Chapter 8
Hermione woke up with a warm feeling in her stomach. 'Shit, not again,' she thought. Hermione recalled her dream from the previous night and groaned. 'Yes, again. Why won't he just leave me alone? Why does this have to happen to me? Aren't there other girls that would be better equipped to handle this than me? Why me?' Hermione punched her headboard in frustration and immediately regretted the action as a throbbing pain shot through her knuckles and down her arm. "Why do I have to dream about Draco Malfoy?" she didn't realize she'd spoken the thought aloud until Parvati Patil said,
"What did you say Hermione?"
"Um, nothing," said Hermione defensively.
"Are you sure? I was just waking up, I heard this horrible crack, but I was sure you said something about Draco Malfoy."
By now the other girls were also beginning to stir.
"Oh, don't be silly, Parvati," Hermione was trying perhaps a bit too hard to retain the normalcy in her voice. "Why would I say anything about Draco Malfoy except that he's an insufferable bastard?" Hermione tittered. "Honestly!"
Parvati eyed her suspiciously. "Whatever you say."
The other girls were up by now and looking around for clothes and wands and shoes, trying to get ready for breakfast and the conversation was abandoned. Hermione heaved a sigh of relief. The last thing she needed anyone to find out was that she was having dreams about Draco Malfoy. Especially not Parvati. She had become rather a matchmaker over the years and Hermione was never on the prowl for a date.
Hermione took her usual spot with Ron and Harry at the table in the Great Hall for breakfast. As she reached for the pitcher of pumpkin juice, she happened to look across the table, across the room, across two other tables and meet a pair of eyes as gray as the sea on a cloudy day. For a moment, everything around them melted away and they were just them, sharing each breath, each heartbeat; cold sea meeting warm brandy, blending in the earth, flowering into a tree, nothing but themselves, each two bodies sharing a soul.
Then someone shouted "Hermione!" and the spell was broken, the world was back in place, and pumpkin juice was spreading all over the Gryffindor table.
"Oh, sorry guys!" said Hermione as people on either side of her jumped up to avoid the sticky liquid running into their laps. Hermione quickly muttered a cleaning spell and the juice was gone. "I guess I got lost in a daydream."
"I'll say!" said Ron. You'd practically turned the pitched upside down before we'd gotten your attention! What so bloody interesting about the Slytherin table anyway?"
"I wasn't staring at the Slytherin table!" said Hermione. Her cheeks flushed even as she said it.
Ron knew she was lying but didn't say anything. "Oh, really? Just found some interesting thing on a solid stone wall that is completely gray and devoid of every other color?"
Hermione's cheeks got even redder. "Well, what if I did find something interesting in the solid stone wall? Maybe I thought the imperfections in the rocks made what looked like a silhouette of Gilderoy Lockhart."
"I'd say that's a pretty dull explanation, even for you," said Ron softly into her ear. Hermione's face couldn't get any redder, so the blush went up to her hairline and down to her collar.
"What's really bothering you, Hermione?" asked Ron.
"I'd prefer not to talk about it here with you. The subject is closed now and we can all move on with our day like this whole thing never happened. Harry's been very quiet, anything wrong, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Nothing Hermione," said Harry. He had been quietly looking down the length of the table while Ron and Hermione had had their little exchange, and didn't bother to look up when he answered Hermione's question. She followed his gaze down to Ginny Weasley, who was talking animatedly with some sixth year girls. Hermione smiled.
Ron followed both their gazes and grimaced.
"Harry," said Hermione, "Parvati told me she had this new way of getting people together. I'll let her know that you and Ginny are willing test subjects."
Harry's head snapped towards Hermione. "You wouldn't dare."
"Oh, yes, I would, Harry darling," said Hermione with more than a hint of mischief in her voice. No one let Parvati loose on anyone and lived to tell the tale. She would probably be talked about for years to come.
