Chapter Four
The next day, Harry decided that he was not going to let the presence of Malfoy alter his and Hermione's training plans. He planned on going about his business as if the annoying blonde wasn't there.
They had just entered the room when Harry saw that Malfoy was conspicuously absent. Malfoy had made it painfully clear the day before that he was not planning to leave the room any time soon. And it was for that reason that Harry wondered what had changed his mind.
He looked over at Hermione in her jogging suit. Harry didn't think he would ever get used to seeing her in the tight outfit. He dragged his eyes away when he heard her say, "We should stretch."
She sat on the floor with her legs out in front of her and motioned for him to sit in front of her. She explained to him the stretching exercise she had learned in gymnastics when she was a kid, "You sit in front of me and spread your legs, I spread mine and we put our feet together so there's a diamond shape then I grab your hands and we pull on each other. It stretches almost all the muscles in the legs."
Harry just stared down on her trying to convince himself that that she had meant nothing inappropriate in what she had said while simultaneously trying not to look down her top.
"...Ok" he said while sitting.
He did as she said and realized that he was kind of sore from yesterday's running.
She held out both hands and looked at him. Harry took her hands and felt himself blush. He wasn't sure what it was that made him blush, whether it was the hand holding or the look that she gave him when she held out her hands.
"Pull a little, not to hard though." She said as she held on tight to his hands
He pulled and was amazed at how flexible she was. She sat up and said that it was his turn.
"Squeeze my hands if I'm pulling too hard ok?"
He nodded. He did try not to show how painful it was to stretch these muscles. He was determined not to let Hermione find out that he couldn't do anything that she could. Once they both stretched she stood up.
Harry saw a strange look on her face. It was a mix between surprised and angry and Harry thought he saw that glint in her eyes that he only saw when a teacher asked a question she knew the answer to. He turned to see Malfoy sitting on the couch reading the parchment in which Hermione had written all of the dark magic spells that she planned on them learning together.
"You know Malfoy, it would almost seem like you are interested in those spells."
Malfoy hadn't seen them turn their attention to him and looked up from the spell book with his trademark smirk on his face.
"You wish Granger, I just wanted to see what you planned on learning, that way I can use it against you later on."
Malfoy looked down at the book and saw countless spells he had been taught years ago. He had been trained by his father in the arts of fighting since he was seven years old. It was the ever so popular Death Eater training regimen that Voldemort had instructed all Death Eaters to teach their offspring so that when they turned of age they would be a more powerful generation.
Even after the defeat of Voldemort his forever loyal father had trained him mercilessly insisting all the while that voldemort was not gone forever and that Draco must be ready for his return.
Draco knew that his father was ultimately right and that was the reason that he was undeniably Voldemort's favorite and therefore his second in command. And Draco being the only son of the second in command was on the fast track to becoming a death eater.
All the death eaters in Voldemort's inner circle knew that the dark lord was waiting the day that Draco would be initiated into their ranks, his seventeenth birthday.
Looking at the book of spells ad then back up at the two people glaring at him he held out the book harry hooked on from behind Hermione and saw her take the book he couldn't help but wonder what she had planned, he knew by the look in her eyes that she did have a plan.
She grabbed the book and turned to harry and mouthed for him to follow her.
She walked far enough away that she knew Draco could not hear without a spell but close enough that he could not ignore what was going on.
"I believe that in order to gain power we should attempt to conquer all forms of magic. One of the texts I read from said that one of the most powerful forms of magic is elemental magic. The four elements are fire, water, earth and water." she said in a teacher like voice
Draco knew she was right. He had cast an amplifying charm on the two so he could hear what they were saying.
He knew that the mud blood was right Voldemort mastered elemental magic in his twenty's and it was very powerful magic.
Since hearing the prophecy that Voldemort told the top death eaters Draco had been thinking that the only way he could escape his fate of becoming a Death Eater was the death of Voldemort. And since Harry was the only one who could supposedly kill Voldemort he had been trying all summer to accept the fact that his fate had been chosen for him.
Draco had seen Voldemort in action he had seen him kill many people and he had seen many people try and fight back. And looking in the direction of Harry Potter he thought that there was a 15% chance that Harry survives and that was only if Harry got extremely lucky.
But Potter seemed to have an endless supply of luck.
He had made it past the basilisk in second year and no one knew how he had managed to escape forty Dementors in third. And he had managed to escape from Voldemort even after he had been resurrected in forth year. And last year he had gotten away from all the death eaters in the department of mysteries.
Draco had to admit there was a possibility that Harry could be powerful with a bit of training.
And if he helped Harry, Harry would owe him and if he did manage to beat the dark lord, Harry would be sure to rise to power and Draco would surely rise with him. Draco snapped out of it
Who Draco was kidding, he was thinking of betraying his father and the dark lord. And if Harry didn't win Draco would die a traitor's death.
Draco sat there for about two hours looking at the two practicing and he had to admit that both of them had redeeming qualities. Harry seemed to be perfectly in tune with his wand, it seemed to Draco that it was more of an extension of his arm then a tool he was using, Draco knew that that was an exceptional quality to have if you wanted to learn wandless magic. And then there was Granger. The Mudblood had power, it was undeniable looking at her. She was spot on with the wand movements and was even showing signs of the fire spell working; it looked like there were tiny scorch marks on her dummy like someone had held a match there for a second.
Harry was having the opposite problem his dummy was completely covered it scorch marks.
Draco, however, knew that both were doing the spell wrong.
Frankly Draco was a bit surprised that they had been able to accomplish anything at all when he had learned the spell he had been nine. It had taken him hours to get to the point that he could cause fire to shoot from his wand and three days to be able to control the speed, power and temperature of the fire.
"'Incendia tempestas" Harry shouted at his dummy and a huge wave of fire shot at the dummy, it flinched even though it had been set to immobile. And it erupted in flames for about a second before the flames were extinguished
Hermione clearly thought she was failing by the look on her face.
Draco stood and took aim at her dummy from across the room and whispered the name of the spell and a steady stream of fire flowed from his wand and circled the dummy. You could see the dummy through the ribbon-like web of fire surrounding the dummy.
It was being toasted like a piece of bread. Draco smirked as the two stared at the dummy. The spell was meant to kill slowly, as were all the elemental magic spells, but of course in the interest of time you could speed up the process. Draco focused on the heat and it increased to the point that the dummy was reduced to ashes on the floor.
Harry and Hermione had looks of admiration and fear on their faces as he they tuned to Draco who cockily flipped his wand in the air and caught it before sitting back down.
And Hermione knew at that moment that he wasn't going to make this easy for her she was going to have to beg.