Scarecrow by Eucalyptus [Rated PG] (1/2)
Exchange Request for turkishangora
Title: Scarecrow
Author: eucalyptus
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~ 14,000
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine.
Category: Some fluff. Some humour. Some angst. Some romance. Much randomness.
Author Notes: Eek. Well, this story is about as bipolar as it gets. Not sure how I feel about it. It is ineligible for any voting.
Summary: Hermione Granger learns first-hand the inner workings of the human heart. AU story that works loosely within HBP canon.
Scarecrow - Part 1 of 2
In her sixth year at Hogwarts School of Wizardry, Hermione Granger goes back to Divination class.
She doesn’t go back because she wants to. She goes back because maybe it was supposed to happen.
“Ahem...”
A skinny boy with neatly parted dark hair stands in the middle of a forest clearing. Around him is a group of student, surrounded first by a nestle of trees and second by cobbled classroom walls, invisible to the untrained eye. This is classroom eleven. It was once a very normal classroom, left unused for many years just down the corridor from the Great Hall. Firenze, however, cannot easily navigate stairs to the other levels, so the unused room on the first floor has been magically transfigured into an environment more suited to his liking -- a serene, earthy forest of oak trees, clusters of tangled bramble patches and a bed of wild grass speckled with dandelions.
Being in the classroom is like being in a whole other world. It would be terribly easy for a person to get lost among the trees if they were to step off the path of flat rocks, bleached yellow with sun. Sunlight forms strange, slanted shadows across the mossy angles of the room. Firenze stands in the shade of an oak tree that spans greater than two arm lengths. He supervises his students with a poise only a centaur could manage. To their great relief, enough cool air is pocketed beneath the canopy to provide respite from the thick, oppressive heat outside.
“H-hello,” Neville Longbottom says, stammering badly.
His audience is a collection of students from Gryffindor and Slytherin. They sprawl in clusters with their housemates, book bags scattered and talking among themselves. Neville shrugs helplessly to their professor.
Firenze canters to the centre of the clearing in response and they immediately quiet.
“Your kind would be wise to listen,” he says, giving the students a hard stare. “My contemplations of the Heavens have revealed many House points being lost today.”
He moves back into the shade of tree that frames the north edge of the clearing, then indicates to his student in the clearning that he may continue.
“Thanks,” Neville mutters, swallowing. “As I was saying, ophalomancy is a mode of divination used to predict the future. It involves careful reflection and interpretation of…Well, of one’s own…”
The sixth year boy pauses, flushing pink with embarrassment, and rolls the hem of his untucked dress shirt between his fingers.Then he takes a shaky breath and allows the words to spill from his lips in a rush.
“Ophalomancy involves the interpretation of one’s navel. I shall now demonstrate.”
And wand drawn, he yanks up his dress shirt to bare his belly.
Harry Potter and Ron Weasley burst into strangled laughter. Leaning against the rough bark of a tree stump, Hermione Granger feels a pang of sympathy for her friend and scowls at them.
“Shut up,” she whispers, and for what seems like the millionth time, she curses the curriculum change that brought her here.
Apparently it had been in the works for nearly as long as she’d been a student at Hogwarts, but the Board of Governors had slowed the process with such an exorbitant amount of political red tape that they made muggle Parliament look almost competent in comparison. The delay had finally cleared over the summer after Dumbledore had applied pressure on its members to quit bickering. Sixth year Divination became a pre-requisite for NEWT-level Arithmancy. Therein lies the problem.
Hermione Granger has been waiting for Arithmancy since she’d first read about it in Hogwarts: A History. She needs it in order to train as a Healer. But she’d figured the Board couldn’t expect students to catch up on their credits. To find out that they did expect that had been a huge shock, and the tantrum she’d thrown in her bedroom at Grimmauld Place is now the stuff of legend. Fred and George re-enact it at every given opportunity.
Suffice it to say, she had fought very hard to be grandfathered through.
“Hello, Ms Granger. Please have a seat.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
“Would you like a lemon drop?”
“No, thank you.”
“Are you sure? They are quite delightful.”
“Yes, sir. I don’t eat much candy. My parents are dentists, you see.”
“Oh, yes. I remember quite well. I understand you wish to speak about the curriculum with me.”
“Yes, please, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all. Do go ahead.”
“Thank you. Sir, I believe the new requirements to be unfair to students who elected not to study Divination at Hogwarts. This is so for three reasons. First, it imposes additional strain on the student to burden themselves with an increased course load. The result will be upper years underperforming in their studies the year before they are to take their NEWTs. This change could affect the future career plans of tens, if not hundreds of students, with potentially disastrous results. Surely the Board of Governors does not wish to be responsible for the ruinment of a person’s entire life course!”
“I see.” Dumbledore had twiddled his thumbs mysteriously. “Please continue, I find this rather enlightening.”
“Second, it is unfair to force an upper year student to take classes with lower years. Basic learning principles state that to provide an appropriate challenge to the upper year student, the professors would have to increase the overall level of difficulty of the class. That is unfair to the lower years who will find the class material challenging as it is. It is also demeaning to the upper year student, who must sit and work side by side with students three and four years younger, completing coursework their friends and dormmates accomplished many years prior.”
“Ah, yes. We wouldn’t want that.”
“No, sir. And third, Arithmancy is a bona fide discipline differentiated from Divination by both indisputable precision and accuracy. It has never required a foundation in the hazy art of guesswork and tea leaves. I would ask if numerology as a discipline has changed dramatically in the last few years, greatly increasing the need for students to learn basic Divination, except that I subscribe to Arithmancy Today and know for a fact that it hasn’t. For goodness sake, Headmaster! Harry and Ron make up their predictions based on the stories printed in the Quibbler. The QUIBBLER!”
And at that, she had collapsed back in her chair, spent.
Dumbledore had hummed thoughtfully.
“Would it be fair then to say that you are fearful you’d find the additional work too much of a challenge?”
She’d paused. “No, sir, of course not.”
“Then you must be unwilling to accept the added responsibility. I must say, I find that a disappointment, my dear. You are one of our most trusted Prefects.”
“Oh, of course I’m willing, Headmaster, it’s just -- ”
“And to address your rather terrifically made point about upper year students in lower year classes, the Board of Governors has decided that sixth and seventh year students affected by the change do not have to take third and fourth year Divination. They merely have to take the fifth year class to achieve their OWL, which Hogwarts is offering to all affected students over correspondence studies this summer.”
“Oh,” she had replied weakly. “That’s nice of them. But arithmancy -- ”
“ -- is merely another form of divination, one based on numbers, is it not?”
She could only nod, her face red.
“Does that sound quite reasonable to you, my dear?”
Oh, how much she had wanted to protest!
“I…suppose. But still, it’s an awful lot of students to inconvenience, sir. Wouldn’t it be much easier if they allowed us all into Arithmancy without the OWL? Then they needn’t worry about us catching up, and grading our work, corresponding by owl…”
“Oh, yes. Might I let you in on one tiny yet no less important piece of information, Ms Granger?”
“Yes.”
His eyes had twinkled kindly. “You are the only student affected by the change. Divination is our most popular subject, you see.”
Her mouth had dropped open. Then she'd found she could not find the words to defend her position any longer. She had reluctantly agreed with Dumbledore to take the correspondence class and challenge the OWL examination in September.
And quite annoyed at being outsmarted, she had done just that not a week earlier.
So here she sits in classroom eleven, a canopy of leaves hanging over her head and a centaur teaching them about rare modes of Divination, detesting the subject as much as she ever has. To add insult to injury, she’d had to drop Muggle Studies to take it due to a conflict.
The real tragedy, she sometimes complains to Harry and Ron, should have been their classmates, but aside from the incident on the train a few weeks ago, when Draco Malfoy broke Harry’s nose and petrified him beneath his invisibility cloak, the Slytherins have been behaving strangely this year. They are quieter, interacting less with the other houses. Hermione is glad to see them more focused on their studies. It is making her days at school easier, less eventful. Besides, they’ve always been more bark than bite, and there is too much to be anxious over already.
On the heels of examining his belly, Neville mutters the visionary spell taught to them by Firenze. It is a spell aimed to enhance whatever ability they may have to divine the future. Hermione feels another pang of sympathy for him. His assigned form of divination is particularly humiliating; easily as bad as Ron, who had to divine the future by swallowing a thick barley loaf (alphitomancy), and the quiet, crafty Theodore Nott, who had to contemplate a vial of urine with every deep thought in his being (uromancy). Hagrid was kind enough to supply the urine. Supposedly it was collected from one of the school’s thestrals, but that hasn’t stopped the rumour that Hagrid did the deed himself.
Hermione thinks the notion that the Fates would have no better place to hide their secrets then in a cup of urine absolutely ridiculous.
“Well,” Firenze says for all to hear. “Have you Seen anything, human?”
The class waits with bated breath.
Neville shakes his head. “Nothing, Professor. No visions at all. Sorry.” He has the decency to look chagrined.
