Sunday, 11 April 1999
She was ridiculously nervous.
Only ten more minutes until she would see Draco again, and she had no idea what would happen. She had no idea what his Easter holidays had been like, or if he had thought about her at all. She was a little scared that she might have been incredibly naive to open herself up to something that, statistically speaking, had no chance of being even remotely realistic. It was so unlike her to have ended up in a situation like this. Hermione simply couldn't help the gnawing feeling of doubt in her stomach. Logic was not something she could depend on. Not with this. And she hated not being able to be logical.
Ginny and Luna had discontinued their attempts to put her mind at ease a while ago, quickly realising that this wasn't something they could help her with. They had left her to her own devices, instead discussing their holidays and catching up on each other's news.
Hermione glanced down at her wristwatch. Just a few minutes left until the prefects' meeting would begin. It was time to head to the compartment at the front of the train. She rose from her seat, grabbed her robe from the overhead luggage rack and announced her departure to her friends.
After shutting the compartment door behind her, Hermione took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then, she slipped her arms through the sleeves of her robe and made her way down the corridor. She warmly exchanged greetings with several of her fellow students. Before long, she stood in front of the prefects' compartment, a little annoyed with herself for how much she dreaded going in.
Taking one more deep breath, she forced her worries to the back of her mind and slid open the door.
The compartment was already packed with prefects, chatting amongst each other while they waited for the meeting to begin. Draco Malfoy sat in the corner, scribbling away some notes. As the door closed behind her, he glanced up at her and slowly put down his quill.
"Hello everyone," Hermione greeted the students with a smile before finally turning to him. "Hello, Malfoy."
He slightly raised the corner of his mouth in a half-smile. "Granger."
The prefects' meeting was short and efficient, and within fifteen minutes, everyone was assigned their responsibilities. They quickly vacated the compartment one by one until only the two of them were left. Draco closed the door after the last prefect and slowly turned back around after pulling the curtain down to allow them some privacy. He said down in the seat across from her, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
"Hello."
"Hi," she returned, suddenly feeling a little shy. "How were your holidays?"
Draco remained silent, openly studying her. His grey eyes were guarded, serious. He seemed to be carefully considering his answer, and Hermione couldn't help but hold her breath as she waited for him to speak.
"It was challenging," he finally murmured.
That was not the answer Hermione had expected, and it caught her a little off guard that he was willing to be vulnerable with her, even if it wasn't the first time. She had seen this side of him before—fairly recently, too—but it was all still so new and unfamiliar.
"What happened?"
Draco averted his eyes and let out a sigh. "Apparently, I have changed." He slowly straightened up, rolled his neck and sat back against the backrest of his seat before meeting her eyes again. "Apparently, the views of my parents and friends are no longer mine, and now I feel like I no longer belong where I used to be comfortable. It's unpleasant. And lonely."
His continued vulnerability struck her deeply, and for a moment, Hermione averted her eyes to try to swallow away the lump she felt in her throat. She knew it wasn't easy for him to share this with her, and once again, she had to force herself to keep her well-meant comments to herself. During their date in Hogsmeade, she finally fully realised she had no idea if things would get better for him. She genuinely hoped so, but the simple truth was that she really didn't know. She was wholly unfamiliar with his world.
"I'm sorry," she murmured as she found his eyes again.
Draco frowned, seemingly confused by her response. "I didn't tell you to make you apologise," he said softly, and then one of the corners of his mouth raised in a wry smile. "Though I have considered blaming you. But… I don't."
His words washed over her, leaving behind a warm feeling in her chest, and she exhaled an almost-laugh as she briefly averted her eyes again. This was the boy who had looked down on her for so many years. Who had bullied her friends, taunted her, and had been an overall unpleasant person for as long as she could remember. The boy who had misused his privileges, and had always shifted every blame on someone else.
It was hard to imagine now that this was the same person she had so utterly despised for all these years.
They sat in silence for a while. The landscape outside rapidly passed by as raindrops trickled down the windows. On the other side of the door, the sounds of their fellow students laughing and chatting sounded muffled, and somehow very far away. Hermione wrung her hands together, her nerves once again catching up with her.
