Author's Note: Thanks again for reviewing! It means so much to me that you guys like this story. I now have a beta reader (thanks Sarah!) so hopefully mistakes will be few and far between. And now without further ado, here's the next chapter! xxx*Anya*xxx
Chapter Four
That's What I Was Afraid Of
"Are you sure you're going to be alright here without Ron and me?" Harry asked, a very concerned expression on his handsome face. Everyone was departing for the Christmas holidays; everyone that is, except for Hermione and roughly fifty other people.
"Yes, Harry," she said for the hundredth time. "There's nothing to worry about, I'll be fine."
"You're sure, love? Because if you want me to stay, I'll stay," he assured her. Hermione's stomach jumped. Harry only ever called Cho 'love'. Even so, now was not the time or place to be thinking about such things—perhaps he just did it out of habit? Or it could be affection, they had been friends for over six years now—so she pushed the feeling away.
"Yes, Harry!" She laughed and took his hands. "I'll read, I'll study, I'll wander the grounds, and I won't get myself killed. I promise."
She held up her small, slender pinky finger. "Pinky swear," she said innocently, looking up at him with widened, already large chocolate eyes.
Now Harry laughed and, humoring her, linked his pinky in hers. "Okay fine," he grumbled good-naturedly. He put his hand on her cheek and looked directly into her eyes. "Hermione…"
In that instant, his deep emerald eyes gave away everything, everything that shouldn't have been. Hermione felt it in the pit of her stomach as he slowly leaned closer…
"Harry, don't," she whispered with closed eyes, too afraid to move. "Please."
Harry shook his head quickly, pulling his hand away as if her cheek had suddenly become very hot. "Of course," he said awkwardly, his brows knit together in an anxious frown as he began to babble on. "What was I thinking? I mean, I have Cho and you have…well, you don't have me, that's for sure, because I'm going to visit Cho's whole entire family. All of them in one house, Hermione! And I've never even met her parents. Life's just funny that way, I suppose. As if there weren't enough for me to be anxious about, now we pull meeting my girlfriend's kin into the equation! Cho tells me they're so straight-laced and conservative; it's going to take so much to impress them, I don't know how I'm going to get them to like me. But even so…you're my best friend, Hermione, how could I have possibly…I don't know what I was…"
"Thinking?" Hermione supplied, a small smile tugging at her lips.
"Yeah," he said quietly, gently pulling one of her russet curls.
Hermione shook her head. "I'm sorry, Harry. I promise it's nothing personal. I love you very much, but only as a friend, I think. Even if I didn't love you only as a friend, now is not the time or the place. I know that, and you know that too. I just don't want to make trouble, Harry."
He nodded slowly. "I know. I love you too, Hermione. But I also love Cho."
Hermione stood on tiptoe and placed a timid kiss on his cheek. "You'd better go," she said. "You don't want Cho to wonder where you'd run off to."
He smiled, and with a last embrace, he was gone.
"Aww, Scarhead and Mudblood's sweet farewells," drawled a lazy voice behind Hermione that could only belong to one person. "You two are so hopelessly in love it makes me nauseous."
Hermione turned to face him and rolled her eyes. Apparently, any traces of a halfway decent, nearly human Draco were gone. "We're not in love, Malfoy. We're just friends."
"Platonic love is like an inactive volcano," he quoted sardonically.
"Shouldn't you be leaving for your holiday?" she asked desperately.
He grinned maliciously. "Why, as a matter of fact, no. Turns out I'm staying here this winter."
Half of the sensible part of Hermione wanted to ask why he wasn't going off on some gallant adventure across the wealthiest, most exotic parts of Europe with his fabulous mates, Crabbe and Goyle, as he usually did since his father had died. The other half of the sensible part of Hermione knew he'd only glare and refuse to answer. The other part of Hermione, the part that wasn't quite so sensible, felt a pang of—excitement? Apprehension? Trepidation, even? Well, maybe those weren't the correct words, but her heart started pounding and she felt her stomach freefall as her eyes widened and she realized she would be staying at Hogwarts for the next two weeks with none other than Draco Malfoy. It wasn't necessarily a good or bad feeling, but either way it was certainly an intense one.
