A/N:

Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Season 8

Round: First Round

Team: Kenmare Kestrels

Position: Beater 2

Task: The Creator—Goal: Realize vision

Prompts: 5. (emotion) hopeful 6. (setting) Room of Requirement 10. (object) Love Letter

Word Count: 2678

Draco Malfoy had been acting suspicious lately, and Hermione was watching. Especially since Harry had brought it to her attention, before then recklessly using sectumsepra on him and sending him to the hospital wing. She was still completely appalled that Harry had used an unknown spell, but she couldn't deny the fact that he had been right about Draco—something was strange. She'd noticed his nervous ticks during class, and the way he was always looking over his shoulders these days. And it made her suspicious.

Even more so, was the way he was walking down the corridor. She had been walking to the library, admittedly a little late in the night, but had suddenly found herself a few paces behind him. He had been glancing around, checking his back, and frowned at her when he saw her. But not in his meanspirited, prejudiced way. It was more of an anxious, surprised look, as if he'd been afraid of getting caught, which had then melted into a frown of annoyance.

Hermione hung back and rounded a corner to make it look like she'd turned away. But secretly holding her pocket mirror, she was able to look around the corner and make a mental note of the way he was going. She followed quickly after and was shocked to watch the Room of Requirement emerge into existence as he stood in front of its secret passage. He opened the door and snuck in, closing it quickly behind him.

Not wanting to let him escape and extremely curious about what he was doing, Hermione didn't give it a second thought. Breaking into a run, she grabbed the door handle as it began to disappear and opened it. She had hoped she could slip in quietly and go unnoticed, but the second she stepped in those ideas were dashed.

Draco was standing with his back to the door, staring at the vision of thousands of tabled and shelved, stuffed full. It wasn't the room of Hidden Things, which had a dreary atmosphere, but rather something much lighter and pleasant. She'd been in this particular room once in her life, a year ago, and she recognized it instantly. It was the room of Nostalgic Things.

There weren't, unfortunately, mountains of things to hide behind, so she darted beneath a table as Draco turned around.

She heard him sigh, and she cursed herself at her own impulsiveness.

"I know you're there, Granger."

She bit her lip. Definitely not how she'd hoped this would go. She slowly retreated from underneath the table and brushed off her jumper.

"What exactly do you think you're doing here?" He snapped.

"Um," she looked around, as if something in her vicinity would help her escape scrutiny. "Just… checking in."

He narrowed his eyes. "Potter's got you spying on me, doesn't he? I thought so, with the way you lot have been acting. Well you can tell him to go shove his—"

"No, no," she tucked a curl behind her ear. "No, I'm sorry. It's just me, I'm being nosy. I didn't…"

"Think I'd catch you? You've never been subtle in your life, Granger." He said crossly, and she blushed.

"Well, excuse me. I was just interested."

"You can go take your interest elsewhere. Consider yourself spared, assuming you have the brains to leave now."

She frowned back at him but didn't try to push it. He was right, she had no business staying, especially since her cover was completely blown. She could avoid the drama and fight if she just left now.

"Right well I'll just go," her voice trailed off as she reached for the nonexistent door. "It's gone."

"That's not possible," she could hear the irritation in his voice, and he walked over. "Right. Well. I suppose it's moved somewhere else in the room."

"That's never happened to me before," she remarked.

He gave her a sidelong glance and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Same."

"Are we stuck?"

"How would I know? This isn't even the room I wanted."

She glanced around. She hadn't particularly wanted any room either, and anyways, she'd assumed it would follow Draco's needs, since he was the one who had summoned it. It occurred to her, suddenly that they were thinking about it incorrectly.

"It isn't about what you wanted, though. It's the Room of Requirement—it's what you need."

He rolled his eyes. "Well, I certainly didn't need this tonight."

"Where were you even intending to go? And why?" She asked, suspicion peaked.

His neck flushed, and he scowled at her. "That's none of your business, so stay out of it."

She narrowed her eyes, but dropped the subject, since he was clearly so touchy about it. "Have you ever been here?"

"No."

"I have," she offered, "but I just dropped something off. I've never been here for any other reason."

"That's hardly helpful. What were you dropping off?"

She felt her neck flush, "Nothing important. And nothing I intended on coming back for."

