Hermione had done a lot of thinking over the summer between her Fifth and Sixth years. Some of that thinking had been about Sirius.
His had been the closest she'd come to death, and its effects.
Her own grief has been numbing – to the point where it felt like something inside of her had collapsed – some foundation, stability.
Somehow everything had been like a game before – now she understood what Harry meant. This was serious.
Because everything and nothing had changed, she could not, for once in her life, even begin to conceive of how Harry was feeling. She suspected he had lived through it before because he had not known how not to – but now he knew both how and why not to. All Hermione could do right now was to watch him – there weren't any words that would mean anything, or be the right thing to say. Uselessness was not a feeling she coped with very easily, not being used to it.
But the summer had changed a something inside her – all of a sudden she'd noticed the moments of extremes that happen so unremarkably. The ones so frequently missed, she thought, where everything was perfect – either because it was beautiful or because it was awful – but perfect nonetheless.
She'd figured out, too, why it was she loved learning – it was because she could do something, and suddenly there were millions of possibilities. She appreciated that she was able to do things other people weren't, and she had decided not to waste that. Since they were no longer playing games; she wanted to see how far her abilities went.
Perhaps it was not altogether safe to try and test her limits – but she thought Sirius would have been proud.
It was a fortnight into term, and Nott was playing a game. The game was called 'Push Zabini To The Edge Of His Sanity', and Nott loved the game. He played it a lot – in fact, he was getting quite good at it.
Transfiguration was a necessary evil to Draco. Every lesson he had to sit (or rather sprawl artfully over his chair) and listen to this game of Nott's. If he'd been in a better mood it might have been moderately amusing, but the incident with Goyle this morning had put him out of sorts, and the repetitiveness of the activity irritated him.
As did McGonagoll's tapping. Constantly. He swore that woman had compulsions of some sort.
Draco sighed and tried to return his attention to his work. The piece of parchment in front of him read only 'Theory of Human Transmutation' and a few phenomenally dull lines on Partial Parts Transfer.
Not only had they not come on to any practical whatsoever yet, they did not even begin to study full Animagi until halfway through the next year – and then it was only a superficial study.
To his mind, this was just cruel – taunting them with elaborate names that sounded interesting but then turned out to be a complete waste of time appeared to be a favourite past-time of that dried-up old bag.
He sometimes thought she kept the one truly interesting thing she could teach them about to herself just for fun! But what a thing to learn – and if anyone knew surely it was her – how it felt to become a completely different species.
Did it hurt? How long did it take to perfect? What could go wrong, how could mistakes be avoided? Exactly how was it actually done? And most of all – he tried not to daydream about it, romanticised as it seemed – but what would he be?
He quite liked the idea of something dramatic, like a lion, or eagle, or elegant like a gazelle. It might be a snake – but the idea didn't really appeal to him greatly. Potter was a Parselmouth after all, and he didn't particularly want the Boy Who Should Never Have Lived At All making a pet of him.
Perhaps a bird – he did love to fly after all. Never a water-creature though, he'd always thought that if Longbottom had anywhere near the aptitude to transfigure more than a toenail of himself, he'd become a fish. Or perhaps a pot of geraniums.
Nott laughed loudly – Zabini kept ducking from side to side and it appeared Nott had enchanted an inkpot to spill its contents over his housemate if he moved. Unfortunately the fool had yet to figure out that motion was the trigger and since he was developing a nervous twitch from Nott's numerous and inventive tortures, that knowledge wouldn't have done him much good anyway.
He knew what Nott would be if he ever mastered enough will power for the purpose – a Blast-Ended skrewt. With any luck he'd prefer it to his original form and stay that way.
And a good thing it'd be too, thought Draco, leaning on his hand to block out the spectacle in front of him. Skrewts are difficult to kill, but at least you wouldn't have the Forces of Darkness on your tail if you managed it.
Mostly Draco was bored. If only they were studying something useful or interesting it would be less bone-achingly dull and he might – might – find it in himself to pay attention. With the way things were at present, with that old crackpot running the school, there was about as much chance of that as Nott spontaneously growing a sunny disposition while Crabbe and Goyle chatted about Advanced Arithmancy eating tea and cakes and Granger, oooh, maybe breaking a nail? No, the Great Dumbeldore would never allow anything to be taught that might bring harm to his precious Potter.
