AN: Still haven't figured out the line breaks! Sorry about the sudden scene shifts for now, I'm working on it guys I promise
Chapter Three Are you ready to rumble?
There was an irritating light on Draco's eyes when he snapped out of his dream the next morning. It didn't matter which way he turned, how hard he scrunched his eyes, it wouldn't go away. Cursing, he finally bolted upright and glared in the offending direction.
Ah, the sun.
Peculiar as it may sound to an average person, Draco wasn't used to the sun disrupting his eyes when he woke up. Back at home the canopy around his bed was so thick it dulled noise on the other side, and the Slytherin dormitories were under ground...no sunlight there. Annoyed, he threw his blankets away from himself and swung his legs over the bed, rubbing at his face. He would have to see about getting some heavy curtains for those damn windows. How in the world people could stand that every morning was beyond him.
Yawning, Malfoy gathered his school uniform and wandered out of his room, eyes searchign the room blearily for the bathroom door. It was of course the last one he tried, and was, of course, locked. He could just barely make out the sound of water running from the other side of the door. "Granger! Open up!"
There was a pause, the sound of the water stopping. "I got in here first, Malfoy. You're just going to have to deal with it." She called back. Stupid morning person mudblood.
"I have half an hour before breakfast starts and I need time to get ready, damn it! I know that bathroom is built for two people now let me in!" She growled and he heard the door clicked before she flung it open. Her hair was wet, her cheeks rosy from the recent shower. Her white school shirt was clinging to her still-damp skin, and her eyes looked rather big for some reason. Draco blinked. And then blinked again. Had he ever actually looked at her before?
Huh. He supposed he never really had.
Draco shrugged and shoved past her, heading straight for the shower room. She simply rolled her eyes at him and turned back to the mirror, resuming whatever girls did in the morning. "We have to talk about that meeting we're having this afternoon." She called through the apparently thinner door a few minutes later. He groaned and leaned away from the water stream.
"What is there to talk about, exactly? We go to the room, meet the newbies, lay out some rules, and go on with our lives." It's not that difficult, he thought to himself.
"We haven't decided the rules! We haven't laid out tonight's rotation either! Malfoy, I'm not doing this by myself!"
"Looks like we're just going to have to wing it, then." He said, smirking when he opened the door to face her. Hermione's face darkened immediately. The steam from the bathroom was billowing out around Malfoy, his damp hair stuck to his stupid smirking face. Of their own accord, her eyes locked onto a droplet of water as it left his hair and travelled down his cheek...his neck...his bare chest...and disappeared into the towel he was cluthing around his waist. He cleared his throat a moment later. "I would really prefer not to have you looking at me like that, Granger." He sneered. She gave him a scathing glare, snapping out of her daze with a start.
"Well maybe you should have put the clothes you brought with you on before you opened the door you irritating spoiled git." She seethed, turning away and storming out of the bathroom. Draco blinked and looked back into the room, noticing the neatly folded uniform off in the corner. Ah. He had brought clothes in there.
(Insert witty linebreak comment here)
He was the single most infuriating human being she had ever come across. It was as simple as that. They couldn't even go twenty four hours without him driving her insane at least twice. Maybe Ron was right (for once). Could she put up with this for a full school year? She was already ready to rip her hair out!
Grumbling to herself, Hermione yanked a new notebook out of her bookbag and slumped down at her desk. It looked like she wouldn't be joining her friends for most of breakfast that morning; somebody had to figure out who was going to be watching the corridors for the night. They would just have to wait for the rest of the week's schedule until that evening...she could squeeze in time to put it together during one of her breaks...maybe? Oh, this was so frustrating! He was supposed to be helping her with this, she didn't have time to do it alone!
"See you at the meeting!" Draco called, overly cheerfully, as he left the room. Growling, Hermione whipped a random heavy object in the direction of his voice. She only had the ten to two shift sorted out - she still needed to figure out who was doing the two to six. It took nearly half an hour to skim through the list and finish up. Stomach growling, Hermione raced down to the Great Hall to get what she could before classes began. Harry raised his eyebrows at her when she collapsed into her seat.
"Do not do that." She told him, shivering a little as she hurriedly grabbed at whatever was in arm's reach.
"Uhm, do what?" He questioned as he and Ron stared at Hermione wolfing down food.
"Wiggle your eyebrows like that. He does that. Don't do it." She mumbled through a mouthful of muffin.
"You got a little, uh..." Ron murmured nervously, gesturing to his chin. Hermione swallowed thickly and wiped at her face, gulping in a breath of air. "So, night one went well I'm guessing? I should hold back on the 'I told you so'?" The withering glare Hermione sent Ron at this was enough to make him recoil, and the conversation quickly changed topic.
"So how come you went and gave yourself such a full schedule this year?" Harry questioned, glancing at the paper that McGonagall had just passed Hermione. "Don't get me wrong, I know you do it every year. But this is supposed to be our slacking year."
