For The Tabloids

Chapter Seven

Third Person POV:

Hermione gazed down at yet another letter from Neville Longbottom. It had been roughly two weeks since Neville had began befriending Draco Malfoy on her behalf, and the unopened letter she now held in her hands was the officially the last one she would receive until the upcoming school year.

She couldn't decide if she was excited or remorseful to read the letter, part of her even believed that she should not open the letter. Through these letters she had read how Draco had changed over the decade, how he had grown as a person. She had believed that, upon hearing that he had become a professor at Hogwarts, he was just a carbon copy of Snape. Perhaps in private Draco was still the same blood supremacist cowardly man he had been but, according to the information Neville had sent her, he was a kind man who taught his students to not follow the set of beliefs pureblood society drilled into the minds of children. And he was supposedly caring with the students, especially those who didn't quiet fit in with the others.

That was the fact that had shocked Hermione the most. She could remember when everyone had been at the age in which they presented, how Draco had stated he would be the "model alpha" and would simply marry an omega and let them do all the work with the children. But the behavior Neville talked about in this letter was anything but that. She knew how disappointed Draco had been when he was not an alpha, and how he had made fun of her relentlessly for her status as an alpha. She had been an outcast for many things: her brains, her looks, her interests, but especially her secondary gender. It was rare for women to be alphas, which just made it easier for Draco to hurl insults at her when they were teenagers.

Had he really changed all this much since their school days?

Part of Hermione desperately wanted to believe that he truly had changed, that under all that evilness there was still some good. But in the depths of her mind she still thought of him as the cowardly bully with slicked backed blonde hair who stalked the halls of Hogwarts for his next victim.

So Hermione, the brightest witch of her time, was truly perplexed. Opening this letter and reading more details about how Draco had changed could sway her even more to what her heart begged her to belief, that Draco had become a better person. But leaving it closed and letting it sit unopened for years could leave her feeling unfulfilled, and as if she had judged him based off his past alone.

Perhaps getting to know the new Draco wasn't worth it, or perhaps learning about him through letters wasn't giving her what she wanted. It felt as if a line was pulling her towards Draco, and no matter how she looked at it she could not figure out why it was there. She was so intrigued by him yet had only encountered him twice since they parted ways at graduation. And on the first of those occasions she had barely glanced at him, had not spoken a singular word to him. And to only further her confusion she could not figure out why Draco pulled her towards him, and why she was chasing him. He had made her introduction into wizarding society turn into a nightmare, had ruined the majority of her Hogwarts experience. Furthermore he had stood there and watched while Bellatrix had tortured her. Harry still to this day blamed it on Draco's cowardice, and Ron would state it was because Draco just wanted to please Voldemort.

Hermione flipped the letter over in her hands, gazing down at the wax seal with confusion and hesitance.

She brushed her hand against the wax seal, the seal that held her next actions regarding Draco Malfoy in it's hard waxy clutches. As much as Hermione wanted to tear open the letter and for it to say that Draco wanted to meet with her face to face she knew it would not say anything of the sort.

But despite her crushing worry that the letter would confirm all of her pre conceived beliefs about her former bully, she opened the letter. Slowly at first, pealing back the wax with the same care one would use to hold a newborn baby. Then once she saw the parchment inside her movements became quicker, with a sense of urgency behind them. She unfolded the piece of paper in a swift jerking motion, still taking care not to rip the letter in two. Her eyes easily scanned over the first few words, they mimicked the beginning of the other letters. Neville, no matter who he was sending a letter to, always began it by saying he wished them well and that he hoped they had had a pleasant day. Hermione suspected he had picked up the trait from his Fiancé Luna who had started her letters in the same manner since their Hogwarts days, while also including brief notes about how the texture of the parchment affected the tone of the letter before making her point. The next section of the letter had gone over the usual things such as how Draco would rant and rave about his amazing students, what he would teach, and generally how he would act. It also mentioned that Draco would frequently visit Daisy, a young girl with Lycanthropy, in the hospital wing after every full moon. Then proceeded to discuss how Draco seemed to have a soft spot for Teddy Lupin, potentially because the two were technically cousins, and how he had gotten the boy out of trouble with Madame Hooch for flying away during class.