Draco continued to stare at the fire for some time, and Hermione wondered if she could slip away unnoticed, but decided to stay put in case he got physical again. She supposed she must be terribly rattled by what had just happened, so rattled in fact that she felt nothing at all. But then Draco spoke, and feelings rushed back into her.
"Granger, what the hell are you up to?" he sighed at last.
"What do you mean?" Hermione squeaked, although she felt she knew what he meant. This was going to get embarrassing in a big way, and she didn't know how to avoid it.
"I think you know what I mean, Granger. But if you want me to spell it out, fine. What have you been doing to yourself lately? Have you taken a look at yourself in the mirror in recent times? I am sure you will be seeing a stranger there. What is all this in aid of?" Draco tried to keep his voice neutral.
Hermione stiffened. Surely this was not something a guy should be talking about with a girl! Guys just appreciate, don't they? They don't ask questions. But then, whoever said Malfoy was a normal guy.
"Are you sure you should be asking me such questions, Malfoy? This is my personal life, after all, and its my business if I decide to change my looks a little…" Hermione spoke dismissively, nose in air, only to be cut off.
"A little? Take a good look at yourself, my dear witch; you'll hardly be able to recognize yourself. I already know why you are doing all this…"
Hermione gasped aloud in horror.
"What? Do you think I don't know you are sweet on Weasel King? While I don't think much about your choice, I do find your pathetic attempts to catch his attention…a bit distasteful, and quite commonplace, frankly." Draco turned his mouth down at the corner.
Hermione began to breathe freely. For a moment she had thought he had deduced that he was the target of the 'Ron Won Project'.
"I mean, c'mon, I expected a bit more imagination from you girls. You are obviously new at this game, but Raisingh disappointed me. Pathetic. If you can't get a relatively simple guy like Weasley to look at you, what can you do?" Draco was disdainful.
It was difficult enough doing all those things in the first place, and now hearing him speak about her efforts deprecatingly irritated Hermione. Add to that his insouciance of the past week, and Hermione was starting to simmer.
Draco considered her for a moment, waiting for some response, and then started again.
"I have been watching your futile attempts for an entire week now, and wouldn't have said anything at all, eventhough you were going about it the wrong way, but frankly, after potions today, I don't really think I can allow you to make a fool of yourself any further. It was foolish in the extreme…" Draco was continuing in a lecturing manner, and Hermione, already feeling the pressure on her temper valve, was pushed over the edge by his mention of what happened earlier in the day.
"Oh, foolish, was it? Well, let me tell you, I had nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing. I don't know what happened or how, and if you even dare to suggest otherwise, I will hex you to Greenland." Hermione glared at him darkly.
Draco was a bit taken aback at her vehement reaction, but was determined to get to the bottom of this.
"Are you trying to tell me it was not a part of your plan to catch Weasley's eyeballs?" he asked, disbelief evident in his voice and face and Hermione, embarrassed and furious, lost it suddenly.
"No, you dunderhead, it wasn't! It was never the plan to catch Ron's eyeballs in any case", yelled Hermione, absolutely livid. "It was your eyeballs we were after, you idio…" Hermione suddenly stopped and stared at him wild-eyed, clapping her hands to her mouth in mortification.
A heavy silence hung between them, as though the air itself had gained weight. Draco stared at Hermione for a long time, taking in her high color, her anxiety, her discomfiture, her…whats that! Tears in her eyes! Draco let out a long sigh.
Hermione looked up at him fearfully, not quite sure what to do. But she was glad to notice he hadn't hexed her yet, or got visibly angry. But it was difficult to say with him.
"Why?" he finally asked her, something unidentifiable rippling in his voice, giving her goose bumps.
"I ….I am…sorry…" she whispered miserably.
Draco continued to stare at her, willing her to answer his question with his eyes. Hermione wanted to drop her gaze, but her innate honesty stopped her. She had made a mistake, and she would admit it like a true Gryffindor.
