Disclaimer: I think this is the last one of these I'll be doing. Who really reads them, anyway? Suffice it to say, that I do not, nor have I ever, nor will I ever own Harry Potter or any of the characters, situations, places, etc. that belong in that magical world created by the oh-so-great-and-wonderful J.K. Rowling.
YAY FOR 300 REVIEWS! I've gotta say, when I started this fic, I was shooting to have more than 50. By the end. You guys have exceeded my expectations in so many ways, not the least of which being how much I look forward to reading your funny, insightful, and oh-so-helpful comments. I can't say thank you enough. I love you guys!
A/N: So, I got a rather mixed response to the last chapter. People liked it, people didn't, people thought it was going to fast, people thought it was just right. I've decided that I really like that chapter. I think it was rather lovely, myself, containing some of my prettiest writing, so I'm not going to worry about it.
As for this chapter, you will notice that it's slightly longer than most of mine usually are. That's because it just up and ran away with me! It practically wrote itself, like that memory way back when about the dead Muggle-born witch. I think it's cute, funny, and furthers my on-going quest to remain true to the characters and to the reality of the books. I honestly think it's one of the better chapters, and I'm proud of it. Pay extra attention, if you will, to Hermione's last line. I cracked up when I wrote it. Enjoy, my children! Onto the chapter!
Chapter 14: Boys Will Be Boys
The hours passed quickly and, unfortunately, fruitlessly. Hermione imagined that lunch had come and gone hours before, but she was far too engrossed in the journals to yield to such petty urges as hunger. Surprisingly, despite a few grouchy tirades in which the comfort level of his chair and the sanity of Delilah James were both called into serious question, Malfoy had proved to be as tireless in the search as Hermione herself. The afternoon had been -- dare she say it -- almost pleasant, being spent in the company of the writings of a genius and someone who almost seemed to appreciate them as much as she did.
She should have known, she realized later, that their reluctant, unvoiced truce and the relative peace that had followed it were too good to be last. She also should have known that it would be Ronald Weasley who would bring it to a resounding and unpleasant halt.
She had not heard the approaching footsteps, but Malfoy had. His sudden awareness that they were not alone caused her to glance up at him. Simultaneously, she saw his eyes harden and grow dark, felt annoyance and intense dislike flash through him like floodwater, and heard Harry and Ron's not-so-quiet whispers growing progressively nearer. She pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers and sighed deeply. Oh, this was going to be so very, very not pretty.
Harry and Ron rounded the corner of the shelves not more than five seconds later, and immediately stopped in their tracks. Hermione's gaze flitted nervously between green, blue, and silver eyes, all narrowed and hostile.
"Malfoy," Ron said through clenched teeth. It was remarkable how much the name sounded like an insult. Hermione sent an apprehensive look at Malfoy, whose face had twisted itself into a smug and arrogant sneer that wasn't half as alarming as the enmity that she could feel bubbling beneath its surface.
"Well, if it isn't Potty and the Weasel," he replied in his trademark drawl, which Hermione was surprised to realize had been absent from their conversation all day. "You do realize you're in the library, don't you? Are you lost, or were the two of you looking for a little . . ." his smirk turned suggestive, " . . . privacy?"
Hermione winced and shook her head. Merlin, this was going to be even worse than she'd thought. For a moment, neither of her friends seemed to comprehend the comment, and Hermione could feel Malfoy taking a deep, spiteful pleasure in their somewhat comical expressions of bewilderment. As the implications of his taunt sank in, however, Ron's face flushed a furious shade of magenta, and Harry's eyes took on a dangerous glitter that both she and, apparently, Malfoy realized he could fully back up.
"Why you slimy little . . ." Ron spluttered, and most likely would have launched himself bodily at Malfoy's throat if Hermione hadn't stood up quickly and placed herself between the three boys. The last thing she needed right now was to referee a brawl between Harry, Ron, and Malfoy, all of whom were considerably larger and stronger than herself.
