PART TWO

Crossing Enemy Lines

"Will somebody please tell me why the two of you are acting like you've just come from Azkaban after ten years of imprisonment?" Ron complained at lunch later that day. "You haven't said anything all morning since McGonagall held you back," he pointed at Hermione, "and Harry has been flushing like he has just swallowed a box of Filibuster's Fireworks! What in the name of Merlin is wrong with you two?"

Beside him, his little sister Ginny Weasley, now fully grown up, giggled. "I think I know why Harry is acting all weird."

Harry's head snapped up and he looked at Ginny nervously. "Y-you do…?"

"You do?" Ron repeated, turning to his sister.

Ginny bobbed her head in sheer excitement. "I saw what happened. Cho just answered Harry's request of becoming his official girlfriend!"

Ron's jaw dropped to the ground. He gave Harry a disbelieving look. "She did???"

Harry's face grew even redder and he suddenly became very interested in the Hogwarts crest on the plate he was eating on.

All of a sudden Ron was pumping his fist into the air. "Wicked!!! You finally did it!!! Yeah!!!"

Ginny tapped Hermione on the shoulder. "Someone doesn't seem to be getting all psyched about Harry's jackpot. Why the stone reaction?"

"Huh?" Hermione blinked. "W-wha…?"

Ginny grinned. "Cho Chang is now Harry's girlfriend. Welcome to the wizarding world."

"Oh," Hermione looked down again. "Oh. That's nice. Congratulations, Harry."

Harry wrung his arm out of Ron's grasp and looked at her. "Much as I hate Ron's hyper encouragement, I would've at least liked a little enthusiasm, Hermione. Are you sure you're okay?"

Hermione sighed. "I'm sorry, Harry. I know you've been courting her for years. I was just—er—thinking."

"Thinking?" Ron settled back down into his seat. "Haven't you done enough of that already? Ow—Ginny!" He whined.

Harry shook his head. "By the way, what did McGonagall tell you a while back?"

"Nothing," Hermione replied uneasily, a sinking feeling in her stomach because of the heavy load she'd just been given. Tutoring Malfoy for the whole year! It would surely be a nice way to spend her last year at Hogwarts. "She just told me to…keep up the good work."

"She held you back just to tell you that?" Harry took a sip of his drink. "Why am I having trouble believing this?"

Hermione sighed. "It was nothing, really. I just…" she trailed off and glanced at the Slytherin table, where she could see Malfoy laughing at something Crabbe was doing. And again she felt the irritation flood into her. Funny, she didn't feel like eating anymore. She sighed again and stood up. "I have to go. See you in Herbology." And she sped off.

"What was that all about?" Ron asked Harry. But they didn't have long to ponder on it, because right at that moment a huge barn owl swooped into the Great Hall towards the Slytherin table, making all heads turn to the recipient. The owl hovered around Draco Malfoy's head for a while, before dropping its letter onto his lap and flying away.

All eyes were on Malfoy as he impatiently opened the dark green envelope, and after scanning the contents, he sighed irritably and stood up, leaving the Hall as well.

Ron watched as he left in a sort of rage, and then turned back to Harry. "What was that all about Part Two?"

***

Malfoy glanced apprehensively through the window into the gamekeeper's hut again for the umpth time, and turned back to the person in front of him, who shook his head gracefully.

"Oh dear, not worried that someone might overhear this little confrontation of ours, are we? I've told you that Hagrid isn't coming back anytime soon, so we can freely talk here outside his hut. Very seldom do the students come and visit this…shack of his, so you need not worry."

"Don't you think I'd know that, father?" Malfoy replied irritably. "I was just…checking."

"Well, you've checked enough." Lucius Malfoy cleared his throat. "Now, I suppose you're wondering why I sent word for you to meet me here?"

Malfoy sighed. "What do you want? You've made my life miserable enough already."

"Miserable is such a strong word, Draco. I prefer to call it, 'less carefree'."

"Father, I don't need a bloody tutor!" Malfoy said impatiently. "I'm a man now! I can handle this by myself without you treating me like a baby—"

"As far as I'm concerned, you are a baby not to know the severity of your failure!" Lucius spat angrily. "An intolerable and ungrateful brat that you are, you ought to be thankful that I've gone out of my way to assist you in your studies! You can barely handle your tasks, much less keep up your grades, and still you call yourself a man?"

Malfoy bit his lip and clenched his trembling fist furiously, looking down at the ground.

"Listen to me, Draco." Lucius lowered his tone. "All my life, I've raised you and trained you and made you become the best you can be. Without me, you wouldn't be half the man you are now, so you ought to—"

"It was mother who made me who I am, father; not you." Malfoy glared at his father out of the corner of his eye, and this made Lucius slap him hard across the cheek.

"How dare you speak and look at me that way!" Lucius eyed him menacingly. "You will be grateful to me, boy, or you'll wish you'd never been born."

I always wish I'd never been born, Malfoy retorted inwardly, still glaring at his father wordlessly.

Lucius slapped him again. "A tutor is a tutor, and you are going to do everything in your power to attend as many sessions as you can. Your grades do matter, and the Dark Lord wants his followers at their best. Do you understand?"

Malfoy looked at him for a while, then nodded curtly in silent submission.

"Wise choice," Lucius straightened up. "Seeing as the school chose that Mudblood Granger to be your tutor, then that will make your next and final task so much easier to accomplish. You've been delaying this, Draco. The Dark Lord waits for no one," he added. "Now go do what you've been told. He has great plans for you."

Malfoy glared at his father again for the last time, and turned around without saying another word, making his way back to the castle.

