Author's note: We're finally making our way up to the entire situation described in my summary. Be sure to read this chapter (its really fun) but everything will begin next chapter! Thanks to the readers who have made it this far and I hope you will continue.
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the world of Harry Potter, I just play in it.
The next day brought the first day of classes, bright an early. Hermione couldn't be bothered to notice that Draco was in every single one of her classes—because they had so much work as Heads. 'It would be easier for the two to manage all their coursework as well as other responsibilities' in the words of Dumbledore. She did, however, notice that Harry and Ron had chosen a table far away from her own in every class she had with them, which meant she was stuck with Neville most of the time. She was surprised when she looked up, halfway through Snape's first potions class, to find herself seated next to Malfoy. Noticing the shock register on her face, he smirked sideways at her, though he continued to copy the endless notes Snape magicked onto the board.
"Whats the matter, Granger, never thought you'd be lucky enough to sit next to such a handsome bloke?"
"No, it's just that I thought I had been sitting next to Neville," she spat back, never tearing her eyes away from the board. She heard him scoff next to her and felt his mood take a dip for the worse.
"How dare you, mudblood. In which ways, exactly, do I remind you of that sniveling, pathetic excuse for a wizard?" He sounded like he was exerting a lot of effort to keep his voice controlled. She sighed.
"That's not what I meant, Malfoy. I just meant that I've been sitting next to him in all my classes and I figured this one wasn't any different." She felt him release some of the tension, but knew he was still mad and didn't try and pursue the topic anymore. After copying 12 boards worth of notes, Snape dismissed the class for dinner 7 minutes late. She noticed Ron and Harry exit the room as quickly as possible without a backwards glance her way. She sighed and dragged her bag towards the door.
"Gonna eat in the Hall, or are you still avoiding Pansy?" she muttered to Draco as he made for the door at the same time as her.
"I'm staying as far away from that clingy whore as possible at the moment, so I'll probably scrounge something up from the kitchens. But I have to talk with Blaise about something, first, so you get the common room to yourself for a bit. Don't go throwing any wild parties," he looked her up and down, scornfully, "oh wait, that's right—you're Granger. You don't have fun." She rolled her eyes at him before they both turned and went opposite directions.
Although it was early in the evening, only about 6 o' clock, Malfoy didn't spend long talking to his compadre. He really didn't have anything else to say, he just wanted to spend as little time with Hermione as possible. The living situation was most inconvenient and he felt confined in their spacious dorm. When he returned 30 minutes after Hermione did, he found her sitting on the couch with yet another book—Merlin, I don't think it's safe for anyone to read that much, he thought—and an empty plate set on the table. Without glancing up from her book, she motioned with her hand to the counter. He glanced over in the direction which she had indicated, and found a plate of pork and vegetable stir fry over white rice. He was extremely taken aback that Hermione would still be making food for him after their little spat with her two 'great' friends. Thankfully grabbing the dish, he sat In the armchair across the room from her and watched the fire as he ate the meal she had undoubtedly prepared the muggle way.
"I get no thanks?" Hermione lifted her eyebrows and tilted her head towards him, but was finding it difficult to rip her eyes from the text.
"It's good, but not that good, Granger," he said through a mouthful of bell pepper.
"It's still proper manners to thank someone when they go out of their way to do something for you," she replied, reprimanding him. He merely shrugged in response and continued to pick away at the meal she made.
The second day of school began as uneventful as the first had. Many of the teachers only continued their beginning of the year speeches and made them copy even more class rules and
expectations. Hermione made it to her second class, Ancient Runes, without any major distractions. Without Harry or Ron around, the days seemed to stretch on forever.
However, since Ron, Harry, AND Neville weren't in that class, a small blonde girl from Ravenclaw tentatively took the seat next to her. The girl seemed very shy, and was extremly careful not to let her belongings protrude into Hermione's personal space, which the Gryffendor was very thankful for. Halfway through class, Hermione realized the girl wasn't shy—she was nervous. Her hands were shaking slightly and when Hermione asked her if she had caught what the teacher just said, the girl studdered a little. Hermione found this odd, so she attempted to make small talk with the girl.
"Aurg, I don't think these classes could be any longer," she groaned quietly to the girl next to her, who giggled quietly and nodded.
"I know, I can't believe we are stuck in here for 32 more minutes!"
"Don't even remind me. If only the clocks didn't have protective charms on them to prevent students form tampering with them!"
"Oh, that's so tricky! How do you know that?" the girl inquired with large eyes.
Hogwarts: A History she nearly said, but settled with "I think I heard some teachers talking about it once."
"That's no fun at all," the blonde whined.
"Well, welcome to Hogwarts—the ruler of all that is no fun!" Hermione whispered in a mock announcer voice.
