A/N: This is the best quote ever for this chapter. 'Nuff said.

Please review. I'm working hard for ya, here. Show some love for the artist.

-Elvee

Snatch

Chapter Five

"I'll take my clothes off – whatever the job requires."

-Tom Felton

The leather bound journal Professor Dumbledore had given Hermione wasn't a really journal at all. In fact, it was a covert way to communicate with Professor Snape. The Potions Master had an identical journal and they were both enchanted with a protean charm, just like the coins the DA used. What Hermione wrote, he could read and vice versa.

The new touchy-feely Malfoy was making her uneasy, to put it mildly. He'd volunteered to bring in the fire wood about an hour after his Mark had settled down. She'd let him, but of course he still had to do it in chains and in the buff. It was still snowing.

After he'd finished, his lips, toes and fingers had been blue, his manhood had recessed to boyhood, and his teeth were chattering uncontrollably. She took pity on him and shackled him to a chair close to the fire. Pity wasn't part of the plan. Neither was the blanket she'd wrapped him in or the damn cup of cocoa she'd given him. She was turning into a softie.

Well, at least he wasn't naked any more.

When she remembered the journal, she could have kicked herself. She should have done this first. Brightest witch of my age, my arse, she thought acidly. Hermione had allowed him to fluster her and to be honest, when she got hurt, it had scared her just a little. She sat at the table, her quill scratching over the journal. She wrote:

In your professional opinion, what effect would a low dose of Amortentia have on a subject? Say, for example, two drops on a full grown male? Expedient reply requested.

It only took a few moments before a reply surfaced, the ink appearing on the page under her inquiry as if he was writing it in front of her.

What have you done?

She huffed angrily, then scribbled a quick reply.

Well, I wasn't sure if kicking the dog would hurt his master. He isn't very obedient. Do you have an answer or don't you? Sir.

She added that last word as an afterthought. Best not to get him too riled or she'd never get an answer from the prickly Potions Master.

"Something wrong?" Malfoy asked, turning awkwardly against his straining shackles to catch her eye as she sat behind him at the table.

"What?" She looked up to find his gray eyes full of concern. "No. No, everything's fine. Just a hypothetical potions question I'm trying to work out."

"I'm pretty good with potions, Hermione. Can I help?" And there was that potion-induced lunacy again. Malfoy would never... Wait...

Her head snapped up and she glared at him, "Did you just call me Hermione?" He gave her a half sideways- half upside down shrug. "Don't," she snapped.

"What? It's your name," he said with absolutely no trace of guile in his voice at all.

"It is the name my friends call me." She wagged a finger between them, indicating the two of them. "We are not friends. I kidnapped you."

He gave a genuine smile, the kind of smile he'd never given her in six long years. "Ah! But you said yourself you only kidnapped me to save my life. That alone should make us friends." His gray eyes were filled with conviction, his smile had triumph written all over it.

She looked back at the journal. No answer. Damn. Malfoy dropped the afghan to the floor at his feet. His broad, pale shoulders reflected the firelight like alabaster. She blinked as her mouth went dry, then yelled, "What'd you do that for?"

He shrugged and smiled again. "I was hot." Merlin, it was a beautiful smile. Mentally, she kicked herself. Control yourself, Granger.

"Just cover up, Malfoy." She looked at the journal again. Nothing. Damnable git of a potions master. Get a move on! Didn't he know this was important? She could always kill Malfoy and hit two birds with one stone.

"Why? You've already seen me naked. It's not like I'm going to shock you." This time he smirked. "Besides, I thought you liked what you saw." He winked at her as he hung his head nearly upside down to face her. On anyone else it would have been adorable, but Malfoy was a Death Eater.

"Cover up or you're losing your fire privileges." She warned, her eyes narrowing.

"Fine by me! I'm nice and toasty." He winked – actually winked- at her!

