"Argh, will you two just stop it." Hermione snapped, turning furiously to Seamus and Ron, who had been discussing (rather loudly) the nuances of Quidditch for a good half hour. Though her outburst was partly due to their lack of thought for anyone who might be studying, the other part was to vent some of the annoyance she had been harbouring towards a certain blonde Slytherin.
"All right, all right, keep your hair on," Ron muttered, leaning toward Seamus and whispering something under his breath that made the boy laugh.
Hermione ignored them tucking her legs underneath her and blinking down at her book and heaving a sigh when the only words she could seem to focus on were potential insult she could hurl at Malfoy when she next saw his ferrety face. Billywig sting slime. Bundimun secretion, that was a good one, gross and adequately explicit. More than enough to show her disapproval at him having, once again, run away nearly leaving her trapped in the room with the Sensieve as all the candles snuffed themselves out. She gripped her book harder, guiltily glancing around at the other Gryffindors, certain that they would be able to somehow read her thoughts. Because him running away wasn't the only thing that had infuriated her, it was the fact that for a moment she'd actually thought the blonde had looked a little less than disgusting. Maybe even a little nice.
She was clearly losing her mind. It would explain so much. Especially him smiling, and laughing, and her thinking how nice it was that they could talk, that they could get on. And then there was the memory, the kiss. It had been incredible, the intensity of it making her knees shake something fierce, like she had somehow stumbled into a romance novel. Then the hurt had hit, a great blow to her chest that had felt like it ruptured her heart, till she just spilled sadness.
The whole experience had left her confused and disorientated – back in her own body she hadn't been able to fathom the line that separated her and Mina, they were mushed together in an unfathomable mess of emotions. That was her excuse anyway. That was why her breath had caught in her throat at the sight of him. That was why she'd thought his hair, usually neat, looked so much better all mussed, sticking up in different directions, as if someone had run their fingers all the way through it. Why she'd looked at his lips and thought they looked redder than usual and why she'd wondered what they would taste like, part of her aware that she already knew.
There was no doubt that the memories they experienced, they experienced physically as well as mentally, acting them out in the pillared room, so that mean only one thing; they had kissed. Not of their own volition, of course, and not with any real awareness. But it had happened, and Malfoy had run away. There was no real surprise there though given his track record, but she couldn't ignore the small flicker of hurt at his obvious horror at the prospect of kissing her. Hermione shook her head, going over every minute detail would not change anything, so instead she turned her attention to the small leather tome that had been sitting happily at her side, its cover boasting an Exhaustive Account of Old Magic.
The wand they'd found hadn't worked for her and in spite of her certainty that she was just as magic as the next witch or wizard, doubt sprouted in her mind. Doubt – she reminded herself – that had been planted there entirely by Draco Malfoy. Of course, her search for information had been relatively uninformative, but she hoped that whatever force had stopped her from being able to cast Lumos that night would be explained.
"Hey Hermione." Harry flopped onto the sofa next to her; his hair an unruly mess, bags sitting heavily under his eyes. She sighed, her head tipping sympathetically towards the boy. Preparing for the second task was proving harder than any of them had imagined.
"Find anything?" She asked, her fingers tracing the gold lettering of her book. Harry shook his head, removing his glasses, and rubbing his eyes with a wince.
"No, all the words just started blending together. I never want to see another book, again." Hermione laughed lightly, drawing her own book closer to her chest in a half-hearted attempt to hide it from view. She didn't want Harry knowing that she hadn't been helping. As much as she wanted to find answers for her friend, she had so many of her own questions.
"Hermione?" She turned and looked at Harry, he was staring into the fire, a frown of confusion creasing his forehead. "Can I... Can I ask you something?"
"Of course." she turned slightly, so she was facing him more, her eyes boring into the side of his face expectantly.
"It's just that...this is going to sound weird," he muttered, fiddling with the bottom of his shirt.
"Oh, spit it out, Harry, the suspense is killing me." She started laughing, but it died in her throat when her friend didn't join in.
