Disclaimer: I don't own.
oo It Takes Two To Make Love oo
oo Chapter Five oo
"So tell me again why Hermione is going through all of this trouble?" Ginny said. Harry shrugged.
"I told her she was blowing everything out of proportion too. She's completely dug herself into this mess. Honestly, one little lie in her whole life can't be that dreadful, can it?"
"Yes," Hermione snapped. "And in case neither of you half-wits realized, I'm still sitting right here so you'd best choose your words carefully." Harry just let her anger slide over him and gave her an easy smile.
"Well, anyway, what I was saying was that Hermione and her scruples are basically forcing her to stay in her situation." Ginny rolled her eyes.
"That's silly then," she announced. "Hermione, if you just admit for once in your life that you lied, I don't think anyone will think less of you."
"They do already! I can tell."
"Then what's just a few more thinking poorly of you by admitting you told a lie?" pointed Harry out, reasonably.
"It's just...it's just wrong! I've never, ever lied before for such frivolous reasons!"
"This sounds familiar," Harry muttered.
"Come on, Hermione, don't you think that being branded a liar might be better than being branded a wanton woman?" Hermione frowned slightly. Ginny did have a point. But then again, Ginny had brought up the never ending debate about the double standard.
"If it was Draco that was the liar, everyone would be falling all over his feet saying what a hero he was for sleeping with whomever. But because it's me, I'll be labeled something awful anyway whether or not I lied so I might as well try to undo this lie so I might erase one thing off my list of bad personality traits. Does that make sense?"
"No," Harry said. "Come on, Hermione, you're being really unreasonable. You're not honestly going to go and shag Draco just so you wouldn't have lied when you told Christian that he was your best shag. And of course I'm using "best" in a very loose sense of the word since none of us know how good Draco really is in bed."
"He's right, Hermione," Ginny said. "You can't honestly throw away your virtues just to clear your conscience."
"But..." Hermione was at a loss for words, which didn't happen very often. This lasted for approximately three and seven- tenths of a second.
"You guys were the ones that were encouraging me to go shag him!" she blasted at them. They gazed back at her, unperturbed.
"Well, yes," Ginny said. "But we were only suggesting it because that's what we would do. We never actually thought that you were going to go do it. We're your friends Hermione, we know you." Hermione scowled.
"What a lot you are," she said. "Sleeping with some Slytherin to undo a lie." She conveniently forgot at that moment that that was precisely what she had been considering to do.
"A very good looking Slytherin," Ginny corrected.
"Just so there's no confusion," Harry said, hesitantly. "I probably wouldn't shag Draco but Daphne, on the other hand." He grinned a little lop-sidedly.
"No objections there," he said. Hermione shook her head.
"Don't act so holier than thou, Hermione," Ginny said. "I know for a fact that you don't mind premarital sex."
"Really?" Harry asked, looking surprised. "When did she say that?"
"Last year," Ginny answered.
"Well, that's only because I don't plan on marrying," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "The thought of living the rest of my life with one other person makes my blood run cold. So why not enjoy myself when I don't have to promise myself to a monogamous relationship later on in life? Besides, I'm not a wildly religious person anyway."
"She has no virtues," Harry said, in an awed voice.
"Oh shush you." Hermione waved her wand a bit as sparks jumped from the tip of the wand threateningly.
"Then what I don't see is a problem in actually going to Draco and undoing the lie in...er- a physical sense of the word," Ginny said, reasonably. If one wasn't listening to her words carefully, they would think that what Ginny said was indeed reasonable. Hermione differed in opinion.
"Absolutely not."
"Hermione," Ginny said, exasperated. "Honestly, first you won't refuse to let go of this silly mistake because of your own conscience. Then you say you refuse to undo the lie in the only way possible because you just will not shag Draco Malfoy. And then you say that you think women should be free to do as they please and shag who they please like men do because to hell with the double standard!"
"When did she say that?" Harry asked.
"If you were listening, Harry," Ginny said, distractedly. With a wave of her diminutive hand, she shut Harry up.
