Chapter 8: Northern Downpour

September the first dawned chilly and damp, and by the time they arrived at King's Cross the morning mist had developed into a highly respectable storm. Under normal circumstances this wouldn't have been so bad. However, the World Cup appeared to have strengthened Mr. Weasley's usual enthusiasm for the Muggle World, and he'd woken them all up at the crack of dawn and announced they'd be traveling to King's Cross in Muggle taxis.

"Should we tell him they don't generally transport owls and cats?" said Harry in an undertone, as they watched the drivers struggle to cram six enormous trunks into the cars. Hermione laughed.

"It'll be all right," she whispered, reaching into her bag to give Crookshanks a stroke. "Er. Won't it?" Harry looked slightly unsure, but shrugged.

"It'll be quick, at least," he sighed.

But it wasn't quick, and it was far from all right. Their trunks took up most of the space inside the cars, with the result that Hermione and Ginny were forced to squeeze into one seat nearest the door. To make matters worse, a packet of Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks went off in Fred's trunk, sending glittering purple starbursts all over the inside of the car and causing Crookshanks to make liberal use of his claws and teeth for the rest of the journey. In all, it was a bedraggled crowd who stumbled from the taxis at King's Cross; Fred and George bemoaned their lost fireworks, Ginny shot off at once with a furious vow never to trust her father again, and as Hermione wrestled Crookshanks back into her bag, Hedwig perched regally on Harry's shoulder as though determined to be the pinnacle of dignity.

"Thank god," muttered Ron the instant they slipped through the barrier and onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. It was bursting with activity as usual, and although most people looked damp and slightly worse for wear, the mood on the platform was warm and cheery enough to lift Hermione's spirits tenfold.

"Harry! Hey-Harry!" Neville was pelting toward them, slightly out of breath and face shining with excitement. Harry and Ron exchanged a significant look before turning around.

"Hey, Neville," said Harry. "Had a good summer?"

"It was all right. Wish I could've gone to the World Cup, though. Gran wouldn't get tickets."

At this, Ron's eyes lit up and he launched into a detailed recitation of the match-which, Hermione noticed, differed somewhat from her recollection of things. She was quite sure, for instance, that Viktor Krum hadn't crashed into the Top Box a foot from their seats right before he caught the Snitch.

"I'll go and find a compartment, then," she said to no one in particular, and hoisted her trunk up into the nearest car. As she'd suspected, talk of Quidditch was widespread and nonstop in the snatches of conversation from occupied compartments. By the time she reached an empty one, she was thoroughly bored with the topic and took great pleasure in shutting the door on her classmates' voices. She pulled The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Four from her bag-she was determined to learn a Summoning Charm by the time they reached Hogwarts-and within minutes Crookshanks had forgotten the firework episode and purred contentedly on the seat beside her. She couldn't have said how long she'd been reading when the door slid open, startling her out of ten years of her life.

"You can study all you like, you know," said Draco, closing the door and throwing himself lazily down beside her. "I'm still going to beat you in Transfiguration." Suppressing a grin, Hermione shut her book with a snap and turned to face him.

"Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak," she replied, in what she hoped was a lofty and mysterious tone. He raised an eyebrow.

"Who said that?"

"I just did, of course." Draco rolled his eyes.

"Obviously. Who said it before?" She did grin then.

"You don't think it sounds like something I'd say?"

"I think it sounds like something my father would say," Draco blurted, then glanced downward at once, eyes darting around the way they did when he wished he hadn't said something.

"It was Sun Tzu, in his Art of War," said Hermione quietly, after a moment. Draco looked up.

"Who?"

"He was an ancient Chinese military commander," she explained. "Mum joined our trivia game once and asked me about him," she added, smiling involuntarily as she remembered the look on her father's face that evening. "Dad told her off for it. He says most people who read The Art of War don't really understand it, and then they quarreled about books all evening and…" she trailed off, suddenly self-conscious. Draco was watching her as if she were speaking a language he'd studied in school but never heard spoken fluently before.

"Your family's nice," he said at length. To her annoyance, she felt her face grow hot.

"Dad thought so too," she told him. "Er-about you, I mean. Didn't stop talking about giants until I left for the World Cup." Draco laughed softly, but he also turned slightly pink and glanced shyly down at the floor. It was a deeply endearing combination.

"That's weird." She frowned.

"What's weird?" Draco glanced up at the ceiling then and bit his lip in thought.

