Chapter 1.
Draco Malfoy is the damn school prefect among boys. Drop dead!
Hermione looked at McGonagall as if she had seen the professor for the first time. Or rather, it was like her neck was struck by something heavy. Something iron. Is this the reason of this ridiculous... fear?
Very funny.
"It's not possible," she barely pronounced with her lips.
But apparently, she said it not enough quiet, because her words didn't escape from sensitive Minerva's ears, who immediately raised her eyes in surprise.
"What is not possible, Miss Granger?" her voice sounded calm.
As if nothing special happened.
As if it's not Hermione with the damn Malfoy will share a common living room in the Prefect's tower! Her lips clenched by itself, while McGonagall quietly continued to pontificate the obvious things:
"At the beginning of each school year, the headmaster chooses the prefects among girls and boys, about what you are well aware of. You have given your consent to join this post.
She gave her consent.
Gosh, of course, she gave her consent! Hermione snarled it to herself, overcoming the desire to grasp her shoulders tightly with her hands and to pity herself.
She was privileged to represent the female half of the school.
She has got the long-awaited prefect badge. Merlin, she's been waiting all her life when she's got a chance to be in this position! And now...
Now Malfoy is going to break all her plans. He will destroy her dream to become the best one. He had already done it, trying to destroy her carefully thought-out world with his disgusting behavior. And for this he doesn't even need to be in the same room with her.
If Malfoy could be squeezed, Hogwarts would have choked in a sea of vanity and almost painful, disgusting self-confidence.
Hermione's lips formed as if she wanted to say something, but she couldn't force herself to utter a word. In the end she closed her eyes and slowly made a gasp through her mouth. She needs to pull herself together. The professor finally turned away a parchment and looked straight at Hermione.
A few seconds she was silent, and then she uttered, and her voice sounded much quieter:
"I believe you are acquainted with the situation of Draco Malfoy."
"Of course," the girl hissed and looked down.
It was hard to pass this fact off.
The Prophet recently turned its attention from Malfoy family to the winners' discussion about Bry broomsticks and its high-speed flights. And that is because the last events, where Malfoy family was implicated, forced all magical England to lick the bones each of them to the state of polished radiance. And even Skeeter had nothing to say after Lucius death.
After eighteen extensive articles.
Including those that crowned the front pages, and those that were published on Sundays in the Daily Prophet.
Hermione didn't read the press, actually she didn't read nothing at all concerning this family. The accident, after that Narcissa Malfoy was rumored to be out of her own. Dead Lucius, who after the Dark Lord's defeat summoned like-minded people and slaughtered the mudblood families of wizards as if they were cattle. It was of little interest to her, also as Draco Malfoy, who had changed his aristocratic pallor to painful pallor.
This all. Didn't concern. Her.
Moreover, the Ministry managed to stop all this obscene lawlessness. And it was possible to remember calmly that Malfoys are arrogant Slytherins, at the first place.
Or what's left of them.
Serves them right. Pity was irrelevant.
Hostility was simple, but capacious word. It meant the situation between the faculties of Gryffindor and Slytherin during all school life. Habitual, chronic, sometimes ridiculously predictable. It divided the relationships among Griffindor and Slytherin students on clear borders, bringing their communication to the necessary minimum. But even it was possible for everyone to turn a blind eye to it.
There was another reason.
The fact that boiled between Malfoys and representatives of families such as Granger, was called otherwise. And was of a different nature. Detestation.
Fiery. Prolonged. Thick, like syrup. Damn it. It was eternal detestation, built by clashes of past years. And over the years it only roused on a slow, but not less burning fire.
"Does he... know?" Hermione made herself speak with a firm, strong voice, "Does he know who he will work with?" she clasped her hands.
Her subconsciousness whispered the answer: no. If he knew, he would say something about it in the train. He would hardly have been silent.
Malfoy? Silent?
He'd bit Hermione throat through right there.
McGonagall frowned, then corrected her tiny glasses on her nose with a single movement of her hand. Her gaze was examining Hermione's face. A small bit of understanding for a moment forced Minerva to clench her lips, but the woman instantly took herself into her hands.