"Harry," said Ron, fixing Harry with a grave look, "you're one of my best friends. But if you hurt my sister, I swear, I will get Hermione to teach me one of those castration spells she threatened me with all through sixth year."
Harry succeeded in hiding his smile, but there was no mistaking the mirth in his eyes. "I promise I won't do anything to purposely hurt Ginny. But I don't think she'd even give me second glance now, not after the way I snubbed her during her first few years of school."
"And I'm sure she wouldn't be willing to even talk to you after you saved her life in the Chamber of Secrets," said Hermione sarcastically. She glanced down the table again. "She's looking this way, Harry."
"Bloody hell!" said Harry. "Do you think she saw me staring?"
"Would you all please stop talking about my sister as some sort of - of - girl?" Ron was practically going crazy.
"Sure, Ron, whatever you say. Look, Harry, she's coming over to say hi. Better wipe the pumpkin juice mustache off your lips."
Hermione laughed as Harry's eyes got wide and he hurriedly wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
"Hi, guys," said Ginny as she came up to where they were sitting and sat down next to Harry. "What's up? Is there a profile of Gilderoy Lockhart on my pumpkin juice goblet or something?" Harry turned a brilliant shade of red and Ron excused himself from the table while Hermione broke up into hysterics. Ginny just looked at Harry puzzled. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, um," said Harry. "I have to, um, go to the, um - er, library to uh, do some, some, uh, something. I'll see you later, Jimmy and Horny." Harry turned an even deeper shade of red as he realized what he'd said. Hermione only laughed harder. Ginny looked at him with a twinkle in her eye. "I mean," he said, "um, I'll see you later," and Harry Potter made his grand exit.
Hermione was laughing so hard that tears had come to her eyes and were streaming down her face. Ginny had giggled a bit, but was now more puzzled than ever and went off in search of some sane person to have a normal conversation with.
Hermione waited for the laughing fit to pass, which took a while. The urges of passersby to "breathe" and "calm down before you hurt yourself" only made her laugh all the harder. But finally she did calm down and wiped the tears from her now tomato-red face. She was still smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt in the aftermath of the laughing fit when she felt someone's eyes on her from across the hall. She looked up and once again met those incredible gray eyes, but the world didn't fall away this time. Everything around her slowed down, but she could still see him and everything else. His gaze was stony, but not unkind. His eyes revealed to her that he was feeling a tumult of emotion as well, but his upbringing wouldn't allow him to show it. Then, he broke the contact, severing the connection between them. Hermione couldn't help feeling disappointed.
'What am I doing?' Hermione silently asked herself as she got up from her seat and made her way to Herbology before she was late for class.
* * *
It was now time for Potions. 'Perfect,' Hermione thought. 'The perfect end to one of the strangest days of my life.'
Harry had not spoken to Ginny since breakfast that morning, and Ron had barely spoken to Harry. It wasn't that Ron was angry. He just couldn't understand how Harry was attracted to his sister. And he didn't want his sister to *do* anything with anyone for the rest of her life. She would become a nun, if he had his way about it.
Hermione hadn't stopped thinking about what had happened to her at breakfast all day. It was so weird. Who would have thought that Draco Malfoy could do that to her? So the day had turned out to be one of the strangest since Hermione had arrived at Hogwarts. Stranger even than all the days she had spent with Harry and Ron trying to defeat Voldemort or save something or someone. 'But,' she thought, 'it's almost over. Soon, Potions will be over, and then I can just curl up with Hogwarts, A History and relax.'
"Quiet down, class," said Snape in his characteristically dark and imposing manner. Hermione found that she had become rather used to it and it didn't intimidate her nearly as much as it used to. "Since this is your seventh and final year at our lovely institution, as well as your NEWT year, we will be brewing a very complex and difficult potion. I can assure you that you will need to pay meticulous attention to the details of this assignment; failing to complete any of the steps could prove a great threat to your health and well being. As such," Snape gave a sigh of annoyance "you will be working with partners on the assignment. I will choose your partners for you and have a list of pairs posted on the door of the classroom tomorrow. Don't get your hopes up; I doubt anyone will complete this potion successfully. It comes from a very high level of learning that I doubt even our resident know-it-all Miss Granger has reached.
