Disclaimer to JK Rowling, and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Chapter Twelve: Blooms of Your Bearing
Precaution, indeed?
Walls, ceiling, and floor,-not a chance for a weed!
Wide opens the entrance: where's cold, now, where's gloom?
Robert Browning from Natural Magic
Draco was blowing on a hot spoonful of soup when Theodore Nott, king of all the pests, decided that it was the best time to knock his elbow for his attention. Soup spilled down Draco's front, making him look like a toddler who was unable to control a spoon. Draco did not even bother glaring at the boy, knowing that Theo would not be remorseful in the slightest. Draco simply sighed as he turned to face his friend and asked in a resigned voice, "What?"
Either, Theo, having spent three months during the previous term watching Draco eat with his other hand and was still not used to Draco having a left arm or he was simply being annoying. Draco knew it was most likely the latter, but noticed that Theo had tilted his head pointedly in the opposite direction. Draco's eyebrows knitted together as he turned to look at what Theo was gesturing at and he saw his sister pulling along her rather reluctant friend.
"Did you forget how to use a spoon?" Lacie asked with a smirk, when she had stopped in the space opposite him, "Someone should have told me that soup was the fashion accessory du jour."
Draco glared at Theo, who was hiding his face behind a napkin. He was also annoyed to see that his companions found her quip amusing and vanished the offending spillage. When he had finished he huffed, "What do you want, Lacie?"
"May we join you for dinner?"
Draco debated her question for a moment, wondering if this was one her quirks or if she was a practical joke. Why is she doing this? Of course Draco could simply say no. He also remembered that the siblings had got on rather well over the holidays – bonding in their resentment that their father appeared several times at the family table. Some part of Draco wanted that peace to last. On the other hand, there were rules at Hogwarts and as well as Slytherin House. He could not bend those rules due to the whims of a sibling belonging their rival House. Even though the Malfoy name was as good as dirt, he still had a small reputation to uphold.
Draco was thankful when Theo answered for him, "This is a Slytherin table, Lacie."
"You said that I was an honorary Slytherin, Theo, remember?" Lacie said before adding, "Also, I did not ask you. I was asking my brother."
"You said that I was a brother to you," Theo replied with indignation, "You are an honorary Slytherin, Lace. She is not."
Draco's eyes flicked up for a moment to watch Hermione's reaction to being referred to as 'she'. Draco half-expected her to announce in her bossy tone that she had a name, and that she would rather he used it. Hermione, however, seemed unperturbed and was instead glowering at Lacie. Lacie looked at Draco with greater emphasis and Draco felt a small part of his backbone relent.
"Fine," Draco said with a slight groan. Lacie beamed at him, and practically jumped in the space in front of him. Hermione, on the other hand, looked shiftily around and Draco noticed that several students around them looked quite interested by the exchange. Draco stared at his soup in front of him.
"Well, sit down," Theo hissed at Hermione, "Seeing as our Lord Malfoy has granted his permission."
"I am not a dog," Hermione replied, turning her ire towards Theo. "Lacie, this is quite ridiculous."
"Would you rather we sat and ate dinner in the toilets? Do you not remember the troll?" Lacie asked as she started putting food onto her plate. She looked over her shoulder imploringly at her friend who stared back but gave in and sat down. Hermione firmly crossed her arms and continued to glare at Lacie.
"If you are so unhappy with sitting here, you can always sit at your own table," Pansy snapped from further along the table.
"Worry about your own affairs, Pansy," Lacie replied in a deadpan voice. Pansy had clearly interrupted his twin's internal debate as to what vegetables she should add to her plate, and Lacie was holding in her annoyance. If Pansy knew better, she would stay quiet but as Draco knew too well, Pansy never knew better.
"Why are you even here, Lacerta?"
The answer to Pansy's question seemed to interest everyone as there was a distinct pause in eating around them. Lacie turned to Hermione, who had momentarily stopped glaring at her friend and uncrossed her arms. She bit the inside of her reddening cheek, and Draco noticed that she was getting slightly flustered.
"We are waiting," Theo prompted, and he suddenly jumped in the air with a yelp. "Kick me again, Lace, and I rescind honorary Slytherin privileges."
