Chapter 22: A Pureblood-Friendly Equation
Monday, December 13, 1944
7:45 P.M.
"So... The way I see it, if we moved the start of the Soiree back to seven o'clock, there should be enough time for the moonlight magnolias that everyone's so intent on having as decorations to fully open..."
"Seven o'clock?" Phyllis Hardiman mused to Hermione's left. The seventh-year Gryffindor prefect was sprawled out on her stomach next to Hermione on the floor of the Head Common Room.
The common room itself was in such a state of disarray that Tom Riddle would have permanently exiled Hermione to the Ravenclaw dorms had he seen it: pages of note-scribbled parchment littered the ground, volumes of decoration charm instruction manuals were scattered across the mahogany carpet in front of Hermione and Phyllis, Soiree prefect working-rotation schedules were arbitrarily posted on the walls, and an empty box of Chocolate Chip Surprise Cookies with a tell-tale trail of crumbs leading to the two self-appointed Christmas Soiree Organisation Heads was discarded by the merrily burning fireplace.
"That means... to keep the five-hour length plan, the Soiree would end at...". Phyllis worked out the math in her head and then cocked her head over toward Hermione, "Midnight? Do you think people will be willing to stay up that late?"
Hermione couldn't hold back a grin at the more conservative forties teenager. Her eyes twinkling in a tenuously Dumbledore-like manner, she lifted her wand and sent the cookie box careening into the fireplace without so much as a murmured spell.
"Phyll", the Head Girl began, turning back from the fire's delighted crackle and burst of sparks, "this is not only going to be the biggest formal social activity of the year, it's going to be the only formal social activity of the year. Somehow, I think they'll be able to handle the late hours." Hermione tilted her head toward the floor and rapidly began to flip though her stack of notes, the smile fading from her face and speedily replaced with an agitated frown. "I thought... I left it... right... here..."
Promptly dropping the three-inch pile of notes back on the carpet, Hermione glanced desperately at Phyllis. "Have you seen the Student Decoration Enchantment Contract? It's not here, so it must be in with your stuff somewhere".
"Sure, somewhere". Grimacing, the Gryffindor grimly surveyed the messy clutter of papers in front of them that closely resembled a disaster area. "Little bugger just keeps slipping off".
"Doesn't want to make a visit to Dippet any more than I do; can't say I blame it". Rechecking the Soiree planning schedule that she had meticulously filled out two weeks prior, Hermione noticed with a jolt that the blaring, originally pink neon-flashing CONTRACT DUE appointment reminder had taken on an ominous red shade. "I need that as soon as possible; which means right now".
Exasperated, Phyllis threw her hands in the air. With an annoyed hiss, she reached down and snatched up one of numerous slips of thin parchment that the two girls had placed to one side of the Soiree information. Squinting at the writing on it through spectacled eyes and then smirking, she announced, "It seems we have an anonymous request —several, in fact— for floating mistletoe."
Hermione laughed and decided to place the Contract search on hold with the juvenile hope that it would somehow just pop up. She took her quill from behind her ear, business-like, and scribbled down a few additional notes, muttering, "Good Merlin, with the luck I'm having, one of those'll follow me around until it catches me the only moment I happen to be alone with Draco..."
"Hermione!" A strangled sound passed Phyllis' lips, and for a single, frantic instant Hermione thought that the Gryffindor had choked on the last Chocolate Chip Surprise. A quick glance, though, told Hermione that Phyllis had only unnecessarily gasped. Somewhat dramatically. "Draco du Lac, that gorgeous male specimen? Most girls would die to kiss him!"
"That'd be rather idiotic of them, then", Hermione threw out absently, still writing. "I mean, after sleeping with the bloke for two months, I'm still alive, and I actually think it's starting to get a bit old... Joking, Phyll, whoa there, just kidding!" she added rapidly and considered smacking herself in the head when the scandalised ashy-blond-haired girl's mouth dropped open like it had an anchor attached to it, an expression of pure shock exploding onto her face. Yep, that is exactly what I need to go spreading around the school!
"Merlin, don't do that to me! Ever again!" Phyllis let out a huge breath, the bug-eyed look fading as she handed Hermione a slim, battered book entitled: Making The Band: How To Charm Music Out Of Almost Anything. "Anyway, do you really think you can handle these spells? This book and the other ones you told me to get were written for professional party planners, you know that, don't you?"
