A/n:

When I was writing Chapter 6 and looking back at the previous chapters, I realised Chapter 5 was not as interesting as I wanted it to be. I don't want to spoil any of my ideas but I promise it is essential. Chapter 6 should be better, as Hermione and Draco will finally meet again. This will also be the last chapter related to their Year 1 life.

On the other hand, I really appreciated your feedback. I do admit I was a bit rushed in trying to change Draco's attitude. However, I am trying to see it in a way that first-year Draco is just an 11-year-old, sort of a cocky, naive boy who constantly wants to impress his father. I might be taking the easier path but I feel like putting him in the spot earlier on is a more "natural" way of changing him. Young kids are generally easily influenced by their surroundings. He'll be facing more dilemmas once he grows up and gets stuck between his peers and parents, that's for sure. But either way, I'll try to make my story as convincing as possible.

Hope you enjoy it!

Hermione had been toying with her food ever since they sat down at the Great Hall. She didn't have the appetite. The two boys, on the other hand, didn't seem to be bothered a bit by what they were planning to do. Finally, they decided to calm her down when her heavy sighs became too much.

"Stop stabbing your food. You are making us nervous." Harry said impatiently.

"We should be nervous!" Her eyes widened with disbelief. "What we are doing could get us expelled!"

"Shut up Hermione!" Her emotions got the best of her and accidentally raised her voice. The trio anxiously looked around. Luckily, no one was paying attention to their conversation.

"It's not like we have another choice." Ron shrugged. "Charlie's friends must come at night to take Norbert away. They can't be seen."

"So do we!" She rolled her eyes with mockery.

"Everything is going to be fine. Harry is going to bring his cloak. We can just hide if anything happens. Right, Harry?"

"Umm, yeah," Harry recalled the night Professor Dumbledore spotted him in his cloak during Christmas. Apparently, the cloak became useless in the presence of a powerful wizard or witch. But he figured it was best to keep it a secret, at least for now.

Hermione couldn't help but notice the uncertainty in Harry's voice and she squinted at him to search for any slipup.

A shiver ran up his spine. He quickly defended himself, hoping she would look past his nervousness. "Hagrid will need us. You know how much he wants to keep Norbert. Besides, we can finally ask him about Nicolas Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone."

The three of them, mainly Hermione, had been researching the famous alchemist and his powerful creation for quite some time. It started when they overheard a conversation between Professor Snape and Professor Quirrell about the stone. They also noticed Professor Snape's leg was injured and believed that Professor Snape was trying to steal the stone but got bitten by Fluffy, the three-headed guard dog. They tried to find more information about the stone in the hopes of preventing it from falling into the wrong hands. Coincidentally, they suspect that Hagrid had the information they needed.

Harry had a point, and Hermione couldn't argue about that. They quickly finished their meals and waited for the night to come.

It was almost eleven at night when they finally sent Norbert off to Charlie's friends. It took them a while to comfort Hagrid and Hermione took the chance to manipulate Hagrid into spilling the secret protections used to guard the stone. Harry and Ron were both amazed and terrified at the same time by her quick thinking. With the information they needed, they said goodbye to Hagrid and hustled back to their dormitory as quickly as possible.

Everything went well until they bumped into a tall figure. They knew they were in trouble when they saw the anger in Professor McGonagall's eyes. She led them to her study and surprisingly, Draco was there as well. At first, they thought he was caught for the same reason. But judging by his mischievous smile, they knew instantly that he was the snitch.

"Nothing, I repeat, nothing gives a student the right to walk about at night." Professor McGonagall said with her arms crossed. "I expected more from all of you, especially Miss Granger. I am utterly disappointed with all of you. Therefore, as punishment for your actions, 50 points will be taken, from each of you."

The trio gasped in horror as they heard the news. 150 points taken meant they had put Gryffindor in last place.

"And to ensure it doesn't happen again, all four of you will receive detention."

The smirk from Draco's expression faded into confusion.

"Excuse me, Professor," he said while trying to get his head around. "Perhaps I heard you wrong. I thought you said the four of us."

"No, you heard me correctly, Mister Malfoy. As honourable as your intentions were, you, too, were out of bed after hours. You will join your classmates in detention."

The past few days had been miserable. Word travelled fast and soon all Gryffindors knew about the deduction of 150 points. Despite any efforts made in class to gain a few house points, Gryffindor was still placed last.

Soon they received a letter that notified them about the detention. The four of them were led by Filch and he kept terrorizing them on the way. Things seemed better when they finally met Hagrid at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

"Come here you four." Hagrid brought them closer to the Forest, with Fang staying close by. "See that silvery stuff on the ground? That's unicorn blood. Someone or something has been hunting these poor creatures. Found one dead last Wednesday. We are going to find the poor thing, hopefully, we can put it out of its misery."

