Title: A lesson in evil
Rating: R
Timeline: 7th year
Summary: A musing Hermione wonders what it’s like to hate; An half drunk Draco wonders what it’s like to care. Tonight, they will find each other, some answers, and some feelings they would have never thought they had... Hermione/Draco
Author’s note:
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these wonderful characters, J.K. Rowlings does.

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Chapter 1: Spring

It was an ordinary saturday evening at Hogsmeade; the Three Broomsticks was full of Hogwarts students and even some teachers. Everyone was discussing, drinking, eating and having fun. First signs of Spring could be felt everywhere, either with the slowly but surely rising temperature outside or with the flirty attitude that more than one would show around the opposite sex. Still, obviously, the little brainiac Hermione Granger was above all of these vain distractions. Or was she? She had been watching Harry and Ron playing wizard’s chess for one hour straight, and God knows this game wasn’t even nearly over with. Not that she would flirt with either of them if they were not playing – she considered them mostly like the brothers she never had – but at least a friendly chat would have been more entertaining than staring at little stone peices basically blasting the crap out of each others.

Her boredom didn’t seem to get to them though, since they were both locked on the board like their lives depended on it. All of a sudden, she decided that she had enough. She wasn’t angry at them at all, but she felt like she could bore herself alone, some place else. So she just stood up, grabbed her back pack and started gathering her stuff. That’s when the boys realized she was still there.

“Where are you going, Hermione?” said Ron with a curious look on his round freckled face.

“I’ll go take a walk outside, I’m just tired of all this noise,” she lied, “I might head straight up to bed so don’t wait up for me...”

Her face was betraying her obvious lack of excitement about their game, but they were used to it so they didn’t mention it. Once she was done packing, she waved a tired hand and headed to the exit.

“Later, Mione!” said Harry and Ron in unison.

Outside, the cool night air was enough to wake her up a bit and she didn’t really feel like going to bed anymore. A walk, she thought, maybe I could just walk around and smell the fresh spring air... She started wandering in the village, just to take the pace of the place, and also to forget about school, the upcoming exams, her love life, or to be more precise, lack of love life... After all, spring was getting to her somehow, and she felt more lonely than ever...

Musing on her desperate condition, she hadn’t noticed the staggering Pansy Parkinson passing her with a mocking grin on her usual pug face.

“Hey, Granger!” she yelled, obviously drunk and/or on drugs, in the arms of a much older though cute wizard, probably some Hogsmeade’s citizen. “Are you going to bed already? Or are you just hiding your ugly face from the rest of the world!?”

The man walking with Pansy seemed somewhat embarassed by her overly loud yelling and was pulling on her robe to get her to walk faster. Hermione didn’t stop or even look at her, she was used to constant teasing and mocking from the Slytherins. She just quickened her pace and turned a corner, finding herself in a little trail that seemed to go deep into a little wooden. After very little thought, she decided to follow it, just to see where it headed. At least, she told herself, I most probably won’t meet any Slytherins up to an insult contest around here!

The soothing darkness of the woods was enough to make her relax in its sweet embrace. Silence was only broken by some owls’ sinister hooting, night sky full of glowing stars… Everything seemed in perfect harmony at that particular place, at this very moment. Only one thing was bothering Hermione: she couldn’t get Pansy’s words out of her head. Not that they were any meaner than usual – they were pretty lame, actually – but she kept thinking about this whole continual bickering thing. For seven years straight, poeple she barely knew, poeple to whom she had never done anything, either good or bad, hated her. Not only just disliked her—hated her.

How is it, she thought, that someone can hate so easily? How is it that someone would wish you were dead, for no particuliar reason, just because you actually exist? These thoughts kept running in her head, as she was heading deeper into the woods, and then a name popped in her head. Draco Malfoy, obviously. She remembered her fifth year, when she had a big fight with Malfoy in front of the whole school. That night, when she came back to the common room, Ron asked her if she really hated Malfoy now that he humiliated her before the eyes of everyone. Her answer was long to come out, but it sounded a bit like: “I’m angry at him, that’s for sure, but hate is a bit too strong of a word... I really don’t think I can hate anyone. Not even him...” Ron didn’t seem satisfied at all, so he revealed something to her that he had been knowing for a while but had never found the courage to spit out...

“He wishes you were dead, you know...”

She could barely breathe. Not that she didn’t suspect it, of course, but hearing it from her best friend’s mouth was a bit too much to take. Ron related what Malfoy told him back in their second year, when he and Harry took Crabbe and Goyle’s appearence to enter in the Slytherin’s common room. Even if Draco was twelve back then, she knew he meant every single word he had said. That evening of her fifth year was probably the very first moment Hermione acknowledged the existence of real evil. Not only in mad half-dead wizards like Voldemort, but in any normal, everyday kid.

Now, two years later, after the war, the deaths and the final demise of Voldemort, she was more than ever fully aware of how simple hate could remotely destroy the entire world. But still, she couldn’t find herself able to feel such a dark, violent and powerful emotion, even for her worst enemies. She just couldn’t. A loud sound of shattered glass ended her musings. A little up ahead of the road, behind the thick amount of trees and bushes, she could catch sight of what seemed to be an abandonned barn lightened by a small camp fire. There must be people having a little spring party away from teachers’ eyes, she grunted sarcastictly, I bet I’m probably surrounded by snogging couples right now...

She sighed heavily. Her lack-of-love-life feeling amplified every time she saw poeple kissing or holding hands, so the possibility of having merry-happy-little-couples looking at her pityful, lonely self just sickened her even more. She made her decision to turn back and head straight to the castle when she heard a somewhat familiar voice mumbling some nonsense in a rather angry tone in the direction of the barn. She knew just to well to whom this hateful voice belonged... Malfoy, she said aloud, what’s he doing out here?

Even if Draco Malfoy might have been the last person Hermione wanted to be around right now, her curiosity had won over her common sense so she decided to go over there and take a peek of what he was up to. Maybe he’s molesting a youngster, she thought, as to give herself a good reason to check it out, and as Head Girl, it’s my duty to prevent such things... Of course, she willingly ignored the fact that Malfoy was surely stronger than her and that she had no real authority outside of school grounds. Spying on him was just a lot more exciting than wizard’s chess!