She slammed the journal shut. This was getting ridiculous. "Fine! Petrificus Totalis!" With a wave of her wand, she unshackled him from the chair and levitated him back over on the bed. She secured him back to the bed frame with an indignant sniff, all the while avoiding looking anywhere in his general 'manly' area.

She picked the afghan up off the floor, folded it carefully and put it at the foot of her bed before canceling his petrification spell.

"You know, Hermione, I've got to hand it to you. You've got this whole kidnapping thing down," he said as his body relaxed. "You're actually a lot more Slytherin than I gave you credit for."

"Put a sock in it, Malfoy," she said waspishly.

He sighed dramatically, then smirked again, "I would. But I don't seem to have any socks at the moment."

She stomped to the table and dropped heavily back into her chair. She opened the journal again, finding no reply, she slapped it shut with a smack to the leather cover and tucked it back in her beaded bag. She stirred her second cup of cocoa absently, wondering how to out-ferret a ferret.

She could certainly do the obvious and just outright ask him to marry her. If he said yes, she'd know it was the potion. Draco Malfoy would never stoop to marrying a Mudblood. He would never sully the Malfoy name, and he had to know she'd rather be run over by rampaging hippogryphs before she'd marry him. No, that would be too obvious. If he was playing nice, he'd say anything he thought she might want to hear. In all his vain, arrogant, snooty thinking, of course he'd say yes, thinking that was exactly what any girl would want to hear from him. Then where would she be?

Merlin, she hated Slytherins.

She could kiss him and see if he spit afterward. She pulled a face. She wasn't looking forward to a repeat of that fiasco. She didn't own a toothbrush that would reach her tonsils. She'd tried. She frowned. Anyway she looked at it, his voluntary behavior was not to be trusted. Draco Malfoy was an excellent liar. This wasn't going to be as easy as she thought.

Something clicked in her brain. Voluntary behavior. She gave a soft, evil smile. If she hadn't heard back from Professor Snape after dinner, she knew exactly what she was going to do. It was scientific, foolproof and utterly ferret-y.

That is, if she had the nerve to do it. She screwed up her courage. Of course she did. It was for science.

Or not. She dropped her face into her palms and shook her head. Merlin, Malfoy was going to kill her yet.

By late afternoon, Malfoy had earned a sock for washing the dishes and shoveling the walk. He'd wanted her to put it on his penis, and she'd thrown it at him. After a full half hour of apologizing, she finally put it on his left foot. He also got another cup of cocoa and a stint by the stove shackled to his chair on the condition he stayed wrapped in the blanket. He'd asked for more chores to do, but she refused. It wouldn't do to break the dynamic she'd worked so hard to establish too soon. She also didn't trust him as far as she could throw him.

Hell, who was she kidding? After she gave him the second cup of cocoa, she didn't trust herself at all.

How she missed having access to a real library! She needed to do some serious research on the effects of excessive silencing spells. Too many stupefy spells were certainly bad, but Hermione was hexing him all afternoon just to keep him from flirting with her, or playing with her head, or whatever he was doing.

She wasn't about to sit around and watch him make puppy dog eyes at her from the bed, so she hauled out her pewter cauldron and began to make the Magicaine salve. Thankfully, the recipe was a complicated mess and she had something to completely focus all of her attention on. It was finally cooling to a lavender scented pink balm when dinner appeared on the table.

Hermione ate quickly, not offering Malfoy a bite. Surprisingly, he didn't ask for one either. She banished the dishes to the sink and checked the journal.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Crap.

Maybe she could write a love letter and 'drop' it on his bed. Good idea, her frantic mind thought. Jealousy was a human emotion. If the love potion worked at all, he'd have to say something. Even if he didn't, his behavior would certainly change. Her 'evil' plan was better and she knew it, but even Godric Griffindor must have had his limits.