He rolled his eyes returned to 'Partial Parts Transfer…including the mutation of facial features'.
That's what he'd like to do to Potter – mutate him 'til he had a thousand lightning scars all over his face…
Right, that's enough, he told himself. He was vexed enough without thinking of the little piece of scum when he wasn't even in the lesson.
'The mutation of one or more facial features to resemble or otherwise imitate the behaviour of an animal/vegetable/mineral must be precise due to the physical nature of the senses…'
Draco had only gotten to notes on uses of mutations by the end of the lesson;
'For instance, the Bubble Head Charm could be said to link in with this as it mimics the protective reflexes of the Pigmy Slugard on the African coastline.
However, since the species is relatively unknown in the western countries and the development of the Charm had roots in the 'Extreme Quidditch' of the late 1800s…'
He felt thoroughly discouraged. How was he supposed to progress to what he wanted if it was taking this long to work through all the pointless rubbish? Draco was not a naturally patient person but he thought he'd been doing quite well to keep his temper this long. He made up his mind – he would ask McGonagoll what they would be studying next in the hope that if he got through this then something, anything else would come quicker.
As his classmates exited, Nott pushing Zabini out of the room, Draco eyed the front desk. He wondered how best to tackle the problem that now arose – how exactly to approach McGonagoll for help. It was like he did this often, he wasn't Granger after all…
'Yes, Mr Malfoy, why are you lingering?'
Well, that sharp cut comment-in-lieu-of-question seemed to call for the direct approach.
'I wanted to know what we are planning on doing next lesson, Professor.' he said with as much courtesy as he could manage, though he was unable to keep the slight hint of acid out of the final word.
McGonagoll glanced at him suspiciously but moved to her desk nonetheless. A tap of her wand and the ensuing flurry of parchment unearthed a timetable upon which spidery letters squabbled for space. The woman most politely referred to, in the Slytherin common room at least, as 'The Bag' glared at the characters, which promptly scurried to settle in their proper places. She looked up;
'You shall be studying Limb Exchange in the next lesson, and Centaur and Mermaid Myth together with the historical necessaries in the coming week. Will there be anything else?' she enquired coldly.
'No.' Draco returned, equally icily.
As he walked out of the classroom, he gave in to the urge to groan. That was a lot of pointless rubbish for one subject, he thought. Well, he'd read the textbook but something extremely drastic would have to happen before he actually went looking for something to bore him out of his skull even more.
Thank God for lunch times, the thought to himself as he strolled toward the Hall.
Hermione winced and sucked her finger. The prick she had sustained from her somewhat vicious Warbleweed would need a salve of Beeswort – or was it Cottlesap? She shook her head. The plant wasn't poisonous per sae, but would bring up an unpleasant rash is left untreated, not unlike a certain Malfoy she could mention.
Usually working with Neville was a blessing – but for the fact that perennials seemed to get a bit excited around him. 'Playful nip' was not the term Hermione would use – this miraculous Herbaceous Carnivore had tried to take her arm off. They were supposed to be tame! She suspected Dean Thomas has been experimenting with caffeine and horticulture again.
She was jerked out of her reverie by Neville's appearance between the fronds of his beloved foliage.
'Oh, thank god, Neville! This one got a little…'she squinted at it '…spirited.' Neville looked at the plant, which appeared to be trying its hardest to look innocent. Hermione rolled her eyes and began to pack away the rest of the equipment. Professor Sprout made her way over to them – stopping on her way to help a harassed looking Ron wrestle his Warbleweed back into the tiny pot provided.
It seemed Neville had been over-generous on the fertiliser for that one, looking as it did like the plant version of Goyle – only of course Warble weed grew mostly in woodland habitats, not with one hand in a biscuit tin.
'If you've finished, Miss Granger, Mr Longbottom, you may go back to the castle as it appears the rest of the class are lagging…' Professor Sprout said.
'Thank you, Professor – I think I'll go, if that's okay with you, Neville? I want to get off early anyway' She said, knowing Neville would want to stay with his treasured plants for as long as possible.
'Sure, see you later, Hermione!' He replied with a sunny smile, half-absorbed already.
