Hair, Good Hair
A.N. Bond, James Bond. And dedicated to Sarah Hope.
"You're not seriously going off to Breakfast thirty minuets early, when you look like that, are you?"
Hermione yanked a hair stick of her mouth and spat out "Since when did you care whether or not I was presentable?"
She marched past the peroxide head, stabbing the unruly mass of curls with her resilient hair piece.
He folded his arms and leaned heavily on the stone arch way. His speech was airily accented with breezy flicks and gesticulations of his arms and dactyls.
"I happen to be a Malfoy, and when one lives in the vicinity of a Malfoy, one should take proper care to be presentable. Most especially in the region of hair."
With the pronouncement of hair, Draco expertly tossed his professionally cut and manicured hair just enough so it was attractively arranged, even when it was slightly damp from the shower. He raised his eyebrow as if to prove a point. Challenging her to say otherwise.
Hermione stopped her highly … energetic (angry) march around the Common room that was shared by all prefects and Student Heads. She dropped her arms from their vigorous morning workout of attempting to control her hair, and graced him with a look that clearly conveyed "Are you a troll that has just gotten its brain handed to him and mistook it for cotton candy?"
Draco rolled his eyes and shoved his hands in his pockets. He wasn't nearly ready to go down stairs by anyone's standards, with his shirt unbuttoned, Slytherin tie absent from his neck, and expensive leather belt missing from his hips.
Hermione said with disbelief in her voice "Are you actually suggesting that I do something more with my hair? You're actually saying that; with no extra personal cutting comment or insidious insult?"
Draco replied readily and with indifference. 'If she wants an insult then I'll give it to her.'
"I thought I might try out the entire 'good Samaritan' thing. I'm going to be working with you for the remainder of the year and it seemed obvious where to start to make your presence more bearable."
Hermione gave up listening face to face with him about half way through the second sentence and continued her rampage through the room.
She tossed up pillow cushions from the chairs and said bitingly "That has to be the most narcissistic thing attached to the idea of a good Samaritan that I have ever heard." She mumbled something along the lines of ridiculous juxtaposition.
Draco watched her, intently deliberating whether or not to continue on with his quest for her to have bearable hair or to snidely ask what she was looking for.
But she got to it first, flinging her already coming undone hair back and demanding if he had seen a simple leather bound book with a silver lock on it.
As a matter of fact he had. It was in his room, sitting in his desk. Hidden quite cleverly he had thought.
He lied smoothly. "No, I don't keep track of your …unmanageable things."
She glared up at his from her position of crouching over the couch, her hands
rooting around in the cushions. She got the obvious allusion that he made to her hair.
Draco again raised his eyebrow at how she looked in that particular moment. Half of her face was pressed against the chair and her body was placed behind her in an absurd position.
"Itsh mah juhnel." Her voice was muffled by the cushions.
Draco extracted his hand from his pocket to wave her off. Trying to show that he didn't really care.
"Why don't you accio it then?" He said as if speaking to a stupid person, figuring he should ask her the obvious of which he already knew.
"Because Malfoy I have it so that prats like you can't just summon it away when ever they feel like- getting into something that they shouldn't be."
Yes, he knew that, but he eventually found it manually. ('Ergh')
"Pity, you would have so much more time to become presentable if you didn't do stupid bloody things like that."
He examined his hand again. Hmm perhaps he was trying to hard to be nonchalant about it? Of course not. Malfoy's are wondrous liars. They beguile with a devils skill. It is actually something to be proud of, really it is.
She stood back up, a little more rumpled than when she started her morning.
Draco had a considering countenance.
Hermione was now actually considering letting him suggest things to do with her hair whilst resisting the urge to tell him he was not even presentable to be out of his room.
At all.
At anytime.
But now particularly because his pants were pulled rather low and his shirt was very open.
It was a nice view, but Hermione wasn't going to be consumed by it.
It was Draco, the amazing bouncing white ferret, who at the moment was wearing black knickers that may or may not have had a satin sheen to them.
Hermione was defiantly not distracted or embarrassed by this at all.
