Eight and Eighth--Chapter 15
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.
8 & 8th-Chapter 15-Wishy-Washy
Draco woke with a start and breathed heavily for a moment before resting his head back on his pillow. The room was completely silent. Parting the curtain of his four poster, he stuck his head out into the darkness. Weasley was definitely asleep, if the dribble of drool down his chin was any indication.
So there was a risk involved, a risk he hadn’t even thought about in class when Granger’s head flopped onto his shoulder. The risk’s name was Ronald Weasley.
Despite some poor choices in the past, Draco was far from stupid. His current competition for high-ranking in marks confirmed this. Weasley had a wand; Draco, for all intents and purposes of defending himself, did not.
Weasley was still in love with Granger, and thus, doing anything that looked like he might be moving in on the Weasel’s territory might be a dangerous sport. Might being a word he used to make himself feel like he had a chance.
Draco had already admitted to himself the fact that he was a coward. There was more than one reason he hadn’t been sorted into Gryffindor, after all. But he had been sorted into Slytherin, a house known, among other things, for ambition, and therein lay the spark of hope.
He flinched when the ginger-haired boy snorted in his sleep.
O
“You feeling all right?” Harry asked, as they walked to Transfiguration.
Hermione hadn’t been paying attention, her mind drifting off into a pleasant fantasy of beating Professors Amorell and Trelawney in a complicated game of wits. “Hmm?”
“Well, you did vomit yesterday,” he pointed out.
Ron nodded unhelpfully. “Malfoy getting to you?” he asked, his eyebrows lowering.
“Oh.” She frowned. “More Amorell, really.” She turned to Harry. “I guess I’m allergic to Frilled-Pongy Dandelions.”
“What?”
“That stink weed that Dean was wearing. In any case, it’s definitely warding me off.”
Harry laughed lightly. “I don’t think Luna was too worried about you encroaching on her territory, really.”
Hermione gave him a fake look of annoyance. “What, you don’t think I could end up with Dean?”
Now Ron was emitting a real look of annoyance. “Stupid Thomas,” he grumbled.
For a moment, Hermione’s mind got slightly stuck. She could hardly believe Ron could get that jealous over a hypothetical situation and over someone he’d been friends with for years. Dean was a nice boy, a good artist, and was someone she could talk to about non-magical things without having to offer a definition at every turn, but she’d never shown any interest in him, and Ron should know that. Besides, she doubted that Luna would ever let her first boyfriend out of her sight now that she’d got him.
So what happened when Hermione was ready to show interest in someone? Ron would be jealous, yes, but would their relationship ever mend afterward? And what about boys that Ron didn’t get along with?
She really shouldn’t be thinking like this. There was no reason for her to be entertaining the notion, even in a purely hypothetical sense, of what might happen if she ever subscribed to the prophecy.
For a brief moment, as they settled themselves at their desks in Transfiguration, she allowed herself a tiny daydream. She and Malfoy… maybe studying together in the library, and he’d reach his hand over and take hers to caress her palm with his thumb. It was peaceful, far more peaceful than she’d have thought would be possible for two people coming from such different backgrounds. Daydream Draco smiled at her, and real Hermione gasped.
“What? I’m allowed to use a pencil instead of a quill if I want to, aren’t I?” This came from the Seventh Year boy she’d sat down next to.
“Oh, sure, go ahead,” she mumbled, now staring down at her books.
His smile. She’d so rarely seen him smile in a friendly manner, that the thought had actually jolted her. And yet… hadn’t he smiled at her a time or so over the course of the term? She could have sworn he had. How strange. If she thought about it, really thought about it, she wasn’t so sure she’d ever seen a real smile, rather than a smirk, coming from him and directed at anyone besides herself and his mother.
What could that mean?
O
Draco could hardly believe his good fortune as he reclined on the sofa in the Common Room. All seven of them had left him behind to go to Weasley’s Quidditch match, so here he lay, feeling utterly content with the world.
Only the portrait of the imp was bothering him. The weird-looking thing kept snapping its jaw.
His mind was reeling with the possibilities of what he could do here, left to his own devices. He could rummage through Potter’s, Weasley’s, and Thomas’s things and see if there was anything good to hold ransom or use for blackmail. Somehow, though, he thought that he might prefer to leave Potter’s things well enough alone. He hadn’t bothered him much lately, and the whole Savior of the World thing might’ve had something to do with it. He’d rather not get on Thomas’s bad-side when he’d already done such a smashing job of ignoring him the last few months, and it was probably to his benefit if Weasley didn’t decide to use their bedroom as his own personal torture chamber.
But there was something he could do that had been bugging him for the last few months. He could try the door on the girls’ dormitory, maybe see what enchantments had been put in place. It was dangerous, of course. He couldn’t undo any spells aimed at him, but that was a risk he currently felt willing to take, especially now that there weren’t any do-gooders around to be shocked and appalled.
He sent the imp a glare before descending the stairs. He was happy that the winding staircase hadn’t made him ill at all. The one going up to the Headmaster’s… Headmistress’s office tended to make him queasy.
