Exception Chapter 2: Doomed From The Start
A look at Dramione behind the scenes of the Harry Potter series
"You haven't seen a toad have you?" Hermione asked tiredly. She'd asked the question more times than she could count, to no avail.
"No," said the pale boy in the compartment, just as Hermione predicted. She'd just turned to go ask someone else when he stopped her. "Well aren't you going to tell me why you asked? It seems a bit rude not to."
Hermione turned back to him with the beginnings of a glare. However, the boy was smirking, and she suddenly wasn't sure if he'd meant his comment to be rude.
"Well, this boy named Neville lost his. I've been helping him look for ages," Hermione explained with a sigh.
"Do you want to sit down?" the boy offered, holding out his white hand. "My friends went to go look, but I already know what this place is like from my father. So for now, this compartment is empty."
Hermione hesitated at these last words, but she was exhausted. She took the seat across from the boy.
"I'm Malfoy, by the way, Draco Malfoy," he said, extending a hand.
"Hermione Granger," she said, taking his hand. It was a bit cold to the touch, but she didn't think anything of it.
"Granger? I've never-" Suddenly, Draco's eyes widened. "You're not a Mudblood are you?"
"A what?" Hermione asked, tilting her head. She had the feeling that the word he used wasn't exactly a very positive one.
"You are! Oh no, but-"
"Are you going to tell me what you're talking about?" Hermione interrupted. She didn't like the look he had when he'd mentioned the foreign word. She was pleased to see his expression change a bit when she interrupted him. Was it admiration she saw now?
"A Mudblood is another name for a Muggle-born wizard." Draco paused, and added. "You do know what a Muggle is?"
"Of course I do," Hermione said dismissively. "I just don't see why it's so surprising that I'm a-a Mudblood, was it?"
"My parents, they, well, they told me it would be obvious," Draco explained, though he wasn't giving a very good explanation in Hermione's opinion.
"What would be obvious?" she asked impatiently. Draco's expression-yes, it definitely was admiration-returned.
"They believe that Mudbloods are below the old wizarding families," Draco clarified. "In status, that is. They told me that I would be able to spot one at first glance, but you-you seemed to know what you were doing."
Hermione wondered what it was exactly that made her seem like she knew what she was doing, as she had only told him her name and asked about Neville's toad. She did know what she was doing, of course-hours of reading all the school-books had assured her of that-and she made sure that this boy didn't doubt anything any longer.
"Well, of course I would know what I'm doing," Hermione said lifting her head. "I worked hard to make sure I knew everything I could. I do that with everything. Back at my old school, I was the top of my class."
Draco snorted. "Good luck doing that here. There are a lot of wizards who have lived in the wizarding world for their whole lives, like me. We know much more than a Mudblood can know from books."
"Oh, really?" said Hermione incredulously. "Then I assume you know the levitation spell we're doing this year?"
"Like I said, out of a book," Draco said dismissively.
"Well, I've read how to perform it. Want to see?" she asked, pulling out her wand. Without waiting for an answer, she pointed her wand at a random piece of rubbish on the floor of the train. She waved her wand, saying, "Wingardium Leviosa."
The piece of rubbish slowly lifted off the floor until it was level with Draco's eyes. That was when Hermione noticed that he was smirking again.
"My parents must have been wrong," Draco said, with that same expression of admiration. "Then again, maybe you're just an exception."
"Maybe," Hermione said, letting the rubbish fall. "Anyway, I should get going. I need to find the toad, and your friends should be back soon."
"It was nice meeting you-Granger was it?" Draco said with a nod.
"Right," Hermione said with an answering nod. "Nice meeting you as well, Malfoy."
Draco watched the girl go with a bit of remorse. He'd rather liked how forceful and bossy she was, as it gave the impression of importance and confidence. He was seriously doubting his parents' judgment at this point. This girl was doing a spell he himself hadn't learned yet, and on top of that, she hadn't looked as completely hideous as he thought Mudbloods would look.
He hadn't wanted to tell the girl, but his parents had always described Mudbloods in the same way they described trolls. That was what he'd assumed his parents meant when they said Mudbloods were easy to spot. This girl was the polar opposite of everything he'd been told, which threw him off, as she was the first he'd seen. Still, he believed he might have been right in thinking that she was an exception. After all, she had read up on everything, whereas he literally hadn't touched one of his books. His father had bought them and his mother had packed them. The only thing he'd read had been the titles.
