Chapter 4
The next day was the first day of classes. It’s something Hermione always looked forward too. Particularly getting to meet her new professors and seeing what the new classes will hold. Being a sixth year, there weren’t many left she hadn’t already done exactly that, but every year there seemed to be a new DADA professor. She always used this to her advantage. If the last one didn’t like her. She could always make anew with the next. She had yet to exercise it and hoped not to but this year was looking dim in that department.
The common room was empty. Hermione had always been a morning person. As a child her parents always encouraged the habit and so it stuck. The silence in the darkness gave her peace, at night, when her mind was busy and when she couldn’t sleep. Her solution was to go downstairs and sit in front of the fire. Where she would usually fall asleep.
After sitting for a while, her stomach began to ache with hunger, so Hermione went down to the great hall. Only a few students fill the room.
On the other side of the room, Draco Malfoy noticed the curly haired girl walk through the door.
She sits down and pulls out a book, setting it aside, she piles the food onto her plate absentmindedly. She nearly misses her plate. Because it was too early in the morning or that she was too focused reading, he didn’t know.
That morning he was exceptionally resistant to the world. He was already used to waking up at Hogwarts. Being there gave him a sense of freedom he never had growing up.
When Draco was young, everything he did, everywhere he went was supervised. He only made friends with those his parents allowed. He knew it was only because they worried for him. With their past and newly loss of reputation was hard on the Malfoy's. So they tired their damnedest to stop it from spreading to their only son. He knew that they only wanted to protect him, but it was suffocating and Draco wanted freedom, badly.
So when, at age 11, he finally got what he wished in the form of going to school, he made the best of it.
One of the few friends he had made as a child was Theodore Nott. Their fathers thought it would be a good idea. Theo clearly agreed with them, as he hasn’t let Draco have a moment of peace sence the first moment they first met. Maybe he had been in the same situation as Draco. Because since that first day, Theo clung to his friend like a puppy that has never known its mother.
This was not an exaggeration. Yesterday morning. Draco woke up to one Theodore Nott, slumped over sideways at the end of his bed. Draco then promptly kicked him to the ground.
Theo didn’t wake up. He only grumbled disoriented then stayed still. He was later confused and he asked Draco why he woke up on the floor next his bed. Draco just shrugged and went on with his day.
Maybe that’s why Granger affected him this way. She didn’t have pure blood. She wasn’t raised into a good family, and Hermione Granger did not have class, not by his standards at least.
The Gryfinndorks got in trouble numerous times at Hogwarts. But they were never expelled, never put in detention nearly as much as was deserved. When Draco overheard them talk about their private life. It was only ever good things. Perhaps this was because there was no Dark Lord threatening to take away all that they love.
But for all he knew, Draco could be completely wrong. Everything he’s been taught his whole life was incorrect. Maybe that’s why his head filled with contempt as he stared at her from across the hall.
He did not waver in his dislike of her over the years, he just couldn’t hate her. In fact, Draco found himself feeling more and more guilty by the day, remembering the harsh words he said to her in his younger years. She still such a swot of course, bossy and annoying just as she had always been.
Hermione Granger is not someone he’s sure he’ll ever like.
But it’s possible, maybe, she might start to grow on him.