By darthelwig
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I do not own Harry Potter, so these characters are not mine. I WISH they were. I am making absolutely NO money off of this.
PG-13 for mild language and sexuality (I may have to change this later if the story goes in that direction).
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He could almost smell her scent on the air. His skin tingled with awareness of her presence. He knew she was close. She was here. He could always tell.
Of course, one didn’t have to have magical powers to know she would be here, on the Hogwarts Express. She was probably already in her school robes, wearing her prefect’s badge. He rubbed his sleeve over his own badge, making sure it was noticeable.
He would see her soon. The prefects had to meet for instructions before dispersing amongst the other students. He considered it to be a waste of time. After all, they all knew what they were supposed to do. But it gave him time to be near her without revealing his secret… desire.
His stomach gave a lurch as the excitement built up inside of him. He had to force himself to calm down. He had accepted his crush on the mud-blood, but that did not mean he would begin to act like a fool over her. He raised his chin, wrapping his dignity around himself like a cloak, and walked toward the prefects’ compartment.
She was there, sitting with Weasley. How that nitwit became a prefect was a mystery to most of the students at Hogwarts. Draco’s guess was because he was Potter’s friend and thus one of Dumbledore’s favorites. It couldn’t be his good marks or ability to abide by school rules and stay out of trouble. All the Weasley children seemed to have a knack for finding trouble wherever it may be. Of course, his father believed the family to be a total disgrace to the wizarding community, and Draco had to agree. Every member of the family was a complete menace to society, as each seemed to operate under the belief that they knew better than anyone else what was right and what was wrong.
Draco smirked to himself. Potter’s little friend was the worst of the lot. He couldn’t understand what Granger saw in the boy. His smirk became a frown as he imagined what Miss Hermione Granger could be finding so interesting about the slug. Weasley had better not have touched her, or he would soon find himself becoming a real life slug, not just throwing them up. His smile returned as he contemplated all the things he could do to the Weasley boy.
He was having too much fun to notice that everyone had left the compartment, their brief meeting over. The only thing left was a thick copy of Hogwarts: a History sitting on the bench. He knew who that belonged to- Hermione.
He picked up the book, weighing it in his hands. How many times had her fingers played over these well-worn pages? How many times had she lost herself in the knowledge they possessed? Raising the edge up to his nose, he took a long, slow breath. He could smell her on it, like perfume. His mind conjured her image; he could see her standing before him, plain as day…
“What are you doing?”
He jumped, jolted out of his fantasy to come face to face with the real Hermione Granger. She was looking rather confused by what she’d found him doing, and he took the opportunity to cover his blunder.
“What business is it of yours, mud-blood?” he growled, embarrassment adding a touch of anger to his voice. He must have been blushing, but he hoped she wouldn’t notice.
“That’s my book, Malfoy. Give it back.” She held out her hand for the book, and Draco had to stop himself from taking her hand just to feel the smoothness of her skin. Instead he found himself staring at it, lost in his own musings until she cleared her throat. She looked at him expectantly- eyebrows raised- waiting.
“Oh, well, I didn’t know it was yours. If I had, I would have known not to touch it! Now I’ve got to go wash up!” Draco used that as his opening to leave and he slid past, careful not to touch her. God knows what he would have done had he actually brushed against her. In his present state, he probably would have fallen to his knees and asked her forgiveness.
He stalked off, angrier than ever, pushing other students aside as he went. He needed to get away from people to collect himself. Their chance encounter had almost revealed his hidden longings, something he had sworn to himself he would not let happen. How could he be so stupid? He let himself get caught off-guard. That couldn’t happen again. He didn’t want the entire school to know Draco Malfoy had lost his mind and fallen for a mud-blood. What if word got to his father? No, he had to be more careful. He had to watch his step around Granger. No one could know.
He finally found an empty compartment, and took a few deep, cleansing breaths. The panic that roiled in his gut slowly settled until he no longer felt like he was going to throw up.
‘Be strong, Draco,’ he told himself. ‘Be strong.’
It was going to be a long year.
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