"This place? But...surely you can't afford something like this!"
Hermione frowned. "It isn't as if I'm poor, Malfoy...I mean Draco." She had been calling him "Draco" since their so-called deal back in the alley. He suspected that she did it just to annoy him. So far, it was working remarkably well.
They stopped before the hotel's main door. It looked like four panes of glass on some kind of turnstile. "What-?" Draco looked at it suspiciously. "How do we..."
Hermione sighed in exasperation. "Honestly, Draco!" She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into the nearest "compartment" formed by the four panes of glass.
It began to move. Draco jumped involuntarily.
"No, it's not magic," Hermione said, echoing his thoughts. "It's called a sensor."
"A what?"
"An electronic eye."
"What's 'electronic'?"
They exited into a giant lobby. Hermione stopped and stared at him. "Are you joking?" A smile crept over her face. "This is going to be fun," she said to herself.
Draco did not like the sound of that.
Hermione ordered him to stay where he was, which was just fine with Draco. He was too busy gazing around the room. It was long and the floor was highly polished white-swirled-with-gold marble, and there were glittering chandeliers overhead. Plants were everywhere, as were comfortable chairs and small coffee tables of gleaming chestnut-colored wood. Over to Draco's left, there was a large fireplace and two couches on a carpeted area, and to his right a private restaurant area—currently empty—and a grand piano sat serenely beneath the dancing flecks of green-gold sunlight from the glass roof. This looked like his manor.
"Your mouth is hanging open," Granger—no, Hermione—commented, giving him a wry smile as she handed something small and white to him. It was some kind of plastic card, with a black strip on the other side, the side that didn't say the hotel's name. "What is this?" he asked, confused.
"Room key."
"This isn't a key!"
"Yes, it is. Come on. And stop gaping, Mal-Draco, you'd think you were a...what did you used to say?...'Mudblood' with no proper breeding. It's not even a fancy hotel, for crying out loud."
Draco chose to let the not-so-subtle insult slide. He was still thinking about what Hermione had just said. "It's not?"
"No. And hurry up." Hermione grabbed his hand as she would with Ron or Harry, then, thinking better of it, took his sleeve instead.
"You're going to rip it," Draco said testily as she dragged him toward two odd panels in the wall. Above them was a little lighted bar with numbers. What is THAT?
Hermione didn't even slow down, nor did she let go of his sleeve. "You want me to hold your hand?"
"Point." Draco glanced over at what appeared to be the main desk; it did, after all, say Reception on the sign. The young man working at the counter was staring admiringly at him, and jerked his head in Hermione's direction, flashing Draco a thumbs-up and grinning. Draco stared at him, frowning in confusion. Wait...
The wall had somehow opened, and Hermione was pushing him into a tiny little room with buttons of some kind on the walls. She looked down at her "key" and pressed one of the buttons. The doors slid shut.
The floor jerked, and Draco felt himself moving upward. "What is this thing? Where are we?" he demanded.
She didn't look up. "This is an elevator. It saves us 13 flights of stairs."
"Is it magic?"
Hermione sighed. "No, Draco, none of this is magic. Muggles aren't as stupid as you think they are."
Draco rolled his eyes, and felt his stomach lurch as the...elevator?...came to a sudden stop. Hermione didn't look fazed in the least. The doors slid open, and he found himself face-to-face with a wall. Following his fellow Head, he stepped out of the elevator and into a hallway that stretched for quite a ways in both directions.
Hermione looked up at a sign that said "1350-1399 LEFT, 1300-1349 RIGHT". She checked her key again. "1324...1324...to the right." She headed off down the hall, apparently having forgotten about Draco. He had to practically run to catch up with her. Wow, the girl walks fast.
She stopped in front of a door labeled "1324", and below that, "NO SMOKING". Pulling out her key, she examined a small box above the door handle. It had some kind of lights on it and a slot. "Right. Here's how you open the door." Hermione turned to Draco. "Take out your key and slide it through that slot, the black strip in the slot."
Draco, glancing suspiciously at her—how in the world could a plastic card possibly open a door?—did what she said. The door beeped and the little light flashed green. Draco stared at it as Hermione pushed down on the handle and opened the door. He shook his head. This was much more confusing than magic.
Hermione motioned for him to follow her inside. He did so, and she shut the door behind them.
"See what I mean? This isn't exactly Buckingham Palace," she said derisively, gesturing around at the quite standard hotel room. At least there was a TV. She flopped down on the bed nearest the window and, out of habit, turned on the television.
Draco, who had seated himself on the other bed, yelped as the room was suddenly filled with sound and color. "What the bloody hell is that?" he shouted, as the face of a particularly hideous cartoon character filled the screen.
Hermione whirled, eyes wide. "Shut up, you git!"
"Don't tell me to shut up, Granger! Turn it off!" He was steadily increasing the volume of his voice.
She scrambled over and tackled him, trapping him beneath her and pressing her hand over his mouth. Draco stared up into her eyes, shocked. "Do you want to get us thrown out of here?" she hissed, face very close to his. He shook his head mutely. "Then keep your voice down! For goodness sake, it's only a telly!"
"Get...off...me!" he gasped, shoving her hand away. Hermione smiled, eerily like his own favorite expression. "Sorry," she said., getting up and reseating herself on her own bed. "Now watch. This is a television." She picked up a small black bar of plastic and pressed a button on it. The sound went away. "And this is a remote control...hmm...let's see what else is playing..."
She pressed another button and the image on the screen changed. An old man stood there, fishing. "No..." Click. Another image, this one of a group of people throwing food at one another. "Commercial..."
By this time Draco's curiosity had gotten the better of him. "Let me see that."
"Wait."
"Give it here."
"Wait...channel 22...yes, here it is."
Draco watched as Hermione pressed another button and held it. The sound blared forth, but quickly receded to quieter-than-conversation-level. She got up and walked back to him, then sat down beside him. "Here, it's quite easy, actually. Here is the 'ON/OFF' switch...and here is the volume control...and just play with this button until you find a programme you like..."
She left the remote with him and got up to go into the bathroom. "Oh good, they've got room service. We do need toiletries, after all."
Draco ignored her. This was like a giant toy. He fiddled with the buttons until he stopped on a programme that looked intriguing. The people did have funny hair, but...
Hermione came back into the room. "What's this?" She laughed. "Nice, Malfoy—I mean Draco—you've picked up the one American channel."
"Is that bad?" He realized how stupid that had sounded, but she didn't seem to notice. "Some of it," she said honestly, "but what you're watching right now is one of my favorites."
Oh, great. The Mudblood's favorite. Then again, Draco thought, I might as well watch it...it looked amusing BEFORE I knew that...
"I'm sure that it will be worth my time, then," he said smoothly, and made himself comfortable as Hermione rolled her eyes and began fiddling with the alarm clock.
Please review! And I need suggestions for the plot of this story, so please contact me if you have any!
