Sparks Fly
September 19, 1996
He had been waiting for two hours now, nervously pacing in front of the brick fireplace in The Room, wringing his hands.
What if she hates it?
What if it’s all wrong?
He had been spiraling in this mindset for thirty minutes before she made her appearance.
She walked through the doors and her eyes searched the room before gold met silver. He felt his whole world stop when she looked at him, he always did. He always would.
“Happy birthday, Hermione,” he said breathlessly with a beaming face, grey eyes sparkling in the dim light.
“Thank you, Draco,” she said, a bright smile tugging at her lips as she walked further into the room, around the plush couch, and wrapped her arms around him. He picked her up and spun her around for good measure. When he set her back on her feet, Hermione pulled back to look up at him and Draco saw so much love shining in her eyes that he thought he could feel his heart actually stop beating. It took no effort to look at her the same way.
Draco and Hermione’s relationship –if you could have called it that– had a rocky start when they arrived at Hogwarts. He was his father’s son, after all. He called her names and thought poorly of her, and it wasn’t a secret.
It wasn’t until their second year, when he first called her that word and saw how badly it upset her that he realized that his actions had consequences. It made him question his beliefs, question everything he knew.
If this was the right way, then how could it hurt someone so badly?
He couldn’t stop thinking about it. It plagued his thoughts every minute of every day. He would always hear the older Slytherin boys talk about blood status, but the more he listened and paid attention, the less he agreed.
After laying awake in his four-poster in the boys’ dormitory, staring at the ceiling for hours, Draco vowed to himself that he would change and that he would do what he could to fix what he had likely broken.
He paid attention to Hermione after that. Not directly, but in passing. He observed her in The Great Hall when she was talking with Potter and Weasley. In classes when she was too focused on the lesson at hand to realize that he was staring.
Draco knew that Hermione was smart, basically a genius. That was no secret. But so was he.
He made small gestures of kindness at first. He left a book on their current class topic out for her in the library. He made sure her favorite table by the windows, with a perfect view of the Black Lake, was empty when she came to study or complete her homework.
In the middle of their third year, Draco got a little more bold in his self-imposed atonement. He would offer her a quill in class when she realized she didn’t have hers.
(She definitely left them in the library. Anyone who suggested that he had something to do with her missing quills could fuck right off, thank you very much.)
He would grab her potion ingredients from the storage closet for her when they had to partner up in class.
Hermione started to catch on, though. He knew she would, he was insane to think she wouldn’t.
Hermione started to sneak glances at him. She caught him staring, red-handed, on multiple occasions. In classes, during meals in the Great Hall, and when they passed each other in the hallway were just a few examples. She gave him questioning looks in return, but never said anything, and neither did he.
All Draco knew at this point was that when she caught him staring and he caught her staring, his heart started beating a little bit faster. Little did he know, hers did too.
He tried to push the idea of what this could mean out of his mind, but the second their eyes met he didn’t know if he wanted to. There was something about her that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
During their fourth year, though, Draco went to the Yule Ball just like all the other students. It wasn't until she walked into the Great Hall that he realized that he was waiting for Hermione to show up. Her periwinkle dress sparkled under the starlight-charmed ceiling and he admitted to himself that she looked so beautiful. Something changed for him that night, like a layer was peeled away and he saw her for the first time. He tried to ignore it but it was becoming harder and harder to not think about her.
Draco kept his atonement project up all through their third and fourth years, but her breaking point came in potions at the beginning of their fifth year.
Snape had both of them in the front of the class competing for house points by seeing who could make the perfect brew of Draught of Peace. They were neck in neck, and they both knew it.
He was still on his personal mission to make up for his actions during their first and second years, and then some, so Draco did what any sane person would do. He accidentally added a bit too much powdered moonstone and ruined his potion, making Hermione the winner and subsequently adding 50 points to Gryffindor’s house points tally.
She should have been happy about it, right?
Right?
He was sauntering down the hall on his way back to the Slytherin common room; he heard her before he saw her. Based on the way she was storming down the empty hallway behind him, the answer was a resounding no.
When she was close enough, Hermione reached out, grabbed his shoulder, and spun him so his back hit the wall, her forearm across his collarbone pinning him there. Draco looked into her honey eyes, finding nothing but anger and confusion and something else that he couldn’t quite place looking back at him.
