Hermione had watched Draco from afar for a while, practically throughout her entirety of Hogwarts. She would watch him across the hall, as he laughed with his friends in green whilst she sat with her friends in red. Her mother always used to tell her: “Grass isn’t always greener on the other side.” But god, how Hermione wanted to feel the grass, see the grass, inhale the grass. She watched him as he stirred his tea discreetly with his finger, keeping an eye on McGonagall to make sure she didn’t catch him using magic outside of lessons, and in the Great Hall.
Hermione let her eyes wander as he got up and left, once he’d finished his tea, and noticed how his friends would wait a moment for him to leave alone, before they would also get up and follow him. She noticed that most recently, he wasn’t hanging around with Crabbe, or Goyle as much, and had chosen to have Pansy Parkinson, Theo Nott and Blaise Zabini as his posse. Hermione enjoyed that, they too, had their heads in books a lot of the time. She knew this because she knew their table in the library. It was opposite hers, which she was thankful for because she could take longer to drink Draco in, however she was sure they chose that table so that they could make fun of her heritage whenever they pleased.
Hermione watched him most in potions, because Draco’s face seemed to lose all sense of any superiority, there was no sneer, no snark, no snide remarks waiting to fall out of his lips, no. No, he looked like he was at home, he looked relaxed, almost.. serene, when he was brewing. Potions was her favourite place to watch him, and if he ever caught her staring, he never said anything, he never made fun, he never jeered at her, he would just.. continue. There were times, albeit a very minute amount of times, but there were times where he would catch her eyes and give a soft brief smile before he caught himself and put his eyes back to his work, but those smiles were what she thrived off.
The day that Draco spoke to her, she almost combusted instantaneously. He asked to borrow a quill, as his had just broke, and instead of quipping about “You’re a wizard, just mend it, Malfoy.” As she would’ve usually done, she went into her bag and handed him a quill from her newest pack, an expensive pack from Diagon Alley. He dipped his head in thanks and went back to writing his notes, and Hermione couldn’t help thinking about the soft tone of his voice and the sincerity in his eyes. She wouldn’t tell anyone about this interaction, because she would be ridiculed by Ron and Harry, who would’ve asked her why she didn’t hex him on the spot. “He’s a death eater, Hermione.” Harry would’ve insisted.
“You never let me borrow quills, ‘Mione.” Ron would’ve mumbled, looking down at his feet. He did that a lot, Hermione noticed, ever since Sirius died and Harry and Ginny made it official, Ron can never quite meet her eyes.
Watching Draco had slowly become an obsession, an addition, she had to watch him, she had to make sure she saw him at least once a day otherwise she’d go spare. She wasn’t sure what it was, why she was so attracted to his presence, she had no idea. All she knew was that the secret smiles he gave himself when he read, and the small chuckles he would allow himself to evoke when he heard two Hufflepuff third years telling each other animated Herbology stories; those were hers. Those were her little secrets, her pinpricks of information that kept Draco Malfoy human to her, a real human with thoughts and emotions - definitely not the Dark Lord’s puppet.
How they started speaking to each other is a mystery to everyone, even Hermione & Draco themselves. One day, he asked her a question, and then he just kept asking, and she kept answering. Then, he smiled at her. Not a sneer, not an eye roll, no sarcasm behind it. A real smile, a dimpled smile, where the corners of his mouth turned up and his eyes crinkled. Hermione was pretty sure her heart stopped that day when she realised the smile was directed at her. She had caught his eye across the Great Hall, during one of her observing moments, and at first, Draco cocked his head to the side, trying to decipher the intention behind her gaze, and then he smiled. A small smile to start with, just a quirk of the lips before he looked back at his mug, and then he looked back up, and saw her blink, still staring at him - so he smiled, a real smile, because it made him laugh. He chuckled before hiding his grin, and then gathered up his books from the table in front of him, patting Blaise on the head and walked out. He was not expecting Hermione to follow him.
“You just.. just.. smiled at me!” She gaped.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“You were staring at me.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to smile at me!”
“I didn’t realise there were laws about smiling anymore, I’ll make a note of that.” He grinned at her again, as her hair was starting to puff up and spark at the ends.