Lacie responded by smirking at Theo in a way that was reminded Draco of his mother. It was not a surprise to him that Theo blanched and seemed to shrink in his seat. Draco snorted with laughter for a moment and turned his attention back to Hermione, who was staring at the table in embarrassment. The girl was in luck, though, as she was saved from answering, due to a bat-like entity descending upon them. Everyone's attention had turned towards the High Table, and watched as Professor Snape marched towards them with an inscrutable look upon his face that did not bode well.
"Miss Malfoy, what are you doing?" Professor Snape asked as he stood behind Draco. Anyone that had not been curious that Lacie had decided to sit with her brother for dinner, was now most certainly curious. Lavender Brown, who was sitting on the opposite side of the Hall where one would usually find a Gryffindor during mealtimes, was almost standing up to inspect the confrontation.
Lacie carefully placed her cutlery on the table, patted her mouth with a napkin before answering, "I am eating, Professor Snape, but you should not be too concerned about me because Pansy over there is positively having kittens."
At that, Hermione snorted into a goblet of pumpkin juice, drawing disdainful looks from everyone around her. Draco looked at the pair of them, wondering what on earth they were so amused about, or what it meant to have kittens. Pansy blushed a violent shade of red at the retort, and ducked behind a pitcher of water. Theo raised a carefully placed hand in front of his mouth to conceal his smirk at the proceedings.
"I believe you can eat at your own table," the Potions Master said, brushing aside her comment. Neither amusement nor annoyance was expressed upon his face.
"Can I not eat with my own brother?" Lacie asked with a hint of a whine. Draco bit the inside of his cheek to stop him from smiling, their godfather did not take well to petulance, especially in front of an audience. Lacie knew this, but still continued.
Professor Snape narrowed his eyes and surveyed Draco and his sister, "Since when were you not at each other's throats?"
Before Draco could reply, Lacie spoke over him, "What has that got to do with the price of fish?"
Draco frowned at her as she then turned to Hermione and asked, "That is still technically correct, is it not? Am I allowed to use any noun for that phrase?"
Hermione rolled her eyes but then nodded, but Draco had no idea what they were discussing or if it was still proper English. A flicker of amusement seemed to flit across Professor Snape's face but he said with finality, "You are to eat at the Gryffindor table in the future until I can ascertain that you are not about to embark on the Second Great Food Fight, is that understood?"
Lacie nodded, picking up her fork and resuming to eat. The Potions Master swept away and back to the High Table but then paused behind Pansy and said in a low but audible whisper, "Congratulations on your kittens."
Millicent choked on her food, Greg guffawed lowly and Blaise dropped his coffee cup with a clatter. Vince swore as the hot liquid splashed him, and he knocked into Cordelia, who scowled at him. Other students around them simply looked stunned, aside from Hermione, who looked merely bored. Lacie also looked bored as she picked up her fork and continued eating. Draco realised that his mouth had fallen open and promptly shut it.
"Who would have known that Professor Snape had a sense of humour?" Tracey asked incredulously as she nudged Pansy who had gone so red that Draco worried for a moment that she may explode.
"Yes, it is a shock to all," Theo snapped, "Blaise, did you lose all of your faculties? There is coffee everywhere."
Draco watched as Hermione stiffened and pointed at Lacie before growling, "Don't"
"There is no use crying over spilt milk – or in this case – coffee," Lacie said with a grin.
"What is wrong with you?" Draco asked, turning to face his sister, "Did you get Confunded?"
"No," Hermione replied before sighing, "I thought it would be funny to give Lacie a book on Muggle idioms for Christmas. Now, I wish she would stop dropping them into every conversation."
"Not for all the tea in China," Lacie added with a grin.
Draco rolled his eyes as Hermione hissed at Lacie to stop and Draco was grateful that his sister started eating again but with a mischievous glint in her eye. The food in her mouth would stop her babbling for the time being.
"Did you really think a book on Muggle idioms was really appropriate?" Draco asked Hermione with a small smile. Noticing Theo staring at their interaction, Draco looked away. He had to remember to pretend that he was not her friend in Slytherin company, and even the faintest notion of warmth would give his secret away. Draco forced an emotionless mask upon his face before looking back at Hermione. Now she was looking at him with curiosity, but she seemed to shake it off quickly.
