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She's 11
Bright eyed, bushy tail, desperate to make friends, Hermione agrees to help the geeky, clumsy kid named Neville find his toad (Trevor). She goes on knocking compartments asking them if they have seen it.
Right at the end she comes across a compartment where a blonde boy with a pointy chin and a smugness on his face is talking about something his father did to his group of friends. She knocks and asks them if they have seen Trevor and their eyes meet. They are a startling grey with blue flecks in it and Hermione's heart lurches, flapping its wings like a bird who has for the first time learnt it can fly. They reply in negative but she lingers staring at him until someone hisses her to stop blocking the path.
She doesn't know why he avoids eye contact when she is sorted in Gryffindor.
She's 12
It's the first time Hermione hears mudblood. She didn't knew what it meant then, it was just a retort being said by the blonde boy who she watches secretly in the library, watches him feverishly scribbling notes while the candle burns out.
She watches him now too while it spills past his lips, watches his face scrunch up as if he's tasted something bitter and ugly, watches his brows knit in remorse and regret and his eyes glitter with apology (Harry says the look was victorious). She watches it all smooth and blank away as he meets her eyes but even then she notices that his sneer is forced.
She writes mudblood in her journal later that night, circles it... someone once said if you say something again and again it lose it meanings...she hopes it applies to writing it too. It's just a word she thinks, a word with 8 letters and 2 syllables, she doesn't know why the ink gets smudged from the water leaking from her eyes. She doesn't know why she feels disappointment that He's the one who said it.
Years later, Hermione finds the journal while she's cleaning her room she finds a name written beside that word. The name is still smudged from tears of years before.
She lets her fingertips trace the name she also shares now; Malfoy
She's 13
Shes furious, impulsive and a little raw from all the insecurities that reopened like gushing wounds from all the fights with Harry and Ron. She doesn't even know what Drac-Malfoy says but she finds herself so close to him, closer shes ever been, punching his face. She hears cracks; of bones breaking and then twigs being stepped on as he runs away with his goons following.
Secretly, furtively she mourns that she hit his nose; it was an admirable, aquiline nose after all. She had memorized its shape after staring at his profile for hours lit only by a fire in the library
At dinner time, the same day, she meets his eyes deliberately so he can see the apology but also a hint of mockery glittering in her eyes. He stares at her for a long while after that until Crabbe nudges him to pass the apple pie.
Draco years later tells her that Theo had called it victory in her eyes.
She's 14
Hermione feels beautiful for the first time ever but not even under wand point would she admit out loud that she had wished for a different dance partner. Someone with grey eyes and a pointy chin.
The night is good excluding the parts where Ron ignores her while Harry sulks and stares at Cho. The night is good because she sees Draco glaring at Krum, side checking him, spilling punch on him deliberately. The night is good because when they are waltzing somehow a switch of partner occurs and she finds herself In Malfoy's arms. Both of them a little stunned, his arms immediately clasping her waist possessively.
They both are stiff at first, not meeting each other's eyes; she stares at his throat and wonders when he grew so tall while he stares at her hair and thinks he likes it better when it's natural, curly. But as the singers croon, their tension bleeds away until they sway effortlessly, finding a comfort in each other's arm they hadn't felt before, a comfort their young minds weren't quite able to comprehend.
Years later, Draco with slashes of pink on his cheek, still insists it was the punch that Blaise had spiked with vodka which made him press his fingers and trace the runes of beauty on her back. And she doesn't tell him that she spent many sleepless nights scouring through books trying to figure out what it was.
She's 15
Hermione finds a note in her bag, penned hurriedly, saying that their D.A meetings are being being supervised. There is no signature or name but she compares it to the writing in his transfiguration homework which McGonagall made her collect. She finds them quite similar.
She knows it's worry that knits his eyebrows when they get caught in Umbridge's office and he snaps at Pansy to stop holding her so tight. A strange devastation ripples across his face when she starts to pretend cry...she isn't the only one that notices that expression..Snape notices it too and he has to pay for it for years.
She's 17
Ron is dating Lavender. She's furious but not for the reason everyone thinks. She is angry because He has purple smudges beneath his eyes, because his cheekbones are more pronounced than ever, because Harry is convinced he's a death eater and she hates that idea. When they had crossed paths in Madam Malkins shop he had looked so exhausted it had terrfied her a little.
