*Disclaimer ~ Do I even have to say it? Fine. I don't own Harry Potter and am not getting paid in anyway to write this.*
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Falling Head Over Heels
The Story of Hermione Granger and
Her relationship with Draco Malfoy
By: Befuzzled
Chapter Five ~ The First of Many
"I'm that star up in the sky;
I'm that mountain peak up high.
Hey, I made it; I'm the world's greatest.
I'm that little bit of hope when you're backed against the ropes.
I can feel it. I'm the world's greatest."
~R. Kelly
At 5:45 Hermione started making excuses about needing to go to the library to read up on the new topic in Snape's class, Memory potions. Harry and Ron were in the middle of a chess game and really didn't pay much attention, their minds were absorbed tin the game. Harry was trying ton's quick thinking and organizational skills that he lacked in all his schoolwork was put on display for the game.
"Do you want us to come?" Harry muttered as his queen snapped a chair over the back of one of Ron's knights. The pieces magically moved themselves off the checkered board.
"No that's alright, you're um, busy. I'll be back in.." then she realized that she didn't know how long these session were going to last. Ron and Harry looked up anticipating her to finish. "Um, in a hour or two. Depends how much information I find, I'll just be taking notes to be prepared for class tomorrow. Plus, I really doubt that either of you would really want to interrupt your game for Snape's class. We'll probably end being paired together anyway. So I'll just fill you in then, or at breakfast tomorrow morning."
"Ah," Ron began to question with a deeply confused, excited, concentrated look plastered to his face, "what did you do with our Hermione? She would never tell us to practically slack off while she did all the work, and then offer to give us notes before class. Not that I'm complaining or anything," he added after Harry kicked him under the table. "Are you feeling okay?"
"Yes, of course. I guess I just want time to myself. I'm kind of feeling overwhelmed right now with being a Prefect and all this work. I'll be fine once I get used to it; I just need some adjusting time." She looked at her watch after finishing this desperate attempt to get away: 5:51. She hoped she hadn't put too much worry on their minds now.
"Um okay Hermione, are you sure you don't want us to come?" Harry asked again this time actually drawing his eyes away from the game, to look at her. Her eyes betrayed anxiety, tiredness, and stress; nothing she hadn't already explained to them.
"Yes you would be just as bored as I am now watching you play Wizard's Chess." With that she said her final good-bye. Looking at her watch again she noticed she only had 7 minutes to get to the Quidditch piece so she started jogging.
She looked at her watch once she had arrived; she was still 30 seconds early. She didn't see Malfoy on the field. So she started to move into the stands to wait deciding in her mind to give him five minutes to show up, but then she heard clapping. She looked around spotting Malfoy standing in the entrance connecting the locker rooms to the pitch.
"Wow, Granger, you have guts, or is it more of the stupid Gryffindor courage. I never thought you would actually come." The sliver-blonde hair Slytherin ceased him clapping with the start of his comment, which settled into his lazy drawl.
"What did you expect me to do? Stay up in the dorm while you went and told Snape that I was being incorporative? I don't think so Malfoy; I'm not going to give in or up that easily. If you really want to give me lesson go ahead to try and teach me. It's a practically impossible task. I've already told you once, brooms and I simply don't get along. I stay away from them, they stay away from me."
"Well at the very least, I thought you would bring PotHead and Weasel with you. And was that a threat? What type of real witch is afraid of brooms?"
"I told them I was in the library. No, it wasn't intended to be a threat just a fore warning, but how long is this going to take? And are you implying that I am not a real witch? 'Cause I'll be a better witch than you'll ever be, as a wizard." Her voice matched his, dripping with distain and superiority.
"I don't know. How long do you want it to take? Or our your precious little boyfriends going to go looking for you after a while?" He decidedly dropped the whole not a witch/witch thing, he wanted to get her in the air and to the fun he would have to scare to so called brave Gryffindor.
"I wanted it to be over yesterday. I don't think they'll worry they know how I am about the library. Just make this fast, because now I have to make up a bunch of notes on a Memory potion to share with them."
"Okay that can be arranged – do you have a time tuner?" Hermione shook her head and contorted her face in disgust at his attempt at humor... "Then I guess we'll just have to start now. Mount your broom."
The look of apprehension crossed her face but Hermione did as she was told, almost unwillingly. Her face was placid and filled with a non-emotional, nonchalant-ness. That lasted for a brief moment as she realized and was shocked that Malfoy climbed back behind her. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" His actions caused great discomfort and bewilderment.
"I just wanted to see what it was like riding behind you. You seemed to enjoy being behind me…." Hermione turned around and looked like she was about to smack him, knock him off the bloody broom, or in the very least yell like a young version of Mcgonagall.
