Chapter 16

Hermione sat poised at the head of the meeting table in the Head's office, waiting for the opening sequence to commence. She was prepared for a ferret-y shriek, or the sound of breaking of objects, hell she'd even duel the fool if it came down to it, but nothing in the whole wide world could have prepared for the sight that greeted her as his door flew open.

The first thing that her gaze immediately latched on to was the hair. His thick mane of long, black, curly hair. They reached down to the middle of his back and shone in a way that made her slightly jealous, and she was just beginning to sigh in longing, when she caught sight of his face.

He advanced on her with all the finesse of a raging bull, fists clenched, nostrils flared, colour high. There was also that unmistakable waddling gait which had replaced his previous swagger, making him look like a really pissed off penguin, but she doubted he was aware of that.

"You. Mudblood. Bitch!" he spat.

She held in a snort of laughter. Unsuccessfully.

"Lookin' good, Malfoy." she looked him up and down, "I must say, black is really your colour. I guess nobody will call you an albino ferret now."

He shook his head slowly. "You whore. You have no idea what you just got into. I'm going to make you pay for every fucking strand of hair."

She pretended to sniff the air around her.

"What's that smell?" She looked confusedly back at him. "That you? With all due respect, Malfoy, but you stink."

He swayed forward with arms outstretched in an attempt to squeeze her neck but was carelessly deflected by her "Protego."

He landed in a heap five feet away from her. She tried to contain her laughter as his hair swayed forward and fell in a curtain across his face.

"Need a hair tie?," she searched through her bag, "I believe I do have one of those in here..."

"Change it back." He bit out.

She raised an eyebrow.

"C'mon, Granger. I can't go out like this. Change it back."

"I can't." She shrugged.

"What do you mean you can't?!"

"I cannot reverse it. Nobody can. I could take hours, days…weeks for it to wear off."

"You think I don't know that?" he barked, finally losing it, "I tried every single spell in there! Nothing works! You change it right back, Granger or I'll-"

She smirked at him.

"You'll what? Scream at me? Tell it to the Professors? I'd like to see you try. Snape won't even recognize you. In fact…" she pondered, "You now bear an uncanny resemblance to a certain Gryffindor I know..Romilda something…"

"Oh, I know what you'll do," she said acidly, "You can always push me into the lake." She let her arms fall down by her sides. "Well, go ahead and try."

She stepped around him as she made her way to the door.

"GRANGER!"

"See you in class, Malfoy!" She giggled, "Maybe."

"I think you're bloody bonkers, that's what you are." Ron said, digging into his breakfast. "Bloody spew all over again…" he muttered to himself.

"How very supportive of you." She quipped, "What do you say Ginny?"

The redhead looked away.

"Well?!"

She sighed.

"..I think it's an okay idea - but I also think you're going to be the one and only member."

"What do you mean?"

Ginny evaded by taking a bite of her pancake.

"Speak up!"

"Look, Hermione. You're the only person who's not interested in any physical activity. You hate Quidditch. You've never properly ridden a broom and your hand eye coordination…is not something I want to mention right now," she said glancing at her friend's rapidly reddening face. "But it's fine that you want to improve. It's great, really. But don't think anyone else is going to be up for it."

Hermione glanced down at her cereal and sighed. She'll have to switch to a more protein rich diet. More eggs. Having just finished sharing her idea of a Girls Only Fitness Club with her friends, the very first that Hogwarts would be seeing, now she felt about ten inches tall. It hadn't seemed like a bad idea in her mind. Surely she could find others like her who would want to gear up physically. The magical world was remarkably blasé about these things.

She had been, too.

"Where's Harry?" Surely he would have something encouraging to say to her.

"No idea." Ginny muttered.

A sudden silence fell over the Great Hall, and the hair on her arms stood up on their ends.

No.

No, tell me he did not.

She looked up, mentally preparing herself for the sight of a drastically altered Malfoy. What she saw made her eyes bulge. A collective gasp from the female population ensued.

There he stood, in his standard black robes, bending slightly rightwards due to the weight of his book bag but yet somehow pulling it off. He'd cut his hair. Now it curled just past his ears in a curly halo.

He made his way down the hall slowly, making furious eye contact with anyone who deigned to look his way, walking with a significant break to his step which really just looked like a limp shielded by the flare of his robes. The straight line of his back and the confident set of his shoulders made up for the crookedness of his walk. His face was set in harsh lines and his mouth was twisted into a scowl.

"Hot damn…who are you?" she heard Ginny whisper beside her.

Draco Malfoy looked like a fallen angel. And he looked hot.

When he passed them, Ginny actually put a hand to her lips.

"Is that…Malfoy?"

He seemed to have heard the words and they served to make him angrier. He curled his lips in an expression of chronic disgust, but only Hermione could see it for the front that it was to hide the curdling insecurity underneath.

Malfoy had just spoiled her perfect prank. And he didn't even know it!

