Chapter 4

The Slytherin sixth year boys' dormitory radiated a calm stillness through it's striking green surroundings. The stillness was disturbed by a ripple in the pond. The ripple was a sleepless Draco Malfoy who was tossing and turning with the rhythm of Crabbe's snores.

Draco hated to admit this, but he was intrigued. He was interested and infused with curiosity about who the girl on the tower was. He was a Malfoy, he should only care about himself. He should be thinking of a way to carry out his father's plans, not lying in bed in the middle of the night thinking about a girl. He didn't even know what her name was or what she looked like! As Draco tossed and turned in his bed, he couldn't help but remember the subtle loneliness in the girl's tone of voice as his eyelids grew heavier.

Crabbe let out a loud, grunting snore and Draco shot up from his brief slumber and his mind drifted back to the girl on the tower.

How tall was she? From the shadows, he could only remember that she was wearing a winter cloak over her head, but it was cold last night. It would be natural to wear warmer clothes, right? But why did she put the hood on? It wasn't raining last night. When he came up from behind her, she didn't even run or yelp the way any other student would if they had been discovered by another in a forbidden place past curfew. The way she talked to him, it was almost as if she expected him or somebody else to find her. Also, yesterday as he was patrolling with Pansy, everything suddenly went dark and they were separated. Was this all planned, an attack? A practical joke? Somehow, this seemed to be linked to that girl and it disturbed him, but aroused his interest greatly at the same time.

He took out the paper crane she left behind last night. It was made of powder-blue origami paper. There was nothing special about it, except for the fact that on one wing, there were three words emblazed on it.

C'est la vie? C'est la vie? C'est la vie? This is life? What does it mean? A secret formula for girls with recorders having existence doubting moments that love to linger on forbidden Astronomy towers past curfew time? As he turned over and threw the crane onto his bedside table, he caught a glimpse of the blurry moonlight glistening through his bed curtains and wondered whether or not the girl was looking at the same moon and wondering who he was.

At the moment, the girl Draco was thinking about, was looking at the moonlight, but not wondering who he was. In fact, it was the opposite, she knew exactly who he was and was determined to find out more. She tossed and turned in her vanilla scented bedcovers. Would he really show up again tonight and fall for the trap? Or will her plan fail terribly and he would find out who she really is? She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, she gently peeled open her maroon bed curtains and took the butterfly hairpin from her smooth, oak bedside table. Nearby, she could hear Lavender roll over. Even though technically she wasn't doing anything wrong, she didn't feel like answering awkward questions right now. The butterfly hairpin that Draco touched seemed to still have a trace of his scent. She picked it up and ran her fingers gently around its brilliant blue wings. She wondered how it would feel in her hair. Her vanilla scent combined with his more masculine, wild scent. Her heartbeat fluttered slightly, but seconds later she regained calmness and a sense of fear flooded through her instead. Draco is the enemy, she is the spy. They are people from two different worlds that do not mix and never will. She tip-toed towards the window in her furry violet slippers. Hermione threw open the window and held the hairpin out. Its enchanted wings fluttered in the breeze. She slowly let the hairpin slide through her fingers and looked out, until she saw it fall and crash into sparkling, glowing blue pieces at a field of darkness. The butterfly was just an enchanted hairpin. It doesn't fly and never will. Hermione thought with a cold smile as her slippers shuffled quietly on the carpet towards her soft bed.

The next morning, when Draco woke up, his eyes were blood shot with large rings underneath him, making him resemble a panda with a straw hat. His platinum-blonde hair stood out more than ever from the color contrast. Having spent the night being bored of tossing and turning, Draco eagerly tore open the emerald-green curtain as soon as the first ray of sunlight streamed through the dormitory window. He was on his way out the door in pressed school robes and his hair slickly gelled back. The rest of his dorm mates were still dragging their bodies towards the bathroom.

"What's the hurry?" Theodore Nott groggily asked. His pajamas were rumpled and his feet were sprawled on the carpet as he peered towards the direction of the bathroom, waiting for Blaise to come out.

Draco left briskly without a word, he was going to search the Great Hall this morning for girls with butterfly hairpins. He felt his heart pounding with excitement as his feet reached the Great Hall. He was at the entrance when he remembered that he should probably wipe that dazzling, goofy smile off his face and replace it with a classic Malfoy smirk.

He held his chin high and quickly scanned the Great Hall for girls with hairpins. His face fell slightly, it was too early, only a few people were there for breakfast. Only a few faces occupied the benches and none of them, in his opinion could have been the girl.

Dean Thomas: a boy, not the same gender as the girl.

Cormac Mclaggen: a boy, also too buff to have been that girl.

Ginny Weasley: too short to have been that girl.

Lavender Brown: considering how prissy she was, she probably wouldn't have risked putting on a hood, it might flatten her hair.

Hermione Granger: just…not right.

Draco sighed and plunked down on his seat. He hadn't found the girl, but on the other hand she probably wasn't up that early and he could always go to the tower again tonight to see if she would come again. Meanwhile, he would have to be content with shoveling oatmeal in his mouth while waiting for his fellow Slytherins to join him.

