23,485 words.
That’s how long one the Harry Potter fanfics I wrote in high school was.
Written across three years, my magnum opus was a 12-chapter Hermione/Draco love story where I worked out my young teenage hormones on the page and transformed Ron into a hectic villain.
It was terribly written and riddled with tropes, and yet people actually read it. Despite the original publication being in in 2002, someone in the comments was still asking for a new chapter in 2013.
I remembered my foray into fan fiction recently and to my surprise, it’s still on the internet. And that got me to thinking – what if I were to publish this for the lols?
So thanks to my distinct lack of shame, here we are. Welcome to An Unexpected Union.
This is how my teenage-self described the tale.
“Its the gangs 7th year. Hermione and Draco are head boy and girl. Certain events take place (wink wink nudge nudge) and Ron isn’t happy about it.”
Ohhh, drama.
Full disclosure: the spelling and grammar in this bad boy were beyond horrendous, so I’ve done some light editing so it makes at least a little bit of sense. There is still PLENTY wrong with it, though.
I also want to acknowledge that while I am only choosing snippets to republish, some of the topics I touched on in the wider story were done so insensitively. It’s certainly not how I would write about them now.
Sure, I was a teenager at the time, but I still think that it’s worth being honest about it now and to always strive to do better.
Now, let’s get on with the embarrassment.
The Part Where My Teenage Self Is Thirsty AF
Spoiler alert: that’s the whole story.
In this section everyone is playing Truth or Dare at a party because who doesn’t love an obvious plot ploy to make teenagers do kissing.
A special shout out to the sections where I blatantly invent characters with the same names as my mates and break the fourth wall to add in details I had forgotten earlier in the chapter. Brilliant.
Neville was forced to kiss Seamus for 10 seconds, Harry had to dress up as a nun and dance the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Parvati had admitted her deep love for Filch. When Elissa and Katie had to get up and sing “Let’s Get Loud” by Jennifer Lopez while making very..ergh…suggestive movements, it got worse for them when Oliver Wood actually turned up to borrow Harry’s old broom since he had broken his, again, and he saw the whole thing. The girls died of humiliation and ran away crying.
Yes all of this was very amusing for Hermione, who was hardly having a good time. I forgot to mention that the very first dare of the game was directed at Ron by Harry (quite on purpose of course). He had to peck Hermione on the cheek. It doesn’t sound that bad, but after what Hermione had been through with him his very touch made her shudder.
Hermione was reliving this dare as she vaguely heard Lavender Brown say.
“Draco, truth or dare?”
Draco cooly swept a strand of loose hair behind his ear and casually responded.
“Dare”
Lavender thought for a moment.
“I dare you to kiss Hermione for a whole 30 seconds.”
Hermione went pale with disbelief.
Ron went scarlet with pure anger.
Draco simply flashed one of his trademark smirks, “Well if you call THAT a dare, I’ll take it.”
“Oh man this is going to be great,” thought Draco quite amused to himself. “Weasle is going to be seriously pissed off.”
Draco, as graceful as a cat, rose from the floor and walked over to Hermione, who was pretty much freaking out about what Ron was going to do. He held his hand out to her and she slowly accepted as he pulled her up and winked and couldn’t help but smile at the embarrassing position she was in.
“If this wasn’t happening to me,it would be rather funny,” she stammered to herself.
Draco wrapped his arms around her waist and brought his lips to hers, starting off softly, but he actually found he was actually enjoying himself, and not just because of the fact he was royally pissing off Ron.
“Oh my god. I’m actually enjoying kissing mudblood,” he thought to himself in disbelief.
“Oh my god. I’m actually enjoying kissing the son of the devil,” Hermione thought to herself.
The kiss deepened and became a great deal more passionate than either one had first thought. The room was full of cheers and wolf whistles. Neither Draco nor Hermione heard them.
Ron was fuming from the very second that Lavender had given Draco the dare. It became worse as he saw how much the two involved were enjoying the kiss.
“How dare that fuck wit of a Slytherin touch my Hermione! What is she doing kissing back? She is supposed to be with me! Me! I’ll kill him! He rips the two of us apart and now he moves in on my territory,” – Were his first dark and passion filled thoughts.
Only a tiny little voice in the back of his mind was reminding him that Hermione was not an object to be owned and that she would hate him even more for these thoughts. He pushed the voice down further and further.
“She would rather kiss that Slytherin death eater? Than we’ll just see about that’.”
