7 – His Own Retarded, Perverted Medicine
Hermione glanced up at Zabini again and was surprised to see his lips were pressed together in a thoughtful, almost amused pout.
She couldn't help it. She stared.
Zabini noticed her bulging eyeballs and the expression on his face vanished, leaving his features impassive.
'What?' he asked, his soft voice a hum in the silence that had been established for a while now as they meandered along the corridors, neither one knowing exactly where they were going, and neither one of them caring. Hermione smiled guiltily.
'What were you thinking about? You actually looked amused.'
Zabini looked at her, his expression holding only the shadow of quizzicality.
'Nothing,' he said.
Hermione narrowed her eyes stubbornly but she was still smiling. 'Tell me,' she coaxed.
Zabini tried to stare her down, his dark eyes boring into her own coercingly but she would not back down and pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow expectantly. Zabini's shoulders sagged in defeat and he smirked sardonically and, shaking his head gently so that his hair flopped down into his eyes, made that noise he'd made back at the library, when she'd first spoken to him months ago; that half amused, half satisfied snort.
'If someone sees us, rumours are bound to fly.'
His words struck Hermione like a four tonne bus.
'Oh,' she said stupidly. She gritted her jaw for a brief second because she knew he was right, before letting it go slack again. Was he aware of how dangerous this was too? How strange and how unorthodox? How utterly wrong?
'You can go if you want,' she told him casually, but inside her stomach was churning, silently wishing that he would leave whilst another half of her desperately wanted him to stay – for reasons totally unfathomed.
Zabini turned unexpectedly to face Hermione, and her legs – which had slowed to a casual stroll a while ago – jerked to a stop. His lean body towered over her dauntingly, but she refused to be unsettled and looked up at him nonchalantly, waiting to see what happened.
'Scared, Granger?' drawled Zabini quietly with a raised eyebrow. 'Where's that fiery Gryffindor courage?'
'I'm not scared of rumours,' retorted Hermione, her voice gaining that steel of edge at the dig at her house. But then Zabini took a step forward, closer, still wearing that annoying Slytherin smirk – that many people thought damn sexy, though definitely not Hermione – and she got a sudden sense of dé ja vu, her mind whooshing back to that deserted hallway, with no one but Ernie Macmillan closing in on her…. But this was different. Hermione did not get that sickening lurch in her stomach as she stared up at Zabini's angular face, the feeling that made her want to run up to her dorm and have a long hot shower to get rid of its sticky, dirty feel, like a filthy secret. No, as Zabini stared down at her, his coal black eyes looking as if they were both forbidding and welcoming her to drown herself in the dark, liquid that swirled about inside them, the butterflies in her stomach turned searing hot and grew claws, tearing their way up to Hermione's heart, making it beat furiously as if trying to fight them off, but she couldn't bring herself to hate the feeling. It scared her, yeah, but it didn't make her feel sick. This was different.
'You should be scared,' Zabini murmured in a low voice, and his foreboding words made her heart thump so loud she was sure those friendly people in Timbuktu could hear it too. His eyes were locked on Hermione's
own large, brown ones and she wondered what he saw there. Fear, probably. But anticipation too, there was no denying Hermione longed for a fast forward button, or to skip a few pages in this book to find out what will happen next. Because somehow, she had a very large feeling that something would happen.
'Why?' she asked, and inwardly cringed when she heard her voice fall out of her mouth in a whisper. Zabini was so close now; she could feel the warmth radiating from his chest, and even the gentle flutter of his breath against her forehead as she stared up at him.
A small, almost smug smile played along Zabini lips. She wondered if they – the lips – were as firm as they looked, and her fingers suddenly longed to reach up and touch them. Holy moly, this guy even made her own body revolt against her! Hermione stubbornly ignored her hands, but then the hopeful tingling in her fingertips rushed up to her lips, and the image of Ernie's lips descending on her own under the mistletoe whisked its way back into her mind, except this time, instead of Ernie trying to plant one on her, it was Zabini.
