Deceptions
Disclaimer: Is it really necessary to say I don't own it? Ok. *sigh* I. Don't. Own. It. Is that ok?
A/N: Thanks to: Arial, Demonstar (x10), HPFre4k, Neptuna, DemonBlade, CrystallineLily, Rebecca, SophieBabe, f0xyness39, C, gee, Adi, MoonDancerCat, kalariah, KAOS, Weasley Pride, Rei, mystic-flower, Mirei, FairieDust, Sanaria, PsYcHoJo, Vanillastar, Elica Park, JoeBob1379, The-Almighty-NailBunny, DracosAngel, shibbydragongirl, MoonTrail, Natasha, Cataliana_14, heavengurl899, aime, firey fairy, hyper_shark, silverhaired_slytherin, L. Meylan, Arafel, jennieslife (x2) googoo4you, JAMTillDawn, lil' dudette, Raven Black, WhiteLady, Reader, Akuma Kanada no Tenchi, depth, Xtreme Nusiance!
You're all brilliant – thank you for getting me to 388 reviews! Believe it or not, I have absolutely no confidence in my own writing – thanks for giving me some!
Things I put in italics got kinda messed up, so I've changed those parts to bold to make it clearer.
I realise this section of the story is a bit… slow moving. Think of the story like a roller coaster – you have your terrifying drops, the ups and the downs, and the gentle scenic bits to lull you into a false sense of security. Don't worry – just when you aren't expecting it, I'll turn the story round a sudden corner, and send you screaming down an extremely steep drop.
~*~
Hermione was not let out of the Infirmary until breakfast the following morning. Hungry, she went down to the Great Hall to find Harry, Ron and breakfast.
'Hermione!' Ron exclaimed around a mouthful of sausage. 'Good to see you out.'
'Madam Pomfrey finally gave in.' she smiled, taking a seat between her two friends, and reaching for the toast.
'Pity she didn't keep you in through Potions. It's next lesson.' Harry gave her a sympathetic look, and passed her the pot of strawberry jam. Strawberry was her favourite.
Ron's smile suddenly disappeared. 'You didn't have any…er… visitors last night?' he asked. On Hermione's left, Harry's eyes widened.
Hermione frowned. 'Lavender and Parvati came again. They said they feel guilty about not waking up when I was kidnapped. I told them I didn't even wake up until we got to the Manor, but they wouldn't listen.' She smiled at her two roommates, sitting a few places down the table. They waved back, beaming to see her out again.
'Anyone else?' Harry asked urgently.
'Erm… Ginny came at one point, but I think she was looking for one of you two.' She gave Harry a very pointed look, and then broke into a laugh. Ginny's crush was a long running joke between the three of them.
But neither of them were laughing. Instead, the two of them were sharing an urgent look behind her beck.
'What's wrong with you two?' she asked.
Ron industrially cut into his fourth sausage. 'Nothing!' he said.
'Nothing at all.' echoed Harry.
Hermione folded her arms. 'I have been your friend,' she began, in that tone of voice all females possess and use when dealing sternly with the opposite sex, 'for four and one-third years. I know you well.' She shook a finger at them in a bout of playful over-acting, 'You two are up to something.'
'Whatever makes you think that?' asked Harry.
'We are as innocent as…as… as something very innocent.' Ron assured her.
'A baby! As innocent as a little baby.'
Hermione raised her eyebrows, and, had there been room at the table, would probably have put her hands on her hips. 'You two don't know the meaning of innocent!'
'Of course we do!' Ron said in mock outrage. 'Innocent, adverb...'
'It's an adjective, Ron.' Hermione sighed.
'Same thing. Innocent, adjective, meaning blameless or not guilty. See! I do know what it means!'
Hermione rolled her eyes, and bit into her toast.
~*~
Potions passed with no mishaps, other than Neville messing up his potion. He had become a lot better with the theory, but his fear of Professor Snape combined with his clumsiness tended to result in disaster.
Hermione had been paired with Ron as they made their Timiditas potion. Made correctly, this potion made people more timid and easily frightened, and had been used a lot in the Middle Ages when questioning people. Those who feared you were more likely to give up information without the need for… painful coercion. It had been, in the end, a kindness.
Hermione tried not to think about the uses of this potion in the past. Looking up, she noticed Ron acting rather strangely. She frowned. Those two were definitely up to something!
Ron kept glancing sideways, watching someone suspiciously on the other side of the room. She followed his eye line. He was watching Draco. She frowned in puzzlement, carefully chopping her sunflower petals. Could Ron still suspect Draco of something? Why? It didn't make sense. Draco had saved her life when Harry dropped her, after all. And come on the rescue mission. Why he had, she did not know. It seemed like a very un-Draco thing to do.
Glancing sideways again, she saw Draco glancing over at her table. Harry, a table in front glanced at him, and then at Ron. Ron glanced back, and then at Draco again, who was still glancing in her direction. Those two were definitely up to something. And it involved far too much glancing.
~*~
Harry and Ron had realised that there was one place they couldn't 'protect' Hermione from Draco, and that was in their Runes lessons. Their hopes hung on the fact that there were probably too many people around for romantic heartfelt confessions of love. Hopefully.
Hermione, of course, knew none of this. She knew something was going on, but had come to the conclusion that Harry and Ron simply still didn't trust Draco. She hoped they got over it soon.
The Runes lesson was very noisy, the students chatting as they translated the story. Professor Scripta bustled around the class, doing relatively little to keep the noise down. But the work got done, slowly but surely.