The girl left the greenhouse grinning. Halfway across the lawn back to the castle she slowed her pace, beginning to regret having left so early. She cast a glance back – but there was no sign of anyone filing out. Given the amount of dirt Ron's Weed had cause the neighbouring groups to become adorned with, they would be coming out for some time yet.
Still, this might be just the opportunity she'd been looking for. Best start now if she wanted this to work… That in mind, she hurried indoors and up to the library. She shouldered her way eagerly enough through the accumulating crowds not to notice a certain blond someone striding equally purposefully in the opposite direction.
THWHACK.
'Oomph! Sorry! Sorry, didn't see…' she looked up and trailed off, eyes hardening as they met those of one Draco Malfoy.
'Granger – did they curse you with clumsiness, or is it a Muggle trait?' he pronounced the word like an obscenity. As always.
Though Hermione's hand, which had gone automatically to her pocket, curled around her wand, she kept her face cool, pursing her lips – if she had worn glasses she would have been looking daggers over their rims at him in a faintly McGonagoll-esque fashion. All she said was;
'Grow up, Malfoy.'
Then turned on her heel, and left.
Draco spread his arms wide in a gesture of open disregard, allowing himself an extra moment of satisfaction to drink in the tensed back of a retreating Granger.
Mark one to Malfoy – perhaps this term would be so bad after all.
A fuming Hermione pushed open the door of the library rather harder than was really necessary. The noise this caused was the reason for the This-Is-A-Library-You-Know-For-Books-And-Silence Look that Madam Pince the librarian was famous for, and was also currently giving to her.
Hermione silently cursed herself and kept walking, flashing what she hoped was an apologetic look at the librarian. The last thing she needed was to be thrown out of here.
She hurried on, toward the Transfiguration section. At the very end of the row she came to what she was looking for, checking the titles twice against her crumpled list, though she knew them by heart. To quell the thrill of adrenaline she felt as she took down the two dusty volumes, she thought to herself – this is the first step – there's plenty more work to be done from here…
Deliberately casually she wandered back over to the desk. She placed the books under Madam Pince's scrutiny for stamping – but the librarian did not bat an eyelid, and stamped both books without hesitation. Hermione could not suppress a smile as she left the library, and thought
This is just the first step…
It was days later when Hermione left the library after another lunch spent poring over dusty manuscripts. She was nearing the end of the first, and she tried to forget, only legal, phase of her plan.
She hurried on – with two armfuls of books, her usual shoulder hitching motion was proving somewhat difficult – and she just prayed she could get to Potions before she dropped absolutely everything.
This did not prove to be the case.
Rounding a corner with too much haste, Hermione collided with a turnstile.
Spinning out like a top, she had the strange sensation that she had gone back through a portal to Blackpool and at any moment her parents would rush to pick up the six year old bush of hair and scold her for not listening to their advice about playing by the gates.
Draco was sent hurling back into the cold stone wall. All the breath knocked out of his lungs, he experienced one of those rare elongated moments – he could feel the wall's rough texture beneath his spread hands and though he knew he was in Hogwarts and he was seventeen, he remembered abruptly the time that Nott had 'accidentally' pushed him out of the second floor window of the leaky cauldron.
A cushioning charm from the quick-thinking Tom had spared him any real damage, but the fall had still winded him. The next thing he remembered was running footsteps, and a hand in his, pulling him to his feet – looking up a half-exhaled breath caught in his throat as the mess of chestnut hair and chocolate eyes confronting him smiled shyly, and placed a darling kiss on his cheek. He heard the soft sigh of a curl – or was it her eyelashes? – as she drew back. He held tight onto that breath as he watched her retreating back all the way down the alley, round a corner, and she was gone.
She must have been around the same age as him, and that could only have been eight or so.
Then Tom had bustled out and returned him to the Cauldron, and he had forgotten all about that little girl, until now.
Only, Hermione's turnstile had arms – she knew it because she had seen one of them fly out in a graceful arc, as if in slow motion. And arms implied legs, too, and a torso and a face –
She pushed herself back off the wall, looking up.
The sight that assailed him was a flushed Granger on the opposite side of the corridor – apparently she had been flung as far as he by the impact – his gaze travelled down to the books, quills and general paraphernalia scattered over the floor between them.
