"I try to find something to love in everybody. Even if it’s a small thing. Something about the way someone smiles. There’s always something, there has to be. I try to make myself generous. I do things I don’t want to do. I… I think about what not to criticize. And the strangest things come back to me."
— Erin Cressida Wilson
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Hermione wanted to leave. No scratch that, she wanted to do some serious stunt rolls and leave in a James Bond kind of way. But then she remembered the Unbreakable Vow and abstained from drowning herself in her porridge. She tried not to look agitated as she glanced up at her, no bloody Malfoy’s visitor, not wanting either of them to think they bothered her but, well, truthfully Hermione got frustrated easily on an empty stomach and she had a feeling it was just going to be one of those days.
“Granger.” Blaise nodded briefly in her direction, observing his surroundings.
“Zabini,” she greeted wearily back, following his gaze as it lingered critically on her furniture and decor, from the wilted flowers on the table she was sitting at to the large wooden clock on the opposite wall to her less-than-amazing sofas.
“I must say,” he drawled, strutting further into her home as if he owned it, “it’s a tad off seeing you without Potter and Weasley glued by your side, I’d almost forgotten you were separate people.”
Malfoy snickered at his comment, not acknowledging the glower Hermione sent his way.
“So, Draco, is this where you’re loitering yourself for, what was it, a year?” he asked.
He smirked. “Unfortunately.”
Zabini strolled further around without permission, much to Hermione’s chagrin, still curiously examining everything. When his eyes landed on the photograph of her, Harry and Ron above the fireplace, all grinning widely, did he turn around to look at his fellow Slytherin. “I pity you.”
“What?” Hermione exclaimed. “You pity him? Have you any idea how difficult he is to live with?”
“Yeah, I do. And correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t he only stayed one night?”
“Which is more than enough!”
“Yes, because this must be so hard on you without Potter and Weasel attached at your hip,” Malfoy added dryly.
“Oh, like it is without Crabbe, Goyle and Astoria to yours?”
From the corner of her eye, Hermione saw Zabini tense, and she knew the mistake of her words almost instantly. It had been four years since she had last laid eyes on Zabini. Hermione can’t say she got a particularly good look of him at the time, what with the massive flames and smoke circling them. She knew she would never, ever forget what had happened in Room of Requirement – the curse Crabbe cast, the desperation and determination to get to safety, the feeling of heat as it singed her skin, the screaming, the yelling, Malfoy’s shouts not to kill her, Harry or Ron.
She hadn’t forgotten that.
But what may have slipped her mind then and there was that, despite Malfoy’s attempts to save them – Crabbe and Goyle had both perished in the fire. She felt guilty to say the least, not sparing them a second thought as she went off with Ron, Harry soon following behind. Hermione remembered vaguely the way they’d left Malfoy slouched against the wall helpless and teary.
She realised now with a pang that though Crabbe and Goyle may not mean as much to him as Harry or Ron did to her, he had grown up with both boys. It’s unlikely to spend several years with the two same people and not develop some sort of like or familiarity towards them.
YOU ARE READING
A Wonderful Fortuitous Love
Fanfiction"You see, Draco Malfoy, without your sarcastic replies to endure each morning and that arrogance only you could carry, I find myself somewhat missing you." Draco thought the biggest problem living for a year under the same roof as Hermione Granger w...