Correctly interpreting the albeit confused expression on Hermione's face, Draco rolled his eyes. "That's just marvelous, I'm going to be locked in a castle for two weeks with a filthy Mudblood. It doesn't get much better than that, now does it?"
Hermione smiled sincerely. "No, I don't suppose it does."
He nodded awkwardly. I hate her! He said soundlessly to himself. Every time I think I'm winning, she has to go and do something stupid like smile at me! Doesn't she realize what that does to people? Well, I'll tell you one thing, Granger. You will not win any battle of wits—or anything else, for that matter—against Draco Malfoy. I do not lose.
Instead, what came out of his mouth was, "So…I'll stay out of your way, and you'll stay out of mine?"
Dammit! He thought angrily, silently cursing himself. What on earth does she do to people to make them sound so goddamn stupid and blundering?
Hermione eyed him oddly. "As you wish, Draco."
There it was again. She said his name and he felt chills all through his body. It was so hard to be mean to her when she caused him to feel like that, and only at the mention of his first name. But he had to. He couldn't lose.
Then he heard her melodic voice again, searing through the drafty halls of Hogwarts. "I'll just tell you one thing, though. We can try our best to stay out of each other's ways, but for all that this castle looks big, we're bound to run into each other sooner or later. You don't want to…so, unfortunately, it's inevitable."
He froze in his tracks and listened carefully for the sound of her walking away. He sighed and said almost noiselessly, "That's what I was afraid of."
*~*~*~*
There weren't enough people left at Hogwarts to require all four House tables in the Great Hall now that most people had gone; in fact all the students could fit at one table and the remaining staff sat comfortably at the regular staff table.
Hermione eased into her normal place at the table out of habit, even though it may not have even been her House table and even though it obviously was not in the position she was used to. Without glancing up once, she took her share of several dishes and a glass of pumpkin juice.
To tell the truth, she was a little lonely without Harry and Ron on either side of her making her laugh—of course she missed them, they were her best friends after all—but it wasn't anything she couldn't handle. She was rather excited that she would have two weeks to do nothing but relax, and especially read.
It was when she took her first sip of juice that she first looked up from her food. "Fancy seeing you here, Granger," said a lilting voice from directly across the table.
She smiled incongruously as she looked up at the Slytherin Prince. "See Malfoy, I told you we'd run into each other."
"Oh, and I am ever so pleased about it, too," he simpered acerbically with a delicious smirk upon his soft, full lips.
She looked at him with only her eyes for a brief moment before returning wordlessly to her dinner. Draco, on the other hand, took a moment to look at the enigma that was Hermione. One minute she was spouting out insults at him and the next they were engaging in—could one call conversations such as the one they'd just had flirting?—but no matter what the situation, she was never anything less than cool, collected, and unnervingly charming.
Draco longed to see her otherwise.
He frowned, truly observing her face for the first time. Of course, he'd have liked to several times before, but he was never close enough with the essential time to make his elucidations.
In all honesty, he liked what he saw. She was not classically beautiful like, say, Ginny Weasley (her family might be disgraces to Wizardkind, but Draco knew beauty when he saw it and Ginny had plenty), but neither was she a disreputable harlot like Pansy Parkinson. Hermione was nothing short of lovely, in her own way, with her large, chocolate doe eyes, small, pert nose and naturally upward-curving, corpulent pink lips. And that hair! Draco longed to get his hands on her twirling russet waves, which fell halfway down her back in an effortlessly sexy, carefree way.
Suddenly, Draco was smoldering with desire for a girl he had learned to hate. And for what? Because her blood was dirty? Hadn't he learned in Human Studies that the blood coursing through all human veins was almost exactly the same? It had been, of course, his dearly beloved father (Not, Draco snorted) who had taught him about Mudbloods in the first place. Ridiculous.
He watched her take dainty bites of her food before realizing that he hadn't eaten any of his own. It didn't matter. He wanted her.
Not now, his conscience said vehemently. Not yet. She's not ready for you; she's too sweet and innocent. Give her time to warm up to you first, but be careful.
Careful? Draco wondered silently. What do you mean, careful?
As much as your outstandingly different ways may have a contagious effect on her, imagine what she with her warm heart and unbounded kindness can do to you, his conscience warned.
