It is with utmost regret that I inform you that I will not be returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to repeat my seventh year. I have opted to availing the services of a tutor. But be informed that I will follow the same syllabus as the one within the walls.
Yours in good fortune,
Draco Lucius Malfoy
It had been a good reply letter. Yes. He's quite-- no, not just quite, not teetering around the edges-- absolutely sure about all this. This is definitely the way to go. No doubt, no second guesses. He put the letter in an envelope and sealed it, not forgetting to imprint the emerald green wax with the immaculate family seal.
The Head Boy pin caught the ray of sun against it's silver edges. It came with the letter. Ghastly thing to be honest, it will not match his new custom made cufflinks. He has been into platinum lately, silver has lost it's all too familiar luster.
...have been chosen as the new Head Boy. Wear this pin as a symbol of the responsibility that comes with it.
He closed his eyes and breathed, pretending that he hasn't read the letter over and over and not memorized it's contents. Who needs responsibilities? He can just stay at home and drink tea and eat crumpets in the afternoon and read his notes at leisure. He has had a long run with trouble, he definitely deserves it.
Definitely.
The Head Boy pin glinted towards him again, as if trying it's best to seduce him.
No. You're not going to pull me back there again. He played around with it on his open palm, feeling it's cold, smooth surface and letting himself get pricked by the needle beneath. You're not marvelous enough or particularly brilliant--
Brilliant.
That reminds him...
Of course, who else would be the new Head Girl? Hermione sodding Granger that's who.
Draco sneered like it has been the first time he had the inkling when in fact it had been there in the back of his mind constituting to his lack of sleep and lack of appetite-- best of luck with the crumpets and tarts now, mate-- ever since the bloody beginning. He had the very thought the moment he touched the Head Boy pin, like the Head Boy and Head Girl pins were connected somehow and she just touched hers and so he knew it was her. Who else is there anyway?
The very thought that he can't remember any other eligible girl in Hogwarts was alarming.
But why does he care? As of now, he's not a Hogwarts student anymore. Voldemort is dead as dead can be, everyone watched as he disintegrated in the air. Everything is back to normal whatever that maybe.
Or at least what everyone wanted it to be.
He remembered the way Hermione looked at the Weasel. Apparently not everything.
It's the most peculiar thing. Craving something that you've never had. Having a broken heart without even getting the chance to give it to the object of affection. Draco could always find a way to meet his ends but he was not sure if he wanted to. Maybe Hermione Granger does belong with someone who can make her happy and not just someone who drinks tea and eats crumpets to hide himself from shame.
But not the Weasel, definitely not him.
Much more Head Boy.
If that happens Draco would storm in the castle with enough tenacity and viciousness that Voldemort will be rolling in his grave saying 'why hadn't I thought of that?'.
More than once Draco was tempted to add a P.S. to the foot of the letter with his nomination slash recommendation for the new Head Boy. He'd rather it be Neville Longbottom to be honest. When Potter had gone questing and Hogwarts was seized by Voldemort, it was Longbottom that held the fort-- the bucktooth sack of corn has more than enough grit and leadership skills so it had to be him but Draco is no dreamer, he knows that's it's either Weasley or some random prat from Ravenclaw. He'd prefer the latter for very obvious reasons.
There was a flapping of sound by his window and a great gray wing emerged by his white curtains followed by sharp yellow eyes-- scrutinizing Draco's every move. "There you are," Draco walked towards Bubo Bubo, his eagle owl. The magnificent creature still has the leg of something on it's beak, it offered said rodent leg to Draco who wrinkled his nose. "Thanks, Bubo, but I'm afraid I'm not quite into liaisons with raw meat."
Draco let himself feel the softness of his pet's feathers. How nice must it be to be free? To just fly whenever he wants, for as long as he wants. But such is not the case. "Bubo, I need you to deliver a letter to Hogwarts..." His heart broke at the mention of the place he won't step foot on ever again. Well, as a student. Because sooner or later he'd be governor.
Bubo flew over to his desk and took a letter in his beak. Said letter was not in the Malfoy envelope, instead it was a simple parchment folded neatly, it could easily be any other letter that held nothing and held no meaning. No power to change his fate.
Too simple. Too drab. Not one bit unique.
Too much like the person to whom it was addressed to.
Draco petrified Bubo with wandless magic, a quick flick of hand caught the eagle owl mid-flight and caused it's body to fall back to the desk. He murmured an apology as he got the envelope less letter from his pet's beak to replace it with his letter to Hogwarts. Bubo watched him with unblinking wise eyes, as if his pet knows his unspoken distress. "I don't expect a reply. So god speed," he said as he lifted the spell.
Bubo dallied around the desk ruffling his beautiful gray and white feathers as if giving his master time. "Definitely defiantly sure. So, just do your job, will you? Or so help me I will put you in a cage for a week," he threatened but he didn't mean the words. Bubo is the only breathing creature that gave him comfort.
The eagle owl let out a loud, ear piercing squawk. Draco didn't wince at his pet's disapproval.
"Go," he pointed his wand at it in warning.
Bubo Bubo flew and Draco wished that it would still come back despite being reprimanded. He's afraid that perhaps he has spoiled the creature more than he intended, expressed the care that he was terrified of giving the people around him. Because despite everything, Draco Malfoy can care with all his heart, he's just terrified of the outcome of him giving a damn about certain people.
