Eight and Eighth--Chapter 10
Title: Eight and Eighth
Author: Marmalade Fever
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, and more.
Genres: Romance, Drama, weird combo of in-Hogwarts and post-Hogwarts, and Humor. I can't write a fanfic without humor leaking its way in.
Spoilers: DH (though no epilogue)
Overall Rating: PG-13
Summary: Up from the ashes of seventh year grow the roses of the eighth. Eight students return for their final year at Hogwarts, and Hermione Granger would never have thought Draco Malfoy would or could be one of those roses.
Eight and Eighth-Chapter 10-The Cannons and the Egg
By Marmalade Fever
Amorell’s substitute assignment turned out to be peculiarly sane. All Hermione had to do was stay an extra day at school during Winter Break for a make-up Grief Counseling session, and because she hadn’t been entirely sure if she even planned on going home for Christmas this year due to her parents’ plan to visit distant relatives in the Yukon Territory, she thought that she might just stay the whole break after all. Besides, she had never liked flying-be it by plane or by broom-and that would have been hellish, if somewhere cold could be called such.
O
“Just help me cast a cushioning charm!” Ron begged, tugging on her hand.
“No, Ron.”
“Please? I’ll give you a really cute pet name! Her-my-girl?” he tried, giving her a hopelessly desperate smile.
She slapped her hand against her face and shook her head. “First, never call me that again unless you want me to hex you. Second… Ron, this egg is meant to be the equivalent of a child, and you’re not exactly going to be able to just cast a cushioning charm on a child for the whole of its life. So, no. I’m not going to help you.” She softened at the disappointed look on his face and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“But August is being completely unreasonable,” he said, grimacing. “She said that since it’s my fault, I have to take the egg during the day, and she gets to take it at night, when she can just put it on her trunk beside her and forget about it.”
“Actually, her trunk is at her feet,” Hermione corrected. “And last night, she kept it in a wad of towels between her pillow and the wall.”
“Yeah, but still,” he protested. “She’s got it easy. She only has to take care of it while she’s sleeping.”
“And you’re the one who broke the first egg in class. You weren’t seriously juggling it, were you?”
Ron didn’t answer but instead tugged her into the Great Hall, where Harry and Ginny were already snuggled together over a plate of melon.
“No way!” This came from Dean, who sat on the other side of Ginny’s friend Mordrana.
“What?” Ron asked, very carefully setting his egg in an egg dish.
Dean crowed happily and tossed his copy of the Prophet to him. Almost immediately, Ron’s eyes widened. “No way!” he echoed.
“What?” Hermione asked, having just poured herself a cup of coffee.
Ron looked about as giddy as she had ever seen him before. “Tryouts!” he jabbered. “This Friday! Open to all! Cannons!” he added, doing a sort of squirmy dance on the bench. “I’m going to go!”
“Ron, that’s during classes!” Hermione squawked, yanking the paper out of his hands to take a closer look at the article.
“Why such short notice?” Harry wondered, grinning at Ron’s very obvious enthusiasm.
“The Keeper-”
“Oscar Gibbs!” Ron supplied.
“Declared his retirement. It says he was tired of being hit by bludgers,” Hermione stated. “Ron, it sounds kind of dangerous.”
“Oh, pish posh,” he said, waving her off. “Joey Jenkins has gotten loads better at beating since he got his eyesight tested. And look-” he jabbed his finger at the article, “Galvin Gudgeon is being sacked while they’re at it. Harry, you could come with me and try out for Seeker!”
“But it’s during classes!” Hermione reminded. “And besides, even if you do somehow get a spot on the team, you’ve got the entire school year left to go. What are you going to do when you’re as banged up as this Gibbs bloke and you’ve never even taken your NEWTs?”
Ron shrugged. “Work for George. But look, we’d get to meet with Ragmar Dorkins in person! What do you say, Harry?”
“Do I have to remind you about your egg?” Hermione cried, feeling as if her entire world were crumbling through her fingers like a clod of talcum powder.
“Oh, come on!” Ron argued. “Hermione, a break like this doesn’t happen every day! And… I’m sure August….” He trailed off, looking hopelessly off to the Hufflepuff table.