"Miss Granger. Conflicts with Mr. Malfoy... should not affect your duties as school prefects. I hope you understand that?"
Hermione bitten her lip.
"Of course, professor."
"Your responsibilities will be to work... in a cohesive way. Prefects are an example to follow, as you remember."
Merlin, save our school... Hermione grimly smiled and nodded Minerva in an agreement, trying to calm her furiously beating heart. She just couldn't keep it in her head.
She must coexist with a man, to whom he had so strong hatred, that sometimes it became frightening – what if this feeling would remain in her forever? In her, kind and sympathetic Hermione, always preferring to resolve conflicts calmly and often reconciled Harry and Ron, when they bickered because of another minor trifle.
She wondered how they will react to the fact that she will live next door to the sworn enemy of the whole their trinity?
Of the whole faculty.
Of the whole world, maybe.
Meanwhile, the professor continued to press on the inflamed callosity with calm regularity:
"On certain days you will patrol the school corridors from nine till eleven in the evening," she tapped the pen tip on the ink and raised her eyebrows, noticing the expression of Hermione face. Interpreting it in her own way. "It is nothing complicated, do not worry. You will be allowed to use a standard set of safe spells. Its list is already marked in the Prefect's tower."
"In the tower" Granger repeated vacantly, nodding. Trying to make her look meaningful.
In her heart she really had no idea what to do. How to behave herself.
Because.
It seemed Malfoy even suited his position. His faithful retinue of Crabbe and Goyle, who are always dragging along him. Brainless idiots, who are able only to laugh at jokes of their leader.
Does he really need in them?
Yes, he needs.
He used to win on the contrast. And on the influence of his deceased father. To his name he had nothing but poison and self-conceit, that would exceed in the size the whole Hogwarts with all its towers fourfold.
"Concerning the schedule... " Minerva put off the pen and folded her hands sedately, "However, we will discuss it, when Mr. Malfoy comes, and I will accompany you to... "
And suddenly the door opened behind her back without knocking.
And again that disgusting feeling in her belly, similar to what Hermione experienced when her broom first jerked into the air in the classroom with Madame Hooch.
A slight attack of unexplained panic.
More precisely, quite understandable hostility. If it were necessary, Hermione could explain her quick heart beating and icy finger pads. But not now.
Now she began to re-count convulsively the mosaic of portraits, muttering from the wall behind the professor's back.
His footsteps were almost noiseless, and Hermione rather felt than heard - Malfoy entered the office.
She hated to lose control of the situation. And therefore the happening made her angry with the itch somewhere behind her ears. She wanted to sag, feeling his press look at herself between her shovels. To sag and to stamp with her feet from the insulting anger, drilling in her nape.
But of course, Granger was silent. She only licked her lips quickly and isolated herself. She really felt it physically.
One more thing.
She felt as he approached professor McGonagall's desk. She saw Minerva watching him with suspicious look, but with a polite smile. There was a feeling that Hermione was involved in some kind of frivolous, comical experiment. The edge of her eye she noticed that Malfoy stopped a little bit.
Hermione turned her head, glancing at him and lifting her chin.
It seemed that the air temperature in the office fell at once a few dozen degrees Celsius, when their glances crossed for a second. And suddenly choking hand let her go, allowing to breath in.
Malfoy.
This is the same Malfoy as last year. Nothing new, nothing serious. Apart from the fact that the naked eye it was noticeable - he was seedy thoroughly. But he stayed the same. The same worthless hostility and expensive gloss. Tired look and rings under his empty, icy eyes.
And one more thing. A lot of bawdy cynicism.
He snorted as if he was not in front of the deputy headmaster. As if he smelled a farce with his damn nose.
"I was late," he just said and translated his gaze on McGonagall, "Professor Snape detained me in the great hall. He reported that you and... head girl," the last words he spit out, as if it was moving poisonous spiders on his tongue, throwing another quick mocking look towards Hermione, "will wait for me here."
"Mr. Malfoy," Minerva nodded, ignoring this tone and rising from the desk. Her chair drew back and pushed back by itself, crawling its legs on a stone floor. "You are almost on time. I was just beginning to bring Miss Granger up to date on things."
