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A Spark
Hermione froze, her hand still clasping the doorknob, not knowing how to respond.
"Granger? Can I speak with you, please?" Malfoy demanded irritation evident in his tone.
"Go away; I'm not in the mood." Hermione replied gruffly, removing her, now quivering, hand from the doorknob.
"Whether you let me in or not, I am going to speak to you, Granger, so make it easy on yourself and let me in!" Malfoy bellowed, trying to turn the doorknob himself, but to no avail. Hermione didn't reply, she simply flopped back against the wall and sank down onto the floor, placing her head in her hands.
"Fine, if that's the way you're going to be, I'll say what I have to say from out here." Malfoy announced angrily. "Granger, living with you is one thing, and I can just about manage it, but getting caught up with your disturbed boyfriends is a whole different cauldron of doxies."
Hermione, not taking the trouble to argue, simply said "OK," very hoarsely.
"Granger? Is that you? You sound very…what are you doing in there?" Malfoy probed, banging a fist on the door.
Hermione ruefully got to her feet and opened the door to a very curious looking Malfoy.
"Are you done?" She asked, gutturally, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. Malfoy scanned her face with surprised eyes, taking in her tear-stained cheeks, red swollen eyes and severely tousled hair.
"What's wrong with you, Granger? You're not the one who was attacked by two maniacs in the Three Broomsticks! You look awful!" Malfoy exclaimed incredulously. Hermione narrowed her eyes and reached for the doorknob to slam the door in Malfoy's face.
Malfoy was too fast for her though, and he caught the door with his hand. "Granger, you do realise that Weasel boy if practically in love with you, don't you?" Malfoy sneered, a cruel smile on his face.
"Leave Ron alone. You don't know what you're talking about." Hermione answered, narrowing her red eyes even further, although she knew he was right.
"I certainly do, I've seen it going on for years, but I can never seem to work out where you stand in all of this." Malfoy said, his smirk widening, his grey eyes focused on Hermione, who was avoiding his eyes.
"Ron's my friend, that's where I stand."
"So you don't…"
"No I don't."
"Poor old Weasel. Still, plenty more fish in the sea, or should I say, Weasels in the woods, eh, Granger?" Malfoy smirked, winking mischievously.
Hermione wanted to hit him, she really truly did, and a large part of her brain was telling her to slam the door in his silly smirking face. But a small part of her, mainly the muscles in her face, wanted to laugh. And for a split second she caught his cheeky eye, and she could feel a little spark fly between them.
"Goodnight Malfoy." Hermione said finally, tearing her eyes away from Malfoy's, who, this time, didn't stop her from shutting the door. Once alone in her room, Hermione smirked. The first proper smirk she'd ever worn on her innocent little face. Her whole body felt like it was full of fizzing electricity, shivers coursed through her entire body, and she loved every second of it.
Draco didn't leave his spot outside Hermione's door for a little while. He'd felt the spark too, the little flit of electricity that would be undetectable to an outsider, but was definitely there. His smirk widened at first, and he was about to bang on the door again, but then he remembered something.
"Purebloods like us don't mix with mudbloods, Draco. You have royal blood, don't ever let a mudblood in and disgrace me; they aren't worth the dirt on your shoes."
Draco's father would tell him that daily when he was at home. He inwardly scolded himself for mixing with Granger, what would his father say if he knew? Granger was a mudblood and had no right to even share the same building with him. Despite the fact that he knew that he was wrong, and fighting every urge to turn back to Hermione's room, Draco turned abruptly away from the bedroom door in front of him, hardening his heart and extinguishing the spark from his mind.
Next morning, the excitement from last night had faded away, and Hermione was ashamed of herself. She got out of bed quietly, focusing on anything but Malfoy's smirking face that swam around in her mind, and carried out her morning routine, vacating the common room speedily so as not to bump into Malfoy.
Malfoy, however, was not in the Quarters when Hermione had so hastily left. He hadn't been able to sleep the night before, guilt plaguing his mind, fully conscious that something had begun between himself and Granger – the mudblood. So at about 2:00am, he had gotten out of his regal four-poster bed and slipped down to the Slytherin common room, set to eliminate guilt and prove his true Slytherinlyness.
The next morning, he woke up in a foreign bed, next to the only girl willing to 'help out.' Poor, oblivious, used, Pansy Parkinson slept like a baby next to Draco that night, feeling like this proved that he wanted her just as much as she did him.
But Draco couldn't think of anything other than Hermione's tear stained face, fighting back a smile.
All through the day, Hermione avoided Ron, Draco tried to shake Pansy off and both avoided one another until Potions, the last lesson of the day.
"Sit." Snape spat once everyone had assembled in his dungeon. Harry had sat between Ron and Hermione, who had a dense air of awkwardness between them both.
Snape surveyed the class with his hard cold eyes, imagining each one of them on an island somewhere…wrapped in heavy chains.
"Today we will be exploring the effects of the Memory Draught. Longbottom, explain to me what the Memory Draught does." Snape demanded, locking his cold stare onto poor Neville.
"I d-don't know, P-Professor, I-" Neville replied frantically looking around for Hermione to prompt him.
"For goodness's sake Longbottom, Miss Granger will not help you, although I know how much she is itching to show off. Ten points from Gryffindor for your lack of knowledge and Miss Granger's impertinence.
"That's NOT fair, Professor!" Hermione burst angrily, rising from her seat, knowing that she was playing into Snape's hands by retaliating.
