A/N:Well, hello there. How are you all doing?
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Thank you for reading!
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Draco Malfoy hadn't planned to attend the Quidditch match.
Since his rebirth, he had come to realise that no amount of noise or excitement could stir his hollow heart — it only brought him endless desolation.
The cheering and laughter around him brought no joy; instead, they constantly reminded him of the cruelty and horror of the Battle of Hogwarts.
Sometimes, he would look at the brightly smiling students around him with a vacant, lifeless expression.
Their smiles were everywhere — at the dining tables, in the corridors, in the classrooms.
Occasionally, he would pass someone whose happiness was almost blinding.
You wouldn't be so naïve as to think that Draco Malfoy would be moved by those smiles and feel something genuine, would you?
No. He wouldn't.
All he could picture was them lying broken in the rubble, faces blank, eyes empty.
He could only think of death — how easily it came, how fragile life was, how unpredictable the world.
He was afraid of withering things — oak leaves falling, poppies rotting, hedges going dry.
He dreaded extinguished candles, the keening wind overhead, the darkness of the night.
He feared the smiles of the innocent most of all.
When he remembered that some of these people were fated to die, he found it nearly impossible to face them with any sense of normalcy — and even harder to want to be near them. Their unknowing smiles, so full of light, felt almost unbearable.
Draco Malfoy could do nothing about it.
He was cowardly. Timid. Selfish.
He could barely take care of himself — how could he save anyone else? He couldn't be responsible for another person; he was terrified he would fail them.
He also feared the grief that the dead leave behind in the living, and so he chose not to get close. Perhaps if he kept his distance, he could maintain some semblance of calm when those people eventually faded from the world. Perhaps he could suffer a little less.
For some, he was the harm itself.
Keeping a safe distance might be the best way to protect her, Draco thought wearily.
But he came anyway, standing reluctantly in the Quidditch stands. He already knew how the match would end — Slytherin would lose badly. What was there even to see?
There was no painless way to prevent Slytherin's crushing defeat at the hands of Gryffindor. The only viable option was to ignore it and keep clear of the trouble.
But he had to come. This was a golden opportunity to prove to the Potter trio that Quirrell was the problem.
Ever since their conversation in the library about Quirrell's strange behaviour, a seed of suspicion had taken root in Hermione's mind — but it remained speculation, without concrete evidence, and she was still only half-convinced.
Draco needed to add fuel to the fire. He needed her to believe it completely.
Hermione Granger was notoriously difficult to persuade. But once persuaded, she became the most tireless person in the world — she would do everything in her power to convince those two reckless, arrogant boys, Potter and Weasley.
In his past life, she had been exactly like that, using her vast knowledge and formidable idealism to guide the fortunate Potter, step by step, out of danger and onto the right path.
As the brains of the trio, she excelled at thinking, and she was an extraordinary problem-solver.
As for Potter and Weasley... they had always taken her intelligence for granted, overlooking it with maddening consistency.
Thinking of this, Draco shook his head slightly, lamenting privately the extraordinary waste of her talent.
Her brilliance deserved a wider audience — yet people always seemed to credit the trio's achievements entirely to Potter.
Most people would have grown bitter and resentful over something like that. She claimed she didn't care.
How could someone like her exist? He had wondered about that in his previous life too.
The one and only Hermione Granger had always cared more about her friends' safety than her own glory — specifically, Potter's safety.
Just as in his previous life, approximately five minutes into the match, Potter's broom began to go out of control.
The moment Potter's broomstick started trembling unnaturally, Draco rose from his seat as though he hadn't a care in the world, strolled leisurely through the crowd, and quietly slipped out of the stands — making his way to the back row where Quirrell and Professor Snape were seated.
There, he raised the binoculars hanging around his neck to observe Potter in the air, and waited quietly for the small figure in the Gryffindor scarf.
She would come. He was certain of it.
In his previous life, he had seen what she'd done — slipping behind Professor Snape to cause trouble — and strangely, he had never reported her. If anything, he had thought her extraordinarily bold.
Not everyone dared to provoke the Serpent King of Slytherin. Whether she was ignorant or simply fearless remained unclear.
