In Ruins (Dramione FF)

The Arrival

20.02.2015

His grey eyes rested on her, watched her as she turned away from him, and when he watched her from behind as he was doing now, he couldn't understand from whence his deep hate for her had stemmed.

From the back she just looked like any other girl. She didn't look any different from the people he'd grown up with; from the back he couldn't tell that she was a muggle born, that she had muggle parents. Looking at her now, with his mind now programmed the way that it was, he could finally see how stupid he'd been to act the way that he had in the past. When he looked at her now, he could see there was no features whatsoever that hinted to her mud-blood upbringing. She had dark hair, but not like Potter, and a slim frame like Pansy and, Draco had no doubt, if she was in the muggle world then people may have even considered her to be beautiful.

He'd never even thought of her like that; he'd been taught not to think like that. After years of being taught, of being raised, to treat her sort of people like trash, he had only now started to realise how different his upbringing was in comparison to almost every other person on this train.

He'd had a hard childhood - everyone knew about the pressures that his parents had forced down upon their only son - but maybe if he'd had a different father, then perhaps they could have ended up being friends. Friends! Even the idea surprised him now when he tried to think about it, but it didn't repulse him. He wasn't as disgusted by the thought as he would have been if someone had brought it up in his first year.

He no longer saw the Golden Trio as enemies.

He realised now; he realised as he looked at Hermione's figure that he'd long since stopped thinking about them like that.

Truthfully the thoughts scared him almost as much as they surprised him. He was scared to think about the three misfits like that. After spending years hating the scruff of ginger hair and long brown curls and lightning scar, he was reluctant to change that now. He was afraid of what would happen if anyone was to find out that he was having mixed feelings now, if anyone was to discover that he, a Malfoy, was changing his mind about how he viewed the mudblood and blood traitors.

"What do you want Malfoy?" She snapped.

Her words cut through his thoughts, startling him, and Draco diverted his grey eyes quickly, forcing them down towards the floor of their carriage again. But just as quickly as they had fallen they were rising again, drawn to the emotions in her brown eyes and he only saw hatred.

She didn't look like the scrawny nerd any more. She wasn't the easy brunette that he'd spent years torturing. He could see that now; he could see how the final battle had aged Granger almost as much as it had aged himself.

She had changed, as he had, but she'd become stronger where he'd become weaker. She'd found herself, where he'd lost his path, and in some ways Draco was jealous of her for becoming the woman she know was. He still wasn't sure what he was doing with his life, where he was supposed to go now that the world he'd been brought up to dominate had been destroyed.

So he watched her instead; he watched her as she glared back at him and he noticed. He noticed all of the things that he could notice, searching for some clues on how to notice the same things about himself.

The final rays of sunlight captured her pale face causing her skin to glow softly and accenting the faint scars from the battle that lay there. Her brown hair tumbled messily over her head and Draco turned away, because the things he'd noticed were the things he didn't want to.

Granger's eyes didn't budge. They continued boring into Draco until he eventually gave in and answered her. "I really have changed you know Granger."