CHAPTER FIVE: The Perforated Ego of Draco Malfoy
When Draco was finally released from the Hospital Wing, he was not sorry to see the end of that place. Settling into his usual strut, he sauntered down towards the dungeons, where the Slytherin Common Room was, and almost bowled over a first year in the familiar green and silver colours of his House.
"Watch it, you stupid midget." Draco snapped, pushing past the boy.
"Yes—s—sorry." The first year stammered, and scampered off. Draco shared a small smile with himself. Ahh, how good it felt to be back.
After giving the password, he sauntered smugly into the Common Room, fully expecting a resounding cheer, or at least a victorious high-five for having conquering Granger's uncalled-for jinxes. However, looking around, he found himself to be alone. Well, almost; there were two second years poking moodily at an overly large beetle in the far corner of the room, obviously having enlarged it with magic. Draco snorted, and swept past them, to his dorm.
Entering the room, he stormed over to his bed, and, yanking open one of the drawers of his dresser, he unceremoniously dumped his armful of books and papers and notes inside. Slamming the drawer shut, he turned and tossed a large grey notebook onto the bed. Then, twisting, he flopped onto his back on the cool, straight covers. Emerald green, with silver thread running along in vague shapes. He ran his palm over it absent-mindedly, his eyes blank and far-off.
Why had Granger brought him her notes? And had one of the teachers, indeed, asked her to bring him his missed work, or had that been an excuse for her to come and check on him? Well, no, that didn't make any sense; she had been the one to put him there, in the Hospital Wing, in the first place… Letting out a frustrated sigh, Draco rolled onto his side, scowling.
"Damn Gryffindors," he muttered under his breath, his face dark and angry. Well, technically it was only one Gryffindor causing him annoyance right then, but he hated Potty and the Weasel King, so why not just leave it at the plural sense?
Groaning, he rolled over again, this time onto the grey notebook, which dug painfully into his spine. Letting out a small exclamation of pain and annoyance, he yanked the thing out from under him, and, his arms up in the air, opened it above his face. Almost immediately, several papers and an inked quill fell out and fluttered down, splattering ink on his face, neck, chest, and bed sheets. Draco closed his eyes and sighed. It looked like the bad week was continuing. Maybe it would just go on, and on, and on, and turn into a bad month… a bad year… maybe even a bad lifetime.
Sighing again, he opened his eyes, and tried to get them to focus on the writing scrawled over the paper. But, with it balanced on his nose as it was, the writing was too close and too blurry to make out. Snatching the sheet up with one hand, he held it away from his face and read, aloud;
"The properties of Monkshood and Wolfbane have long been disputed as having different effects when used in potion making. Many arguments have been recorded as supposedly basing an accurate difference between the two, when, in all actual fact, they are one and the same…" He stopped reading and his eyes flicked up to the top corner of the parchment, where two words were neatly inscribed. 'Hermione Granger'.
Still staring at the sheet of notes, Draco let his eyes un-focus and he began to think. If he was really so agitated about the whole 'Granger coming to visit him in the hospital' thing, then, maybe, he should just grow a pair and go and ask her. Like a real man. He snorted, then his face set into its usual, overly-cocky grin.
Swinging his legs off his bed, he stood. Gathering the rest of the papers off his bed and the floor, he tucked them neatly back into the grey notebook, then, with his wand, vanished the ink stains from the bedding and his clothes. Casting a critical eye over the emerald duvet, he nodded, please to see that not a single blotch of black remained in all the green. Tucking the notebook under his arm, and practically swaggering, he left the Dorm, returning to the Common Room.
"Hey—Draco," Urquhart, the Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, strolled into the room, his heavy face sat into a somewhat vague half-smile. "Heard you were in the Hospital Wing." He dropped down onto one of the green couches, and began to pick idly at his fingernails. He looked over the back of the sofa when Draco still hadn't replied. Draco shook his head, letting his face settle into a smirk.
"Oh—oh, yeah. I was." He nervously hid the notebook under his cloak, watching Urquhart carefully as he did so. The large boy was back to regarding his hands, and didn't seem to notice. Draco sighed in relief.
"Huh." The other boy grunted. "What put you in there?" Draco let out a laugh filled with scorn.
"Granger, that dumb, Gryffindor bitch—she cursed me. Twice—twice!" he repeated, prompting a disbelieving sound from the large Slytherin. Draco sneered. "Filthy Mudblood—thinks she taught me a lesson or something, I expect." He snorted, and Urquhart nodded slowly.