“Doesn’t August sort of hate the Cannons?” Dean asked. “And sort of you too, at the mo’?”
Ron frowned. “Yeah, but… I’ll figure something out.” He poked at his egg. “Harry? Come practice with me later?”
Harry agreed, though he was looking at Hermione with apprehension. She sat with her arms crossed. Ron was absolutely clueless. He wouldn’t be able to come back to school again as a ninth year, after all. This was his very last chance to finish his education. Then he could go gallivanting off to try his hand at a position on a team that hadn’t won a game in one-hundred-six years. A team whose motto was, “Let’s all just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.”
He just didn’t understand that his choices had consequences. How were they ever going to be able to start a family together if-she froze. Something in her line of thinking had just made her extremely uncomfortable, the exact way she’d felt on the train when Padma had announced Parvati’s marriage and again when she’d thought Ron had been about to propose on her birthday.
Was there something wrong with her? Why did the thought of someday being married to Ron, her boyfriend and best friend, make her feel so uncomfortable? She loved him… right?
She no longer felt especially hungry.
O
Harry was groaning. “I’m so confused,” he said, as the two of them made their way up to the Gryffindor common room to meet with Ginny after Transfiguration. They’d left Ron talking to McGonagall, who hadn’t been especially happy with the turtle he’d been turning into a mongoose instead of a muskrat.
“What about?” Hermione asked.
“Careers,” he groaned. “Life from here on out.” He looked over at her. “You know, I hadn’t really, er, been planning that much on life after Voldemort. And now….”
“You’re lost,” she finished for him.
“Exactly.” He sighed. “And I dunno, really. McGonagall’s all set on my taking over Defense Against the Dark Arts next year. Ron thinks I should try out for Seeker for the Cannons, and knowing my luck,” he rolled his eyes, “I’ll probably get it, he won’t make Keeper, and then he’ll make me feel guilty about it for the rest of our lives. And then there’s Ginny.” He looked hopelessly toward her.
“What about her?”
“I think,” he gulped, “that she might want to, er, get engaged now while we’re still in school.”
Hermione stopped. “How do you….”
“She told me her ring size. I mean, she tried to make it all casual, but… ugh. I love her; I want to spend the rest of my life with her, but-”
“It’s too soon.” Something about having this conversation with Harry was both alleviating and elevating her earlier worries. On the one hand, it was nice to know that Harry wasn’t ready for that big of a step. On the other… Ginny was. And Ginny was over a year younger than her, nearly two.
“Right,” he agreed. “What do you think?”
“Well,” she began, shaking herself out of her own concerns for the moment, “I suppose the question you should be asking yourself is, what do you want?”
“What do I want?” Harry snorted. “I wish it were that simple.” He gave her a little smile.
“Thank you, though. Not exactly like I’m asked what I want all the time.”
She smiled back, and a question lodged itself into her head.
What did she want?
O
Ron and Harry planned to leave directly after lunch on Friday, and they would miss all of their afternoon classes, which included both Charms and Potions. They were having a test on Wila Newt’s Syndrome countercharms that day, too.
When Hermione woke that morning, she dressed and left her dormitory, feeling groggy after Padma and Hannah had bickered over a misplaced stocking into the wee hours of the morning. The tiny alcove that housed the doors to the boys’ and girls’ dormitories and the spiral staircase was dark, and she’d just climbed three steps up when she came to an abrupt stop, just barely missing Draco Malfoy’s lower back. “What-oomph!” Her eyes widened considerably as his palm pressed into her nose and his fingers pressed into her lips.
“Shh,” he whispered, and he didn’t move his hand away, staying perfectly still. Ron and August’s voices drifted down to them from above.
“No, you listen!” August growled. “This egg is your fault, and you will be taking responsibility for it! That means you either stay here and forget your stupid Chudley Cannons or you take the egg with you!”
“I can’t take it with me! Are you crazy? What if I’m hit by a bludger, huh?”
“Which is why you’d better, you know, forget your stupid Chudley Cannons! They’re the most inane, ineffective, ill-trained team I’ve ever had the misfortune of seeing play!”
