The Unit Where Malfoy Reveals Just How Stubborn, Irritating, and Utterly Confusing He Is
{ Which will be told in 3 stories, all set in the two weeks of Unit 2: Hell Home Decorating }
1: Painting The House.
"Draco, this shade is almost exactly the same as this shade."
"Not quite. See, there's more a greenish tint in this one. I like it better."
"It's so much more expensive. We have to stay in our budget." She patted her jeans pocket, to make sure the Muggle money was still there. Draco had, in fact, stolen it from her book bag the day before, causing her to have a freak-out in the middle of a Homebase store. Hexing Draco to have worms crawl out of his nose could have attracted less attention from passers-by.
"Oh, come on, Hermione, we'll just spend less on the couch."
"Couches are expensive," she argued, plucking both the paint swatches out of Draco's hand.
"I'm not going to live in a house with a color like… that on the walls."
"It's the same exact shade!"
"Please. For me. Get the greener one."
"It's not any greener in tint."
"Maybe you need glasses, have you considered that?"
"I don't need glasses." She grabbed Draco's collar and dragged his ear closer to her, whispering so no one could hear. "I can fix my eyes if I want to, I'm a bloody WITCH."
"Oh, that's right," Draco said. "You should do that then. Because we're getting this color."
Hermione was done. She marched up to paint center counter, dragging Malfoy behind her. She smiled at the representative. "Hi, can we ask a question?"
"Sure!" the woman responded, pushing a black strand of hair behind her ear.
"Are these paint swatches almost identical? If not completely identical."
The woman stared at the paint chips for a second, eventually taking them into her own hands. "Yes, I'd say so. The only difference here is going to be price."
Hermione looked into Draco's face and said, "Ha."
"Excuse me, kind miss, are you sure that the other one isn't just a bit more green in color?" Draco jumped in, casting the saleswoman a brilliant smile. Hermione lashed out her hand and hit him in the side beneath the counter. Draco jumped but his smile remained unwavering.
"Um… I could possibly see that," the woman replied, grinning shyly at Draco.
It was Draco's turn to lean down towards Hermione and say, "Ha."
"But, I'd have to say the quality of this one is better for painting walls," continued the salesperson, holding up Hermione's chosen swatch. Hermione smirked.
Draco frowned. "Don't smirk, that's my move."
"We'd like to take two cans of the better choice, please," Hermione stressed. The woman smiled knowingly, then took the color and went over to her paint mixing machine. "Is this how the rest of this trip is going to be?" asked Hermione quietly.
"If you stay as stubborn as you are, then yes," Draco replied in a low voice.
"Draco. Reality: you are, indeed, the one who's being stubborn. But we got the paint. For… one of the rooms. Oh, dear."
"I get to pick the bedroom color."
"No, WE get to pick the bedroom color."
The woman was coming back up to the counter. She grinned. "You two sound just like me and my husband," she giggled, winking. Hermione felt her throat close up.
"O-Oh, we're not—" started Hermione, but she was silenced by a finger on her lips.
"Darling," said Draco. "Remember? Now we are." He shook his head at the saleswoman, slipping an arm around Hermione's shoulder and giving her a fake concerned look. "It's been 2 weeks and she's forgotten already." Hermione felt her face burning. Why was he doing this?
"Wow," said the saleswoman. "A surprise you could forget when you have a man that looks like that. Congratulations to you two!" She smiled right at Hermione, and Hermione could feel her cheeks getting hotter and hotter.
"Thank you," she squeaked out. "We're so happy together," she added with gritted teeth as she quietly dug her heel into Draco's shoe.
"Well, can I have a name for the paint order?"
Draco opened his mouth, but Hermione was faster. "Draco and Hermione Granger," she rushed. The woman typed it in.
"Beautiful names," she commented. Draco smiled sarcastically at the grinning Gryffindor.
"You made our last name Granger?" he asked angrily as they walked away into the aisles of paint swatches again.
"You got to choose that we were married. (Gross, by the way.) I got to choose the name. I think it's perfectly fair."