"Yeah, sorry about that, Phyll, my bad", Hermione replied automatically, sounding more distracted than apologetic. She dug into her dark robe pocket and whipped out her wand. "And, actually, the motions on the enchantment spells are all rather elementary, once you get the hang of it, at least... which is why I suppose I should start figuring out how to do them now..." Flipping open the manual, Hermione began to intently study the illustrations on the second page.
Creek! At the sound of the faulty portrait hole opening, Phyllis let out a muffled shriek and almost leapt into the air, haphazardly colliding with Hermione's shoulder.
Hermione, on the other hand, had grown so accustomed to the bothersome scraping noise that normally accompanied Tom Riddle's entrance that she didn't even phase, muttering and moving her wand experimentally. She did jump, however, when a high-pitched voice that definitely did not belong to Tom Riddle exclaimed, "Whoa, Hermione! You really need to get that portrait oiled or something!" Phyllis was the first to turn over onto her side and survey this unexpected intruder. "Oh, hi Lavender."
"Lavender?" Hermione echoed incredulously, actually dropping her wand and turning on her side to see for herself the Hufflepuff that excitedly danced into the Head Common Room. Her dumbfounded eyes gawked incredulously at the sun-streaked blond. "How did you get in here?"
"Oh". Lavender shrugged offhandedly, coming up to stand behind Hermione and Phyllis so Hermione had to crick her neck in a nearly impossible one hundred eighty degree turn in order to see her. "Just ran into Snake Eyes in the hall—"
" 'Snake Eyes' ?" Phyllis interrupted with interest, a gossipy gleam in her eyes, She dropped the mistletoe note back into the Suggestion Box stack as if the mistletoe idea had suddenly become Old News. "Lav", Hermione simultaneously warned, her neck starting to ache as she turned again and shot a glare at Lavender.
"Oh, all right". Lavender crossed her arms stubbornly, rolling her azure eyes, and shoved one foot in front of her stand-offishly, jutting her hip out to the other side. "I ran into Riddle in the hallway, and he said he'd get your obnoxious knight in shining armour to open up for me."
Choking back a laugh at Lavender's description of Sir Cadogan, Hermione concurrently tried to quell feelings of total shock. Oh, sod it— Shoving her wand into her pocket, she snapped Making The Band: How To Charm Music Out Of Almost Anything shut and flipped onto her back to sceptically stare up at Lavender without it being a pain in the neck. Literally. "He just... voluntarily... let you in here?"
Lavender frowned at Hermione. Her long, oval face appeared abnormally flat from Hermione's point of view from the floor. "Well, no, I sort of asked him first."
"That's beside the point", Hermione muttered in disbelief, the words of Tom's original agreement with her, 'I will ask that our common room be used for official business only, and not for any kind of the social gatherings that you apparently seem to thrive on,' reverberating in the depths of her mind. Still completely astonished, she shook her head and flipped back over onto her stomach. "Hm. That's interesting."
"How are you two, by the way?" Phyllis asked owlishly, peering at Hermione though her peripheral vision without directly staring at her.
Hermione arched a thin eyebrow and glanced over at the expectant Gryffindor, not especially wanting to bring up what Ginny had begun to call 'The Tom Riddle Situation.' "What do you mean, 'how are we'?"
Phyllis shrugged, shoving her wire-rimmed glasses on top of her head and tiredly rubbing her eyes. "I just haven't seen you two talking... that much... lately", she yawned hugely. "Not even arguing, and that is quite a record, if you don't mind me saying."
"No, I don't mind..." Hermione frowned briefly, feeling annoyance... and something else... flicker through her. Without dwelling on it, she doggedly dove back into her sea of papers and resumed the search for the lost Student Decoration Enchantment Contract. Ooooo... if she didn't find that soon...
Like a flash, a wave of brilliance stuck her. Grinning, she reached around for her wand, preparing to Summon the elusive Contract out of the chaos, when, against her will, her mouth added, "I sort of think he's avoiding me."
It sounded so much worse when she actually said, out-loud, the notion that had been running through her mind for the past week, Hermione thought. Not that she could blame him. She wouldn't want to be around someone who caused her to be in physical pain during every waking, breathing moment of her life, either.