"Last night…Last night I went to the Library, you know to do research," Hermione nodded, but her heart was already speeding up in her chest, worry knotting in her stomach uncomfortably. "It was really late, but...but I swear-I know this sounds crazy but, I could hear you and - and Malfoy. You were arguing, and when I went to investigate, you'd-you'd just vanished." A fire crackled noisily in the silence that followed, making Hermione jump slightly. "I know, it's crazy right?"
"That's impossible," she breathed, hoping her face wouldn't betray her, "I wasn't anywhere near the Library last night, let alone, Malfoy." The words felt weird on her tongue, she didn't know if she'd ever get used to lying to her friends.
"It must have been a dream, or, or something, I don't know. When I'm not searching for answers to this stupid task, I'm trying to avoid that Skeeter woman or Potter stinks badges." Hermione rubbed his arm gently. The year had been a hard one for Harry, people hadn't liked him at all, and while a select few were always that way, there was a good proportion of the student body, that had always admired him, worshipped him even.
"I just don't understand what I did…"
"You've got your broom round your head, mate. He is not the best seeker, I know plenty of wizards that could outfly him." Ron shouted back at Seamus, falling in between Harry and Hermione, oblivious to the conversation he'd just interrupted.
"Name one," Seamus shouted back, standing up and heading across the common room, to where the three of them sat. A long silence followed, "See you can't can you?"
"Harry, he's a damn good seeker, probably the best." Harry sunk into his chair, as Ron pointed at him.
"He's only played for a school team, we're talking…"
"Just ignore him, He's got a serious man-crush on your boyfriend, Hermione, it's not pretty." Hermione sighed, becoming rigid as Ron elbowed her in the side. Sometimes she wondered what it was she saw in Ron, he had no tact.
"He is not my boyfriend, and I'm pretty certain that you, up until recently, were fawning over him." Ron's face went the colour of his hair, as Seamus laughed triumphantly.
"That's beside the point, I've seen him now, for what he truly is." Hermione rolled her eyes, opening her book out on her lap, and pretending not to hear him.
Hermione scowled down at the words as they jumbled into an unfathomable mess. With a shake of her head she straightened her shoulders, she would not let the possibility of her having kissed Malfoy bother her. Thoughts of him were futile, especially considering she was almost certain that she never so much as crossed the blonde's mind.
Draco banged the table in front of him angrily, hoping the noise would shock thoughts of a bushy-haired Gryffindor, out of his head. He lowered his head as Madame Pince shot him a particularly fierce look and told him to be quiet.
"So, you want to tell me what the table did?" Blaise asked wearily, glancing up from the work he'd been pretending to complete. "I'm sure it will apologise if you ask nicely." Draco ignored his friend's sarcasm, choosing instead to rub his eyes.
Pansy, whose eyes had been following a confused looking, Viktor Krum around, glanced at the pair, her feet propped up on the table, arms crossed. "What's bugging him?" she nodded towards the blonde, one brown eyebrow rising in confusion.
"I think the table did something," muttered Blaise, staring down at the blank paper in front of him, deciding finally to attempt the title.
"Something's been on your mind recently, what is it?" she asked in her usual abrupt and assertive way. She lifted her legs of the table, leaning forward and staring at him expectantly.
"Nothing, Parkinson, now leave me alone," Draco muttered, dropping his face into the palms of his hands.
"Ooo, last names, someone's getting defensive." Pansy squealed happily, shimmying even closer, she poked his arm once, then twice, "So what is it?" The third time Draco shifted away, glaring at her angrily.
"Parkinson, I told you to drop it."
"You guys heard, that didn't you?" Pansy asked, looking pointedly at Theo and Blaise for backup.
"Oh, I heard it." Blaise commented, an evil grin growing on his handsome features.
"Heard what?" Draco asked witheringly, he didn't have the energy for their games.
"You used The Voice." Theo cut in, shutting the book he'd been reading, and turning to his friend.
"I don't have a 'voice'." He argued, crossing his arms, and inspecting the rest of the library, wishing he was one of the lucky students who got to study alone.
"The Voice," Pansy corrected, "you use it when you want to get your way, or when you've got something to hide, so...what is it Draco?" Pansy wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, and Draco cringed. The stupid brown-haired witch had a way of mindreading. If there was any hint at something private, she would chip away, until finally, she weaseled it out into the light of day, cackling maniacally at her brilliance.