This was on his mind when the friends he had mentioned earlier opened his compartment again. There were three of them-two stocky boys and a pig-faced girl. They all sat down, their arms loaded with sweets, obviously from the trolley Draco's father had mentioned. Draco was offered some, but he wasn't hungry and he had been taught that sweets made one look immature. His three friends didn't seem to think along the same lines, though he did notice that the girl-Pansy-had quite a bit fewer than the two boys-Crabbe and Goyle.
"You wouldn't believe who just came to our compartment," Draco informed them conspiratorially.
"Who?" Crabbe and Goyle both said through mouthfuls of food. Draco gave a disgusted look but continued.
"It was a Mudblood," he whispered, satisfied with the surprised looks on all their faces.
"What did they look like?"
"Did they touch you?"
"Are they really as stupid as we thought?"
The three of them all spoke at once, and Draco answered each question swiftly and articulately.
"She looked as normal as you and I, though she did have some buckteeth. She shook my hand." At this Draco started and quickly wiped his hand on his robes to get the Mudblood filth off, even if she hadn't seemed too dirty. "And she actually knows a lot. She used a spell."
"But…I thought…" Pansy began.
"I know," Draco said, reading her mind, "but I think this one's a bit of an overachiever. She's read everything and practiced. Plus, she said she was smart in her Muggle school, so maybe she's an exception-like a Mudblood's version of a Squib."
"Mudbloods in general are like Squibs aren't they?" Pansy asked, her eyebrows beginning to join together.
"Maybe she's like a double Squib," Crabbe said through the Pumpkin Pasty he was currently working on.
"Maybe you should stop talking while you're eating," Draco said snidely. "Honestly, the two of you are closer to looking like Mudbloods than that girl was."
What Draco didn't see, as he was too focused on the ugly sight of Crabbe and Goyle, was the dark look that crossed Pansy's features. She'd had a crush on Draco since she first saw him and the way he mentioned the girl made her young eleven-year-old heart sink with jealousy.
"What was this girl's name again, Draco?" Pansy asked.
"Granger," Draco replied. "Hermione Granger."
"Odd name," Pansy said with a sniff. "I wonder if all Muggles name their children so strangely."
"Dunno," Draco said with a shrug. "We'll find out when we meet other Mudbloods."
"Oh yeah, did you hear that Harry Potter's on this train?" Goyle said suddenly.
"Is that true? Better go have a look ourselves then…"
"Granger, Hermione," Professor McGonagall called. Hermione sprinted to the stool and the second the hat touched her head, she heard a voice.
"A very bright mind I see," it said. "You would be great in Ravenclaw."
Oh, but I wanted to be in Gryffindor, Hermione thought dejectedly.
"Gryffindor? Well, I do see quite a lot of courage, and those Gryffindors may need another intelligent mind among them. Very well, GRYFFINDOR!"
Hermione grinned and raced toward the loudly cheering table. She liked everything about this school and she'd barely been in the building for more than an hour. She sat next to the prefect from the train, Percy Weasly, and immediately began a conversation about the school. He was happy to talk to her and they were only interrupted by the occasional Gryffindor that was named.
Later on, Hermione began babbling to the fellow girls in her dormitory. They seemed much less enthusiastic, but Hermione blamed it on the late hour. She didn't see the looks that two of the girls exchanged at her bossy tone.
When the excitement had died down a bit, Hermione fell in her bed and began to run through the day all over again. She had forgotten about Draco in the excitement of everything else, but now she thought back to her encounter with him on the train.
She had seen him get sorted into Slytherin, which hadn't been a surprise to her, somehow. Still, she had sort of hoped she would see him again soon. He had seemed fairly pleasant and was definitely polite. Though she thought back to the two other boys she'd met on the train, and the way they described him hadn't been all that great. She decided that she'd see for herself if she ever had any classes with Draco.
Draco was very pleased with his house. He strutted around the school as if he owned the place. He wasn't surprised to be in Slytherin-the same house as his father-and went over to greet Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy, as well as some other friends he knew from other wizard families. He gleefully explained his encounter with a Mudblood on a train when he heard Hermione's name called. Some explained their own experiences with other Mudbloods, but others clung to his every word.
He was, however, a bit disappointed that she had gone to Gryffindor. It was the same house as Potter and Weasly, the house that was even below Hufflepuff in his father's opinion He was beginning to think that maybe Hermione wasn't an exception. What if she was really just the same as every Mudblood?
