[✓] MAGICAL || Harry Potter •

Love after Destruction (Dramione)

I fell in love with a bad person. He walks down the halls glaring and grouchy. After the war, he was saved and he just didn't want to be saved. He wanted to die or get sent to Azkaban. He grew his hair out longer than it should have been and used muggle hair dye to change it to light brown. He shared a common room with me. We were both traumatically dangerous and also Head Boy and Girl. McGonagall required us to get along. But I just fell in love with a bad person. One day I went to my room and he tried to hex me, saying I was the reason his mother died. He had been drinking and his mother really wasn't dead. He had nightmares as well.

Draco Malfoy had changed the most out of all of us after the war. He was nicer to teachers and more bitter towards others. The only person he sometimes opened up to was me, Hermione Granger. He told me what it was like to be a death eater, how he watched his teachers and fellow students die before him. How he watched me get tortured by his aunt. Most days, he locked himself in his room and refused to come out. He would cry so loud that I would sit outside his room and silently cry with him. I would make his meals and sometimes I would have to force-feed him. He had a habit of skipping meals. He took to another bad habit of weighing himself every day and saying he was fat and ugly.

Yesterday, I caught him trying to end it. He was going to jump out of the astronomy tower. I told him his life was worth it and that I loved him. He said I was lying and ran to his room. He charmed to door to not open. I am the brightest witch of my age so I was able to get into his room. Draco's room was scary. Decked in mostly black, it had pictures of skulls. The four-poster bed had been moved to the corner of the room and there were old food plates piled on top of a dirty space that used to be a desk. The bookcase was lined with child stories like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel.

I walked in careful to not step on the almost sea of unclean clothes. "Draco? I know you're here. I wanted to talk to you uh, um ... about stuff?" My voice squeaked out a question instead of a statement. I was fully ready for this. My wand in my right hand and my calming draught for Draco in the other. I caught a glimpse of brown hair in the corner of the room by the bookcase. He was slumped over in a dark grey wingback chair. "Oh gods. Draco," I whispered as I ran over, almost slipping on random things trying to make my way over to him. I crouched down and leaned in. I heard his steady shallow breathing and sighed in relief.

"Wingardium Leviosa," I whispered, levitating Draco. I stood up and brought him to my room because it was way cleaner and also because his bed was covered in books. I gently brought him down onto my bed. I took his shirt off because it smelled like the forest. His arms were covered in scars and gashes. Words were cut into him, either by Bellatrix or himself. I didn't feel scared or gasped. I knew this would happen and I let it. I sort of felt ashamed. I put one of my jumpers on him and covered him with a small blanket.

Then I got to work. I went back into Draco's room and cleaned as if my life depended on it, which it sort of did. I cleaned his clothes, organized his books, washed his dishes, and even had time to paint his room dark green and white instead of that depressing black. "Hermione?" My name echoed through our quarters. I went out into the hall to see Draco hobbling around and looking silly in my bright purple jumper. Our eyes connected and I smiled.

I ran to him and threw my arms around him. "I love you. I love you. I love you. Draco, I love you so much," I whispered into his ear. He hesitantly wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me.

"I love you too," Draco whispered back. "I was too scared to say something to you and after the war, I started to underestimate my self-worth. ANd after the traumatic things in the war, I shut the world out and resorted to the only pain reliever I knew would help. But goddammit Hermione Granger, I love you."

"You're smiling," Hermione's jaw dropped. This was the first time she saw Draco smile in a year.

"Of course I'm smiling, you're here," Draco replied with a genuine smile but before Hermione could react, Draco kissed her. And Hermione kissed back.

War brings out the best and the worst in people. But most of all, it brings people together. And with Hermione and Draco, it did all three of those things. They hated each other and became friends with each other and became closer to each other. And now they fell in love with each other.

the end.