And here's the first update in 2008. :)
This chapter gave me serious problems, I had to edit it heavily before I was satisfied
"So, tell me, Draco… Did someone inadvertently cast a Cheering Charm on you?"
Draco scowled at Blaise, whose expression remained perfectly deadpan for once. He knew he was letting on that he was in an extremely bad mood, but so what? Blaise should just be happy that he'd chosen not to rant and rave. Well, actually he hadn't chosen it; he couldn't rant and rave, because he couldn't risk anyone knowing what he was up to until it was a done deal. Not even Blaise and especially not Theo.
"You have been out of sorts lately," Theo supplied with one of his pensive gazes. "And it's not exactly like you to keep it inside."
They were sitting in front of the fire in the Slytherin common room, Draco on the couch with his long legs stretched out in front of him, Blaise at the other end of the couch, and Theo in a comfortable armchair, facing them. Other Slytherins were scattered about the common room, but these particular three Slytherins were largely left in peace, because most of the younger students were intimidated by their older housemates. It was a nice boon to be the biggest, baddest around. Draco half-heartedly extended his scowl to include Theo, but, unsurprisingly, it had little effect. The two others merely kept staring at him.
"Can't a bloke even be allowed to be in a bad mood every once in a while?" he murmured.
"Sure he can," Theo replied. "But yours hasn't changed at all for three days straight. It's annoying."
"I'm touched by your concern," Draco grumbled.
"I'm going to have to go with Theo on this one," Blaise said. "You're being a pain, snap out of it!"
"I'm not that bad!" Draco objected, even as images of how he would like to make the Head Girl beg for mercy danced before his eyes. Bitch.
"Not that bad?" Theo asked, raising an eyebrow. "I just asked you what you thought we should do with the fourth year, who was caught peeking in the girls' bathroom, and you replied to stand him outside in a puddle in the pouring rain, while we hurl lightning spells at him!"
"Oh, yeah…" Draco fought an evil grin. That fantasy hadn't exactly been about the dumb fourth year, who had gotten caught peeking. The two others looked at him expectantly, and he realized that he was expected to answer more than that. "I, um, well, it's important to preserve the girls' dignity or virtue or… uh…"
"Modesty and privacy?" Blaise drily suggested.
"Yeah, all of that." Draco waved a hand dismissively.
"Forgive me if I'm wrong," Blaise said in the same dry voice. "But weren't you organizing peep shows in our fourth year?"
Draco winced. "I learned my lesson, believe me." He shuddered.
"How so?" Blaise asked. "I don't remember you getting caught."
Draco scowled. "Why don't you ask Mr. Know-It-All here? I'm sure he could tell you." He gestured loosely towards Theo, hoping to divert the attention a bit.
Theo's eyebrow went up. "I didn't know about the peep shows," he said. "But if you weren't caught, then it would be a pretty good guess that you saw something you didn't want to see."
Blaise snorted with suppressed laughter. "What? You saw Bulstrode in all her glory?"
Draco tried to shake the mental image that Blaise had just conjured. "Uh… No. Stop fishing; I'm not going to tell you. If I don't tell you, then it never happened."
Blaise now laughed out loud and Theo smirked. "Not Slytherin showers, then?" he asked.
"We have other ugly girls than Bulstrode," Draco felt the need to point out. "Remember Darlene Dunn?"
Blaise shuddered theatrically. "You have my sympathy if you saw her naked."
"She graduated in our third year, though," Theo said, looking smug.
"I didn't say it was her," Draco said and felt a sudden urge to change the subject. "Are any of you planning on doing some studying tonight?"
Theo shook his head and Blaise's laughter subsided and he rolled his eyes.
"What?" Draco asked.
"Aren't you ever going to spend some time with your girlfriend?" Blaise inquired.
Draco glanced over at Pansy, talking animatedly to Daphne, while Tracey held herself a little bit apart as usual. Being a half-blood, Tracey was a very fortunate witch to be accepted as part of the Slytherin pureblood in-crowd, even if she was on the bottom of the ladder. Nobody could really fault her for telling Pansy about her relationship to Blaise, the girl had probably been under huge pressure. His eyes went back to Pansy, who didn't really seemed to be missing him right now.
"Uh… Nah…" he very eloquently said. "We hung out yesterday. No reason to overdo it."
