Draco cannot help the smile that forms on his face as he looks at the paper he just recieved. A big 100% is written at the top of his Transfiguration test. It had been a rather hard test and Draco is sure that he is the only perfect score in the class. He looks at the tests of his classmates surrounding him to test his theory. He is pleasantly unsurprised to find that almost everyone around him has failed the test. His smile widens into a smirk.
"Hey Draco? What did you get on the test?" Crabbe asks, sounding a little stressed. Draco looks up from his paper to see that Crabbe has turned around in his seat and is trying to get a look at Draco's test. There is almost a look of hope in Crabbe's eyes that Draco notices. Almost as if Crabbe is hoping that if the Great Draco Malfoy failed than maybe McGonagall would excuse the test. Like that would ever happen. With the smirk still plastered on his face, Draco places the test on the table and spins it to face Crabbe. Crabbe's eyes practically pop out of his head. The Slytherin Prince leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, looking smug.
"Good luck finding a mistake." Draco tells his friend arrogantly while Crabbe is frantically looking over his test, trying to find something wrong. Draco spaces out while his friend is desperately searching for a mistake and starts thinking about the letter he is going to write to his father later about his perfect score and how he was the only one to get it. His daydream is cut short by Professor McGonagall's words.
"I am quite disappointed to say that almost all of you failed this test." McGonagall frowns as she looks around that classroom from the front of the room. "There were only two perfect scores out of the whole class..." McGonagall continues. Draco freezes and the smirk melts off his face. He sits up straight and looks around the room to see if he could find who in the classroom could have gotten the same score as him. "Miss Granger, Mr. Malfoy. Congratulations to you both on your outstanding scores." The Professor finishes before getting the days class started. Draco's head snaps to where Hermione Granger sits in the front of the classroom. Her friends around her are congratulating her and patting her back while she grins and thanks them. Draco scowls.
'Bloody Granger.' He thinks to himself while glaring holes into the back of her head. To Draco, being tied with the Mudblood is the same thing as getting last place. He crumbles his perfect test into a ball in his fist.
Draco can't concentrate on what McGonagall is saying because for the rest of class he finds his eyes wondering to Hermione at the front of the room and the moment his eyes find her, they narrow into slits and he started glaring at her all over again. He has to physical force himself to look away and concentrate on his Professor but two minutes later he finds himself looking at her again, thus continuing the cycle.
When it is finally time for them to leave, everyone piles out of the classroom and into the hall. When Draco steps out into the hall he looks around and finds Hermione leaning up against the wall, talking to some of her friends from the class. "Hey Granger." Draco calls while he starts making his way over to her and her friends. Draco watches as Granger's friends get all wide eyed and mutter their goodbyes to the girl before Draco has even reached the group. Hermione opens her mouth to say something to her fleeing friends but they are out of ear shot before the girl can utter a single word. She snaps her mouth closed and turns to look at him, give him a glare that even Draco is proud of.
"Did I interrupt something?" Draco asks with a smirk as he reaches Hermione. She narrows her eyes.
"What do you want Malfoy?" She asks with a slight sigh while crossing her arms over her chest. Draco leans his side against the wall so he wouldn't have to support his weight and crosses his own arms to mirror the girl.
"Well, Granger..." Draco is just about to insult her until she cries when she interrupts him.
"You know what. I don't care what you wanted. I have to go to meet up with Harry and Ron." Hermione tells him, shaking her head slightly. Draco looks at her dumbfounded.
'How dare she interrupt me.' is the only thought Draco can process. When Draco just stares at her and says nothing she starts to walk away but after a few steps she spins back around and grins at him.
"Congratulations on your perfect score though! I knew I was excited when I got my paper back." And with that last comment she goes on her way. Draco is completely stunned. There is a strange fluttering ache in his chest now that hadn't been there before she smiled at him. She has never smiled at him like that. She never really smiled at him period. Draco blinks three times before wiping the dumbfounded look off his face by shaking his head slightly. He casually adjusts his robes and hopes no one had been paying attention to Granger's and his little talk. With one look around the hall, he walks off to go find Blaise, the fluttering still in his chest.
