Chapter 6: Divination classes

"Neville?"

Hermione almost shouted when she heard that name come out of Ginny's mouth. She quickly glanced towards where she knew Draco was sleeping, straining her eyes, but she couldn't actually see him. She couldn't see anything. She still wasn't used to her blindness.

"Has he woken up?" she asked in a whisper.

Ginny craned her neck to look in the boy's direction.

"He's asleep. I don't think he heard anything; he's facing away from us."

Hermione sighed, relieved. Only Merlin knew what Draco would be willing to do to Neville if he found out about this.

"So… Neville?"

"Yes, Neville," her friend confirmed solemnly.

"It can't be true," Hermione murmured softly. "Neville? It's impossible."

"Yeah, I would have said the same if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes," Ginny assured her, then noticed her slip right after speaking. "Oh, sorry about that."

During the day, she could see lights, but now that it was night and the sun's rays weren't streaming through the windows, she could say she was completely blind. She only saw darkness. Despite everything, Hermione shook her head.

"Don't worry, Madam Pomfrey will find a solution soon."

"Yes, I'm sure she will. By the way, speaking of which… Neville is also to blame for your blindness."

Hermione couldn't help but laugh to release the terrible tension building in her shoulders and neck. She wondered what she could do to get rid of the discomfort in her stomach.

"Ginny…" she whispered, then paused. "I just can't believe it."

"I know, I know, but I saw it. He was hiding behind some bushes, and when you both plummeted, he cast a spell on you and then left as if nothing had happened. I haven't come earlier because I ran after him and have been following him all day."

"Have you found out anything?"

Ginny sighed and frowned, as if deeply disappointed with herself.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing. He didn't seem remorseful at all about what he did. He didn't even look a little concerned about you. Strange, isn't it? It was like he wasn't himself, not our Neville… in fact, he seemed to be acting quite… erratically."

They debated for a few minutes what could be causing his behavior but didn't reach any convincing conclusions. Ginny left, promising to return the next day, and Hermione tried to fall asleep again despite feeling more awake than ever. She couldn't fathom that Neville could have done such a thing, and her subconscious kept seeking an explanation for that strange matter, even though she tried to clear her mind.

After countless tossing and turning in bed and some moments of desperation, exhaustion eventually took over, and she drifted off into an abstract world where cats could talk and the sky was all the colors of the rainbow, because she finally woke up when the first rays of morning sun illuminated the infirmary.

She stretched and opened her eyes slowly, slightly dazzled by the light. She yawned. Damn, she was tired. Then, she found herself staring at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling as if it were the most interesting thing she could have come across, with its infinite bright crystal tears dangling, swaying slightly in the soft breeze coming through a half-open window near the infirmary entrance.

It took her a moment to remember why she was there wearing a Quidditch uniform, and another to realize something essential…

She had regained her sight!

And then, in a strange succession of discoveries, she realized one of her hands was clenched in a fist, and inside it was something… a small crumpled parchment.

She took it and unfolded it, reading the message inside.

"This was just a warning. Next time, I'll gouge your eyes out of their sockets."

She read it once, twice, three times, unable to fully believe those words.

She looked at the note in horror, starting to see it blurred at the edges due to fear. Because it not only meant her blindness had been caused, as Ginny had assured her, but also that someone had entered the infirmary at night and reversed the spell's effect, placing the note between her fingers.

She suppressed a terrifying shiver just in time, a second before Madam Pomfrey made her presence known again.

"Good morning, dears. How are you feeling?"

Hermione hid the note in the same fist where she had found it, then glanced at Draco, who was already awake in his bed. He grunted in response to the question, making it clear he hadn't been particularly happy to spend the night there.

The nurse ignored him and focused all her attention on the girl.

"It may seem strange, but I can see again," she informed her. "When I woke up this morning, I realized I had regained my vision."

The nurse was delighted to hear that but didn't let them leave until she made sure neither had any ailments after the tremendous accident the previous day.

"Accident…" Hermione repeated to herself, knowing there hadn't been anything accidental about it.

She thought about it while they walked to the Great Hall for breakfast, but then Malfoy let out a small groan of pain, and all of Hermione's alarms went off.

"Is it… happening?"