"You know", Phyllis continued to muse — a dangerous thing, Hermione had come to discover. "Riddle would be quite handsome, wouldn't he, if it weren't for his rather nonexistent personality? Oh, don't give me that look, Hermione", she added when Hermione glanced at her in surprise at the comment. Most other girls in the school tended to overlook Tom Riddle's dark side when drooling over his undeniably good looks. "I might be a female, but, like you, I'm not an idiot. I can see that behind all that charm he throws at the professors, there's something darker, colder underneath. Rather like the ice man. It really comes out when he's talking to you, it's unbelievable."
"Unbelievable", Hermione echoed, rather surprised at her own morose tone. She felt slightly miffed that Phyllis had felt it necessary to voice her last comment. Blankly, Hermione dangled her wand in front of her, staring at it as if she had never seen one before, vaguely wondering why she had gotten it out in the first place.
"But, you two do look so cute together —when you're not having a row, at least—" Phyllis jammed her quill behind her ear thoughtfully. "Don't you think, if you could somehow just..." She raised her hands in a helpless shrug, searching for her next words, "thaw him, or something..."
Hermione's eyebrows shot up. She wisely chose to ignore the 'you two do look so cute together' part of Phyllis' observation, and she rolled her eyes over toward the Gryffindor. "And how do you propose I thaw him, Phyll? With a blowtorch?"
"Hermione, I need to talk to you!" Lavender, who had been impatiently bouncing from foot to foot as Hermione and Phyllis discussed Tom, burst out as if she hadn't seen Hermione in ten years. "I really, really think you should look at this."
Almost relieved to get off the subject of Tom Riddle, Hermione turned her attention toward Lavender as she held up a slender, yellowed but still very black book enstamped with the glittering red heading Un Amour Mortel et D'autres Sortilèges Tragiques.
Un Amour Mortel et D'autres Sortilèges Tragiques? She briefly wracked her brain, searching through her rather rusty French for a rough translation of the title. French? she thought balefully. The last time she could recall speaking French fluently was on her last trip to Paris... the summer before she had discovered that she was a witch.
Finally, she managed to string a phrase together: A Killer Love and Other Once-Tragic Enchantments. Confused — not something she often relished being — Hermione squinted up at her friend, indistinctly remembering that Lavender had once claimed that she liked to read romances in the original language of love. "Lavender, what—"
"ACCIO BLOODY DECORATION CONTRACT!" In utter frustration, Phyllis had risen to her knees and flung the spell in the general direction of the disarray of weathered books and scattered parchment on the floor... and a moment and several flying papers later, a crisp, official looking document soared into the Gryffindor's hand.
"Got it!" Phyllis announced triumphantly. Her victory was short-lived, however, and she shot Hermione a slightly jaded expression. "You'd never think we're going to be graduating from here in half a year; why on earth didn't we think of that earlier?"
Hermione reddened slightly, remembering that the idea to Summon the Contract had entered her head... and flown out just as quickly. "We were distracted by boy-talk, I'm ashamed to admit". But so relieved at seeing the contract was that Hermione, one would have thought she'd just seen a written record from the future telling her that all the time travellers' efforts would not be in vain. Hand over her heart, positively beaming, Hermione reached up and plucked the contract from Phyllis' offering hand. "And thank you Phyllis, I need to give this to Dippet by eight o'clock tonight or he promised to demote me."
"Lovely thought, that". "Oh, don't I know it—"
"Hermy", Lavender insisted stubbornly. Her voice rose to a whine as she urgently jabbed a slender, manicured fingernail at her French book's unmistakable, almost blood-red writing. "I think this might be important!"
Three years and Hermione still winced at Lavender's nickname for her, and she quickly felt the weight of the few remaining, guaranteed-to-be intense school days and the Christmas Soiree preparation days piling up on her. Hermione hated to be snappish, especially with her friends, but... "Not now, Lav, please!"
Even as the words left her mouth, the nauseous, suffocating sensation of being overwhelmed attempted a coup of her senses. Dropping the Decorations Contract in front of her, Hermione gently massaged her temples with the tips of her fingers. The last thing she needed now was to be force-fed another one of Lavender's juicy, cheesy love stories.
