Thank you all again for the reviews, I appreciate each and every one of them. I just can't believe that someone out there actually does like my stories besides my friends, who are forced to read them and just say they like them to get me to shut up.
Chapter Four: Brooms are for More than just Quidditch
Alright, I'll admit, once I went back to the common room after dinner, I was a bit upset by the entire detention thing. I mean, it usually doesn't get to me, but I still had to patrol that night, plus none of the professors were easy on the homework. It all added up to no sleep for me, and probably another game of 'gobstones' in my dormitory. Oh, joy. And besides, it was a detention with Filch. Uh, that man just makes me feel sick in the pit of my gut. I don't like to come within five meters of him, if at all possible. Anyway, detentions with Snape are just a blow off, which I definitely could use. But alas, luck wasn't on my side, not this time.
But I suppose we don't always get to choice such fickle things. But that doesn't mean I have to be happy about the situation, giving me a good reason to stalk grumpily to Filch's office. Not that I need an excuse to sulk around, but sometimes I like to have one, just for a change of pace. Anyway, enough about my walking habits, that's kind of an odd subject to ramble on about. Though I like to hear my own voice, I think, and there's nothing really WRONG with rambling…
Ach, I'm doing it again. MOVING ON….
I finally arrived there to find Granger already standing outside the doorway, shifting back and forth on her feet. Only someone like her is early for a detention. I mean, I wasn't late, but come on, I wasn't early. She glared at me when she saw me and instantly stopped her nervous twitching.
"Glad to see you've decided to make an appearance at last," she said sarcastically, but I could see in her eyes the anger behind them, so I didn't comment. "This is your fault, I hope you know."
I couldn't keep silent from that. "My fault?" I said, feigning an innocent expression. "I say one thing, and you just happen to overreact, and yet this is my fault?"
"I hardly think I overreacted," she snapped back at me, and I could tell that she had really been pushed over her limit. It was quite amusing, actually…I personally was enjoying her display of wrath, even if it was on me. "After what you said, I…I…under reacted!"
"Come on, Granger, it wasn't that bad," I said back to her, trying to keep myself calm and casual. I knew it would only twist her knickers tighter yet. "I'm not the only one that thinks that there's something more than friendship between yourself and Weasley, if not Potter as well. I mean, you don't have, like, any female companionship, and you're inseparable from their sides."
"It's called friendship, Malfoy," she said venomously, and yet again I felt that pang of anger that I had at that statement earlier that day, but I didn't react on it…yet. "What you said was vile…and…cruel, that's it. Not that I would expect anything less from you, but really, Harry and Ron were right there."
I opened my mouth to reply, but the door to the office slammed open at the same moment, causing both of us to startle, though Granger considerably more than myself. Ahem. That's beside the point.
So Filch stood there in all of his disgusting glory, glaring down at us, positioned in the perfect place to block out the light coming from his room, so he looked more like a threatening silhouette then a real human, but I could smell him. Ech. "I s'pose even the prefects need a taste of what they send oth'r students ta do," he said menacingly, then motioned for us to follow him down the corridor and into the dungeons, right past my common room, which made me wonder why we couldn't just meet him at our destination. Much shorter walk for me.
He stopped beside a large door, surrounded by shadows. You could hear a constant dripping around us down the cold stone walls. It was overall a rather foreboding atmosphere, and judging by the look on Granger's face, I wasn't alone in my thoughts. Filch pulled from his pocket a cluster of what had to be at least a hundred odd keys, and he started shoving them into the lock, muttering under his breath as key after key didn't work. It was really very awkward, and I was relieved when he finally opened the door.
The relief quickly disappeared as I looked into the room. It appeared to be an abandoned classroom turned storage area, full of desks, cupboards, and some jars filled with a murky substance. Everything was covered with dust and mildew, and the very air felt thick and musty. It was absolutely disgusting.
You must have been able to read my feelings on my face, because Granger turned to me and let out a rather un-ladylike snort. I silenced her with a quick glare, and Filch turned to face us, brought out of his reverie by our commotion. He was probably transfixed with the dirt or something…or he was turning it into some messed up torture chamber in his mind. Ach, Filch's mind…a scary place. Anyway, he turned to face us, extending a hand in our direction. "Your wands," he said, grinning a wide grin of rotten teeth.
Neither of us offered to oblige him, and his grin quickly disappeared. "You will clean this room, making it once again useable," he explained, waving his hand in front of my face dramatically. As if that was going to make me just whip out my wand and give it to him on a silver platter. It really only resulted in sending a waft of mothball scent flying from the arm of his tattered robes, causing me to sneeze on his hand. His eyes grew wide, and Granger looked like she was about to explode with laughter, though she bit her tongue. Literally, it appeared. "Without magic!" he exclaimed, rather violently pushing me into the room by my shoulders. "Now hand over yer wands! You will report to me when yer finished to retrieve 'em."
As I was brushing his…filth from the shoulders of my robes, Granger piped up. "Um, Mr. Filch," she started, "We have prefect duties tonight as well, so perhaps—"
"Perhaps you should 've considered that before you opened yer mouths in class! Besides, you'll 'ave plenty of time to talk now," he added sarcastically. "You will clean until I am satisfied, and not a bit less." With that, he turned and stalked away, muttering more about hanging students from their ankles and his normal ranting, leaving us standing awkwardly in the doorway.
"Well, we need to get started if we're ever going to get done," Granger said, a little too cheerfully for my liking. "At least we're keeping the poor house elves from doing this."
Yeah, that statement was rather confusing. I mean really, weren't the house elves, well, supposed to do this sort of thing? Her mudblood train of thought made absolutely no sense. Besides, as I looked around at the mess, I was really wishing for one of the vile little creatures.