Draco however, was looking at Hermione in interest, rumpled and hair messy she looked quite … ravished.
Draco quickly decided that he should be getting back to his own hair.
He shoved himself off the wall and was going to go back into his room when the bushy
haired nerd acquiesced to his offer.
"Alright Malfoy. I'll take your suggestions."
Malfoy was obviously surprised, he didn't expect her to comply so readily. Well it wasn't like she was ever in her entire life agree to something right away was she? At least to him she wasn't.
"Guess you're desperate."
"Never mind then."
"No. Let me do it then, c'mon."
Draco came down the steps that he had been lording over. The layout of the room was quite central, the fireplace located near the entrance rather than shoved back into to the room, to allow more space for bookshelves, and a large meeting table arranged near the source of heat. All of the doors lining the circular area were based with a few steps, going up or down or sideways, depending, and each of the doors led to prefects rooms. The prefects' rooms were enchanted so that on the other side of their individual rooms led to their house's common room.
A special feature of the Founders common room.
Draco came up so that he was about a foot and a half from her, and pulled out his wand.
Hermione realized that she was putting a great deal of trust into this boy and that she, perhaps, really shouldn't be.
Forgiving him for being roped into Voldemort's plan when he was against it was one thing.
Forgiving and forgetting everything he had done to her over the past years was a different matter entirely.
However, Hermione was one of those who preached forgiveness, and she couldn't very well slap his wand and hand away with out first giving him a chance.
Malfoy's thoughts, however unexpectedly, were concentrating on what spell would work best for her ridiculous tangle of an excuse for hair.
He drew his brow together in thought. His mother had taught him cosmetic spells.
It was really the only thing that she knew expertly well, and he didn't mind.
Especially when he was running late and had no time do his hair the proper way.
His thoughts flashed to his father and what he would say if he knew Draco was rather well rehearsed in the spells of females. And what he would do if he knew he was performing it as sort of a truce between a mudblood and himself.
Hermione was in a state of slight shock, now that she had gotten to the point of deciding to trust him. She didn't exactly grasp the fact that the boy...erm young … bloke (because she was not going to call him a man) that she had spent six years having extreme negative energy towards, was helping her with her hair.
She was biting her lip in nervousness, she realized. He hadn't done anything yet or even said anything towards her.
He was in thought about something. She cautiously peered up to examine her dilemmas face, really examine it. Not just glaze him over with the image that she had of him.
His grey eyes, more like a cold sky than anything living, were laced with silver pins, accentuating his longer rather than rounder eyes. Gracing his angular brow ridges were light thin eyebrows. The delicate hairs missing from below indicated that, yes, Malfoy in fact did his eyebrows. His forehead was high but angled in such a way that it did not protrude from his face. His jaw may have been a bit too long on his face, courtesy of his father, and his chin came to a rather delicate point for a boy, courtesy of his Mother, but over all they fit the planes of his face exquisitely. His nose was long and nostrils high and his mouth was…kissable.
Hermione blushed and forced herself to look down. She was never doing that to anyone she considered an enemy, or a close friend, ever again. She was not looking forward to revelations about anyone's (personal) physical appearance.
Even if it was only in a half of a second.
Draco caught her blush and had a huge, whopping, soaring, burst of ego boost. He felt like he could just fucking take over the entire fucking world with just a fucking knife.
Draco had this shit eating grin on his face while he changed his stance to one more dominant. She was meek in his godly presence. He was cackling with absolute glee in side of his head.
He purred out "Granger I believe that I wish for you to listen closely, because
I now expect you to do this on a daily basis."
Before she could protest that she wanted to do the spell herself if he didn't mind, he said a quick sharp incantation while having his wand move in a slow arch vertically, and then a drag horizontally.
Hermiones hair yanked itself from her scalp forcibly, as if someone had pulled a mega-brush through her mane.
She yelped as her head snapped back wards, and her entire body leaned back from the force.
She righted herself immediately with intent to mutilate, and fixed a look-that-could-kill glare on his stupid ferrety face. She was so infuriated she was spluttering.