"I hope I didn't miss anything important."
Oh God, he doesn't even care, Hermione clenched her cold hands.
"Not at all," Minerva has got her wand and has easily swung it, muting the light in the office, "Please, come. I will accompany you."
And she walked past them hurriedly, tapping with her heels.
Hermione followed her immediately, even trying not to turn her head to Malfoy, but she saw his tight lips and the expression of deep disgust on his face.
Hell with him. Leave it alone. Let him make faces, as much as he wants.
Meanwhile, Malfoy watched the two go out of the office. And he was overcoming a stubborn desire to punch on the wall. He did not expect. I really he didn't expect it. To see Granger here was comparable to a meet a freakin' dementor. He would have experienced a lot of joy.
He thought that after all it would be impossible to wonder something. If only.
"Mr. Malfoy?" there was a voice from the corridor.
With a heavy sigh, Draco followed the old woman and Mudblood, blinking, when the door to the McGonagall's office slammed behind his back with such intensity that the air wave stirred his cloak's flap.
Now it was clear what the irony was in the voice of professor Snape, informing "the wonderful news" about prefects. And the feelings were not so good.
Draco frowned, focusing in the semi-darkness without difficulty. He felt himself foolish-deceived. Really foolish. So many girls at the school, so many successful girls. And... There's Granger. Goddamn.
It was wrong.
Not his company, no. Not stone corridors, staircases, torches and statues. Not silence. Everything was habitual. All this was even joyfully to perceive.
But the wrong fact was that from the right hand of Draco was mincing this arrogant slut from Gryffindor.
For the first time in his memory, they were next to each other for a long time, not snarling, not flinging each other with habitual insults. Not telling a word. Just listening to what McGonagall was saying.
Destroying each other in their thoughts, he was sure about it. At least in his head he had already sentenced her to death several times.
Come on, you little bitch. Look at me again, and I'm not going to see the head of your faculty is here.
Granger, as if he had heard his threat, stared at the Minerva's back, though she had just stared at Malfoy, he could have sworn in it.
He took his eyes off. Fuck her.
Just. Fuck. Her.
Despite the fact that senile old man Dumbledore decided to show his senile sense of humor... It meant nothing. He and Granger don't have to talk to each other, if they're the prefects of the damn England.
They would never... They will never be able to communicate normally. Damn, that's ridiculous. It even seemed to him that someone in his chest laughed irrepressibly.
His demons disclosed their eyes and lifted their heads, stretching themselves with a crunch. Awakened from silent anger of their owner.
He needs to get distracted.
Draco picked up only some parts of the phrases of McGonagall's monologue, that echoed back from the walls, dispersing in the empty corridor, and also he was thinking about how he managed to get into scrapes.
Into that what had started last winter. About what he didn't want to remember. It squeezed all forces out him and finally deigned to end. It finally leave him broken and extremely worn out. And now... How can he exist side by side with Mudblood the whole fucking year?
To breathe one air with her. To coexist.
They're from different planets. From different worlds.
He is slowly pacing, putting his hands in his trousers pockets and allowed his cloak to flutter behind his back.
She is precise, looks like thin cold needle, fastened under her throat on all the buttons of her shirt and half-throttling with her red-gold tie.
Different. Just like their blood.
What would his father say, if he knows that the Malfoys heir will share the living room with Mudblood?
The heir. He wanted to spit from this word. There was nothing left of the heir, as well as from Lucius. The shadow.
From the thought that suddenly came to his mind, Draco squeezed his jaws against his will.
Lucius would have ridiculed him.
Probably he would say something between his teeth like: "How did you agree to such a thing? Or did you forget what I taught you? You admit it to you, what means you're letting yourself be dirty. My son would never endure to be near with such people like she, even for a few minutes."
The voice of his father sounded in his head, as if Lucius Malfoy lived with him even after his death. Lived in him. Followed him step by step, observing with his glass eyes from his son's skull box.
