The Missing Link

Drake and Minnie

Hermione didn't know what to make of what just happened.

He walked out. She didn't think that was a good thing.

So she did what was sensible, and took her things and returned to her room. She was okay with them never mentioning the subject again, but she wanted to know why he reacted that way.

She let everything sink into her head for a while. She never expected Drake and Draco to be the same person. Thinking about it now, they did look alike, and had similar habits. She'd noticed that Draco fiddled with the inside of his pants pocket whenever he was nervous. She remembered Drake do that every time they had show and tell. And Draco had an immense love for vanilla ice cream. They never ran out of the stuff in the kitchen. And Draco always seemed to be eating it whenever he was idle.

But of course, she didn't see these things and immediately think of Drake. She'd given up all hope as soon as she entered Hogwarts. There were far more important things, and more important friends that were actually physically there.

She lay on her bed and fell asleep, humming a song she and Drake learned in school together.

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"I just don't get it," Drake asked Minnie. The two were holding hands, on their way to their favorite ice cream shop. Both of them had gotten full marks and they were going there to celebrate. Even when they weren't in school anymore, their hands seem to find each other most of the time. "Isn't a falling star supposed to be really really big and hot? How is that going to fit?"

"I heard Mummy listening to this song and asked her what it means," Minnie replied. "Mummy said the falling stars are like your dreams. So the song means you have to keep your dreams always. And remember them."

This was why Drake liked talking to Minnie. She always had answers. "But what if I have a nightmare? Or what if something really bad happens in my dreams. Do I have to keep them?"

Minnie sometimes got tired of Drake asking way too many questions. "Not literally dreams, silly. Dreams like what you want to be when you grow up."

"Oh."

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Hermione woke up with a smile on her face, remembering the dream she just had. No wonder she was a know-it-all. It was all Draco's fault.

Draco. Drake was Draco.

And suddenly the her emotions opened like a floodgate. She had long been suppressing her true feelings for him, but remembering their childhood finally made sense of most of Draco's behavior. When they last saw each other, he said that he had to go far away. And yes they were able to write each other for a while, but even that was taken away from him. She understood the resentment he had to grow up with, because it was the same resentment she knew. Except over time, she came to accept that Drake probably just forgot about her.

Looking at the clock, she realized that her nap just took ten minutes. She decided to peek into Draco's room. He was already there, fiddling with her bracelet. She returned to her room and took her keepsake box.

"I figured you had the right to read these letters," she explained before he could say anything. "Half of them were returned to me, the other half I wrote with the hope that your owl would come back."

"Thank you," he said, taking the box. "I just came from the castle. Talked with Pansy. I just hope she's sorry."

"It doesn't matter," Hermione replied. "We're here now. That's all that matters. We found each other anyway. I'll leave so you can calm down a bit."