Chapter 2
Days passed and these interactions didn’t happen again. Hermione spend all her free time thinking about non-punishable ways to torture Ron, wondering if there was a way to get away with murder or at least, with humiliating him the best she could.
Draco couldn’t go back to his normal routine. He was concerned with the whole drama now, and he couldn’t even avoid eavesdropping at the mention of Weasley, Brown or Granger.
He worried about Hermione’s behaviour, about her actually doing something dangerous that could get her banned from the NEWTs. He tried to find a way to explain this concern but soon he realised, part of the thrill of taking the test, was to have Granger as competition.
They crossed paths several times, but they never chatted. Sometimes, they’d meet in the hallways and he would just whisper, “be careful”.
It was Wednesday, they had an extracurricular potion’s class. It was hard to get seventh graders to attend extracurricular classes, because most of them didn’t care about it. Professor Slughorn waited for fifteen minutes, but no more than five students were present.
Hermione was there, along with Draco, Pansy Parkinson, Theodore Nott and Lavender Brown. If they were an odd number of students, there was no way to work in groups, she wouldn’t have to team up with Brown. Twenty minutes in, Ron Weasley entered the class.
“Oh, wonderful, Mr. Weasley!”, Slughorn exclaimed. “I needed just one more student.”
Out of every-fucking-one… thought Hermione. Her eyes connected to Draco, who was staring at her, then at her desk. On her desk there was a sheet of paper. A note.
It was a drawing. One of Draco’s classic drawings.
In red, it had a big “DON’T”, and a drawing of Hermione giving Ron a potion, followed by dead Weasley on the floor.
Hermione tried to suppress a laugh, which caught Slughorn’s attention. “You find my class funny, Miss Granger?”
“No, sir. I was just about to cough.”, she lied. Draco smiled, she knew mentally he was thinking her acting skills sucked.
Slughorn resumed his lesson, deciding they would work in pairs. Pansy told him to let us work in groups, but he bluntly said no. She wanted to pair up with Draco, who was completely unaware of the whole conversation, since his focus was on Granger’s situation.
Lavender and Ron were already sitting together. He eyed at Hermione, like expecting her to look in his direction, to beg him to pair up with her. She just acted indifferent.
Pansy was arguing with Nott and Malfoy. She didn’t want any of them to pair up with Granger, but if she had to choose, she preferred Malfoy.
“Well, you go Theodore.”, she ordered. When Nott was about to stand, Draco touched his arm, “I’ll go.”, he whispered, and his friend just nodded in return.
Hermione Granger couldn’t believe the whole situation. Draco Malfoy had willingly decided to pair up with a Gryffindor rather than his own group. “What? Why?”, she whispered to him.
“Because we’re the two best students. If this is a competition against others, I’d like to win without worrying much.”, he replied, finally placing his things in her station.
The class was in fact, a competition, and just as Draco had predicted, their team was way ahead of the others. They had to prepare an antidote for a specific poison.
Hermione couldn’t concentrate at all, it’s not like she needed to do much, she was paired up with the best potioneer among all students. Her neck was burning from Ron’s staring. It was almost too annoying. Draco noticed this, and looked at the redhead a few times, smirking with pride. After they finished the antidote, Slughorn checked, and as he realised it was perfectly done, he granted them 10 points each. They congratulated each other and just seated and watched as the others finished their brewings.
Pansy and Nott ended up second. Their antidote was alright but it had some backlashes, so it wasn’t usable. Lavender and Weasley were the last team, and their potion station was already a mess of burned cauldrons, stains and liquids falling from it.
Once they finished, it took Slughorn just one look to see they had failed. Their potion was anything but an antidote. So they didn’t even get to be called third place.
Ron was mad, not only had he failed against Malfoy, but also his Mione was with him. And they teamed up well, they even laughed together.
While they were leaving the classroom, Ron went straight to Draco. “Hey, bloody snake.”
Draco turned around, just to find an angry redhead coming straight at him with his fist prepared to punch him in the face. If it was Granger, or even Potter, it would probably have hit him, but Weasley was slow. He dodged his fist without much trouble.
“What do you want, weasel?”, he asked, uninterested.
Weasley’s face was almost as red as his hair. He was really, really angry. “I saw what you were trying to do. Winning my girl over…”
Draco acted confused. “As far as I’m aware, I didn’t even look at Brown.”
