IMPORTANT! READ THIS FIRST!

Hello, this is my second Harry Potter fanfic, the other one I'm having some trouble writing, and currently only has a prologue. This one I wrote because the idea came to me and I just had to write it!

Anyway, on to the important stuff. There are some differences in plotline with this.

One-Dumbledore is alive.

Two-Snape is alive.

Three-Fred and George are both alive and unharmed!

Four-Ron never confessed to Hermione, they didn't snog, and he currently is still with Lavender.

Thank you, and everything else happened. Lupin, Tonks, and everyone else are, unfortunately, dead. Enjoy reading, and please review!

Disclaimer: I do not in any way, own Harry Potter. I may be a Dramione obssessed fangirl, but that doesn't really make much of a difference, does it?

When Moonlight Meets Chocolate

Chapter 1: I Hate Him, I Love Him

Silver blue eyes, like moonlight. Platinum blonde hair that reflected the slightest lighting. Pale skin, smooth and flowing like milk. Long fingered hands, strong and immaculate. Tall, slim, and sturdy, the frame of an athlete. Lightly tinted lips, either set firmly or upturned into a constant smirk, or some other derogatory expression that would normally seem unattractive, but made beautiful on this face in particular.

Hermione Granger smiled slightly. Yes, Draco Malfoy was beautiful. She knew that. Hell, he knew that. He was like a diamond, glittering and magnificent. And just as cold.

The smile vanished with this thought. Yes, he was cold. The coldest person she’d ever met, in fact, besides his father. Lucius Malfoy could freeze you in place with one look, and at the same time make you feel like the lowest person on Earth. If you let him. That was the trick. You learned not to let it affect you, to brush off like unsightly dust on your uniform.

Unfortunately, it seemed Draco was heading in the same direction as his father. The Death Eaters left after the war with Voldemort were currently either in Azkaban, like Lucius was, or ‘converted’ to the side of good. Though people were still wary around the latter of the group, most had been easily accepted back into society, after they’d explained themselves.

Draco was one of these. He’d explained to everyone how it had been forced upon him by his father, that he’d never wanted to help Voldemort in the first place. Veritaserum had proven him to be telling the truth, and his case was influenced even more when it too proved that he had been secretly sabotaging Death Eater plans from the inside, stopping more than one massacre from occurring. Not to mention that he was shown to have never once killed innocents, except once, but that was as an act of mercy.

Hermione closed her eyes. She believed it. Everyone did, especially with Veritaserum, the truth potion, backing his claims. Even though they had hated each other since they’d first met, she believed him.

She sighed. Perhaps ‘hate’ was only true on his part. She didn’t hate him. Ron and Harry did, surely, but not her. He called her Mudblood on a constant basis, bashed her and her friends, had done bodily harm during the war, enchanted her teeth, and never once smiled or showed some small amount of kindness toward her, but she still couldn’t seem to hate him. Quite the opposite, in fact.

She found herself to be in love with him.

Shocking, yes, but it wasn’t something she could stop. Even though she hated everything he did and was, from his smirking face to his arrogant air. He was the pure incarnation of everything she disliked in a male, a smug prick that looked down at everyone, using his good looks and money to get what he wanted.

She hated him.

She loved him.

Hermione leaned her head back against the seat in the train compartment she was in. She couldn’t explain it. Why did she feel this way about the one person she shouldn’t even want to breathe the same air as? It didn’t make sense.

She opened her eyes once again. Nothing made sense anymore. Harry and Ginny loved each other, something that had occurred suddenly during their sixth year. That confused her. Don’t get her wrong, she loved Ginny like a sister, but still. How was it possible that those two, who had been around each other for years, suddenly develop feelings like that? Seemingly out of the blue? Then there was Ron. He went out with Lavender, a person she was sure until sixth year hadn’t even been a blip his potential love radar. How had that happened? And had it even occurred to him not to act so close to her when Lavender was around? Did he want to bring the wrath of hell upon her in the form of a jealous girlfriend?

She groaned. Like she said, nothing made sense anymore. Especially that for those two, sixth year had been a year of finding love and new relationships, even if it had ended with the official start of the war. What had sixth year been for her? Oh, that’s right, being overlooked once again, and having her best friends not even remotely realize just how lonely they were making her. Leaving her behind to pursue their love interests, while she sat in the library getting dusty with the books. Gee, thanks Harry; thanks Ron.

Things had only gotten worse from there. She’d had to watch as over the years, Draco’s eyes grew colder. Even when school started, he’d always had something cold in his eyes, but as the years went on, they grew more and more frozen. That year had been horrible. She’d see as day by day, sometimes even hour by hour, they grew steadily derived of all warmth. As he tore himself up inside.

She choked back a whimper. She’d felt as though she’d been feeling his pain with him that year, and sometimes it was almost unbearable. She was tuned into his emotions. When she saw him happy, she found herself happy. When he was sad, even if he didn’t show it, she would know and become sad. He affected her in more ways than she was comfortable with.

The car’s door opened, and in walked the focus of her affections. She was shocked, her eyes widening as he paused in the doorway to smirk at her. She was Head Girl this year, and he was Head Boy. They’d be sharing a private common room for the rest of the year. A thought that both elated and frightened Hermione. What if she did something she’d regret later, like admitting her feelings to him, even though it was impossible that he liked her back?

“See something you like, Granger?” he smirked, moving to sit on the seat across form her.

Hermione realized she’d been staring, and immediately set into her façade of hating him thoroughly. Sneering, she replied with, “If you mean was I staring at the latest circus attraction, than yes, indeed I was.”

