CHAPTER FOUR
Hermione spent the rest of the weekend splitting her time between finishing her homework and reading the spell book. She had mastered the tail spell, even figuring out how to make different tails appear.
She was reading through the other spells, working on learning them also. She had gotten a few of them right the first time. She wondered why they weren't taught in the classes. They were perfectly harmless.
Hermione glanced at the book. Well, almost harmless. She had read through the other spells, probably the ones that Draco had learned.
She had already resolved not to learn those spells. She didn't want to harm anyone. She snorted as she thought of Malfoy. He was the exception. She would love to try out a spell on him.
She was curious about them though. They were Dark magic for sure, but they were extremely powerful. She had always wanted to know what it felt to be that powerful.
Hermione shook her head to clear her thoughts. "How ridiculous," she thought. "Me, using the Dark Arts!"
Hermione closed the book, putting it in her book bag, to take to her room for the night. She felt better, knowing it was right by her.
The next day, Monday, the regular routine was back in motion. Harry and Ron moaned about having not finished their homework, while Hermione just sat back enjoying it – because, she of course, had finished all of hers.
"Hermione, just listen to reason," Ron argued as they left the Great Hall. "Harry and I have a break after our Potions class. Just check our answers is all we're asking!"
Harry was staying out of it, as he had seen this play out a hundred times before.
"Ron, why can't you just do your own work?" Hermione asked him. "You don't see me getting others to check mine."
"But that's because you're so smart Mione!" Ron said.
Hermione bushed at the comment.
Ron noticed and kept going. "I mean it Hermione, you're bloody brilliant!"
Hermione finally relinquished, throwing her hands up. "Fine, Ron! I'll check your homework!"
Ron threw his arms around her, hugging her tightly. Hermione, thrown off balance, hugged him back, enjoying the solid feel of muscles built from a lot of Quidditch playing. She closed her eyes and ran her hands up his back, almost purring with delight. This was what she had wanted for so long.
Harry finally had to clear his throat, and the two jumped apart, blushing.
"Ugh, that was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen," said Draco as he walked past with Blaise and Pansy. "The blood-traitor and the Mudblood." He made gagging sounds as Blaise and Pansy laughed.
Ron started to say something as Harry pulled out his wand. Hermione stopped them both. "I told you guys not to interfere! Now stop! Both of you! Harry, put your wand back. Ron, close your mouth. I am capable of handling him." She stared at the pair.
Ron still looked skeptical. "I still say we go slap him around a bit."
Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Yeah, Ron, because that wouldn't be against school rules at all." She started walking down the hallway again, not waiting to see if they were following.
A few seconds later, Hermione felt herself being turned around. It was Ron; Harry was nowhere in sight.
Ron looked down at her, his hair sliding over his eyes. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I just can't stand Malfoy. He's the biggest arse on the planet."
Hermione sighed. "I know Ron. But it irks me the way you two underestimate me!"
Ron put his hands on her head to force her to look at him. "Sorry. Really." He bent down and lightly kissed her, his lips gently brushing over hers.
He pulled back, and Hermione stood there with her eyes closed. Slowly, a small smile spread across her cheeks, and she opened her eyes. "You know how long I've been waiting for that?" She asked.
"Sorry I took so long." Ron said, as he leaned back down to kiss her again, deeper this time.
Just then, the bell for class rang, and they jumped. Hermione looked around, flustered at the thought of being caught in the corridor, making out. "I need to get to class," she said, backing away from Ron.
She turned and went up the stairs to Advanced Transfiguration. How stupid of her! She was acting like some kind of second year, making out with Ron in the corridor like that. She shook her head in embarrassment. Of course, she liked Ron, but that wouldn't be happening again.
After Transfiguration, Hermione made her way down to the dungeons, dreading going to Potions. They were almost done brewing their Voice Strangling potions, and Snape had threatened them by saying he would make one of them take it.
She made her way into the classroom, going down the aisle to her table. Pavarti Patil was already sitting at the other seat.
And of course, there was stupid Malfoy and Zabini at the table to their left. Why did he have to be in this class? The one class they shared, and Snape was the teacher.
Hermione tried to ignore him as she went to the storage cabinet and took her cauldron out. Bringing it back to the table, she compared it to Pavarti's potion. Her's was more of a silver colour than the dark blue of Hermione's, which she knew was the right colour to have at this stage of brewing.
She checked her potions book to see what the next step was. Looked like all that was left was adding a few more ingredients and stirring. "Shouldn't take more than a half hour," thought Hermione.
She got out two Belladonna roots, three scorpion tails, and some powdered snake skin.
