Chapter 4: Electricity
The next morning, Hermione woke up feeling exceptionally refreshed. Yawning, she got out of bed slowly and went to her closet, where she pulled out a tight white blouse and a really short black skirt. Normally the old Hermione Granger would never have tight-fitting clothes or short skirts in her wardrobe, but she had changed over the summer. While she was studying ancient spells and carrying out dangerous experiments, she had begun, without knowing why, to think about physical beauty, and on discovering that she possessed a natural sweetness of expression and a pretty face, she started to improve her looks by outside means. Taming her bushy hair had become a first priority, and she soon discovered the blessing of hair straighteners and curlers. In addition, she had gotten blonde highlights, and working out at the gym had made her body lithe and slim. Adding all of this to her impressive store of eye shadow, eyeliner, lipstick, powder, cold cream, and, most importantly, completely revolutionized and sexy wardrobe made her fit to be a supermodel. Hermione had changed, but inside she was still the same bookworm as she had ever been, spending hours on end studying and reading thick, dusty volumes salvaged from the shelves of Madame Pince's library.
This particular morning, Hermione had straightened her hair, put on her makeup, and sprayed some perfume on herself when the events of the night before came flooding back to her. Immediately she leapt from her dressing table and ran to the door that separated her from the Head Boy's room, where she put her ear to the wood and listened intently. There was no sound from the other room, and she pushed the door open softly, gliding in. A quick glance showed her that there was no one in the room as far as she could see; the bed was messy, but that was all that showed someone had slept there the night before.
"Crap!" she yelled, angry with herself. She should not have let him stay, especially since there were no binding spells to lock him in, she had forgotten all about them, and everything had just been a huge mistake, he was probably at large in the castle right then, it was all her fault and –
"Looking for me, Granger?" The voice sounded highly amused, and Hermione spun around to see Malfoy standing beside the door to the staircase, looking like nothing had happened and clad in silver robes that brought out his eyes. Indifferently, he ran his hand through his hair and made an expression of annoyance. "Ugh, I really need to get a haircut somehow, my hair's always getting in my way."
Before Hermione could stop herself, she had already blurted out, "Don't cut it, it looks better like this – I mean," she said, instantly slapping herself mentally for that slip and for blushing after it, "this way, if anyone in the school sees you by any chance, they won't be able to recognize you – so that's why you shouldn't cut it!"
Malfoy laughed quietly. "I heard you, Granger," he said, a twinkle of merriment in his otherwise cold eyes. "You like my hair all shaggy and loose – all right. I'll take your advice. The hair stays like this, since you like it so much..." Without warning, he strode over to her swiftly and pressed her up against the wall, his face inches from hers, his hands on either side of her head, penning her in. She breathed heavily with surprise. "Granger's feeling tingly, hot, bothered, excited…" He counted off all that Hermione was feeling at that moment with an astonishing accuracy that humiliated her.
"Sod off, Malfoy, I'd rather die than feel any of that for the most loathsome creature alive." Her voice sounded confident, but her irregular heartbeat betrayed her. He did not seem insecure at all. Hermione's face turned an even deeper shade of red when he suddenly smirked, stepped away from her, and held up a long, thin piece of wood.
"My, my, Granger, your defenses are really failing you, aren't they?" His smirk widened as she snatched her wand from him, cursed herself inwardly for not having noticed, and fled to her room, where she threw on her robes, grabbed her book bag, and ran out of the dorm. As the portrait closed behind her, she heard him calling out after her.
"By the way, Granger, stop hiding that body under those robes! Oh, and I like the straight hair!"
She ran faster.
Two weeks passed in this manner. Draco would stay in the room all the time, whiling his time away with books (yes, books!), while Hermione, growing less and less wary of him, went to class and engaged in social activities as usual. No one besides the two of them even dreamed that there was a person who was living in the Head Boy's room; Hermione had put up a sign on the door that said 'Not In Use,' which satisfied Ginny and a couple of other girlfriends, and she only hoped that McGonagall would never visit unexpectedly. In this way his safety was secured.
