The smile still lingering on her lips Hermione was completely caught off guard as she turned the corner and found herself pulled into a small, empty classroom. She had almost forgotten she had asked Malfoy to wait.
He lit the light with a muttered Lumos, and a waive of his wand, but kept the light dim enough that it was hard for Hermione to see him. She raised an eyebrow questioningly and he muttered a silencing spell at the door in response.
"I cannot fathom what you have to say to me Granger, but I certainly don't want to be seen associating with you."
Not affected by the words after hearing similar from him for so long, Hermione simply rolled her eyes. Although this seemed to annoy Malfoy, he didn't say anything, seemingly content with narrowing his eyes at her. She had to fight to not roll her eyes again, he was so predictable. Then again, why fight it? She let her eyes roll again and was pleased to see how much it seemed to bother him.
"I think I found something to help you."
Malfoy seemed confused at first, almost like he had forgotten that he had asked her for anything. This only further confirmed her suspicions that he had fabricated the need for this research.
"You found a way to counter the cruciatus curse?" His words simply dripped with condescention, which only made Hermione happier. She loved proving people wrong.
"Yup." She said this simply, intentionally making him continue the conversation if he wanted the information. Malfoy certainly did not appreciate Hermione trying to gain the upper hand, he looked like he was about to snap; thin and drawn, but terribly dangerous. She was suddenly very aware of the fact that they were alone.
It was close to curfew, so it was unlikely anyone would be walking past. Her eyes darted unintentionally towards the door. Malfoy seemed to realize what she was thinking, and quickly took advantage of the fear. Ugly smirk back on his face he slowly and purposefully walked towards her, stopping much closer than was comfortable.
Hermione refused to be cowed by Malfoy and made herself stay where she was, not giving in as he clearly wanted her to back down. She couldn't help a small shudder at the look in his eyes though. How could someone her age have such hate in them? Some emotion fluttered across his face, but it was gone so quickly she wasn't sure if she had imagined it. The anger in his face seemed to radiate. Again, she had no idea why he was reacting so strongly. She knew he didn't like her, despised her even, but he was usually content with derision, or annoyance. This outright rage made it seem like he was coming apart, like he was losing control. This did nothing to calm her fear and she tried to take a few deep breaths.
"Malfoy. You asked me to do this. If you are going to keep reacting like this I really don't want to be around you. But, well. I think I found a solution for you. That is, if you're actually interested." She thought about rolling her eyes again to get across her point but decided against it. They really were alone, and magic or not, he physically towered over her. She had to crane her head to meet his eyes, but there was no way she would look away, not for a second.
"Granger. There is no way to counter the Cruciatus Curse." Malfoy took a step back and rubbed his eyes in annoyance as though addressing a child. "Did you think I really was asking for your help on something?"
He shook his head, making eye contact with her again, "When all you do is try to be nice, to be everyone's favorite little mudblood, it makes you entirely too easy to manipulate. There isn't even any fun in it." He suddenly turned on his heel heading towards the door.
Although Hermione's first thought was one of relief that he was leaving, she suddenly panicked. This potion could really help the Order, but she couldn't do it without him. Choosing to ignore his last comments she had to try to make him understand.
"Malfoy. Wait!" He froze but did not turn around.
Hermione continued regardless. "I really did find something, it was in the restricted section and coded, but I figured it out, it's just, it's not quite right. We need to change it before we can get it to work. But I know we can make it work, we can alter it to block the effects." She, of course, said this very quickly, but Malfoy still hadn't moved. He seemed to be thinking about something so she waited and tried to be patient. What felt like much later, but was probably only a minute or two, Malfoy turned around. No anger or annoyance in his face anymore, he actually seemed - interested maybe?
"Two things Granger." Again, spitting out her name like it was bile. "What is this about 'we'? And what in the world are you talking about? Alter what exactly?"
"Oh, well, a potion, obviously." Hermione almost laughed, more from relief at his reaction than anything else. Thankfully she managed to restrain herself, she did not want to make him mad again and he was being much too unpredictable lately.
