Chapter Text
Draco moved through the narrow carriages of the Hogwarts Express as if they belonged to him, shoes polished, chin lifted, every inch arranged with the calculated poise of a boy raised to embody supremacy. Reflections chased him along the glass, a pale figure sculpted by rules, already measuring the train as the first chamber he would command, his name the key to every door. Compartments opened and shut in his wake, each revealing children rehearsing futures they did not yet realize they were building.
A girl pinned a prefect badge to her chest as though fixing a star into orbit. A boy stacked coins for the trolley with arithmetic precision, mouth set in lines of early discipline. Draco absorbed each tableau with a hunter’s stillness, feeding on the glances that cut toward him whenever the name Malfoy ran ahead of his stride.
His father had told him the train would begin the hierarchy Hogwarts would later formalize, and he believed it. He sought out those who already knew who must be deferred to. His domain fractured under a clear voice, bright and earnest.
“Has anyone seen a toad? A boy named Neville has lost one.”
She stood at the far end, hair untamed by static, tie askew from haste, hands full of purpose rather than elegance. A slim book clung to her palm as though it had lived there all summer, its spine softened by use, its pages worn by love rather than display. She met each set of eyes directly, seeking answers, not approval. At the next compartment she asked again, her tone steady, as though the missing toad was truly important. A boy jeered about slime on seats and warts, drawing cheap laughter, but she dismissed them with a brisk nod, already moving on as though she had sworn to see the task through.
Draco watched. She pressed forward without apology, unbowed by stares, her determination stronger than the dismissals it gathered. She asked older students who ignored her, and their refusal slid away as though it had no claim on her. All his life, he had been taught purity meant pedigree, traced in bloodlines and names, yet the word shifted inside him while he studied her.
Purity, he thought, was her unwavering confidence, her softening when kindness was offered, her refusal to bow before mockery and continue forward. Her world was not measured in alliances and Draco couldn’t help the draw of his curiosity.
Words hovered on his tongue and died there. He could have offered assistance with a flourish, announced himself with practiced authority, teased her for stooping to her own search instead of deputizing someone more suitable. None of those responses matched the impulse anchoring inside him. She threaded her way through the crowd, pausing with the trolley witch who steadied trays of sugared goods.
The scent of toffee drifted into the hall, and Hermione, he would later learn her name, thanked the witch for looking under the racks, gratitude offered without hesitation. Draco shifted aside as she drew near, allowing space with the ease of habit, though he had never known for whom he practiced such instinct. Her gaze passed across him, polite, unremarkable, no different from any other. The lack of recognition stung more than derision.
A memory stirred of his father lecturing over polished wood, voice droning of honor in heritage and pride preserved by marrying and allying themselves with those of pure blood. That day, he had nodded where he ought, but had found the sheen of the desk lifeless. Now, he was watching a girl determined to reunite boy and toad, honor bent into a shape his father would never have recognized. At last, a cheer rose near the middle carriages.
Neville Longbottom cradled a lumpy green body, eyes alight with relief. Hermione’s shoulders eased, a smile ghosting across her face as laughter rolled through the doorway. She thanked the boy who coaxed Trevor free with genuine grace, then turned to Neville, accepting his apology with kindness that performed for no one.
Draco leaned against the cool paneling of a window, letting the moment press into him. He admired that she did not wait for praise to justify her efforts. He felt drawn to her, pulled to this girl so opposite of the Purebloods he grew up with. He was curious. He wanted to know her, know more than anyone else. He knew she would not belong to Slytherin and he felt a sting of disappointment followed by an unexpected clarity.
He wanted her to look at him with the same softness she’d shown to the Longbottom boy. He wanted to be measured not by name, but by a standard she had unknowingly set. He wished in that moment her amber eyes would land on him. Later, when Neville stammered about boxes with air holes and she listened with patience, Draco realized he had begun to associate his curiosity of the (he’d come to find later) Muggleborn witch with his definition of pure.
He turned from her before anyone caught his gaze lingering. In his compartment, Crabbe and Goyle argued over cards, noise filling the space. Draco sat alone on the other seat, but a sense of confusion settled upon him. He did not want her to think poorly of him, though he already knew she would, his Slytherin House would demand it.
How could he show the best parts of himself, if he had to protect his reputation? That evening, the Sorting Hat called her to Gryffindor, as he knew it would. He tried not to feel the palpable disappointment as his own tie bore Slytherin green, hers Gryffindor red, and the space between the them felt like a chasm. That one sided moment on the train felt like a lifetime ago, though it had only been mere hours.
