Chapter 10

A/N: I feel like I should warn you rape is mentioned in this chapter, nothing that I feel should make the rating go up, but if it makes you feel uncomfortable and you think it should be M, tell me.

I was going to post this yesterday, but I was a little worried about the reaction to this chapter...

As always, a huge thanks to the wonderful GreekGirl for betaing and thanks to everyone who reviewed!

~Frosty

By the time Malfoy woke from his nap, Ginny was long gone and Hermione was attempting to cook – attempting being the key word. He wandered into the kitchen to find her frantically waving a towel in front of the little round thing that beeped shrilly every time she burned things. The pair of them had received top marks in Potions, so it was baffling that neither of them could even manage boiling water when it came to food preparation.

"Let's go out and get something," he suggested.

Hermione turned to him with wide, surprised eyes; she hadn't heard him come into the room and he'd found her in an awkward position making an idiot out of herself.

"You want take-away again?" She asked with a sigh. It wasn't that she had anything against fast food, but the constant grease and all that salt really weren't good for them.

"No, we're going to actually go out and eat somewhere with multiple courses and minimal grease. Go put on something nice, you're going to have to pretend to be an airhead again."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. She may have felt horrible because he'd been in a lot of pain earlier in the day, but that didn't mean that she was going to let him get away with ordering her around like that.

He stopped her protests before she could even voice them. "Don't even start Granger. You need to stop moping around feeling sorry for yourself and everyone else, I'm going stir-crazy trapped in this tiny flat all the time. We're going out."

Well, when he put it that way... With a huff, Hermione retreated to her room to see if she had something revealing enough to make her appear to be one of the slags Malfoy dated. She found the perfect thing in the back of her closet; it was a tiny little black dress that Ginny had bought her as a joke. The thing barely covered her butt and was so tight that it left nothing to the imagination. Squeezing into the dress, she surveyed herself in the mirror. It was so tight her freckles would show through if she took a big breath. It was perfect for her purpose.

She completed her outfit with a pair of heels that were so high that she only wore them if she was sure there'd be someone walking near her at every second to catch her when the inevitable happened and she stumbled. Hermione examined the full effect. Something was missing... Heavy makeup! She slathered on piles of lipstick, eye-shadow and mascara until she felt like a circus clown.

When she looked in the mirror again at her whole ensemble, the effect was startling. The only thing Malfoy would have to change would be her hair. It was kind of fun to do this occasionally, it felt kind of like when she was a kid playing dress-up, but sluttier.

"Granger, I've been waiting for hours," Malfoy called, banging on the door.

She rolled her eyes, but wobbled over to open it; he'd only been waiting for twenty minutes.

When Malfoy caught sight of her, his jaw practically hit the floor. He made a strangled noise that sounded a lot like 'wow' and continued to stare.

Hermione reached over and shut his mouth for him. "Just because I'm playing dress-up doesn't mean I'm one of your strumpets. Treat me like one for even a second and I'll hex your balls off," she threatened dangerously. "Now change my hair blond so no one will recognise me."

"I don't think there's any danger of anyone seeing you dressed like that and thinking 'that looks like Hermione Granger'."

She wasn't sure whether that was an insult or a compliment, so she defaulted to offended; it was usually safest to assume insult when it came to Malfoy. "Just do it."

He waved his wand and changed her frizzy mess to straight, blond hair. Hermione didn't even ask how he knew spells to do that sort of thing; maybe his hair wasn't really what it appeared? She snickered at the idea of Malfoy with crazy, dark hair that was comb-resistant like Harry's. She knew the Slytherin would be horrified and offended if he had any inkling of where her thoughts had turned, and it only amused her more.

Hermione was glad that she'd opted for something that could pass as formal –not to mention 'obscene'-, as Malfoy had chosen dress robes that wouldn't have matched the pants-suit she'd briefly considered. "Where are we going?" She asked.

"You'll see," he said with a grin, offering her an arm. Without hesitation, Hermione put her hand on his arm so he could bring them to their destination – her blind trust in him should have set off warning bells in her head, but she was too focused on her excitement about getting out of the flat to be properly cautious about the events of the night. She felt a tug in her stomach as he Apparated them to a fancy looking restaurant.

He dropped her arm when their feet were steady on the ground and Hermione was disappointed to lose the support – particularly in the heels she was wearing. "Isn't this that new place that has a month-long waiting list?" She asked, vaguely remembering Ginny enthusing about Harry taking her here.

Malfoy just waved dismissively. "It is; I have a permanently reserved table."

He started walking briskly, obviously knowing where he was headed, leaving Hermione to do her best to wobble after him.

When the blond noticed that Hermione was no longer beside him, he glanced around to find her and rolled his eyes when he noticed what had happened. The woman could barely walk in those shoes; she looked like she was terrified every time she had to take a step and was tottering far too much to be anything but a danger to herself and others. He suppressed a fond smile and walked back to get her.

Hermione was so grateful when he wrapped a stabilizing arm around her waist that she gave him a dazzling smile of thanks. She made a mental to throw away the shoes as soon as she got home; they made her grateful to her enemies for small kindnesses.

