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Chapter 9: The poor book!

"Hermione, are you going to eat that?"

Ron's voice broke through Hermione's train of thought, she blinked startled and turned to Ron who was eying her now slightly gooey shepherd's pie. While she chewed over the day's events she had been trailing her fork through her food – it now looked like someone had been sick on her plate.

Not attractive.

Ron didn't seem put off, she shook her head and he scraped the mutant goo onto his own plate.

Harry looked up from his own plate.

"Are you ok? You've been staring at the Slytherin table for almost half an hour." He asked. Hermione's eyes widened. She hadn't actually been looking at the Slytherin table as such; she had been staring into space in the direction of the Slytherin table.

Now she actually looked at the other house's table she could see Malcolm Baddock staring back at her with a scared expression on his face. He probably thought that she had been staring at him for the last half hour.

She wasn't that scary was she?

"Can either of you two see Daisy?" Ron asked, barely stopping the journey of food to mouth while he spoke.

Hermione took a glance around the Gryffindor table for show whilst she attempted to force down the grin that was threatening to appear on her face.

"No. She doesn't seem to be here. Maybe she felt ill or something." Hermione replied, biting her lip in order to stop laughing.

"Anyway." Harry began to speak again and Hermione tore her gaze away from the rest of the Gryffindors and back onto her friend. "There was something that I wanted to ask you." He cleared his throat nervously and Hermione could see he was tense.

"What is it Harry?" She asked. If she had been looking at Ron sitting next to her instead of at Harry across the table she would have seen Ron grin and give Harry thumbs up.

"Well, I was uh, wondering if you wanted to go to the Yule Ball with me?" He cleared his throat again and looked up from where he had been closely examining his food.

Hermione's mouth fell open. That was the last thing she had been expecting him to say. She hadn't even thought he'd been considering even thinking about asking her. Harry seemed to take her shocked silence as a rejection.

"Well, you know, it's okay if you wanted to go with Neville or," He swivelled around in his seat to see the Slytherin table. "Or what seems to be Malcolm Baddock. That's uh, fine with me."

Hermione, embarrassingly, went red.

"But Harry I..." But she was cut off; the huge double doors of the Great Hall were opening. Everyone turned to see what was happening, jostling each other and trying to get a good view of the doors.

Hermione, who had an idea of what was happening, sighed irritably. He could never do things by halves. It was all or nothing.

Draco, it seemed, was pushing the doors at just the right speed that they creaked loudly. Hermione hoped it was Draco; it would be odd if it were Voldemort and his Death Eaters who suddenly burst in and killed everyone.

No not odd, that would just be plain ironic.

But it was Draco who was opening the door. [Think in LOTR – How Aragorn opened the door.] A collective gasp ran through the students. There was a squeal from the Slytherin table; Hermione knew it was Pansy Parkinson without having to look up.

Curiosity overtook her and she decided to look up. He had obviously spent a lot of time thinking about his entrance – well, he had had the entire afternoon.

He had probably gone back to the Slytherin common room during lessons and changed from his very lovely skirt to his normal school uniform. He had ripped his clothes and it looked like he had rolled in a puddle of mud.

Hermione was amazed that a Malfoy would willingly destroy his clothes.

His hair fell over his eyes in silvery strands, which Hermione personally thought looked better than his previous hairstyle even though it was caked with mud.

All in all it looked as though he had been in a fight with nature, and lost.

Dumbledore and a few of the other teachers rose, looking surprised and pleased. Hermione raised an eyebrow, it seemed that they hadn't actually bothered to search for Draco at all.

Draco walked down the aisle between the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables with his Malfoy smirk still in place, which was pretty hard to do, especially when everyone is looking at you and you look like the creature from the deep.

There seemed to be an awed silence. Either in happiness or disappointment, Hermione couldn't tell.

He didn't even glance at Hermione as he strolled past. She looked at Ron and Harry who were wearing identical looks of shock, although Ron looked slightly more as though his head might explode at any minute.

Draco stopped in front of the teacher's table. There was a brief silence.

"Mister Malfoy. Would you care to explain to us your disappearance and your choice of attire?" Asked Dumbledore finally.

"I would indeed Professor. I was taking a walk around the grounds one night when three huge men attacked me and carried me away." He paused as Snape interrupted him.