"And 'we' because if you really are the second best in the class, and if you really as good in potions as Snape always makes it seem…" She paused, waiting for his reaction to her skeptisism. He didn't respond so she continued "If you really know your potions then the two of us are probably the only two that can figure this out. Unless you want to go to Snape." The anger that flashed in his eyes at Snape's name startled her, he seemed to be having weird reactions to everything lately. He was supposed to be Snape's little protégé. Malfoy seemed to be thinking it over though, which was more than she had expected. So she waited again to see what he would say.
He seemed angry again. Of course. Hermione almost flinched when he raised his wand, unconsciously moving her hand to the wand in her robe pocket. Malfoy smirked at the movement but just increased the illumination of his Lumos.
"Show me."
He turned and stalked to the Professor's desk at the front of the room. Hermione followed pulling her bag around her front to pull out the papers. After pulling the stack out she shifted through it, making sure to not let him see any of the other pages with the creepy, more evil potions on them. Luckily she had deciphered this potion mostly on its own page. With a quick spell to erase a few lines of another potion, she set the page on the desk, turning it to face Malfoy.
He looked over the page for longer than it would take to just read the steps of the potion, and Hermione realized he was trying to figure out the cipher, but her key was on another page. Malfoy looked up at her, seeming to try to decide if dealing with her was worth the potion. She rolled her eyes again, and he glared at her.
"I need to see the the book you got this from."
"Malfoy, it was from the restricted section, there is no way I am going to show you that book." Hermione had spoken before thinking about how it sounded. Malfoy took it in stride, seeming to decide it was his turn to roll his eyes.
"I will not show you the book. Or the other things that I found in it. But I can show you the original text for this potion, and the key I made that will decipher it for you."
Hermione dug through her bag for the page with the key she had developed, quickly transferring it to another page so she wouldn't have to erase everything else she had put down on that particular sheet. Handing the page to Malfoy he took it without comment, and picked up the other page, turning to walk out.
"Wait! You can't just take that! Do you have any idea how long it took me to figure out this information? There is no way you are getting it without me being involved!" Malfoy kept walking, ignoring her.
It took a lot to make Hermione mad, especially at someone who looked as exhausted and malnourished as Malfoy currently did - almost like kicking a sick puppy. But, she would be damned if she let him walk out of that room with those papers.
Pulling her wand quickly she spelled the sheets out of his hand and snatched them from the air. Then, before he could even turn around she cast the leg lock curse, making him stumble and fall flat on his ass. A quick expelliarmus and a silencio and she walked up to stand in front of Malfoy, effectively helpless on the floor. The rage was back in his eyes, but this time Hermione didn't mind.
"I did you a favor. It is polite when some one does you a favor to say thank you." She tried to put the same level of condescention in her voice as Malfoy had earlier and rather felt like she was succeeding.
"You would not have this information without me, and I will not let you use it without me." His eyes flashed, presumably at the idea of her 'letting' him do anything, but she continued. "If you would like to work on this potion, we will do it together." She lifted up the paper in her hand a began doing a complicated set of spells on it, Malfoy looked on incredulously.
"Whenever you are out of the presence of this paper, you will not remember what it says." This was a spell she had learned to prevent Ron and Harry from simply cheating off of her instead of learning themselves, and she was rather proud of it. Malfoy just glared - not that there was much more he could do.
"I am free on Saturdays if you would care to sit down and figure this out with me then let me know the time and place you would like to meet." She turned, about to walk away, but paused, she really couldn't let this opportunity pass.
"I may be a mudblood Malfoy" she paused as his eyes widened slightly at her use of the phrase "But I am the best witch in the school, I am friends with Harry Potter, and I have helped him face Voldemort more than once." He flinched, as expected when she used Voldemort's name, eyes going even wider. Hermione leaned down, mere inches away from Malfoy's face.
"You and the rest of his followers will lose. You don't scare me." She paused for a second just staring into his steel grey eyes. She couldn't read the emotion there but felt like she had certainly gotten her point across. Hermione slowly stood up, picked up her things, and turned to leave the room.
"Oh, the spell should wear off in about ten minutes. Careful not to get caught out after curfew." Hermione laughed lightly and quickly made her way up to her dorm, happy to spend the rest of the night helping Harry and Ron on their latest assignments.