Then they're obviously not as bad as you were told, said a voice in Draco's head. He gave that pause but soon pushed it away. There was probably something that he hadn't noticed yet that he'd notice as they went to their classes. Still, a tiny voice reminded Draco of what he had called the bushy-haired girl on the train. Maybe you're just an exception, he'd said. Could that apply to everything about this girl?
When dinner had finished, Draco stood up with the rest of the first years and followed the prefect casually, falling behind to show his confidence that he knew where he was going. He was flanked by Crabbe and Goyle and this gave him even more confidence and a sense of security. Anyone who tried to mess with him would have to deal with the strength of the burly boys around him.
In the dormitory, Draco drifted off to sleep immediately, neither excited nor frightened. He was very sure of himself and he knew that he would do well in any class. He had absolutely nothing on his mind but his need for sleep. Draco didn't even dream that night.
It wasn't the first lesson with Draco that confirmed that he was a git, though it probably should have been. Hermione had been so focused on trying to answer Snape's questions to Harry Potter that she hardly noticed Draco's sniggering.
No, it was the first flying lesson that confirmed it for her. First, Draco had broken a rule by flying in the air, which Hermione did not approve of at all. Add that to the fact that he had made fun of poor Neville and stolen something from him, and Hermione couldn't help but realize that he was a git.
Hermione also realized that Malfoy was a bully-a petty bully at that-when she'd been forced into coming to the wizard's duel. At least, she'd been forced to come to the almostwizard duel. And she knew it wasn't Draco's fault that they had run into the three-headed dog, but she couldn't help but think of the two of them in the same thought.
From that day on, Hermione knew that her first impression about the boy was wrong. He was intelligent and witty-something she thought went hand in hand with kindness and definitely not bullying-but he was just too cruel and too arrogant. Obviously, in Hermione's mind, Draco was the exception.
Draco watched the Muggle-born with close scrutiny, trying to see why his parents hated Muggles so much. But looking around at other Mudbloods, Draco soon realized that most of them had at least one trait that proved his parents right. Hermione, bossy and quite the show-off that she was, still wasn't nearly on their level. Obviously-confirming Draco's original thought-Hermione was the exception.
Next Chapter
"You haven't seen a toad have you?" Hermione asked tiredly. She'd asked the question more times than she could count, to no avail.
"No," said the pale boy in the compartment, just as Hermione predicted. She'd just turned to go ask someone else when he stopped her. "Well aren't you going to tell me why you asked? It seems a bit rude not to."
Hermione turned back to him with the beginnings of a glare. However, the boy was smirking, and she suddenly wasn't sure if he'd meant his comment to be rude.
"Well, this boy named Neville lost his. I've been helping him look for ages," Hermione explained with a sigh.
"Do you want to sit down?" the boy offered, holding out his white hand. "My friends went to go look, but I already know what this place is like from my father. So for now, this compartment is empty."
Hermione hesitated at these last words, but she was exhausted. She took the seat across from the boy.
"I'm Malfoy, by the way, Draco Malfoy," he said, extending a hand.
"Hermione Granger," she said, taking his hand. It was a bit cold to the touch, but she didn't think anything of it.
"Granger? I've never-" Suddenly, Draco's eyes widened. "You're not a Mudblood are you?"
"A what?" Hermione asked, tilting her head. She had the feeling that the word he used wasn't exactly a very positive one.
"You are! Oh no, but-"
"Are you going to tell me what you're talking about?" Hermione interrupted. She didn't like the look he had when he'd mentioned the foreign word. She was pleased to see his expression change a bit when she interrupted him. Was it admiration she saw now?
"A Mudblood is another name for a Muggle-born wizard." Draco paused, and added. "You do know what a Muggle is?"
"Of course I do," Hermione said dismissively. "I just don't see why it's so surprising that I'm a-a Mudblood, was it?"
"My parents, they, well, they told me it would be obvious," Draco explained, though he wasn't giving a very good explanation in Hermione's opinion.
"What would be obvious?" she asked impatiently. Draco's expression-yes, it definitely was admiration-returned.
"They believe that Mudbloods are below the old wizarding families," Draco clarified. "In status, that is. They told me that I would be able to spot one at first glance, but you-you seemed to know what you were doing."