"Just that...you know. People don't generally think that." The words left his mouth quickly, as though he didn't want to be saying them but couldn't bear to hold them inside any longer. "I mean. About me." Hermione never had a clue what to say when Draco spoke this way about himself. Mostly, she wished he wouldn't. At the same time, she longed for the power to quiet whatever part of his mind made him think this way. Today, another voice crept unbidden into the back of her mind, and when she identified it she had to fight down a humorless laugh.

Hermione?

Yes?

His dad...he's not...very nice to him. Is he?

"They do," she said quietly. "You just don't realize." Draco was quiet for what felt like a year, and then, abruptly, he turned to face her again.

"I've got to show you something," he said, in an entirely different tone. She nearly laughed.

"What is it?" He reached into his pocket and handed her a bit of paper.

"What d'you see?" he asked, in a tone which suggested she was supposed to see...something.

"It's…" she stared, hard, at the paper for a moment, but it remained unchanged. "It's blank," she said ruefully. Draco sighed.

"Damn. Right, hang on." He closed his eyes for a moment as if concentrating very hard on something, but the paper remained unchanged.

"Draco, what-"

"Shh!" Intensely curious now, Hermione fell silent. Moments later, to her astonishment, she was looking at a five-pound note. Well, not quite. The colors were slightly off, and the woman in the center of the note vaguely resembled the Queen, but her nose looked wrong and she wasn't wearing a crown. She looked up, aghast, and Draco was grinning.

"What is this?" she demanded, holding the paper up to the light. "I-did you do this?"

"What does it look like?" he asked, a hint of mischief creeping into his voice.

"Well...it looks like you've got a very interesting idea of what Muggle money looks like," she replied at once. Draco laughed.

"It's got the Queen on it, doesn't it?"

"I don't know who this is, Draco, but it isn't the Queen."

"Whatever," he scoffed, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It's weird to print pictures of people on money, anyway." Hermione waved this away.

"What is this thing, though?" she asked. "How does it work, I mean?" Draco shrugged.

"Well...it changes, see? Whatever you want it to look like, you just concentrate, and that's what other people will see when they look at it." He paused. "But I've got no idea how it works. I was sort of hoping you'd know." Hermione studied the paper more carefully, running her fingers along the edges and scrutinizing the image for signs of trickery, but after nearly a minute she had to admit that, as far as she could tell, it was a wholly ordinary piece of paper. Tom Riddle's diary crept into the back of her mind, and she shuddered. Hadn't that, after all, looked and felt for all the world like ordinary paper?

"Er...Draco…" she couldn't think of a way to word her question that wouldn't annoy him.

"I got it from Theo," he said quickly, sensing her trepidation. "He-his mum invented it, he said? But he couldn't tell me anything about it, really. You know how he is." Hermione laughed. Partially, her relief at this explanation was visceral, and partially, she could just imagine Draco's intense curiosity contrasted with Theo's profound lack of interest. She glanced down at the paper once more, then up at Draco.

"You've just got to concentrate?" she asked. He nodded.

"Like doing a Disillusionment Charm, sort of." She stifled a grin and slowly, little by little, blocked out everything in her field of vision except for the paper and its contents. The air around her grew fuzzy, the paper pulsed with the intensity of her gaze, and after a moment she handed it back to Draco, filled to the brim with the thrill of new accomplishment.

If it's like a Disillusionment Charm, I'll get it much faster than you did, the paper now read. Draco made an indignant sound in his throat and, a bit later, shoved it back under her nose.

You'll pay for that one later. This faded after a moment, and a new message appeared in its place. But at the moment, I'm going to forget about it. She frowned slightly, and focused her attention once more on the paper.

Why?

"Because I know I ought to be angry," he said softly, "but at the moment I'd just really like to kiss you." Had he always been sitting so close, or had some unexplainable force simply drawn them together? A curious, dizzying warmth sprang up from somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach and spread, filling her all the way to her fingertips. She recognized the playful sort of longing in his eyes, but there was an urgency about it now that caught her breath and made her heart pound.

"Go on, then," she breathed, and the inexplicable confidence in her voice instilled that well of warmth inside her with a dangerous but electrifying omnipotence. She met his sweet, gentle kiss with an intensity that startled her as much as him. His soft gasp made every nerve in her body tingle agreeably, his right hand grazed her cheek and soon lost itself in her hair, and his left slipped down, ghosting over her neck and exploring her shoulder and collarbone. Driven by that burning, tingling power inside her, she drew back and placed a kiss on his neck, gently at first, then harder as his sweet, intoxicating scent overwhelmed her. He breathed in slowly, peacefully, and gave her hair a reverent stroke.

