiarise himself with them. "Expecto Patronum."
"Come on, I don't have all day." Granger said impatiently, tapping her foot on the rock they were standing on. "Have a go."
"I'm getting there." Draco snapped, annoyed at her impatience, and far to uncomfortable with her to be happy being this vulnerable in front of her.
The pressure of her intense gaze hurrying him along he cast around in his mind for a happy memory that he thought might replicate the spell he'd just witnessed.
He latched on to one that he often thought of, focused on it as Granger had told him to.
"Expecto Patronum!" He shouted and thrust his wand forward, the memories of receiving a letter from his mother at the forefront of his mind.
To Draco's instant embarrassment, not a single thing happened. Draco tried again, his voice faltering this time as the pressure overwhelmed him. The result remained unchanged, and despite several increasingly desperate and flimsy attempts, Draco could not cast the spell.
After a moment he dropped his hand, his wand hanging limply at his side as he silently admitted defeat.
To Draco's great surprise his fellow Slytherin didn't laugh. She didn't even smirk. Instead she caught his pale gaze in her dark one and he thought he could almost see understanding within her chocolate eyes.
"We'll try again tomorrow." She told him simply before she turned and started clambering down the rocks with the deft ease of someone who had done so many times.
She left him standing on the edge of the rock, a lone figure whose silver hair stood out brightly in the twilight sky.
Draco swallowed hard as tears pooled in his eyes and spilled over onto his cheeks.
He couldn't produce a memory strong enough to cast a Patronus charm, and as Draco stared down at his rippling reflection in the water several feet below him, he was unsure he ever would.