Chapter 8
Chapter 8:
Draco thought he heard wrong, but apparently he’d had his head buried in the sand, because her definitely heard right, Hermione Granger, that’s who they were talking about, potions master at…..Hogwarts. She was here, how the hell did he miss for two straight weeks?
Surely, he would have noticed that frizzy head of hair or the snotty voice of hers. All he kept coming back to was, how the hell did he miss her for two weeks in the same place? And more importantly, who else was teaching here? Wasn’t the Longbottom kid a professor here? Seriously, how oblivious could he be?
He knew one person who would definitely know all the latest gossip, so he Oweled her right away. Pansy was a lot of bad things, but a friend wasn’t one of them. She owled him back with haste and told him about not only how Hermione started the job a little over a few months before his arrival, but about the rest of the staff. He definitely didn’t need to know that the transfiguration teacher has a reputation for illicit affairs with all sorts of half-humans, nor did he have to learn the salacious details of the very public affair between the music professor and theater professors. But his curiosity was at least sated with knowing that no, the Longbottom kid wasn’t here anymore and that only Hermione was, accepting the post over multiple offers from the Minster of Magic among a dozen other organizations vying for her expertise. He was curious as to why she was here without her boyfriend, or at last, he heard fiancé, Ron the Weasle, but small blessing that he and Potter weren’t’ around, the insufferable gits.
He almost wrote back to Pansy asking after them, but then remembered the details of her first letter and thought better of it, he didn’t care anyway, why would he? The last time he saw Hermione was at his trial, and though his mother made sure he thanked her on his way out, he was full of rage and pain and humiliation to have meant it with any degree of sincerity.
A fleeting thought struck Draco, he should find a way to thank her truly, she did in fact change the course of his life and she was kinder to him than he would have been to her if the shoe was on the other foot. He had a lot to thank her for, but a lot more to be sorry for, like calling her slurs and making her life hell, but he was a dumb kid and an even more prideful one. Now he had no excuse, he was a grown man with regrets and fears, but definitely a more reasonable head on his shoulders and the lack of a nagging voice in the sound of his father egging him to be the worst version of himself. He’d find a way to make it up to her. But how?