He took his seat next to Pansy, who was staring at him with a disturbing sort of reverence. He ran a hand through his jet black locks and the girls almost swooned.

"Am I dreaming?" Ron dropped his fork to pinch himself on the forearm, "What the fuck is wrong with Malfoy?"

"He changed his hair…why?" Ginny was saying. "I can't believe my eyes. Who knew Malfoy was such a sexy sonovabitch?"

"Ginny!"

"You know I'm right! Sweet Circe, would you just look at him?"

She did, and immediately regretted it. He took a bite out of something cheesy and licked his lower lip to get the bit off. She looked down into her lap, face burning.

This was just wrong. Why did he have to go and cut his hair? And what about the daydream charm? He must've skipped brushing his teeth, that was the only plausible explanation for why he wasn't currently lying sideways across the table, head lolling off to one side and muttering incoherently in ferret-speak.

She sniffed. Well, at least he stinks.

"I don't get it. What was he thinking?" Ron asked.

"I don't know about you guys but I kind of find it hard to hate him when he's sitting there looking like that…" Ginny sighed, resting her elbows on the table and cupping her chin.

"You just like the hair." Ron pointed out.

"Yeah. So?"

Ron shrugged.

"Black hair. Just like Harry's."

She blinked.

Draco Malfoy chose that instant to push off the table and stand up. Pansy immediately latched onto his wrist, and Hermione felt her grip tighten on the knife. He literally stinks to high heaven! And she still won't get off of him.

He wrenched his hand away, mumbling something in her ear which seemed to pacify her before walking out of the hall without a backward glance.

Hermione blew out a long suffered sigh.

"What?" Ginny said.

"I've just realized that your brothers are overrated."

"My brothers-?"

She didn't linger long enough to try and explain her misgivings about the Wheezes and she, too, marched out of the Great Hall.

The thing with exercising was that it took raw, honest-to-god effort. Hermione was a slender girl with average muscular mass and overall an alright physique. She used to run track as a child but now, as she power walked around the Hogwarts grounds, wiping sweat off her brow and trying not to sound quite so breathless, she had to admit that she was way out of shape. She tried to distract herself by the noise from the Quidditch stands, or the sight of cottony clouds that stretched across the sky today, but it was impossible to do with pain shooting up her calf muscles with every step she took.

Deciding to take a break before she gave herself a massive cramp, she sat on the edge of a rock jutting out of the ground. With a start, she realized that she was sitting at the exact spot where she'd sat the night before yesterday, soaking wet and humiliated to the bone.

She didn't know what it was about Malfoy, but he always got under her skin and not in a good way. She tried to blow him off and pretend like he didn't affect her like he wished to but deep down, she allowed herself to admit that what Malfoy thought of her mattered. It probably began the day he'd first called her a Mudblood, dismissing her opinion outright and making her believe for the first time in her life that she was an insignificant nobody. She didn't let it get to her heart, really. She knew her worth, but at the same time she wanted him to know it too. She'd wanted to prove herself.

The thought that she'd spent her time in Hogwarts practically trying to impress Malfoy made her feel slightly dizzy. It wasn't a pleasant revelation, but she knew it was true.

Meanwhile, he had only taken a slide downwards in her estimation, the foolish coward that he was. Bullying and name calling aside, he really was nothing but a puppet for his Death Eater father's whims, sickeningly proud of his station and wealth. Add that to his repellent personality and what you get is a humongous jackass. She knew she was probably the only female in Hogwarts who thought so as others were predictably enamoured by his wealth and looks but she also held faith that sooner or later the world would realize his true worth.

It was the silence before the storm, that's what it was. Soon, war would be upon them and their admittedly petty rivalry wouldn't matter anymore. Dumbledore would return and so would Voldemort and then they'll depart for the search for Horcruxes. Therefore, Malfoy was nothing but a metaphorical grain of salt in the ocean of life. Eventually, his existence would dissolve and cease to matter to her.

She knew this, all of this and yet the image of him was stuck into her mind, playing itself out in idiot flashes of memory. He had saved her. It had been his fault, and probably he had his own selfish reasons for going down after her like he had but she owed her life to him now. And it was burdening her psyche.

Crux of the matter was, she would give her all into training. She would swim, run, jump, climb. She would duel and she would fly. She would do all of this and more, and never again would she feel weak as she stood on her own two feet.

He smelled. Bad.

He'd kicked off his shoes the instant he'd gotten to the Quidditch pitch and of course, foreign rubbery soles had fallen out of them. He had thrown them into the lake and had been half tempted to go and throw himself in too while he was at it, but the sight of his gleaming Firebolt had stopped him. Couldn't let her go ownerless, could he?

So, assuming that a good fly was what he needed to get the anger and humiliation out of his system, he'd mounted his broom. The second his feet had kicked off the ground, it had swung upwards vertically, leaving him dangling stupidly off the end but luckily only five or six feet off the ground but he hadn't been able to stop himself from falling into an ungracious heap at the ground.