Hermione wasn't even listening to Snape. She had learned to ignore his snide remarks over the years. "How high a level of learning is that, Professor Snape?"
"Even students at the University level in Europe don't brew this potion until their final years. But, this potion will give you a highly sophisticated sense of how to brew a delicate potion and successfully work under pressure, valuable skills for your NEWTs. The potion is called the Morganna's Elixir. It is generally used as a soothing potion for victims of extreme flesh wounds, bites, burns, and the like. It can become highly explosive if stored for a long amount of time and is generally not found in the store rooms of St. Mungo's for this reason. Now, I want 18 inches of parchment on this potion and have it to me by the end of class, now begin. You may use your textbook as a resource, but I doubt it will be very helpful due to the advanced nature of the potion."
Hermione, having anticipated her professor's assignment, already had six inches of parchment done. Professor Snape had been quite wrong about Hermione not knowing anything about the potion. She was quite familiar with it, having encountered it in her reading numerous times. Hermione finished the assignment and found that she still had twenty minutes left in class. She lay her head down on the desk in front of her for a short nap.
'She was lying in a warm, white bed that smelled like roses. She felt a warm body beside her and turned to see who it was. A pale face framed in blond hair smiled at her. Hermione hugged Draco to her, not wanting to let go of him. He was so warm and Hermione felt so safe with his body pressed against hers. She snuggled into the contours of his chiseled chest, not wanting to . . .'
"Wake up!" said a voice very close to her face. She waved her hand at the voice and felt it slap against warm flesh. She heard a giggle and her eyes flew open.
"Ron!" she said. "I'm sorry! Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Hermione, don't worry. You're lucky Snape didn't catch you. You'd have detention from now until graduation.
Hermione nodded, but she wasn't thinking about Snape at the moment. She was remembering the dream she'd been having. "Did I say anything while I was asleep? I talk in my sleep sometimes."
"No, Hermione, I didn't hear anything. Well, there was one time, when I realized you were asleep; you gave this sort of sigh. You sounded really happy. Come to think of it, you and Malfoy were both asleep today in class. I heard him sigh at about the same time. That's odd. Wonder what the insufferable bastard was dreaming. Or even more interesting, what were you dreaming, Hermione?" Ron asked mischievously.
"None of your business, Ron," said Hermione. "A person's dreams are their subconscious thoughts and desires and problems trying to work themselves out during sleep. I doubt you would find my subconscious very interesting."
"I don't know, Hermione, you had a very content look on your face," said Ron.
"Well, I don't remember what I was dreaming, so I can't tell you."
"Lying never did become you, Hermione."
By this time the pair had reached the Gryffindor Common Room and Ron was going up to the boys' dormitory, while Hermione went up to the girls'. She set down her school bag and picked up Hogwarts, A History and headed for the library. She had no idea what would be waiting for her when she got there.
A/N: Is it just me, or is this the worst chapter yet? It kind of rambles on and on and never gets anywhere. Sorry about the lack of Hermione/Draco shipiness in this chapter, but I was trying to explore Hermione's feelings about what had happened. Please keep in mind that this takes place on the SAME DAY as the last chapter, but not at the same time. This chapter took forever to write. I think it's the longest chapter yet. I hope you guys liked it better than I did. Did anyone get my hidden meaning in the last chapter? Review and tell me if you guess it. Did anyone like the Harry/Ginny subplot I put in? It kind of took over this chapter, but it will NOT take over the rest of the story, I promise. Review please! They mean a lot. I love getting all those review notices flooding my in-box! Thanks to those who have already reviewed! I love you guys! Hugs and cookies to all!