Sometimes it seemed like it was like that. Sometimes, when eternal thoughts and calculations in his head replaced with voice, dictating him. Indicating voice. Guiding voice.
Damn it. Damn it all. For a long time, everything went to hell.
But it was not in his forces had to change something. Except to decline from the prefects badge. But Malfoy could not allow this. To step back? To lose? Enough. One more defeat - and he falls into a trap, that cuts Malfoy's head off with a clang.
One more defeat... He just can't afford it.
Never.
He will never allow Gryffindor girl to pass before him. To give way. To stay behind. To look at red-gold tie, at her back.
If he knew that she would be the prefect, he...
He... What?
Malfoy crunched his teeth. He's still making excuses to Lucius. To father's ghost.
And it always has been so.
And three months ago, he swore to himself that he would change that. That he won't do that. That, that... There was innumerable these "that". And innumerable impotent melancholy. Melancholy about... ? He didn't understand.
Only one thing he understood: Granger looks at him again.
Malfoy clenched his lips. He just needs to get into his room and stay alone. Lately it was the only thing that could save him. Lately...
The old woman McGonagall stopped in front of portrait of a woman in silk of disgusting color, that looks like bile. Granger also stiffened, clasping her hands. It seems she hasn't unfastened her fingers for a second since he entered the Minerva's office.
"Phoenixus."
The password was quite simple. The lady on the portrait bowed and slid sideways with quiet rustle, opening an entry to a narrow corridor with a low arch. The professor came first. Then Granger. Malfoy breathed in and slowly breathed out through his clenched teeth.
All right, Draco. For real. Keep yourself in your hands and... just let her show you your room quickly.
Encouraged by his thoughts about soon solitude, he entered the inside, stepping over a tiny threshold and looking around stingily, almost not turning his head, without any interest. It was quite enough to understand: the living room was sickly-cozy, although undeveloped. For a second it seemed that everything here is about to decorate in the obsessive Griffindor's banners. But no. Everything has the predominant fairly neutral, gray-beige color. Sofa in front of the fireplace, coffee table, couple of armchairs, at some distance - massive desk and empty bookcase.
Well. The shelves remain empty for a short time. Mudblood will take care that the good part of the library migrated into the prefect's tower.
Draco thought that if he lived here alone, he would leave the bookcase empty and wouldn't heat the fireplace. This abandonment attracted him. As if it added... purity. To the room and to the look.
McGonagall stopped near the sofa, touching its upholstery with her fingertips, and looking round by the way, as if she had seen this room for the first time.
"It is the living room."
Such valuable statement of the fact.
Anger. Where did it come from? Dangerous-pure anger, that didn't encounter any resistance. Like a poison injected into the blood. Burning as...
There was the fire in the fireplace and Malfoy wanted to extinguish it in a moment. To make it darker. Cooler. Calmer.
To keep the light from choking under his skin.
There was too hot. Fucking hell.
Turning around himself lazily, he slipped a predatory gaze over bare walls and high ceiling. Fortunately, there were no ubiquitous portraits that contributed to extra noise. For six years he was too accustomed to Slytherin living room, dark and cool. Sedative. So... neutral. Where stone was stone, not a piece of architectural crap.
"The stairs to the right and to the left lead to your bedrooms. Your luggage has already been sent."
"Thank you, professor."
Malfoy hardly rolled eyes on a low-sounding Granger's cue, but he kept silent, continuing to study the mantelpiece and the clock over it. He wanted to imagine that he was alone in the living room. It turned out badly.
Minerva frowned. Then she coughed quiet.
"Shared bathroom is upstairs."
Now he did not restrain himself - he closed his eyes, feeling like a shiver of disgust passed over him. To share the bathroom with her. To share the fucking bathroom with her. At this moment he felt his patience comes to the end inexorably.
"It is very cozy in here, professor," sincere Granger voice. Of course, she's thrilled with this diggings. But he...
He just gotta get out of here. To stay alone with himself. Listen to the voice in his head.
"Damn peacockery... " he said almost no interrupting of his pale lips. Almost mentally.
"Excuse me, Mr. Malfoy?"