"She gave me a tome on pureblood Wizarding customs and what seems to be an encyclopaedia on the Malfoy history," Hermione replied dryly and turned to his sister, "By the way, my current favourite Malfoy is Rosamund Malfoy."
"I think I speak for Draco as well as myself, when I say that I am positively offended by that statement," Lacie said when she had finished chewing.
"Contribute to the ongoing development for the cure to dragonpox, and you might be a serious contender," Hermione countered as she reached for a bread roll. It seemed that the girl was finally convinced that the food on the table was not poisoned.
"And our esteemed Lord Malfoy?" Theo asked, with a slight nudge to Draco's arm.
Hermione chewed on her bread roll contemplatively "I think Malfoy would violently throw up over this spread if I were to imply that he would ever be my favourite Malfoy, and when he had finished he would comment that he would not need the approval of a disgusting Mudblood like me to prove his superiority."
Draco resisted a smirk at her appraisal and simply muttered, "Insufferable know-it-all."
"You're just annoyed that I know you that well," she retorted with a smile. Draco felt his stomach drop in response, and if Theo's gaze was not burning into the side of his head, it surely was now. He could almost hear the boy's thoughts. What does she mean? How well does she know you? Is there something that you are not telling me? Those were questions that Draco did not wish to answer or be forced to answer. Blaise looked mildly interested at the comment that she had made, but had probably passed it off as a figure of speech. Draco knew that Theo seemed to take everything with a pinch of salt, but Draco knew how to handle him.
Draco responded to her statement the only way that he knew how. With a well-placed familial sneer, he told her that a summer with his family did not entitle her to have such an opinion. The girl's smile dropped from her face and she blushed and fixated upon a goblet. Draco could feel waves of self-satisfaction roll off Theo.
"Draco, you really are incorrigible," Lacie said, after a while, without looking up to him. It was as if he was being lectured by his own mother.
"And yet, you chose to sit with me for dinner," Draco replied, "Even if the company of Potter and Weasley had become tiresome, why have you chosen to sit so far away from the Gryffindor Table?"
There was a distinct silence at the table. It was a question that had long been evaded, and the girls looked at each other for a moment, with Lacie subtly prompting her friend to answer. Hermione looked resigned and pursed her lips, as if wondering how to string the worlds together in a sentence. Draco felt slightly amused by the encounter. Hermione rarely struggled to answer a question posed towards her.
"Harry got a Firebolt for Christmas, and I was the reason why it got confiscated," Hermione finally sighed.
Draco thought he had misheard her for a moment, but when he saw that the Slytherins around him were whispering at the news, he realised that he had heard correctly the first time. He felt the blood drain from his face. Potter has a Firebolt? Does Flint know? Draco's immediate reaction when he had fully processed the news and its implications was to turn towards where the upper-years were sat. He wondered if his team captain had heard the news, and it seemed so, as he saw Flint and his deputy, Warrington, engaged in a furious conversation.
Ignoring the potential crisis that Potter now had the best broom on the market, along with his annoyingly natural skill as a Seeker, Draco turned back to Hermione. The girl was staring at him with curiosity.
"Are you sure it was a Firebolt?" Draco said, fixing a nonplussed expression on his face. His nonchalance was hard to fake, and he felt like storming out of the Great Hall and practising every spare second that he had. He also, for his team's sake, had to be sure that it was true. Hermione was useless when it came to Quidditch and flying, and even though it was not like her, she could be wrong.
"Judging by how Ronald Weasley is telling everyone in Gryffindor that I have utterly scuppered their chances of winning the Quidditch Cup, I would hope it was actually a Firebolt," the girl replied bitterly.
How stupid can Weasley get? Or the rest of the Gryffindors for believing him?
"Draco, you can breathe easily now, as Potter is not currently in possession of a Firebolt," Theo said tightly before laughing quietly under his breath. Draco glared at his friend, who promptly returned to his dinner.
"Weasley is stupider than I thought he was," Blaise said, paraphrasing aloud what Draco had just thought. "Everyone know that Professor McGonagall would rather drink Bubotuber pus than watch Slytherin win the Quidditch Cup."
"Why did you get it confiscated in the first place?" Theo asked suddenly.