Draco is sitting at dinner, trying to distract himself with eating and talking to his friends so he wouldn't find himself staring at a certain girl at the Gryffindor table. But whenever there is a lull in the conversation and food fails to grab his attention, he finds himself staring at the bushy haired girl. The fluttering in his chest had, thankfully, subsided by the time he made it to the Slytherin Common Room earlier that afternoon, for which Draco had been grateful for. If the fluttering had happened for any longer he would have gone to the infirmary, convinced that he was having some kind of heart attack. Draco watches as Hermione laughs and smiles at Harry and Ron. The Slytherin Prince cannot help the tight, little chunk of envy that forms right below his heart at seeing the way she smiles at the two idiotic Gryffindor boys.
'They don't deserve her smiles.' Draco thinks darkly, stabbing at the food on his plate harder than necessary.
"Oi Malfoy, why does it look like someone just stole your favorite play toy?" Draco looks up from his plate to find Blaise grinning at him.
"Sod off Zabini." Draco snaps at him. Blaise throws his hands up in surrender but the cheeky grin doesn't leave his face.
"Well I see that I have struck a nerve." Blaise says, going back to eating. "What's up with you?" The boy asks. Draco pushes his food around his plate.
"Nothing's wrong." Draco mumbles. He glances up at the Gryffindor table again and finds Hermione looking at him. When their eyes meet, her cheeks flush pink and she quickly looks away. Draco's heart starts beating harder and the weird fluttering feeling finds its way back into his chest again. 'Why was she looking at me and why did she blush?' Draco asks himself.
"-aco. Draco!" Blaise calls while waving his hand in front of Draco's face. Draco snaps back into it and refocuses his eyes to Blaise. The boy didn't even realize that he had zoned out.
"What?" The Slytherin Prince asks, trying to calm his beating heart and trying to pretend that the fluttering in his chest isn't even there.
"Did you even hear me?" Blaise asks, shaking his head slightly. "You know what never mind. What I want to know is who were you staring at so intently?" Blaise turns in his seat and starts searching the room to see who his best friend could have been staring at.
"Blaise, I wasn't staring at anyone." Draco lies smoothly, something he had been getting better at lately. Blaise keeps searching despite what Draco tells him. No one really catches Blaise's eye until he spots Granger, who is as red as a tomato.
"Hey," Blaise says, turning back around to face Draco. "Look at Granger. Wonder what made her so red." He laughs. Draco lifts his eyes to see that Blaise wasn't lying and that Hermione's face is still flushed. He looks down quickly so she wouldn't catch him looking at her.
"I don't know." Draco responds. "Maybe it was Weasley." Blaise shrugs and moves onto a different topic. Draco is suddenly grateful that his friend can never focus on one issue for more than a few minutes. For the rest of dinner Draco listens to Blaise blabber on but, even though he was paying attention to his friend, he couldn't help but to notice that Granger's face was red for the rest of dinner.
Hermione has been sitting in the library at a desk, tapping her nails on the hard wood for the past twenty minutes. She has been staring at a certain blonde Slytherin, just as she had done at dinner, for the last five minutes. She wants to look away because she knows that he could look up from his potions book any second and catch her staring at him. Again. But if Hermione looks away she knows she will lose the courage she has been building up to go over and talk to Draco. The Gryffindor girl hangs her head and lets her shoulder slump as she curses softly under her breathe.
'Come on Granger. It's just a simple question. Just treat him as any other person.' With that little pep talk to herself, Hermione straightens her back and rises from her chair. She picks up her bag because she plans to flee far away from the library when she is done talking to Draco. She walks up to him, her whole body stiff. She makes it all the way to his table without him noticing. She awkwardly shifts from one foot to another until she clears her throat, causing him to look up.
Draco had been trying to study for a potions test in the library when he had felt someone approach him. He really didn't feel like talking to anyone so he ignored them, thinking they would go away. But when they didn't go and when they cleared their throat in an attempt to get his attention, Draco is forced to pay attention to whoever wants to talk to him. He rises his head and is surprised to find Hermione standing there, looking more awkward than usual.
