Hermione was staring at Professor Snape, hoping that she looked like she was paying attention to whatever it was that he was doing at the moment, while thinking about anything else. She looked bedside her and noticed Ron taking notes like a madman and rolled her eyes, thank God I've discovered what to write down and what not to. My hands are thankful for it. Suddenly Hermione noticed that all sound had stopped. She looked up to catch Snape asking Pansy Parkinson (rat bitch) a question that she obviously didn't know the answer to. She looked like she was squirming under the pressure, looking for an escape, she couldn't find her way out of a paper bag, Hermione smirked and turned her attention to another part of the room. Her eyes landed on Draco. He looked about as bored as she felt. He was leaning his head on his fist and was looking in Pansy's direction, obviously amused by her lack of intellect, his messy hair falling in his face. Hermione had noticed the night before, when he had shot down her excitement, that he was very good looking. He had always been cute- but not Brad Pitt gorgeous, or maybe she just hadn't noticed, she couldn't pinpoint the exact reason, but she knew that his looks were being wasted. Good looks wasted on a complete asshole, she smiled to herself and turned back to Snape, who had now moved onto a new victim- a pretty blonde who very sweetly answered the question correctly, which only pissed Snape off. What is up his ass? He's never happy. Hermione looked at her watch, begging for time to go faster. Potions was a total waste of time. Okay, maybe it was useful, but really, just a waste of time. Sleeping time, as it would seem to be today, since this had been the first class of the day. Double Transfiguration was next, and then lunch. She was snapped back to reality when she felt Ron moving next to her. "What are you doing?" she asked as she watched him pick his books and cauldron up.
"Class is over, Hermione, were you spacing out?" Ron tried to balance his books as he waited for Hermione to get with it. "You didn't seem to be paying any attention. Did you have a bad night?" Ah, Ron always cared.
"Sorry. I'm a little preoccupied. I just really can't take having this first thing in the morning, you know?" Not a total lie- that is part of it. I would also like to gouge Snapes' eyes out with a spoon. "What do you two have next?" She asked, walking out of the room with Ron and Harry on either side of her.
"Divination," Harry stated, walking towards the tower. "How about you?"
"Double Transfiguration. So I guess I'll see you at lunch?" she felt sad, not being able to have classes with the other Gryffindors. Stupid Malfoy.
"Sure. See you, Hermione!" they waved and went the other way.
"Are you going to walk or wait for the floor to move you?" Hermione turned to see Draco, smirk and all. My God, he's like herpes. "Granger?"
"I'm going! You know, patience is a virtue," she started walking down the hall, and to her surprise, Draco kept with her pace.
"Who says I have any of that?" he gave her a half smile, "I mean, we are talking about me."
"I suppose," there was a very long silence, and Hermione discovered that this was the longest time they had been in each others presence without trying to slam the other. "So is Pansy okay? She looked a little…upset back there." Hermione gestured over her shoulder, as to indicate the recent scene in the potions room.
"She's fine. She's stupid though, so, you know, she deserved it. Besides, she likes the attention she gets from her ignorance. She likes all attention." His tone had become bitter again, and Hermione realized that he was extremely bitter against his ex-girlfriend…or whatever she had been. She had heard a rumor that Pansy and Draco had never been together- Pansy had only assumed it. Well, we all know what you get when you assume…. They approached the Transfiguration room and Draco stepped back to let her walk in first. There's a first. Hermione sat down in the second row, and was shocked to see Draco sit down beside her. She then looked down to see that there were names tags in front of each chair. Draco was sitting in the right place, but she wasn't. She got up, and upon finding her name on the other side of the room, sat down. Great, now I'm an idiot.
Draco rolled his eyes as Hermione blushed at her slip up. She could get so worked up over anything. She'll be extremely uncomfortable without her Gryffindor friends. Draco looked beside him and felt the blood drain from his face when he saw Pansy's name on the tag. Great, this is exactly what I need-.Pansy. He looked up and noticed her putting her stuff down on the table and take off her robes, draping them over the back of her chair. Fantastic attempt at trying to get my attention. Two points for being a Loser. He looked over to the other side of the room, and noticed that Hermione had done the same with her robes, and was bobbing her leg back and forth. Ten points to Granger for having nice legs, he thought, smiling to himself.