"Did you… tell anyone?" she finally forced herself to ask. The words came out softer and more unsure than she had planned, but she forced herself to meet his eyes again. She had to know if she was being naive.
Draco lifted his chin ever so slightly. "Did you?"
Hermione thought back to her conversations with Harry and Ron last week. Though Harry had presented a surprisingly supportive front, Ron had kept his distance from her after their talk. While he had repeatedly tried to assure her that he was going to be okay, she couldn't quite shake the feeling that things were never going to be the same between them. She had expected him to not take it well, but somehow that had not prepared her for the pain she felt, knowing that she might have lost one of her dearest friends.
"I did," she finally murmured, vaguely aware of the change in Draco's eyes. She knew he could read off her expression that it hadn't gone as well as she had hoped, but to his credit, he tried to keep his face composed.
He seemed to hesitate for just a moment, but then he moved his hands to his thighs and pushed himself up from the seat, moving across the compartment to take the seat next to her. Hermione glanced sideways as he sat down. He found her eyes again, and she could see the tension in his shoulders. He moved his arm—slowly, hesitantly—and finally put his hand down on her knee.
"I told Pansy."
Parkinson's name was expected to come up at some point, but Hermione was surprised by the physical response she felt in her stomach. She mentally reprimanded herself. Parkinson was as important to Draco as Harry and Ron were to her, and it was unreasonable to expect Draco to put aside his deep dislike of them if she couldn't do the same with Parkinson.
"How did that go?" she forced herself to ask.
Draco inhaled sharply. She felt a brief pressure on her knee, as if his hand had tried to form a fist of its own accord.
"I have had more pleasant conversations."
He was evading. Hermione kept silent, trying not to push him to keep talking, even though she was incredibly anxious to know what the conversation had been like. She wanted to know what he had told Parkinson, and how she had responded.
"She is worried," he then said quietly. "She thinks I've changed too much, and that it will alienate me from everyone around me."
Hermione carefully reached out and touched the hand on her knee to see if he would be receptive to her. Draco briefly found her eyes and raised the corner of his mouth in a regretful manner.
"Are you worried?" she asked quietly.
Without looking at her, Draco let out a sigh. "Everything feels both right and wrong to me right now. I don't know what to trust. Or how to feel."
She gave his hand a squeeze. "I feel the same way," she admitted softly. "Right now I feel like this is okay, but when I think about the bigger picture…"
"Everything becomes far more complicated," Draco muttered, finishing her sentence.
He pulled his hand out from underneath hers. Hermione couldn't suppress the heaviness that she immediately felt in her stomach, but then he placed his hand on top of hers, and the heaviness fluttered into a lightness. She glanced up to find him watching her, his eyes once again guarded.
They stared at each other in silence for a while. Complicated. That was one way of describing their current situation, but Hermione felt that those worries were already moving to the back of her mind. Right now, all she could do was admit to herself that she was happy to see him again, even if she still couldn't completely dismiss the strangeness of it all.
He had told someone about them. It didn't make any of this any easier, but it did eliminate some of the fears that she was being naive about the developments between them. It solidified that Draco was really trying, even outside of the safe confines of the school. It wasn't just an act. He really was changing.
Suddenly overcome with gratitude that Draco actually seemed to be true to his developments, Hermione impulsively pulled back her hand and turned towards him. She registered the change in his eyes, recognising what she had felt moments earlier when he had done the same, but when she lightly placed her hand on his chest, the look in his eyes changed again.
There was a little bewilderment, but when her hand slowly travelled up to the back of his neck it was replaced with the softness she had quickly come to appreciate. Once again he seemed a completely different person. A person she might like.
Hermione leaned in and softly pressed her lips on his, closing her eyes. She felt his hand on the back of her head, slowly stroking her hair as they kissed for the first time since their Hogsmeade date.
The kiss was slow, light and sweet, without any urgency, and eliminated any and all thoughts from her mind. Right now, there were no worries. She was just a girl, and he was just a boy, and what they were doing right now felt right, even if it wasn't. It just wasn't important right now.
