Hermione Granger and The Kiss of Time
by Lousy Poet Automaton
xxx Chapter 4: Stolen Kiss
Oh, no. He must have been following her all day. She had wandered about in a dazing thinking about alchemical matrices and mumbling the syllables for analytical spells, and now he had her cornered.
Well, she was not particularly intimidated by Draco Malfoy when he was alone. She rather thought that with all the running and swimming, and given that girls got their growth spurt first, she probably had more muscle than him by now, plus she knew a fair number of spells that first years were not supposed to know yet. And since Gryffindors did not like the House of Snakes anyway, it was not as if Draco could influence them to treat her any worse than they already did.
She spun on her heel. "What is it, Malfoy?"
He had his hands up. "You, mudblood. You are quite confounding..."
Faster than she had thought him capable of, Draco lunged in, and had her shoved against the wall. It was a dimly lit hall, and there was no one around. He was pressed in close to her.
"What do you think you're doing?" Hermione hissed.
He smiled. And then pressed his mouth against hers. Bruisingly hard. It, and the distinct sensation of the bulge between his legs pressing against her thigh had her paralyzed.
Draco tilted his head back. "Going to cry, mudblood? You are not completely without useful qualities. Perhaps when we are older, I shall buy you. Your blood is impure, but you could be interesting as a concubine. Perhaps I'll pass you around to my friends. It's a better life than you could get, being an unemployable nothing."
Really? Really? Who thought like that?
It was his turn to be shocked. He was still blinking the lights out of his eyes, on the ground, the bruise on his temple rising.
Hermione checked her elbow, ensuring that she had not cracked the tip somehow. Then she laughed. God. She had been so worried. What a relief. It was merely a stolen kiss. The memory had come to pass but it was not, as she had feared, a sign that she would somehow fall in love with this totally unsuitable, if rather handsome, worm. She reminded herself to be more cautious in general, and to not read too much into these future glimpses specifically-facts without context were merely facts.
"Draco Malfoy, I must thank you. It was driving me mad, wondering what I could be thinking that might result in something like this. Now, I know it's just you being quite. Quite an idiot."
She winced as she touched her lips. Yes, bruised. And, ugh. His spit tasted like, what? Like chocolate frog? Thank the Gods. In the memory, she had her eyes closed, like she was lost in bliss. Or something. Really, that flash, that image was just the instant her eyes were closing because of how revolting it was. The vision cut off before her face could crumple in disgust.
Hermione should not have worried herself so. Had she really been afraid that a kiss from some eleven or twelve-year-old brat would start off some horrible mistake of a relationship?
"Pfah. You'll regret not accepting, mudblood."
It was almost enough to get her giggling. Did he think he was giving her an intimidating look, eyes flashing? His knees were shaking, and he looked very much like a child who did not get his way.
"Oh, Draco. I feel sorry for you. Those parents of yours with their medieval mind-set... time has passed them by, and they don't even know it."
She strode away, not in the least afraid when he threatened hexes at her back. He had already used up his quota of courage for the week. Really, what had been the motivation behind that anyway? Did he think such a thing would traumatize her? Humiliate her? If so, purebloods were as behind in bullying as they were in social conventions. Bullies in the non-magical realm had done far worse to her than some stupid kiss and snide insults.
Hermione shuddered. Fred and George, by contrast, were bullies of the first order. They were physically strong, magically powerful, endlessly creative, and behind that affectation of good ol' boy charm, they were malicious and cruel. She hoped they would never choose to target her.
In any case, she had more important concerns. She was now reasonably certain that when she encountered the Philosopher's stone, she would be able to take an infinitesimally small, but still significant sample. Nobody would notice. For all that Hermione was a novice at magic, she had a cheat sheet in her head, and more than this, wizards had allowed themselves to fall behind muggles in various matters. The most important of which was measures.
A world that still dealt in physical scales and balances and for which the preparation of potions was reliant on human smell and sight had extremely few people that understood the concept of the very, very, very small.
The Philosopher's Stone bound within its crystalline structure tremendous energies. Enough energy to bend rules, to warp not only laws of science, but laws of magic too. It was, from what Hermione had read, durable in some ways, and fragile in others.
With these insights and the guidance of excerpts from about a twentieth of all the titles in the library, Hermione had devised her spell and been practicing it every day, to obtain greater and greater precision. It was simply a drill. A very, very small drill of light.
Lost in her thoughts as she climbed her way back to the Gryffindor common room, she imagined the moment it would happen, her casting her tiny, undetectably weak spell, that would carve a mere microgram out of the Stone. What she took would be too small to see by human eyes as well as magical senses. Just the tiniest sample, a particle of compacted soul-spark, to be embedded in the bone of her sternum until she was skilled enough to recreate the full Stone.
She gave the password absently and stepped in, only to stagger to one side.
"Oh, Hermione! There you are! Where have you been? We have to help Hagrid with the... with the, you know, the thing!" Ron made a face, as if he was spitting between the hands he held up to his mouth. He spread his hands outward and made a fwooshing sound.
Yes, Weasley, very discreet. Though it did get a giggle out of her. And an apology.
"Sorry, sorry. I was... held up." Actually, several minutes removed from the experience, she was starting to think that Draco had some potential as a kisser. It was really too bad he was so horrid-he would grow up to be a beautiful man. A waste of good looks and space.
Harry raced in, looking quite... harried... but the relief on his face at the sight of her made Hermione feel just a little guilty about how little she cared about this night's planned foolishness.
Hermione could not bring herself to consider the matter of Hagrid and Norbert to be anything more than silly. She would have been just as worried as the boys, if she had not been reading like mad.
As much as it pained her to admit it, she had come to the understanding that for all the existence of a Ministry of Magic and the Wizengamot and rules and regulations, there was no rule of law in the magical world. Death-Eaters had bribed their way out of punishments, and would do so again. Justice came at the point of a wand. Might, which could mean financial might, political influence, charisma or magical strength, made right. Even the greatest villain of the century, guilty of killing orders of magnitude more innocents than Voldemort ever had, Gellert Grindelwald himself, stayed in a cushy, luxurious prison in the mountains, with a view of a lake. No Nuremberg Trials in the magical world, no-that sort of thing is merely for barbaric and ridiculous muggles and their crazy new-fangled ideas. Gellert got three square meals and high tea with crumpets, a clean place to live, and escorted morning walks through the forest. He lived a better life than quite a lot of muggles in third-world-countries.
So, an illegal dragon? Bah. Hagrid was one of Professor Dumbledore's pets. The most decorated, powerful, and influential living wizard would have Hagrid out of trouble with little more than a slap on the wrist if he wanted, or he might even get Hagrid sent off to Romania for some community service (and to pick up a legitimate dragon-breeding license).
xxxend chapter