"What would they want with a Hogwarts student?" He asked raising an eyebrow.

"I assume to try and get a ransom from my father." He turned to face the school. "We are terribly rich you know." He grinned and turned back to the teachers.

Hermione snorted at his performance but when most of the hall turned to look at her she turned it into a cough.

"May I continue?" Draco enquired. Dumbledore nodded, McGonagall looked as though she wasn't sure whether to believe him or not. "They knocked me out and took me to their lair. They tied me up and I had to live off gruel. They forced me to listen to the Spice Girls until I knew all the words – it was horrible."

"Were they Death Eaters Mister Malfoy?" Professor McGonagall asked, her lips pursed, carefully avoiding the fact that his father was suspected of being a Death Eater.

"No. Just plain wizards I think." He replied. "Anyway, I managed to find a rock..."

"With your hands tied up?" McGonagall interrupted.

Draco gave her a tight smile. "I was sitting on the floor with my hands tied, the rock was on the floor by my hands. By rubbing the rock against the ropes tying me I managed to get free..."

"And where was your wand throughout all of this?" McGonagall seemed determined to find a flaw in his story.

A look of remembrance flicked over Draco's face but he instantly changed it back to his normal self-righteous look.

"It was in my room in the Slytherin dungeons, I had left it there by mistake." He said tightly. "Anyway, I managed to escape from the room holding me. Before I could completely escape I was caught by two of the guards. Luckily I managed to fight them off – I broke one of their noses and rendered the other unconscious."

"A teenage boy against two grown men – how highly unlikely." McGonagall murmured, her eyebrows arching abnormally high in disbelief.

"Let the boy speak Minerva." Muttered Dumbledore frowning slightly.

"Thank you sir. I managed to escape and I walked all the way back here. That, I think, would explain my disappearance and my attire."

"Thank-you Mister Malfoy. If you would like to go back to your dorm and tidy yourself up."

"Yes sir." And with that Draco turned and strolled back through the tables. When he passed where Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting he caught Hermione's eye for a second and winked.

Smug bastard.

--

All the way back to the Gryffindor common room Harry and Ron complained about Draco's reappearance. Saying things like, "If I was one of the kidnappers I'd knock him about a bit just to bring him down a few pegs."

When they entered the common room, Hermione noticed Lavender and Parvati giggling about something in a corner.

Probably Draco's hair.

Hermione left Harry and Ron ranting in the common room and went into her room to get her homework.

There was an owl sitting on her windowsill. It looked as haughty as an owl could possibly be – which meant it could only belong to one person. She'd seen it enough times delivering sweets to Draco.

Crossing the room in a few strides she went to the owl – which puffed itself up – and gave it a firm push.

The owl gave a surprised squawk and fell backwards out of the window.

Hermione turned back to her desk and began to gather up pieces of parchment. There was a hoot and the black owl landed on her head dropping the letter on the desk in front of her.

"Oh alright." Hermione muttered opening the letter.

Meet me in the library.

DM.

"Look, I read it." She waved the piece of parchment at the owl. "You can get off my head now." The owl refused to budge and entangled its claws more firmly in her already wildly bushy hair.

"Fine! I suppose you're going to stay there until I go to the library aren't you?" The owl gave a hoot in response.

"Okay, I get the picture. Maybe he wants to say thank you for helping him. Finally." She muttered, half to herself and half to the owl perched on her head.

"I needed to go anyway." She told herself and exited her room.

"I bet he didn't really fight off two guards." Harry was saying when she went back into the common room (ducking when she went through the door so she didn't give the owl brain damage.).

"I'm just going to the library." She told them, hoping they wouldn't look up. They glanced up but didn't seem to notice her new hair accessory.

Once Hermione had gone Harry turned to Ron who was staring despondently into the fire.

"Was it just me or did she have an owl on her head?"

"Probably just her hair."

--

A newly clean Draco was sitting at one of the older tables at the back of the library waiting for her. Hermione took a second to notice that he had not gelled his hair back as he usually did. He grinned wickedly when he saw her approach.

"I see Tyran did what I asked." He said, ignoring Hermione's disgruntled face and holding out an arm for Tyran to perch on.

"Yeah, thanks for that."

"What, were you worried he might mess up your hair?" He regarded her hair thoughtfully. "I can't tell the difference."