They finally managed to make it inside without incident. The Maitre d' actually turned away from the guests he'd been speaking with and guided them to a table set apart from the rest. Hermione wondered how many dates Malfoy had brought there in the past for them to know Malfoy well enough to permanently reserve a table for them. Such thoughts made her feel a strange twinge of something, so she dropped them and filed the entire incident away in the deep recesses of her mind along with useless things that she never wanted to find again like Divination.

A pretty waitress approached their table and took their orders, smiling a little too long at Malfoy, paying very little attention to the other person at the table. Hermione ignored the snub and looked around the restaurant. "It's nice here, and the food looks much better than what I was cooking." She decided, sounding pleased.

Malfoy snorted and crinkled his eyes in amusement. "What were you cooking? It looked like shrivelled black bits to me."

"It was supposed to be hamburgers, but apparently I had the heat too high." She stopped talking to thank their waitress for bringing their drinks. Malfoy's eyes stared at the woman as she walked away, and Hermione had to tell herself she had no right to feel jealous as she watched him blatantly ogle the waitress.

Despite constantly telling herself to stop thinking about it, she couldn't help but wonder what that waitress had that she was lacking. After his initial shock and once-over, Malfoy seemed to actually avoid looking at her. Was she really so unattractive? Dismissing her thoughts as pointless and vain, Hermione tried to think of something to say that might get the prat's eyes off their server – not because she was jealous, it was because he was the one who'd insisted on this outing and it was downright rude of him to ignore her.

Once Malfoy finally managed to tear his gaze away from the eye-candy it had found, the conversation they started got awkward. Hermione felt like he was never looking at her face when he was talking to her, his grey eyes always seemed to be focused somewhere off over her shoulder. If this was the way he treated all of his dates, it was no wonder he didn't have very many second ones – she'd always assumed it was because he was the shag them and leave then type.

When their waitress came back with their food, Malfoy stood up and excused himself from the table. Hermione stared after him with a look of confusion until she saw him snag their waitress around the waist and pull her into the nearest loo. Her confusion turned into bitter disgust. The entire situation served as a nasty wakeup call; this person she was dining with wasn't a date, he wasn't even a friend, he was a spoiled asshole who only cared about himself and his next shag – something he obviously didn't have to worry much about because apparently, he could find them anywhere.

She was much more upset about his behaviour than she should have been. Angrily, Hermione dug into her delicious meal, barely paying attention to the flavour as she glared towards the closed door of the loo.

Her meal was gone before he re-emerged, so she paid for her half of the bill –this was not a date and she wasn't about to let him pay for things for her– before leaving the restaurant. She couldn't exactly leave the prat there to turn into a shadow, though he deserved it, so she walked outside and leant against the front wall of the store across the street to wait for him.

She was staring so intently at the door that she didn't notice the creepy looking man that approached her from the shadows. He was right beside her and leering before she noted his presence.

"How much?" He asked; his voice was as slimy as his hair looked.

Put off by his appearance, but not one to judge a book by its cover, Hermione spoke politely while taking a few discreet steps backwards. "How much for what?"

The man grabbed her arm and yanked her closer until she could smell his rank breath. "Don't play games with me girl." He tried to growl, but it came out as more of a strangled cough.

Hermione reached for her wand only to discover she didn't have it; of course she didn't have the thing, there was nowhere in her tiny dress to hide it! "I really don't know what you're talking ab-" He cut her off by punching her in the head and started dragging her towards a nearby alley.

Immediately after the impact, Hermione stumbled and would have lost her balance if it weren't for the crushing grip he seemed to have on her arm. She was dazed from the hit, little stars were dancing around in her vision and sound seemed to be doing strange things. Not a stranger to hits to the head, Hermione knew what was happening; she was on the verge of passing out.

Just as he was about to get her around the corner and out of sight, someone yanked on her other arm, pulling her out of his grasp. Her ridiculously high shoes made her stumble into her saviour's chest.

His grey eyes looked her over with concern before he let go of her to punch the man who tried to drag her into an alley. Hermione made a promise to herself to burn that little black dress. She hated feeling like a frail little girl being manhandled by these larger men. Maybe she'd sign up for self-defence classes or something in order to better handle such situations.

The creepy man fled down the alley as she watched, still in shock about what had happened. Malfoy grabbed her arm and Apparated them both back to her flat.

"What were you thinking standing out there alone, in the dark, dressed in that?" He demanded in an angry voice when they were safe.

She ripped her arm out of his grip. "Do. Not. Touch. Me. The only reason I'm dressed like this is because I don't want people to know I was out with you. The only reason I was outside was because I refused to sit there in the restaurant with people giving me pitying looks while waiting for you to finish shagging the waitress before joining me to eat. So don't look at me like that whole thing was my fault, I was mistaken for a prostitute and nearly raped in an alley, I don't need whatever shit you're about to spout off!"

Turning on her heel, Hermione fled to her room and slammed the door. She made sure to cast the strongest spells she could think of to keep unwanted intruders out.