"Draco? Are you listening to me?" No. He looked over and saw Pansy giving him a sad face, as if saying, 'without your attention, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, I will die.'
"Yeah, Pansy, what is it?" He was not in the mood to fight with her. If all he had to do was listen about that damn trip she had taken to wherever the hell it had been- then fine.
She flipped out a book and opened it, to reveal, yet again, more pictures. "You didn't get to see these last night! And I couldn't find you at breakfast. Where were you?" I overslept. I chose sleeping over not eating because you're constantly all over me.
"Sorry. I overslept," was she always this clingy? "Let me see now."
Right when Pansy was getting ready to settle down for a long conversation, McGonagall stepped into the room. Thank you.
"Welcome to Transfiguration for seventh year, students," she began, "we're going to start the year off with a quiz." The whole room erupted into groans. Test on the first day, McGonagall seriously needs to get laid. "Oh, don't whine. It's review from your prior semester." She started to pass out the papers, and when Draco handed the stack down the row to Pansy, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it. Oh please, he thought, rolling his eyes and focusing on the test. She's so blatant that it hurts.
Hermione couldn't get to her room fast enough. This day had been hell. It was hard enough staying awake during all the lecturing, but lunch had been uneventful as well. Harry and Ron had nixed her idea of going outside, so she was left to stare out the window at all the happy people having fun. I don't think they know what fun is.
She walked into the common room and threw herself down on a couch. What a long day, she heard the door open and saw Draco trudge in, and it's not over yet. Draco didn't even seem to notice she was in the room. He went straight to an open chair and lazily plopped down in it. He didn't have his robes on, and he tie was undone, just hanging around his neck. He ran a hand through his hair and then threw his head back against the chair, closing his eyes. "Would you please stop staring at me? It's annoying," Hermione felt herself getting red and looked down, acting like she was picking lint from her skirt.
"I am not staring at you, Malfoy. There is nothing to stare at," she frowned at herself for making a very bad comeback. "Besides, you're the one walking around like there is no one else in the room." He looked her up and down, just as he had been doing every time she had entered his presence lately, "That's because I don't notice anyone else being in the room." With that, he walked to the bookshelf, picked a book up, and went to the same chair, settling in for the evening.
Well, wasn't that nice. He's a true gentleman. Hermione got up and walked up to her room, hoping to take a nap before dinner. All I know is that the rest of the year better shape out better than the first day.
Draco couldn't believe the insanely bad luck he was having. He had been very off during Quidditch practice and now he was having the worst time with his Divination homework. Not that this is a class that matters, he thought, throwing his quill down and rubbing his neck with his hands. Maybe Granger's having better luck. Draco picked up his books and walked down into the common room where he found Hermione sitting, her book open beside her and writing furiously. Looks like she is. He didn't exactly expect her to give him the answers- only non do-gooders would do that, but she may give him a hint as to the correct path to travel. "Hey, Hermione, how's that Divination homework going?" He sat down on the couch next to her, and saw her look at him out of the corner of her eye. She stopped writing and looked over at him.
"Divination is total and utter crap," Draco laughed, liking that she was not completely perfect, "I'm serious. This is complete shit. That stupid hag doesn't know what she's talking about," she picked up a piece of paper and gave it to him, "read that. It apparently 'tells my future'" she rolled her eyes and leaned back on the couch.
Draco looked at the paper and read through her calculations. Which, as she said, was complete bullshit. It apparently told her that she was going to have a "very big decision to make" and all that nonsense Granger have a big decision? About what? Draco didn't know whether to laugh at her for thinking that her calculations were right, or to agree at the accusations she was making. He decided to go with the latter. If he was going to get this work done, he was going to need some help, and he might as well be on her good side for the night. "Yeah, it looks to me like a case of A class bullshit," he laughed, and watched as she smiled, shaking her head as she quietly laughed at the joke. "So, wanna see if we can get an A on the grade-A shit?"
