The Poker Game

Chapter Four: Of Running, Hiding and Finding

Disclaimer: #1 Reason the World Should Go Communist: If the world was communist Harry Potter characters would belong to everyone. However the world at large is not Communist, so the Harry Potter characters don't belong to me.

AN: All reviewers have made meextremelyhappy! So much so that I actually updated within a week!


DRACO'S POV

All Hail the Conquering Malfoy! I'm evil, I'm sly and I'm pretty damn fly. And I can rhyme, beat that Ms. I-Think-I-Can-Attempt-To-Humiliate-A-Malfoy-And-Then-Run-Away...wait, what? Hermione's a freakin' Gryffindor, why is she running away?

So much for Gryffindor bravery, I knew it was all a sham. Slytherine's clearly the only house that retains some of it's dignity. All the same this is rather bizarre behavior from Hermione, but...

Oh shit. It's not bizarre. It's survival.

Does Fate have nothing better to do than systematically shoot down each and every one of my internal parades? Shouldn't it have some heroes to go harass or something?

Apparantly not.

Brown and Patil, now that Hermione is no longer a possible interrogation victim, are quickly closing in on me. I have no problem with theatrics in front of the class, but facing a grand inquisition, administered by Lavender I-Must-Fucking-Know-All Brown and Parvati Persistan-As-A-Thrice-Damned-Ferret Patil themselves, is quite another cup of butterbeer. If they get their hands on me I won't be let out of the interrogation room for days and by that point I'll be known as the lover boy. Which will require that I make it known that it wasa prank to get back at Potter for something, and then I'll have to go beat up...I think five'd probably do it (...maybe Potter, Weasley, eh, Neville, Finch-Fetchly and whoever I see next) in order to return to the status of the Bad Ass Prince of Slytherine. And whats the point of status if you actually have to work for it?

So I egrede (AN: another awesome Latin derivitive meaning to exit) with all possible elegance by jumping gracefully off the table and runing to the door through the chaotic scene playing out amidst me.

Well not quite. Actually, because the World is out to get me, the table collapses just as I'm jumping, so I don't get as much leverage as anticipated. I end up on my belly on the floor, and it takes me a damned long time to disentangle my feet from some ninny's book bag (Is it absolutely necessary to cover bookbags with thousands of pins and buttons? They're a serious safety hazard for Circe's sake). Luckily the dust and the fact that I am bellow eye level confuse Brown, Patil and cohorts long enough for me to stagger up drunkenly and loaf my way to and out the door.

So here I am running through the deserted corridors and I have no plan. I mean I have the basic 'don't get caught by the Evil Gossip Empire's henchmen' plan, but other than that...well to be honest I'm screwed.

This is so sad. I'm a fucking veteran of The War, and here I am, not a year afterwards, and I'm being hunted down by the Feminine Mafia.

This cannot be good for my image.

It hadn't really occurred to me that they might come after me. I just sort of assumed when I started my declaration that they'd hassle Hermione for a while, and I'd sit and laugh from a corner. Perhaps further agitate the situation by sending her roses or something.

I clearly severely miscalculated.

I can't go back to my common room as Pansy will pounce on me (I'm sure Brown has already contacted Pansy to make sure that she's ready) and if I don't get out of the open soon I'll be caught. If I sneak into my room after everybody else has gone to sleep I should be fine, but I need somewhere until then.

Ok, so think, think...where can a guy hide from just about everyone? Where does no one ever go?

The LIBRARY! Yes, I am SO brilliant!

I think this may be my best plan yet. Especially since it's a Friday and who goes to the library on a freakin' Friday? I can drop by the kitchens, grab some grub,and quickly get to the library before any of the classes let out. I could hide out in the...arithmancy section! No one knows what the hell that stuff is anyway.

HERMIONE'S POV

It should come as no surprise where I went after The Fiasco inAdvanced Muggle Studies. I know its probably unwise to go to the one place where people will know to find me, but I can't help it. Just sitting here right up against the bookshelf, surrounded bythat slightly must smell unique to antique books,I feel like everything will somehow be alright.

OW! Who the hellcomesto the Arithmancy section of the library on a Friday? And who was it absolutely necessary for them to trip over my legs and in the process kick me in the shins?

Why do I always have to look?

