Draco hates her laugh.
It always burst out of her, bright and lively, a peal of joy. Uncontrollable and unrestrained, floating freely through the air to land in the ears of anyone close by. It was too loud, too bright, too raucous - and never something he had ever managed to entice out of her during their shared years at Hogwarts. It was a private outburst of the happiness bubbling within her, shared with the Gryffindors around her, drawn out of her by that Potter scum or Weasley prat, and never something he had the privilege of partaking in.
He hates her skin. The soft tanned skin, like summers gone by, hinting at a life spent outdoors and carefree, basking in the warmth. Of blue skies, setting suns, gentle breezes and soft, lush grass. The smattering of freckles across her face like soft brown sugar, spilled in a constellation pattern. He thinks of his namesake, his bloodline's tradition of naming their children after the stars in the night sky. He wonders if his own constellation might be somewhere on her body - maybe a sprinkling of freckles across her ribs, if those same stars that make up the Dragon are also on her. He thinks if he ever gets close enough to gaze into her face, if those same smattering of freckles might be reflected as constellations in his eyes.
He hates that awful Doxy nest of curly, caramel brown hair that surrounds her face, wild and unmanageable. When the lazy afternoon light filters through the windows of the north west tower, and she bends down grumpily over her Divination textbook and mumbles curses about Trelawney's incompetence and the utter absurdity of this being a Ministry approved course, he's able to observe how that mane shifts and changes under the sun light. What had been plain and boring brown is suddenly lit aflame by the afternoon sun, and colours he's never noticed before are coaxed out - ash brown, gentle warm caramel, luscious auburn. She catches him staring and glares at him before levelling her angry gaze back at her textbook, while he ducks his head to pretend to focus on his own. He wonders vaguely if she might even be an Metamorphmagus like his disgraced cousin, the way her hair changes in the light, before he huffs quietly to himself.
He hates her blood, the way it stains into the mahogany floor of his drawing room, the dichotomy it forms and all it represents. Whisperings of a life that could have been, if the divine circumstances were different; if they were different people. Deep red, glinting dangerously in the moon light as it pours out of her from his aunt's handiwork. Bellatrix had always been creative, eccentric and impulsive - perhaps in a different life, she could have been an artist. But in this life, her canvas is Hermione Granger and her paintbrush is her wand, slicing cruelly into the girl's arm, down to the bone. Draco can do nothing but stand there and stare, frozen to the core. His lips move silently and he offers a prayer to any divine being that may hear it - he cannot move for fear of condemning his own flesh and blood, but he knows he is a sinner down to his core, and there is no salvation for him. Distantly, it registers in his mind that Granger's freckles do extend along her body, down her arms. He wishes he had discovered it a different way. Any way but this.
He hates her amber gaze, those almond eyes always so bright, deeply intelligent and often upturned and creased at the corners in a laugh. Whoever said brown eyes were boring was clearly an idiot, when an entire spectrum of colours exists in her gaze. Like pools of honey, splattered with deeper flecks - a galaxy unto itself, constellations spilled across the Milky Way, to match her freckly nose. When she locks eyes with him as she's being Crucio'd, it flickers back and forth - the recognition of him. In the aftermath and brief respite between torturous curses, he sees pleading in her gaze as she watches him, and he's almost stunned because the Granger he knows would never beg from Malfoy, but then the Crucio slams back into her body, and her eyes screw shut and tears leak out. The awareness of the world around her has left under the excruciating pain of Bellatrix's vicious wandwork but if she opened her eyes, she would see mirrored tears dripping down Draco's face, and into the mahogany floor.
And finally, he hates the way that she managed to get under his skin. After all this time, after years of knowing her from afar, he hates that he never truly knew her before she was gone. He hates the silence of the Great Hall in the aftermath of the Battle; the absence of Granger's stupid, obnoxious laughter rings out louder than any laugh she had ever made in her life, in this life.
He hates that Death was the only thing that could manage to contain her, to rein her in. His presence at the service enrages Potter, and Weasley scrambles and manages to land a punch and dislocate Draco's nose before a squad of Aurors breaks up the fight. There's yelling and hoarse screaming all around before they're dragged off and Draco finds himself alone at her casket, gazing down at the girl he never quite knew. He hates that they've sanitized her and made her palatable in all the ways that she wasn't in life - her hair is finally smooth and no longer the wild, frizzy mess he remembers. The halo of curls is gone, and he can no longer see the vibrant colours that reminded him of Nymphadora's shapeshifting. Her skin is pale but a light rouge and mascara has been applied to her face, and it looks all wrong because the Granger he knew never needed anything to look pretty, and the Granger he knew was always a little sunburnt, always raw and brimming with life. His aunt's magnum opus is hidden under a thick layer of glamour charms, and he feels sick at the thought that they had covered up the battle scar and everything it represents. Her heritage, her birth, her bravery and determination and ultimate sacrifice.
At night he lays awake in bed, tossing and turning well into the early morning. When he finally falls into an exhausted sleep and wakes again, the few seconds before reality sets in and he remembers the girl he loves is gone, are the only times he feels at peace. Sometimes before he drifts off, in the moments where he toes the line between lucidity and sinking into dreams, he thinks hard about the life that could have been, and tries to will those whispers into existence, if only for a few hours while he's unconscious.
He hates everything about Granger.