Aftermath

CHAPTER 14: WE'LL TRY IT THERE, AS WELL

Hermione and Draco boarded the empty train in Platform 9 3/4. Classes don't start until the 1st of September. It's still almost the end of July. Good thing is that the train actually travels during Tuesdays and Thursdays, making it convenient for them, finding out just yesterday, their purpose going back to Hogwarts.

"Surreal." Hermione whispered to herself, as they chose the nearest compartment, which the golden trio had always shared. "It is," Draco said as he kept looking at the details of Hogwarts Express.

"It's my first time here." Draco commented as he sat back, across Hermione. "Slytherins used to sit on the far end of the train. Not here." He added.

"Gryffindors occupy this part of the train." Hermione smiled and Draco nodded, remembering their Hogwarts days. "It never really changed either, It's funny I can still remember every conversation that happened in this compartment." She said looking around.

"I never really knew how it looked like, in your compartments," Hermione looked at Draco. "You know, just a tad darker. Potter and his broken nose would know. Just like the dungeons." Draco shrugged.

The train had started to move.

"Is the dungeon really is a dungeon, Draco?" Hermione asked. "You see, in our second year, Harry and Ron drank polyjuice imitating Crabbe and Goyle, trying to get it out of you, if you're the Heir of Slytherin, basically they've seen your common room. And I brewed it up myself, by the way." She laughed remembering how she turned into Millicent Bulstrode's cat. Mistaking the cat hair as Millicent's.

"Wanker. I always knew something was up one time, with Crabbe and Goyle. Goyle had this funny glasses, he never wore one, he never read either." Draco said as he glanced up in thought.

Hermione laughed at his snide comment. "I was quite apalled with that too, why were they your chosen friends Draco? You're smart. You've always come second to me in every class."

"Well—poor choice of peer?" Draco asked sheepishly. "My father always taunted me for being second to you, beating me for the closest scores and that you were you know—a mugg—"

"Mudblood." Hermione smiled, noticing the discomfort on Draco.

"That's why. I never hung with people as smart as me, means I'd have to compete and I'd have to be compared by my father even more as he compared me to you." Draco said honestly.

"But I was always better than you in Potions, Granger. You were just the favorite." Draco added to clear the air. "Excuse me—Harry was." Hermione said and rolled her eyes. The two geniuses laughed in agreement.

If there was a title for the brightest wizard of their age, it would belong to Draco Lucius Malfoy but he never got the recognition, for being bright comes with having great personality, which, Draco at the time didn't. Draco Malfoy had been and was always smart just like Hermione Granger. Both book smart and practical smart. He was never just a bad boy from the corner. He was excellent in academics, earning a spot, being at advanced classes with the golden trio, with Hermione dragging Harry and Ron to. He grew up succumbed by his parents. He had a reputation to maintain. Lucius and Narcissa were brilliant during their years in Hogwarts as well, that made Draco strive into beating Hermione more but he never could surpass the brightest witch.

Draco was also very skilled in Quidditch. He never played dirty like the rest of his team, so when he became captain, he changed Slytherin's old tricks into real strength and strategy.

If he was raised right, and Harry Potter was sorted to Slytherin. He could be the one who's saving and dragging Harry Potter's ass out of trouble and death, at all times and not Hermione Granger.