Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any related thematic elements by JK Rowling.
I'll Never Tell
Up in the golden sunlight-bathed common room, Hermione's mood clashed furiously with everything around her.
"Game of chess, Hermione?" Ron had offered, but she turned him down to go to her dormitory and improve every last aspect of her upcoming lesson plan.
"No thanks, I'll just go up to my dormitory to finish this, it's a bit too loud down here," she said. Then she gathered up her books and trudged up the stairs to the door labled "6th Years". But going up for peace and quiet was a mistake. She had only opened the door three inches when-
"HERMIONE!" Lavender Brown yelled. "Perfect! Parvati! We can try it out on Hermione!"
"Try what?" Hermione dared to ask. Some new beautifying spell they had been dying to test, probably.
"We've got this new spell, it's brilliant! Here, read. My grandmother sent it," Parvati explained, emerging from the bathroom in a pink frilly bathrobe, and shoving and equally pink parchment under her nose. It read:
The use of this spell ensures, for the next seven days, the most beautiful benefits to the most dry, spell-damaged hair. For sleek, sexy, smooth, straight hair, you can't go wrong with this miracle spell!
"I'm perfect for that? Are you guys trying to tell me something?" Hermione asked, fingering her curly hair, very unsure about the whole thing.
"Oh, no! Definitely not. Your hair's fine, but this spell just sounds so...perfect, that's all," Lavender gushed.
"Well, it does sound great you know, but I really only came up for my...er...potions essay. Right. I remembered something and I want to put it in. I'll just go and...um...get it," she lied.
"But you're always doing work, Hermione. Come on, it'll only take a minute! See?" Lavender pleaded. She shoved the pink paper back under her nose.
This amazing new potion only takes a minute! Don't be fooled though, it lasts the entire week!
"Well...I..."
"BRILLIANT! You'll love it, really!" she squealed with delight. "Just sit down right here," she commanded, and pointed to the edge of the bed. "This will look so gorgeous, Hermione..."
Hermione walked out from the girl's dormitory five minutes later to see Harry and Ron both hunched over Ron's chessboard in deep concentration. "Hey guys, I just forgot my Arithmancy textbook. Well...you know what? Maybe I'll just borrow your cloak, Harry, and go down to the--"
"Hermione! What did you do? Your hair!" Harry and Ron chorused in unison.
"Oh. That. Right. Well," Hermione fingered her silky hair, "Lavender and Parvati found a spell and they asked to try it on me. I couldn't really get out of it, and... is it really that horrible? I know that it's rather drastic, but..." she began to ramble on nervously.
"No, no it's really nice, Herm. Isn't it Ron...Ron?" Harry chuckled at his best friend, who was still staring speechlessly at Hermione.
"It's...you...uh," Ron said, blinking and smiling. Hermione smiled too, her tense shoulders falling with relief.
"Thanks a lot, you guys. I was actually getting sort of worried!" She let out a high-pitched laugh. "Well, I'm going to go down to the...to the kitchens. Do you mind about the cloak though, Harry?" she asked, obviously oblivious to the fact that Ron still couldn't tear his eyes away from her head.
"No, it's fine. See you later," he said.
All Hermione was really planning on doing was taking a walk to get some fresh air. She also wanted to try and get her mind of the lesson the next day, Malfoy, her hair.
But no such luck. She should have realized that she wasn't the only one who enjoyed wandering around at night. Especially when she was exploring the corridor that Malfoy had pulled her into earlier that day.
Hermione tensed quickly as she heard a quiet voice making its way around the bend in the corridor. "...And she told me that she knew how to get out. Something about animagi, apparently", she heard, coming from an arrogant voice.
"And just how would she know?" said another voice. A loud, obnoxious voice. It belonged to the Slytherin quidditch captain, Montague. She had only barely pulled the cloak over her head when Malfoy and Montague rounded the corner.
"Wouldn't tell me. I think she found out through someone else in the family, but I'm not really sure. Asked me if I would be up to something. If I wouldn't mind 'going out on a limb' to help him. I will, but she'd better just hurry up and tell me already what she wants me to find out, because so far, all I can figure out is that that Potter knows..." the sinister voice of Draco Malfoy was now out of earshot, no matter how much Hermione strained to hear.
