Dear Granger,
Who in Merlin's name is this bloody git named Cinderella?
Hermione was scribbling away on her notes, sitting on a chair beside the window. She was wearing a horrendous yellow sweater and a long brown skirt that reached below her knees and she was wearing olive green socks. Would it kill her to show just a little bit of leg? Just a flash of style?
Just to justify why his eyes always seemed to find their way back to the same bushy set of hair and the stubborn, defiant brown eyes.
She's too simple. Too plain. Too drab. Not one bit unique.
Yet here he is in his free time after lunch on a particularly gray Saturday afternoon perfectly swell on sitting two tables away, one bookshelf apart- a distance that he deemed proper- from the window seat that she occupied. It seemed like a good idea, just sitting and watching Hermione's common Muggle ways.
In fact he chose this particular time because he knows Crabbe and Goyle will be taking their afternoon nap and Saint Potter and Weasel are not in talking terms with Hermione because rumor has it that she's turning into a crank because she's taking more classes than anyone. The whole curriculum apparently.
You and your mad muggle tales. This is madness. A commoner- an orphan peasant just breaking the ranks and marrying a royal. Happily ever after? A bloody scandal more like. This is preposterous! No wonder your kind are rebellious, you have been taught to be social climbing aberrations upon childhood.
Rule breakers, you lot.
Draco nursed his arm and acted like he just winced from pain while writing even though there is no audience. Just empty, shabby looking chairs and tables (compared to the ones in Malfoy Manor) and ancient books on dusty, moldy bookshelves. He had his unbroken arm on a sling, the wound inflicted by that blasted hippogriff had healed last week but he enjoyed stomping around like a tragic war casualty. He enjoyed being fawned over by the Slytherin girls.
If only there was one more female to join the fawning...
His gray eyes travelled all the way to the corner of the library again, the piles of books around the fluffy maned, basic dressed excuse for a girl. The piles of books are so tall that she had settled them on a seat (that Draco was tempted at first to take) in front of her. While floating notes and journals surrounded her, flipping their pages by themselves. She yawned slightly as a breeze entered the room but she still didn't close the window. Gryffindors and their love of the light. There was no sun for Merlin's sakes!
Draco shook his head at how ridiculous she is.
Outrageous.
Hopeless.
For a moment he was enchanted by how the ink danced all over the page of the muggle fairytale book that he nicked from a Slytherin half-blood taking Muggle Studies. The book is conjuring a sketch of a girl in rags and then with a whirl the rags turned into the most bourgeois looking dress. He sneered as the ink danced over and over again, magic is simply not that simple. There are no fairy godmothers to save your skin in the last minute and a kiss won't change your fate.
It started raining hard.
It was as if the clouds just suddenly let fall their burden. Draco's eyes instantly latched on Granger. She was out cold, mass of curls spilled all over her journals and if he didn't run up to her this instant and closed the window, she and a weeks worth of homework would be soaked and ruined. Without hesitation he ran up and closed it, it was heavy and it required two arms to pull it back. He forgot that his arm was in a sling on purpose. He let out a sigh of relief when the window finally closed on its own accord. The rain continued tapping on the window.
Hermione's face has become quite pale, he observed, with bluish puffy bags under her eyes. The previous summer's tan has faded away and her skin was cream once again. It looked so smooth, freckles placed like stars across her nose and cheeks. Draco knows that he has to move away now, can't- shouldn't stand in the same space with a mudblood too long or he might catch a disease. A disease of the mind.
Might as well be because his heart is beating a like a jack rabbit being chased for dinner.
The rain continued.
There was no one else in the room except for Madam Pince in the counter.
No one would know if he lingered.
Granger, do you believe in true love's kiss?
His eyes asked her sleeping face. Will it be really enough to break curses and revive sleeping princesses? Remove all the thorns from a castle? Even slay a dragon?
The floating books above her head seemed to voice their disapproval as their pages continued to rustle, turning by themselves. He glanced at them before he walked closer. His face just a palm away from hers. She smelled of books, tea and something he hasn't smelled before. Something sweet... Something he wanted more off.
One of the books fell from midair. The thud echoed throughout the whole library.
Draco stepped away. Any look of fondness gone from his face, he made sure of that as he sneered down at her. "Bit off more than you can chew, Granger?"
"Go mind your own business, Malfoy," she blinked away the sleep from her eyes. She was still groggy from her short nap but she didn't want to let it show. Not to him. Clearly not to him. Never vulnerable around him. Always on her guard around him.
And the thought made his guts lurch.
She looked at his arm on the sling, "Or rather have your friends mind them because apparently you're still irreparably damaged from trying to harass innocent animals." Her voice was laced with heavy sarcasm.
"But he was horrendous!" Draco was shocked at how his voice sounded like he was whining. Like he was telling it to her so she can say something comforting to him.
For a moment the look in her eyes turned soft. "He's an animal, Draco." It was the same voice that shouted that he should be brought to the hospital immediately even though she knows what he's about to pull off. But much gentler. "We were in his space. You were given specific instructions-"
"And I don't answer to anyone," Draco snapped back. But in his mind's eye he can see all the people that will eventually boss him around all his life- beginning with his father. "Surely not to that witless oaf."
Hermione's glare pierced him, her temperament changed as soon as he spat venom,"You'll have what's coming to you, Malfoy! Letting people and an innocent creature suffer just for your entertainment and on a completely childish whim! Just because you're thoughtless, selfish, irresponsible and spoiled. You don't care about anyone but yourself!" Draco watched her with pursed lips as she spoke. Her eyes never left his face through the shadows cast by candlelight. She stood up, forehead only reaching his chin but he felt smaller than her. "Insult Hagrid in my presence again and I'm aiming for your face." Hermione walked out and took all the light with her. She didn't notice the closed window. The window he closed for her-- despite pretending to have a broken arm.
Draco didn't know exactly why but he felt more excited by the notion her aim on his face than threatened.
He went back to his table and continued writing the letter that will never be sent. This time in a much, much, much different vein.
Will you please tell me about the emperor and his new robes?
How can a man be so stupid? He knows the truth by staring at the mirror but thinks himself wrong just because everyone else around him says otherwise.
How can something posed to be funny end up being so tragic?
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I'd like to thank everyone for their continued support. I never dreamed that this will reach past 50 views! But here we are. I'm so happy! You are all so lovely. Butterbeer on me!
Song at the top is 'Cinderella' by Daughtry because ya know... I can't help it, you guys. Most of the songs are in Draco's POV and this song is just adorbs and it's either this or 'Emperor's New Clothes' by Panic! At the Disco but that's hella angsty. I swear, half the fun in writing this is the soundtrack, every single song is suddenly Dramione!
Picture is Hermione's outfit. Oh, and shameless plug! If any of you wants to have an outfit done- I'm your girl. :)
Dedicated to paigejunge for always being the first to vote! >.< Thank you!