At that, Hermione reddened and replied so quietly that Draco had to strain his ears to listen. "Because it didn't come with a note, and I thought that it had been sent by…"
She thought it had been sent by Sirius Black.
Draco resisted a retort regarding her constant interfering, do-gooding behaviour. First she had dragged Draco into researching ways to stop his father's vendetta against the Hippogriff that had attacked him, and now her company was being forced upon him because she had gone out of her way to save Potter from himself. The whole school already had to suffer with the presence of those Dementors because of Black's and every other wizard's obsession with Potter.
Maybe they should rename Potter and start calling him the Boy-Who-Constantly-Needs-Saving instead.
"Are you sure he did not just buy it for himself? He is out of a broom, you know," Blaise asked, interrupting Draco's thoughts. "I would not be surprised that he faked buying it for himself and making it seem like it was sent to him by a fan, he is quite the attention seeker."
Draco chortled at the allusion in Blaise's words. Hermione looked rather smug with herself before answering in her rather annoying because-I-know-everything tone of voice.
"Harry isn't like that and I know it because I've seen how much that broom costs - …"
Theo snorted into his goblet at the comment and Hermione stopped speaking. When he had placed it back onto the table, he turned to the girl and asked, "Do you not know how wealthy your friend is?"
Draco judged by her furrowing eyebrows and the second appearance of an inability to answer questions, that Hermione Granger did not know this asinine fact. Then again, how many people would directly ask someone how much money their families had? In the wizarding world, these things seemed to be common knowledge and no one really asked. Draco supposed that if anyone on the outside looked at Harry with his oversized clothing, one would project the stereotype of a poor orphan boy onto him. Even Lacie seemed mildly intrigued at Hermione's bewilderment, but brushed it aside.
"What does it matter?" Lacie asked Theo dismissively, attempting to steer the conversation away from Hermione's lack of knowledge of Wizarding society gossip.
"You knew?" Hermione asked, turning towards Draco's twin, a twinge of annoyance colouring her tone.
"Of course she knew," Theo interjected airily, "You forget that, until a few years ago, Lacie was trained in the art of socialising with the oldest and most noble of Wizarding families, and that includes being knowledgeable about the entirety of their affairs."
Several emotions flitted across Hermione's face, starting with disbelief. She studied her friend, who was pretending that she had not heard Theo's explanation. Draco knew that Hermione was analysing every encounter that she had ever had with Lacie, and would soon recall the first time that she had ever met Lacie. The girl did little to conceal the realisation across her face as she remembered being asked if she was related to a famous Potioneer, as well as Lacie's quick recognition of who Hermione was helping. Finally, the girl looked troubled as she mulled over her thoughts. Lacie on the other hand, looked angelic and innocent as she ate.
At first glance, one would not have thought she was an encyclopaedia of Wizarding customs and knowledge.
"Penny?" Draco asked kindly. Hermione's brown eyes focused on him, as if searching for an answer in his grey eyes.
"If the Potters were such an old and respected family, why aren't they on that list? The Sacred Twenty-Eight?"
"There were rumours that at some point… an integration occurred and it diluted the blood purity."
There was a soft snort, "Of course."
"Did you expect anything different?"
"No, in fact, I feel slightly annoyed that I didn't think of that as a possibility."
"How foolish of you," Draco said with a smile, but when all he saw was a perplexed look on Hermione's face, it was as if a spell had broken. For a moment, he had forgotten he was in the company of his Housemates. Draco realised that the side of him that he usually reserved for Hermione had spilled out at the dinner table. He quickly replaced the smile on his face with a scowl and added, "I guess you do not know everything, after all."
The girl visibly bristled, and Draco hated himself for it. He would not be surprised if Hermione refused to talk to him in the library after this encounter. Even Draco was irritated by his own actions. He really needed to be in better control of himself. He looked over at Lacie who was staring at him, as if trying to deduce a complicated problem. Draco could almost hear his sister's voice blare in his mind.
Draco, what are you doing?
"Fine, what don't I know about Harry, or his family?"
Draco turned to Theo, prompting his friend to answer. Theo sighed dramatically, and rolled his eyes before taking an exaggerated gulp of water from his goblet again. Once he had drained a considerable amount, he smacked his lips together and drew his lips into a smile.