Another of Lavender's whiny, ear splitting "Heeerrrrmy" 's, however, and Hermione just couldn't stand it any longer. Trying to ignore the pulsing, pounding throbbing in her head, she blew a curly lock of hair out of her face and waved Lavender toward the coffee table. "Thanks, Lav, just stick it over there, all right? I'll look at it later."
"Okay, good". Executing a truly spectacular ballet leap over the Christmas Soiree Disaster Area, Lavender weaved around Hermione's favourite leather sofa, dumped the book on the small, mainly ornamental stand —the Un Amour Mortel et D'autres Sortilèges Tragiques's yellowed pages sending out a billow of dust in the process— and picked her way back over to Hermione and Phyllis. "What are you working on?" she asked brightly.
"Erm..." Hermione absently scratched the side of her cheek with her quill, wrinkling her nose as her eyes skimmed over the clauses of the Decoration Contract, "Christmas Soiree prep and the like... since the thing is in exactly six days—Good Merlin. Phyll, we only have six days to turn the Great Hall into a Christmas, winter wonderland masterpiece!"
"Stop, don't make it sound dramatically important like that; it just makes it worse", Phyllis muttered bleakly, slamming face-down into the carpet, her glasses flying, and miserably covering her head with her arms.
"Oh, you'll do it, I know you can". Lavender airily waved her hand with an innocent, confident assurance as only Lavender had, and Hermione, for one, wished that she had her undying faith. Jiggling from foot-to-foot with pent-up energy, she added cheerfully, "And Hermione, if you need any FA — Fashion Assistance, you can add that to your Head Girl lingo — with your dress robes, just let me know. I'll have you fixed up and gorgeous before you can even say 'Don't, Lav!' "
Hermione choked, biting back a cough and a grimace. "Don't worry, Lav; if, for some ungodly reason, I do need... FA... I promise that you will be the first person I call". "Deal". Grinning, Lavender bent down and critically eyed the Student Decoration Enchantment Contract. She squinted at the first paragraph. "Does that thing really give you to power the decorate the entire Great Hall however you'd like?" she asked, sounding fascinated. She peered at the parchment with newfound respect.
"Yes, and it also gives the administration the power to suspend or expel me if I mess up in any way, shape, or form", Hermione said darkly, warily eyeing the blank line under which the words Head Boy/Girl Signature were scripted. Holding her quill gingerly, as if she were about to sign her own death warrant, Hermione rapidly wrote her name next to Tom Riddle's, and, just as quickly, shoved the document away from her. "Well, at least that business is over with—"
"Erm, Hermione?" Phyllis interrupted urgently, a touch of panic to her voice. "Did you say Dippet wanted that contract by eight?"
"That's what I said..." Hermione trailed off anxiously, fearing the worst. Snatching up the Decoration Contract, her heart thudding violently in her chest like it was already anticipating the mad rush to come, she immediately demanded, "What time is it?"
Phyllis again leaned far over to her right, glancing around the lurking Lavender at the grandfather clock on the opposite wall, probably to make sure she wasn't reading the hands incorrectly. "Seven fifty-seven and forty-five seconds."
Hermione literally leapt straight to her feet. She couldn't recall being this agile since the desperate Battle of Hogsmeade in her modern seventh year - the desperate battle for her life, Harry's life, and the life of any other student in the general vicinity. In one fluid movement, she spun around and bounded to the portrait hole, her robes billowing like giant parachutes behind her as she hysterically yelled over her shoulder, "I've got two minutes to save my Head Girl-ship!"
"You'll never make it!" Lavender hollered encouragingly after disappearing Hermione cupping her hands around her mouth to amplify her voice.
By this time, though, Phyllis had jumped up as well. Spying the Proposed Enchantment List Hermione had painstakingly catalogued to show the Headmaster, the Gryffindor grabbed it, shouted, "Hey, Hermione, you forgot the list!" and abandoned the messy Head common room, making a mad dash for the closing portrait hole.
After a beat, Lavender threw up her hands and took up the pursuit with Phyllis. "Hey! Wait up!" Almost a month would pass before Lavender's tattered black and red "romance" book even re-entered Hermione's consciousness.
Monday, December 20, 1944
6:43 P.M.
