Chapter Nine: Devious means

Three days later…

Harry pulled the stool closer to the edge of the potions table before he sat down on it. There were two reasons for doing this-one, Seamus had taken to sitting in front of him in an attempt to disrupt Snape's line of sight, and therefore save Harry from detention. Problem was, Seamus' unnaturally large head also blocked Harry's view of the blackboard, making it more likely that Harry would misread the directions and receive detention anyway.

The second reason was that his best friends were arguing. Again.

"Hermione! Why, for the love of all that is Gryffindor, did you tell Malfoy that we'd help her?"

Having just walked through the door, Draco glanced in Ron's direction before taking her seat across the aisle from Harry.

"I-I couldn't help it! She just looked so pitiful when she asked for my help finding a cure…I just couldn't say no!"

Taken aback by the thought of Draco looking at all pitiful, Harry turned, "How?..."

A self satisfied smile settled over her features, "I may be female, but I am still a Malfoy. I use devious means to achieve my ends."

Hermione whipped around, "You overloaded me with cute puppy-dog eyes. Devious, honestly…"

Draco's expression changed to one of affront, "Malfoys don't do cute."

The door slammed, causing the more skittish Gryffindors to jump slightly in their seats. Actually, it was only Neville-most students learn to disregard Snape's melodramatic entrances by third year, but he had never really gotten the hang of ignoring Snape. The professor strode quickly down the aisle, the faint scent of his caffeine addiction following in his wake.

Snape stopped beside Draco and did something incredible. The man turned and surveyed his star pupil, his eyebrows creasing in a show of worry. Who knew he was capable of such emotion?

"Draco, I think perhaps you should sit this lesson out. I daresay you shall learn just as much by simply watching…especially with the stress you've been put under."

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Draco put on an exhausted expression and silently nodded her head, waiting until after Snape had turned away to smirk at a dumbfounded Harry. She picked up her things and moved so she could watch Blaise stirring his potion.

The rest of the class passed uneventfully-Harry got ten points taken for misreading the directions (he mentally whacked Seamus in the head with his cauldron) and Hermione saved Neville from putting the wrong root into his potion. Twice.

All in all, a very good potions lesson.

Ron fell back into an armchair, throwing his hands above his head, "I still don't see why she has to sit with us every meal. I mean, it's been a couple of days, hasn't it?"

"Well yes, Ron, but just think of what those Slytherins must be doing to her when she's in her own dormitory! Think how terrible it must be for her, having this happen!"

Ron sat up and looked at Hermione as if she was crazy, "Think how terrible she was to us before! She deserves it!"

"Oh, Ron…" Hermione shook her head and kneeled down to pull something out from under the couch.

"Hermione, what are you doing with those?" Harry gestured to the stack of poster board she had tucked under her arm, "I thought you had lessons with Draco tonight."

"I do. I thought that given our topic for tonight, it might be easier for her to understand if she has something visual to focus on," a mischievous glint came into her eye, "Besides, I'm going to enjoy tonight. This is the last lesson I have to give her, and I've saved something special for the finale," at the boy's blank looks, she went on, "Let's just say tonight will be rather…graphic."

Hermione marched out of the common room, leaving two confused boys to blink at her retreating back.

Later that night, a third year Hufflepuff named Sarah walked down a rarely used corridor, laughing to herself over the predicament of a certain unlucky Slytherin and thinking that he-she-deserved everything she got. It was an open secret that

Draco was taking lessons from Hermione, but as of yet, no one had been able to figure out where. On any given night, there were at least seven students daring a run-in with Filch to be the one to finally find the right classroom. A small thud came from Sarah's left, and the closest door was flung open from the inside, expelling a screaming blonde.

The girl shrieked continually, never seeming to draw breath, as she launched herself at Sarah. Draco was stopped mid-leap and jerked back into the room by the neck of her robes. Sarah caught only one snippet of sound before the heavy door was slammed shut.

"Every month? Noo no no no no…."

A swish of cloth prompted Sarah to turn around, and she saw what no student with any sense of fear wants to see-Filch.

"Running around after dark, are we? That won't do…Come with me," he turned and started off down the hall.

Sarah forced her feet to move as she stared down at them forlornly. A very recent memory surfaced in Sarah's mind. She thought of the darkly satisfied look on Hermione's face and the rather terrified expression currently on Draco's and knew that detention was more than worth it.

Disclaimer: You know the drill, anything you recognize belongs to the rabid squirrels-oops, I mean to Ms. Rowling…

A/N : Geeze, it seems to be that I keep repeating myself in these…Here's my apology for all the times I take forever to update: I am still in school, and while my course load has lessened considerably, I am still the sorry excuse for a procrastinator I always was. There is no set update time, but I put them up as soon as I am fully happy with the way it is written. In this case, that would have happened a lot sooner if the ending with Sarah didn't give me so much trouble….

A/N2: There was a problem with the line breaks in earlier chapters. Hopefully I got that fixed now, so chapters five to today's should make more sense…