"What if what hurt the unicorn found us first?" Ron asked, unable to contain his fear.

"There's nothing that lives in the forest that'll hurt you if you're with me or Fang," said Hagrid. "Right, we are going to split into two groups. Hermione will go with Draco, and Harry with Ron."

"What? I'm not going with her." Draco protested while giving her a side-eye. The arrangement for detention was terrible. As the name suggested, the Forbidden Forest was off-limits due to the dangers that lurked within. Yet they had to carry out such dangerous tasks on their own, not to mention they were only first-year students. Having Hermione as a partner just made things even worse.

"Besides, this is servant stuff. It's not for students to do. I thought we'd be copying lines or something. If my father knew I was doing this, he'd-"

"Quit whining. That's how it is at Hogwarts, and I won't risk you boys fighting with each other. Now, take Fang with you and get going."

Hermione and Draco unwillingly took the right path with Fang, while the other group took the left. Lucky for them, Fang seemed to know the assignment as he sniffed and followed the scent of the unicorn blood, and the two of them followed Fang in an awkward silence.

Draco had been murmuring under his breath about how inappropriate the punishment was. Hermione could feel the disgust in his protest. Judging by his quick pace, he didn't want to be near her. Recalling the troll incident and their last encounter during Quidditch, she couldn't help but wonder why Draco was willing to help her. She picked up her steps to catch up, took a deep breath and wished for the best.

"Thank you." She said, almost under her breath.

"What?" He frowned. Her voice was so soft that he thought he misheard her.

"Thank you, for saving me." She spoke up with all her courage. It took him a few seconds to understand what she was referring to.

"You mean Quidditch?"

Just when he thought he had put this behind him, Hermione brought it up again. After spending time in the potions classroom with Professor Snape, he finally had his head cleared. He was a Malfoy, with the purest blood running in his veins, unlike Hermione Granger, a muggle-born with filthy blood. Her existence disgusted him, and yet he was alone with her again, making him even more uncomfortable. He couldn't recall why he pushed her away, but he knew for sure it wasn't some heroic action, cause muggle-borns didn't deserve to be saved. He imagined what would happen if he stood and watched that day. The possible gruesomeness made him shiver. Perhaps that's why he pushed her away, to save himself from a dreadful scene.

"Let me be clear. I was saving MY life, not yours. You just happened to be in the way."

"But-" She tried to protest. He was drawing a line between them, telling her to stay away. What answer was she expecting? Probably the same as what came out of his lips. But hearing it out loud made her pitiful.

"There is no but," he said, cutting her off mid-sentence. He had had enough time dwelling on this matter on his own already, and he wasn't going to let anything or anyone make him question his decisions. Hoping she could drop the subject, he taunted her with a despicable tone. "Who do you think you are? A low-life muggle-born like you does not deserve to be saved. To be frank, I should've let that bloody Bludger piece through you, that will do the wizarding world a great favour."

His words had wiped away every ounce of gratefulness in her heart. Rage started building up and her blood boiled. "A low-life? Oh, I am so sorry for trying to be grateful. Here I thought despite all that blood-purity nonsense, you would somehow have a bit of humanity in you. Now I see who you truly are. For someone as cold-blooded as you, the low-life here should be you instead."

"How dare you call me that, you with your filthy blood. My father..." Draco was caught off guard by her firing words. No one had ever talked back to him like this.

"What? Are you going to tell your father about this as well? If that's the case, don't forget to mention how his brilliant son got beaten in school studies by a muggle-born, who by the way has only learnt magic for less than a year. Good luck with that." She stomped past him as he froze in disbelief.

The taunt definitely worked, but perhaps a bit too well. That was the first time he saw her get all mad and angry. He never thought she would have such fire in her. She was bossy as hell, and maybe a bit too confident, he would give her that much.

Standing in the chilling forest, all he could feel was anger, defencelessness, and above all, embarrassment. He just lost to a muggle-born. Not in a duel nor an exam, which he had to confess with dreadful shame that he would definitely lose as well, but in a bloody argument.

As the chilly wind ran through his robe and the oil lamp she carried became dimmer in the distance, he snapped back from his thoughts and caught up to the only light in the dark forest.

"Let's go!" Hermione picked her pace as she took out her wand. A red spark lit up the sky, meaning the other group was in trouble. Draco didn't protest. Finally, they both agreed on something as they stumbled across the forest, with Fang following close by.

The air became colder as they were getting closer to where the red spark fired. A sudden freezing breeze spread through the forest and the lamp completely went out. The whole place was pitch black to the point where they could barely see their own hands.

"Lumos," Hermione whispered softly and a dim light emerged at the tip of her wand. "I think you should cast it too."

"... Right." Draco nodded and did the same spell. He thought about complaining that she had no right to tell him what to do. But given the circumstances they were in, he decided it was better if he shut up.