“You’ve seen them play?”
“Sure I’ve seen them play! My Uncle Fonso was on their team five years ago-”
“Fonso the Fender is your uncle!” It sounded as if Ron were about to have a conniption. “That’s… that’s… sweet Merlin!”
“Alfonso Moon, you idiot. Didn’t the name suggest anything to you?”
“Well, I-”
August growled. “Ugh! You know, for a supposed major fan of a team, you sure are thick!”
“Hey!”
“I bet you aren’t even that good a player. In fact, I bet you they’ll dismiss you before your trial’s even run.”
There was the rather distinct sound of Ron stomping his foot. “Listen here, Midget-Girl!”
“You did not just make fun of my height!”
Ron stuttered. “Yeah, s’pose I did. But listen here, Moon. I bet… I bet I can not only get on the team, I bet I can keep the egg with me and keep it from breaking as well!”
August snorted. “And what are we betting?”
“I…” Ron trailed off. “Loser has to carry the winner’s books for a month.”
“What? No way. You’re so gigantic it wouldn’t make a difference to you if you’ve got a few extra kilos or not. No… hmm….”
Hermione shifted, having suddenly reminded herself that Malfoy’s fingers were still pressed into her lips, and he seemed to remember himself and tugged his hand away. For a long moment, her lips felt tingly… tainted, perhaps.
His fingers were warm and callused and smelled like honey-scented soap. That was a surprise.
The sound of a different set of fingers being snapped jerked Hermione back into reality. “I’ve got it,” August said. “Winner gets a favor. Anything doable.”
“A favor?” Ron’s voice was absolutely chock-full of skepticism.
“What? Afraid of losing to little ol’ me?”
“Little is right…. You’ve got a deal, Moon.”
“But you listen here, Weasley.” There was a strangled sound from Ron, and Hermione could only assume that August had tugged on his tie to bring him down to her level. “If you let that egg break, I will tell Hermione what you did.”
Hermione blinked. Did? What did Ron do now? Malfoy made a funny sound, halfway between a laugh and a sniff… but not a snort. That would probably be too undignified for the high and mighty house of Bad-Faith.
Ron spluttered. “Now don’t do anything hasty!”
And, of course, this had to be the exact moment when Harry left the boys’ dormitory and poked Hermione in the back. “What’s the holdup?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Hermione hissed, feeling very self-conscious after eavesdropping and just a bit miffed by the fact that she hadn’t found out what Ron was hiding from her.
From the sound of it, he’d probably broken a rule or done something callous to a house-elf.
The sound of Harry’s voice immediately quieted both Ron and August, and Hermione shoved slightly at Malfoy’s back to get him going up the rest of the stairs. Merlin only knew why he’d been so interested in the conversation.
O
Draco could hardly believe it. He now had the absolute best piece of blackmail on Weasley imaginable. In the few minutes before Granger had bumped into his back, he’d overheard the most interesting thing.
Weasley had “accidentally” kissed Moon earlier on in the week.
He couldn’t quite understand how that could possibly be accidental. The Weasel would’ve had to have stooped over half his height to have even reached her. The story had involved a runaway mongoose and Weasley tripping over his overlarge feet and landing on Lil’ Moon.
Landing mouth to mouth.
The entire situation was snort-worthy, and Draco wasn’t one to snort.
And the absolute crux of the situation, the most sweetest part of all, was that Weasley didn’t want Granger to find out, however innocent the entire situation sounded, which suggested that perhaps the situation was not as innocent as it truly should be. Perhaps there were dirty thoughts running rampant through that gingered head that didn’t necessarily pertain to a certain bookworm.
It was funny, though. Moon wasn’t exactly the most beautiful girl in the school. She was plain-by far more plain than Granger. She had lank light ash-brown hair in a dull, uneven shoulder cut, and there was something in the shape of her nose that brought to mind a cube. She was entirely forgettable, which was probably why he’d never paid her any mind before this year… besides the fact that she was a Hufflepuff.
Moon’s lips were not kissable lips, either.
Granger’s lips, on the other hand-Draco physically stopped on his trek to the Great Hall.
