Flashback
Can I get some, uhhhhh, Dramione dating in their eighth year. Like when Draco realizes he likes her, when they actually start dating and some fluff afterwards??!?!?! -Star
Hell yeah my dude!
“Draco!” Pansy shouts, “Hey! Hey, wait up!”
Draco stops walking. Pansy runs into him. “What’s up?”
“Your girl sent a note to the commons room,” Pansy says, doing an impressive job of hiding her distaste for ‘his girl’.
“She’s not my girl,” Draco mutters, looking at his feet.
“Hm, that’s not what she says. Take the note, I have to get to class.”
With that friendly goodbye, Pansy shoves a cream colored envelope into his chest and strides down the hall. He watches her go, before practically sprinting with the letter in hand to his room and magically locking the door, next class be damned.
The letter was sealed with an official wax chrest, but the color was a swirl of red and green. Hermione’s messy writing said from Hermione and to Draco and left no hint as to what this could possibly be about. Draco’s mind blanked.
Well, he thought, she’s finally gone and realized she’s too good for me, hasn’t she?
He shakes his head and opens the letter with his fingernail, careful not to hurt the wax seal.
It must have been written quickly because the note was even messier than the outside.
It has been two months, love! After your class, meet me by the lake, I’ve gotten a picnic set up and all. See you then! ~Granger
Of course, Hermione signs her letters with ‘Granger’. Maybe someday she’d sign as ‘Malfoy.’ Draco smirked faintly.
What class did Hermione have this hour? Would she just be waiting for him? Because he was already late for his next class, why bother? Also, it’s not like Hermione to leave so much to be considered, even in her notes. By the lake could mean anything from halfway in the forbidden forest to under a tree to in the middle of nowhere to extremely far from the school.
Why not.
Should he bring something? It seemed like common courtesy, to someone who set up a whole picnic for you to bring something small. Then again, they were dating. But he should still bring something.
Draco jumped out of his desk and crawled under Goyle’s bed. He was the only one who could do that other than Theo, who hadn’t come back for his eighth year. Draco pulled out a heavy case of firewhisky and took out as many bottles as he could fit in his bag. Would he need this many? No, definitely not. DId he think that Hermione would laugh? Yes.
That might have been the only reason he did it, to make her laugh. Because, bloody hell, the bag was very heavy with so many bottles in it.
He was, in fact, correct to see that Hermione was at the lake, not near the forbidden forest and also not very far from the castle, though she was definitely not finished setting up the picnic. A white and red checkered blanket, like in one of the old muggle films Hermione had made him watch, and a wicker basket the size of a large dog, that looked like it would have been very hard to carry for anyone but Hermione (because he’d seen Hermione lift twenty huge books at once and not struggle, so why would she have a reason to struggle with a basket).
He starting to jog to her before remembering the bag on his shoulders. Grunting in pain as it hit him in the leg, he walked the rest of the way to her.
She didn’t look up from the meticulous work of unpacking the basket until his bag clunked down beside her, and she jumped. “Draco!” She said in surprise, before immediately following up with, “Go to class, you idiot! I’m not done yet!”
“Wow, love you too,” Draco joked, sitting down.
Hermione’s face softened a bit. She sighed, smiled, and said, “Well, I guess you can sit down and eat. Even though I’m not done setting up.”
As Hermione organized everything precisely how she wanted it, and as Draco messed with it subtly to bother her, Hermione talked.
“It’s been two months, don’t you think that’s odd? Draco, stop touching my plates. Anyways, this is where you first asked me on a date, so I decided it would be fitting and all, it’s great weather for it today. Am I rambling?”
“A bit. It’s cute.”
“Shut up. And stop messing with the blanket, Draco! Anyways, I was thinking about when you first asked me…”
Draco, hunched in on himself who wrote a note to Hermione and flew it to her at breakfast. Hermione, who showed up by the lake with Harry and Ron in tow, ready for a duel.
Draco looked at the lake, “I was a nervous wreck.”
“I could tell.”
Redder than any natural shade of red could be, Draco tells Hermione he doesn’t want to fight. Except he says it so quietly that Harry thinks he’s muttering a curse and steps in front of Hermione protectively.
