11 – Preoccupancy

'So the rumours are true!' Ginny squealed, bouncing up and down on Hermione's bed, making it jiggle. Hermione glared at her.

'Keep your voice down,' she hissed. 'And no, the rumours are not true.'

'So you guys haven't been exchanging passionate kisses between the bookshelves of the library?' Ginny asked with dry disbelief, especially since Hermione had just told her (very briefly and very reluctantly) about the way Zabini had grabbed her in the library.

'No!' she said indignantly, and then when Ginny raised an eyebrow; 'Well, only one.'

'Right,' agreed Ginny. 'And you guys haven't been having a secret relationship behind everyone's backs?'

'No!'

Again, Ginny raised an eyebrow.

'We didn't have a relationship – we had a friendship. There's a big difference,' grumbled Hermione huffily. 'The relationship only developed about a week ago and today was the first day I talked to him since then.'

'Yeah,' said Ginny, 'but it was still behind everyone's backs, right?'

Hermione's eyes narrowed. 'Yes,' she sighed. 'But it doesn't matter, because I'm pretty sure both types of relationship are over now.'

'If it doesn't matter then why are you here?' asked Ginny stubbornly. Now that Hermione had confessed to her, Ginny had taken the relationship under her wing and was determined to put it together again. Like it all had a big impact on her life as well as Hermione's.

Hermione sighed again. It seemed she was doing a lot of that this evening with Ginny.

'Because I want it to matter,' she admitted grudgingly.

'Because you like him, right?' Now it just sounded like Ginny was talking to a thick-skulled three-year old. Hermione stared at her dryly in appreciation.

'Yes,' she replied in a sour voice. Ginny laughed.

'Only you would be pissed because you like someone!' she said.

'It's not just someone, Ginny,' Hermione moaned. 'It's freaking Blaise Zabini!' He's a Slytherin!'

'I know!' Ginny cried in an amused voice, as if it were all a very funny joke. 'So what?'

'So – look what everyone's saying even when I'm not dating him!'

'The same thing they always say whenever a new couple gets found out!'

'We're not a couple. And besides, that's not true. Have you seen the way they eye me in the corridors? They didn't eye you and Harry like that. It's so prejudiced and mean! Besides, half the girls who eye me like I've betrayed them have slept with Draco Malfoy! It's revolting! And sometimes I even catch Ron looking at me all disgusted.' Hermione leant back against her pillows tiredly, picking at her nails.

Ginny rolled her eyes. 'Don't worry about Ron. He'll come round once we tell him.'



Hermione bolted upright. 'You can't tell anyone!' she all but screamed.

Ginny didn't even bat an eyelid. She stretched out on her stomach in a cat-like manner, twisting her ankles in the air and looked at Hermione sternly.

'You don't want me to tell anyone, you don't want me to do any of my match-making magic – so then why'd you even tell me?'

Hermione was quiet for a while.

'I guess I just needed to tell someone, you know?' she said quietly. 'And maybe even get a little advice…?' she smiled tentatively and Ginny beamed back.

'I think you're doing the right thing right now. Keep it on the down-low until you actually become an official couple,' she wasn't talking to Hermione directly anymore, more to herself. Her words began to take on a demanding, almost military-like tone as she continued. 'Don't pursue him, because it makes you look to eager. Well, don't pursue him yet. If weeks go by and he still doesn't make any further moves, whip out your sexual prowess and just reel him in… Yeah, do that. But until then, wait for him to crack. He obviously can't keep his hands off you, seeing as he practically half-raped you in the library, so just keep being aloof until he makes the first move. But then, don't completely ignore him, either. Keep giving him the occasional smile, and look at him all innocent…'

Hermione zoned out of Ginny's musings, regretting she'd ever asked at all. But she was also very glad she did, because suddenly the burden wasn't as heavy, and she wasn't alone anymore – especially since Ginny seemed to have no problem that Hermione was crushing quite heavily on the enemy.

