The young witch studied her unfamiliar reflection. She held out her pale, foreign hands in front of her, a feeling of astounded elation floating in her chest. The appearance in the mirror was not Hermione's, but that of Draco Malfoy's. Her clothes and shoes discarded beside her on the bathroom sink next to an empty glass, she stood in the prefects' bathroom staring at herself in a stranger's body. Hermione turned around, then faced herself again and ran her hands over her chest... or was it really his, then? Malfoy's body was thin but just slightly muscular in the arms, most likely from his Quidditch playing, she commented to herself mentally, raising her eyebrows, and his, as she shamelessly looked at Malfoy's pale loins, which exceeded her expectations. At one point, Hermione had playfully explained Draco's rude and arrogant behavior with an assumption that he was "inadequate", but as she hated (or didn't) to admit, he had a very good body.
Hermione had stolen the ingredients for her own brewing of Polyjuice Potion from the Potion Master's stores for the second time during her education at Hogwarts - this time, without the knowledge of her friends Harry and Ron, and certainly not for any noble purpose, though once again concerning Draco Malfoy. While on her rounds after dark in the castle corridors, she'd broken into (or "checked in on", as she preferred to put it) Slughorn's office in the dungeons to steal ("borrow") the ingredients. She had taken to getting distracted by Draco's presence whenever she saw him. In the Great Hall, between classes, in Care of Magical Creatures and Potions... Fantasies built up in her head, distracting her from her studies, so that while she tried to maintain her status as the perfect student, she found herself glassy-eyed, wondering what was under Draco's robes. And to allieviate a bit of her own curiosity, Hermione took advantage of her genius to brew the difficult potion in secret. A piece of her hoped that as soon as she had become Draco and her curiosity disappeared, her fantasies and her irrational attraction towards the young man who'd belittled her and her friends and family for five years would disappear as well. But, much to Hermione's dismay, being handed a mental image of Draco's thin but fit body only fueled her fantasies further.
Ever since their sixth year at Hogwarts started, and Malfoy had hardly paid any mind to Hermione, she realized how much she missed his routine beratement of her. Her feelings for Ron didn't quite evaporate, but it seemed her subconscious mind had latched onto Draco. Now and then she spent many waking (and sleeping) hours of her leisure time thinking about Draco. Admittedly, the fantasies she often had during all hours of the day were mostly very plain. She'd never considered herself abnormal in any way when it came to her sexuality, and being entirely inexperienced, she had no way of knowing what she wanted beyond her sexual instincts. Deep down, Hermione knew there was no chance Draco would ever be loving or gentle towards her, even if he was interested in a "Mudblood" like her. However, there wasn't any harm in simply dreaming, she'd reassure herself. That is, until she brewed the potion.
/
Bent low over her cauldron, Hermione hurriedly but cautiously added four drops of mandrake extract to her potion, turning it a deep, shimmering purple color. She straightened up once again and looked around the dim dungeon room proudly to see that the rest of her Potions class was hardly finished. First again; even with Harry's immoral decision to use directions that weren't his, he could never beat Hermione's time. She felt quite pleased - until she looked to her left through the variously-colored steams errupting from other students' failed concotions and realized Malfoy was standing smugly beside his cauldron much like she was. And he was looking at Hermione. She quickly looked down again at her own cauldron. Hermione thought to herself - Was that smugness or amusement? After ladling some of her potion into a flask, she walked triumphantly to Professor Slughorn's desk and set it down before returning to her shared table, her eyes glued in front of her to avoid looking at Draco. Why was he staring at her like that? What did he know? Her thoughts immediately became incontrollably paranoid; Hermione wasn't known for her stability in pressuring situations, after all. She tried to calm her rampant thoughts with the reassurance that Draco wouldn't know at all what she'd been doing just yesterday in the prefects' bathroom. Draco had always tried to intimidate her and her friends, so how would this be any different? Taking several slow, deep breaths, she rummaged in her bag for any random book from the number she carried to take her mind off of things. She absorbed herself in the text, until she couldn't entirely ignore Draco walking towards the table she, Harry, and Ron stood at. Both Ron and Harry looked defensively startled.
"As dull as always, aren't you, Weasley?" Draco sneered, his voice lower than usual to avoid being heard by the professor over the moderate babble of students. He observing the discolored mess of potion in Ron's cauldron - Ron's ears turned red as he scowled at Malfoy.
"Shove off, Malfoy, Snape isn't here anymore to give you special treatment," Harry said furiously.
"You'd really think Weasley would do a better job scraping off of Granger's work," Draco said, his grey eyes glinting maliciously. "You always were good at making potions, aren't you, Granger?"
The words hit Hermione like ice as Malfoy walked away smirking, back to his desk. Her face felt as though she couldn't move it. There was no overlooking what Draco had just said... when had he ever complimented her before? Why was he doing it now... and why was it on her potion-making prowess?
"Did Malfoy just compliment you, Hermione?" Ron said, confusedly. Both he and Harry continued to stare in the direction of Draco. "That was weird."
"I'd think I am good at potions, Ron," Hermione said with raised eyebrows. Unable to argue the point, Ron attempted in vain to revive his failed potion while panic attempted to overtake Hermione as she stared down at the wooden surface of the group's table.
With the sound of the bell and Professor Slughorn's dismissal, the three packed up their books and walked out of the dark room into the slightly more well-lit corridor. Suddenly, Hermione tripped slightly as somebody knocked into her. Balancing herself, she looked around, slightly confused and entirely surprised.
"Watch where you're going, Granger. And you dropped your book!" Malfoy combed his blond hair out of his pale, sneering face as several of the surrounding Slytherins chuckled cruely. "You're competing with Longbottom for the stupidest in the class."
As the Slytherins stalked away, animatedly chatting, Hermione bent down to pick up her fallen textbook... when she realized she hadn't been carrying any books on vampires at all. She grabbed the book from off of the cold concrete dungeon floor and studied it while Harry and Ron walked on to Charms class, completely oblivious to the absence of Hermione. Curious, she opened the crimson-colored book to see if there was a name written inside, and found a piece of parchment with sharp, long writing on it.
"I know. Trophy room, 10 PM."
At the bottom of the note were two letters... "DM". Hermione was indescribably terrified.
He knows.