“Malfoy!” She growled through gritted teeth.
“Ooh, not very friendly.” He laughed, reminiscing back on the day he saw her and Weasley looking at the Shrieking Shack.
She opened and closed her mouth, and Draco had to bite his finger to stop himself from laughing more as she reminded him of a fish. He thought she was going to yell at him, call him a horrible name as he had done to her so many times before, but she didn’t. She unclenched her fists, and laughed along with him. Her laugh was a musical ballad that had played over and over in Draco’s head, and he never knew the source of it, until now. “Gods, your laugh is beautiful.” His mouth said before his head caught up, and he saw her eyes bulge out of her head comically.
“What?”
“Sorry.”
“Impulsive thought?”
“What in merlin’s name is one of those?”
“Oh. Well I suppose it’s like, if you’re holding a baby and your brain suddenly says: ‘drop it.’ Or if you’re about to place something on the oven top and your brain says: ‘Touch the rings.’”
“That has to be a muggle thing.”
“I suppose it is.”
“Muggles have lots of things, don’t they?” Merlin, his mouth really did not want to connect to his brain at that moment in time.
“Well.. I suppose we do.”
“Will you teach me about them?” Good godric, shut up Draco!
“I- what?”
“Muggle things. Will you teach me?”
“That’s what muggle studies is for.”
“Yes, taught by someone who is not a muggleborn.”
“I.. well.. I suppose I can. Yes.”
“You will?”
“If that’s what you want?”
“I do.” He nodded, his eyes shining.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Library, tomorrow? Come with a list of all the ‘muggle things’ you would like me to explain to you.”
“Okay.” First thing on his list would definitely be an oven top.
Draco and Hermione shortly became inseparable, much to their friends dismay. Well, Draco’s friends didn’t mind. Not much. They liked having intellectual debates, and Theo enjoyed learning about muggle movies just as much as Blaise did, and Pansy liked attempting to “fix” Hermione’s hair. Hermione just liked having her hair played with, in all honesty. Draco enjoyed the fact that his friends liked having Hermione around, unfortunately, it wasn’t the same on the other side. Harry and Ron despised it. Well, Harry didn’t very much like it, but he put up with it. Ron was the one who despised it. “Come on, ‘Mione, he’s a snake!”
“He’s fine, Ronald.”
“He’s too possessive over you!”
“That’s because you have a weird habit of touching me all the time.”
“We always touch each other.”
“No, you touch me, I just deal with it, there’s a difference.”
“Do you love him?” Ginny once asked, and Hermione spat out her pumpkin juice.
“Do I what!?”
“Do you love him?”
“Ginny-“
“Hermione, do not treat me as if I am 7 years old. I see you together, holding hands in the corridors, going back to his dorm, I will ask again: do. you. love. him?”
“I- we’ve never discussed it.”
“Discussed what?” Draco interrupted their conversation, placing a chaste kiss on Hermione’s cheek before settling next to them in the library.
“Nothing.” Hermione smiled.
“Discussing feelings about you.” Ginny said bluntly, eying Draco as he pulled an apple out of his bag.
“Feelings?” He asked around a mouthful. “About me?”
Hermione groaned and rolled her eyes, this was not something she wanted to discuss with Ginny and Draco both listening. “Yes, Ginny asked me if I loved you.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Do you? Love me, that is?” He stopped chewing and turned to face her, his eyes searching her face for something.
“That depends.”
“On?” His eyes had a glint of laughter, and she knew he was ready to fall into peaks of it.
“Whether you love me.”
Ginny was watching them with an open mouthed expression.
“Of course I do.” Draco took her hand and kissed it. “Have I not told you?”
“You’ve shown me.”
“Actions do speak louder than words.”
He’d shown her that he loved her in multiple ways, in the way that she would always have a steaming hot cup of tea in her spot at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, and if she had fallen asleep in the middle of writing an essay, she would always wake up to it completed in front of her. He’d shown her that he loved her when he allowed her to bring Crookshanks into the Slytherin common room when she was having a bad day and wanted to be surrounded by his friends, but didn’t want to leave Crookshanks alone with Ron. They had a history, you see. He’d shown her that he loved her when they were brewing Amortentia together, and when he would interlock their pinky fingers as they walked from one class to another. Hermione and Draco were both very intellectual people, they did not have to say “I love you” aloud for the other person to know that they felt that way. Hermione had thought that Draco was perfect in every single possible way- and he was, he was a perfect gentleman, just not for her.