***

Harry stretched his arms above his head. "Whew! That was the most boring Charms class I've ever had in my life."

Ron yawned. "You bet. Who would've thought we'd need a Page Turner Charm in our lives?"

"Every charm is useful, Ron. Whether it be for turning pages or not," Hermione said disapprovingly. "So I don't think it was very nice of you two to sleep through the whole period. Not to mention this is the last period for the day."

"Oh, come off it, Hermione," Harry sighed, as the three of them made their way through the door. "Do you honestly believe wizards and witches are lazy enough not to turn pages manually? They should just—oof!"

Harry got cut short and his books came crashing down the floor. He looked up to see whom it was that bumped into him so conveniently.

Just his luck.

"Ooops, I'm so sorry, Potter. You'd better not sleep through classes so you can actually watch where you're going," Malfoy sneered as Crabbe and Goyle snickered behind him. "Or is your scar just too blindingly painful for you to think straight?"

Harry frowned and was just about to say something, but Hermione beat him to it. "Can't you tell? I'm sure that—" she pointed to the bandage on Malfoy's hand, "—hurts just as much. Oh wait, your father probably already used his sack of Galleons to buy a potion to remove the pain, since you can do anything with his money."

Harry and Ron both looked at her with their mouths open. Surely Hermione wasn't like this? They both looked back at Malfoy, expecting him to have an even wittier comeback, but miraculously, he smiled.

"Oooh, very clever! Which reminds me, Oh Queen of All There is to Know in This Universe," he grinned, his voice dripping with sweet sarcasm, "may I please speak to you for a while, Ms. Hermione Granger?"

At this, Crabbe and Goyle instantly backed off and went their way. Harry retrieved his books and stood closer to Hermione in silent protection, and Ron stepped on her other side as well. Malfoy was not friendly enough to call her by her name and suddenly want to talk to her without apparent reason. A reason, most probably, that was up to no good.

But Hermione simply waved her hand at her two friends. "It's okay, guys. I'll catch up with you two later." She glared at Malfoy, as if accepting a challenge.

Harry and Ron stared at her uncertainly for a while, before Ron said, "See you in the common room." And they both left.

Malfoy smirked. "Now that we've gotten rid of your little puppy dog bodyguards…"

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Hermione snapped.

"A session," he said simply. "Tonight. Before lights out. Since you took the gracious honor of leaving oh-so-abruptly a while ago, we didn't get anything done. So I figured we could start tonight."

"Tonight?" Hermione stared at him like his whole body was just de-boned. Was Malfoy asking her a favor? Like a 'civil human being'? "Okay, what in the world is the catch?"

"Catch? What makes you think there's a catch?" Malfoy smiled again so innocently that Hermione wanted to punch it right out of his face.

She studied his expression for a while, as if trying to detect a trick, but as of now, no matter how suspicious it all seemed, she couldn't find any. Perhaps Malfoy was truly serious about passing History of Magic.

She sighed. "Fine. We'll meet in the study after dinner."

"Why thank you, Ms. Hermione Granger," he spoke again in that singsong tone, and left, leaving a bewildered Hermione staring after him.

***

Odd, Hermione mused, the incident outside the Charms classroom a while back still lingering in her thoughts. Malfoy didn't even come by our table at dinner for his regular taunting…

She turned at a corner and sighed. It was totally bizarre for him to be acting this way all so suddenly. It wasn't like they'd become the best of friends overnight.

And it hadn't even been overnight yet!

Maybe Malfoy really is concerned about his grades, she thought. "Nickel Knacks." And Wendelin the Weird moved aside.

The moment she stepped inside, her thoughts were confirmed. Malfoy was already sitting on one of the chairs, staring at a book lying open on the desk. She smiled. She kinda liked this change.

"Hey," she greeted, as she made her way towards him. But he didn't return the greeting. Hermione cocked her eyebrow. Or is there really a change?

She sat down across from him and studied his expression. He looked really, really bored. And he was acting like she wasn't even there. She waved her hand in front of his face. "Hello?"

All of a sudden Malfoy sighed impatiently and finally looked at her. And she noticed that his obnoxious expression was back again. "Look, Granger, just because I asked you a 'favor' a while ago and decided to spare the Golden Trio some humiliation at dinner, doesn't mean that everything is sunshine and flowers between us." He held up a finger to stop her from rebutting. "I'm only going through with this stupid tutoring thing because I was forced. Get it through your overblown head."

Guess there wasn't a change after all, she frowned. "Fine," was all she said. And there was silence again as Malfoy continued reading his book. She carefully watched the way his eyebrows knit together whenever there was something he didn't seem to understand. And after a few more minutes of silence, she finally sighed and slammed her hands down on the desk, making him look up at her.

"What the hell is your problem?" he asked irritably.

"I'd much love to see you fail, Malfoy, but since I'm already stuck here with you, why don't you let me explain what you don't understand? Instead of just sitting there, frowning like there's no tomorrow," she said.

"There will be no tomorrow if I do ask your help," he replied, turning back to his book. "This whole thing is just so McGonagall won't freak out when she checks up on us here. So back off and do your own thing."

"Professor McGonagall only does her check-up when we're here during History of Magic. She doesn't check up after dinner." Hermione shifted in her seat and tugged at Malfoy's book. "So let me help you, okay?"

He gripped the book more tightly and glared at her. "I don't need your help, Granger. How many times do I have to tell you? I could've sworn your head still has enough space to process that thought?" And he took the book, stood up, and plopped down on one of the couches.

Hermione threw her hands up and didn't say another word, as she slowly made her way towards the entrance, and left.

Again.