Taking her wand out, Hermione set everything up just right, putting things exactly where she wanted them. Looking at the instructions, she figured out what to do next, and started cutting, crushing, and measuring.
Just as she was about to pour in a bit of the roots she had measured out, Draco walked by and bumped into her, causing her to drop her roots.
"What the hell, Malfoy! Don't you have anything better to do?" Hermione hissed under her breath at him.
"What could be better than ruining your day Granger?" Draco shot back, smirking.
Hermione gritted her teeth and got back to her potion. Luckily, she managed to finish it without any more mishaps.
She poured some into a vial, stoppered it, and brought it up to Snape at his desk. It had turned a light green when she had added the Belladonna roots, becoming the exact colour the instructions said it should.
Snape took the vial and looked at it, obviously unable to say anything bad since it had been done correctly. Hermione smiled at him, annoying him even more, and she turned around and went back to her seat.
By the end of class, everyone had finished their potions. Only Draco's was the same light green colour as Hermione's. Others had gotten a different shade of green, or even the completely wrong colour.
Snape lined them up on his desk and stood behind them. "These are possibly the worst potions I've ever seen," he drawled. "Absolutely pathetic. I don't see how most of you got into this class."
Everyone else in the class avoided his eyes, except Hermione. She knew her potion was perfect. She wouldn't let that slimy git intimidate her.
For the rest of class, they copied down notes on the next potion they would do.
Finally, the end of class came, and Hermione practically flew out of the room, just as eager to avoid Malfoy as she was to get out of the dungeons.
She had a break this period, and eager to work on her new spells, she went up the stairs to find her unused classroom.
Going inside, she dropped her bag and robe onto a desk she had cleaned the dust off of, and opened the spell book. She had just about gotten down one that caused the target to babble incoherently and incessantly. It was just hard to practice it. She stuck her head out into the corridor and saw a few first years walking by. "Perfect," she thought.
She raised her wand, and doing the movements, whispered, "Ablattero." It hit right on the spot she was aiming for, immediately causing the boy to start babbling random things. This caused his friend to start asking what was wrong without getting an answer.
Hermione ducked back inside the room, laughing hard. "That was great!" She exclaimed.
There was another one she had read that she wanted to try out. "Hopefully on Malfoy," Hermione snickered. It was called Arricneo, or the Bucking Bronco Hex. It caused any object such as a chair or rug, a person is standing on to try to throw that person off. It would be a great way to spend detention.
Soon, it was lunchtime, and Hermione packed up her book and went to the Great Hall. Sitting down across from Harry and Ron, she looked up shyly at Ron and smiled at him.
Harry smirked at Ron. "All I've got to say is it's about time the two of you got together."
Ron blushed, ducking his head down. Ginny came over then, and asked, "What's wrong with Ron?"
Harry piped up, "He and Hermione finally decided to get together." He took a bite of his sandwich.
Ginny nodded. "Finally. There was so much sexual tension between the two of you, I thought I would burst."
"Ginny!" Ron scolded. "You shouldn't be talking like that!"
Ginny rolled her eyes and shrugged.
Hermione spent the rest of lunch blushing furiously from all the teasing. Finally, Ron finished eating and they left the Great Hall.
Ron walked her upstairs to her Astronomy lecture class. He was holding Hermione's hand, seeming proud of the fact. He was walking taller, and his chest was puffed out. Hermione personally thought he looked a tad bit ridiculous.
He left Hermione with a kiss, causing Hermione to blush again – she wasn't used to this! – before going inside and sitting down.
For the rest of the afternoon, the girls in her classes kept coming up to her to ask about her and Ron. Of course, Lavender Brown kept her distance, occasionally throwing dirty looks in Hermione's direction.
Hermione went down to join her friends for dinner later that day. She glanced over at the Slytherin table and saw Malfoy look up, watching her for a minute, and then went back to eating his food and chatting with his friends.
"Weird," thought Hermione, wondering why he had stared at her. She hoped he wasn't planning anything against her.
But, of course, she was planning a little revenge on him, so she had no room to talk. Hermione smiled, almost looking forward to detention tonight.
She was distracted during dinner, because Ron kept holding her hand, or putting his arm around her. That made it very hard to eat, when her arms were basically pinned to her sides.
Finally, Hermione had to turn to him and tell him to stop. It was really annoying, actually.
After dinner, Hermione went up to the Gryffindor common room to catch up on her homework before detention.
Before long, the bell signaling eight o'clock rang, and Hermione left the common room with a sigh. She met Malfoy outside the door, and walked in ahead of him without acknowledging him.
She looked around the room to see where she had left off. She had finished the windows on Friday night. Well there was still a bit of sweeping to do, as well as dusting the furniture. She hated doing it, as dust always made her sneeze.
