Chapter Four
Hermione had momentarily felt pity for Malfoy earlier that morning. That was until she reminded herself of his incurable idiocy and cruelty. The stupid git was prejudiced, pompous and annoying. Most importantly though was the fact that he had sided with Voldemort. There were even rumors that he had already taken the Dark Mark.
Hermione's breath caught in her throat at the thought of the Dark Mark and all that it symbolized. One who took that mark openly vowed to serve evil for the rest their life. They vowed to cause misery and destruction to anyone who stood in the way of the Dark Lord's desires. They bound themselves to the embodiment of pure evil.
"Such a terrible thing," Hermione breathed aloud.
After a few more seconds of silent reflection, Hermione jumped with a start when she realized that she was going to miss all of breakfast if she didn't get moving. The hungry girl raced through the hallways, Potions book in tow, and made it to the Great Hall in record time.
"Morning, 'Mione! How was your first day sleeping away from home?" Ginny asked brightly, with serious concern in her eyes.
"Not so great, but I'll be fine. I can handle this," Hermione answered confidently. However, she hoped that the obvious worry and distress in her eyes would convey themselves to Ginny. Hermione really needed some time alone with her best girl friend.
"Well, you let me know if that git, Malfoy, gives you any problems, Hermione. Me and Harry will just turn him into a ferret to remind him of the good old days," Ron said, attempting to sound threatening.
Hermione laughed out loud at the sight of a "threatening" Ron with cheeks totally stuffed with food. It had been such a long time since she had laughed with her friends. It felt good.
After breakfast, the sixth year Gryffindors made their way to Potions. Hermione groaned when she realized that they had Potions with the Slytherins this year. Wonderful, all the more time to spend with the ray of sunshine itself: Malfoy.
Once in the dungeons, Hermione took a seat away from Ron and Harry since they refused to sit anywhere near the front of the classroom. A pretty Slytherin girl with dark hair, eyes, and skin sat in the seat next to Hermione's. Hermione figured that this girl wasn't a typical Slytherin snob when they both comfortably exchanged smiles. They both then looked to the front as their new professor began to speak.
"Welcome to your sixth year of Potions. My name is Horace Slughorn and I am your new Potions master. I will now assign you to your new Potions partner. You will have the same Potions partner for the remainder of the year. No exceptions. First on the list are Lavender Brown and Blaise Zabini. Next are Padma Patil and Gregory Goyle. Then there's Dean Thomas and Pansy Parkinson…"
Hermione registered with faint interest that the professor wasn't calling out the partners' names in alphabetical order. She found this slightly odd but didn't stay on the thought for long. Her mind then slowly realized that each partnership consisted of one Gryffindor and one Slytherin. 'That's going to be awful for several Gryffindors, especially Padma. Goyle is so stupid that he doesn't know how to properly apply deodorant…' Hermione thought to herself.
Then it hit her: Gyffindors and Slytherins; Hermione and Malfoy; Oh Merlin.
Hermione's breathing sped up as she shut her eyes and prayed that she be partnered with anyone but Malfoy. She tried to remember if Malfoy's name had been called already….it hadn't. Crap. Okay, okay, it would be way too coincidental if they were to be partnered up. Right? Right. Her breathing slowed a bit until she heard the professor call her name.
"And there's Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy. I thought it would be interesting to see what the sixth year's brightest students could produce together. Next we have…"
Hermione felt as if the world had just collapsed right out from under her. Then she felt numb. She felt as if she were floating. Floating somewhere far away from a neanderthal named Draco Malfoy. She was actually starting to feel pretty peaceful until Professor Slughorn interrupted her thoughts yet again.
", if you would kindly move to the seat next to your partner's, that would be very beneficial to the class."
Hermione stared dumbly at the professor until she registered what he had said. She slowly picked up her belongings, and looked around the room for ferret boy. She spotted him sitting near the back of the room with a sour look on his face. She numbly made her way to him and sat down with a thump. She dropped her belonging onto the table, and let her head fall into her hands.
Was it too late to go to a Muggle high school?
Dinner consisted of her friends trying to get a response from Hermione as she slowly chewed through her food. Had Hogwarts' food always tasted this bland? She decided that as soon as dinner ended she would go to her dorm to take a nice hot bath and go straight to bed. Wait, she couldn't do that. Thomas had asked to meet her and Draco in the common room after dinner.
"CRAP! HE'S EVERYWHERE!" Hermione exclaimed slamming her fork onto her table. Half of the Gryffindors turned to look at the commotion, and half avoided the commotion out of fear. Hermione may kill them if she caught them staring at her.
Hermione took a deep breath while staring straight at the wall behind Ron's head before standing up. She ignored her friends' questions as she gathered her books, muttered a goodbye to her friends, and stomped out of the Great Hall. Once away from the curious stares of her peers, Hermione ran to her dorm.
She threw her books on the ground (not a common act of Hermione Granger) and sank into the couch in front of the fireplace. Her face flushed red with anger and frustration when she thought about how terrible yesterday and today had been. The sad part was that they wouldn't have been bad at all if it weren't for Malfoy. Why was he suddenly such a large part of her life? Why was he such an arsehole?
"Why me?" she cried allowed.
"Because you're the brightest witch of your age," a kind voice said behind her.
Hermione turned around to see a beautiful Latin girl, with dark hair and eyes, smiling at her. She made her way to where Hermione was sitting and flopped down next to her.
"I saw you leave the Great Hall just now in a hurry. You seemed upset. My name is Rosa Riviera from Hufflepuff. I'm Head Girl. It's a pleasure to meet you Hermione," Rosa said, smiling warmly at Hermione.
"Hi, it's nice to meet you too," Hermione responded awkwardly.
"I followed you here because I had the feeling that you wanted some time to be alone. So, I figured that I would tell you now what Thomas and I were going to tell Draco and you later. This way you can go to bed tonight without having to see Draco first," she gave Hermione a knowing look as she said this.
"First of all," Rosa continued, "welcome to our dormitory. Feel free to let us know if there's anything you need. Now the main reason why we needed to talk to you and Draco is because of the Halloween Ball. Dumbledore has put all four of us in charge of setting it up. I and Thom will handle getting material and food together. We'll also handle hiring the DJ and finding teachers to chaperone. You and Draco are in charge of coming up with a music playlist, handling advertising, and decorations. We need all of this done by October 30th. You don't have to worry too much about it now, but we just wanted to give you a heads up. So now that that's out of the way, I'll leave you to your alone time," Rosa finished. She patted Hermione's knee, and then exited the dormitory.
Hermione sat in silence for about ten minutes as if Rosa was never there. She decided then and there that about how to handle Malfoy. She would not give Malfoy so much power over her as to let him make her sixth year a living Hell. She would just have to endure the excessive amount of quality time she would be spending with him and move on with her life.
She could handle this. She was Hermione Granger, and she could handle anything. Or so she thought.