One particularly cold Thursday morning, she entered the Great Hall for breakfast and found, to her surprise, that foreign-looking students were lined up one by one in front of a long table at the end of the hall and that the line extended beyond the doors of the Hall. Curious, she sat down across from Ginny and asked her,
"What's going on? Who are these people?"
"They're Spanish students," Ginny replied, her mouth stuffed with toast. "Apparently Voldemort put an Imperius curse on their Headmaster and he started killing his students off until they put him away. Nobody over there is willing to take on the job after that dude, so they're seeking refuge at Hogwarts – or rather, what's left of them after the Headmaster was done with his massacre."
To Hermione's surprise, the students did not seem moody or depressed – what she might have expected of teenagers who had just survived a massacre – but spirited and eager. They were joking around with one another and peering around the Great Hall curiously, chattering excitedly about the enchanted ceiling (since they were pointing constantly at it) and generally seeming as if they were tourists.
"They don't seem to have a care in the world," Hermione told Ginny.
"Yeah, they're lining up to write down their names. Dean told me that their removal was so sudden that McGonagall didn't even have time to record their names, so they have to register themselves…if it hadn't been Voldemort and a massacre, the situation would be slightly funny."
"You're right," her best friend replied absent-mindedly, thinking of something else, a priceless opportunity if she seized it…
"I'm not hungry," she said abruptly, standing up from the table. "I'll go back and, uh, study before Ancient Runes."
"Cool," Ginny answered and kept on consuming her bacon and eggs.
A few minutes later –
"Malfoy! MALFOY!" she yelled as she climbed hastily through the portrait hole and almost crashed into the person she had been calling. "There you are!" she said, catching her breath and beaming.
"What's going on Granger?" Malfoy asked, taking in her dishevelled appearance: her curly hair was draped haphazardly over her shoulders, and her robes were – thrown off, as she flung them on the couch to cool herself off. Her face was flushed with excitement, and her eyes were shining brightly – damn she's hot, he thought to himself, and then promptly banished the idea. I'm kidding myself, he said to himself. She's a stuffy bookworm that happens to have had a brain transplant in fashion, but a bookworm nonetheless. He had no time, however, to pursue this train of thought, for she started spilling out a torrent of words that completely went past him for the first few seconds.
"…and you need to go down to the Great Hall right now and pretend you're Spanish!" concluded Hermione, still beaming, and folded her arms over her chest. Malfoy had no idea what she had been talking about; all he had understood was the last part about him pretending to be Spanish – what the hell? – and then he was distracted by her certainly well-developed cleavage that he could see over her rather low-cut blouse. Shit, Draco, are you actually thinking about her cleavage? You must be mad or just too bored for your own good.
"Uh-huh," he said. "What's that part about me pretending to be Spanish again? And while you're at it, tell me exactly what's going on, 'cause I didn't get it."
Hermione looked at him with exasperation written all over her face. "There's a group of Spanish kids down in the Great Hall and they're signing up for Hogwarts and nobody knows who they are so I'm telling you that this is the perfect time for you to go down and write your name down on the list and be – uh – legalized!"
"The famous Draco Malfoy pretending to be Spanish?" he asked, incredulous. "But that's horrible. My name has never been – "
"If you don't go down there right now and do what I say I will turn you in to McGonagall because I don't want to have to worry about people catching glimpses of you every moment of every day! So get your ass down there now!"
Malfoy was speechless. The little mud – no, he had to train himself not to think in those terms anymore – Granger had just told him flat-out what he needed to do! Uncannily, he felt an odd tingling at the thought, and lost no time in leaning forwards, just inches from her face, and whispering, "We'll see about my ass, Granger, in my own sweet time." Hermione shoved him away, and he laughed – he always enjoyed making a girl flushed.
"I hate you, and you hate me too, Malfoy," she told him coldly.
"Dead on, Granger," he replied, and they left for the Great Hall.