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"Out of my way, Grainger! God damn you smell like a troll's salty leavings." Malfoy shoved past Hermione, who fell roughly into the stone walls of the castle corridor.
"How would you know what a troll's salty leavings smell like? Do you have to clean up after Crabbe and Goyle, your twosome team of boyfriends?" Hermione retorted smoothly, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, insulting my sexuality? Like that hasn't been done before! All you're doing is getting their hopes up for me to cruelly crush!" Malfoy bwafaawed.
"You're a jerk!" Ron squeakily added his slow two cents'.
"Come on, Hermione. You won't get anywhere with reason. Just ignore him." Harry conveniently neglected to remember that she hadn't exactly tried reason.
"Right then." Hermione gave Malfoy a look. "Better give him some time to go polish Professor Snape's broomstick before potions class."
"So now I'm gay and a necrophile? Well played Grainger." Malfoy drawled sarcastically and sauntered off with his entourage.
"Always glad to see the back of him." Ron muttered, not realizing that his comment could be taken in two ways.
"Um." Harry looked uncomfortable.
"Right. Nothing I can't handle, but thanks for your help. It's weird! He's being so much more mean to me lately." Hermione sighed.
"It's because he's Irish!" Ron piped up, completely wrong.
"Maybe he has a crush on you." Harry suggested, laughing along with Ron at the thought of anyone loving Hermione.
"Yeah right. Ha ha. Well, I have to go now." Hermione started backing away.
"But it's almost curfew and they're sending out the curfew goblins!" Ron quaked in terror.
"I've already told you, Ron: there aren't any curfew goblins. It was just a rabbit!" Harry sighed.
"It wasn't! You wouldn't be saying that if you had seen it too! You believe me, right Hermione?" Ron turned to find that Hermione had left.
"Oh no, Ron, it got her!" Harry teased him.
Ron looked sour and stalked off to bed.
As Ron and Harry drifted off into peaceful slumber, Hermione found herself waiting anxiously by the side of the lake in the pale moonlight. She studied her own reflection in the waters. What did he see in her? Surely he was not overcome by her beauty, as she was somewhat average-looking and couldn't do a thing with her bushy hair. With all the studying she did, there was seldom time for that. She sighed.
"Brown-eyed brown-haired white Anglo-Saxon Witch. Nothing exciting there."
Suddenly, a reflection slid into the lake to rest next to hers.
"Oh, I don't know. I rather like what I see."
"Draco, are you talking about yourself?" Hermione hid her immense surprise behind a wry smile.
Malfoy raised his eyebrow, "Maybe." He chuckled.
"You're awful!" She gave him a light shove and then pulled him by his necktie into a kiss.
"Make up your mind." He closed his eyes and took in her perfect pink lips.
They parted and paused a moment to watch the silver moonlight thrown about by the black ripples of the lake. Hermione sighed again, a wind-swept look of longing on her face.
"It's getting harder to keep up the façade with my friends everyday, Draco."
"I told you: You don't need those friends. Mine are much higher class!"
"Then why do we have to lie to them too? Honestly, you shouldn't have pursued me if you couldn't love a mudblood." She turned from him, feeling a stinging in her eyes.
Malfoy gently cupped the side of her face and turned her to look at him.
"Who said I didn't love you?" He dropped the L-bomb.
Hermione's face flushed bright red and her eyes widened in surprise.
"But I was convinced with your family's status in the wizarding world that you were just using me to rebel against your parents."
"I was." He gave her that sleazy smile that she loved so. "But then my reason changed."
He looked pensive for a moment.
"Wait." He began. "If you thought I didn't actually like you, why did you agree to see me in the first place?"
Hermione gave him a frosty glare.
"Unlike some people, I loved you from the beginning." She lied.
In reality, she had just wanted to know what it was like to have a boyfriend, and hadn't particularly cared who it was. Love was just a side-effect.
"You look beautiful tonight." Malfoy squinted in the darkness as he quickly changed the subject.
