I. Prey
Draco used to come to the café at the same time all week. Every day with a bouquet of flowers. He’d order coffee, sit by the window, and if the girl didn't come, he’d give flowers to the old woman standing behind the counter.
He didn’t succeed until the following Monday. The girl accepted the bouquet, thanked him politely, and considered the matter closed. However, that wasn’t enough for him. For he saw that the girl didn’t believe him. That she considered the gesture to be superficial, and still sees him as rude boor.
The next week, he found out why he hadn't seen her in a café at ten o'clock in the morning before. Day after day, she sat passionately in the library. She alternately read books and took notes. She highlighted important fragments with colorful felt-tip pens. However, she never wrote directly on books. Even with a pencil. She was neat and organized.
And he spent more time in the library than he really needed. However, he couldn’t deny himself the sight of her. In her preppy dresses, pearl earrings and headbands. She always had some kind of ornament in her hair. A ribbon, a scarf, a hairpin. He noticed that she cares about aesthetics. She romanticized life. She romanticized the studies, that will soon crumple and spit her out. The sweetest little girl.
However, he noticed something else. This everlasting feeling of nervousness and tension. Her rapid breathing, on verge of hyperventilation sometimes, especially in the evening. Closer to deadline, he guessed. This cute tic with her lower lip, not so cute now, that he know it was the worry creeping out. Telltale signs of anxiety.
Which was good. Because he just happened to know the remedy. How to take the edge off. How to make her calm. She needed reassurance, stability, and lead. Someone, who’d think for her, when it all felt like too much. Like she’s gonna break and collapse under this overpowering panic. Someone, who’d make difficult decisions for her.
He could be that for her. He wanted to be that for her. He wanted to be the one, whom she could trust. To whom she’d always come first with anything, good or bad. Someone, who’d make her content and relaxed. He was good at it. Like it was ingrained. The part of him that, he tried to get rid of, but never could. So he finally succumbed to it. Embraced it. And never ever felt sorry or wrong for it again.
Therefore, when the first opportunity appeared, he shot his shot. Second-guessing was never in his nature. He walked over to her desk, where she was hiding behind a wall of books. She saw him coming, but until the last moment she pretended not to. He placed a beautifully wrapped black box in front of her. Montblanc Meisterstuck in shades of black and gold hidden inside. A thoughtful gift, he told himself. He managed to notice, that she preferred gold to silver. He though it was flattering on her skin and hair.
"I’d like to apologize," he said in low tone.
"You've already apologized.”
"Not enough.”
"You know forgiveness can't be bought, right?" In spite of her words, she reached for the box anyway.
Good sign.
He smiled, as if he thought exactly opposite. As if he had done it more than once. As if it worked more than once. She saw it, and immediately understood this look.
"I don't want to buy it. I want to earn it.”
"I'm all ears then," she replied, leaning against the back of the chair, while folding her arms over her chest. Present forgotten.
"Let me prove that I'm actually polite and charming. My mother’d have been so broken, knowing that some young lady thought so poorly of me.”
She opened her mouth, but closed it immediately.
"What's your name, again?"
This put him off his stroke. How could he have forgotten about it?
"Malfoy. Draco Malfoy,” he had learned a long time ago to start with a surname, when introducing himself.
His surname meant something. It opened the door. It announced his status. It placed him above others.
She opened her mouth again. She closed it again.
"Nope. This won’t do. I need the middle name.”
"Really?" He grimaced.
She nodded her head, and a shadow of a sweet smile danced on her lips. He wanted to worship it to the end of time.
"Lucius.”
She straightened up, put her hand on her chest and cleared her throat.
"Draco Lucius Malfoy, how dare you treat a young lady like this? That's not how I raised you," she said in a surprisingly successful imitation of his mother.
"Something between the lines, yes," he smiled at his memories.
"You have no idea how many times I've heard Hermione Jean Granger," she replied knowingly.
That was the closest thing to a normal conversation they had.
"After your performance from two weeks ago, I think I might have,” he smirked.
"If that's a part of proving you're a charming man, then you're not doing very well.”
“The school throws a banquet for sponsors. As it happens, my family has been a generous donor for generations.”
"Of course it is.”
"It's usually about mediocre food, pretty bad music, and buttering sponsors up, so that the school gets substantial checks for research.”
“Sounds charming.”
“It is therefore possible to make many beneficial acquaintances,” for years he has seen life in this way. Subsequent events treated with a cool calculation. Steps taken to be even higher. Greater. It was all about money, power and glory. “What are you actually studying, Hermione?”
“English language and literature.”
"I assure you that the entire English Department will be there. Do you have this x factor, that’ll make you stand out?” He challenged her. In her eyes, he saw an inner struggle. The feeling of not being enough, The starvation for more. She weighed his every word. "So, Hermione Jean Granger, would you like to go to the banquet with me?"
"I would like to say with pleasure. But I cannot lie. My mom raised me better than that,” she felt a quick sting of satisfaction, when his expression fell. He didn’t expect a refusal. The girl began to gain the conviction, that in his life, he wasn’t used to refusal at all. "So, Draco Lucius Malfoy, it is with great pleasure, that I want to see, that you are a decent man. Take me to the banquet and prove me wrong.”