“A week,” Nott said in what was evidently supposed to be an intimidating voice. “Seven days.”
“And I feel so enlightened,” Draco said sarcastically. “But good on you for figuring that out, Nott.”
“Plenty of time,” Nott continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “to have deliberated. And definitely more time than I allotted for you originally. And tomorrow’s the match.”
Allotted for you. Like he thinks he’s got jurisdiction over me.
“The answer’s no, Nott.”
“No?” Nott’s rabbity nostrils flared unattractively. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no“the opposite of yes."
“Is that so,” Nott hissed. "Guess I'll have the whole school find out why you were in the company of none other than Moaning Myrtle, haunter of the girls' toilet and your confidante.”
Draco’s heart hammered wildly“so he does know.
“Nobody would believe you,” Draco parried. Which would have been the truth last year, when he was still the forefront of the Slytherins, the spokesperson, the entertainer, the leader of the pack. Was it still the truth? But now…he was beginning to feel doubtful whether he still had the same prestige as before. He hadn’t exactly been up for socializing lately. For good measure, he added, “You’re nobody.” That much he knew was true.
Nott paled in his anger, his eyes swathed with a momentary red reminiscent of the Dark Lord. “Payback's a bitch, and it's on your heels, Draco.”
Draco raised his eyebrows slightly at the unexpected vulgarity, but he was relieved to have won the battle and he retreated from the common room without a second glance to spare for the mutiny and loathing borne on Nott’s face.
“Hermione?”
“It’s you,” Hermione said disbelievingly, but still managing to convey her current non-feelings of feelings towards the red-haired figure that was Ron Weasley.
Without preamble, Ron said, “Lavender sort of mentioned you. Did you two have a row or something?”
“Does it matter?” Hermione said as flippantly as she could manage.
“It does if you’re arguing about…well, me,” Ron said apologetically and with hesitancy that was completely understandable from the practically murderous expression on Hermione’s face.
Hermione said nothing.
“Well…I know not everything is about ‘sodding Ron Weasley’, but…” Ron continued slightly awkwardly, fidgeting with his fingers.
“So you heard me then,” Hermione said, some of her anger abating and now feeling slightly abashed for her former outburst. It was like she could no longer master her own emotions“they flowed out of her like a waterfall, never-ending.
“Loud and clear,” Ron said, grinning slightly in spite of himself. “So…” He looked at her expectantly to fill the silence, but she didn’t know what to say. Deny her feelings for him further so as to further convince him that she had them? Tell him she had just spent time in the company of Draco Malfoy? No, and double no.
“So we’re good then?” he finally said.
“We’re good,” Hermione managed to utter, but just barely. The evening had exhausted her, and her mind was working actively to regress all memories of being in a classroom with Malfoy in the past hour, which was hard work in itself.
“Good,” Ron repeated, his eyes taking in the surroundings of the now empty common room as if they were completely unfamiliar and focusing on anything but her.
“So…night then,” Hermione said as naturally as she could make it, intentionally dropping the ‘good’ in ‘good night’ because she did not honestly think she could say it again and not mean it.
“Yeah…night,” Ron said, yawning a bit too ostentatiously to be genuine. “I’m tired,” he added to fill the space.
Thirty seconds. Neither of them moved from their spots, although Ron did adjust his shoelaces, untying and retying them in an almost obsessive manner.
“What?” Hermione said, abandoning all pretense that she was not aware of his presence.
“I…maybe you haven’t noticed, but Lavender and I don’t really talk.”
“You mean you actually have time to after all that pouncing around?” Hermione laughed at the bemused look on Ron’s face and added, “Ginny’s choice of word.”
“Oh. Well, yeah. Lavender and I don’t communicate...in the verbal sense.”
“And you’re telling me this because I’m supposed to think of some ingenious way to make you two not only physical companions but soul mates?”
“Well, no, but...”
“It’s late, Ron,” Hermione sighed, gesturing to the window. “You’re tired, I’m tired.” Noticing that Ron looked to be on the bridge of some inner turmoil, she said dutifully, “What is it?” with the feeling that she might as well assuage herself back in the role of a friend.
The infinitesimal pause between them was just enough time for Ron to move towards her, and he kissed her, but Hermione broke apart from him a nanosecond after in disgust that surprised her more than Ron. “What do you think you’re doing?” she shrieked, wiping her mouth on the sleeve of her robe. “You’re with Lavender.”
With sudden realization, she spat furiously, "I don’t have feelings for you, Ronald Weasley, contrary to what everyone else in the world thinks! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the girls’ dormitory to empty my mind of everything that happened tonight,” the enunciation of ‘everything’ leaving Ron to wonder just what that everything was.
“Been thinking of me of late, Granger?” The voice was as familiarly drawling as always, but he was not lurking in the shadows this time but rather, blocking all the natural light in the library.
“A world of no.” Hermione would have said more, but she didn’t want to encourage conversation, or any interaction whatsoever with Draco Malfoy. Not that anything would stop him from starting it. What are you doing to stop continuing it? an infuriating little voice inside her head said.
“Yeah, right. Come on, Granger. You could at least put some effort into your lies.”
She was relieved that he had reverted to using her surname again, once again assuming the regular roles of mutual loathing between them she was used to. Only, it seemed Malfoy wanted to change the loathing into something more. But do I?