"I need the dragon's tooth. Now, right now, hurry it up. Do you even have the dragon's tooth, Nefertari?... Give it to me. Good. And the Basilisk scale... Before we all die of old age, Nefertari—"
With immense restraint, Hermione held back a growl and shoved the rough, scaly patch into Abraxas Malfoy's waiting hand, simultaneously shooting mental arrows into both her Defence Against the Dark Arts professor and Tom Riddle: the former, for assigning this stupid group project on exploring the links between potion-making and defending against the Dark Arts, the latter, for being in the Hospital Wing so often that she was left to deal the pompous blond alone.
Hermione cursed the fates that had removed one Malfoy from her life, so to speak, only to replace him with another one. Abraxas held up the faded, yellowish-green basilisk scale, squinting, and critically examined it under the dim spare Potions classroom lighting. "Well, well, well. I am impressed. How did you manage to get this, Nefertari?"
This time, Hermione let out a guttural rumble without thinking twice about it, her wand hand twitching. You have no idea what Harry went through to get that, jerk, and I'm not about to tell you!
"Malfoy, just put it in before I pour the entire potion in your lap", she snapped waspishly, already irritated that her last day of classes —the last week, really— before the Christmas break had been dragging on... and on... and on...
Yes, tomorrow would be the last, exhausting round of Great Hall decorating; yes, the Christmas Soiree was tomorrow night; yes, she was going with Tom Riddle; yes, she had absolutely no idea what she was going to wear... but her mind was too numb to think that far ahead, and now she was trying to get through minutes rather than days. It was a task far easier said than done.
"And risk your grade, Nefertari?" Calugula rhetorically asked with a signature Malfoy smirk and that conceited Malfoy confidence. "I think not."
Is that so? Just watch. I can still happily sacrifice my grade to screw yours, she mused in a very Ron-ish line of thought as he added the basilisk scale to the bubbling, smoking cauldron, flourishing his hand in a ballerina-like way that was not at all becoming to the lofty, well-built Quidditch captain.
Hermione's eyes followed the scale's demise as it sunk into the thick green goop. She had hardly made substantial contact with Draco's grandfather: only ten hour-long meetings to formulate the Silviarius Potion, an advanced mix utilised in wiping memories without the sticky side-effects that the Obliviate charm often created. Even that amount of time, really, was more than she would have originally needed to sped with him, but Malfoy had elongated the process by "accidentally" starting the potion with far more base than they needed or could legally have.
Despite this lack of time spent, however, there was no doubt in her mind that she despised Abraxas Malfoy, much more so than she had ever Tom Riddle, even.
It had taken Hermione several weeks of pondering to figure out exactly why she felt so much more uncomfortable around Malfoy than a young Lord Voldemort. She finally came to a reasonable conclusion: whereas the Tom of here and now seemed to only draw his power from knowledgeable assuredness and quiet, cold detachment, plain and simple, Malfoy drew his power from a creepy, bossy, obnoxiously loud arrogance that easily managed to top even Draco's during his earlier years...
And it was inbred conceit that Hermione wasn't entirely comfortable being around in a lonely, badly-lit, rather dodgy and dungeon-like room.
"Well, unfortunately for us, that's the last step", she reported sarcastically. She forced a note of cheerfulness into her voice, but she felt a blissful relief like no other airily drift through her senses. She snapped Malfoy's Potions textbook shut and pushed it away from her as if it were diseased. "Simmer for three weeks and test".
A few muttered spells and a dismissive sweep of his wand later, Malfoy quickly cleaned up the surrounding area of desks in the small, alcove-like spare Potions classroom, his apparent familiarity with cleaning spells surprising Hermione as he sent the simmering cauldron floating off toward a holding shelf lined with steaming, nearly identical black cauldrons. As it touched down securely, a worn label beneath it scrawled the words: C. Malfoy, H. Nefertari, T. Riddle; Silviarius.
And Malfoy's comment came out of nowhere. Turning back toward her, but still with a desk between them, he declared with a smug snicker, "I say we make the Half-Blood drink it first. You know, make sure it won't backfire on us. After all, he's missed so much of the other work that we had to make up for him, and he's already sick anyway, so it shouldn't change much". Smirking, Malfoy leaned across the desk and whispered conspiratorially, "I've heard that he's going to die".
