Chapter Two – The Challenge
Ron puked out the pile of junk food he had been eating.
"er…congrats?" Harry said. Hermione sent a cushion flying straight at Harry's face. "Bingo!" she cried.
Back at the Gryffindor common room, Hermione had told Harry and Ron about all happened that day.
"Not really unreasonable though, the fact remains : both of you ARE the Head Boy and Girl." Ron reasoned.
"but… but…but… well, I'm telling ya, I'll choose anyone but him. Even you, Ron, you're a better candidate than HIM. Gosh, tell me, how, just how did I get myself into this mess!!!" Hermione whined.
Ron blushed a crimson red. Hermione realized what she had just said and immediately blushed too.
"Stop it you two, this is happening much too often. Hermione, I guess, we're totally of no help here." Harry said.
"You HAVE to help me. Argh, just why, why, why did he pair us up for? " Hermione was totally out of ideas, for the first time in her life.
"Simple, first, he paired both of you up because…. he likes to! " Harry said.
"Second, both of you are the Head Boy and Girl and are supposed to like.. set an example? " Ron repeated.
"Thirdly, he's trying very very hard to set you guys up and make both of you cooperate." Ron emphasized on the word "cooperate", making Hermione shiver just at the thought of Draco and her working together.
"Yup, add them together and it spells D-U-H, of course he'll pair both of you up! We're really helpless in this kinda stuff. Consider it as pure bad luck." Harry said. Both Harry and Ron looked at Hermione, expecting her to explode right on the spot. Finally, she opened her mouth.
"Argh. This is such "fun". Bye guys, I'm going to have a lousy night's sleep. " and she turned towards the girls' dormitory. As she walked, she tried her best to visualize Draco as a kind and easy-going person. Well, maybe not that great but at least someone that would speak to her. The more she thought, the more ridiculous it became, she came up with the image of Draco smiling at her and shuddered. That would be such a perfect nightmare.
Meanwhile, back at the Slytherin's common room, Draco was complaining to practically everyone about his disgusting fate. After going back to his own dormitory, he thought things out.
If I'm gonna do anything with that filthy mudblood, It's gonna be good. I must outshine that bookworm. I, Malfoy, will prove to everyone that I'm capable of everything the book worm does and in fact, I'm much better. Yes, that's it. It's war between me and the mudblood.
The next day, as Hermione was walking towards the Great Hall, she heard a familiar voice call out to her. Then she remembered, must be that dancing ferret.Indeed, Malfoy was walking up to her, with the usual smirk on his face.
"Speak your mind before I hex you." Hermione said with an evil glint in her eyes.
"You should learn to be feminine, Granger. Never mind, bet you can't do it anyway. So, I was thinking of meeting up two hours before dinner to discuss about the ball. "
Hermione showed no expression on her face.
Malfoy lost his patience. "Look, I'm serious for once. Just one word, yes or no."
"Fine. Meet you at the library." She looked at him suspiciously as he walked away for his next class.
At the library…
Hermione pushed open the doors of the library entrance and glanced around, finding Malfoy already seated in a corner, waiting patiently. That's just so miraculous, for once, he's punctual, she thought. She sat down in front of him and waited for him to say something since she was not in the mood to talk to the Slytherin at all.
"Let me make this clear to you Granger. I'm doing this 'cause I have to and everything's just pure business. I'm definitely gonna winning the Dancing King this year. I bet you can't be the queen, accept the challenge?" He gave her a smirk. "Obviously, after this, we're quits." Malfoy made his point clear.
"You're on. Rest assure, victory's mine, whoever chooses YOU as dancing king is probably out of his mind. "
A deal formed between them as they challenged each other to their limits.
15 minutes later…
"Look, I demand that a rock band to be performing at the ball." (malfoy)
"Are you crazy? It's a BALL. It's definitely going to be more formal than that. Perhaps we can have a string ensemble playing or something… that'll be soooooooo romantic." Hermione started dreaming about the ball.
"You're idea of romantic is worse than I thought," Malfoy interrupted her chain of thoughts. "and by the way, who's going to perform for us? Elves? Fairies? Dobby? Don't be ridiculous. " he stated matter-of-factly.
"True…" Hermione admitted. "But magic will always do the trick."
"but magic will always do the trick." He mimicked. "Right, so show me now? Your…. splendid trick?" He faked a look of excitement.
Hermione took out her Discman, which her mom had advised her to bring to Hogwarts so that she could listen to music in her free time (which almost never happens), and stuck the headphones on Malfoy's ears….AFTER turning the volume to full blast.
Malfoy immediately took off the headphones and screamed at Hermione, "What the hell is this thing?!" he received a few "shush" from all around him and being Malfoy as usual, he totally ignored them.
"Will you keep your volume down? This is a Discman, muggle stuff. Sometimes, there are just those great inventions that are simply better than magic. I put this flat thing called the disc in it and it plays me music that I've stored inside the disc for me!" She grinned, satisfied with her explanation.
"It sure is loud."
"yup, and there's a bigger version of it which looks totally different and can basically blast the whole Great Hall down. I was thinking, maybe with a little shrinking spell, I can get my parents to send me a set of those things. What do you think?"
"No comments"
"Fine, it's set then. I'll see to it. "
……… "Don't you have anything else to say?" Hermione grumbled after a long while.
"No. nothing to YOU at least."
"Come on, be SERIOUS. What about the food and drinks then? Do you think we should serve something special on that day?"
"Definitely."
"Suggestions?"
"Beer"
"Oh please, how many times must I remind you, this is something formal and to be taken SERIOUSly. "
"Let me remind you, I, malfoy, have never been serious. "
"True."
"But that doesn't mean I've got no ideas."
"True, you've got lame and useless ones and they make up 99.999999% of your brain. "
"Shut up mudblood."
"How dare you!"
………
For the whole two hours, they indulged themselves in "serious" work and just for a short moment, the strong hate between them was forgotten.
End of chapter 2