"Well, what a pleasant surprise..." He says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, a smirk forming on his face. "What can I do for you Granger?" He watches her closely and notices the way she shifts from one foot to another, the way she keeps fixing her bag strap, and the way she keeps pushing her bushy hair away from her slightly flushed cheeks. Whatever she is about to ask him, Draco knows that it's going to amuse him greatly because it looks like it took all her willpower to just walk up to him.
"I need you to be my partner for the Transfiguration project." Hermione tells him, wrapping her arms tightly around herself and frowning slightly. Draco looks at her confused.
"Excuse me?" He asks, having no idea what she is talking about. Hermione glares at him.
"The Transfiguration project." She says again. "You know, the one Professor McGonagall assigned today." She suddenly feels quite foolish and hugs herself tighter. Draco racks his brain, trying to remember what the bloody hell the girl is talking about when suddenly the boy faintly remembers McGonagall saying something about a group project but he had been too busy glaring at Granger to bother to listen to the objective of the project.
"You want to be my partner?" Draco asks as his smirk grows, playing it off as if he remembers exactly what McGonagall had said. Hermione's face flushes a deeper red as she struggles to explain herself.
"I would have normally asked one of my friends and ended up doing all the work myself but Professor McGonagall said that each student will be graded individually and then the two students' scores would average out a final score for both students. And since none of my friends are anywhere near good at Transfiguration.. I figured.. that uhh.. you would want to pair up with me since we both got perfect scores on the last test." By the time Hermione is done explaining herself, she is out of breathe. Draco just sits there, smirking at her for a few moments while Hermione just starts to feel more and more like an idiot. She is about to open her mouth to tell him to forget it and pretend she never asked when he speaks up.
"I'll be your partner." The words that come out of Draco's mouth not only surprises Hermione but the speaker himself. He had meant to say something cruel but that popped out instead. Hermione blinks a few times before it sinks in.
"Okay then." She blurts before fleeing from the library. Draco sits there, trying to hide his blush by covering his face with his hands.
'What in the hell is wrong with me?' He asks himself, shaking his head slightly.
The pair is sitting across from each other in the library. Draco had pulled her aside earlier after class today to tell her to meet him in the library after dinner so they could work on their project together but currently, Hermione has her face buried deep in a book and is avoiding him.
"Granger, you can't ignore me and hide behind that book for forever you know." Draco says with a slight sigh, a little bothered that she is avoiding him but he would never admit that. She suddenly pops her head up from the book and glares at him.
"I'm not ignoring you." She snaps but the slight pink tint of her cheeks proves otherwise. "I was simply searching for information for our project." She states simply, setting her book down and finally looking him in the eye.
"Well are you ready to start working together?" He asks eyeing her. "Because I could easily find another partner…" He says with a slight smirk on his face.
"No!" She shouts, standing up slightly in her chair and leaning forward as if he was about to get up and she was going to grab him. A loud shush was directed their way by the librarian. Hermione smiles at the older women sleepily and sits back down. Draco watches her, amused. "I need this good grade." She mumbles to him as she picks up the book she had put down earlier.
"So, are you ready to be a good girl and work with me willingly?" He asks, wanting to push all her buttons because he loves the way her cheeks flush when she gets angry. Not that he would tell anyone that. She glares at him through lowered lashes.
"You drive me mad." She grumbles.
"That's the goal." He grins.
For the next couple weeks the two meet in the library after dinner to work on their project. Hermione pretends that she doesn't enjoy spending all this time with Draco and that's what she tells her friends when really she finds herself quickly eating through her dinner and practically running through the halls to get to the library faster.
The night before the project is due, Hermione notices that Draco isn't at dinner. They had finished the project the night before and had agreed that they didn't have to meet at the library anymore but Hermione can't help feeling like that is where Draco is and that she should go see him. So, the girl quickly finishes her meal and once she's done she stands.
"I'm going take an early leave." She tells her friends smoothly. They all give her a weird look.