About certain exceptionally brilliant war heroes with bushy brown hair, twinkling amber eyes who dress like a basic prude who also happens to be the new Hogwarts Head Girl-- not that he'd know.
Well, he might have solid information that it is her, his mother said that Madam Malkin, the seamstress, told her about it. Everybody seemed to just know things about the heroes now. Pretty soon some suitable bachelor will just come and sweep her off her feet because that's how it is in storybooks and Muggle fairytales, right?
It won't be him.
He got the letter and walked to the fireplace. A small fire was burning, it was always burning, he never knew a day when there isn't a sodding decorative fire burning that doesn't even give warmth in his sodding room. Maybe it's wrong that he wants to read the letter once again, it's wrong that it has even been written in the first place. But maybe there are grammatical errors that he missed?
To Hermione Jean Granger,
My house and I would like to congratulate you on your new post as Head Girl of Hogwarts. Per se, I was named as Head Boy myself but I will not continue my education in Hogwarts. I highly appreciate the offer of said position and I know that if there is someone that you would like to share the prospect of governing with, it would have to be me. If asked to choose someone at knife's edge, I will choose you as well, given that there are no other choices available.
There never was.
I esteem you, Hermione Granger.
Hogwarts is lucky that it had you.
Perhaps it was the uncalled for war that occurred last year that brought me to thinking but first and foremost I would like to say that we got on the wrong foot. With your brains and my natural grace, you and I could easily have been friends, Hermione Granger. We could have been.
Friends and perhaps a whole lot more.
And for all the trouble I would also like to apologize. All my actions and all of it's consequences were brought upon by my own prejudice. I blame no one else for this. I am my own man and I am owning up to it.
But he isn't. As long as he has the name Malfoy to his name-- he is still expected to uphold certain family values and as a Slytherin uphold tradition above all else.
Hermione and him-- if it ever happened-- will cross all boundaries and break all the rules. It's not logical, maybe Hermione herself will not approve. The very thought of her rolling her eyes, arms crossed at her chest and chin jutting before saying all this was ridiculous made Draco's heart ache. It was all so ridiculous.
Heartbreak had never been funnier.
Yours in all possible future endeavors,
He hoped that didn't gave it away too badly that he wanted to be friends with her.
Draco
He didn't dare add his family name. Even though he is acting as head of the family now that his father is in Azakaban but what else is new?
It was supposed to be flawless. His grammar is more than perfect and his words more than substantial to convey what he thought. It had been formal, precise and straight to the point. But still so wrong.
He had no business with her. Not anymore.
It's not like his thing with her would have a place in his not so distant future.
I say you call it out, don't call it 'thing'-- they have a word for it, you know. The Muggle-borns do. Come on say it. No one can read your thoughts for a mile away. You have-- say it-- don't be a wuss. You have-- You have a crush on Hermione Granger. But she has an unprepossessing excuse for a boyfriend now and it would not make sense to try to win her over.
She will not approve of the term 'win', she's not a prize afterall. Persuade might be more like it.
Of all the things you get a crush on Hermione Granger and you never admitted it to yourself until you left the school. You, my friend, are exceptionally outstanding.
At least, I'm alive. Unlike that Romeo bloke from Italy. He has been reading too much Muggle books in his free time now. In the occasion that he got to talk to her, he would have something to pull out of his customized velvet hat.
But that would never be.
They would never be friends, you see. Time and chance has surpassed them. They can never be anything other than pictures on a yearbook now.
The letter was starting to weigh more on his hands. It felt like it held all the secret of the universe. His universe. His gray gaze turned to the dancing flames but he thought against it. This would be the last one and it will only be right that it stayed with the others. So he walked to his study table and opened the secret compartment of unsent letters and his journal of frightened scribbles. They all belong together after all.
Except him and the person he addressed the letters to and maybe that was just as well. He'll grow out of it. She's just a girl. Too simple. Too drab. Not one bit unique.
He locked the letter compartment, the last letter ever in place.
Never again.
Letters are for poets and tragic heroes. Draco Lucius Malfoy is neither. He will become a businessman just like his father and all the patriarchs that came before him. Cold and calculating. Unreciprocated feelings hold no merit. Even when it was towards the most brilliant of people.
So he picked up the sodding, depression inducing, headache causing, godforsaken Head Boy pin and threw it into the fire. It quietly melted into a little glob of liquid silver the moment it touched the flame. It didn't even give a fight. Memories of how he threw a just as important item in this same fire just to prove his loyalty to his crazed father came rushing all at once. Neither journal nor pin left any heart shaped artifacts behind. They all disappeared beneath the flames. No leftovers for the broken hearted romantics.
If only Salazar knew how he hated that fire.
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Early update because 11,111+ reads! How cool is that! You people are great! Thank you so much!
Drake is not going back to Hogwarts because I thought too much Drake and Hermy have become Head Boy & Girl in the ff so yeah. Dare to be different, I suppose.
Song up top is 'Shadow' by Austin Mahone. Equal parts cute and heartbreaking. :')
Dedicated to @RedRoseBloom for her kind words. My only wish is I don't disappoint.