He frowned. "If you had intended to get rid of it, you would have called the room of Hidden Things. Clearly, you had hoped to find it again one day."

"It was just something nostalgic," she waved a hand. "But anyways, this is beside the point. You're the one who called this room. What were you thinking you needed?"

He looked away from her, bitter. "Nothing. I needed the room of Hidden Things."

She pushed on. "Clearly, that's not what the Room thought you needed. Just tell me, Malfoy, because maybe if we get to the bottom of this, the door will appear again."

He shook his head. "You can't help with this, Granger. Go take your bloody savior complex somewhere else."

"That's Harry you're thinking of. I could hardly care about you; I just want to get out of here." She snapped back, but instantly regretted it.

Malfoy just clenched his jaw and looked away sharply.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have," she threw a hand in the air and sighed. "I didn't mean to be cruel, Malfoy."

"It hardly matters," he shot back, defensive at her kindness, "Nothing a mudblood like you could say that would upset me."

She felt her temper flare, and she almost bit back, but decided to take a deep breath. She knew Malfoy, whether he realized or not, and she knew what it meant when he looked away sharply. He was much more sensitive than he let on, and he was lashing out because what she'd said. When he looked back at her, and saw the angry and hurt expression on her face, he sat in a chair and rested his head on his hand.

"I shouldn't have said that," he admitted, "we shouldn't be here. Doing this."

He gestured between them, and she nodded.

"I know. We're kind of… not friends, right now, aren't we?"

"Well, it's really Potter who—"

"And Harry is my friend."

"Right."

"And I'm muggleborn, anyways."

"Right," he conceded. "We really shouldn't be here."

"But we are."

He grumbled, and she pushed forward. "So, we should figure out what we need to do to get out of this. Because I don't see the door coming back anytime soon."

He looked anywhere but at her, and noticed something on the table that he'd sat at. Expression suddenly perking up, he reached forward and snickered.

"What is this, Granger?"

She felt her eyes widen as her stomach bottomed out when she recognized the object in his hand. A neatly folded piece of parchment—written in ballpoint pen—about three years ago, if she remembered correctly. The one thing she'd ever kept in the Room of Nostalgic Things, so that she could peruse it every now and then to laugh at her former crush. In a fit of madness, she'd written her own name with a heart dotting the 'i' in Hermione.

It was her love letter. The one she'd written to Draco.

He clearly didn't know that, because the outside of the letter said "Hermione +D" and he was laughing as he opened it—

She could only watch in horror, her protests dying on her lips as he read.

"You're kidding," he stopped short, and looked up at her in shock.

"Um," she breathed.

"This is a joke, isn't it?"

She stayed slack jawed, completely unable to think of a way to talk herself out of the situation.

"Granger?" His voice strained and he kept reading. "There's no way this is real. It looks old, but there's no way."

It didn't feel right to deny it, but she couldn't tell the truth, especially not when he found it so laughably unbelievable.

"Say something, won't you?"

"Malfoy," she started, "you're reading a love letter. That's true. But, it was written by a fourteen-year-old girl, who grew up."

He frowned. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm much older now. Things change."

He blinked and set the letter down. "Oh. Right, of course."

"I know it's funny, but it was real. And now, it's not. Let's just move on." She couldn't stop the blush from spreading over her cheeks in humiliation.

He just nodded, and looked away again.

Hermione let out a long breath, and walked over to retrieve the letter. It certainly was nostalgic, to see the old thing again. She'd spun a little sonnet about Malfoy's glittering eyes, and how he was secretively kind. She'd seen him in potions class, delicately measuring the ingredients, making sure his friends were understanding the concepts. Sure, he'd been a bully and frequently unkind, but that summer Hermione had thought she'd seen through that façade.

Of course, her crush had ended when she'd seen him and his friends joking about Buckbeak, and she'd punched him. That had been her final straw—perhaps there was good in him, but if he was going to be such a spoiled brat about the things she loved, she didn't want to keep loving him.

Of course, there were still flickers of her old crush. When she saw him studying in the library, or when she watched him answer questions in class. The moments were fast and fleeting, but it was hard to forget about the things that had attracted her to him in the first place. And for as much of a bully he was, she'd understood that so much of his prejudices had been trained into him from his parents.

She was broken from her thoughts when she heard him sigh.