"It started off innocently enough", Hermione started speaking quietly, feeling a bit relieved when he turned his gaze to the fire, as though he realized his accusing eyes were making things all the more difficult for her. "It was about Ron not paying attention to me, and all that…and before we knew it, it was about making him jealous or something. Ginny thought I should start dating someone else…but Sia thought it would be too obvious. And then…" Hermione faltered, unable to go on, unable to think now how they had made him a scapegoat in the entire affair. She couldn't quite comprehend how she had agreed to do this in the first place. It all sounded so sordid now, and cold-blooded.
"And then?" Draco prompted, unable to believe that the girl he had thought as simple and innocent could actually try something sneaky directed at him. He had always known Granger to be clever and intelligent, but not in this area.
"And then…Malfoy, I said I am sorry. Can we just forget about this, please?" she pleaded with him, her moist eyes seeking his beseechingly.
"You obviously wanted to make a fool of me in this Catch-Weasley game of yours, so now why not admit it! Pansy's behavior should give you an indication that you succeeded partially. And then, Snape gives me seven detentions! He has never given me a single detention in all this time! And today, because of you, not only do I get a detention for every day of the week, but the entire class gets an opportunity to laugh at me. At Draco Malfoy! I don't know what you originally wanted, but all of this must've come as an added bonus, surely. So why feel ashamed now at recounting the grisly details to me, Granger? Tell me, I want to know everything." Draco spoke quietly enough, but now Hermione could detect the thin thread of violence running through his words, and felt a chill run down her spine. He turned to look at her once again, and again she saw the pure silver his gray eyes had become, frightening in their opacity, making him look menacing.
"Malfoy…I am truly sorry", she choked out through her tears that were now running freely down her cheeks. "It was never my intention to…"
"To what? Make a fool of me? Make me a laughing stock? Play some kind of sick joke on me? What wasn't part of your great plan Granger, I don't actually care. But I do want to know what your intention really was, after, if I might be permitted to add, my civil behavior towards you. " Draco was furious, and his cold anger and quiet voice, in sharp contrast to Harry and Ron's blazing outbursts, frightened Hermione as little else did.
"I admit I am a pureblood elitist. That's the way I am, and I am not sorry for it. But I thought we might be able to live together in peace if we put behind our animosity, and I did my bit by being cordial towards you, a muggleborn, which is not a small thing for a Malfoy to do. I am not asking for undying gratitude from you, but neither did I expect you to make me the class jester. And then you put on a huge act of being hurt because I called you a mudblood! Double standards in the extreme, that's what I call it. And this sneaky affair you are embroiled in, after your innocent act of over six years, it does surprise me a bit. And to think you are saint Potter's best friend! Tell me, is he in on the joke too?" Draco sneered.
Tears of humiliation and shame continued to pour down her face and she shivered under the coolness of his gaze, struggling to put their original intention into words that wouldn't anger him or damn her. It seemed impossible, but she knew she had to tell him the whole truth now.
"Ron hates you like he hates no one", Hermione began in a dead sort of voice, "and the idea was that if you seemed to take an interest in me, it would fire him up to…" Hermione was unable to go on, but didn't really need to when he cut across her.
"So you decided to make Weasley jealous through me? You are daft enough to think of Weasley and me in the same light? You actually assumed he and I could be rivals at anything? And I thought you were intelligent." His voice was full of disbelief and scorn.
His thinly veiled insults directed at Ron got through to her even in her misery, and she stiffened. But then she heard a quiet laughter. She stared in confusion as she saw him laughing quietly at the fire, and then he turned to her.
Draco stopped laughing when he saw the bewilderment in her eyes, and pinned her with a penetrating stare. She really had no idea what she was about, poor girl. She really was an innocent; but the time had come to make her aware of the implications of her actions.
"What would have happened Granger," he asked silkily, his quiet words gliding along her skin in the stillness of the room, making her shiver, "if I had really become interested?" His eyes were still silver but, instead of holding the opaqueness of his anger, now they were liquid pools of devilry.
Caught off-balance by the sudden change in his mood, and even in the air around them, Hermione gulped involuntarily, suddenly realizing what he meant. Why hadn't this situation look so dangerous in theory as it was in reality, she wondered over her rapidly escalating heartbeat.