“Shut up.” Two words, and the only appropriate response for his statement, because “denial is a beautiful thing.”
“Almost hurt my feelings there, Granger. Well, you would have if I didn’t know your illicit intentions.”
“My illicit intentions? Let’s talk about you, shall we?” Hermione sniped. “You corner me in the library, then a classroom“”
“Let it be established that I did not corner you in a classroom“that was all you.”
Hermione disregarded the fact that he had spoken at all, and her temper once again failing to be mastered. “You ask me personal questions out of no where, and when I asked you a few questions, you didn’t answer them. Well, er, not properly.” She could feel her resolve to stay angry give way to mortification. For something to do in the absence of dialogue and also to avoid looking at the person before her, she propped open Advanced Transfiguration on the table, her eyes staring at the same line again and again without taking any of it in.
Malfoy’s arm extended on the table and Hermione instinctively drew hers back away from him, afraid he would take it. Instead, he shut Advanced Transfiguration with a resounding slam, echoing long after it had slammed.
“For a certified teacher’s pet, you really don’t get this, do you? It’s pretty obvious, when you think about it.”
I don't want to think about it. "Think about what?"
“Us.” It was amazing how one word, one syllable could make her feel like she’d been doused in lethal poison.
“Us? There is no ‘us’. Are you stoned?” she asked incredulously.
“Stoned?” Lack of comprehension was evident in his grey eyes. Why are you looking in his eyes? Stop it. Stop it now.
“It’s a term Muggles use to define the state of er, intoxication…from a drug. Usually marijuana,” Hermione explained, seizing the chance to change the direction of the conversation.
“Mare-a-what?” Malfoy looked perplexed.
“A drug,” Hermione repeated, grabbing her textbook and making a note to find a new place to concentrate quietly, preferably one Draco Malfoy couldn’t infiltrate on.
Malfoy stared at a far angle of the library, clearly trying to make sense of her explanation of marijuana and the state of intoxication. Evidently, it was a concept he couldn’t understand and he shook his head and stared right through her again. “Leaving, are you?”
“Well, you’re not, and one of us should,” she snapped loftily.
“Us?” Malfoy repeated, smirking.
“Not like that,” Hermione snapped, buckling her bag so furiously that it kept slipping from her fingers.
“Drop the condescending manner already, Hermione.”
He had used her first name again, and it was this, more than anything that triggered her momentarily immobile feet to finally move, and away from him.
“Hermione.”
Malfoy had spoken her name in an almost devious way, and Ron had said her name with trepidation, and now it was Harry who said her name in casual tones that masked an accusation.
“Oh, hi, Harry,” she said in the same mock casual tones. Harry was holding the Marauder’s Map, and his finger was set on a dot with the name Draco Malfoy.
“A few minutes ago, your name was right up there with his. Were you trying to get out information from him or something?”
“Er, yes. That’s what I was doing.”
“Before or after you kissed him?”
“Wha“what?”
How, how could he know?
"The Marauder’s Map doesn’t lie, Hermione. But I guess you do.”
Without warning, Harry became Ron, whose face was contorted angrily.
“So he’s your what, boyfriend now, is he?” he said scathingly.
“No! God, no!”
“It was for revenge, wasn’t it? I can’t believe you, Hermione.”
Like a desperate pleading child, she cried, "He started it!"
" 'We' started it." It wasn’t Ron’s voice, it was Malfoy’s, and he stood next to Ron, the two of them both taller than her and with the same glares, but with different meanings behind them.
And she was defenseless now, with steel bars imprisoning her. She shook the bars uselessly, the darkness enfolding her like a reassuring blanket but without the warmth or comfort. “Let me go! I’m innocent!”
A mob of people passed by her, laughing raucously at the sign that read MUDBLOOD: PLAYED THE HEARTS OF THE PURE. The forefront of the mob was a pockmarked man with a cane riding on what seemed to be a growling purple lion with wings. “You were a tourist in this world, girl, and now you’re where you belong“behind bars.”
“I’m innocent!” she pleaded piteously amidst more gales of laughter. “I didn’t mean it to happen! Let me go! Let me go! I DIDN’T WANT HIM TO KISS ME!“
"Hermione?”
Her name spoken again with trepidation, only it was Lavender and Parvati at her side, looking both worried and scared, although there was some annoyance present in Lavender’s face as well.
“I’m fine,” she said slightly shakily. “Really. I just had a…a dr“nightmare..”
“What about?” Lavender asked, raising her eyebrows, the worry and fear gone without a trace. “You said something like, ‘I didn’t want him to kiss me’.”
“Did I?” Hermione felt dazed now.
“Yeah, you did. What are the chances you were talking about my boyfriend?”
Hermione groaned. It was one-thirty in the morning, and still Lavender had the energy to make nonsensical accusations. “Lavender, the day I snatch your boyfriend is one that’s never coming. I don’t feel that way about Ron.”
“Oh, please. Who else could you be talking about?”
Draco Malfoy. But she said nothing, returning Lavender’s glare unflinchingly. Lavender broke eye contact first and harrumphed, settling back on her bed with her eyes closed but with her arms crossed. Parvati shrugged in apology for Lavender’s behavior and followed suit.
But Hermione couldn’t go back to sleep. She was afraid of what other nighttime messages might haunt her, and instead, lay rigid and restless.