Oh yeah, she needed to see Madame Pomfrey, alright.
'Aw come on, Granger,' Zabini mocked, his voice husky. 'Rumours about you and me would send your high status and rep as Head Girl down the toilet, right?'
But Zabini's words contradicted his actions as Hermione felt his calloused fingers whisper up her arm, to hover at her elbow.
Oh, dear.
Hermione's knees must have been replaced with jelly because they certainly weren't as strong as they used to be.
She gulped, having a very hard time thinking straight over the chaos of her frantically beating heart, keeping the freaky Zabini visions out her mind and keeping her fingers hanging loosely by her sides and not poking and prodding curiously at Zabini's lips. Oh yeah, and trying to contain the butterflies that kept trying to erupt out of her stomach, which she was sure they'd rip open with their hawk-like claws at any second.
'Things like hot, steamy, lust-driven passion-sessions in broom closets,' Zabini continued, his dark, alluring voice sending shivers up her spine. She became all too aware of his hand on her arm, and his sweet breath on her face, and her body now pressed gently against his own muscled frame….
What a generous boy, going to the trouble of explaining this concept so thoroughly to Hermione's naïve mind. She wanted to knee him in the manly parts for his kind gesture. Did he know the kind of pictures he was bullying into Hermione's once innocent mind? Did he know that because of her very proper upbringing, he was causing about fifty litres of blood to crowd in Hermione's cheeks? Of course he knew. That son of a had eyes didn't he?
And yet, he did not stop.
'…The loss of virginities atop McGonagall's cold, hard desk…'
Hermione's eyes widened half in disgust and half in shock and disbelief.
But Zabini seemed to be unstoppable.
'And marriage straight out of school because of you being pregnant with little Blaise junior…' Zabini trailed off, but the picture he'd painted in Hermione's mind remained. A horrible nightmare in which Hermione hobbled off the red Hogwarts Express, her stomach bloated to the size of a contest winning melon with only a rail to help her down to the platform because everyone else avoided her, disgusted. Someone who had once been the highly successful, promising Head Girl had suddenly become some sort of outcast, a no-good junkie, destined to spend her days fat and seated in front of a cheap television set, maybe second hand. Her child – a
mistake with Zabini – would be a delinquent because she would not be able to support it with a sufficient education – or even proper meals for that matter.
'Speechless, Granger?' Zabini said in an unusually smug voice; Hermione's ears didn't even have to search to hear the evident arrogance. Her eyes, which had been glazed over as she visualized what could be the result of this fraternizing, cleared and snapped up to glare murderously up at Zabini's highly smug face. He stepped away from her, his hand dropping from her elbow so that cool air whooshed into all the places their bodies had been touching – which was quite a few – and, snorting his amused/satisfied harrumph, said in a expressionless tone far different from the husky, quite seductive one from before, 'that's a first.'
He'd been joking. Mocking. Trying to get a rise out of her.
Freaking Slytherin.
Zabini turned after flashing Hermione an unexpected grin that seemed to banish all angry thoughts from her murderous mind, and continued down the hallway as if a few moments ago, he hadn't been trying to seduce Hermione with visions of them snogging away in a broom closet.
Anger flashed through her body like a lightning bolt and Hermione wasn't surprised when she whipped her wand out and muttered a spell so silently that Zabini did not hear it, and so didn't expect to snag his foot over some invisible solid mass and go sprawling across the floor like a child erupting out the end of a water slide.
She smirked coldly; her eyes narrowed as she approached Zabini collapsed on the floor, and passed him without a word, being careful not to walk too close in case he got a good eyeful up her skirt.
'That's the thanks I get for saving your Gryffindor butt from Macmillan?' Zabini grumbled loudly in a strangely care-free, almost cheerful voice as he hauled himself off the floor, apparently not even bruised.
Damn.
'No,' Hermione called back swiftly, still refusing to look back at him as she strode down the hallway briskly. 'That's the thanks you get for getting too cocky.'
'Huh,' came his dry reply, already just behind her. 'I'd hate to see what I get for playing the hero.'