The door to the right looked exactly like the door to the left, except that the doorknob was on the other side. His hand twitched once before he grasped the knob. So far, so good. He released it again, deciding he hadn’t magically been glued to the thing. Grasping it, he turned it and the door opened slightly.
The effect was immediate, and he snatched his hand back. The most horrible itching sensation he’d ever felt had gone through his fingertips, but it went away again as his hand retreated across the barrier.
Loath as he was to test his theory, he very quickly pushed the door further open, and every part of his arm that went into the girls’ room experienced the same itching sensation.
Going into the room was definitely not going to happen, at least, not for more than a second, so he was content to just look in.
It was at least partially entertaining trying to guess which bed belonged to which girl. The one directly in front of him had the curtains pulled back, and there was a stuffed frog on the pillow. The bedding was extremely crooked, and someone had left a large note that said, “Please make your bed” directly in the middle. He was guessing that meant it was Abbott’s.
The bed in the corner to his right had everything in exact parallel lines, and there was a blue quilt with the Ravenclaw emblem folded so neatly across it, he imagined Patil had used a level to place it there.
The bed in the opposite corner from the door was decently made, and a Harpies poster was tacked on the wall behind.
Which left the bed behind Abbott’s.
Granger was neat, but not freakishly so. From what little he could see, the underside of her bed was completely crammed with books, poking into the dust ruffle from all sides. A large-and extremely ugly-ginger cat was asleep on her bed.
He should have known she’d be a cat-person. She did seem like the kind of girl who might end up living alone with her cats and fifteen-hundred stacks of books lining the hallways.
Curiosity satisfied, and no knickers strewn about the room to catch his attention, he hastened to close the door before the itching sensation could drive him too terribly insane.
One small peek into Weasley’s trunk wouldn’t hurt anything, would it?
O
Hermione landed lightly on her feet and let go of the tatty dog leash. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get completely used to traveling via portkey, not that she’d ever tell anyone else that.
“Welcome to Snidget Field,” Ron announced, sweeping his hands out in front of him as if he were showcasing it.
Hermione was by no means an expert on Quidditch Stadiums, having only visited Hogwarts’s and the one where the Cup had been held, yet looking around, it was very clear that the Chuddley Cannons did not have a very large budget. Or, at least, no one seemed to feel the need to invest much in the team.
The goal hoops had peeling orange paint, faded like construction paper left out in the sun. They were nearly yellow. And although she couldn’t be entirely sure, one of the hoops looked as if it had been mended with Spell-O Tape.
The benches were rickety, and a good portion of them had been roped off, a sign warning of a rogue bludger, loose somewhere amid the supports.
Harry sidled closer to her. “Keep smiling,” he whispered, through a very fake grin of his own.
Hint obtained, she smiled brightly. “Very impressive,” she fibbed, though secretly she didn’t feel any inclination to step further into the stadium. There was a notable stench wafting from the overflowing dustbins off to the side.
August didn’t look impressed at all and didn’t bother to hide it either. “Merlin save us, the whole thing’s festered.” She kicked a stray Butterbeer bottle out of her path. “I’m lucky my Uncle Fonso got out while the rubbish was still low enough to fly a broom out of.”
Ron growled lowly, and Hermione was left wondering for the umpteenth time how any romantic inclination had ever “festered” between the two of them, no matter how short-lived.
“It’s not that bad,” Ginny mumbled, though the look on her face, which gave the impression that she desperately wanted to pinch her nose, suggested otherwise. “Oh, look! There’s Mum and Dad!” She waved and ran off towards them, Harry and Ron following at a more leisurely gait.
Padma and Hannah, whose animosity had risen to the point where they only spoke to one another when a professor expected them to, now huddled together, one afraid of disorder, the other afraid of what might be living in it.
Dean had brought Luna with him, and she was tugging him off in the direction of what looked like a bolted onion flower growing in a heap of moldy popcorn.
The thought of going over to talk to Mrs. Weasley was not as appealing now as it had been while she and Ron had been dating. At that time, the only awkwardness was in knowing that Molly knew she was kissing her son. Now, the awkwardness was trifold. If the woman had reacted badly to Skeeter’s article about Hermione and Harry in the Fourth Year, this was going to be worse. Unless Ron and Ginny had kept mum about her and Ron’s relationship being finished, Mrs. Weasley was bound to act similar to a very polite raging Chimaera.
And she did.
As the few minutes before the match wound down and the opposing team stood yawning next to the changing rooms, Hermione found her seat, which was between George, who was waving a trick flag without much gusto, and Percy, who sat beside Mrs. Weasley.
“Percy, would you please hand out these sandwiches? There are eleven of them, one for each of us cheering for our Ron.”
Percy was an equally quick count as Hermione. There were twelve of them total. She’d been left out on purpose, and if there’d been any doubt left in either of their minds about that, it was dispelled as Mrs. Weasley slapped Percy’s hand as he tried to hand Hermione the sandwich basket.
She didn’t get a “Go, Weasley, Go!” button either, not that it looked like August was going to put hers to much use.
The players met at the center of the pitch, Ron’s hair and robes clashing terribly as he mounted his broom and took off.