Rather unexpectedly, a blast of anger pulsed though her stomach, and, almost immediately, Hermione's eyes narrowed threateningly. Whoa... cool it, Hermione, she mentally soothed. It's just an act. It has to be an act. After all, she reminded herself somewhat bitterly, Malfoy's been Tom Riddle's public relations since Tom Riddle formed the Death Eaters.
Still, though, Hermione had to bite her tongue before she retorted in a chilled, frosty voice, "No, we will not make Tom Riddle drink it first. We already said that we'd drink it together, under the supervision of Ricktor, no less, so he'll only remove the last two minutes of our memories and grade us on the results. And that's what we're going to stick to, Malfoy, we have no reason not to..."
A smirk to rival Abraxas' own broke out onto her face, and, in a voice saturated with sweetness, she delicately added, "Unless you think you added the ingredients wrong?" Hermione raised an eyebrow suggestively, then shook her head vehemently as if to disagree with herself. "But... No, that doesn't sound like the work of the great and brilliant Abraxas Malfoy!"
Malfoy's expression darkened considerably. Tilting his head at her as if he had just figured out some great secret, he took a giant step around the desk. Instinctively, Hermione took a step backward, her petite figure dwarfed by the towering, scowling Quidditch captain. Subconsciously, her hand inched closer toward her right pocket. And her wand.
"Nefertari, with a completely untainted Pureblood line like yours, you have all the opportunity on the planet", Malfoy began, a touch of exaggerated concern in his mocking voice. With a sneer and a trace of dark humour, he continued, curling his lip in distaste, "And, yet, you're defending some dirt-poor, half-blood street rat?"
Defending him? Was that what she was doing? Hermione's right eyebrow arched dramatically —in disbelief— at this unforeseen turn of events. Either Malfoy is a damn good actor, she thought furiously, or he's bloody well serious!
Malfoy shook his head at her in a condescending manner, tisking like a severely disappointed professor and dangerously reminding Hermione of the old Draco Malfoy, the not-yet-turned-and-rather-evil Draco Malfoy. "And all this time, Nefertari, I thought you had better taste than filth like that."
But weren't Tom Riddle and Abraxas Malfoy were supposed to be working together? After each Death Eater meeting, it seemed, Harry would always manage find Hermione and whisper conspiratorially, "They're at it again, Hermione! I can see those two blokes up in the head seats the entire time, Malfoy and him, like two peas in a pod, they are. Discussing, arranging, not telling the rest of the Death Eaters, including me, the whole story. Even if Riddle's put a Muffler on his voice, he can't hide, and he's still obviously in on a larger plan with Malfoy!"
Obviously, her mind echoed blandly. But it didn't make any sense! None of this made sense! If Malfoy was indeed a staunch disciple of the Heir of Slytherin, would he still be denouncing Tom Riddle—in all sincerity, it appeared—as magical filth, even if it all was an extremely skilled act? Rather, wouldn't Malfoy want to...
Well, she didn't quite know how his twisted mind worked, but wouldn't he try to draw in more pure-blooded followers or something of the like? Hermione had no idea, and the entire not-knowing bit was absolutely killing her.
In the split-second that her mind had been feverishly working on overdrive whilst her face was glowering at Abraxas Malfoy, she decided to base all her subsequent responses on the rather far-out assumption that, in one way or another, Tom and Malfoy weren't working together. That, somehow, Malfoy didn't yet know that Tom Riddle was the Heir of Slytherin, was probably even the leader of the Death Eaters.
Of course, she didn't see how any of that could actually be possible, but just supposing...
"Malfoy, darling", Hermione cooed softly, her voice emerging low, recognisably calm, and dangerous. "I suppose I expected a bit too much from you, and for that I apologise". She eyed him cagily, partially surprised that she had opted to stand here and single-handedly argue it out with a known Death Eater. "I see now that being non-prejudiced is just a step above your level. That's fine; I understand that it... runs in the family."
Amused at the general truth in her last line, she smiled, but inwardly, she was both shocked and appalled at how quickly her attitude had changed so quickly from a furious, shaking anger to the unruffled, chilly aura of supremacy it was now. Even Malfoy's taken aback expression testified that he didn't think she'd have that kind of thing in her.
Suddenly, Hermione realised why her voice seemed so familiar, yet so not her. She sounded exactly like Tom Riddle did when he was fuming. Unpredictably, though, this fact somehow emboldened her, and Hermione actually took a menacing step toward Malfoy, any fear she may have had of him freezing into pure, icy abhorrence.
