Again, I apologize for the delay. I will try to be better about getting these last few chapters out sooner. Thanks are at the end.
As Draco walked into Potions—late—he couldn't help but get a prickling feeling down his spine, and at the same time cursed and was amazed at his apparent sixth sense. Almost subconsciously, he maneuvered his head in the direction of two stubborn Gryffindors, just to wish he hadn't, for they were giving him very deadly glares. Worse was that he had to avert his usually harsh, icy gray stare from them, only to be met with a beady black glower from Snape. Pretending to look ashamed, he took a seat next to Blaise, who smirked but said nothing.
"Now today," Snape started in his silky, bone-chilling voice, "we will be making something called the Dilectio Penetralis potion. It is"—he emphasized, seeing Neville's dazed look—"imperative that you follow my instructions exactly as they are written, for as when prepared properly, this combination is passive, however, one small slip of a wrong ingredient or one wrong slice could cause…undesirable…results. Which would lead to a lot of tedious paperwork that I would rather not waste my time on. Now, following my steps directly, get to work on your potion or it will be 20 points from your house."
Countless rows of writing and ingredients magically appeared on the blackboard behind Snape, and as he searched for something in his desk, scraping of chairs and shufflings of feet filled the classroom as people went to collect their respective items. Telling Blaise to get the things needed, Draco smirked at Neville's cauldron already having started to spark, with Seamus backing away; Blaise shoving Gryffindors out of the way to get things; and finally, his gaze laid to rest on a certain amber-eyed seventh year and her partner…well, lack thereof rather. Her hair was starting to come out of the tight bun, and she carelessly swept a particularly unruly strand out of her eyes,holding as many ingredients as she could carry.
However, as a haphazard Neville rushed up to tell Snape he ruined his potion, he bumped into Hermione. Her eyes widening, she watched helplessly as one of the glass bottled ingredients fell to the floor. Being stone, it immediately smashed into pieces upon impact. Groaning in annoyance, Hermione set the rest down at her table and walked reluctantly over to the pile of glass. Bending down and attempting to pick up the pieces, she moved out of the way to let someone pass, but in doing so, she slit her hand with a shard of glass. Making no noise but a sharp gasp and tears starting to well up in her eyes, she cradled her hand which was now sporting a large gash, and she watched as bright red drops accompanied the clear potion liquid.
Malfoy, swallowing his pride, bent down to help her. "Here." He said, taking her hand. She looked up at him and winced as he touched her cut, but let him have it just the same. Conjuring a muggle Ace bandage and after cleaning her wound, he tightly wrapped it around her hand, ignoring her flinches and gasps at the pain, for "no, pain, no gain". After a while and after experiencing glares from Snape who had no choice but to let Malfoy help her, considering Lucius's position, Draco finished wrapping up her wrist.
"Damn it Malfoy, that hurt!" she complained, paying no attention to the collective intake of breath at the brainy Hermione's swearing. Even so, she blushed slightly.
Malfoy's lips twitched but did not quiver too much. "Language, Granger. Now, get up and watch out next time…because I won't be helping you again."
Hermione sent him a scrutinizing once-over, but at his subtle sign of reassurance, she relaxed and nodded. "Yeah, whatever, Malfoy. Thank you though. However, you'd better go and watch yourself, or people might think you have turned soft."
He smirked at her unchanging personality, but, using his wand, cleaned up the spilled potion contents as he followed Hermione with his shimmering gray eyes. He felt quizzical stares aimed at him from just about the whole classroom, save for Hermione, but tried to ignore them as he replayed the great feeling of her skin on his.
Hermione sat down to lunch across from her two best friends, but instead of their usual greetings, they simply stared at her oddly. Her smile fading as she looked at them, she sighed in resignation. "I thought this would come up sooner or later."
Upon no movement from Ron, Harry spoke. "Hermione, what in the blazing HELL went on in there!"
She was taken aback at his outburst, but she hadn't expected much less, as, yes, they did have valid reason to warrant questions. "Well, Harry, nothing for your information happened. Malfoy simply helped me from dying as a result of excessive blood loss."
