A/N : I guess, you guys must be wondering by now that how I came up with the horrendous title, well, the working title had been "Draco and Hermione" – I know! Very imaginative, thank you! And "Love Shmuv…" was a last moment thing and that just popped into my head when I posted this fic.
Anyhoo…I hope you liked the way the story is goin' so far.
Disclaimer : nope not me, bow to The Great JKR.
"Phew!" she breathed, leaning against the door. Then remember that tomorrow she had patrol duty with him and groaned. She needed a new strategy, she thought dully.
Chapter Nine :
And the dreaded hour seemed to come fast enough and sadly she didn't have a strategy. This time Malfoy was, surprisingly, waiting for her in the dorm. Seeing no way to escape she joined him and together they headed for their patrol. They walked silently along corridors for a while, looking into random empty classrooms for errant students, Hermione nervously fidgeting with her curly hair. But Malfoy didn't seem inclined to say anything to her. Suddenly they heard a swooshing noise followed by a mad cackle.
They looked at each other.
"Peeves!" they mouthed together.
"Again!" Hermione said as Malfoy rolled his eyes.
They saw the poltergeist's shadow around the corner and looked around quickly for a place to hide. Just then, Hermione remembered and pulled on Malfoy's sleeve, "C'mon," she whispered hurriedly as he looked at her questioningly.
She ran dragging him behind, down a narrow passage to the right. They found a series of locked old unused classrooms. Hermione sped past all of them and reached the last one, which was open.
"Hurry!" she said pushing him inside, quickly following herself and closing the door.
"You know, that poltergeist is beginning to get on my nerves", he said looking irritated, straightening his robes, "first thing tomorrow, I'm going to complain to Dumbledore. That thing's had enough run of this castle!"
Hermione nodded distractedly and walked into the classroom, dodging tree branches as she went by. Looking around, Malfoy was surprised. He remembered it as the old classroom used by the centaur Firenze for his Divination classes. He stepped onto the springy grass, the trees seemed to sway in magical wind. He walked forwards until he was beneath the leafy canopy. Hermione seemed to have moved the canopy, 'coz the stars suddenly shone brightly down on him. He heard her sigh. She walked over to the middle and sat down on the ground, looking dreamily above.
"I forgot how beautiful it looked," she whispered to herself.
Malfoy looked around , then hesitantly sat down on the grass near her. Hermione looked in surprise at him sitting beside her. Malfoy was staring resolutely above.
"I thought you dropped out of Divination, so how come you know about this classroom?" he asked her still looking at the enchanted ceiling which was made to look like the night sky.
"How do you know that?!" she asked slightly taken aback.
He looked at her staring at him wide eyed and smirked, "Granger, the entire school knows about your little tantrum in that old bat's class."
"Oh," she said coloring up a bit.
"So how do you know about this classroom?" he asked again.
"Harry told me about it, described how incredible it was, that I had to come and see for myself," she said looking up the stars again.
She could see, what looked like Venus, shining brightly above. They passed a few moments in comfortable silence. If a week before someone had told her that she would be sitting with Malfoy, chatting and looking up at stars, she'd have laughed out loud at the poor sap. But here she was, doing it and surprisingly it didn't feel weird at all.
"Granger", he began again, "how did you feel, I mean, when you first found out that you could do magic?"
She turned to look at him; he was staring seriously at her. His sleet-gray eyes reflecting the star light so that they looked like molten silver. "Well", she said thinking, "I knew that something strange was going on with me when I could make things I needed just fly towards me on their own. The letter from Hogwarts confirmed what I had suspected. Honestly I felt excited, but also felt confused and scared. You know magic and witches have long since been vilified 'coz people fear what they don't know about and I felt I would be ostracized. My parents left the decision to come to Hogwarts to me, and they had always taught me to look beyond prejudices. And that's what I did," she said looking up at the constellations again. "I looked beyond the prejudice against magic by normal people – muggles - and so here I am," she said turning to look at him. "And finding out that the Wizarding world has the many prejudices too," she said smiling bitterly.
Malfoy was staring intently at her, he noted how soft and open her brown eyes were, how they seemed to be windows to her soul.
