Chapter 8
Hermione can almost hear Malfoy's teeth grinding from across the table. Further down the table, the other eighth years are laughing over The Prophet.
"Ignore them," Hermione says.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Granger."
She sighs. The topic of the gossip column in this morning's Prophet is Narcissa Black and her new boy toy, Neville Longbottom. At the sound of Ginny's laughter, Hermione turns to the Gryffindor table where Ginny and the other seventh year girls are leaning over the newspaper and giggling. Across the table, Malfoy has barely touched his breakfast. She stands. "Let's get out of here."
Malfoy just looks at her.
"Come on, Malfoy."
"Where?"
"It's a surprise." She smiles. "You like surprises, don't you?"
"No."
"Yes, you do. Everyone likes surprises."
"Everyone does not like surprises, Granger."
"Well, today, you like them." Hermione walks around the end of the table and grabs Malfoy's hand. "Now let's go."
"Just because you bossed Potter and Weasley around for seven years doesn't mean you get to do the same to me," he says, but gets to his feet anyway and lets her lead him toward the door.
"Practicing for the NEWT DADA practical isn't a fun surprise, Granger. It's studying."
"Dueling isn't studying. Or at least it's not ordinary books-in-the-library studying."
"It's still studying. How you didn't end up in Ravenclaw is beyond me."
"If I had, I'd have people besides you to talk to this year."
"You have the Weaslette and Looney Lovegood."
"Don't call her that, Malfoy."
"Which one?"
"Luna."
"So, you don't mind Weaslette?"
"It's not mean-spirited, and Ginny has more friends than Luna."
"I was wrong about Ravenclaw. You should've been in Hufflepuff."
"You're just stalling because you know I'm going to kick your arse, Malfoy."
The hexes hit her before she can get her shield in place, and then she's on the ground, panting, and her wand is in Malfoy's hand.
"You're all talk, Granger." He tosses her wand back. "Round two?"
She gets to her feet, nods, and casts.
Madam Pomfrey told them off when they showed up in the hospital wing with more injuries than they could heal on their own. After that, Hermione skived off the Potions tutorial in favor of a long soak in a hot bath, since she learns more from reading on her own and doing the hospital wing brewing with Malfoy than she does sitting in Slughorn's tedious review sessions. Now she's in her room poring over the books she brought back from the Malfoy library, and trying to decide whether to go down to the Great Hall for lunch with her standoffish fellow students, or just eat an apple in her room and save her appetite for dinner, when she's meeting Harry at the Three Broomsticks.
"Come in," she calls when someone knocks on her door.
"I brought lunch," Malfoy says, and sets a bag down on her bed. He points at the book she was reading. "Put that away. No food stains on the priceless Malfoy manuscripts, if you please."
"Why aren't you eating in the Great Hall?" She sets the volume on her desk.
"Because I'm sick of those arseholes snickering and pretending they aren't staring at me from behind that rag." He sits on the foot of Hermione's bed and Transfigures a napkin into a small blanket, which he spreads out between them. He reaches into the bag and removes roast chicken, potatoes fragrant with rosemary, a green salad, soft rolls and butter, and a bottle of chilled sparkling water.
"The elves gave you all that?"
"They like me," Malfoy smirks.
Hermione refuses to rise to the bait. Most of the elves still pop away in terror when she approaches one of them, and when she visits the kitchens, she never gets anything like the spread they gave Malfoy. "Did I miss anything in Potions?"
"You skived, too? I thought Hermione Granger never skived."
"I never skive off classes where I actually learn something."
"Still, this is impressive progress, Granger. You never would have skived at all two years ago."
"Two years ago, I was a student and class attendance was compulsory. Now I'm reviewing for NEWTs and tutorials are to help us prepare, not a requirement for graduation."
Malfoy sighs. "I should have known better than to think you'd stopped being an insufferable rule-follower."
"For someone who claims to be hoping for a shag someday, you're saying all the wrong things, Malfoy."
He grins. "So, I do have a chance?"
"No."
"Well, then why waste time on sweet talk with no pay-off?"