Hermione felt dirty; it wouldn't surprise her if the man who had grabbed her had left a greasy outline on her wrist. She stripped off the dress and incinerated it right then and there. The heels quickly followed; they were useless torture devices anyway. The loo was off the main room, so if she wanted to shower she was going to have to cross paths with Malfoy – something she really didn't want to do.

An idea suddenly occurred to her and she brightened a little; if she were to leave her flat, Malfoy would turn into a shadow and be trapped there until she decided to return. Meaning she could go somewhere else to shower and he'd be completely unable to follow.

Grabbing a robe and wrapping it around herself, Hermione Apparated to Ginny and Harry's house.

"Hello?" She called, wincing when her voice cracked a little.

"Hermione?" Harry asked in a disbelieving voice. He stepped into the room and looked from her bare feet to her smudged heavy makeup insufficiently covering the growing black eye to her straight blonde hair. "What in the world happened?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she sighed. "But I need to use your shower, can I?"

"Of course, Hermione, you don't have to ask." He paused, debating whether he should ask his next question. "Does this have anything to do with the reason Ginny's so worried about you? She won't tell me anything."

"Yes, it has everything to do with that." Hermione sighed wearily as she walked past her friend.

"Hermione..." Harry seemed hesitant to ask his next question, but he wasn't sorted into Gryffindor for nothing, so he trudged on. "You're not in some kind of trouble, are you?"

"Not anymore, Harry." Her voice was firm and unwavering in her conviction. Perhaps she had been in trouble for a while there, with her softening feelings towards a certain evil ferret, but her eyes had been opened that night, and she wasn't about to make the same mistake again.

She had a very long, very hot shower, making sure to stay under the water until she felt like she'd managed to scour the day's events from her skin. Her mind was a different problem, but there was no easy fix for that. She would never admit it, but her heart may have been just the tiniest bit broken –a fracture really- and that was what was going to be the most difficult to fix.

Harry was waiting with Ginny when she came back out. "What happened?" Ginny demanded immediately once she'd taken in the state of her friend. The redhead's hands fluttered helplessly towards the black eye Hermione was sporting before falling uselessly to her side again, she seemed so out of sorts that she'd forgotten about her wand in her distress. "What'd he do?"

Harry was looking between the two of them. "He?"

The two women ignored Harry's question. Hermione sighed sadly. "I dressed up as one of his slags because we were going insane trapped in my flat, but he just left me at the table to shag the waitress in the loo."

Harry looked angry, and was about to interrupt, but Ginny waved him quiet; she knew there was more to the story. She was particularly interested in finding out who she was going to have to hex for that large purple smudge marring her friend's face.

"I refused to wait there myself for him to finish, so I ate my meal and left. I couldn't exactly leave him there with no way to get back, so I waited across the street. Someone mistook me for a prostitute – a prostitute! He punched me and tried to drag me into an alley when I didn't know what he was talking about."

Ginny moved from her seat to sit beside her friend while Harry started pacing. "There was no room in my tiny dress for my wand, so I was kind of helpless. He came out of the restaurant in time to punch the creepy man, then he Apparated us both to my flat."

"Who?" Harry demanded, looking between his fiancé and friend. He was ready to go on the warpath and arrest anyone who would dare put his friend in the state she was in.

Ginny looked at Hermione for permission before turning back to face Harry's green stare. "Malfoy."

If it hadn't been terrifying, Harry's face would have been hilarious. "You've been staying with Malfoy? You let Ginny stay with you and Malfoy?"

"Harry, calm down, he's not dangerous, just a bloody prat." Ginny snapped. She turned sympathetically to Hermione. "What are you going to do?"

Hermione thought for a moment, going over all her options. "I'm going to pay a visit to Snape." Harry looked like his head was going to pop, probably because his friend suddenly seemed to have contact with several Slytherins he hated on principal.

Hermione borrowed a pair of clothes before Apparating to the room at Spinner's End that was starting to become much too familiar.

Snape was sitting in a chair by the fire, reading when she appeared. "What's he done now, Miss Granger?" He asked with something akin to sympathy; apparently he knew how much of a moron his godson could be. His eyes widened the tiniest fraction when he caught sight of her bruise. "Surely not that?"

Hermione raised her hand to her face; she was going to have to heal that before anyone else jumped to the wrong conclusions. "No, Malfoy didn't hit me. But I need to know if you've made any progress on the cure."

The man looked hesitant, but finally spoke. "I have reason to believe if you were to kiss him, the spell may break."

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped, but Severus Snape was not the type to joke about matters so serious. She nodded, not bothering to question why a kiss would break the spell. What did it matter as long as Malfoy would be gone once it was finished?

"Okay, so I just have to kiss him and then I'll never have to see him again," she said, more to herself than to Snape.

He looked like he was going to object and say something, but he decided against it and just nodded.

Determined to be rid of the blond Slytherin that had been plaguing her flat for much too long, Hermione nodded with determination and stepped into the Floo.

A/N 2: *hiding* I'm betting some of you aren't very pleased with me right now. It had to happen though... I mean, he's still Draco with jerkface tendencies and all. This is just Hermione's view of the night, you'll get Draco's reasoning later.