Hermione poked distractedly at her pancakes. She had lifted her eyes slightly when Malfoy came rushing in. She could feel his eyes on her, she felt slightly flushed and disgusted and the same time. Her plan was working, but toying with somebody's affections seemed to be a very rotten thing to do. To use something innocent and pure like love to destroy something, or rather somebody…seemed to be too oxymoron for her. She could feel the guilt mixed with the syrup coated pancakes she had just swallowed. She had to do it, she had to swallow the guilt if she wanted to complete her mission. She had to remember the Malfoy that had taunted her for all these years. The Malfoy that had shown no empathy for anybody else at Hogwarts. The Malfoy that would likely follow his father's footsteps in becoming a Death Eater and killing many innocent people. The only way she could do this was to become angry and aggressive. She must swallow the guilt and carry on.

Hermione turned her head to the side just at the moment her two best friends sat down and began attacking the food on the table. The four house tables had began to fill up as students headed down for breakfast before attending lessons. The noise grew louder as students began talking, gossiping, and exchanging news with their friends. When they were certain that they wouldn't be overheard, Harry leaned closer to Hermione and whispered, flickering his glance briefly at Malfoy who seemed to be gazing like a hawk at the students of the Great Hall.

"What did you do to Malfoy last night? He seems to look and act the same," Harry questioned Hermione.

"He doesn't know who I am," Hermione whispered back.

"If he doesn't know who you are, how are you supposed to make him trust you and stuff?" Ron asked after he swallowed his large mouthful of bagels.

"Actually, it looks like he's looking for something, look," Harry said while glancing at Draco. Who, at the moment seemed to be searching for a floating bug of some sort.

"See, it's working. He wants to find out who I am, doesn't he?" Hermione answered Ron's question.

"You're not seducing him, are you?" Ron asked with his fork pointed menacingly in Draco's direction.

"Hermione won't do that, Ron," Harry interjected.

Hermione didn't reply, but concentrated her efforts on chewing her pancakes twenty-five times before swallowing. She felt sickened with herself.

At around the same time as last night, Hermione crept out of the common room into the corridors in Harry's invisibility cloak. She had her recorder in her pocket and a paper crane in the other. She quickened her pace when she saw the shadows of a bent man stumbling slowly in the charms corridor. It must be Filch, no doubt followed by Mrs. Norris. When she got to the door of the tower, she saw that there was somebody already there. She could see the faint outline of his/her body against the misty fog. Leaves rustled in the distance. The person had their hood on.

"Who are you?" Hermione asked with her wand ready. This person couldn't be a teacher and whoever was at the tower at this time of the night had no good intentions. She, herself being a wonderful example.

"And who are you?" Draco asked as he spun around and took his hood off. He had waited the whole day and even gone up the tower to wait for her as soon as the sun was setting. He wasn't going to go to bed feeling like an idiot tonight for not asking her what her name was.

Hermione's heart hammered, but at the same time she felt relieved. It was Draco, her plan was working. She had to steady her voice, if she sounded nervous, it would ruin her coolness.

"I am who you think I am," Hermione replied, sounding very much like an ancient philosopher or poet who is speaking about the meaning of life.

"The girl on the tower," Draco said in an unconfident tone. He strained his eyes to see beyond the fog. The girl was like a mountain beyond the fog, if he could strain his eyes through it, he would know who she is. There was something about her that attracted him. She was filled with secrets, he wanted to unpeel the layers protecting them, and discover the secrets one by one.

"Then, I'm the girl on the tower," Hermione replied in a falsely charming tone. She had to leave, now. If she stayed any longer her cover would be blown. She walked quickly towards the direction of the staircase and in the shadows of the turrets, pulled the invisibility cloak out and wrapped it around her.

"What?" he looked up and turned around, the girl was gone. He saw something glowing on the floor and picked it up. From the light of his wand, he could tell that it was a paper crane, on it were two words.

Carpe Diem

Seize the day.

Yesterday it was French and today, Latin? Who is she? More importantly, will he ever find out?

Hermione watched Draco's look of confusion, she saw him pocket the paper crane and felt satisfied. He was falling for the trap, now she had to show Ron and Harry before they got the idea that she was doing something stupid and ruin all her plans.

She set her foot down carefully along the corridors until she got to the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Psssttt! Shhhh!" Hermione tried to whisper to wake up the portrait. It kept on snoring.

"Devil's Snare," Hermione hissed at the portrait, it wasn't waking up. A shadow was coming this way. She needed to get in the common room, fast!

"DEVIL'S SNARE!" Hermione screamed at the Fat Lady, who groggily swung open her portrait.

Hermione walked into the common room to find that Ron and Harry were already anxiously waiting for her to return.

"Are you going to tell us?" Ron asked impatiently. He wanted to know, now.

"Okay, I'm going to show you," Hermione said and looked around the common room to make sure it was completely empty.

"Revelio," Hermione muttered and a silver beam of light shot from her wand. It projected and formed a silver screen. A beam of gold shot down the center of the screen. The gold line separated the screen into two images. One of them was a room covered in green, the other was a dark, room-like place with a hazy view of the moon.

"Is that the Slytherin dormitories?" Harry asked. He was impressed, how had she managed to sneak something like that in?

"Remember last year when I was researching on how Rita Skeeter was spying on us? Well I found this tracking charm in a book. You place it on an object and it will display images surrounding that object. I put the charm on paper cranes," Hermione responded.

"Why do we need to see their dormitories?" Ron asked quizzically.

"I can't choose where to put the paper cranes, Malfoy picks them up and leaves them in any place he wants," Hermione patiently explained.

"That way, we can see what he's up to," Harry said in a dazed expression. His stream of thinking was distracted by Hermione's surprised yelp.

"The coin! It's warming! Kingsley wants to meet us…this Saturday!" Hermione said excitedly.