"What do you have to say to that?" Ginny challenged, triumphantly. Hermione huffed, frustrated, as she frantically tried to think of an excuse that did in fact justify her situation.
"I never said that woman should be free to do as they please and shag whoever they want to. I mean, they should be able to but not me. I mean, I might not be saving myself for marriage but I am saving myself for something special, thankyouverymuch."
"And how is saving your conscience from unending guilt not special?" Ginny said.
"I don't know! It's just different!"
"I think she has a point," Harry said. "I mean, even though you're obviously smitten with his good looks, which I might add aren't even that great, this is still the same Malfoy that Hermione's hated for the past six years. You can't forget that very easily."
"Thank you," Hermione said. "I can't forget the past six years of unending torment. He's not doing much to redeem himself now, either.""He isn't maliciously teasing you though," Harry pointed out. "At least not from what I've heard."
"And that's supposed to matter how?" Hermione asked. Harry shrugged.
"I don't know. I would have never expected Malfoy to even begin to agree to even meet with you."
"That's because you haven't taken a good look at the boy," Ginny told him. "I swear he's even breaking down the titanic grudge match between Slytherin and Gryffindor, at least temporarily. The last man to do that was Sirius."
"Sirius?" Harry said, incredulously. "Sirius Black? My godfather? Snuffles!?""Yes Sirius your godfather. Have you taken a look at the old Hogwarts photo albums? He's amazing!" Ginny said.
"I'll have to ask him about this next time I visit," Harry mused.
"Are you both done salivating over Sirius?" Hermione asked, dryly.
"I wasn't salivating!" Harry said, indignantly. "Besides, would you rather have us torment you on your masochistic situation?"
"No," she answered. "But I would like to go by the lake."
"But Head Girl!" Harry said, in a much practiced scandalized voice. "It's nearly nine! That's surely against the rules!"
"Finally," Ginny said. "Time for something fun."
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The air was surprisingly warm considering it was fall. Hermione suspected the warmth had something to do with the magical outdoor heaters that Dumbledore had installed around the lake so that students may enjoy skating on the frozen lake without several hundred layers of clothing. How the air stayed warm but the water cool escaped Hermione; then again, that's why it was magic.
Hermione kicked off her shoes and held up her robes as she waded in. The water was still shockingly cold and she had to concentrate on not falling over.
"No, Harry!" Ginny cried, a little too late. Harry had jumped off a rock completely into the lake and surfaced, the bones in his face looking sharper than normal with his hair severely slicked back away from his face.
"If you guys aren't going to swim, this is boring," Harry said, further away from shore. Hermione pointedly ignored him as she carefully walked parallel to the shore, enjoying the feeling of rocks and sand underneath her feet and the moon on her shoulders. Hadn't one of the professors mentioned something about water acting as a calming agent for magic? Yes; it was in charms class, perhaps, where someone said if a spell had gone awry, one should first try to submerge the wand underwater and see if that would solve the case, which it should for minor things.
Hermione caught up with Ginny and walked along side the shorter girl.
"Would you really sleep with Draco if you were in my position?" Hermione asked.
"Possibly. It's always different when it's happening to you," Ginny admitted. "What I think you should do is stop worrying about it and obsessing every moment of your waking life to it. You should just go where it takes you. It'll solve itself out, eventually. It'll probably be faster if you stop tying knots into it." Hermione stayed silent as she kicked slightly at the silver water.
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Draco swore under his breath and almost turned around when he saw that the lake wasn't quite as empty as he had hoped it would be. Instead, there were possibly the three people he could stand without seeing for perhaps another century or two. Or three since he was in a particularly black mood at the moment.
No wait, he took that back. There were all those half-witted Slytherins back in the common room. They were actually the reason why he was out here at the lake at a ridiculous hour. He tilted his head a bit and watched Harry splash around in the lake. Didn't that boy ever get cold? Ginny and Hermione were walking at a more sedate pace along the beach.
As much as Draco longed for and preferred solitude, he wondered if maybe it mightn't be so bad to be in the company of some friends that you honestly didn't mind. Those Slytherins, on the other hand, were hardly companion material. Bodyguards in the way of the bionically enhanced, perhaps, and there were good to party with but as a conversation holder, they weren't much.
