Draco of Durmstrang

Draco was sitting in his room, puzzling over a particularly tricky bit of Transfiguration work. He had been dismissed for the evening and so he was not concerned when he heard Viktor's voice on deck. He knew the older boy had been over to Hogwarts, and if so this was earlier than he usually returned, but that was not Draco's concern.

After a moment, Draco realised that there was someone else talking with Viktor - a girl's voice. And it didn't sound like any of the Durmstrang girls. It sounded almost like English... Draco didn't hear a great deal of English during termtime, and he was interested. He tilted his head to the ceiling in order to hear better, but it was unnecessary, because in a moment Viktor called him.

'Malfoy!'

Draco put his homework aside and scrambled up to the deck as quickly as he could, to stand before Viktor and the mysterious girl. She was wearing a Hogwarts uniform, and she had bushy hair and brown eyes. She was looking at him with unabashed curiosity.

'Fetch us a drink,' said Viktor, and Draco dashed to obey.

As he fixed the drinks in the small galley, his mind raced. Viktor had brought a Hogwarts girl to the ship? Why had he done it? Would she be coming back again? Perhaps he would get a chance to ask her a few questions about the castle, the questions which had been burning in his mind since the day they had arrived.

When he returned, Viktor and the girl were sitting on a bench on the deck, talking. The girl seemed to be making most of the conversation. Draco noticed that she spoke well and clearly. He handed them their drinks.

'Thank you,' said the girl, 'I'm Hermione Granger.' She extended a hand and he took it uncertainly.

'Draco Malfoy,' he said, looking down from her interested gaze.

She smiled. Viktor clicked his fingers and Draco went to wait down below in case he was needed for anything else. Since he didn't know when Viktor would call him again, he didn't want to go down to his room and fetch his homework, so he just sat and listened. Viktor and the girl, Hermione, talked for a long while and he listened, even though he couldn't make out the words.

All through his lessons the next day, Draco wondered about Hermione. He knew that lots of the Hogwarts girls had been following Viktor around, and it was only natural. He was, after all, a champion Quidditch player and a contestant in the fabled Triwizard Tournament. But Viktor had only ever expressed irritation and boredom with these girls, calling them 'ridiculous' and 'ignorant'. What had changed? Were they just friends, or was there something more between them?

And Draco was intrigued by the way she had looked him frankly in the eye. His life was a curious mix of attitudes and behaviour - at school he was looked down on, and nobody ever made eye contact, much less smiled at him. At home he was universally adored and respected and treated with delicacy. But Hermione had looked him in the eye as if they were equals. Who was she, anyway?

The single sentence she had spoken to him reverberated through his head all day. I'm Hermione Granger... I'm Hermione Granger. Wasn't there an old wizarding family named Granger? Draco felt sure he had been introduced to someone... He remembered suddenly as he stirred his beetle eyes clockwise into his murtlap essence in his Potions lesson that afternoon - Androitus Dagworth-Granger was a business contact of his father's. They had been introduced once in Knockturn Alley. The Dagworth-Grangers were a famous potion-making family. So she was a Pureblood. That would explain her easy elegance and confident bearing, as well as Viktor's interest in her. Of course Viktor wouldn't fall for just any Hogwarts girl.

Draco's curiosity about Hermione only intensified when she returned to the ship that evening. He was in his room, again poring over his school work, when he heard her smooth, measured voice along with Viktor's low one. He couldn't return to his work once he heard it, and it seemed to take forever before Viktor called for drinks. Draco rushed to prepare them, then hurried back up on deck towards Viktor and Hermione.

When he arrived, Hermione was sitting on the bench, alone. Draco frowned in confusion.

'I... here's your drink,' he said.

'One of the other boys called Viktor away to look at something,' she said. 'I shouldn't think he'll be very long. Why don't you sit for a minute and keep me company?'

She smiled again. Her front teeth were a little large. Draco thought it was charming. He perched uneasily on the bench, unwilling to get too comfortable.

'You said your name was Draco?' she asked.

'That's right - Draco Malfoy.'

'Your English is excellent.'

He couldn't help smiling a little. 'That's because I am English.'

'Then, if you don't mind me asking, why aren't you at Hogwarts?'

Draco shrugged. 'My father doesn't approve of Hogwarts, and he and Karkaroff are friends.'