When Hermione began to pull back from him, the hand on the back of her head slid down to her neck, immediately pulling her back in for a much more forceful kiss that quickly grew more heated. She grabbed onto his robes to pull him closer. Draco's other hand landed a little past her knee, squeezing her lower thigh and making her gasp into his mouth.
Becoming increasingly aware of her hammering heart, Hermione broke the kiss and rested her forehead against his, trying to catch her breath. The hand on her leg had moved back to her knee, the one on the back of her head once again stroking her hair. She let out a sigh and slid her arms around Draco's waist, and he leaned into her as they both came down from their high.
"That doesn't make anything any less complicated," Draco eventually murmured into her hair.
Hermione slowly pulled back from him and leaned sideways against the backrest of her seat to be able to look at him. Draco's face was a little flushed, but his eyes were once again serious.
He was right. It was easy to pretend they were in a vacuum, and that nothing else mattered, but that was not how real life worked.
"I'm sorry."
Draco raised an eyebrow. "You should stop apologising so much. People will think you're a Hufflepuff."
It was her turn to raise her eyebrows, though she couldn't quite fight back a smile, which he briefly returned.
"I already told you, I don't blame you." He shrugged. "It would certainly be easier, but…" There was an uncertainty in his eyes as he glanced away. "You told me to consider the kind of life I want." The volume of his voice had dropped considerably. "And while it would be easiest if everything just went back to the way it was, when I was talking to Pansy during the holidays, I realised that's not what I want anymore."
Draco grimaced and then found her eyes again. "I don't yet know what I want, Granger, but…" He briefly hesitated. "But being around you feels good," he finished quietly.
Hermione reached out to take his hand. He looked down as she did and slowly interlaced their fingers before finding her eyes again. She gave him a smile.
"So what do you want to do?" she asked.
He gave her hand a squeeze. "Continue what we started before the holidays." He smirked. "And see how long it takes before one of us murders the other."
Hermione immediately pulled her hand back from his and stared at him in mock-anger, but Draco's smirk just widened as he leaned in and grabbed the front of her robes, pulling her in for another kiss.
The door of the compartment slid open, and Hermione glanced up to see Ginny standing in the doorway. The redhead had her eyebrows raised and blinked her eyes, seemingly thoroughly taken aback.
"Wow. I don't think I was ready to witness this," she muttered after a short, stunned silence. "Um. We were just wondering what was taking you so long, Hermione. I guess we've answered that question…"
From behind Ginny's shoulder, Luna's face appeared as the blonde stood up on her tiptoes to see inside the compartment. "Oh, it looks like we've interrupted something," she remarked in her airy voice. "Hello Hermione, hello Malfoy."
Hermione felt a blush spread over her cheekbones, and she couldn't quite maintain eye contact with her friends. Even though Ginny and Luna had known for a while that something was going on between her and Draco, she wasn't quite ready for them to see them like this, either.
She glanced at Draco and was a little taken aback by the coldness in his eyes as his face had taken on the haughty mask she recognised all too well. He was clearly feeling very uncomfortable, and had defaulted into his old persona as he stared unseeing at the floor of the compartment.
"I'll join you in a minute," Hermione finally managed, glancing back up at Ginny and Luna.
Her friends accepted this answer with grace, and Ginny stepped back and slid the door closed behind them as they left. Hermione turned back to Draco just as he exhaled sharply from his nose. Though he had just been honest with her about how he was feeling, seeing him tensed up like this made her fully realise just how difficult of a position they were placing themselves in.
Hermione was unsure of what to do, and it bothered her that a part of her was afraid that Draco would snap at her if she said something or touched him. She knew that, while she herself was still struggling with their situation, his struggles were even worse. She didn't want to set him off, but she also didn't want to give in to her worries. It would be the coward's route, and she had no desire to feel that way again, after last week.
Just when she had regathered her wits and opened her mouth, Draco rose from his seat and turned to her, holding out his hand to pull her up as well. When she stood up next to him, he cleared his throat, never quite meeting her eyes.