Three minutes ago, he’d been hand-kissing Hermione Granger.
His fingertips had touched Hermione Granger’s lips.
The thought of running to the nearest loo to wash his hands hadn’t even entered his mind, and it was only now, fingers flexing and only the faintest trace of tacky lip gloss being reflected by the light from the nearest brazier, that Draco stopped to consider whether it was truly necessary to make a stop to wash his hands or not.
If he could use his wand, no question, he’d scourgify his fingers and that would be it. As it was… to wash or not to wash? Did he care? He didn’t feel especially dirty, at least, not in the sense he was meant to feel.
He almost felt, dare he say it, ever so slightly allured? Now there was a thought! Allured by the idea of Hermione Granger’s lips. So what if they were soft? So what if her breath had been gentle and humid against his upper palm?
It was merely that she was a girl, and he had rampant-hormone-syndrome.
It had nothing to do with palm-to-lips being holy palmers’ kiss, or whatever it was the Muggle Studies professor had recited very loudly from the dungeons at Malfoy Manor before her death.
He cringed as he continued walking, by-passing the boys’ toilet. There were some memories he’d rather quash.
O
Hermione was grumpy all through the afternoon as she waited for Ron and Harry to get back, and it didn’t help that both August and Malfoy kept shooting her funny looks. She assumed August’s reasoning was that she was keeping whatever it was a secret. What Malfoy was thinking was an enigma that she didn’t have the energy to solve.
It was half-past eight in the evening when the door to the Eighth Year Common Room opened, and Ron and Harry entered, both muddy and looking slightly annoyed. At first Hermione figured that this meant they had been denied positions, but then she realized that they were being closely tagged by Myrtle.
“It’s not fair,” the ghost moaned. “Why should you all be here? This was my deathbed. Mine!”
“Oh, lay off it, will you?” Ron said. He sank into an arm chair, groaning. “I’m beat.”
“No respect! But why would anyone respect me? No one ever has. No one….” And Myrtle burst into tears before whirling twice around the room and disappearing through the portrait of the imp.
Nonplussed, August turned to look at Ron. “So, how did it go?” She had one eyebrow raised.
Ron shrugged, and Harry collapsed into a heap next to the fireplace. “Got a callback.” This was from Harry.
Hermione wasn’t sure whether to be relieved, happy, or to console Ron. She settled for a very small smile of support.
“And you?” August prompted.
Ron shrugged again, rubbing his eyes. “They just said I was the best Keeper they’d seen try-out in fifty-four years, that’s all.” And suddenly the beaten expression on his face made a three-hundred-sixty degree turnabout to absolute triumph.
“So…” Hermione said, confused by her own calm, “you got a callback?”
Ron burst into laughter. “Did I get a callback, Harry?”
Harry shook his head, sinking further into the rug on the floor. “Nope.”
“I bagged it!” Ron cried, grinning maniacally. “You should’ve seen me! I thought I’d be nervous, but I wasn’t at all. I even did this awesome move where I weaved in and out of hoops, head-butting the quaffle, and they said they wanted to get it officially called the Weasley Wiggle! I was absolutely on-fire! At one point, I hit the quaffle with the tail of my broom all the way to the other set of hoops and made a goal!”
Hermione watched and listened patiently for the next hour as Ron continued his story, making extremely wild hand gestures to illustrate his saves.
She still wasn’t sure if he realized just precisely what this meant. He’d be missing for large chunks of the rest of the school year for practice and games. She was doubtful he’d be able to keep up. And sooner or later, he’d probably end up flat on his back after a bludger had bludgeoned him into a bleeding pulp.
When Ron’s story was at last over, he stood, stretched, and headed toward the spiral staircase.
His back pants pocket had an egg yolk stain as yellow as a buttercup in a field of manure.
O
A.N. Hello my lovelies! Longest chapter to date, here, not that it probably looks it. I hope this chapter was to your liking. I want to reiterate that updates will be slowing down now for more reasons than I’d really like to get into. (One of which happens to be a faulty hard drive and/or operating system. Oh, joy.)
So… now that you’re here, why not review? I promise not to call you Her-my-girl!
