Chapter Three - Hermione:
As if challenged to beat the world record for fastest speech, Hermione recounted her meeting at terrifying speed; hands flying with expression, tea mug dangerously perched between her knees, eyes flashing at every mention of a particular person's name, all three members of her audience actively listening in horror while dodging the flying pieces of fruitcake coming off her plate. Hagrid sat on his bench-sized chair, aghast, and Harry and Ron's eyes were as large as saucepans, teeth foolishly glued together by their host's homemade treacle toffee.
"...Then she warned us to behave! BEHAVE! As if I could possibly be held responsible for that miserable ferret and his bullying ways. AND, that brings up the main point! How could he have been chosen? Draco bloody Malfoy - head boy?!" And with that, Hermione reached the end of her tirade and slumped into the giant chair with a questionable exclamation of frustration. Catching her friends' grins and immediately realizing, Hermione blushed, turning rigid - "Sorry, Hagrid!"
"It's alrigh' 'Mione. Yeh got a lot on your min'. Yer right - I dunno wha' Dumbledore thinks he's doin', but yeh gotta trust him o' course". Rolling her eyes, Hermione placed the fruitcake (which weighed down on her lap like a rock) on the table with a heavy thud and crossed her arms. "Working with Draco Malfoy…" she thought to herself "...living next to him. Having to hear each and every slag who throws herself at him." The lioness Head Girl visibly flushed, growled, and prayed to the founders that at least one of them had the brains to put some kind of permanent silencing spell on the walls.
Ever the savant of diffusing tension, Harry awkwardly patted her shoulder and changed the subject, turning towards Hagrid with hopeful eyes - "Hagrid, are you teaching Care of Magical Creatures again this term?" "Ah 'Arry..." the giant's cheeks blushing with pride "...like I told yeh, I'm jus' a Keeper o' Keys at Hogwarts. Decided ter help Dumbledore in keepin' the grounds lookin' good this year especially". Eyes naughtily twinkling with the bit of information he had let slip, the bearded man's heart lept in laughter as he saw three heads whip his way, six pairs of eyes (or eight, depending on how much childish malice you have in you) scrutinizing him. "What do you mean, this year especially?" Ron exclaimed worriedly. Laughing heartily, Hagrid clapped Harry and Ron on their backs sending Harry's glasses flying across the room and began to take their mugs from off the table. "Yer better get goin' before curfew, especially yeh 'Mione - wouldn' want ter be out late on yer first nigh' as Head Girl". Shaking his head in knowing amusement, Hagrid watched as Hermione leapt to her feet in shock and immediately started herding her friends out of the hut, summoning Harry's glasses as an afterthought. Three sets of distant "Thank you, Hagrid!" could be heard as the trio ran to catch up to her brisk pace back up the winding hill to the castle.
Stumbling back into her room, she glanced at the grandfather clock - one hour left until her first patrol with Malfoy. Frustratedly mumbling to herself, she thought of his trademark smirk, arrogantly perfect robes, and outrageous calm. Realizing she wouldn't stand giving him any other reason to think her beneath him, she decided to take a hot shower, relax, and be just as clean, poised, and put together. Sniffing her sweater, she smiled at the quite obvious scent of fire from Hagrid's hut, nestled between the curly strands of Fang's fur and thick (yet loving) trails of slobber. A shower was a brilliant idea, for sure.
Shedding her clothes, she stepped into her bathroom, naked feet sofly padding along the stone floor. Turning the knobs of her shower to set a perfect mildly scalding temperature, Hermione stepped in, and felt, as you do, with the river of heat pouring down her, her shoulders relax, head drop, and brows unfurrow - a momentary, perfect, peace. She felt her breathing slow, and deepen, and began to lather her hair with her favorite shampoo. The room began to fill with steam and a faint scent of roses, she delightfully noted. No less than three-oceans-and-a couple-of-small-ponds worth later, Hermione shut the water off, wrapped a thick towel around her, and twisted her hair into another small, and very visibly worn, linen cloth. She gently applied cream to her face, mindfully rubbed oils into her arms and legs, and then shrewdly peered into the foggy mirror to asses. Unfurling her hair from its flimsy confinement, she took time to carefully brush out her hair, running leave-in hair treatments through it. Finishing it off with another simple plait, she decided it was time to move beyond the warmth of her washroom.
Eternally grateful for the merry fire that always crackled warmly in her chambers, she reached for her warmest pyjamas, thick, woolen socks, and shrugged on her school robes over it all, finally slipping her feet into a soft pair of shoes she knew would do the job. Grabbing her wand, she checked the clock once more. "Perfect. 20 minutes left." Summoning the rejuvenating calm, she made her way down to the kitchens for a last minute necessity. The elves greeted her warily, but were happy to send her on her way with a tumbler of green tea and a teaspoon of honey. With no other excuses left to entertain, Hermione made her way to the front of the Great Hall, where they'd previously discussed to meet.
