Finding the main hall was a lot more difficult than Malfoy had led her to believe. It took Hermione more than ten minutes of wandering the ground floor of the castle before she finally smelled something which could be food. She followed her nose until the growing noise of chattering students told her she was heading in the right direction. Finally, she caught sight of a large open doorway, through which light, conversation and the smell of food were spilling abundantly into the hallway, and she hurried through it.
The room was smaller than Hogwarts' Great Hall, and contained only three tables; two for the students, who appeared to be separated by gender, and a smaller one at the end of the hall for the staff. Hermione recognised Graf, Pansy and Malfoy and hurried towards them. There was only one free seat at the staff table, and Hermione groaned inwardly when she saw that she would have to sit next to Malfoy. Still, at least Malfoy was less likely to grope her than Graf, who was safely out of reach on the opposite side of the table.
"Ah, Professor Granger!" Headmaster Graf's eyes lit up when he saw her. "You arrive at last. So glad to have you with us, my dear."
"Thank you," Hermione said politely. She looked around the table as she sat down, expecting to be introduced to the other teachers, but Graf stood up and started spooning food onto her plate instead. Taking his seat again, he commanded, "Eat! No doubt your journey has made you ravenous!"
i My journey which took all of a few seconds, you mean? /i Hermione thought. But she smiled and repeated, "Thank you."
The food was plain but hearty fare, and Hermione dug in with as much of an appetite as she could muster. The change in time zones was affecting her, and she kept thinking about Ron...
"So, Granger," said Malfoy. "How's your Russian?"
Hermione looked at him. Was he actually trying to be friendly, or was he baiting her? "Sufficient," she replied. "I presume yours is also?"
"If fluent is sufficient, I suppose. I had a Russian tutor from a very young age, Granger. My father originally wanted me to be schooled here, after all." He grinned at her. "I'm sure I can help you if you get stuck."
"Thank you, but I'm sure I'll be fine. Most of the terms used in Arithmancy are the same in both languages, after all."
"Of course. But I do believe the difficulty lies in knowing which ones aren't."
Hermione jumped as she felt Graf's foot move under the table, but it swept by her legs and connected soundly with one of Malfoy's, who flinched.
"Leave the nice girly alone, Malfoy," Graf chided. He winked at Hermione. "You'll be fine, dear."
Malfoy smirked at this, but another kick from Graf made him sit up and rearrange his features into a more pleasant expression. "Yes," he said. "I'm sure you will."
Not quite daring to ask too many probing questions on her first night as a spy, Hermione contented herself instead with sitting and listening for the rest of the meal. Pansy Parkinson spent the whole time deep in conversation with a rather miserable looking wizard at the other end of the table, while Malfoy made pleasant conversation in Russian with the young witch sitting next to him. Headmaster Graf tried to engage her in conversation from time to time, but Hermione could not bring herself to give more than trite answers to such an unpleasant man. If she really wanted to find out what was going on, of course, she was going to have to be a lot more friendly... Hermione shuddered inwardly at the thought of being 'friendly' with Headmaster Graf. She wouldn't let it get out of hand, she promised herself. It wasn't worth it.
At last the meal was over and Hermione managed to follow Malfoy back up to the third floor without being noticed. She hovered near the top of the staircase until she had seen him go into his room, then tiptoed across the corridor to her own.
Closing the door behind her, she let out a breath. It was hard work trying to keep people from being suspicious of her - though she didn't know how good a job she had done so far. Still, now she could relax...
But her thoughts drifted to Ron, and relaxation was suddenly out of the question.
He'd found someone else! After only a month! She couldn't believe it. A month! After they'd been together for four years!
Suddenly she wished she hadn't burnt the letter, just so she could burn it again.
Hermione paced up and down the carpet, wondering what to do with herself for the rest of the evening. It was only nine o'clock, and her internal clock still thought it was late afternoon. She picked up a book she had unpacked earlier, but couldn't concentrate enough to sit down and enjoy it. She had already drawn up her lesson plan for tomorrow, so she couldn't work on that. Looking at one of the Russian phrasebooks she had brought with her, she considered working on her vocabulary, but in her current state of mind she wasn't likely to absorb very much.
And that was as far as her inventory went of possible things with which to occupy herself.
Hermione strode towards the window and looked out. It was dark already, and all she could see was the reflection on the snow of the lights from the windows. There seemed to be a vast expanse of nothingness surrounding the castle on all sides. A walk was out of the question, then…
...unless, of course, she stayed in the castle.
Hoping she wouldn't meet anyone while she walked off her frustration, Hermione grabbed a scarf and went back out. She would try to find her office and classroom, she decided. That would save time in the morning.
