Disclaimer: I do not own nor claim the Harry Potter series, which belongs to J. K. Rowling.
AN: A big thank you goes to Enilas, A-Lady, DayDreamerGirl4life, and Emery Wright for their lovely reviews.
Oh, and after seeing 50% of the reviewers asking me not to kill Ron, I feel the need to announce that Ron will, in fact, live happily ever after with someone he loves (not Hermione, of course).
Partners – Chapter 8 – S.P.E.W and V.O.M.I.T
by Leopion
Nearly four hundred miles away, Draco Malfoy was just starting his breakfast. Quite undesirably, he had adopted a new routine for the past week. Every night he lay awake for hours and fell asleep only to be drowned in terrible dreams. He woke up with his Dark Mark burning before finally drifting off again. He was unable to get up until ten the next morning. Why did his Mark seem to gain but not lose power over time? He wasn't sure. Even when Voldemort was not completely gone, his father's Mark, as he said, remained dormant for years after the end of the First War. This had led him to speculate that there was more to the Mark he bore than that of other Death Eaters. Was it some kind of wicked punishment that Voldemort had put on him? His search through Dark Arts books over the past few days proved fruitless. He had read about nasty curses and magic which disgusted him just to think of them, yet there was no such spell that could last long after the caster's death. That was... unless they'd transferred part of their power into the object. But why would the Dark Lord want to do that to him? And how far would it go beyond the pain that he currently experienced?
That particular Saturday, however, Draco set aside those worries to enjoy the fact that Granger was out. The only disadvantage of her not being present in the Manor was that he couldn't keep his wand. He didn't need to whine over the fact, though. He knew for sure she would be back soon enough. He simply wondered how long she could stand his curse. It wasn't something drastic, but still enough to frustrate people. He developed it from the old Tongue-Tying Curse to use on Crabbe and Goyle in Sixth Year so that they couldn't let slip what he was forcing them to do. Come to think of it, he didn't have to put that much thought into shutting them up. Just a Tongue-Tying Curse would do. Who would get suspicious if idiots like Crabbe or Goyle suddenly went wordless anyway? But with Granger, it was a completely different matter. He marvelled what would ever make her silence plausible.
He didn't have to wait for long. Only a few minutes later, Granger stomped through the door of the dining room and glared at him with her most menacing glare, her lips set in a thin line, her face pink with anger (or the effect of his curse). At that instant, Draco allowed himself a victorious smirk and enjoyed keeping her standing there speechless for a while. However, he didn't want to get carried away lest it resulted in bodily harm.
Upon arriving at Malfoy Manor, Hermione headed for the dining room with the reasoning that sooner or later, Malfoy would have to go there to have meals. Then again, he could command the elves to bring food to his room (yet another way of exploiting and mistreating house-elves). But there was no other way she could find him in this extensive place. Counting on seeing him in the library was even more hopeless because as far as she knew, no Hogwarts student (except her) ever took interest in the library on Saturdays.
She walked into the dining room and—for the very first and possibly last time in her life—was glad to see Malfoy. It was then that it struck her that she couldn't exactly say anything to Malfoy without referring to him. All she could do was glaring daggers at him while he repeated that despicable smirk.
'It was you who dared me to stop you from reporting,' he said as if answering to her silent question. 'Give me my wand and I'll undo it.'
Hermione hesitated, but obeyed nonetheless. She had no other choice.
'You've broken our deal,' she said as soon as he'd lifted the curse, trying to convey calmness in her words. She didn't want to get all ballistic in front of Malfoy again and let him derive pleasure from watching her freaking out.
'Your point?'
'I have to get your wand back since that deal's no longer valid,' declared Hermione coolly, satisfied to see that Malfoy was a little taken aback. To prove her point, she summoned her copy of the deal and read aloud a clause at the near end. 'If I fail to comply any of the terms above, this deal will immediately be invalidated and Miss Granger will have the right to take back the aforementioned wand whenever she wants. Signed, Draco Malfoy.'
'So which terms have I violated exactly?' he enquired, unwavering. It gave her the impression that a few minutes ago he was shocked by the way she stated the termination of their deal rather than the fact itself. But she did not falter. If he was going to play a game of equanimity, then she would take up the challenge.
'I will not use any form of magic in order to harm Hermione Granger,' she quoted another clause with confidence.
'You're aware that with me signing this by my wand, my own wand won't allow me to do anything against the deal, aren't you?' he asked.
'You could have done something to neutralise it,' she said matter-of-factly.
'Very well, Granger. You always have to believe the worst of me, don't you? (She simply frowned her agreement.) But it happens that I'm capable of no such thing. It's just a little wording talent that helps,' he said, once again smirking. 'Tell me Granger. Does 'stopping someone from talking about certain topics' ever mean 'harm'?
'It does when it makes someone choke on her flan cake,' replied Hermione grimly, but she regretted the moment it came out. Malfoy definitely found this amusing.
'But it's just a side-effect,' he chuckled. 'I didn't cast the curse in order to make you choke.'
