The Poker Game
AN: The disclaimer from the first chapter still applies...
DRACO'S POV
Why is she laughing? This can't be good. She shouldn't be laughing after losing fifty some galleons. I should be laughing at her. There plainly is something terribly wrong.
She's still laughing damn her. If I wasn't so worried about why she's laughing I might have noticed how cute she looks when she's genuinely amused. Her cheeks are all flushed as she gasps for breath between heaving laughs and her eyes seem to twinkle. Not like Dumbledore's innocent 'everything will be alright' twinkling; no, her cinnamon eyes twinkle with mischief and glee at suffering. My suffering to be exact. There is nothing reassuring in those eyes. But of course I notice none of this because I have bigger fish to fry. Damnit, did I pick that phrase up from her? It sounds muggle. I've clearly been spending far too much time with her in this class.
She's still laughing. Perhaps it is time to put a stop to this. Professor Vir's looking at me funny and it is getting plain awkward.
"Would care to explain exactly what is so amusing?" I ask her with infinite patience as I wait for her to cease her riotous cachinnating (A/N: isn't that such a cool word for laughing?) and get her breath back. Finally once she is once again capable of sitting upright in her chair she deigns to answer me.
"Draco, dear, in order to have a flush you have to have five cards of the same suite, not just the same color." At this point a fit of giggles overtakes her and it is all that she can do to lay her cards down. Four of the A's. This is not good.
HERMIONE'S POV
Nice pack of muggle playing cards: one galleon. Winning at poker: 50 galleons. Making Malfoy look as dignified and jovial as a drowning cat: priceless.
As Malfoy stares at the four cards that spell out his doom I compose myself (mostly anyway, a grin keeps tugging at my cheeks and there is very little I can do to stop it.) and lean back in my chair to await his full attention. It soon becomes apparent that simply waiting for him to return from Lala Land won't work. So I unleash the McGonagall stare once again. Within thirty seconds he looks up from the cards, eyes apprehensive. I allow for a short dramatic pause before proceeding.
"Muggle Appreciation Day is approaching in one week and for that auspicious occasion I would like you to perform a very special muggle dance for the school. I would like you to perform…"
Oh the joy of evil spur-of-the-moment plots brought to fruition! He would have no choice but to follow my heinous orders. Mwahahaha!
I think I have been spending entirely too much time around Draco lately. Evil laughs are not supposed to come naturally to Gryffindor.
DRACO'S POV
"…the Macarena!" I look at her in horror. I have vastly underestimated her. Sweet, simple and bookish my ass! The girl must have been mis-sorted. This kind of cunning cruelty is not supposed to run in Gryffindor.
I feel the hand of impending doom grasping at my ankles. If I danced to the biggest mistake the muggle music industry ever made in front of the whole school, during some dorky Muggle Appreciation Day no less, well, I'd never live it down. Everyone would know in a matter of hours. Father would probably scream at me for hours about the honor of the family, Mother would just sit there weeping and looking at me balefully, Professor Snape would mock me mercilessly, and the Slytherine house would…dear sweet Merlin, I'd lose my minions for sure! How can minions respect and obey a man who has done the Macarena? It's completely impossible. Which is why you don't see Voldemort going around doing the chicken dance or some such nonsense. Its just not good policy.
There has to be a way out of this. I'm a Slytherin, I'm clever and sly, I can totally handle this situation. It would just require a little bit of…convincing. Yeah. I could put on the famous Malfoy charm and voila! No more Macarena. Ever.
"Hermione, come on. You're not this desperate to make me suffer. We've been working through our issues during this class; I know you don't hate me anymore. How about we just sit here and talk about something productive I could help you with…" Yeah. I could totally make this work. Hermione and me, we're tight. She wouldn't feed me to the wolves.
