Chapter 4
Hermione’s POV
When Snape read that she would be partnered with Draco Malfoy, she almost broke down there and then. Malfoy had been a nuisance all week, attacking her out of nowhere. Having to actually spend time with him, regarding her current mental state, was not what she needed at all. But she knew that she would not sacrifice her academics just because of her rocky personal life. Her and Draco would just have to put their differences aside; she picked up her bag and roughly threw it over her shoulder, trudging toward Malfoy to sit next to him so they could start their partner work. She dropped into the seat beside him turning to face him.
” Look, I know neither of us wants to be partners so let's just push through until the project is over.”
He sneered at her.
“I don’t want to spend any more time with you than I have to.”
She rolled her eyes already expecting his distain.
“We’re in agreement on that, but I’m not willing to do badly on this project Malfoy.”
He still didn’t look placated.
“Look lets meet in the library at 4, for 2 hours every other day, until it’s done. I’m sure silence will be fine and not much actual talking will be necessary.”
He looked as if he was going to protest again.
“Malfoy”, she said firmly.
“I know you want a high grade just as much as me...”
His resolve against her seemed to have been softened.
“fine”, he mumbled.
“But this doesn’t mean we’re friends or even that I don’t hate you!”
“Well aware, it’s mutual.” she said.
“ok” he answered.
“ok” she responded.
Snape came around giving them a scroll with the premise of their project their scroll had instructed them to find the best alternative for unicorn hair when making mind altering potions. So, Hermione had set to work breaking down the magical composition of unicorn hair and Draco was researching its effects in mind altering potions.
The entire lesson they sat in uncomfortable silence; tension was filling the air between them as they scrawled down notes on the parchment. Every so often, Hermione would stop to stare at him as he worked. She thought that maybe her and Draco would have worked well together, if he wasn’t such a bigoted idiot. He cared just as much about his grades as she did; he was second only to her in every class. Draco looked up and caught her staring their eyes met and they both didn’t blink, neither breaking the fragile string of eye contact between them. She felt her cheeks flush from embarrassment of being caught staring. Finally, to breach their uneasy momentary connection, she reached over him with a muffled apology to grab the ink pot adjacent to him, he didn’t respond, just made a face at her and returned to his work. By the end of the lesson, they had a fair amount of research on the topic
Hermione said an awkward goodbye and told him to meet in the library. He shoved past her and rushed out the room, she scurried after him exiting the classroom as fast as possible, feeling unexplainably freer when out in the corridor.
She made her way to her next lesson, unable to keep her mind off her and Draco’s interactions in the lesson; she thought about how he must be thinking of her, having caught her staring at him so blatantly. She’d never cared what Malfoy thought of her before, but this was different, she had now actively done something, sort of strange.
She was unfocused in all her lessons overanalysing their scarce interactions over the past few days... Thinking about how much she dreaded seeing him in the library after lessons finished.
Despite this, after her final lesson ended, she rushed to the library to get there before him, wanting to get to her favourite seat, and to seem more punctual than him.
It didn’t occur to her until she rounded the corner making her way to meet him, that to catch her while she was staring. his eyes must have wondered to look at her as well.
She bolted in through the large doors leading to the palace of books where she spent a disproportionate amount of her free time. As she reached her preferred seat, she saw a shimmer of platinum blonde sat there. She inwardly cursed herself for not getting her way before he did.
“Hello, Malfoy”, she forced a smile upon her unwilling face.
He tilted his head in acknowledgement “Granger”.
Then looked at the clock mounted on the wall.
“You’re almost late,”
It was 1 minute to 4 she was on time.
“Being almost late is the same as being perfectly on time. I am a very punctual person Malfoy.”
She took the seat next to him and began taking her text books out.
“Can I read over your research so I can highlight potential links between both of our findings.”
He gave her a searching look before nodding his head.
“Ok, if you want. But I want to check your research to make sure you’re actually getting it right.”
She looked at him raising her eyebrows, as if to ask ‘really?’ but he seemed insistent.
“Whatever, Malfoy if it helps you sleep at night.”
“You have no effect on how I sleep at night.”
She took a deep breath in.
“I'll give you my notes to ‘check over’ if you need.”