Draco shook his head and noiselessly laughed it off, pretending not to be fazed. Then again, this was all happening inside his head, where no fooling could be done.
"What?" Hermione asked suddenly, drawing him out of his thoughts.
"What do you mean, what?" he asked sourly.
"You were staring at me," she said plainly. "Is something the matter?"
"No," he said defiantly. "Why would anything be the matter?"
She clenched her fists. "I don't know, Malfoy, that's why I bothered to ask you in the first place. Must you always be so difficult?"
"Yes," he shot back.
"Attention, all Hogwarts students," Professor Dumbledore said loudly, immediately halting the start of yet another one of Draco and Hermione's pointless rows. "We have an unusually large number staying with us this holiday season, so we have decided that as part of the Christmas splendor, we will have a Christmas Ball. Of course…this one will be much smaller than and not quite as formal as the Yule Ball two years ago, but the faculty and I decided that having a nice little party would go swimmingly and be a jolly good time for everyone. Hear, hear?"
"Hear, hear!" the students shouted back.
"That will be all, thank you," Dumbledore finished.
*~*~*~*
Hermione unintentionally found him later that night in the library. He was reading at her favorite table and looked so deeply into his book that she almost didn't want to disturb him.
Of course, that wouldn't be nearly as much fun.
"I told you we'd run into each other sooner or later," she said quietly, sitting down next to him.
Draco looked up at her quickly, eyes flashing. For a brief moment they were that beautiful summer-sky blue again, but then they turned back to their normal steely shade. "Get your own table, Granger."
She frowned. "You know perfectly well that I always sit here."
"Actually, I didn't," he said matter-of-factly. "So if you don't mind, I'm reading and would prefer to be left alone."
"I'll leave you alone," she said furtively, sliding into a chair across from him, "but this is my favorite table and I don't intend on sitting anywhere else."
He puckered his brow. "But you"—
She looked at him over her book; her face was stern but a playful smile escaped from her eyes. "Nuh-uh-uh! I need peace and quiet while I'm reading, if you'll kindly oblige me, Master Malfoy."
Two can play that game, Draco thought mischievously, and proceeded to kick Hermione hard under the table.
"Hey!" she screamed before realizing they were, indeed, in the library.
"Whoops, my apologies," he said all too innocently, but he continued to kick her periodically throughout the night.
At one point, she looked him straight in the eye and said, "God, Draco, I know I'm pretty, but playing footsie is so third-year!"
He gaped at her open-mouthed (Does she absolutely have to say my name like that when I'm trying to live up to my reputation as a foul asshole? He thought) and then spat out the first thing that came to his mind that might serve his defense. "You thought I was…hah! That's a laugh, Granger. Don't flatter yourself."
"Whatever you say, Malfoy," was the calm reply.
"What are you reading, anyway?" he asked her abruptly after a few moments' silence, peering over her shoulder.
She smiled wistfully and held the book to her chest, her distaste toward Draco immediately forgotten. "One of my favorite Muggle stories. It's a terribly intense tale about star-crossed lovers, who were destined for a downfall but with the ability to change their world."
Draco nodded. "Doesn't sound half-bad," he said. "I might have to read it some time."
She smiled at him, looking rather pleased and surprised. "You should," she said brightly. "It's absolutely wonderful. It's called Romeo and Juliet. I don't think they have it here, but I'll lend you my copy if you'd like."
He smirked. "There really isn't anything that you love more than a good book, is there?"
"Well, I wouldn't necessarily say anything," Hermione said in her defense, "But I do love to read, a lot."
"I love it too," he said, looking right into her eyes, his smirk almost a true smile.
Hermione suddenly found it hard to breathe. "It's getting late," she stammered, gathering her things and trying to compose herself. "So I think I'm going to go back at Gryffindor Tower. I'll see you around, I suppose."
"Yeah, see you," he said absently, turning back to his own book. See, he told himself, this is why you don't like anyone, because the second you show a side of yourself that's not made of steel, they turn away from you!
She pursed her lips on her way out of the library, bewildered by his ability to run warm, then cold, and make that transition in a matter of seconds. She'd never met anyone like him.
Unfortunately, as acrid and repugnant as he was trying to be, he couldn't help but watch her leave.