“Not Brown. Hermione.”, Ron corrected him. Of course he was talking about Granger. Malfoy wasn’t stupid, he just pretended for the sake of having fun.
“Oh.”, he said, feigning sorry. “I didn’t know you were still together.”
“We’re… on a break. A pause.”, explained Ron. “But we are figuring out what to do.”
Malfoy couldn’t really understand if Ron was stupid or if he just honestly believed he hadn’t done anything wrong. “A pause?”
Ron nodded. Draco suddenly felt someone besides him, the smell of parchment and roses hinted it was Granger.
“We’re not on a break, Ronald.”, she said bluntly. “We broke up, because you fucking cheated on me.”
Ron was still. Lavender Brown at his side, acting as if she wasn’t involved in it. Draco wondered if the weasel would deny it or do worse. It was worse.
“It was a mistake, Mione.”, Ron claimed. “And it seems like you didn’t care much, since you’re straight out looking for pureblood dick.”
That phrase was enough to turn Hermione into a wrecking mess. She grabbed her wand and walked up to Weasley, poking his throat with it. “I dare you to say it again.”
Ronald swallowed saliva. Draco smiled. Granger’s hair was floating around her, her body tense, her hand gripping the wand with enough strength to snap it in half.
Ron couldn’t say a word. Lavender began crying and ran away asking for professor Slughorn. Draco walked straight at Granger and grabbed her arm.
“He’s not worth detention, Granger.”, he seriously said. Just like that, she snapped out of her raging trance and she left, Malfoy walking behind her.
“This is not over, snake.”, he heard Weasley behind him, yelling. “I’ll get her back.”
Malfoy couldn’t follow her rhythm, he was walking fast. As fast as she could. Damned, she was almost running. He never stopped to wonder why he was following Hermione Granger this whole time, or what he expected to do after he finally caught her. He knew people looked at them with a weird expression, probably thinking they’d argued about something.
She finally stopped at the Astronomy Tower. “For Merlin’s sake, Granger.”, he began, “I wasn’t ready to do cardio tod-”, he stopped right on his phrase. She had turned around, and her cheeks were all wet. She was crying, sobbing. Trying to cover herself.
He’d never seen her like that. He had seen her crying, or sad but not to this extent.
“Why the hell are you here?”, she asked. “Why did you follow me?”
He didn’t know the answer. Because I was curious? Because I wanted to make sure you were okay? Because I care about you? It all sounded like bullshit.
He managed to reply “It just felt right.”
They stood there in silence. She hid her face so she could cry without worrying, and Malfoy didn’t intervene. He just let her cry. Once she finished, he let out a small sigh.
“If you want, I can hex him for you.”, he said and she chuckled.
She shook her head. “No. You’re right. He’s not worth being punished.”
There was another moment of silence. Those weren’t awful nor uncomfortable, because both of them knew their minds were working.
“You still want to get your revenge, right?”, he asked. He needed to make sure his offer wouldn’t sound like a stupid idea. She nodded, as he continued. “Well… I’ve never seen Weasley as jealous and annoyed as he was today. So I was thinking…”
She waited. A part of her expected him to come up with something very specific, yet she knew he wouldn’t be part of something like that. A part of her enjoyed Ronald being jealous about the thought of her and Draco, and she had been thinking about that.
“We could pretend to be together.”
They were both silent again. She was wondering how to agree with his idea without looking desperate, and he was regretting how bluntly he said it.
“Won’t it be… bad for your image? To be seen with you?”, she finally asked.
“You make it sound like I hate you.”, he replied.
“You don’t?”, she asked. Her eyes were wide open, like this was new information.
“Please, Granger. I wouldn’t even talk to you if that was the case.”, he chuckled. “I just love messing around with you, that’s it.”
She was startled. Malfoy had never hated her, and now that she began thinking about it, he was right. Their banter was never out of hatred. They were rivals, and they enjoyed that small rivalry against each other. It pushed them to be better, to exceed one another.
“It was a stupid idea, I’m sor-”, he began.
“Let’s do it.”, she cut him off. If there was one single thing that could hurt Ron more than any curse, it was the idea of her being in the arms of the guy he hated the most.