Firenze does not react. Hermione has noticed that the inability of his students to See never surprises him. In fact, it is almost as though he expects it. He nods for Neville to return to his seat. As she watches, Neville mutters a finite incantatum and takes his place next to Ron and Harry in the grass.
Ron leans over. “Alright there?”
“Yeah,” Neville whispers. “I’d have chosen anything over ophalomancy though. That was awful.”
Up next is a boy with straw-coloured hair and a pointy face she knows too well. Draco Malfoy struts to the middle of the forest clearing.
“I’ve been assigned gelomancy, the interpretation of hysterical laughter.” He looks to Firenze. “How shall I do this? Cast rictusempra?”
Firenze frowns. “Were you not taught spellwork basics in your first year at Hogwarts, human? You cannot cast Rictusempra because you will need your wand free for the visionary spell. Perhaps you should have come better prepared.” He throws his long palomino tail to mark his annoyance.
Harry and Hermione exchange subdued grins. Malfoy seems very uncomfortable around Firenze. She imagines he must be harbouring some anxiety towards creatures with hooves and four legs ever since he was ‘attacked’ by Buckbeak in third year.
The centaur turns to the class. “I ask for a volunteer from your kind.”
Lavender and Parvati squeal and shoot their arms in the air, attempting to out-wave each other. Pansy Parkinson also volunteers, though she is clearly trying to be less obvious about it. Ordinarily Hermione’s hand would be among them. Ron gives her a questioning look.
“It’s Divination,” she whispers, scowling her displeasure.
Firenze, however, has other plans. He ignores her eager classmates. “Hermione Granger. You do not laugh much in my class. Why is that?”
Annoyed at being called out in class, she feels her face grow hot. “I suppose there is nothing to laugh at, sir.”
“Nothing to laugh at?” Firenze lifts his eyebrows, clearly curious. “Does laughter not help us find balance, young one? Hermione Granger, please come forward so that you may assist.”
She gapes at him, wanting nothing more than to refuse on priniciple, but it isn’t in her nature to ignore a teacher’s request. Hermione pushes herself up off the grass and picks her way to the front to stand next to Malfoy in the clearing. As she brushes a few small leaves off her skirt, annoyed, Malfoy’s usual grimace deepens to near epic proportions.
“Draco Malfoy,” begins Firenze, “you shall make this Hermione Granger laugh, then cast the visionary spell only.”
Malfoy’s face contorts, bewildered.
“But -- she has a dreadful sense of humour! Surely you must be joking!”
Hermione scowls. “You should be worried about yourself, Malfoy, not me. Haven’t you heard the term performance anxiety?”
The class bursts into a loud mix of jeers and laughter. Someone, probably Seamus, hoots and calls her name.
Firenze is not in one of his more peaceful moods today. His hooves stamp hard in the forest floor, and when he speaks, the resonance causes a few leaves to shake free from their branches.
“We centaurs do not have time for your childish rivalry,” he booms. “You will complete the assignment as instructed. Fifteen points from both your houses.”
The class groans as one. Her stomach sinking, Hermione waits for everyone to quiet down then turns to Malfoy, raising an eyebrow in haughty expectation.
“Fine.” She says this with as much disdain as she can muster. “Let’s see then.”
“Fine,” Malfoy echoes, pulling himself up to his full height. Hermione immediately recognizes it as a defense mechanism. “What do you find funny?”
She falters. “I -- Oh, I can’t answer that. Why don’t you just tell me a joke?”
A look she can only describe as sly crosses his face.
“A wizard, a giant and a muggle walk into a bar--”
“Not that kind of joke,” she says through clenched teeth. “Something politically correct, if you don’t mind.”
He licks his lips, thinking.
“What do you get when you cross a muggle wi-- ”
“-- NOT that one either!”
He shrugs. “Don’t know any you’d find funny then, Granger.”
Groaning, she watches the boy shoot a knowing grin to his Slytherin classmates. A glance at Firenze tells her their professor is not impressed, and she chews on her lip, a nervous habit.
If this went badly, could she be held responsible as well?
As soon as the thought comes to her, Hermione feels a tight ball of anxiety in her stomach. They’ve already lost house points, and she has Head Girl prospects to watch out for. The situation is dire if all Malfoy can come up with are dirty, racist jokes.
As she wonders at how she got in this position, she looks to Firenze and quakes beneath his hard stare.
And then she wonders if she could fake it.
Trying to believe that it wouldn’t be cheating and that Firenze won’t know the difference, she straightens her shoulders and looks at Malfoy straight on.
“Why don’t you try again?” Hermione says with a careful voice. Inwardly she begins to plan outrageous peals of false hysterical laughter.
Malfoy, you must be the funniest, most clever person I have ever met! I don’t believe I have ever laughed so hard in my life. Now quick, why don’t you perform the visionary spell so I can get out of here and obliviate myself into the next century?
She tries to get her message across by nodding at him in a way that is both deliberate and discreet.
Malfoy blinks, confused.
“Well, it can’t hurt, right?” she says, wincing. “Maybe I’ll surprise… myself.”
It sounds ridiculous. His mouth falls open. There is a tightness in his jaw as he looks away, a bit of panic showing on his face, and she wonders if she’s not made things better, but worse.
Say something, she pleads.
Her classmates begin to whisper among themselves. Malfoy gapes like a deer caught in headlights.
Come on. Say something.
And then she makes the mistake of looking at at Ron and Harry, and she can swear they are watching this like they would watch a train wreck -- like they know it can only end in a dreadful, horrific mess but they just can’t bring themselves to look away. Her heart begins to hammer in her chest and she whips back to Malfoy, growing increasingly desperate.
Their eyes catch. For a brief moment, she wonders what is going through his mind. Come on, Malfoy. God help me, I’ll laugh, I swear it. Then she notices the movement of his eyes.
They are darting back and forth between her and…
She tries to inconspicuously follow his line of vision.
…the classroom door?
“This is a stupid assignment,” he suddenly barks. “Stop looking at me like that, Granger, you remind me of a bloody house elf!”
She thinks of anthroposomancy.
The interpretation of a person’s face. Divination by observing the facial features of a person.
Just as she realizes that something fishy is going on, the classroom door swings noiselessly open in her peripheral vision.
Relief blossoms on Malfoy’s face. He leans towards her in such a way that his face is concealed from the audience. “It’s rude to stare,” he whispers coldly. The confident set of his shoulders is back.
Oh, she doesn’t like this at all. Hermione automatically backs away and bites the inside of her cheeks. Her mind races back over the conversation to try to remember how she should be responding.
“How rude!” she finally retorts at his comment about house elves, keeping her attention on the classroom door.
And then she sees it.
A floating figure slips without a sound through the open door. Hermione has never known Peeves the Poltergeist to have so much stealth. Her stomach drops as she observes that her audience is none the wiser. Peeves is capable of quite a lot of damage. Should she warn them? What is going on?
Then she looks at Malfoy and the question dies on her lips.
His demeanour has completely changed.
“You’re right, of course,” Malfoy says, a friendly tone to his voice that she’s never had directed at her. He takes the smallest of steps closer. “How insensitive of me. You’re rather fond of the little rodents, aren’t you?”
Just like that, she’s lost Peeves among the trees.
“Rodents?” she says, her heart in her throat. “Now I understand why you hate them so much. Has your mother admitted the secret affair she had with Dumpy the house elf yet? Because I have to tell you, the family resemblance is uncanny!”
He ignores her and plows forward with his initial train of thought. “You founded S.P.E.W., didn’t you?”
He says the letters individually. Hermione can only nod, bewildered.
“Society for the Protection of Elvish Welfare,” he continues, sounding very much like Lucius Malfoy on his best behaviour. “What an admirable cause.”
Her stomach seizes in suspicion. She notices the expressions of her classmates as they watch the scene unfold before them -- there is shock, fascination, utter confusion and even plain-faced betrayal.
“Hermione? May I call you Hermione?”
Draco Malfoy looks at her with sincere eyes. Her mind starts to spin.
She thinks of cledomancy.
Divination by interpretation, from the first few minutes of a conversation, what remarks are to follow.
His plan unfurls in her mind. It’s as if someone has punched her in the stomach, and then, every last bit of her willingness to cooperate goes up in flames.
“No, you may not,” she blurts hotly.
“No? But it’s such a pretty name.” He says this with a sweet smile on his face. The class begins to whisper immediately.
“Draco’s quite a pretty name as well,” she stammers, feeling the first waves of panic. “I would have thought it was a girl’s name if I didn’t know better.”
“And I bet you didn’t mean that as a compliment,” Malfoy says. He flashes her his most charming grin. “But I suppose that’s quite alright. I’m sure I could be persuaded to forgive you, love.”
Hermione is momentarily stunned in disbelief. The she has to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep from bursting into laughter. And that, she realizes, is exactly what he wants.
But no one else knows what to make of it. Pansy Parkinson starts loudly voicing her objections from the other side of the classroom, and for their part, the Gryffindors don’t seem to be doing much better. Harry, Ron and Neville share the same dumbfounded expression on their faces.