'Oh, I see.' Said Hermione tersely.

'Oh, no, I didn't mean to say that I don't like Hogwarts!' Draco hastened to explain. 'I mean, I wanted to go, but my father wouldn't allow it. He thinks that...'

Draco cut off his explanation as Viktor returned, glaring at Draco, who was in his seat.

'Here's your drink, Viktor,' Draco said meekly, before retreating downstairs again. He heard Hermione call a goodbye, but he expected that he would be in even more trouble with Viktor than he was already going to be if he replied.

It was four days before Hermione returned. Viktor had gone over to Hogwarts for the evening and Draco was once again in his room. His homework was complete. A book was open on his lap, but he wasn't reading it; instead he gazed at the wall.

His ears were constantly straining to hear Hermione's voice on deck, but this time her visit took him by surprise. Because she came to see him.

The knock on his door startled him, because Viktor always just shouted when he was needed, and nobody else ever spoke to him out of school hours. He just sat there for a few moments, unsure what the noise meant.

'It's Hermione; can I come in?' her voice said from the other side of the door.

Draco swallowed. 'Of course!' he said.

As the door creaked open, he cast a panicked glance around his room. Of course it was tidy - there was nothing to worry about. Draco was always neat.

'I hope you don't mind me coming to visit you like this,' Hermione said, sitting on the edge of Draco's small desk.

'Not at all,' he said.

'It's just that I wanted to talk to you. Viktor doesn't know I'm here; he's over at the castle.'

'Oh.'

'Is that alright?'

'Fine.'

'Well, I'm just curious, to be honest. Viktor explained to me about the younger students serving the older ones, but it seems rather silly and outmoded to me. Do you find it's instilled in you a sense of responsibility at all?'

'The Diener system has worked for Durmstrang for centuries...'

'That isn't what I asked.'

'It's not so bad.' He shrugged.

Hermione sighed, and cast her gaze around his room. Her eyes lit up at the sight on the book on his bed.

'Have you actually read this?' she asked, reaching over to grab it and inspect the cover.

'Several times,' said Draco.

'And you enjoyed it?'

'Yes. It's one of my favourites.'

'Me too! But nobody else has read it! Sometimes I think they just don't want to!'

Her eyes widened as she saw the stamp inside the front cover. 'Does this mean what I think it means?'

Draco nodded.

'Really? Oh, just wait until I tell Ron and Harry that you have an actual First Edition of Hogwarts: A History! They'll have to be impressed at that!'

Draco smiled weakly.

'Have you been into the castle yet?' Hermione asked.

Draco shook his head.

'Ooh, then perhaps I could give you a tour sometime? It really is a beautiful place. Some of the windows are...'

'Malfoy!'

Hermione stopped as Viktor's voice rang from above them. Draco got up.

'Oh, don't go,' she said, 'stay here and talk to me. This is all very interesting.'

'I have to, Viktor is calling for me.'

'Well, let him. He can come and fetch you if it's that important.'

'No! And you can't let him know you spoke to me!'

'Well, why not? It's a free country, isn't it?'

'I'd be in so much trouble - please, Hermione...'

He cast her a desperate glance before dashing up the stairs to see what Viktor wanted. It turned out he needed his summer cloak fetching, and Draco obliged. When he returned, Hermione had joined Viktor on deck and was chatting away while he nodded at every other sentence. He glared at her - did she want him to get into trouble? Didn't she understand?

Hermione returned the next day, while Viktor was out exploring with his friends. Draco only shrugged in answer to her greeting, but he couldn't stay cross at her for long, when he saw what she had brought.

'Look!' she said with a flourish, 'I got you something!'

She tipped her bag upside down and the contents fell onto his bed - four books on the history of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.

'I borrowed them from the library, so I'll have to take them back eventually, but I thought you might like a look,' she said, sitting on his bed and kicking off her shoes as is if was the most natural thing in the world, 'and I brought my Potions homework with me - there are a couple of things I'm not clear on and I wondered if you might have an opinion.'

Draco leafed hungrily through the books, stopping to look at some coloured plates of famous paintings in the castle, then sat down beside Hermione to look at the bit of parchment she proffered.

'Viktor won't be back until after dinner, so I can spend the whole afternoon here if I like,' she said as he read it.

