REPUTATIONS
by MODA
Chapter 3
She didn't see Malfoy when she came downstairs the next morning to shower, before slipping quietly out of the tower. She was partially glad of this, but part of her had wanted the opportunity to throw a little self satisfied smirk in his direction to remind him of her little victory the night before.
Hermione made her way through the quiet hallways to the new unity common room, which she had not had the opportunity to see the last night. There she was to meet Neville, Luna and Ginny so that they could go to breakfast together.
The new common room was huge. It had to be, she supposed, for the majority of Hogwarts' students the fit within it. It seemed to combine the expense of the furniture in Slytherin's common room with the comfort of Hufflepuff's and Gryffindor's, and the walls were lined with bookshelves.
Comfy-looking leather sofas and armchairs of all colours and styles littered the room, and there were many large desks that looked as though they would seat up to seven or eight people, their varnished surfaces gleaming in the light from the gas-lamps hung around the room. The banners of each house adorned the four walls, and beneath each banner was a door, through which the feet of four sets of spiralling staircases could be seen.
Neville, Luna and Ginny were sat on a brown couch beside the enormous fireplace, but the common room was otherwise deserted.
"Hermione!" called Ginny as she entered the room, "How was last night with Malfoy? Oh, and what's your new dorm like?"
"Erm," she began as she neared them, "Well, Malfoy and I had a spat last night, but that was nothing less than I expected. The dorm is lovely! The main room is completely white other than the furnishing which are red and silver. There's this beautiful little balcony that overlooks the front lawn, too. My room is much the same as the dormitories in Gryffindor tower, except there's only me."
"That sounds amazing! What did Malfoy say?"
"The usual. Some rubbish about his family's reputation and how, being the mudblood scum that I am, I should only speak to him when spoken to, etcetera, etcetera."
"Ignore him, Hermione," said Luna somewhat dreamily, "he has no reputation anymore, you played a huge role in defeating Lord Voldemort, and he only just avoided going to Azkaban. He can't touch you."
"Oh, I know. I gave him a piece of my mind on the matter, which shut him up. Breakfast, anyone?"
The other three nodded and they headed together to the Great Hall, discussing the Wizengamot trials that had been held over the summer.
She was gone. Thank Merlin. He had lain in bed for fifteen minutes after waking, listening to her shuffle around downstairs. Draco could barely admit this to himself, let alone to himself, but he knew the thing stopping him from going downstairs while she was still there was that his pride wasn't ready to face her again. He rolled out from under the sheets, starting slightly as his feet hit the cold floor.
He went about getting himself sorted for the day; the familiar sequence he had followed since first year allowed him to organise his thought on how he would go about responding to Granger's win the night before. She was stronger than he had presumed she would be. He'd never had a great opportunity to see how she personally reacted to direct insulted, as Weasley and Potter had always gotten in the way. Now he had an idea of how she worked, he could play off that, stage his attacks better. He would have to step up his game a bit, and the idea pleased him. He liked a challenge. He would set his mind to studying her over the next few days, to see what irked her, test out a few insults to see what ended up striking a nerve best.
Hermione felt it had been a good day, different, and odd, but good all the same. Slughorn was still potions master, and all the teachers from previous years were still teaching the same subjects. There were two teachers missing, though: Professors Snape and Burbage. Snape had been replaced as Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher by a man called Mr Kurt Rothley, a tall man, with dark hair ad very pale blue eyes, whom Hermione guessed was in his late thirties. She no longer took Defence Against The Dark Arts as a subject, so had not seen him teach first hand, but Ginny had said he was very intelligent, and reminded her somewhat of Remus. Charity Burbage had been replaced by Miss Glinda Pennifold. Muggle Studies had been made a compulsory subject this year, although Hermione had not yet had a lesson with her. Today she'd had Herbology, Charms, Transfiguration and History of Magic, which left her with a couple of hours between her last lesson and dinner to go to the library and get ahead of work. And to avoid Malfoy for a little while longer, the part of her that wasn't trying to deny that he'd got to her just a tiny bit last night muttered.
Conversation at dinner felt less forced than it had the night before, thankfully. Ginny had brought up what they'd all done over their summers, which Hermione was comfortable with, as it meant they could talk about the last year indirectly, instead of having to pretend it didn't happen. There was no way one could put that out of one's mind so simply. It didn't work that way.
"I mostly spent the holidays with my Gran. I visited my parents a fair bit, too. In some ways I'm glad they missed everything that happened this year," Neville was saying.
"That sounds nice. Mine was a little hectic, if I'm honest," said Hermione, picking at the food on her plate.
"What happened?"
"Well, I originally went back to the Burrow with Harry and Ron, but we only stayed a week or so, before moving into Grimmauld Place, which we fixed up and made nicer. I don't think I could have survived living there if it had remained being dank and like the headquarters of a pureblood cult frenzy, which I guess it kind of was. We spent about three weeks in Australia, getting my parents back, and then Harry and Ron started Auror training, so I spent a lot of time studying for this year."
"I could've guessed you'd end up spending your free time that way, Hermione. Normal people would've gone on a holiday or something. Merlin knows you deserve one."