They had started drifting, arguing, fighting over small things that could be fixed in a matter of seconds. Draco got tired of Ron hanging around, and he was always irritated at Hermione looking longingly at the flowers that Potter would leave the smaller weasel every Friday morning. He didn’t understand it, he knew that pureblood men used flowers to court their women, but Hermione was not a pureblood, she didn’t understand their traditions, she wouldn’t understand the significance. Draco thought it was a blessing in disguise when his mother approached him about Astoria Greengrass and the possibility of a meeting over afternoon tea, just to get to know the Greengrasses and their daughters. Of course, he already knew of Astoria through Daphne, a sweet young girl. He didn’t tell Hermione of this meeting, he didn’t think she needed to know.
A few more months passed by and he had started seeing Astoria along with his family on weekends in Hogsmeade, and he finally knew he had to end it with Hermione. Truly, he wasn’t sure if it would hurt him or not, as he had locked away all feelings that he had towards her when she had started to irritate him slightly. Now, when he looked at her, he just felt nothing, when before, he felt everything. She had cried, asked him if there was anything she could do to make him change his mind, if there was anything she did wrong to make him fall out of love with her, and usually, the sight of her crying would tear his heart into small pieces, but now he just felt a small ache. He had moved on long before he had come to terms with the end of the relationship, and this confirmed it.
“I’m sorry, Hermione.” He had said, before cupping her cheek and kissing her on the forehead, and then standing to leave. He pretended not to notice her crumple onto the floor into a wet sobbing heap as he left her dorm, feeling bitter at the fact he felt nothing towards the girl he had once felt everything for.
Summer came and went, and soon they were all going their separate ways to start their careers, and Hermione was still hurting. She was hurting for the boy she had loved, mourning the loss of his presence. Her mother had once said that you never truly realise what you had until you lose it, and Hermione had never heard words truer than that.
Hermione’s breaking point had hit when she had seen a photo of Draco Malfoy and his Fiancée, Astoria Greengrass outside of a restaurant in wizarding London, and he was handing her a bunch of flowers with a soft smile on his face, as Astoria caressed his back with delicacy. A dainty woman with a dainty action towards a hard man with a beautiful smile, and Hermione lost it. She spent a week storming the streets of Diagon Alley, just waiting for Draco to make an appearance, and once she did, she struck.
“So, she gets the flowers, right?” She screamed.
“Hermione, what?”
“The posts in the Daily Prophet are about her, right?”
“Hermione, I don’t-“
“A love that is perfect. A love I deserved. A love that I gave.”
Draco was dumbstruck. He hadn’t seen Hermione in a year, he hadn’t thought about her in 18 months, yet here she was, barrelling towards him with tears streaming down her face, striking him in the heart with her words.
“I got excuses, Draco, and you got to use this time to leave me in the dust with nothing but a broken heart whilst you just walked away.” She sobbed, standing in front of him with her fists clenched, her eyes wet. “But she got the flowers?”
“Hermione you don’t understand-“
“Do her eyes look better when they shine?” She deadpanned. “Do her lips taste sweeter than mine?” Her voice rose. “Does she look prettier when she cries?”
Draco had no idea what to do, his walls came tumbling down and suddenly she was screaming at his younger self who was too naive to see what was happening when it happened, but she didn’t stop.
“Was I just too hard to handle? Too emotionally unstable?” Her hands were grabbing at his shirt, her fists pounding against him. “You don’t want me, and I can’t change your mind!” She wept, her knees buckling under her just before Ginny came out of a store, looking frantically for her. Ginny pulled her up to her feet, cradling her as they walked, but Hermione turned back for one last glance. “But she got the flowers, right, Draco? She gets the flowers.”
Maybe Hermione’s mother was right, the grass might not always be greener on the other side, but when your name is Astoria Greengrass, no one will ever have to make the choice. It will always be you.