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Chapter 4: Into the Fray

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Professor Snape had been amused by the whole incident. So amused that he had given way and vented that humor in a totally out of character way, he had laughed. Oh yes Snape had been amused all right, but all told his amusement had, in fact, lasted for less than a minute. Now he was annoyed! And while annoyed wasn't good for those around him, it was at least a better look for him than amused had been. Some men are simply made for brooding.

It had taken exactly 35 seconds after Draco had left the dungeons for the students to overcome their shock and to start whispering amongst themselves about the events that had just occurred. And it had taken only slightly longer than that for Professor Snape to realize they ALL thought HE, Severus Snape, was Draco's mate. While it had been common knowledge among the staff that one Hermione Granger was the part Veela's intended victim, er, eternal partner, that information hadn't obviously made its way down the chain, to the students, as of yet.

The wizard photos of Draco were still up on the dungeon walls and they were still making outrageous comments. Snape could feel his brows sliding low over his eyes and meeting in the middle. He frowned at the room at large and a hush descended.

"Haroldson, Andrews!" he snapped, "Get those off the wall!" The two students quickly started gathering the offending photos and turned with arms full to see what they were supposed to do next. Snape waved them over to his work table where they placed the pictures into a large pile, then scuttled back to their desks.

Snape strode over to the table and snapped his wand in that direction, a gasp went from the students. At the sound an evil grin slid over Snape's features.

"Evanesco!" He muttered and the photos disappeared.

"Well back to work, you are supposed to be making potions not sitting staring like St. Mungo's patients!" He whirled back toward the class and his face had taken on its customary sneering appearance.

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Draco was sitting on an examination table in the school infirmary. Ginny was waving her wand over him and then writing her findings down on the parchment next to her.

Ginny started "tsking" and shaking her head. Draco inwardly groaned, here came the lecture.

"Draco. You need sleep. I don't like to see you like this. If you exhaust yourself you won't be able to control the Veela Charms. Promise me you will take the sleeping draught at least two nights a week!" She glared at him as his mother had done when he was a little boy.

He grinned, that Malfoy grin.

"Draco, do try to take this seriously. Promise me two nights a week at least, I would like you to take it every night but I know you too well." she frowned and passed him a small bottle of the sleeping tincture.

"Yes Mistress Lupin!" Still grinning and not being serious enough for Ginny's liking he slipped the bottle into his robes and hopped down off the examination table.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently.

"Look, I have a class in ten minutes, but it will be aright! Thank you Ginny."

Then he was gone leaving Ginny to frown at the door that closed upon his black clad back.

Ginny looked at her charts. He was rapidly deteriorating. Physically he was still strong enough but when she took the wand readings on his auras and mind they were so erratic she had had to take them three times before she got a good reading.

"Uhghh." She rubbed her hands over her eyes and sat down on a stool next to Professor Pomfrey's desk. This was not easy. Hermione was one of Ginny's best friends, but Ginny had come to know and admire Draco as well, so it was hard for her to see him being slowly destroyed like this.

Of course it wasn't easy to set aside differences and just "fall" in love with someone because fate had dealt that particular hand. Ginny didn't know herself what she would do if faced with a similar situation.

Maybe there was a way to help Draco AND Hermione. Ginny scrunched her brow in deep concentration, for long minutes no sound was heard in the infirmary but that of Ginny randomly scribbling ideas on a small scrap of parchment.

After a time Ginny got up and left the room, and the sound of her triumphant laughter could be heard long after the door was closed.

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All morning long, no matter where Snape went he could hear the twittering little idiots talking about him behind his back, to the side, and in front of his face. This had to stop! Snape wasn't a teacher that students wondered about, he wasn't a teacher that any of them wanted to think about at all if they could help it, but now here he was now a bloody cause for speculation.