"Why must there be something to hide, I could just want a bit of that allusive thing called, I don't know, privacy." Pansy's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"It's women mate, it's always, 'what are you thinking?', 'why did you do that?' Crazy the lot of them...ow." Blaise rubbed his arm tenderly where Pansy had slapped him, shooting her an incredulous look. "And what was that for?"
"How someone who has so little experience with women could ever claim such stellar insights is beyond me." Pansy bit out sarcastically, looking down her nose at the boy sat next to her.
"I do alright, thank you very much." It was true, Blaise did do well with the ladies, but no one around the table would ever admit that to him, his ego already to sizeable when it came to that particular subject.
"He pulls them all with those classic compliments about their craziness, makes them all go wild."
"Do better than you, don't I?" Blaise smirked.
"Yes, well I have taste, and standards."
Draco rolled his eyes, turning away and letting his friends carry on fighting. It was a common occurrence; Blaise would say something - usually bigoted in nature – Pansy would hit him, throwing some barbed comment his way and Theo would whip out the biggest shit-stirring spoon ever known to wizarding kind and make the whole thing escalate to astoundingly violent heights. He'd counted his blessings that Pansy's attention was away from him. She was like a bloodhound; anything secret, anything she did not need to know, and she would sniff it out. A couple of prods, some well-placed questions and he'd be spilling the beans, telling her all about the memories and his crazy thoughts of Granger. He'd probably have a mental break down and then she'd hex him for good measure.
He rubbed his eyes again, resisting the urge to bang his head against the table or, even better, the nearest wall. He had a problem, a big problem; a problem on the scale of the world ending, and everyone dying. The how and why were still desperately hazy; he'd thought about potions, about hexes, heck his mind had even strayed into the realms of muggle mental disorders, but none of them quite explained his predicament. The what was, Hermione Know-It-all-and-tell-you-all-about-it-in-infuriatingly-boring-detail Granger.
The little Gryffindor was incessantly on his mind, chirping in her I-know-better-than-you voice, her lips all swollen and tantalisingly red from…He smacked his head quickly, groaning partly from pain, the other, rather large part, being sheer embarrassment. He silently begged Salazar for strength. The muggle memories were turning him into a flamboyant mess on par with Gilderoy Lockhart. He questioned whether he could even call himself Slytherin, especially with the feelings that were bouncing around in his stomach. He could see it all in terrible clarity, he'd be demoted to Hufflepuff, forced to bear the eternal shame of caring and feeling things.
"You alright there, Drake?" Theo asked, turning to Draco, a maniacal grin on spread across his face. The source of his delight were staring vehemently at each other, their foreheads almost touching, as they had the quietest most ferocious argument known to the library, without attracting incurring the wrath of Madame Pince.
"Just fine." I want to kiss a mudblood to see what it feels like. "Just…" The fact that he didn't finish his explanation seemed not to bother Theo in the slightest, as he was once again putting his galleon worth into the argument that had simmered down in his absence.
Draco wondered if curling himself up into a ball would be enough to hide away from his thoughts. He supposed there was always obliviate, he could zap the feelings right out of his head, and no one would be any the wiser. Apart from Granger. His shoulders slumped as he realised that any potential solution to his pesky problem would probably be reversed in a matter of library visits by none other than the smartest witch at the school. Of all the people he could have found the Sensieve with, it had to be her.
Draco concentrated on his friend's faces, wondering if he really could open up and talk to them about it. But given their current situation of hurling puerile insults at one another, he guessed that any such admission on his part would be met with the same. He definitely wouldn't get anything productive from them. Even Pansy, who was the most mature friend that Draco had, only rose to that position of note, due to Tweedle Zabini and Tweedle Nott setting the bar so famously low. Telling her would have been on par with Avadaring himself in the face; not a good idea and ending in his ultimate demise.
"I think it's a girl." Draco had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't realised the argument had finally concluded and that Pansy was glaring at him, her eyes searching his face as if she could see his secrets in the pores of his skin. A lump of worry lodged itself in Draco's throat.