"Okay, I guess we can try. But I don't know. I mean, you may find out that one day you're going to be a decent person instead of …well, whatever it is that you are," she raised her eyebrow and picked up her quill. Draco scowled at her comment, but thought better of it to not argue.
"Fair enough, I guess," he said, and opened his book. "All right, if we go to star one, and then cross over to star thirty positioned at the twenty-fifth degree then we should be able to look east…"his voice trailed off when he noticed Hermione looking at him, amused. "What?"
"Nothing. It just occurred to me that we're sitting together. And we're not being forced to, and you're not calling me a Mudblood or something equally as witty," she said, turning her attention to his worksheet.
"And you're not calling me a 'spoiled brat' or something as obvious and trite."
"Oh, and the things you say to me aren't trite?" she gave him a challenging look and Draco suddenly noticed that she was no longer wearing the school's uniform. She was wearing jeans and a red, v-neck shirt. Okay, so Granger is hot, he thought, turning his attention back to her face, but she's still a do-gooder bitch.
"Maybe they are, but they sound new coming from me," That was lame, Malfoy. Lame, lame, lame, lame. "Can we get started, please?" he pointed to his book and stared into her eyes until she finally turned her attention to his book.
"Fine. Okay, so…what do we know? You're all over the place. Yep. Yadda, yadda, yadda. The end." She smiled triumphantly and pulled her head back to look at him.
"'Yadda, yadda, yadda. The end?'" Draco looked at her quizzically, "what the hell does that mean?"
"It means that you have no real future and I want to move on to me," Hermione picked her hair up off her neck and let it drop again, "If I'm right, and I know I am, then I'm going to have a very big decision to make shortly," she stopped and looked up at Draco, smiling, "this is so stupid! I mean, this is almost as believable as my horoscope in Vogue."
"So maybe we should move on to something else. We're also supposed to make this," he held up a blank chart, "look like this," he said, holding up another, completed chart.
Hermione bit on her lower lip for a moment, thinking it all over. "Hmm…I think I got that finished," she started looking through her books until, finally, she came out with the sheet, finished, "Aw! I knew I had already done something."
Draco looked at her sheet and couldn't believe that she had gotten it all completed so quickly. Why are you so shocked? The girl spends over half her time doing homework. He took her parchment and started copying, figuring it would be easier than actually trying to use her as a guide. He was amazed to find that she didn't protest, claiming some nonsense about cheating. Finally, he thought, she's taken the giant stick out of her ass.
Harry sat down at the Gryffindor table with Ron, excited about the upcoming Quidditch match. Both boys knew it was going to be big, it was against Slytherin, but they were confident that they could pull off the win with Harry as Seeker.
"Hey guys!" Harry looked up to see Hermione walking towards their table. He shot a look at Ron who smiled smugly.
"Hey Hermione!" Harry and Ron called at the same time.
Hermione sat down, putting her books on the table. "How are my two favorite boys today?" she asked, taking an apple out of a nearby bowl.
Harry looked her up and down and couldn't help blushing. Hermione had always been pretty. She had gradually changed over the years, though, her attention to her appearance becoming greater, but there was something very different about her. Her eyes seemed to be more guarded than they usually were, but she was still the same. She would still help you out at a moments notice, and she was still the sweetest girl he had ever met. "We're fine," he managed, "We've been wondering when you were going to show up. Breakfast will be over in about fifteen minutes."
He watched Hermione shrug her shoulders and bite into the apple. Her eyes had slowly wandered around the room, and Harry noticed that they finally rested on their destination. He kicked Ron under the table and gestured with his eyes towards Hermione. Ron followed her gaze and mouthed 'Draco' to him. Draco Malfoy? He thought, not believing Hermione would ever stare at him, he's such scum. Harry cleared his throat, "Umm…Hermione? What are you looking at?" he asked, watching her head snap back to look at Harry as if he had just arrived.
