The Fractured Flame | Draco Malfoy Love Story

Chapter Thirty Eight: I Scream for Ice Scream

Uncurling the slip, Hermione read the words out loud. "What is the biggest regret of your life?" Her lips formed a permanent scowl, "Who wrote this one?"

Draco rested his chin on her shoulder again, "Me, love."

Swallowing uncomfortably, a flood of emotions that she was normally quite good a suppressing came rushing forward due to the Veritaserum. "Finding out that I was a witch. If I never discovered my magic, I wouldn't have had to spend my entire teenage years trying to dodge life or death situations. I wouldn't have had to immerse myself in a war against someone who hated me because of my blood status. I wouldn't have had to obliviate my parents from my life and now all I think about are the times I'm going to miss out with them. My mom will never be next to me for the birth of my first child. My father will never walk me down the aisle. I lost my parents because I'm a witch."

Hermione stood up, feeling the tears rush forward without her consent and she Apparated away where no one would find her.

I Scream for Ice Cream

When Hermione was a little girl, she dreamed of going to Oxford for university. As a ten year old, she remembered dreaming about the Victorian architecture of the Oxford Union Library and the endless amount of books that encircled the room. When she learned she was a witch and was introduced to the medieval library at Hogwarts, her eleven year old self had about died of happiness.

An admission letter to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been a fantasy dream come true. Every little girl and boy wonders if they're special or if they'll ever have magical powers, and for Hermione: that came true.

A set of doors she didn't even know existed revealed themselves to her and a world of endless possibilities existed. She was thankful for being a Muggle Born witch because while most people existed in one world or the other; she had two worlds to exist in.

Then reality set in. She was introduced to another world where good and evil coexisted like divorced parents. She made friends and she made enemies. Some people liked her intelligence, others hated her for her blood status. Still, Hermione was willing to get through it all.

But then...

But then Hogwarts turned out to be a more sinister experience than she could have ever expected. Like what about the times she'd almost been killed or tried to stop her friends from getting murdered?

Devils snare almost strangling her at age eleven?

A basilisk almost petrifying her to death?

The terrible pressure she felt to learn and catch up to her peers so much so that she bent time to attend more classes than she could emotionally handle?

Trying to keep Harry alive during the Triwizard Tournament?

The battle at the Department of Mysteries?

The hunt for the horcruxes and being tortured by a sadistic witch?

Anxiety began to pool in Hermione's stomach as she stared at the Gelateria near the Oxford campus. Her parents had taken her here on special occasions during the spring when campus tours would open for impending students. Her parents having been Alumni were able to sneak their daughter onto campus every year and talk to her about what she could be.