"Let me think, you didn't really consider that possibility, did you! What did you think I am, Granger, a silly little boy or a eunuch? Or maybe a homosexual! After that show you put on today, didn't you realize the danger you were in? Even before today when you were trying to get me interested, did you ever stop to think what would happen if I really started fancying you? Take a moment to think now." His voice was laced with amusement, but Hermione didn't find anything even remotely funny about her situation.
"Granger, you must have heard rumors about me in the school; I profess I don't know all of them, but believe me, most of them are true. I am a certified Bad Boy, the kind of boy all mothers warn their nicey-nice daughters about. Luckily for the Bad Boy Brigade, nice girls seldom listen to their mothers." He raised his eyebrows in derision, and Hermione blushed.
"While I admit I like to take a little time with the girl I get interested in, unlike Blaise, for instance, but believe me, when I do get interested, locked doors and passwords and little hexes and jinxes can't keep me away. If I had decided to have you the day you decided to put your lovely legs on display, we wouldn't be having this conversation, for one thing, because right now both of us would have been either in your bed or mine. And, mind you, you would have wanted and loved every moment of it." Draco finished wickedly, making Hermione's ears burn with embarrassment. She hastily dropped her eyes, and Draco noticed.
"The idea, Granger, is not to embarrass you, but to make you realize that I am not a plaything. In fact, far from it. I am way out of your league, Granger. The games I play have rules that would shock you, and I have probably forgotten more about girls than Scarhead or Weaselbee are ever going to find out. The only reason you are as yet saved from a proper retribution for your audacity in playing with fire is" Draco paused for effect as he gazed into Hermione's wide, fearful eyes, "you are an innocent."
Hermione listened in silence to the wild thudding of her own heart, suddenly and very curiously reminded of similar sentiments voiced by a wild herd of centaurs a couple of years back.
"We do not attack the innocent", she echoed her thoughts aloud without realizing she had spoken, until she saw Draco give her a curious look.
"Has anyone ever told you Granger that you are really weird?"
"Yes…I mean, no." Hermione spluttered. She was acutely embarrassed and every moment spent in his company was increasing her awkwardness. She was beginning to think she would have preferred his anger to his derision, and all his candid admissions about himself had left her tongue-tied. She could not believe that a guy had just talked to her about things she didn't even discuss with Ginny. She also couldn't believe that she had just been shouted at most thoroughly, albeit quietly, and scolded, but in such a manner that she couldn't really complain.
As she sat there and pondered over everything, unable to come up with a single thing to say, Draco took out his wand and waved it twice, and a plate of sandwiches and two bottles of butterbeer appeared before them on the low table. Hermione glanced up at him, surprised, and he shrugged his shoulders, adding, "I don't feel like going down for dinner, and I rather thought you wouldn't either."
She felt so numb she couldn't even manage a smile of thanks, and her effort came out looking closer to a grimace. Draco, who fully understood that he had rattled her pretty badly, simply gestured her to eat.
Both of them took a sandwich and their bottle of butterbeer, and munched in silence for a while. Inspite of her lingering feeling of embarrassment and discomfiture, Hermione managed to eat quite a bit, surprising herself. But the silence was anything but companionable, and something kept eating away at Hermione, until she could bear it no longer. If it had been Harry or Ron, or any other boy, she would never have dared to voice her concern, but somehow, she felt she could ask Malfoy. After all, he already knew the worst of her.
"Umm..Malfoy!" she ventured tentatively.
"Hmm?" he asked, his mouth full of cheese and ham.
"Did you…I mean, do you…erm…do I …" Draco raised his eyebrows as she struggled to find words and courage. He looked at her straight in the eye, and strangely enough, Hermione seemed to draw courage from him.
"Malfoy, do you think there is something wrong with me?" she blurted out before she lost heart.
Draco continued to look at her, munching slowly, then finally asked, "As in?"
"As in…well, I know I never paid attention to what I looked like, but now, when I did… I mean, neither Ron nor you noticed it…" she trailed off awkwardly, pink with embarrassment.
