The Unseemly Proposal by sparx
Chapter 13- Of Popped Buttons and Wrong Accusations
Draco sat with the Slytherins the next morning for breakfast, twirling his wand idly in his hand, Hermione obviously next to him. Detention the previous night was not as bad as expected. Professor McGonagall made them write lines for the whole three hours (‘I will not shout in the hallways. I will be a responsible Head and set a good example for my fellow students.’). She gave them a short lecture before dismissing them (“Learn to cooperate, you two!”).
As usual, the Slyhterins were looking at Hermione as if she was some sort of germ or filthy bacteria that was polluting their sterile, pureblood environment. Pansy kept making snide comments about the Gryffindor in Draco’s ear, but instead of laughing at them like he typically did, Draco simply let out a half-hearted chuckle. He had other things on his mind today; he was more interested in the arrival of morning post.
More than a week ago, Draco had written a long, angry letter to his father regarding the Love-Knot (the night he was sitting with Hermione and scribbling away furiously. Refer to Chapter 11). Yet, he had not received a reply from him. Draco was just wondering what was taking his father so long to respond when a flurry of hundred owls flew into the Great Hall, dropping letters to the relevant recipients.
He stopped twirling his wand and sighed thankfully when his eagle owl released a parcel along with a letter onto his lap. He set the parcel aside together with his wand and ripped the letter open, immensely disappointed when he saw the short reply from his father. But his disappointment quickly evaporated when he read what Lucius Malfoy wrote:
Draco,
Meet me at the common room fireplace tomorrow, at midnight. And your mom sent you some sweets.
From,
Your Father
Draco folded the letter back into the envelope and stuffed it into his pocket. He could hardly wait to see his father tonight. Lucius Malfoy had a lot of answering to do.
After breakfast, Hermione stood up with the Syltherins to follow them to Potions. She was glad that she could attend all her lessons with Gryffindor today, even though she had to sit with Draco all the time. The day before, she barely managed to talk to Harry and Ron during dinner because Draco kept chipping in his own nasty comments into their conversation.
Instead of going down to the dungeons for Potions, however, Draco led Hermione away in the opposite direction, heading towards the Boys’ Bathroom.
“What are you doing, Malfoy?” she asked, trying to hide her revulsion as she entered it with Draco.
“I was just thinking of taking a stroll in the bathroom, Granger. Lovely place, you know,” his said, his reply oozing with sarcasm. “Would you like to join me?”
Hermione cut him a look before he went into a cubicle to relieve himself. She waited outside the cubicle for a while, then checked her watch and saw that there were only a couple of minutes before Potions started. She banged on Draco’s cubicle door. “Hurry it up, Malfoy! I don’t want to be late for Potions!” she called.
No reply.
“Malfoy? Did you get stuck in the toilet bowl or something?”
Still in the cubicle, Draco groaned at his luck. The button on his pants had popped out because he had undone it too violently. He knew a spell for mending things like that, but problem was, he could not, for the life of him, remember it. And Hermione’s shouts and banging were not helping his memory in the least bit.
“Malfoy! What’s going on in there? What exactly are you doing?!”
Frustrated, Draco swung the door open, startling Hermione. “For Merlin’s sake lady, can’t I be alone for a moment?” he asked.
“No, you can’t because, in case you forgot, we’re stuck together with something called a Love-Knot,” Hermione replied matter-of-factly. “And we’re going to be late for class if you don’t hurry.” She looked down at her watch. “In fact, we’re already late!” She was about to rush out of the lavatory when Draco stopped her.
“Wait, I need the spell to mend my button first,” he told her.
“What button?” Hermione asked, eyeing him curiously.
“You ask too many bloody questions, you know that,” he grumbled. He lifted his robes, pointed at his pants at the area where the button was missing and showed her the popped button in his palm.
“Of all the times for your button to fall out,” Hermione sighed. “Why now?!”
Draco glared at her. “I didn’t ask it to fall out now!”
“Can we not argue now?” Hermione said.
“I didn’t start the argument!”
Hermione took a deep breath and told herself to calm down. “It’s not that big a deal,” she said to Draco. “You can’t even see that the button’s out because your school shirt and robes will be covering that area.”
“Granger, I thought you were the smart one of the Dream Team,” Draco growled. “Don’t you realize that if I don’t have a button in place to secure my pants’ zipper, then the zip may just come down on its own, causing my pants to fall in turn? I don’t want my pants to fall while I'm walking around! It’d be humiliating!”
Hermione folded her arms, raised her eyebrows and stared at Draco like he had sprouted an apple tree on his head. “Rubbish! That doesn’t even make any sense, Malfoy! I'm sure the zip will hold up even without the button in place. Honestly, the things you come up with…”
“Look, I'm just not comfortable with walking out of here with the button of my pants off!” Draco cried out edgily.
“Excellent time you chose to have insecurity issues about your pants!” Hermione yelled back. She checked her watch again. “And we’re five minutes late for Potions!”
Being unable to take it any longer, Hermione headed out of the bathroom and hoped that she could force Draco along with her.
Unfortunately for her, Draco was much stronger than her. He pulled her back and pinned her against the bathroom wall.