Oddly, there was a rather uncomfortable air between Hermione and Draco. Hermione still didn't know why Draco had gone on the rescue mission; thinking about it was driving her mad. Draco had too many secrets. She found herself thinking wistfully of the easy, open friendship she had with Harry and Ron, the way she could always tell what they were thinking just by looking at their faces, the friendly laughter they shared over private jokes, the many memories of long evenings spent by the fire in the common room, faces flushed from heat, eyes sparkling as they worked or talked together.
Draco was different. She did not know his secrets, and his face was as illegible to her as a book written in Latin – some things she could make an educated guess at, others were a complete mystery. And, she realised with a jolt of surprise, she had never seen him laugh. Or even smile really – the kind of smile that lights up your whole face, making others around you want to laugh and run and dance. He was as strange to her as some foreign land, barely studied, and the most frightening part was that she found herself wanting to know this other land as well as home.
She chanced a sideways look at Draco, only to find that he was doing the same. Quickly, face already turning red, she turned back to her work.
There was a moment's silence.
'Feeling better?' he asked casually.
'Yes, thanks.' she replied. She longed to ask him about why he had helped to rescue her, but somehow didn't quite dare.
The lesson passed slowly, as lessons always do. Eventually, Draco and Hermione started talking, about such meaningless clichés as books and weather.
And the Laekalia.
'Zyax.' whispered Azura, hearing his breathing behind her in the dark night.
He made no reply, but wrapped his arms around her. 'Found you.' His lips tickled her ear as he whispered. She sank into his embrace for a moment then pushed him away.
'We can't Zyax.' She couldn't meet his eyes. 'You're Tenebrae, I'm Clachan. We've been at war for centuries…'
But she drifted into silence, because she had looked upwards into those ever-changing eyes, coloured to suit his mood. And now they were sugared pink, the pink of rosebuds in spring. The pink of love.
She found she could not speak, but suddenly his arms were around her, her head on his chest. And then, with all the beauty and gentleness of a snowdrop in spring, they were kissing…
'Told you so.'
'Sssh! This is the romantic bit.'
'Whatever. You owe me five Galleons.' Draco smirked, but without malice.
'No I don't, you cheated because you'd already read it.'
'Yes you do. You should have checked before you made the bet. Hand it over, Hermione. Five Galleons.'
Grumbling something rude about Slytherins, Hermione dug out the money from her purse, where she had exactly five Galleons, safely kept against such an eventuality.
Draco counted the money. 'You're a Sickle short.' he proclaimed.
Hermione groaned. 'Well you'll have to wait; I haven't any more money till next week.'
Draco didn't say anything to this. Hermione sighed, and went back to translating the scene, eager to know what happened.
Azura sighed contentedly, and wrapped her arms tighter around her newfound love…
There was a chink of coins on the table next to her, and she turned her head to see Draco putting two Galleons and eight Sickles on the table.
'I'll take half of it now, and you can pay me the rest later.' he said. 'Honestly, Hermione, if you don't have enough money, you shouldn't bet!'
Hermione stared at the small pile of coins. 'You mean it?' This was surely not normal behaviour for Draco.
'Just think yourself lucky I'm not charging interest.' he teased, turning back to the work.
Hermione frowned, before going back to the translation.
~*~
Harry and Ron crouched behind a bookcase, wrapped in the Invisibility Cloak. They listened intently to the conversation going on between Hermione and Draco, sitting at a table in front of them with their books open and laid out neatly on the desk.
'How on earth did you get into the Gryffindor common room anyway?' Hermione asked, smoothing a loose strand of hair behind her ear while scribbling away with her favourite quill.
'I bribed someone to tell me the password.' Draco replied evenly. Hermione glanced up, half-indignant and half-amused.
'You bribed someone?'
'Yes, it's a time-honoured way of getting information.'
She shook her head in disbelief. 'Sometimes I think you can't do anything worse. And then you do.'
'I am a Slytherin.' He reminded her with a teasing smile.
Hermione frowned. 'Okay, as you know the password to our common room, you have to tell me the password to yours.'
'And what will you use it for?' asked Draco, an eyebrow raised. 'Sneaking into the boys dormitories? I know Goyle's irresistible, but…'
He was cut off by a small shriek from Hermione, who looked mortified. 'Goyle!' she spluttered.
'Or maybe you prefer Crabbe?' He watched her reaction with an amused expression. 'Oh calm down Hermione, I was only teasing.' He leant over and whispered in her ear.
She smiled and nodded. 'I won't tell anyone.'
'Really? I would.'
Harry nudged a bristling Ron aside so he could see better. Hermione began furtively scribbling, a few strands of loose hair falling back down to block her from sight. Draco picked up his own quill, from where it had rested exactly parallel to the book, and settled back to work.
There was silence in the library, save for the scratch of quills on paper. To Ron and Harry, crouched behind the bookshelves, it looked like a strange composition of opposites. Hermione's warm brown hair contrasted strongly with Draco's cold silver, but both had heads bent over their work, scribbling furiously. One was Slytherin, one Gryffindor, but they seemed so alike as they worked. They had similar habits – biting their lip over a tricky problem, frowning as they worked something out, a small smile of satisfaction as the answer came to them. These expressions were so familiar on Hermione's face, but on Draco's they seemed alien and abnormal, which only served to make the two Gryffindors surer of their plan.
It was a strange and uncomfortable silence.
~*~
A/N: Reviews are welcomed, Compliments enjoyed, and Constructive Criticism practically torn off the page with glee :)