A title caught his eye – 'Advanced Transfiguration' and another – 'Eye for an Eye – Identity Spells'. There was a small black volume too – it looked like a diary of some sort, or a notebook – Granger, a diary type?
Draco looked up –
Pale grey met chestnut brown.
Hermione felt like her stomach was suspended somewhere three feet from the rest of her body. She put it down to the lack of breakfast, because it was simply not feasible that Draco Malfoy's eyes were the cause of this effect.
She knew that she looked completely disarmed – and she knew it was only for a moment – but some moments took so long to pass…
He could have sworn there was something familiar in those eyes, that he didn't see every day, something that was not from Granger…
Then the world fell from its suspended state back into being, and Draco realised that this staring simply could not be allowed to continue.
He cocked his head to one side, adopting an expression that said simply 'So?' He added a faint hint of belligerence just for good measure. She broke the gaze.
Later Draco would remember it as looking down the corridor in a sultry, uninterested way, but now he continued to watch her as she knelt, scooping the items within arms reach into her retrieved school bag.
He made a slight movement to her and her wand was out before he could blink (which he did), her eyes flashing with a fierceness he had not known she possessed.
'Try it.' she challenged.
'Rash move.' Draco was cool again, an appraising eyebrow cocked.
'Did they curse you with that toxic attitude, or is it a Malfoy trait?' Hermione spat guardedly, her wand still trained on him.
'Touché, Granger. I was leaving' he said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. He made no attempt to leave.
'Potions is that way' she gestured with the wand, eyes never leaving his face. Draco's foot gently rolled a pot of black ink towards her.
'Ink, Granger. Some of us don't carry seven spare pots around.'
She still looked distrustful, as though a Slytherin could not be trusted with a pot of ink, let alone a wand. Her own inkpot hit her knee, and rolled away, ignored.
He gave her a sardonic look and strode off in the direction of the Slytherin quarters. Hermione did not lower her wand until he had disappeared from her view.
He really was the most obnoxious git, she thought, hurrying to pack away the rest of her things – she was already late and the last thing she needed was to give Snape a valid excuse to dock Gryffindor points. She quickened her pace in the direction of the dungeon.
She was glaring at him when he re-entered the classroom, inkpot in hand, defiantly green and adorned with the Slytherin House crest. Due to the lack of similar looks and vaguely threatening gestures from her vicinity, Draco guessed that Little Miss Perfect had not told Potty and the Weasel of their encounter.
He shook the pot at her, and she predictably furnished him with a withering look, turning back to her notes.
An excellent start to the afternoon all round, really, Draco thought, allowing himself a small, yet undeniably toothy grin.
'Please, Malfoy, term only just begun and you're already giving us the
I've-just-done-something-really-nasty-I'm-so-clever smirk!' Nott drawled from behind him, groaning theatrically, hand to brow.
Draco's smirk only widened into a full-scale Wolfish Grin.
'I'll bet it wasn't even the first today, was it? Tch, Malfoy, you'll wear yourself out – you won't even have any left for Parkinson at this rate.'
He straightened and nodded regally to the seat beside himself.
Draco's acerbic nature compelled him to make the merest of simpering lip-curls before he got the urge to stick pins into a wax figure of Nott under control. Parkinson! She was disgusting. But then, he supposed she was a Slytherin, and not a filthy little Mudblood.
Time to change the subject, he felt. Sighing exaggeratedly, he brushed a speck of non-existent dust from his already immaculate robes.
'Sometimes, I do wish we didn't live in dungeons. So dirty, you know, and lurking does get monotonous after a time.' He muttered, arranging himself in the customary lounging pose, with a curt nod to Snape.
'I wouldn't let our dearly beloved head of house hear you say that – lurking happens to be one of his favourite pastimes, don't you know' Nott commented, in a conversational tone.
That and dressing up in women's clothing, said a voice in Draco's head, but there was a line which no-one crossed around a Slytherin. They were, after all, slithering, lying little things, as prone to back-stabbing as Proffessor Trelawney was to the 'odd' glass of cooking sherry.
He shot a glance at Granger. No doubt she was still shamed into silence about their little run-in.
She appeared to be entirely focused on her notes – practical Potions lessons had decreased in number somewhat since the incident with Longbottom's twenty-fifth cauldron.