The only problem was who to write this pretend letter to. She hadn't snogged anyone since Viktor in fourth year. Malfoy himself certainly didn't count. He couldn't be jealous of himself, especially while she was polyjuiced to look like Pansy. Being frank, she knew the bossy know-it-all personality she had caused most boys her age to run for the hills. Men liked to be the white knights, the strong protectors, the providers. Hermione didn't need any of that. She just wanted someone who loved her for just who she was. She also needed him to stand still long enough for her to love him back. Unfortunately, that guy simply didn't exist.

Guys didn't go for little bushy-haired bookworms. That was just the way the world worked, and up until now, it never seemed to matter. She was far too young to worry about falling in love, getting married and having children. She'd get her education, find a great job, then worry about all that tosh. Still, it hurt that she wasn't appreciated by the boys in her year.

This morose line of thinking was getting her nowhere fast. She needed a pretend boyfriend, and she needed one now. It couldn't be just anyone, it had to fool the ferret across the room that saw her everyday at school. They knew all the same people. If anything had changed in school, Malfoy would have noticed. That's when it hit her.

She managed to stall having to go through with her 'evil' plan by writing a pretend love letter to Viktor. In it she poured her pretend heart out about how much she missed him, how she couldn't wait to have his little uni-browed spawn, how she longed to feel his lips on hers and how she couldn't wait until the war was over and they could be together again at last. She signed it, All the Love in My Heart, Hermione.

That was how you signed one of those things, wasn't it? Wasn't that how Cyrano de Bergerac did it? Scrutinizing her work with a critic's eye, she realized she should have added some lines from Romeo and Juliet, but it was too late now. Done was done. She folded the letter and wrote Viktor's name on the outside.

Quietly, she put away her quill and ink bottle. She checked the journal one last time. What good was the bloody thing if he was never going to write back? She shoved it back in her beaded bag and fished out another sleeping draught.

"Bed time, is it?" Malfoy drawled as she checked his manacles.

"Yes." Accidentally- on purpose dropping the letter between his body and the wall as she checked his left wrist.

"You dropped something, Hermione," he said, pointing at it with his chin. "Looks like a letter."

She blushed and stuttered, "Oh. Th-thank you." She picked it up and stuffed it into the pocket of her robes. Damn, damn, and double damn. Now she'd have to go through with it.

She dragged the copper tub in front of the stove and lowered the lantern light with a wave of her wand. She began filling the tub with steaming water.

"What? No sleeping potion?" Malfoy asked, his eyebrow raising.

"Malfoy, you've been good all day. I only have so many potions. If you're going to give me trouble, I'll force another down your throat. But I'm going to ask your word, on your honor as a Malfoy, to just... be a gentleman tonight. I'm tired, stressed and I really need a bath. Could you just... promise me you won't look?" She asked plaintively.

He smirked, but held up his hands in mock surrender, "Be my guest, Hermione."

"I mean it, Malfoy. No peeking. Promise me." She stared at him until he answered.

He rolled his eyes. "I'm a guy, of course I'm going to look." His smirk got bigger and his eyes glittered with amusement. "Hey, I'm just being honest."

"Promise me, or I'll vanish your bed." She threatened, pouring lavender oil into the hot water.

"Fine. I promise. Jeez, Hermione, you're no fun." He huffed, turning his face to the wall.

Hermione began nervously to undress, checking frequently to make sure Malfoy was still staring at the wall. Somewhere Godric Griffindor was turning over in his grave.

"Smells good." Malfoy said.

Hermione's head snapped up as she was lowering her first foot into the tub. "You promised, Malfoy!"

"I'm not looking! Just making conversation." He was still staring at the wall.

She lowered herself in the hot water with a sigh of contentment. She didn't care if he peeked now, as a matter of fact, that was the plan. But she wasn't telling him that.

"Feel good?" He asked.

"Hmmm. Yesss." She wrung out her sponge in the steaming water and let it pour over her shoulders. "Now be quiet and let me enjoy my bath."