Chancing a glance at Ron, Hermione was only met with glazed eyes and a still shocked expression. Switching to Harry's eyes, she thought with a small smile his sharp glare lessen. "Oh, really. And why would someone such as Malfoy help you out? Not that you shouldn't have been assisted, but why him?" Harry asked.
Hermione reddened in embarrassment, and she turned to her grapes, pushing them around with her fork. "Hewasjustbeingnicewhatistheproblemwiththat?" Hermione muttered, very fast.
In addition with the speed of her sentence and the almost inaudibility, Harry raised an eyebrow in both confusion and skepticism. "The only word I caught was 'nice'. Now you wouldn't, by any chance, be describing our nemesis with such a word?"
Again, Hermione looked down, and didn't answer. However, this more than answered Harry's suspicion. "I don't know if 'nemesis' should apply any further…" Hermione trailed in a small voice.
Harry waited a few seconds before answering. With a surrendering sigh, he finally did. "Fine. Your choice. But will you answer me this. What exactly do you see in him? Surely you have noticed all that has happened in our six years of Hogwarts?"
Hermione grinned broadly, and if it were not for the two or so feet between her and Harry, she would have hugged him. Just the same, she reached across the table and gave him a swift kiss on the cheek. "Oh, Harry, I knew sooner or later you would understand! Thank you, and I promise I won't make fun of the next silly girl you choose!" Hermione squealed.
With a faint tinge on his face, Harry smiled at his friend's happiness. "You wouldn't be Hermione if you didn't. Yet you haven't answered my ques—"
Harry was interrupted by the newly animated Ron. "WHAT!" he yelled, meriting a few stares from around the room. "Malfoy isn't supposed to be our enemy anymore? What has gotten into you, Hermione? You're not the one I used to know!" he dropped his voice, but it cracked at his second exclamation, and he shook her as if to expel the change out of her.
Slowly pushing him back off of her and into his seat, Hermione tried to explain. "Ronald," she began, "once you get to know Draco, he's really not all that bad. Sure he has his moments when he can be the biggest ass to ever walk the earth, but most of the time he's the biggest sweetheart there has ever been! Shut up, Harry!" she exclaimed at Harry's gagging motions.
"Sorry, Hermione. I couldn't resist." Harry shrugged, giving her an innocent look.
She narrowed her eyes, but said nothing and looked to Ron again. "Look. I never said you have to like him, Ron. I am just asking you to trust me and possibly even support me. I am still the same Hermione, just with a new person in my life. And I hope you can learn someday to accept that."
Ron's mouth opened many times, yet he never managed a word, except perhaps a few splutterings. "Tanks so much fow yow input, ickle Wonniekins! You've weally hewped us nawwow dis down." Harry replied babyishly, warranting insatiable giggles from Hermione.
Ron shot Harry a very deadly glare, which instead of shutting Harry up, only propelled him into laughter, and Hermione into more giggles. "You see, it's times like these when I wonder what was going through my head when I became your friend." He said.
"Aw, come now. You know you love us." Hermione said jokingly, batting her eyes.
For a reason unbeknownst to Hermione, he blushed furiously and looked down. "Yeah…yeah of course…" he trailed.
Hermione looked at Harry quizzically, but while his face remained impassive, his eyes flickered, showing her he did know something but was not letting on. "Something you want to tell me, Harry?" Hermione asked, her bout of laughter gone.
His smile slid off his face in a matter of milliseconds. "W—What?"
"You heard me. Is there something I should know? You are a very bad liar, Mr. Potter."
"I—well, I—of course not, I—" Harry stuttered, but was gladly interrupted when a pair of pale hands covered Hermione's eyes and mouth.
She jumped in fright, and mumbled something incoherent. Draco bent down to her ear and whispered something. Ron and Harry looked at each other in apprehension and wonder, especially when Hermione's face turned a rosy color and she nodded feverishly.
"H-Harry, I-I'll be at the library." Hermione stated unconvincingly.
"Sure you will. We believe you." Harry replied with a devious smile.
Hermione said nothing, but instead a flicker of a grin appeared on her face and she left with Draco. Harry glanced again at Ron, who was trailing Hermione visually. Harry put his arm around his friend.