When he takes a step closer, she pedals back, only to stumble over a grassy knoll. Malfoy leaps forward and manages to catch her. Instantly she scrambles off and shoots another glance at Harry and Ron.
The irony that they would be too shocked to intervene the first time she has ever really needed them to does not escape her. She turns back and Malfoy is very close, tugging on her house tie. Horrified, she smacks his hand away.
“I have a confession to make, Hermione.”
“What’s that?” she shoots back, feeling slightly lightheaded.
“Contrary to popular belief…”
Oh God.
“…I don’t hate you.”
Even though she knew it was coming, her face grows hot and she feels an indignant urge to object.
“Y-yes, you do!”
The class whispers feverishly.
Malfoy grins. “No, I don’t, I swear it. And I have to admit something else.”
She fiercely shakes her head. “No, you really don’t have to.”
And the whole situation is so bizarre, his words so ridiculous, that again she feels the uncontrollable urge to laugh. Both hands cover her mouth and she doesn’t trust herself to take them off.
The class murmurs itself into a frenzy and the room fills with wolf whistles and howls. Firenze’s face is expressionless.
“I can’t hold it in,” Malfoy says, his voice rising. He places a hand over his heart, near his house crest. “I have to tell you, lest I never get another chance!”
It is not a pleasant feeling to suppress this sort of laugh. She doubles over, one hand gripping her face so hard it hurts, one hand wrapped around her stomach.
Malfoy drops to his knees.
No, please, no!
“Hermione Granger,” he says, completely doe-eyed and sincere, his voice rising for the crescendo of his performance. “I think I’m in love-- ”
But he is cut off by a startled shriek.
The class turns as one. Over near the large oak tree, Peeves drifts behind Firenze, about to cut off the centaur’s glorious blonde palomino tail with a large, shiny pair of shears.
Parvati and Lavender gasp. “Peeves, no!”
Just like that, Malfoy’s show is forgotten.
And with no indication that he’s bothered in the slightest, Firenze rears forward and kicks Peeves with his back legs. Peeves collides with the first solid object in his path -- Filch, who is sweeping up leaves at the doorway. The two sprawl hard to the floor. In the next moment, a delighted Mrs. Norris pounces with claws bared as if she’s been possessed.
A scuffle ensures and the class explodes with noise, half of them jumping from their seats for a closer look. Hermione shakily releases her held breath.
Peeves grabs the cat by the scruff of the neck and takes to the air as though to escape, but the cat scratches his way free and in the next moment, Filch whacks Peeves out of the classroom with his broom.
Everyone bursts into laughter. They listen to the sound of Filch’s determined limp all the way down the corridor, heading in the direction of Dumbledore’s office.
And because she was already on the verge of laughing, Hermione laughs with them until her sides hurt.
Eventually they settle down, and smiling with relief, she turns her attention back to Malfoy, who is on his feet and casting the visionary spell with a practiced flick of the wrist. His face is smug, knowing.
Curious, she thinks.
A dramatic hush sweeps the room; perhaps he has Seen.
“You are quite the actor, young one,” Firenze says to Malfoy. “Lying comes easily to you. Have you Seen anything?”
Making no indication that he has heard the question, a strange look crosses the pale boy’s face.
A second later he drops his wand. It clatters noisily on a large rutted rock.
“Malfoy?” Hermione asks, her voice no louder than a whisper. A light breeze shakes the trees over her head. She hesitates, then reaches out and touches his sleeve.
He jumps.
“Granger’s going to-- ”
Hermione’s stomach seizes.
He blinks once, twice, then hurriedly yanks his arm away from hers.
“What did you See?” Firenze asks, a hard look in his eyes.
Malfoy swallows, a faint blush gracing his pale face. “N-nothing. I saw nothing.”
And he scrambles into the grass to retrieve his wand and then back to his seat, clearly unsettled. A bewildered Hermione whispers an end to the spell and returns as well. On the way, she feels her classmates watching her, making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
When class ends a few minutes later, a sober mood settles over the departing students. Draco Malfoy is the first out of the classroom. As Hermione shakily collects her things, she is disturbed to notice Firenze looking at her, a worried expression on his face.
_ _ _ _ _
At dinner that evening, Hermione recounts her side of the events in Divination class at the insistence of her Gryffindor tablemates, keeping the whole lot of them enraptured. By the end of the meal, half of them are convinced Draco Malfoy really is in love with her, but that he couldn’t outright tell her so because she is a muggle. Hermione turns green at the thought.
“Curious, isn’t it?” she wonders aloud sometime later.
“What is?”
“That Peeves would choose today of all days to sneak into Firenze’s class to pull a prank. And Malfoy--”
“He’s a bloody wanker, trying to humiliate you like that,” Ron says, shoveling heaps of chocolate trifle onto his plate.
“Humiliate me?”
“Didn’t you notice?” says Harry. “The idea that a pureblood like him would be in love with a muggleborn? It just doesn’t happen. Malfoy put on that display to embarrass you and get those gits laughing. He didn’t even need you to make the spell work.”
“Oh.” She grows quiet. It hadn’t occurred to her that maybe Malfoy had intentionally planned to embarrass her, but instead of getting angry, she feels an objection rising in her throat. “He didn’t really get the chance. You know why he put on that whole performance? Because the idea of him and I together is not just unlikely…it’s completely mental. You’ve got to admit, it was kind of funny. I mean, can you imagine him bringing me home to meet his parents? Instead of getting the third degree about whether I can cook and what my hobbies are, they’d want to know how pure my blood is. Then when they remembered that I’m that ‘mudblood’ who’s friends with Harry Potter, they’d either avada kedavra me on the spot, take me hostage and torture me for information, or turn me over to You Know Who. Not exactly rolling out the welcome wagon!”
The table bursts into laughter.
“Then maybe it’s for the best that the castle won’t allow it,” says Dean Thomas.
Hermione turns to him with a great sigh. “You mean because we’re sorted?”
“No, because of the Founders.”
She looks at him in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
Sighing, Dean pushes his treacle tart aside and puts his arm around her. “I love it when you talk stupid, Hermione. Everyone knows no love can come between two members of opposing houses. Salazar Slytherin cast the spells himself.”
Hermione scoffs. “How do know that? It’s not in Hogwarts: A History or its addendum!”
“It’s not written anywhere,” Dean says kindly. “People talk about it sometimes, in stories and stuff. My uncle was the one who told me.”
“But how does it work?”
“Remember last year, when Seamus and Tracey Davis were partnered in Herbology to grow fanged geranium?”
“Yes…”
“Seamus told me weird things started happening when they were together. Like he’d hold the door open for her, and then a big wind would come out of nowhere and slam the door shut, locking it before he could follow. Or how the owls kept losing his messages, even if they were just flying back and forth across the Great Hall. It’s this castle, Hermione. It was built with the mind and intent of the Founders. And it’s not just whether you fancy someone or not -- it’s friendship too.”
“I hate to tell you this but you’ve completely overlooked one important detail,” she says, her voice dripping with self-importance. “Loads of people are friends with students in other houses. So, it couldn’t possibly be true.”
“Nah, it’s opposing houses only, not all houses,” Ron says, pouring a glass of pumpkin juice for himself. “It only applies between Gryffindor-Slytherin and Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw. Natural enemies because we’re opposites and all that rubbish.”
“You’ve heard of it?” she says, frowning. “Who told you?”
“Fred and George, of course. I asked Mum once but she refused to say if it was true or not. Naturally that means it is, since she’d just say so if it wasn’t.”
“I learned about it when Lavender heard Flitwick and Sprout talking about it once in fourth year,” Parvati gushes, squeezing into the seat next to Hermione. “She said they were worried the castle wouldn’t approve of some of the Yule Ball matches and ruin everything.”
Hermione frowns.
“Sounds like a load of rubbish,” she mutters angrily.
“You’re just mad because you don’t know everything for once,” Ron accuses.
“I admit the whole thing was rather bizarre,” she says, returning to the subject of the day’s Divination class, “but this stuff with Peeves, that wasn’t a coincidence.”
Ron screws his face up. “D’you think Malfoy knew what Peeves was up to? Because that’s ten house points right there if he didn’t warn anyone.”
“Yes, that’s what I think. Malfoy was likely prepared for class. I think he didn’t need to make anyone laugh because Peeves had already agreed to do it for him, but then Firenze put him on the spot like that and he had to come up with something else. You all weren’t up there with him like I was. The way he reacted after casting the visionary spell…that was weird. Don’t you think so?”
“Yeah,” says Harry, leaning in so only Hermione and Ron can hear his words. “Malfoy is definitely up to something this year. I’ve been watching him since I hid in his compartment on the train. I only wish we knew what it was.”
Hermione gives Harry a placating smile. “Malfoy Saw something today. I know it.”
“Wait,” Ron says, bewildered. “Are you saying you BELIEVE in this Seeing stuff now? I thought you hated Divination!”
She sighs and adopts the voice of a mother patronizing her child. “It’s the way it’s treated as a hard discipline the same as Potions or Runes that I don’t like. I’ve always believed in it as magic. And Dumbledore believes, doesn’t he?”
