Draco admired her intelligence, her pride, and her ambition.
He loved the way she answered every question with such smugness; she deserved to. With a mind like hers, why should she not hold her head high and accept the applause?
He even liked her naive idealism.
He liked her temper, her tenacity, her indomitable spirit. He liked her unrealistic notions.
He liked her delusion that all injustice could be swept away.
He liked the unattainable utopia she imagined. He even liked the tears she shed for the weak, and the fighting spirit she showed after wiping them away.
She seemed to have no notion of what it meant to give up, and even when she was occasionally downhearted, it never lasted long.
Draco Malfoy simply wanted to protect Hermione Granger, to keep her from breaking, from being hurt.
But he had drawn closer and closer to her, becoming more and more hopelessly infatuated.
Her face had increasingly overlapped with the blurred image of Hermione Granger in his memory. It had even grown clearer.
Those complicated feelings from his past life, locked deep within his mind and never sorted through, had gradually taken root and flourished in his heart, like seeds scattered on the ground, nourished by her in this life.
She was special to him.
In his past life, he had secretly hidden his last remaining scraps of conscience, compassion, and heartbreak in an exquisitely crafted box labelled "Hermione Granger."
He had deliberately buried that box beneath a pile of rubble in his mind, where it had gathered dust and grown grimy.
He had thought that way, no one would ever find it.
He never dared open it.
In his past life, whenever he came across that box in his mind, he would bind it even tighter with the chains of Occlumency, so that when facing Hermione Granger he could remain as cold, ruthless, and sarcastic as ever, as though he did not like her at all.
Ironically, his secret feelings for Hermione had been known to only one person in his past life: Bellatrix... the madwoman... his teacher of Occlumency.
His self-taught Occlumency had been a joke.
That summer he became a Death Eater, she had come to tutor him with a malicious smile.
It had not taken her long to find the oddly shaped box, and she had opened it with a sinister grin, casually rummaging through its contents.
He did not know how many secrets she had glimpsed in that moment.
In short, it had been enough; enough for her to know that her nephew was a disobedient child.
"Draco, this will not do," she had whispered to him, her eyes filled with cruelty. "The Dark Lord will be angry."
Draco had been terrified. He absolutely refused to be seen through a second time. He had gritted his teeth, endured Bellatrix's mental torment and cruelty, and swiftly honed his skill into that of a highly accomplished Occlumens.
Bellatrix never got the chance to open that box a second time; not even a master of Occlumency like Snape could read his mind.
That was why, when Bellatrix captured Harry and the others, she had so ruthlessly chosen to torture Hermione.
Perhaps that mad woman had wanted to see his reaction, to see whether he still secretly harboured some "poisonous feeling" in his heart.
Poor Hermione.
She would never know that the dreadful torment she had suffered was all because of that wretched Draco Malfoy's rebellious heart.
Although Bellatrix could no longer read him, she had always harboured suspicions about him, feeling that he would one day betray her and side with Potter.
The other Death Eaters said she was simply imagining things... the Malfoys were, after all, among the Dark Lord's most loyal followers... but her suspicious gaze towards him had never wavered.
Draco had not had the chance to do anything, nor had he shown any goodwill towards Potter. In fact, he had harboured a great deal of anger towards the Golden Trio.
But she had keenly grasped the signs regardless.
How dangerous such a sign is! Anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone would instantly understand how frightening that sign can be.
Bellatrix may have loved once herself, even in her madness. So much so that she had seen through him, long before he had even come to understand his own feelings.
That sinful day. In the drawing room of Malfoy Manor, she had seized Hermione and tormented her, simply to see whether he would show any emotion towards her at all.
She had wanted to nip any danger in the bud.
Since his Occlumency was unbreakable, the only way to test his true feelings was to torture the girl in front of him, to make the girl he had once kept locked in his heart scream, and see whether he was moved.
If his expression had changed even slightly, the Malfoys would have been branded traitors; if he had shown the least frown, or begged her to spare the poor girl, that mad woman might well have taken the opportunity to kill her on the spot without hesitation.
He had been helpless.
The only way to save her life had been to watch Bellatrix torture her with a cold expression, feigning indifference.
Perhaps then Bellatrix would be satisfied and spare her, locking her in the cellar beneath the drawing room once she lost interest.
By then, so long as she did not die, there might still be a way to save her.
He could not save her at once. The disparity in strength was too great.
He had never been a skilled duellist, and he had no confidence he could defeat both Bellatrix and the werewolf Greyback at the same time.
He had also had his parents to think of.
By then, Lucius had lost his wand, and his mother, Narcissa, had been bewildered and uneasy at the Death Eaters roaming freely through the manor.
Though they maintained a facade of dignity, appearing proud and aloof to outsiders, their inner state was precarious.
They had to remain utterly loyal, even as their own interests were trampled upon. More than their dignity, they feared someone reporting them to the Dark Lord and bringing ruin upon themselves.
He could not simply take her away and drag his parents into an even deeper abyss.
So he had dragged his own soul into the abyss along with the innocent Hermione Granger.
Her eyes had looked at him with such devastation that they had almost torn his heart apart.
Yet he had still had to maintain a blank expression, showing not a flicker of emotion.
He had had to pretend she was a mortal enemy, filth beneath his feet, rather than the unattainable person he longed for.
Then, predictably, he had ruined everything.
He had thought he had nothing left to lose.
But that day, he had lost a great deal.
His wand, his standing, and her.
He had finally understood what "loss" truly meant.
To lose someone forever, completely.
He had lost her.
Thinking of this, a sharp, subtle pain suddenly welled up in his heart.
"I am a wretch, am I not?" he said, looking up at himself in the mirror.
He had hurt her.
He had hurt her deeply.
He was the one who had hurt her all along; it had nothing to do with anyone else.
He had hurt her, though it had never been his intention.
Merlin above, the person he least wanted to hurt in this world was her.