Hermione only blushed in response.
"I like how you decided to wear the moon in your hair." He attempted to run his fingers through her locks, but then they got caught.
Deciding to cut his losses, he pulled her into another kiss. He gave up on freeing his hand as he freed his unrestrained passions. As they fiercely locked lips and Malfoy fumbled with the clasps of her bra, they heard a quiet yet pervasive noise.
"Nooooooooo!" It was so quiet, that it could have been the wind.
"Did you hear something?" Hermione asked between kisses.
"No." Malfoy continued to wrestle with her bra.
"Don't do it!" The quiet, mournful voice pleaded.
Hermione pushed him gently away and he cursed his lack of manual dexterity.
"I definitely heard something and you did too." She looked around in concern.
"Oh come on! Who cares?" Malfoy shouted. "It's probably some pervert watching us." He was painfully aware of his visible lust.
"It said, 'don't do it'. Don't do what? I'm a little creeped out…let's go inside."
Malfoy felt slightly like crying and yelling at the same time. Instead, he put his hands in his pockets and briskly took off towards the castle so she wouldn't see.
"Wait for me!" Hermione followed him, her face flush in the moonlight.
After the lake failure, Malfoy was somewhat put out. While walking the corridors, he had a sudden flash of inspiration and took her hand. He pulled her behind a secret tapestry.
"No one should be able to perv-spot us here." He gave a strained smile.
"I don't know…it was kind of a mood-killer." Hermione look anxious.
He leaned towards her and put his hands against the wall on either side of her.
"I think I can take care of that." He raised an eyebrow.
He pulled her into an embrace, lightly kissing her eyebrows and nose until his lips came to rest on hers. As the kiss deepened and she pulled at the back of his robes, they heard it again.
"Noooooooo!" The voice was louder.
"Stop!" A different voice of equal volume added.
"What's going on?" Hermione cried.
Malfoy flung the tapestry back, but nothing was there. Not even a meddling bastard Professor Snape. His mind raced as he tried to come up with a new love nest.
"Got it!" He muttered, ignoring Hermione's protests and dragging her to the only non-haunted bathroom in Hogwart's.
He feverishly checked in every stall and corner as Hermione watched in mild alarm. Locking the door with an air of finality, he looked back at her in triumph.
"There! This is the only ghost-proof bathroom in Hogwart's and there is no human or other magical creature present. This time for sure!"
Hermione found herself even less in the mood than last time.
"You know…I kind of have a test tomorrow and I probably need to study some more…"
"I HAVE NEEDS TOO!" Malfoy screamed a little more crazily than he had intended to.
"You know, you're really smart so you probably don't even need to study." Malfoy covered his outburst with compliments.
"Well, I had read the textbook three times before start of term and then two more times since…" She smiled shyly.
"Yeah. I've always admired your intellect and dedication, but because of my family I had to hide it under teasing and all around being a bastard." Malfoy finally admitted the truth.
"I know you're trying, but I also know you're being honest." Hermione smiled at him softly. "And it's that delicate blend of asshole behavior and soft, tender kindness that I love so." She finished in a throaty whisper.
She leaned up and her lips barely brushed against his.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" A blood-curdling scream was joined by a second,
"STOOOOOOOOOOP!" and by a new third,
"WAAAAAAAAH!"
"What the hell?" Malfoy screamed as Hermione looked around in terror.
Three wispy forms materialized into the middle of the room. They were children, appearing to be a toddler, seven year old and ten year old. The eldest boy had blond hair and looked haggard and thin. His two younger counterparts were girls dressed in tattered sleepwear who looked unkempt.
"Impossible! They can't be ghosts." Malfoy was alarmed.
"Who are you?" Hermione attempted to open a dialogue with them.
"We aren't ghosts. We are astral projecting from the future."
"But…why?" Hermione asked.
"Because… we have a warning for you."
"Who are you?" Hermione repeated her question.
The response chilled her to the bone.
"We are your future children."
Malfoy fainted.