A sudden, impulsive idea struck Hermione and, quite unlike her, she acted on it. She spun around, knowing Zabini was right behind her and held her ground as Zabini struggled to put on the brakes, stopping so close Hermione thought their noses would collide. She thought she heard Zabini mutter 'Whoa!' under his breath as he took a hasty – yet still darn graceful –step back, but couldn't be sure.
'Oh, I'm not so sure about that,' Hermione corrected in a tone much less aggressive yet much more intense than before. She looked at him from behind her thick lashes, smiling coyly and stepping closer.
He looked at her sceptically, thrown off by her change in demeanour and her apparent change of mood.
'Oh yeah?' he asked casually, and Hermione knew he was trying to ignore the way she'd pouted her full lips into a smirk that was anything but casual.
'Mmhmm…'
For a few seconds, Zabini eyed her warily, looking down at her suddenly playful expression impassively. Then he said in his bored manner, 'What makes you think that?'
Hermione bit her lip, pleased that he was falling into her trap. She fingered a lock of hair on her shoulder – all part of the show – and looked up at Zabini with her head cocked to the side, a flirtatious – she hoped – smile tainting her lips as she brought them dangerously close to his so that her breath was hot between their faces.
Her plan: give the cocky Slytherin a taste of his own retarded, perverted medicine. Turn the tables, Slytherin style.
'Well, you're a guy, right?' she asked with far from subtle suggestiveness. Maybe Hermione imagined it, but she could have sworn she saw the shadow of Zabini's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.
'Last time I checked.'
She lifted her fingers and placed them feather light against Zabini's stomach and felt the muscles clench under her touch. Without warning, the sight of Zabini's bare chest flashed in Hermione's mind, glistening with clear water droplets, and it took all her strength to focus on the current task. There was something seriously wrong with her. She needed to end this, and fast. But not just yet.
'Yes, well, my two besties being guys, I've come to know what men appreciate most… in terms of thanks, I mean,' she told him slowly, trying her best to make her voice as alluring as his had been. She was being all out raunchy and flirtatious and everything she wasn't, but the cautious, almost dumb look that struggled beneath Zabini's blank face was well worth it. Her plan was definitely working. She was lying in what her words implied – she'd never once even thought about Harry or Ron in that way (Ok, maybe Ron, but that was way back in third year!), let alone snogged one of them – but her words only implied such things, and only someone who was thinking dirty would get the dirty meaning out of it, so technically, she wasn't lying. After all, she did know that in terms of thanks, Ron most appreciated a good slice of pie and maybe some unconditioned help with homework, and for Harry, the homework alone was good enough. But Zabini couldn't know that.
He was looking down at her with guarded eyes now, and Hermione wondered if she'd ever see those eyes filled with emotion, for once. She forced herself to press her body closer against Zabini's, searching for a more precise reaction to fuel her pride. She saw his jaw stiffen as no doubt, he gritted his teeth. She smiled again, her mouth still hovering too close to his. She felt so dirty, but he'd done it to her, so why not her to him? There was no reason. He bloody well deserved it.
'And that would be…?' Zabini asked in regard to her raunchy statement before. Hermione was impressed, this guy was way too good at keeping his cool. She looked up at him from behind hooded eyes and stood on her tip toes to bring her lips to the shell of his ear and the butterflies in her stomach swooped in satisfaction as she heard his breathing hitch.
'You're the guy,' she reminded him, finally starting to regret her actions as she realized how out of character and how uncomfortable she felt, yet how confident she sounded. 'Why don't you tell me?'
One, two seconds passed in which the only sound that could be heard was their breathing. Then Hermione laughed in Zabini's ear, her hands gliding up at push gently at his chest so that he stumbled away from her gloating figure.
Mischief danced in her eyes as she teased him, 'Too easy!'
Zabini swallowed again and then smirked, his expression a mixture of mock defeat and being impressed. Amused by the way she childishly skipped away from him, he lifted his hands in surrender.