This time, Hermione was literally speechless. Draco Malfoy: 1 – Hermione Granger: 0. She'd thought she had been careful when making this deal, but apparently she hadn't. As a result, she was going to have to live with everything stated in it, including loopholes. Hermione made a mental note to check for any other loopholes as soon as possible. Besides, if she'd made a mistake, so might have Malfoy. Perhaps she could even use it against him later on.
There was still an unsettled matter that bothered Hermione, though. She knew that if she showed interest, she would undoubtedly lose another point to Malfoy. However, curiosity got the better of her.
'What was that curse you used? As far as I'm concerned, it wasn't the Tongue-Tying Curse.'
'No, it wasn't,' answered Malfoy, slightly surprised by her sudden change of topic. 'It's my derivation of the Tongue-Tying Curse. As you probably have noticed, it makes your silence seem more natural.'
'You've invented a curse?' asked Hermione incredulously.
'A touch of genius, I'd say,' he responded.
Had he been someone else and had the situation been different, she would probably agree and then ask him how it was done. But all she did was walk out of the room, determined to get revenge. No, that was not entirely true. She did also wonder about Malfoy's ability to invent curses and how exactly he created that particular curse.
After studying every single word of the contract, Hermione couldn't find any loopholes that could be used to her advantage. Thankfully, there were no other loopholes that could be used to Malfoy's advantage either. Now she'd just have to be more careful of spells, curses, hexes and jinxes that couldn't be defined as 'harmful', which were quite diverse.
To make matters worse, she now had to meet Malfoy more often as they both needed to spend much of their time in the Potions chamber. On Monday morning, they received their assignment as usual. What was unusual, however, was that Slughorn seemed to suddenly consider teamwork an essential skill to master to be a true Potioneer. Therefore, they were set with a mutual project to brew Veritaserum, Felix Felicis, Polyjuice Potion, and Amortentia to hand in to Slughorn by the end of the year. Sure enough, they found a way to not brew them together. Malfoy suggested that they divide the tasks, but Hermione didn't want to entrust her grade (or part of it) to 'a bouncing ferret'. Malfoy scoffed at her comment and told her to do it all, but she didn't want to let him receive the reward of her work without doing anything himself. In the end, they came to the compromise that both would make all four potions then pick the better-made ones to submit.
Other than that, there wasn't much happening lately. While waiting for a revenge opportunity to present itself, Hermione settled on making progress in S.P.E.W. In fact, she had already been to the kitchen several times last week, getting to know the house-elves. It appeared that Knobbly was the one whose duty was to directly serve Malfoy's requests. About twenty other elves worked only in the kitchen or cleaned the house without notifying anyone of their existence. At first the elves were suspicious of her friendly demeanour, but they were finally on good terms now. The only obstacle to her plan was that all of the house-elves seemed to be extremely scared of their master. To them, the idea of a revolution for freedom was, as Fluffy said, 'the most ridiculous way to suicide'.
Hermione wouldn't give up easily. She reckoned that with an organisation to support them, the elves would have more faith in rising against their master. Therefore, she had made expanding S.P.E.W. her second priority next to persuading the house-elves. That was why Wednesday morning found Hermione Granger in the recreation room, knitting S.P.E.W. socks and making S.P.E.W. badges. She'd chosen this room as it was, in her opinion, nearly the most comfortable room in the entire mansion. For one thing, even though the room was decorated with green and silver like the rest of the house, the arrangement of furniture and the presence of a rather large fireplace still provided a relatively cosy atmosphere. For another, despite the grandiose piano and music player (which, judging from the nature of the Malfoys, were just for the sake of showing off), Hermione could actually picture this might be a place for a family to gather and entertain each other.
As if to testify to the cosiness of the room, she had dozed off and found herself nearly twenty minutes behind her own schedule. Not wanting to waste anymore time, she set off to the library without going back to her room to put away her S.P.E.W. items (she already had quills and parchments with her and books in the library to study with, so she didn't need to take anything else from her room). While rushing down a corridor leading to the library, Hermione crashed into Malfoy, who apparently had just exited the aforementioned location. Her bag slipped off her shoulder and fell to the floor; everything inside was dispersed all over the place, most of the items printed with the word 'S.P.E.W.'.
'Spew?' sniggered Malfoy. 'I never knew you had such a bizarre obsession, Granger.'
'My interests are none of your business, Malfoy,' replied Hermione as she bent down to collect her belongings. Malfoy still did not want to drop the matter.
'To tell the truth, I thought you must be interested in something more mud-related,' he sneered. 'But it seems that your taste is even fouler.'
Hermione pretended not to have heard him and continued picking up her things. She was resolved to stick to her not-making-rash-actions-and-waiting-for-revenge strategy no matter what.
'If you're so into that sort of thing,' Malfoy added while stepping over her badges to leave, 'vomit definitely sounds catchier than spew.'
Vomit? Now her Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare was compared to vomit. Acronyms... Maybe she should have chosen a word that contained some of the most important letters before making up the rest of the name. Wait a second. V.O.M.I.T. Why hadn't she thought of it earlier? Hermione glanced at the delicate M of the Malfoy crest on one of the doors in the corridor then resumed her journey to the library, a devious grin playing on her lips.
AN: Once again, sorry for the hibernation of this fic.
Hope to see you soon.
Leo