Disclaimer:I do not own Harry Potter, nor any other related thematic elements by JK Rowling.
A/N: READ THIS BEFORE YOU READ THE CHAPTER! (If you don't you probably won't make it much farther in this story.) Draco will seem extremely OOC here, but before you think "ok there goes another story down the drain, this author is completely insane," remember that there is a reason for it. Really...I'm not crazy. He is. Points finger
I'll Never Tell
The next day, Hermione became increasingly more nervous about the lesson that night. She had it all planned out, but how was she supposed to split the lesson with Malfoy? The idea of staying calm around him simply stumped her. What would her students think if she hexed Malfoy to a puddle on their first lesson? With all this weighing so heavily on her mind, Hermione found that her last period class ended much quicker than she would have liked it to.
"Good luck with your lesson, Hermione," Ron told her, as she set off towards her new classroom.
There were more first years than she had expected, and a few of them she recognized as Gryffindors. It was 3 o'clock. Why was Malfoy so late? He definitely wasn't one to be late. 3:05. Oh dear—she would have to start alone.
"Hello," she began, "I'm Hermione Granger. I, along with Draco Malfoy, am going to be teaching this class, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. The lessons we have ready for you aren't going to be boring...believe me! Um...today, I planned for us to teach you about House Elves..." Hermione began a little shakily. Where was Malfoy? She wondered, glancing towards the empty door.
She took out a box of S.P.E.W. pins. "First of all, who has a House Elf?" she asked. A few students raised their hands.
Then, "Er..."
Draco Malfoy burst through the door.
"Oh my God," Hermione gasped, and dropped the box to the floor.
Draco was wearing all black and probably ridiculously expensive billowing robes which flew out and trailed behind him as he walked quickly to the front of the room. The robes had a rather Snape-resembling collar, and were lined with a thin silver embroidery of intertwining letter 'M's.
Apparently he was in to making big first impressions. Hermione dropped to the floor and hastily gathered the pins back into the box, and then found that when she wanted to introduce Malfoy, she couldn't speak properly.
"This is...erm..."
"Draco Malfoy," he said shortly, joining Hermione behind the desk and pulling out the lesson outline she had owled him earlier. A few students snickered at the name, but were immediately silenced when he glared at them and said "Excuse me?" He leaned over to her and whispered in her ear, "I'm never letting you write the lessons again, Granger. This is appalling. I say, we start the lesson with a few quick facts everybody should know. Where the Astronomy tower is, how to break into the girls dormitories, the basic point values for Moaning Myrtle's different body parts--"
"Shut up! That's ridiculous," Hermione turned back to the class. "Why don't you tell me about your house elves while Draco hands out these pins...?"
.....
That night Hermione, Harry, and Ron were all sitting in the common room that night dinner discussing how the lesson had gone. "It went...alright, I guess," Hermione explained. "They didn't seem to like Malfoy very much...like it's much of a surprise. But you guys should have seen what he wore! Ha! It was ridiculous."
"Yeah, I can imagine," said Ron. "Well, I'll see you guys later—I've got quidditch practice." As Ron said this, Harry looked at the fire with an expression desire. The ministry was still in the process of lifting the lifetime ban he had been given by the relentless Professor Umbridge, and so he couldn't play for the season.
"Quidditch practice already? Damn, what time is it?" Hermione asked, unconsciously racking a hand through her hair.
"Quarter of seven...why?"
"I forgot, I have detention with Malfoy tonight!" Harry and Ron exchanged quizzical looks.
"Filch caught me and Malfoy the other night after hours and he made up some awful story. Oh God...that sounds bad. I'll explain everything later, I promise! I've got to go though, see you later, hopefully!" She dashed out of the common room.
When she got there, Malfoy was already waiting for her, leaning up against the trophy cabinet, casually twirling the key around his finger. Hermione noticed that he had changed his clothes.
"Sorry, Malfoy, I almost forgot..." Hermione said breathlessly.
"That's ok, Hermione," he said simply. Wait a second.
"Excuse me? What did you just call me?" she asked. Draco held out a rag for Hermione to take.
"Hermione. I called you Hermione. I figured that we should stop fighting with each other, and be civil. I mean, we've never even had a proper introduction," he said, now holding out his hand. "Draco Malfoy," he introduced himself.
Hermione hesitated. She was about to ask him what he was playing at, because she doubted very much that he was being the least bit sincere. Although, she figured that she was more likely to get a better answer once she took his hand...so she took it. The feeling of her tiny hand inside his long thin one sent shivers down her spine that felt like an electrical shock, making her nerves seem extra tuned in to the tiniest touches. She was nervous.
"Hermione Granger," she said, nodding. "Are you alright though, Malfoy—I mean—Draco? Why are you acting like this...all of a sudden?" She just couldn't resist asking him. It was obvious that he was being untruthful, because he talked like a door-to-door salesman on his 100th house of the day, dying to race through the words and get away as fast as he possibly could.
"I'm fine, and I told you. If we're going to work together, we can't be fighting all the time. You were right the first time you said that, and I should have listened," he said in a dismissive tone, but looking at her directly with piercing grey eyes.
How strange, Hermione thought. It was like he completely changed his personality in three hours.
"Well, Draco, I suppose that now you could tell me why you had to leave Professor McGonagall's office so early other day?" she asked, just testing how "civil" he would be with her by asking a question she knew he would never answer.
"I said I was going to be civil with you, not your best friend," he said, laughing in a forced manner as if trying to lighten up the situation a bit.