He looked at Minerva with a glimpse, as if by the way. He slid his gaze on her face and folded his hands on his chest, feeling his tense muscles trembling.
"Everything is fine. The bathroom in the tower is... convenient. We don't have to make a trip to Hogwarts every time we want to take a shower. Can I go to my bedroom?"
For some time, McGonagall studied Malfoy through her glasses, as if he was not a student, but dissected frog. Then, apparently, not seeing anything of her interest, she turned away with a sigh and headed towards the writing table. She pushed the top drawer.
"Here are the forms to fill your schedule. When you distribute between each other..."
"Where is my room?"
His phrase ended somehow too loud in ringing silence.
McGonagall clenched her lips, regarding Malfoy with a long look. Granger frowned, exactly copying the old woman. It seems she looked straight at him for the first time, for the last half hour.
She and professor are two idiots.
It's disgusting.
"To the right, Mr. Malfoy. And upstairs."
Hermione sighed when he slid quietly behind her back and disappeared into the semi-darkness of the spiral staircase. She stared into the fire and felt as the inside her whirls a slow funnel cocktail of truly unpleasant feelings.
Shame, irritation, uncertainty.
She unfastened her numb fingers and several times squeezed and clenched her fists to restore blood circulation. She got stabbed under her fingernails. She did not want to say anything, but tried nevertheless:
"Excuse me for that. Malfoy... "
Oh, for God's sake, she apologizes instead of him?
Minerva raised her hand in a stopping gesture. The girl silenced obediently, hiding her look at professor's cloak.
"Everything is fine, Miss Granger. Now Draco is experiencing some difficulties."
Of course. Professor remembered the shitty situation in his family, that suddenly began to justify his shitty behavior. Why not.
"I know."
"That is wonderful. Now let me give you something."
Professor extracted from the open drawer two small notebooks looked like Muggle's. Hermione came closer to examine it better.
"What is it?"
"Enchanted Diaries. You see, prefects may not always be near each other when they may need to discuss something."
Thank Merlin.
"One diary will be yours, the second one is for Mr. Malfoy. It is enough to write something in one, that it immediately appeared on the pages of another diary. It is convenient," Mcgonagall watched with a smile, how Hermione's eyes began to shine.
The girl took the diaries, examining it and turning it round in her hands. Forgetting for a moment, why something burns in her chest. Absolutely empty yellowish pages with slightly tattered edges have absorbed all her attention.
But only for a short while.
"Thank you. I will give him one. If he... " Hermione faltered, frowning. "I will give it to him."
Malfoy agreed to be the prefect. So he has to perform his duties. Otherwise it would be irresponsible for a man representing all boys of the school. And knowing Malfoy so many years, she could say with certainty: he would never allow himself to lose his face, to smirch his own reputation.
"I've heard you live with Mudblood."
It's magic, truly. One phrase - and the whole appetite is ruined. Draco chewed slowly and swallowed the toast. Then he touched a napkin of a corner of his mouth and pronounced articulately, not turning his head:
"Go to hell, Pansy."
After that he was just as measured to take the oatmeal.
Parkinson pouted her lips. And then she hemmed, glancing at gloomy Blaise, sitting on the opposite. Zabini's mood during the week left much to be desired. The beginning of the school year didn't please him at all. Especially after the summer events.
"You'd better eat your breakfast," he barked, tapping with knuckles of his fingers on the table. "And leave Malfoy alone."
Leave him alone? Probably it's something unreal.
Great hall rolled in the shining sunlight from that his eyes had eyesore. In fact, now his eyes always had eyesore. Even from murky darkness under his eyelids.
Draco slept badly.
His bed was uncomfortable and there was too hot: apparently the sun had one goal - to bring the prefect's tower to a great heat during only one day, turning it into a damn crematorium. Among other things, too many thoughts occurred and vanished in his head for the past days. Too many voices changed his mind. Too many flashed glimpsed in front of his eyes.
He also has a headache. Every night.
To such an extent that the vile dull pain sticked to his temples for another half-day, buzzing, and he was sure that it was from the realization that Gryffindor slut was now in the room, detached from his bedroom only with an adjoining bath. Dirty, nasty Granger.
