Chapter 3: What the Hell Just Happened?
Disclaimer: All of this belongs to JKR, that lucky lady ;)
After the last of the dessert plates had disappeared from the tables, and sleepy students began departing the Great Hall in search of warm beds, Hermione noticed Professor McGonagall approaching the Gryffindor table, and saw Snape talking to Malfoy over at the Slytherin table.
"Miss Granger, Professor Snape and I will now escort Mr. Malfoy and yourself to the Heads' rooms." Hermione stood from the table, ready to face her doom, Draco Malfoy himself. She had to admit, she was excited to see what the new rooms would look like. She hurried to follow Professor McGonagall over to where Snape and Malfoy were standing, waiting to meet outside the doors to the Great Hall, surly expressions on both of their faces.
"Granger," was his curt greeting.
"Malfoy," she replied, trying not to roll her eyes.
The two Professors lead the way, leaving Hermione and Malfoy to follow behind them. The two students glared at each other, both attempting to create a sense of normalcy for themselves; however both were feeling a bit awkward around the other for some as yet unnamed reason. The Professors stopped in front of a portrait of a lion and snake, and turned to the Head Boy and Girl.
"The password is "Grindylow" but the two of you will need to decide together on a new password and change it as soon as possible," Professor McGonagall told them looking from Hermione to Draco with a stern expression on her face. No doubt she was concerned about the rapport between the two Head students, but she figured that Dumbledore must have had his reasons for choosing to put the two together.
As the foursome entered the Heads' common room, Hermione couldn't help but be enraptured with the beauty of the room. The room was done in rich shades of red, green taupe and plum, which gave it a very warm, cozy feel. There was a spiral staircase leading up to the bedrooms, which were done in the respective house colors and both Hermione and Draco were relieved to discover that they would each have their own bathrooms.
After a short lecture on what would be expected from them as the Head students, Professors McGonagall and Snape departed from the Heads' quarters, leaving Hermione and Draco standing together awkwardly in the common room. Draco stood leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest and a sneer on his face. Hermione looked up him defiantly, refusing to let him intimidate her.
"Malfoy are you going to at least try to be civil this year? Or are you going to make this whole…arrangement…even more difficult than it needs to be?"
Draco took a step closer to Hermione and leaned down slightly to look her directly in the face. "Oh Granger, you just can't stop being a conceited, know-it-all little mudblood, can you?"
Hermione snorted. "Conceited? Me? Ha! That's rich, coming from you. I've never known anyone who better fit the description of conceited than you in my entire life!"
"Yes, well," Draco drawled, "I have so many things to be conceited about." At this he pretended to study his perfectly manicured fingernails.
"Oh, really?" Hermione challenged. "Like what? Like that fact that you are a little pureblood snob, whose father is Voldemort's number one ankle-licker? Is that a reason to be conceit…?"
Malfoy grabbed Hermione by the wrist and turned her around so that her back was against the wall he had been leaning against previously, and used his other arm to pin her to the wall by her shoulders. His facial expression was dangerous as he spat, "Don't you ever speak of my father and that…that…psychopath in the same sentence ever again. In fact, don't ever speak of my father ever again. You are not worthy of even speaking to or about a Malfoy!"
Hermione fought to keep herself from trembling and her face from showing her fear. When she spoke, she willed her voice not to shake. "What are you going to do Malfoy? Are you going to hit me?" she spat back at him.
Draco looked at her long and hard then, and Hermione looked right back at him with the same amount of fire in her eyes. Then suddenly, his eyes seem to glaze over and soften a bit. He brushed a few strands of hair out of her eyes as he looked into them, and then completely shocked Hermione by gazing down at her lips and running his fingers over them.
"No, I'm not going to hit you," he said softly. "I could never hit you." Hermione stared at him in disbelief. What had just happened? After a few seconds, it seemed that the spell was broken, because he jerked her away from the wall, released his hold on her, and then stalked off to his bedroom and slammed the door behind him.
Hermione stood there, dumbfounded for a few seconds before shaking her head and walking to her own bedroom. 'What the hell just happened?' she thought to herself.