Draco silently wondered how a seemingly clever, intelligent girl could be so stupid and ignorant, but then, as she fancied Weasley he shouldnt really be surprised. Clever she might be, but she had missed a few buses along the way. He realized he was walking on shaky ground now. One wrong word, and he would find himself on the wrong end of a wand. Possibly even three. With a few nights in the Hospital Wing.
"What makes you think that Weasley and I didn't take notice?" he asked carefully.
"What? I mean…you never…well, showed it…did you? Either of you?" she nearly whispered.
"Didn't you get enough reaction out of both of us today?" he asked quietly.
"No." At Draco's raised eyebrows, she hastened to explain herself. "I meant…you know, the way boys generally look at Sia and Ginny…its so different from the way they look at me, if they look at all." She finished miserably.
"Don't compare yourself to them…they are different. Weaselette is, I suppose, a looker, with her striking red hair and a famous Scar on her arm. And Raisingh has class". And a body, he thought to himself. "She can carry off almost anything. You three do have a short fuse, though, and have a general tendency to flare up at the drop of a hat, but that I suppose is a Gryffindor trait. Otherwise, you all are as different as chalk and cheese." Draco spoke neutrally.
"Ginny has looks and Sia has class…you didn't say anything about me." Hermione murmured, and Draco sighed.
"Granger, you have the brains of three people inside you, and you are decent and sort of, naïve, an ingénue, which neither of them are. And if you think its not complimentary enough, then I assure you that if either of them had tried to pull a similar stunt on me, then I wouldn't have forgiven them." He finished a bit irritably.
Hermione's eyes lit up. "So you have forgiven me?" she asked hopefully.
"Didn't I just say that?" Draco feigned despair.
Hermione lowered her head, tears springing to her eyes inexplicably. "Thank you", she whispered tremulously.
"If you are thinking of shedding any more tears, I may have to conjure a tub." He added dryly.
Hermione laughed at that. He was alright in his own way, she thought. And after what she had tried with him, she could say he was nice. Very nice. She couldn't imagine Ron or even Harry forgiving her so readily. She felt very warm towards him suddenly, wanting to repay his kindness in some way, and not knowing how.
"You know, Malfoy, I never thought you would be such a nice…"she began warmly, only to be silenced by his snort.
"Nice? Haven't you been listening to me, Granger? I am NOT nice. I am anything BUT nice. Just because I have sterling good looks and don't howl at the full moon doesn't mean I am NOT the Big Bad Wolf. So stay away from me, if you know whats good for you; I bite." But he smiled to take the edge out of his words, and Hermione found herself beaming at him.
Draco relaxed a bit. That had gone well, he thought. He had managed to stop her from doing a strip tease and even more importantly, managed to rein in his anger upon finding out that she had been essentially using him to get Weasley. That had really hurt his pride. Ouch. Imagine the Gryffindor Good-Girl manipulating a Malfoy! But he had managed to come out smelling roses. Three cheers for the Sly Slytherins, and their indisputable prince, he smirked to himself.
"By the way, did you think up such an elaborately sneaky plan all by yourself, or…" Draco considered the high color creeping up her cheeks, and expelled a long breath. "Well well, what do you know? Seems Raisingh is a lot more devious than I gave her credit for. Makes me kind of glad, in retrospect, that I…" he murmured quietly, but stopped as he realized he couldn't blurt out the truth about his bet to Hermione.
At Hermione's puzzled look, he hastily changed the topic. "What made you girls cook up such a lousy scheme to get a guy's attention?"
"L..l..lousy?" Hermione sputtered, not completely at ease yet, and decidedly uncomfortable with the topic. "It was , well, Si…er, the idea was quite straightforward. If Ron notices you noticing me, he starts noticing me as he has never noticed me before…" Hermione started rambling, and Draco looked his disbelief.
"This is straightforward?" Draco was incredulous. " Are you quite sure it never occurred to anyone of you to simply ask him out yourself if he is a bit…well…shy? Hmm?" Draco asked sardonically.
Hermione gaped at him, and he laughed. "Evidently not!" Hermione turned pink again.