"Huh? Oh, it was nothing," she said, gesturing with her hand to dismiss the thought, "I was merely thinking about Potions today. It's such a grueling class. I don't know how I'm going to prepare for exams in time!"
Leave it to Hermione to always think about exams months before the teachers themselves do. Harry shook his head and continued eating, chiding himself for having a fleeting moment of jealously over Draco. Of course Hermione was staring into space. Her eyes may have been in his general direction, but they were looking through him, not at him.
After they were finished eating, the three started walking to the dungeons, discussing how they hated that they only had a few classes together, and how it was unfair that she had to follow the Slytherin schedule. Maybe I should just tell her how I feel. I mean, it's Hermione she'll always be nothing but nice. Harry found himself, though, fearing exactly that. Hermione's kindness may play into her response, and she may not give him a clear-cut answer, or she'll say that she feels the same way just so she won't hurt his feelings.
They made it to the potions room in time to meet Crabbe, Goyle, and of course, Malfoy, at the door. Harry sighed, not in the mood to trade insults so early in the morning and felt Hermione's body tense beside him. Living with Malfoy must be hell, he thought, shaking his head and trying to bypass the three into the room.
"What Potter. Did you Muggle family not teach you any manners?" Harry knew without turning that the voice belonged to Draco. It oozed with sarcasm and was like ice.
"As a matter of fact, Malfoy," Harry turned to look him in the face. "I was taught to not say anything when I didn't have something nice to say." He then turned and walked briskly into the room, hearing Ron and Hermione follow him in.
"That was bloody brilliant, Harry," he heard Ron say as they were sitting down.
"Oh really, Ron! It was horrible! Harry, what on earth were you thinking?" Harry looked at Hermione and couldn't help wondering what it was she was talking about. "That was an awful insult. The worst. Could you not think of anything better?"
Before Harry could respond she turned and focused on getting her papers situated for the start of class. There is definitely something going on with Hermione, let's hope it passes soon. With one last longing look in her direction, Harry turned his attention to Snape, ready to lose his thoughts of Hermione for an hour or so.
Hermione couldn't wait to read her letter from Kate. It was the first she had received from her friends back home, and it had been a month already. She walked into the common room and sat down on the windowsill, completely bypassing Draco's presence.
"What you got there?" she heard him ask, and jumped up immediately.
"A letter from my friend. I haven't heard from her or anyone else since we arrived. I'm very excited." 'I'm very excited,' I'm also very generic.
"Oh, let me see," he said, walking over to her and snatching the envelope out of her hands, "Who the hell is 'Hemi'?"
"Me. It's her nickname for me," she stated simply, reaching for the letter. He pulled his arm back, a playful smile on his lips.
"Why does she call you that?" he walked over to the couch and sat down, waving the letter in the air.
Hermione sighed in frustration and went to sit beside him. God he's so nosey.
"There's this commercial on TV for a truck, one guy asks the truck guy if it has a hemi, the truck guy says yes and drives past, totally blowing the other guy away. The guy catches up to the truck guy, and truck guy says, 'oh, were you asking about the charger? Cause it has one too.' Kate thought that a hemi was something that made the car go fast, and she says that I'm a hellion, so she started calling me that. We later found out that it's just an engine, or something," she finished and took a deep breath, realizing she had said a lot of stuff that Draco would never understand.
"Okay," he looked at her for a moment longer before dropping the letter into her lap. "So I'll talk to you later, Hemi."
Hermione watched as he walked up the stairs to his room, wondering what had just happened. There was no way in hell that they were friends- they still treated each other like shit. But, it may be nice to get along with him. I mean, shouldn't living together be pleasant? Of course she knew this to be true. She knew that there wasn't a possibility for anything beyond decency to occur with him.
She sighed, opening the envelope. She took out the paper, immediately noticing Kate's bubbly handwriting. Six pages! Wow, a lot must be going on. Hermione flipped through the pages, reading about Kate's adventures with Lacrosse, her Shakespearean studies course that she was having problems with, and finally two pages filled with memories the two girls had shared, and how much she and everyone else missed Hermione.
