Draco Malfoy was stunned. And not just in the sense that he could barely walk from what he imagined were sprained balls. God, Granger was-
Nice. What was that about? And funny. "I'm a Mudblood." The girl had spunk, moxie, cajones, whatever you wanted to call it. She certainly wasn't afraid of him. It was almost refreshing. And the way she had bit her lip as she tried not to laugh at his present condition-
Dammit. What was he thinking? He'd been on his way to the lake to sulk, maybe torment some first years, but bloody Granger and her bleeding hidden charms. She's a mudblood, Draco reminded himself as he limped into the Slytherin common room.
"Bloody hell, Malfoy, did you wrestle the mermen or something?" Blaise asked from a chair by the fire. Pansy, seated on his lap, giggled.
"Fuck off," Draco said. He somehow managed to get into the dormitory, where he conjured a bag of ice and collapsed onto his four-poster.
"Rough day?" Came Crabbe's voice from the next bed.
"Had better, yeah." Draco tried to sound nonchalant. He knew Vincent was actually quite observant, and would read fairly accurately into the situation given half the chance.
"'S not Pansy, is it?" Damn him.
"No. She and Blaise are happy." He put on a deep gruff voice. "It never would have worked out between us. It wasn't her, it was me. Something like that."
Crabbe laughed, the darling. "Another girl, then?"
"Do you often know everything? Yeah. But d'you mind if I don't want to talk about it right now?"
"Nah. Course not. I'll just remind you that you're Draco Malfoy. She'll come around."
"Thanks, Vince," Draco said. He groaned and clutched the problem area, rolling away from Crabbe to signify the end of the conversation.
"No problem. I think I'll go, erm, take a walk."
Draco chuckled. "See you later."
Somehow, he didn't think that being Draco Malfoy would make this particular girl "come around" too quickly.
"I'm impressed, Ron," Harry said as Hermione walked into the common room. "You haven't said anything about the match in, oh, three minutes."
"Well, you would keep talking about it too if you'd had stops like mine," Ron said, highly affronted. "Could you have blocked that one from Jones? It was all spinning and-"
"Blast," Harry said, looking over Ron's shoulder and grinning at Hermione. "Now he'll never shut up."
Ron turned to look at her. "Oh, hey, Hermione. How was your walk?"
"Alright," she said. A swift debate went on in her head, but the desire to keep her friends won over honesty and Hermione decided not to tell Ron and Harry (but especially Ron) about her run-in with Malfoy.
"Yeah? That's good," he said, distractedly. After a moment's pause he continued, "Listen, erm, about before. The gameā¦"
Damn, she thought. Following the excitement she'd nearly forgotten about the excitement that had caused her to leave in such a hurry. She'd been hoping Ron had forgotten too, but no such luck.
"I'm sorry," he finished, looking at his feet.
"You're what?" Hermione gasped. She honestly couldn't have been more surprised if he'd said 'I'm pregnant.'
Ron gazed stupidly at her. Harry shifted a little to his right and Ron twitched. "OW! I mean, it was a bit- Stop it! I know!- a lot insensitive, and I'm really sorry for putting you on the spot like that."
"No problem." Hermione smiled easily, and her inexplicable but infectious good mood spread to the other two as the topic of conversation returned to the Quidditch match.