"It's my last chance to take any of these classes!" Hermione argued, her eyes wide. "At the end of the year it's going to be time to start looking into what I'm going to study for a career path!"
"No kidding." Ron snickered. "You'd spend the rest of your life studying everything in University if you had the chance."
"You could be a professional student." Harry smiled as Ron snickered at his side.
"Ha. Ha." Hermione mumbled around yet another mouthful of food. "Oh, drat." The bell was tolling out in the tower, signalling time for the students to begin shuffling to their classes.
The first day of school turned out to be the perfect distraction from Hermione's stressful morning. She had three classes before lunch, all of them advanced placement. She adored the small sizes of her classes - it meant more oppurtunity to discuss class topics with the teacher. By the time she was shuffling back towards the Great Hall, her already heavy knapsack had at least tripled in weight with added material and her homework for the weekend. She hated it when the school year started close to the weekend.
Lunch mostly consisted of watching Harry and Ron nudge at each other and talk about their basic classes for the year. Harry had made it into seventh year defense against the dark arts, and apparently Ron had even managed to scrape his way in - it was the only class that the three of them had together this year - Ron hadn't made it into seventh year potions, transfiguration, or charms.
Hermione smiled lightly as they talked about how excited they were to see what kind of spells they would be learning this year. The excitement was only boosted by the fact that, to everybody's surprise, Lupin had been asked to return as teacher this year. Hermione was surprised he even accepted the position again; she didn't figure many newlyweds wanted to be trapped in a castle for the majority of a year. But there he was at the staff table with Tonks, chatting away happily. She could only pray that they wouldn't get hit by the strange curse that seemed to haunt the teachers of that class: Lupin had gotten off easy the first time.
"Why do you suddenly look so worried?" Harry questioned her, pulling Hermione out of her slight reverie.
"She's probably not looking forward to running that meeting with Malfoy after lunch." Ron said plainly. Hermione groaned and dropped her head against the table.
"Ohhh, I completely forgot about that!" Harry gave her a very sympathetic look. Ron's seemed to convey more of an 'I told you so'.
"Why don't you just ditch?" He asked.
"I can't ditch, Ron." She moaned, exasperated. "I'm head girl! This isn't like missing a meeting as a prefect. I'm running it! I need to meet the new people, and make sure everybody knows the rules and rotations..."
"Well, I'm not going - "
"You are NOT ditching the meeting!" Hermione argued, cutting him off. "I don't care that Lavender replaced me as Gryffindor prefect, you are going to be at that meeting or I swear I will have you written up! I know you have nothing important to do on your break."
"You'd seriously write me up?" Ron asked, astounded.
"Of course I would! You're a prefect Ron, you have a responsibility to the school. Come on, we won't have many meetings at all. I'll have everybody's weekly schedule delivered at breakfast when I finish it tonight, and I won't call another until there's a problem..." Ron snorted in disbelief, staring unhappily down at the table.
"Stupid Lavender's going to be giving me that weird, crazy look she gives me all the time...you better not have me stuck on patrols with her!" Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Of course I didn't." She sighed. "I tried to mix it up so that the pairs weren't from the same house, or at least not the same year. To try to keep things fair, you know, not let people off the hook just because they're friends or from the same house..."
"Of course you went that far into it." Ron teased.
"It's what I do, Ron. Surely you know that by now?"
(Really, how did her smarts never rub off on them? Anybody ever wonder that?)
Draco really didn't want to go to this stupid meeting. There were plenty of other things he could be doing on his break than sit in front of a group of his classmates and listen to Granger ramble on about responsibility and work. He didn't bother looking for a bright side, because he was sure it would only make him find more things that would suck. The whole situation was downright miserable. He could be sneaking Pansy into his new room for a quick shag, or looking around the school for his new first year targets. Anything but this.
Yet, there he was, walking into the prefect meeting room. The first one there, as he usually was. Malfoys were always punctual. He sighed and grabbed the prefect roster, glancing down it curiously. He wondered if Granger had assigned them to be walking the halls that night. Probably; if the irritating workaholic had her way, she'd probably run both shifts nightly. It was pathetic. If she thought for a moment he would be doing that...
"Surprised to see you here." And there's that grating voice now.
"And why wouldn't I be, exactly?"
"Don't you have some random girl to be snogging? A defenseless and terrified first year to be bullying? Why don't you just leave me to the adult things." Hadn't he just been thinking about both of those things not moments before? Well, that was weird.
"I hate to break it to you, Granger, but you're not an adult. You're a student. And guess what, it's my job too. Now let me see the schedule for tonight."
"No." She replied haughtily as she emptied her bag onto the desk at the front of the room.
"What do you mean, no?" He demanded.
"I mean no. I made the list, you didn't help, so you can see it when I post it at the end of the meeting like everybody else."
"I have a say in that list, now let me see it."