But the way Ginny spoke made everything so certain, as if it were just inevitable that Hermione and Zabini become a couple. As if she foresaw it or something. But Ginny obviously did not know Zabini. Perhaps she didn't know Hermione that well, since she spoke as if all this were possible for her – all the playfully innocent looks, and the sexual prowess and waiting for him to crack and all. Sure she'd tried her hand at being flirtatious – and pulled it off pretty well if she did say so herself, but then she'd only been teasing and that had been so easy.

Hermione just wanted to get on with life. N.E.W.T.S were just around the corner but Hermione wasn't studying as much as she should have been, all due to the stupid Slytherin.

She couldn't stop thinking about him. And when she wasn't thinking about him, she was thinking about his kisses. The way her body had curved around his, pressed together in a way that should have been uncomfortable but never was. The feeling of the electricity running down to her toes making her whole body quiver. The tenderness of his kiss. But most importantly, the softening in his eyes right before he'd captured her lips in his own firm ones.

She wished Zabini were never born. She wished he'd never stolen her book!

'So, did you get all that?'

Hermione blinked a few times, being snapped out of her begrudging reverie, before answering. 'Uh – yeah.'

'Good. Just stick to those rules and you'll have him wrapped around your little pinky in no time!'

'Mmm. Great,' agreed Hermione somewhat sourly. Ginny rolled her eyes and then watched Hermione with a mischievously curious smile stretching her lips.

'What?' asked Hermione, looking at Ginny over the nail she had been picking at.

'Just so that I have this straight; Zabini hasn't snuck you into the Slytherin common room for any lust-filled nights has he?'



'Ginny…'

'I'll take that as a no. Good. Next one; your parents didn't cast you out of the house when they found out, which is why you had to stay at Hogwarts during Christmas and Zabini felt so immensely guilty that that's why he stayed too?'

'No...' moaned Hermione tiredly. How the hell had that rumour popped up? 'My parents don't even know!'

'Righto, just checking. Next one!'

'Ginny!' groaned Hermione.

'Aw, come on – one last one!'

'Ugh – fine.'

Ginny beamed, obviously taking immense pleasure in Hermione irritation.

'You guys didn't cast off your virginities atop McGonagall's desk did you?'

Hermione's lip quirked and she blushed at the memory of very similar words falling out of Zabini's mouth like a seductively smooth, silk ribbon, way back when. Again, she felt the shiver run through her at the feel of his warm, sweet breath on her cheeks…

'Ew! Out of all the rumours to be true, Hermione, you choose that one?!'

'What?' Hermione cried, alarmed as again, she found herself snapping out of a reverie. 'No! That one's definitely not true! No, no Ginny, not at all!'

Ginny eyed her suspiciously. 'Better not be true,' she warned. 'And stop blushing dammit, it doesn't help to prove your point!'

'Sorry.'

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Five days later, Hermione hurried up a staircase… just as it unhinged itself and slowly swung itself in another direction. Her face froze into an irritated expression. She groaned.

'Brilliant!'

She was already late and now she had to find a new route to get the meeting with the Prefects. She rolled her eyes and, shoulders slumping with the unwanted challenge, continued her scamper up the staircase. She reached the landing and looked around wildly, desperately trying to decipher her location. Looking down one corridor, her feet absent-mindedly took her in another direction and, typical of her luck, she bumped into someone.

'Oh – sorry!' she exclaimed, still quite lost as she spun around to see the victim of her clumsiness. Instantly, her apologetic face was gone to be replaced by a frozen, coldly indifferent expression. Zabini stared back at her unblinkingly, his eyes burning into hers with an unknown emotion that made the very air tenser. Hermione's lips pressed into a taut line and she slipped past him, excusing herself with a coldly polite 'Zabini.'

Trying to keep her footsteps calm, even and not too hurried, Hermione continued down a random hallway. The panic rising in her stomach was caused by two things: one; that she still had no idea where she was or where she was headed, and two; she could feel Zabini's swirling eyes on her back.



