525.600 Minutes: In Truths That She Learned, or The Times That He Cried

Chapter One

Hello and welcome!
First of all thank you so much for choosing to read this story, it means a lot. Your comments and stars means a lot to me. Don't forget to read my other Dramione Fanfics "a fresh start" and "i love you, i'm sorry".

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AD

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To any bystander the girl stepping off the bus would appear to be normal, or plain (as some would describe) girl. She was carrying a suitcase, had bushy-brown hair (though, not as bushy as it used to be.. mind you), and brown eyes. She had matured features that would tell you she was somewhere between the age of sixteen, and seventeen.. perhaps even eighteen.

"Ere ya go, Miss Hermione" said a pimply faced man from the double-deckor bus.

"Thank you, Stan." Hermione replied sweetly with a smile. Revealing her straight and perfect teeth, seemingly only obtainable by magic.

"Well, have a good day!" and at the speed of light the bus was gone.

To anyone like you or me, that would have been some sight, a bust just dissapearing into thin air. Hermione simply inhaled deeply and let it out in a sigh as the wind rushed pass her face. The Knight Bus was truely a special bus. Now, i have told you that anyone (like you or me) Hermione would have appeared to be a plain, normal teenager. But my dear reader she is not. Hermione is very different from you and I, Hermione is a witch and a very bright one at that.

Hermione grabbed her trunk by it's handle, turned on her heel and headed down to the dark alley which she was in front of as the sign THE LEAKY CAULDRON appeared above her head, welcoming her into the tavern.

"Why Miss Granger! What a surprise! t's been quite some time since the last time I say you!" Said a toothy in keeper of the tavern/hotel.

"It's nice to see you too, Tom."

"My you've grown. Well, what can i do for you?"

"I'd like a room please."

"How long will you be staying?"

"Just a week."

"Righto then, here's your room key. Room number 21. Go up three flights of stairs, down the hall and it's the last room on your right." Tom said.

"Thank you Tom."

Hermione sat in the lone chair of her worn room, looking out the window at the busy Diagon Alley below. Young witches and wizards could be seen holding their parents hands or running up and down the street looking into the windows of all the different stores. She even spotted out a few of her class mates from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Hermione couldn't believe that this was her seventh and final year at Hogwarts. She sighed as she thought of the second family that she had formed there with her fellow housemates and how they would soon be leaving each other to pursue their careers.

Trying to think of happier thoughts and more about the present Hermione stood and walked towards the door. Grabbing her small bag on the way that contained her school list. Even though she was staying there for a week, Hermione wanted to get her school shopping done soon. That way she could get some light reading in before school started.

The brown-haired girl gave a grunt as she put all her school books on the counter so she could pay for them. "I wonder if Harry and Ron got their books already?" Hermione thought. Ron was in Egypt with his family visiting his older brother Bill, while Harry was told by Dumbledore, the crazy, smart Headmaster of Hogwarts, to stay at the Dursley's until the beginning of term. A war was brewing in the wizarding world and no one was safe, especially Harry.

Hermione's mind then, jumped to her parents. They were on an anniversary vacation in the states and wouldn't be back for a month, leaving Hermione alone. Hermione usually would have stayed by herself, but with the war becoming an even bigger threat, Hermione felt, for some reason, safer knowing that there were others like her around.

Hermione had been so caught up in keeping the books under her right arm from falling, reading what to get next, and in her thoughts she didn't notice that she had bumped into someone, well that is until she landed on the cobblestone road with a thud.

"I'm so s-"

"Well, well, well. If it isn't book-worm Granger. And what's this, no Pothead or Weasle King around. I must say, I never thought I'd see that the day, that the three "heros" of Hogwarts broke up." Hermione never got to finish her apology as a voice interrupted hers.

Her head immediately snapped up to the person standing before her, the person she had run into. Her soft brown eyes, met the cold ones of Draco Malfoy. She was glad she didn't get to finish her apology.