Please click the tag for a list of chapters.
<< >>
Author: Marmalade Fever
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, and more.
Genres: Romance, Drama, weird combo of in-Hogwarts and post-Hogwarts, and Humor. I can't write a fanfic without humor leaking its way in.
Spoilers: DH (though no epilogue)
Overall Rating: PG-13
Summary: Up from the ashes of seventh year grow the roses of the eighth. Eight students return for their final year at Hogwarts, and Hermione Granger would never have thought Draco Malfoy would or could be one of those roses.
Eight and Eighth-Chapter 10-The Cannons and the Egg
By Marmalade Fever
Amorell’s substitute assignment turned out to be peculiarly sane. All Hermione had to do was stay an extra day at school during Winter Break for a make-up Grief Counseling session, and because she hadn’t been entirely sure if she even planned on going home for Christmas this year due to her parents’ plan to visit distant relatives in the Yukon Territory, she thought that she might just stay the whole break after all. Besides, she had never liked flying-be it by plane or by broom-and that would have been hellish, if somewhere cold could be called such.
O
“Just help me cast a cushioning charm!” Ron begged, tugging on her hand.
“No, Ron.”
“Please? I’ll give you a really cute pet name! Her-my-girl?” he tried, giving her a hopelessly desperate smile.
She slapped her hand against her face and shook her head. “First, never call me that again unless you want me to hex you. Second… Ron, this egg is meant to be the equivalent of a child, and you’re not exactly going to be able to just cast a cushioning charm on a child for the whole of its life. So, no. I’m not going to help you.” She softened at the disappointed look on his face and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“But August is being completely unreasonable,” he said, grimacing. “She said that since it’s my fault, I have to take the egg during the day, and she gets to take it at night, when she can just put it on her trunk beside her and forget about it.”
“Actually, her trunk is at her feet,” Hermione corrected. “And last night, she kept it in a wad of towels between her pillow and the wall.”
“Yeah, but still,” he protested. “She’s got it easy. She only has to take care of it while she’s sleeping.”
“And you’re the one who broke the first egg in class. You weren’t seriously juggling it, were you?”
Ron didn’t answer but instead tugged her into the Great Hall, where Harry and Ginny were already snuggled together over a plate of melon.
“No way!” This came from Dean, who sat on the other side of Ginny’s friend Mordrana.
“What?” Ron asked, very carefully setting his egg in an egg dish.
Dean crowed happily and tossed his copy of the Prophet to him. Almost immediately, Ron’s eyes widened. “No way!” he echoed.
“What?” Hermione asked, having just poured herself a cup of coffee.
Ron looked about as giddy as she had ever seen him before. “Tryouts!” he jabbered. “This Friday! Open to all! Cannons!” he added, doing a sort of squirmy dance on the bench. “I’m going to go!”
“Ron, that’s during classes!” Hermione squawked, yanking the paper out of his hands to take a closer look at the article.
“Why such short notice?” Harry wondered, grinning at Ron’s very obvious enthusiasm.
“The Keeper-”
“Oscar Gibbs!” Ron supplied.
“Declared his retirement. It says he was tired of being hit by bludgers,” Hermione stated. “Ron, it sounds kind of dangerous.”
“Oh, pish posh,” he said, waving her off. “Joey Jenkins has gotten loads better at beating since he got his eyesight tested. And look-” he jabbed his finger at the article, “Galvin Gudgeon is being sacked while they’re at it. Harry, you could come with me and try out for Seeker!”
“But it’s during classes!” Hermione reminded. “And besides, even if you do somehow get a spot on the team, you’ve got the entire school year left to go. What are you going to do when you’re as banged up as this Gibbs bloke and you’ve never even taken your NEWTs?”
Ron shrugged. “Work for George. But look, we’d get to meet with Ragmar Dorkins in person! What do you say, Harry?”
“Do I have to remind you about your egg?” Hermione cried, feeling as if her entire world were crumbling through her fingers like a clod of talcum powder.
“Oh, come on!” Ron argued. “Hermione, a break like this doesn’t happen every day! And… I’m sure August….” He trailed off, looking hopelessly off to the Hufflepuff table.