He had his arms folded across his chest, had this look of righteousness on his face, and he was leaning his weight on one leg. He was the epitome of cockiness, and it just made her even angrier.
She stomped off with an exclamation of rage.
Draco thought it was his best work yet and thought it was the greatest irony that she wasn't aware of her transformation as of yet.
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Hermione marched in to the Great Hall, her books and her bags almost falling to the ground in their precarious position in her arms.
As much as she wanted to, she would not have been able to slam the Doors open.
The Dining Hall was fairly absent of first years, mainly because it was in the beginning weeks of school. But the most painful absence was the general population of the school.
Beuxbatons academy had already merged in with Hogwarts, and the population of the English kids that didn't return had increased to the point where it felt like it was an unhappy Christmas.
Hermione plopped down next to Ginny, the only one of her friends still remaining at Hogwarts that was up at this time, and the only one that she could rant to.
Ginny was talking in broken French to one of the girls from the Academy, but when she had glanced at Hermione to give her a quick greeting, she took a classic double take.
Her mouth was open, along with half of the great hall.
Hermione had slammed her books down on the table and hissed, "Yes, I know!"
Ginny was opening and closing her mouth in astonishment.
Hermione then grew very depressed and placed her hands in her lap. "How bad is it?"
The girl that Hermione vaguely recalled leaned over Ginnys shoulder and inserted
"Is grreat 'air for you, I like it verry much."
Ginny nodded vigorously.
Hermione gave her second 'look' for the day.
When their expressions turned to ones of confusion, she was dumbfounded.
"No… wait. You're both serious?" Ginny whipped up her bag and thrust inside and pulled out a mirror.
Hermione looked at herself, namely her hair, agape. Ringlets; lustrous, shiny, tamed, voluminous, ringlets.
She reached up and touched her hair. It was really soft.
It was…pretty.
"Wow."
Ginerva Weasley was a mirror of her Mother at that moment. "Hermione I believe you have some explaining to do."
Hermione raised an eyebrow at Ginny, but smiled all the same.
Hermione told her and the eager french girl everything that had happened that morning, it wasn't so hard to sum up, especially with leaving the parts about her studying Malfoys face out.
Malfoy came strutting in the hall. He looked like a cat that had first sodomized the canary before devouring it wholly.
He gave her an absolutely naughty, smirking grin.
It was deplorable, and yet she couldn't help but to grin straight back.
Malfoy knew he was strutting and yet he knew he did not care, and he knew also that he would get it from Blaise and that seemed to not be important either.
He slid himself smoothly into the bench next to his friend, and started heaping strawberries and raspberries onto his toast. One part toast three fourths topping.
Blaise raised an eyebrow and said in a low voice. "Some one get something last night?"
Draco let the shit eating grin across his face again.
Blaise smirked a little and something darkly perverted passed through his eyes.
His friend said between delectable fruit, "Nothing like that Zambini. How could you make such a vulgar accusation?" He feigned hurt.
"Simple. I am a hormonal teenage boy, who may or may not have erotic fantasies on a frightening scale."
Draco snickered a little. Oh how happy he was to have more of this free witty talk between he and his friend. Although admittedly it wasn't exactly witty, but it was banter.
Crabbe and Goyle actually graduated last year, or rather they graduated themselves, choosing not to return to Hogwarts.
Draco hoped the Dark Lord suffered through their brains.
His forearm twinged. Draco's good mood suddenly diminished a great deal.
Blaise leaned in then and flicked his eyes towards Granger. "So, I assume that that was your doing?"
Draco nodded and took a hearty bite of toast, mainly because he wanted to avoid expanding.
Blaise had a sly smile on his face now. And he looked at Granger with an intensity that slightly frightened Draco.
Draco's chews slowed, and he swallowed without bringing anything else up to his face for a second bite. "Blaise… you're not thinking…about seducing the poor naive Head Girl are you?"
Blaise shrugged and made to get up. "Dunno, mate. Depends really. See you in the usual."
Draco was now slightly worried for the chastity of Hermione Granger.
Seeing the males, that were affected by the hair, take new note of the girl made him slightly possessive. It was all his doing dammit.
