Striding after him, he raised his voice so Urquhart would stop. “You think I couldn’t get her if I tried?”



Urquhart threw his head back and laughed out loud, “Not on your life! Granger has way too much class to be seen with the likes of you.” He started walking again to the changing rooms, but Draco caught his shoulder.



“I can get her,” Draco said with a knowing grin.

She knew one thing for sure. She knew it as well as she knew the grass was green. She liked Draco Malfoy. She shouldn’t like Draco Malfoy, but she did.

Hermione suddenly put her hand to her mouth and blurted, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

She darted to the bathroom as she heard Draco call from behind her, “It’s called a hangover, my dear; lovely thing to wake up to first thing in the morning. Almost as lovely as getting the shit kicked out of you!”

Hermione darted to her dresser, pulled open the bottom drawer, shuffled through her clothes, and glared down at the small vial of Veritaserum Draco had concocted in Potions last week. An evil grin crept over Hermione’s lips, as she realized that this was a very un-Gryffindor-like thing to do. Perhaps Draco and his Slytherin ways had rubbed off on her over the past few days after all …

One of the girls stepped to the front of their clique. “We were just wondering … is it true? You know, what they’re saying about you and Draco Malfoy?” The girls behind her giggled.

“Oh yeah,” Hermione nodded with a mocking grin, “Draco slipped me a love potion so now I’m madly in love with him, and we both turned into animaguses so at night we sneak into all the dormitories and curse everyone with nightmares and bad luck for seven years! Oh, and did I mention we’re vampires as well?”

“I told you this would happen,” said Draco, bighting his bottom lip in hopes to ward off the sting. He ambled to the fire place and threw the powder inside and watched the flames blaze green as he stepped into it.

Hermione shook her head and grabbed his shoulder. “You’re leaving just like that? Where are you going?”

“Hermione,” he hissed through clenched teeth, “Don’t follow me. I’ll be back, but you have to promise that you won’t follow me.”

Damn that Potter and his insensitivity. Sure he’d faced Voldemort before, but did Voldemort try to make him kill the only thing in the world he loved more than himself? Was his father there watching with a smile when Voldemort was torturing him? Was he the one to kill his father, watch an innocent young person die, and then spend the night wondering if the one person he loved would ever return to him? Did he murder the most feared wizard in the magical world? No, he doubted famous Harry Potter knew anything about what he had gone through.