Hermione doesn't talk to Harry for a week after he curses Malfoy and she sneaks in the hospital wing while he sleeps to leave in the notes and work of all his classes. She also hides the fact that she had smelt notes of him in the Amortentia
They don't interact much that year they never did. Until the night of the attack ...
On that night, while going to the bathroom she bumps into him and he silently, graciously helps her gather up her fallen items (pureblood manners showing). She has only taken a few steps, juggling all her stuff, when he grabs her hand. His fingers are warm, closing all the way over her slim wrist; she glances up at him in astonishment finding their faces inches away and his grey eyes sparkling with words that never get the chance to form.
"Stay away...please"
he whispers desperately in her ear and marches forward without looking back. She's too stunned, bewildered to call out to him and ask what he meant. However, she doesnt have to wait long to understand what he meant. That night the world goes to hell, that night he lets in the Death Eaters and holds up a wand to kill one of the most powerful wizard. He doesn't end up killing Dumbledore but still ends up a murderer of his own soul.
She's 18
Writhing on his manor's floor as his crazed aunt tourtures her and unconsciously her eyes seek out his. She sees him take a step towards her, his fists clenched. She sees Narcissa brandish her wand towards her son and whisper a spell freezing him in his path, his eyes glazed but tormente. She closes her eyes and lets the pain take her away.
She's 22
Hermione is 22 now has a office of her own on floor 5 in Saint Mungos. She has heard rumours of ex Death Eater Draco Malfoy training as an Aurour (part of some kind of parole).
She sees him after years when he staggers in, half bleeding, leaning on a coworker, handsome as ever, eyes slightly wide in surprise as he takes her in. Deep slashes from a crazed hippogriff some criminal had let loose on them (she ironically thinks back to their 3rd year but doesn't bring it up).
He doesn't say a word while she's cleaning up his wounds but when she goes to wrap the bandages around his shoulder and chest he holds her wrist stilling it. Her pulls it back instantly, with a flinch, when he notices how she stiffens. He apologizes courteously, earnestly vulnerability lining each of his sentences. He tells her in a sincere voice staring at the opposite wall that he knows he doesn't deserve her forgiveness but he'll forever be grateful to earn it somehow. When she says nothing and continues to wrap the bandages (too overwhelmed) his eyes dull and shoulders droop. He fiddles with his hand while he swallows a lump in his throat and walks away.
Hermione doesn't expect to see Malfoy next day with a bouquet of primroses in his hands, cheeks pink. Embarrassed, he mumbles something about Narcissa forcing him to come and express his gratitude. Flustered, Hermione makes him sit this time across her and without meeting his gaze mutters how grateful she is that he apologized and had forgiven him ages ago.
"Then why won't you look at me?"
He asks softly, his thumb and forefinger takes hold of her chin until their eyes are forced to meet. Hermione has spent all her life scoffing at the line 'electricity passed between them' in romance books but right at that moment she feels a pleasant hum of magic intertwining between them. Maroon colour crawls up from her neck to her cheeks and Malfoy smirks.
From then on Malfoy visits her daily taking her out to lunch, waiting for her while she completes her shift... bringing home made food when she's too tired to go out.
It's precisely 6 months later when she'd gone to his house (he had bought his own apartment) to teach him how to bake lemon meringue pie. It's late; both of them are covered in flour and are drunk on the Rosè she brought.
Music is filling the house and he looks at her with giddy smile and says 'May I' extending his palm...she places her hand in it.
They both sway, flushed, drunk on something stronger than wine and he spins her a little too hard and she lands with an oof on his chest, his arms around her waist, her face turned towards his. He bends down one hand going up to her neck and kisses her. She pulls him closer twisting, kissing him back ferociously, until all his hesitation trickles away and he is tugging her jumper down exposing soft, caramel skin until they both land on his bed tangled, clothes strewn all over his floor.
In the morning Draco wakes up early but she's too warm to open her eyes. She hears him sigh in relief at her not leaving. She feels him press a kiss on her forehead and whisper 'I love you' on her skin. She's finally home she thinks.