Hermione woke up with a warm feeling in her stomach. 'Shit, not again,' she thought. Hermione recalled her dream from the previous night and groaned. 'Yes, again. Why won't he just leave me alone? Why does this have to happen to me? Aren't there other girls that would be better equipped to handle this than me? Why me?' Hermione punched her headboard in frustration and immediately regretted the action as a throbbing pain shot through her knuckles and down her arm. "Why do I have to dream about Draco Malfoy?" she didn't realize she'd spoken the thought aloud until Parvati Patil said,
"What did you say Hermione?"
"Um, nothing," said Hermione defensively.
"Are you sure? I was just waking up, I heard this horrible crack, but I was sure you said something about Draco Malfoy."
By now the other girls were also beginning to stir.
"Oh, don't be silly, Parvati," Hermione was trying perhaps a bit too hard to retain the normalcy in her voice. "Why would I say anything about Draco Malfoy except that he's an insufferable bastard?" Hermione tittered. "Honestly!"
Parvati eyed her suspiciously. "Whatever you say."
The other girls were up by now and looking around for clothes and wands and shoes, trying to get ready for breakfast and the conversation was abandoned. Hermione heaved a sigh of relief. The last thing she needed anyone to find out was that she was having dreams about Draco Malfoy. Especially not Parvati. She had become rather a matchmaker over the years and Hermione was never on the prowl for a date.
Hermione took her usual spot with Ron and Harry at the table in the Great Hall for breakfast. As she reached for the pitcher of pumpkin juice, she happened to look across the table, across the room, across two other tables and meet a pair of eyes as gray as the sea on a cloudy day. For a moment, everything around them melted away and they were just them, sharing each breath, each heartbeat; cold sea meeting warm brandy, blending in the earth, flowering into a tree, nothing but themselves, each two bodies sharing a soul.
Then someone shouted "Hermione!" and the spell was broken, the world was back in place, and pumpkin juice was spreading all over the Gryffindor table.
"Oh, sorry guys!" said Hermione as people on either side of her jumped up to avoid the sticky liquid running into their laps. Hermione quickly muttered a cleaning spell and the juice was gone. "I guess I got lost in a daydream."
"I'll say!" said Ron. You'd practically turned the pitched upside down before we'd gotten your attention! What so bloody interesting about the Slytherin table anyway?"
"I wasn't staring at the Slytherin table!" said Hermione. Her cheeks flushed even as she said it.
Ron knew she was lying but didn't say anything. "Oh, really? Just found some interesting thing on a solid stone wall that is completely gray and devoid of every other color?"
Hermione's cheeks got even redder. "Well, what if I did find something interesting in the solid stone wall? Maybe I thought the imperfections in the rocks made what looked like a silhouette of Gilderoy Lockhart."
"I'd say that's a pretty dull explanation, even for you," said Ron softly into her ear. Hermione's face couldn't get any redder, so the blush went up to her hairline and down to her collar.
"What's really bothering you, Hermione?" asked Ron.
"I'd prefer not to talk about it here with you. The subject is closed now and we can all move on with our day like this whole thing never happened. Harry's been very quiet, anything wrong, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Nothing Hermione," said Harry. He had been quietly looking down the length of the table while Ron and Hermione had had their little exchange, and didn't bother to look up when he answered Hermione's question. She followed his gaze down to Ginny Weasley, who was talking animatedly with some sixth year girls. Hermione smiled.
Ron followed both their gazes and grimaced.
"Harry," said Hermione, "Parvati told me she had this new way of getting people together. I'll let her know that you and Ginny are willing test subjects."
Harry's head snapped towards Hermione. "You wouldn't dare."
"Oh, yes, I would, Harry darling," said Hermione with more than a hint of mischief in her voice. No one let Parvati loose on anyone and lived to tell the tale. She would probably be talked about for years to come.