She was still thinking about the encounter between herself and Draco while she brushed her teeth and washed her face before going to bed. Standing in the bathroom in front of the mirror, Hermione just gazed at herself for a minute, still trying to figure it out. 'If I didn't know better, I'd say that he was almost…tender. But it's Malfoy! Whatever,' she thought. "I'm exhausted, that's all.'
Meanwhile, in the Head boy's room, Draco was sitting on his bed, hands pressed to his forehead, having conflicting thoughts of his own.
"Stupid mudblood Granger!" he groaned to himself. If she hadn't gotten in his face to begin with, none of this would have happened. 'Then again', he thought, 'why is it such a big deal? It's not like anything happened, really.' It's just that when he looked in her eyes and saw the anger and determination there, as she dared him to hit her, everything changed. But what had possessed him to caress her hair, her lips? And he had wanted so much more from her right then. Sighing, Draco undressed and got into bed, where he proceeded to toss and turn violently in his sleep, plagued by worrisome dreams involving his father, the Dark Lord, Harry Potter and most disturbingly, Hermione Granger.
Draco awoke early the next morning, not feeling particularly rested and headed straight to the shower. After showering and dressing for the day, he decided to go into the common room and begin reading the first chapters of his textbooks. He hoped that it would be early enough that he could avoid running into Hermione that morning, as he wasn't sure what he would say to her regarding the events of the previous night.
He sat on the sofa, opened his Transfiguration book and attempted to begin reading. Growing frustrated with the fact that he kept reading the same paragraph over and over again and still had no clue as to the words he had just read. Giving up, he gathered up his school books for the day and headed to the Great Hall for breakfast.
Hermione rose from her bed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and feeling, well to put it bluntly, like shit. She had a pounding headache and felt as if she hadn't slept at all the night before. Grumbling to herself, she went to the bathroom, showered, dressed and primped as little as possible for the day ahead. She used her fingers to separate her curls and applied a small amount of mascara and lip gloss. Noticing that her face still appeared deathly pale, she also applied a bit of blusher to her cheeks. Satisfied that she resembled a human being again, she then left to meet Harry, Ron and Ginny in the Gryffindor common room before breakfast so they could all walk to the Great Hall together.
Pausing in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, she opened her mouth to give the password, but before she could utter a word, the portrait swung open and her three friends burst out into the hall, almost knocking Hermione down in the process.
"Hey, 'Mione!" Ginny cried, throwing her arms around her friend. "We were just talking about you!"
"Oh?" Hermione asked, hugging Ginny back, and looking from Ron to Harry. "What about me?"
"We were just talking about how sorry we feel for you having to spend the whole year with Malfoy in the room next to your bedroom." Ron said with a sour look on his face.
"Yeah, 'Mione," Harry started, "how was it with Malfoy last night? Did it feel weird to be that close to him?"
"Excuse me?" Hermione was caught off guard for a second, thinking that they somehow knew about what had taken place between herself and Draco the night before. Fixing Harry with a look, she waited to hear his reply.
"Well, I mean, err…, you are sharing living quarters with him. Did he do anything to you? Or did you have to talk to him or anything?"
Hermione relaxed visibly, although she noticed Ginny giving her a suspicious look, and began heading in the direction of the Great Hall, with her friends following behind her. "Of course he didn't do anything to me," she said. "I could handle Malfoy any day and he knows it. But yes, I am going to have to talk to him quite frequently regarding head duties and such."
Rolling theirs eyes, both Harry and Ron made sympathetic noises; Ginny, however, remained silent, appearing thoughtful.
"You know, 'Mione," she said, "It really wouldn't be such a bad thing for you to get to know Malfoy pretty well this year." At the shocked faces of Ron, Harry and Hermione, she continued hurriedly, "Well, I just mean that it could prove useful to Harry in defeating Voldemort. Malfoy is almost assuredly a Death Eater by now, or at least we know his father and most of his friends are…" Hermione was speechless at this point, and Ron stopped Ginny right there.