Harry’s face turns pale. “Yeah, he does.”
“Well, I saw Malfoy’s face up close today when he cast that spell,” she continues. “And maybe it wasn’t divination, but it was something else. It was real for him. You heard what he said just like I did -- whatever Malfoy Saw, it was about me.”
_ _ _ _ _
One week later, Hermione Granger is still contemplating the mystery.
Peeves has been temporarily banished from the castle, dashing her hopes of interrogating him. Rumour has it that Malfoy has been even more withdrawn this week, and this bolsters Hermione’s theory that he Saw something in Divination. She grows curious and starts to watch him in the corridors. It is the first time she’s paid attention to him in all the years they’ve been classmates, beyond what nefarious plan may be up his sleeve.
That Sunday, she passes him on the way to the quidditch pitch. He is dressed for the game, his uniform marked with grass stains, and for no apparent reason whatsoever, something changes. It is as if she is seeing him for the first time.
Suddenly Draco Malfoy looks just like every other boy at the school, the boy some part of her always knew he was beneath the pale, pointed, foul exterior.
Her mind begins to recall all the little details she’s collected about him over the years.
She notices that he’s left-handed, taller than Harry and Ron, and ridiculously concerned with appearances. He’s boastful and he knows it. He has good posture. Though he lazily does his homework at the last minute, he gets away with it because he’s naturally bright. His favourite teacher is Snape. He’s abnormally perceptive -- three times in one week he catches Zabini slipping some Zonko’s product into his pumpkin juice. Rarely does a teacher need to tell him something twice. He’s mean and sarcastic and has a bad temper. If he were a muggle, he’d have a mouth full of cavities because he’s always hiding a sugar quill in class. His tastes are as expensive as she presumed they’d be. He loves his mother. He looks up to his father.
Hermione is deeply uneasy with this new awareness. As soon as she notices him, she wishes she hadn’t.
Still, it is a great shock when Malfoy approaches her at the end of Divination class the next day, a strange light in his eyes. His hands are clammy as he maneuvers her off the yellow path into an enclove of trees and out of sight.
She doesn’t think to draw her wand, though she probably should. He stares at her until her face warms.
“What’d you do to me?” Malfoy demands. His voice sounds different to her ears, lower and hollow in this enclosed area.
Hermione frowns, bewildered. “What?”
“Last week, during my seminar. You did something to me, I know it.”
“You mean, what happened at the end? With the visionary spell?”
“Yes!”
“How could I have possibly done something to you? You would have seen me draw my wand!”
His face screws up, confused. An uncomfortable silence fills the space between them and then she can’t stop the question that spills from her lips.
“Did you See something?”
He can’t meet her eyes.
“Malfoy, what did you See?” She urgently grabs the sleeve of his dress shirt.
Suddenly his hands are on her shoulders, and she can smell the scent of sugar quills on his breath.
He pushes her up against the tree and brings his face close and just as her heart begins to thump, he pushes her hair from her face and tries to kiss her. She stumbles over some small knoll of grass at her feet but doesn’t fall because he catches her. Whatever she might have said them is forgotten as he clumsily pushes his mouth against hers.
Her arms are caught between them, up beneath his chin. She wonders if she is supposed to push him away, but when his hand comes up to touch her bare neck, she finds herself aware of nothing else.
A moment later, they pull back at the same time.
A hot blush creeps up into her face. Her first thought is that she should say something but her mind refuses it, refuses to find the words, refuses to settle on one train of thought when so many are spinning in her head. All she can feel is a dazed disbelief. Her stomach churns and she feels dizzy.
Draco Malfoy stares resolutely at a spot above her head.
“It was the only way,” he stammers by way of some explanation, but it is as though he has forgotten she in the room. “H-had to get it over with.”
“Get what over with?” And she is distantly embarrassed at how breathless and unsteady she sounds.
He seems awfully confused. “Can’t have you distracting me.”
“Distracting you from what, Malfoy?”
Saying his name is the wrong move. Awareness suddenly colours his face and Malfoy stiffens and steps back. “Forget you heard that, Granger. And if you tell anyone…”
He leaves the threat hanging and violently swings his book bag over his shoulder.
Hermione is too stunned to move.
“I know what you Saw!” She gestures between them. “You Saw us kiss! You Saw me and you kiss! And…that’s what you decided to get over with!”
“Don’t tell anyone!” he spits, and the anger she is more familiar with returns. In the next second he turns his back to her and stomps away through the forest of the classroom towards the door.
“Oh my God,” she whispers to herself, frozen to the spot beneath the thick oak. A self-conscious laugh bubbles up inside her and she looks up towards the tops of trees, looks even higher into whatever is beyond. It is coloured with the dichotomy of being both a classroom ceiling and an endless sky.
She touches her mouth with her fingertips, tasting the familiar tang of sugar quills. Then she sinks to her knees and can’t help but dissolve into quiet giggles.
_ _ _ _ _
The kiss becomes all she can think about. Hermione Granger is not a stupid girl. For the briefest of moments she wonders if she fancies him, then quickly determines that she doesn’t. The whole thing is far too complicated to give it that label.
If she is honest with herself, it wasn’t a particularly good or fitting kiss. It came so completely out of the blue that her memory of it is definitely suspect, but in spite of that, she finds her mind cannot drop the point. She replays it in her imagination on end, each time feeling a funny sensation in her stomach as if she’s going over a steep drop. Instead of taking notes in Runes, she doodles nonsensical shapes onto her parchment and refuses to question whether her mind is in the right place, considering it was Malfoy.
Because she did not react as someone with their history should have. She reacted as a girl. And she knows it, because already she feels more amenable towards Malfoy, more willing to understand him. Maybe he’s not so bad, she thinks, knowing it’s a threadbare rationalization. And she doesn’t know if there’s something wrong with that, but Hermione doesn’t want to question this one thing for what it is. She spends an awful lot of her time doing that already. And besides the fact that she doesn’t mind not worrying so much, it was just a harmless little kiss that she knows she can’t tell anyone about. It meant nothing. They’re both going to forget it happened and no one will be the worse for wear.
She doesn’t see Malfoy for the remainder of that school day, which isn’t necessarily out of the ordinary, but she notices his absence because she spends more time looking for him that she’d care to admit. After classes, she walks with Seamus and Dean to the dormitory, thinking about how ironic all of this is and how they would react if she told them what had happened. In the common room, she tries to do some homework, but the gaudy red and gold interior does not help her focus. Her mind wanders, and eventually she is forced to put the work aside.
She thinks about the muggle world, about literature and media, about all the great stories of history and war. She thinks of her favourite books and the tales told within them. And before she goes to dinner, Hermione tells herself that Malfoy might think he’s flustered her, and while that’s not altogether untrue, she refuses to go down without changing her clothes and softening the wave of her hair with a glamour charm. She can’t have him thinking he’s had an effect on her by showing up for dinner in a mess. He would probably be more insufferable than he already is.
But Malfoy doesn’t appear that night, and Hermione must admit to herself that she is sort of disappointed.
_ _ _ _ _
Things do not remain this way for long. There are too many demands on Hermione to let her continue her daydreams. She picks her studies up from where she left them, throwing herself into her work with her usual desire to surpass everyone’s expectations. Harry is growing increasingly paranoid of Malfoy’s activities, and her and Ron are bickering worse than they ever have, but that doesn’t mean she forgets what happened in early September. And she is loathe to admit that she was wrong, but she finally sees something Harry has been saying for awhile now -- that Malfoy is looking paler than usual, and there are dark circles beneath his eyes that speak to many sleepless nights.
At first she is dismayed that she feels bad for him when he’s been so horrible to her the last five years, but then again, he’s been so quiet and withdrawn lately that he hasn’t threatened her or her friends hardly at all. Once she realizes this, her mind starts spinning to unravel the mystery, and what she concludes is that these two things are a part of the same ball of yarn. Whatever it is that may be encouraging Malfoy to leave them alone must also be the cause of his distress.
Between her studies and worrying about Harry, she finds herself wondering what it is. She figures it’s harmless to do so, and imagines that he fell in love with a beautiful witch over the summer and has been cruelly separated from her for some reason. Perhaps her blood wasn’t pure enough, she thinks, and they are secretly owling each other against their parents’ wishes, planning to run away together.
And this line of thought eventually wanders into dangerous territory.
She wonders if Malfoy is having an identity crisis.
She imagines that he doesn’t want to be a Death Eater, that he’s going against everything his father had planned and maybe risking everything to do so.
Against every instinct, against every ounce of common sense, she fervently hopes he might be thinking about switching sides.
The enormity of what that would mean for him is crushing, and she begins to think that she should go to Dumbledore. Maybe Dumbledore could offer help.
All of these things are but passing thoughts through the hardship of sixth year classes, Prefect duties and the typical and numerous problems of sixteen year olds. But occasionally she hears Harry whisper to Ron during Slughorn’s class, while she’s working furiously to perfect her potion without cheating, about how that git Malfoy continues to look worse for wear, and she can’t help but spare a thought that maybe he isn’t up to something nefarious at all.