"It was easier than arguing," Draco scoffed. "And I think you were writing in that bloody journal when she was talking, but McGonagall said not to draw attention to ourselves, by any means."
"Whatever," Hermione said, grabbing some darker yellow swatches. "How about one of these for the kitchen? I'll let you choose this time, Mr. Granger."
2: IKEA
That day, the students were going to IKEA for furniture shopping. When McGonagall sent them out to their various stores with Portkeys, she would spread them out across stores all over the UK, to avoid a surge at one place. Thus, Draco and Hermione were being sent alone into an IKEA halfway across the country, only with a handful of other pairs they didn't know that well.
As soon as they laid their hands on the pencil that would take them to their location, they found themselves spinning through space. Draco closed his eyes. This form of travel was so primitive, so unpleasant. He preferred Apparation, or even Floo, to this.
With a pop, Draco and Hermione landed in an empty lighting aisle in IKEA. They looked around. Draco wandered out of the aisle. He saw the furniture for display, all angular and modern. He furrowed his brow. "I've never seen furniture like this before," he marveled.
"It's a modern style. Swedish furniture." Hermione was coming up behind him. She scanned the displays, too. "What do we want to look for first? I made a list from what she said in class, we need a new couch, a dining table, desks, and some piece of art."
Draco glanced at the list his partner held, scrawled in the project journal she always had. It reminded him of something. "We can get a couch from my manor. We have an extra one that I'm sure my mother would have gotten rid of by now if she didn't…" He was going to say fire the House-Elves, but that was a passionate subject for Granger, and he didn't feel like getting into it with her. "I'm sure she'll let us take it. It's black leather, it should match our other furniture."
"Okay," agreed Hermione. "That leaves more for our budget." She turned to the many displays of tiny lamps in the aisle beside her. "One of these would be nice, for readi—" Suddenly, Granger was crying out in pain.
"What?" asked Draco, watching Hermione grab her hand and back away from the lights. What, was she now a vampire? Draco leaned forward to look at her hand, but she jerked it away from him.
"I just… burnt myself, that's all." She still covered her hand as she pushed past him and walked deeper into the aisle. "I'm fine," she yelled back, her voice shaky.
Draco followed her. She was walking awfully fast. Stopping for a second, he held his hand over the metal of one of the lamps. The bulbs and shades were extremely hot. She must have grabbed one of them and not realized it was going to burn.
"Hermione," he called after her, chasing her down an aisle. "Are you okay? Where are you even going? We have to go to the furniture area."
Hermione slowed down and turned around slowly. "You're right. Sorry. Wrong way." She turned down an aisle leading to the center again, and Draco caught a hint of shininess in her eyes. Was Granger… crying? Oh, great.
"Hermione," he called again, this time stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. He lowered his voice so no one would hear. "Just let me heal you. It takes three seconds."
"I'm fine," she replied, rolling her eyes. "It's absolutely fine, I'm not crying, my eyes are just watering from the surprise."
Draco grabbed for the injured hand, and caught it. Hermione opened up her palm. The inside of her writing hand was a glowing red, and there was already a blister forming on her thumb.
"You're not going to be any help today if you're crying and hiding your hand, Granger," he argued as he pulled her deeper into the aisle and slid his wand from his coat pocket. He muttered a spell quietly, watching as the redness slowly disappeared and the blister faded away back into the skin, good as new. Hermione sucked air through her teeth and pulled her hand away as soon as the process was done.
"Thank you," she said, examining the skin once again.
Draco smirked. "Now I don't owe you anything from that time in that bloody room," he sang. Hermione's jaw twitched, like she was going to reply, but then she turned around, and Draco was proud that he had left the Gryffindor speechless.
A few minutes later, the two were wandering through model houses, marveling at the design of the space. It took a while for Hermione to start talking again.
"Who would have thought to put a dirty laundry hamper in a dresser? Space compression is an amazing science."
"Or, you know, you could just enlarge your living area." Draco was wondering why anyone would choose to live in a house so small that the bathroom was only 4 steps big.
"Normal people can't do that," pointed out Hermione, causing a passerby to shoot the pair a concerned look. "I like this desk," she commented, pointing at a nice black wooden one with drawers on part of the underside.