"Harry," said Ron, fixing Harry with a grave look, "you're one of my best friends. But if you hurt my sister, I swear, I will get Hermione to teach me one of those castration spells she threatened me with all through sixth year."
Harry succeeded in hiding his smile, but there was no mistaking the mirth in his eyes. "I promise I won't do anything to purposely hurt Ginny. But I don't think she'd even give me second glance now, not after the way I snubbed her during her first few years of school."
"And I'm sure she wouldn't be willing to even talk to you after you saved her life in the Chamber of Secrets," said Hermione sarcastically. She glanced down the table again. "She's looking this way, Harry."
"Bloody hell!" said Harry. "Do you think she saw me staring?"
"Would you all please stop talking about my sister as some sort of - of - girl?" Ron was practically going crazy.
"Sure, Ron, whatever you say. Look, Harry, she's coming over to say hi. Better wipe the pumpkin juice mustache off your lips."
Hermione laughed as Harry's eyes got wide and he hurriedly wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
"Hi, guys," said Ginny as she came up to where they were sitting and sat down next to Harry. "What's up? Is there a profile of Gilderoy Lockhart on my pumpkin juice goblet or something?" Harry turned a brilliant shade of red and Ron excused himself from the table while Hermione broke up into hysterics. Ginny just looked at Harry puzzled. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, um," said Harry. "I have to, um, go to the, um - er, library to uh, do some, some, uh, something. I'll see you later, Jimmy and Horny." Harry turned an even deeper shade of red as he realized what he'd said. Hermione only laughed harder. Ginny looked at him with a twinkle in her eye. "I mean," he said, "um, I'll see you later," and Harry Potter made his grand exit.
Hermione was laughing so hard that tears had come to her eyes and were streaming down her face. Ginny had giggled a bit, but was now more puzzled than ever and went off in search of some sane person to have a normal conversation with.
Hermione waited for the laughing fit to pass, which took a while. The urges of passersby to "breathe" and "calm down before you hurt yourself" only made her laugh all the harder. But finally she did calm down and wiped the tears from her now tomato-red face. She was still smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt in the aftermath of the laughing fit when she felt someone's eyes on her from across the hall. She looked up and once again met those incredible gray eyes, but the world didn't fall away this time. Everything around her slowed down, but she could still see him and everything else. His gaze was stony, but not unkind. His eyes revealed to her that he was feeling a tumult of emotion as well, but his upbringing wouldn't allow him to show it. Then, he broke the contact, severing the connection between them. Hermione couldn't help feeling disappointed.
'What am I doing?' Hermione silently asked herself as she got up from her seat and made her way to Herbology before she was late for class.
* * *
It was now time for Potions. 'Perfect,' Hermione thought. 'The perfect end to one of the strangest days of my life.'
Harry had not spoken to Ginny since breakfast that morning, and Ron had barely spoken to Harry. It wasn't that Ron was angry. He just couldn't understand how Harry was attracted to his sister. And he didn't want his sister to *do* anything with anyone for the rest of her life. She would become a nun, if he had his way about it.
Hermione hadn't stopped thinking about what had happened to her at breakfast all day. It was so weird. Who would have thought that Draco Malfoy could do that to her? So the day had turned out to be one of the strangest since Hermione had arrived at Hogwarts. Stranger even than all the days she had spent with Harry and Ron trying to defeat Voldemort or save something or someone. 'But,' she thought, 'it's almost over. Soon, Potions will be over, and then I can just curl up with Hogwarts, A History and relax.'
"Quiet down, class," said Snape in his characteristically dark and imposing manner. Hermione found that she had become rather used to it and it didn't intimidate her nearly as much as it used to. "Since this is your seventh and final year at our lovely institution, as well as your NEWT year, we will be brewing a very complex and difficult potion. I can assure you that you will need to pay meticulous attention to the details of this assignment; failing to complete any of the steps could prove a great threat to your health and well being. As such," Snape gave a sigh of annoyance "you will be working with partners on the assignment. I will choose your partners for you and have a list of pairs posted on the door of the classroom tomorrow. Don't get your hopes up; I doubt anyone will complete this potion successfully. It comes from a very high level of learning that I doubt even our resident know-it-all Miss Granger has reached.
