AN: Thanks for all the reviews – I know some of you are a little surprised by the new house idea, but bear with me… it's going to take a lot of changes for these two to get together!
And so it continues…
As it happened, for the majority of its members, the new house hadn't really brought that many changes to their lives; for practical reasons they continued to go to their old classes and to sleep in their old beds. Even at mealtimes an uneasy truce had been reached – after all, even if you do have to share a table with your worst enemy, sooner or later everyone wants to be able to eat food that isn't going to bite back. There were even the beginnings of civilized conversations taking place, even if the full extent of these was 'pass the salt'.
Dumbledore was ecstatic, and could been seen grinning and twinkling over the blueprints for the new tower he planned to have built in time for next year.
Of course, the exceptions to this tentative peace came in the form of Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy. Over the course of the first week of their punishment, they had each attempted serious harm to the other on no fewer than seven occasions. On top of this, they simply could not work together.
There had been the incident with the exploding cauldron and the aquamarine Snape in Potions…
The incident with the rampaging monster with big pointy teeth in Transfiguration…
The incident with the breakdown in the space time continuum in Arithmancy…
The incident with the small pink elephant in Charms…
And nobody was likely to forget (or, indeed, be able to adequately describe) the incident in History of Magic involving a feather, Professor Binns and a large tub of strawberry jam.
All this meant that it was the first Hogsmeade weekend of term, and Hermione and Malfoy were confined to the small and slightly shabby staff apartment that had been hastily transfigured to contain two bedrooms (each with their own sink and toilet) a shared bathroom and common room.
Unfortunately, the doors to these bedrooms were currently charmed shut, forcing our two protagonists to spend a beautiful, sunny afternoon in each other's company.
Malfoy was entertaining himself by practicing catching a snitch. Of course, if the best way to do that was to throw it directly at Hermione and let it buzz around her head a few times before catching it, that was hardly his fault now, was it?
Hermione, meanwhile, was completely ignoring this behaviour and appeared to be completely focused on reading her book. In actual fact, what she was doing was plotting the various revenges and tortures she planned to exact upon Malfoy over the next few days. Suffice it to say, had Gred and Forge been aware of what Hermione's twisty little mind was really capable of, they would have been shocked, astonished, and offered her a design contract on the spot.
Growing bored at this lack of response, Malfoy hurled the snitch particularly viciously at Hermione's head and was amazed when, without even raising her eyes from the page for a nanosecond, she calmly plucked it out of the air and pocketed it.
'Hey! No fair! I want my snitch back!'
'I want never gets.'
'What kind of a stupid saying is that? I always get what I want!'
'Not this time. Now do you mind,' she yawned ostentatiously 'you really are boring me.'
Now Malfoy had been called many things in his time, deatheater scum, ferret, slug boy, but boring? Boring! This really was war. No more Mr Nice Slytherin, this – this - girl was going to pay!
'Er, Malfoy? F.Y.I. Muttering to yourself – not a good look.'
Fine. He glared at her. So this was going to involve planning. Not a problem; he could do planning. He retreated to the opposite side of the room and settled himself down to think.
Anyone vaguely acquainted with the adventures of a certain bear with very little brain would have been struck by the similarity to one D. Malfoy at this point.
The clock ticked…
Three quarters of an hour later Hermione, bored with waiting for him to make his move, surreptitiously cast a curse towards his wand.
The clock ticked…
Finally inspiration struck. Granger herself would be the one to pick her own torment! He had remembered a particularly vindictive curse which twisted the recipient's mind, to make them believe their worst fear was surrounding them.
'Granger! Hey, Granger!'
'What is it ferret boy?'
'You're a brave Griffindor, what really scares you? I don't believe it's still the whole boggart thing!'
'Nothing much, actually. I know I'm not going to fail now.'
'Oh yeah? Bet I can make you scream in terror.'
'Whatever, Malfoy.'
He smirked cruelly and pointed his wand at her. Unfortunately for Malfoy, Hermione had learned the martial arts trick of using your enemy's strength against them.
When Harry, Ginny and Ron returned from Hogsmeade loaded down with sweets for Hermione, they were more than a little surprised by what they found.
'Um, Mione, why is the git sitting on top of the bookcase?'
'Oh, it's nothing, Gin, he tried to hex me, but I'd already put a wand-reversal jinx on his wand. It should wear off after sundown.'
'Merlin, Mione, what did he try to do? He looks terrified!'
'Put it this way, Ron,' she replied with a small laugh 'you'd be amazed how much you and Malfoy have in common! I'll explain over dinner, come on.'
They walked out, leaving Malfoy to his own personal hell…
The spiders are tap-dancing, the spiders are tap-dancing!
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Apologies for the split infinitive in this chapter – I know it's grammatically incorrect, but the words just sounded better in this order.