He scowled, and lounged on the seat, his belongings currently in the rack above his head as hers were. He closed his eyes, and Hermione watched as he fell into an instant sleep.

Hermione looked him over, assured that he wouldn’t know with his eyes closed as such. He looked alright, the bags he’d had the last time she’d seen him-during the war-were gone, and his face was softer. A slight smile tugged at the corners of his lips, and she had the urge to trace it with her pinky, but quickly dropped it. He would freak if she did something like that. Especially with her I-like-Ron façade she also had that covered up any feelings she had for Draco from being seen by others.

“Stop looking at me Granger,” Draco said, suddenly awake, eyes still closed, but smirking once more, “Or am I really that sexy that you can’t stop looking?”

She huffed, sitting back from the position she’d been in that’s she’d taken on while observing. “The day I say you’re sexy, Malfoy, is the day I’m attracted to a Mountain Troll.” She couldn’t say it, but she could think it, right?

“Then I suppose that’s taken care of, isn’t it? You’re friends with Weasel and Potty aren’t you?”

Okay, that did it. Sure, she loved him, but that didn’t mean she’d let him insult her friends. “At least Harry and Ron aren’t arrogant pricks, ferret boy.”

His eyes snapped open at the insult, the silver blue orbs shooting in her direction, glaring. “You shouldn’t talk down to your betters, Mudblood!”

She rolled her eyes, feigning nonchalance she didn’t really feel. She’d never admit it, but while to others the insult may seem overused, it still hurt her as much as the first time he said it. Still, she couldn’t show that to him. “Learn some new insults, Malfoy. Or is it that you’re only smart on paper and otherwise are a bloody git?”

His eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by the car door opening to reveal the prefects for this year. Sighing, Draco lifted himself upright and began talking about their rounds and schedules for the year after Hermione gave him a; I-am-so-not-doing-it-you-can-or-do-you-not-know-how-to-you-bloody-git-? look, that resulted in a quick scowl before he turned to them.

Smiling, Hermione turned to face them as well, sitting cross-legged on the seat, chin to hand, hand to elbow, elbow to knee. She schooled her expression to look like she was paying attention, but her mind was actually reeling.

He had seemed more carefree a moment ago. Sixth year he would have been more dark and cruel with his insults. This year he seemed much happier. Maybe he was just happy to be going back to school? Or maybe it was that he hadn’t lost his popularity after the war was over; on the contrary, it had grown after people learned of his chivalry in foiling some of Voldemort’s plans.

But that wasn’t the best part. His eyes, so cold only a year ago, were warmer. He was regaining that happy part of himself that for so long had been missing. He was being repaired.

She gave a silent sigh. It was frightening how much she could see in him, how she could tell so much in just a glance or light banter. But that’s what happens when you’ve been looking at the same person for so many years. You start noticing things in them, mood changes, habits, differences in their eyes that distinguished what they were feeling or thinking about certain things.

She pursed her lips. It was also through this that she’d been able to see his emotions about women. She’d seen him flirt with numerous females, Pansy in particular, and noticed that the only look in his eyes when dealing with them was one of ‘putting up with it’, planning, or lust. He seriously needed to gain a better outlook on her gender, because using them for sex or something else wasn’t going to cut it if he wanted to find an actual relationship any time soon. She’d have heard of said playboy attitude and not want anything to do with it.

“So that concludes the meeting,” Draco’s voice startled her back into reality. She’d missed the meeting entirely, and he was now retiring back into his position on the seat. She didn’t need to know what he’d said, she’d memorized the schedules and such over the summer already.

“I’m going to sleep again Granger, if you want to look you can. I know you can’t keep your eyes off me.” He leered at her.

No, no she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. But she’d sure put up an act first before she told anyone. “Why would I want to look at you Malfoy? My retinas would fry beyond repair.”

He raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow slightly, obviously not believing her. When he looked back at her, their eyes met for a moment before he closed his.

Though her expression was bored, her mind was momentarily stunned. That’s the effect his eyes had on her. They made her forget all things for a moment, and her heart rate speed up, and her skin tingle. And they made her feel for a moment as though she were in pure bliss.

Hermione lay on the seat much as he was, resting her head on her arm. That was how she’d fallen in love with him. Those eyes. From the moment she’d met his, which reminded her so much of the soft moonlight that cascaded through her window at night in the girl’s dormitory at school, she’d been completely lost in a sea of confusing and conflicting emotions, ones at the time she hadn’t understood, but had basically boiled down to one basic fact-she hated who he was, how he acted, but at the same time loved him, the real him. The him she’d caught in glances and peaks; the one that wasn’t as cold or cruel as he pretended to be around his peers; the one that no one had ever seen or noticed existed but her; the one that was hidden behind that frozen exterior he put up. Two strong emotions that balanced each other out to become one giant feeling of devotion and love toward him.

As she slowly drifted into sleep, she felt that this year, maybe things would be different. They were sharing the same dormitory after all, perhaps she’d be able to see the real Draco she was fascinated with.

Perhaps she’d take a peak behind the mask.

Thanks for reading, what did you think of the first chapter? I hoped you liked it. Please review with your opinions! There will be some things in here that will make it interesting, a bit steamy, if I feel like writing it, and for those who like literature, some poetry, and for those who like music, song parts! Yay! Please read and review! You know you want to. Or maybe I just...I don't know...won't continue to post the story here? Hmmmm... -cough- review -cough-. Light threats make everything better, don't they? LOL. Thanks for reading!

Total Word Count:2,480