"I don't get you," Blaise mumbled. "You claim to be in a relationship, yet you treat your girlfriend like some…" He abruptly clenched his jaw shut, not finishing the sentence.
"Like some what?" Draco asked in a deadly calm voice, his eyes narrowing.
Theo looked a bit apprehensive but didn't interfere. He knew better than to meddle in these matters.
Blaise looked away for a second, but then he spoke. "You hardly acknowledge her in public and you don't even seem to care to have her around in private that often either. What you want is not a girlfriend, it's a—"
"You know what?" Draco interrupted. "Maybe you don't want to finish that sentence, after all."
Blaise shrugged but didn't say anything.
"Why do you care, anyway?" Draco asked, genuinely befuddled.
Blaise shrugged again. "I don't really, it just seems like you don't know a good thing when you have it. You might live to regret that." He fell silent and shook his head.
Draco frowned. This made no sense to him. He knew that Blaise wasn't the least bit romantically interested in Pansy, and he was fooling around with that Davis girl, anyway. He glanced at Blaise, who wasn't exhibiting any emotions at all. Was he jealous because he wanted a girlfriend? He could have his pick of pretty much any girl in their House, if he wanted. And quite a few outside of it too, to be honest. Why would he want a girlfriend, though, when he got everything from Tracey without all the tedious work of being a boyfriend?
Draco sighed, not comprehending, and glanced over at Pansy and her posse. In doing so, he caught Tracey gazing wistfully at Blaise. He barely suppressed a groan as a revelation hit him. But that couldn't be. Blaise wouldn't want to play boyfriend to Tracey, would he? Although, that would explain perfectly why he was so bitter towards Draco – if Blaise couldn't have Tracey, the way that Draco had Pansy, and if he felt that Draco wasn't appreciative of what he had. Then again, he could be jumping to conclusions, since this was only based on her making moony eyes at him.
Oh, bloody hell.
He couldn't really figure out this mess, but at least he could try to appease Blaise a little bit with a small sacrifice of his own. He would gleefully skin anyone who called him on paying attention to his girlfriend in order to make one of his best friends happy, though. It just seemed… tacky.
"Hey, Pansy!" he called out.
"Hey, Draco!" she replied in a fairly good imitation of his voice. Someone giggled.
Draco groaned. He would have to get up from his very comfortable position here. The vixen wasn't about to let him summon her over as if she were… Well, what Blaise had been about to suggest that he treated her as.
"Excuse me," Draco said to a startled Blaise and walked around him over to where his girlfriend was seated with her back to him. He hauled her to her feet, ignoring her indignant squeak.
"A gentleman would say please," she informed him as he turned her to face him. "What's this, then?"
"My friends think I'm neglecting you," he answered.
"Oh, your friends do, do they?" she quipped.
"Shut up," he mumbled and drew her closer for a kiss.
He wasn't particularly fond of public shows of affection. In fact, he hated them. He didn't hold hands ever, and usually, if he kissed Pansy in front of others, it was only on the cheek or something similarly chaste. Every once in a while, he would allow her to touch him in affectionate ways, but he never felt quite comfortable with it. She knew this and that was probably why she stiffened slightly in surprise when his lips covered hers. She had soft, delectable lips; lips that he had probably kissed a thousand times before, yet he had never done so in their common room and never in full view of half of their house.
"Think your friends are appeased now?" she asked in a light tone of voice, when he drew back a few seconds later.
It didn't fool him; it was a long time since she had been able to fool him like this. She was hurt. She probably thought that he was doing this just because he was being ribbed by his friends, after he had growled at her several times, when she just wanted to show him affection publicly. What a mess. Now he had to fix this too.
He glanced over at Blaise and Theo, who weren't openly looking at them. He knew they were watching just the same.
"Yeah…" he said, before making a decision and pulling her in again.
"What now?" she asked a little breathlessly.
"This is for me," he whispered against her lips. This time she didn't stiffen and her arms slowly went around his neck. This actually didn't feel so bad, after all. He could probably live with doing it every once in a while.
"What are you doing?"
Hermione jumped in her seat and hid the parchment from view. "N-nothing," she said, eyeing Ron warily. "Head Girl stuff," she specified, when he looked at her oddly.
