Draco's POV:
For days, Hermione Granger had been catching his eye more and more often, like today. She sits once again at the table from the Gryffindors in the Great hall with view direction to him. However, she did not look at him and so he was able to view her extensive, without her catching him at it. If Blaise and Painsy wasn't here...

»Hey Draco! Do you hear at me?«, Blaise snapped him out of his thoughts. Draco tried to pretend he had been listening and he take something mashed potatoes: »Um, yes yes« Blaise knows him unfortunately too well: »Oh really? You don't believe that at yourself. Oh come on...Put she out of your mind! You haven't any chance at her!« Draco ask himself again, why he had storytelling it to him. Perfect, he hadn't now any Hunger. He stands fast up and goes hasty out of the great hall.

When there was finally a knock at the door and and Pansy comes in without waiting for a answer, his patience thread snapped: » Can't you leave me alone?!« Pansy attempted to save the situation, by sitting on his lap and trying to kiss him. Jerkily he stood up and leave his room. Pansy shouted something after him, what he could understand however and this also did not prevent him from continuing to run.

He doesn't know where he goes, he just wanted to be for a Moment alone. Finally he founds himself at the big lake again at his favourite place of Hogwarts.

He took a seat only a few metres from the lake under a tree on which there was a heart with L+S written in it. Here Lily and Severus had immortalised their love before he had started to insult them. He had been told the whole story by his godfather. It suited to him perfectly: he had insulted and teased Hermione all his life so far, just like his godfather once did. And that was only to protect her from his father, who would not have approved if he had known. Hermione had enchanted him from the beginning with her curly locks and her fawn eyes and she become more and more beautiful as time went by....

He didn't notice that he had started to cry, but wet tears ran down his cheeks. He wasn't a coward!
And yet he couldn't stop it and had to let it happen. It felt good to finally let it all out.

When he had finally cried himself out and his tears had dried up, he went back to the castle and straight to bed. Just before he fell asleep, he had the perfect idea....

Hermione's POV:
The way Draco Malfoy had been behaving over the last few days, it was starting to get weird... When he finally approached her in the evening in the library and tried to speak firmly and confidently, she became very suspicious.

He stuttered without his usual firm voice: "W-would you like to meet...with me?" Hermione hadn't expected anything like that.... Why did he want to meet with her? Out of sheer bewilderment, she agreed, which caused her to pause for a few seconds and then decide to just see how things turned out. She had to see her best friend Ginny right away!

As Draco had already said goodbye and left, she hurried up all the stairs, stopping only very briefly to give the password for the Gryffindors' common room: "Young love". As much as the fat lady hurried it was not fast enough for Hermione. When she finally reached the common room and looked around, however, she found only Ron and Harry. When she asked her if she had seen Ginny, Ron replied, "What's the matter, Mine? You look like you've been asked out on a date by Malfoy" When the two laughed, Hermione just shook her head quickly so as not to arouse any suspicion. "Ginny is already upstairs in the dormitory," Harry finally spat out, "she studied a lot last night for the final exams and was therefore very tired today" Hermione quickly thanked him and ran up the stairs to the dormitory. Had Malfoy really asked her out and had she really agreed? She didn't understand the world anymore.... Was this even a date? She really needed to talk to Ginny, hopefully she wasn't asleep yet.

She was lucky! Ginny was still sitting at her desk writing an essay, probably for Potions. Just as Hermione came in, Ginny finished. "Hi Hermione, what's new? You look totally rattled..." Hermione decided not to beat around the bush and spat it out quickly, "Draco Malfoy asked me if we could meet up sometime...and I said yes" There was silence for a moment and Hermione thought Ginny would resent her. But she had not expected what came next....

Ginny let out a small but nevertheless loud scream and...immediately started babbling: "A date? With THE Draco Malfoy? You actually said yes? When? Where? What are you going to wear? How are you doing your hair? Is there anything I can do to help? I thought he'd never ask you..." Hermione tried to escape the hail of questions until Ginny's statement made her wonder, "What do you mean, you thought he'd never ask me?" Ginny stammer a little embarrassedly at first, until she came out with the truth, "Um, Well...you...he, uh.... He stares at you all the time! Haven't you ever noticed that?" Hermione had actually never noticed him doing that before. Hopefully he was up to no bad...

"And you're really not angry with me, Ginny?" Hermione asked. But Ginny said no: "Hey, he looks really hot and he's the heartthrob of half the school. Why would I be mad at you?" Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and they went to bed, but not without Ginny asking her late into the night what she wanted to wear and stuff like that.