The boy straightened up but still had a grimace on his face.

"No, it's just my arm hurts."

Hermione, who had mentally prepared herself in seconds for the answer to be "yes" and was thinking about where the best place to hide without being discovered might be, realized something as quick as lightning.

"You didn't have… any crisis yesterday, did you?"

"I always have a daily crisis. It's not something that can happen or not depending on the day. It's not an allergy, nor a stomach ache, it's a curse, Granger."

But that didn't make sense; she would have noticed. They couldn't be separated, and she hadn't seen him need to… relieve himself all day. How was that possible then?

"When?"

Draco looked at her intently.

"Last night, while your little friend was telling you that our broom accident was Longbottom's doing."

Hermione stifled a gasp, not just because he had heard about Neville, but also because he had had a crisis while her friend was present. At that moment, she had been completely blind and couldn't see anything, but… what if Ginny had noticed something? She could say it had been silent because she hadn't heard him moan even once while talking to her, but… to what extent had he been careful to avoid the rise and fall of the sheets?

Suddenly, she felt anxious not having a way to know if her friend had noticed what he was doing. Ginny was a good friend, but no one could deny she loved gossip. What if now she spread the rumor that Malfoy was a lunatic, a weirdo who spied on girls and masturbated in front of them? A shiver ran through her body.

She didn't understand. Why did she care so much? She could empathize with him, but it was Malfoy's problem, not hers.

Then she saw the boy's eyes darken terrifyingly as he said:

"I'm going to kill Longbottom. I swear I'll kill him at the slightest opportunity."

Hermione's mouth went dry from how convinced he sounded. As if saying he was going to kill him wasn't just a phrase out of anger but a declaration of intent.

"No! There has to be an explanation for what he did! He's not like that!"

Malfoy laughed sarcastically.

"Sometimes your loyalty is insulting. How can you defend him after what he did?"

"It just… doesn't make sense. Do you find any sense in it? What did Neville gain by doing something like that?" she hurried to argue. "I'm convinced it must have been a misunderstanding… or it was someone else."

He raised an eyebrow.

"The Weasel girl told you, she saw it with her own eyes."

"Yes, she said it. But she was in the stands, and he, hiding behind some bushes. She could have seen wrong."

"How noble of you to try to save the boy," he said mockingly, "but nothing in the world will stop him from paying for what he did."

Malfoy was so determined to get revenge on Neville that it was frightening.

Hermione thought about cashing in the favor he owed her, forbidding him from taking action against her classmate, but… she wanted to keep that luxury for later. At some point, he would have to find out she had contacted Beatrice Brown, and then she would need that favor to avoid her own death because she was sure Malfoy would want to break her neck as much or more than he wanted to break Neville's now.

Besides, she believed that case was easy to win with the right arguments. And she had a pretty good one hidden in the gear she still wore.

"Look," she said, handing him the note with fine, curved letters she had in her pocket. "I had it in my hand when I woke up. Neville's handwriting is clumsy, rough, with thick and irregular strokes. I know because I've reviewed many of his assignments over the years. He didn't write this, so what sense does it make for him to be the one who took my sight?"

Draco read the parchment and then gave her a meaningful look. Had she managed to make him reconsider things?

"Let's do this, Granger. Since you like solving everything so much, do your research. If you can prove it wasn't Longbottom, I'll leave him alone.

"But if I don't like what you come up with, I'm going after him with everything I have."

And without giving her a chance to say anything else, he turned and walked away from her.

"Hey, we're supposed to stick together!"

"No need to hold hands to go to breakfast," he said without turning around, continuing his way.

Hermione sighed. She had bought some time, but she still needed to find a solution to the puzzle. Who had left the note and why had they taken her sight? Why was Neville the one who appeared to have done it?

Everything was starting to feel like too much for her to handle, and if Ginny really hadn't noticed anything the previous night and Malfoy had kept the illusion of control so perfectly, she was beginning to fear more than ever that he was truly capable of destroying Neville.

He had been clear.

Neville would pay if she didn't solve the problem.