"Well, there is some speculation that the Potter estate rivals the prestigious Malfoy Manor," Theo said, before casting a look at Draco. Draco scoffed.
"I doubt Hermione wants to listen to rumour and hearsay," Lacie interjected, "Hermione only believes in facts, and since no one has seen the Potter estate in over half a century, I would happily dispute your comment."
"You and your brother are only sceptical because the idea of someone having a bigger estate than the Malfoys positively abhors you," Theo replied mockingly.
"Personally, I am surprised you would even suggest that Harry had something better than Draco, are you not afraid of him gnawing your ear off about how offensive that is?" Lacie countered.
"Slanderous chit, dare I insult our Lord Malfoy in front of our honoured dinner guests?"
Draco narrowed his eyes at his friend. "Would you stop calling me Lord Malfoy? It is becoming tiresome."
"Oh," Theo started in mock affront, "So you allow Granger over there to call you Lord Malfoy but not your best friend?"
"That was a bet that…" Draco's explanation tailed off as he felt someone rap him on the shoulder. Draco turned and saw Bletchley boring his eyes into him.
"Malfoy, Flint is calling an emergency team meeting," he said, before turning onto his heel and stalking off. Any hint of colour that had appeared in his face in the past ten minutes swiftly drained again. Draco patted his mouth gently with a napkin and coolly turned towards Theo.
"Make sure that my covers are turned down on my return, Theodore," Draco said, almost channelling his father speaking to a house-elf.
Draco saw a look of annoyance appear on the profile of Theo's face, and he did not turn to look at him as he said, "I know you like to think it, but I am not actually your servant."
Draco stood up and patted Theo on the shoulder, "I must be mistaken, I thought I was your esteemed Lord Malfoy."
The look on Theo's face was one that kept Draco smirking through the emergency meeting that Flint was holding.
x-x-x-x-x
"I'm sorry."
Harry jumped several inches to the right as Hermione walked next to him. It was one of those rare occasions where Hermione managed to be able to speak to Harry alone. He always seemed to be glued beside Ron, or huddled with the Gryffindor boys in their year. As chance would have it, Oliver Wood had chosen precisely that moment to stop Harry and tell him that he was on his way to Transfiguration to ask about the Firebolt. Ron had fortunately rushed ahead with the rest of the Gryffindor boys, determined to not be late for the prospect of a scintillating lesson without Flobberworms.
"Hermione!" Harry said, as soon as he had caught his breath. "Where did you come from?"
"I've been walking behind you," Hermione lied hastily and Harry didn't seem too convinced. Fortunately for Hermione, Harry didn't question her further.
"I must have not noticed you, then," Harry said quietly, and for a moment they walked to their next class together in silence.
Hermione broke it by saying, more indignant than she had intended, "You're too angry at me to care for my presence, I suppose."
Harry stopped suddenly, but Hermione kept walking. They had only a few minutes left before they were truly late for the lesson, and even though they knew Hagrid, Hermione doubted he would be too pleased if they were late for his class.
"Hermione," Hermione heard Harry call out. At that, Hermione stopped and turned to see Harry still standing where he had stopped. When he had somewhat gathered his wits, he slowly walked towards her, struggling under the weight of his bulging bag on the frosty grass. Of course, Hermione doubted that Harry carried around as many books as she did, and he probably threw them in haphazardly, giving it the illusion that the bag was stuffed with books. When he had reached her, Hermione looked up at him expectantly and he opened his mouth to say something. Thinking better of it, Harry carried on walking towards their Care of Magical Creatures lesson.
For a moment, Hermione felt her eyes sting and she willed herself to not cry. She had hoped in the back of her mind that Harry would also apologise for how he had acted, or showed some sort of understanding as to why she did what she did. Lacie had told her that Harry had apologised to her for stomping away before Christmas, and that he wouldn't go looking for trouble. He even told her that he didn't want to go looking for Sirius Black, and that he would knuckle down and concentrate on how to manage Dementors. It had seemed inevitable that Harry would approach her to show the same compassion and understanding. However, so far, he only seemed to ignore her in classes and stayed silent when Ron snapped at her.
