Once again I am forced to apologise for a dreadfully long delay. It has been an extremely busy exhausting year and I have done my best to write but as I am a slow writer and need to reread everything I've written to find where I am before I can get started each time I find the time to sit down and write, this has understandably taken a long time. However I have enjoyed writing this chapter so I hope you all enjoy reading it.
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Chapter 9 – A New Day In Hell
Hermione groaned. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt this tired. She tried to open her eyes for a few moments, then gave up as they felt like leaden weights.
"Would you like to make a statement Hermione?"
"Huh," mumbled Hermione blearily, her eyes finally forcing themselves open. After getting a good look at what was in front of her she wished they had just stayed closed.
"I said, would you like to make a statement."
It was a sight to inspire nightmares. Parvati's face was literally centimetres from her own, and the look on her face was nothing short of crazily enthusiastic. Half the dorm was obviously listening in and making no attempt to cover up.
"A statement about what? Our transfiguration homework?" Hermione asked hopefully, but with a sinking feeling.
Parvati was astonished. "About you and Malfoy of course! As if anyone apart from you cares about all that boring stuff."
"I live in hope."
Parvati prodded Hermione in the side. "So?"
"What is it with you people!" Hermione growled furiously, throwing off her sheets and rummaging for her robes. "Malfoy and I are NOT 'going out' and will never BE 'going out' unless I suddenly develop a strange unnatural fetish for ferrets, which I assure you I won't in the near future. So get it through your thick skulls already!"
For the first time in five years, Hermione hurried out of the dorm room leaving her bed unmade while struggling with her robes lying haphazardly over her head.
Lavender and Parvati exchanged knowing looks.
Hermione felt like she had a scar painted on her head, as she made her way through the throngs of people staring avidly at her and whispering behind their hands without making any attempt to hide it.
Thoroughly disgruntled, she collapsed into an armchair beside Harry and Ron, and stared into the fire seething with anger as memories of the previous night washed over her.
"Don't worry Hermione, it'll all die down eventually," said Harry wisely, "People will realise the whole thing's ridiculous and they'll get bored with it. I reckon in a weeks time it'll be as though this whole saga never happened."
Whatever response Hermione might have given was lost, as Ginny Weasley marched straight up to them and flung the Student Daily into Hermione's lap.
'Explain yourself." She said ominously.
On the front page of the paper was a long article, accompanied by a bold love heart coloured in green and silver on one side, and red and gold on the other. Hermione quickly scanned the article.
INTERHOUSE UNITY TAKEN TO NEW EXTREMES
A truly astounding event has taken place within the walls of Hogwarts. It seems the infamous 'daddy's boy' Draco Malfoy, who was heard saying, "I'd rather eat dragon dung than date a Gryffindor and I'd rather die than date a mudblood" as recently as last month is now dating muggle-born Hermione Granger, Gryffindor and close friend of the famous Harry Potter (see daily column 'Potter – The Latest Most Up To Date Exclusive Gossip' pg.2).
'Yesterday Hermione had a spat with Draco and was trying to make it up to him by singing to him in the Great Hall', stated Parvati Patil, close friend and confidant of the lovestruck Hermione Granger. So it seems the painful singing the school endured yesterday was not the product of a misplaced spell, or a prank, as originally thought.
When asked to comment Hermione Granger was reputed to have blushed and turned away. Draco Malfoy also declined to comment, however his violently passionate stance towards the matter spoke for itself.
In making their love known the two prefects have made a historical step towards an interhouse unity once thought indisputably impossible. However the nature of the reaction of other Gryffindor and Slytherin students towards this momentous relationship still remains to be seen.
Hermione's face began to take on a strange purple tinge. Harry sild the paper from Hermione's unresisting hand and bent over it briefly with Ron.
Harry gulped. "I retract that earlier statement."
"Hermione, what's going on!" Ginny demanded. "This isn't true, is it?"
"Of course it isn't true," Hermione snapped. "What do you take me for?"
"Sorry… I mean.. How on earth did this happen? Rumours like this don't just spring out of nowhere you know!"
There was an uneasy silence.
"She has got a point," Ron said slowly.
"Look," said Hermione, "Lavender and Parvati saw me near the Slytherin dungeons yesterday. They went through some bizarre train of thought and somehow arrived at the conclusion that I was seeing Malfoy. It makes no sense to me either."
Ginny narrowed her eyes but said nothing.
"We may as well go to breakfast," said Hermione heavily, "If I'm going to be forced to endure any more inane gossip then I may as well do it on a full stomach."
-o-o-o-
One look at Draco Malfoys face said plainly to the viewer; 'If you speak to me you WILL die. If you come anywhere NEAR me you will die. If you do nothing you will die anyway because I am NOT in a good mood.'
So it was a very foolish Gryffindor indeed who wandered purposely past Draco Malfoy's chair humming 'Strawberry Kisses' under his breath.
One minute later that same Gryffindor found himself lying on the floor with pink hair growing out of his face and no idea of what had just happened.
With a nervous glance at the menacing form of Draco Malfoy his freckled friend grabbed him by the arm and hurried him quickly away in the direction of the hospital wing.
Needless to say, breakfast was not a pleasant experience for either of the two and as soon as the bell rang Hermione hurried straight out of the hall towards her first class, not noticing that Draco Malfoy was hot on her heels. The instant they were out of sight he grabbed her around the waist, pulled her down a short unused corridor and held her tightly against the wall of a niche behind a garish tapestry.
Praying to whoever might be listening for patience, wisdom, and the death of Malfoy, preferably soon, Hermione snapped "This feels familiar."
Grabbing her face roughly, Malfoy forced her to look into his eyes and she was shocked by the ferocity she saw there.
"I order you to never tell anyone what happened in my dorm last night."
Hermione felt herself rolling her eyes, the casualness of the gesture belied by her tense stance and her hand creeping slowly, carefully, towards the wand in her pocket. "And so you think, after this mornings article, that I'd just wander into the Great Hall and say casually; 'Yeah, Malfoy's such a slimy little ferret, but did I mention that I was in his dorm at 2:00am last night?'"
"You do know how much I hate you at this minute, mudblood," said Malfoy, absentmindedly stroking the side of her face while glaring furiously into her eyes.
Seizing her chance, Hermione broke the eye contact and made a break for it, dashing off towards her Arithmancy class. Malfoy let her go with an odd look on his face.
-o-o-o-
They had Potions again that afternoon.
As Harry, Ron and Hermione entered the forbidding dungeon they noticed something very unusual about Snape. So unusual in fact that they stopped in their tracks with their mouths half open, which was by everybody's consent an extremely dangerous thing to do in Snape's class.
"Is he…" Harry began.
"…pleased?" Hermione finished in a hushed voice.
Snape glanced at them and at once they came to their senses and hurried towards their seat at the back of the room.
"Not so fast," said Snape silkily, stopping them in their tracks. "I'm afraid I'll have to make a …change… in our current seating arrangements. Due to her unfortunate absence from my class Miss Granger is behind in our current topic of study and so, I am sure, will need extra assistance to catch up. She will be seated with a competent student, as opposed to, well, incompetents."
Ron snarled and started forward, Harry held him back. The class had filed in while he had been speaking, and eyed the scene with the wary interest of prey when the predator's eye is focused elsewhere.
"From now on Miss Granger will be seated with Draco Malfoy."
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I don't really want to leave it here but I am feeling too sick to keep writing for now, so here it is. I'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to review my story and inspire me in my writing. I'd like to thank everyone for their patience with my terribly slow updating as of late, which I will make an effort to improve upon.
