My Only Love, Sprung From My Only Hate
By: booboofishlake
Summary: It is the Golden Trio's final year at Hogwarts. The war against Voldemort is over. The Death Eater's have been rounded up and imprisoned, including half of the parents of the Slytherin House. However, the elitist views of some of the pureblooded population still exist, and thusly, so does the rift between the purebloods and the muggle-borns/halfbloods. Dumbledore, in a stroke of genius, decides that the best way to start mending that rift in his school is to give the students an example of the damage such a rift between groups could do. What example of a feud causing tragedy is better than Romeo and Juliet? As the school immerses itself in the play, performed by the newly founded Club of Dramatic Arts, our favorite Gryffindor know-it-all and our favorite Slytherin bad boy find themselves thrust into the wild and unpredictable world of theatre as the leads of the play, as well as into a romantic adventure they'll never forget.
Chapter One: The First Day Back
Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasly stared at the florescent poster tacked to the notice board in the Head common room.
The Club of Dramatic Arts will be having open auditions this Friday immediately following dinner for the upcoming production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. All of those interested are suggested to audition, extra credit will be given to those who make the play, and also to those who participate in the construction of the sets. See the Heads of your respective Houses if you have any questions. Break a leg!
"Break a leg? Why on Earth would they want you to break a leg?" Ginny asked incredulously.
"It's something muggles say. It means, 'good luck'," Hermione explained as she quickly read over the poster again. "Since when does Hogwarts have a Club of Dramatic Arts?"
"No idea," Ginny told her. "Come on. We still have to drop off my stuff at the Gryffindor tower before we head to the Great Hall for dinner."
Hermione nodded and, making her way over to a large oak door with, Hermione, inscribed in the richly colored wood, tapped her wand on the enchanted lock. The lock obliged and the door swung open, revealing Hermione's new living quarters. Dumping her half of Hermione's luggage unceremoniously on the king size bed against the wall adjacent to the door, Ginny gazed around the room and whistled.
"Good Lord, Hermione, it's huge." It was true. The room was easily the size of dorms the other students were made to share. It was decorated lavishly in scarlet and gold, from the matching comforter and bed canopy, to the lounge couch in one corner of the room. A full bathroom, complete with a Jacuzzi bathtub, over which Ginny squealed in envy, was located opposite of the bed.
But the thing that Hermione fell in love with about her room was not the king-sized canopy bed or the Jacuzzi bathtub. It was the small balcony across the room, opposite the door. French doors opened on the balcony, which couldn't have been more than six or seven feet across, and about five feet wide. The balcony itself over looked the lake that was shimmering in the evening light.
"You are so lucky," Ginny gushed, joining Hermione on the balcony. "Your room is incredible!"
Hermione smiled. "It's pretty wonderful, isn't it?" Then with a grimace she added, "Everything about this whole Head Girl deal would be wonderful, if only Malfoy wasn't Head Boy…" She thought back to her arrival on the Hogwarts Express a few hours earlier…
Flashback
"Hey, here's an empty one!" Ron Weasly gestured excitedly to an empty compartment. His best friends, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, and his sister, Ginny, sighed in visible relief. It was getting nearly impossible to find an empty compartment on the Hogwarts Express anymore.
"Here," Hermione handed her luggage to her friends as they piled into the compartment. "I have a quick meeting with the Head boy in the Head's car. It won't take long. Save my seat."
"As if we wouldn't," Ginny pointed out with a grin. Harry and Ron chuckled, amused. Hermione returned the grin and hurried off toward the Head's car.
I wonder who Dumbledore chose for Head Boy, Hermione thought as she made her way through the throngs of students clamoring for seats. She made it to the Head's car in a relatively short amount of time. She pushed open the door to the car and found herself face to face with none other than:
"Malfoy! You're Head Boy!"
Draco Malfoy was not as surprised to see Hermione Granger as she evidently was to see him. His gaze traveled up her body before unconcernedly meeting hers. Well, Hermione had become unquestionably easy on the eyes. Her formerly bushy mess of hair had grown considerably longer, nearly reaching her waist. Instead of the frizz factory it had been her hair no fell in gentle ringlets that set off her willowy frame. And if Hermione had been lacking anywhere in the upper torso region previously, it seemed the—how could one put it?—now her cup certainly overfloweth. Another guy might have called her hot, but for Draco Malfoy, "hot" and "Hermione Granger didn't belong in the same sentence. Still…
"It may surprise you, Granger," Draco told her in that incredibly sexy drawl of his. "But you are not the only exceptionally bright student in Hogwarts. IfImay point out, you have never once gotten one mark higher than mein Potions."
"One class," Hermione retorted automatically. "That the Head of your House teaches." It was an ever present thorn in Hermione's side that, in the one class that she did not hold the highest grade, Draco was the one that did.
Draco smirked. "Just keep telling yourself that, Granger."
Hermione did not answer and the two glared at each other for a long moment, neither one speaking. Finally she broke the silence.
"Are we going to discuss anything of real importance, or should I just save myself the trouble and march right back out of that door?"
"I don't see why we should." After all," he reminded her, the smirk still on his lips, "we've got all year, don't we?"
End Flashback
Ginny grinned wickedly. "I don't know, 'Mione," she mused, using Hermione's nickname. "Draco's gotten pretty…" She let the sentence hang as her grin widened.
"Pretty what? Besides full of himself, I mean."
"He's always been full of himself," Ginny pointed out to her friend. "Nope, Draco Malfoy has gotten hot!"
"Ginny!"
"You know it's true," Ginny teased. And it was. Draco had filled out very, very nicely since fifth year, two years ago. Somehow, he had gone from whiney little twerp to a six-foot something, muscular hottie. There was no denying that Draco Malfoy was certainly not the eyesore he used to be, And as if the new, incredibly hot Draco wasn't good enough for the female population of Hogwarts, he had miraculously grown up. Hermione suspected the arrest and imprisonment of his father and the end of the Second Great War, as the war with Voldemort was christened, was the cause behind Draco's newfound maturity. It wasn't like he was suddenly warmly embracing the Golden Trio or handing out sweets to the first year or any thing, but overall, Draco had become a generally nice guy—except to Hermione and her friends, of course.
"Come on, Gin," Hermione said, dismissing the subject. "Let's drop of your stuff and get down to the Great Hall. I don't want to miss the sorting."