Hermione wondered what it was exactly that made her seem like she knew what she was doing, as she had only told him her name and asked about Neville's toad. She did know what she was doing, of course-hours of reading all the school-books had assured her of that-and she made sure that this boy didn't doubt anything any longer.
"Well, of course I would know what I'm doing," Hermione said lifting her head. "I worked hard to make sure I knew everything I could. I do that with everything. Back at my old school, I was the top of my class."
Draco snorted. "Good luck doing that here. There are a lot of wizards who have lived in the wizarding world for their whole lives, like me. We know much more than a Mudblood can know from books."
"Oh, really?" said Hermione incredulously. "Then I assume you know the levitation spell we're doing this year?"
"Like I said, out of a book," Draco said dismissively.
"Well, I've read how to perform it. Want to see?" she asked, pulling out her wand. Without waiting for an answer, she pointed her wand at a random piece of rubbish on the floor of the train. She waved her wand, saying, "Wingardium Leviosa."
The piece of rubbish slowly lifted off the floor until it was level with Draco's eyes. That was when Hermione noticed that he was smirking again.
"My parents must have been wrong," Draco said, with that same expression of admiration. "Then again, maybe you're just an exception."
"Maybe," Hermione said, letting the rubbish fall. "Anyway, I should get going. I need to find the toad, and your friends should be back soon."
"It was nice meeting you-Granger was it?" Draco said with a nod.
"Right," Hermione said with an answering nod. "Nice meeting you as well, Malfoy."
Draco watched the girl go with a bit of remorse. He'd rather liked how forceful and bossy she was, as it gave the impression of importance and confidence. He was seriously doubting his parents' judgment at this point. This girl was doing a spell he himself hadn't learned yet, and on top of that, she hadn't looked as completely hideous as he thought Mudbloods would look.
He hadn't wanted to tell the girl, but his parents had always described Mudbloods in the same way they described trolls. That was what he'd assumed his parents meant when they said Mudbloods were easy to spot. This girl was the polar opposite of everything he'd been told, which threw him off, as she was the first he'd seen. Still, he believed he might have been right in thinking that she was an exception. After all, she had read up on everything, whereas he literally hadn't touched one of his books. His father had bought them and his mother had packed them. The only thing he'd read had been the titles.
This was on his mind when the friends he had mentioned earlier opened his compartment again. There were three of them-two stocky boys and a pig-faced girl. They all sat down, their arms loaded with sweets, obviously from the trolley Draco's father had mentioned. Draco was offered some, but he wasn't hungry and he had been taught that sweets made one look immature. His three friends didn't seem to think along the same lines, though he did notice that the girl-Pansy-had quite a bit fewer than the two boys-Crabbe and Goyle.
"You wouldn't believe who just came to our compartment," Draco informed them conspiratorially.
"Who?" Crabbe and Goyle both said through mouthfuls of food. Draco gave a disgusted look but continued.
"It was a Mudblood," he whispered, satisfied with the surprised looks on all their faces.
"What did they look like?"
"Did they touch you?"
"Are they really as stupid as we thought?"
The three of them all spoke at once, and Draco answered each question swiftly and articulately.
"She looked as normal as you and I, though she did have some buckteeth. She shook my hand." At this Draco started and quickly wiped his hand on his robes to get the Mudblood filth off, even if she hadn't seemed too dirty. "And she actually knows a lot. She used a spell."
"But…I thought…" Pansy began.
"I know," Draco said, reading her mind, "but I think this one's a bit of an overachiever. She's read everything and practiced. Plus, she said she was smart in her Muggle school, so maybe she's an exception-like a Mudblood's version of a Squib."
"Mudbloods in general are like Squibs aren't they?" Pansy asked, her eyebrows beginning to join together.
"Maybe she's like a double Squib," Crabbe said through the Pumpkin Pasty he was currently working on.
"Maybe you should stop talking while you're eating," Draco said snidely. "Honestly, the two of you are closer to looking like Mudbloods than that girl was."
What Draco didn't see, as he was too focused on the ugly sight of Crabbe and Goyle, was the dark look that crossed Pansy's features. She'd had a crush on Draco since she first saw him and the way he mentioned the girl made her young eleven-year-old heart sink with jealousy.
"What was this girl's name again, Draco?" Pansy asked.
"Granger," Draco replied. "Hermione Granger."
"Odd name," Pansy said with a sniff. "I wonder if all Muggles name their children so strangely."
"Dunno," Draco said with a shrug. "We'll find out when we meet other Mudbloods."