“I think you still sort of hated me back then,” Hermione said thoughtfully, not bothering to berate Draco for fiddling with the bread she put out.
“I might’ve.”
Draco who gave Harry a look so mean that even Ron, who barely saw it, took a step back. Draco who told Hermione with a scowl and a glare that he liked her and wanted to go out on a date with her.
“You were weird,” Hermione states. Draco makes a simple sound of agreement.
Hermione tells Ron and Harry to go away. They do, slowly. As they do, Draco stares at his feet, face red and a bit angry. Hermione waits for them to be gone before asking Draco what kind of stupid prank he was playing.
“It’s not a prank!” Draco cries.
“Then why have you acted like an arse all seven years before telling me?”
“I don’t know!” Draco shouts, lying. Mudblood echoes in his mind. He ignores it.
“Well fine!” Hermione shouts.
“Fine!” Draco shouts back.
They stand there awkwardly for a few seconds, glaring at one another. Hermione sits down, arms crossed, and Draco turns and walks back to the castle, confused and mad and confused as to why he’s mad. Ron and Harry glared at him as he stalks to his dorm room.
Hermione stares at the lake in startled confusion until Ron shakes her out of her thoughts, literally.
“That the was the weirdest interaction ever,” Hermione says fondly.
“Are you sure? What about our first date?”
“Oh god,” Hermione laughs.
Draco laughs.
Hermione floats him a note the next day in endearingly messy writing that she doesn’t understand what Draco was thinking yesterday, but if he was okay with it that she’d go out with him. It was a roll of scroll coiled so tightly in a plain red ribbon that it looked as if it wouldn’t be two and a half pages long. But what did Draco expect from Hermione Granger, after all.
He still has the scroll rolled up in his trunk. He looks at it when he’s bored.
The date probably couldn’t have been considered a date by most standards. There was no hand holding, no eating together. They were just two people walking next to each other for thirty minutes, barely talking.
“Are you okay?” Hermione would ask.
“I’m fine.” Draco would reply, before changing the subject with a weird conversation starter. Some of Hermione’s favorites included what’s your favorite color; what do you think is the perfect day; what’s easier, potions or transfiguration; what’s your favorite holiday; and Hermione’s personal favorite-
“So Draco,” Hermione said with fake awkwardness and exaggerated slowness, “What’s… your favorite… magical creature?”
Draco groans loudly and pushes her, while Hermione giggles.
“Shut up, I was nervous!”
“To be seen with me or to be out with me?”
“Both. In fact, the reason I didn’t take you to The Three Broomsticks is that the bartender knows my parents.”
Hermione hummed. “I think there’s lots of places you avoided because of them. For instance, anywhere even vaguely near the Slytherin commons room.”
“I still avoid that place with you.”
Hermione came to his commons room once, two weeks after they started dating. It was to tell him she’d passed a test that she canceled a date plan for so they could study instead. She’d gotten a 98%, and was so excited that she ran to him.
Hermione knocked on the door frantically until some frightened little third year opened the door a crack and gazed up at her in fear.
Hermione burst in and sat down on the couch. She was smiling brightly and only slightly giddy (though anyone who she talked to would say the opposite). She asked over and over, “Where would one find a Draco Malfoy?” Until a fifth year pointed vaguely (probably in fear) down a hallway.
At the end is where she found Draco, who was extremely not dressed at the time and sleeping Crabbe, the only other Slytherin except Pansy who came back for his eighth year.
It was a bit awkward after, considering they’d waken up Crabbe and had to admit to dating, but the part where she threw herself into his arms for a very tight hug was real.
“Crabbe hasn’t looked at me the same since,” Draco sighs, but he’s smiling.
Hermione has finished setting everything out and situated it right where she wanted it. Draco took a few crackers, messing up the meticulous pattern. She sighed dramatically but took a few crackers of her own.
“Do you want to know something, Hermione?” Draco asks. Hermione lays down on the blanket and stares up. She nods and motions for Draco to join her.