Causing his headache.
Thank to great Salazar that they did not communicate. Did not tell a word. They haven't seen each other. And if they crossed, then it was only fleetingly, in the living room. For a couple of seconds.
On the second school day she just left a schedule of studies and distribution of faculties on the coffee table. And their "serried work" came to an end.
"So how is she? As wooden as it seems at first sight?"
The next coming of migraine hit on his temples and Draco bristled.
"I've already told you," he growled, moving aside the glass of pumpkin juice, feeling like his appetite is finally leaving him, "that you'd better go to... "
"Shh. Honey," her thin fingers clasped his forearm, stroking him on his cloak and descending on his hand to his wrist, touching his cold skin. It did not calm him, but annoyed, "I'm just kidding. Just kidding, you know. I know how you hate her."
Oh no.
You have no idea how he hates.
Parkinson had no idea, indeed. She just stroked his shoulder with the tip of her nose and smiled.
"I like the way you smell."
Draco sighed hard, laying his spoon aside. Realizing that breakfast was finished and he didn't want to eat. Feeling like Pansy's palm slipping on his thigh and strokes his leg.
"I want you like at the las time. In the train," she murmured, trying to change the subject. Looking at the sides. Her false modesty, bordering with bragging. She craved for catching the looks of the girls passing by. And her modesty would be irrelevant.
It's not a secret for anyone that they fuck each other.
Malfoy grinned at the Zabini's glance, who just chocked up his chin with his palm, watching them with a degree of irony. In the train he kept watching over them, standing at the door to the toilet and chasing freshmen.
To fuck in Hogwarts Express toilet is quite in the spirit of Parkinson.
But, it should be confessed, it was not bad.
He remembered her screams absorbed with his fist, staggering coach and his furious pushes into her hot body. Wet sounds of sex and his own clenched teeth. Parkinson's ass constantly slithered down in the sink, so he had to press the girl to the door, holding her balanced.
"I also liked that yesterday you were a little more... harder, than usual," her hand slipped on the inside of his thigh, easily scratching his leg through the cloth of his trousers, and Malfoy almost unevenly glanced at her full lips.
Damn, sure.
In the corridor he met damn Mudblood before the spontaneous fucking between herbology and potions classes. This clearly did not leave Malfoy indifferent. It angered and enraged him. The way she froze in his path, and then twisted her subtle, inexpressive mouth, when he passed by her.
"Why don't you tell anything?"
"He's fascinated by you, Pansy," Blase giggled quietly, throwing juicy green grape in his mouth. Draco grinned, shaking his head.
"Well, definitely," he snorted, translating his look to the places where sisters Greengrass were seating. Daphne winked Zabini playfully and he grinned at the edge of his mouth.
"Of course," Pansy's voice was very smug. And the next moment she said so quietly that only Malfoju could heard it: "Come to our living room. There's no one right now."
Who would doubt it. He drew back and her hand vanished instantly.
"We have transfiguration class in fifteen minutes."
"Sorry... What?" Parkinson barely kept a laugh, throwing a confused look at Blaise, as if in search of support, but he has already turned his attention to the senior Greengrass. Draco rolled his eyes crossly, pointing to his prefect's badge.
"Has your memory failed? I have eyes on me now. And I can't fuck with you in the living room of Slytherin instead of first class, being a prefect.
The girl's lips bulged and Malfoy felt stinging wave of anger under his ribs again.
"Stop pestering me with your whims, okay?" he pronounced it even more peaceful than he wanted.
Pansy sighed, stepping aside and returning to digging her fork in her breakfast. Her offense is just for a couple of minutes. During the class Parkinson will sit down to him and start snuggling up to him like a cat.
"I'll go for my bag to the tower," he threw, when Zabini raised his eyebrows, when Malfoy stood up from his place, "See you on transfiguration."
"Okay. Nott said that he would be a little late."
"Um, okay."
Draco threw a quick glance at Pansy, who was still drooping her lips diligently, and then he shook his head and headed to the exit from the Great hall.