“Doesn’t August sort of hate the Cannons?” Dean asked. “And sort of you too, at the mo’?”
Ron frowned. “Yeah, but… I’ll figure something out.” He poked at his egg. “Harry? Come practice with me later?”
Harry agreed, though he was looking at Hermione with apprehension. She sat with her arms crossed. Ron was absolutely clueless. He wouldn’t be able to come back to school again as a ninth year, after all. This was his very last chance to finish his education. Then he could go gallivanting off to try his hand at a position on a team that hadn’t won a game in one-hundred-six years. A team whose motto was, “Let’s all just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.”
He just didn’t understand that his choices had consequences. How were they ever going to be able to start a family together if-she froze. Something in her line of thinking had just made her extremely uncomfortable, the exact way she’d felt on the train when Padma had announced Parvati’s marriage and again when she’d thought Ron had been about to propose on her birthday.
Was there something wrong with her? Why did the thought of someday being married to Ron, her boyfriend and best friend, make her feel so uncomfortable? She loved him… right?
She no longer felt especially hungry.
O
Harry was groaning. “I’m so confused,” he said, as the two of them made their way up to the Gryffindor common room to meet with Ginny after Transfiguration. They’d left Ron talking to McGonagall, who hadn’t been especially happy with the turtle he’d been turning into a mongoose instead of a muskrat.
“What about?” Hermione asked.
“Careers,” he groaned. “Life from here on out.” He looked over at her. “You know, I hadn’t really, er, been planning that much on life after Voldemort. And now….”
“You’re lost,” she finished for him.
“Exactly.” He sighed. “And I dunno, really. McGonagall’s all set on my taking over Defense Against the Dark Arts next year. Ron thinks I should try out for Seeker for the Cannons, and knowing my luck,” he rolled his eyes, “I’ll probably get it, he won’t make Keeper, and then he’ll make me feel guilty about it for the rest of our lives. And then there’s Ginny.” He looked hopelessly toward her.
“What about her?”
“I think,” he gulped, “that she might want to, er, get engaged now while we’re still in school.”
Hermione stopped. “How do you….”
“She told me her ring size. I mean, she tried to make it all casual, but… ugh. I love her; I want to spend the rest of my life with her, but-”
“It’s too soon.” Something about having this conversation with Harry was both alleviating and elevating her earlier worries. On the one hand, it was nice to know that Harry wasn’t ready for that big of a step. On the other… Ginny was. And Ginny was over a year younger than her, nearly two.
“Right,” he agreed. “What do you think?”
“Well,” she began, shaking herself out of her own concerns for the moment, “I suppose the question you should be asking yourself is, what do you want?”
“What do I want?” Harry snorted. “I wish it were that simple.” He gave her a little smile.
“Thank you, though. Not exactly like I’m asked what I want all the time.”
She smiled back, and a question lodged itself into her head.
What did she want?
O
Ron and Harry planned to leave directly after lunch on Friday, and they would miss all of their afternoon classes, which included both Charms and Potions. They were having a test on Wila Newt’s Syndrome countercharms that day, too.
When Hermione woke that morning, she dressed and left her dormitory, feeling groggy after Padma and Hannah had bickered over a misplaced stocking into the wee hours of the morning. The tiny alcove that housed the doors to the boys’ and girls’ dormitories and the spiral staircase was dark, and she’d just climbed three steps up when she came to an abrupt stop, just barely missing Draco Malfoy’s lower back. “What-oomph!” Her eyes widened considerably as his palm pressed into her nose and his fingers pressed into her lips.
“Shh,” he whispered, and he didn’t move his hand away, staying perfectly still. Ron and August’s voices drifted down to them from above.
“No, you listen!” August growled. “This egg is your fault, and you will be taking responsibility for it! That means you either stay here and forget your stupid Chudley Cannons or you take the egg with you!”
“I can’t take it with me! Are you crazy? What if I’m hit by a bludger, huh?”
“Which is why you’d better, you know, forget your stupid Chudley Cannons! They’re the most inane, ineffective, ill-trained team I’ve ever had the misfortune of seeing play!”
“You’ve seen them play?”