Hermione daren't even warn Harry from taking his secret lessons from Professor Lupin, too, or else Ron and he would be tipped over the edge. As Hagrid directed them to put their bags in the shelter that he had constructed outside of his cabin, Hermione wondered how many hints she would have to drop before Harry would realise it. Ever since that essay that Professor Snape had set, Hermione had been wary.
The first alarm bell was why Professor Snape was teaching them about werewolves so suddenly. Hermione knew that there was some other reason for it.
The second alarm bell happened when Hermione started noticing that Professor Lupin's health declined on a monthly basis. It wasn't difficult to notice it, as Hermione meticulously charted her own monthly cycle so as not to be caught surprised in the middle of a class. It was one of the side effects of her usage of the Time-Turner, she was careful not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She could not risk running into the Common Room, halfway through a class and for people to notice that she would be in two places at the same time or even crossing herself an hour later. However, Hermione noticed that Professor Lupin would appear paler than usual for a few days before disappearing entirely for precisely two days. Once he returned, he was slightly perkier but this never lasted long. A week would pass and his health would start deteriorating again.
This had happened since the beginning of term, but it wasn't until Professor Snape's unwelcome appearance in their Defence Against the Dark Arts classes where Hermione started to write down when she predicted when Professor Lupin would be ill. Hermione wasn't a fan of surprises, and an extra dosage of the dour Professor Snape was one she could do without. Whilst Harry and Ron weren't speaking to her, Hermione started scribbling in her notes for her new day planner and it wasn't long before she noticed a pattern. Her parents always bought her a new planner for Christmas, but this one in particular charted the moon's position in the sky, and then it hit her.
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
At first, Hermione didn't believe it, or want to believe it. Was Professor Dumbledore mad? Surely the Headmaster of her school would know about his new Professor. Hermione debated it, Professor Dumbledore wasn't aware that Professor Quirrell had another head under his turban or that Professor Lockhart – as much as Hermione hated to admit it – was a fraud.
It explained everything.
Professor Lupin was a werewolf.
Harry was going to be alone with Professor Lupin.
Hermione only hoped that they wouldn't be having a lesson towards the end of the month.
She was also thankful that the class didn't involve another batch of Flobberworms that she had to feed over the duration of the class. During this particularly wintry Care of Magical Creatures lesson, they were to scavenge twigs and sticks to keep the bonfire that Hagrid had lit in front of his house going. Fire Salamanders merrily scampered in and out of the fire, welcoming anyone who would add to the heat. At least this class involved traipsing around the grounds and not sitting and waiting for something to do something, and Hermione didn't have to talk to anyone. Not that anyone was likely to talk to her, the pariah that she was.
Hagrid did though, but only to gruffly tell her the date that he was going to the Ministry with Buckbeak and to thank her for the stack of notes she had given him. After that small exchange, Hermione was left alone to gather her own sticks, and stood in solitary in front of the bonfire.
"Hello."
Hermione turned to the person who was standing next to her, and noted that he was holding out several long branches.
"Olive branch?" Hermione asked with a small smile.
"I beg your pardon?"
Hermione looked away, focusing on the fire in front of her and the smile fading from her face, "Nothing. What do you want, Zabini?"
"I noticed that you had ran out of sticks to burn, and since our Lord Malfoy thinks its beneath him to collect wood like a peasant and has dismissed this lesson, I thought I would offer our collective efforts to you," the Slytherin replied, holding out the branches towards Hermione. Hermione reached out, and Zabini dumped them into her arms.
"Thank you," Hermione said, and she promptly began adding the branches to the fire. She watched as the flames engulfed the branches and smiled at the appreciative noises the salamanders made.
"You seem to enjoy this."
Hermione looked up, surprised to see Zabini still stood next to her and her smile drooped slightly. She continued to drop the sticks into the bonfire and said, "I suppose it reminds me of when I was little."
"You were an infant pyromaniac?" Zabini asked, with an expression on his face that was a cross between confusion and scepticism.
At that, Hermione laughed.