"Hermione?" She looked up, slightly startled.

"Yes?"

"Er…" his cheeks were slightly pink, but his eyes showed no trace of fear or discomfort; rather, there was a shy sort of look in them that she couldn't quite place.

"What is it?" she prompted, after a moment. He bit his lip, but didn't look away.

"It's just...well, if-you wanted, er...you could…" Her heart was beating so quickly she feared it might burst if he didn't finish.

"Yes?" He closed his eyes for a few seconds and took a deep breath.

"Er. Right, I...I know it was an accident before, but if you wanted. You could. Bite me? A bit?" She could tell from his voice that his heart was beating at least as hard and fast as hers. "Only...only if you…" Only if she wanted. She'd never thought, at this moment, she could want something so much.

He tasted as nice as he smelled, but his sharp intake of breath brought her hurtling to her senses and she drew back, unsure whether she was exhilarated or horrified.

"Did I hurt you?" But the moment she saw his face, she knew the answer.

"No," he whispered. "It...felt good." He looked impossibly vulnerable, but it wasn't the sort of vulnerability that made him cower from her gaze when he told her something he feared would push her away, or when his heart desperately sought comfort against the will of his mind. This was vulnerability he offered willingly, without reservation. It was a gift.

Slowly, tenderly, she kissed his cheek.

"Just...say," she said softly. "If it ever doesn't. All right?" He gave her a small smile that nonetheless lit up his eyes as much as she'd ever seen them, and took her hand in his as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

"You too," he breathed. "Anything, not just-" he broke off, blushing slightly. She nodded, and he squeezed her hand. "You're so beautiful." He stroked the back of her hand, then lightly traced the inside of her wrist. "I...the way you look when you're concentrating on something? There's nothing like it." Her face felt very hot now, and she opened her mouth to speak, but he shook his head once, something adjacent to panic creeping into his eyes. "No, I-if I don't-" he broke off, and there it was again, that first sort of vulnerability. "I just mean...well…" he took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling again, as if it held some answer he'd dedicated his life's work to finding. Hermione wasn't sure when or how, but something had shifted. The air in the compartment felt brittle.

"What is it?" she nearly whispered. He didn't move, scarcely seemed to breathe. "Draco," she prompted, after a few moments. He didn't speak, but to her enormous relief, he turned to face her.

"I don't think I know the right words," he said quietly. "Just...wait a moment, all right?"

"All right," she agreed, and gave his hand a light squeeze. He jumped slightly, as if he'd forgotten he was holding her hand.

"Sometimes...well, a lot of the time, really, I-" he broke off and took a deep, shaky breath. "I feel...I don't think-no, I...I don't like myself very much. I...feel like rubbish, actually." He paused. She tried to speak, but her lungs seemed to have vanished. "I know you already know," he went on, a bit steadier now. "So do they. My friends, I mean? Sometimes they look at me, or they all shut up the moment I arrive, and it's like…" He shook his head slightly. "But you...don't look at me like that. You...you like me? Just because? And that makes me feel...not so much like rubbish."

"For heaven's sake, of course I do." The words escaped her before she could stop to consider them, but to her enormous relief, Draco gave her a faint smile.

"I...sorry," he said quietly. "It was nice, before." He gave a soft, rueful laugh. "Really nice, actually, and I...I ruined it." Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"I don't think so," she told him, in her most businesslike tone. "Now, you've heard of a Summoning Charm, haven't you?" Draco gave her a quizzical look.

"Er-yeah, but what-"

"Good," she interrupted, and took up her book again. "Let's practice. I've already got you threatening to beat me in Transfiguration, I really can't afford any competition in Charms." Draco laughed.

"Past evidence suggests I will beat you in Transfiguration," he reminded her, but pulled out his wand nonetheless.

The sky darkened steadily and rain lashed the windows with increasing force as the train wound north, but neither noticed. By the time they came to a stop in Hogsmeade Station, both had mastered the Summoning Charm. Draco made to open the compartment door, but stopped short and turned to face her, a curious smile on his face.

"Hey," he said softly, holding out his hand. "We're back." Hermione grinned involuntarily as she took his hand.

"Say that after we reach the castle without drowning," she said grimly. He laughed, and they joined the reluctant crowd piling off the train and into what felt less like a rainstorm and more like a tsunami.