If you've ever been in public, you have probably met or even simply witnessed a person who was so rude and disrespectful to another human being that you wanted to slap the with your shoe. You might expect our dear Hermione Granger to feel or at least have felt the Exact same way about Draco Malfoy, however she always felt bad for him.
Mr. and Mrs. Granger raised their daughter to be accepting of people from all walks of life, Draco's parents, however, raised him to act and believe he was one of the best people purely because he was a part of the Malfoy family, who were in turn part of the Sacred 28. Other notable families in the Sacred 28 include the Black, Abbott, Bulstrode, Burke, Carrow, Crouch, Flint, Gaunt, Greengrass, Lestrange, Longbottom, Nott, Ollivander, Parkinson, Shacklebolt, Slughorn, Weasley families, but that's not even all of them. With the exception of the Weasley, Longbottom, Ollivander, Abbott, and Shacklebolt families, Draco grew up in the presence of members of most of these families purely for their blood status.
What most don't know is that Draco began to doubt the Dark Lord well before his sixth year, it was the summer before his fifth year to be exact. Seeing Cedric dead for no reason at the hand of Voldemort's servant was the spark he needed. Although he would never tell his father, he felt he had to confide in his mother, who he knew to secretly loathe the Dark Lord.
I suppose you can see how one would feel bad for Draco despite his treatment towards them. In Hermione's eyes, Draco wasn't the bad person, it was his surroundings that made him the ways he is.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said "Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless." This means that you cannot make a person want to be good, but you can regulate their behavior enough so that they are no longer a menace to society. If we were to relate his quote to this tale, we could say that the Order of the Phoenix attempted and succeeded at regulating the behavior of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. During their reign, the Order was unable to legislate the behavior of the Death Eaters but, as many will say, good will prevail even when temporarily hampered by evil.
Lemony Snicket says "There is no worse sound in the world than someone who cannot play the violin but insists on doing so anyway." While this quote doesn't have much to do with Draco and Hermione's present situation, the Baudelaire Orphans and our favorite Head Boy and Girl have many things in common. As mentioned before, Hermione grew up with wonderful parents, much like the Baudelaire's before a fire burned their home to ashes. Draco, on the other hands, grew up in a cruel environment much like the Baudelaire's while they were in Count Olaf's care. While His mother was no saint, Draco's father was by far he more churlish of the two. Draco's mother was always the big thinker, his father was usually more impulsive. While he was usually compared to his father, Draco had been focused on the big picture lately. Everything was about his family, and as his father would have said it, "finding an heir to the Malfoy manor, name, and fortune." Luckily, Lucius Malfoy was long gone. Dead. Sleeping with the large squid. Kicked the bucket. Any way you want to say it, Draco's father was out of his hair, and Draco felt no remorse or grief for him. It was him who instilled false beliefs into Draco. It was him who made Draco terrified to go home after he 'let a mudblood best him in class, once again.' It was him who forced him to get the Dark Mark, worship old Voldy Pants, and it was him who made him the pompous prat he was for so long.
Just after the Battle at Hogwarts, Lucius had attempted to apparate from the grounds, not knowing that the Order had gotten the wards up and working once again. Now that he was out of the picture, Draco and his mother, Narcissa, were free to redeem what little, if any, reputation they had left. What you probably don't know is that Narcissa Malfoy—formerly Black—married Lucius for his family's status. She wanted to rebel just like Sirius, Andromeda, and Regulus, but she couldn't bring herself to disappointment her family and be excommunicated just as her siblings and cousins had.
If you have read the last chapter, you know that our Head Boy and Girl were last heading to their Potions class. For the third year in a row, Professor Horace Slughorn has been teaching potions, as Snape was too busy guarding Draco, being horrible to Harry, and wanting to be evil, so he taught the Defense Against the Dark Arts. He might have taught them to defend themselves from the Dark Arts, but we all know he just wanted to teach the Dark Arts, like they do at Durmstrang in Bulgaria.
"Today we will once again be brewing the Draught of Living Death. You may remember this from your sixth year and once again the prize for best potion will be Liquid Luck. Can anyone tell me the original name for this potion?" Introduced Slughorn in his usual happy, not-quite-all-there manner.
