Chapter 10:

Warning: a tiny bit of french (with rough translation included!)

After the breakfast incident, Hermione had had to go back to her room to pick up all her books, and now any hopes of reaching her first class on time were dashed. She raced down the long empty corridor to room 13 and paused in front of the door, exhaling a quick breath before she pushed down on the door handle.

About seven students craned their necks round to stare at the new arrival, ignoring the teacher tapping angrily on the blackboard with her chalk stick.

"Votre attention s'il vous plait! Cette personne-la, est-elle plus important que votre examens ? Non ! Attention !" she rapped sharply on the board with the chalk as a few of the students mumbled « oui, Madame… » and turned their heads reluctantly back. The woman whirled back to the boardwork, completely ignoring Hermione, and half the students turned round again and continued staring.

Hermione kept her eyes on the floor, unsure of how exactly to proceed. The teacher must be purposely ignoring her. She started to make her way towards a free seat.

Suddenly, the ferocious-looking French woman whirled round impatiently and stared down at Hermione through her chunky retro specs. She was short, extremely thin and dressed in a well-cut suit and colourful scarf. About sixty years old, she had the look of someone you would not want to cross.

"Alors….what do you want exactly, mademoiselle? You clearly cannot be one of ze students of this class, because class started, en fait, ten minutes ago. So….?" She cocked her head and regarded Hermione smugly.

Hermione felt her cheeks blushing as the whole class turned their shoulders again to look at her. Determined to redeem herself, she summoned up her best French accent and replied –

"Je suis desolée madame, mais en fait, je suis le nouvelle membre de cette classe. J'ai trompé de salle de classe" [I'm sorry Madame, but in fact, I am the new member of the class. I got the wrong room]

The teacher cocked one eyebrow and replied without missing a beat –

« mais, ma cherie, l'autre nouvelle n'ont pas perdu son chemin…[but, my dear, the other student didn't get lost…]I'm afraid that I'm going to have to give you a detention. My office, 4.30 ce soir. D'accord, and now, we can continue. Finalement!"

She turned round curtly and continued writing on the board, enunciating aloud the verbs she was writing in a meticulous and clipped voice. Hermione's jaw dropped at the utter unfairness of this woman. She was not ten minutes late, only about two! And who was this other "new student" that was so perfect, she thought, fuming. Unless.....no!

Glancing around wildly, her eyes alighted on a silvery blonde mop of hair sitting at the front of the class, and she groaned to herself. Not Malfoy! She hadn't thought about the fact that they might have some classes together. And why did he have to be in the one class where the teacher apparently hated her? She could bet on the fact that he would do everything he could to exacerbate the problem.

She felt a strange jolting feeling in her stomach as she realised that she had clearly started this class off on a bad-foot and didn't know what to do. Heart sinking, she realised that here, no one knew who she was. No-one here knew that Hermione Granger would never voluntarily miss class, or turn up late deliberately. She could feel a rising panic, but as she moved quietly towards the nearest seat, she consoled herself that earlier on, she had been telling herself to let go a little.

So, in theory, she thought whilst pulling out the chair slowly, it shouldn't matter. She sighed and dropped into her seat. Disturbance over, the quiet class had returned to their books, and Hermione bent to get some paper from her bag.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. Straightening up, she looked to her left to see a pair of warm brown eyes staring back at her. They lingered just a little longer than was normal, before the face broke into a charming smile. Hermione felt her heart flutter a little. She almost laughed out loud – some "letting go and enjoying herself" this was, she hadn't even noticed that she had sat down to what had to be one of the best looking boys she had ever seen in her life. She smiled back slowly.

With a quick glance towards the front, he leant towards her and whispered "Hey. Don't worry about her, she's an old..." But he never got a chance to finish the sentence, because the eagle-eyed teacher shrieked – "excuse-moi!" towards their direction. They sprung apart, perhaps more than was necessary, and Hermione tried to look innocent, aware that the boy was doing the same.

"Once again, it is ze new student who is interrupting us! You are obviously refusing to get along in zis class, so your detention will be half an 'our longer tonight."

Hermione's jaw dropped. Some of the class sent sympathetic grimaces in her direction. She heard Malfoy chuckle slyly.

"And now will you go and sit over zer so you will not deestract my students. Allez!" she pointed to a desk on the other side of the classroom, about five metres away from everyone else. Stunned, Hermione got up and walked slowly towards it, barely registering her neighbour's whispered "sorry." This woman was a complete......she seethed, unable to find a word in her head strong enough. Scowling, she watched the woman strutting about in front of the blackboard and gave her a very un-Hermione-like gesture from under the table.

Malfoy was currently answering a question in a slimy French accent: she extended the gesture to point in his direction as well, and felt a small amount of satisfaction from this tiny rebellion. She couldn't see his face, but she could see hers, and the sickly smile as she gazed upon her new student was enough to make anyone wretch. Ugh.