Hermione grabbed a rag and some cleaner. Looking up, she noticed that Draco had picked up a rag, also looking unsure of what to do. She grabbed another bucket of cleaner and brought it to him, holding it out.
"Here," she said. "You'll need this."
Draco grabbed the bucket. "I don't need your help, Granger."
Hermione felt like sticking her tongue out at him. "Whatever, Malfoy. Sorry to bother." Rolling her eyes, she turned around to get to work.
Half an hour later, Hermione looked up, only to see Malfoy half-assing his work. As much as she wanted to correct him, she didn't. A feeling of anger rose up in her towards him. He was such a slimy git! And now, he wasn't even doing his work properly, so she would have to go back behind him.
Her fingers itched for her wand. This would be perfect timing. Malfoy had sat down and was rubbing his hands together.
Hermione pulled out her wand, hiding it from view. Pointing it at Malfoy, she whispered "Arricneo".
Malfoy's face was priceless to watch! Hermione burst out laughing as his expression changed from boredom to one of terror as the chair he was occupying started to jump around.
His eyes widened and his mouth fell open, as he tried to hang on to the chair. Hermione had to sit on the floor from laughing so hard. Why didn't he just let go and fall off?
The chair bucked again, causing Draco to let go, his fingers losing their grip. He went flying, landing in a heap on the floor in front of Hermione. The chair, having lost its occupant, immediately became still.
Draco looked up at Hermione, who was trying to stop laughing; but she kept letting out snorts, which made her laugh all over again.
"What the bloody hell was that Granger?" He asked as he got up and dusted himself off.
Hermione stood up also. "That's called payback, Malfoy." She gripped her wand tightly.
Draco looked at her warily, but made no move to hex her. "Relax Granger. I'm not going to retaliate. It gets us nowhere, and I don't want to explain to Madam Pomfrey why I'm in need of healing."
Hermione narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "Really? That's decidedly…mature thinking. For you, I mean. The rest of us would have figured that one out a long time ago." She goaded him.
Draco took a step toward her, causing her to instinctively take a step back. "Don't tempt me Granger. Don't think I wouldn't love to hex you into oblivion."
Hermione nodded. "So…truce then? No more dueling in detention?"
Draco nodded as well. "Agreed," he said.
Hermione picked her rag back up as she looked warily at Draco, as if waiting for him to pounce.
Draco copied her, and she went back to the set of desks that she had been cleaning.
"What spell was that, anyway?" Draco asked, trying to sound nonchalant about it.
Hermione smirked at him. "It's called Arricneo. It causes anything you're sitting or standing on to act like a bucking bronco."
"Like a what?" Draco asked, unfamiliar with the muggle term.
Hermione smiled. "A bucking bronco. It's an untamed horse that tries to throw off anything that gets on it. I actually read about it in that book you told me about."
Draco looked over at her. "The book I told you about? You found it?"
Hermione nodded. "Yep, in the Restricted section, just as you said it would be."
"So what else have you learned from it? Have you tried out the Dedactus spell?" Draco asked.
Hermione paled and she shook her head. That spell caused the painful removal of the victim's fingers. "Have you?" She asked him.
"Once," he replied. Seeing her eyes widen, he explained. "It wasn't on a person. I used it on an animal. I wanted to try it out and see how it felt."
Hermione had completely stopped cleaning by now. "And how did it feel?" She asked, curious about the effects of such a bad spell.
Draco got a ghost of a smile on his face. "Powerful," he admitted. "So I kept reading through the book to see what else I could find. There were a few others I found that I liked. Including the one I used on you."
Hermione stood there for a while thinking. She believed there was good in people. Dumbledore had allowed him to stay here, even with all of the rumours flying around about his Death Eater training. So he must not be a completely evil git.
She looked at him speculatively. "Could you teach me some? I mean, not the horrible ones of course." She ventured to ask. "It just seems like I've learned everything out of the book, but I don't want to just stop. Maybe it could be part of our truce agreement."
"Why?" Draco asked. "We've never been friendly, we're complete opposites. Yet you want me to teach you spells? Some that have bad consequences?"
Hermione stopped to think for a second. "Well, you're a good student, I suppose. You're one of the top students in fact. I want to learn these spells, and who better to teach me than you? You've already read the book and know them." She took a deep breath. "I promise to keep all snarky comments to myself." She raised her hand in a scout's honour.
Draco rolled his eyes at that. "I'll think about it Granger. And if I agree, this changes nothing. We're not suddenly best friends because of this."
Hermione nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, of course, nothing changes. Got it." Inside though, she was jumping for joy at the chance.
If he said yes, that is.