Chapter 3 the chapter with Hermione's photo
"Hermione, what's the matter? Had a bad night with Malfoy?" grinned Harry as Hermione walked into the Great Hall with a tired look on her face, and in a horrible mood. She settled on some ham and butter as she began the tale called, "The Horrible Malfoy, and All His Horrible Doings."
"Oh don't, you have no idea what I've been through with him," she complained loudly. Ginny did not respond but grinned, hugged Seamus tightly and planted a kiss on his cheek. Seamus whispered in her ear and Ginny grinned,
"Will you excuse us for a minute?" she asked with a strange smile on her face.
"Yea, sure," moaned Hermione flailing her arms helplessly at all the people unwilling to share her feelings about Malfoy.
"I can curse him if you want," suggested Ron hopefully.
"No, then he'll take it all out on me when I'm alone," she said in a dreading tone, "Come on, we'll be late for Transfiguration, and we have an exam today."
Transfiguration class, before – hard, now in seventh year – super hard. Slytherin and Gryffindor sat in class, watching how professor McGonagall turns Ron into a soup bowl and back again. Goyle was showing Malfoy a new photo of the whole class, photo-Harry was long fighting with Malfoy, and photo-Crabbe and Goyle were sitting around with stupid looks on there faces and prodding a toad with their wands.
"And now, your promised exam on transfiguration of food," announced McGonagall as the class groaned, all except Hermione who squealed excitedly.
'What is this?' thought Malfoy while distractedly scanning page three of the test based on carrot sticks. Then, trying a muggle way of cheating for the first time, looked down at his robes where a cheat sheet was hidden. While barely managing to read the miniscule writing written on a teeny piece of parchment, he didn't notice professor McGonagall scanning his row with a suspicious look in her eyes.
"What is this Malfoy? You know perfectly well that I've been through everything in my time, and you might have made it at least less noticeable to show some respect," she said sourly through thin lips, "What's that you've got there?" Goyle rapidly opened his bag, and grabbed the class photo, then he ripped a piece of it off, and thrust it into Malfoy's lap. Malfoy covered his sheet with haste just as McGonagall walked up to his desk. She grabbed the piece of photo with her bony hands, and took it up to her desk. Then she glanced at it for the first time, her face changed from a strict expression to one of confusement and utter amazement.
"Granger?" she said strictly, working well to hide her amusement, as Hermione raised her head just slightly to see what was going on. The whole class was sniggering now, and many stood up from their wooden desks, craning their necks to see what was going on.
"Malfoy, why do you have a photo of Granger under your desk?" Goyle flailed under the look of utter hatred Malfoy gave him.
'Of all the people who he could have ripped out of that damned photo, it had to be the mudblood!' he thought angrily.
"Ooh, maybe he fancies you," suggested Ginny while they were eating dinner and discussing the day's events.
"Malfoy! Fancies me? I think not, think of all the horrible things we've ever said or done to each other. NO! And I mean no! There is absolutely no way for that to happen." She said, perhaps a little too seriously.
"Yeah," agreed Ginny, "I forgot how much you guys hate each other". She finished her steak and kidney pie, and stood up from the table. "Coming Hermione?" she asked, and the two girls left the great hall and proceeded to the stairs. There, quite a crowd gathered, Ginny and Hermione crept to the inside circle, and finally saw Malfoy and his friends standing and laughing openly. Draco was holding his wand out and a silver string was erupting out of it. Following the string, in the middle of the circle, high above everyone's heads was a miniature figure of Hermione. He twirled the figure which made her robes go up, and then with a flick, the figure completely showed its underclothes by flipping upside down and its robes falling down.
Hermione was watching her eyes slowly filling up with tears, then not being able to bear it anymore, she ran out of the crowd who was madly roaring with laughter, and ran up the stairs to her room. There, she flung herself on her bed and cried tears full of hurt and embarrassment. Soon she fell asleep and didn't notice how Malfoy came in her room and looked at her for quite some time, then idled into his own and closed the door behind him.
Draco awoke very suddenly and glancing at the clock found that it was midnight. Not quite understanding what had awoke him, he decided to proceed into the common room. The fire was lit, and right in front of it lay Hermione with dried up tears on her face, sleeping soundly. Malfoy sighed and went to sit in one of the cozy armchairs, thinking to himself,
"Not a good start if I want to get her onto my side for the dare. Anyway, I don't even know why I did that, just for fun. The thing is, I really didn't feel any fun in that. No, no I really have to have a personality check some time, Granger, enemy… yes, I must tell myself that.' At that moment Hermione stirred, and Draco alarmingly turned his gaze on her. She sat up from her 'bed' and looked around the room surprised at being in the given location.
"Why am I here?" She asked surprised, and not waiting for an answer got up and crossed the room swaying slightly. Now she stood up, Draco could see an empty bottle of Butterbeer on the rug behind her.
'That's strange, she shouldn't be so drunk after one bottle… Something's not right here…' Draco thought.
"Honey!" she squealed spotting Malfoy. She ran stretching her arms out making the motion to hug him, tripped, and fell on him. Startlingly close, they gazed in each others eyes. Hermione leaned in and pushed herself away from the ground.
"I'm going nighty-nighty. Bye bye Draco!"
'Who did this to her?' He thought guiltily hoping that it wasn't because of his stupid pranks.