Potter. Harry? What was Malfoy going to do that involved him? "Out on a limb," too. What's with him? She wondered. Adrenaline rushing and heart beating quickly, Hermione then set off on her way back to the common room to tell Harry and Ron what she had just heard.
CRASH. In her hurry, she'd knocked into a coat of armor, causing it to hit the one beside it, which both wobbled for a minute. She stood, frozen with a mixture of shock and the fear that it would either fall over completely or that somebody might have heard. And somebody did. Somebody they called Filch.
"What's that, my sweet? Ah! The student! Out of bed. At this hour, the shame. My, my, my, look who we have here. Miss Granger! Do follow me to my office", the care-taker wheezed while his voice shook with excitement. The day just did not end.
Hermione followed the care-taker reluctantly, and resisted her initial instincts to just throw the cloak over herself and escape, but that would have been much too risky. It was also difficult not to pull the cloak over herself merely to fend off the increasing cold as Filch led her farther into the dungeons, towards his office. She had never been in it before, as it had always been Ron and Harry that got in trouble with Filch.
"Here we are..." he said mostly to himself, while he inserted one of hundreds of keys into the lock. He did not bother to light the fire.
"Sit down", he said gruffly. Hermione had not entered more than three paces, because it was so dark and cold...
But Filch finally lit a single lamp, which was enough to illuminate his desk and throw random jets of muted light on him, making him look eerily like a ghost made corporeal. Hermione turned to find a seat with the pathetic aid of the solitary lamp, but even with the poor lighting she could make out the unmistakable outline of another student seated in front of the desk. She began to hesitate...
"Sit. Down!" Filch barked as a muscle in his neck twitched.
"Why hello Granger", the other body voiced as it turned to face her. She watched as the flickering light began to reveal slowly more and more of the other student. A boy. He had sharp features, his cheekbones flushed, his lips a pale pink, his white-blond hair catching the candlelight.
"Malfoy..." Hermione began.
"SILENCE!" Filch shrieked, and bent over to continue methodically sifting through a massive pile of student records, in order to find each of theirs. Hermione timidly sat down as far away towards the end of the bench opposite Malfoy as humanly possible.
"Here. Now Miss Granger, what were you doing out of bed after hours, hmm?" Filch asked, leaning over his desk.
"Well, I...er...was looking for the...er..."
"Astronomy tower, Mr. Filch", Malfoy interrupted. "She told me to meet her there at one o'clock. Of course, I was only out to tell her that it was a bad idea..."
"I did NOT! I was--" Hermione protested.
"Lost, then? Because that note clearly stated that you wanted to meet me in the Astronomy Tower", Draco said. His voice was playfully spiteful.
"Malfoy!! What the hell are you trying to--" For the third time, she was interrupted, but this time it was by Filch.
"I've heard enough. Detention, both of you. Every night this week. Trophy room. And NO magic", Filch declared. "To your respective dormitories, now. Mrs. Norris, care to make sure they resist any temptations to wander?"
"Prrrup", she replied, and followed the two out.
"Granger, you are much too funny under pressure. I wonder, how does Potter stay alive? I had thought that he always had you to run to for some quick answers to everything. But apparently 'quick' wasn't the word I should've used", Malfoy said maliciously, and glanced at her.
Hermione, however, was not in the mood to talk calmly. She had detention. Bloody detention. Therefore, she opted for yelling and shouting.
"Why did you have to go and get us detention? I could have easily gotten out of it! And the Astronomy Tower? Malfoy, that's just disgusting!" she seethed.
"I needed an excuse to talk to you", Draco said, as if it were obvious.
"You got us detention together so you wouldn't have to risk your stupid reputation by talking to me?! That's rich, Malfoy, you git."
Draco grinned evilly in her direction before parting ways with her and Mrs. Norris for the Slytherin dormitories.
"Oh, and Granger?" he said, spinning around raising his eyebrows. "If you think that trying to tame that bush you call hair is a way to impress me...you're wrong."
Hermione let out a shrill scream of frustration.
"Don't flatter yourself, it is NOT for you!" she yelled, and stomped off towards her dormitory. If Draco had been any less generous, he would have said that she was flouncing.
That night, Hermione found it very difficult to fall asleep.
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A/N: WOW, I actually got reviews! Thank you! StandardxLines- yeah...every time I go back and read my story I find all sorts of errors and wierd things, so there are probably tons still there. If you find something out of character I wouldn't mind at ALL if you pointed them out...I like criticism.