"What?" He spat snootily, hoping it would sound convincingly unimpressed.
"You know, those skirt-wearing beings that are always throwing themselves at you? I think one of them has caught your eye," Her eyes glinted happily, "Is it, Daphne? Is it? Is it?"
"What?" Draco scrunched up his nose. He could vaguely recollect some conversation with Pansy about the blonde, but other than that, Daphne hadn't crossed his mind.
"You know, Daphne. Oh, please let me set you up, you guys would have such cute babies."
"Woah, cupid, drop the bow and step away from the arrows. Babies? What is wrong with you?" Pansy's nostrils flared angrily, as she looked at Blaise.
"Will you shut up." And they were arguing again, Theo sitting back with an amused expression that suggested he was impressed with how the argument had erupted without even the slightest bit of help from him.
Draco sat back, freezing in place when he noticed Hermione wandering through the library doors. Her nose was buried in her book and her hair looked bushier than normal. A small smile curled on his lips as he watched her nearly walk into another student studying, an adorable blush glowing on her cheeks as she apologised. He started suddenly, pulling himself out of whatever daze he'd fallen into, the gravity of his situation threatening to tug his head to the surface of the table. He wondered if the blow would knock some sense in.
"Mudblood alert," Pansy stated, watching Hermione make herself comfy at a small table. Krum immediately rushed over, seating himself next to her and smiling rather vacantly to himself as she read. Draco felt uncomfortable, something undefinable stabbing its way into his gut. "I don't know what he sees in her." Draco bit back a retort, swallowing it with effort, determined he would not sink to the level of defending the Know-it-all.
"Well it's not like she's ugly, is it?" Blaise shrugged. Both Pansy and Theo stared at him for few seconds, before the brown-haired girl leant forward, narrowing her eyes.
"Something you want to tell us, Blaise?"
"What, it's true. You guys saw her at the Yule Ball, aesthetically she's not bad to look at, that doesn't mean I'm going to touch that with a ten-foot wand though does it?"
"Pft, he wishes." Theo chuckled, shaking his head as he turned back to his book, ignoring the evils Blaise was shooting him across the table.
Perhaps that was it, he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before. Even Edward had practically waved it in his face; just infatuation. It was highly plausible, all those memories, all those feelings that weren't his own, and then Granger just being there mixed up in it all. It stood a good chance that half of what he felt wasn't even him to begin with. Maybe he'd realised she didn't look entirely like the back end of a Blast-Ended-Skrewt and all the other feelings were just confusing things.
Pansy's mouth was open in shock, "You cannot be serious?"
"As dragon pox, there's no way he has a…"
"I was talking to Blaise," Pansy ground out.
"Well, he has a point." Nott shrugged, smirking at how quick Pansy's head whipped around.
"What?!"
"Admit it, she looked good. Anyone could see that."
"You cannot be…Draco." Draco looked up quickly, his mouth opening and closing slowly. He hadn't been listening, too lost in what Blaise had said to pay attention.
"What?" he muttered, blushing as he realised thoughts of Granger had, once again, tugged him out of the real world.
"Don't tell me, you've got a crush on the mudblood too," she scoffed, crossing her arms.
Draco stood quickly, his grey eyes flaring in panic and anger. "For the last time Parkinson, I don't like anyone, so leave me alone and keep your pug nose out of my business."
"Pug wha…?" Pansy said, her fingers groping at her nose, to check that it was still the same shape as before, then she looked up and watched her friend storm away, banging the library door shut behind him. "My nose isn't pug, right?"
"Well, that was…" Theo began.
"Weird." Blaise finished, dropping his quill on the page in front of him.
"Guys?"
"Wonder what got his ovaries in a bunch?" Theo commented, then he looked across at Pansy. "You shouldn't bother him so much you know; albinos are notoriously volatile."
"This is not my fault," Pansy said indignantly.
'Yeah, well it kind of looks that way, doesn't it?' Blaise countered and Pansy was hitting him again. With a chuckle, Theo went back to reading, not before noticing, that Granger was leaving the library in a hurry too.