Insomnia (Ch 2)

Disclaimer: Don't own it. is this necessary every part?

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"Potter," Draco hissed as Harry slammed past him. Goyle grunted, but Draco knew it was in response to his anger rather than any actual gruffness. What he really needed was some minions with a little more style, some independence. Draco paused to look up and down his two goons with a caustic eye. He needed some that could muster some decent fear in the chosen victim.

"So hard to find good help these days," Draco rolled his eyes, imitating his mother the last time she'd threatened to feed a house-elf to a house- python.

"Sit down," Snape ordered. And Snape, Draco tutted, had really laid off the PMS in the past year. It was a shame, really, that he'd lost the chance to hone its edge on Potter's scrawny backside.

Draco slid into a bare bench at the front and spread his books across the surface.

"Professor Snape!" There was a first-year trembling at the door. Snape stalked over and mustered a decent amount of concentrated force of hell into the young child. Draco frowned at the scrawny thing, they got smaller every year. He couldn't remember ever being that pathetic. There was an exchange he didn't bother to eavesdrop on and then Snape was excusing himself for a minute. Well, not so much excusing himself as barking at the class to get themselves into order and start on their assignment.

No sooner was he gone than every bench burst out into conversation. The main focus was of course the fancy dress ball McGonagall had announced a week ago. Draco flipped open his textbook and stared down the list of ingredients for a Frenetaz potion.

"Draco," Pansy smiled as she slid onto the spare seat, "There's a rumour going around all the girls in Slytherin that you haven't asked anyone yet. And some of them were saying you weren't even going to go!"

Draco raised his eyes to her, smiling coldly, "Astonishing." He knew what was coming. Draco could either play dumb and let her spell it out for him, stalling all the way in the hopes Snape would return, or he could just blow her off now and keep the pain brief. Yes, like the guillotine, he mused to himself. He stared back at the page, waiting for her next move. The soil from a young mandrake's mouth. Curses, that could be bloody difficult to get out. He remembered last time he'd fished around in one of those thing's mouths.

"Of course, I fixed them. With a little help from a friend of course," Pansy grinned and licked her lips, "I fixed them all good!"

"Yes, I imagine there's a good number of Slytherins who shouldn't be allowed to breed."

The interruption belonged to Granger, who had only just walked through the door. She looked around the room tersely, finding no benches free from books, before fixing her eyes back on Pansy.

"Are you sitting here?"

"Why, I," Pansy stuttered, "Yes I am at the moment. And I'm having a conversation if you wouldn't mind pissing off."

"No thankyou," Hermione smiled drily, "I'm housetrained."

Draco suppressed a snort of laughter. This was too entertaining, watching Pansy matching wits with. well anyone. Patriotically of course, the little Draco inside was swinging a green flag and chanting 'Pan-sy, Pan-sy!'. Pansy's nostrils flared, but she turned back to Draco resolutely.

"So, it's all set," she grinned, the smile almost cracking her face in two.

"I'm sorry?" Ladies and gentlemen, door number two. Play dumb.

"You're going with me, Drakesy," she grinned.

A devilish grin slid across Hermione's face and it didn't escape Pansy's hawkish notice.

"What are you so smug about?!" Pansy reeled. Yes, stall away, Draco thought to himself, shocked to find himself pleased for Granger's interference.

"Nothing," Hermione looked the picture of innocence, her face angelic. "Just. 'Drakesy'," her grin slid back into place, "You reduce him from the level of a dragon to a goose, and expect him to leap all over you. Being likened to a glorified duck generally doesn't inspire rampant lust in men."

Hermione then looked at Draco, catching him staring back and she snorted, "Of course, I'm sure it wouldn't be the first time our feathered friends have been involved in one of your sexual encounters."

Pansy turned almost violet. Draco was amazed she was able to follow Hermione's words enough to be insulted. The expression on Hermione's face was probably enough to tip her off though. Inwardly, the little Draco cheerleader was eyeing a red and gold flag and salivating.

"You bitch," Pansy yelped, she started to stand and Hermione took a step back. Draco was fixed on her face though and he knew it wasn't a step back out of submission. She was just letting Pansy dig herself in deeper.

"Pansy," he found himself saying. He'd said it loud enough that the rest of the class seemed to have forgotten their discussions and were staring over at the trio. Bloody brilliant, he rolled his eyes.

