Chapter two
Home sweet home
It was a rectangular room with a huge window in one side; the castle sloped so that even though they were below the Great Hall, Hermione could still see the grounds as though she was on the ground floor. The stone walls were draped in hangings, green-and-silver and red-and-gold, with snakes and lions engraved in the gigantic lit fireplace and in the wood on the overstuffed squashy couch and armchairs. There were three staircases, two of them side by side, one led up to Hermione's room, one led up to Draco's, and the other that led back up to the room behind the Great Hall was next to the chute that she had just came out of.
Hermione was about to go up one of the staircases to see which one was hers, when a whooshing noise behind her made her stop and turn around in time to see Malfoy come out of the chute and land on one of the many thick rugs that covered the stone floor. They glared at each other for a few minutes, and then Malfoy snorted and went up the other staircase. A few seconds later they came down again, Hermione muttered, "Not mine", they passed each other and went up the opposite staircase. When she came to the top she approached the gold door with her name on a little red strip of wood, (Malfoy's door was silver with 'Draco' on a little strip of green wood, that's how she knew that it wasn't hers) and went inside. A familiar canopy bed with thick red hangings greeted her, as did a vanity table with a large mirror, a dresser, another door that led to her bathroom, and her golden cat with a bottle-brush tail and a squashed face named Crookshanks. After picking up the fluffy cat and squeezing it so that it meowed piteously, she went to the bathroom door and opened it.
It was just like the prefects bathroom, but with only one sink and one toilet. Fluffy red towels were on a towel rack, and gold hand towels were in a stack by the sink. The pool-like bathtub was sunk into the marble floor, which was gold with red veins. Hermione sighed happily, and turned on a lavender tap, a white tap, an indigo tap, and a deep, deep pink tap. Over the sounds of splashing water and pink bubbles popping out of the pink tap, she heard a knock on her bedroom door. Hoping really, really hard that it wasn't Malfoy, she opened it.
It was four house elves, each carrying a corner of her big Hogwarts trunk like a coffin. They squeaked that they had been sent to deliver the trunk, and as the one on the back left was almost collapsing with the weight of it, (Books were the main thing in there,) she didn't object to them coming and serving her ( S.P.E.W. was still heavy in her mind,) but hastened to show them in. After they had set it down, she offered them some water, but they refused, ("We have to start cooking for breakfast, milady! The most important meal of the day, you know!") and filed out quickly, shutting the door behind them. She opened her trunk, put her clothes and school supplies away, then gathered up all the books that she could and brought them down to the Head Boy and Girl common room. To her dismay, the bookshelves were full, but then another squeezed itself into existence. Happily she started putting them away, and then made another trip, and another, up until her trunk was empty and two more bookcases had been filled. Picking out Magic Brains for the Smart, she settled down on the couch in front of the fire, opened up a dog-eared page, and began to read, happy that she had not had to really talk to Malfoy, and happy to finally have a good place to stash her books. (For all of the other four years she had been keeping them in tottering stacks underneath and beside her bed.) She was feeling almost childishly happy, but then Draco Malfoy made himself present.