Afterwards, she had crept away along that row of seats like a squirrel that had stolen someone else's prize. He had inexplicably burst out laughing. Crabbe and Goyle had asked if he was laughing at Potter wobbling in the sky. His gaze had stayed fixed on the girl in the red-and-gold scarf as he said lazily, "Yeah — isn't it funny? He can't even keep hold of his broom."
"She'll come running whenever Potter's in danger," Draco thought with certainty.
Sure enough, Hermione came rushing over moments later — this little Gryffindor lion cub, all rage and no claws yet — and she nearly stumbled headlong into him before he caught her by the arm.
Hermione was in a state of utter shock. The reality of what she'd seen through the binoculars had shattered her — she simply couldn't believe that a professor, someone entrusted with the care of students, would attack one of them.
But it had happened. There was evidence. It was undeniable.
"Draco, I just saw it through the binoculars! Both Quirrell and Professor Snape — they're both muttering under their breath and staring fixedly at Harry — but I don't know which one — who do I stop—" she gasped breathlessly.
Her brown eyes blazed with fury, and her hands trembled as they gripped her vinewood wand, as though she were on the verge of hurling a rather poorly-aimed curse — or perhaps an entire volley of them — at the professors' row.
She was close to tears, Draco thought. Clearly, her frantic state was only making things worse.
"Hermione Granger, have you lost your senses? Calm down!" He placed both hands on her shoulders and held her firmly in place, preventing her from doing anything rash.
Hermione knew she was in terrible shape; the hand gripping her wand was shaking.
But he steadied her. There was something in his pale grey eyes — calm, unhurried — that seemed to draw her back from the edge of her anger and restore a measure of her reason.
The stands were deafeningly loud, but Draco dared not raise his voice lest those nearby notice what they were saying. So he leaned close — close enough to see the long, trembling fringe of her lashes.
"Listen to me. The curse breaks the moment eye contact is broken. Listen, Hermione — snap out of it!" He frowned slightly and spoke quickly. "We need to split up. One of us goes to Quirrell; if that does nothing, then the other goes to Professor Snape. This is the only way to tell good from evil. Trust me."
The faint, clean scent of him drew close, leaving Hermione's mind both muddled and strangely clear.
She took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. His hands on her shoulders were an anchor, reminding her she wasn't facing this alone.
He was here. He'd help her.
His grip was firm and utterly calm. He laid out the plan word by word with crystalline precision.
His approach was methodical. She understood immediately what he meant.
They had the same goal.
He wanted to use a simple time gap — interrupt one professor and see whether Potter's broom responded — to identify the culprit. It was direct and efficient. And it required them to work together.
"You actually intend to go after Professor Snape?" she asked, eyes wide.
That was the Serpent King — the man no one at Hogwarts dared to provoke, the Head of Slytherin, and the last professor any student wanted to cross.
No Slytherin would want to antagonise Professor Snape, just as no Gryffindor would dare to cross Professor McGonagall.
"You'd actually do that? Go after Professor Snape?" she pressed, needing to be certain he wasn't joking.
"If necessary, yes," he said flatly, his lips pressed into a thin, resolute line.
That was enough to settle her nerves, slightly.
They had to move quickly. Hermione glanced anxiously up at Harry, who appeared to be clinging to his violently juddering broomstick with only one hand.
Around them, nearly all the students in the stands had risen to their feet, watching the chaos above with horror. The Weasley twins had taken to the air and were trying to haul Harry onto one of their brooms, but each time they drew close, his broom shot higher.
The brothers dropped back and circled below him, clearly positioning themselves to catch him if he fell.
We have to act now, Hermione thought desperately.
"I'll go first — I'll handle Quirrell!" she whispered close to his ear.
Without hesitation, she pushed off, rushing towards the aisle behind Quirrell and pretending to squeeze through — but instead driving her foot hard into the back of his knees, sending him pitching forward into the seat ahead.
At the same moment, a cluster of blue flames leapt silently from the tip of her wand, catching the hem of Quirrell's turban.
Ten seconds later, Quirrell — turban ablaze — was scrambling out of his seat and bolting toward the lower rows.
On the far side of the stands, Professor Snape sat stock-still, eyes fixed on Harry, lips moving in a silent incantation. Hermione ran back to Draco's side and clutched his sleeve with one hand, her nerves still frayed from having just set a professor on fire.