"Oh yeah, did you hear that Harry Potter's on this train?" Goyle said suddenly.
"Is that true? Better go have a look ourselves then…"
"Granger, Hermione," Professor McGonagall called. Hermione sprinted to the stool and the second the hat touched her head, she heard a voice.
"A very bright mind I see," it said. "You would be great in Ravenclaw."
Oh, but I wanted to be in Gryffindor, Hermione thought dejectedly.
"Gryffindor? Well, I do see quite a lot of courage, and those Gryffindors may need another intelligent mind among them. Very well, GRYFFINDOR!"
Hermione grinned and raced toward the loudly cheering table. She liked everything about this school and she'd barely been in the building for more than an hour. She sat next to the prefect from the train, Percy Weasly, and immediately began a conversation about the school. He was happy to talk to her and they were only interrupted by the occasional Gryffindor that was named.
Later on, Hermione began babbling to the fellow girls in her dormitory. They seemed much less enthusiastic, but Hermione blamed it on the late hour. She didn't see the looks that two of the girls exchanged at her bossy tone.
When the excitement had died down a bit, Hermione fell in her bed and began to run through the day all over again. She had forgotten about Draco in the excitement of everything else, but now she thought back to her encounter with him on the train.
She had seen him get sorted into Slytherin, which hadn't been a surprise to her, somehow. Still, she had sort of hoped she would see him again soon. He had seemed fairly pleasant and was definitely polite. Though she thought back to the two other boys she'd met on the train, and the way they described him hadn't been all that great. She decided that she'd see for herself if she ever had any classes with Draco.
Draco was very pleased with his house. He strutted around the school as if he owned the place. He wasn't surprised to be in Slytherin-the same house as his father-and went over to greet Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy, as well as some other friends he knew from other wizard families. He gleefully explained his encounter with a Mudblood on a train when he heard Hermione's name called. Some explained their own experiences with other Mudbloods, but others clung to his every word.
He was, however, a bit disappointed that she had gone to Gryffindor. It was the same house as Potter and Weasly, the house that was even below Hufflepuff in his father's opinion He was beginning to think that maybe Hermione wasn't an exception. What if she was really just the same as every Mudblood?
Then they're obviously not as bad as you were told, said a voice in Draco's head. He gave that pause but soon pushed it away. There was probably something that he hadn't noticed yet that he'd notice as they went to their classes. Still, a tiny voice reminded Draco of what he had called the bushy-haired girl on the train. Maybe you're just an exception, he'd said. Could that apply to everything about this girl?
When dinner had finished, Draco stood up with the rest of the first years and followed the prefect casually, falling behind to show his confidence that he knew where he was going. He was flanked by Crabbe and Goyle and this gave him even more confidence and a sense of security. Anyone who tried to mess with him would have to deal with the strength of the burly boys around him.
In the dormitory, Draco drifted off to sleep immediately, neither excited nor frightened. He was very sure of himself and he knew that he would do well in any class. He had absolutely nothing on his mind but his need for sleep. Draco didn't even dream that night.
It wasn't the first lesson with Draco that confirmed that he was a git, though it probably should have been. Hermione had been so focused on trying to answer Snape's questions to Harry Potter that she hardly noticed Draco's sniggering.
No, it was the first flying lesson that confirmed it for her. First, Draco had broken a rule by flying in the air, which Hermione did not approve of at all. Add that to the fact that he had made fun of poor Neville and stolen something from him, and Hermione couldn't help but realize that he was a git.
Hermione also realized that Malfoy was a bully-a petty bully at that-when she'd been forced into coming to the wizard's duel. At least, she'd been forced to come to the almostwizard duel. And she knew it wasn't Draco's fault that they had run into the three-headed dog, but she couldn't help but think of the two of them in the same thought.
From that day on, Hermione knew that her first impression about the boy was wrong. He was intelligent and witty-something she thought went hand in hand with kindness and definitely not bullying-but he was just too cruel and too arrogant. Obviously, in Hermione's mind, Draco was the exception.
Draco watched the Muggle-born with close scrutiny, trying to see why his parents hated Muggles so much. But looking around at other Mudbloods, Draco soon realized that most of them had at least one trait that proved his parents right. Hermione, bossy and quite the show-off that she was, still wasn't nearly on their level. Obviously-confirming Draco's original thought-Hermione was the exception.
Next Chapter