"Best not to keep them waiting and worrying," he muttered, clearly struggling to remain composed. "I'll see you again once we've arrived in Hogsmeade." For a moment he seemed a little lost, but then he stepped towards the door and disappeared around the corner as soon as it slid open, without sparing her another glance.
Hermione brought her hand up to her chest, acknowledging the heavy feeling that had settled there as soon as Draco had left. She took a deep breath and followed him into the corridor of the train just in time to see him disappear into another compartment.
As she made her way back to the compartment she shared with Ginny and Luna, she couldn't quite swallow the disappointment that had formed a lump inside her throat. They had had such a mature conversation about all this before, and now she was once again left with a world of uncertainty.
Once she settled back down in her seat across from Ginny, her friend gave her a regretful smile. "I'm sorry if we spooked him," she muttered. "We saw that the prefects had returned quite a while ago, and we were worried you were taking so long to come back…"
"It's alright," Hermione said quietly. "I appreciate you looking out for me."
The compartment fell quiet for a little while, and then Luna reached out and rubbed her arm. "You two looked cosy. I may not know Malfoy well, but he seemed more at ease than I've ever seen him. You must be a good kisser."
Though Ginny groaned loudly, Hermione couldn't help but laugh at Luna's candid observation.
For the remainder of the journey back, the conversation was kept carefully light and casual, and Hermione had nearly forgotten her worries once the train slowed down as it pulled into Hogsmeade's station. Ginny and Luna kindly offered to take her luggage with them, and Hermione stepped out into the corridor to direct the prefects to their posts.
Once she had checked her half of the train for any students or luggage left behind, she exited the train behind Anthony and chatted with him about an upcoming Arithmancy essay as they made their way to the carriages.
She spotted Draco further ahead with the Slytherin prefects and sighed as she climbed inside a carriage with Anthony, Hannah and Demelza. She listened inattentively at their conversations as she stared out the window, watching as Hogwarts appeared ever closer.
Once they arrived on the school grounds, Hermione made her way over to Professor Flitwick, where Draco was already waiting for her. He stared at her as she moved closer, his face carefully composed into the neutral poker face she had gotten to know well in the past few months.
She followed him to the gates and waved her wand in unison with his as they magically sealed the entrance, and then walked quietly beside him as Professor Flitwick led them to the castle.
After a short walk, Hermione began to notice that Draco walked at a slower pace than usual, and she glanced up at him in confusion, only to find him already watching her. She matched his pace and caught herself holding her breath, realising he was doing this on purpose to create more space between them and Professor Flitwick.
"I apologise for leaving like that," he finally muttered, his discomfort clearly visible on his face. "This is going to take some time to get used to."
"I understand."
She really did. Though she hated it, she shared his discomfort regarding the situation, and while she wished he hadn't reverted so quickly, the realist in her reminded her that Draco came from a different world that was much harsher than hers.
They crossed the Entrance Hall and followed Professor Flitwick as he entered the Great Hall. Hermione shot Draco a last smile before turning towards the Gryffindor table, but a hand closed around her arm and gently pulled her back. She turned to face him as his other hand ran up her other arm, and for a short moment they simply stared at each other as Hermione waited for him to collect himself.
"I don't know if we're making a mistake with this," Draco eventually said, his voice low. His eyes bored into hers, and she could read a certain determination in his gaze. "But I suppose there is only one way to find out," he continued softly. "My friends know, and yours do as well. It's only a matter of time before word spreads."
Hermione felt her heartbeat pick up as Draco inched closer to her, his eyes never leaving hers. Surely he wasn't going to—
"So I'm deciding to commit to it, mistake or not," he concluded, and then he bowed his head and pressed his lips on hers in full view of the entire Great Hall.
Hermione's mind raced, though the voices were drowned out quickly once she closed her eyes and kissed him back. It was simply too late to give in to any rhyme or reason. This was happening. He was right: there was no turning back now. If he was committing, she had to, too.
After a few unbelievably long seconds, Draco broke their kiss and moved his head a little to the side. "If I don't make it through the night, it was a pleasure, Granger," he murmured in her ear. Then he straightened up to his full length, knowingly raised his eyebrows for a second and turned away, moving towards the Slytherin table and leaving her behind in utter disbelief.