Chapter 3
Sunday morning arrived with a vengeance.
"I 'ate fwyin' in wain," Ron declared, swearing vigorously while tucking in to a plate of breakfast. Judging by the amount of food he was eating and the amount of food Harry wasn't eating, it was the day of the match.
"Watch the bacon, Ron," Hermione said, shielding herself from the spray. "You'll be fine."
"Cho just left," said Harry, eyeing the Ravenclaw table like a hawk. "Come on, Ron. We need to learn the conditions. Chambers and Bradley are at the pitch already."
Hermione saw Cho pause at the Great Hall's door to let a certain blond boy in. She hadn't seen Malfoy when she woke up this morning. Thankfully.
"Gimme sec," Ron said, grabbing a biscuit. "Haha, Malfoy must've had another run in with a Hippogriff last night."
Ron was right. Malfoy's posture was slouched. It looked like he hadn't bothered to look down while buttoning his shirt, either. His face was the icing on the cake. Dark circles under his eyes, a pained expression, mussed hair… this was the reason firewhiskey was banned in Hogwarts.
He dropped gracelessly into a seat in between Zabini and Wilkes, both of whom were looking equally miserable.
"Where are you going?" Harry asked.
Hermione picked up her bag, still smiling. "To talk to Malfoy. Heads stuff."
"Give him hell, Hermione," Ron said between bites. She grinned hugely.
"Will do."
She walked over to Draco's seat. He had his face on the table, a position mirrored by Zabini on his right. Wilkes had long since fallen off the table and was currently lying across three chairs, passed out.
"Morning sunshine," she said, fully aware of the effect of high pitched sounds on hungover ears.
Malfoy didn't bother to lift his head. He simply pointed his wand at her with the arm that wasn't serving as a makeshift pillow. Hermione brushed the threat off and adopted a back to business tone.
"Just wanted to let you know that our meeting's been moved to tomorrow at nine. Actually, we're going to be doing a Sunday report every week from now on. Professor-"
"Shut up."
"-McGonagall wants round schedules and Hogsmeade visit plans on her desk by next Monday. We really need to-"
"Shut up."
She scoffed. He hate headaches? Don't drink. Or at least learn a relief charm.
"This is important," she told him.
"Everything's important," he groaned. "Fuck, I think my head's going to split…" This was a look she rarely saw on him. He usually looked so put together, so made. Today with his messy blond hair and rumpled clothes… it was funny.
"Promise not to drink again?" she asked.
"No- I mean, yes," he said, after the look she shot him.
Hermione raised her wand. "Soberus."
Malfoy relaxed visibly with a groan of relief, then leaned back to stretch. When he noticed the large smile creeping over her face, he scowled.
"Bit of a sadist, aren't we?"
"But of course." Suddenly, she felt a hand grip her wrist.
"Granger." Zabini was squinting up at her through his fringe, still dwelling in the recesses of a miserable hangover. "Please."
She'd already helped one ungrateful Slytherin. One more couldn't hurt.
As with Malfoy, the magic visibly straightened the dark-haired boy out. He sat up and looked at her.
"Thanks," he said. Her eyebrows shot up. Alert the media! A Slytherin thanking a Muggleborn Gryffindor!
"No problem," she told him, picking up her bag again. Malfoy, who had been staring at Zabini with a disturbed look had recovered and was piling his plate with food. Not a word of thanks from him.
"Don't forget about tomorrow," she told him as she left.
"He swerves! Narrowly missing that bludger there, close call with the pole! He dives! What's that- Could it be? YES IT IS. HE'S GOT IT! POTTER'S CAUGHT THE SNITCH! GRYFFINDOR WINS!"
Hermione stood in unison along with every other person sitting in the stand, cheering. Out in the field, Harry was wearing that astonished but pleased look, visible for only moments before Ginny and Ron, and the rest of the team swarmed him, high fiving and shouting.
Grabbing her bag, she rushed towards the exit and ran towards her friends on the pitch. The rain was coming down hard now and there was a stampede of people rushing towards the castle. The Quidditch game, for both the spectators and the players, was miserable to say the least, with wind, rain, and the occasional thunder. When Harry caught the snitch, it was like a breath of relief going thru the stands.
What made the game even more fun Hermione were Hannah's dirty looks periodically shot over from the Hufflepuff stands.
