Dear Granger,
I feel that I vex you when I address you by your family. Do I still do?
Oh, bollocks. It might have lost it's effect as well as a lot of things. Per say you don't call me by my family name, maybe because I ask you to address me by my first name or maybe because you associate 'Malfoy' with blood prejudice and hate. But no matter. Both of which are a world away anyway when we are together.
Or so I wish.
Have you ever hated someone, Hermione?
Well, I did.
I thought I did when I first saw you.
Gryffindor robe and bushy hair in that sodding station that just didn't made sense. Why 9 and 3/4? What's with the quarter? What's in 9 and 1/2? A gateway to hell maybe.
And I thought, by God, she's going to be the end of me. She might just be the one to change me-- of course not yet at the that moment-- but, Salazar, she will do her damage-- and I will fight tooth and nail not to. I hate her. I hate that self-assured smile, that unbendable confidence, that air of self satisfaction. Some of us has to fake it, you know. How does she do that? Must be something stronger than magic.
I hated you so much that I started paying more attention to you perhaps more attention than what was necessary. Sometimes maybe more than my sworn enemy Harry Potter. Sometimes I even come his way just to get a rise out of you too since you are so fucking inseparable. It was juvenile of me, I know, but I loved every sodding moment of it!
Then there came the time that I actually started admiring you and I just can't turn away.
But we live in a world where someone like me is not for the likes of you. We don't deserve each other. Maybe we are both meant for great things, you and I, just that they are worlds apart from each other. Parallel and never to meet. No matter how much I hope and pray.
It might be so that you are sitting there perplexed by the sequence of events in this letter.
Well, then let me explain.
Hermione find herself taking a deep breath. The sun is now nearly at its peak, maybe just before noon, just before everyone starts worrying and looking for her. But before then its just her and him. Her fingers find the coolness of the platinum chain. The very same ones she saw around his neck that time in the bath.
Maybe this time she'll find the answers. If he can't talk then, then perhaps now. If it has one merit, death doesn't hold off in these things.
In another life, you and I are not meant to be.
Which is funny because if you put it like so then it doesn't sound all that much different from this life.
What made all the difference was me.
You were the same in this life and that one. Ethereal. (Would probably change this word when another adjective comes to mind)
And me, well, I was a coward (again find another adjective if time allows). But much more in that other world. Much, much more that I never ever gave you a helping hand even when I was available and was only inches from you and you were as close as you could to death. And what for? To remain good in the eyes of my bigot family?
I know it's wrong but I'm too scared to do anything or even contemplate it.
And so it went, you were married to another (you wouldn't have guessed who it was and I'd rather not say), divorced (because your husband is a cliche textbook prat) and then you died an untimely death.
You might be thinking, 'I'd get you, you downright prat. You used the Dark Arts to bring me back from the dead. I'd hex you to the brink.' Well, good because for once I'd like to say that you're wrong. I didn't use Dark Magic and it wasn't me, well, not wholly. It was my intent and I sought them out.
And for the record I didn't bring you back from the dead because I went to a time where you weren't dead.
I turned back time.
I imagine you now, clawing at this piece of paper. Waiting with your wand. Standing up unable to contain yourself because damn it, I'm bad. I'm such a bad boy.
And when you get to me from the other room you're going to have your way with me, won't you? You will do bad things to me.
But you love me, don't you? You love me when I'm good but more when I'm being bad.
Hermione felt the blush on her tearstained cheeks. Unsure if it's from anger or if he's managing to turn her on even in death. It feels like he's just beside her teasing her.
But the realization that he isn't broke her heart. The teardrops blotched the paper and she find herself wiping at it stupidly, not wanting to taint it with magic.
And, Hermione, to me you are love.
I've loved other things, of course. My name, my parents, this and that and so on and so forth but not much has made the same impression as you. It didn't made sense and it surpassed logical thought. Did every boy who felt for a girl tried to suppress his feelings for her all his life just to turn back time and do it all over again?
Maybe.
But I am sure not.
Surely not and I am not saying this to be arrogant.
Because they probably didn't fall for someone like you. Surely, not to you because when it comes to girls there's only you... and others.
I cannot imagine going through all of this for someone else even if I do fall in love again. I will probably fall in love with someone demure and soft spoken like she's always on a downer. She will probably not punch me in the face but make me wish the contact was longer just so she'd touch me. Or argue on hours on end but feel excited because though she hates me and fumes with anger because of me, I know that I'm all she could think about. Me. Me and her.
Or not.
I'd probably die an old, rich, mean bachelor in a bed of slags and money when you say you're done with me. As shite as I look right now and as grim as my Gringotts vault look I still know my way around the coin. But that is a story for another day.
I hope for days and days and so many more days too many that when we wake up next to each other we will have to think for a second for a fresh row to throw to start the morning. I love bickering and butting heads with you. I never thought I'd find someone who challenges me.
Maybe that's why I hated you.
You never made it easy. Merlin, you never did. First, you'd have to be born to Muggle parents. Second, you'd have to be sorted into Gryffindor. Third, you'd have to be chummy with the Prat Patrol. Fourth, you'd have to be this headstrong, catastrophically smart, witty,
I'd rather not go on.
If you saw yourself through my eyes you'd probably not bother anymore. I'm a goner. You'd know it. Maybe you already do. You're a smart girl, you would have figured it out before I even did.
So there we go.
I will not send this letter to you because I'd probably end up saying most of the content some way or the other but not all at the same time because this not the end. This is not farewell. We're only beginning. And I am looking forward to every single god awful petty debate over every single thing under the sun for as long as we can or as long as you won't tire of me.
Hermione, I am so excited to be with you without all these delightful war trifles.
