That was frustrating! I couldn't see any reviews after chapter 3 for a few days :(
But now I can see them so all is good ;)
I got a little carried away with this chapter, it's mostly just magic fluff and nothing too important... oh well.
I own nothing! Except Madame Sieme. She's the only OC.
CHAPTER FIVE - SCARS AND TEDDY BEARS
Draco Malfoy was starting to become a puzzle that Hermione really wanted to solve, so much so she had written out a bloody list. She glanced over it again in the journal that her parents had given her as a going away present after her internship was up.
1. He hadn't revealed Harry to Bellatrix or Voldemort—why?
2. He did nothing as Bellatrix tortured her, but seemed legitimately disturbed by it?
3. He practically gave Harry his wand—again, why?
4. He didn't kill them when he had a chance outside the RoR—well, they did save him and Blaise.
5. During his trial, he stated that he never wanted to be a Death Eater to begin with—so why join, why not leave?
6. He had completely and totally changed since the summer—because of the war? His short stint in Azkaban?
7. Despite his untrustful-ness, Theo trusted to tell him about their relationship—he didn't even tell anyone, but then turned around and blackmailed her.
8. Those scars were definitely not from the war. They were far too healed over (though she wasn't an expert on the subject)—and even though him, Theo and Blaise lived together for six years, Theo and probably Blaise didn't know about it? And why doesn't he want them to know about them? Did Voldemort do that, or was it from before? Why was he so careless to leave his door opened?
9. He'd gotten a lot taller than she remembered—and his shoulders were a lot broader than she remembered. And that kiss…...
She repeatedly scratched out the last bullet point until her quill was out of ink and it looked like Voldemort's diary had bled all over the page—speaking of which, she really wanted to know how she could make a diary converse with her without the use of a Horcrux. She filed that one for later. She had a blonde to decipher first, not to mention a Transfiguration professor with an interest in Dark Arts, a new brother to figure out, and NEWTs to study for.
Hermione strategically waited until everyone else had cleared out of the common room, making their way to bed. It had been around one in the morning before she felt safe enough to knock on Malfoy's door lightly. She almost debated not sticking around to see if he was up, when the door finally creaked open.
"When I said later, I meant tomorrow." He mumbled, wiping sleep from his eyes. He was dressed in black sweats and a plain white shirt that was clinging to his body way too nicely, and he was leaning on the doorframe, with his left arm above her head. It took all she had not to glance at his forearm where she knew… she wasn't going to think about it.
"You should have said that then, but since you're up." She pushed her way past him into his room. He must not have cared if she came in, since the wards on the door didn't bounce her back out. Malfoy's arm dropped to his side as he grumbled to himself, shutting the door behind her.
After silencing and privacy wards were placed, she turned to him, arms crossed, with a knowing scowl set in place. Her face was going to get stuck like that if she had to stare at Malfoy any longer.
"Well? Take it off."
"What?" He stared at her in shock.
"I want to see again, take your shirt off."
"I'm not doing that."
Hermione huffed. "Fine, then tell me what happened, or I'll start making stuff up that I can tell Theo."
"And risk having your blood status exposed? Are you sure you're ready for all that?" He gave her a look that seemed to be a cross between concern and snark. He was apparently way too tired to keep his mask on.
"If that's what it takes." She stated.
"First off, you don't know the first thing about being a pureblood. You're going to make a fool of yourself. Secondly, why do you care so much? Just make the deal." He drawled with a yawn.
Hermione held back her own yawn. "I have books; I've begun to do research. For the record, I don't care. I just want to be on even ground."
"I was injured during the final battle." He stated.
"Don't lie to me, Malfoy. We both know your shirt was in pretty pristine condition considering when Voldemort gave you that… I can't even call it a hug." Hermione scuffed.
"Why do you remember what my shirt looked like?" Malfoy seemed slightly shocked and… something Hermione couldn't quite place.
"I was debating giving you a curse at the time." That was not a lie.
"Would have saved me from the second most disturbing moment of my life." Malfoy joked. Hermione didn't find it funny. She continued to stare at him with a pointed look. He stared back.
"Look, we both know you don't want anyone to find out. For some reason, especially Theo since you think I'd tell him of all people." Hermione finally broke the silence. "So why don't you just tell me why you don't want Theo to know then." She compromised. If she found out why he didn't want Theo to know, maybe, she could de-code what really happened, and that would be one more piece to the Draco puzzle in place.
She was really getting sick of him being a constant bother. He hadn't shown her an ounce of leeway on her list, just added more questions to it.
"I don't want Theo to know, because he worries too much." Draco drawled. "Something you will notice way to quickly now that you're his sister."
Hermione internally cursed, he'd given her an answer, but turned it back on her. It wasn't helpful in the least.