Draco wondered if he should let himself be known. The three Gryffindors hadn't given indication that they noticed him. Draco watched as Harry snuck up on Ginny and pulled her into the water, leaving Hermione to watch, amused. He seized that opportunity to walk up next to the girl.
"Ah it's so sweet to watch those two flirt around like a couple of insects." Hermione didn't even turn around.
"And by the charming, dulcet tones I would gather that it's you, Draco?" she said, sounding bored. Draco grinned.
"None other."
"What are you doing out at this hour? I could have points taken from Slytherin; it's against the rules."
"You wouldn't dare!" Draco said, with mock-fright. "What are you doing out here, besides setting a bad example for possible future Head students to come?"
"I'm thinking," Hermione said. "That area in your head might be empty for you but it's quite useful for me."
"So useful, in fact that you've already thought of a way out of this mess you've dug into," Draco said, flashing a smile. Hermione finally gave him a side-long glance.
"You're right, I suppose," she admitted. Hermione said the words like they pained her, which they probably did, seeing as how she hated to admit she was wrong to anyone and especially Draco Malfoy.
"Harry and Ginny keep telling me to let it go. Believe me, I've tried. You'd think it'd be easy to forget one flippant, offhanded lie told under pressure but believe me, I can't forget it. I have to leave Hogwarts with a clear conscience."
"I don't understand you," Draco said.
"I didn't think you would," she said. "It's hard to explain it myself but I got myself into this mess and I can't get myself back out." Hermione realized that she was losing feeling in her feet. She stepped out of the water and shook off the excess lake water. The air was getting cooler now that she had been wading into the pond and Hermione grabbed her robes more tightly around her.
"I'll see you at the library again tomorrow," Hermione said, shook her robes efficiently once, and left. Draco watched her leave, musing on why on earth she really couldn't let go of this stupid lie and leave them all in peace. As long as she wouldn't admit that she had lied, he was stuck in a limbo as well. They had to agree on a story in order to be taken seriously and left alone. It was a mess indeed.
Before Ginny and Harry could notice him, Draco also left the lake, dripping water, feeling severely confused.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Hermione and Draco were sitting in the same private study room as before and Hermione was bent over a piece of parchment, scribbling some hopeless plans on them.
"Perhaps if I can convince McGonagall to give me the Time Turner™ back for just one more day then I could turn back time and give myself a shove right when I make my idiot mistake."
"Will never work," Draco drawled. "Firstly, you might know about the Time Turner™ but that might not occur to you immediately and you might hex yourself. Secondly, Christian probably doesn't know about the Time Turner™ so he could hex you. Thirdly, you'd have to turn back a lot of hours. What exactly would you be doing with yourself for days' worth of time?" Hermione scowled to find that Draco was right.
She glanced over at him and found him raising his wand at a random student that they could see through the two-way glass of the door. They could see out but the students outside could not see in.
"Don't you even dare," Hermione warned.
"But you haven't thought of anything, well anything plausible, yet and I'm bored," Draco said, his voice dangerously close to whining.
"In case you've forgotten, I'm Head Girl. You can't just hex an innocent student right in front of me and expect me not to collect damages!"
"They don't have to be innocent," Draco said. As Colin Creevy walked by, Draco perked up.
"See? Like him. That nosy, annoying kid would deserve whatever gets him." Draco experimentally raised his wand.
"Put it down," Hermione threatened, without looking up from the parchment. "Leave Colin alone, he never did anything to bother you."
"Except perhaps exist," Draco grumbled. He gave his wand an experimental twirl around his long fingers. Hermione crumbled up another piece of parchment and threw it in the corner where it joined other similar things. The pile was growing larger by the minute.
"What was your fool plan this time?" Draco asked. Hermione sighed and rubbed her temples.
"Perform the Memory spell on Christian," she said, wearily.
"And on the rest of the student body of Hogwarts?" Draco said scornfully.
