Forever Stay the Same

By Angelkatt (melodyfae-at-yahoo-dot-com)

January 30, 2004

Harry Potter belongs to J.K Rowling. This chapter has a small reference to something in OotP.

Fics can be found at ( www . geocities . com / nightgate6 ) All others please ask.

Summary(because after 3 years, I'm sure people have forgotten): Draco is in a wheelchair and Hermione, by order of Dumbledore, is supposed to watch him. The two have a hard time getting along and it doesn't help matters when they periodically find themselves in a mysterious hallway in Hogwarts.

Chapter 5

"Has Hermione come down yet?" Harry inquired. The few Gryffindors who were paying attention shrugged or shook their heads.

"Not again!" Ron exclaimed. "You don't suppose she's with that Malfoy, do you?"

Harry shook his head vigorously. "There's no way she would spend more time with him than she has to. Something's going on here Ron…I just wish I knew what."

Draco casually leaned over the side of his wheelchair and took some fries from Hermione's plate. Once he had his handful, he proceeded to put them in his mouth. This act, however, promptly made Hermione glare at him in a not-so-nice way. Nanoseconds later, it also promoted her to slap him upside the head.

"What do you think you're doing?" Hermione stingily held her plate closer to her.

"What do you mean?" Draco took another fry and equitably nibbled it.

"You don't just go stealing food off of people's plates. Especially not from a person you hate because she's the best friend to your best arch-rival."

"I don't hate you because you're Potter's friend."

Hermione looked surprised. "Really?"

"I hate you because you're annoying, overachieving, overbearing…" Draco grinned and was about to reach over for another fry when something hit him between the eyes. "Ow! Hey, stop that!"

Hermione blinked innocently and then launched another fry at Malfoy's head. "Stop what?"

"You were all protective of your potato bits and now you'd rather waste them than be kind and share?"

"You know, you're right. I'd hate to waste them on the likes of you," Draco sighed in relief. "But watching and pelting you with fries is so worth it."

She was about to continue her assault when Draco grabbed a handful of ammunition for himself and forced Hermione to change to defense. The two battled on until most of the food that was on the plate was now on the floor, or other, more amusing, places. Hermione burst out laughing.

"I'm glad you find this entertaining, Granger." Draco seethed as he shook out his robes, causing several fries to fall from under his shirt.

"Your hair!" Hermione continued laughing hysterically as she pointed to the golden yellow stick in his white blond hair.

"You should be one to talk. Look at your hair! It was bad before, but the bushiness really helps hold things in."

Hermione sobered and brushed her hair with her hand. "You don't get to make fun of my hair, peroxide boy."

"Hello! Natural colour here. You just can't appreciate true beauty because you don't see it often."

"You know…you're right." She leaned closer to him, causing him to lean back.

Draco raised his eyebrow. "I am?"

"Now that I look at you…" she whispered in a lush voice, then straightened up and announced, "You are very pretty. There's something really feminine about you. I think you'd make a gorgeous girl."

He glared at her. "You're very funny. Especially about the part where you claim to know what femininity is."

"You take that back! I've had it with you boys--"

"Well if we're all telling you, maybe you should take a hint--"

"And maybe you should take a hint-oh hell!"

Draco frowned at her uncharacteristic outburst. "Granger?"

Hermione didn't need to say anything. All she needed to do was sigh and wave her arm at their surroundings.

They groaned, looked at each other, and then simultaneously said, "We're back…"

Transfiguration started and Hermione wasn't in class. That in itself sent out a red alert to every single Gryffindor. The fact that Draco Malfoy wasn't either made the whole class buzz with gossip.

"What is all the fuss about? Settle down, class!" Professor McGonagall walked in and frowned at the disturbance.

"Professor, Hermione is missing." Harry had approached and informed her.

She sighed. "Not again. This is getting ridiculous! Class! Please read chapter nine and ten in your texts while I try and find our wayward students. Harry, if you would be so kind as to watch the class while I'm gone."

"No!" His professor raised an eyebrow. Harry blushed at his inappropriate outburst. "I mean, Hermione is my friend and I want to help her if she's in any danger."

Professor McGonagall sighed but nodded. "I suppose I can't stop you from doing what you want. Very well Mr. Potter. Come along."

"Harry--" Ron started but Harry stopped him.

"Something's going on with 'Mione and I have to figure out what it is. We'll get to the bottom of this, don't worry." He and McGonagall left, leaving an annoyed Ron.

"But I wanted to come too!"

"We're missing class! I can't believe I'm going to get behind because I'm stuck here with you again." Hermione was near hysterics.How can you be so obsessive about school?"

"How can you not? We have NEWTs coming up and then OWLs…these tests determine out future."

Draco grinned. "My future's already set so I have nothing to worry about."