“Sure I’ve seen them play! My Uncle Fonso was on their team five years ago-”
“Fonso the Fender is your uncle!” It sounded as if Ron were about to have a conniption. “That’s… that’s… sweet Merlin!”
“Alfonso Moon, you idiot. Didn’t the name suggest anything to you?”
“Well, I-”
August growled. “Ugh! You know, for a supposed major fan of a team, you sure are thick!”
“Hey!”
“I bet you aren’t even that good a player. In fact, I bet you they’ll dismiss you before your trial’s even run.”
There was the rather distinct sound of Ron stomping his foot. “Listen here, Midget-Girl!”
“You did not just make fun of my height!”
Ron stuttered. “Yeah, s’pose I did. But listen here, Moon. I bet… I bet I can not only get on the team, I bet I can keep the egg with me and keep it from breaking as well!”
August snorted. “And what are we betting?”
“I…” Ron trailed off. “Loser has to carry the winner’s books for a month.”
“What? No way. You’re so gigantic it wouldn’t make a difference to you if you’ve got a few extra kilos or not. No… hmm….”
Hermione shifted, having suddenly reminded herself that Malfoy’s fingers were still pressed into her lips, and he seemed to remember himself and tugged his hand away. For a long moment, her lips felt tingly… tainted, perhaps.
His fingers were warm and callused and smelled like honey-scented soap. That was a surprise.
The sound of a different set of fingers being snapped jerked Hermione back into reality. “I’ve got it,” August said. “Winner gets a favor. Anything doable.”
“A favor?” Ron’s voice was absolutely chock-full of skepticism.
“What? Afraid of losing to little ol’ me?”
“Little is right…. You’ve got a deal, Moon.”
“But you listen here, Weasley.” There was a strangled sound from Ron, and Hermione could only assume that August had tugged on his tie to bring him down to her level. “If you let that egg break, I will tell Hermione what you did.”
Hermione blinked. Did? What did Ron do now? Malfoy made a funny sound, halfway between a laugh and a sniff… but not a snort. That would probably be too undignified for the high and mighty house of Bad-Faith.
Ron spluttered. “Now don’t do anything hasty!”
And, of course, this had to be the exact moment when Harry left the boys’ dormitory and poked Hermione in the back. “What’s the holdup?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Hermione hissed, feeling very self-conscious after eavesdropping and just a bit miffed by the fact that she hadn’t found out what Ron was hiding from her.
From the sound of it, he’d probably broken a rule or done something callous to a house-elf.
The sound of Harry’s voice immediately quieted both Ron and August, and Hermione shoved slightly at Malfoy’s back to get him going up the rest of the stairs. Merlin only knew why he’d been so interested in the conversation.
O
Draco could hardly believe it. He now had the absolute best piece of blackmail on Weasley imaginable. In the few minutes before Granger had bumped into his back, he’d overheard the most interesting thing.
Weasley had “accidentally” kissed Moon earlier on in the week.
He couldn’t quite understand how that could possibly be accidental. The Weasel would’ve had to have stooped over half his height to have even reached her. The story had involved a runaway mongoose and Weasley tripping over his overlarge feet and landing on Lil’ Moon.
Landing mouth to mouth.
The entire situation was snort-worthy, and Draco wasn’t one to snort.
And the absolute crux of the situation, the most sweetest part of all, was that Weasley didn’t want Granger to find out, however innocent the entire situation sounded, which suggested that perhaps the situation was not as innocent as it truly should be. Perhaps there were dirty thoughts running rampant through that gingered head that didn’t necessarily pertain to a certain bookworm.
It was funny, though. Moon wasn’t exactly the most beautiful girl in the school. She was plain-by far more plain than Granger. She had lank light ash-brown hair in a dull, uneven shoulder cut, and there was something in the shape of her nose that brought to mind a cube. She was entirely forgettable, which was probably why he’d never paid her any mind before this year… besides the fact that she was a Hufflepuff.
Moon’s lips were not kissable lips, either.
Granger’s lips, on the other hand-Draco physically stopped on his trek to the Great Hall.
Three minutes ago, he’d been hand-kissing Hermione Granger.