Hermione wasn't even listening to Snape. She had learned to ignore his snide remarks over the years. "How high a level of learning is that, Professor Snape?"
"Even students at the University level in Europe don't brew this potion until their final years. But, this potion will give you a highly sophisticated sense of how to brew a delicate potion and successfully work under pressure, valuable skills for your NEWTs. The potion is called the Morganna's Elixir. It is generally used as a soothing potion for victims of extreme flesh wounds, bites, burns, and the like. It can become highly explosive if stored for a long amount of time and is generally not found in the store rooms of St. Mungo's for this reason. Now, I want 18 inches of parchment on this potion and have it to me by the end of class, now begin. You may use your textbook as a resource, but I doubt it will be very helpful due to the advanced nature of the potion."
Hermione, having anticipated her professor's assignment, already had six inches of parchment done. Professor Snape had been quite wrong about Hermione not knowing anything about the potion. She was quite familiar with it, having encountered it in her reading numerous times. Hermione finished the assignment and found that she still had twenty minutes left in class. She lay her head down on the desk in front of her for a short nap.
'She was lying in a warm, white bed that smelled like roses. She felt a warm body beside her and turned to see who it was. A pale face framed in blond hair smiled at her. Hermione hugged Draco to her, not wanting to let go of him. He was so warm and Hermione felt so safe with his body pressed against hers. She snuggled into the contours of his chiseled chest, not wanting to . . .'
"Wake up!" said a voice very close to her face. She waved her hand at the voice and felt it slap against warm flesh. She heard a giggle and her eyes flew open.
"Ron!" she said. "I'm sorry! Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Hermione, don't worry. You're lucky Snape didn't catch you. You'd have detention from now until graduation.
Hermione nodded, but she wasn't thinking about Snape at the moment. She was remembering the dream she'd been having. "Did I say anything while I was asleep? I talk in my sleep sometimes."
"No, Hermione, I didn't hear anything. Well, there was one time, when I realized you were asleep; you gave this sort of sigh. You sounded really happy. Come to think of it, you and Malfoy were both asleep today in class. I heard him sigh at about the same time. That's odd. Wonder what the insufferable bastard was dreaming. Or even more interesting, what were you dreaming, Hermione?" Ron asked mischievously.
"None of your business, Ron," said Hermione. "A person's dreams are their subconscious thoughts and desires and problems trying to work themselves out during sleep. I doubt you would find my subconscious very interesting."
"I don't know, Hermione, you had a very content look on your face," said Ron.
"Well, I don't remember what I was dreaming, so I can't tell you."
"Lying never did become you, Hermione."
By this time the pair had reached the Gryffindor Common Room and Ron was going up to the boys' dormitory, while Hermione went up to the girls'. She set down her school bag and picked up Hogwarts, A History and headed for the library. She had no idea what would be waiting for her when she got there.
A/N: Is it just me, or is this the worst chapter yet? It kind of rambles on and on and never gets anywhere. Sorry about the lack of Hermione/Draco shipiness in this chapter, but I was trying to explore Hermione's feelings about what had happened. Please keep in mind that this takes place on the SAME DAY as the last chapter, but not at the same time. This chapter took forever to write. I think it's the longest chapter yet. I hope you guys liked it better than I did. Did anyone get my hidden meaning in the last chapter? Review and tell me if you guess it. Did anyone like the Harry/Ginny subplot I put in? It kind of took over this chapter, but it will NOT take over the rest of the story, I promise. Review please! They mean a lot. I love getting all those review notices flooding my in-box! Thanks to those who have already reviewed! I love you guys! Hugs and cookies to all!
