Chapter Eight
Two weeks passed by far too quickly for Hermione or for anyone in the Gryffindor house for that matter. Hermione was busying herself with her homework in the Heads' common room when Draco entered and looked around, slightly amazed to find that everything was how he'd left it. Hermione tried her hardest to ignore him but found that when he sat down on a couch and surveyed her over arched fingers that she could no longer disregard him. She set her quill down on the table and looked up, finding herself staggered in the difference he presented himself. His hair, which had been tightly gelled back when he had left, was hanging loosely in his face, covering what looked like a black eyes. His eyes were still steely and cold but seemed to hide something behind them. He was dressed in long sleeves and barely any of his skin was showing. Not only that, but the skin that was visible was more white than ever, giving him a ghostly look.
"Granger, I know that I am resplendently handsome and charming and you'd like to have your hands all over me but please show some reserve," he drawled, the smirk, which Hermione had not missed, twisting his lips.
"I see that your ego hasn't changed," she murmured. "Perhaps it has become worse. I'm taking something splendid happened at your mother's funeral, Malfoy?"
Draco's smirk vanished at once and Hermione was taken aback at his sudden change of mood. He glared at her and adjusted uncomfortably.
"Funerals are as grave to me, Granger," he began, "as they would be to you." Hermione snorted and continued doing her homework.
"Where'd you get that black eye, then?" she asked, glancing up at him. He tensed.
"That's none of your business, Granger," he snapped.
"Touchy, aren't we?" she inquired, smirking herself. "Must have been embarrassing then."
"I'll have you know that I tripped," he lied.
"For someone apparently so 'charming,' you aren't a very good liar," she said, chuckling and looking up at him. "Besides, since when is 'tripping' not embarrassing?"
"Oh, just sod off, mudblood," he mumbled and then retreated into his room. Hermione's smirk broadened and she started packing up her things.
'Oh, so now I'm pushing Malfoy's buttons,' she thought to herself, rolling up her parchment. 'Who's go the upper hand now, Malfoy?'
She walked into her room and tossed her bag in a nearby armchair. She stretched slightly and went over to her dresser, pulling out her pajamas and then making for the lavatory door. She pushed it open and entered. She'd barely taken a step in when a holler of surprise made her look up. Her brown eyes met a pair of curious gray ones. They didn't linger there, however. She looked down to find that Draco was only in his knickers. She blinked a few times and then noticed that there were several blotchy bruises over the pale skin of his chest and arms.
"What are you gawking at?" Draco snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. Hermione tore her eyes away and gave Draco's bruised face a searching look. He simply raised a sardonic brow and tapped his foot impatiently on the dark marble of the floor. "Well?"
"Did you get all of those," Hermione raised her hand and pointed to the bruises, "when you 'tripped' as—? What's that?" Hermione had spotted something on his arm and Draco fidgeted uncomfortable under her gaze. "Is that…is that the Dark Mark?"
Draco looked down at his arm and twisted it slightly to hide any visible part of the tattoo that Hermione might have been able to see.
"I don't know what you are talking about, Granger," drawled Malfoy somewhat amused. "And these bruises," he smirked, "well, let's just say I like it rough." Hermione's cheeks turned a brilliant pink and she turned, stumbling out of the bathroom to hide her blush. She slammed the door shut and Draco smirked, pleased that he could still ruffle her feathers.
Hermione sat on her bed, forgetting about the bath she'd been planning on taking, and changing into her pajamas in a rather irate fashion, pulling the clothing on violently and nearly tearing the fabric. When she was dressed, she went over to the bookshelf and simply stared at the books. In the two weeks, that Draco had been gone, she'd been able to do a fair amount of reading in the common room without being disturbed, but, most likely, it would not be so since he had come back. She sighed, grabbed a rather thick book from the bottom shelf, and exited into the common room to find her usual seat in the crimson armchair by the fire.
She had not read the six page introduction when the door to the lavatory opened and Draco, clad in nothing by silky black skivvies, entered into the common room, feeling rather refreshed with his chest bare, exposing the bruises. He took the seat right next to Hermione and smirked as he watched her read, trying as best as she could to ignore him. He had been lying in the bathroom when he accredited his bruises to rough and violent sex. The truth had been he had gotten into a row with his father about his patronage to the dark world even after the Dark Lord's demise. His father would hear none of what Draco had to say and put his only son under the Cruciatus curse. Draco had fallen while the curse was upon him; fallen onto the fireplace a bruised several areas of his chest, but soon his father had left, and Draco had been alone. Draco thought he had tended to his injuries fairly well, since he no longer had any broken ribs and the pain had subsided.
Draco looked away from Hermione, who visibly relaxed when she no longer felt his gaze upon her, and looked into the fire. His gray eyes lit up slightly as he drifted into thought. After a few minutes passed, he looked down at his arm, which had begun to burn ever so slightly. He rubbed it slightly and sighed. The Dark Mark was not something he had wanted. While in his fourth year at Hogwarts, or rather right before it at the Quidditch World Cup, Draco had been placed under the Imperius curse and branded by a member of the Death Eaters. It was not something he had wanted and, though he had gone to every specialist in the wizarding world that specialized in tattoo removal (even a few muggle doctors), the tattoo was too magical even to begin to fade.