"Fine, but I will find out!" She turned on her heel and stomped out of the room. She was no further down her list, and she still had Theo to worry about. She was determined to find out; and she would. Or her name wasn't Hermione Jean Granger… Nott… Hermione Jean… Maya Jean… Or else her middle name wasn't Jean!
And thus—Monday was a nightmare. Hermione had an identity crisis the entirety of Sunday, and wondered around with her nose in a book ignoring when people called her name and avoided Theo like the plague. She had stayed up way too long reading about pureblood families and their various types of Magicks (she was amazed to find that Familial Magicks tied directly into genetics, which were originally discovered by a wizard named Gregor Mendel, who even had an impact on muggle medical studies), and therefore took her dreamless sleep potion too late which resulted in her being late from her Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
When she burst through the doors of DADA, she was surprised to see the students mucking about, but no Bill Weasley. Hermione slid into her seat trying to ignore Blaise's cat calls about being late.
"Where's Bill?" She asked Neville, who was quietly playing with a small active plant in a pot no bigger than Hermione's fist. Hermione eyed the room. Why were there teddy bears sitting in random spots around the room?
"Not sure." Neville shrugged.
Hermione sighed worryingly as she pulled out her book on charms for a repel of the Accio spell. She'd been reading for about five minutes on various alternate uses of Accio when every member of the class yelped in shock.
Their desks had vanished, and each of them were in various states of distress. Pansy, who was sitting on Malfoy's desk, was now tangled on top of him, and the Patil twins weren't in any better shape.
"Book up, wands out." A high voice barked from above them.
They peered up to see Madame Sieme making her way down the stairs from the office. "For those of you who do not know me, my name is Rix Sieme. Do not call me Professor, ma'am, madame or any variation. You may call me Rix." She started, as she stood (not much taller than Hermione) at the front of the classroom. "As you know, I'm normally the Transfiguration Professor, but seeing as Bill-er-Professor Weasley has been called out on an emergency case, I shall be replacing him as the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor until further notice." Well that solved one of Hermione's mysteries.
"Professor, who will be teaching Transfiguration then?" Hermione asks, finally clambering to her feet.
"Rix." Rix spat. "Minerva-er-Headmistress McGonagall will be covering Transfiguration until such a time that a new Professor or Bill-er-Professor Weasley can be found." Rix admitted.
"How old are you? Are you even old enough to be teaching Defense?" Malfoy spat, shoving Pansy off of him. He towered easily a half a foot about the Professor's head.
Rix scoffed, moving away from him. "Excuse me, but I'm twenty-three. Professor McGonagall was younger than me when she started!"
"You're still basically a student! How are you supposed to know anything about the Dark Arts?" Blaise interrogated.
At this comment, a smirk tugged at Rix's lips, giving her an odd evil look. "That's what you're about to find out. Circle! Around the room." Rix barked. As the students lined up near the walls, Rix placed herself in the center of the room.
"Use minor hexes and jinxes, and try to hit me. Each time you succeed I'll award your house with fifty points." The students muttered in excitement about jinxing a teacher, however, several paled at the thought. "But—if you get hit with anything, you're out. Last person standing will get a special award."
"Aren't you putting yourself at a disadvantage, being in the middle and going one against fifteen?" Justin Finch-Fletchley asked in confusion. The same half smirk half evil grin tugged at Rix's lips.
"Nope. We'll do it in rounds. When you hear the crack, you may begin. Stop when you hear it again." Rix cast a spell into the air, and in red sparks numbers began to count down.
CRACK!
"Patrificas Totalis!"
"Stupify!"
"Langlock!"
"Expelliarmus!"
The sound of spells hitting each other in midair caused a cloud of sparks and dust to appear in the center of the circle. It went on for several seconds until the crack sounded again, and everyone stood still, trying to see who got hit. Neville was on the ground, searching for his wand; Justin was panicking about his tongue being stuck to the top of his mouth; Sarah, Tracey, Padma and Michael were in varying levels of paralysis and stun; and to Hermione's pleasure, McLaggen had gotten the rotten in of a stick jinx.
Rix was unscathed.
"Lesson one; learn to dodge. Find a blind spot, and if you're surrounded, position yourself in between—you're more likely to make your attackers hit each other." She said, pulling herself off the ground. Aside from the counter-curse for Justin, she hadn't cast a single spell. "You may find that the more opponents you have, and the greater their ambition, the more likely that move will work. We've cut the competition in half."
Rix appraised the eight standing students. "Good job on the shield spell Miss Granger. Who cast the Silenco in the middle of the room? You saved a couple of your classmates." Rix coughed as she passed Cormac. She gave him a look before casting an odor charm on him.
Malfoy raised his hand slightly. "Good job, Mister… Malfoy correct? Silent spells. Very useful if you want to surprise your opponents. Ten points to Slytherin, since you didn't actually hit me. Wands at the ready!"
Crack!
"Muci Vespertilio!"
