Summary: Weeks after his sixth year at Hogwarts has ended, Draco is forced to live with witches and wizards he was once taught to despise. Everyone must accept him, however, under the order of Dumbledore who has so generously welcomed him to the good side. As relationships are questioned, everything Draco once upheld is changed, beginning with the Mudblood whose first name he never cared to pronounce before.
Categories: Alternate Universe Characters: None
Warnings: Alternate Universe, Book 7 Disregarded
Challenges: Series: None
Chapters: 1
Completed: No
Word count: 994
Read: 2006
Published: 04/06/10
Updated: 04/11/10
Story Notes:
After I read Half-Blood Prince, I was too excited to wait for Deathly Hallows, to finally read all the answers to my questions. So I did what we usually do, imagine what could possibly happen. I wondered what would happen to my favorite couple, Hermione and Ron, as well as the fate of my favorite coward, Draco. And this is what I came up with.
1. Her by Eileen Harris
"Her," Draco mustered with as much hatred as he could think of. That - Mudblood! Who did she think she was?
Then again, who did Snape think he was? Severus Snape thought he could just waltz in on Draco’s carefully laid-out plans to kill Albus Dumbledore and do the deed himself. The plan had been going accordingly, he knew. He just needed to take his time killing the first person he was ordered to kill.
And now that Snape intervened, Draco was in deep, deadly trouble. The night that Snape dragged Draco out of Hogwarts and into the Forbidden Forest, he could barely make out anything he was told “ more because he was angry at his foiled plans than for fear of his life, of course.
All he could really remember was, “Draco, you know what will happen to you if the Dark Lord finds you for what you did. I’m going to do the best I can to ward his thoughts from knowing where you are until I can convince him why you weren’t capable of killing Dumbledore…”
Draco then remembered being slapped, most likely because he had…passed out from thinking too much about his…foiled plans…
“You must remain conscious. I don’t think you heard me: You NEED to stay in hiding in the Weasley’s home, known as The Burrow.”
He thought he must be out of it even more than he thought. “The…the Weasley’s? Those…blood-traitors…?”
“Draco, your life is at stake. You chose to be helped by Albus. If you refuse, you could die.”
Draco became more aware of what was going on, but he could not believe it. “But…you KILLED Dumbledore,” he shouted as if it would make more sense.
“I promised your mother that you would not be harmed. And I don’t believe you care about my life, but I’ll at least force you to survive in order for my survival as well.”
So Draco was forced against his will to walk to the Burrow. That’s right “ no apparating, no port-keying, just walking. Three weeks later, when he finally emerged from the tall trees of the forests and found the old, filthy house, he was so dazed, confused, and dehydrated that he grew delusional and believed an angel was flying toward him.
That is, a dirty-blooded, brown- and frizzy-haired angel. He realized this only after he regained consciousness.
As he felt a wet towel cooling his forehead, he began to remember all of it. And when the blurriness in his eyes finally revealed the girl holding the cloth to his face, he took action.
“Ouch!” Hermione said as she quickly removed her hand from his grasp. “That’s the thanks I get for finding you when you could have died out there in the sun…”
“Mudblood…” he muttered. “I wouldn’t have died.”
“Oh, yes you would!” she interrupted. “There I was talking with Ron, the only two in the house that had a good view of where you were coming from. I saw the trees move only slightly, but I felt that something was wrong. The moment I saw you come out of the forest you were already collapsing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe it, Malfoy,” came words obviously filled with hate from the one boy Draco knew would be at Hermione’s side. He stood in the doorway, arms crossed.
“Ah, Weasley, I’m sure you were too busy professing your passion for something insignificant at the time of Granger’s discovery.”
At this, Ron’s ears as well as the rest of his face became a darker shade than his ginger hair.
“Shut up, Malfoy,” was all he could say as he left the room.
During the days of his recovery, Hermione insisted on tending to Draco.
“I see you’re finally expressing your crush on my pure-blood self,” he snickered one morning as she changed his bedsheets.
“Quite the contrary,” she retorted. “I refuse to have anyone but myself be insulted by your ungratefulness. I just can’t imagine how heartbroken I’d feel by the way you’d treat Mrs. Weasley.”
“I’m sure King Weasley isn’t happy about this.”
“That would be correct.” Draco could see her suppressing a smile.
“So,” he yawned after a few minutes of silence. “What’s the update on how everyone feels about me? You know, how I was on a mission to-”
“The same as usual,” Hermione interrupted. “All of us hate your guts, you know how it is.”
“Then how could I possibly stay here?”
“Because we learn to forgive, and you learn to follow the right side.”
“The…right side?”
“You did agree to that with,” her voice cracked as she said it, “Dumbledore?”
For a moment, Draco could only stare at Hermione as she looked down to compose herself. He just realized she had talked about a man that was dead. And not just any man… Despite her attempts, however, it seemed like she could not handle it.
“You know what, Malfoy? You’re right. Why should I give the time of day to a half-blood and mud-blood hater and especially,” she held back a sob as if she could not possibly say that Dumbledore had been murdered, “to “ a Slytherin!”
As she cleaned up his room, clearly relieved to finally be leaving his presence, Malfoy could not believe what he had done next.
“Grang-” he said until he stopped himself. “Her-mione,” he then said. For the first time in his life, he must have said it with some kind of warmth.
“Yes?” she replied, more out of surprise than out of anger.
“I’m sorry…?”
She turned to face him, to look at him squarely in the eye with a very confused look. After a few seconds she looked frustrated and stormed out the room. Draco noticed the emphasis she put when stomped down the stairs.
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