“What are you doing, Malfoy? Why are you doing this? Is this another one of your tricks? Are you just playing the long game waiting for the perfect moment to hurt me again ?”
Her forearm was pushing harder into his collarbones. He kept calm and tried to keep his face impassive, but she saw right through him. He could feel it.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Granger.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” she said sarcastically as she huffed a laugh that swayed the platinum hair that fell over his eyebrows. Her perfectly unruly curls moved with the shake of her head.
“What is it that you want to hear?” He decided that he was tired of pretending and ignoring what he knew.
“That I’m sorry about how horrible I was to you when we met? That I hate myself for the way I treated you and the fact that I had actually believed what I said? That I have been doing what I can to make up for it for almost three years and maybe, just maybe, earn your friendship in the process?”
She slowly loosened her arm from across his chest, looking confused. He started to stand up straighter and her arm fell away. He was standing at his full height and she felt like she was shrinking before him. He was moving closer to her with each step she took back until she eventually ran into the wall on the other side of the hall, stopping suddenly.
His left hand came to rest on the wall next to her head and she could hear her heartbeat in her ears picking up pace by the second. He leaned closer to her and she couldn’t help but look down to his lips. He caught the movement. She looked back up to his eyes when he started speaking again, his voice nearly a whisper.
“Or do you want to hear that in my three years of watching you, I’ve developed a soft spot for the Golden Girl? That I can’t stop thinking about her, about you ?”
He tucked a stray curl behind her right ear.
“Do you know what you’ve done to me— what you still do to me, Granger?”
All Hermione could do was stare at him, confusion and awe written over her face, and they could both feel something like sparks flying. He was looking into her shining eyes, then shifted his focus down to her lips and started to pull away, giving up and shaking his head when she didn’t answer.
He was about to continue his walk back to the Slytherin common room when she grabbed his green and silver tie and pulled him to her, pressing a burning kiss to his lips. Draco couldn’t help but return it with more passion than he expected to feel. It was like something finally clicked into place for him.
Draco didn’t realize it until that moment, but he had been wanting to kiss Hermione Jean Granger for months now, badly. And it would seem that she felt the same way.
Their kiss had turned into a session. His free hand had found its way to her hair, the left still in place on the wall near her head. She still had her right hand on his tie, still trying to pull him closer, the other found its home on the side of his neck, in the place under his ear.
Footsteps and voices sounded from around the corner and they quickly jumped away from each other, lips swollen and cheeks flushed. His eyes searched hers for any sign of regret but found only wonder shining there. It felt like she was truly seeing him for the first time.
“I um- I need to get back to Gryffindor Tower,” she said nervously as she stepped out from the cage of his arms and took a few tentative backward steps down the hall, still facing him, as she smoothed her black pleated skirt and adjusted the collar of her white button up.
“Of course”, he said with only a twinge of disappointment.
She looked uncertain, like she wanted to say something else, before she turned on her heel and swiftly walked in the direction of Gryffindor Tower.
“I’ll see you again, Granger,” he called after her, hope and intent breaking through his voice.
She slowed her pace, but kept walking, and turned her head to face him, an optimistic and sure look on her face.
“I’m sure you will, Malfoy,” she said with a breathy laugh, a smirk pulling at the corners of her lips. Draco watched as she turned again and disappeared around the corner right as the group of Slytherins they had heard approaching made their appearance around the corner behind him.
And see her again he did.
It started as sneaking notes but quickly evolved to clandestine meetings in hidden alcoves on forgotten floors or moonlight picnics by the Black Lake. Once they found it, The Room of Requirement became their refuge. Hermione and Draco were able to be together without the risk of being caught. Hermione knew the prefects’ rounding schedule by heart.
This became their life for the rest of their fifth year and into their sixth.
How had he gotten so lucky?
This thought is what brought him back to the present.
“So tell me all about this birthday celebration the Gryffindors threw you,” he said as he pulled her onto the couch with him, gathering her against his chest, her soft cream cardigan soft on the palm of his hand. She laid her head right above his heart and laid her hand on his stomach.