Then he sobered up, and taking pity on her, spoke quite seriously, "A guy prefers a straightforward approach-not your kind of straightforward, of course, but a really simple course of action. If he is interested in you, he asks you out without a fuss. If you are interested in him, you ask him out without resorting to any underhanded means. If he says yes, you rock, if he says no, you look somewhere else. Simple." He grinned at her, and life itself suddenly looked really simple.
Hermione shook herself mentally. "But Sia said…" she began to argue, but completing a sentence with him around was really difficult.
"I am sure Raisingh knows a lot about the male body, and I am equally certain that none of it has anything to do with the male brain." He asserted impishly, and Hermione blushed at his implication. Well, Sia certainly seemed very knowledgeable about boys, so she couldn't really argue the point.
"I can scarcely believe I am actually fixing up the twisted love life of Weasley, but anyway. Look Granger, I am sure you know that he has a soft spot for you, right?" Hermione nodded pedantically, and he suppressed a sudden desire to slide in a snide remark; he knew he wasn't going to score points with maliciousness.
"Then…I am not going to ask what was the need for your 'straightforward' approach, but I will definitely tell you one thing; it simply cannot be that Weasley would have failed to notice the changes in you. I mean, he does little else except shoot covert glances at you. Look at how badly he fares in classes if you don't believe me. Anyhow, to get to the point, assuming that he has noticed the revolutionary new you, what do you think that has done to him? He hasn't asked you out, although admittedly I am at fault here for failing to fall in with the plan. But still, what do you think he feels now?" Draco was enjoying himself thoroughly, watching Hermione squirm and imagining the mental state of Weasley.
Hermione paled at his words. Was Ron really noticing her all this time? What did he think of her behavior? And what did he notice today? Surely he hadn't seen what Malfoy had…oh, Merlin! Was that why he was here earlier, to confront her? Hermione started wringing her hands absently at the thought, her conclusions rapidly jumping from bad to worse.
"Say something Granger, you've been silent for so long its starting to creep me out." Malfoy's words brought her out of her misery with a jolt.
"He…he fears the worst, doesn't he?" she whimpered.
"Well, you certainly scared the hell out of him. Maybe he thinks we are having a scorching affair. Maybe he thinks I am seducing you now…Granger, what the hell!" Draco shouted and jumped up from the couch as Hermione, who was absentmindedly taking a swig from her bottle, suddenly spluttered and coughed up her butterbeer all around, quite a few drops landing on him. She continued to cough, red faced at his offhand remark, while Draco studied his pullover morosely.
"Designer stuff…. original….new one…." Draco muttered under his breath as he studied his pullover dismally, and Hermione, catching a few words here and there and wanting something to do to take her mind off the dangerous direction his remark had just pointed out to her, took out her wand and pointing it at him, thought Tergeo. Immediately, the drops vanished as though they were never there.
Draco considered his now clean pullover for a moment, and then without any warning peeled it off, walking towards the stairs with it. Hermione had a momentary glimpse of his muscular chest and flat abdomen before he turned away, and then was treated to the sight of his perfectly sculpted back. Her face burned and she cried out in embarrassment. Draco turned his head to look at her, amused, then threw his discarded garment at her in sheer devilry. It hit her on her face, and she took in the heady scent and warmth of his body before tearing it away and standing up in a rage that was directed more at herself than at him.
"You…", she spluttered, "What is the meaning of this…this…" she cast around for something really dire to throw at him, and he laughed at her discomfiture.
"Grow up, Granger. In any case, you would've seen a lot more of me had you really got me...interested." He smiled wickedly at her, and laughed again as a deeper shade of red crept up her already pink cheeks.
"I don't want to see anything of you", she screamed at him, brandishing his shirt at him as she waved her arms around.
"Relax, darling", he drawled out. "Enjoy the fact that right now, you are the luckiest girl in Hogwarts, because you have in your possession a freshly discarded garment of Draco Malfoy. There are many who would kill for it."
Hermione had forgotten that she was still holding his shirt, and she dropped it as though burned. "I am not one of those, Malfoy, and don't ever try this…this…stuff with me." She grounded out, now pointing her wand at him.