She was basically his now…basically.
Wonderful, now he was convincing himself.
^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^
Hermione entered the Heads common room, smiling and happy.
It was so nice to have nice hair. She wasn't frustrated or anything, and she wasn't distracted during her school work trying to maintain her hair.
She giggled uncharacteristically.
Draco was sitting in one of the very comfortable chairs, but he didn't look very comfortable.
"Granger I don't believe I have ever heard such an girly sound. I must let you know that it is most incongruous and distracting."
Hermione wasn't phased. She beamed at him happily. "Well Malfoy…I am in fact a girl."
"Unbecoming." Was his reply.
She retorted with "Natural."
"Irritating"
"Enjoyable."
She kept walking to the desk in the middle of the room, but Draco stood up and followed her.
"Look. Granger…." Hermione turned around, both students coming to a halt. Her face was one of confusion, mild, but the confusion was there.
Draco's was blank faced.
"You owe me."
He smoothly changed tactics. What was going to be a warning about Blaise became… that. Much to his consternation he found that he simply couldn't forget all of the previous malign tension between them.
And why should he care?
It was Hermiones turn to return a raised eyebrow. "Huh… I see. Well, since I pale in comparison to your beauty I cannot even begin to imagine how I might make this up to you."
"Whenever and whatever I deign appropriate." Malfoy raised a corner of his mouth slightly.
Hermiones eyes grew narrow, and heated dangerously. "Why is it that you can't do anything honestly or forthright? It's tiring and it despicable and I can't stand your underhanded ways. I'm grateful! No, I really am but must you hold it over my head like this?"
Draco sneered. "Not everything I do is insidious- it is sometimes just pragmatic nature. If everyone gave everything away then one person may own the entirety and rule with impunity. You might want to learn some prudence, Granger, before someone teaches it to you."
Draco turned, tight lipped to his 'Chambre' and dramatically swept the door closed.
_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_
Draco snarled at his book and slammed it shut. He was not finding what he needed to complete the essay for that stupid Professor.
"This is ridiculous."
He needed an O on the essay to keep him in the O range. It was due tomorrow.
He knew one person that would know…
Damn- he would have to not only swallow his pride but feast on it.
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Hermione was climbing in bed.
"Ahhh…no more painful hair brushing."
She fell back on to the bed and snuggled into her pillow. 'Sleep' she thought with a smile on her face.
There was a knock on the door.
She groaned.
"What!"
There was mumbling at the door.
"I can't hear you!"
"Can you help me?!"
Hermione sat up. Draco? Asking for help? Really? He was sure acting strangely
today.
'… hmm I guess… it really is just his way…' She had thought over what he had said earlier, mulling it around as if swishing fine wine around in a glass. It was quite complicated- but then who had ever said Draco was a simple person?
"Come on in then!"
There was silence.
"It's locked!"
Oh.
Hermione reached for her wand on her beside table and swished her wand, compliantly the door swung open.
Draco stood there with a parchment and quill in hand, half way dressed for bed.
Hermione folded her arms, and crossed her legs still seated neatly on her bed.
"What is it that you needed help with?"
"The transfiguration essay that McGonagall gave to us. The seven theories of… were you going to sleep like that?"
Hermione's expression, which was attentive, turned angry.
"Look, not that I'm not grateful for the spell this morning but really…it doesn't give you the right to criticize the way I sleep! I don't see any reason why you should try and fix the neatness of my bedsheets!"
He walked into the room, tossing his parchment on the desk.
"I knew that your hygiene habits were bad, but didn't your Mother teach you anything about being a girl?"
"What! What is that supposed to mean?!"
He placed a hand on his hip and raised his eyebrow.
"You really don't know?" He twitched his eyelids in a irritated eyeroll.
"You know…I could have taken advantage of the fact that I was part of your routine of getting dressed… and I could have perhaps insinuated something less than innocent." He said smoothly.
And with his mention of less than innocent, she was then very aware of her flannel night wear and she was painfully aware that he was in fact in her room.
He leaned forward as he was also aware that he was in her space.