"Well?" Hermione spoke up, putting a bookmark at her place and looking up at him.
"Well, what, Granger?" Draco replied, giving her a look.
"Well, how did you really get those bruises?" Something in the way she asked made Draco grin slyly.
"Do I detect a hint of…concern in your voice, Granger?" Hermione cheeks were graces by a light tinge of pink.
"W-well," she started, looking reluctant to say anything. "It's—er—well, you are—you are a student, after all." Her voice was slightly wavering. "And—and the job of a Head is to look out for the wellbeing of the students and—and—"
"Save it, Granger," Draco snapped. "I don't need you 'looking out for my wellbeing.'"
Hermione gulped and watched him get to his feet and cross the room to his dormitory. He opened the door and glanced back, catching Hermione's eye. His eyes weren't nearly as solid and icy as they usually were and Hermione felt something fluttering around in her stomach. He closed his door and she looked down at her book in perplexity. 'Was I really worried? About Malfoy? No way. This just isn't possible. I mean, it's Malfoy…but when he looked at me like that…NO! No, no…pull yourself together, Hermione! Get a grip, girl! It's just because he looks different, that's all. He still acts the same. Egotistical, chauvinistic, selfish, perverted…yeah. He's still Malfoy. He's just got a new guise.'
She got to her feet and slumped across the common room toward her dormitory. She opened the door slowly and nearly screamed when she saw a black-haired witch sitting on her bed and musing with a photograph from Hermione's bedside table. The witch looked up when Hermione entered and smirked at her surprised expression.
"Desdemona?" Hermione asked, clutching her chest as if begging her heard to beat slower and not go into overdrive and kill her. "Merlin's beard, you scared me."
"Sorry 'bout that," Mona said without much feeling, "and call me Mona. I mean, we are friends, right?"
Hermione had the urge to yell "Hell no" but resisted. She merely forced a smile and replied, "Yes, I suppose we are, but you see, I was about to retire. Is there something you needed?"
"Oh, yeah, there is," replied Mona, jumping down off of Hermione's bed. "Well, I was just wondering what sort of relationship that you and Draco are in?"
"Relationship?" questioned Hermione with a look that said 'Are you joking?' "There is no relationship between me and that ungrateful, womanizing prick next door?"
"So, he's free territory?" Hermione felt something in her chest wrench but ignored it.
"If anyone would want to invest," scoffed the brunette. "Have at him. I don't want him. But be forewarned. He 'likes it rough.'" An amused laugh came from the lavatory and Hermione glared at the door and then smiled back at Mona. "Just a second if you please."
Hermione walked over to her bookshelf and pulled out a particularly thick volume. She strode over to the lavatory door, threw it open, came face to face with Draco, and threw the book at him, getting him the face and making him stumble backward.
"Damn it, you stupid bint!" Draco cried, throwing the book aside and holding his nose. "What the bloody hell was that for?"
"It was for being an eavesdropping prick!" Hermione snapped, snatching her book up and threateningly holding it near to his face. Draco grabbed a tissue and tilted his head back to stop the blood flowing down his face freely. After he was sure he could make it, Draco stumbled across the lavatory and in his room. Hermione turned back to Mona and smirked wryly. "Again, he's free territory if you have the willpower to invest!"
"Well," breathed Mona in a snobbish way, "you aren't that nice! What has he ever done to you to deserve that?"
Hermione's eyebrows raised. "Would you be willing to sit down for about a week to hear me name them all off?"
Mona scoffed and exited Hermione's room into the lavatory and then into Draco's room. Hermione rolled her eyes and closed the lavatory door, locking it and the door leading out to the common room. She crawled onto the bed and relaxed into the pillows, sighing in irritation.
'She can have him,' she thought, running a hand through the bushy mass of brown that was her hair. 'She and Pansy may be the only ones who want him.' Some part of Hermione's brain was protesting to that but she merely shrugged it off and dozed into a light sleep.
She slowly opened her eyes and stared around. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but they didn't. The room was completely enveloped in darkness. She fumbled around and felt herself topple off her bed. There was a strange snickering coming from some ways off and a light, much like that of a stage light, came on and illuminated a spot not to far from Hermione. Standing in the light was Draco, looking smug as ever and sitting on, what she could barely make out, as a throne. He had his arms and legs crossed and looked down at her.
'Well, well, Granger,' he rasped, getting up and moving toward her, 'I always knew you'd be bowing to me like the rest of them.'
In a flash of green light, Draco disappeared and, instead, Desdemona Nightingale was sitting on the throne. She smirked down at Hermione.
'You said you didn't want him,' she laughed, 'so he's mine now. Too bad, so sad.'
Another puff of green smoke and Pansy replaced Mona.
'Hello, little mudblood, not to long now before you're carried off to be with the rest of the scum. Too bad you weren't nicer to Draco or I when you had the chance.'
POOF! All of a sudden, a large, platinum dragon was before Hermione, looking ferocious. It reared its head back and opened its mouth, ready to burn Hermione to cinders, but Hermione jolted away and peered around her dark room, glad not to find any large, platinum dragons lurking in the shadow.
"Wow…I must be paranoid or something. Malfoy's really getting under my skin."