Make Me
AN: Thanks for the reviews! I really appreciated them! They totally brightened up my morning! So, here's the next chapter. This (like my other short story, 'What In The...?') is only a two chapter story, this is set a couple of days after the first chapter, I may or may not add another part after this one, it depends on where I leave the story :) So enjoy!
Chapter 2 - Outcomes
Footsteps. Again. Does he even realise how obvious he's being? I stop, hesitate and then whirl around.
There's no one there, just the spooky demeanor of the corridors at night. I have to stop going to the library at midnight, I tell myself, but I know it's no use. He'll always find a way to follow me around.
I turn back around and continue walking, and then there it is again, the echo of a second pair of footsteps right behind me. At least, it sounds like he's right behind me, but every time I turn, he disappears. I know I'm not imagining things, it's been like this for the past week, ever since that horrible day in the Room of Requirements. I'd almost go as far as to assume he's stalking me, but why? Why now?
Whatever he thinks he's doing, it's ridiculously creepy. But I won't let it get to me, no, I am Hermione Granger, I'm the smartest witch in our entire year, possibly my entire generation, I will not let something as stupid as a pathetic Slytherin following my around bug me. I will be strong, proud, independent, totally not creeped out and -
WHY IS HE STILL FOLLOWING ME?!
This time I don't stop or hesitate, in mid-stride, I spin around. And I see him, walking just a few paces behind me, in all his Slytherin glory. His green robes looking darker than usual in the dim lighting. The outline of his spiky black hair is only just about visible, his high cheek-bone structure shadowing part of his face, I must admit, he did look more handsome than usual, in a 'tall, dark and handsome' kind of way.
He froze and stared at me, probably expecting me to start yelling at him for following me around everywhere I go. I was only just about refraining from doing exactly that.
"What do you think you're doing?" I ask him, my voice cold and menacing, well, as cold and menacing as I could make it.
He regains his composure. "I was about to ask you the same thing."
"Yes, because the sound and rhythm of your footsteps completely portrays that question." My tone is mocking and sarcastic.
"I was going to stop you eventually."
"Really? When? Before or after I reach the Gryffindor Common Room?"
He winces. "Before."
I roll my eyes and turn around, I was about to start walking away when I feel his hand grab my wrist.
"Wait, aren't you just the slightest bit curious as to why I've been following you around for the past week?"
"Actually," for the fifth time that night, I turn around. "I already know."
He raises his eyebrows at me. "Do you now?"
"Oh come on, it's pretty obvious. Ever since that horrifying game, you think that it would change everything for me knowing that you fancy me."
"Well, you're close."
"And you honestly believe that just knowing that you have a thing for me would make me think that you're better for me than Ron is?"
"Please, look at me." He gestures to his body. "Now compare me to Weasley, you make the call."
"I am 'making the call', I've been best friends with Ron for years. I've said a total of 10 words to you since I came to Hogwarts, now you think I'd throw away everything I have with Ron for you? That's the limit of my comparisons."
"Look deeper, Hermione. He's an idiot, a dim-wit, he's a Weasley. I'm the smartest guy in Slytherin, I'm one of the brightest wizards in our year, I can read unlike that fool of a boyfriend of yours. I can give you everything that he can't and more."
"Your dad was also a Death-Eater, your house discriminates against everything that I am, you've taunted and teased me since first year, you're best friends with one of my worst enemies, and you're destined to follow in your father's footsteps. Why on earth would anyone choose you over someone with an actual heart that's not made of steel?"
"Because my mind isn't made of sand."
"Ron has feelings."
"And I don't?"
"No."
"Please, you don't know anything about me."
"EXACTLY!" I explode. "That's my point! I don't know you! And you don't know me, as much as you would like to think you do, you don't. You don't know the first thing about me."
"Really?"
I take a deep breath. "Yes."
"I know that you've read Hogwarts: A History seven times already and you read it again every year, I know that you've only started caring about your hair in fifth year when Parksinson told you you looked like the bad end of a feather-duster, I know you've always secretly preferred Potter over Weasley and that you highly disapprove of Ginny's current relationship status. I know your favorite aunt is only your favorite aunt because she's the only one in your family who wasn't immediately revolted by you when she found out you were a witch, I know you hate your father's brother because his name is Tom and he reminds you of Voldermort. I also happen to know where your birthmark is. Are you seriously telling me that dear ugly Ronald knows all of that?" He looked thoroughly pleased with himself, something about his expression told me that he knows a lot more than he's letting on.
I just stared at him, particularly hassled by the birthmark remark.
"Just about everything, yes." I commented after what seemed like hours of my just analysing his features, trying to figure out if he was for real.
