Spiral

I am Hermione Granger, Gryffindor bookworm. It's funny that once people know that much about me, they don't bother to go further, to delve into the marshes of who I really am. There are only a few people who have ventured that far. Everyone else is content with seeing me as the know-it-all. This makes me feel like no one really appreciates me, no one has any interest in me. Am I really that boring and uninteresting?

After all, I only like books because in them, people's emotions make sense. Knowledge makes me feel like maybe, one day people will pay attention to me. Maybe, if I impress them with what I know, they will be interested in me, as a person. So far, I think that all I have done is scare people. I wish I could turn into a normal person, a person who's funny and doesn't have a care in the world, but being a bookworm is all I know. I wish people would want to get to know me. I do like to take risks. I do like to dance, I like to eat good food, I like to paint my nails and I do like boys.

In fact, all I wanted was a bit of fun. I wanted people to see that I too was human. I wanted them to be surprised and intrigued. I was tired of being only good for homework. I wanted to get to know someone like no one else knew them. I wanted a person to be interested in my feelings and I wanted them to be willing to know who I was. That's when it all went spiraling out of control. A bit of fun, a bit of humanity was what I was looking for, and I found it. I found it, but was I ready for it? Were other people ready to perceive me as something other than a bookworm?

I found such a person. There is the first loop of the spiral. You may know who he is. The infamous Draco Malfoy. At first it was just that he seemed so silent, so lonely up in our Head Common Room and I was craving attention. I decided to take a risk by comforting the enemy. Once I was down the first loop of the spiral, there is no stopping it. Comfort leads to trust. Trust complicates things, especially when you trust someone who should be your enemy.

The feeling that I was doing something unusual by helping Draco exhilarated me. At first it was difficult. Every time I would try to be nice, he would push me away, screaming that he wanted no help, that there was nothing wrong with him. I knew better. This wasn't the arrogant git I once knew. There was something different about him, and it changed me. I became more cautious, more delicate. Instead of pushing myself to him, I let him come to me. Even when he insulted me and I yelled back at him, there was something exciting about it. He wasn't trying to hide what he thought of me. I didn't hide the fact that he needed my help. We had an unspoken decision to be sincere. That is the second loop of the spiral; sincerity. What I had wanted for so long, to be regarded as a person and to have attention, was happening.

My friends were afraid. They weren't afraid of Draco. Oh no, they had become afraid of me. They were afraid of my humanity, afraid of my change. I was no longer Hermione Granger; bookworm, a girl with no feelings. I was now Hermione Granger; bookworm, a girl who loved knowledge, who loved danger but who needed someone to love her, to love her as she was, as a person. I had changed into something more complex. In fact, it wasn't a change at all. It was just that I was ready to accept myself. But they weren't. That was the problem; I became alien to them.

I love Harry and Ron deeply; there are the brothers I never had. The thing is though; they weren't ready to love me as me, the me with all the complications. I knew it, and it hurt me, it hurt me to know that they could never give me the understanding I wanted and needed.

I was afraid. Afraid to lose my friends, afraid of the person I was under my bookworm mask. I was afraid of who Draco was under his act of indifference. I knew that no matter how much both of us pretended not to care about being seen as emotionless, it actually tortured us. Deep down inside, I knew Draco was looking for a bit of humanity, a bit of feeling. It drew me to him and after a while, he became more accepting. I felt incredibly triumphant and happy. For once, someone was letting me in, letting me close to them.

It made me vulnerable. Being around him, it made me vulnerable; I knew that if I kept this up, sooner or later, he would know my secrets, know me like no one else. For a strange reason, I was fine with that. It's almost like I was accepting the fact that I had triggered this in the first place; almost as if I was accepting that now that the spiral was in motion, I had no control. I let my life drift, feeling a sense of peace and exhilaration.

Then it happened. Loop number three; need. There came a time when Draco and I realized that we needed each other in a sick, twisted way. Whenever I felt stressed, I knew to go to Draco, even if all he was going to do was yell. He learned to perceive things like that in me; anger, stress, sadness and happiness. I knew when he felt especially lonely or angry. Sometimes all we would do was sit on the couch, sensing the calming presence of the other person; this other person who knew us so well. I knew what time he got up in the morning and I knew that at night, he would pace endlessly in his room. He knew that I liked the smell of lavender and that I was a hopeless romantic.

We didn't even need to speak that much. But the need was there, it was still there, oppressing sometimes. I kept wondering fearfully what was drawing me to him, what made us comfort each other. Draco needed me to chase Parkinson out of the Common Room, he never managed to convince her of his loathing towards her and the way she didn't care about how he felt. I knew it hurt him to see Parkinson think of him as an object. It made me angry, so angry that no like with me, people didn't bother going past his façade. I needed Draco to look at me firmly, his grey eyes piercing mine when I was distressed. I needed him to calm me, to reassure me. Loop three of the spiral was where it got dangerous.

At first it had been just trust; something mundane. Then it turned into comfort but then it became need. It became the fact that we were happy to see each other. This is the beginning of the danger, the part when we felt like things would never change, never go further. Which is where we were wrong. I should've seen the signs, I should've noticed the way I found myself admiring his physique, the way he would hook a tendril of hair back in my plait. I should've realized the way I felt when I heard the sounds of him showering in the morning; I should've realized that it all comforted me.

