Authors Note: First of all, the only thing belonging to me is the plot, and that isn't much to brag about. Characters, setting, and everything else belong to the wonderful JK Rowling, who will hopefully not bother suing me. The only thing that might possibly be mine is Draco's soul… only sadly I do not have the power to possess figments of other people's imaginations. The whole how Draco looks when he sleeps thing had no meaning when I wrote it, but it does now. *grin*. By the way this is my first fanfic so don't be too harsh. All flames will be used to melt Draco's icy dragon heart. In the future, there will be more of a plot than just Hermione's musings, this is just an introduction of sorts. Please review! Enjoy.
(By the way I think the title means "to catch the dragon by surprise," but if I'm wrong tell me in a review)
Surprendre le Dragon
Hermoine woke-up slowly and looked around. The curtains surrounding her bed were closed-she didn't remember closing them-and the room was much colder than it normally was this time of the year. She couldn't remember coming up here last night at all. Then it clicked – the curtains were made of heavy dark green material. Her heart stopped. She wasn't in her room at all; she was, of all places, in the Slytherin dungeons.
Then she remembered coming here. She had needed someone to talk too, somewhere to go. Her only good friends had always been Harry and Ron; she certainly couldn't talk to either of them at the moment. She had had a huge fight with Harry, and it had totally drained her. He was acting as if they were still dating, and being over protective again. In fact, the recent arguments had started because Harry dear 'disapproved' of the amount of time she had been spending with a certain Slytherin lately. Honestly, he acted as if it had been her fault that she had gotten two weeks of detention with him. As if she, Hermione Granger, had tried to get a detention! Harry could be so stupid sometimes. That particular evening he had been doing a pretty good job of making the whole common room believe that she had intentionally coordinated their detentions. Ron had barely even had to be convinced. Everyone else had acted as if she was diseased. She couldn't sleep in her dorm with the other sixth years, or in the common room where she would have to deal with Harry. And because she had no friends in other houses, she had nowhere to sleep.
She realized how much worse it would be when Harry found out where she had ended up spending the night. That was, if he found out. Not just the fact that she was on Slytherin turf, but that she had slept in Draco Malfoy's bed, with Master Malfoy himself in it. Harry would make it out to be so much worse than it was, as if something had actually happened between her and Draco (it hadn't). In fact, she hadn't admitted to herself that she really liked Draco until… well, now actually. And Harry would make it seem like Malfoy had deliberately seduced and corrupted her, and that life would never be the same again, blah, blah, blah. For heaven's sake, things wouldn't have been so bad if she had never gone out with poor Harry. He was so used to getting his own way and being the center of attention that he hadn't understood at all when she had broken up with him last term. It was as if he needed someone to manipulate because his life was in so much turmoil. And he would have had to pick these particular two weeks to become a pain, when she was already confused enough.
Actually, the past two weeks hadn't really been all that bad. She had gotten detention from Snape, and Draco had gotten it from McGonagall. What she had done didn't really warrant a two week detention: she had just had her first big fight with Harry, and was rather stressed out. As a result, she had just sort of snapped when Snape picked on her. She had ruined some potions and a couple things had accidentally exploded. Oops. So, to spite her, Snape had given her a two week detention and had coordinated it with Malfoy's just to irritate her more. They had spent some time each day for the following two weeks cleaning every imaginable trophy in Hogwarts under the shrewd watch of Filch. After ignoring each other for the first few hours, they had begun to talk out of boredom. They didn't really hate each other as much as they used to; they had taken to avoiding each other instead. After the first few days of bitter arguing, even that had fallen away. Of course, they still did it in public. But when they were cleaning their routine exchange of insults became more of a contest of wits then a vicious battle. In fact, their sense of humor was one of the few things they had at all in common. What sense of humor? you ask. Well, Hermione hadn't changed much in the sense that she was still a know-it-all, but she had finally learned to laugh a bit. Oddly enough, she found Draco's sharp sarcasm amusing. Unfortunately, she was the only one. And she acted more like herself around Draco than she did around Harry and Ron, whom she was constantly getting/keeping out of trouble.
About a week ago, Hermione had actually found herself really getting along with Draco and, (wonder of wonders) enjoying his company somewhat. She had started calling him Draco then. Meanwhile, she had been getting in more arguments with Harry, and he didn't even know about their relationship. Her 'relationship' with Draco, which consisted of exactly one kiss, had started two days ago, when she had kissed him full on the mouth simply because he had implied that she wouldn't dare to. When he had started to kiss her back, she got kind of worried that he was playing some sort of trick on her. What the hell were they doing? He had pulled away a minute later, grinning triumphantly. That had really made her fret, until she realized that it wasn't his usual smirk. She had blushed furiously and then thrown herself into polishing an old Quiditch trophy. However, neither of them would have actually claimed that they liked one another at all, just that they had learned to live with each other and were taking advantage of the situation.
She didn't think there would ever be any romance in their relationship anyway. Which would be, she thought sadly, relatively short-lived. After all, no one knew they could even stand each other, and neither of them was going to mess up their reputations by telling people. Besides, Draco wasn't exactly a mushy sort of guy. The stupid, arrogant, evil, insufferable git.
It was then that she realized that the insufferable git had spent the entire night with his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders. She sat up slowly so as not to disturb him, and then turned around to take a good look at him. Hermione very rarely got to just sit and stare at him, and he was just so… (Need I even finish my sentence? Gorgeous, evil, sexy, take your pick). He looked totally different now. During the day he normally was glaring coolly, or wearing his trademark smug look, or that slow, seductive smile that she had so recently discovered. When he was asleep, though, he looked so young and peaceful and… innocent. Hermione snorted. Draco was many things, but angelic was not among them. Although, she did rather like that picture; a half naked Draco with nice feathery wings. She grinned madly.
Just then he stirred and woke up. His eyes opened slowly and he looked at her for a minute. Then it was his turn to smile, as he pulled her back down next to him and wrapped his arms around her again. She would never have believed that Draco could be this… gentle. He must have been either totally and completely stoned, or not yet fully awake. Either way, Hermione couldn't deny the fact that she kind of liked him like this. She had finally caught the dragon off guard.