'You win, Granger,' he told her, as if it meant nothing to him. As if it meant nothing that only seconds ago, she'd used her sexual prowess to reduce him to a speechless, tense lump of hormones. Her butterflies cheered and flew about her stomach in triumph.
'Damn right!' she agreed as he drew up beside her. Who would have thought that after all the twists and turns of their time together today, he'd still stay to walk with her?
She wasn't too proud to admit, it made her feel special.
For a while, the two walked in silence, Hermione still basking in the glow of her triumph and Zabini, naturally, being quite the serene soul. Eventually, their hallway opened out into the courtyard and the two continued down a flight of stone steps to the garden below.
Then Hermione turned a corner and walked right into the view of Lavender Brown.
Lavender Brown.
Gossip Queen.
A thousand guilty thoughts popped into Hermione's mind – there was so much she needed to hide from her! One; she was wagging class, two; she was wagging with Blaise Zabini – a Slytherin, andthree; she had just been pressed up against him with her lips brushing against his ear in a far from friendly manner.
Dear god, she was in trouble. They were in trouble.
'Lavender!' squeaked Hermione, her whole body going numb as blood rushed to her head, making her feel dizzy with guilt and embarrassment. She dared not glance at Zabini, because that would just draw attention to the fact that she knew she was there with him and that she knew that it was bad.
'Hi, Hermione,' said Lavender coolly as she approached where Hermione stood rooted to the spot, and her eyes seemed to be the same size as normal, not the size of dinner plates as Hermione had expected them to enlarge to at the site of the unlikely couple.
'Wh-what bring you here?' Hermione stuttered out, not knowing what else to say as her heart thumped in anticipation for what was surely coming once it hit Lavender who was standing beside Hermione. She waited for her eyes to suddenly narrow, and then a smug smile to creep across her face and lastly for her to flip her long blonde plait over her shoulder and excuse herself with hardly contained excitement so that she could run to Pavarti and spread the news together that sure enough, Hermione was shagging Blaise Zabini of Slytherin House.
'Nothing much,' replied Lavender, and to Hermione's shock, didn't pause in front of her to signal that she had time to stand around and chatter, instead she brushed past her, but held Hermione's gaze as she continued, 'I have to visit the ladies room real quick, Pavarti says my eyeliner's screwed…'
Hermione nodded in mute surprise, wondering if she was dreaming. Could it be that Lavender didn't mind that Hermione was obviously fraternising with the enemy? No, she would mind. She mustn't have been able to recognise Zabini for his Slytherin-ness, maybe she even thought he was a Gryffindor! Wonderful! But Hermione still didn't risk a glance in Zabini's direction, in case this wasn't the case at all but that Lavender's eyeliner really was screwed and had dripped into her eyes, causing her temporary blindness, which would explain why she might not have spotted Zabini yet.
She could hardly breathe as she dumbly watched Lavender skip up the steps they'd just descended and then out of her sight, not even glancing back once. She certainly didn't seem like she had a juicy piece of gossip… But then again, was Lavender a master had keeping her emotions under check? Could it be that she had noticed, but didn't want to tip off Hermione that she knew, deciding to just spread the gossip behind her back??
Her frantic heart beats making an unwelcome come-back, Hermione spun around to face Zabini, her brows knitted with worry.
Only, he wasn't there.
Her eyes widened in surprise and for a moment, Hermione was speechless, thoughtless and motionless. Then she regained her senses and spun around, searching the garden and surrounding castle for any sight of the tall, dark-haired Slytherin.
She finally saw him emerge, standing in the courtyard beside a stone pillar.
She didn't need to see his face to understand.
Hermione smiled her farewell, lifting her hand to wave once before turning her back on what had become her Slytherin secret to spend the rest of the period alone since spending it together was just too risky.
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Alright, so forgive me if there a spelling errors or grammatical mistakes or if something doesn't make sense since I'm in a bit of a hurry to get this up for you guys before I have to go out, so yeah…
Hope you enjoy it anyway!
Krazie-livin
p.s. thanks to everyone who's been reviewing!