He realized with pleasure, that it absolutely does not care him, what Parkinson feels. She isn't his girlfriend. She was just his sex partner at the moment. She and several girls from Ravenclaw. And several - from Hufflepuff. And several Slytherin girls, who visited his bed. He didn't determine to count all these girls. He didn't need number.
There were many of them.
To spend the night with Draco Malfoy is like to touch a happy rabbit's paw for damn luck. That's what Blaise Zabini once said. And Draco remembered that, he liked this phrase.
Especially he... didn't care about it. When he fucked, he didn't think. And when he didn't think, he felt himself like a normal person.
"Ah!"
"Damn... Granger!"
She collided with him, hitting his chest with her forehead and rebound aside, hitting again her shoulder on the column. Not so painfully. She didn't even make a wry face. She just held the strap of her bag and the next moment she already lifted her chin, looking at Draco as if he was a poison beetle.
"Watch out!" her preachy tone provokes him more than ever, "You're not the only one in here."
The nest - her hair, covered her face half and Mudblood had to jerk her head several times, throwing it back. Draco almost snorted - mocking and evil.
And then they both stiffened opposite each other, almost bristling. Malfoy was so pitied that she kept on her feet, that this regret could be heard by her. He would give much to look how Granger is falling on the floor.
"Look where you're going," he hissed, shaking off invisible dirt from his cloak fastidiously. Glanced at the sides, he was involuntarily looking the eyes of the witnesses of this meeting. Great start of the morning, "Did you become infected with blindness from your boyfriend?"
"Such absurd and silly remark," Granger screwed up her eyes, straightening out her cloak with sharp movement, "It's all you."
"I don't need your assessment."
"I have no doubt."
"Great."
"Great."
He grimaced:
"So, make yourself scarce."
Then he straightened out his clothes again and already took several steps sideways, trying to get around her in a semicircle, when Granger abruptly turned, as if she remembered something.
"Ah, yes, Malfoy."
Merlin, she said that with such tone as if she was broadcasting from the throne. Although the cold in his voice was commensurate with this false mudblood arrogance:
"Remember something, okay? Don't speak to me in places where someone can accidentally see us, leading the conversation. I don't want my friends to think that you and I have common threads to talk about," he hissed, stopping, but not turning around.
He really peered into the empty corridor, counting the minutes in his mind. There will be a class soon, what meant, that Blaise and Pansy will approach him. Great.
Apparently, Granger did not embarrass anything.
"Friends?" she raised her eyebrows, "I can't imagine who you're talking about."
Oh, you better go to hell!
"You have quite a vague idea of this," he chuckled nastily, "With your choice of friends. Beggar and four-eyes...
"Your choice stops at two stupid idiots, Malfoy. So it doesn't care."
"First you're soiling my clothes, and then you're trying to jeer me?" Draco's voice resembled a womb growl, when he slowly translated his gaze upon her, "Get outta here. Don't near to me for a mile."
Hermione stubbornly squeezed her lips when he went again with a confident step down the hallway. And she deliberately raised her tone, pronouncing:
"Believe me, know-all, I have just as much desire to speak to you, as you have, but it's business of prefects, whether you want it or not."
"Wonderful. I'm wildly ecstatic."
"Don't be a child!" she snorted it in his retreating back, making a few involuntary steps after him. And ransacking one hand in her open bag, "Professor McGonagall asked me to give it to you," and then she got the Enchanted Diary, looking at how the Malfoy again stops. He turnes over his shoulder and wrinkled fastidiously.
"What is it?"
"It's... the vehicle for communication."
"With whom?"
"With me," from the expression of his face she wanted to be somewhere far from this place, "If you suddenly need something. We are prefects... "
"We? Did you say "we", Granger?" he giggled mockingly, holding his hand on his platinum hair, which for a moment his right forehead opened, and then again partially hid behind it, falling on one side slightly more than on the other. "Forget it. And don't you dare come to me with a shit like that."
He shook his head under the astonished gaze of the girl, and then threw over his shoulder, resuming the step:
"I'm not kidding, Mudblood. Stop dragging me."
And he walked down the corridor, without turning around.