I sincerely apologise to everyone who has been following this story. I thought that after my training classes, I'd have an ample time to update. Shit has hit the fan and I'm currently neck deep in handling family problems — please bear with me. I will update this story whenever I can and will never abandon it.

LaBelladoneX and coyg-81, I can't thank you both enough for your help with this story. Love you both!

Hermione felt cold, like shards of ice were running through her veins and she had to blink back the tears in her eyes. The Lord of the Manor's words flashed in her mind and she was reminded of the searing pain in her heart the first time she had heard her heritage being spoken about with such indignation.

"Foul!"

"Filthy Muggle!"

"You're an abomination! Be thankful that Narcissa cares a lot about Draco or you'll be nowhere near this family."

All this time she thought, when she would meet Draco, he would be like his mother. Kind and gentle — like a friend.

"Filthy Muggles do not deserve a handshake from pure-bloods like me."

She was wrong.

He was no different from his father who thought that girls like her did not deserve to breathe the same air he did — that she was nothing but mere dirt under his boots.

An emotion she had felt once — when Lucius Malfoy made disparaging remarks about her heritage and parents — clawed its way to the surface of her being.

It felt like fire in her chest, thawing the icy feeling brought about by Draco Malfoy's words. It was an inferno raging from deep within, and like branches caught in the flames, Hermione felt herself snap.

Draco Malfoy always did what he wanted because according to his father, it was the Malfoy way. He could do everything except defy his parent's words. Regret and remorse weren't that high up in his vocabulary but, when he saw the tears in Hermione's eyes, he felt the sudden need to reverse time and take back what he had said if it would remove the pain from those sad brown eyes.

But those same expressive eyes suddenly held a steel of determination, darkening like pools of chocolate as sadness morphed to unbridled fury.

Fear gripped him like never before as he saw her aura emanate an ethereal glow until she was shimmering with unrestrained magic.

It was beautiful.

It was impossible!

But — how —

He was just about to voice his confusion when an unseen force held him rooted on the spot, his limbs failing to follow what his mind wanted to do. Draco tried moving his arms and fingers to no avail. His eyes widened marginally when he felt his feet being lifted from the ground and then the world was suddenly upside down. He screamed at the top of his lungs as he was righted back, only to be flipped over when he relaxed his stance.

"Stop! Make it stop!" He shouted when he was once again in an upright position and now at Hermione's level.

"What's going on here?" Lucius Malfoy's aristocratic voice could be heard from the end of the aisle where they were standing.

This seemed to have broken Hermione's concentration as Draco suddenly dropped to the floor, moaning and looking at the Malfoy patriarch.

"Father, it's her! She's flipped me upside down! Did you see how this Muggle filth treated me?" Draco cried.

"You mean to tell me that this was all the Muggle's doing that you were lifted into thin air and flipped around like some bloody house-elf?" Lucius turned his scrutinising gaze to Hermione and the latter flinched and backed away.

"I… didn't mean to. It just… I felt warm and then all of a sudden Draco's feet were no longer on the ground and I'm just so angry that I—" Hermione gasped when she realised where her thoughts were headed. She wanted to hurt Lady Malfoy's son because he was being mean and cruel. How could she even think that way after all her guardian had done for her?

"I-I'm sorry. I need to—" Hermione ran.

She ran as fast as her feet could carry her out of the library and back to the safety of her room, where she'd be far away from the cruel father and son. It was stupid to think that everyone could be like Miss Cissa who was kind and gentle — who would treat her like she was special, as if Hermione was her own daughter. Stupid.

Worthless, filthy Muggle.

Hermione reached her room, opening the door and closing it none too gently. She couldn't see a thing from all the tears in her eyes but they wouldn't stop flowing, no matter how much she wiped them off. It hurt and she wanted him to hurt too.

How did that happen? Had she accidentally opened something in the library that had caused the accident? What was the warmth that emanated from the centre of her being to the tips of her fingers? Was it… magic? She needed to talk to Miss Cissa.

Draco refused to stand up and moaned about how he had been carelessly treated, to which Lucius Malfoy just raised his eyebrow.

"Stand up, Draco. Don't make me come and get you. You're a wizard — bested by a girl and a Muggle, no less," Lucius Malfoy sneered.

Embarrassed at being scolded, Draco slowly stood up with a small limp and faced his father but not without a scowl on his pointy face.

"But you told me she's a Muggle, Father. How was she able to do that? Aren't Muggles incapable of doing magic?" Curiosity tinged Draco's voice.

The young Malfoy was confused by what had happened. Aside from being bewildered with his reactions to her close proximity, he did not understand how a Muggle like her could have done what she did to a wizard like him. Were his parents mistaken about Hermione's parentage? Could it be that she was like him too and was just taken from her real birth parents? It was too much for Draco to take in. Coupled with being flipped upside down several times, he could feel a headache coming on. He was about to excuse himself from his father's presence when Lucius beat him to it. He was ordered to leave the library, stay in his quarters and wait until he would be summoned once the guests arrived.

Draco turned to leave, missing the peculiar look on his father's face.

Narcissa Malfoy was finishing the final touch-ups to her hair when Lucius entered the room. He seemed to be deep in thought as he had not acknowledged her at all, heading straight to his firewhisky decanter. As he poured a generous amount in his glass, his eyes raked all over Narcissa's form which confused the witch.

"You're still as beautiful as ever, dear wife," Lucius spoke in that seductive voice of his that Narcissa rarely heard from him. He approached her like a predator on the hunt for his prey, his hand clutching her shoulder. "Childbirth has not waned your beauty. You've been good at keeping it all in, hiding everything in plain sight, haven't you, Cissa?"

"I don't understand what you're talking about."

"Curious thing, that. I was in the library earlier checking some documents when I heard a commotion in Draco's favourite spot." He commented.

"Is he—"

"Oh, don't worry, your son is alright. Although I have to say he must still be quite shaken with the way your ward's magic flipped him up and down."

And there it was — her tell.

The slight twitch in her left eye did not go unnoticed to Lucius.

Narcissa Malfoy had always been cool and calculating; an outsider would never be able to determine her feelings. Years of pure-blood upbringing had honed this definite trait. As her husband, however, he was privy to the times when her mask would slip.

"How long have you known, Cissa?" His grip on her shoulder tightened.

"Since she was six. I was there during her first display of accidental magic." Her facial expression remained passive but there was a slight hitch in her voice.

"And you deigned to keep this from me? You know what it means to have an Omega with magic — what it could bring to Draco, and yet you were willing to keep it!" Lucius's voice was rising, his anger palpable with every word. "You wanted to hide this and let her go when she comes of age to the Muggle world. Why?"

"She is her own person, Lucius!" Narcissa shook his hand away from its tight grip. "I will never allow you to force her into being a broodmare just so she could provide witches and wizards for our son! She's a Mudblood, you said it yourself. Why would you want to sully the Malfoy line with her blood?"

"Oh, you and I both know why, Narcissa." The gleam in his eyes was unmistakable, he was planning something that did not bode well for her ward. "A Malfoy always gets what they want and we always want the best.

The definite time when students receive their Hogwarts letter is a bit complicated and even JK has confusing thoughts as evidenced by an article in hp-lexicon (link on the Ao3 version). Therefore, I've taken liberties on their age gap initially placed in the author's note of chapter one — when I mentioned Draco is older than Hermione in this fanfiction resulting in the receipt of her Hogwarts letter at a later date.