As the years pressed forward, Hogwarts shaped him in ways both predictable and defiant. He learned to sneer, to wield his surname like a weapon, to bruise with words where curses were forbidden. He played the role his father required, parading arrogance as though it were second nature. Behind that veneer, however, lived the young boy on the train, remembering a girl who had chosen kindness over calculation and deciding he wanted to own her, possess her.
He hurled slurs across classrooms, the syllables biting in ways he could not admit tasted like ash the moment they left his tongue, all while secretly clinging to his silent obsession. He mocked her bloodline because that was the language Slytherin demanded, the performance expected of a Malfoy.
Still, each time her hand rose in class, quill moving quick as if every answer mattered, he felt his determination take root again, steady as the blood flowing through his veins and the beating of his own heart. Her disdain for him carved her further out of reach, yet it never diminished the sanctity of what he deigned to preserve, so that one day he could be worthy of her.
In second year, he watched her freeze beneath the basilisk’s gaze, body turned to stone. The castle whispered that the Mudblood deserved it, but he remembered her voice asking for a toad as if it were the most important thing in the world. He did not celebrate, though he laughed when others did and wished her dead. In the privacy of the dormitory, he thought of how easily fate could tear his little witch away from him, how she’d almost came to her end under the terror of Slytherin’s Heir.
She was to pure, too good for this world that so emphasized blood status. He secretly visited her in the infirmary every night, holding her cold, stiff hand, and imagining doing it for real in the daylight.
By fourth year, when the Yule Ball twinkled with floating lights, fake snow, and garlands, he had already tested his resoluteness against temptation. Pansy draped herself across his arm, cheeks rouged, mouth eager, leaning closer as music swelled.
Draco allowed himself to tilt near, just enough to feel the heat of her lips hovering, his first kiss. Before she could close the distance, however, something in him recoiled with precision. It felt wrong, to let her touch him would fracture the reserve he had guarded.
In his mind, the only witch worthy of such pure blood and prestine pedigree was Hermione Granger. How could he be worthy for Hermione to claim, to atone for his treatment of her, if he had already given parts of himself to another? Pansy pouted at his restraint, mistaking it for coldness, yet he knew it was a deep devotion she could never understand and he could never explain.
When Hermione descended the staircase on Viktor Krum’s arm, hair tamed into unfamiliar elegance, Draco tasted jealousy so potent it burned. He felt his hand twitch, and sorely wished he could Avada Krum on the spot, international Quidditch star be damned. Even as he watched her twirl around the dance floor with Krum, his restraint solidified.
It would mean nothing to indulge Pansy or any of the girls who angled toward him with painted mouths, when the only painted mouth he wanted was currently with another.
He stalked Hermione the rest of the night, ditching Pansy though it was not on purpose. When he noticed the big brute lean down, he sent a slicing hex towards Krum when he tried to kiss her in the corridor before parting at the end of the night. He would never allow anyone to touch her. Only he would get that privilege.
Fifth year buried those truths deeper. Occlumency with Snape was meant to fortify him against the Dark Lord’s gaze, but Draco locked away more than teenage secrets. He hid every memory of Hermione, starting with the way he was drawn to her on the train.
He occluded away every night spent stalking her, observing her, and thinking of her. He even occluded the thoughts of her naked and panting under him as he jerked off in the shower or his four poster bed.
Snape’s voice pierced him in that monotone drawl, warning him to conceal what could damn him, and Draco obeyed, binding his obsession inside the tightest walls of his mind, fortifying her protection so deeply into himself that not even death could unlock the memories.
By sixth year, his obsession had transformed into ritual. He watched her every chance he got, any way he could. He secretly followed her whenever he could slip away and did his best to make sure no one came close to her, especially that blasted Weasley git.
He savored whatever glimpses of her he could, knowing his task to kill Dumbledore would be the beginning of the end. Even still, not even the inevitability of murder cracked the sanctity he preserved of her in his mind.
He would kill if commanded, as long as she remained his Hermione. He would slit throats, curse traitors, and bear the brand of a Death Eater, as long as she remained safe. Everything he was, and is, belonged to her, even though she didn’t know it.
And when the war consumed the school and the Manor became a court of blood, the vow to protect and preserve her purity that he so loved flared like fire through his veins. He murdered his Aunt Bellatrix the night she tried to mar his beloved’s beautiful skin, the first time she’d found herself in his domain.
After that, he fortified himself in the ranks until no one but the Dark Lord stood above him. She was the last untouched thing in a ruined world, and he would guard that purity with his own, even if it meant drenching his hands in every other stain imaginable, bowing only to his own obsession.