Draco studied her wand thoughtfully, blissfully unconcerned that the sight of his naked torso was disturbing her. "Granger", he said softly, a small smile playing on his lips, "I am merely returning a favor." Then he looked straight into her startled eyes, and as his meaning sank in, Hermione trembled from head to foot at the memory of what he had seen that morning.
Satisfied that he had stumped her completely, he turned towards the stairs once more, calling out over his shoulder, "And thank Merlin you are not one of those girls, Granger, because I am not interested in you in that way." And then he disappeared.
Hermione sat down suddenly, staring at the spot where he had stood taunting her just moments ago, her mind numb with shock.
Why, she asked herself, should she be hurt, or even disappointed, that he wasn't interested in her? They all knew that Malfoy was all hormones, the way he had behaved last year, he and Zabini chasing down everything with a pretty face above a skirt. It hadn't mattered then that she wasn't one of those; she had been scathingly critical about their shenanigans anyway. They probably hadn't considered her a girl at all, she mused. But now, when even Zabini had climbed down from his high horse to notice that she was a desirable girl, muggleborn that she was, why wasn't Malfoy interested in her at all?
She should be thankful, she supposed, that he was impervious given what had happened in potions today, but it wasn't very flattering to her female vanity.
She was still lost in similar thoughts when he came back, wearing a jersey so similar to the one he had thrown at her, that she actually looked down to check it wasn't the same.
"How many of those do you own? Or is it the same one that you have replicated?" she asked, momentarily thrown off.
Draco looked highly affronted.
"This one here is French…that was Italian. Completely different designers…not to mention completely different design." He spoke disdainfully.
"Different?" Hermione asked, eyebrows disappearing in hair, "They are the same color, same pattern…"
"Ah, but you are mistaken. That one was woven with a diamond pattern, this one is knitted with a ribbed design. And that one was forest green while this one leans more towards olive, though not quite. For a very clever girl, you can be decidedly blinkered." Draco smiled smugly at her, sitting down beside her again.
Hermione rolled her eyes, and he shook his head.
A small silence followed, and Hermione was again reminded of his rather categorical statement. She frowned slightly, picking up her thoughts where she had left off. Draco watched her chewing her lip in concentration.
"What's wrong now?" he asked her, slightly irritated at her habit of thinking over everything so deeply, opening cans of worms where none existed.
Hermione came to a sudden decision; she wanted to ask him, she wanted to know everything. She wanted all embarrassing stuff out of the way before she ever laid eyes on him again. She knew he would answer her without being shocked, experienced as he was. As for laughing at her, he was always doing that. But she really wanted to find out the truth, or she would keep simmering.
"Malfoy, why are you not interested in me at all? Is it because I am a muggleborn? Or I am not your type, or what?" she herself was shocked at her audacity.
Draco stared at her in amazement and disbelief. He hadn't expected her to be so direct.
"Why Granger, would you like me to be interested in you?" he hedged for time, mocking her.
"I am serious, Malfoy, and I want a serious answer." Hermione didn't even blush this time, her expression so stern it reminded him of McGonagall, and for a brief moment he had a vision of McGonagall, eyes spitting fire, wanting to know from him why he wasn't interested in her! Draco swallowed his laughter with difficulty.
"Two reasons, Granger. One I have already told you; you are an innocent, a canary, and I am the falcon. While falcons do hunt canaries, I prefer to play with other birds of prey rather than launching a hunt of hapless birds. To get rid of the metaphor, I play with girls who know the rules of the game. That way, we all have a good time and at the end of it, nobody gets hurt. No tears, no guilt, no emotional baggage. And, most importantly, no cursed letters or hexes directed at my back." Draco spoke clearly, and it was true anyway. He didn't want hyperemotional girls clinging to his neck, crying bitterly about their broken hearts. It had happened before, when he was a novice at this game, but not now; it was too harrowing.
Hermione considered him with sharp eyes, weighing his words, testing their veracity.
"And the other reason?" she prompted.