If only I had seen the way that when he got angry, I couldn't help but notice how his normally emotionless eyes came to life. They were all signs, but we didn't pay attention.

However, when we came to the fourth loop of the spiral, we couldn't ignore it. This loop, number four, was affection and attraction. It would've been obvious to anyone who watched our year unfold that it would lead to this, but we never saw it coming. I found myself wondering what his shoulders felt like, wondering if his arms would fit around me perfectly; making me feel like I had finally felt a place where I belonged.

When Draco would sit by the fire, angrily tearing at his hair, all I wanted to do was take his hands and tell him it would be ok. I knew I couldn't be so direct, or at least I thought so.

When loop four came along, it didn't come gradually. Well maybe it was gradual, but I was oblivious to all the signs I've mentioned. I didn't realize what events they foretold. It was one night when I was sitting on the couch, reading a book and I felt some weight shift beside me. I turned and saw Draco sitting beside me, closer than usual. He whispered my name and I shivered. Suddenly our lips met with a crash, my hands were in his hair, his were on my waist and that was it; I sighed and deepened the kiss, his moan resonating through my body.

Now you see why this was dangerous. It went against everything we'd ever been taught, every prejudice we ever had. First of all, I was a bookworm and he was amazingly handsome. That was breaking taboo number one. As if that wasn't enough, I was a Gryffindor and he was a Slytherin. Obviously there was the other taboo, the one that was always omnipresent in my life; I was a Mudblood and he was a Pureblood. Wasn't Draco supposed to care about this? Wasn't I supposed to loathe the Slytherin Prince?

Comfort and trust was already strange between us, but now this? The worst is that I don't regret it. I never did. Not only did I enjoy the kiss, but when it ended I felt a pull at my heartstrings. I knew then that this wasn't simple physical attraction. Obviously it wasn't, I mean for the past few months we'd been close and there had been nothing physical between us. So this was bad. I knew it was bad, it was a betrayal to everyone, but I actually felt happier than I had in a long time.

I may have betrayed people's ideals, and I have changed the perception people have of me. However, one thing is for sure, I have not betrayed myself. I felt more alive, more real than I ever had, lying in Draco's arms, running my fingers down his arm.

The fourth loop might be the most dangerous of the spiral my life is taking, but it is one of the best. At first, it was hard to keep it a secret. Every time I would see Draco in the hallways, I would smile giddily; feeling like it was my first crush. Every time he "accidentally" brushed his hand against me, my heart skipped a beat.

Harry and Ron would look at me suspiciously. Then I would get to the Common Room and sit beside Draco, sometimes not talking for hours, but just basking in his presence. We talked more freely than ever, but it felt like I'd known him for ever, that we'd always been this close.

When he held me close, his hands in my hair, I felt incredibly at peace; I had found what I wanted all these years. Someone finally saw me as a person to be loved. He loved me not in spite of my flaws, but because of them.

This is the fifth loop of the spiral. It's not mere affection or attraction, this was love. I knew it. Whenever I gazed into his gray eyes that became warm and soulful, all I wanted was to wrap my arms around him, kiss him tenderly and let him know that I loved him. I loved him deeply, and I realized that all those years that he'd been mean and cruel, were like my bookworm image; a way to get attention.

He would playfully chase me around the Head Common Room, ducking behind couches and hiding in closets, only to catch me in his strong arms. He would look at me and make me feel like I was the only person that mattered in the world. I wanted to be near him at all times. I was addicted to his love.

Whenever he kissed me, his teeth grazing my lip, deepening the kiss so that our tongues became tangled, I never wanted it to end. Every time without fault, when he came out of the bathroom, shirtless and wearing slacks, I would nearly melt instead of blushing.

My life may have been spiraling out of control, changing forever, but I will never regret it. During all the uncertainties, the pain and the joys, Draco was with me. Every step of the way, I had his support. He knew that this was the strangest thing to happen; our love blooming. We didn't fight it.

I never fought the spiral that my life was taking; after all I was the one who initiated it. Then comes the sixth loop, it may not be the most dangerous but it is the one that scares me the most. It is coming out into the open; telling Harry and Ron why I have changed. I have to tell them that Draco Malfoy is the man that I love for who he really is and that he is the one who makes me happy.

I can only pray that they will accept me for who I am, and accept Draco. If they are really my friends, if they care for my well-being, then they will. They will accept that my life has taken a different spiral than I planned. After all, who can control such a shape? It is untamable, and if you gave me the choice to go back and do it over, just to change things, I would never do it.

It doesn't matter if people only see me as the traitor, the bookworm and lover of the Slytherin Prince, because I have Draco and that is all I need for now; someone who loves me, cares about my feelings and won't try to change me.

(A/N: Here we go. Now you may be all wondering why there is no dialogue… Well you see I saw a Challenge that was closed, but it was to write a one-shot with no dialogue. So I decided to that anyways, without being part of the challenge. I did this to really explore feeling, and I have to say I like the result. If you found it boring I'm extremely sorry. For those of you who didn't, I hope you liked it! Reviews would be loved! I definitely liked writing this, and it really challenged me as it's hard to just do feeling and narration. Thanks for reading!)