His fingertips had touched Hermione Granger’s lips.
The thought of running to the nearest loo to wash his hands hadn’t even entered his mind, and it was only now, fingers flexing and only the faintest trace of tacky lip gloss being reflected by the light from the nearest brazier, that Draco stopped to consider whether it was truly necessary to make a stop to wash his hands or not.
If he could use his wand, no question, he’d scourgify his fingers and that would be it. As it was… to wash or not to wash? Did he care? He didn’t feel especially dirty, at least, not in the sense he was meant to feel.
He almost felt, dare he say it, ever so slightly allured? Now there was a thought! Allured by the idea of Hermione Granger’s lips. So what if they were soft? So what if her breath had been gentle and humid against his upper palm?
It was merely that she was a girl, and he had rampant-hormone-syndrome.
It had nothing to do with palm-to-lips being holy palmers’ kiss, or whatever it was the Muggle Studies professor had recited very loudly from the dungeons at Malfoy Manor before her death.
He cringed as he continued walking, by-passing the boys’ toilet. There were some memories he’d rather quash.
O
Hermione was grumpy all through the afternoon as she waited for Ron and Harry to get back, and it didn’t help that both August and Malfoy kept shooting her funny looks. She assumed August’s reasoning was that she was keeping whatever it was a secret. What Malfoy was thinking was an enigma that she didn’t have the energy to solve.
It was half-past eight in the evening when the door to the Eighth Year Common Room opened, and Ron and Harry entered, both muddy and looking slightly annoyed. At first Hermione figured that this meant they had been denied positions, but then she realized that they were being closely tagged by Myrtle.
“It’s not fair,” the ghost moaned. “Why should you all be here? This was my deathbed. Mine!”
“Oh, lay off it, will you?” Ron said. He sank into an arm chair, groaning. “I’m beat.”
“No respect! But why would anyone respect me? No one ever has. No one….” And Myrtle burst into tears before whirling twice around the room and disappearing through the portrait of the imp.
Nonplussed, August turned to look at Ron. “So, how did it go?” She had one eyebrow raised.
Ron shrugged, and Harry collapsed into a heap next to the fireplace. “Got a callback.” This was from Harry.
Hermione wasn’t sure whether to be relieved, happy, or to console Ron. She settled for a very small smile of support.
“And you?” August prompted.
Ron shrugged again, rubbing his eyes. “They just said I was the best Keeper they’d seen try-out in fifty-four years, that’s all.” And suddenly the beaten expression on his face made a three-hundred-sixty degree turnabout to absolute triumph.
“So…” Hermione said, confused by her own calm, “you got a callback?”
Ron burst into laughter. “Did I get a callback, Harry?”
Harry shook his head, sinking further into the rug on the floor. “Nope.”
“I bagged it!” Ron cried, grinning maniacally. “You should’ve seen me! I thought I’d be nervous, but I wasn’t at all. I even did this awesome move where I weaved in and out of hoops, head-butting the quaffle, and they said they wanted to get it officially called the Weasley Wiggle! I was absolutely on-fire! At one point, I hit the quaffle with the tail of my broom all the way to the other set of hoops and made a goal!”
Hermione watched and listened patiently for the next hour as Ron continued his story, making extremely wild hand gestures to illustrate his saves.
She still wasn’t sure if he realized just precisely what this meant. He’d be missing for large chunks of the rest of the school year for practice and games. She was doubtful he’d be able to keep up. And sooner or later, he’d probably end up flat on his back after a bludger had bludgeoned him into a bleeding pulp.
When Ron’s story was at last over, he stood, stretched, and headed toward the spiral staircase.
His back pants pocket had an egg yolk stain as yellow as a buttercup in a field of manure.
O
A.N. Hello my lovelies! Longest chapter to date, here, not that it probably looks it. I hope this chapter was to your liking. I want to reiterate that updates will be slowing down now for more reasons than I’d really like to get into. (One of which happens to be a faulty hard drive and/or operating system. Oh, joy.)
So… now that you’re here, why not review? I promise not to call you Her-my-girl!
Please click the tag for a list of chapters.
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