"No, before all of this," Hermione said, gesturing around herself and twirling a stick for emphasis, "My parents would take me camping every other Easter holiday or Bank Holiday weekends, and we would light a bonfire almost every night and cook our dinner off it and roast marshmallows… which was always a treat because they're dentists and…"
Hermione paused, realising that she had said too much to him. As far as she was aware, Zabini was part of Malfoy's group of friends that were really offended at her presence at Hogwarts because of her heritage. Hermione bit her lip, wondering what to say next, with the knowledge that Zabini probably didn't care or want to know what she used to do with her relatively ordinary parents. He probably didn't even know what a dentist was.
"That sounds rather lovely," he said after a while, most likely after processing what Hermione had said. His eyes seemed to indicate that what she had said was the opposite of lovely and his lips were pressed in a hard line as he stared into the flames.
"You don't have to be nice," Hermione said meekly.
"Actually I do," Zabini replied, his lips pulling up into the faintest of smiles, "Flint issued an edict that granted you a temporary reprieve."
Hermione's mouth fell open, and this greatly amused Zabini. When she regained control of her jaw, she tried to speak but it only came out in a series of stutters.
"I-I… I."
"You should see Pansy's kittens."
Hermione tried hard not to laugh, but made a noise that sounded like a choked cough. When she had composed herself enough, she tried to plant the most serious look on her face and stared as clearly as she could into Zabini's eyes so as to get her point across.
"I did not tell Professor McGonagall about Harry's Firebolt to get a reprieve from Slytherins."
Zabini raised an eyebrow, "Why not?"
Hermione felt affronted at the question and snapped, "Because Harry is my friend."
The Slytherin looked across the bonfire, where the rest of the Gryffindors were huddled. Hermione followed his gaze, and saw Ron glaring straight back at them. Hermione looked straight down and dropped the rest of the bundle she was holding into the fire.
"Some friend."
Hermione looked up at Zabini with a frown firmly planted on her face, "You're one to talk, you're only talking to me because someone told you to be nice to me."
Zabini seemed nonplussed with that statement, as if to as her, why else would anyone want to talk to you?
Hermione tried to brush off his response and added, "Also, you and your group of Slytherins are only friends with Malfoy because you're -…"
Zabini held his hand up to interrupt her and replied airily, "There are people in this world that you have to play nice to, regardless of whether or not you want to."
"But wouldn't you rather be friends with someone you liked?"
Zabini regarded her as the question hung in the icy air before sneering at her and turning onto his heel. Hermione watched as he walked back to the Slytherins. He lazily threw one end of his green and silver scarf over his shoulder as snowflakes started to fall. No one, it seemed, had noticed that he had left or that he had just spend the past ten or so minutes talking to her. However, he eased his way back into the group easily as he smiled at something Runcorn and Davies said to him.
It must be lonely, to be a Slytherin.
Hermione snorted quietly at the thought.
They all have each other, in some way or another.
"I guess we all know why you went to McGonagall," Hermione heard someone say. She turned and saw that Ron, and the rest of the Gryffindor boys had gathered by the fire and were adding to the bonfire. Neville, Hermione was relieved to see, looked uncomfortable and stood behind the group. He offered Hermione a small smile. Harry, on the other hand, was determinedly looking away.
"And why is that?"
"You're one of them now, snake," Ron replied in an arrogant tone, his blue eyes set in a fierce glower. Hermione bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from retorting angrily or crying. She would not cry in front of Ronald Weasley, or the rest of the class for that matter.
Hermione composed herself for a moment and looked at Harry, who still wasn't looking at her.
"And what do you think, Harry?"
Harry turned to face her with emotionless eyes and simply said, "I think that Hagrid wants to round up this lesson."
He turned around and walked away, taking the rest of the Gryffindor boys with him. Neville was the only one who gave her a backwards glance and an apologetic look.
Suddenly, the squealing of the salamanders did not seem so enjoyable anymore.
A/N: Sorry that this is so late! I just started school again, and all my lovely readers will know that me + school = lack of time to update. I honestly do appreciate all the reviews that I've been getting in the meantime, as it does remind me that I need to get my lazy arse to write/edit/update and the other odds and ends.
I can almost hear some naysayers write and tell me "surely wizards must know Muggle idioms", I do think they have but at the same time may have adapted them to make sense in their society ie. "Not for all the Galleons in Gringotts" or "Pansy is positively having Kneazles/Crups".
As usual, happy reading.
CSxo.