Chapter 38
Chapter 38:
Hermione only slightly felt bad for what she did to Draco, but she wasn’t going to apologize. When she came across him the following day she lifted her chin in the air and walked with confidence, he didn’t acknowledge. However, she wasn’t halfway down the hall when he quickly caught up to her, of course, he could catch up so quickly when his legs were a mile long.
Shaking off the irritation, she waited for him to start.
“I shall have you know that I’ve considered at length what my retaliation should be for that little trick you played.”
His tone was menacing enough to scare a letter witch but she was unaffected as she responded, “Oh yeah? And what have you concluded?”
“I’ve concluded to not tell you when or what my revenge will be, so you’ll just have to watch over your shoulder.”
“And is the paranoia the punishment then?”
“Only you can decide that.” He added with a smirk.
“Has anyone ever told you to think too highly of yourself, Malfoy?”
He looked pensive a second before responding to that query, “Well, not in such a dignified manner, but yes. Yes, they have.”
At that, Hermione felt a little shame remembering the Howlers from Christmas. Of course, he would be used to the verbal abuse of others.
“Well then, it seems I don’t need to remind you. Have you decided to stop helping then? If so that’s fine by me, I’m more than capable of chasing those leads down.”
“Blimey, and here I thought the war heroes had hung up their cloaks of fight.” He sighed deeply. “I could you know, stop helping, and make sure no one else in the field helps you. I may not have a lot of respect left here but I have a lot of connection and influence abroad where most of the research was done.”
“Alright then, I’m sure I can still manage. But know that your lack of action can directly impact this hard-earned peace of ours.”
“I said I could Granger, not that I am. I want to help. If you think this doesn’t bode well then I’ll help you.”
“Fine.”
“I believe that you meant ‘Thank you’.” He’s stopped walking in front of her with arms crossed.
Hermione weighed the pros and cons of her response and found that she would prefer not to triple the workload if possible, even if meant being a tiny bit nicer to Malfoy, after all, she really expected he would hex her hair off for that stunt she pulled and then she’d have to explain to the headmistress why she was having petty fights with a colleague.
“Fine, Malfoy, thank you for doing the bare minimum required of a decent wizard.”
“Just ‘thank you’ would have sufficed.”
Not wanting to waste any more time chit-chatting and still flying high off the rush of yesterday’s defiant action, she asked, “So where shall we start? I think it’s best we don’t raise suspicion by asking too many questions, I think based on your location intel we can acquire a map of Great Britain and perform some kind of grid. I was thinking they might be ways about the two deterrents of the Well..”
Before she could finish, Draco made to cut her off. “Granger while a lecture from you on treasure hunting would be thrilling this early, I’ve already devised a plan. As a professor now I have certain privileges of research into the Dark Arts, by inquiring about this with my contacts in the UK and Austria I can get more information. Particularly from my friends in Austria who have spent a great deal of time searching for this well following the First War. I can make the inquiries and while we hear back you can just lay low on this.”
“We can’t possibly sit idle.”
“We aren’t, we’ll be doing this amazing concept called “delegating”, I’ve exhausted my knowledge and between teaching and your research you can’t tell me you have the time to take this on.”
“But..” Hermione didn’t take kindly to his interruption
“Really? Where is the harm, we don’t know of any immediate danger to the wizarding world and as far we know you are the only person in position of that much Fairy Water potentially on the entire continent.”
“Then we must try to attempt to uncover the identity of my benefactor. We can lay low on finding the Well ourselves, but then I insist we investigate the source of the gifts, I’m certain they either work here or have access to the grounds otherwise.”
“Have you tried leaving a note?” he said with obvious sarcasm.
“Are you being funny?”
“I’m serious, you said one of the gifts came with a note, have you left one back?”
“As if it would be that easy” though she considered why she hadn’t begun corresponding with the
“You never know until you try. Well, this has been quite the morning. I must be getting on then.”
“As am I. You’ll let me see your letters of inquiry.”
“Whatever for?” he said most indignantly.
Must she explain everything, she rolled her eyes, “so that I can make sure you are asking all the right questions.”
“Goodbye Granger,” Malfoy said flippantly as she turned and walked away from her. She considered for a fraction of a second sending a stinging hex his way, but alas there were students all around.
There were students all around? Hermione observed again, it had almost felt like it was just her and Malfoy for the past 10 minutes. Hmm….interesting she noted as she made her way to her classroom.
For the rest of the day, Hermione couldn’t shake that feeling from the morning. Something was changing, but she didn’t know what.