Descending back down to the ground floor, Hermione took her time and looked around as she went. The decorations on the wall were in parts similar to those found at Hogwarts, except that they included rather fewer strange paintings and rather more mounted animal heads. The stone the castle was made of was different, too; the hues were quite similar, yet there was a definite aura of cold in the masonry. Hogwarts had always made Hermione feel safe and warm.
Finding her classroom turned out not to be that difficult; after wandering around on the ground floor for so long earlier, everything was already starting to feel a little familiar. The classroom, which had 'Arithmancy' written on the door in Russian, was much like any other classroom, with desks, chairs and a nice-sized blackboard. There were large windows along one wall, but Hermione couldn't tell what they looked out on. In one corner there were some bookshelves with quite a nice little selection of Arithmancy volumes. Hermione browsed them for a while before deciding to continue her exploration of the castle.
The first floor was where the dormitories were located; Hermione walked along one corridor and then took the next staircase she could find back up to the second floor. Dormitories, she was sure, were much the same everywhere, and teachers, especially new ones, were not likely to be entirely welcome.
The second floor housed all the administrative areas, and along with the teachers' offices Hermione also found the infirmary and the staff room, which was empty. Her own office she discovered at the end of a narrow corridor which ended in a window overlooking the courtyard. It wasn't a large room, but it contained a fair-sized desk and more than one chair, and quite a few as-yet-empty shelves.
Yes, she decided, she could make this space feel more or less like home.
"Granger."
Hermione gasped and spun around – to find Malfoy leaning in the doorway.
"Malfoy," she said accusingly. "What are you doing here?"
"I heard you walk past my office and thought I'd see if you'd found yours all right."
"You heard me? How did you know it was me?"
He shrugged. "I just did. Anyway, I see you found it."
"Yes. I did." Hermione regarded him warily. There was something very... i unsettling /i about the way he was behaving.
"So..." Malfoy said. "Is your room to your satisfaction?"
Right, that was it. She was going to have to confront him.
"Malfoy..." She looked him straight in the eye. " i Why /i are you being i nice /i to me?"
He was silent for so long Hermione thought he wasn't going to answer. He crossed his arms and turned away from her, walking slowly towards the window.
Hermione followed.
"I know why you're here, Granger," he said in a low voice.
He reminded her for one horrible moment of his father, and she felt her spine tingle with unpleasant recollections.
"Oh really?" she replied, sounding as casual as she dared.
He turned swiftly and stared down at her. "Do you honestly think I believe that you just left everything you knew behind and came all the way out here on a whim? Only weeks after you said you said, in a manner which I am sure was meant to leave a lasting impression, that you would be watching my mother's every move? I can only assume you told Graf and Pansy the same thing. And now, no sooner have they arrived here than you turn up hot on their heels. Graf was too excited at the prospect of having another pretty young girl here to be suspicious of you, and Pansy is apparently too annoyed by your presence to think straight, but I'm not. You're here to spy on us, aren't you?"
"I... I don't know what you mean," Hermione stammered.
Malfoy sighed and leaned back against the window, rolling his eyes. "Merlin, please don't play stupid with me. Granger," he said, looking her in the eye, "I want to i help /i you."
"What?" Hermione said. Had he just said what she thought he'd said?
"I. Want. To Help. You. For goodness' sake, Granger, I thought you were meant to be smart?"
Hermione was quite taken aback. Of all the unexpected things which had happened to her lately, this one surely ranked highest. She would have laid money that it was less likely even than Ron ever learning to drive a Muggle car properly.
"I see..." she ventured.
"Good." Malfoy pulled the chair out from behind her desk and straddled it. "Now," he said, resting his chin on his fist. "What are we going to do about this?"
"Hang on, hang on," said Hermione, regaining her wits at least enough to say this much. "We don't even know for certain yet if there i is /i a this."
"There is," Malfoy said shortly. "I'm not sure yet what it is, but something is definitely going on, and it's not good." He paused, as if he were considering his next words carefully. "And I don't want to be stuck in the middle of something like that again." He looked up at her sharply. " i Ever /i ," he declared. It almost sounded like a threat.
"How do you know?" Hermione asked. "For that matter, why should I trust you?"
Malfoy reached into his cloak and pulled out a small bottle. "I thought you might say that," he said, "So I brought some Veritaserum."
Hermione stared. "...Oh," she managed.
Malfoy unscrewed the bottle and raised it to his lips, but Hermione raised a hand to stop him. "Wait," she said. "That's... not necessary."
Malfoy shrugged and resealed the bottle. "If you say so."
"Right." She took a deep breath, forced herself to accept these new circumstances and their strange, sudden new alliance, and nodded. "In that case," she said slowly, "we need to work out what to do next."