She had very little time to find the answers. But at least she had some time to figure out what had really happened, because she couldn't believe that Neville had anything to do with all this. Neville, her Neville, would never do something so horrible, especially not against her. They had been friends since their first year at Hogwarts! She still remembered that Neville was the first person to talk to her on the Express; she hadn't forgotten how kind he had been, seeing her alone and coming over to introduce himself when no other child had.

And she would never forget it.

So she looked for him when they arrived at the Great Hall, but she couldn't find him anywhere. She didn't have time to feel disappointed, though, because Harry and Ron jumped out of their seats when they saw her appear.

"Hermione! Can you see again?" Harry asked, surprised.

"Yeah, tell us!" Ron chimed in.

But there wasn't much to explain. Well, actually, there was, but she deliberately omitted the part about the note and simply said that she had regained her sight upon waking.

She and Malfoy had just started breakfast when Ginny arrived, who also seemed surprised to see her there.

Hermione put all her effort into analyzing her friend's expression when her eyes moved from her to the boy. She needed to check if she had seen anything strange during her visit to the infirmary, because she didn't want to, but she knew herself and knew she would use an Obliviate on her if she found the slightest hint that she thought Malfoy was a sexual pervert. Ginny was very transparent when it came to her emotions. If she was angry, you knew it. If she was sad, you knew it. If she was happy, you knew it. If something made her uncomfortable... you knew it. So she would find out soon enough.

She could breathe again when, finally, her friend hugged her and asked if she could see how beautiful she had woken up that morning.

Hermione saw out of the corner of her eye how Harry laughed, admiring Ginny and her natural morning beauty. Not a drop of makeup, and she was one of the prettiest girls at school. Not that she thought you needed to cover your face with products to be beautiful, but she knew many used them to hide bad skin, enhance their lashes, or apply a pretty blush on their cheeks to feel a little more attractive.

She also saw Pansy out of the corner of her eye, looking from Harry to Ginny and back again repeatedly, gripping the cutlery in her hand as if she wanted to disintegrate it with sheer force.

"Well, how are you feeling, mate?" Blaise asked Draco with a mischievous grin on his lips. "We all know you have to put effort into training, but you didn't have to break your bones for it.

Everyone laughed at his joke, but the person in question shot him a murderous look.

Ginny laughed too. Well, apparently, she had no idea what had happened in the bed next to her while she was recounting what she had seen during the Slytherin training, but once the topic of the accident came up... she looked at Hermione in a way that made her understand that she would probably explode if she didn't drop the bombshell about Neville, so the girl decided to take the lead and tell the same thing but in a straightforward way.

"Ginny thought she saw someone hiding in the bushes while we were in the air yesterday," she commented, then, in the most neutral and emotionless voice she could muster, added, "Someone who looked like Neville. Apparently, that someone bewitched Malfoy's broom."

Draco pursed his lips, and her friend looked at her with clear reproach in her eyes. It was evident that she was more offended by not being allowed to tell it herself than by the fact that she doubted the veracity of her story. Hermione believed her when she said she had seen someone, but she reserved the right to be skeptical that it was Neville.

She was so deep in thought that she barely noticed how shocked the others were by her words until Pansy widened her eyes and then laughed loudly.

"Please, don't jump to conclusions. It's possible it wasn't him," Hermione clarified.

"I saw him," Ginny protested.

"Then you have exceptional eyesight because a vast distance separated you."

She felt that Ginny was offended by that. She hoped at least to have sown the seed of doubt in all of them. It wasn't fair to condemn someone without knowing what had really happened.

Pansy glanced around with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

"Interesting..." she said, though only to herself. Hermione seemed to be the only one who heard her. What did she find so interesting?

But breakfast was over, so Malfoy stood up, and both headed to the dungeons to finally change out of their training clothes and dress in their respective house robes for their morning classes.

According to the agreement they had made, it was Draco's turn to decide which classes to attend that day, and Hermione was quite happy with the choices he had been making... until the last one.

"Divination?!" she exclaimed, unable to believe it.

"I already missed a class on the first day of the punishment, remember?"

So there she was, Hermione Granger, sitting on a cushion on the floor, with her legs hidden under the hideous tablecloth of a round table on which rested the absurd textbook for the subject, along with the crystal ball and a set of astral cards spread across the remaining surface.

Pathetic.

