Charming

Chapter Five – Mismatched?

Disclaimer: Only the plot belongs to me, but to be quite honest I wouldn't really know what to do with ownership of the Potterverse, anyway... ;P

~oOo~

The next day in Potions Professor Slughorn made himself unpopular.

"This week," he announced grandly to the class, "I have set you an assignment on the use of magical creatures and their products in Potionmaking. I want at least six feet of parchment on your chosen topic on my desk by Friday."

There were groans at this.

"Now, now," said Professor Slughorn. "No need to get excited. You'll be completing the assignment in pairs—" The chattering of the class rose in pitch again. "—pairs that I have allocated you, so there is no need for all that noise! I thought it would be nice to mix things up a little, so you will be working with a partner who was not in your house while you were still a part of it. I shall read out the pairs now, and no complaining! Variety is the spice of life, after all."

There were a few more murmurs and looks passed between friends. They'd heard about teachers doing this before, and it wasn't a terribly popular idea.

"Let's get started then! Ernie Macmillan will be working with Harry Potter; Ron Weasley will be working with Hannah Abbot; Neville Longbottom with Cho Chang; Hermione Granger with Draco Malfoy..."

The list went on, but Hermione didn't pay much attention to the rest. She glanced over her shoulder to see how Malfoy was taking it, but his head was bowed over his books, his fringe hanging down and concealing his expression from her.

Hermione wasn't at all sure how to feel about the new development. She probably should have felt annoyed, angry or unlucky that she'd be working with Malfoy for the rest of the week, but she couldn't really get herself to feel any of those things. After seeing him so clearly unhappy on the train, at the lake, and then falling into the Pensieve and seeing him weak, vulnerable, and every bit as sad as he appeared to be today, well... She could only feel surprise, and perhaps apprehension at having to work with him, but not dislike.

Professor Slughorn was talking again. "Now I want you to move into your pairs, and I expect you to spend the rest of the lesson deciding a specific topic to work on and so forth. No questions? Off to work, then, everyone!"

There was the scraping of chairs over the floor as people got up to move across the room. When the hubbub had died down somewhat and Malfoy still had not moved so much as a centimetre, Hermione gathered her things and her courage, then got up to sit at the empty desk next to him. Their classmates were already filling the room with the buzz of muted conversation, but between one mismatched pair there was only silence.

After an uncomfortable minute of waiting for her companion to say something – anything – Hermione cleared her throat and spoke.

"So, um... have you got any ideas? For the – for our essay?"

A few more strained seconds passed before he replied coldly, "You know you'll just end up writing the whole thing by yourself anyway."

"I will not," said Hermione snappily. "It's going to be just as much your work as mine – I'll make sure of that." Another pause. "How about 'Magical Reptiles and Their Eggs' Use in Potions'? We could research Ashwinders and Runespoor to start with."

Malfoy only made a non-committal noise and looked deliberately away from her.

~oOo~

Three days later, he found himself wishing he'd taken more control in their project – maybe then he wouldn't have been sitting in the Library with Granger at lunchtime, researching some obscure lizard he didn't even want to know about.

"We've got enough information already to write at least three of these stupid essays," he whined. "Are you sure we really need to do more of this?"

She leaned around the side of a bookshelf to fix him with those deep brown eyes. Then she simply said, "Yes."

"It wouldn't kill you not to get an 'Outstanding' for once," he grumbled, loud enough for her to hear.

"Probably not," replied Hermione from behind her shelf, her voice muffled by the rows of books between them. "But on the other hand, it wouldn't kill you to actually get one, for once."

He rolled his eyes and resumed his leafing through A Historian's Glimpse into the Black Market Trading of Runespoor and Their Eggs, a tedious read to say the least. The past few days had all been like this – ever since that mouldy old armadillo Slughorn had set the assignment, it had been off to the Library in breaks and after class, every spare moment devoted to copious amounts of research and arguing about everything.