Draco shrugged. "It's… okay. I'm going to go look at other ones."
"Just wait a second, I want to check this one out more," said Hermione, examining the drawers in it.
Draco sighed. "I'll just be right out there, okay? Come find me when you're done."
"Fine." Draco left, maneuvering out of the maze-like model house and wandering around in search of the desks. There was a nearby balcony that overlooked the store, and he headed to it. Beneath him were shoppers, busily milling about, and also, he saw, a food place.
After a minute or two, Hermione was walking out of the model home, and towards Draco. "What are you looking at?" she asked him, following his line of sight.
"Do you want to get some food?" he asked. He hadn't eaten that much breakfast, and whatever heavenly smells were wafting up from the ground floor, he wanted more of it.
Hermione stared at him. "We just had breakfast. And it's Muggle food down there."
Draco peered down to see if he could see the menu from their height. "What kind of Muggle food? Like that macca and cheese you talked about?"
"Mac and cheese, and no, I don't believe they have that here." She started to walk away. "We have to finish our shopping first."
"Oh my god, what is a 'cinnamon bun?'" asked Draco, able to decipher one thing on the menu. Hermione snapped around, her eyes immediately filled with energy and excitement and lust.
"I haven't had a Cinnabon in so long." Hermione closed her journal with the furniture list inside, tossing it hurriedly inside her bag. "We can shop while we eat."
As fast as the escalator got them to the ground floor, Draco and Hermione speed-walked to the food place. There was no one in line, so Hermione stepped up, Draco in tow.
Draco listened to her order. "Can we get a pack of the cinnamon buns?" she asked kindly.
"Wait, Granger, I was literally asking, what is a cinnamon bun?"
"You'll see," said Hermione, brushing him away.
Draco frowned. "What if I don't want it?"
"Then I'll eat them myself."
As Hermione exchanged the money with the young girl behind the counter, she was handed a pack of the warm, gooey pastries.
"I'm not going to try it if you don't tell me what it is," said Draco, staring at the six blobs in the carton. "It smells like pure sugar."
"Don't go all 'I'm on a diet' on me now, you twig. If you don't eat one, I'm going to stuff one into your face," Hermione told him, the smell of the cinnamon buns making her giddy.
"What a cute couple," said the girl behind the counter as she handed Hermione the change, winking at her. Hermione rolled her eyes and pretended to gag.
"Thanks," Draco replied, playing along and pushing Hermione out of the way so the next person in line could get on with their life.
Draco and Hermione made their way up to the second floor again. On the escalator, Hermione hungrily pried open the package and grabbed the bun with the most icing. Draco watched as she sunk her teeth in and her eyes fluttered closed.
"Well, you're hungry," he noted. Hermione chewed on her pastry while she held out the tray to Draco. "Fine," he gave in, taking the one nearest to him. It was making his hands sticky. Cautiously, he took a bite.
"Merlin," he exclaimed, feeling his taste buds go into ecstasy. This was better than anything he'd ever tasted in his life. And that included the gourmet food at all of the Malfoy weddings and family events he'd attended as a child. This Cinnabon thing had to be enchanted.
"I told you you'd like it," Hermione mumbled with her mouth full. They stepped off the escalator and just stood at the top for a while, shoving their faces with cinnamon-y goodness. Draco vaguely wondered why this Muggle invention had been hidden from him his whole life. Maybe it was good though. He'd be fat if he'd known this was a thing. A brief image of a chubby younger Draco wobbling through the air on a straining broomstick flashed through his mind, but he quieted it with another mouthful of cinnamon and icing delight.
Draco decided to have half of another one, and Hermione shrugged, taking the other half he had ripped off. There they stood, in the middle of a Swedish furniture store, eating cinnamon buns to their heart's content and forgetting for a second that they disliked each other.
But then Hermione noticed the clock on the wall. "Oh, no," she groaned, dropping the last bite of her Cinnabon into the tray and snapping on the lid. "We only have 15 minutes," she blurted, wiping her mouth.