“Better than I expected, honestly. But you know I would’ve rathered spend it here with you,” she said as she looked up at him through her dark lashes.
“I know, love, I know.” He hugged her tighter with both arms and she leaned further into him. He kissed the crown of her head and then rested his chin there.
It felt like everything was going wrong in their lives right now. They had fallen in love over the course of their fifth year and they both knew that they didn’t want to live life without the other.
But Draco’s family couldn’t stop themselves from getting caught in Voldemort’s web. Draco had been forced to take the Mark a few weeks ago, but Hermione was determined not to let that ruin them.
She knew who he was and who he could be in the right circumstances. But, she also saw what could happen if this all went badly.
And she still didn’t run. She said that they would ‘figure this out together’.
He had the same thought twice in ten minutes: how had he gotten so lucky?
She was it for him. He knew that. But he also knew that they would both be in danger if anyone found out about their relationship. Hermione was optimistic, or at least, she pretended to be. Draco could see in her eyes that she knew the danger just as well as he did.
That’s why neither put up much of a fight about waiting until 11:00 P.M., after curfew, to celebrate her birthday together. It was the first glimpse into the rest of their year; sneaking around more than usual, being more on guard, not seeing each other as much.
But this night was supposed to be happy, it was her seventeenth birthday. He wouldn’t ruin it with his what-ifs and endless spiraling.
They sat in comfortable silence for a while before he leaned his mouth closer to her ear and whispered, “I have something for you, my love.”
Hermione jerked her head up to look at him, confused. Draco only looked back at her with mischief glinting in his silver eyes.
“Draco, you didn’t need to get me anything. You already have enough on your plate right now, getting me birthday gifts should be the last thing on your priority list.”
He just let his head fall back on the cushions and loosed a breathy laugh then looked back at her concerned face. He meant it when he said, “Hermione Jean Granger, you will always be my top priority, whether you like it or not, dear.”
He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead.
“And besides, I got you a gift, singular. Don’t get too excited.” He grinned as he rose to his feet and walked to the wooden cabinet in the corner.
He paused before opening the doors and looked at her with a conspiratorial smile.
“Close your eyes.”
She rolled them before closing them and covering them with her hands. She heard him rustling around in the cabinet before he began to make his way back to her. He sat back down in his spot next to her and put the gift in her lap.
“Okay, now you can open them.”
Hermione removed her hands and opened her eyes to see the most beautiful aqua-blue guitar. Multiple hand-painted koi fish were swimming down the neck and around the sound hole. That was when she noticed the splotches of orange and white paint on his hands. Tears began to swim in her eyes.
She looked up at his nervous face with adoration in her golden eyes, a tear beginning to fall from her right eye.
Draco wiped it away gently before it could stream down her face.
“Don’t cry, love,” he said with an admiring smile. “I remember how upset you were when Umbridge confiscated and destroyed your guitar at the end of last year, so I wanted to get you a new one. I know music is special to you and how much you love singing and songwriting… even if you never let me hear you.” He finished his sentence with a soft laugh.
“Draco– I– I love it. Thank you.” She slung her arms around his neck. “You have no idea how much this means to me, Draco, honestly.”
“I heard that koi fish were supposed to represent luck, perseverance, and good fortune. Those things follow you everywhere, but I figured we could all use a little bit more sometimes. I also spelled it so that the paint will never fade or chip, so it can last. No matter what happens, I’ll always be with you, Hermione. Always.”
She tried to contain the tears that were starting to stream down her face and pulled back to look at him again and smile. He had put so much thought into this gift for her and she loved it so much that it brought her to tears.
He loved her so much that it almost brought him to tears, too.
Draco’s face turned mischievous, trying to keep his own tears from falling. “If you really want to show me how much you love it, you could always… oh I don’t know… maybe write me a song?” He said as a joke, leaning back against the couch cushions again and nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders.
Hermione just laughed as she set the guitar on the coffee table in front of them. She has before, but he just didn’t know it.
“Maybe I will,” she said with the same mischief dancing in her eyes and falling back into his chest again.
He laughed and pulled her into another embrace.
“I look forward to hearing it, love. Happy birthday, Hermione.”
She just looked up and into his silver eyes and pulled him into another kiss.