_ _ _ _ _
Part 2/2
Title: Scarecrow
Author: eucalyptus
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~ 14,000
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine.
Category: Some fluff. Some humour. Some angst. Some romance. Much randomness.
Author Notes: Eek. Well, this story is about as bipolar as it gets. Not sure how I feel about it. It is ineligible for any voting.
Summary: Hermione Granger learns first-hand the inner workings of the human heart. AU story that works loosely within HBP canon.
Scarecrow - Part 1 of 2
In her sixth year at Hogwarts School of Wizardry, Hermione Granger goes back to Divination class.
She doesn’t go back because she wants to. She goes back because maybe it was supposed to happen.
“Ahem...”
A skinny boy with neatly parted dark hair stands in the middle of a forest clearing. Around him is a group of student, surrounded first by a nestle of trees and second by cobbled classroom walls, invisible to the untrained eye. This is classroom eleven. It was once a very normal classroom, left unused for many years just down the corridor from the Great Hall. Firenze, however, cannot easily navigate stairs to the other levels, so the unused room on the first floor has been magically transfigured into an environment more suited to his liking -- a serene, earthy forest of oak trees, clusters of tangled bramble patches and a bed of wild grass speckled with dandelions.
Being in the classroom is like being in a whole other world. It would be terribly easy for a person to get lost among the trees if they were to step off the path of flat rocks, bleached yellow with sun. Sunlight forms strange, slanted shadows across the mossy angles of the room. Firenze stands in the shade of an oak tree that spans greater than two arm lengths. He supervises his students with a poise only a centaur could manage. To their great relief, enough cool air is pocketed beneath the canopy to provide respite from the thick, oppressive heat outside.
“H-hello,” Neville Longbottom says, stammering badly.
His audience is a collection of students from Gryffindor and Slytherin. They sprawl in clusters with their housemates, book bags scattered and talking among themselves. Neville shrugs helplessly to their professor.
Firenze canters to the centre of the clearing in response and they immediately quiet.
“Your kind would be wise to listen,” he says, giving the students a hard stare. “My contemplations of the Heavens have revealed many House points being lost today.”
He moves back into the shade of tree that frames the north edge of the clearing, then indicates to his student in the clearning that he may continue.
“Thanks,” Neville mutters, swallowing. “As I was saying, ophalomancy is a mode of divination used to predict the future. It involves careful reflection and interpretation of…Well, of one’s own…”
The sixth year boy pauses, flushing pink with embarrassment, and rolls the hem of his untucked dress shirt between his fingers.Then he takes a shaky breath and allows the words to spill from his lips in a rush.
“Ophalomancy involves the interpretation of one’s navel. I shall now demonstrate.”
And wand drawn, he yanks up his dress shirt to bare his belly.
Harry Potter and Ron Weasley burst into strangled laughter. Leaning against the rough bark of a tree stump, Hermione Granger feels a pang of sympathy for her friend and scowls at them.
“Shut up,” she whispers, and for what seems like the millionth time, she curses the curriculum change that brought her here.
Apparently it had been in the works for nearly as long as she’d been a student at Hogwarts, but the Board of Governors had slowed the process with such an exorbitant amount of political red tape that they made muggle Parliament look almost competent in comparison. The delay had finally cleared over the summer after Dumbledore had applied pressure on its members to quit bickering. Sixth year Divination became a pre-requisite for NEWT-level Arithmancy. Therein lies the problem.
Hermione Granger has been waiting for Arithmancy since she’d first read about it in Hogwarts: A History. She needs it in order to train as a Healer. But she’d figured the Board couldn’t expect students to catch up on their credits. To find out that they did expect that had been a huge shock, and the tantrum she’d thrown in her bedroom at Grimmauld Place is now the stuff of legend. Fred and George re-enact it at every given opportunity.
Suffice it to say, she had fought very hard to be grandfathered through.
“Hello, Ms Granger. Please have a seat.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
“Would you like a lemon drop?”
“No, thank you.”
“Are you sure? They are quite delightful.”
“Yes, sir. I don’t eat much candy. My parents are dentists, you see.”
“Oh, yes. I remember quite well. I understand you wish to speak about the curriculum with me.”
“Yes, please, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all. Do go ahead.”
“Thank you. Sir, I believe the new requirements to be unfair to students who elected not to study Divination at Hogwarts. This is so for three reasons. First, it imposes additional strain on the student to burden themselves with an increased course load. The result will be upper years underperforming in their studies the year before they are to take their NEWTs. This change could affect the future career plans of tens, if not hundreds of students, with potentially disastrous results. Surely the Board of Governors does not wish to be responsible for the ruinment of a person’s entire life course!”
“I see.” Dumbledore had twiddled his thumbs mysteriously. “Please continue, I find this rather enlightening.”
“Second, it is unfair to force an upper year student to take classes with lower years. Basic learning principles state that to provide an appropriate challenge to the upper year student, the professors would have to increase the overall level of difficulty of the class. That is unfair to the lower years who will find the class material challenging as it is. It is also demeaning to the upper year student, who must sit and work side by side with students three and four years younger, completing coursework their friends and dormmates accomplished many years prior.”
“Ah, yes. We wouldn’t want that.”
“No, sir. And third, Arithmancy is a bona fide discipline differentiated from Divination by both indisputable precision and accuracy. It has never required a foundation in the hazy art of guesswork and tea leaves. I would ask if numerology as a discipline has changed dramatically in the last few years, greatly increasing the need for students to learn basic Divination, except that I subscribe to Arithmancy Today and know for a fact that it hasn’t. For goodness sake, Headmaster! Harry and Ron make up their predictions based on the stories printed in the Quibbler. The QUIBBLER!”
And at that, she had collapsed back in her chair, spent.
Dumbledore had hummed thoughtfully.
“Would it be fair then to say that you are fearful you’d find the additional work too much of a challenge?”
She’d paused. “No, sir, of course not.”
“Then you must be unwilling to accept the added responsibility. I must say, I find that a disappointment, my dear. You are one of our most trusted Prefects.”
“Oh, of course I’m willing, Headmaster, it’s just -- ”
“And to address your rather terrifically made point about upper year students in lower year classes, the Board of Governors has decided that sixth and seventh year students affected by the change do not have to take third and fourth year Divination. They merely have to take the fifth year class to achieve their OWL, which Hogwarts is offering to all affected students over correspondence studies this summer.”
“Oh,” she had replied weakly. “That’s nice of them. But arithmancy -- ”
“ -- is merely another form of divination, one based on numbers, is it not?”
She could only nod, her face red.
“Does that sound quite reasonable to you, my dear?”
Oh, how much she had wanted to protest!
“I…suppose. But still, it’s an awful lot of students to inconvenience, sir. Wouldn’t it be much easier if they allowed us all into Arithmancy without the OWL? Then they needn’t worry about us catching up, and grading our work, corresponding by owl…”
“Oh, yes. Might I let you in on one tiny yet no less important piece of information, Ms Granger?”
“Yes.”
His eyes had twinkled kindly. “You are the only student affected by the change. Divination is our most popular subject, you see.”
Her mouth had dropped open. Then she'd found she could not find the words to defend her position any longer. She had reluctantly agreed with Dumbledore to take the correspondence class and challenge the OWL examination in September.
And quite annoyed at being outsmarted, she had done just that not a week earlier.
So here she sits in classroom eleven, a canopy of leaves hanging over her head and a centaur teaching them about rare modes of Divination, detesting the subject as much as she ever has. To add insult to injury, she’d had to drop Muggle Studies to take it due to a conflict.
The real tragedy, she sometimes complains to Harry and Ron, should have been their classmates, but aside from the incident on the train a few weeks ago, when Draco Malfoy broke Harry’s nose and petrified him beneath his invisibility cloak, the Slytherins have been behaving strangely this year. They are quieter, interacting less with the other houses. Hermione is glad to see them more focused on their studies. It is making her days at school easier, less eventful. Besides, they’ve always been more bark than bite, and there is too much to be anxious over already.
On the heels of examining his belly, Neville mutters the visionary spell taught to them by Firenze. It is a spell aimed to enhance whatever ability they may have to divine the future. Hermione feels another pang of sympathy for him. His assigned form of divination is particularly humiliating; easily as bad as Ron, who had to divine the future by swallowing a thick barley loaf (alphitomancy), and the quiet, crafty Theodore Nott, who had to contemplate a vial of urine with every deep thought in his being (uromancy). Hagrid was kind enough to supply the urine. Supposedly it was collected from one of the school’s thestrals, but that hasn’t stopped the rumour that Hagrid did the deed himself.
Hermione thinks the notion that the Fates would have no better place to hide their secrets then in a cup of urine absolutely ridiculous.
“Well,” Firenze says for all to hear. “Have you Seen anything, human?”
The class waits with bated breath.
Neville shakes his head. “Nothing, Professor. No visions at all. Sorry.” He has the decency to look chagrined.
Firenze does not react. Hermione has noticed that the inability of his students to See never surprises him. In fact, it is almost as though he expects it. He nods for Neville to return to his seat. As she watches, Neville mutters a finite incantatum and takes his place next to Ron and Harry in the grass.