Rushed, Draco grabbed the pastry tray and took off for the living room area, hoping they could find what they needed quickly. Hermione eventually overtook him, holding a store map and pointing which way to go.
As they searched for a suitable dining table, Draco saw a dot of icing on Granger's cheek. He reached over and brushed it off as Hermione babbled about the color and size of the table and everything he wasn't listening to. She stopped for a second, glancing at Draco, annoyed, and then continued.
When they had to grab the piece of art, they grabbed the first painting they saw, and didn't think twice about it.
3: Teatime
Goyle was on one of his fantastically idiotic speeches when the owls came into the dining hall. Draco was happy for a break from the chatter about how stupid this year and all the classwork was. He rubbed his temples, sighing.
Birds swooped around, dropping letters and packages. Suddenly, a letter landed right in front of his plate. Draco wasn't used to receiving letters. He turned it around to see the Malfoy crest. It was from his mother. He opened it carefully.
Dearest Draco,
I quite enjoyed our talk on Sunday. If you could visit every week, that would be absolutely wonderful, but I understand if you are too busy with the activities that this project is presenting you. I am very glad to hear that you and Miss Granger are friends now. In fact, my dearest son, I'd love to see her in person for tea this afternoon. I took the liberty of finding out your school's schedule and there is nothing this evening, so a few hours of your time should be free to visit your dearest Mummy.
Draco set down the letter and groaned. Yes, he had told his mother upon inquiry that he and Hermione had become friends. He told her how he had been kinder to her by bringing her food when she was late, and helping her paint the house, even though he left out the details that weren't so kind. But now he was in a predicament. He and Hermione were not really friends, just awkward non-enemies still, and now his mother wanted to see her.
I cannot wait to hear what time you will be coming. Also, please inquire what Miss Granger's favorite plant is. Thank you.
With all Love and Sincerity,
Narcissa Malfoy
Blaise looked over at Malfoy, who sat with his head in his hands. "Are you alright, mate?"
"No," he replied, not moving.
"What's the problem?"
Draco picked up the letter and dangled it out for Zabini to see. "My mother."
Blaise accepted the letter, reading it through. "I honestly don't see a problem here," he replied, handing it back. Draco stared at it again.
"Hermione and I aren't friends," he said. "She's not going to agree to going. Especially not in such short notice."
"You could seduce her, that might help to convince her to agree," suggested Blaise, tearing off a piece of his bagel.
"That would never work. Maybe it did with Pansy, but not with Hermione," scoffed Draco. "And I'm being serious, Blaise, this is a predicament."
"You could also just ask her," said Blaise. He laughed. "And if she says no, then try seducing her."
"I'd have more luck getting Harry Potter to go visit my mother than Granger."
"Have Potter wear a wig and cross-dress."
"Zabini, you might be a genius." Draco turned around, looking at the Gryffindor table. Potter was talking to the Weaselette, and the Weasel was talking to Granger. Granger was laughing, her mouth open, head tilting back in abandon. The Weasel must have said something good.
"I'm not joking," said Blaise, snapping Draco back to the problem at hand. "Just try to convince her to come so the wrath of Narcissa Malfoy doesn't get tacked onto both of your backs. And grow some balls, stop playing the enemy game."
Draco slammed his hand on the table. "What did you just say to me?"
Blaise shrugged, eating a piece of his food. He pointed to where Granger was sitting. "You give more attention to her by annoying her than anything else. Really, you could just choose to not give her the time of day. Or, you could move the energy you use to make her pissed and make her happy. Friendship."
Draco sighed. "Oh, but it's so much easier just to—"
"It's easier to annoy her because it's immature. Grow up." Blaise was very good at being blunt. "Also, I don't know if you realize this, but that girl is single, and that girl is the Brightest Witch of our Damn Age." He looked at him pointedly, then continued to eat.
"Zabini, I have no intention of dating her," Draco mumbled, just to protest.
"Yeah, but the seducing trick might be good to pull out sometime," Blaise answered, winking at his extremely distraught best friend.
That afternoon after school, Hermione walked into the dorm to find Draco sitting on their brand new couch in the living room, fiddling with a letter in his hands.