It was all he could do not to start throwing hexes around. It was obvious that until Draco was with his "proper" mate that he, Severus, was going to have to deal with this type of thing, and that was something he was not willing to do. He had to think of something to help Ms. Granger see the light and become amenable to her situation. It wasn't as if she had a choice after all, she was Draco's mate and that was all there was to it. The sooner she just put aside her ridiculous (whatever they might be) objections to the match the sooner Snape himself would have a moment of quiet!

And so with that thought in mind he turned his attentions onto how he could become a "matchmaker."

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Hermione was sitting in a cozy chair, with Crookshanks settled in her lap. His purring told of his happiness to finally be out of that dratted cat carrier and in his mistresses lap. Hermione was reading. Holding the book in one hand and petting her familiar with the other. The running her fingers through the short silky fur was ordinarily very soothing to her, but today her mind would not be comforted by the gentle action.

She sighed and turned the page on her book. Looking at the new page she realized she had no idea what it had said on the last page she had read, nor to be honest what she had read at all since she had started.

A smile started on her lips, she wondered what Draco had done when she had taken his pictures and put them in Snape's classroom. She would have loved to be there for that one. The look on both of their faces would have been priceless. She wished she had a invisibility cloak as Harry had in school.

She sighed again. While that had been fun, and funny, there really wasn't anything overly comical about the present situation. She knew that sooner or later this would all have to be sorted out, but she wasn't ready to think about that for now. She needed to try to take her mind off her worries which was why she was sitting reading, but that wasn't working. It may have been better if she had just left like she had planned, but Dumbledore was reluctant to let her leave while things were still so unsettled between Draco and herself.

She had owled Theodosia about needing time off and her agent had sent back a letter filled with phrases like "breach of contract" "lawsuit pending" "never work in this town again" etc. So things weren't exactly looking that great in that part of her life either. Great her personal life was clearly not worth being discussed and now her professional life had taken a drastic leap into the depths as well.

With another sigh Hermione gave up any pretense at reading, stood up and placed Crookshanks back onto the warmth of the chair, then left the room. She needed a walk.

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Draco was tramping through the thin underbrush, along the edge of the forest. As he had been doing for most of the afternoon, he was walking to clear his thoughts. The sound of the dry leaves underfoot and the smell of the crisp air was making him feel better than he had in days. Where ever he went in the castle he could feel Hermione. Her scent was everywhere, teasing him with her aloofness. Most of the time he just felt as if he had gone crazy. He wasn't used to the lack of control and he hated it.

At least outside like this, the only smells that assailed his nostrils were the damp earthy aromas of decaying leaves and that tale tale first indication that colder weather was on its way. He leant against a tree and pulled his scarf closer around his neck, with one gloved hand. His eyes closed for a moment as he just breathed in and out quietly. It was nice to feel this normal again, even if for only a moment.

His hands in his robe pocket encountered the bottle of tincture that Ginny had given him. He really hoped he wouldn't need it. So far he had been able to control his Veela charms to the point that there was little but an ambient charm exuding from him. He knew though that he had been close to losing it on more than one occasion and if things continued along this route much longer he could well end up needing the tincture and more.

In this lucid moment he despaired of ever winning Hermione over. He knew how she felt about him. He knew how he had teased her, how they had driven barbed insults into each other for years. To expect her to forgive him, accept him, to love him seemed preposterous. But of course none of that meant that he was giving up. No far from it. He had plans to woe her. Subtle plans. A damned sight more subtle than of his telling her he was her mate, in case anyone was interested. No these plans were very sly, very Slytherin, very Draco Malfoy!

His eyes still closed he smiled to himself, the hard tree at his back giving him support as he drifted off into thoughts of the future with Hermione by his side. His thoughts were interrupted by something that made him groan in frustration at not being left alone even here, and just in frustration period!

Hermione was near. His eyes snapped open and he looked around carefully. He couldn't see her yet but he could feel her, smell her. He opened his mouth to capture that illusive scent on his palate. His eyes rolled back and the Veela instincts beat at the back of his brain for release. With a hiss of breath he stifled those baser instincts and pushed his back away from the tree. One careful step after another he started to stalk his prey.