"If you had taken ten minutes to stop being a pompous ass this morning, maybe you would already know what was on it." She replied, giving him a very flat look. "As it turns out, I was left to miss half of breakfast because I did it alone and now you can miss out on putting your friends and yourself where you want. AH!" Hermione gasped as her wrist was grabbed and she was yanked around. She was, very suddenly, looking up into angry, stormy grey eyes as he loomed over her with an impressively deadly look. Hermione let out a very small, unimpressive sound as she heard the shuffling of paper behind her.
Draco smirked. "Thank you." He sneered, waving the paper in front of her before he retreated. Hermione fumed, ripping her wand out of her robes and rounding on him angrily.
"Malfoy, you son of a -"
"Whoa, whoa, already you two?" Professor Lupin had arrived, surging between the pair of them and holding his hands up defensively to Hermione. "Come on Hermione, you know better. Put your wand away."
"I do believe that is a violation of school policy." Draco droned, examining his fingernails.
"Well, how about I overlook you pushing down that little boy this morning and we call it even?" Professor Lupin countered. Draco's mouth opened, then immediately snapped back shut. Hermione smirked at him.
"He took the rotations for tonight," Hermione began with a pleading look to Lupin.
"Isn't that a good thing?" Lupin wondered, confused.
"See, that's what I said." Draco said in that irritating, over done fashion he was so fond of. "I was just checking to make sure everything looked okay. For example, the Slytherin prefect who replaced me...Blaise? You can't pair him off with the Vane girl. He's a complete womanizer and would be making moves on her all night."
"Well fix it then." Hermione hissed, turning back towards the desk. Other prefects began wandering into the room as Draco flashed a fake smile at her back, placing himself with the very attractive Romilda for the night.
"I told him this was a bad idea..." Lupin muttered. "Well, if you two have any questions, I'll be in the back."
"Oh look, we have a baby sitter. See Granger, everybody knows about your violent tendencies. I wouldn't be surprised if they had you on a watchlist for Azkaban."
"Malfoy, so help me, if you say another word, I'll - "
"You'll what, Granger?" He breathed, his face dangerously close to hers once again. His voice had dropped several octaves, and once again she found herself at a strange lack of words. "That's what I thought." Draco straightened, greeting a few Slytherins as they entered. Hermione shook herself slightly and turned to address the room.
"Welcome back, everybody." Hermione greeted them as cheerfully as she could.
"Look, we're going to keep this short." Draco cut in. Hermione glared at him. "I have a booklet for each of you detailing the guidelines that you're all following for the year. Our rules, our responsibilities, our priviledges. What happens when you break the rules." Hermione stared at Draco, surprised. They never had a booklet. Did he...? "You break the rules, you're going to deal with me. And trust me, you don't want to deal with me when you're taking time out of my busy schedule." Ron snorted at this from the back corner of the room, and Draco glared at him. "Thanks for volunteering to work a double tomorrow, Weasley. It's so hard to cover Saturday nights."
"You can't do that!" Ron argued. "He can't do that, right, Hermione?"
"Don't interrupt, Ron." Hermione simply said. He gaped at her. Draco continued.
"It's not hard to follow, guys. Read the rules, ask us if you have any questions. We'll let you know ahead of time when we're going to have meetings, and we're delivering their schedules to them, right?" He asked, looking at Hermione. She simply nodded. "Now only tonight's schedule is done, you'll get the rest of the week's at either breakfast or lunch tomorrow. All of you have some kind of shift tonight, so come read this before you leave." Draco waved the paper around and put it on the desk behind him. "And that's it."
The group turned to Hermione, who only nodded again. "Yeah...that's it." Everybody got up and shuffled forward to see the schedule, Draco collecting his things and walking to the back of the room.
"Malfoy - when did you make that booklet?" She asked, catching up to him quickly.
"Hmm? Over the summer, when I got my letter. Every year I droned out what the Heads were saying, it was boring. I figured give somebody something they can look at on their own time, and reference when they forget something, and it works out better for everybody."
"But that must have taken some time -"
"Of course it took time." He snorted. "But it's saving me time in the long run. Jeesh, Granger. Don't look so shocked. I actually do take my responsibilities seriously. Now look, the way I figure doing the schedule." He stopped walking and turned towards her, a very bored look on her face.
"Oh, so you're actually going to help me?" She retorted. He rolled his eyes.
"If you weren't acting completely obnoxious and oversensitive last night, I could have helped you." He argued. "Look. We hate each other. Common fact. It's not going to change any time soon. So how about this - I do the schedule for Saturday through Tuesday, and you do it for Wednesday through Friday?"
"Why do I get less days?"
"Because you have a ridiculous number of classes and I would like to see the schedules out on time, thank you very much. You can do more detentions than me or something." Hermione huffed, but couldn't find much reason to argue. If she ran detentions, she could do her homework during them. It did work out quite well. The little ferret was more intelligent than he led on. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Pansy is waiting for me."
Or maybe he wasn't.