"Can't blame me, Hermione. I haven't had a bath in three days. I'm bathing vicariously through you." She heard him sniffing the air. "What kind of soap do you use?"

"Vanilla bean and verbena. I make it myself." She lathered the sponge and risked a peek over at Malfoy. He was still turned to the wall, or at least not blatantly looking. He was more in profile. Yep. Guys were pigs. She smirked. "It's amazing how dirty you get just doing nothing."

"You've got to soak first, you know. Let your pores open up. It lets the soap work better." His voice was quiet and in his profile she saw his tongue dart out to wet his lips.

Eat your heart out, she thought. "Mmmhmm. I know." She relaxed back into the tub. "Merlin, I love hot baths. Makes me all pink and tingly," she sighed, obviously content.

"Tell me about your shampoo. What does it smell like?" Was his voice husky? Just the sound of it almost sent a shiver up her spine. Almost.

"Milk and honey. It has a really nice lather, it almost turns my tub into a bubble bath." Two could play this game. "I don't suppose you like bubble baths, do you? Not very manly."

"I love bubble baths! They're the ultimate luxury. At home I take them with a glass of cognac and stay in until I prune up." He countered, laughing softly.

She tipped her head back in the hot water and wet her hair. She poured some shampoo on her hand and lathered it in, tilting herself just so. The light from the window on the stove would set her partially in profile, showing the curve of one breast, her shoulder and neck. She blushed furiously, but he wouldn't be able to tell in the red light of the fire even if he did sneak a peek.

"Baths are the ultimate sensual experience. I never thought we'd have anything in common, Draco. Especially not something as personal as bathing." She piled her hair on her head and lathered slowly. "You're not looking, are you?" She risked a quick peek over her shoulder to find him turning away.

"No." He coughed.

It was her turn to smirk. "Liar," she chuckled softly.

Tentatively he said, "You're not mad?"

"You're a Slytherin, Draco," she laughed quietly. "We're trapped in a one room cabin. It was bound to happen sooner or later."

"So I can look?" He asked timidly.

"No. I asked you to be a gentleman." She ducked under the water and rinsed her hair.

"You're asking too much," he said when she resurfaced.

"Asking you to be a gentleman? Why is that?" She soaped her arms, neck and chest, maintaining her careful profile. She took her time, as any dirty girl should.

"You're beautiful." His reply was soft and begrudging; shy, even.

"Liar." She laughed lightly, lifting one leg out of the water and running the length of it with her soapy sponge. "I'm a Mudblood, remember?"

"You're still a woman," he said, a little more confident this time.

She ran the sponge down her other leg with a smirk. "You're learning, Malfoy."

"Back to Malfoy, are we? I thought we were having a pleasant bath. How did that happen?"

"Maybe six years ago we could have been friends. Before you called me all those foul names and I punched you in the nose. Maybe. But that was a long time ago. Any chance we had at being friends died the day you called me a Mudblood."

She turned and looked directly at him, saying, "Now look at the wall. I mean it. It's time for me to get out and if I catch you looking, I'll hex you and this time it will hurt."

He turned away. "What if I want to be friends now?"

She stood and wrapped herself in a towel before dragging her pajamas behind the curtain. Drying herself, then dressing quickly she said, "I'd say too little, too late. We're already on opposite sides of the war."

He didn't reply, so she grabbed the afghan from the foot of her bed and spread it over him as an excuse to get a look at his involuntary reaction to her experiment. Yup. It was the potion. His manhood was in full salute. She had to fight to keep herself from gaping. How in the hell was all that supposed to fit inside a woman? "Good night, Malfoy."

"I earned a blanket?" His eyes were stormy, but his expression was unreadable.

"You were mostly good. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." She checked the blood flow in his toes and fingers before settling the blanket over him.

She banked the fire and climbed into bed with a smile. There was no telling when the potion would wear off, but Merlin knew it couldn't be soon enough.