"The other one, well, it's a bit difficult to explain. You and I are going to be living together for a year, and I just don't think it judicious or prudent to mess around with each other. I mean, there are so many things that can go wrong. We might end up hating each other after that, and then living together will become unbearable. Or we might end up liking each other, and then breaking up at the end of the year will be traumatic. Or Potter and Weasley might decide to put their point across, and then we'd all be spending the year making regular visits to the Hospital Wing. Or things might get so ugly we might be stripped of our positions, and I don't want to lose my position just because of raging hormones. So on the whole, I thought it best to maintain a purely platonic relationship with the Head Girl."
Hermione stared into the fire, which seemed to be losing its intensity. His words were oddly comforting, practical as they were. Spoken quietly, they soothed her vanity, and appealed to her logic. He was right; if he had decided to play with her, she would have ended up with a broken heart, he with broken bones, and they both would have been kicked out of office for indiscipline and bringing disgrace to the positions, and her relationship with Harry and Ron would have suffered. And the entire school would have laughed at them.
Hermione rounded on him; he was brilliant. He was nice, considerate, and brilliant. Ok, so he laughed at her, but so did Harry and Ron. And although he had been labeled as Mr. Hormones in the Gryffindor common room, he had shown a remarkable restraint and foresight in playing indifferent to her foolish games. Hermione felt relieved, and so lightheaded she wanted to do something crazy. Instead, she looked directly into his eyes, and spoke what was in her heart.
"Malfoy, for the last time, I am really sorry for whatever I did. It was…very bad of me. And thank you for forgiving me, and thank you for…for being so considerate, and even though you don't like hearing it, for being so nice. You are right…about everything you just said." Draco raised his eyebrows at that, but she went on breathlessly. "I just wanted to ask you one thing…could we be friends?"
Draco and Hermione stared at each other for a long time, each weighing the other up. Hermione's eyes were hopeful, Draco's were calculating. Finally, he broke the silence.
"Your friends would never understand, or forgive you for this."
"They don't know you, as I do now. When they get to know you a little, I'm sure they would feel differently…" but she trailed off, not entirely convinced herself.
Draco snorted. "Sure. I can just see myself lounging around with the Golden trio, and Weaselette and Raisingh too. That would be very chummy."
"Oh, ok…so lets not tell them for a while. Let them come to the same conclusion as I have by themselves." Hermione retorted mulishly.
"Which is?" Draco prompted, amused at seeing her reverting to her old self.
"That you are not so bad. You can be actually nice if you want to be." She replied smartly.
Draco laughed at that. "Just listen to you. I am not bad? Granger, my badness is already rubbing off on you…you are about to keep secrets from your friends of six years, and quite relishing the prospect, by the looks of it."
Hermione smiled secretively at that, but she knew she was right in trusting Draco. Beneath all his snarky exterior lay an honourable, thoughtful guy, one he didn't give the rest of the world an opportunity to see.
"Friends imbibe each others' qualities, don't they? So maybe you will also imbibe some of mine." She smiled impishly up at him, but he looked positively alarmed.
"Merlin forbid, I don't want to find myself poring over tomes the way you do, ever. Or bobbing up and down in my seat everytime a teacher asked a question. Or spitting fire at the drop of a hat. Or going dewy-eyed at Weasley…"
"I don't get dewy-eyed at him." Hermione retorted snappishly.
"You do." He jeered.
"Draco…"she began warningly, but he cut her off.
"Oh, so I am Draco now?"
"Well", she hedged; thrown off once again, "if we are going to be friends…" she trailed off again as she realized he hadn't said yes.
Draco considered her, his head to one side, finally deciding to rescue her from her own doubts.
"We are going to be friends, Granger, but I hope you will excuse me if I don't jump to first name basis overnight. You are welcome to call me Draco, though. Only," he reminded her, momentarily arresting her growing smile, "Don't call me that in front of your fire-spitting troupe."
"They don't spit fire without any reason. You have done a lot over the years to keep Harry and Ron permanently mad at you, and I haven't seen you going out of your way to be courteous to Ginny either. With Sia, well, I don't know, but you two seem slightly less than fond of each other, for some reason, and I am sure the reason is not entirely Sia's fault." Hermione told him, nose in air.
"Of course it isn't. Do you think I would let a girl get the better of me? In any case, I have never liked the girl-on-top position." He told her dryly.