Hermione got up and walked up the stairs to her room, ready to write an equally as long letter back, explaining her classes, friends, doubts about her fate (or whatever it was), and this ridiculous attraction to Draco Malfoy. She knew that Kate would have an answer to that. She always knew how to deal with guy issues.
"Bloody hell, Malfoy! Do you have to be such a fucking prick?" Draco couldn't believe that he was, yet again, having a shouting match with Ron Weasley. The kid was dense.
"Weasley, could you please get out of my way. I have a class to attend. You should do the same," he smirked, knowing that this topic always got to Weasley's last nerve, "you know, with your family being so damn poor and all, they'll need for you to find a decent job to feed all those children. How many of you are there now?" he asked the question with as much disgust as he could find. He hated Ron Weasley almost as much as he hated Harry Potter. He noticed out of the corner of his eye Hermione approaching the scene. Oh well, why should I care?
"That's it, Malfoy!" with that Ron pushed hard against Draco's chest, sending him back a few steps. Oh please! Is this his pathetic way of starting a fight with me? Everyday that week, Weasley and Draco had been in some sort of fight. Be it over who was walking where first, who was going to leave class first, or any other stupid event the two could think up. Maybe a good fight is what he needs to shut the hell up!
"Don't start, Weasel," Draco warned, raising his hands as if to wipe his robes clean. "You won't be able to finish."
Before Draco had known it, Weasley had hit him. Hard. Draco stepped back and was leaning against the wall. He put him finger on his lip and looked at the blood. Well fuck. Draco looked at Weasley, who was now smiling and getting a pat on the back from Potter. He had had enough. Draco walked straight up to him and punched him. He saw Ron's face go red, and knew that this little dispute wasn't going to be finished any time soon. A small crowd was starting to form around them, and he could hear several Slytherin's cheering him on. With a surge of adrenaline he hit Ron again, sending him into Potter. There, maybe now you'll listen the next time I warn you to not do something. Just when Draco was getting ready to go at him again, he caught Hermione's eyes, and saw the disappointment in them. For a moment he hesitated, not wanting to make her mad at him, but he quickly dismissed the thought. What do I care? I'll deal with her later.
"Mr. Malfoy! Mr. Weasley!" Draco turned to see Professor McGonagall standing at the front of the crowd, her hands on her hips and a seriously ugly scowl on her face. Fuck me, he thought, looking around to his friends for some back up. "Both of you come with me, now! The rest of you get to class!" she turned and walked down the hall towards her room. Draco and Ron followed suet, not saying anything to one another but giving each other the same look of hatred.
"What do you have to say for yourselves?" she asked as soon as they had entered the room. "I can't believe it! You, Mr. Malfoy, are Head Boy! You are to present the student body with an image of discipline and integrity. You are not to go around getting into fights in the halls!"
"I'm sorry, Professor," he said in a very quiet voice, hoping he had convinced her of his fake sincerity. He heard Ron snicker to his left and shot him another look, which silenced him.
"And you, Mr. Weasley?" McGonagall gave him an expecting look, and Draco noticed his face turn red as he looked at the ground.
"I'm sorry, Professor. It won't happen again," he said, giving her a look of complete hopelessness. Loser.
"You will both serve detention tonight. You will be in here at nine o'clock, and I mean nine! Not five after, not ten after!" she paused, looking at them both, "Nine! Now go to your classes."
Draco walked as fast as he could from the room. Just my luck- detention with Weasel. He was so angry that he didn't notice someone else walking his way, and he collided with them. He reached out his arms instinctively and stopped them from falling. He looked down and noticed that it was Hermione. "What are you doing here?" he asked more harshly than he had intended. He let her go and put a few inches of space between their bodies.
"I came to see what was going on. As Head Girl, and a witness to that little display, I'm allowed to be present during disciplinary action." She folded her arms across her chest and looked up at him smugly.
"We have detention tonight. That's all. No more fireworks," he brushed by her without another word and continued down the hall without letting her get another word in. This is really turning out to be one hell of a week.