New chapter! FINALLY. I meant to post this one a lot earlier, but life kept getting in the way. :P So many reviews! Special thanks go to kvance, Amaranth01, Tatharwen, Brigitte Nons and snapplexo for your feedback - really appreciate it :) hope you guys enjoy the chapter - it's a little on the short side but I'm hoping to be able to post more frequent updates this week :) Enjoy!
After she'd left Draco in the hospital wing, Hermione headed up to Professor McGonagall's office. She hadn't told him she was going, of course. She could just picture his flashing grey eyes, his stubborn mouth if he found out she'd told Professor McGonagall about the letters – no, it was best that he didn't know.
After she'd explained everything, Professor McGonagall had thanked her and said that she would keep an eye on him, but unless he came to her himself, there was very little she could do. The Headmistress had waved Hermione out with a brief, kind smile, but by the time she had closed her office door behind her Hermione's hands were shaking.
Draco was being threatened – attacked, even – and she was doing nothing about it. Admittedly Draco didn't want the Headmistress to know that he was being threatened in the first place, but Hermione wasn't just going to stand by and let her friend suffer while the person sending those letters got away with it.
Because Draco was her friend. She couldn't have said exactly when they'd forgotten their enmity and their friendship had begun – some days all the old feelings flared up again, and others they were completely alien to her, as though she was looking into someone else's thoughts. He had become her friend so slowly, so suddenly, so strongly that it was hard to imagine how she had managed without him.
He was her friend.
And she wasn't going to let him suffer.
The first December snow was trailing down the window pane. Every room in the castle glowed with golden candlelight and the soft, rich smells of roasting turkey wafted through the corridors.
There were only a few days left until the Yule Ball and the start of the Christmas holidays, and Hermione was busier than ever. Aside from all her normal duties she was constantly dodging bunches of mistletoe and hopeful-looking fourth years, and she barely had time to knit so much as a blanket for the Hogwarts house elves. Her every waking moment was crammed with work, she'd barely had time to think about getting herself a dress.
A dress for the Yule Ball, which McGonagall had personally told her she had to attend…
Hermione dropped her quill. Ink splattered all across the prefect rota and fear clutched at her insides.
She had nothing to wear.
If this had been an ordinary Yule Ball, Hermione wouldn't have batted an eye. She would have borrowed something of Ginny's, or altered something of hers, and skulked off with Harry and Ron if she got embarrassed about her dress. But this year – judging by all the love letters – she would be the centre of attention. Her appearance would be scrutinised and discussed by the entire school at the very least – possibly by the entire wizarding world if Rita Skeeter ignored the restraining order again.
"Accio catalogue!"
A small, glossy catalogue flew across the room and into Hermione's hand. She flicked through the pages of smiling, waving witches at lightning speed, picked a dress at random and placed an express order. She signed her name with a flourish and the order form disappeared in a puff of smoke. A few seconds later, a parcel materialised out of thin air and dropped onto her prefect rota. Hermione tossed it onto her bed, the material inside rustling.
If only it was that easy to contact Ron.
The wind rattled the glass panes of the greenhouses. Hermione shivered. Even though she was wearing every woolly item of clothing she had managed to cram into her trunk – and a pair of Professor Sprout's fluffy earmuffs – she was still freezing. She was in Greenhouse Three and forcing fat, struggling Mandrakes into tiny knitted jumpers, her fingers stiff with the cold.
She was still no closer to finding out who had sent Draco those notes.
He hadn't said anything else on the subject, not one word. Every time she tried to bring it up he folded his arms and glared at her until she changed the subject. All she'd been able to get out of him was that he'd received more than one of them and they were never sent in with the normal post owls.
She stuffed another Mandrake back into its pot, thinking hard.
That must mean that someone would have to be delivering them by hand, or perhaps by magic. From what she understood, the Slytherin dorms were underground, so it was unlikely that they were being levitated in through the window – as Lee Jordan had done in their fifth year, when he had levitated a Niffler into Umbridge's office. No, she thought, as she pulled up the next squirming plant – the windows were unlikely. Either someone was sneaking into the Slytherin dorms, or the letters were being put into Draco's bag when he was walking around the school.
She sighed, forced the last Mandrake into its tiny jumper and sat back on her haunches.
Her list of suspects was not narrowed down in the slightest. Anyone could have slipped Malfoy those letters, and half the school already had a motive. He was a former Death Eater, he'd made more than enough enemies to warrant a few threats. And as for her – well, before this year began she could count the number of proposals she'd received on the Giant Squid's fingers. Now, people were in love with her – and all it would take for someone to see one of her heated exchanges with Draco Malfoy to make them think that Hermione needed protecting from him.
No, thought Hermione as she straightened up and headed for the door, it was going to take a lot more work to get to the bottom of this.