Title: Examinations
(Subtitle: Loser. Kisses. Winner.)
Author: luckdragon
Rating: oh, PG again I suppose
Summary: Life is full of tests. There's nothing that says they can't be fun.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, but I have invited them out to play.
Author's Note: Well, I must admit that this chapter did not turn out as I expected when I started writing it. It seems that Draco and Hermione had other ideas – I swear that they wrote this chapter and not me! Big thank yous to everyone who read and/or reviewed! And now, on with the show…
Now, really, this was getting a bit redundant.
Care of Magical Creatures was her class. Not his. Hagrid liked her, not him. She took the class seriously, not him.
She got top marks on every test in every class, not him.
Not him, not him, not him.
At least, not until now.
She had spent the entire last week blushing whenever he was in the same room. She had been too fluttery to eat properly.
Fluttery. She was fluttery. She had told everyone that she was afraid she had caught a flu. Never mind that no one else was ill. She refused to go to the Infirmary. Miss classes? Hermione? No, that didn't happen.
Be fluttery enough to misidentify three plant-eating creatures as carnivorous? Hermione?
Well, that might have happened.
"How?" she shouted. "How?"
"I answered the majority of the questions correctly," he replied smoothly. "If you were looking for a more thorough answer, I paid attention in class, took notes on the things I needed to remember, and on the two nights before the exam, I –"
"I know how to study," she snarled.
Then she grabbed his jaw a bit roughly and dragged his mouth down to hers.
It was safe to say that she was a bit frustrated.
Outlets. Well, that explains it: this must be an outlet for her frustration.
He leaned into her hurriedly, bumping her back into the wall. She was having none of this, and braced her hands against his chest, pushing him away.
"How did you do it?" she questioned angrily. "Did you cheat?"
He looked sincerely affronted. "I don't need to," he answered, his voice sounding a bit tense.
"Why, because you pay off the professors?"
His eyes narrowed, and he took a few steps to his left. She noted that this move was calculated, as it placed his own figure strategically between hers and the door.
"What do you take me for?" he spat, his voice turning disdainful. "Some git who's too dim to pass one of Hagrid's inane exams?"
"Take that back!" she cried, advancing.
"No," he replied.
"Do it!"
"Make me."
Hermione wore a furious scowl. "How very mature of you," she snapped.
"You couldn't anyway."
"Couldn't what?"
"Make me take it back." He shrugged.
She was standing just across from him. "Yes, I could. Take it back," she said in low tones. "You take it back" – she jabbed him in the chest with her finger by way of punctuation.
He tilted his head forward and narrowed his eyes. "Make. Me."
A frozen moment passed.
She hadn't really met his eyes for one day less than two weeks now. Not for more than a fleeting second, anyway. They were… deeper than she remembered somehow. Layered. Currently, anger was at their top level, but it was swirling… with…
She was on him again, but again, only for a moment. Then she shoved him back once more.
He let out some sort of frustrated noise.
"Stop making me do that!" she cried in irritation.
"I'm not making you do anything," he said, "so you can stop being so angry with me already."
Oh, now how had he done that?
He had delivered a sound blow to the cause of her rage and been right, all in one.
Normally, this would have fueled her anger, but instead, after one last brief flare, she felt the wind rapidly leave her sails.
They were in an empty classroom. Defeated, she sank into a chair.
He took one nearby.
"Why do you study so much?" he asked her abruptly, all ire gone from his voice.
She glanced at him suspiciously. "If this is a prelude to some joke about how –"
"It's not," he interrupted. Then he waited.
She shrugged. "Why does anyone do anything? Because they like to, or because they have to. I like to."
He looked at her curiously for a moment. A bit of a flush rose over her cheeks as she reviewed her words, but he chose the literal line of conversation to pursue.
"Why, though? How is spending night after night with your books so enjoyable?"
She couldn't fathom why her answers might be of interest to him. Inspired by his sudden solemnity, she tells him the guarded truth.
"Well, some of us… that are here… feel the need to prove that we deserve to be so," she answers haltingly.
He almost looks a bit contrite.
Contrite! Draco Malfoy! She didn't know it was possible!
He should be.
Not only had he maligned her for years, but now he'd also gotten her to admit an insecurity that he had already exploited.
"I see," he responded.
"Oh, why did you make this stupid bet anyway?" she muttered, temper flaring suddenly again at her verbosity, his brevity. If not for that fateful day, she would be in the library at this very moment, or in the Common Room, or not here.
"I didn't, you did," he argued, almost lightly.
"We both did," she clarified.
He nodded slowly, and the pair lapsed into silence.
Neither moved.
He spoke, breaking the silence with what was on her mind anyway: "So, Arithmancy?"
"The exams come around rather quickly, it seems," she said sagely.
"Don't we have any other classes together?" he teased. "I've already proven that I can beat you in that one."
Teasing? The playful kind? This whole week was incomprehensible, from the fluttering to the losing to her admittance to this.
"Not this time," she answered, finding herself turning quite coquettish.
"I've heard that before," he bantered back. "Make it interesting."
"Double or nothing," she responded, surprising them both.
"That's…"
"Eight," they said in unison.
"Technically only six," Hermione pointed out. "I'll go easy on you. Take it or leave it," she finished.
Draco gave her a mischievous look. "Deal."
They shook on it.
She left without another word.