"Fair enough," she admitted. "But just one more question."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Can you really get into the girls dormitories?"
Draco laughed. "That, Hermione, is the kind of question you'll only find the answer to in time." What was that supposed to mean?
"Whatever. Common, we need to hurry up and finish in here. I have so much homework to do when I get back. But about next Tuesday's lesson, I was thinking we could..."
They finished talking nearly an hour after they stopped cleaning.
.......
Just as they said they would be, Harry and Ron were waiting for Hermione in the Common Room when she got back, eagerly awaiting her account of the awkward night. She pulled her favorite chair towards the fire, and began to tell them.
"It was creepy. He was acting like a different person, almost! Like I was a pureblood, or a Slytherin. I mean, he went through this whole 'introduction' thing and asked me to call him 'Draco'! Then, later, he actually told me that he respected me, and that I was one of the smartest witches he'd ever met! And at the end of the night, he even told me that I was...er...never mind. Obviously, he's trying to get something from us", she stated.
"Us?" Harry asked.
"I mean...me."
"Exactly, 'Mione. Don't forget that. Just ask him what he wants, and feel free not to give it to him!" Ron said, looking genuinely struck by the way Hermione had been talking about Draco. He had kept wringing his hands, and shuffling his feet. But the way I'm talking about Malfoy IS absurd, she reminded herself.
Also, Harry and Ron were her friends. They knew only what was best for her, and she for them. That was also why she chose not to tell them about what she had heard the other night—about what Draco had told Montague. Feigning a headache, Hermione said she needed sleep, and headed up to her dormitory. She fell asleep with a knot of guilt writhing in her stomach.
The next day drew to a quick close, and even though Hermione was utterly exhausted, she managed to extract herself from her advanced potions textbook to go down to her detention. With Malfoy. Malfoy, she repeated to herself. The castle was very drafty, she noticed suddenly, crossing her arms over her chest and stifling a yawn. A lump rose in her throat as she thought of Malfoy some more, and her stomach fluttered uncomfortably with anxiety. It was so confusing, the way he was trying to charm her into this doomed friendship, and she couldn't figure out why.
She reached the Trophy Room at quarter past seven.
"Hi, Draco. Sorry I'm late, I'm just so tired that I completely lost track of time," she told him, walking closer.
"It's alright. How about I do the detention tonight and you just go rest over in that chair," he offered kindly. It felt so strange to see the face she associated all the time with hatred actually being used kindly.
"Ok, but I have to ask you something really important. And you have to promise that you won't lie, even if we aren't exactly...friends. Alright?" she said.
He only looked at her, eyebrows raised, waiting for the question.
"Are you a Death Eater?" she asked quickly.
Draco hesitated, and then answered, "No."
"Oh, good. And...um...Draco?"
"Yes?"
Hermione dropped her eyes down to where his hand had begun to slowly intertwine itself with hers. "You can l-let go of me now." She smiled. He dropped her hand, and gave a feeble half-smile in return. He would make a brilliant actor, Hermione thought to herself. She imagined what his reaction to a muggle movie would be, and chuckled. She walked over to the chair and sat down and began watching him clean. What petrified her, though, was the new knowledge that he wasn't trying to trick her into just a friendship anymore...
.....
The week of detention was over in the blink of an eye. Every night was generally the same—Draco would continue his ridiculous 'I want to be your friend' act, and Hermione would spend nearly the entire time plotting clever ways to make him confess what he was up to, but he never did.
Once, she had gotten extremely close by telling him that she was secretly getting a bit sick of Harry and Ron, and asking what he was planning to do to them next. He looked like he was about to tell her, and then...just laughed.
"You're too much of a Gryffindor to ever be tired of Weasley and the Boy Who Lived to Make Me Sick," he said. "Nice try, though."
"Oh come on! I honestly don't understand why you have such a problem with them. You don't seem to mind being nice to ME. I mean, would it really hurt to be civil with them?"
"That depends on your threshold of pain", he had answered gravely.
.....
That night, the night Hermione crept up to her dormitory utterly exhausted from her last detention, she had a nightmare.
She was being carried by a terrifyingly long green serpent down
a dank, musty corridor. Lining the walls were what looked like
vertical rusting metal bars, or at least that was what she could make
out at the breakneck speed she was traveling. Too stiff from fear and
cold to jump, she clung tightly to the reptile. She closed her eyes
tightly for a second or two, but the minute they were open the head of
the serpent had changed into the head of none other than Harry Potter.
She screamed, and fell off, watching as Harry took off running and
left her there. The walls with their rusty bars and molding crevices
began closing in, a claustrophobic feeling surrounding her shaking
body. A voice drifted her way and a sinister voice danced in her ears,
chanting "I'll never tell...I'll never tell...I'll never tell..." The voice
became louder and louder, until the point where she thought she could
stand it no longer, and she stood up in an attempt to run in the
direction Harry had, when suddenly—
CRASH! She had fallen out of bed, her white bed sheets twisted tightly around her thin figure, damp with sweat.
"Hermione! Are you okay? How did all this happen...?" Lavender asked, scrambling out of her bed to help her untangle herself from all the sheets, a worried look on her face.
"I...I don't really know. I had a bad dream, that's all...I guess it just got to me a bit too much...but I'm fine, really," she said, steadying herself on her bedside table. "Go back to sleep."
.........................................
A/N: Draco is wierd! Draco is wierd! Draco is wierd! Hmm...well...no, actually...he's up to something. He has not lost it, he is merely...uh...keep reading and you'll find out.