"Well, maybe if you tried to think of something as well, Draco, we might have figured out a solution by now!" Draco gave no notice to Hermione's distress and instead watched another student walk by and raised his wand. Hermione reached over and snatched it from his hand.
"And no hexing," she said, emphatically. Draco slumped down in his chair and glowered at the wall. Hermione took a mental snapshot to share with Ginny, to show her how exactly unappealing he truly was. She set Draco's wand on the table next to her. She focused her attention back on her problem.
Perhaps if maybe she used the Time Turner™ to go back in time and then skip back ahead in time. No, then there would still be two copies of her, right? No, wait. Yes, as long as she kept skipping back and forth in time, there would never be a chance for her future and past self to merge. Hermione wasn't completely positive, however. Thinking of the logistics of the Time Turner™ always made her head spin.
As she was distracted, Draco lunged for his wand and pointed it at a passerby and as he was saying the curse, Hermione reached over and jostled Draco's hand. There was a flash of blue and green light and for a minute, Hermione was blinded.
When her vision returned, it was in spots and she blinked several times to clear it. She looked over to find Draco slumped in his chair.
"Could you not stay out of trouble for five minutes?" she said, exasperated, to the still body of Draco. Hermione experimentally kicked him several times when she saw that he was still breathing and then kicked him a couple more times out of spite. She looked out the door and found the coast was clear and dragged Draco out of the library and to in infirmary.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
When Draco woke up, his stomach was in knots and he felt sick.
"I think I'm going to be sick." And as just announced, he promptly leaned forward and threw up. After he shook his head and drank water from a cup that was pressed into his hand, Draco had gathered enough consciousness to realize that a basin had been held, ready, in front of him when he threw up.
And looking at what was in the basin made Draco sick to his stomach again. The basin was full of a slimy assortment of eels and sea slugs. There was a hand on the basin, supporting it, and Draco followed the hand that turned into an arm that eventually turned into Hermione's frustrated face.
"What?" he said, feebly.
"You domnoddy, you fool!" she said. "How could you be so moronic! Did you actually think that your curse was going to penetrate the glass of the door?" To be truthful, Draco hadn't given that a second thought. He didn't have time for a second thought as he promptly leaned forward again and let more eels and slugs and slime fall out of his mouth.
"I say this is sweet punishment, Draco, especially since if I recall correctly, the same thing happened to Ron back in second-year, thanks to you."
"It was thanks to his defective wand," Draco managed to say, before leaning forward again.
"Just keeping throwing it up," Madame Pomfrey said, patting Draco's back soothingly. She instructed Hermione to keep hitting Draco's back, gently mind you, to help the sea creatures come out. The minute Madame Pomfrey had her back turned Hermione hit Draco with full force on the back.
"Ow! What was that for?" Or that would have been what Draco would have said had he not doubled over and threw up into the basin in the middle of his sentence.
"For being an immature, rude little wizard and for trying to hex a random student," Hermione said, severely. "I had seventy-five points taken from Slytherin and Professor Snape is absolutely livid."
"Crap." Draco threw up again.
"Mad?" he asked. Draco was starting to get the hang of talking and throwing up. In other words, he could only manage about a word before the eels would start to worm their way out of his mouth.
"Are you mad or is Professor Snape mad?" Hermione asked. She answered her own question. "Yes you are quite mad for considering hexing to solve your boredom and I do think you got what you deserved. Yes, Professor Snape is absolutely furious; didn't you just hear me tell you he was? He wanted to put you into detention until the end of the school term but I told him not to, that you had to study."
"You said-"Draco gagged into the basin. "That?"
"Yes, I said I did, didn't I?" Hermione asked, with narrowed eyes. She pounded Draco's back again.
"Why?" he managed, before doubling over again.
"What?"
"Why do that for me?"
"I didn't do anything for you," Hermione said, trying to sound venomous. "I just...You just...You have to study!" Even in his sick state, Draco still managed to flash Hermione his trademark egotistical grin before throwing up again.
"Besides, how can you help me think of a way out of my dilemma if you're in the dungeons grading papers for Snape?" When Draco still looked self-satisfied and unconvinced by her words, Hermione settled for pounding Draco's back extra hard.
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