Hermione smiles and eats some of the chicken and potatoes, which are wonderful. She hadn't realized she was so hungry. No way she would have made it the rest of the afternoon on just an apple. "I'm sorry they're being so awful."
Malfoy shrugs. "My mother's the one I'm angry with. How are people supposed to resist having a laugh at me, considering the circumstances?" When she doesn't answer, he says, "But you haven't, Granger. Not once. You tease me about other things, but never that, and well, I just want you to know I appreciate it."
"I would like to knock your mum on her snooty arse for what she's done to you, just so you know. And for what she's done to Harry and Ginny."
"You don't think Potter deserves any of the blame?"
"Well, of course he does, but your mum's the adult here, isn't she?"
"Potter's of age."
"Yes, but there's a difference between legal adult still in your teens, and actual decades-into-adulthood adult, don't you think?"
"There should be, anyway."
"Don't get me wrong. I was upset with Harry. If he wanted to be with someone else, he should have broken up with Ginny first. But I'm also angry at your mother because she hurt you." When Malfoy's eyes widen, she continues. "She obviously didn't care anything about Harry, if she's already moved on to Neville. I'm guessing she was trying to hurt your father, and Harry was a convenient means of doing that. But by choosing someone you went to school with, and particularly someone you've always disliked, she wasn't just hurting your father, was she?"
Malfoy doesn't answer, but she can tell she's hit the mark. "Have you talked to her since she left?" she asks.
"No."
"Has she tried to contact you?"
"Daily."
"Are you going to forgive her eventually?"
"I suppose so, eventually."
"But not yet."
"No, not yet."
"I get it. If my parents knew who I was, I'd be upset at my dad for cheating on my mum. But at least he's dating strangers halfway around the world and not one of the Patil twins." Hermione eats some more of the delicious lunch, and reflects on how strange it is that she's sitting here feeling sorry not only for Malfoy, but also—just a little—for his father. It must be mortifying for Lucius Malfoy that his wife is collecting teenage lovers the way first years collect chocolate frog cards. Narcissa is obviously doing it to hurt and humiliate her husband—though she seems to have given little thought to the fact that it is also hurting and humiliating her son. And now she's hurt Harry as well. At least Neville wasn't in a relationship when Hurricane Narcissa blew into his life. For him, maybe Mrs. Malfoy will just be one of those older witches who teaches him about sex, the way George said he learned.
Hermione has the sudden shocking and shameful thought that maybe she should give Narcissa Malfoy a dose of her own medicine. She has an idea that Lucius Malfoy could provide some NEWT-level hands-on learning that would make anything she might learn from George Weasley look like first-year curriculum.
"Who's the lucky bloke?"
"What?" Hermione looks up, startled, at Malfoy leering at her.
"You had the kind of smile on your face that witches get when they're thinking about s-e-x, Granger."
She's not about to admit it, especially since she was thinking about having it with Malfoy's father. "How did you learn about s-e-x, Malfoy? Books, hands-on learning, or a combination of the two?"
"My father provided a courtesan to teach me."
"Oh, my God! That's disgusting!" But a salutary reminder that Lucius Malfoy is not the kind of wizard she should be entertaining prurient thoughts about. Bad enough that he's twice her age and a Death Eater, but he procured a witch to have sex with his son? The man's depravity has no limits, apparently.
"What's disgusting about it? That's how most Pureblood wizards learn."
Hermione frowns. It's basically the same thing George did, only a courtesan is like a prostitute, or, more accurately, she supposes, an expensive call girl. "A courtesan is a paid professional, right?"
"If you want to put it in such crass terms."
"Accurate terms."
"A thing can be both accurate and crass."
"So, how do most Pureblood witches learn?"
"Theoretically, from their husbands, on their wedding nights."
"So, if the nice Pureblood witches are supposed to wait, who do you shag in the meantime? Halfbloods and Muggleborns whose virtue is irrelevant?"
"I said theoretically, Granger."
"So, you and Parkinson were shagging?"
"A gentleman doesn't fuck and tell, Granger. Merlin." He rolls his eyes. "And you called me crass."