"And what is it that he doesn't know?"
"Everything." I whisper, because it's true. Ron doesn't know about anything that the Slytherin just stated. He doesn't understand my obsession with books, he'd mock me if I told him about Parkinson, he'd kill Harry if I told him I thought Harry was a better friend, he'd tell me to mind my own business if he knew what I thought of his sister's decisions, he would say I was just being paranoid about my uncle and that my aunt was the only one in my family with a heart, including me. And I'd be way too embarrassed to tell him about my birthmark anyway, so I don't quite know what he's say to that.
"Excuse me?" His voice was now way too arrogant for my liking.
I looked him in the eye. "Listen here, Nott, you may know more about me when it comes to private stuff that I never meant for anyone to ever find out about, but Ron knows about the things that matter. He cares about me more than you ever could, the only reason you know what you do is because you're some kind of desperate stalker. So leave me alone, nothing is going to happen, I'm not choosing anyone with the likes of you over Ron."
He was about to respond, but was interrupted by an icy voice emanating from behind a suit of armor.
"Well, what do we have here? Granger and Nott, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g..." He wishes, I thought to myself.
"Get lost, Parkinson, go back to the dungeons." I sneer, attempting to pull a Malfoy.
"Hm, no, I don't think I will. You know, it's funny, here I was thinking that you were the Prefect, aren't you supposed to be stopping naughty little children from wandering the halls at night?"
"Yes, I was on my rounds when I found Nott. I was just telling him off, now I have you, I think two Slytherins out of beds calls for a deduction of points." I lie, improvising on the spot, any reason to tick of Pansy is fine with me.
She just looks at me. "You're lying through your teeth, and what horrible teeth they are." She smirks that typical Slytherin smirk.
"What makes you think that?" I ask, deliberately ignoring the insult.
"I heard you going on about choosing darling Teddy here over Weasley, so what is this, hm? Is Theodore trying to win your heart over? I'm guessing it's not going over so well."
Theodore Nott takes three quick strides to Pansy, grabs her robes in a tight grip and looms down on her. "If you don't scuttle back into your hole in the next 15 seconds, I will tell everyone about the time you got rejected by Goyle. Go." His voice almost had me cowering, he sounded so...scary.
Parkinson whimpered beneath him and nodded. He released her and she sent one last glare at me before turning around and running back the way she probably came, stifling screams.
His shoulders rose and then dropped back down, sighing, he looked back at me.
"There really is no hope, is there?" He asks me.
Suddenly, I feel really guilty. I'm not quite sure of what, all I know is that I really regret doing something. Either way, I nod at him.
"Fine, I'll stop...following you now." His mouth sets in a firm line and he turns and leaves me standing in the middle of a dark corridor at 12:24 at night.
---
"So, is it true?"
"Is what true?"
"That Nott asked you out, of course!"
"Well, no, not really."
"Then what happened?"
She hesitates before continuing. "You have to tell me who told you first."
"No! I already told you I can't! Hermione, I swore!"
"And since when do you keep your promises?"
"Oh, come on! That was one time! And how was I supposed to know my own brother couldn't keep a secret? Please tell me? Pretty, pretty, pretty please with a bright Weasley head on top?"
"If you're going to be stubborn about it, then so am I. Who told you?"
I glare at the brown-eyed girl in front of me, she may be my best friend, but she can be a real pain at times.
"Fine, Draco told me."
"And who told him?"
I debate over this, what's the worst that could happen? Besides the fact that Draco would get all stressy over it, but he'd get over it soon enough. It's Hermione killing Pansy that I have to worry about, she's too young to get sent off to Azkaban for murder within school walls.
"Parkinson." I decide she'll find out soon enough.
"As in PANSY?!" She yells into my face.
"Do you know any other Parkinsons in this school?"
"Well no, but still. Nott should've threatened her better." She sounds resigned, as if she's deciding something on the spot, something important.
"So you and little Ted were in the middle of the hall at midnight?"
"Yes, but he wasn't really asking me out. Not technically."
"So what was going on?"
"He told me I should leave Ron for him."
"Well that's close enough."
"What? That's all you got from that? We're talking about me dumping your brother for a Slytherin!"
"And there's something wrong with Slytherins?" I ask her, offended, she knows very well how I feel about prejudice against them.
"Oh don't pull that on me, you'd be just as disgusted with this as I am two weeks ago, just because you are dating one of them, it doesn't mean that they're all wonderful little saints who happen to be amazing kissers."
I sigh, my mind wandering off back into one of my best memories from one week ago.