That seemed to be the only effective way for them to communicate – through near-constant verbal dodge-and-parry. This surprised Draco for a few different reasons – the first being that he and Granger could even communicate without wands drawn, the second being that he didn't actually hate talking to her.

No, worse than that. He'd actually come to enjoy their verbal swordplay... probably because it lifted him out of his usual gloom a bit, he supposed. Maybe it was just the fact that someone was talking to him; he'd come to expect silence from everyone all the time, just as he'd become well acquainted with loneliness. No-one wanted to talk to a former Death Eater, much less spend time in his company.

But the word-jousting aside, if he was being entirely honest with himself, he'd be forced to admit that it went beyond simply not hating talking to Granger.

Yes, Draco Malfoy actually enjoyed the company of one Hermione Granger.

Here was someone who didn't appear to hate him, or at least didn't seem to mind associating with him... and that was just plain odd. He had tortured her the previous year at Malfoy Manor; that was the long and short of it. Unwillingly, under threat of a horrible and painful death, yes, but the fact of the matter was that he'd done it, and he wasn't proud of it. He wasn't proud of most of what he'd done, when it came down to it...

The point was, Hermione was the last person – well, short of Potter or Weasel – who he would have expected to act civil towards him. And yet, here they were in the library – co-existing in relative peace. It was beyond strange and extremely confusing, it made him feel this great tangled mess of emotions he had no idea how to deal with, and yet... Despite all of that, this stupid Potions assignment was the best thing that'd happened to him in years, if he was being entirely honest with himself. After all, wasn't anything that made him feel happy again a good thing?

He started somewhat at thinking that. So, Granger made him happy, did she? He couldn't deny it beat the hell out of being lonely, and it was interesting, too, seeing who got the last word in their little arguments... But was he really supposed to just take this as it came, regardless of the illogicality of it?

Well, it reminded him of last year – a place in his memory definitely better off repressed forevermore – which meant that it stirred up more bad and painful memories than anything else in his life at the moment. And there was quite enough misery in his life as it was. But yet, but yet...

He looked up as Granger marched up to his table, dumped a few more books on it and sat down to leaf through them.

"By Merlin, Granger – got enough to read, there?"

She looked up at him and shot back, "By Merlin, Malfoy – have you even read anything in the last half an hour?"

"I suppose not, since those two feet of notes over there aren't in my handwriting, or anything." Heavy sarcasm. The piece of parchment lying on the table beside him was scribbled over with notes that he'd written.

Seeing the parchment, she picked it up and looked it over, seeming surprised. After a while she muttered quietly, "It is not two feet. It's more like a foot and a half."

Malfoy looked back down at his book, thinking, I won that one. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards and he realised that was about as close as he'd got to smiling in years. Again, he started. This was not like him at all, these days. And then he thought, Do the negatives really matter, when something as small as this is enough to make me happy enough to smile again?

~oOo~

The next day was Friday and the class's assignments (or what some people evidently seemed to think would pass for them) were produced, and subsequently collected by Professor Slughorn.

Summoning a small forest's worth of parchment to his desk, he remarked chirpily to the class, "Well done, everyone – I see most of you have worked well together. I hope you've learned something and formed some new friends in the process."

Hermione almost laughed. I'm sure I'd have learned something about Malfoy, if only I could figure him out. He's so hard to decipher! And as for making friends, well... I don't think he hates me, at least.

~oOo~

Author's Note: I realise the outcome of that chapter may have been more than a little bit predictable... heh. Oh well. Anyway apologies for the late update, but things are getting steadily busier for me so I can safely say that's not likely to get any better. I'm still going to try to post chapters regularly, though! :)

If you've trawled through all of the above (or even if you haven't; I'm not too fussy) show me how awesome you are by reviewing! :D Thanks!

Also, thanks to a specific one of my reviewers, you know who you are, who pointed out a very silly error that I have since fixed. Keep those reviews rolling in, guys! :)