Draco loved his mother, but he had looked at her pale, beautiful face, and realised that he wasn’t like her, not anymore – and he didn’t want to be. It was strangely freeing. Or that was what he tried to tell himself, as he scrubbed at his tearstained cheeks and thought of everything he had lost. And what had he gained? A world that either despised him or didn’t know he existed, and a bushy-haired, know-it-all Muggle-born who should have hated him just as much as the rest, but instead...didn’t. Draco had never thought he would be glad to have Hermione Granger in his life, but damnit, he was.