Draco and Hermione continued to kiss passionately.
25 seconds, still going.
30 seoconds, still going.
35 seconds…
The crowd was still hollering and whistling.
“Uh guys…” said Lavender.
“You can stop now…guys.”
No response.
Ron’s heart beat faster and the blood rushed to his cheeks in pure anger.
40 seconds.
Ron clenched his jaw and his hands
45 seconds
“ENOUGH!”
Ron lunged at Draco and ripped him apart from Hermione.
“Get the hell off her you slimy piece of shit,’ Ron screamed.
Hermione flushed in anger, partly because she was ripped from the kiss, partly because she enjoyed the kiss so much, but mostly because of Ron’s attitude.
“Ron that’s enough” yelled Hermione.
“How dare you treat me like you own me, it was only a bloody dare!”
Draco lowered his eyes.
Harry started at Hermione is disbelief.
“I am not your property and I don’t appreciate you treating me like a bloody object all the time. How dare you treat me like this.” Hermione was fuming.
“Oh Hermione stop being such a bitch.”
Everyone gasped. Hermione spun around.
It was Harry.
GASP!
The Part Where I Invent Conflict But Then Immediately Resolve It
Sometime after the Truth or Dare incident, Draco is teaching Hermione to fly for no reason.
“Looks like we’re even then.”
“Yeah looks like it” Draco replied as he raised his hand and wiped a smudge of dirt off Hermione’s cheek. Hermione blushed.
Damn it, I can’t fight this anymore.
Draco leaned down and captured the Gryffindor’s lips in his. Hermione’s eyes closed instantly.
Damn it, I can’t fight this anymore.
Hermione wrapped her arms around Draco’s neck and returned his kisses
“I can’t believe it. I’m kissing Draco.”
Hermione lent further into the kiss
Draco. Malfoy. Draco Malfoy
Suddenly images from the last six years began flashing through Hermione’s mind.
“Last time the chamber was opened a mudblood died. It’s only a matter of time before it happens this time. As for me, I hope it’s Granger”
“It’s none of your business you filthy little mudblood”
“Go away mudblood”
“Mudblood. Mudblood. MUDBLOOD”
“Stop!”
Draco lifted his face from the Gryffindor’s in confusement.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this. Get off me.”
Draco’s eyes flashed with hurt, but he obliged, rolling onto his back beside her.
“I don’t understand, I thought that…”
Hermione got to her feet and cut him off. Her eyes began to shine.
“No. I’ve never been anything but a disgusting mudblood to you. For the past six years you have made my life a living hell, and why? Because by no choice of my own I was born into a muggle family. All you ever wanted was for me to be dead!
The shocked Slytherin opened his mouth to protest
“Don’t you dare say anything different! Harry and Ron heard you! You wanted the basilisk to take me just like it did to Moaning Myrtle.
“But how did they here me say that, it was in the common room…”
“Polyjuice potion. Crabbe and Goyle evidently weren’t Crabbe and Goyle.”
The Slytherin’s face registered both shock and realization. Before he could speak again, Hermione continued.
“For Merlins sake Malfoy, I may have hated you but I never wanted you dead.”
She had said her piece. With that, she turned around and began to walk away
My god she’s right. I’ve never been anything but a complete bastard to her, and for absolutely no good reason at that. How could I have just suddenly expect her to trust in me now, to believe my feelings are real after showing her so much hate. I caused her pain.
Draco jumped to his feet
“Hermione!”
The brunette, not expecting a response from him, turned around slowly. They stood mere metres apart.
“I’m sorry… for everything”
Draco lowered his head. He wasn’t accustomed to apologizing. Ever. To anyone.
“I know I’ve been beyond awful to you in the past. I also know I don’t deserve you or your trust. All I can say is that for once in my life I’m being honest. What I did before, it was an honest action, maybe my first… forget it. How can I ever expect you to believe a son of a death eater?”
Draco shook his head in embarrassment and turned to go.
“Idiot”
Hermione saw the pain in his eyes. She began to question her own beliefs.
He seems so genuine. And he has taken time out to teach me to fly. The old Draco wouldn’t have done that. Perhaps he truly has changed. Perhaps I’ve misjudged him. I really need to stop seeing him as merely Malfoy, the son of a death eater. He was right, I do see him as that. That’s being just as unfair as he was in seeing me merely as a mudblood. Hypocrisy much? Bloody hell, I can’t believe I’m about to trust my worst enemy, among other things. Damn it.
