To Me, From Me // DHr ✔️

t h i r t y - f o u r

"I can't believe you've never been to the beach." Hermione said with her jaws hanging open. Malfoy decided to leave whatever progress he's made at the current state it was in – non-existent – and took up a leisurely stroll along the shoreline with Hermione. "Didn't you ever travel?"

"We did, but only to the ancestral mansions of those we were visiting. We were hardly tourists." He replied easily.

Hermione frowned. "That must've been boring. Whenever I visited my grandparents' house I was never allowed to touch anything."

"It was bearable because I had Theo. He'd come with his father over to mine and while Nott Senior went to talk to my father about what I now believe was Death Eater business, Junior and I would just muck around." Malfoy dragged his toes in the sand, creating deep parallel lines as they walked on. "We took him everywhere. Theo, I mean. Nott Senior didn't seem to have a problem with him coming with us to France or Germany for weeks at a time."

"But still," Hermione's hands waved around. "France and Germany but no beach? Come on."

"Doesn't look like I'm missing out on much." He shrugged.

"Oh, really? Then why is your fist full of broken seashells and dried up sand dollars?" She smugly shot back. A roll of grey eyes greeted her in reply.

Granger 1, Malfoy 0.

They reached the end of the shore in comfortable silence. If someone two years told Hermione that she and Malfoy would one day be walking on a beach together peacefully, she would've laughed straight in their face and called them bonkers. She never actually realized that she and Malfoy were alike in so many ways. Both revelled in academic excellence, both preferred reading over social interaction, and both craved solitude. Well, apart from the small group of friends that they surround themselves with. It got her thinking that Malfoy even shared a lot of characteristics with her very own Harry.

What if I made more of an effort to be friends with him back in first year? If somehow I managed to change his views that early on? What kind of difference could that have made?

There was a certain relaxation that came with Malfoy's presence, no matter how gloomy it could get at times, and it gave her a blissful break. From what, she can't really pinpoint, but she was definitely pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to simply talk to him. Him as just Draco Malfoy and not the perfect Pureblood son his parents expect him to be.

"I have come close to going to a beach once."

At this, Hermione's head turned towards him.

"We were staying at an uncle of mine's chateau in Maldives," She had to suppress in a snort. Of course, a Pureblood billionaire such as he wouldn't be caught dead in the same local beaches I grew up in. "Upstairs had one particular balcony that had the most breathtaking view of the ocean. It looked like a surreal painting." He continued. "The only thing that held me back was the amount of Muggles crawling along the shore."

Hermione considered this for a moment. "You know, I do understand where the Muggle hate came from. They hunted down your kind for centuries. They wrote books about how evil you are, made a sport out of weeding out those who practiced witchcraft, spread lies to plant seeds of fear, all because they didn't want to accept the fact that you existed."

"So we retaliated with violence which they then reciprocated. A cycle that never ends."

Channeling her famous Gryffindor bravery, Hermione's hand shot out to take hold of Malfoy's, once again turning it over, as a smile slowly spread across her face. "I think it just did."

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A/N:

Dedicated to @notifyreader for voting on all of the chapters! I've taken into consideration your comments/ suggestions and here's part 5 of the flashbacks. The next one is supposedly the last one but I'll see if I can re-edit it to make it a two-parter. I still feel like the photograph plotline hasn't been fleshed out to its full capacity yet so I'm trying to figure out just how to reintroduce it without ending the story hahahahaha! On this note, let me just say that it's such an amazing feeling knowing that you guys are loving this story and are about as ready as me when it comes to it ending <3

Thank you all for still reading! Much love always xx