"Yeah." He said, and Draco couldn't keep from rolling his eyes at the other boy's obvious thickness. None of his fellow Slytherins—with maybe the exception of Zabini and Pucey—shared his intellect or wit. Once, just once, he'd like to have an intelligent conversation, one that involved actual words, and not mere grunts and other vague sounds.
But you did have that, once, didn't you, Draco? A sly little voice hummed at the back of his head. With Granger, in the Hospital Wing—and even with Potter, back on the train; maybe you should have been in Gryffindor, Draco Malfoy, because that's obviously where all the brains are… Draco's eye twitched, and he shoved the voice into silence. His face still screwed up, he noticed Urquhart, watching him. Draco blinked at him, realizing that he'd missed something.
"Huh?" he said, dumbly. And here he'd stood, blatantly wishing for some intelligent conversation, and now he sounded just as dunderheaded as the rest of them. He scowled.
"I said, you coming to the lake? Everyone's down there; we're bugging the Giant Squid and whatever."
Draco had never heard of anything so stupid. 'Bugging the Giant Squid'? Just how unintelligent could people be? But he kept that all to himself, and, instead, fixed a rueful look on his face while shaking his head.
"Damn, that sounds like fun." He said, sounding unconvincing even to himself. "But, can't—got to go to the library." He shrugged. "Behind in class, being in the hospital and all." Urquhart's face creased into a slow frown.
"Behind?" he repeated. "But—I thought Granger brought you your work or something—"
Draco rushed to cut him off.
"Yes, well, she's a stupid Mudblood, isn't she? Can't do a single thing right, can she?" all the time, he was sliding out of the door. "Yes, yeah, well, er, ok, bye!" and he jumped from the Common Room, into the cold stone hallway. Letting his breath out in a shaky sigh, he closed his eyes for a second. When he was sure that he looked as snarky and in control as usual, he set off for the main floor, his long legs taking him strutting quickly away from the dungeons.
When he reached the entry hall, he paused, wondering where he should go now. He'd vaguely been planning to give Granger back her notes, then demand what she thought she was doing, waiting beside his hospital bed for him to wake up, Mudblood that she was… but he really couldn't think where she might be. And he was not about to go barging into the Gryffindor Common Room (if he had even known where it was), or search the entire bloody school and its grounds for her.
Thinking quickly, his eyes drifted down to the grey notebook, tucked underneath his arm. Well, he was behind in his work, that much had not been a lie. He might as well head to the library and get it done, or Snape would have his head, favourite or not.
Settling into his casual saunter, he headed for the library, glancing lazily out the windows as he did so. It was sunny, and the grounds were busy with Hogwarts students. From here, he could just make out several large, blocky Slytherins, hurling rocks at a thrashing squid. He rolled his eyes, then paused. Two heads—one with black hair, one with red—bobbed out of the castle's doors, and Ron Weasley and Harry Potter strolled across the grass, towards the hut at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Draco snorted; off to visit their little half-breed friend for a cup of tea, where they? Losers. Smirking, he continued on his way.
When he finally reached the library, he peered between the bookshelves, making sure there weren't any of his fellow Slytherins around (not that they would have been caught dead inside in the library on a day like this—or, well, ever, really, if he was going to be honest with himself). Satisfied that he would not be bombarded with questions, or made to endure yet another conversation consisting of grunts and humming, he sank into a chair and sighed. Smiling slightly, for no reason that he could really discern, he dropped the heavy grey notebook onto the desk with a loud and resounding bang. He felt the glares of the librarian and at least one student, who looked like they were in Gryffindor. He smirked and glared back. With an angry look, and gathering up their things, the Gryffindor flounced out of the office without a backwards glance.
Besides himself, there were only three other people in the library; two third year Hufflepuffs giggled and gasped over a thick, blue-bound book in the middle of the room, pointing out pictures in hushed whispers to one another; sitting off to the side was a 7th year Ravenclaw who Draco thought was called Eddie Carmichael, bent over his books and looking flustered; and, off in the corner by herself, her bushy, wild hair a tangled mass as she bent over a long roll of parchment, her quill scratching away madly…
Well, now or never. He thought, and, slipping the grey notebook off the desk and under his arm again, he sauntered over to where she sat. He paused, hesitating, waiting to see if she would notice him there, but she didn't even look up—didn't give any sign that she knew he was there at all. So, shrugging, he dropped into the chair across from her, taking care to scrape the legs loudly across the ground as he did so. She just kept writing, mumbling under her breath and tugging at her hair. He stared at her, fascinated.
