The Letter

It was a not a normal day for Hermione Granger. It was September first, which meant later that morning she'd be off to finish her last year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She opened her trunk to check for the hundredth time that she had all her robes, books, and other nessecities for school. Once she was satisfied that she hadn't forgotten anything, she crossed to her door and yelled down the hall at her mother.

"Mum, I'm ready to go! When are we leaving?"

Her mother came door and replied, "Well let's see. The train leaves at eleven, you want to be there by ten forty-five, it takes us twenty minutes to get there, and it is--" she glanced at her watch--"only eight thirty. Which means we don't leave for another two hours or so. Go back to bed for a while. You look like you haven't slept a bit."

Hermione sighed. How could she sleep? In two hours she was going to be riding the Hogwarts Express with her best friends Harry, Ginny, and of course, Ron. Oh, yes, Ron. The boy she'd had a crush on for the last six years. And there was no way she'd ever admit to it being more, because it wasn't. Was it? She thought back to her fourth year, when she'd had a short "thing" with Victor Krum, and pondered. She'd felt slightly giddy around him, and very girly. But that died, quickly. That was a simple crush, no doubt about that. When she was around Ron...she used to feel like that, back when they were eleven and twelve years old. But the past few years that feeling had turned into something warm, and much bigger than herself. I just love him as a brother, she thought. Nothing bigger there. Sure, he's funny, cute, and protective of me, but that's nothing. I mean, look at what we've been through together--I'm bound to feel something stronger than friendship towards him. But she'd gone through all the same things with Harry, and felt nothing like this for him. She shook her head and shuddered. "Ugh. My head hurts." She tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen, then out the back door. She walked quickly to the fence seperating the wild woods behind her house from her backyard and slipped through a gap in the wooden planks.

She walked slowly through the tall, majestic trees and felt the clear cold air wash away her worries. She loved it back here, just nothing but quiet and wild. She came back here when she needed calm, peace...when she thought about Ron. She was always confused when she thought about him, and she went down strange paths and got long-winded in her thoughts. Coming here cleared her senses and helped her think logically and practically again. So what if she had feelings for Ron? He didn't feel the same way, so she had to just suppress it and act like everything was normal. And after a while, this would pass. It had to.

She had just sat down on a log to rest when she heard her mother calling for her. She yelled back, "I'm coming! Just a minute!" and walked back the short distance to her house. She looked up at her mother hanging out a window.

"Hermione, there's an owl for you in your room. " She said, sounding a little flustered. No matter how long she'd known her daughter was a witch, it always startled her to see owls with letters in Hermione's room.

"Thanks, Mum. It's probably from Ginny." Hermione went up to her room and stopped at the door. The large, black and white owl sitting on her trunk was not Errol or Pidgwidgeon. Puzzled, she reached for the envelope it held in its beak. It had her name on it, but that was all. The owl sat there and stared at her as she read the letter within.

"Hermione. It's taken me six years to write this letter. In those six years, I've hurt you many times, and I've been terribly cruel to you. It was because I was confused and, at first, repulsed by what I felt for you. I tried to deny it, I tried to hide it, I tried to kill it. But it's only killing me. I won't tell you who I am, because you'd just brush me off and ignore me. You wouldn't believe me. But I want to say that I am so sorry for everything I've done to you when all you did was light up my life, even in your hatred of me. I care about you more than I should...but I don't care what others say anymore. So please, don't ignore this letter. Even if you just write me back to tell me to leave you alone, please reply to this. Honestly, that's what I'm expecting...I don't know if I'm right or not, but it seems like there's something between you and Weasley. Anyway, the owl will come back to me, so don't use that as an excuse not to write back. I want to know you got this letter, because I need you to know that I love you even if you don't know who I am.

See you at Hogwarts."

Hermione was stunned. She reread the letter again and again, desperate for some sign as to its sender, but found nothing that pointed to any one person. She sat a moment, then shook herself mentally and sat down at her desk to write a reply. She started to write a simple, "Yes, me and Ron are together, leave me alone" lie, but stopped. Ron didn't feel anything towards her, and she needed a distraction from him in order to get over him. Maybe seeing what would happen next was a better path to take. She wrote a quick reply and tied it to the owl's offered leg. It took off as soon as she finished. She sat down on her bed and laid back, staring at the ceiling. Her mother came to the door.

