Chapter 2
"Do it!" Ginny said. Hermione was shocked. This was hardly the reaction she thought she would get from her best friend when she told her that their arch enemy had invited himself to travel with her.
"You can't be serious, Ginny!" Hermione said. "It's Draco Malfoy!"
Ginny shrugged. "Yeah, but you need someone to go with you, and he's hot!"
Hermione smacked her playfully on the arm. "Ginny!" But she couldn't help but laugh.
"You know I'm right!" Ginny teased. "Besides, who else are you going to take? My brother is being a nitwit and running after that idiot Lavender Brown. You know I'd go with you, but I can't leave Albus. And if you don't find someone, they're going to pull the plug on your book!"
Hermione knew that Ginny was right, and she hated it. "He's just going to be so arrogant and smug the whole time, just like he was this morning. I mean seriously, stop begging? Me? Begging him? You've got to be kidding me."
But Ginny just looked at her with a knowing smile and Hermione threw her hands in the air with a defeated sigh. "I'm going to have to go with Malfoy, aren't I? Can you imagine? All these romantic locations, beaches and amusement parks and mountains, places people go with people they love, and I'm going to be there with Draco Malfoy. Yuck."
Ginny laughed. "Sorry."
Hermione got up to leave, resigned to her fate and ready to send an owl to Draco Malfoy, but she turned to Ginny before she left. "Do me a favor, don't tell Harry and Ron that I'm going with him. They'll probably try to stop me."
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Hermione had owled Malfoy to ask him to meet her back at The Leaky Cauldron, but he had replied telling her to meet him at Malfoy Manor. Something about not wanting to be seen by reporters again.
Hermione stood in her fireplace, floo powder in hand, trying to bring herself to say where she wanted to go. "Malfoy Manor" she finally spit out as she dropped the floo powder.
"Hey there, Granger." Malfoy said casually as she appeared in his fireplace.
He was lounging on the couch, wearing a Holyhead Harpies sweatshirt and jeans.
"Hi." She said, without really looking at him. She started setting up her laptop and notebooks, and finally she forced herself to look up at him.
"Ok, so the point of this is to try and find out what muggle areas are going to be of interest to wizards, and what are the easiest ways for them to navigate themselves around these places. I've chosen 10 destinations, and we'll spend 1-4 weeks in each location. Before we get going, we need to plan all of these vacations."
She handed him a list. "I also want to know how familiar you are with some of these destinations, so I want you to take a look at this list and let me know if you've ever been to any of these places or how much you know about them."
Draco took the sheet of paper from her hand and looked it over.
1. Hawaii, USA
2. Smokey Mountains, Tennessee, USA
3. Disney World, Orlando Florida, USA
4. New York City, New York, USA
5. Paris, France
6. Rome, Italy
7. Santorini, Greece
8. Safari in Tanzania
9. Tokyo, Japan
10. Caribbean cruise
"Some of this sounds made up, Granger." He said, handing the list back to her. "And I've never been to any of these places, except Paris."
"Good, then this will all be new to you." She said, ignoring his condescension. "How much experience do you have with the internet?"
"The what?" Draco asked.
Hermione laughed. "That's what I thought."
Hermione turned the laptop toward him and pulled a small black box from her bag. "What's that?" Draco asked, pointing to the box.
"It's a mobile hotspot." Hermione answered, knowing he wouldn't know what it meant.
Draco looked at her, clearly confused. Hermione shook it off. "Look, I understand that wizards don't have a lot of experience with the internet and won't have all of this equipment. That's why I'm going to encourage them to use the internet at public places or pick up guide books when they're making their plans. Seeing as how you didn't even want to meet me at The Leaky Cauldron again, I figured you would be in favor of whatever kind of planning we can do from inside your house."
Draco nodded. "That's definitely true." He pulled the laptop closer to him on the table and started pushing buttons. "So how does this work?"
"Not like that." Hermione said, snatching it from him. She glared at him. "Listen, this is really important to me, so if you want me to let you escape with me, you're going to have to cooperate. I know you're used to calling the shots, but I'm in charge here and if you do one thing to make me angry, I'm leaving you in Tanzania to get eaten by a lion. Are we clear?"
Draco held up his hands in surrender. "Crystal. Just tell me what to do."