It took Hermione a long moment to figure out what seemed to be off about the Cannons. “Harry,” she said, leaning down and earning a glare from a certain matronly woman, “where’s the Seeker?” Harry pointed nondescriptly toward the far corner of the field, where a very thin man was riding his broom upside-down, staring up at the match instead of down at it. “What’s he doing?” She was interrupted as everyone stood up to cheer, Ron having saved the first goal of the game. “What’s he doing?” she repeated, as soon as everyone was settled.
“I see some people aren’t as interested in paying attention as the rest of us, and should perhaps keep all comments to themselves, hmm?” stated the familiar voice of Molly Weasley.
Harry made a quarter turn and shrugged, and it may have been her imagination, but it looked as if he were blushing slightly.
Ron really wasn’t all that bad, at least, not compared to the rest of his team, he wasn’t. He was making saves left and right and up and down. Meanwhile, the other team’s keeper looked bored. So far, none of the Chuddley chasers had managed to steal the quaffle long enough to take aim.
After an hour, the score was still zero to zero, and the opposing team was starting to look slightly intrigued by the fact.
After Ron had saved the seventieth-eighth shot, it looked like his arms were starting to get tired, but he just kept on knocking the quaffle away, a smirk to rival Malfoy’s lighting up his face.
It was after two hours had gone by, it had started to snow, and still no one had actually made a point, that Hermione abandoned all pretense and just studied the Chuddley Seeker. He wasn’t upside-down anymore. He’d flown halfway into the air to be on level with the game, and if he were looking for the snitch, he was doing a good job of hiding it. The other team’s seeker was positioned above the game, his eyes sweeping the field desperately.
“Oh, come on!” George complained loudly, as another fifteen minutes went by. “I’m going to use the toilet. Maybe they’ll learn something while I’m gone, like how to get by Ronnie’s idiotic Midgkin’s Defense Maneuver.” The whole group, excluding Hermione, shushed him.
It was yet another hour later, and Hermione’s jaw was chattering, when a miracle occurred. Something very shiny gleamed from the glove of the Chuddley Seeker, and he held it up dully, as if asking permission to use the loo.
The commentator didn’t notice for two minutes, and the twelve fans were left yelling up at him to snap him into attention. “And… GREAT SCOTT! HE’S GOT THE SNITCH! WHEN’D THAT HAPPEN?”
“What… how?”
“Where’d it come from?”
“Merlin, was he holding that thing the entire time? Tell me he wasn’t.”
“Harry?” Hermione asked, prodding him in the back. “What did he do?”
It was at this time that Harry finally turned to face her, wearing a sheepish expression. “That’s Riff Tinspace. Before he was a Seeker, he was an illusionist. I wasn’t really sure at first, but I think he caught the snitch during the first few minutes and has been hiding it since to give the Cannons a chance to… show off.”
“So the upside-down move?”
“A distraction,” Harry answered with a smile.
“Harry?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t suppose you told the Cannons to pick him over you, did you?”
Harry half-smiled. “I wish. They actually did pick him over me. It’s just a little embarrassing that they did, is all.” He lowered his voice. “Don’t worry, though. I’m kind of glad I wasn’t chosen.” He winked, and they all rose to go congratulate the best Keeper the Chuddley Cannons had seen in over a century.
The other team’s Keeper looked like he’d just wasted three hours of his life and knew it.
O
Draco had been delighted to find Weasley’s trunk completely hex-free. What the moron was thinking, he could never guess. But, shifting through it, he wasn’t finding anything of greater interest than dirty clothes, very old candy wrappers, and about a thousand chocolate frog cards.
It had probably been too much to hope that the lout kept a diary.
There was a small photo album, though. Thumbing through it, Draco found one of Creevy’s snapshots, one that he was standing in the very back of, scowling as the Gryffindor three posed for the camera. It couldn’t have been more than Third Year. Granger’s hair was an absolute fright, her teeth were long, and there was a look on her face that said she didn’t really have time for a photo op. Pulling the photograph out, Draco mutely looked at the back to see if it was labeled, which it wasn’t.
Draco replaced everything in the trunk, careful to leave it how it had been before. He really didn’t need to be hexed in his sleep.
Lying back on his bed, his brain was abuzz. She made him happy, yes, but should he do something about it or no? She was a mudblood, and there was nothing that could ever change that. And yet, there was a tiny piece of his brain that reminded him of the fact that the stupidest class ever still had a reason behind it. That reason was to enforce tolerance, and he’d be damned if he let Amorell win that round.
Funny, really, how it was proving two professors wrong that was keeping them at a distance from one another.
A.N.: I wanted to get this up tomorrow, but today will have to do. Tomorrow, August 16, 2008, is officially my four year anniversary as a Dramione writer, and I thought I’d commemorate the occasion with a chapter. This is my fourth novel-length in four years. Isn’t that nice, everybody? (And no, I do not plan to write eight in eight years. Eek.) Also, if anyone's interested, there is a map of the dormitories with everyone's beds labeled available through my LJ.
Click the tag for a list of chapters and for the map.
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