Hermione groaned
“Draco, wait!”
Hermione broke the distance between them again by pressing her lips against his once again. The Slytherin responded instantly. He wrapped his arms around her and deepened the kiss.
After quite a long interval they broke apart
“I’m sorry for ever making you believe I wanted you dead,” offered the Blonde.
“I’m sorry for doubting you.”
“Well there is one way I can think that you can make it up to me,” Draco smirked.
Hermione laughed and kissed his inviting lips again.
“You’re just as evil as ever.”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t love it.”
The Part Where I Ignore Characterisation And Make Ron Super Evil
I’ve never been a fan of the Ron/Hermione pairing, but I really take character assassination to the next level in this thing. This isn’t even the worst of it.
Also I use the word “naught” and it’s hilarious. To be honest, most of this section makes me cry-laugh. It’s so bad.
Ron screamed in violent rage as he picked up a rather large broken off tree branch and hauled it against the change room wall.
“He kissed her! He fucking kissed her!”
He smashed yet another defenseless branch against the rather battered wall.
“He has no business with my Hermione!”
The fuming Weasley began charging up towards the castle. Once he reached it, he barged through the crowds to the common room, seeing naught but red.
He barked the password at the quite shocked Fat Lady. When he reached his dorm, he ripped out a quill and parchment from his bag and began writing furiously.
“That’s it. That son of a bitch is going to pay. Now he will know what it is to feel pain.”
The red head shoved the letter and a sack of gold into an envelope and quickly was up again, charging down to the owlery.
On his arrval, Pig hooted and flew down towards him. Ron scowled at the little owl and more or less told him to ping off, and shooed him away. The poor bird did as he was told, but not without biting Ron on the finger first.
“Ouch! Bugger off you little pigme!”
“There’s no way in hell I’m using my owl. Wouldn’t want it to be traced.”
Ron approached a school barn owl and rather vigorously attached the letter to it’s leg.
—-
A package had arrived that morning for one Ron Weasley, and he was eager to open it and set the wheels of his plan into motion.
With the package under his arm he crept quietly towards the astronomy tower, and like our two couples, was careful to avoid Filch.
Once he was inside he locked the door with several charms, just to be safe. He then sat on the ground and began ripping open the paper on the package furiously.
“Finally everything will be back to how it should be.”
Out of the wrappings tumbled several clear bags of which seemed to contain different sorts of ingredients. Ron searched between the bags until he also found a notebook size piece of paper. He read over it carefully, checking each individual plastic bag as he did. After several moments he grinned victoriously.
“Perfect.”
The redhead then reached into his robes and pulled out a miniature cardboard box, which had also arrived that morning, and a miniature potions kit, minus the cauldron. Ron whispered a few words and pointed his wand towards the objects. They instantly returned to their ordinary size.
Like with the first package, Ron impatiently ripped open the box. Inside sat exactly what Ron had hoped for. A pensieve.
Ron’s grin grew bigger as he started chopping up ingredients and adding them to the pensieve.
After several hours of hard potions work that would even make Snape proud, Ron was finished and looking particularly pleased with himself.
“Finally that bastard is going to get what he deserves, and I’m going to get Hermione back.”
Ron poured his makings into several flasks, shrunk them and hid them in his robes. He did the same with all that remained of his ever being there.
As he left the tower he thought very darkly but very happily to himself…
“First I think a little trip to the head boys room is needed. How lovely it is to know certain passwords to certain common rooms. After that it’s down to the kitchens. I have a favour to ask of Dobby.”
Ron smirked evily and closed the astronomy tower door behind him.
If one was to read the piece of paper that was lying next the youngest Weasley boy the entire time he was up in the tower, they would have read this –
Thank you for purchasing the ingredients required for the obliviate potion. One drop of this tasteless brew will have the drinker forget whatever you want them to. Requirements- What you have received in this package and one pensive, which can be bought at almost any Knockturn Alley store.
Instructions- Brew potion accordingly in pensive and then simply extract the memories from your own mind which you wish the drinker to forget and add them to the potion.
Warning- This potion is highly illegal and shippers of this product will deny all knowledge of exchange if you are by any chance caught
Have a nice day
The best part about this gloriously awful chapter is that it was the last one I ever wrote. It was left on that EXTREMELY DRAMATIC cliffhanger and I now somehow write for a living.
Should I finish this train wreck? If enough people @ me I just might consider it…