Disclaimer - Not mine. All belongs to JK Rowling.
It all started with a spoon. And now that I think of it, a fork and a knife as well. What the heck, throw in the kitchen sink. Now where was I? Oh yes, it all started with a spoon.
Our young male protagonist and female protagonist were sitting in the kitchen. The boy and girl were enemies. And as enemies, they did their duty finely by arguing.
So what were these 'enemies' so to speak arguing in the dim kitchens of the school? The male protagonist was on some kind of parole. After the murder of the old man, a short struggle ensued and good prevailed. In honour of the old man, the current headmistress decided to take pity on the 'innocent' boy, allowing him to come back to school but only if he underwent physical labour and was under constant supervision under trustworthy students and teachers at all times. And thus the two were in the kitchen, the girl studying and the boy peeling potatoes (with a spoon).
"You, you… minion of evil!" screeched the girl, stuck for things to say as most her insults had already been used.
The boy smirked. He had gotten under her skin.
"Minion of evil? Seriously, Granger – surely you could come up with something better than that. But then again, what more could I expect from a potato?"
The female imagined that if the room was full of people, everyone would be gasping in shock.
"A potato?"
It was then that her two best friends came barrelling in and beat up the male protagonist to an inch of his life. The male protagonist's next guardian came in and gasped in horror at the bloody mess of his charge.
"Get Malfoy to the infirmary, will you Macmillan?" asked one of her best friends. And then the girl's two bodyguards escorted her back to the common room.
The following week it was the girl's turn to supervise the boy. This time it was stacking sleds. She had been told that if he behaved himself, she could give him a bottle of milk. Time passed. He finished stacking in silence. She handed him the milk. He drank quietly. She looked curiously at him.
"Did you mean it?"
"Mean what?" he sneered.
"What you called me, you know," and then she whispered, "potato."
The boy was shocked. Of all the nasty shallow superficial things he had said to her, she had been affected by a random object?
She saw his shock and interpreted it as misunderstanding.
"Ron wouldn't tell me what it meant. He just kept saying it meant nothing. But he wouldn't beat you up if it meant nothing"
"You do realise he beats me up at every opportunity."
"Well, yes, but he usually does have a reason. You usually say something nasty."
The boy thought. Now was as good a time as any to show how redeemed he was. Not that he was particularly redeemed, but it seemed that rehabilitation was the fashion these days.
"I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings"
It was the girl's turn to be shocked. She was surely taken aback by this change in character. In fact the change was too sudden. Much too sudden. Her eyes narrowed. Grabbing the half finished bottle of milk away from him, she said – "You don't deserve that. You haven't been good". And then she stormed off.
As she stormed off, he yelled out after her "I knew never to apologise to a spoon!"
It seemed that she stormed away harder.
It was the boy's turn to be shocked. Wasn't apology supposed to endear one to others? That was how it always seemed in fiction. He was most confused, indeed.
The next week came along and this time it was he that started the conversation.
"Why were you so angry?"
"Why did you apologise? What does potato and spoon mean in the wizarding world?"
He looked at her dumbfounded and then burst into laughter. To someone in love it may have sounded like bells ringing or something else utterly ridiculous, but the girl was most definitely not in love and to her it sounded like cackling or a perhaps a cat dying. Not that she had ever heard a cat dying.
As he wiped the tears of mirth from his face and said to her, "Absolutely nothing. Every other insult just bounces right off so I thought to just hurl random words at you til you cracked."
It was then that Hermione Granger slapped Draco Malfoy and then proceeded to kiss him.
And that is the story of how Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy got together – and it all started with a spoon (and a potato).
FIN
Part of the Spoon Challenge