"What did you need, Ron?" Hermione asked, hoping her tone was clear. Ron stopped struggling against the hand Harry was using to hold him back, but did not stop sending death glares over Hermione's shoulder at Malfoy, who Hermione knew was practically bursting with amusement. Oh, was she going to tell him off later, but first she had to deal with the more immediate problem of her two best friends, to whom she did not need to be linked to tell that they were seething with fury and protectiveness.
Ron was still fuming over Malfoy's insulting insinuation, and appeared unable or unwilling to answer her question. Instead, Harry looked at her, his face stern and taut with barely-checked anger.
"You've been gone all day, Hermione. We didn't know where you were, and we were worried when you missed dinner." Hermione felt two identical flashes of surprise, and was vaguely disconcerted that she was unable to tell which was hers and which was Malfoy's. Could it really be that late? She glanced at the window and saw that it was indeed quite dark, and that the night sky was already alight with countless stars.
"I'm sorry, Harry," she said, unaware that she was wringing her hands fretfully until she noticed the amusement Malfoy was directing at her (she had begun to realize that she always knew when one of his emotions was meant for her, though she neither knew nor wanted to know why that was). She stopped the unconscious gesture and glared at him over her shoulder before looking back at Harry and Ron. "I didn't mean to worry you. We've been looking for that cure I told you about and we just lost track of ti --"
"Don't let them fool you, Granger," Malfoy interrupted, bringing Harry and Ron's angry eyes back to him, apparently oblivious to Hermione's irritation that he had derailed her attempt to distract them. "They probably didn't even notice you were gone until they needed someone to correct their homework."
Damn, that had hurt. Immediately after he'd said it, Hermione could tell that he regretted doing so, but that didn't really make it hurt any less. She had read somewhere once that insults only cause pain because we secretly believe them to be true, and she wondered now if she had been too flippant in dismissing that notion.
"What the hell do you know about anything, Malfoy?" Ron sneered, finally recovering his voice. "You'll keep your bloody mouth shut, or I'll --"
"Or you'll what?" Malfoy interrupted, all mockery gone from his voice and his eyes as cold and hard as shards of jagged ice. "You'll shout at me a bit and then run off to lick your wounds? You'll do something characteristically stupid and Potter will swoop in to save your ass at the last minute, the way he always has to?" He stood up and leaned across the table, and Hermione watched helplessly as he and Ron came almost nose to nose, Malfoy's fury coursing through Hermione's veins like fiery venom. Ron looked as if he were about to let loose, whether with words or hexes or fists, she wasn't sure, but Harry stepped up and pulled his friend back, glaring at Malfoy with flashing emerald eyes.
"Shut it, Malfoy!" Harry warned in a dangerously soft tone. Malfoy's anger flared to even greater heights, and his simple sneer turned into a snarl. All three boys were discreetly moving their hands toward the wands protruding from their pockets.
"Saving the world one Muggle-loving, pitiful, destitute wizard at a time, eh, Potter? Can't go a day without being the hero, can you? That's a complex, you know. Rather unhealthy." Malfoy taunted in a snide voice. Harry had a grip on the back of Ron's robes, which was probably all that was keeping the red-head from strangling Malfoy with his bare hands, but Hermione thought he looked sorely tempted to let go after that remark. Then his anger seemed to fade and a sickeningly sweet smile, a mockery of friendliness, crossed his face. Oh, this was so not good.
"Heard from your father lately, Malfoy?" he asked in what sounded remarkably like sincere curiosity but which had a malice behind it that was only detectable in the glitter of his eyes. "How's Azkaban treating him?" Hermione felt the flash of pain and hatred that the mention of his father aroused in Malfoy, and was just about to feel sorry for him when he snarled inarticulately and whipped his wand out, leveling it at Harry's face. Both Ron and Harry had their wands out a second later, and the three stood there for a few moments, the tension crackling like lightning in the darkening room.