"Oh really…well if you spent less time trying to show us all up and more time LISTENING to your teachers, you may not feel that way. Ten more points from Gryffindor for your insolence." Snape retorted, gleeful that he had found another reason to deduct point s from Gryffindor. Hermione sank back into her chair, while receiving sympathetic glances from the Gryffindors and sneering ones from the Slytherins. She gazed over at Malfoy quickly, but to her surprise, he was just staring into space, his grey eyes entirely unfocused.
"Seeing as none of you have the brain capacity to pick up a textbook before you came to this lesson, I will explain the potion to you. This potion, if brewed correctly, will give the drinker unlimited access to anyone in this room's memories. It gives limited access to anyone's life depending on how much you drink." Snape informed smoothly, glaring round at his students. "I will be putting you into pairs for this assignment, and you will try your potion on each other. If you fail, you will enjoy a detention with me, cleaning the scum out of the specimen jars. Understand?"
The class all nodded; slightly afraid of whom they would be partnered with. Snape smirked and took a list of the pairs from his desk drawer. Snape announced each pair with great satisfaction. He had put Ron with Pansy, Harry with Millicent and Hermione with…Malfoy. His work here was done.
The whole class groaned with vexation at the pairings. Harry walked warily over to Millicent Bulstrode's table and Ron stomped over to Pansy. Hermione just sat, staring ahead of her, not sure of how to react to her pairing.
"Move over, Granger, if you want to do this potion with me, you need to move out of my way." Malfoy sneered, placing himself on the bench next to Hermione, taking up most of the space.
"I didn't want to do this potion with you, Malfoy. Look, let's just get this done quickly so we can spend as little time as possible together." Said Hermione, her heartbeat quickening when she realised how close she was sitting to Malfoy.
Malfoy moved himself up, close next to Hermione, making out he was trying to hog the bench. He knew that if he did this, Hermione would fight back, and he liked feeling her angry little body pushing up against him, pushing him away. He then surveyed the board as Snape wrote the ingredients.
"You can chop the frog's testicles, Granger, you'll enjoy that, I think I'll do the daisy roots." Said Malfoy rudely, pushing a tray of green unattractive parts towards Hermione.
"Oh, no, if I have to do these, you've got to do the eyeballs." Hermione retorted, wrinkling up her nose at the sight of the slimy bits of anatomy in front of her.
"Me? I don't think so Granger. You see, I'm a pureblood and-" Malfoy began, smirking evilly.
"Oh don't give me that crap. Look, if you're not man enough to do that, then I will. Jeez, Malfoy, you're a pathetic excuse for a guy." Said Hermione manipulatively, smirking at Malfoy.
Malfoy was extremely taken aback at this smirk, and frankly, a little turned on too (AN: LOL). He knew exactly what Granger was doing, damn reverse psychology, but he finally decided that he didn't want to look like a wimp, so dutifully took the tray of eyeballs.
Hermione immediately felt like she had triumphed, and seeing Malfoy chopping the eyeballs gave her a warm feeling inside. Despite the fact that she had to chop up thirty or so small slimy testicles, she felt like she had achieved something.
Once they had finished their potion, it was perfect. It was a nice turquoise colour and had a gentle grey vapour rising from it, clouding the surface.
"Measure out 6ml to drink. I will allocate whom, from the pairs, will have their memories explored. Once the 'explorer' has drunk the potion, he or she is to place their hands on their partner's head to enter their memories." Snape announced, looking like a very bloodthirsty bat.
"Hard luck, Granger." Malfoy said, smirking happily, as he had been allocated as the one to explore her thoughts.
"Oh, just do it and get it over with." Hermione grumbled, not feeling at all safe having her thoughts exposed to Malfoy.
Malfoy gulped down the potion, wincing slightly at the sour taste (AN: that'll be the testicles) and placed his hands on Hermione's head, realising for the first time how small she was in comparison to him. He could fit her head easily in his large, strong hands.
Hermione was terrified at this point, although the warmth from Malfoy's hands was comforting, the mischievous look on his face, however, was not.
Suddenly, Malfoy's mind was full of Hermione's memories. He saw a young girl sitting sadly in a small library at a muggle school alone, a tear falling down her pale, young face. He then saw the same girl on the Hogwarts express with Harry and Ron. He felt her happiness and her warmth when she was with them, something her never felt towards anyone himself. He could see everything as she saw it, her friends, her family, and her teachers and then finally…him.
He finally accessed her thoughts of him, and he saw her slap him when they were in 3rd year. He felt her anger, how hot it was, how passionately she hated him. He was surprised that he could provoke that kind of emotion in anyone, and he realised that his taunts had gone right to her heart. Then suddenly, a picture of him formed in Hermione's mind, and he felt the jolt of electricity down his own spine that she felt every time they caught each other's eye.
And then it stopped. He opened his eyes blearily, and took his hands off Hermione's head, not knowing what to do with himself. His thoughts suddenly went to Pansy, and he looked at Hermione, feeling for the first time in his life that he had done something very wrong.
"What's wrong, Malfoy? What did you see? Tell me what you saw!" Hermione demanded, frantically wondering whether he had seen anything he shouldn't have.
"Nothing…nothing important. I'm going to go now, later Granger." And with that Malfoy swung his bag onto his back and left the dungeon. Snape didn't bother to stop his favourite student from leaving, but found no problem with giving all who remained a painful essay on Memory Draughts and their effects and method of brewing.
Malfoy arrived back in his Quarters angry with himself for all these sudden feelings. He was furious that Granger could make him feel guilty for sleeping with Pansy – why would she care who he spent his time with anyway? She means nothing; her opinion of him means nothing at all. That jolt of electricity meant nothing; it was probably just the potion messing with his head. And the spark, that meant absolutely nothing. Didn't it?