Chapter Three - Draco:
Head thudding ridiculously, Draco headed straight for the courtyard, feeling as if he were taking his first real breaths after being stifled in a room too small, too hot, and too vanilla. Angrily kicking aside his things, he slumped gracelessly onto a bench, and dropped his head into his hands. The entire meeting had been awful. Professor McGonagall had spent the hour discussing duties, administering warnings, offering suggestions, and expressing expectations. Other than her voice, the room was deathly silent. Hermione sat rigidly the entire time, cheeks flushed, flustered eyes obviously continuing to question if his presence in the room was really some kind of joke. As if that helped. This had been a truly horrendous day - and it was barely ten in the morning. Frustratedly pulling out his schedule from his bag, his grey eyes sharply covered the page. Potions with Ravenclaws as his first class of the day. Now that he could handle.
And so the day trudged along, and Draco silently phased from one class to another, moving as if in a dream from the dungeons of the castle to the towers. He briefly met with Crabbe and Goyle but after precisely six minutes of listening to Goyle's attempts of impressing him with his father's dark accomplishments over the summer, Draco realized that if he didn't leave, he would implode. Curtly explaining he needed to get dinner before starting his duties, he left them, but he would bet anyone fifty galleons it would be at least a minute before they noticed he had gone.
You see, it wasn't that his lack of interest in the two, blustering buffoons had lessened at all over the years. It wasn't even that Goyle had clearly slept through potions leaving Malfoy to do the work alone. In fact, it was the breaching of conversation that had anything to do with wealthy Slytherin fathers who dabbled in the dark arts which turned Draco's stomach inside out.
The past few months had been a genuine summer of solitude. Draco stayed mostly in his room, reading, or sometimes joining his mother for walks around their garden. Blaise had left to Italy to see family and ruin the lives of plenty young women, Astoria had started courting Theo (as The Daily Prophet printed all over the front cover, with a continuing story on page six), and his father had left on countless private trips to meet with other well known prior Death Eaters, conducting business that never seemed to reveal itself no matter how hard Draco dug. But as he spent his days amidst the towering stacks of literature within the Manor's private library, Draco's mind began to creep into unfamiliar territories. While a decidedly biased curated collection, the Malfoy library was nothing if not complete. Some books just had to be summoned off the highest shelves, dusted off, and magically spell unbound. And as any learned person begins to do, with every turn of page, Draco was forced to question his ingrained beliefs, search for proof in blood differences between purebloods and muggleborns, and come up frustratedly empty handed. He delved into magical history, into wizarding law, into ancient books on magic. And the more he read, the more quiet he became.
Draco ended the summer quite a bit more lonely than he began it, as now he was alone in his thoughts too. He'd never dream to discuss these questions with his mother, but instead could be found absentmindedly muttering to himself amidst the stacks, or sometimes interrogating poor Tilly, his favorite childhood elf. Tilly, on account of wanting to serve Mr. Malfoy to the utmost degree, answered all of his thousands of questions on history, on magic, and on law. She told his stories from his ancestors, and information on wizardry and magic that one wouldn't typically learn at Hogwarts. And when he finally let her escape back to the kitchens, he was left more confused and anxious than ever before. Is a man with no solid beliefs, with no set convictions, really a man?
Well that half-man found himself walking towards the Great Hall for dinner, and sliding into a bench across from his mate. Fortunately for him, Blaise had become irrationally infatuated with some muggle-born girl he met in Italy. According to the tall Italian, this girl was brilliant, beautiful, and an absolute firecracker in bed. Apparently she gave him a run for his money, and he'd been dedicatedly "working out" his entire time abroad. So he was a bit more favorable to muggles than his ancestry mislead him to be. The two friends recounted their summers, Draco doing most of the listening during this part, and then Blaise was filled in on the morning's events. To be fair, neither of the Slytherin's "most wanted" boys could ever be mistaken for unintelligent, so they had both seen this coming. Zabini reached over to pat his mate on the back in sympathy, and wished him the best of luck to not drown in a shared common space of what promised to be filled with curly hair and an annoyingly observant, particularly orange half-kneazle.
Sighing defeatedly, Draco stood to drop his books off in his new room before coming back down for rounds. Once he reached his room, in a particularly uncharacteristic manner did the Malfoy heir fall face first onto his bed, wishing it to swallow him whole. He heard the lulling sounds of rushing water somewhere in the distance and - was that bloody roses that he could smell?
Right. Enough of that. He stood, gave himself one last look in the mirror, straightened his hair, and turned to the door. Slipping his wand in his robes, Draco headed back down to the Great Hall, and stood rigidly by its entrance.
10 minutes to go until she arrived...