“So, when I first realized I liked you-”
“God-fucking-damn-this-bull-shit-life!” Draco yells, emphasizing each word by hitting his head against the door. He finished his moving speech with a very dramatic fall face-first onto his bed, followed promptly by muffled screaming into his pillow.
“You alright, mate?” Crabbe asks.
“No, fuck off!” Draco shouts into his pillow.
Crabbe tilts his head and asks, “Malfoy, can you speak up?”
Draco sits up and without a second thought vaults his pillow into Crabbe’s face and yells “Fuck. OFF.”
Crabbe leaves, still holding the pillow.
Draco is unwilling to leave his room for the rest of the night, and Crabbe doesn’t come back. He sets out some silencing spells and starts ranting. It’s a therapy of his, he’d gather all his friends in his room and loudly complain for as long as he needed to, then the rest would take turns doing the same. But this wasn’t exactly a topic to be shared with his friends, even if they had chosen to come back for their eighth year.
“Why me?” He shouts, pacing, “Why her?! Of all people! Being GAY would be better than THIS!
“But it could work out, I could just… tell my dad I’m dating that girl, Astoria! And transfigure her to look different every time father comes over? Stupid, stupid!
“Maybe the feeling will go away. Like how it did with Pansy! But Pansy broke up with me, so maybe that’s not how this works. UGGHHHH.
“My father is going to kill me. Pansy will kill me! Hell, a mudblood! A mudblood who fought against Voldemort and is best friends with Harry Potter, could this get any worse?!”
Maybe Draco was yelling too loud, but there’s a knock at the door. He closes his mouth and represses the urge to start cursing. What if someone heard that?
“So you really did hate me when you first realized you liked me,” Hermione says calmly.
“Well, I mean, I don’t anymore.”
“Well, I mean, I’m glad about that! Or else you’d be miserable, laying with me on a picnic blanket when anyone in the school could just walk by and see us.”
He grabbed her hand, “Do me a favor and shut up.”
“Oh, let me consider it, nah…” Hermione laughs at her own joke and nudges Draco with her shoulder, “So what event caused that huge mental breakdown anyways?”
“You being a dork, mainly.”
“Elaborate,” Hermione demands.
Draco groans, putting an arm over his eyes with a grin, “Or what, Granger?”
“Or… I’ll push you in the lake.”
“You can try!”
“Shut up and tell me why you fell in love with me!”
Draco takes his arm away and smirks, “If you so insist.”
Hermione turned to Ron with fire in her eyes one day at breakfast, indignant and mad.
Hermione pushing Harry towards Draco in the hall and shouting ‘apologize to each other!’ and running away.
Hermione embracing her wild hair more and more with each day, tying it up when she needs to in a messy bun that she keeps together with her wand.
Hermione telling Professor Slughorn the proper way to do a spell, then showing him in front of everyone.
Hermione carrying ten books, too high for her to see over, to a table in the back of the library where she could study in peace. When she finds that Draco had accidentally taken her usual table, she sat in front of him without a second thought. They didn’t speak.
Hermione chewing Harry out on her way to potions for not making any effort to right his wrongs, sharing wisdom about how even if it didn’t seem like a big deal, it affected someone.
Hermione, who showed up to Snape’s funeral and gave a kind eulogy about setting him on fire that one time.
Her wild hair, brown eyes, how she practices every spell to complete perfection and mastered wandless magic in under a year. Her dedication, her kindness, her cunning, her bravery, her.
The way he didn’t notice until he was all the way in love that he never insulted her anymore. How he stared at her in their classes, and despite being a seventeen-year-old, legal adult, had blushed the color of a tomato when confessing his feelings for her.
The way she gave him a pity thank when he got her a rich perfume for Christmas.
The way she absolutely glowed when he got her a different present the day after Christmas, a traditional copy of Macabre Monstrosities.
Setting up a picnic for their two month anniversary by the lake, where Draco first asked her out.
“I keep finding more reasons to love you.”
“What do you mean, Draco?”
“I’m falling for you. And I don’t think I’m going to stop.”
~
~
~fin.
Well that was a thing that i wrote and i think i did a half decent job if i do say so myself. anyways that’s all and i hope you have a wonderful day ok byyeee!!!