"Chauvinist, aren't you?" Hermione asked with a faint blush.
"Narcissa Malfoy's son a chauvinist? Not likely. When you have a mother like mine, you just cant help but grow up to respect women." He told her seriously, and Hermione's eyes widened in disbelief.
"You, respect women? If that were true you wouldn't have been treating the girls of Hogwarts like groveling subjects of your personal fiefdom." She told him scornfully.
"Ah, but you are again missing the most elementary point. I have grown up to respect women, true, but only women who are worthy of being respected. My mother is such a lady-dignified, haughty, beautiful and pureblooded. Lethal combination. Do you really think I would have respect for girls who are simply waiting to jump into my bed given half a chance? Many of them don't even require a bed, so long as I…"
"Ok, ok, I see your point." Hermione told him hastily, coloring up again. It was almost impossible to hold a decent conversation with him.
Draco smirked at her, enjoying the sight of color seeping up her face again.
"So", Hermione tried to sound matter-of-fact, trying to gloss over the uncomfortable moment, "Is there any girl in our school at all who is worthy of your respect?"
Draco smiled knowingly, but decided to play along with her rather than add to her discomfiture. "Actually there is. One girl who I can never see in that light, whom I will always consider sacred."
Hermione raised her eyebrows, her thoughts flitting from Ginny to herself to…
"Luna Lovegood." Draco pronounced clearly.
"What?" Hermione was taken aback. She didn't even know Draco knew of her existence. "Why?" she asked wonderingly.
Draco released a long sigh, his face falling dramatically as he reminisced. "Once I got a detention from McGonagall, and I was unfortunate enough to be serving it with her. Seems she had tried to tell McGonagall that Switching Spells were useless since magical creatures like Gluttonous Bonbons were capable of turning the spells upon the wizard who cast them." Hermione sniggered, and he continued morosely.
"Yeah, McGonagall had given both of us lines, and then to my most unfortunate bad luck, she had to go out for something, and for twenty minutes Miss Bonbon tried to shove the evidence of the existence of Crumple-horned Snorkacks down my throat. Since that time, I have been so scared of detentions that I have started paying close attention in classes. Anything to avoid coming within hearing distance of her."
Hermione was laughing so hard tears had started pouring down her cheeks again. Draco considered her for a moment, before adding, "Not that it did much good to me today."
Hermione's laughter ceased suddenly at that. As the moment threatened to become uncomfortable again, Draco smiled at her.
"You are certainly imbibing my badness with a vengeance Granger. When was the last time you laughed at somebody?"
Hermione reflected on that; she certainly never laughed at people. Even when she wasn't very fond of Luna, she had never laughed at her. Maybe being friends with Malfoy was rubbing off on her…
Draco laughed aloud as he almost saw the cogs in her brain turning over that. She took everything so seriously it was downright hilarious. Then he stood up and stretched himself, and Hermione's eyes followed the graceful movements of his long limbs unintentionally.
"Anyways, I have to make a move now." At the question in her eyes, he reminded her lightly, "I have a detention to serve, thanks to the machinations of three lovely ladies-you, Pansy and…" He stopped suddenly. He had no intention of mentioning Sia's name to Hermione, or to anyone else; he would deal with her in his own way, and that revenge would be really sweet, he would see to that.
"And?"
He started, having forgotten she was there for a moment. She was looking at him questioningly and Draco knew better than to leave her curiosity unsatisfied.
"Misfortune", he told her glibly, and she hung her head.
"Don't worry about it. Snape's too fond of me to boil me in his cauldron. And Pansy will be there to drive him to up the wall, so with any luck, he will cancel our punishment altogether. See you, Granger." He told her blithely before walking to the portrait hole.
Hermione looked up to see him walk out, and murmured, "You really are nice, Draco."
"I heard that." He called back from outside, before banging the portrait shut.
Hermione smiled, "Goodnight, Draco."
A/N: Yay, they are friends! Well, at least Hermione is! Draco has his own agenda, but who knows what'll happen in the future! I do, of course, but thats beside the point. Anyways, seeing that I typed out all those words, please type a few to review. Trust me, it doesn't hurt.