"I'm in over my head, here," he soberly admitted, "We need to leave so I can just be done with this place, and with you. I've got bigger things to focus on."

"Is everything alright?"

"No," he snapped, an anxious tension deepened the lines in his face, "but you wouldn't understand. I need to leave."

"Well, we can't," she gestured to the wall, "so tell me what you actually need."

"I don't know," he anguished, and composed himself. "It's none of your business."

She gave him a half smile, and waved the letter. "I know, but now that you know my little secret, you can guess why I feel compelled to help you."

He snorted. "Yeah, sure."

"No, really." She sat in a chair across from him and shrugged.

"You couldn't possibly understand." He frowned.

"Yeah, I get that. But you should understand," she smirked sentimentally, "A long time ago I… really liked you. It was always my dream to have a heart to heart. In this exact room, actually, I had this dream where we—"

She stopped herself, laughing and blushing. "It doesn't matter. It was silly. I just am trying to say that I know we don't really know each other, but I'm here for you. If you would like."

He shook his head. "While that's all sappy and kind of you, Saint Granger, I don't need the help."

"I think you do," she narrowed her eyes, and something clicked. "I actually think that this was the reason you needed this room, tonight, and not the room of Hidden Things."

"What do you mean?" He bristled.

"I think you needed to find this," she touched the letter. "I think you needed to read something nice about yourself."

He scowled, and as embarrassed as she was about the whole situation, she gloated internally. She'd hit the nail on the head.

"Bug off."

"You needed to know someone liked you," she teased, and he snapped.

"Is that really so bad?" Brow furrowed, he looked away.

She felt her heart bottom out, and she felt terrible, because it suddenly made so much sense. He was so alone in the world, that much was obvious. It was clear he didn't have anyone to talk to, and no one to make him feel loved. It was embarrassingly vulnerable, for him to admit that to her. And what had she done? Teased him about it.

"I'm so sorry, Draco."

"Don't call me that. We're enemies, Granger, don't forget that."

"But we don't have to be," she offered, and he rolled his eyes.

"One conversation is not going to fix the fact that we're enemies, your old love letter or not."

"I didn't think it would. But, it's a good place to start."

He grumbled again, and she touched her forehead. "It's funny—this moment. Now that I think about it, it's exactly like what happened in my dream."

"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I mean, I don't really remember it clearly. I had it at thirteen or something, right around the time I started… noticing you." She blushed at the admission.

He smirked, and shook his head. "The weirdest thing about all of this—is I had a dream last week about it."

She stared at him, jaw gaping. "You're kidding."

"I wish I was. But no, it was really weird. But it happened just like this."

"So then—what? Why were you so surprised about the love letter?!" Her blush grew, and she felt the back of her neck get hot.

"Well, I didn't exactly expect it to be real. There was no way I could imagine you being in love with me, no matter that it was a long time ago."

She tried to hide her awkwardness by pursing her lips, "I won't say sorry. I was young."

"I don't want you to," he said slowly, and she looked up at him.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she said softly, and he scratched the back of his neck.

"Nothing in particular. Other than…" He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Explain yourself," she could barely stand the humiliation. Could he tell she had butterflies in her belly? Could he see the way his gaze still made her heart stutter? Was he teasing her, just to embarrass her by tearing into her again?

"I mean, it's not like I didn't notice you, as well," he said. She couldn't tell, but perhaps if she looked closely she'd see a faint pink tinging his cheeks.

"And?"

He gave her a sidelong glance. "You're a smart girl. You can figure it out for yourself."

She blushed. "I mean, just because we both had a dream where we kissed, that doesn't mean anything. A minute ago you were snapping at me!"

"A minute ago, I didn't think you actually liked me."

"I don't."

"Sure you don't. I don't like you either, Granger."

She saw the challenge in his eyes. And all the hopes her fourteen-year-old self bubbled to the surface. It couldn't hurt, she supposed, to indulge those long-lost whims. And certainly, well perhaps, it would be nice.

He stood from his chair and came over to her, taking her by the chin and kissing her. It was everything she had thought it would be, and more.

He broke away, and turned towards the wall. "The door is back," he announced, with a raised eyebrow.

When he looked back at her, she smiled timidly. "That's nice."

"Not in a rush?"

"Not if you aren't."

His grin was her reward. "We're still enemies, Granger."

"Sure, Malfoy."