Hehe, Theo love is fun. The only thing that bothers me is when some of you say that Draco has no redeemable qualities whatsoever. He may not be a very nice person (okay, he's plain mean) and Theo is CERTAINLY a better love interest at this point, but if you think Draco has nothing to redeem him... Well, you need to wake up and smell real life. He could be much, much, much worse. He has tons of qualities that make him redeemable, he's just fighting them. There is no such thing as pure evil. (and yes, Marilyn already launched me into a discussion about Hitler, let's refrain from that, shall we? It doesn't really compare here)
"Don't you think you're being a little cruel?" Blaise asked.
He was looking at Hermione, who had obediently sat down at the Slytherin table to eat. In an effort to avoid the worst of the Slytherin mockery, she had sat down among some first years. This worked fairly well for about thirty seconds, since the children didn't quite know what to make of the much older Gryffindor Mudblood Head Girl, but then they all decided that they would rather not be associated with her and vacated the table, leaving her sitting alone. This wouldn't have been all that bad, either, except some fifth and sixth year bullies then took it upon themselves to give her an extremely hard time.
Draco was ignoring the whole thing.
"She deserves it," was all he said.
Blaise glanced at the Gryffindor table, where people were also staring and scowling at Hermione. It was just two days before the annual Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match, which made her apparent solidarity with the Slytherins close to unforgivable.
Truthfully, he felt a little sorry for her.
"I can't imagine what she could have done to deserve this," he mumbled. "Come now, Draco, haven't you done enough to her for today?"
"No." Draco didn't really feel the need to elaborate.
Theo frowned from the other side of the table. "You can't keep punishing her for what you saw yesterday, Draco," he said.
"Can't I?" Draco neutrally asked.
Theo sighed. "I'm going to sit by her." He got up.
"You do that and I will do something twice as bad to her tomorrow," Draco calmly said, hardly looking up.
Theo slowly sat down again, clearly not liking being thwarted like this. "What can you possibly do that's worse than having food 'accidentally' dropped all over her by our housemates and having her own housemates treating her like a traitor?"
"Go down there and you'll find out," Draco coolly replied.
Blaise was looking from one to the other with a pained expression on his face.
"Are we fighting?" he asked.
He was ignored by both of them.
"If Pansy were to find out why Granger is being punished, she might get the wrong idea," Theo casually pointed out.
"Turn Pansy against me and you'll really force my hand with Granger."
"It's easy for you to get your way with threats when you have a powerless girl to abuse, isn't it?" Theo quietly asked.
"Really?" Draco asked, looking up. "Because I've yet to see it working to my satisfaction. It's impossible to get between her and her friends, but she seems to be getting between us just fine."
"You're wrong," Theo replied. "She isn't doing anything – that's all you."
"Whoa," Blaise interrupted. "It seems we are fighting and I'm not even sure why!"
"Stay out of this, Blaise," Draco said.
"If it's because of Granger, she's not really that important," Blaise persisted. "So why not just drop it?"
"That's not what you said when you claimed that getting her sick would get the Order to kick out my mother," Draco sneered.
Blaise winced. "I just don't want you to cross the line," he muttered.
"She'll live," Draco curtly said.
"Why is it so important for you to hurt her?" Theo asked. "Isn't it enough to have her run errands for you and stand to attention in your room every day like some house elf? Do you have to spread malicious rumors and force her into positions like this where she's clearly making enemies of our entire House not to mention her own?"
He gestured towards Hermione and Blaise's gaze followed the motion and he winced again as someone 'accidentally' knocked a glass of pumpkin juice into Hermione's lap and jostled her, as she tried to right herself, to everyone's great mirth. He quickly glanced towards the High Table to see that the few teachers present were consumed with their own conversations or food and didn't notice a thing.
Draco dropped his cutlery with a loud clank and got up. "You both disgust me!" he growled. "I'm the only one with any sense left!"
"It's not sense, Draco," Theo said. "You know it's not."
Draco didn't reply, but just walked out without a second glance at either his friends or Granger.
Draco didn't actually go back to the dungeons. He waited outside in the Entrance Hall.
He wasn't stupid; he knew that some people might take their taunting of the Head Girl too far, considering how tense the House relations were this time of year. Her status offered her little protection when she was provoking the Slytherins in this manner. He was still seething with anger at Granger's impudence, not to mention his friends' newfound protective streaks, but, in spite of everything, he had better not let this go too far. He wasn't exactly sure if it was in violation of the contract, but he wasn't really interested in violence either way.