He said in the most serious tone of voice. "You must braid it, you idiot."
She was in a partial state of shock.
And that's why when he sighed, flopped (gracefully, always gracefully where a Malfoy is concerned) and put himself parallel to her back, she still did not move in protest. He reached out towards her hair and as soon as he brushed the stands, she jerked forwards and clutched her head.
He was giving her a stern look, with an exasperated tilt to his hands. She glared at him suspiciously.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because then you'll help me with my homework."
She leaned away again.
"And you're sitting on my bed which is a very personal thing to do and yet the only benign thing you have ever done towards me was my hair this morning. Even that had an ulterior motive."
He dropped his hands and glared at her.
"Are you going to let me braid or not or are you just going to psychoanalyze me all night?"
"Wouldn't you rather be doing other things?"
Draco raised his eyebrow and let his lips stretch ever so slightly into a smile.
Of course he'd rather be doing other things on a reasonably attractive girl's bed, in her reasonably nice smelling abode, doing unreasonable naughty things. No matter her bloodline or future prospects and assets.
He kept this behind his eyes, thank-you-very-much.
Hermione, our dear perceptive witch, caught only a gleam in his eye, which she quickly dismissed as the candle and magicked light playing tricks on her. She debated for a moment, for any longer, she knew, would hurt his pride as a silver tongued Slytherine.
She sighed, released her death grip on her newly gorgeous hair, and turned her back to him.
"Ok, go ahead, but you must promise that you're not going to do anything wretched."
"Would I do that?" His tone was decidedly devilish. He touched her hair again, dragging his fingers into it and parting it like waves. She hmmed.
He commanded to her; "Lean back, no not that far I can't do anything there, no
not that way, move here… yes slide up, ah perfect."
He commenced with the parting of her hair.
Silence for a few minuets, Hermione growing uncomfortable with it, while he simply furthered the complicated braiding process.
"Malfoy…I have a question regarding the spell that you used."
"Hm."
Permission enough… she grumbled to herself.
"I could never find any spells like that in text books… where did you learn that?"
Draco sighed heavily, and dramatically explained things, as if explaining them to an idiot or a very slow child.
"Cosmetic spells are passed down through families. That's why the majority of the population don't have beautiful teeth or glossy hair or wonderful skin. That moron Eli-something, for example, tried following a silly spell in a bloody mag. And naturally the women of the wizarding families are vain, so whatever spell they find works best for them, they keep their mouth shut tight so that they might be the comeliest on the block."
The poor head girl, got more and more flabbergasted by the word. She turned around with her mouth open in a scathing retort but was rewarded with a sharp rap on the head.
She turned around quick enough.
"Keep still," He demanded "It's not like you've lost any of your bloody volume. You've gone and messed it all up."
He swept away her hair to one side, and revealed a soft shoulder. It was bare, with the sleeve draped down a quarter of the way, and he was then very aware she only had the flimsy little flannel thing on.
"Echem."
He repositioned himself so he didn't have to look at it.
He had a weakness for shoulders and collar bones. The more graceful, the more delicate the more delectable.
He instead was facing down towards her hips, of course they were beyond her hair, but he could still see them. And it looks like all of that ordering around of his made her
elessticarly…done up muggle contraption…fall…a bit.
He saw dimples, and the rise of flesh gently rising over hips, and the very small glimpse of lacy pink…knickers. He swallowed heavily. Hermione Granger…Head
Nerd, Head Girl, Miss. Circumspect, 1/3 golden girl, and muggle born… was indeed: a girl.
'Concentrate on the braiding.'
"Malfoy?"
"Granger?" It came out lower than he wanted, and a bit on the dangerous side.
"W-w-would you mind if I asked you a personal question? I know we're not even on first name basis or anything and still it's rather a lot to ask, and you probably don't even want to tell me the fist thing about yourself bu-"
"Just get on with it."
"Hmph. Fine then." Despite her hurrumph, her fingers twisted together and her (creamy) shoulders tensed. "Are you gay?"