"Don't do this. It's not worth it," Hermione pleaded softly. Neither of her friends seemed to hear her, or, if they did, didn't acknowledge her. Only Malfoy offered any reaction to her presence; his eyes flicked over to her uncertainly, and she felt the twinge of guilt that she inspired in him. Unfortunately, Harry and Ron did not, and Ron took advantage of Malfoy's distraction to disarm him with a quick spell before launching himself at the other boy with what sounded almost comically like an Indian war cry.
Malfoy let out a surprised yelp as Ron's fist connected firmly with his jaw and they both went sprawling back into a pile of the journals that Hermione had already sifted through. Harry was soon in the mix as well, and there was quite a lot of punching and yelling and shoving about. The precariously balanced towers of journals were crashing down all around the boys, stacks toppling to the floor and cascading off the table. For a few hysterical moments, Hermione was far more concerned about the well being of the old and sometimes fragile texts than she was the brawling boys scrabbling around in them.
Finally Hermione gathered her wits about her and blasted the three of them apart with a well-placed spell. Draco flew backward into a shelf, causing yet more books to tumble onto his disheveled head, Ron crashed painfully into the now-cleared table, promptly falling to the floor amongst the journals, and Harry, predictably, landed on his feet a meter a way and stumbled but did not go down.
"That's quite enough!" Hermione yelled, fury suddenly overtaking her. The ridiculousness of it all; three almost-grown wizards having a common fist-fight in that most sacred of all places, the library. She glowered menacingly at the three of them. Harry appeared to be developing a lovely shiner on his left eye, Ron's lip was swollen and bleeding, and Malfoy was not only sporting a rapidly darkening bruise on his jaw (that pale skin, she supposed) but was bleeding copiously from an obviously broken nose.
"First of all, I am very disappointed in you two," she scowled at Harry and Ron, who had the sense to look contrite. "Fifteen points each from Gryffindor for behaving like a pair of spoiled, reckless brats." Malfoy snickered to her right, and she rounded on him, his amusement quickly dissipating to be replaced by a small surprised fear that didn't show on his face but which tingled in the air around her like electricity.
"And you," she said angrily. "Fifteen points from Slytherin for being a malicious, arrogant ass." He gaped at her soundlessly for a moment, shocked.
"You can't take points from me!" he protested, drawing himself up and glaring at her over his still-bleeding nose. "I'm the Head Boy."
"Oh, bully for you, then! I'm the Head Girl, and I can take points from anyone I damn well please!" she shouted back. She turned her glare on the room in general. "You all behaved like silly first-years, and I won't have it! Until all this is over, the three of you will keep your hands and words to yourselves, is that clear?" They nodded, although she felt Malfoy's resentful defiance prick at her like invisible nettles. "Now, I'm going to fix you up, but if this happens again, you can all bloody well suffer through it."
She healed their cuts and bruises quickly, and took a few extra seconds to make sure Malfoy's nose was returned to its normal and, really, rather lovely shape. She quickly magicked the books back onto the table and began to gather her things.
"Ron, Harry, I want to talk to you in the common room." They sent malevolent and somewhat triumphant looks at Malfoy, whose hostility still swam in murky clouds around Hermione. "But first, I need to talk to Malfoy." Their faces fell, and Hermione could almost see in her mind's eye the gloating expression on Malfoy's face. They left, and she turned to face the remaining occupant.
"I'm sorry about that," she said. "I was hoping we wouldn't have to have that little confrontation."
"But it was so pleasant," Malfoy said with mock incredulity. "I can't imagine why you'd want to avoid it."
"I'll see you here tomorrow night, after dinner, unless you have plans," she suggested. He looked at her with an expression she couldn't quite read, and she sensed him trying to puzzle her out and finally giving up.
"No, that's fine. Tomorrow, then." Hermione nodded and turned to leave, but paused before disappearing into the labyrinth of shelving.
"Oh, and Malfoy?" He looked up from gathering his belongings. "If you ever insult me or my friends again, I'll break your nose myself." She couldn't contain the smug sense of triumph she felt as she walked into the darkness, Malfoy's shock floating after her on the drifting air.
A/N: So, did you like it? I liked it. It makes me smile. Tell me what you think!