Just at that moment, Malfoy glanced around at the classroom smugly and caught her gaze. She stared stonily back, and his face cracked into a wicked grin. "Having fun?" he mouthed.

~~~~~

An hour later, when the sound of bells pealing signalled the end of the class, Hermione angrily swept her books into her bag and was first out of the door. The fact that she had no idea where she was going as she stomped along the corridor did nothing to alleviate her bad mood. Her cardigan, which she didn't want to waste precious time putting on properly, had fallen down her back and was partially dragging on the floor. She knew her timetable was right at the bottom of her bag where she had left it, but could not bring herself to stop until she was a long way from that wretched classroom, wretched teacher and wretched Malfoy.

"argggh!"

She let out a small scream of frustration as she rounded the end of the corridor, where the building open out to a small brick-red courtyard, perhaps one of the ones she had dashed across this morning. The giddy happiness of this morning seemed a far cry away from the bad turn the day had taken.

But it seemed that the world wasn't quite done with ruining Hermione Granger's day yet. Just as she put her foot outside the door into the courtyard, she felt a tug at her back, and looking round, saw that her cardigan had snagged. But it was too late. Her forward motion already begun, she just had time to turn around and see the concrete paving rising up to smack her in the face.

Her yelp was muffled by the sound of her books crashing to floor as they fell from her arms. She couldn't believe her luck, and lay there for a second, feeling an uncharacteristic petulance rising up inside her. Why was everything bad happening to her?! What had she done to deserve all this?

Sitting up, she gathered her skirt around her in case she stood up and flashed everybody her knickers, as if she hadn't done enough already to embarrass herself. Luckily, the throng of people she followed to the courtyard had mostly dispersed, and only a few small first year boys were left to giggle and point. Well, let them laugh, she thought, because this is where it ends. From this time today, things were looking up, she told herself. It couldn't get worse.

She began to dust down her hands.

"Granger, Granger, Granger," a smooth voice drawled from behind her.

Oh no. She was wrong. It could get worse. Much, much worse.

Malfoy. She said through clenched teeth, spinning around. "Is it not enough to drop me in it, in my first ever class! Come to see it through have you, make sure I'm properly humiliated?! You stepped on my cardigan, didn't you?" She stalked towards him, seething. There he stood, tall and languid, with his sweater slung over his shoulder and...her books in his hand?

"Wh - ?" she stopped momentarily.

Cool and detached, he replied, "Granger, I didn't step on your cardigan, it snagged on that nail." He pointed to a rusty nail attached to the old courtyard door. Hermione saw the fragments of her red cardigan twisted round it and realised he was telling the truth. Unable to make a comeback, she turned on her heel and started to cross the courtyard, digging in her bag for her timetable at the same time.

Someone fell into step besides her and she looked up and groaned internally. Malfoy. Why wouldn't he leave her alone?

He was watching her face, one eyebrow raised. "Hermione Granger wasn't going to walk off without her precious books was she?" indicating her books, still held under his arm. She felt her face colour, but reached out and made a snatch for them - "let me have them then!" He moved his arm just out of her reach, grinning now. "Wouldn't want you to fall over again..." he said, eyeing the small fountain that Hermione had only just avoided walking into.

"I'm not some...some 'damsel in distress' you have to rescue, Malfoy! Just go away!" she said in a voice fraught with tension and annoyance. Draco smiled and continued walking, eyes on the horizon. Hermione let out a loud, annoyed sigh, and saw his smirk widen.

She decided the best tactic was silence, and ignored him, trying to walk a bit faster. He lengthened his strides easily, to match her.

Defeated, and severely peeved, she stopped and wheeled to face him.

"Draco Malfoy."

He raised his eyebrows and waited for her to go on. She crossed her arms. "I need to get to my next class. Now if you will stop BUGGING me and give me my books, I can get there."

He didn't move, except to raise that one eyebrow slightly higher. "And where would 'there' be, Granger?"

"What?" she narrowed her eyes.

"There. I don't believe you know where it is. Last time I checked, you hadn't even consulted your timetable. Which, if I am correct, tells me that..."

He pulled out a crumpled piece of A4 from between the pages of her French dictionary. Hermione gasped.

"...your next class is Maths, in M3" He held out her timetable, watching her with a hint of a smirk on his face, eyes glittering. She grabbed the piece of paper, rather ungraciously, and thrust it deep into her pocket. Turning on her heel, she walked the last few steps across the courtyard, into the dark cloisters and along the nearest corridor. She breathed a sigh of relief. Finally. Gone.

"You're going the wrong way," a voice called through the darkness.

Hermione threw up her hands dramatically and wheeled around to find, surprise surprise, an unpleasantly familiar face.

"Will you stop FOLLOWING me?"

"Granger. You don't want to be late for another class, do you?" He turned around and started walking away. He was right, Hermione thought, despair starting in. She actually had no idea where she was going, and everyone seemed to have already moved on to their next classes. Fabulous. Why was everything going wrong today?!

"I'm heading that way. Follow me" Malfoy called over his shoulder. Hermione hesitated, but decided that she had no other option than to follow him.