Bang!
"Stupify!"
"Resilio."
Crack!
Seamus was once again missing his eyebrows. Theo had been hit with a stun, however, he was the only one who had cast a stun; that fact earned him a confused look from Draco and Blaise who were on either side of him. Pansy was ducking about trying to get away from her own bat-bogey curse. No one knew the counter-curse, so she was left to perfect her dodge for several minutes.
"Lesson two; Resilio rebounds a spell back on themselves—sorry Mister Nott… oh, he's stunned he can't respond. Well, leave him be. Space out, I want to see someone hit me." Rix paused in her motion to get Parvarti to move over, staring directly at Seamus and Neville, who had both been effected by Seamus's rebound. "Lesson two and a half; don't have Mister Finnegan on your team." The snakes snickered, but Neville snorted.
"Unless you need him to blow up a bridge."
Crack!
"Accio Teddy Bears!"
"Repellere!"
"Protego!"
"Avis!"
"What?"
Crack!
"I'm impressed." Rix complimented. Even though none of them were directly hit with a spell, Parvarti, Blaise and Dean had all been hit in the back of the head by stuffed bears. "That's the first time anyone's dodged the Teddy Attack."
"The Teddy Attack?" Blaise repeated. "You just hit us in the back of the head with toys!"
"What if those were something lethal? You'd be dead, aside from Hermione who apparently knows how to repel an Accio—ten points to Gryffindor for that one. Lesson three; pay attention to your surroundings." Rix lectured on. She paused to look at the two remaining students. "Miss Granger, can you explain to me your thought behind the birds?" Hermione shrugged in response. "Last round. Go until one of you is out. On my mark… Begin!"
Rix dropped again, rolling out of the way as Hermione and Malfoy both sent stuns her way. The two spells collided in mid-air, and they were barely able to recover and dodge another round of plush toys. For several minutes, Malfoy and Hermione stood side by side, dueling their professor. At some point they clicked; Hermione—who was much better at defensive spells both verbal and silent—blocked continuously (even achieving a Resilio of her own, that bounced a stun back at Cormac) whilst Malfoy was on the attack. There was a break for Hermione the second that Rix had to roll out of the way of a rope binding spell. She took that opportunity. "Oppongo!" The conjured birds began pelting themselves at their professor, who was to distracted by the birds to notice Malfoy successfully landing a leg lock, causing their professor to face plant in front of them, resulting in a bird kamikaze-ing into the back of her head.
Hermione grinned, proud of herself. She looked over at Malfoy to congratulate him, but he looked unamused, and refused to make eye contact with her.
"Wonderful! Mister Thomas please help me up." Dean quickly scrambled to assist Rix onto her feet. Rix began lecturing as soon as the proper counter-curses were administered—to all but Pansy whose nose was still running and sore, but at least she was no longer being chased. "That was a great example of Lesson's four and five; learn and adapt—Hermione did a great job with that one when she used my own trick against me, and even successfully rebounded a spell! Genius you are, even using birds—and lastly, teamwork. There are far few occasions where you will find yourself without an ally in life. Communication is normally key, but in the case of Mister Malfoy and Miss Granger, you're such a natural pair! Fifty points each!" Rix sounded legitimately excited. "I'd love to see both of you this weekend for a duel club meeting for pairs. It'd be a waste for the two of you to not join." Hermione could feel her face growing a deep red.
"I'm sorry, but neither of us duel. Granger's too busy with her nose in a book, and I—well, I'm not allowed." He said as if it was obvious. Rix pouted.
"Well, that's that I suppose. Now, I have a quick quotes pen that's been writing down a transcript of what just happened. I'll make copies. Use the transcript to describe something that you and your classmates did that could have been done better, and how. Should be about a quarter roll of parchment—at most a half a roll, Miss Granger." Hermione pouted, she had already started picking subjects for her essay, which she was going to assume would have been several feet long, instead of just a few inches.
"Class dismissed." It was only half way through the period, and Hermione began panicking.
"Professor, are we not going over the duel? Practicing shield spells?" She rambled, Theo and Blaise were already mostly out the door, and Pansy and Tracey were attempting to get her to shut the hell up!
"Hermione, you have extra homework. Go to your common room, and do something that doesn't involve either a book or a quill. Good day." Rix spun on her heel, ignoring the insulted look on Hermione's face.
"Come on, Hermione." Pansy coaxed, finally leading her out of the classroom.
So originally, the DADA class wasn't going to be this long, but I got extremely sucked into it. I even was making diagrams of where the students were positioned so I could see who go hit with who's hex and such.
I realize that there was some confusion on what Hermione 'saw' so I will be eventually going back and editing that, but basically it's Draco's scars on his back. Hope that helps. Becomes important later on. The DADA class though? NOTT! Get it? Last name puns... cause it's not important... bad jokes are bad.