Catcalls shot around the room, but then they silenced when they realised that Draco wasn't letting go of me. It was amazing, it was the most wondrous experience in the world. Everything about it, the way his arms were slowly snaking around my waist, pulling me closer, the way his mouth molded over mine, the way his tongue lashed out into my mouth, the feel of his surprisingly warm lips on mine.
Someone in the Slytherin side coughed, Draco didn't notice. Someone on my side cleared their throat, he still didn't notice. He just continued kissing me, and I was more than happy to continue too. Then our audience started getting pissed off.
"Hey! Malfoy, get your meat-hooks off my sister!" That was Ron, that little bastard, I was going to get him for that later.
Draco eventually pulled away from me, we were both gasping and panting. We just stood like that for a while, breathing heavily, staring at each other. His silvery-grey eyes searched mine, as if looking for something that should be there, but wasn't. Without another word, he turned and went back to his spot in the middle of the Slytherin semi-circle, after a second or two of collecting my scrambled thoughts, I returned back to my spot too.
During the rest of the game, I found Draco gazing at me everytime I looked in his direction. I barely paid any more attention to the game, the only bit of information I could scrap up was that Slytherin lost when Neville asked Pansy Parkinson who she'd marry if she could choose anyone in the entire world and she refused to answer. After that, no one in her house would speak to her except Daphne Greengrass, but she was nice to everyone.
I smiled as I returned back to reality and was greeted by the familiar sight of the warm fire burning just metres away from me. Me and Hermione were currently in the Gryffindor Common Room, sitting on our favorite couch directly in front of the main fire, with two hots cups of Milo in our hands and woolly scarfs wrapped around our shoulders, courtesy of my mum. It was just days after Christmas and we'd soon be off to the Burrow, well, Hermione wasn't coming to the Burrow this year, just Harry. And if that wouldn't be awkward enough for me, even Bill can't make it this year so basically I'd just be sitting there all day, my prankster brothers would be off in their shop, Harry would be ignoring me and Ron with him, Charlie would be snogging his new girlfriend, dad would be at the Ministry with Percy and mum was just no fun. Christmas holidays this year would be a blast. I could already tell the only that would get me through it would be the thought of returning to Draco.
"So, what do you think I should do?" Hermione brings me back to the present with her overly-worried voice.
"About what?"
"Nott of course! What am I supposed to say to him?"
"Well, you're going to have to tell me everything that happened first and how Parkinson came to know about this before me."
Hermione seemed to think over this for a while before responding.
"Fine, but you have to help me. This is killing me."
---
Parvati huddled closer to herself in the corner, trying her best to ignore all the cold stares coming from just about everyone in the Common Room. Ever since that blasted game, almost everyone in Gryffindor had started avoiding her, apparently ashamed to have someone in their house who's apparently regretted the Sorting Hat's decision. She looked down and continued her Potions homework, knowing that she'd rather have something to do here in school than to just sit there watching everyone else go about their lives, and then to have a whole load of work to do during the Christmas Holidays.
Even Lavender has become a little distant since that game, but Parvati suspected it had less to do with the fact that her best friend thought she was a traitor, and more to do with the fact that she has recently found herself once more infatuated with Ron and therefore despises Hermione for meeting up with people like Theodore Nott in the middle of the night when she already has a 'catch like Ron'. Lavender spends most of her time crying in the bathroom, stalking/spying on Ron or drawing hearts around pictures of him she has up in her dormitory. Honestly, Parvati was trying not to get caught up in it, the last time the two of them were together, Lavender pretended her best friend didn't even exist, and when they finally broke up, everyone else hated Lavender so she had no one to turn to but Parvati. Normally the young Patil twin would've told that little traitor to shove off, but she felt sorry for her, Brown didn't have anyone else.
So, reluctantly, she patched things up with Lavender, and now she's regretting it again. The only reason she said yes when asked if she'd ever wished she wasn't in Gryffindor was because she hated being caught up in things like this. She just hated all the drama, it was too much for her. Parvati and her sister had had a simple life growing up, sometimes she envied her twin so much, even being in the same house as The Boy Who Lived was troublesome enough, nevermind being the best friend of the best friend of Harry Potter's' girlfriend. Apparently even links involving three people before her still subjected her to be constantly grilled from a number of varied people, ranging from random gossiping students in the hallway who were wondering what colour his toothbrush was, all the way to reporters from the Daily Prophet, eager to know how many hours of sleep he gets every night. Like hell she's supposed to know rubbish like that!