He laid back down, resting his head in the grass. "Do you know what constellation is it tonight?" he asked her.
Drawing up her knees and resting back her hands on the ground, she inclined her head to see the night sky clearly.
"um… sorry cant make out what it is," she said slowly.
"Doesn't Draco mean 'dragon'?" she asked after a while.
"Yeah, mother apparently named me after the 'dragon constellation'," he said grinning.
"Really?", she said looking at him with a smirk, "did you ever see it?"
"Nope", he said closing his eyes, "don't know if it even exists, or if my mother's just making it up to sound grand". A small smile played on his lips.
(A/N : actually, the 'dragon constellation'-Draco does exist and has significance in several mythologies. Draco apparently, doesn't seem to know this or he is making a playful joke about his mother's vanity)
Hermione looked over at him lying peacefully in the grass and smiled.
They returned to the dorm well past the end of their patrol time relaxed, tension and stress for the first time absent between the pair.
The next day being a Sunday, they got up nice and late – a first for Hermione. She got out of bed yawning widely.
"Good Morning," Malfoy said amiably, buried in his customary newspaper.
"Morning," she said yawning again. "I need to get some coffee," she muttered, stifling another yawn.
"Good!", Malfoy announced, putting his paper down, "I was going to breakfast myself."
"Malfoy, I haven't even dressed yet."
"Granger, loosen up a bit, wont you? Its Sunday no one cares if you're in your pyjamas," he drawled.
She stared severely at him. "I'm the Head Girl!"
"So? Still no one would care," he said rolling his eyes. "C'mon!", he whined, dragging her out the door, "I'm starving."
"Malfoy, I'm capable of walking by my own", she snapped as she pulled her sleeve from his grip.
They reached the Great Hall and she suddenly stopped.
"Granger, what now?" he said impatiently.
"Malfoy, we cant – cant go in together," she hesitated.
"And why not?" he asked raising his eyebrow.
"Just think about what people will say, I mean, they'll be shocked," she said in a rush.
"Granger", he said breathing hard through his nose, "I couldn't care less about what people thought. But it seems you care so much, then fine!", with that he spun on his heel and marched into the hall on his own, leaving her stranded behind.
"Damn!" she thought furious with herself, just when things were going perfectly she had to go and ruin everything.
Sigh. She walked into the Great Hall and spotted Malfoy at the Slytherin table furiously buttering his toast and ignoring her as she walked past.
She sat down glumly at the Gryffindor table.
"Hermione!", Ron exclaimed loudly. "There you are and we were going to check the Hospital wing to see if you were sick or something," he was saying, as Harry smiled at her from behind him.
"Sorry Ron, I kind of had a long day yesterday and slept in late," she said massaging her temples, which were throbbing more after Ron had practically shouted in her ear. She poured herself some coffee and sipped it gratefully.
"So Hermione what're you going to do today? Harry and I have Quidditch practice," Ron said nodding at Harry.
"Yeah, I had to schedule extra practice sessions for our new Beaters," Harry explained.
"So we're going to be busy the whole day", Ron continued, "do you want to come and watch or go to the library?"
"Go to the library. I was hoping to do my Transfiguration essay today," she said taking another sip.
"Well, that's new", Ron said rolling his eyes, "'K then, we've gotta go, bye."
"Yeah, bye Hermione," Harry said waving as she smiled at them.
She glanced around at Malfoy who was alone at his table.
She went over with her coffee mug.
"Hey," she said coming to stand infront of his table.
He looked up and glared at her. "What do you want?" he snapped.
"Well, I was wondering if you want to come to the library after - we could work together on that Transfiguration homework."
"You don't have to ask me, just 'coz your little friends are too busy to be with you!" he said acidly.
"Must you make everything so difficult?" she asked, irritated, closing her eyes.
In reply Malfoy just went back to his breakfast.
"Fine!" she thought furiously, if he was so adamant an behaving like a child. She hurried out of the hall, clutching her coffee mug, as he stared angrily after her.
OoOoOoO
A/N : Peeves is turning out to be quite the cupid, don't you think?!
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