Hermione's Dilemma

Prologue

Draco Malfoy. Hermione said his beautiful name over and over inside her head. She would not dare say that name aloud unless it was in a disdainful manner. She sighed. He would never feel for her the way that she felt for him. How could he? He was against everything that she stood for; everything that she was. She cried whenever he called her names; she could not help herself. He could always find a way to hurt her.

The more she thought about him the more horrible she felt. Draco Malfoy was supposed to be her arch nemesis, the person that she hated most in the whole world. In reality, Hermione did not really hate anyone, least of all Draco. These feelings that she had toward Draco made her feel as if she were completely letting her friends down. They would never understand the way that she felt. Never. Yet she could not help her feelings for him. Why? She had asked herself the question over and over again. All that she could conclude was that she felt the way she did toward Draco because she was not supposed to. She was crushing on Draco Malfoy because he was some sort of forbidden fruit that she was not supposed to have, but she really wanted.

Most of the time Hermione worked diligently on her homework, trying to do anything to keep her mind off of Draco, but for the most part she was unsuccessful. She wanted him to feel the same way about her that she felt about him, but alas he never would. She was of non-wizarding family lineage. A mudblood as he had so often been sure to remind her of. Hermione loved her parents greatly, but sometimes it seemed as if life would be so much easier for her if she were in fact born into a wizarding family. Her parents would be able to understand what exactly it was that she was going through, it would be more acceptable for Draco to reciprocate her feelings, and in her mind these changes would make the world would just be a better place. Of course she knew this was overreacting on her part. She was a very logical young woman and saw this right off, but love tends to blind people, and that is what Hermione's infatuation with Draco was developing into. Only one sided love was never going to work, and she that much she was sure of.

She knew that she would not be able to make Draco love her, and no matter what she tried to do to make that happen it was going to be nearly impossible. First off, by now he was probably one of the Dark Lords minions, or Death Eaters as they had been so eloquently dubbed. Secondly, she would never hear the end of it from Harry and Ron, and as much as she did not want to admit it, their opinions would always matter. She just could not have Draco, and she needed to find someone else to divert her attention from Draco. The bright side of the situation was that no one had really noticed that Hermione actually had a crush on Draco. She had done a good job hiding it from Harry and Ron, and most people assumed that she would much rather study then have a relationship. There was the brief fling with Ron that happened in fifth year, but that was none too special, and ended abruptly after a week and a horrible argument. They concluded after they made up that they were much better off being just friends, and she liked it much better that way. The truth, that she had hidden from him, was not only were they unable to get along for more than about twenty minutes, but also that the day that they had started their fling was the day that she had realized that she really did have feelings for Draco.

Draco had been on her mind constantly for almost two entire years, and there was nothing that she could do to get over him. She had tried developing other crushes, and of course there were other boys that she liked... as friends... but she could not bring herself to the point of anything else. Her grades had even begun to slip slightly, but no one noticed, her grades were already so high that a slight slip in her grades did not mean much to the rest of the world. Nobody could tell the difference, but Hermione, and she hated the fact that she was not working to her full potential. She had tried multiple different spells and potions to try to make it so that she could concentrate and nothing had worked. Not even magic could get her over Draco; whatever was she going to do?