"Well? Did it work?" she asked anxiously. The composed boy beside her had his binoculars raised, scanning the sky.
She hadn't brought her own — she'd left them in the Gryffindor stands in her rush, for Ron and the others. Harry's broom had drifted far enough from the stands that without binoculars, he was little more than a blur.
"He's back on his broom. Do you want to look?" Draco asked casually, his expression precisely that of someone who had known this would happen.
"Yes!" she said eagerly.
She really did go to extraordinary lengths for her friend. He pursed his lips, preparing to lift the binoculars from around his neck and hand them to her — but she was already moving, slipping neatly beneath his raised arm and peering through the lenses herself.
"Thank you!" she said, too preoccupied to spare a thought for the boy who was now effectively surrounding her with both arms, holding the binoculars steady above her head.
It was a deeply peculiar sensation. Hermione Granger had actually nestled into his arms and was looking through his binoculars — Draco was utterly astonished by this.
This would have been absolutely unimaginable in his previous life.
And yet — in this life, she constantly defied his imagination.
She grew bolder and more careless by the day, and remained entirely, almost frustratingly, guileless.
She trusted him completely. She had simply pressed close and commandeered his binoculars, blocking his view with her mass of thick brown hair. Her hair was warm, and a few wayward strands seemed to have taken it upon themselves to tickle his cheek.
She even... she simply assumed he would hold them steady for her.
By Merlin's beard — he was the young master of the Malfoy family. Who had ever dared impose on these hands?
Did she have any idea?
And last time, in the restricted corridor on the fourth floor, she had casually rested her head on his shoulder!
Did she ever stop to wonder whether the things she did were entirely appropriate?
Clearly, Hermione was oblivious to the turmoil unfolding behind her. Her entire attention was fixed on Harry. When she finally spotted him through the binoculars — safely back astride his broomstick — a genuine smile broke across her worried face.
She could breathe again.
Then, immediately after, came the surge of anger.
Draco had been right. Professor Snape was the one protecting Harry — not the one casting the curse.
The real villain was Quirrell. That stuttering, seemingly harmless man didn't deserve to be called a professor. Hermione seethed, and in her agitation, she grabbed Draco's hand, adjusting the angle of the binoculars to track Harry's movement across the sky.
She was still deeply worried about Harry and kept him fixed in the centre of the lens, afraid something might go wrong again.
She was entirely oblivious to the stillness that had come over the boy behind her.
Then the crowd surged — the young Gryffindor Seeker plunged sharply toward the ground, clapping a hand over his mouth as though about to be sick.
Something gold tumbled from his lips into his palm.
He had caught the Golden Snitch.
"That's wonderful!" Hermione breathed, eyes bright with tears.
She spun around and threw her arms around the silent boy behind her, holding on tightly.
Draco's pupils dilated — just slightly — revealing something he hadn't expected to feel.
Amidst the roar of the crowd, she was hugging him.
Her warmth and brightness seemed to seep through his stiff, cold exterior.
She was testing his limits... Her sudden embrace left him completely bewildered... She seemed to genuinely enjoy being near him... She neither disliked him nor feared his cold, detached face...
How could she hug him like that? How? Something inside him seemed to twist and writhe — or perhaps it was screaming.
And then, somewhere deep inside him, his long-dormant heart stirred.
It was a very faint, shallow beat.
Perhaps not quite a throb — more like a bird that had flown past and left a single feather behind. Too light to be certain of.
"Thank you, Draco! We won!" She pulled back and beamed at him.
He said nothing. His grey eyes stared at her, blank.
What was he supposed to say? His thoughts were in complete disarray.
His frozen heart had no business beating.
Things were getting slightly out of hand.
Hermione found his rigid expression odd. Harry was safe and the Snitch was caught — so why wasn't he smiling?
She glanced around, and suddenly realised how conspicuously she was standing among the Slytherin spectators. Her red-and-gold scarf stood out glaringly against the silver-green crowd.
He must be terribly disappointed, she thought. Slytherin had lost, after all.
"Oh — I'm sorry! I'd better go back!" Hermione said.
Before his cold lips could form any dry remark, she caught his unfamiliar, questioning grey gaze and fled.
So she didn't see his eyes soften — nor the faint glimmer that flickered briefly through them.