He stopped moving. He just stared at his masculine manicured nails, connected to masculine muscled arms, connected to a masculine gorgeous masculine face which inevitably connected to his masculine muscled bod (of which he checks every morning) which undoubtedly is connected to his manhood.
He was feeling very…put out. He was being a very good boy. He was resisting touching her skin and caressing her shoulders and being a very good man. Chivalrous is the term. And this is the thanks he gets?
"No. I am in fact…not."
He removed his hands from her hair. Miffed would be a terrible understatement.
She turned around, just stretching her body just so she could see him. Her first button was undone, he noted greedily, and the collar bone she's been hiding is titillating.
"I mean really, you do your nails more than I do, pluck your eyebrows and know cosmetic spells better than Ginny."
That? That was the reason why? That he took care of his appearance?! In Malfoys mind this needed to be rectified. Immediately.
Hermione was getting slightly nervous now. She didn't like the look in his eyes.
His eyes were hooded, and intensely pewter grey through his eyelashes, and he looked ready to pounce.
She thought he would be angry and storm out, but this reaction was …unexpected.
Suddenly, as suddenly these things happen, he grabbed her shoulders, moving his face to nuzzle into her neck, breathing moist and hot on her collarbone.
"EeP!" Was the only reaction she could squeeze out at this point in time. On her knees, her front touching his she could only hold her face away from his in a futile attempt to stave off an unwanted kiss.
Gently he trialed feather light kisses only mere brushes of his lips upon her skin.
Confusion. Deep deep deeeeeep confusion. But beneath that lay enjoyment on her part. Sure she could scream, but who would hear? The portraits? And he would be off of her like a buckshot and she wasn't sure she wanted that
He had reached her shoulder, rubbing his cheek up against it, and then moving to her neck again, going up her jaw line with his kisses.
Perhaps she didn't want him off.
"Eh?!"
And this thought troubled her.
Although…what's the harm? It's not like anyone will know if they decided to experiment a little.
And this is definitely working as proof he's not interested in Harry or Ron or Blaise or any male species. Although he's certainly being a gentlemen about things.
Ron would have been in her shirt by now.
He stretched him self so that the tilt of her face was not a problem. He breathed on her mouth and nipped at her lower lip.
Breathless all of the sudden she opened her mouth for a gasp and he swooped upon her.
It stayed like that for as long as she could hold her breath. Which was not
long.
She fell limp in his arms, which had moved to her back and hip region.
He smirked intensely, his eyes clouded over with some sort of haze, and he resisted openly grinning like a buffoon.
"Does that answer your question?" He said throatily, the thickness of his voice only giving a slight hint to what he had done.
"Mehh"
Was what she could mouth out. Confused, shocked, happy, euphoric… translated into
mehh. 'Brilliant Hermione brilliant, the best snog of your entire life and the
best you can say is mehh?!'
Draco was superior in his glory. He was the best if not the only she had. He had ruined her.
She was relaxed backwards, displaying a long stretch of neck and the lovely collarbone.
Must'nt let her think she had corrupted him too.
He dropped her. "Oomph" Moving off her bed he headed to where his homework lie.
Nonchalantly he conjured a chair and stated "Shall we begin then?"
She stared up at him in wonderment and fury. Outrage to be best put.
"Urrgh!" She flipped over, disheveled again. The mornings that she ended up disheveled would no longer be quick false imageries, they would be allusions. He cleared his throat, subconsciously telling himself to change the subject. He was already having a problem.
"Are you going to sit there all lordly and smug and pretend that never happened?"
"What happened?"
"OOOgh!" She stamped over to her chair, composed her self with a deep breath and retrieved her quill. She didn't bother to right her clothes because …nothing happened.
"Now… for your transfiguration."
Fifteen minuets and a disconjuration later Draco was at her door.
She was going to close it behind the self appointed Prince as he left, unfortunately she had to say something.
"Aren't you going to say thank you?" She said.
"I believe it should be you thanking me." He said.
"Oh? For what?" Hermione mocked.
He grinned. "For ruining you."
He bounded down her stairs and up his with ease, a flick of his wrist as a good-bye and goodnight whilst she stood with her mouth agape.