Hermione dropped her books heavily on the table in response and attempted to smooth down her hair.

It didn't work.

Draco sat watching her try to control her hair for a while with a strangely placid look on his face.

"Well get on with it then." Hermione said, abandoning the conquest of her hair.

"Get on with what?"

"Your thanks, your appreciation, your gratitude to me for helping you." She replied as if he were slow.

"Oh that. I didn't ask you to come here for that. No. Actually I left my wand in your room and I'd like it back."

"Would you?"

"Yes. I would."

"So you're not going to say thank you."

"No."

There was a pause.

"You don't get your wand back then."

"But that's not fair!" Draco sounded like a petulant schoolboy.

"Observant."

"I need my wand. You don't need my thanks."

"I risked my neck for you. No thanks, no wand."

Draco stood up and glared at her, unbalancing Tyran as he stood. Tyran took off and settled himself on a nearby bookcase. Hermione didn't look in the least bit intimidated.

"I refuse to say thank you." He huffed. "Malfoys don't say thank you."

"Just like they don't dance, don't like muggle borns and don't ever stop smirking?" Hermione stood up and glowered back at him.

"I'm actually a very nice dancer I'll have you know."

"I'll be sure to remember. When I'm old and reminiscing I'll think, 'oh yes that Malfoy boy, what a lovely dancer.'"

"I would have thought you'd remember me as 'that annoying prat'."

"Oh you agree with me do you?"

"I'm not agreeing, I'm stating." Draco was grinning again – it just made her angrier.

"Ugh! I'm going!" She turned to pick up her books but Draco grabbed her arm to stop her.

He was staring at her again. It was very unnerving and made Hermione shift nervously under his gaze.

Damn him and his penetrating gaze.

"I uh..." She stuttered, any sarcastic or scathing remarks seemed to have disappeared from her brain. In fact, her brain seemed to have vanished altogether.

What surprised her even more than Draco grabbing her arm was when he leaned forward and covered her mouth with his.

He must have cleaned his teeth recently as he tasted slightly of mint. Hermione briefly worried whether she had bad breath or not.

She stopped when she realised that it was Draco Malfoy kissing her.

She snatched up one of the books from the table and hit him firmly over the head with it.

Draco recoiled instantly and rubbed his head where she had hit him.

"What was that for?" He demanded.

"What was that for? What was that for?" Hermione challenged loudly.

"Okay, that made no sense." Draco mused, running a hand through his hair.

"You kissed me!" She complained.

"And?"

"You bastard with too much gel in his hair!"

"That's a pathetic insult."

"Why?"

"No gel." He said simply, gesturing to his hair.

Hermione brandished her book again and was about to say something in reply but was interrupted by Madam Pince.

"The library is no place for yelling." She scolded. "I'm disappointed in both of you. You're prefects, you need to set a good example to the other students. The library is for studying, not for lover's tiffs."

The old librarian ignored the horrified looks on the teenagers' faces. "Now, young lady if you want to break up with your boyfriend please do it elsewhere."

Madam Pince scuttled off. The horrified look seemed transfixed on Hermione's face.

"I suppose she thought we were together because of the longing in your eyes." Draco said.

Hermione frowned. "You're definitely not getting your wand now."

She whacked him once more with the book on the arm for good measure, collected her things and flounced out of the library.

Draco stood helplessly. Tyran stared conceitedly down at him.

"Don't look at me like that." Draco muttered

A/N: Hehe. There was a lot of speech in that chapter but at least something happened between them.

I generally find that authors have them kiss and then they both break off thinking 'Oh my God what am I doing? This is 'insert name here' I'm supposed to hate him/her/it!'

I made it slightly different by making Hermione hit Draco over the head with a book!

If you think back, in chapter 5 it says – 'He (Draco) had always thought that if Hermione would hit anyone it would probably be with a book.'

Tyran means tyrant in French.

Anyway, thanks to everyone that reviewed – Bakuraisho-ur-cute, Pertique, Nephyr, Gemia, citcat299, Erilyn Rose, wackoramaco87, BlazingFire79564, Miss W D Halliwell, NitenGale, Dracos-DAMNsexy27, dizzydragon, tennisplaya278, Becky, NeLLy22, ApurpleSquare

Gemia: Wait, I do know what 'I have a headache' is... I'll remember in a minute... Hold on...

Read and Review!