“Come on,” Draco half-whispered, “you didn’t honestly think you had enough strength to drag me along with you, did you?”
Hermione could feel his hot breath on her cheek and she stared back into his grey eyes defiantly. His grip on her wrists tightened.
“Will you just give me the bloody spell to mend the button? The sooner you do so, the faster we leave,” Draco said through gritted teeth. “I'm sure you don’t want to be any later for Potions, do you?”
And that did it. Hermione promptly told him the incantation for the spell, not wanting to waste anymore time.
“Wasn’t all that difficult, was it?” Draco said, releasing his vice-grip on her. He reached his robes for his wand, but found that it was not there. He checked all his pockets, but his wand seemed to have vanished. His eyes widened. He started searching through his schoolbag, spilling all of its contents onto the tiled floor of the bathroom. To his dismay, the wand was not there either.
“Why did you do that for?” Hermione asked, staring at the pile of books on the ground.
“I can’t find my wand!” Draco said, looking through his pockets again.
Hermione smacked her own forehead and cried out in frustration. Professor Snape was going to take pleasure in slaughtering them. They had to get to class, fast. Problem was, Draco was not about to leave until his button was fixed and his wand was now missing. Darn it.
Quickly making up her mind, Hermione dropped her bag down. She knelt down in front of Draco’s pants, the region where his button was missing and took her wand out.
“What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?!” Draco exclaimed in surprise.
“I'm going to fix your button for you with my wand, seeing that you are wandless at the moment,” Hermione explained.
“Why can’t you fix it in a standing position?” Draco asked. “This is quite an awkward position to be in if you didn’t notice.”
Hermione cocked an eyebrow and she could have sworn she saw Draco’s cheeks tinted with a faint pink. “I need to aim properly otherwise I’ll end up stitching something else, other than your button.” She smiled inwardly when she saw the look of horror on his face.
“Yes, I guess it is better that you get a good aim then,” he said, his voice a bit shrill.
Hermione snatched the little gray button from Draco’s hand and placed it on its original position. Pointing her wand at it, she muttered a spell and the button stitched itself in place.
Stashing her wand away into her robes, she plucked at the button to see if it was firmly in place.
It was then that unsuspecting Michael Corner came into the bathroom. Neither of the two Heads had heard the Ravenclaw enter. His jaw practically hit the floor and he froze on the spot upon seeing Draco and Hermione in that position.
Hermione was knelt down in front of Draco’s…well, you get the idea, and her back faced Michael, while Draco stared down at her. The scene in front of him played in a very different and incorrect way in his mind (imagine you saw a girl kneel down in front of a guy’s crotch area in a bathroom…what would you think? Well, I wouldn't think much of it, but Michael here has quite wayward imagination).
“There, all done,” Hermione said. “Quick and easy.”
“Will you get up then?” Draco said, glancing down at his pants to see the button. He tugged at it and was glad that it was sewn back properly. “Firm and in place. Not bad, Granger. Don’t expect a thank you because it wasn’t that big a deal.”
“I wasn’t expecting one from you anyway,” Hermione said, standing up. “This is the last time I'm doing anything for you.”
Michael gasped loudly, inferring all of Draco and Hermione’s actions and sentences wrongly.
The two students jumped slightly upon hearing the gasp. They did not realize that they had company. Draco looked up whilst Hermione turned to face Michael.
“Hello Michael. I didn’t hear you come,” she said with a smile, remembering him from the time he briefly dated Ginny. Her smile soon turned into a frown though, when she saw the expression on Michael’s face. “Are you quite all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I…I'm fine. Didn’t see a…anything at all,” Michael stammered, gripping the restroom door for support. “I didn’t see you blowing”doing anything.” His face turned beet red at his mistake. “I swear! Nothing at all. I’ll…I’ll just get going then!” With that, he dashed out of the bathroom without a second look at them.
Hermione stared after him, a puzzled look crossing her face. “What was he talking about? I couldn't understand much of it.”
For an instant, Draco looked as confounded as Hermione felt, but then he abruptly burst into laughter. “Oh Merlin! He thought that we were…that you were…” His voice was replaced by his thunderous laughter.
Hermione had never seen Draco laugh so hard before. He seemed to be having the time of his life. “I don’t see what so funny.”
“Granger, you’re unbelievably thick sometimes,” Draco said in between laughs. “Your friend saw us in what he thought was a compromising position, so it clicked in his head that””
“Holy cricket!” Hermione gasped, comprehension finally dawning upon her. She brought her hands up to cover her face, letting out a small yelp of despair. This only made Draco hoot with more laughter. Why did things like that happen to her?
“We’ve got to find him and set things straight,” Hermione decided, sounding determined. She let her hands drop to her sides and looked at Draco for agreement.
Draco took a moment to allow himself to quieten down. “He’s probably in class by now,” he said. “And we should really get going to class as well.”
“But Malfoy, what if Michael tells someone? Then what?” Hermione asked, a shiver running down her spine thinking of the consequences. “Can you imagine what the school will think of us? Of me?!”
“He won’t,” Draco said. “He looked too stunned to even use a bathroom ever again.”