"No, please Malfoy," Hermione fixed a look on him that sent a thrill of something down his spine. Fear, he belatedly realized. "I'm dieing to hear her other well-constructed, well-reasoned monosyllabic insults."

Well, now she was just being a showoff. Pansy leapt up onto her feet and poked around in her robes, searching for her wand.

"Hermione!" Harry suddenly appeared, placing a hand on Hermione's shoulder.

"Oh. Sod. Off. Potter," Draco snapped. This was about to get very interesting if that fluff-haired git wouldn't interupt.

"What is happening here?"

The room's attention flooded back to Professor Snape, standing at the front of the room and looking every bit his reputation.

"Return to your seats at once!"

The students fell over themselves scrambling back in to their seats, including Pansy. Hermione slid into the seat next to Draco calmly and began unfolding her own books onto the table.

"Hermione was late, sir," someone - a Slytherin - piped up.

He looked down at the front desk, stared down Hermione who seemed nonchalant about the whole thing. The hair on the back of Draco's neck pricked up in anticipation. He had to admit, something in him was spoiling for a fight. Any way he could get it, start it, or just watch it.

"After class, Granger," he said. Draco's face dropped into a frown, as he wondered where the instant Gryffindor point loss had gone.

"Now, you've all had at least enough time to organize your ingredients, get to work," he snapped and huddled back up into his chair, pulling his robes around him like a blanket.

"Page?" Hermione looked down at his open book and flipped hers to it. She headed to the shelves and began selecting bottles and boxes. Draco sighed to himself and looked at her, really looked, for the first time in a long time. It wasn't that he hated her. It wasn't that his stomach would churn when she passed by. Not even the fact that she was Harry Potter's second best friend had made him never really look before. But it was all that and more, he shook his head in confusion.

Hermione Granger had always just stayed a little under his notice, even more as the years passed until he'd gotten to the point where he barely registered her presence. It was as though when he first knew her, somehow his mind had just fixed on those things. That Granger would always be gangly, and short, with frizzy hair and buck teeth. That she'd always be a knowitall, hiding behind Potter to save her from his scorn. His mind hadn't allowed that she would grow up, like him. That she'd be standing in front of the supplies cabinet, stretching up to grab a bottle, exposing a band of perfect skin between the waist of her shirt and her white school shirt.

He watched as she seemed to flinch as she got the bottle from the top shelf and stalked back to their table. She moved with a grace he'd never noticed. And he wondered again if she really had used magic that night in the corridor. She sat down next to him and ran her eyes over the book, while he followed his inspection down her face - the edgier lines of a woman's, over the wide curls of her dark hair. Her robe hung over the back of the bench and her shirt clung to her arms, outlining toned muscles.

Draco was surprised at that. Wizarding women tended to be of two varieties. Plump, voluptous ones, and the scrawny stick-insects that habitually lived in libraries. There were a few quidditch-addicts with decent muscles, but not many. After all - what do you need a body for when you have a wand?

Hermione was meant to graciously fit into the latter column, and join her stick-insect fellows, but not even the crisp shirt and overlying pinnafore could hide that somehow she'd acquired an atheletic frame.

"Thank you for that," Draco said finally, while he was lightly toasting a snake-skin she'd given him.

"For the snake-skin," said Hermione, her concentration still on the bubbling pot, "Or for irritating Pansy?"

"Both."

She nodded. "Contain yourself if you can. I'm not a philanthropist, Malfoy," she smiled darkly at him, "I just wanted the seat."

"So you admit you wanted to be near me?" he joked, teasing with just a little edge of flirtation. It came so easily to him.

"If that were the case," Hermione paused, "It would seem our situations were reversed."

"How so?" His throat felt dry. Her face seemed to flicker with moonlight for a moment, reminding him of her expression as he'd wrenched himself away from the window. She watched him. Her eyes reached deeper than he'd thought possible and she seemed to come to a conclusion.

She was studying him, and had been, the whole time he'd been studying her, Draco realized. The darkness dropped out of her eyes suddenly and they returned to the same old dull brown.

Some time while he'd been fucking his way through Ravenclaw, she'd grown up, filled out and unfortunately wisened up. Pity, he thought, there were so few worth pursuing these days.

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