"Hello?" she greeted, more like a question. This was looking very suspicious. This was the first time anyone had sat in their living room.
Draco looked into her eyes intensely. "I have a favor to ask of you," he said, standing up.
Hermione paused, growing concerned. "What?" She shifted her book bag on her shoulder and stepped closer into the room.
"I have a small problem, you see, and it involves you." Draco dangled the letter in his fingers. He cleared his throat. "As you may know, I visit my mother at least twice a month. We visited a few days ago, and I told her, to make her happy, that you and I have become friends."
"… Okay."
"Okay."
An awkward pause. Hermione shrugged. "So what's the problem?"
Draco looked down at the letter. "She wants you over for tea this afternoon."
"Oh," said Hermione. She had no desire to see that woman or that house. "Just tell her I can't come," she suggested, moving towards the hallway. Draco stepped out to stop her.
"My mother is a relentless woman. When she wants something done, it is done for her. I hope you realize that no matter how sweet she is, she will not leave either one of us alone until she sees in person that we are acting friendly towards each other."
Hermione frowned. "I have plans today."
"It will only take an hour or two. Tonight, Potter and the two Weasleys have Quidditch, and you're just going to be in here reading, so you have the time." Hermione's heart sped up. How did he know that?
"What if I don't want to go?"
"My mother is a fine and respectable woman, she'll be very kind to you. And after this there's nothing more. You'll never have to see her again. Let's just get this out of the way now, before this issue grows," Draco said.
Hermione bit her lip, thinking. This is not something she was jumping up, excited to do. "This is the ONLY visit?" Hermione clarified.
"Yes. The only one. And all I'm asking is that we act like we like each other for… for one tea session, and then we can both never be pleasant to each other again."
Hermione thought for a moment. She imagined if her parents, if they still remembered her, heard she was sharing a room with a boy for a year. They'd want to meet him. If he refused, it would seem like she was hiding something. And the last thing Hermione wanted Mrs. Malfoy to think was that she and Draco had something going on…
"Fine, I'll go," she finally agreed, letting out a breath.
Draco looked like he was digesting her answer, then sighed in relief. "Thank you. Hermione."
"It's fine," she said, finally allowed to go to the bedroom.
Draco followed her as she dropped her bag on her bed and undid the cloak she wore on top of her school outfit. "So we can leave in about an hour," he told her. "The attire is mostly formal."
Hermione paused from unpacking her schoolbag. "I don't really have anything," she confessed.
Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes, you do. Let me see your closet." Before Hermione could protest, her closet was being raided by her male roommate.
"You wore this before," said Draco, stepping out of the closet with the casual yellow dress she had tucked away. Ah, yes, the wedding night dress.
"It's not formal," Hermione weakly responded. "Also, it's too cold outside for me to wear a sleeveless dress."
Then Draco disappeared into her closet again, and when she heard drawers being opened, she ran to see what he was doing.
At the sight of her open underwear drawer, she started yelling.
"Relax!" cried Draco, his pale face burning red at his cheeks. He grabbed a pair of black tights from the drawer and quickly shut it. Hermione's face boiled. Malfoy had just gotten a good look at all of her lingerie. "I'm almost done," protested Draco, holding his hands up in surrender with the tights dangling from his hand. He pulled a black blazer from the rack, and examined Hermione's shoe collection, all laid out on a shelf. Selecting her only pair of heels, Draco walked out of the closet and dropped the items on Hermione's bed.
"Put it all on together," he ordered. With a scowl, Hermione gathered up the clothing in her arms and walked to the bathroom.
Hermione struggled into the black tights, then slid into her yellow dress. She managed to get it zipped up the back by herself: something every woman must learn to do. She pulled on the blazer. The black made the dress look more wintery. Hermione felt a little defeated that even Malfoy could come up with better outfits than her sometimes.
She stepped out of the bathroom, heels in her hand. Draco was already waiting at the end of the hallway.
"No, no, put the heels on."
Hermione laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. "These aren't even mine, Ginny gave them to me. I don't wear high heels."
"You're wearing them today," was Draco's response.