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Hermione was picking up thin fallen twigs, the ones that still had the brightly colored Autumn leaves on them. She was clutching a small bundle of the red, yellow and orange leaves to her chest. She thought they would look nice in her room. Her cheeks were rosy with the healthy exercise of trekking through the woods and the coolness of the air. It was nice to be outside on a day such as this.

Even with the immense size of the castle it still had felt stifling.


There was a sound of crunching leaves behind her and she turned around and stopped suddenly tense.

Draco Malfoy stood a few yards from her. There was no expression on his face and he wasn't trying to come any closer. She didn't know what to say to him, if she should say anything, or just get back to the castle.

"Hermione." It was a greeting.

"Draco." Hermione nodded her head once.

"May I?" He indicated that he wanted to come nearer to her into the clearing.

Part of her was screaming, NO! NO! NO! but she found herself waving her hand in a dismissive way as if it didn't matter what he did.

He smiled slightly and moved toward her.

"Those are nice." He pointed to the bundle of twigs and colored leaves that was in her arms.

"Thank you." It would be impolite not to say that wouldn't it? He didn't act as if he was waiting to jump on her or anything. Although with that thought her heart began to beat and she wondered if she would be able to outrun him if she needed to?

He walked around the clearing and picked up another small branch of particularly lovely maroon leaves, then walked over and handed them to her.

"So Professor Snape seemed a bit surprised that he was a possible candidate for my mate."

Draco's words brought her eyes to his face. Was he angry? She searched his face and found a slight raising of an eyebrow and a twitching of his lips. He thought it was funny? She could feel the tension flow from her body and she took a deep breath and shrugged her shoulders at him.

"I don't know what you are talking about." She teased.

Draco burst out laughing, then his face sobered and he looked down at her. They stood that way for a few moments and just as it started to get uncomfortable Draco moved away.

"Come on, its getting dark. I will walk you back. Here let me take those." He took the bouquet of leaves from her and they made their way back to the castle.

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Very dark eyes were watching them as they crossed the castle grounds toward school. These eyes were not twinkling, these eyes were narrowed. And the mind behind the eyes was shrewdly plotting. Being a death eater and a spy had given Professor Snape the ability to be sneaky when he had to. He had been plotting and scheming all day.

Not being well versed in the arts of romance, and really more after a fast result, his plans were somewhat crude. He didn't care about finesse in this situation, simply a means to an end. He smiled a bright evil smile as he swirled his robes and stalked away.

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Hermione entered the great hall for the evening meal with a smugness about her features. She had learned something very important on the way from her rooms. She had learned that due to her putting the pictures of Draco in Snape's classroom, that morning, that the student body now thought that the dark professor was Draco's own true love, or something akin to it in any case! The thought nearly sent her doubling over, the humor of the situation was almost too much to bear. Draco and Serverus? Oh my where do people get those ideas? A thought suddenly sobered her. Hermione and Draco? Where do people get THOSE ideas. The humor of the situation was pushed aside at sudden remembrance of her position. She entered the great hall and moved to take her place at the head table not noticing the gaze of many scheming eyes upon her. If she had noticed, she probably would have started sleeping with her wand under her pillow again!

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A/N Thanks all the reviewers I can't say how great it is that you are having fun with this. I know I am. I don't have time today to mention anyone individually but will try to address any questions at a later date. Also anyone who recommended fics I am getting to them, including any that you wrote yourselves. Thanks for letting me know about them I am an avid reader and love new stories. :)

I won't be updating for a while, my company has closed down my particular office and its either relocate or be jobless, so I am moving to a new state on the 10th of January. I very much doubt that with the holidays and packing and moving that I will have time to do much writing before the middle/late part of the month. I will also update "Draco's Inheritance" again before I take the little hiatus.

OK enough rambling from me.

Hope all your Holidays are fantastic, and you all make some nice New Year's resolutions...and that you haven't broken them all by the time I see you again.

As always read Arbitrary's "Temporary Insanity" WHY? Because its brilliant.