"Ginny, have you lost your bloody mind?" he practically screamed. "Do you actually it would be a good idea for Hermione to get all buddy-buddy with that slimy ferret? Are you trying to get her killed?" Harry too looked positively appalled.
"Really, Ginny," he said in a calmer voice than that of Ron's, "I think that's probably the last thing "Mione needs right now, to be making friends with Malfoy. He's treated her just as horribly, if not worse, than the rest of us in the time we've known him."
Hermione was still reeling from the entire conversation and finally managed to squeak out an indignant reply. "Are you all crazy? Why are you even still discussing this?" She turned to Ginny. "Sorry, Gin, but it's never going to happen. What makes you think that Malfoy would even give me a chance to get…close…enough to him to get any information from him?" The four friends made their way into the Great Hall and took their usual seats at the Gryffindor table. Ron and Harry or course immediately began stuffing their faces.
Nodding her head, Ginny looked over at the Slytherin table and said, "Okay maybe not Malfoy. But what about another Slytherin, maybe Blaise Zabini or Theo Nott? They've never been rotten towards any of us. And aren't they Malfoy's best friends?"
Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Why me, though? If you want to get information from Blaise, why don't you or Ron or Harry go become best friends with him? You all see him as much as I do. Same with Nott."
Ginny smiled knowingly at her. "No actually, Hermione, I think you're the only one for the job. I was watching those two watch you yesterday, and I think that playing your cards right, you could get just about anything out of those two."
Hermione looked over towards the Slytherin table and was startled when she noticed that Ginny was right. Both Blaise and Theo were currently staring right in her direction. Well, in Theo's case, leering might be a better way of putting it. Even stranger was the fact that another pair of eyes had settled on her as well. A pair of smoldering, grey eyes, belonging to the Head boy, in fact.
Hermione jerked her eyes away from the Slytherin table and stood up from the table, gathering her belongings.
"You know, I actually need to get to the library. I had wanted to finish reading the chapter for Transfiguration," she said, waving goodbye to her surprised and confused friends, walking quickly out of the Great Hall.
"Granger's looking hot today," Blaise commented from the Slytherin table, sneaking a glance over at Draco, who had his head down, appearing to be positively entranced with moving the food on his breakfast plate with his fork.
"Damn straight," Theo commented, licking his lips rather creepily. Malfoy finally looked up and gave Theo a look of disgust.
"Are you two still on about that?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. He had felt a strange, rather protective twinge at the sound of his friends' comments regarding Granger. "Nott, I know your father would have a fit if he thought you were pursuing a muggle-born witch."
"Oh, he doesn't care who have a roll in the sack with. As long as I don't knock her up with my heirs, than it's all fine," Theo replied with a smug smile on his aristocratically handsome face.
"Lovely," muttered Draco, feeling rather grouchy.
"Lucky for me, my parents could care less about shite like that," Blaise said. "As long as I end up with a reasonably intelligent, attractive witch who can give me smart, cute kids, than I'm in the clear." "Not that I plan on marrying Granger, "he added, smirking. "I just plan on shagging her brains out."
Draco found his eyes wandering then, once again recounting his and Hermione's strange conversation, if you could call it that. He remembered how silky her hair felt and how soft and full her lips were. Just then, Hermione looked up and met his eyes and he felt a warm feeling spread through him. After a second, she quickly averted her eyes, spoke quickly to her friends and grabbing her books, left the Great Hall.
"I wonder where she is off to in such a hurry," said Blaise, sounding amused.
"Oh come on, Blaise, it's Granger. Where else would she be headed, but the library!" commented Theo.
"Hmmm," he said, smirking, "this could be fun. What do you say we follow her to the library? We've got to keep an eye on our conquest, after all."
Surprising both Blaise and Theo, Draco stood and said, "Let's go, then." The three Slytherins marched out of the Great Hall to follow the Head Girl, each with different intentions in mind.
A.N. Hope you enjoy this chapter. In the next chapter, we'll find out what those three boys are planning. I've already got Chapter 4 about halfway done. XXOO