Leave Your Lover

I don't have much to give, but I don't care for gold. What use is money when you need someone to hold?
Money: the one thing Draco Malfoy had in excess. When he was younger, he was proud of this fact. But as he grew older, he realized that money couldn't buy everything. More and more he craved not material possessions, but human companionship. For a true friend, for a girlfriend. For Hermione Granger.
To him, she was beautiful in a million different ways. Ways he couldn't even begin to describe in earthly words, but ways that were tangible nonetheless. She was beautiful when she smiled, when she laughed, even when she answered questions in class. Merlin's beard, she was beautiful when she breathed. But it didn't matter how beautiful she was, how his heart pounded whenever she was around. Because she didn't value money at all. She valued something else...something that Ron Weasley had.  And the one thing Ron Weasley didn't have much of: money.

Don't have direction, I'm just rolling down this road, waiting for you to bring me in from out the cold.
More and more, Draco found himself aimlessly wandering around the castle. The pacing seemed to help distract him from his depressing thoughts.
One day, as he was pacing up and down a corridor on the fifth floor, he heard voices. His heart sunk as he realized it was Hermione and Ron.
As the two rushed by, talking and laughing, Hermione bumped into Draco. "Ooh, sorry," she said, letting go of Ron's hand and turning towards Draco.
"That's all right, Granger," he responded, looking into her eyes and once again admiring her beauty, the beauty that he knew could never be his.
"Come on, 'Mione!" Ron said, and their moment of eye contact was broken as Hermione rushed off to join her boyfriend.
Ron glared at Malfoy jealously and put his arm around her shoulders protectively.
Draco's heart broke as Hermione smiled at Ron and kissed his cheek. He turned away from the couple bitterly, tears coming to his eyes, and walked the other way.
His blood boiled with hatred for Weasley. He'd give anything, anything, to have Hermione look at him that way, and Weasley just took her for granted. Draco remembered all the times over the years when Ron had made her cry, made her feel sad and lonely. All the times when Hermione wouldn't even speak to Ron because he'd hurt her, and the time when Ron had broken her heart by choosing Lavender.  Ron certainly didn't deserve her; he had never deserved her.
Draco was a broken person, that was for sure. And the only person who could fix him was in love with someone else.

You'll never know the endless nights, the rhyming of the rain, or how it feels to fall behind and watch you call his name.
Draco couldn't sleep. Every night was the same: He'd try to go to bed but give up about an hour later as thoughts of Hermione haunted him. He'd wander around the castle, going to his favorite spot: a high stone parapet. He'd stay there for hours, regardless of the weather. His favorite was the rain. Standing there hearing it drum in its rhyming patterns against the walls of the castle, getting soaked to the skin, that was when Draco felt most alive. He wished he could share the beauty of the storms with Hermione; he felt like she'd be able to appreciate it.
But there was only one person on Hermione's mind, and that person was not Draco Malfoy. Not even close.

Pack up and leave everything; don't you see what I can bring?
Draco knew he could make Hermione happy. He had so much to offer her. He could give her the world if only she'd look up from Ron.
And it wasn't just that he could buy her whatever she wanted, that she would be his world. No, it was more than that. After years of observing her, he knew that their personalities perfectly complemented each other. She was intelligent, she was proud, she was passionate, and so was he. He could almost imagine the conversations they'd have, the battles of wits, the debates: things she could never have with Ron. Draco could challenge her intellectually, and Ron...well, Ron simply couldn't even come close to doing that.
So there it was, plain and simple and yet unrelentingly complicated: Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger deserved nothing less than each other.