"I did not enjoy holding onto you. I was pissed off and my plan was to strangle you but then you took off on your stupid broom just when I got a hold of you so then my concentration switch to not letting you make me fall. You, how ever unfortunate it may be, was the thing I grabbed onto…"
"Whatever you say Granger. I never said anything about holding on to me, just about being behind me." Hermione let out a groan; she was annoyed how he dissected every word that came out of her mouth. "I know you can't resist by cunning charm."
Hermione felt like throwing up, but settle with rubbing her temples and coughing a few times. "Believe what you want Malfoy, you do realize you'll have to touch a muggle-born don't you?"
"Yes unfortunately that will take place but I'm not going to let your clumsy self fall and get hurt just so Potter and Weasley have something to kill me for. And I think wounding another student is frowned upon at this school and I've worked to hard to get kicked out now. A filthy " Hermione's eyes narrowed in a threatening manor, "Gryffindor like you get me expelled. I'll be Head Boy next year and it will be enough enjoyment for me to watch your face in disappointment with the knowledge that I am in fact better than you and the Boy-who-lived-to-annoy-the-hell-out-of-me." Draco was concise and to the point, he apparently had answers and reason for everything.
"Oh. You really are a cocky little prick." Hermione was slightly confused but Malfoy had his reason so she guessed it was okay.
Malfoy kicked off and they were flying laps around the pitch. Every once in a while Draco would tell Hermione to steady the broom, or turn, descend, increase height. At time he wouldn't just tell her, he would also help her by placing his hands over hers or pulling her arm in a certain direction. Hermione noticed she had had her eyes open the entire time, well except for when they first took off; she felt free up in the sky all alone, with the except for Draco. He had kept his promise about starting slow and that baffled Hermione more than the fact that her was having and pleasant time, not being scared like a six-year-old riding a roller coaster for the first time.
Then Hermione took the risk and looked at the ground. It was so far way. She shut her eyes and gave out a little gasp, but felt awkward so bluntly pointing out her weakness to Draco Malfoy. But he didn't laugh at her like she expected; he didn't even make a snide comment. Instead, he moved his hands down her arms and began directing the broom back to the ground, slowly in a circling pattern.
When the Hermione touched the ground she was relieved and uncertainty hit her once again, for about the tenth time that night. She muttered, "Thanks."
"Yeah," he voice sounded as if it was debating something, probably the ever constant fight between good and evil, snide and polite, sharp and compassionate. "Well if you're scared of heights don't look down, it's a common rule of thumb."
Hermione began to protest. "I'm not scared of heights but riding above the ground 100 meters a on a piece of wood that is barely twice the size of my thumb does scare me."
"Would you rather fly on a magic carpet?" asked Draco jokingly.
"Yes actually I would." He stared at her quizzically. "But those are against the law, so I'll just keep my feet on the ground." Hermione glanced at her watch. They had been flying for a whole hour and a half. It hardly felt like ten minutes! Okay maybe a little more than that, but it wasn't the excruciating experience she had expected that dragged like the hands of a clock while sitting in the History of Magic class with Professor Binns rattling on, "Sorry but I have to go I said I would be back half an hour ago."
"Who? Potter and Weasley?"
"No, my mother." She picked up her things and dashed back across the field, knowing and feeling Draco's eyes were pinned to her back.
She made her way quickly up to the Gryffindor common room, stopping just long enough to have a tactful conversation with the fat lady in the pink dress.
"Geeze Hermione where have you been? Is there really that much stuff on memory potions that you just had to know?" Ron and Harry were still in the common room, but were now packing away the game of Wizard's Chess.
She didn't respond, she was still thinking about what had just progressed. "Why are your cheeks so red?" Harry asked.
"Um I was sitting to close to the fire." She hoped they would leave it at that, and thankfully they did with just a few penetrating, questioning looks. Hermione opened her Transfiguration book and began reading as her two best friends played a game of exploding snaps. After about a half hour of listening to the explosions from the game she excused herself to her dorm to start on the notes she needed as an alibi for her adventures of that night.
"Good luck, you two, with the game."
"Where are you going this time?"
"To bed. I'm really tired, I think it was sitting too close to the fire in the library but I guess I'll see you in the morning." She placed a hand on each one of their shoulders before going up.
"She studies too much, Harry. She had to relax."
"Yeah, but that's Hermione. If she doesn't study, then we worry. She's fine, just stressed out about living up to the image of the perfect prefect." Rod just nodded in agreement going to back to the game.
And so it was the start of what was to continue for the next several weeks, Draco and Hermione meeting secretly to have the flying lessons, and the lies, excuses, Hermione made to escape to the field.
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