Ron leans over. “Alright there?”
“Yeah,” Neville whispers. “I’d have chosen anything over ophalomancy though. That was awful.”
Up next is a boy with straw-coloured hair and a pointy face she knows too well. Draco Malfoy struts to the middle of the forest clearing.
“I’ve been assigned gelomancy, the interpretation of hysterical laughter.” He looks to Firenze. “How shall I do this? Cast rictusempra?”
Firenze frowns. “Were you not taught spellwork basics in your first year at Hogwarts, human? You cannot cast Rictusempra because you will need your wand free for the visionary spell. Perhaps you should have come better prepared.” He throws his long palomino tail to mark his annoyance.
Harry and Hermione exchange subdued grins. Malfoy seems very uncomfortable around Firenze. She imagines he must be harbouring some anxiety towards creatures with hooves and four legs ever since he was ‘attacked’ by Buckbeak in third year.
The centaur turns to the class. “I ask for a volunteer from your kind.”
Lavender and Parvati squeal and shoot their arms in the air, attempting to out-wave each other. Pansy Parkinson also volunteers, though she is clearly trying to be less obvious about it. Ordinarily Hermione’s hand would be among them. Ron gives her a questioning look.
“It’s Divination,” she whispers, scowling her displeasure.
Firenze, however, has other plans. He ignores her eager classmates. “Hermione Granger. You do not laugh much in my class. Why is that?”
Annoyed at being called out in class, she feels her face grow hot. “I suppose there is nothing to laugh at, sir.”
“Nothing to laugh at?” Firenze lifts his eyebrows, clearly curious. “Does laughter not help us find balance, young one? Hermione Granger, please come forward so that you may assist.”
She gapes at him, wanting nothing more than to refuse on priniciple, but it isn’t in her nature to ignore a teacher’s request. Hermione pushes herself up off the grass and picks her way to the front to stand next to Malfoy in the clearing. As she brushes a few small leaves off her skirt, annoyed, Malfoy’s usual grimace deepens to near epic proportions.
“Draco Malfoy,” begins Firenze, “you shall make this Hermione Granger laugh, then cast the visionary spell only.”
Malfoy’s face contorts, bewildered.
“But -- she has a dreadful sense of humour! Surely you must be joking!”
Hermione scowls. “You should be worried about yourself, Malfoy, not me. Haven’t you heard the term performance anxiety?”
The class bursts into a loud mix of jeers and laughter. Someone, probably Seamus, hoots and calls her name.
Firenze is not in one of his more peaceful moods today. His hooves stamp hard in the forest floor, and when he speaks, the resonance causes a few leaves to shake free from their branches.
“We centaurs do not have time for your childish rivalry,” he booms. “You will complete the assignment as instructed. Fifteen points from both your houses.”
The class groans as one. Her stomach sinking, Hermione waits for everyone to quiet down then turns to Malfoy, raising an eyebrow in haughty expectation.
“Fine.” She says this with as much disdain as she can muster. “Let’s see then.”
“Fine,” Malfoy echoes, pulling himself up to his full height. Hermione immediately recognizes it as a defense mechanism. “What do you find funny?”
She falters. “I -- Oh, I can’t answer that. Why don’t you just tell me a joke?”
A look she can only describe as sly crosses his face.
“A wizard, a giant and a muggle walk into a bar--”
“Not that kind of joke,” she says through clenched teeth. “Something politically correct, if you don’t mind.”
He licks his lips, thinking.
“What do you get when you cross a muggle wi-- ”
“-- NOT that one either!”
He shrugs. “Don’t know any you’d find funny then, Granger.”
Groaning, she watches the boy shoot a knowing grin to his Slytherin classmates. A glance at Firenze tells her their professor is not impressed, and she chews on her lip, a nervous habit.
If this went badly, could she be held responsible as well?
As soon as the thought comes to her, Hermione feels a tight ball of anxiety in her stomach. They’ve already lost house points, and she has Head Girl prospects to watch out for. The situation is dire if all Malfoy can come up with are dirty, racist jokes.
As she wonders at how she got in this position, she looks to Firenze and quakes beneath his hard stare.
And then she wonders if she could fake it.
Trying to believe that it wouldn’t be cheating and that Firenze won’t know the difference, she straightens her shoulders and looks at Malfoy straight on.
“Why don’t you try again?” Hermione says with a careful voice. Inwardly she begins to plan outrageous peals of false hysterical laughter.
Malfoy, you must be the funniest, most clever person I have ever met! I don’t believe I have ever laughed so hard in my life. Now quick, why don’t you perform the visionary spell so I can get out of here and obliviate myself into the next century?
She tries to get her message across by nodding at him in a way that is both deliberate and discreet.
Malfoy blinks, confused.
“Well, it can’t hurt, right?” she says, wincing. “Maybe I’ll surprise… myself.”
It sounds ridiculous. His mouth falls open. There is a tightness in his jaw as he looks away, a bit of panic showing on his face, and she wonders if she’s not made things better, but worse.
Say something, she pleads.
Her classmates begin to whisper among themselves. Malfoy gapes like a deer caught in headlights.
Come on. Say something.
And then she makes the mistake of looking at at Ron and Harry, and she can swear they are watching this like they would watch a train wreck -- like they know it can only end in a dreadful, horrific mess but they just can’t bring themselves to look away. Her heart begins to hammer in her chest and she whips back to Malfoy, growing increasingly desperate.
Their eyes catch. For a brief moment, she wonders what is going through his mind. Come on, Malfoy. God help me, I’ll laugh, I swear it. Then she notices the movement of his eyes.
They are darting back and forth between her and…
She tries to inconspicuously follow his line of vision.
…the classroom door?
“This is a stupid assignment,” he suddenly barks. “Stop looking at me like that, Granger, you remind me of a bloody house elf!”
She thinks of anthroposomancy.
The interpretation of a person’s face. Divination by observing the facial features of a person.
Just as she realizes that something fishy is going on, the classroom door swings noiselessly open in her peripheral vision.
Relief blossoms on Malfoy’s face. He leans towards her in such a way that his face is concealed from the audience. “It’s rude to stare,” he whispers coldly. The confident set of his shoulders is back.
Oh, she doesn’t like this at all. Hermione automatically backs away and bites the inside of her cheeks. Her mind races back over the conversation to try to remember how she should be responding.
“How rude!” she finally retorts at his comment about house elves, keeping her attention on the classroom door.
And then she sees it.
A floating figure slips without a sound through the open door. Hermione has never known Peeves the Poltergeist to have so much stealth. Her stomach drops as she observes that her audience is none the wiser. Peeves is capable of quite a lot of damage. Should she warn them? What is going on?
Then she looks at Malfoy and the question dies on her lips.
His demeanour has completely changed.
“You’re right, of course,” Malfoy says, a friendly tone to his voice that she’s never had directed at her. He takes the smallest of steps closer. “How insensitive of me. You’re rather fond of the little rodents, aren’t you?”
Just like that, she’s lost Peeves among the trees.
“Rodents?” she says, her heart in her throat. “Now I understand why you hate them so much. Has your mother admitted the secret affair she had with Dumpy the house elf yet? Because I have to tell you, the family resemblance is uncanny!”
He ignores her and plows forward with his initial train of thought. “You founded S.P.E.W., didn’t you?”
He says the letters individually. Hermione can only nod, bewildered.
“Society for the Protection of Elvish Welfare,” he continues, sounding very much like Lucius Malfoy on his best behaviour. “What an admirable cause.”
Her stomach seizes in suspicion. She notices the expressions of her classmates as they watch the scene unfold before them -- there is shock, fascination, utter confusion and even plain-faced betrayal.
“Hermione? May I call you Hermione?”
Draco Malfoy looks at her with sincere eyes. Her mind starts to spin.
She thinks of cledomancy.
Divination by interpretation, from the first few minutes of a conversation, what remarks are to follow.
His plan unfurls in her mind. It’s as if someone has punched her in the stomach, and then, every last bit of her willingness to cooperate goes up in flames.
“No, you may not,” she blurts hotly.
“No? But it’s such a pretty name.” He says this with a sweet smile on his face. The class begins to whisper immediately.
“Draco’s quite a pretty name as well,” she stammers, feeling the first waves of panic. “I would have thought it was a girl’s name if I didn’t know better.”
“And I bet you didn’t mean that as a compliment,” Malfoy says. He flashes her his most charming grin. “But I suppose that’s quite alright. I’m sure I could be persuaded to forgive you, love.”
Hermione is momentarily stunned in disbelief. The she has to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep from bursting into laughter. And that, she realizes, is exactly what he wants.
But no one else knows what to make of it. Pansy Parkinson starts loudly voicing her objections from the other side of the classroom, and for their part, the Gryffindors don’t seem to be doing much better. Harry, Ron and Neville share the same dumbfounded expression on their faces.
When he takes a step closer, she pedals back, only to stumble over a grassy knoll. Malfoy leaps forward and manages to catch her. Instantly she scrambles off and shoots another glance at Harry and Ron.