He didn't want to admit that when the light went off, he was terrified. His instinct was to run away but he couldn't find the strength due to the complete darkness surrounding him. He was so frightened that he lost any memory regarding the wand-lighting charm. When her wand lit up, it calmed him. Despite his unwillingness to face the truth, he did feel safer when she did her little tricks.

Fang snuggled his way between the two, allowing them to hold onto his collar as they slowly walked through the woods.

The forest was in dreadful silence, with only the sounds of breaking twigs as they walked across until Fang's unexpected barks made them jump. Barks soon became aggressive growls, a sign of danger approaching.

From the musky mist, a ghostly figure emerged from the direction of the red spark. Shimmering silver liquid was dripping from its torn cape.

"That's unicorn blood!" Draco exclaimed. The excitement of finding what they had come for soon turned into the realization of the danger that lay ahead. The ghost snapped its neck, staring directly at them. In a split second, it started launching at the two students.

We are going to die, was the only thing that came to Draco's mind. Bloody Hogwarts had students killed with their punishment, that would be quite a headline.

"Close your eyes."

"What-" Hermione's voice brought Draco back to reality.

"LUMOS SOLEM!"

An intense blinding flash of sunlight ejected from her wand, successfully scared the ghostly figure away.

Fang's growling finally stopped and they found the courage to open their eyes again. The Forbidden Forest was still shining under the residual light of the spell. The culprit was long gone, leaving the two and Fang standing in the empty woods.

"Lumos Solem? How did you know that would work?" Draco asked, still recovering from the shock.

"I didn't, but I had to try something." She scanned the area to make sure the danger was really gone. She petted Fang to comfort him, as well as herself.

"When did you learn it?"

"Charms book from the library. Did some reading after Herbology." Hermione explained while casting Lumos again as the light started to fade.

But that's a seventh-year charm.

Filthy blood or not, Draco realized exactly how brilliant she actually was. He wanted to say something gnarly to taunt her but couldn't find the words. There was nothing against her. More importantly, she saved him.

Hasty footsteps and distant chattering were coming their way. The other group noticed the bright line and came rushing to their side. Before the group got too close to hear their conversation, Draco looked away from Hermione and murmured, with a bit of annoyance, "Thanks."

Hermione turned to look at him with a bit of surprise. She never expected any form of gratitude from him after their argument. She tried to keep cool and hide her smirk. "Nah, we are even."

A/n:

This is the end of the Year 1 storyline.

First of all, thank you for sticking around and I really appreciate your support. Your likes and follows have encouraged me to continue putting my imagination into words. I am writing this story with the sole purpose of satisfying my imagination. I share this with you because I think that a story is created for people to read and so I hope that someone out there in the world would like to read my little story as well. I am trying my best to improve my writing skills so thank you again for tolerating my poor writing. I am trying to reach out to a beta reader, which I believe not only a beta reader can help improve my story, but I can also learn more from the beta reader.

Secondly, I would like to briefly talk about my plan for the story. I know the pacing of a story is very important and it is also something I struggle with when I write, but there are a few things that I would like to address.

I enjoy both the movies and the books, so I am trying to bring the best of both worlds into my story. In my opinion, I prefer some of the characters' development more than the ones in the books. I also sometimes prefer some changes made by the movie over the original story because it will fit better for my story twists. So if you are only in for the book version, I am sorry this may not be the right story for you.

As for the change in Draco's attitude and belief, my take/view is quite different from what you see in movies/books. In the original, Draco didn't change until the war hit him. Nothing ever challenged him about his beliefs. They were tattooed on his soul and he stood by them very strongly throughout his entire teenage life. In my opinion, the burden of his family, the responsibility of being a Death Eater and the fear of death are the triggers for him to rethink his own beliefs. As for my story, I will work on him when he is still young. The reason for this is that in reality, young kids question the world more than adults do. They view the world by what they literally see. For Draco, he was used to living in the world his parents told him about and he never really saw the real world until he got admitted to Hogwarts. I doubted he had met a muggle-born before he went to school, especially when his father was a Death Eater. This means that all he knew about muggle-borns were words from his parents, not what he saw with his own eyes. So for him to meet someone like Hermione who violated his whole belief system is my way in. Of course, even if he had changed early on, it doesn't mean that he will face no struggles.

Lastly, I feel like defending myself. I am NOT a professor writer. I am just a fan who has imaginations and fantasies about the Harry Potter stories. I am not asking everyone to like my story cause I am just here to share what I wrote for my own entertainment. So if you don't a particular story, it's completely fine but please don't stop making mean comments. Those hateful words are the reason why many people stopped writing. If you don't like a story, just leave. (Don't be like Draco. He is an arse.) However, if you want to see the stories you like to improve, you can give suggestions politely and I am sure the authors will appreciate them.