Time passed quite quickly and by now Hermione had also noticed that he stared at her when she sat in his field of vision. And so there was intense eye contact a few times.

When it was finally Saturday, Hermione quickly jumped out of bed and immediately Ginny was awake. Hermione quickly fled to the bathroom to go to the toilet and take a shower. But when she had finished, she had to go back to Ginny and the horror began. Ginny was already standing in front of the door with some clothes and some shoes and jewellery lying around.

Ginny immediately scurried around them and thought about what hairstyle she should wear. Hermione then tried to explain to Ginny that she didn't need a dress or any jewellery or anything classy like that: "We're not going to a ball! Ginny immediately had a solution: she held up a red dress, whereas Hermione, unfortunately, had nothing to say against it, because she thought it was beautiful.

After breakfast she quickly changed her clothes and resisted Ginny, who tried to persuade her to have her hair braided.

Finally it was time. Hermione had slightly shaky knees and her heart was beating very fast as she descended the last steps and then stood in front of Malfoy...

They walked out to the frozen lake and there they stopped. She saw the uncertainty in his eyes as he started to speak and by reflex she put a hand to his cheek, making him look up puzzled. Finally he started to speak, "Hermione, you are so beautiful..." Hermione blushed a little and this time she looked down in embarrassment. But Draco put his hand to her chin, forcing her to look at him. And again he started to speak, "I'm serious. I...I never meant to offend you and yet I have done it time and time again. I only wanted to impress my father and yet I never got the pride I wanted from him. Even as a small child I was brought up to hate Muggle-borns and I only realised how wrong that was when I was to become a Death Eater. And yet I couldn't fight back or the Dark Lord would have killed me." There was desperation in his voice and also fear, terror and insecurity that Hermione didn't normally know and they both had to swallow "And yet I've always been impressed by you from day one, how clever and.... and pretty you are." He took one last deep breath and then said before looking to the floor, "I...I l-love you!"

Hermione was completely overwhelmed by the situation at first and couldn't get a word out. When a tear finally rolled down his cheek and dripped onto the floor, she slowly knew what to do:
She carefully took her hand and wiped the second tear away. Finally she put another hand to his chin and very carefully he looked up at her. Hermione recognised pain and humiliation in his eyes. When he looked into her eyes, another tear came loose and ran down his cheek.

This time Hermione kissed it away, which made him even more dumbstruck, she sensed.

Hermione suddenly noticed a feeling deep inside her. It was neither sympathy nor dislike. She had always repressed this feeling and not noticed it and yet it was there.

It was pure love for this man who stood before her.

Slowly she leaned forward and when their lips met, a firework of emotions exploded in both of them. The kiss tasted a little salty and was full of desperation, fear and of course love.

Slowly they began to move their lips. Cautiously at first, but as time passed they became more confident and so they pressed their lips together more firmly.

Everything in Hermione cried out for this man in front of her. She was obsessed with him and she wanted to have him close to her. She pressed herself against him as hard as she could and deepened the kiss a little more.

Carefully she opened her lips and immediately a battle of both tongues began, which first Draco won and then drove through her oral cavity, which made her feel a pleasant tingle go through her. Then their tongues fought with each other again and the whole game started all over again.

Hermione won the battle of tongues this time and let her tongue run through his mouth, making him press himself even tighter against her.

And so they stood, tightly embraced and kissing wildly, in front of the tree by the lake where similar love had once taken place.

The intense emotional and very tender French kiss did not last long, because both had to separate from each other a short time later due to lack of air.

They still remained there, tightly embraced, and she leaned her forehead against his.

They both tried to catch their breath and Hermione was the first to break the silence: "I love you too".

And in the meantime they hadn't noticed that it had started snowing again and they looked up briefly and after looking deeply into each other's eyes and smiling, they began to kiss intensely again. Slowly at first and then more and more wildly and demandingly. They both put all their affection into this kiss that meant everything to them.

And because the kiss was so wild, they finally fell over and into the snow. They both laughed briefly and then began to kiss again.

When they had to detach themselves for the second time due to lack of air, they simply remained lying close together and enjoyed the moment.

Finally, they both got up and walked back to the castle, holding hands. In one of the many windows, Hermione thought she saw the curtains move a little, as if someone had been looking out. She must have imagined it, she thought.

And yet someone had actually been watching them. It was not Harry or Ginny, or even Ron, No, it was Snape, Severus Snape. The one who had once experienced the exact same thing at this very spot. Stealthily, he wiped a small tear from the corner of his eye and rejoiced. How beautiful young love was...

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I hope you like my Oneshot.