'Lost, Granger?' his voice, raised just loud enough for here, cut through the tense silence easily and after a few more reluctant steps, Hermione paused, though she refused to face him.

'What's it to you?' she countered after a pause in which she held a mental debate as to whether or not to admit her predicament.

'We're on the fifth floor. You're headed for the West tower.'

Well that helped a mighty lot.

Hermione took up her steady pace once again, looking back only to nod at Zabini and give her brief thanks.

This was only the second encounter with Zabini after that day, but the last one had been just as cold and distant as this. It had been about two days ago…

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Hermione hopped out of the portrait hole and began to make her way swiftly towards the Great Hall for dinner. She was nearly there when, emerging out of the shadows with hardly as much grace as someone like, say Blaise Zabini would have, Ernie drew up beside her and she stopped walking to watch him curiously.

'Hi Ernie,' she said, trying not be falsely suspicious.

'Hello, Hermione,' he greeted her with his usual formalness. 'May I talk to you?'

'Here?' asked Hermione, glancing at their open surroundings apprehensively.

'Yes, I'll be quick,' Ernie assured her and she shrugged.

'Ok.'

Ernie seemed to be having trouble lifting his gaze from his shoes and he jammed his hands into his pockets awkwardly.

'Ernie,' Hermione said, half afraid he'd forgotten she was there.

'Ah – yes,' he said with a nervous start. 'Well – um – I know you're aware of my feelings for you…' he began, finally looking at Hermione and she felt her stomach sink in despair and pity.

'Ernie…' she moaned silently, biting her lip and already feeling very mean.

'Yes, well, I was wondering if you were free this Hogsmeade weekend to perhaps spend it with me...? I mean, it's the last one before N.E.W.T.S and I figured if I don't ask you now – I'll never get the chance!' he laughed nervously and Hermione forced herself to smile at his feeble joke.

'Aw, Ernie,' she said quietly. 'Of course I'll come!' She smiled kindly and was glad to see Ernie's relieved grin in return. But then she looked at him a little apologetically and continued, 'But, I don't think it would be fair to go on a date, Ernie. I don't really like you in that way… I'm sorry,' she gave him a small smile but Ernie just looked thoroughly disappointed. 'But I'll still come with you! Just it won't be on a date – it'll just be two friends spending the day out together... Is that ok?'

For a while, Hermione thought Ernie would reject her proposal entirely, to spend the rest of the year scrupulously despising her, but then he shot her a reluctant and still quite sad smile and shrugged.

'Sure, Hermione. I guess that'll be fun, too. I'm sorry to have bothered you, in the past, with the romantic pursuing.'



Hermione smiled, glad that Ernie wasn't the kind of person to exaggerate negative emotions. 'That's fine, Ernie. It's my fault. I should have made it clear sooner.'

Ernie nodded, though he still did not seem entirely fine, and there was something begrudging about his manner as he turned to go. Just as he was turning though, Ernie's eye seemed to catch on something and he shook his head bitterly.

'Figures,' he muttered resentfully and Hermione's head turned over her shoulder to see what could get him so riled up.

'Figures' was right.

Zabini stood, casually leaning against a stone gargoyle's side, watching the two with his bored expression on his face.

Freaking Slytherin.

Hermione greased him off, taking a deep, irritated breath before drawing her robes tight around her body and marching through the double doors into the Great Hall without giving nosy Slytherin or the Hufflepuff a second glance.

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Why couldn't he just mind his own business?!

'I'm sorry, miss, I just thought that the rounds timetable was my business too…'

Hermione blinked and stared at the flustered fifth year Ravenclaw in surprise. Seated around the large wooden table in the Meeting Room, the other Prefects and Ernie Macmillan gaped at her in shock.

'Oh – yes!' she apologised, waving a hand in the air in disregard. 'Yes, of course it's your business. I'm sorry, I just got a little preoccupied…'