Chapter Twenty Four

Hermione read on;

Later that year I was enjoying an evil victory over the half-giant Hagrid. After making a complaint to my father about his Hippogriff's' justifiable attack on me, the ministry had ordered that the beast was to be put to death. In my warped little mind, this seemed like a just outcome for my humiliation. I, together with my moronic friends, watched and waited with sickening glee as the executioner arrived to take care of the beast.

As we stood there gloating, Potter, Weasley and Granger happened upon us. After an uncomfortable exchange Hermione caught me on the nose with a surprisingly strong right-hook, feeling surprised, humiliated and hurt I turned like the coward I was and ran.

Afterwards again I found that that little witch had taken up residence in my confused mind, her constant presence therein acted as my conscience and slowly I began to realise what a vile, loathsome person I really was.

But I couldn't act against everything I had been taught, and in the fourth year I tried to distance myself from Granger. The Tri-wizard Tournament was a great distraction and with Harry Potter exposed as a cheat, my jealousy for him had an easy outlet.

But try as I might, I never managed completely to shake her ever-constant presence from my mind, and my hatred of her was turning into something more disturbing. I lay in bed at night and whilst doing what young boys do in bed my mind always went back to her; her deep brown eyes, her delicate body, her intelligent mind. I was having a very real and deep relationship in my mind with a mud-blood girl who hated my guts, and I couldn't stand it. What the hell was wrong with me? Plenty of girls wanted to be with me, and I experimented with some of them, I dated Pansy Parkinson for over a year but I never really cared for her. I was just using her, trying to sort my head out and repress my nagging feelings for Granger. After the exposure of my father's involvements as a death eater and subsequent arrest, I suppressed my feeling s even more, I couldn't abandon my family and their teachings now.

Hermione felt a strange mixture of compassion and intrigue whilst reading about her school days from a completely different an alien point of view. She couldn't believe that Draco had harboured feelings for her all this time. She hadn't had any idea he even remotely liked her, let alone anything else.

"He was certainly accomplished in hiding his feelings," she thought, remembering all the horrible things he had said to her, and then a warmth ran through her as she remembered their time together the night before. "Could I ever actually get involved with Draco Malfoy?" She wondered. "He certainly seems to have changed," she thought, and then looking up imagining the two of them together, said, "just maybe..."

Hermione checked the time, "12.20," she thought, "I have about seven hours to make up my mind.

Hermione spent the afternoon engrossed in Draco's book, each new chapter offering her a new insight into the obviously misunderstood Malfoy. She learnt of his parents terrible mistreatment at the hands of Voldemort when Malfoy Manor was commandeered as headquarters for him and his death eaters. She discovered that Malfoy had been caught trying to poison Bellatrix after her attack on Hermione, and had spent a week as punishment, without food, in the cellar of his own home. She read about how the Malfoy's had denounced their allegiance to Voldemort, and had secretly planned to leave the country as soon as the opportunity arose, but before they had got the chance Voldemort had ordered the attack on Hogwarts and their fates were sealed.

He wrote about how the slytherin's had spoken about joining Voldemort after they were dismissed from the Great Hall on that fateful day and how Malfoy had talked them out of it, explaining in explicit detail all the evil things he had witnessed whilst in the presence of Voldemort. He told of how he and his parents had spent the two years afterwards in a detention centre set up to punish the death-eaters after Voldemorts demise.

Father was a changed man, he didn't need any of their patronising rehabilitation, he had made up his mind, long before they had intervened. It was difficult for him to explain to mu mother and me that he had been a fool, that his teachings were wrong and that he knew he had been a terrible husband and father. But he hadn't, he had been brainwashed by his father before him and was as much a victim of his upbringing as I was. I held no anger for him, and after our sentence was over, my parents made their move to America where they started a new life, but I chose to stay behind. I had a lot of things to put right, and I needed to make amends with the spiteful, cowardly little boy I had been.