She gave him a withering look.
They exchanged their parchment scrolls, taking care not to touch each other’s hands when passing them.
And then the silence from the potions classroom filled the air again. Hermione thought it was worse than listening to chattering and other students being noisy which was odd because normally she craved silence.
She felt the lack of sound seep into her brain as if it were deafening. She couldn’t focus, everything was so tense and uncomfortable; she felt like she couldn’t move, because despite the fact she hated the silence, she felt like she couldn’t break it. She couldn’t fragment it.
She centred her mind and attempted to shift her focus onto the scroll she was supposed to be reading, but the words seemed to trail off in her mind.
She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t. It was stupid. She was being stupid. This shouldn’t be hard she could always work in library, and often times wished for silence as piercing as this. But, with him next to her it was different. It changed everything. She could see his shoulder rising and falling with each breath out the corner of her eye.
Abruptly, she stood up and her quill dropped to the floor as it slid from her lap, he looked at her bewildered at her strange behaviour.
“Um, I’m feeling sick”
He didn’t seem convinced which to be honest was fair as she wasn’t very convincing.
“I need to go to Madame Pomfrey.”
She turned her back to him but before she could start walking, she felt a tug on her robes, and turned to see Draco leaning over and his hand was on her uniform. He quickly withdrew sitting straight again
“I’m not willing to do badly on the project, Granger...”
He was smiling at her, a real smile, an arrogant one but real none the less. And his arrogance was because he was quoting her from earlier in the day. He was fucking quoting her. She looked back at him, her lips parted slightly but not a word left her mouth.
“Sit back down, I don’t bite, we can be cordial for this small amount of time...”
“I wasn’t lying, I feel light headed I really think its best if I- “
“Sit. “
“Back.”
“Down.”
He said slowly and firmly slightly louder than before.
“It's already 5, that’s just an hour left I’m sure it won’t kill you, just drink some water or something, I don’t know. I’ve never seen you miss a day of school before unless you’re on deaths doorstep.”
He was right she had had 100% attendance except from in 2nd year when she was petrified and the incident with the poly juice potion. She didn’t like being behind on school work.
“You can’t order me around, Malfoy, I don’t have to do what you say!”, she snapped back at him only because she knew he was right, and she should stay and finish her work.
“Fine then, let me make it clear, I wasn’t ordering, I was asking you to stay.”
He said sarcastically.
“ok”, she said dropping back into her seat.
“ok”, he responded.
She was practically a grown woman; she could sit in silence with Malfoy and work. This hysterical behaviour from her recently was very unlike her.
And it needed to stop.
There were worse things in the world than Malfoy, though not many, she thought. But that was beside the point keeping it together around some idiot school boy, was the least that was required from her.
She gritted her teeth and got on with it. She barely noticed the sound of Malfoys breathing next to her, nor the tap of his foot inches away from hers. The only thing she cared about was her work. That is all.
When the clock hit 6, she bolted up right, gathering her things and stuffing them into her satchel, not taking the time she needed for her usual precision in packing up and ordering her notes. she thrusted Malfoy’s notes in his direction and went to grab hers from his hands but she didn’t feel them slip out of his grip. In fact, his grip tightened.
“What are you doing Malfoy were done. Its 6, see.”
She gestured with her hand toward the clock.
“Now, will you please give me my notes.”
“No, I didn’t finish reading them.”
“Malfoy, you had 2 hours!”
She declared exasperated.
“You write a lot and your handwriting is awful!”
He retorted.
“No, it’s not,”
She uttered under her breath.
It was. She’d been told many times by a complaining Harry or Ron when trying to copy her work.
“Give it to me after class tomorrow then, I want to annotate them with information I got from your notes before our next...” She moved her hands between the 2 of them unable to find the right word
“This.”
“Fine,”
He pronounced dryly.
That night Hermione’s sleep was interrupted with odd blurry images of a platinum blonde boy making sneering comments about her but there was something oddly captivating about him. Though even in her sleep riddled state, she seemed not to want to let herself think that. He felt like a memory, silvery and cool and not quite the same as the first time round. She felt as if she should wish to expel these thoughts of this man, but under the influence of the drug that was slumber, she couldn’t remember why.