Of all the sections, in all thelibraries in all the world, he trips into mine. Upon reflection this latest incident shouldn't be at all surprising; I am nothing if not consistant and this is completely in keeping with my luck today.

"What are you doing here Granger?" What kind of an idiot is he?

"This is the library Draco. And this is me." I look at him pointedly, as his legs are still on top of mine and he really needs to move them.

"Right, right. I forgot this was you we were talking about." He (finally) pushes himself into an upright sitting position next to me. While I am grateful that he is no longer half on top of me I do think he's still rather too close. Worse, it looks like he intends to stay.

"Hmmph. Well, now that we've established that, why areyou here? So far as I've heard you've entered a library maybe twice in your lifetime:once to research Elmo forAdvanced Muggle Studies, and the other time to try and prove that you didn't exist. Both of these wereratherill fated ventures, so why are you here now?

"The only good reason for going to a library: to escape from thefrightening power of organised and motivated women. And I'll have you know that the existence venture was not 'ill-fated'-the stories about it are totally exagerated. I never technically didn't exist because I do exist. Besides, that was your fault. You and your logic and I-Know-More-About-Existance-Than-You-Do attitude."

"All I told you was that Descartes had proved that if you can think you exist. I didn't tell you to try and prove him wrong. And I did tell you that it didn't get him anywhere particularly good-as I told you he's been stuck on his lone Rock of Knowledge of Self-Existence in the middle of the Oceans of Doubt, just south of Atlantis,for centuries now. You chose to try and prove me wrong, just like you tried to beat me today. And where have youu gotten us? Stuck in the Arithmancy section of the library on a Friday night for fear of being caught by our classmates and eartstwhile friends."

"Look, you're the one who set the parameters of the bet." I look over at him. I can't believe this. He's talking as if this was all my fault. Has he been paying any attention over the course of the last hour?

"Don't try to pin this on me! You're the one who insisted on declaring love for me instead of just doing the Circe-Damned-Macarena. You're the one who insisted on spinning it in a way that would arouse the interest of Brown and Patil. You're the one who wouldn't just shut up when I cancelled the bet. This is all your fault! And now you are contaminating my library section with your….vile….faulty Slytheriness…yeah."

That should show him. I refuse to sit here and take the blame for the fact that he destroyed my beautiful, beautiful plot. As I glare at him he has the audacity to glare right back. What is this? What right does he have to glare at me?

"Damn right I'm going to pin this on you! It is, after all, YOUR FAULT! You are the one who had to try her hand at plots, who had to try and humiliate me, who had to-"

"I have suffered enough of your insolence!"

At this point I've done listening and after living seven years with guys as my best friends, I know the next step. I tackle Draco, being careful not to overturn any bookshelves. Straddling him I then proceed to set about strangling him. It's rather trickier than I anticipated, but I do think it's possible. This is clearly not what he expected to happen, but that's ok because his complacency gives me time to strangle him.

Sudenly he goes absolutely rigid. And he's looking over my shoulder. That's not right. If someone's strangling you, you should at leat have the decency...

"OH SWEET MERLIN! IT'S TRUE ISN'T IT? YOU'RE FUCKING MALFOY?" Oh crap.


AN: So I've got another chapter up, and pretty quickly too. Wahoo.

So, by this point, I think that you know the deal. I entertain with story, you review so that I continue to write. Oh the beautiful cycle of Fanfiction. Also, I would like to thank all of you who indulged in my Shakespeare parody, because it made me happy and I deffinitely thought when i posted it that more people would say 'wtf' to it than would like it. So, now I have yet another parody. At the moment I may feel the need to revise it, so there may be an updated version in a matter of days, but we'll see. Enjoy and Review.

Sonnet 29-Review Style

When in disgrace with fortune's and men's eyes,

I sitwith my laptop and write all night,

And trouble my parents with myheartfelt sighs,

And look at my stories and curse my fate,

wishing them like that one more rich in hope,

or this one, with a thousand reviews at least;

Desiring this auther's art, and that one's scope,

My discontentment like a ravenous beast

leaves me myself almost despising.

Then I read my reviews, and then my state

Like to the lark at bread of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gat;

For sweet, sweet reviews such internal wealth brings,

That I wouldn't change my state with JKR or kings.

Oh, and a quote from Descartes: "Lego ergo respondeo." or in English "I read therefore I review." Descartes is nevr wrong-so review!