His predictions soon enough came true, as he saw Hermione hurry out of the Great Hall, closely followed by six Slytherin brutes, Crabbe and Goyle among them. Draco sighed and rubbed his forehead. This might prove a tad unpleasant.
She had brandished her wand as they caught up with her, but there was no way that she could hex all of them and she must know this. She looked like she'd put up one hell of a fight, though.
"Finally, Granger," Draco said, coming forward. "I thought you'd take all day… Why are you wearing your food? And what's this? More beaus of yours?"
"What do you want, Malfoy?" she hissed. "Come to enjoy the show, have you?"
"I don't see your friends about," he harshly retorted. "Are they so stupid that they don't realize you might be in trouble, or do they simply not care?"
"Are you going to join or what, Malfoy?" Harper, one of the sixth years, asked.
Draco coldly pinned him with a gaze. "She's mine; I've come to collect her. Thanks for keeping an eye on her for me."
"She'syours?" Crabbe asked. "You've become a right blood traitor lately, haven't you?"
Draco sneered. "Haven't you heard, you idiot? She belongs to me. She's my willing slave. What good will she do me if you lot send her to the hospital wing?"
He reached out and yanked Hermione by her wrist from between his considerably burlier housemates. Too confused to really react, she just stumbled along.
"Hurry," he hissed in a low voice. "Move, before their brains start working."
They turned back towards the entrance to the Great Hall, since they were both quite unwilling to have to go through the group of brutes. Draco might be protected by his name, money and status, but he didn't believe in taking unnecessary risks or tempting fate. After no more than ten steps, however, Draco abruptly stopped, letting go of Hermione's wrist.
Hermione looked up to find Harry and Ron standing there, arms folded, wands still in their hands, as they stared at the scene before them.
"I suppose your friends came after all," Draco muttered.
"Of course they did," Hermione haughtily replied.
"Right…" Draco wrinkled his nose, realizing that he hadn't needed to pull her out of there. She had been perfectly safe all along. "I just remembered that I'd rather cast an Entrail-Expelling Curse on myself than talk to you people," he announced, and, without another word, he turned away from the Gryffindors and left for the dungeons.
Hermione was left alone to explain to her friends just why Draco Malfoy had saved her from his own housemates. The silence stretched.
"It was his fault in the first place," she finally blurted out.
"We gathered that," Harry replied. "We didn't actually think it was your idea to sit at their table."
They all fell silent again. Other students were beginning to file out from the Great Hall, signaling that classes would start soon. Hermione really needed to go change her robes. Tergeo had not proven as effective in removing the mess those bullies had made as she would have hoped.
"We have an agreement," she explained. He'd never told her that she couldn't tell anyone about this part of the contract. "It says he mustn't be responsible for any violence done to me." It didn't really say that, but she supposed it was a matter of interpretation. "I think he figured they were about to become violent."
"He would have to be a bloody moron not to figure that!" Ron hoarsely replied, still staring at Hermione.
"Why do you have an agreement with him?" Harry asked. "Why do you need to have an agreement with him?"
"I…" Hermione was looking for words.
"She can't say," Ron supplied. "Seems like Malfoy has got something on her, doesn't it?"
Harry scratched his head. "But why would he willingly agree to protect her, if he's got something on her?"
"I'm still here!" Hermione interjected.
"Are you going to contribute to the discussion?" Harry asked.
Hermione sighed and shook her head.
Harry didn't look surprised. "It seems that for all intents and purposes, Hermione is doing what he says willingly, and in exchange, he has offered her the protection of a… well, an agreement."
"But that doesn't make sense," Ron grumbled. "Why would she do that? I don't believe the rumors and I refuse to believe what she's saying as well. He has to be forcing her to lie somehow, he has to."
He looked Hermione straight in the eye and her heart warmed at his vote of confidence.
"Indeed," Harry mused. "It's hard to see what Hermione gets out of this. She isn't the type to blindly run after someone, humiliating herself for his attention, as he would have us believe. Besides, I hardly see her running after him."
"Should I even be here for this discussion?" Hermione finally asked, feeling rather amused with the two of them.
"Be quiet, Hermione," Ron said without any force. "But why is she doing it then? Why is she allowing him to control her? If you say that he isn't in some way forcing her, I don't see why."
"Well, we can't rule out some amount of force," Harry conceded. "But I believe that she perhaps made a deal with him."