"That's stupid. No one's future is set. When things don't turn out they way you think they will, you will be so screwed over…I'm looking forward to it already."

"I don't think I like talking to you anymore." Draco wheeled himself further down the hall. Hermione turned her attention to the rooms.

Opening the door closest to her, she found herself in heaven. Of course, she was not literally in heaven, but in literature heaven. Hermione found that better. The walls were filled with books that were no doubt rare and contained information very few would have read.

"What are you doing, Granger?" Malfoy appeared at the doorway.

"Don't come in, Malfoy."

"Oh no, you can't trick me. You've found something valuab--" He rolled into the room, not noticing the step down.

"Ahh!" Hermione lay still for a minute, waited for the pain in her head to lessen, before thinking about what just happened. Because of Malfoy's stunt, he had brilliantly fallen out of his wheelchair and on top of her.

"Ugh! Get off of me Malfoy!" she tried to free her legs from under him.

He groaned. "Damn it. Stop moving Hermione!"

"Why--oh." She put the situation together and stopped squirming. Teenage boy with a girl wiggling beneath him. Not a good position to be. "Ew...I SO did not want to know that."

For an awkward moment, both were still. Hermione swallowed. "Can you get off now?"

"Huh?" Draco replied, dazed. "Oh right. Sure."

After getting out of their uncomfortable situation, Hermione got a chance to look at the wonderful tomes in front of her. She didn't dare touch the ancient books in fear of setting off some curse or…

"What are these useless things?" Draco picked up a book and then threw it on the ground.

"Malfoy!" Hermione scolded.

"Oh no. You're not going to start a club to fight for the rights of books now, are you?"

"Do you have to make fun of me every chance you get?" Hermione retrieved the book which Draco had carelessly thrown down. "I mean--"

Hermione stopped abruptly and Draco tried to see what distracted her from scolding him some more. When he saw the scratching on the wall, he realized what had caught her eye.

"What is this?" Hermione traced the etchings with her finger in curiosity. "They look like names."

Draco leaned in closer and saw the wall was indeed covered with names. Judging by the handwriting, each name was written by a different person, and set in pairs.

"This looks a lot like a tree in the park by my house." Draco noticed Hermione's voice was hushed, as if her brain was trying to process the information, so he didn't interrupt. "Couples used take a knife and etch their initials into the bark. I always though it wasn't very friendly to the trees, but the notion was romantic."

"Are you telling me we've stumbled across a Hogwarts make-out room?" He looked at the shelves in disgust. "And I thought you were the only person turned on by books…"

Hermione shot Draco an annoyed look before pointing out at some names. "There are letters after each name. Look, 'N. Black S and L. Evans G.', 'A. Summers H and R. Davies R'."

Draco shook his head. "This is confusing. Hey," his eyes fell on a familiar name. "'L. Malfoy S and P. Pettigrew G'. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Lucius Malfoy Slytherin and Peter Pettigrew Gryffindor." Hermione blinked sadly. "Oh look. 'J. Potter G and S. Black S'. That's Harry's father and his father's best friend."

"Not that I care, but Potter's father was best friends with a Slytherin? I wouldn't have thought."

"Just because you are stubborn doesn't mean other people can't look past houses."

Draco glared at Hermione in disbelief. "You can't be serious."

"I'm quite serious. You shouldn't stereotype a person for being in a certain house…"

"Oh, so you just don't like me as a person."

Hermione blinked at Draco's statement. "What does that supposed to mean?"

"If it's not the fact that I'm a Slytherin, then that means your reason for disliking me is because of who I am."

She threw her arms up in the air. "Well duh! When did you figure that out? You hex my friends and call me names. Did you honestly think the only reason we don't get along is because we're in different houses? If Harry weren't in Gryffindor, you would make friends with him?"

"I tried."

Hermione barely heard his answer and when she did, she had a hard time understanding. "What? When?"

For a split second, Draco was torn between his own pride and proving Hermione wrong. He decided, looking at the wheels of the chair he was currently sitting in, that his pride was not an issue anymore. "First year, I offered Potter the world and he turned me down for a Weasley."

"Ah," She said in realization. "Now that makes sense."

"Oh, don't do that. Don't pretend to understand me just because of what I do or what happened in the past. I hate it when people think they know why a person acts the way he acts. You wouldn't want me to psychoanalyze you."

Draco and Hermione stared at each other before Hermione whispered, "We're an odd couple, aren't we?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're not who I thought you were and I'm not who you thought I was. Why is that? Because we never tried. It's so childish."

"It is not!" Draco hesitated at his own words. "Well, I guess it is."

"These are all interhouse pairs. No two are from the same house."

"Smooth topic change, Granger."

Hermione walked closer to Draco, towering over his sitting form. "Are you going to start listening to me or not?"

He folded his hands in his lap and smiled patronizingly.