You, yes you, the reader might be expecting our favorite muggleborn reader to raise her hand and be over excited to answer yet another question, once again proving her know-it-all-ness. Well, if you want that, you will have to look for a different fan fiction, because I'm not here to deliver to you yet another romance filled story stuffed to the brim with overused cliches. I will give you the real story, and if you would rather read something more pleasant, I would advise you to turn off whatever device you are consuming this on and pick up something more enjoyable, because in this tale there is no happy beginning, but there will be a happy ending, and although there will be happy moments in the middle, there will also have to be sad ones, because this is real life, and in real life bad things happen. But I'm sure you don't want to hear me monologue anymore so let's get back to the story.
Our dearest Hermione had been forced to do a lot of growing up over the past three years, first with Umbridge, then with Him being officially back, and at Malfoy Manor, and just this past summer after her futile attempts at reversing her parents' memories. After all of that, she had come to realize that she no longer needed to prove herself by being a know-it-all. After all everyone know that she really did know it all, so she kept quiet instead of answering Slughorn's question, so to allow someone else to speak.
After everyone in the class either didn't care enough to answer Slughorn's question or didn't know the answer, the very person sitting right next to her, Draco hesitantly raised his hand.
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy, in the front," Slughorn beamed at Draco.
"Felix Felicis, more commonly known as Liquid Lucky, gives the drinker, well, luck as the name would suggest, to complete whatever task they want, be it winning the lottery, getting the girl, or acing that test. This potion, however, has been known to give the drinker too much confidence in its powers and lead them to do dangerous, risky, and even fatal things, so it is advised to take this potion with great discretion," said Draco confidently, as he had only just read a quite interesting book on the potion before coming back to school.
"Magnificent, fifteen point to the eighth year. Instructions are on the board, get started," Slughorn said happily.
You might be wondering, why did Slughorn just give fifteen points to the entire eight year? Wouldn't that total up to sixty points? And my answer to that would be 'no.' Seeing as to how there were considerably less students in the eight year than the others, Minerva thought it best to just combine all of the houses into just the year, this also helps with house unity by making everyone in the same house.
At the sound of fifteen points for the entire eighth year, all of the eighth year students began to cheer, even though at this point most of them knew Draco wasn't some crazed Voldemort worshiper, he wasn't particularly anyone's favorite person either. Draco, being startled by the sudden praise, slunk down into his chair shyly while hiding his face out of embarrassment.
After the raucous died down, everyone began their potions. As Hermione had been thinking about everything but how to properly brew the Draught of Living Death, so instead of adding one Phoenix feather she added two. And with a humongous bang and flash, Hermione's potion blew up in her face and she was out like a light, but before she could hit the ground, Draco caught her. As Slughorn was taking an unintentional cat-nap, Draco and Ginny quickly took Hermione to Madam Pomfrey.
While on most days Ginny would have been more than happy to hex Draco for touching her friend, she felt it better to behave civilly towards her best friend's mate. Draco, on the other hand, had been so focused on taking the very thing made made it worth breathing to get help, he had barely noticed the redhead tagging along behind him.
If you have ever lost your mother in store you know how frightened Draco was. Maybe you never lost your mother in a store but were unfortunate enough to have just lost her. Either way you know how it feels. If either of these things have never happened to you, I envy you.
Presently, Draco was too preoccupied by the girl in his arms to notice how quickly they had reached the hospital wing.
"What happened to her?" Madame Pomfrey, Hogwarts's nurse asked, walking over to the nearest bed as Draco layer Hermione on it.
"We, uh, were in Potions, and sh-she had some sort of accident, and i-it exploded," Draco heaved, still panicking as Hermione was still unconscious.
"We'll leave her here and you two can go back to you worrying here won't help," said the plump nurse as she shooed the Draco and Ginny out of the hospital wing.
While Ginny swiftly made her way back to potions, clearly bothered, Draco lagged behind, worry for the girl his life depended on, and who, somehow, found a way into his heart.
A/N: really, another crappy cliffhanger? I know, I know, I'm sorry. I'll try to keep the word count about the same for each chapter from now on. Shoutout to Keira Willow, (go follow her) my unofficial beta/writing slave :)