Hermione burst into the Heads' room, her cheeks flushed from running all the way up here. She ran a hand over her hair, smoothing down any stray locks of hair. She tried not to think of the surprise Draco had in store for her; she was not going to let him know just how excited she was about this meeting. She was about to call out his name but immediately discarded her wish once she saw him.
He was lounging on the floor, facing the fireplace. The warm, amber-red flames cast their shadows on his pale face, defining his sharp cheekbones. The light seemed to alter the colour of his eyes, shifting through different shades of grey at different angles. At a certain angle, his eyes were silver, speaking deeply of the elegance and eloquence that came so naturally to his family. Once viewed from the opposite angle, those very eyes became enfolded with dark grey, this time emanating with hidden endearment and rarely-portrayed loneliness.
Draco must have noticed her presence because he turned around slowly and greeted her sotto voce, "Hey. You're here."
Hermione smiled warmly in reply. She sat down beside him, noticing two glasses half-filled with sparkling liquid delicately placed between them. A medium-sized box of chocolate truffles gave it the finishing touch. All the ambience lacked was a long mahogany table with lacy tablecloth and pewter candleholders. Draco offered her the drink as he reached out for his fifteenth truffle.
"Irish springwater," he told her, taking a sip from his own glass. "And help yourself to the truffles too. I've specially ordered it from Italy."
She picked one up and popped it into her mouth. While Hermione was busy trying to think of a word to define the chocolate's taste, Draco took the opportunity to say, "If Professor McGonagall hadn't banned all the Hogsmeade visits, I'd have chosen to meet you in a much nicer place. Like a restaurant, maybe. But I hope that this … meeting will be memorable. I mean, how often do you have a supper date in front of a fireplace?"
Hermione almost choked on her drink. This is a date? Her heart repetitively convinced her brain that this was not a dream. I'm on a date – with Draco?
If Hermione had accidentally portrayed her emotions in any way, Draco chose not to notice it. He plucked the glass and truffle from her hands and placed it on the mantelpiece with a few Wingardium Leviosas. When that was done, Draco reached out for her hands and clasped them in his.
"You can call me whatever you want afterwards, but listen, Hermione," Draco felt unsure how to start. "I have been absolutely mean and rude towards you all these years. Teasing you about your hair, calling you Mudblood, hurting your feelings at every chance that I get … I'm sorry that I've been horrible to you. I wish I didn't have to be such a prick, but I didn't have a choice. It became much harder for me when … when …"
"When what?" Hermione half-whispered, enthralled by those pale eyes which captured her gaze.
Draco swallowed hard. "It became much harder for me when I found out that I've fallen in love with you."
Hermione froze. "I … but… how…" she was too stunned to even successfully form a sentence. Instead, she just looked wildly at him, hinting that he had to explain this to her.
"Well, you see, I think I started liking you somewhere in the 2nd year," he started nervously. "I was jealous of you because you beat me at almost everything. And somewhere along the way of proving that I'm much cleverer than you, I sort of got attracted to you. But I didn't really think much of it because I was just twelve then, wasn't I? And you're a Muggle, so that prejudice didn't really make me think clearly."
Draco quickly summarized all the other events and how he felt leading all the way to their sixth year. He had went out with Pansy Parkinson because firstly, his mother approved of her and secondly, he was too immature back then to figure out that hating Muggles was not getting him anywhere. Also, he went to the Yule Ball with Pansy with hopes of making Hermione jealous, which of course did not work out. Hermione listened intently, still at loss for words.
Draco pulled out an oblong box from behind him. It was plated with pewter, with silver streaked across it in random swirls. Amethysts, diamonds and rubies dotted the lid, creating a border around a vaguely familiar crest. Draco lifted the lid to reveal an I.D. bracelet which was sitting comfortably on plush black velvet. He took it out and held it before Hermione.
Even though he had been rehearsing these lines for over a week, he still had difficulty in finally saying, "Will you be my girlfriend?"
It took Hermione less than half a second to say yes. Draco could not resist a smirk as he clasped the bracelet around her wrist. It seemed like a dream: Draco Malfoy, possibly the most wealthiest and (to his belief) good-looking Hogwarts student of Pureblood ancestry, had won over the heart of Hermione Granger, the smartest Muggle ever to attend Hogwarts. While he was reveling in his accidental feat, his new girlfriend rattled off a long list of conditions he would have to try and fulfill as part of their relationship.
However, Draco was not loving her suggestions. Some of them included not being very egoistical and not being overly vain about his looks. The worst was to stop calling others names, especially Harry and Ron. As soon as Hermione said it, he had deemed it impossible. After all, he was only being nice to them for Hermione's sake. He had no wish to add Harry and Ron to his list of best friends which only contained Blaise's name so far.
"I'll never be friends with Potty and Wease – oh, alright, Potter and Weasley," Draco objected, addressing Harry and Ron by their actual last names sardonically at Hermion's glare. "Hell, you know what? I don't think I can stop calling people names. It's not just a habit; it's become something of a hobby for me."
"Draco …" Hermione warned him, her tone low and deadly.
"Alright, alright," he relented, a hint of reluctance tugging at his voice. His demeanor was sulking now. "I'll try."