The irony that they would be too shocked to intervene the first time she has ever really needed them to does not escape her. She turns back and Malfoy is very close, tugging on her house tie. Horrified, she smacks his hand away.
“I have a confession to make, Hermione.”
“What’s that?” she shoots back, feeling slightly lightheaded.
“Contrary to popular belief…”
Oh God.
“…I don’t hate you.”
Even though she knew it was coming, her face grows hot and she feels an indignant urge to object.
“Y-yes, you do!”
The class whispers feverishly.
Malfoy grins. “No, I don’t, I swear it. And I have to admit something else.”
She fiercely shakes her head. “No, you really don’t have to.”
And the whole situation is so bizarre, his words so ridiculous, that again she feels the uncontrollable urge to laugh. Both hands cover her mouth and she doesn’t trust herself to take them off.
The class murmurs itself into a frenzy and the room fills with wolf whistles and howls. Firenze’s face is expressionless.
“I can’t hold it in,” Malfoy says, his voice rising. He places a hand over his heart, near his house crest. “I have to tell you, lest I never get another chance!”
It is not a pleasant feeling to suppress this sort of laugh. She doubles over, one hand gripping her face so hard it hurts, one hand wrapped around her stomach.
Malfoy drops to his knees.
No, please, no!
“Hermione Granger,” he says, completely doe-eyed and sincere, his voice rising for the crescendo of his performance. “I think I’m in love-- ”
But he is cut off by a startled shriek.
The class turns as one. Over near the large oak tree, Peeves drifts behind Firenze, about to cut off the centaur’s glorious blonde palomino tail with a large, shiny pair of shears.
Parvati and Lavender gasp. “Peeves, no!”
Just like that, Malfoy’s show is forgotten.
And with no indication that he’s bothered in the slightest, Firenze rears forward and kicks Peeves with his back legs. Peeves collides with the first solid object in his path -- Filch, who is sweeping up leaves at the doorway. The two sprawl hard to the floor. In the next moment, a delighted Mrs. Norris pounces with claws bared as if she’s been possessed.
A scuffle ensures and the class explodes with noise, half of them jumping from their seats for a closer look. Hermione shakily releases her held breath.
Peeves grabs the cat by the scruff of the neck and takes to the air as though to escape, but the cat scratches his way free and in the next moment, Filch whacks Peeves out of the classroom with his broom.
Everyone bursts into laughter. They listen to the sound of Filch’s determined limp all the way down the corridor, heading in the direction of Dumbledore’s office.
And because she was already on the verge of laughing, Hermione laughs with them until her sides hurt.
Eventually they settle down, and smiling with relief, she turns her attention back to Malfoy, who is on his feet and casting the visionary spell with a practiced flick of the wrist. His face is smug, knowing.
Curious, she thinks.
A dramatic hush sweeps the room; perhaps he has Seen.
“You are quite the actor, young one,” Firenze says to Malfoy. “Lying comes easily to you. Have you Seen anything?”
Making no indication that he has heard the question, a strange look crosses the pale boy’s face.
A second later he drops his wand. It clatters noisily on a large rutted rock.
“Malfoy?” Hermione asks, her voice no louder than a whisper. A light breeze shakes the trees over her head. She hesitates, then reaches out and touches his sleeve.
He jumps.
“Granger’s going to-- ”
Hermione’s stomach seizes.
He blinks once, twice, then hurriedly yanks his arm away from hers.
“What did you See?” Firenze asks, a hard look in his eyes.
Malfoy swallows, a faint blush gracing his pale face. “N-nothing. I saw nothing.”
And he scrambles into the grass to retrieve his wand and then back to his seat, clearly unsettled. A bewildered Hermione whispers an end to the spell and returns as well. On the way, she feels her classmates watching her, making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
When class ends a few minutes later, a sober mood settles over the departing students. Draco Malfoy is the first out of the classroom. As Hermione shakily collects her things, she is disturbed to notice Firenze looking at her, a worried expression on his face.
_ _ _ _ _
At dinner that evening, Hermione recounts her side of the events in Divination class at the insistence of her Gryffindor tablemates, keeping the whole lot of them enraptured. By the end of the meal, half of them are convinced Draco Malfoy really is in love with her, but that he couldn’t outright tell her so because she is a muggle. Hermione turns green at the thought.
“Curious, isn’t it?” she wonders aloud sometime later.
“What is?”
“That Peeves would choose today of all days to sneak into Firenze’s class to pull a prank. And Malfoy--”
“He’s a bloody wanker, trying to humiliate you like that,” Ron says, shoveling heaps of chocolate trifle onto his plate.
“Humiliate me?”
“Didn’t you notice?” says Harry. “The idea that a pureblood like him would be in love with a muggleborn? It just doesn’t happen. Malfoy put on that display to embarrass you and get those gits laughing. He didn’t even need you to make the spell work.”
“Oh.” She grows quiet. It hadn’t occurred to her that maybe Malfoy had intentionally planned to embarrass her, but instead of getting angry, she feels an objection rising in her throat. “He didn’t really get the chance. You know why he put on that whole performance? Because the idea of him and I together is not just unlikely…it’s completely mental. You’ve got to admit, it was kind of funny. I mean, can you imagine him bringing me home to meet his parents? Instead of getting the third degree about whether I can cook and what my hobbies are, they’d want to know how pure my blood is. Then when they remembered that I’m that ‘mudblood’ who’s friends with Harry Potter, they’d either avada kedavra me on the spot, take me hostage and torture me for information, or turn me over to You Know Who. Not exactly rolling out the welcome wagon!”
The table bursts into laughter.
“Then maybe it’s for the best that the castle won’t allow it,” says Dean Thomas.
Hermione turns to him with a great sigh. “You mean because we’re sorted?”
“No, because of the Founders.”
She looks at him in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
Sighing, Dean pushes his treacle tart aside and puts his arm around her. “I love it when you talk stupid, Hermione. Everyone knows no love can come between two members of opposing houses. Salazar Slytherin cast the spells himself.”
Hermione scoffs. “How do know that? It’s not in Hogwarts: A History or its addendum!”
“It’s not written anywhere,” Dean says kindly. “People talk about it sometimes, in stories and stuff. My uncle was the one who told me.”
“But how does it work?”
“Remember last year, when Seamus and Tracey Davis were partnered in Herbology to grow fanged geranium?”
“Yes…”
“Seamus told me weird things started happening when they were together. Like he’d hold the door open for her, and then a big wind would come out of nowhere and slam the door shut, locking it before he could follow. Or how the owls kept losing his messages, even if they were just flying back and forth across the Great Hall. It’s this castle, Hermione. It was built with the mind and intent of the Founders. And it’s not just whether you fancy someone or not -- it’s friendship too.”
“I hate to tell you this but you’ve completely overlooked one important detail,” she says, her voice dripping with self-importance. “Loads of people are friends with students in other houses. So, it couldn’t possibly be true.”
“Nah, it’s opposing houses only, not all houses,” Ron says, pouring a glass of pumpkin juice for himself. “It only applies between Gryffindor-Slytherin and Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw. Natural enemies because we’re opposites and all that rubbish.”
“You’ve heard of it?” she says, frowning. “Who told you?”
“Fred and George, of course. I asked Mum once but she refused to say if it was true or not. Naturally that means it is, since she’d just say so if it wasn’t.”
“I learned about it when Lavender heard Flitwick and Sprout talking about it once in fourth year,” Parvati gushes, squeezing into the seat next to Hermione. “She said they were worried the castle wouldn’t approve of some of the Yule Ball matches and ruin everything.”
Hermione frowns.
“Sounds like a load of rubbish,” she mutters angrily.
“You’re just mad because you don’t know everything for once,” Ron accuses.
“I admit the whole thing was rather bizarre,” she says, returning to the subject of the day’s Divination class, “but this stuff with Peeves, that wasn’t a coincidence.”
Ron screws his face up. “D’you think Malfoy knew what Peeves was up to? Because that’s ten house points right there if he didn’t warn anyone.”
“Yes, that’s what I think. Malfoy was likely prepared for class. I think he didn’t need to make anyone laugh because Peeves had already agreed to do it for him, but then Firenze put him on the spot like that and he had to come up with something else. You all weren’t up there with him like I was. The way he reacted after casting the visionary spell…that was weird. Don’t you think so?”
“Yeah,” says Harry, leaning in so only Hermione and Ron can hear his words. “Malfoy is definitely up to something this year. I’ve been watching him since I hid in his compartment on the train. I only wish we knew what it was.”
Hermione gives Harry a placating smile. “Malfoy Saw something today. I know it.”
“Wait,” Ron says, bewildered. “Are you saying you BELIEVE in this Seeing stuff now? I thought you hated Divination!”
She sighs and adopts the voice of a mother patronizing her child. “It’s the way it’s treated as a hard discipline the same as Potions or Runes that I don’t like. I’ve always believed in it as magic. And Dumbledore believes, doesn’t he?”
Harry’s face turns pale. “Yeah, he does.”