Looking up from her ridiculously hard Potions essay, she spotted Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley by the main fire chatting amiably to one another, although Hermione seemed a little more hassled and troubled than Ginny did. Despite Parvati's feelings towards everyone else, those two were the ones she envied the most. And at the same time, she pitied them. She envied them because somehow, even though they were some of the closest people to Harry, they weren't actually questioned all that much. You would think that someone trying to get the 'scoop on Potter' would want their rumors to come from a direct and reliable source, but for some reason, the twisted minds of today's youth are a little more complex, what they want are the feelings that 'other' people have towards Harry. She doesn't quite know how that works, but apparently people who are only distantly connected to The Chosen One are the ones with better opinions.
Then again, she was escorted by Harry to her 4th year's Yule Ball. Memories of that night flashed through her head, her clothes that her mother insisted she wear, the constant complaining from her sister that she wanted to go with Harry instead of Ron, and especially, the anger coursing through her veins everytime she saw Harry looking at Cho or Hermione. It's not like she liked him or anything, well, he was good-looking, but it's not like he looks anything like Cedric Diggory or Blaise Zabini, they looked good. It's just, when you ask someone to a dance with you, you should at least have the decency to keep your eyes off other girls and pay attention to your date. He didn't even dance with her unless he had to at the beginning. Thank god for that Durmstrange boy who saved her from the boredom that was Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, what was his name again? Darren? Darius? Darryl? Something with a D, that's all she remembered. Either way, she would be eternally grateful, which wasn't quite the case with darling Padma.
Parvati shook her head, trying to rid it of reminders of the rudeness that plagues Harry Potter's personality. Cedric would never ignore his date, he'd dance with her the whole time, like he did with Cho. Blaise wouldn't ignore his date, he'd probably find some mistletoe somewhere to snog some random Beauxbatons girl he found under, which, even though morally gross, was still better than ignorance...in the long run. She sighed and once again tried to concentrate of her devil piece of homework, but, again, found her mind straying to the youngest Weasley and the brown-eyed brunette.
Yes, she pitied them. Parvati knew she and her twin were equals when it came right down to it, Padma was smart, Parvati had a better heart, Padma worked hard, Parvati balanced her life as much as she could, sometimes the social part of it tends to overweigh the other side, but still, it's the thought that counts after all. All in all, they were a perfect mix, they answered to no one, they didn't have a whole load of extra responsibilites, and they especially didn't live in the shadow of anyone. But for Hermione and Ron especially, it must be so horrible. To be known as part of The Golden Trio, or to be Harry Potter's best friends, or to be the ones who helped The Chosen One save the world. You don't see someone meeting all three of them at the same time and going 'Oh hey! You're Harry Potter!' then noticing Hermione and Ron and going 'Oh my god! You must be Hermione Granger! And you're Ron Weasley aren't you? You have NO IDEA how long I've waited to meet you guys!'. No, no one does that. They go 'Oh hey! You're Harry Potter! And you two are...?'
Basically, it wasn't fair on them. Sure it must be an adrenaline rush having everyone know you has a 'helper to World Peace', but it comes at a price being The Boy Who Lived's best friend, they can never get a name for themselves. No matter what happens to them, nothing could ever trump 'The Best Friend of The Saviour Of The World'.
Parvati knew one thing for certain, she would absolutely hate to be Harry Potter's best friend.
---
"I HATE BEING HARRY'S BLOODY BEST FRIEND!" Hermione yelled, slamming her bag onto the nearest table.
"What happened this time?" Ron asked in an annoyingly bored tone.
"Every single student in this entire school knows about Nott because I'm apparently worthy enough of gossip, just because I'm Harry's bloody best friend!"
"About that..."
"Oh come on, Ron! Not you too! I'm telling you, nothing happened!"
"Really? Because that's not what the rest of the school says."
"Yeah? Well do you remember the rest of the school saying Harry's a liar? Or Dumbledore is incapable of being our Headmaster? Have you even realised how easily fooled and gullible our student body is? When it comes to believing rumors, they're suckers for it. They'd believe anything, I'm just disappointed in you, I never assumed you'd be one of them." And with that, Hermione stormed off, slinging her bag onto her shoulder again, she climbed out the portrait hole and back out into the hallway.
Ron just stared after her, not quite sure what had just happened.
"Woah, what's with Hermione?" Harry - who had just witnessed Hermione running off - asked, walking towards Ron and sitting down on an armchair reasonably close to the fire.
"I have absolutely no idea."
AN: Okay, I've changed my mind, I simply cannot make this a two chapter story. But I am fairly sure it wont be longer than three. I just have a few more ideas, and I personally am not a fan of 5,000 word long chapters when I could easily split it into another chapter. So, hope it wasn't too much of a drag after that first chapter. Honestly, the first was the main event, the next two are just results.
Reviews really are LOVED and APPRECIATED!!!
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