Hermione casted drying spells on Harry and Ron and then hugged them. "Brilliantly played," she said.
"She says that like she has any idea what went on," Ron joked, and Hermione gave him a halfhearted punch.
"I really thought Bradley was going to get there before me," Harry said sighing. "I need more practice." Hermione rolled her eyes. If he put half as much effort into studying as Quidditch, he'd be the next Dumbledore.
"Now we've just got to beat Slytherins," Ron said darkly. "This is our last year, I swear if we lose the Cup to Malfoy…"
"Did you see his new broom? Reward for making Captain," Harry added, fingering his own Firebolt.
"Malfoy's Captain?" Hermione asked, curious. She'd always pictured him as a sneaky glory-seeking type who had no sense of team. It was difficult picturing him yelling out instructions across a pitch or spending hours drawing up strategies (like Harry). In fact, wasn't he terrible at Quidditch? "Didn't his dad buy his way onto the team?"
"… You really haven't paid any attention these past five years have you?" Ron said amused.
"I was focusing on important things, like studying!"
He rolled his eyes, but held the door open for Hermione. All three went into the locker room where Harry stowed the balls and his broom.
"With an Airslicer, how can he not be amazing?" Ron muttered jealously and put his own Cleansweep 11 into his locker.
Hermione threw an arm over his shoulder. "You'll be fine. It's only Quidditch."
Both boys stopped in their tracks and looked at her as if she'd declared Snape spent hours waxing poetry about an unrequited love for Filch. "Only Quidditch?"
"You two can't be serious."
It was dinnertime, and the Great Hall was a wonderful place to be when it was so stormy and cold outside. Members of the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Quidditch teams were ravenously making up for what they hadn't manage to stomach during lunch. Ron and Harry on the other hand...
"The match against Ravenclaw was three hours ago! And you're already starting on your Slytherin match's diagrams?"
Ron shot her a dangerous look. "War plans, Hermione, war plans."
Harry cursed suddenly from where he was fumbling around his schoolbag. "I left page eight of the diagrams in the locker room." Hermione didn't know what to say to this. He never wrote more than a foot of homework each day, but Quidditch? He could churn out eight pages in three hours, easy.
"I'll go get it for you," she said. "You eat dinner. I know you haven't had anything for lunch."
Harry looked at her gratefully. "Thanks a lot, Hermione. It's really important."
She left everything but her cloak and wand at the dinner table, planning to make a quick trek to and fro the locker rooms.
The rain had stopped, but it was as stormy outside as ever. The cold October winds swept through the grass and whistled through the tall Quidditch pillars.
Pulling her cloak about her tightly, Hermione pushed open the door to the locker room for the second time that day. An unexpected sight greeted her.
Instead of the empty rows of House colored lockers and sandwiching benches, she saw boys. Half-naked boys.
For a second, everyone froze. Hermione stared them in fascinated horror and the Slytherin Quidditch team stared back, slack jawed.
Malfoy was standing closest to her, and unwittingly, Hermione's eyes locked onto his shirtless form. Broad, built shoulders, muscled pectorals, and a flat stomach tapered into a V near his navel, just barely peeking out from under his low-slung trousers. His form retained a hint of the slenderness from his youth, but otherwise, he was a Greek god. Her face began to heat up.
It wasn't until Zabini started scrambling to pull his pants up that they fell into motion. With a squeal, she turned to face the wall.
Merlin, this wasn't happening. This was beyond embarrassing. Couldn't the ground just open up and suck her in? Why why?
"Bloody hell, Granger!" she heard Malfoy shout over the commotion of the boys stuffing themselves into Quidditch apparel. Her face burned with shame. What if this got out, and everyone thought she was a pervert?
"I'm sorry! I didn't know!" The noises quieted, but Hermione was taking no chances.
"Why don't you turn around, sweetheart? You obviously came for the view," Urquhart, the tall and hugely-muscled Chaser, said. Hermione nearly died of embarrassment when she heard someone laugh.
"I swear…" she said, turning slowly and peeking out from behind her fingers. They were all fully dressed. "I didn't know anyone was in here."
Zabini snickered from where he was leaning against a locker. "She's all red. What a prude."
"Well?" Malfoy said, now fully robed in Quidditch apparel."You going to stick around to watch us change back too?"