"Now that's not true," Hermione's eyebrows shot up at the girl's words, "if you're sneaky you can have lots of fun." The girl's eyes glimmered playfully.
"I hope you don't mean anything against the rules" Hermione half scolded.
"No no, not at all. It's just—" she caught a particularly fiery glance from the teacher and was forced to close her mouth for a second. When the teacher looked away again, the girl continued. "It's just that there's this party type thing. Well, not even a party!" she added quickly, hoping to not be reported by the Head Girl.
"Then what is it?" Hermione asked, head bent in closer to the girl.
"Well, it was following your unity theme," she continued, hoping to appeal to the Head's adamancy to promote harmony, "so we were going to have a Ravenclaw and Gryffindor get together in the Room of Requirement tonight. At 8. You should come!"
"Actually, that sounds like a pretty good idea, er, I'm sorry—I didn't catch your name?"
"Oh. I'm Leena," the girl blushed slightly.
"Leena. Alright. And I'm—"
"I know, Hermione. You're Head Girl." It was Hermione's turn to blush.
"Er, yeah." The teacher shot the two another poisonous glare and they closed their mouths for the remaining 5 minutes of class. When the bell rang, they tucked their things into their bags and made quickly for the door. After a short and slightly uncomfortable goodbye, the girls went their separate ways for their next class.
Apparently Leena had lied, because when she reached the room of requirement, students of all four houses were milling around forming groups and sitting in circles. Spotting Ron and Harry in the largest of the three circles of students, she wandered over and plopped herself between the two boys. A little too late, she noticed Malfoy sitting across the circle, smirking at her. She smiled politely back before she became aware of an empty firewhisky bottle in the middle of the circle. A shot glass was placed in front of her and she was instructed to drink it. A little disappointed at the students for resorting to alcohol, she sighed and downed the liquid, having experienced the burn several times over the summer with Fred and George. After two more, the glass was set aside and the game began again.
Apparently, three shots was the price of admission—in order to loosen the tension, of course. No more fire whisky was offered to anyone.
The bottle spun, landing on Luna.
"Dare," she declared dreamily, unafraid of her challenge.
"You must…" the redheaded Hufflepuff girl paused to think, "sit between Crabbe and Goyle." The girl clearly thought her dare was clever, because she was smiling malevolently as Luna drifted over and wedged herself between the two boys.
"Very well, then," she squeaked from her new spot, before sending the bottle spinning with a twitch of her wand.
Hermione watched it spin lazily. She had begun to feel slightly warm, her stomach glowing fondly with its new contents. While she knew she was nowhere near being incapacitated, she enjoyed the slight, very slight as she noted, feeling when she moved her arms. While coming to the conclusion that three shots was the perfect amount to relax a group of students without letting anyone get anywhere near drunk Luna had cleared her throat, clearly thinking. Hermione sought out the bottle in the middle, and found it pointing to Malfoy.
"You must…go sit with Ron." The blonde and redhead both paled slightly, but when Malfoy crawled over to Ron and sat next to him with a grimace as if the action had caused him actual physical pain, Luna spoke up again. "No, with. As in, in his lap." This drew great protests from both boys. The people near them in the circle began to argue—that was the dare, those were the rules, it was just a game, no one cared. Finally, Ron agreed to sit with his back against the wall and legs apart so Malfoy could recline against him. Hermione thought they looked cute, really. They deserve each other, a vicious voice in her head sang. She laughed when the bottle landed on none other than Pansy, and because he was bitter that Pansy had found too much enjoyment in his situation, Malfoy took to the game to another level when he forced her to kiss Neville full on the mouth. This the Slytherin girl completed, if not somewhat revolted, but her eyes glimmered when Hermione started as the bottle stopped with it's neck pointing at her.
"I dare you to," Pansy paused dramatically, enjoying the attention, "kiss Draco—"
"What!?" the two heads sputtered at once.
"—I'm NOT finished. Kiss Draco. With tongue. For four minutes. Come on, show us some of that inter-house unity you have been shoving down our throats."
The whole room stared. The innocent game of truth or dare really had become "spin the bottle" and none of them were surprised to find it was two Slytherins who had accomplished this. Hermione sat in shock. Kissing him again was the LAST thing she wanted to be doing, no matter how much alcohol was in her system. Three shots had hardly given her a buzz, how was she supposed do something like that in such a state. In front of so many people. The entire room had, by now, joined the game.
"Well, don't be shy," she urged.
"Hermione, just get it over with," Harry muttered from her side, clearly not in love with the idea either. She looked over to Ron, who was still acting as Malfoy's backrest. He looked utterly horrified as well.