"Anyway, what I was going to say was Gryffindor and Slytherin were best friends but something happened. Same with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Nothing was ever the same again. The magic in the castle, the relationship between the houses…"

"The castle wants to bring them back together…"

"Hey, I was just about to get there." Hermione pouted at her stolen thunder.

"You're not the only one who reads you know." Draco rolled his eyes. "Just because you hang around two ignorant--"

"You should talk you--"

"Once again you reach for the--"

"How you get along with people I'll--"

"C'mere."

"--Omph!"

Hermione fell onto Draco, stiffening at the touch of his lips. He let her go and the two of them couldn't meet eyes.

"What was that?"

"I though--that was what it wanted, right? Umm--yeah."

Hermione could feel her cheeks burning and she turned away. "Sure, but I--er--a…I was thinking maybe calling a truce was good. Not that that wasn't…"

"Right! Truce. I agree. It's a plan then."

"Do you think we should--"

"Talk?"

"--scratch our names in the wood?"

Draco nodded vigorously. "That's what I meant."

Hermione took out her want and etched H. Granger G. Draco followed with D. Malfoy S. The silence was followed by a "Where have you been?"

"Harry!" Hermione ran and hugged him. "Everything's fine now. We worked it out."

"Potter," Draco nodded in greeting.

Harry cautiously replied, "Malfoy."

"Don't worry, Harry. We have a truce."

"Hey there!" Draco interrupted. "Who said I had a truce with boy wonder? Even though we worked things out--"

"Please Draco?"

Harry watched with surprise as Draco's face showed defeat.

"I've clearly entered a different dimension here, so let's just say I didn't see that."

Hermione hit Harry in the arm. "Why must we act like this? We're all Hogwarts students. Who cares what house we're in?"

"You know it's not just--"

"Harry!" Hermione scolded.

"What do you want me to do?"

This time Draco spoke up. "I know we're not friends. We'll never be friends. Of course, I never though I would be friends with Granger either, so it just shows what I know. She turned out to be a decent person and I'm willing to not harass you in respect for Hermione's friendship."

Harry simply offered his hand.

"You don't have to--"

"Draco!" Hermione scolded this time. He took Harry's hand.

"I'm still keeping an eye out though. Well, Hermione, everyone's really worried. We should get back to class."

"Professor McGonagall didn't start without us, did she?"

"No, Hermione. She let the twenty other students stand around while they waited for us to appear." Draco explained.

"Actually, we were trying to find the two of you when she got into an argument with Professor Tralawney. I don't know where they went…I was looking for her when I found you."

"Oh dear…" Hermione bit her bottom lip. "Knowing those two, we'll never have class at this rate."

"I don't--"

"It's better that way, Harry. Trust me."

"Hermione! Harry!" Ron raced out of his desk to greet his friends. "I was worried."

"Nice to see your concern for me, Weasley," Draco drawled.

"What did he do now?"

"Why do you assume--"

"Don't start, Draco."

Draco turned to Hermione. "Oh, is this how it's going to be? We're friends now and you get to boss me around?"

"You two are friends?" Ron asked horrified.

"You need to listen to me while you're in that wheelchair so--"

"Yes Ron, our circle has apparently gained a Malfoy." Harry answered.

"Rubbing that in my face again are we--"

"It's your own stupid fault anyway--"

Ron watched the bickering duo. "I repeat; they're friends?"

"Friends aren't supposed to call friends stupid you stupid bint--"

"How DARE you--"

"Yes," Harry answered again.

"I don't know why I agreed to--"

Harry and Ron left Hermione and Draco at the door. "I guess some things never change."

"Hey, Harry? Where's Professor McGonagall?"

The End

Wow. My first finished chapter story. Thank you so so much for reading! That only took me three freaking year to do and it's actually a lot shorter than some people's oneshots. I'm not bitter. Nope. And sorry I coped out at the end. Read the next paragraph if you want to help.

If I actually have anyone's attention, I'd like to make puppy eyes to someone willing to beta for me. I know this was a Draco/Hermione story but one of the reasons it took me so long to finish was because I jumped ships. I'm hoping to find a beta who's willing to read slash and preferably has university level English. If you like my D/Hr, one of the stories I'm working on has hints of D/Hr, R/Hr, and D/H. Contact me at or leave a post on my livejournal, username aurabright.

Now I would like to thank all those wonderful people who reviewed and told me to finish this. It makes me so happy to know someone cares

I especially want to thank Hermionehasharry, slammin-sorceress, GrimKittie, Crysania Fay, THECURSOR, Crazy Courtney, RaiQen, chamilyun, Ligeia, RougeCrayon, EyEzOnLy, and littlefrog for caring enough. (even if not all of you are reading my HP fics) glomps

http/ www . geocities. com / nightgate6