"I need to get something for Harry." Best not tell him it was an important strategy sheet on how to beat his team.
"Potty's little gofer," a sixth year sneered, and several other boys straightened, their features twisting to reflect their mutual disgust for the Boy-Who-Lived. A chill ran down Hermione's back. Fear. There were ten boys in the room, all of whom were taller and stronger than her. If they decided to gang up and act on their discontent... it wouldn't matter how accomplished a witch she was.
But as quickly as the feeling came, it passed. Surprisingly, it was Malfoy's voice that dispelled the tension.
"Alright, everyone out. Partner up and do drills. Sixth years, get on the equipment- yes, that means you Warrington." The boys groaned and filled out slowly, lugging their brooms and robes.
A low voice said into her ear, "Knock next time, love," and she jumped like a cat. Blaise Zabini stood alarmingly close, backing her into the wall, with one hand holding his broom and the other slinging his cloak over his shoulder. He grinned at her reaction and from such a close vantage point, the effect was lethal. Hermione was never the type to stay up all night with Lavender and Parvati fantasizing about boys, but even she felt a little warm under the full scrutiny of his infamous knicker-burning smile.
Before she could reply, Malfoy interrupted.
"Move your lazy arse, Zabini," he said impatiently, jabbing the tall boy away from Hermione with the blunt end of a broomstick. There was a certain hostility in his actions that weren't there before.
"Sod off, Malfoy," Zabini said jumping a safe distance away.
Malfoy glared. "What was that?"
"... Nothing," the Chaser said after a moment of contemplation. He made a slow and unwilling retreat out the room. Hermione couldn't help but notice that both Captains, Harry and Malfoy, acquired similar ruthlessness during pre-match practices.
When it was just him and her left, Malfoy eyed her red face and smirked. "Couldn't handle the pureness, huh?"
"Of all the things you could say, you're going to go with slurs?" She sounded blasé, but secretly she was humiliated and grateful he wasn't teasing her.
"I don't know, Granger. Ever since you casted that spell on me this morning, my wit hasn't been the same. Some of the Gryffindor must've rubbed off on me. I'm turning nice." He shuddered in mock disgust. "What did Potter leave?"
"… Nothing important," she said, as she walked toward the Gryffindor lockers. Malfoy followed.
"Is that to him or to me?" he asked, deliberately provoking her. When they reached the red lockers, he leaned back on a bench, obviously intent on discovering what it was Hermione was after.
She had to find the paper and stow it without him realizing what it was. Searching intently through Harry's locker, she racked her brains for ideas. She'd better keep him distracted.
"Why don't you use the changing stalls?" she asked.
"What's the point? We're all blokes." That was true.
"How come no girls?" she asked.
"I know you're dying to get all feminist on me," he said,"but none tried out."
She pulled aside Harry's robes, the last place she'd yet to search but there was nothing there. Giving a growl of anger, she decided to heck with it.
"Accio match strategy!" she said, and the paper came soaring out of a crevice between Ginny's and Angelica's lockers. It flew in a straight trajectory towards her hand… and Malfoy snatched it out of the air. Why couldn't he have been a Beater instead?
"I knew it," he crowed gleefully. "Potter's been drawing up plans already, huh?" He made to open the crumpled paper, and Hermione dived. Even if she didn't care much, it was important to Harry.
Malfoy dodged her with effortless dexterity.
"Give it, Malfoy," she said angrily, cursing her rotten luck today. If only he left with the rest of his team. The blond boy opened the paper and started to read, stretching it above his head so she couldn't reach.
She jumped for the paper, careful not to rip it, but it was no use. He was too tall, and jumping like an idiot waving her hand in the air wasn't going to help the situation. Spying the bench, she jumped on, and reached for the note, but he moved out of range.
Her center of gravity jerked out from under her suddenly. The bench was sliding, apparently not nailed to the floor as she'd expected.
She managed to fall on her feet, but stumbled a few steps until her chest hit something solid. Malfoy looked down, surprised, and then he smirked.
"Well, Granger. I don't know what to say. I had no idea you felt this way about me," he grinned. Against her will, she turned red. They were plastered together from chest to thigh and her two hands were braced against the lockers around his ribs. His even breathing flustered her hair and he was surprisingly warm. And built. Merlin, puberty had been kind to Draco Malfoy. She quickly snatched the parchment out of his hands while he wasn't paying attention.