Only in front of you, he wanted to add but he bit back his tongue. Draco usually enjoyed having petty arguments since they always seemed to be in his favour, but he wisely decided that a quarrel was not really a good way to officiate a relationship. Worst still, he might be on the losing end.
"Serpens Nisi Serpentem Comderit Non Fit Draco," Hermione read out the wordings on the bracelet, which she suspected, was inscribed in molten emerald.
"A serpent must have devoured another serpent before he is worthy to be called a dragon," Draco explained wearily, as if he had said it each time somebody questioned him about his name. "Don't ask me why; according to Mother, that was written in my prophecy. Ask me the what because I can tell you right now."
Hermione took up the challenge, "What?"
Gesticulating grandly at the Bracelet, Draco said, "That was my first birthday present by Mother. She wouldn't say where she got it from, but she did tell me that this was made of pure silver and yes, emerald. Father paid for it, though. Cost him quite a sizeable amount of Galleons, I believe. It was very precious to me. But now it's become more priceless because you're wearing it."
Hermione was about to admit that she found his pride of being a Pureblood revolting, but she had to smile at the last sentence. It seemed to be atypical character trait of the new Draco, unbearably obnoxious at first, but mellowed down to honeyed words toward the end. Although she was accepatable of his slightly deflated self-centredness now, she was still hoping to flatten it further.
To speed up his gloating ceremony, she pointed towards the crest. "What is that? A family crest?" As she continued to stare at it, she knew why she found it familiar: in some ways, it resembled the Blacks' family crest.
Draco smiled at her thoughts. "Yes, it's the Malfoys' family crest," he confirmed, standing up as he did so. "As to why it resembled the Blacks', I think you should know that the Blacks and the Malfoys are two of the most oldest Pureblood families. Both are equally respected, and may be considered allies in some way or another. I'll show you the family tree."
Hermione gaped at him. "But I didn't say it resembled the Blacks'!"
Another smirk graced Draco's reply, "Legilimency and Occulumency comes hand in hand; you can't master one without grasping the other."
Hermione lingered behind him as he took out a rolled-up parchment from his trunk. He rapped the parchment with his wand, muttering some inaudible spell and the parchment evolved into a huge screen such that they could see the photographs of each and every member of Draco's family. Waving his wand over the screen, the blotted out members became clear again. Hermione swore she saw Phineas Nigellus among the masses. Her eyes trailed down to see Bellatrix Lestrange before she was captured and imprisoned in Azkaban. She had the aristocratic good looks with her heavily-lidded eyes and lustrous dark hair. Her smile was haughty but not quite insane like in the present.
Next to Bellatrix was another mistress of the Black family, a cross between the dark Bellatrix and the pale Narcissa. She was one of the blotted out members. Written below her picture was the name Andromeda Black, who was married to a Muggle, Ted Tonks. And Draco's blotted out cousin turned out to be a certain Auror named Nymphadora Tonks.
The whole frame was ironic. Although the family boasted a former Hogwarts headmaster, Harry's godfather and an Auror, the number of Death Eaters in the family had shamed them. Hermione wondered if she should cast a charm to auto-sort them into Death Eaters and the good ones.
"Having Tonks as your cousin …" Hermione breathed, still in awe of the extensive family lines. "That's like having an Auror by your side 24/7. When you were on the run … why didn't you look for her?"
"I didn't know she exists," Draco replied sullenly. "She's a half-blood; no one really talks about Andromeda. And even if I did look for Tonks, do you really think that she'd fuss over me, get me a mug of tea and protect the nephew and son of Death Eaters who had a hand in Sirius's death?"
Hermione could not find any answer to that question. Leaving her besotted with the Blacks, Draco shifted his attention towards a blonde, pale witch and an equally pale wizard with white-blond hair. His fingers traced her name: Narcissa Black. He looked at the photograph of the witch, her long blonde hair cascading gracefully over her eyes and shoulders. Her eyes peeked coquettishly at him, her sharp nose slightly upturned. Draco knew she would have looked much more beautiful if she was not sneering in the photo.
The longer he stared at the picture, he sensed it transforming into another picture of the same woman. With each passing second, dread filled itself in his body. A long, bloody gash ran from the woman's cheek down to her chin. The blonde hair was in a mess, undoubtedly caked in dried blood. Her lips were cut and swollen. The details kept swimming around in front of Draco until he heard the woman shout, "Stop it!"
Everything that Draco had been trying to forget flooded back into his head. The Cruciatus Curse inflicted on him, his mother's multiple Sectumsempra wounds, Voldemort's cold laughter … and his mother's corpse hanging from the wall of his dungeon, excruciatingly brought back to life with every flick of Voldemort's wand which was aimed at Draco. The pain he saw his dead mother went through.
The screen folded and rolled itself back into a parchment, which Draco threw into his trunk and slammed it shut. His sudden action startled Hermione. She looked at him with big worried eyes.
"Draco, what's wrong?" Hermione asked immediately.
Her boyfriend was silent. Gently steering her towards the door, he finally said, "I love you, Hermione, but I think that it's time you go to bed. Goodnight."
Before she could open her mouth to wish him goodnight as well, Draco closed the door in her face.