"You're not going to meet with Malfoy are you?" Harry asks, looking concerned.
"Yeah. Didn't you tell us that you finished your project yesterday?" Ginny adds in, also looking concerned.
"No. I'm not going to go meet Malfoy." She says smoothly. It's not a complete lie since Draco won't be expecting her. "And yes. Our project is done."
"I don't see how you survived weeks of working with him." Ron states. "I don't see how anyone could be around an insufferable git like him for more than a minute." Ron's words, for some reason that the Gryffindor girl can't place, rubs her the wrong way.
"And I don't see how someone could be around someone as idiotic as you for more than a minute." Hermione snaps at him and storms out of the Great Hall. Ron looks at Harry and Ginny, shocked. They both look a little shocked themselves.
"What did I say?" Ron asks no one in particular.
Once Hermione reaches the library, all her anger at Ron fades away and she pokes her head through the door to see if she can see anyone. She has to do a couple sweeps of the room with her eyes before she sees Draco at a desk in a dark corner of the library. She quietly crosses over the threshold and shuts the library door softly, not wanting to disturb him. She walks over and once she's closer, she sees he has a book open on the desk in front of him. Before Hermione even reaches him at the table, he speaks.
"I thought we agreed not to meet tonight." He states without any emotion in his voice and not looking up from his book. Hermione stops at the corner of the desk and bites her lip, wondering why she really came here in the first place.
"We did..." She says softly, wishing he would look at her instead of the book.
"Then why are you here?" He asks in the same board tone. She wrings her hands and doesn't answer. He flips a page of his book and Hermione breaks.
"Please look at me." Her voice cracks slightly. Draco looks up at her from pure shock. From the fact that she begged him to look at her and the fact that her voice broke. When he finally looks at her, she can't stop the words that come tumbling out of her mouth. "I don't know why I'm here. I just felt like you were here and that I had to come see you. I defended you earlier and I don't know why I did that either." She starts playing with her hair. "When we were working on our project together I actually had fun and looked forward to it every day. We didn't make fun of each other and if we did it was only playful banter and it was nice. And I don't know what's happening but something is happening and I need to know if you feel the same way." Hermione's face is flushed by the end of her scattered babbling. Draco just looks at her with the same dumbfounded look on his face he always gave her when she threw him off. He doesn't say anything for a few moments, his mind racing faster than he could keep up with.
"Hermione…" His voice is soft like velvet and Hermione melts when he uses her first name. But suddenly his shocked expression is replaced with an expression as hard as steel. "I think it's best if we don't meet anymore." His voice is now as sharp a knife and it cuts deep into the bushy haired girl. "We worked on a project together and that was it. There is nothing going on between us. You are making up insane delusions." Hermione can feel the tears well up in her eyes. She blinks and one single tear runs down her cheek.
"Ron was right." She chokes out, trying to push the tears back. "You really are an insufferable git and I don't know how I spent those weeks with you without wanting to die." She runs out of the library, tears running down her face. She quickly finds a dark corner and lets the sobs she had been holding back rack her body.
Draco watches her go, his heart breaking at seeing her cry. An urge to run after the girl takes over his body and he starts to get out of his chair but he pushes it down and forces himself to sit back down. "She deserves someone so much better than me." Draco tells himself out loud. He runs his hands through his hair and resists the urge to cry or scream or both. So, to distract himself, he turns back to the book in front of him and tries to ignore the hole that has started in his chest.
"Congratulations to the pair of Miss Granger and Mr. Malfoy on their excellent grade on their project." McGonagall announces to the class a week later, proud evident in her voice. Draco glances at Hermione at the front of the room. No emotion flickers over her face. None of her friends congratulate her. Draco drags his eyes back to the top of his desk. The hole in his chest that formed when he made Hermione cry is still as painful as when it first formed. Draco couldn't help but to notice that it has formed exactly where he had felt the fluttering when Hermione had smiled at him so long ago.
'I really messed up.' Draco thought to himself. 'She didn't even smile at getting a perfect score.'