"If you like, we could look at this as further work on getting through our 'issues.' Me getting all of my negative feelings out by making you suffer. Just like a punching bag." I don't know what a punching bag is, but it doesn't sound like it has a happy existence. This isn't going to be as easy as I'd thought. But I can still salvage the situation. If I don't panic I'll be just fine.
"Yes, yes, of course humiliate me. That's fine. But doesn't the Macarena seem a bit extreme?"
"No." Damn. Reason clearly isn't going to work. Onto Plan B.
I grab my wand off the table and quickly mutter "intraudi", a sound insulating spell, before I unleash my torture device. I begin to sing.
HERMIONE'S POV
Dear God, make it stop! Did he just go through seven key signatures in a matter of seconds? Is that possible? Well, clearly it is, but it shouldn't be. I think I now understand why Slytherins don't, as a rule, sing. Or why they only use it as a weapon when they're desperate.
Hands clasped over my ears I shout at Draco, "What did the Phantom ever do to you that you must mutilate his music of the night?!" A half second of glorious respite. Regret floods through me as I realize my mistake. He's now about three octaves above where he ought to be and singing "Toxic." I don't know or care where he learned these muggle songs, but I wish to God that he'd kept his pureblood prejudices rather than subject me to this. I only hold out another thirty seconds, thirty agony filled seconds, before I break down.
"Ok, ok, let's talk. Just PLEASE stop singing!'' Draco looks at me with that smart ass smirk and finishes the line he's on. Damn him.
"It's your own fault. You drove me to these measures. If you'd been reasonable it never would have gotten as far as singing." Yeah, let's blame the victim. Sounds like a good plan to me.
"How about this as a plan: I give you another option for how you are to humiliate yourself, so you can choose between the Macarena and my equally humiliating second choice. That way you'll have an option at least."
"Why do I have to humiliate myself at all?"
"Because you made my life hell through sixth year and just made it hell again by singing. Because the world is inherently unfair. Because you make a splendid scapegoat. Because you lost. Pick whatever reason you want, it doesn't really matter why. All that really matters is that I have it in for you and you owe me." It feels really good to vent at Malfoy. I think I should do it more often.
"Am I going to be able to get out of this without some form of humiliation?"
"No."
"Fine then. Give me my second option." Hold on a tic…I don't have a second option yet…crap. Must stall…. (A/N: for the rest of the chapter italics are used for the ideas Hermione's coming up with for Malfoy's torture. It seemed less confusing to me after I visually separated out the multiple threads of thought)
"You do realize that this second option is going to be even worse than the Macarena. I mean next to this the Macarena looks like a pizza party." Make him join SPEW? But then he'd take the credit for it's future successes. I know he would. Draco's giving me a skeptical look. I think he suspects that this is just a bluff. Not good. Must stall better, must think of torture…
Dye his hair pink? Nah, the girls would probably just say the color suited him. Stupid male slut….
"No I mean it. This is the King of All Humiliations. You'll never be able to face anyone again." Eh, sing the Tom Bombadil songs from LotR? Wait, I've heard him sing. "It'll haunt you, a specter quietly reminding you of your past mistakes, for all of eternity!" Make him start a random and unMalfoy club, like maybe, the Young Communists Club? No; knowing him he'd use it to catapult himself into a position as a fascist dictator. He's not buying my stalling. And I still don't have a second idea. Crap. What can be worse than the Macarena? Dress in drag for a week? Wait, wizard already wear 'robes' on a regular basis.
"You don't have a second option do you?" Declare his undying love for….Snape? Ok, Eeeuuu….
"That's fine, we could, you know, just forget all about—" Declare his undying love for…macaroni and cheese?...the giant squid?...Elton John?...
"Declare your undying love for me!" Did I just say that? Wait a minute, that's brilliant! If there's one thing worse than the Macarena this'd be it. He'll have to choose the Macarena. I am so….
"Fine." WHAT??!!!
Love it? Hate it? REVIEW IT! If nothing else, let me know that I'm not talking to myself here...I'm beginning to feel like I might be crazy.