"I agree you lost a good one, mate. But you can't let it bring you down. How about that Ravenclaw girl? What was her name? Jinnie McNary? She looked promising, and I swear she was perusing you in Divination." Harry tried to comfort Ron.
"Yeah. Whatever. I just might do that. OI! JINNIE!" Ron yelled from across the Great Hall.
Throngs of people stared at Ron, including a beautiful, dark-haired girl from one of the center tables. Her eyes widened, as if asking him what in the hell he wanted. Ron mouthed, "Come here! I need to ask you something!"
"What!" she mouthed back.
Ron rolled his eyes, and to Harry's great surprise, Ron got up and started to walk over to the Ravenclaw table. Harry sighed at the insane similarity to a soap opera dramedy his school represented. Turning back to his reliable buddy, Mr. Buttered Toast, he tried to imagine what Hermione was doing at this very moment…
"Would you just keep your eyes shut!" Hermione scolded for what seemed the thousandth time.
"They are!" Malfoy retorted falsely, but was silenced by a look. He was really very curious as to what she was doing at the desk behind him. He hoped it wasn't anything too devious.
After about two more minutes, right as Draco was going to try and look over her shoulder again, she threw down a pen in happiness. "Now you can look." She announced. "Voilà! Happy Valentine's Day, Draco." Hermione said softly, kissing him lightly on the lips while handing him a card.
Rolling his eyes, he opened it, and was surprised to see three streaks looking like fireworks jump out of it and proceed to float harmlessly between him and Hermione. With a small explosion, they changed into countless hearts, both big and small. Draco even thought he could smell the faint scent of roses. But as if that wasn't enough, as he read the first line (For you on this day all the cherubs sing), a bright blue arrow shot into the air, and from it sprang a small cupid-looking creature, who slowly flew around their heads for a minute or so, then disappeared with small sparkles in its wake. Raising an eyebrow, Draco looked at the girl in front of him, who was slightly blushing, but whose eyes were bright. As he finished reading her card, no magical creature appeared, but the card changed into a jar filled with mist.
"A crystal jar?" Draco joked, referencing to Divination, and honestly expecting Hermione to get embarrassed at her failure of a gift.
Instead, she gave him an exasperated look. "Of course not." She said brusquely. "Unscrew it."
He glanced at her once, but did as instructed. Immediately, the room he and Hermione occupied was drenched in darkness, but out of the jar a fine white mist rose, and formed in the shape of a dragon. He gestured to Hermione. "What the hell is this?" he asked quietly, the reason for his whispering escaping him now.
"Draconis. What else?" Hermione stated proudly. Upon his confused face, she sighed but explained, "The constellation? Oh, honestly! Don't you pay attention in anything? We learned about it just last week in Astronomy! You just ruined my present, Draco." She expressed miserably, snatching the jar from him and screwing it back up, the darkness disappearing as if being sucked into the jar from a vacuum.
She started to walk away after handing him the jar, but he promptly put it off to the side, pulled her around and kissed her harshly on the lips. It wasn't innocent, nor was it particularly romantic, but it was definitely fulfilling and passionate. It reminded Hermione of the day when both Blaise and Lavender caught her and Draco by the Gryffindor common room, and that wasn't such a bad thing. On the contrary, she was even more pleased that he remembered how she wanted to be kissed.
Finally breaking apart, Hermione gave him a sheepish smile, a faint tinge of red appearing in her cheeks. Draco's face was impassive, but his eyes were dancing with both fire and delight.
Leaning down to her ear, he whispered, "Happy Valentine's Day."
Yeah I know it was short and for that I am very sorry, but I had to get at least ONE out before I would be torn to pieces by those more violent of my readers. Hehe. So I will try to get another chapter out by next week, but I cannot make any promises, as I fear they could be broken, and that would NOT be good. AND HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO YOU, TOO!
Thanks to:
hermionegranger2007, rizahawkeye21 (haha, you'll find out SOON), AngieAnaconda, Mrs Pierre Bouvier, Indaic, missindependent1127, Moonstone, Secret Murderer (I know! I hope this chapter was okay?), HiddenOperaAngel, dwntwndanbrwn (haha, I LOVE your sn!), and debarie. Love y'all!