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Chapter 3. You Can't Deny It
In their whirlwind exit from The Three Broomsticks, Hermione found herself hurrying to keep up with Draco Malfoy. He seemed a little shaken from Pansy's advances.
"You alright, Draco?" she spoke and reached for his forearm. At her touch, he spun around apologetically.
"I'm really sorry, Hermione. I didn't bring you there to see… that," he waved off Pansy's obvious progress toward a very public display of affection.
"You can relax. I saw you in there, and I know it wasn't your fault," she soothed him. They began to walk back towards Hogwarts in silence. They stood apart, walking in-step with one another. Looking around at the small groups of students trickling back to Hogwarts, she tried to find a friendly face- to take some of the awkwardness out of the walk or to alleviate the tension.
"Draco, I know Pan-"
Draco Malfoy stopped in his tracks, making Hermione nervous for trying to bring up the subject. Maybe it wasn't my place to speak, she thought to herself. She could just hear Ron's monologues of how controlling and pushy she was. She began to blush and then Draco gapped the distance between them.
"I'm sorry if this wasn't… all that I wanted it to be, but I really enjoyed myself here," he breathed out. His voice seemed hoarse to Hermione, and she smiled at him encouragingly.
She wanted to reach out to him over the centimeters of space that kept them apart. To touch the sleeve of his dark sweater, to smooth a strand of his platinum hair into place, to rest her forehead on his, but she couldn't. She wanted to step back from the situation just as badly as she wanted to act on some of her more hormonal instincts, knowing that it was so wrong for her to be there with a Malfoy within kissing range. God, kissing! She blinked in recognition of what she really wanted to do.
"I hope I didn't ruin your whole trip," he smiled with a glint of disappointment in his eyes.
"What? No," Hermione assured him. "God, no! Merlin! I was just on my way to return a set of quills I wasn't looking for a memorable experience or for company, or for-"
Running out of breath, she inhaled once quickly, and in that swift second, his lips overtook hers- as if with that one breath she had been calling out to him. His arms brought her closer as Draco leaned her back slightly, deepening the kiss. Then, Hermione opened her eyes, and still lip-locked, she noticed how very public her first kiss with the Slytherin Prince had been. People had frozen in their tracks, gaping at them. All years from all houses were looking at how one third of the Golden Trio was kissing Draco Malfoy. She pushed away, surprising him- Draco appearing oblivious to the rest of the crowd.
More than anything, Hermione wished one could apparate on Hogwarts grounds. She could have at least used Harry's invisibility cloak, but instead, she felt stranded in the middle of a long path back to Hogsmeade. Draco reached for her to calm the blushing girl, but she quickly took off from the scene, running away so fast that some of the students present began to debate whether they had actually been "kissing" in the first place. Draco was frozen in his tracks, but a tall darker figure behind him wasn't. Blaise Zabini rolled his eyes and took off for Hogsmeade again.
He knew that something was wrong with his best mate, and he thought he knew what little witch he had to blame for it. He looked through the windows of the Hogsmeade shops hoping to find Parkinson to get to the bottom of his friend's… disease. He finally spotted her exiting The Three Broomsticks.
"Pansy! What the HELL?" he roared accusingly. He was in front of her in four strides as she whimpered backward to the wall of the popular inn.
"Hi, Blaise," she said a little more calmly, as she nonchalantly evaluated her nails.
Blaise had no patience this time. He closed her in by putting his arms on either side of her head touching the wall.
"What did you do to Draco? Why was he sucking the face off of that Gryffindor Mudblood?" he whispered harshly in her face.
Exasperated, Pansy began to wail again. "I don't know! It's so awful! Oh, Blaise! It was such a mistake! An awful, awful mistake!"
"So it was you?" Blaise restated. With someone as volatile as Pansy Parkinson, it was a little hard to find the truth in tearful confessions. When the girl nodded slowly, he relaxed his pose and let her clue him in on her latest spells.
"You can't reverse it at all?"