He knew Granger held him personally responsible for that one. The fact that none of the Slytherins had actually had anything to do with it really compounded the humour of the whole thing.
Draco suspected the Headmaster's hand in the decision to reduce opportunity for mishaps – Snape would gladly have sacrificed a few Gryffindors to freak Potions accidents.
As, reflected the heir to the Malfoy estate and all that implied, would any good Slytherin. Still, he made a mental note – however embittered he became, never to take the job of Potion's master at Hogwarts.
Hermione battled to keep herself perfectly still. Any shift in her apparently studious position might give away her nervousness to that git, and that, right now, was the last thing she wanted.
Stupid girl! she told herself, longing to get away from this musty dungeon where there was no air, to let a annoyance like that get under your skin, when there are much more important things to be getting on with.
Ron prodded her.
'Are you all right? Snape just mentioned exams and you didn't even blink, let alone start rummaging for your planner like you normally do.'
Hermione gave him a half-hearted frown.
'Yes,' she sighed. 'I just ran into the Malfoy on the way here. Nasty little shock that gave me coming around a corner, I can tell you.'
Ron swivelled in his seat to glare with full intensity at Draco.
'Git.' He muttered as he turned back.
'Well, you wouldn't really want to run into him on a dark night, would you?' drawled Harry.
'Unless of course you had a knife with you, and then you could do the world a favour and finish the little slime ball off.'
The two boys seemed to enter an elaborate shared daydream at this point, and Hermione practically had to snap her fingers to wake them up. She had the feeling a good portion of what they talked about on their own was what they'd do to Malfoy if they ever got the chance.
Not, according to Draco, that Potty and the Weasel ever would get a chance to inflict on him whatever torture it was that they were collectively imagining.
She had cracked, then, and told her beloved boys all about how Big Bad Draco had taken Poor Little Hermione's rattle.
Just because she had been smiling when she'd strolled around that corner like her birthday had just come and she'd been given a big stack of boring books.
And honestly, those dunderheads would believe anything she told them – it wasn't like she couldn't defend herself.
On top of which, he hadn't even done anything!
So all in all, Draco felt quite hard done by in this equation – how Granger got to put two and two together and get the eternal suffering of the Malfoy household, while he could not even boast about his triumph over her because Nott's warped and slightly unhinged brain made it impossible for him to take anything involving X and Y chromosomes that had happened out of sight as anything other than rampantly sexual. Which it was most certainly not!
How had this happened? How, when one moment he had been having a perfectly nice time gloating over her imminent humiliation, had the little Mudblood gotten the better of him the next? And with not so much effort as a flutter of eyelashes on her part.
It was disgusting, and he commanded himself to rise above her
Mudbloods can do what they want, I don't want them anywhere near me, he told himself, at last settling to his blank page.
At which moment the bell rang.
Draco fought to keep from screaming, until he could calmly, even disdainfully, command Crabbe to bring him Parkinson's notes. The simpering Pansy proffered them up as if to be taken to a minor deity, staring at Draco with a slight line of saliva dribbling from the corner of her mouth.
Typical Parkinson, she couldn't even give the ego a boost – just looking at her blatant idolization made him feel violently sick, and he wasn't at all sure that he could keep his lunch down.
Consequently he did what all good Malfoys do in times of crisis – swept regally out of the room and disappeared to a very safe place, where no-one would find him unless he wanted them to.
Hermione watched him turn up his nose and stride from the room like a displeased dictator. Quelling the urge to spit after him, she nonetheless felt relieved. Something inside her loosened, and the feel of the cold sweat she maintained was from the weird combination of freezing humidity of the dungeon lessened.
Walking just as swiftly as he had, both to keep up with Ron and Harry, whose Quidditch practice she had promised to watch now in their free period, and to get away from the clammy lower layers of the castle as quickly as possible, she made her way back to the Gryffindor Tower.
Damn Malfoys, she thought as she doubled her pace at the thought of him – nothing but trouble.
Well! Chapter 2 over. That was fun. Not much happening I know, but fear not!
Coming Up:
S.P.E.W.
Near heart attacks
Suspicion
Filch and an impersonation
Dungbombs
Draco Malfoy in nothing but a towel
Don't miss it!
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