Her voice brought me from my thoughts. "They left us cleaning supplies," she said, pointing to a stack of brooms, rags, pails, and the like beside the doorway. She rooted though the pile, her face scrunched in concentration. "I'll work on cleaning off the desks, and you start sweeping the floor," she ordered, extending a broom in my direction.
Who did she think she was, ordering me around like that? "Who died and left you in charge of this situation?" I snapped at her, a bit upset for the use of such a tired cliché on my part, but it seemed the most appropriate.
She froze, and then slowly turned to face me, a look that could make flowers wilt on her face. "And just how much cleaning have you done in your life, Malfoy?" she demanded.
That made me angrier yet. She knew absolutely nothing of my home life! …Well…she was right about the cleaning, though, but I wasn't about to give that to her. "Perhaps you are the one more suited for scrubbing on your hands and knees after all," I said maliciously. "You and your muggle parents."
Her face grew red with probably hate or wrath or something, and she literally threw the broom at me. "That's the most that's ever going to fly," she exclaimed, though rather pointedly changing the subject. "Now learn to do something with a broomstick that doesn't involve Quidditch!"
The broom had landed hard at my feet, sending up a shower of dust all over me. I'll admit, we were not really off to a good start. I actually considered just listening and stopping my barrage on her, even though she had started it. See, I can be a nice guy, so go back to that person that told you I was a sex fiend, et cetera and such and slug them for me. But, yet again, she had walked right into the insult. "I'm sure you would know all about 'broomsticks outside of Quidditch,'" I sneered. "What with Potter and Weasley both on the team…"
Granger took a deep breath, then carefully took off her robes and folded them neatly in a stack beside the door, so as to not get them too dirty. She pulled her hair back from her face into a bushy ponytail, all the while remaining perfectly expressionless. She then grabbed a rag and began cleaning off the nearest desk.
Her ignorance instead of reage threw me off guard, something I hate. It's not much fun to insult someone if they don't even act like they care. I decided to match her silence with my own instead of acting offended that my brilliant offense was met with no reaction whatsoever. Anyway, I started my best violent sweeping near the doorway after tossing my robes with Granger's—it was a smart idea. I soon found myself in a dust bubble, which was completely miserable and left me in severe sneezing spasms (congratulations on my expert alliteration), which Granger completely ignored. Typical, not even sympathy for the suffering. Ahem.
Suddenly, I heard a short shriek from the other side of the room. I decided to be the gentlemen I am—AHEM—and investigate the source of such an outburst. I dropped the broom, stepping from the dust could so I could see. "What's the problem now, Granger?" I asked, doing my best to sound bored, uninterested, even though I was. Can't give her that satisfaction.
"Doxies!" I heard her say. I spotted her near a large wooden cabinet.
I had never actually saw a doxy before, but I knew about them, and their toxic bites. Meanwhile, we didn't have our wands. Typical. I could just see it: Doxies, 2, pathetic humans, 0. Anyway, now I could see the little pests around Granger as she swatted at them with a bit of rolled parchment. It was rather amusing watching her, that is, until one of them set their sights on me.
I retrieved the broom quickly, holding it in a guard position before me. Maybe now all that fencing would become useful…except, well, this wasn't an opponent, it was a mutant fairy, and I didn't exactly have a sword, but that's really beside the point. I was able to get a good hit, though, and the doxy fell to the floor, KOed I would guess.
"How about you come and do that over here!" I heard her exclaim, rather irritably I might add. I twirled the broom in my hand, satisfied that she needed me for help this time, and strolled over to where she was undergoing an air raid.
"You rang for my assistance?" I asked, my voice as sweet as I could get it.
"Stop being a git and help me!" she exclaimed, smacking one of her assaulters with the parchment to no avail. "Don't you realize," pause to swat, "that their bite is," swat, "poisonous?"
"Might have crossed my mind," I replied innocently.
"HonestlyMalfoyshutupandhelp!" she said, very quickly and jumbled this time as several of the creatures pulled at her hair.
"Um, not quite sure I caught that," I said, unable to keep from smirking at this point. This was far too amusing. "But it didn't sound very grateful. Perhaps you should ask nicely." Ha, what a laugh. The mudblood asking me for something nicely…but what confused me was the thought of a nice word from her excited me emotionally more than it should…
"Please!" she cried, again surprising me and pulling me from my thoughts. I didn't think she would actually oblige after all. But I did stick to my word, stepping forward with my trusty broom and to help fend of the doxies.
When they all had either fallen or retreated, Granger spun to face me, her face red and set in a glare, her brown eyes huge. "How could you just stand there and watch me?" she said, pretty much yelling in my face about it. "Even you have to care more than that about someone else! You're such a…such a…"
She paused. "Such a what?" I asked her back, returning her glare. No wonder I didn't help her, she's the most ungrateful thing I've ever spoken to.
"You're so…frustrating!" she finally said, throwing down the parchment she had been using as a weapon and rushing past me. She grabbed the robes, throwing them over her arm, and left me standing there alone in thought.
The room still looked like a mess overall, and doxies literally were all over the floor. A few of them were beginning to stir, and I didn't really want to be there when they awoke. I walked towards the door, thinking about her choice in words. Frustrating…funny that that was exactly the same word I used to describe her…and my emotions surrounding her. Mental. I grabbed the robes from the ground, pausing to shrug them on. But something didn't feel right…then I looked down and saw the Gryffindor patch on my chest. Of course…my robes had been on top of hers.
Great, just great.
Alright, well, there we have it! Sorry if it's a bit…senseless or anything, most of it was written during a standardized test, and then fixed up with the alternating inspirations of Cinderella Man and The Number 12 Looks Like You, depending on whether the television was on at the time. So yeah, I blame that.
And wow, Hermione is harder to stay in character with than Draco…now THAT'S mental.