"Well," she sniffled, "I was trying to ask Madam Pomfrey about it when… well, I was trying to not give any names. To now incriminate myself, you know," Pansy leaned toward him for approval. Being so self-involved had been, after all, a large part of the Sorting Hat's decision in placing Pansy in Slytherin. "But Madam Pomfrey insisted that I tell her specifics or that the effects done ba-ba-badly won't be reversible," she stuttered. "Not unless Draco would admit that the little Muggle-born Princess doesn't like him back…"
"Merlin, Pansy," Blaise took a few steps backward. "Why the hell would you be so desperate anyways? The git shags you every couple of weeks," he rolled his eyes.
"You don't understand, Blaise!" She roared at him, fists clenched. "You boys go through our whole house like you're changing robes, and Drakey won't admit there's a real connection. Even his mother says so."
"Merlin's beard, Pansy. What the fuck are you planning to do to snap him out of it? He was pawing at that bushy-haired Mudblood in public just fifteen minutes ago," he shuddered at the image. "You should have seen how pathetic the bloke looked when she ran away from him. I mean, it's like he was the one in Azkaban with all the dementors, not his father!"
"Oh, shut up, Blaise! I'm going to fix it," Pansy hit Blaise's arm for insulting her prospective husband's family. She reached for a pocket in her shorts and pulled out the small token she had purchased earlier that day.
"Are you still hitting on that Patil girl from Gryffindor?" Pansy inquired.
"Hardly," Blaise scoffed. "Like I have to do any work to have a girl from Gryffindor!"
"Oh, shut up, you idiot!" Pansy hit him again. "We need her! This," she said, showing him a turquoise washer, "is going to expose Granger to be the low and prissy Mudblood that she is."
Hermione ran straight to her dormitory, tears forming in her eyes- partly because of the embarrassing public display and partly out of shame for running away so senselessly. She felt like such a child. She ran into the room and cried on her bed until Lavender and Parvati walked in, arms linked and full of sympathy.
"Poor Hermione!"
"We heard you were in here crying." Lavender raised an eyebrow toward her friend as they both sat on Hermione's bed.
Hermione leaned on Lavender's shoulder as her sobs quieted. Meanwhile, Lavender was raising her eyebrows knowingly at Parvati.
Her friend did just as she had been instructed by her current fling, Blaise Zabini of Slytherin. Go into Granger's room and put the washer-thing under her pillow- be extra nice to her and talk for a while- make sure they put down Draco and gossip meanly- then leave her when she looks like she's going to fall asleep. Parvati wasn't sure why Blaise would encourage her to slander his best friend, but she didn't really care. All she knew was that as soon as Hermione Granger was asleep, she was to meet him in one of the class rooms on the third floor that Filch never bothers checking.
She was a bit too giddy reaching to leave the turquoise bit behind Hermione's pillow but the crying girl was oblivious to all of it. She simply nodded as Lavender and Parvati went on about how horrid Draco Malfoy had been and how he had obviously taken advantage of her in front of everybody. Hermione didn't know what to believe. He had just seemed so… different when they were walking to Hogsmeade. She had actually thought he was different. Or had hoped, at least.
"We knew he was up to no good the way he was acting today," Lavender egged on the conversation.
"He must have been up to something foul- I've heard he has all sorts of missions now that his father's incarcerated!"
"And I mean he's always treated you so badly!" They pointed out again together.
With all of their poisonous comments, Hermione felt dizzy. She wanted to go to bed and clear her head. She needed rest and some time to get past her confusing Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown left her room, she fell asleep not sensing the small blue-green metal piece that had been placed under her pillow.
In his bedroom, Draco was also oblivious to the matching metal piece under his pillow. The two dream projectors that Pansy had bought from Dervish & Banges. She just knew that after infiltrating Granger's mind for the night, Draco would realize how undesirable he was to the Gryffindor know-it-all, and how much Pansy had loved him all along.
On his way to meet Parvati, Zabini sent Pansy one curt nod as he crossed the Slytherin common room. She swelled with satisfaction to have her plan set in motion. "Wasn't this a brilliant plan, Baise? You can't deny it."
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I'm going to try to write more soon.
What do you think Draco should discover in Hermione's dreams?