Hermione's eyes widened slightly. She wasn't sure why they were having this discussion in front of her. Perhaps they hoped to be able to read her responses or perhaps they just wanted to let her know that they didn't take anything Malfoy said at face value. That thought warmed her; she had the best friends in the world. They never seemed to stop believing in her, no matter what she did.
"A deal with him?" Ron skeptically asked. "Where he's allowed to spread lies about her and abuse and humiliate her – just not in a violent way?"
"Yes, I wonder what she got out of it," Harry mumbled to himself.
So close and yet so far away. Hermione sighed.
"I have to go change," she said. "I bet that nobody ever had this much food spilled on them in wizarding history."
She hurried off, not really believing they'd get the hint or know what to do with it, but congratulating herself for trying.
The next day was Friday, but more importantly, it was the day before the big Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match. Tensions were really at their peak today. Hermione's popularity had greatly suffered from her sitting at the Slytherin table for lunch the day before, and only when she was with Ron and Harry was she feeling like she'd get through this. Fortunately for her, they didn't show any signs of wanting to leave her side.
Unfortunately for her, in the afternoon they had to leave her side, in order to go have their last-minute Quidditch practice. She would have come with and have watched them, only, Harry quietly told her that it wasn't such a good idea. The whole team was on edge and having her there would only incite them.
So, basically, she was left to her own devices.
When the time came for her to go to Draco's room, where he would at least be the only one scowling at her, she had barely entered before he told her that she had the day off and to go back to her common room. He seemed twitchy. Edgy, even. She would have thought that he would want to take his anxieties about the upcoming match out on her, but, apparently, he'd rather be alone.
So, she went to her room and decided to stay there for the rest of the day.
She woke to a summons at 1.30 a.m. So much for having the day off. She quickly got up and got dressed, not taking the time to properly wake up, since she knew from experience that in a few minutes the clamoring inside her head would be almost unbearable.
This time, she made sure to remember her socks and even shoes.
When she finally presented herself yawning to her apparently never-sleeping 'master', she expected him to complain about her being late again. He didn't. He hardly even acknowledged her as he was writing on something, probably more schoolwork.
"Did you need me or are you just bothering me?" she asked him, yawning again.
"You should know the answer to that by now," he replied. "You can sit down, but no falling asleep and no shoes on my bed, either."
Hermione rolled her eyes but sat down on the edge of the bed just the same.
"Why do you never sleep?" she asked.
"I sleep," he replied. "I just have other things on my mind sometimes."
"Ah. Like Quidditch."
"For instance," he vaguely agreed.
"And homework."
"Could be."
"How to get back into Pansy's good graces." She leaned back against the bedpost and briefly closed her eyes. She was so tired.
His lips twitched. "Never had to lose sleep over that one."
"And maybe guilt over your abominable treatment of the Head Girl."
He snorted. "Yes, that's sure to be it."
Hermione couldn't help but grin. "I knew it!"
Draco shot a glance at her. "You don't seem very upset about yesterday."
Her face grew shuttered. "For a whole minute, I think I had actually forgotten about it."
"If you promise not to try and find a way around my orders regarding Theo, I won't force you to do that again."
"But there's a world of other things you can do, isn't there?" she grumbled.
"True, but I could also force you to eat every meal at the Slytherin table for the next two weeks."
"You could also just say please."
"You wouldn't do it just because I said please."
"No, but it would be nicer."
He sighed wearily. "Why would I be nice to you, Granger? It would sort of defeat the purpose, don't you think? Just give me your word about Theo and then you might live through tomorrow."
The irony was that Hermione for the most part didn't think he was being not nice to her when she was in his room these days. He only really got mean lately if he felt provoked by her. Of course, his acting out like a spoiled child in those instances didn't exactly promote a desire in her to be his bosom buddy, but he was for the most part talking to her as if she were a human being.
She probably shouldn't point that out.
"Fine, I promise," she sighed. "You're a real meddler, you know that?"
He ignored her last statement. "Good," he said. "I'm glad we understand each other."
She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at his back.
"And another thing," he said. "I've been meaning to ask you, but I forgot between you snogging half of Hogwarts, extra essays and Quidditch…"
"What?" she asked, resigned to the fact that Ron and Nott now constituted half of their school.
"Why did you draw your wand on your friends to protect me last Saturday?"
All right, next time...
"You shouldn't have pushed me," he coolly said.
"So, as a punishment you make me wear a scarf? That has to be a new one," she half-joked, still unable to allow herself to think.
"Come now, Granger," he said. "You're so smart. You must have figured out what I would make you do ages ago."
"No, I definitely hadn't thought about scarves," she said, panic edging her voice.