"Fine." Hermione put the heels on the floor and stepped into them. She could feel the height difference. Now she wasn't so short compared to Malfoy. She was almost eye-to-eye with him.
Draco stared for a second, the gears grinding in his head. Hermione waited impatiently. Then he went back into the room, and came out with a black belt and a necklace. The belt was from her closet, but…
"Where'd you get the necklace?"
Draco looked at it and shrugged. "I don't know. It could have been Pansy's." It was a silver chain with three pendants of dark stone. It was quite beautiful. And expensive looking.
"So you just had a random women's necklace in your belongings." Draco was pushing her into the bathroom again. He tossed her the belt and she cinched it around her waist as Draco examined the necklace.
"I guess so. I just found it in a small box yesterday."
Draco stood her in front of the mirror and undid the necklace clasp. Hermione watched his fingers. There is a cliché in storytelling, a scene where the male protagonist presents his love interest with a necklace, and in the process of putting on that necklace, the love interest feels the man's fingers brushing her neck and she gets shivers and realizes that she is completely in love with the protagonist. The scene is usually dragged out and slow and sensual, and usually ends in passionate kissing. But no, this scene was not going to be that in any way at all. Sorry, everyone.
Draco draped both ends of the necklace in front of Hermione's neck, and she moved her hair out of the way for him. When he brought the ends together and secured the clasp, his warm fingers brushed her neck before they pulled away. Hermione refused to shiver. Instead, she looked at her reflection and the surprisingly wonderful outfit Draco Malfoy had picked out, and since she was vaguely wondering it, she said it aloud to break the awkward silence.
"Might you perhaps be gay?"
Draco was taken aback. "Excuse me?"
"Your innate sense of fashion. Always with Goyle and Zabini. Hatred for Harry and Ron, the bleached hair… Um, it could fit those old rumors that you're gay," said Hermione, unable to stop her scrambling explanation. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. If that's who you truly are. I'm just curious—"
She was going on while Draco was moving so he was walking closer to her in front of her, pushing her back. She stopped talking, stepping backwards as best as she could in her heels until her back hit the glass wall of the shower, producing a low ringing sound as the glass was struck. Draco was still moving closer, and Hermione went into panic mode again like she did on the paint day, unable to gather enough breath for words. Draco ducked his head and stopped when he was breathing into Hermione's ear, his hands placed on the glass on either side of her.
"First of all, my hair is not bleached. And no, Hermione, I am definitely not gay." Draco whispered slowly, purring on her name. Involuntarily, she shuddered. The hot breath on her neck tickled. She closed her eyes and pushed her back into the glass. It shouldn't have affected her as much as it did.
Then, Draco pulled away and Hermione shot her eyes open, forcing her face into a frown.
"Sorry, Granger, I like my women. I'm not into the other stuff." He turned to the mirror as if nothing had happened and checked his hair. "I just have, as you said, an innate sense of fashion. On a different note: with my mother, she will probably ask you some questions about me, and it would be appreciated by everyone if you could give some kind answers. I might do something completely out of character, but just play along. I cannot stress to you how important getting my mother off of our backs is. Just for an hour. For your sake and mine. Play along." With that, he was walking back out of the bathroom, calling, "We leave in ten minutes."
Hermione stayed, back pressed against the glass shower wall, still wondering what in the world happened and how to react to it.
Draco put on his suit jacket before he called for Hermione once more. In the 10 minutes remaining, she had pulled her hair up into a bun, with strands dangling down to frame her face.
"Let's go," he beckoned, leading her out the portrait door and towards the grand staircases leading to the Dungeon. Hermione said nothing as they walked. Draco noted this and found it extremely amusing. He now knew the trick to making Granger speechless.
At first, Draco had planned to try and take her breath away if she didn't agree to go to tea with his mother. He hadn't had to do that, and he was relieved that he would not have to follow Blaise's advice. But what had seized him to toy with Hermione that afternoon was experimentation. It was the perfect opportunity. He knew he had the skills to make her weak—it was just seeing if they worked. From the way Hermione wasn't saying much, he knew they had.