Hermione was not convinced. She bit her bottom lip in uncertainty.
“If it bothers you so much we’ll find him later during lunch and use a memory charm on him,” Draco drawled, getting impatient.
“But that’s against the school rules!”
“Look Granger, he won’t tell anyone,” Draco said with assurance that startled Hermione.
“If you're so sure then…”
“We’re fifteen minutes late for Potions,” Draco reminded her. “Do you want to delay anymore?”
Hermione realized that Draco was right. She should focus on getting to Potions now and worry about Michael later. “I guess we better get going then.”
Picking up Draco’s books from the bathroom floor, they rushed all the way to the dungeons and after what seemed like forever, they reached the Potions lessons.
“Mr. Malfoy, Miss Granger, I see that you finally decided to join us,” Professor Snape said frostily. “Would you care to explain your late arrival to my class? I would most certainly like to hear it.”
“Sir, you won’t believe the amount of time Granger takes in the bathroom,” Draco said before Hermione had a chance to reply. “She dragged me into the bathroom and took ages in there, doing her hair and what not.”
Hermione’s mouth dropped opened and she stared at Draco. “What?!”
“I kept telling her we were going to be late, but alas my advice fell on deaf ears,” he continued dramatically.
“Is that so?” Professor Snape said slowly. “For your lack of discipline, Miss Granger, that will be ten points from Gryffindor. And ten points will be awarded to Slytherin for Mr. Malfoy’s efforts of trying to get you into class on time.” The corners of his thin mouth twitched into a self-satisfied smile when he saw Hermione’s eyes flash with anger.
“But Professor!”
“Do you want me to make that fifteen?” Professor Snape interrupted Hermione’s attempt at an explanation. “Now, go take a seat.”
Hermione glowered at Draco as he took a seat at the back of the class with a smug grin on his face. She could not believe he did that to her. She should have tried dragged him out of the bathroom with a spell, regardless of whether his stupid button had popped out or not.
Hermione grimly copied down the notes that were written on the blackboard. As she did so, she caught Harry and Ron’s eye and they offered her a sympathetic smile. She gave them a tiny smile in return and went back to copying her notes. She would explain Draco’s blatant lie later, during break.
After Potions, Draco told Hermione that he wanted to go to Filch’s office to see if the old caretaker had found his wand. Hermione did not reply, determined not to speak to Draco for the rest of the day.
Pansy came up to Draco and promptly slung her arm into his just as they were about to leave for Filch’s office. “Where are you going now, Draco?” she asked in what she apparently thought was a sweet voice.
“Filch’s office,” Draco answered. “To check whether my wand is there. I misplaced it.”
Pansy let out a girly giggle that made Hermione’s skin crawl. “Draco, you're so absent-minded sometimes,” she said. “You left your wand and the parcel you received this morning on the Slytherin table in the Great Hall.” She paused to search through her bag and from inside she retrieved Draco’s wand and the package. “Lucky for you, I picked it up for you. I wanted to give it to you before we started Potions, but I didn’t see you with the rest of us, so I thought it could wait till later.”
The relief on Draco’s face was unmistakable. He planted a kiss on Pansy’s cheek and she elated by the response. “You're the best, Pansy,” he said huskily.
“I know,” she said with yet another girlish giggle. She leaned it closer to Draco and looked at him expectantly, as though anticipating another kiss.
“Before you make me regurgitate my breakfast,” Hermione said loudly, reminding the two of her presence, “can we please head for our next class?”
“What’s your next class, Draco?” Pansy asked, arm still tightly around Draco’s, acting like Hermione had not spoken.
“Defense Against The Dark Arts,” he replied, “with the Gryffindorks.”
Pansy laughed idiotically at his so-called joke. “Poor baby,” she cooed, finally releasing his arm. “I’ll see you later then.” With that, she strode off in the opposite direction.
“Jealous?” Draco asked, eyeing Hermione who was glaring after Pansy.
Hermione narrowed her eyes. “That will be the day, Malfoy.”
Author's Note (this is a long one): Hello all! It’s me again. I just wanted to say that I had a hard time deciding whether or not to post this chapter up. Why, you may ask? Well, it’s not that it’s a bad chapter or anything. I actually really, really like it. I was inspired to write it after I watched ‘Two Weeks Notice’ (funny and cute show!).
Initially, I felt that it was a tad redundant because it helped the plot only in a small way. But a friend of mine, Serina (remember her?) insisted that the whole button bit helped further intensify Draco and Hermione’s predicament. The chapter also showed a little bit more of Draco’s and Pansy relationship (toward the end). Dear Serina also said that this chapter showed that Draco’s still an arrogant, bratty pain-in-the-ass despite showing a spark of emotion toward Hermione in the previous chapter (when he put the blame on Hermione for turning up late for Potions). Personally, I think that Serina’s just loves this chapter as much as I do and therefore wants me to put it up for her sake though she does have a point.
So, I finally made my mind up to let you guys, the readers, decide! Leave me a review, letting me know of what you think of this chapter, whether it was good or bad in your opinion, and whether it deserves to be deleted or not. And based on that response, I’ll decide what to do with this chapter! Thanks guys! =D