requirement | dramione

0.04

september 9, 1996

Hermione couldn't think of a period in which she had ever been more distracted. Yet, sitting in the best desk in the room, leaning on every word, she was unable to peel the image of Draco Malfoy out of her mind. Unable to unsee him, standing at the end of the corridor a whole week ago, so differently than how he'd appeared the night before. 

The picture of him made something in her stomach twist. Out of anger or mystery, she couldn't seem to understand what it was about his silver eyes that mislead her. The same Draco Malfoy who had taunted her, along with most every other student at Hogwarts, since the very first time she stepped onto Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. 

She was perplexed. Perplexed and she did not like it. Perplexed because she'd only seen Malfoy three times since then.

Perplexed and, as if she were seeing something in the theater, she was watching Snape drag the blonde haired boy out of his office all over again. She could still trace the disheveled picture of Malfoy's hair, uncombed and sleepless, and feel the disappointed glare on Snape's dark face. 

She could hear his voice echoing against her ears and, suddenly, hoped that it hurt him more that she was the one to mend his broken fingers than it actually hurt to break them.  

Malfoy was vile. He was foul and rude and untamed. He was evil.

And, truly, she hoped that he loathed his unbroken fingers. 

And, regretfully, she hoped that his mind was flooded with images of her, too. Hoped he was tortured. 

When Ancient Runes ended, Hermione filed out of the room with the other students, who chatted with her and asked her about her Holiday. She smiled, glad to feel the thoughts of Draco Malfoy leaving her mind. She followed the horde of sixth years who were on their way to Defense Against the Dark Arts, tenderly looking for Harry and Ron. 

At the end of the hallway, when students began funneling into Snape's Classroom, Hermione was bumped on the shoulder. She turned to see Harry, with his typically smile paste on his face.

"All right then?" Harry asked, like he could sense that she had been bothered.

"Never better," Hermione chimed in an upbeat voice that wreaked of sarcasm. Harry and Ron, who followed closely behind, both laughed.  They just loved to see Hermione disgruntled. When the three took their seats around one of Snape's circular tables, Hermione let her books slam against the wood. After the ruffling of book bags and paper and quills, Harry and Ron were fixated on Hermione, awaiting her explanation.

As if on que, as the curly haired girl searched for an explanation other than the truth of what had been unravelling her mind for the last week, she noticed the back of his blonde head on the opposite side of the classroom. 

"Right then," Ron pulled her attention back to their table, "I suppose you're just going to leave it at that?" 

"Right. Sorry," Hermione uttered, eyes drifting back across the room as Ron slid further down his chair. Across the room, Draco Malfoy had sat around a circular table with four other Slytherins. They watched him intently as he told a story worthy of hand movements. 

She opened her mouth to speak again, feeling as if Harry and Ron deserved to know what she'd seen last week– the way Snape has handled the blonde. But before she could get another word out, Snape's dull voice was echoing through the classroom.

Maybe they didn't need to know.

On this particular morning, Draco sat next to Pansy Parkinson, whom he sat next to nearly every class they had together. Pansy had taken to his right side, laughing delicately at some miserable offense he had made. He watched her for a moment– every single black hair perfectly in place, straight and without a single sign that it had ever been as messy as he'd seen in the night before. 

It bothered him, for some reason that he could not exactly pinpoint. 

She looked tired, though, and he knew she hadn't eaten a single thing for breakfast because she hadn't gone. Neither had he. He wondered, for a long second, that if he kept forgetting to eat if he'd look as tired as Pansy. 

To his left was Blaise Zabini, who sat with his hands folded on the desk. The boy, who had always been rather quiet, looked entirely uninterested. He never did like Draco. This was a fact that Draco accepted and, honestly, didn't mind. He didn't like Blaise either.

As soon as Snape rose from his desk, Draco shut his mouth. He watched Snape, who always had a somewhat devilish look to him, as the professor began to introduce today's lesson.

Draco had attended another private lesson earlier in the day. Twice last week. Snape, with his deep, slow tone, was teaching his students to cast spells nonverbally. In their first lesson, Draco couldn't manage to cast a single deflection spell without the use of words. Draco was rather skilled at nonverbal spell casting, yet somehow found his mind moving too impossibly fast to properly form nonverbal defense charms and hexes.

He could feel himself getting worked up again, just like he had in each of their morning lessons. His knuckles tightened as he recalled the feeling of Snape's jinxes slamming into him without hesitation. His neck ached. 

"Yes. Miss Granger?" Snape sighed. 

Draco hadn't been listening in the slightest, but his eyes landed on her across the room. Her brown hair curled around her head, ruffled lightly by the hand that she was slowly lowering from the air. She pinched her lips together, just for a moment, before answering. 

"Your adversary has no warning about what kind of magic you're about to perform, which gives you a split-second advantage." The brown haired girl was surprisingly well spoken, which made the Gryfindor boys beside her look like oafs. Distaste filled Draco's mouth. 

Snape replied, almost with a scoff, "an answer copied almost word for word from The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six, but correct in essentials."

Draco watched as blush rose to the girl's cheeks. She sunk, just a little, and flattened a misplaced hair on her shoulder. He studied her small hands, thin fingers, moving through her hair. She fidgeted, gently, but discomforted.   

"Yes..." Snape's eyes shifted away from Hermione as he slowly travelled through the tables of sixth years. "Those who progress in using magic without shouting incantations gain an element of surprise in their spell-casting," Snape was heading right towards Draco's table. "Not all wizards can do this, of course; it is a question of concentration and mind power which some" Snape's cold eyes were digging into Draco now, "...lack."

For a moment, Draco's vision went red. Again, as if in a dream, he could feel Snape's calloused fingers around his neck, shoving the blonde boy into the corridor. Then, he was picturing the Gryfindor girl standing only mere meters down the hallway, knowing that she had seen the whole thing. 

He was furious all over again. And, for some fucking reason, watching her still.