Then, when he had finally grown bored of his presence going unnoticed, he put his arms straight out in front of him, with the book held out over the desk. He sat like that for a moment, waiting to see if she would look up. But she didn't. And Draco Malfoy had always hated being ignored.
So he let the book go.
WHUMP! It hit the desk with a fantastically loud bang, and Hermione Granger must have jumped about a mile into the air. Her roll of parchment went flying, as did her quill, and Draco's smirk suddenly was gone; once again, he found himself with ink splattered over his face, neck, and clothes. Growling, he wiped the thick, black liquid out of his eyes.
"Nice going, Granger," he snapped. "Aim for my pants, too, next time, will you? You somehow managed to miss them." he pulled out his wand and, with an irritable wave, siphoned away the ink. He put his wand back into his robes, then sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest, a vague look of disgust on his pale face.
Hermione, meanwhile, had dodged under the table to retrieve her work. She finally reappeared with ink spotting her face, which she wiped away absentmindedly on her robes. She righted her ink cartridge, vanished the ink seeping across the table, and carefully set her quill back inside its holder. Then—and only then—did she raise her eyes to Draco, and say;
"Draco Malfoy, you are the biggest fucking jerk I have ever met." And, sweeping her work together, she turned and stormed out of the library.
Draco watched her go, then smirked and leaned his chair back on two legs. Ah, how he loved pissing people off. Then he sobered. However, that had not been his original intention. Well, yes, he had dropped the book on the table, invariably scaring the living hell out of her, but, really—how was one supposed to resist such a delicious and tempting opportunity? And, besides; it really wasn't his fault that she was such a klutz and she'd sent the inkbottle flying. Honestly, who did people think he was? God? He laughed out loud at that one. "I'm not that great," he said to himself, and, from two desks down, he heard; "You got that right, Draco—so shut up. I'm trying to study for my N.E.W.T.S."
When Draco looked up, Eddie Carmichael was still bent low over his notes, but he was sure it had been him to speak, from the angry frown creasing the older boy's features. He rolled his eyes.
"Well, Carmichael, what if I don't want to 'shut up'?" he pressed. "Hmmm? What if I just want to keep talking? You gonna go run to your mommy if I do that, Carmichael? If I just talk, and talk, and talk, and talk…" he felt ready to go all day—this was highly amusing to him—and would have, gladly, if someone had not grabbed his chair and tipped it backwards, sending him somersaulting onto the floor. Sprawled on his back, he looked up and saw Hermione.
"Granger," he began. "What the hell is your problem?" sitting up, he rubbed the back of his head, where he had smacked it rather smartly on the floor. "You PMS-ing or something? Damn, Granger—I think you may have killed me."
"No, I haven't, but I might," she muttered, and, turning away from him, sat back down in the seat she had occupied when he had entered the library. With a calm face, an expression it looked like she had to fight to keep, she looked across the table at him. "Malfoy— why do you have to come in here and start bothering everybody within a mile's radius? What do you want?" she asked, and he rolled his eyes.
"Wow, Granger—you're just a peach of a girl. Call me a fucker, or whatever, tip me out of my chair, then be a right little rude prat—it's no wonder the boys are falling all over you." His voice was heavily caustic.
"Oh, I am just sooo sorry, Malfoy." She shot back. "Allow me to apologize for my discrepancies."
"Hey, you got something on your lip there. Looks like a whole lot of sarcasm." He snorted. "I'd be more careful if I was you, Granger—you're starting to sound like me." Then he leaned his elbow on the table and cupped his chin in his hand. "Actually, never mind—keep it up. I find it rather amusing.
"Piss off." She hissed, and he wagged a finger at her.
"Tsk tsk, what a potty mouth you have there, Granger. Ought to wash it out with soap—such a rude girl." He sighed. "Alas, they do not make them like they used to."
He thought he could almost see a muscle jumping in her jaw, and he squelched his grin: God, she was so easy to provoke.
"What. Do you. Want. Malfoy." She gritted out through her clenched teeth, and he waved a hand lazily.