Draco blushed. Hermione, spend an entire afternoon with him? He wasn't sure whether to be glad or intimidated.

'Ah,' he said, as he read over the parchment, 'I think your problem here is that you're confusing the two different potions which can be distilled from the same root. The one in your ingredients list certainly would produce that result, but I think it's the other one that you actually need...'

She bent her head closer to look.

After that, Hermione visited often, always making sure that Viktor would be away when she came. She and Draco did their homework together - or if they had none, they discussed the books they were reading or practised the spells they had learned that week. Their curriculums were very different, and so they learned twice as much as they would have alone.

Draco was thrilled to have found someone who shared his enthusiasm for learning - never before had he had someone to talk to about the fascinating properties of monkshood; nobody had ever expressed delight at his theories on the evolution of antidotes. Hermione knew even more than he did about Potions, but he supposed that everyone in her family did - one of the Dagworth-Grangers had founded the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers. His lessons began to take on a new appeal, when he thought of how he would discuss the work later with Hermione, and perhaps she would mention some fact that didn't come up during the lesson, and he would then deduce from that a further idea on the topic, and she would expand on it...

It was intellectual bliss, and Draco revelled in it. It was only after a while that he realised - sitting in his room after Hermione had left one evening, still smiling about the argument they had had over which spell to use to clean up the ink she had spilled all over his robes - that it wasn't only the opportunity to learn new things that was so heartening to him. Draco had made his first friend.

'So, what do your parents do? Do they work?' Draco asked one afternoon, as they sat in his room, poring over Hogsmeade: Origins and Development.

'Oh, they're both dentists,' said Hermione, 'which is a bit of a trial for me, as you might imagine.'

She grinned.

'What's a dentist?' Draco asked, deeply interested.

'Oh, they're sort of like Healers, only Muggles, and they specialise in teeth,' Hermione explained, 'then there are orthodontists, who...'

'Muggles?' said Draco, 'you're a Mudblood?'

There was horror and disgust in his voice, but it paled in comparison to the same emotions in Hermione's face as she stared at him, lip trembling, then snatched up her books and ran from the room.

Draco couldn't sleep that night - the dialogue in his head refused to let him rest and he tossed and turned, trying to think of something, anything else.

She betrayed me! She made me think she was Pureblood!

But she never mentioned it at all! You just leapt to the conclusion that pleased you best.

Of course she didn't mention it - would you admit it if you were a Mudblood?

She didn't seem ashamed to talk about her parents... and she's so clever, and composed, and nothing like how you thought a Mudblood would be...

It doesn't matter that she doesn't seem like a Mudblood, she is one!

Everyone at Durmstrang is Pureblood, and see how they treat you! Maybe purity isn't everything.

But she's a Mudblood!

Draco went through his lessons the next day sleepy and hollow eyed. When Viktor went across to Hogwarts he found himself waiting for Hermione to arrive, then shook his head angrily. It was doubtful that she would be coming back at all.

Over the next few weeks, Draco began to look even paler than usual, and his lessons suffered, as did his duties for Viktor. Several times he forgot instructions or did things sloppily or incorrectly.

Often, he found himself making a note to mention something to Hermione, before belatedly remembering that they were not speaking any more.

One evening, once Viktor had dismissed him, he sat at his desk to write. It took several discarded attempts before he was satisfied:

Dear Hermione,

I want to apologise for my awful behaviour on the last day that I saw you. I feel very ashamed now for calling you such an offensive name, but more ashamed of the sentiment behind it.

You must understand that I was brought up to believe in the superiority of Purebloods, and it is difficult for me to accept that things may not be as I had always thought. I am forced to conclude that my parents were wrong about Muggle-borns - you are obviously no less of a witch than any Pureblood. In fact, you're much better than all of the Durmstrang girls.

If you never want to speak to me again, I understand, but I wanted to apologise and let you know that I am trying to change.

Yours repentantly,

Draco.

Draco folded and sealed the parchment and took it to one of the owls up on the deck.

'Take this to the castle,' he told it. He watched it take flight, then went back to his room.

The next afternoon, there was a knock on Draco's door as he sat working half-heartedly on his Dark Arts homework. Without waiting for an answer, Hermione came in. She gave a shrug and a small smile, then took her usual place on Draco's bed and opened her bag to take out her books.