Next to her was the person responsible for her feeling so miserable at that moment, with the cast grazing his waist, and now she wanted to kill him for real, not just figuratively.

They had already finished the practical part of the class and were now on the theoretical part. Professor Trelawney was giving a lecture on the influence of the moon on predictions and prophecies, which Hermione found an insult to human intelligence. She had refused to follow the explanations or take notes, as she completely disagreed with the subject, and the poor professor couldn't say anything because the girl wasn't even enrolled in the class, which was an elective one. The fact that she was there was just one more added punishment she had to endure.

It was already Friday, and on Monday, she would be free again, and no one could ever force her to attend that crazy class again.

The professor had just announced that they should pay attention because she was about to dictate a section that would very likely be on the final exam. Hermione rolled her eyes, but then she noticed a slight shiver from Malfoy.

Was he having...?

She scrutinized his face, which had suddenly turned white. Yes, it was definitely happening.

She tried not to panic and studied the situation: Malfoy was trying to pay attention to the lesson and was taking notes with his left hand, as he seemed to be ambidextrous. His other hand was in a cast, and it didn't seem like a good moment to ask to go to the bathroom.

Hermione decided to wait a few minutes in the hope that the professor would finish soon and they could leave, but she was reading her book with such fervor that it didn't seem like she was going to stop anytime soon. And Malfoy's face was becoming more and more pained, more and more fatigued with each passing second.

How much time was left?

Hermione guessed not much. And then, almost without thinking, she slipped her hands under the tablecloth and brought them to his trousers.

Malfoy scowled at her for a moment, but he didn't try to stop her or object to what she was about to do. He didn't yell at her to get away from him, or that he didn't need her help at all... because, at that very moment, he did.

Very much so.

After all, it was not the first time she had... relieved him.

It was a little hard to get his erection out of his underwear. It was bigger than she remembered, but, of course, the other time she'd done it with Malfoy's hands, which were huge, and this time she only had her own, which must have been tiny compared to the boy's body because she was barely managing to grasp the whole thing between her fingers.

Up and down she went, making circular motions with her wrist for his greatest pleasure. She told herself that it was just to get him to come quickly, that she didn't like being in this position of doing this to a boy she hated and who hated her, but... but she found herself clenching her legs tightly together with the burning that had begun to rise in her body. The fire crackled in her sex and rose up into her belly, stirring all her insides with pure, pent-up desire.

Her intimacy throbbed, crying out for a little rubbing for relief, and she felt so dilated that... She bit her lip as she imagined Malfoy putting her on that table, ripping her clothes off, pulling her legs apart and entering her.

She brought her free hand to her crotch, pulling her skirt aside so she could touch her underwear. Her panties... hell, her panties were so wet... she pushed them aside and began to relieve her own need as well. She pushed her fingers in as deep as she could, pulling them out soaked with pleasure. Then she stroked her clitoris, pressing her fingers down and up, until her palm was wet too.

There was no way for anyone to know what was going on down there but the two of them, though perhaps their blushes caused by the sudden arousal could give anything away to anyone looking closely.

Luckily, everyone was deep in their notes.

All except Malfoy, who had stopped paying attention to the teacher and was now staring at the girl with a mixture of intensity and surprise as he slyly swayed his hips to the Gryffindor's rhythm.

Hermione, letting the smoke that had invaded her mind and clouded her reasoning, pulled her hand away from the one she was touching him with and replaced it with the one that was soaked in her own flow.

Malfoy frowned slightly as he felt the coolness and the way her hand now slid in a smoother, lighter way.

Then, she was surprised when the boy threw the pen down on the table and brought his left hand to the epicentre of her pleasure. Oh, oh. Was Malfoy really touching her like that? Was it the boy's fingers that were tapping her there, that were moving and playing with her intimacy as if they'd been lovers all their lives?

It was so wrong to be touching themselves like that in front of their classmates without them noticing, but it was so exciting at the same time... that her heart, beating wildly in her throat, seemed more than willing to leave her body.

Luckily, they were both beginning to experience the ecstasy of climax.

"Oh... Granger," he whispered almost voicelessly, but fiercely at the same time, as he pressed his fingers even harder into the delicate skin of her sex. "Damn it, Granger."

And then his dick swelled and emptied all of his semen under the table.

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