"You heard her, Granger, get over here. Don't hold up the game for everyone else. Or are you scared?" Malfoy, although repulsed, didn't want to appear weak or afraid and by now knew how to get action out of her. She stood up carefully, crossed the circle in four large strides and purposely straddled him. Although she had meant to just sit on his thighs, she slid down to his lap because he was sitting crossed legged. She saw a flash of surprise flit behind his eyes but before he blinked it was replaced with his normally steely grey eyes. By now she was used to seeing such an occurrence, but it unnerved her nonetheless. For a few seconds they sat there, and she became aware that Ron was squirming behind them because her knees were resting on his inner thighs, though not very hard.
"Oh just get on with it!" someone called.
"I want you timing this."
"Right, Draco," Pansy ensured.
"No, I mean it. You have to tell us when time is up."
"Yes, Draco," she sighed again.
"Well, then?" the same onlooker said.
Hermione's breath was shallow. Malfoy's hands were resting somewhat awkwardly on her hips. They could not break eye contact. Both were dreading the inevitable, putting it off as long as possible. Again they had managed to find themselves in the same awkward position as before. Only seven heartbeats raced between their chests this time before, finally, he reached up and wound his hand into her hair, the other hand on the side of her face, and roughly pulled her lips to meet his. Thankful for his lead, it took her a few seconds to register the sickly familiar feeling of his lips pressing at hers.
This kiss was more forceful, obviously because he was on stage again, trying to impress the entire room. Quickly he gained access to her mouth and she felt his mission was to conquer. Realizing her hands hung lamely at her sides, she brought one up to his face, to mirror his hand on hers, and placed the other on his chest, and felt him jerk slightly under her touch. She smiled into his mouth. Though this kiss was slightly more practiced than their first, and both had the most trivial edge of alcohol, they still found themselves tense. Malfoy was the first to push this aside, in the interest of a good show. Only a minute had passed by the time he withdrew from her mouth and pulled her head back using the handful of hair he had grabbed. Now he placed his mouth again on her neck, biting and licking the spot that had previously drawn a slight noise of satisfaction, being sure to leave markings along her throat and shoulder. She was faintly aware that the angry burning sensation of her skin rebeling against Malfoy's touch was dimished, it seemed it had resigned to the fact that its persistence to keep him off wouldn't be enough to actually keep him off.
Hermione was frightened to open her eyes, self-consciously feeling Ron's eyes on her as Malfoy was attacking her neck. Horrified, she heard a small gasp escape her lips. She felt his lips curl into a sneer as a laugh ghosted over her neck. He returned to her mouth with another two minutes remaining. He removed his hands from her frame, and grabbed hers around the wrists. Carefully lifting her arms above her head, he gained complete control. Hermione was dismayed to be put at the mercy of Malfoy, and when she felt him push back on her wrists, as well as rotating his hips forward, she was mortified to find herself slowly falling backwards. Her back hit the ground softly and he crawled on top of her as smooth and lithe as a snake, biting and licking where and when he saw fit. This was one of his best theatrical productions yet, never before had he an audience of such variety and volume.
When he let her hands go in order to place one of his own on the ground next to her head and the other on her stomach, she quickly and forcefully tangled one of her own into his hair and the other on his hip, eager to gain some sort of command again. Realizing that he was stealing the show, Hermione finally decided to become a main player instead of background character and bit playfully at his lips before guiding his head over so that her lips had access to his ear. Carefully, she bit and licked at it, Malfoy clearly enjoying the sensation, as he pressed against her rather powerfully. When she began to lick, he let out the slightest whimper, sure only she herself could hear it, but she got frightened of the effect she was having and returned hastily to his lips. Both, at this point, were using more strength as Pansy called out that the pair had one minute remaining.
Shifting slightly underneath him, she knocked her foot into Ron and realized with a start what impression her and Malfoy's little show was giving him. Ron already abhorred the boy; this would only further his mistrust of the blonde. She drew back, her lips centimeters from Malfoy's, their foreheads still touching.
"Stop," she whispered. The girl next to her cleared her throat, trying to remind the two that they still had 50 seconds. He drew her back in for a second.
"I can't." Hermione was shocked by his words as he kissed her again. "Time's not up." Her heart started beating again. "I wouldn't want to have to start over." His lips pressed lightly on hers as he spoke, then kissed her again at the pause.
"We wouldn't want that," she agreed quietly in an angry tone.
"I thought kissing you once," he kissed her, "was bad enough," another kiss, "you dirty mudblood." At the feeling of the word being spoken into her lips, she colored and bit his lip hard enough to draw blood as Pansy called out "Time!"
Hermione shoved him roughly off of her and rolled onto her stomach so she could stand herself up. Once on her feet, she threw the boy one last deep scowl and strode purposefully toward the door.
Author's Note: Please please please keep reviewing. So few reviews is slightly discouraging.