"You know, it's people, people just like you who will bring ruin upon this world", she hissed disgustedly, jabbing a finger toward his chest. "And what's scary, what's really scary, is how you'll do it with delight! But, just remember, Malfoy", she continued with a small, subdued smile, "when all's said and done, no matter how expensive your manor will be or how many centuries back you can trace the bloodline of your future wife, Merlin bless her soul—"
Hermione's fingers scrambled under her collar and yanked out the Amulet of Eras, and she dangled the priceless jewel in front of his nose, her glittering gaze never leaving Malfoy's furious blue eyes, "You aren't going to be the one with the full power of the most ancient bloodline in the world stored in a rock around your neck."
Stepping back, not wanting to spend more time closer than seven feet to him than she had to, Hermione smiled inwardly, a mite proud she hadn't collapsed under Malfoy's killer glare and faintly relieved that he hadn't gone off his rocker and attacked her. Malfoy himself, though, appeared less impressed, and a moment later he seemed to shatter free of his flabbergasted shell. "All superior bloodline arguments aside, Nefertari..."
Leisurely, a sinister, knowing sneer spread across his maliciously pleased face. "As a fellow, concerned Pureblood, I'm certain you won't mind if I give you a simple, Pureblood-friendly equation to keep you on the right track... before you and your Slytherin-reject Head Boy do something rash... like breeding."
The moment the words exited Malfoy's mouth, a cold rage like none she had ever felt before spread through Hermione's body, through each bone and each joint, until she felt, through all the frigidness, like every inch of her body was ablaze... and it wasn't just because Malfoy happened to bring up herself, Tom Riddle, and the word breeding in the same sentence.
Malfoy, the moron, simply grinned haughtily. As if he could see he had touched a nerve, he dipped his platinum head a bit toward her in comically conspiratorial fashion, and, in a deliberately derisive tone, he whispered, "Blood... plus mud... always equals trash."
For one paused moment, a single, split-second in time, Hermione simply gaped at the conceited, self-righteous blond.
After all her years, all her years of being differentiated as a Muggle-born, Mudblood - or worse, even - She still couldn't quite accept that so many people sadistically believed in that sort of rubbish. She had prayed that the world was better than that. She hadn't even heard Tom Riddle preaching pureblood supremacy, and she had thought that he, of all people, would be the ultimate Muggle-hater... Until now.
Right now, Abraxas Malfoy was the solitary, flagrantly glaring, brilliantly flashing name on the top of her Most-Hated List. Hermione didn't even care that Malfoy's comment had most likely been aimed at Tom Riddle, the one, the only Tom Riddle who grew up to murder her parents. Time resumed, and Hermione snapped.
How... how dare he say that about... about anyone! Her eyes flashing in utter and complete loathing, she suddenly shuddered, her right arm jerking. Trying to appear innocent, fighting to keep all traces of abomination out of her voice, Hermione exclaimed in feigned dismay, "Oh... Help!" Another twinge went up her side, and, as if she were a fisherman dangling bait, she limply shook her arm around, then her leg. "My entire right side is just... twitching!"
Grudgingly, Malfoy edged closer like Hermione had expected him to, so close that she could actually feel nauseating hot breath coming from his mouth. Studying her critically, suspiciously, like he didn't quite believe her —What do you know, he is a smart boy— Malfoy positioned his hand so it was threateningly suspended over the tip of his wand. "Looks perfectly fine to me, Nefertari."
Following his appraising eyes as they raked up and down her body again, only this time far less critically and far more for his own personal entertainment, Hermione bit back a snarl, momentarily wrestled her arm back to her side, and shook her head.
"No! Malfoy, this is an extremely serious condition!" she insisted, trying to keep her voice level rather than steadily rising in panic like it wanted to. Swiftly, she danced back a step as Malfoy took an equally impressive one toward her, a bit too energetically for her liking, the ravenous, pleased leer on his face a clear warning that he was getting far too many diabolical ideas, and suddenly... he smiled.
Hermione didn't even have to pretend to twitch as a chill like no other tingled down her spine. Seeing a malevolent smile on Abraxas Malfoy's face while she was alone with him in a deserted, dingy Potions classroom, on the last day of classes, with all the professors off at their after-school mid-term Christmas Party, a 'Where're you going to run, Nefertari?' taunt in Malfoy's leering eyes...