"Oh, I did go to France for a week."
"And let me guess you took your textbook to the beach with you?"
Hermione glanced away from him, shamefaced. She noticed Malfoy get up from the Slytherin table and leave the Hall out of the corner of her eye, and remembered that at some point, she would have to return to her tower and face him, and sooner rather than later would probably be best. Sighing, she muttered her excuses to her friends and left.
She found him sat on the sofa, his legs, crossed at the ankle, propped up on the coffee table, an open book in one hand. As she shut the door softly behind her, he glanced up. A smirk wound its way up his lips, and a glint appeared in his eye. Hermione steeled herself for the inevitable torrent of abuse she was about to receive, part of her mind thinking about how she felt like she had just fallen into one of those western movies she had watching with her father every Sunday afternoon as a child, cowboys standing in dusty roads, feet apart, half crouched, fingers twitching towards the holsters at their hips...
He seemed to be waiting for something, as he remained silently grinning, if you could call it that; grinning seemed to imply an expression of happiness. The closest thing to happiness she could see in his eyes was delight, but it was anticipatory delight - cold and cruel. In fact, what would have looked like a slightly sarcastic smile to a passer-by seemed more like a feral baring of teeth to Hermione; the kind of look you would expect to see on the face of a wolf after a long chase.
And in all honesty? It terrified her.
Finally, she'd had enough.
"Problem, Ferret?" she spat in her best sneer, although it came out somewhat feebly.
"Not at all, Granger. Did you have a nice day?"
She raised an eyebrow in suspicion at his creepily amiable tone. "What's it to you?"
"Why Granger, doubting my motives?"
"Definitely."
"I'm just trying out this whole "house unity" thing, you know? McGonagall certainly stressed that it was of great importance."
"To hell you are, Malfoy. What's really going on? Trying to fix your reputation by befriending the Gryffindor mudblood, are we? It's going to take more than that to get your daddy out of court, I can promise you that."
Malfoy's composure failed, as a noise that sounded much like a snarl errupted from his lips.
"Hit a nerve did I? My apologies, I didn't realise purebloods had feelings. I thought all the inbreeding had rid your family of those a long time a go. I mean, just look at your Aunt Bellatrix. Sorry, late Aunt Bellatrix. My mistake."
That was it. Draco stood and launched himself over the back of the couch at an impossible speed, and before Hermione could even realise what had happened she felt her head strike the door behind her, clouding her vision with stars and pain. She groaned and her head lolled forwards for a moment, causing her to feel the wand that was pressed into her throat, and notice the hand that had shoved her backwards. She lifted her head, which now felt like lead, to look up at Malfoy, who was towering over her, his eyes looking like black storm clouds, anger roiling just beneath the surface.
"I would watch your fucking mouth, mudblood, if you know what's best for you. Accidents have their way of happening to those who don't mind their tongues around me. Just look what happened to my dear, dear cousin Nymphadora and her half breed husband, or that Weasley twin. They came to rather sticky ends, did they not? I wonder what's happened to the other twin, eh? Topped himself yet? I would've. Not because I'd lost my brother, no. I would be glad of that. No, I would've because I'd be doing the Wizarding world a favour, removing myself from society permanently. There seems to be far too many ginger blood traitors running around right now."
Crack. Hermione fist flew out, connecting with Malfoy's nose with more strength than she thought she had in her. His head snapped sideways and blood spurted from his nose like a horrific fountain, splattering the wall beside them. Unlike in their third year, though, she did not feel at all satisfied having thrown the punch. She lunged forwards, intending to hit him again, again, again, until the last foul, evil breath left his body. She managed to get him once in the jaw before he caught her wrists and slammed her backwards again. His skin was paler than usual, and the blood running over his lips and chin stood out in stark contrast to his colourless eyes and hair.
"You bitch," he hissed in a tone that could not have sounded any more threatening if it had been shouting. "Did I "hit a nerve", in your words, hmm? Seems as much. Oh, you're not honestly going to cry, are you, Granger?"
She looked away, hot tears burning her eyes, trying to blink them away but to no avail. The harder she tried to stop them the more inclined they were to overflow, pouring down her cheeks in boiling rivers.
"Awww, the mudblood's crying. Bless. And Potter and Weasley aren't here to do anything about it. Where are they, Granger? Finally come to their senses and realised that all you are is a boorish, ugly, bookworm mudblood? I don't blame them."
"Shut up, shut up! Shut you foul fucking mouth, Malfoy! You don't know anything! Now get off me and leave me the fuck alone!"
She wrenched her wrists from his grasp and sprinted up the steps to her room, feeling the Malfoy's victorious gloating floating up the stairs after her.
One all.
A/N: See, I updated quickly! This chapter was fun. Well, the last bit was. Aced it out in an hour. Yes, aced. Other people write, I ace. Sorry for the swearing, I don't tend to use it unless it's necessary for effect. Big thanks to those who reviewed, all of your reviews were really lovely and encouraging and I had nice PM conversations with a couple of you. Thanks so much for reading!