"Congratulations," Draco said softly to her retreating figure, his heart a tangle of things he couldn't name.
Don't think about it anymore. She's already gone.
Think of something else, he told himself, watching that bright brown head disappear into the crowd.
Think about Potter's safety, and Snape's name being temporarily cleared, and Slytherin's loss in Quidditch.
Slytherin's chances at the House Cup this year were looking very grim indeed...
Potter had swallowed the Snitch. Swallowed it. What kind of Seeker catches the Golden Snitch in his mouth? Draco thought indignantly.
He had always loved Quidditch. He loved the feeling of the wind and the freedom of the open sky.
He had once surrendered several matches to complete tasks for the Dark Lord — a decision he had never stopped regretting. At the time, personal passions had meant nothing next to matters of life and death.
Whether in his past life or this one, he had always envied Potter's extraordinary luck.
What an honour it would be to represent Slytherin in a proper match against a worthy opponent. Draco couldn't help thinking.
And how was he supposed to stop thinking about it?
He had once believed he would never be moved by anything again. He had once believed he could face the world with complete indifference.
And yet —
Draco's grey eyes drifted back to the jubilant crowd, and he realised, with faint surprise, that the cheering no longer filled him only with loneliness.
Something had stirred in his long-dormant heart.
It trembled, faintly, as if grazed by something unseen.
In that fleeting moment, he felt an unexpected longing: to play for Slytherin again, in a fair and open match, and face Potter properly.
If he won — would people cheer? Would they leap to their feet?
Would anyone be as happy for him as Hermione had been for Harry today?
He kept his expression neutral, but couldn't stop himself from wondering.
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After the match, the Potters finally understood that their own bias had led them badly astray.
"Who would think to suspect Professor Quirrell's stutter? He always seems so kind and approachable," Potter told him.
In the emptying stands, Potter and Weasley had sought Draco out specifically to apologise.
"It's not entirely our fault. Who told Professor Snape to sweep around like a giant bat, tormenting every non-Slytherin student who crosses his path?" Weasley said, considerably less graciously.
"If you applied your brains to Potions instead of your mouths, Professor Snape might not have had cause to speak to you so harshly," Draco replied, snapping back to the present and turning to face the two boys who had come — in their own fashion — to make amends.
Weasley went red but couldn't manage a single comeback.
"Right, well — we've won, so I won't lower myself to arguing with you," Weasley said at last, after a long pause.
That stings. Weasley really does know how to land a blow. Draco gave them both a cold look and walked away with his chin raised.
That red-headed menace. A working brain was a fine thing — unfortunately, Weasley seemed to be operating on mouth alone.
Rolling his eyes, Draco started back toward the castle in a thoroughly foul mood. He was quite certain his opinion of the youngest Weasley boy had not improved in the slightest.
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Side Story 2: The Awkward Slytherin (Harry's Perspective)
Harry had owed Draco a Chocolate Frog for some time now.
When he'd first met Draco, he'd made the mistake of ignoring Hagrid's advice: never judge a person by appearances.
And what had he done with that advice? The moment Professor Snape opened his sharp mouth, Harry had pinned every bad thing on him. The shame was almost physical.
According to Hermione, while Professor Quirrell had been casting the jinx, it was probably Professor Snape's counter-curse that had kept Harry from being thrown off his wildly spinning broom altogether.
And it was thanks to Draco's tip that they hadn't wrongly accused an innocent man.
Speaking of Draco — the bloke had this arrogant, mysterious, standoffish air about him most of the time, but he always seemed to step up when it actually mattered.
He was just too proud to ever admit he'd done something decent, always keeping it in the dark. Harry genuinely couldn't make sense of it.
The Slytherins were all so unbearably awkward about things like that.
Professor Snape might just be what Draco grew up into. The thought sent a chill down Harry's spine.
Merlin's beard — he sincerely hoped Draco wouldn't turn into that particular brand of greasy, perpetually-unwashed-hair sort.
Even so, the next time Professor Snape mocked him in Potions, Harry thought he might be able to keep his temper a little better.
Not because he'd suddenly grown fond of Professor Snape — he still couldn't stand the man's blatant favouritism toward Slytherin. But because this prejudiced, insufferable professor had, at the end of the day, tried to save him.
Even a harsh man like that still had some scrap of decency in him, didn't he?