“Well, I saw Malfoy’s face up close today when he cast that spell,” she continues. “And maybe it wasn’t divination, but it was something else. It was real for him. You heard what he said just like I did -- whatever Malfoy Saw, it was about me.”
_ _ _ _ _
One week later, Hermione Granger is still contemplating the mystery.
Peeves has been temporarily banished from the castle, dashing her hopes of interrogating him. Rumour has it that Malfoy has been even more withdrawn this week, and this bolsters Hermione’s theory that he Saw something in Divination. She grows curious and starts to watch him in the corridors. It is the first time she’s paid attention to him in all the years they’ve been classmates, beyond what nefarious plan may be up his sleeve.
That Sunday, she passes him on the way to the quidditch pitch. He is dressed for the game, his uniform marked with grass stains, and for no apparent reason whatsoever, something changes. It is as if she is seeing him for the first time.
Suddenly Draco Malfoy looks just like every other boy at the school, the boy some part of her always knew he was beneath the pale, pointed, foul exterior.
Her mind begins to recall all the little details she’s collected about him over the years.
She notices that he’s left-handed, taller than Harry and Ron, and ridiculously concerned with appearances. He’s boastful and he knows it. He has good posture. Though he lazily does his homework at the last minute, he gets away with it because he’s naturally bright. His favourite teacher is Snape. He’s abnormally perceptive -- three times in one week he catches Zabini slipping some Zonko’s product into his pumpkin juice. Rarely does a teacher need to tell him something twice. He’s mean and sarcastic and has a bad temper. If he were a muggle, he’d have a mouth full of cavities because he’s always hiding a sugar quill in class. His tastes are as expensive as she presumed they’d be. He loves his mother. He looks up to his father.
Hermione is deeply uneasy with this new awareness. As soon as she notices him, she wishes she hadn’t.
Still, it is a great shock when Malfoy approaches her at the end of Divination class the next day, a strange light in his eyes. His hands are clammy as he maneuvers her off the yellow path into an enclove of trees and out of sight.
She doesn’t think to draw her wand, though she probably should. He stares at her until her face warms.
“What’d you do to me?” Malfoy demands. His voice sounds different to her ears, lower and hollow in this enclosed area.
Hermione frowns, bewildered. “What?”
“Last week, during my seminar. You did something to me, I know it.”
“You mean, what happened at the end? With the visionary spell?”
“Yes!”
“How could I have possibly done something to you? You would have seen me draw my wand!”
His face screws up, confused. An uncomfortable silence fills the space between them and then she can’t stop the question that spills from her lips.
“Did you See something?”
He can’t meet her eyes.
“Malfoy, what did you See?” She urgently grabs the sleeve of his dress shirt.
Suddenly his hands are on her shoulders, and she can smell the scent of sugar quills on his breath.
He pushes her up against the tree and brings his face close and just as her heart begins to thump, he pushes her hair from her face and tries to kiss her. She stumbles over some small knoll of grass at her feet but doesn’t fall because he catches her. Whatever she might have said them is forgotten as he clumsily pushes his mouth against hers.
Her arms are caught between them, up beneath his chin. She wonders if she is supposed to push him away, but when his hand comes up to touch her bare neck, she finds herself aware of nothing else.
A moment later, they pull back at the same time.
A hot blush creeps up into her face. Her first thought is that she should say something but her mind refuses it, refuses to find the words, refuses to settle on one train of thought when so many are spinning in her head. All she can feel is a dazed disbelief. Her stomach churns and she feels dizzy.
Draco Malfoy stares resolutely at a spot above her head.
“It was the only way,” he stammers by way of some explanation, but it is as though he has forgotten she in the room. “H-had to get it over with.”
“Get what over with?” And she is distantly embarrassed at how breathless and unsteady she sounds.
He seems awfully confused. “Can’t have you distracting me.”
“Distracting you from what, Malfoy?”
Saying his name is the wrong move. Awareness suddenly colours his face and Malfoy stiffens and steps back. “Forget you heard that, Granger. And if you tell anyone…”
He leaves the threat hanging and violently swings his book bag over his shoulder.
Hermione is too stunned to move.
“I know what you Saw!” She gestures between them. “You Saw us kiss! You Saw me and you kiss! And…that’s what you decided to get over with!”
“Don’t tell anyone!” he spits, and the anger she is more familiar with returns. In the next second he turns his back to her and stomps away through the forest of the classroom towards the door.
“Oh my God,” she whispers to herself, frozen to the spot beneath the thick oak. A self-conscious laugh bubbles up inside her and she looks up towards the tops of trees, looks even higher into whatever is beyond. It is coloured with the dichotomy of being both a classroom ceiling and an endless sky.
She touches her mouth with her fingertips, tasting the familiar tang of sugar quills. Then she sinks to her knees and can’t help but dissolve into quiet giggles.
_ _ _ _ _
The kiss becomes all she can think about. Hermione Granger is not a stupid girl. For the briefest of moments she wonders if she fancies him, then quickly determines that she doesn’t. The whole thing is far too complicated to give it that label.
If she is honest with herself, it wasn’t a particularly good or fitting kiss. It came so completely out of the blue that her memory of it is definitely suspect, but in spite of that, she finds her mind cannot drop the point. She replays it in her imagination on end, each time feeling a funny sensation in her stomach as if she’s going over a steep drop. Instead of taking notes in Runes, she doodles nonsensical shapes onto her parchment and refuses to question whether her mind is in the right place, considering it was Malfoy.
Because she did not react as someone with their history should have. She reacted as a girl. And she knows it, because already she feels more amenable towards Malfoy, more willing to understand him. Maybe he’s not so bad, she thinks, knowing it’s a threadbare rationalization. And she doesn’t know if there’s something wrong with that, but Hermione doesn’t want to question this one thing for what it is. She spends an awful lot of her time doing that already. And besides the fact that she doesn’t mind not worrying so much, it was just a harmless little kiss that she knows she can’t tell anyone about. It meant nothing. They’re both going to forget it happened and no one will be the worse for wear.
She doesn’t see Malfoy for the remainder of that school day, which isn’t necessarily out of the ordinary, but she notices his absence because she spends more time looking for him that she’d care to admit. After classes, she walks with Seamus and Dean to the dormitory, thinking about how ironic all of this is and how they would react if she told them what had happened. In the common room, she tries to do some homework, but the gaudy red and gold interior does not help her focus. Her mind wanders, and eventually she is forced to put the work aside.
She thinks about the muggle world, about literature and media, about all the great stories of history and war. She thinks of her favourite books and the tales told within them. And before she goes to dinner, Hermione tells herself that Malfoy might think he’s flustered her, and while that’s not altogether untrue, she refuses to go down without changing her clothes and softening the wave of her hair with a glamour charm. She can’t have him thinking he’s had an effect on her by showing up for dinner in a mess. He would probably be more insufferable than he already is.
But Malfoy doesn’t appear that night, and Hermione must admit to herself that she is sort of disappointed.
_ _ _ _ _
Things do not remain this way for long. There are too many demands on Hermione to let her continue her daydreams. She picks her studies up from where she left them, throwing herself into her work with her usual desire to surpass everyone’s expectations. Harry is growing increasingly paranoid of Malfoy’s activities, and her and Ron are bickering worse than they ever have, but that doesn’t mean she forgets what happened in early September. And she is loathe to admit that she was wrong, but she finally sees something Harry has been saying for awhile now -- that Malfoy is looking paler than usual, and there are dark circles beneath his eyes that speak to many sleepless nights.
At first she is dismayed that she feels bad for him when he’s been so horrible to her the last five years, but then again, he’s been so quiet and withdrawn lately that he hasn’t threatened her or her friends hardly at all. Once she realizes this, her mind starts spinning to unravel the mystery, and what she concludes is that these two things are a part of the same ball of yarn. Whatever it is that may be encouraging Malfoy to leave them alone must also be the cause of his distress.
Between her studies and worrying about Harry, she finds herself wondering what it is. She figures it’s harmless to do so, and imagines that he fell in love with a beautiful witch over the summer and has been cruelly separated from her for some reason. Perhaps her blood wasn’t pure enough, she thinks, and they are secretly owling each other against their parents’ wishes, planning to run away together.
And this line of thought eventually wanders into dangerous territory.
She wonders if Malfoy is having an identity crisis.
She imagines that he doesn’t want to be a Death Eater, that he’s going against everything his father had planned and maybe risking everything to do so.
Against every instinct, against every ounce of common sense, she fervently hopes he might be thinking about switching sides.
The enormity of what that would mean for him is crushing, and she begins to think that she should go to Dumbledore. Maybe Dumbledore could offer help.
All of these things are but passing thoughts through the hardship of sixth year classes, Prefect duties and the typical and numerous problems of sixteen year olds. But occasionally she hears Harry whisper to Ron during Slughorn’s class, while she’s working furiously to perfect her potion without cheating, about how that git Malfoy continues to look worse for wear, and she can’t help but spare a thought that maybe he isn’t up to something nefarious at all.
_ _ _ _ _
Part 2/2