"Was it from Ginny, dear? What was it about?" She asked. Hermione continued to stare at the ceiling and replied,

"Yes, Mum. Ginny just wanted to know if I was bringing Crookshanks again this year."

"Well of course you are! Speaking of which, you'd better go put him in his basket. We're leaving in ten minutes."

First Confession

Draco Malfoy was writing a letter. It was no ordinary letter, for it was going to the girl he loved. One problem: the girl he loved just happened to be none other than the Muggle-born Hermione Granger. He'd loved her since their first meeting, but of course being eleven at the time he mistook it for loathing. He'd since learned that there was a fine line between love and hate; and he'd crossed it. He had been writing this letter for six years now and finally had the courage to tie it to his owl's leg for delivery. The handsome black and white owl, named Lec'ita, gave him a long steady look before flying off, as if giving him one last chance to back out. Draco watched her flying into the morning sun until he couldn't see her anymore. Turning from the window, he glanced around his room for any stray books. It was September first, and he needed to make sure he had everything he needed for his final year at Hogwarts, after all. Satisfied with his packing, turned to leave the room and saw his father in the doorway. His insides went cold, hot, and cold again as a wave of different emotions flooded over him.

"Good morning Father." He said courteously. His father sneered.

"Who was the letter to Draco?" He demanded. Draco, hot panic in his stomach, stayed cool and calm on the surface and lied easily. It ran in the family, after all.

"Professor Snape, Father. I wanted to make sure he got my summer Potions homework I sent him earlier this month." Okay, so his essay was in his trunk, but Lucius Malfoy didn't know that. Lucius sniffed.

"Fine. Finish packing, we're leaving in an hour." He turned on his heel and stalked off. Draco waited until his father's footsteps died away before venturing out. He crept through the huge mansion until he came to the back door. Letting himself out onto the grounds, he wandered and wondered. He couldn't believe he'd finally done it. He'd told Hermione Granger he loved her. Not that she would know it was him, he hadn't written anything that would let her figure it out. But for now it was enough that he'd told her in some way. He smiled, thinking of her, and let his mind go back through the years. The first meeting at Hogwarts before they were sorted. Second year, when she'd been Petrified by the Basilisk. When she'd punched him when they were thirteen. He remembered how jealous he'd been of Potter during the Triwizard Tournament because Hermione showed so much concern for him; and then being jealous of Victor Krum, who got to take her to the Yule Ball. He relived the horror of finding out she'd gone to the Ministry of Magic with Potter. And then, last year, he thought she was dead after the Death Eater attack on the school. He had never felt such fear. He'd never felt such anything he felt for her. All his emotions were amplified when he thought of her. He sat down by the ruined, broken remains of a wall that ran along the property's edge. He closed his eyes, leaned back, and conjured her face in his mind. He played a silent movie in his head of her different faces. He smiled with her, laughed at her cute angery moments and cringed at her scary ones. He felt hot anger boiling in him as he recalled the one time he'd seen her cry. He wanted to kill whoever had made her cry. He never did find out what she was crying about.

Lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice Lec'ita had returned until she nipped him gently on the hand. He jumped, then snatched the letter tied to her leg and ripped it open. What he read left him with a growing sense of elation.

"There's nothing between Ron and I, so I won't tell you to leave me alone. I'm interested. Won't you please tell me who you are? If I'm going to see you at Hogwarts anyway, won't I eventually figure out who you are? Why all the secrecy? Please. I want to know who you are. At least tell me if you're in Gryffindor, so I won't wonder every time I see someone from my own House. Do I know you very well? Are you in any of my classes? Are you even in my year? Let me know. If you write back, I will.

Yours truely,

Hermione Granger"

She wasn't attatched to Weasley as he'd suspected, and she was open to continuing to have contact with him! There was the potential problem of revealing too much while trying to let her know enough to keep her writing, though. He heard a loud pop behind him and stuffed Hermione's letter in the pocket of his robes quickly. His father walked around the wall.

"Come, Draco. You're mother's taking you to King's Cross."