With Hermione dragging a few paces behind, they re-crossed the now empty courtyard and turned left in front of the door she had tripped up by, making their way up a path through carefully manicured lawns, towards a low-rise, red brick building. Hermione would never have found this in time.

"How do you know where this is?" she asked petulantly, breaking her vow of silence.

"Did a little exploring last night." Malfoy replied nonchalantly, without turning round.

"Mmm, exploring maths classrooms. Well if that's your idea of fun, Malfoy..." Hermione said grumpily. She was in a very bad mood now, and Malfoy was a good enough punch-bag as any. In fact, better than any, considering what she had suffered at his hands for many years.

He didn't rise to the bait though, and Hermione was a little disappointed to have no outlet for her frustration. They continued on in silence until they entered the building, and Draco pointed to a door on the right. "Voila." He said dryly. Hermione rolled her eyes and took the books he held out.

She opened the door tentatively to find, yet again, a full class turn round in their seats to stare at her. The teacher continued writing on the board, oblivious of the interruption. She cleared her throat.

"Erm, excuse me, Sir. I'm sorry I'm late..." the teacher turned round and peered at her owlishly through thick spectacles, along with his class. "I, er..." She realised that she actually had nothing to say as an excuse. The teacher's frown began to deepen behind his glasses.

"We're new students," a smooth voice cut in. Hermione looked round sharply.

"If you'll forgive us, Sir, we went to the wrong classroom. I'm Draco Malfoy and this is Hermione Granger." He flashed the man a small smile. "Shall we sit down?"

"Ahem, yes, yes, do please." The old teacher smiled back at them both, waving his hands towards some spare seats at the far side of the room. "You'll find text books on the front desk here. We're just starting differential equations, making some notes, yes, ahem. Well, do sit down!" he said gently, prompting them to move. Hermione smiled anxiously at the old man and moved towards her new seat. But inside her head was spinning. Why on earth was Malfoy doing MATHS?

They sat down and curiosity overcame her. She pulled out a piece of paper from her new book, and as the class copied down the notes, she wrote her own ~

Malfoy – why are you doing maths? What subjects are you doing? How are you going to keep up if you've never done it before? Differential equations are quite advanced, you know.

She glanced around quickly to make sure the old man was still facing the board, and chucked the note onto Malfoy's desk next to her. He took it, looking somewhat surprised and gazed at it a while, before turning it over and writing a reply. She tapped her fingers on the desk while she waited. Eventually, he threw back the paper on her desk and scowled at her. Her eyes widened and she started to read.

Granger, believe it or not, I've actually done differential equations before. And calculus, integration, everything else. And why? Well, work this out, brainbox –

Malfoy = money.

Money + Lucius Malfoy = son who knows how to manage money

Mathematics + arithmancy = managing money.

Therefore Malfoy = can do maths.

So get off your Gryffindor high horse.

Hermione was a little annoyed at herself as she felt an odd sense of guilt snagging at her conscience. She realised she had unfairly offended him, and much as offending Malfoy was something she would normally take great pleasure in, he HAD helped her out this morning, apparently of his own volition, so this time she felt a little bad. Sighing, she wrote back,

Sorry. That's interesting, I didn't realise maths was used by the WW. Well, thanks for getting us out of trouble.

Perhaps he would leave her alone now. She thrust the note over to his desk again, ignoring him, and began to studiously copy down the notes from the board. That was enough dealings with Malfoy for the day. She didn't want to lose what was left of her pride.

But apparently, he wasn't thinking along the same lines. A piece of paper materialised in front of her eyes, and she unfolded it to see a curt – "WW?"

For someone who was supposedly the "cream" of the wizarding world, you'd think he knew its abbreviation. She tutted under her breath and wrote back quickly:

"Come on, Malfoy, we're "undercover" here. I mean the world that we live in, full of w _ _ _ _ _ _."

She threw the note back, and bent down back to her work, determined not to fall behind in the first lesson. The teacher had started to explain the last problem on the board, and she sat up attentively, springing back to the Hermione she knew. She could feel her mood lifting slightly already, this was a new challenge, and she was learning something new and different. The fact that Malfoy was here shouldn't put her off enjoying this class.

But it was hard to ignore him when he was sitting there with such a pointed smirk on his face she wanted to slap him. She glared at him quizzically, and he pointed at the note which had again found its way on to her desk. She opened it under the desk warily, keeping her eye on the board.

Granger, you dirty girl. Wash your mouth out with soap. Anyway, what's all this rubbish about undercover? Who was it that whipped out their wand this morning?

Incensed, Hermione scribbled back furiously –

You ungrateful swine! And may I remind you that I wasn't the only one thinking about 'whipping out my wand' this morning, if you remember. Just get on with your work and leave me in peace!

She threw the note on his desk and glared at him pointedly. He smirked back at her and unfolded it, reading. His smirk faded quickly, soon to be replaced by a small twisted scowl. Confident that she had won that particular battle, Hermione turned to face the blackboard and resolved not to look in Malfoy's direction for the rest of the hour. And so it was that, with her attention focused raptly on the rest of the maths lesson, that she did not see the touch of pink in her neighbour's cheeks... a colour that took an unusually long while to fade.