Yours in mischief and mayhem,
This life and the next,
Good and evil,
And everything else in between,
Draco Lucius Malfoy
Hermione wiped her tears and shut her eyes tight. It was a lot to take in all at once. Draco knew what was supposed to be. He knew all along. He has been here before.
But try as she might and wish and hope that she'd feel cheated just so she'd have some relief from the sadness and the broken heart, she never did. Hate never came, if anything she felt relieved of having this reality of falling in love with him. She can't imagine any other scenario.
Even though it did.
And he had to suffer through tremendous heartbreak after tremendous heartbreak just to go back in time to make sure she lives.
She tried to calm herself. Breathe in, breathe out. There's a missing piece to the puzzle. Think. Think. Think.
The platinum chain of the locket winked at her. It smiled at her from across the table but she didn't dare touch it again. She studied it curiously from afar. True, it has Slytherin colors. White gold or silver. It shone with purity and elegance but it might not be Draco's-- true Draco had been wearing it-- but who was the original owner? The maker? And what exactly is it?
There's no Malfoy insignia. None of Draco's initials either.
Instead there's only a single white crystal stone in the middle of it.
A stone.
She remembered reading about a certain stone back in their freshman year in her tryst to help Harry with the Philosopher's Stone. She glossed over it thinking that it is not important.
Salazar Slytherin also had a stone.
And if she remembered correctly...
Hermione hurriedly stood up, like she just figured out a solution from a professor given problem even though half of the library wall was blown and the empty chairs and tables are covered with black and gray ash that choked her as she rummaged on the charred books. The smell of smoke and fire had overpowered the subtle scent ink on parchment. It was destruction over knowledge.
But she didn't lose hope. She flipped over books on the floor next to the rubble, the granite digging into her jeans and into her bruised flesh.
The battle is not yet over. She's going to figure him out.
'It is legend that Salazar Slytherin made a stone to turn back time without the limitations of a timeturner and regulation of the Ministry of Magic.'
As expected the patriarch of the house of serpent doesn't want to play by anyone's rules.
'...it is said to have been built around the time of his departure from Hogwarts after the his quarrel with cofounder Godric Gryffindor. The two had a final duel and Salazar Slytherin was rumored to have lost. He wanted to redeem his honor by the use of a timeturner. The said stone in a timeturner was never found.'
Hermione will never know this and so will the next generations to come but Salazar Slytherin did not make the stone to win some petty duel with his former bestfriend. Great inventions are most often inspired by devastating tragedies. He never had an heir and it was never stated as to why it never came to be. Hogwarts was established in a time of turmoil, anyone with magic in their blood was persecuted, tortured and then killed. Salazar wanted no business with anyone who had to do with the race who hate magic in fear that they will purge everything and anything that he and his friends have taken years to build. He thought that the other founders thought the same, for he-- afterall valued self preservation above all else-- he didn't trust muggleborns who could double cross them and set everything into flames. But they thought otherwise, it was clear then that they valued other things, Godric Gryffindor the most aggressive about it all.
And so Salazar Slytherin left the school but left a chamber in the school wherein only he could open in case all he feared would be realized and in it a guardian that only he could control.
But Slytherin was no god. There are things that are out of his control. Such that his only son will one day try to control the basilisk but be unable to speak parseltongue resulting to the his only direct heir's death in the Chamber of Secrets. Death from his father's own creation.
And so the stone was created. But deeper shades of magic always requires sacrifice. Things that we can never part with.
But such are stories for another time. Stories from another book. To be told by another hand on another piece of paper but for now we have this story.
Hermione felt deep disdain for the piece of pure white stone stuck in the middle of the circle medallion. She held it up by the light of the moonlight that streamed from the open wrecked window. Broken glasses joined the other piece of the library on the floor. Time never stopped, the world continued revolving and now it is night time even though she felt that she only had just started looking for answers.
No one came for her in the library. Or maybe they did (they did) but perhaps they know that she is mourning in her own way in the place that she's most comfortable in despite it being as wrecked as the rest of the castle.
The medallion dangled from her fingertips and subtly brushed her ripped jeans as she walked outside. She stepped over rubble and finally got to see a glimpse of the wide open sky. It was dark but there are stars smiling down at her. She absent mindedly found herself connecting the stars of his constellation. Draco. The dragon that gods and goddesses had once rode to glory and triumph or had to slay to get there. It snaked across the great sky, even more outstanding now that it didn't have to compete with the lights of Hogsmeade. She wanted to have watched his constellation one day with him. So many things they are yet to do, so many things that they'll never be able to do.
Teardrops fell from her eyes as she looked at the medallion, her mindset firm.
"Take me to Draco."
She pressed her finger on the stone and watched it as the white was filed with the red of her blood.
Fate cried. Death smiled.
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Sup? Please don't hate me for showing up late! But, man, have I been busy as hell. That's all it was really, I never had time to write or edit. So, I am really, really, really thankful that you guys (if anyone will still read this after all this time without updates) will read it. Just that! Thank you so much!
Also, I read every single one of the comments! I just don't know how to reply without giving anything away! Please don't think that I'm snobbing anyone! I'm really thankful for the stars and comments!
Song up top is 'Stand by You' by Rachel Platten. I love this song and the visuals of the music video, it's pretty damn ace.
Dedicated to @helloworld1122 because who apparently has sleep talked about this. I suggest a warm milk before going bed. :) You're adorable <3
Thank you all for every single one of the 38.8K hits! Every single one of the stars! Thank you!
Also check out datvikingtho's tumblr headcanon that Salazar Slytherin is not actually a bad guy. I thought it was a somewhat interesting take on it so I included a jist of it here. Some say otherwise and want to stick to canon but since I am already writing a Draco and Hermione sobby love story might as well, right? Peace!