He took a seat across from her. She was sitting at the library as usual, with an enormous amount of books in front of her, and she hurried to move some of them out of the way and, in the process, slip the parchment in between them. There was no way she could explain what it was if he saw it and decided to question her.
"And you couldn't do that in the common room?" he quietly asked her.
Hermione felt an all too familiar twinge of guilt. "Perhaps I could," she admitted. "But I would still not have time to talk and—"
"I miss you," he stated. "You're drawing away from us. We know you're busy. We understand that, and we're happy for you… But you can't just forget about us like this, not after everything…" He seemed unable to finish the sentence.
Hermione stared at Ron with her eyes wide. "I haven't forgotten about you," she whispered. "That's not it at all."
"Prove it," he said. "Prove it to me. Put all this away and come with me back to the common room now and from now on make more time for us… for me."
Hermione glanced at where she had hid the parchment. Well… Malfoy actually hadn't put a time on when she should have the list for him and, besides, why should he call all the shots? Next time, she'd have her wand at the ready. She smiled at her friend. "Of course, Ron," she said. "Let me just put these books back…"
A few minutes later, she was walking back to her common room with Ron and promising herself that she was going to change her ways. She couldn't keep them thinking that she was forgetting about them and that they weren't important to her anymore. She just had to swallow her stupid pride. It wasn't like Nott and the Deputies didn't have any free time. She would get over this, starting tonight!
"Do you have something for me?"
Hermione glared at the arrogant blond, who had stopped her without as much as a greeting. It was the next day, she was almost late for class, and she really had neither the time nor the inclination to argue with him.
"No," she replied and began walking around him as he grabbed her arm.
"What do you mean 'no'? We had a deal!" Draco looked incensed. She was sure to feel sorry about that any minute now… or not.
"You didn't say when," she informed him. "And I've had other things to do." She shook his arm off of her and he let go without a fuss.
He snorted. "Everybody knows you have no life, and it's almost been a bloody week!"
She ignored his first statement and raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know you were so eager to become my slave."
His eyes narrowed. "Tonight," he hissed. "You will give me a list by tonight or I will find someone myself."
"I can't," she said, shaking her head. "It's Wednesday and I have to meet with Nott this afternoon…"
"Perfect," he interrupted with a smirk. "Then I know where to find you."
He walked around her and away and Hermione had to stifle a groan. She had better make the list or all hell would break loose and she'd risk being saddled with a Slytherin judge, who would share all the answers with Malfoy. She shuddered slightly at the thought of losing to him. Wearing the bracelet had been the most unpleasant thing she had ever had to do, and it had only been for a few minutes! Wearing it for a month was simply unthinkable.
Hermione wasn't wont to procrastinate at all; it simply wasn't in her nature. Yet, this list just didn't want to be written. She had stared at her parchment for longer than she cared to think about, trying to come up with someone, anyone, who she could be certain would not be bribed or bullied by Malfoy or any of his friends, while at the same time being bookish enough to put together the questions.
The list was lamentably short.
It couldn't be anyone Slytherin, of course. And she severely doubted that Draco would accept anyone Gryffindor. That left Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Between sixth and seventh year, that was 40 students in total. She didn't know if Draco got off his high horse long enough to be friendly with any of them, but she had to assume that he'd disqualify anyone being friendly with her and probably anyone being Muggleborn as well… That left roughly 25. She couldn't be sure of the blood status of everyone, but Draco was sure to know, being the ultimate pureblood fanatic that he was.
Hermione spent the better part of her Ancient Runes class trying to work this out, earning some very strange looks that she didn't even notice, when she didn't put her hand up one single time.
She wondered if he'd disqualify people just for being Hufflepuff as well. She'd bet he would. That left about ten people… Wait, that couldn't be right. She counted again. Yes, there were only ten left, and she had yet to look at their intelligence!
"Miss Granger!"
Hermione jumped in her seat. "Y-yes, Professor Babbling?" she stammered.
The professor looked at her disapprovingly. "Pay better attention now. I asked you to translate from page 63."
Blushing profusely, Hermione did as she was told.
Teaser for next chapter? Well, Draco says, "Granger and I are the best of friends. Aren't we, Granger?" whereto Hermione replies: "We're bosom buddies." You think Nott will buy that? ;)