As they started down the staircases, Draco couldn't help but strut a little. He knew he was undeniably sexy. Now even Granger had to admit it—
"Ow, Merlin, Granger, why?" he cried in pain as his stomach was hit with the force of a punching charm.
Now, from the seclusion of the staircase, Hermione was retaliating. "I had to test that one out. I'd never done it on a person before."
"Wordless magic?" Draco asked, regaining his composure and trying to brush off the pain from the impact in his abdomen.
"Yes. It seemed like a good time to try it. I'm prepared to use it in case you try anything while we're at your Manor."
"I wasn't going to try anything. I asked you an honest favor to come here, to save both of our backs. You're so uptight, Hermione."
Without a word, Hermione blinked and had an invisible fist punch the wall, causing bits of rubble to fly out of the brick. Draco smirked at her. She wouldn't faze him, at least not visibly. As far as he knew, he had the control.
When they got to the Dungeon, Draco led her to the Slytherin dorms.
"Take it all in while you can. You're about to see the Slytherin dormitories and you're not coming here to shag one of the House members. That's usually the entry ticket."
Hermione grimaced. "That's kind of absolutely disgusting."
"Why does it matter to you?" replied Draco dryly. He muttered the current passcode and they stepped into the common room. The eyes of the room's inhabitants shot up, mostly the eyes of younger Slytherins that cowered in reverant fear of Draco's shadow. One of them dared to speak.
"Malfoy, how are you?" asked a fifth year Slytherin named Park, standing up from the couch. Draco had met him once in the time Park had come to the school. Draco didn't even know his family name, which was rare because usually family ties were more important than first names in the Slytherin house.
Other heads popped up from the couch, where little Slytherins sat completing their homework. "I'm fine, thank you," answered Draco to Park. The students on the couch looked to their textbooks again, until they heard the female voice following Draco in through the portrait hole.
"Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I believe it's against school rules to bring House members to other dormitories to have sssssss-" Hermione stopped when she saw that all eyes were on her, and some of the Slytherins in the room were standing up in surprise as she walked into the foreign common room.
Park, always the outspoken one, stared at the Gryffindor that had infiltrated the sacred Slytherin base. Of course, to them, an outsider being there could only mean one thing. "Hermione Granger? Never would have guessed."
"Uh, hello," she responded, confused, watching this younger boy staring at her with bewildered dark eyes. It was awkwardly silent. A girl standing near the couch coughed uncomfortably.
Then it all clicked in Draco's mind, and he knew exactly what these children were thinking. "Oh, it's not like that," he quickly and coolly replied to the unasked question hanging in the air. It was still silent. "We're just going out for a while." Draco cued Hermione to follow him further into the common room, past the Slytherin crowd on the couch and to the huge fireplace adorning the wall opposite.
"You can take your dates outside of the school?" quietly asked a girl with a long blonde braid to her friend.
Hermione was oblivious. "Wait, what is going on with them?" she whispered, reacting to Draco leading her to the fireplace with his arm on her shoulder.
Draco shrugged, grabbing the bag of Floo powder from his jacket and grabbing Hermione's hand to pour some in. "Nothing. We have to go separately, so just request 'Malfoy Manor' and I'll be right behind you."
Hermione glanced distrustfully at Draco. "I want extra. I don't want you stranding me there."
Draco rolled his eyes and gave her an extra bit of powder for her other fist. With one last skeptical look at her partner and the Slytherin commons, she tossed the Floo powder into the fire, muttered her destination, and she was gone.
As soon as she disappeared, Draco turned around and glared at Park and the rest of the gang. "No rumors. If I find you're spreading rumors about this, I'll have you disposed of. It's not what you think between me and the Gryffindor. Granger and I just have some business to take care of."
Park raised his eyebrows.
Draco sneered. "Oh, you have a dirty little mind just like me. Park, I like you, but don't make me kill you. Hermione Granger have nothing to do with each other except sharing a room—"
Eyebrows raised even higher.
"—and mutual hate." Draco glared. "Merlin. You'll never get it. Just don't talk," he pleaded, giving up. "Malfoy Manor," he finally exclaimed, an inferno of green flame taking him to meet his mother.