He'd taken many undignified falls in his life but never off his broom. So he'd tried again, but to no avail. Every time he'd tried to kick off the ground, it would end with the same result. He had given the other players quite the entertaining show, and if someone else had been in his place, he held no doubt that he would've been there too inside the crowd, howling with laughter. But this time the joke was on him.

Or rather, he was the joke. The joke Head Boy of Hogwarts.

The hair, the stink, the illegible and out-of-this-world notes that he'd taken today and the strut. That was all fine. But he couldn't believe that the conniving little Mudblood had gone as far as to tamper with his Firebolt.

With a grunt, he threw his bag across the room as he entered the Head's office and settled heavily into the armchair, waiting for the Head girl.

On cue, she entered. His eyebrows shot upwards as he took in her dishevelled appearance. Her hair fell out of her makeshift ponytail, the shorter strands scattered around her face, her shirt disgustingly patchy with sweat and her feet dragged upon the carpet. She was wearing those strange shoes again, the big, filthy ones that no pureblood female in her right mind would dream of touching even with a ten feet pole.

He realized he probably looked worse but the thought only served to make him madder.

She headed straight towards her room, unaware of his presence so he decided to correct that by aiming a filthy sock at her head.

She jumped around with an exaggerated 'Eww!' and he walked towards her and pointed his wand in her face.

"You made quite a fool out of me today. Never in my life have I suffered such humiliation."

She rolled her eyes.

"Oh please. Need I remind you of the little ferret incident?"

"Shut up, bitch." He bit out. "I could curse you to hell and back, and you won't even know what hit you in the first place."

She stared warily into his eyes.

"But I'm not going to waste my magic on you today. Not on mudblood filth like you."

"That's great Malfoy, but you're still wasting my time."

She started to turn around but with lightning quick reflexes he wrenched her back towards him. Pushing his hand into her hair, he pulled till her face tightened with pain, and then eased it slightly so she could hear him loud and clear.

"Now, you played some very lame pranks on me today. You changed my hair, you fed me stinkballs and you even switched my quills. So pathetically juvenile, Granger. If you were a Slytherin, you'd have been dropped from the house."

She managed to smirk. She was getting awfully good at that.

"But they worked quite well to my satisfaction, Malfoy, so I think the objective was fulfilled."

"I'm not finished, Mudblood." He snarled.

"So while I was taking a shower later," he watched with idle satisfaction as she blinked at the information, "-I came across something interesting. Were your infantile attempts to get back at me simply a case of bad taste, or did they hold some deeper significance in their shoddiness?"

She gave no outward expression save for the slight reddening of her cheeks.

"Did you, knowingly or unknowingly seek to trivialize the incident of the lake? A pathetic attempt to show me it meant nothing to you? But I know better, Granger."

He pulled her tighter, closer and she didn't shy away.

"What rubbish." she said, "How did you manage to cook up such ridiculous hogwash?"

He gave her a wide smirk, and her blush deepened. It was kind of amazing to watch.

"It's the truth," He stated. "..you wanted to expel it out of your mind and you think you succeeded but as I said, I know better."

He knew she counted on him to not talk about these things, they never acknowledged this stuff. It was a given, but this time he felt like tearing down all her expectations and every preconceived notion till her emotions shone raw.

He positioned his mouth at her ear and was instantly rewarded by a rapid intake of breath.

"Now you remember it..." he said, revelling in the feel of her shortened breath. It was a heady rush, and it was pleasing but it was also not something he wanted to examine too closely now.

The trick was to make Hermione Granger squirm.

"Don't think I missed how you looked at me at breakfast today. Made my skin crawl, to be honest."

She closed her eyes, probably tired of it already.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Please just let me freakin' go, as I'm really not in the mood today."

He pulled out his hand from her hair and lifted her chin with a single finger. Surprised by the act, her eyes snapped open.

Experimentally, he leaned forward. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and he sneered.

"Can't say I've ever walked away from this, but I have no intention of sullying myself with a mudblood, especially when I'm looking like fucking Potter and stink like a fucking troll."

Her eyes sparkled with fury.

"Don't flatter yourself, ferret. Never in my life would I kiss a person who doesn't even brush his teeth."

He was momentarily distracted.

"What?"

She raised her eyebrows in a challenge, and he was instantly glad that he'd only scourgified them this morning, right after he'd caught sight of his reflection in the mirror.

Who knew what else she'd lined up for him?

"You don't look so sure now, Malfoy."

"My opinion still stands as it was, Mudblood. Knock yourself out, do your worst."

He slid one finger along the line of her jaw, brushing the sweaty strands away from her face and behind her ear. Smiling, he saw her throat move as she swallowed, and the jerk of her shoulder gave away how desperately she held back the urge to shiver.

He bent down and whispered into her ear, "But I still know better."

A/n: It could come across as a bit confusing but I think it can all just be labelled under "Progress." 'cuz that's where we're headed. :)

Please review!