"Hope I'm not interrupting." They both turned to look at where Zabini was standing at the door, holding his broom. Hermione detached herself the Head Boy. Hoping to make a painless escape, she headed for the door.
As she passed Zabini, he said, "Against the lockers, huh? Kinky, Granger. Didn't know you had it in you."
She scowled, vowing never to dispel a hangover for either of them again.
When the door shut, Draco turned to Blaise. "Why aren't you doing drills?"
"Had to come back for my armor."
"You're a Chaser, Zabini," he said, unimpressed.
"Right." Blaise didn't look sorry at all. "What did she want?"
Draco pulled out Potter's diagram that he'd duplicated while Granger was being short and useless. "Plans for our demise," he said. "I told you we needed to get on the field as soon as possible."
"Sweet," Blaise said. "We should figure out a counter strategy."
"Nice try. Go do the fucking drills."
Draco threw his dirty Quidditch robes into one corner of his room where the Elves would notice. He'd worked his team to the bone, forcing them to Quaffle drills for an hour. They were all flipping him off by the end of practice, but whatever. It was going to be a sweet victory for the Slytherin team this year. Potter's strategy was only the icing on the cake.
Draco wanted to rub it in the Head Girl's face and gloat, but that would defeat the purpose. She felt bad enough. He held back snickers.
When Granger walked in all bundled up in her cloak, they pretty much all froze up. But the look on her face was priceless. Draco was considering flashing her again just to see that expression.
Then she blushed so hard he thought she was going to asphyxiate. Sitting on his bed, he wondered. He'd never really considered Potter's bookworm as anything more than a walking encyclopedia with an obnoxious sense of justice. But today in the locker room when she was all pressed up against him… it was pretty obvious she was a girl. He could feel every part of her against him, her soft breasts against his chest, her breath fanning his throat... Her small figure fit perfectly against him, and it stirred a hunger in him that he spent the rest of practice trying to suppress. Images of her, moaning and writhing against the cold blue steel of their lockers ran amok through his mind. What would it be like to get between those pretty thighs?
If only Zabini had to go and open his stupid mouth. Draco scowled at the memory of the dark-haired boy sneaking up on Granger and making her blush. Draco knew the pureblood Italian had every bit the reputation he had, and Zabini didn't give up on a conquest until he was bored. Suddenly, the common room portrait swung opened, interrupting his thoughts.
"So…" Draco recognized the voice of the Weasel's sister. What was her name? Vinny? Minny? "I heard you were peeking at the Slytherin team changing." Word had already spread. Draco knew he could put his faith in the Hogwarts Rumor Mill. Perfect.
He heard an embarrassed moan.
"Good for you!" Minny laughed obnoxiously. Draco recoiled. Pansy laughed like that. "So, spill!"
"Spill what?" came Hermione' meek response.
"Slimy gits they may be but you can't deny those bodies! Tell me all." Draco changed his mind. Minny was his favorite Gryffindor ever.
"Gin, I really didn't see anything."
"You're lying. You had to have seen something." Draco pressed his ear against the door, listening hard.
"Uh…" Granger was probably racking her oversized brain right now for something that would satisfy the Weasel. "Vaisey wears blue boxers."
Draco sputtered in disbelief. Of all the things to notice! …Why the hell was she looking at Vaisey's underwear anyway?
"What?" Granger asked, defensively.
"... You had Zabini in there! Malfoy! Uruquhart! For Merlin's sake, even Vaisey himself! But the only thing you bother to notice is the COLOR OF HIS BOXERS? Do you realize what a disservice you are doing to the rest of your gender Granger?" Yes, listen to Weaselette. She knew what she was talking about.
"Wait, Hermione, where are you going?"
"I have to give something to Harry, you know, your boyfriend?"
The Weasel said something dismissively, but Draco didn't bother to listen anymore. Granger was going to Potter. Gryffindor was going down.
"Here you go Harry," Hermione said, passing him the folded note. She'd been through hell and back for that thing, but it was worth it, since Harry said it was important.
"Thanks, Hermione."
"Just to warn you, Malfoy might've read it already."
"It's okay. These are only the footnotes for Plan C."
A/N: I read all your reviews. Five times over.