Chapter Twenty Three
"Oh no!" she thought, "this is all wrong! My perfect stranger isn't supposed to be bloody Malfoy." She sat on the bad staring at the book cover. Images from the night before flooded into her mind as she tried to get her head around everything.
She slammed the book down, "I trusted him!" she spat throwing herself backwards, "No bloody wonder he didn't want to take things further, it was probably all some twisted joke!"
Just then there was a knock on the door, "Room Service," a woman's voice announced.
"ENTER!" Hermione shouted angrily.
"Do you want me to come back later?" A dishevelled head said, peeping in nervously.
"No, sorry, it's fine." Hermione said, lowering her voice and sitting up. A thin witch carried a tray into the room and handed it to Hermione.
"Thanks." Hermione said, taking it from her. The witch scuttled back out of the room, taking furtive backwards glances as she left. Hermione placed the tray down on her bedside table and took a sip of coffee. She saw the note again, "An admirer," it didn't sound like something you would write for a joke.
She put her coffee mug down and picked the book up once more. With trembling hands she cracked the spine of the book, and the first thing she saw was the dedication page.
"This book is dedicated to my muse,
Long did I torment her! Long did I hide my true feelings for her, and long have I regretted every stupid action I took to cover up for my shallow guilt.
Hermione, I am sorry"
Hermione read the words with disbelief, could this book really have been written by the muggle-hating boy who had tried to make her school-life hell? She turned the page,
Chapter One
I was brought up in a large house by doting parents, my early childhood was privileged and the world seemed so black and white to me.
There were wizards and there were muggles, and I was taught to believe that wizards were strong and powerful and wise, and muggles... well they were the opposite; weak and ignorant and eager to wipe the wizards out. I believed my parent's teachings and grew up with a fierce prejudice against all non-magical people. I bullied the muggle children who lived near me and I felt justified in pointing out all of their short-comings.
It wasn't until the summer before I attended high school that my father explained to me about witches and wizards who had interbred with muggles, "They are the lowest of the low," My father began, "worse even than the muggles themselves. They are diluting their magic heritage and polluting the blood of subsequent generations. They are giving away our secrets to the muggles and putting our whole way of life in jeopardy. It is our duty as pure-blood wizards to root these mud-bloods out of society and cast them back into the non-magical community where they belong."
My father's rhetoric ran deep within me, and my hatred for muggles and muggle-borns grew into a passionate and destructive force."
"That explains a lot." Hermione thought and she took a piece of toast from the tray and nibbled at it as she read through the book quickly and with great interest. Hermione read all about Draco's first two years at Hogwarts, how he had despised having to go to school with mud-bloods, and how his great jealousy for Harry Potter ate him up inside, twisting his already unhealthy belief system into a dangerous obsession. It wasn't until chapter five that her name had really appeared.
"Nobody asked for your opinion, you filthy little mudblood!" I spat at Hermione. I saw instantly that I had caused her pain, and at first I revelled in that knowledge, but as the year wore on my words began to torment me. I lay awake at night, that hurt look in her clever brown eyes haunted my dreams, and I hated myself for feeling this unwanted compassion. After all I hated her didn't I?"
Hermione read the passage several times before the words had actually sunk in, all this time she had just presumed that Draco was an evil uncaring boy from her past.
His frankness and brave honesty had shaken her and Hermione felt shallow and ill at ease with her own superficial judgements of him.