It was, without a doubt, one of the most bone-chilling images she had ever seen. "I mean", she went on hurriedly, steeling herself for what was about to come, "Sometimes I just get these... spasms—"
Unexpectedly, Hermione planted herself firmly into the ground, hauled her right arm backward, flung herself into the swing, and slammed her fist to meet Abraxas Malfoy's oncoming, smirking face with every single ounce of Mudblood that she had gotten at Hogwarts for seven long years.
CRACK! Immediately, two things happened simultaneously: Malfoy let out a heated howl, the force of Hermione's punch actually sending his head —and the rest of the body connected to it— careening backward... and a blinding, burning pain erupted in Hermione's right hand.
Gasping, Hermione yanked her hand back, shook it out furiously, and bit her lip so hard she tasted the bitter tang of blood, jumping around in a small circle. A shot of fight-or-flight adrenaline surged through her body, though, as Malfoy stumbled back toward her in a furious haze of pain.
Almost as quickly as her punch, Hermione's right foot instinctively lashed out in a lightning move, catching Malfoy squarely where it mattered, so to speak. "Whoops, there it goes again, the blasted thing—"
When his deep, twisted voice emitted a tortured "ARRRRGGGH!", Hermione nimbly leapt a step closer to her escape exit - the closed classroom door - and two steps farther away from her would-be assailant as Abraxas Malfoy actually collapsed to his knees, dark blood dripping from his nose, his mouth - everywhere,it seemed...
Her motion, however beneficial to her, immediately caught Malfoy's eye, and his fogged, pain-laced vision seemed to clear considerably. Lividly, he bellowed, "NEFERTARI, I don't care if you're the bloody Dark Queen of Salazar Slytherin himself, you are a dead woman!", his face contorted like an angry bull and turning a deep crimson to match his bloodied mouth, while his hand simultaneously closed around his pocketed wand...
And froze, staring down the length of Hermione's own coolly poised wand, which was ominously hovering only inches from his bloody nose. "Careful, Malfoy, careful", Hermione said softly, lethally. Still surprised at how much her voice's mannerisms had regressed to sounding like Tom Riddle's. "My wand's already twitching, and by now you should know what comes after that".
Maybe the only way to properly deal with a true Slytherin is to act like one yourself, she thought vaguely, mildly shocked that her nearly broken hand—and her unutterably perplexed mind—had managed to stay steady throughout the entire episode.
Malfoy let out a feral, enraged growl, a noise that, on any other day, may have struck fear into even the bravest of hearts... but, today, at least, Hermione's gaze fearlessly bore into his eyes, and, despite her quite possibly near-death experience, she resisted the sudden urge to smirk as she noticed the whites around his Malfoy blue irises began to take on a definite red tinge.
"Fifty points from Slytherin for blatantly threatening the Head Girl to the point where she was forced to defend herself", Hermione said impassively, already backing up a bit toward the corridor door, her wand steadily trained on the dip between Malfoy's eyes. She forced a thin smile to her face. "I should deduct more, Malfoy, much more... but, seeing as it is going to be Christmas, I'm going to let you off easy. Consider it my Christmas gift to you, from the kindness of my own heart".
As he spluttered furiously, Hermione's back collided with smooth wood. She was finally at the door, thank Merlin, she was slipping it open with her free hand... "Oh, and Malfoy?" she added coldly, taking one last look at Abraxas Malfoy's purely livid, almost purple face, her mark clearly left on his jaw line and all down the front of his robes. "As far as I'm concerned, the only person in our group with defective breeding is you."
And Hermione slammed the classroom door shut before the anger in Malfoy's eyes could explode out the end of his wand.
So much for granted did Hermione take the Amulet of Eras that she never once glanced down at it during her fire fight with Malfoy, never once thought on the fact that its smooth, faceted surface was slightly warm, too warm for any normal day.
And, as she furiously stormed through the dimly lit, abandoned, drippy side corridors, then up the bright, portrait lined staircases toward the Hospital Wing, still nursing her injured punching hand, she never once noticed that— illuminating from the very depths of the giant crimson ruby itself—the Amulet of Eras had taken on a faint, blood-red glow.