"Oh. Nothing much, nothing much, such a lovely, lovely day…" seeing her hand stealing towards her wand, he sat back in his chair and watched her warily. True, it was all fun and games—until Draco got hexed. Then, it was just a downright bore. Sighing, he decided to stop goading her.
"Fine, fine," he said irritably. "Ruin my fun, why don't you…" reaching into his robes, he pulled out the grey notebook and slid it across the table. She missed catching it, and the book ended up in her lap.
"Your notes." He said, by way of explanation. "You know—the ones you lent me?"
She nodded in silence, opening the book and flipping through the loose-leaf. Draco rolled his eyes.
"It's all there—I didn't steal any of it or whatever; I don't want any Mudblood souvenirs, ok, thanks." She paused, looking over the notes to regard him in silence for a moment, then looked back to her own slanted cursive, leaving him feeling confused and uneasy. There was a strange look on her face as she flipped through the sheaves of paper, and the silence stretching out between them was thick and palpable.
"Thanks." She said, finally, slipping the notes back into the book and closing it. He nodded, casting a sideways glance at the strange look she was giving him.
"Sure—whatever." He stood up. "And, uh, I guess—you know—thanks yourself." His face twisted with a mix of disgust and awkwardness. Hermione looked up at him in confused surprise.
"What?" she asked, startled.
"Thanks," he repeated. "You know—the opposite of please? Or whatever? Thanks? For the notes? God," he made a scoffing noise. "And I thought you were supposed to be oh so smart." He shrugged. "Oh well; I guess you can't believe everything you read on the walls in the loo." And, leaving her with that rather stupidly cryptic statement (he had to admit, he was really rather proud of it; he was surely the Quip Master), he strode from the library, and to the Great Hall for some lunch.
Hermione's POV;
As Draco walked away, Hermione frowned, still rather startled. Had he just said thank you, to her? She shook her head, slowly, as if trying to clear it. Glancing towards the library door, making sure that he was really gone, she opened the notebook and flipped through them again. Finding a page crammed sideways and upside-down in the middle of all the notes, she pulled it out, and smoothed it flat onto the top of the table.
It was a doodle paper; little sketches—none of them terribly well-done—crawled over every available blank space of the parchment. Most had been enchanted, so that they moved. She leaned over the paper, the tip of her nose nearly touching it.
There was a Snitch, or what she took to be one; a little circle with doodles to indicate delicate designs, and vague shapes of miniscule, outstretched wings. It was zooming around the head of a very crudely drawn dragon, which was breathing scribble-y flames, but kept missing the little gold ball. There was a little speech bubble emerging from its snout that said 'Rawr'. There was also an arrow pointing towards the dragon, from a word scrawled just under its feet. She squinted, trying to read it, and made out 'me'. She frowned slightly, and let her eyes roam over the other drawings.
There was a Dementor—or, again, she thought that was what it was, looking more like a stick-man wearing a dumpy and ragged sack—saying 'oooooohhhh booo hooo' and floating slowly after a screaming Neville—or a loose blob labeled 'Neville'. A second Dementor was floating towards Neville from the other end of the paper, saying something that looked like 'No happy for you, potato!' The blob that she assumed to be Neville was trying to jinx the 'Dementors', and missing fantastically.
And, last, there was Harry, going 'ow, ow, ow' over and over as an enormous, vaguely shaped giant stomped on his head, again and again.
Unable to resist a small smile at the silly story of doodles, she began to fold it up again. But something caught her eye. Flattening the paper out again, she squinted at something tiny in the corner. It was someone, a stick man with long, curly hair, holding a book and reading beside a window. 'Granger', it was labelled, and, as a tall, short-haired stick man appeared up some steps, the little drawing labelled after her threw its book at him. The word 'Draco' floated along at the figure's feet. The book hit him in the head, and he tumbled down the stairs and out of sight. A shaky speech bubble issued from the steps, going 'owww.'
Hermione frowned. Then, folding up the sheet of doodles, she tucked it inside her robes, and, scooping up her things, she hurried from the library.
A/N: yes, so we had a little insight into Hermione's POV. Not much given away, is there? I just couldn't resist putting that in there. : ) I hope that, like me, you quite enjoyed Draco's doodles. I thought of it when I remembered the scene in one of the movies where Draco sends Harry a note in potions class in the form of a paper crane. Harry opens it, and there is a picture of him on a broomstick, being hit by lightening during the upcoming Quidditch match between Hufflepuff. : D Just couldn't resist.
So, yes; please review/comment?