Repercussions

“You should be done adding the ingredients by now. Please remove your cauldrons from the flame and let it sit for a few minutes. Your potion will start to feel cold, and you will know it is ready to drink when steam starts to rise from the difference in temperature.” To Hermione’s relief, their potion had the desired color and texture, and upon removing it from the heat source, she could already feel the cauldron becoming cool to the touch.

“That looks pretty good, if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought you were trying to poison me after your performance last class.” Malfoy told her with a satisfied look on his face as he inspected their potion.

“Lucky for me you mean, I’ll test the ruddy potion.” Hermione sighed in resignation. She knew if the potion wasn’t right it was her fault, and she could own up to her mistakes.

“Err… no I- I don’t think so,” He stuttered out. “You do enough sucking up, I can’t be overshadowed all the time by a woman.” He liked this excuse, but she was giving him a questioning look and he picked up his bag and started stuffing his books inside so he could ignore her. He wasn’t sure if taking the potion would actually cause harm to the baby, but he couldn’t let her take the chance. He just hoped they didn’t make anything dangerous of disfiguring, or it would be a very long and painful year. When he used to partner with Goyle, he would always make him be the tester. He prayed the teachers wouldn’t be suspicious of his newfound desire to do all the dirty work.

One by one they watched as their classmates drank a small vial of red solution, which left their faces flushed and sweaty, then with a sip of their own potion the symptoms went away. Ron and Harry’s potion had left Harry shivering and his teeth chattering, which Alberson explained was from adding too much hellebore but not enough mint oil to balance it, and the side effects would wear off in a few hours. Draco took the red vial and immediately felt faint and overheated. He drank their fever reducing draft and felt a cool stream of ice traveling through his veins. After a minute or so he felt completely back to normal, and sighed in relief. Unlike Potter he didn’t enjoy weekly visits to the infirmary.

Hermione was relieved for the weekend so she could catch up on her homework. She walked to dinner with Harry and Ron, going over the study schedule in her mind. Ginny caught up to them in the entrance hall and they walked in together after Harry gave her a soft kiss on the lips. Ron looked over at Hermione and she could tell he wanted to kiss her to not be shown up by his little sister. For some reason thinking about Ron kissing her made her feel weird, so she turned away from him towards Ginny.

“Professor McGonagall should have some exciting news to announce tonight.”

“Is it about the Halloween party?”

“What? How did you find out about it!?”

“Are you kidding? Wednesday night the first thing Anna did was tell all of Gryffindor, and I’m sure the rest of the prefects did the same. I got a whole bunch of magazines so we can pick out costumes later. Nice idea ‘Mione!”

“Well that’s just great. I should have known better than to think a secret could be kept for 5 minutes in a huge castle that doesn’t even have telephones. That makes perfect sense, really.”

“Oh cheer up, we’re having a Halloween party! A party at Hogwarts; how many people can say they lived to see that?”

After dinner ended and the plates cleared, McGonagall did indeed make the announcement. Her short speech was met with loud cheers, but Ginny was right, no one looked the least bit surprised.

****


The first month back at school went by quite smoothly. Harry even had a lead on where the next Horcrux might be, thanks to a book Hermione had found on a dusty top shelf of the library that turned out to be the diary of Eliza Smith, a prominent wizarding lawyer and close relative of Hepzibah Smith. According to the diary, Eliza knew much about the cup and claimed that the cup itself could deflect evil curses and could never hold poison within it. It said that unless the cup was near Hufflepuff blood, it would eventually lose those powers. This led Harry to believe that Voldemort had hidden it near the grave of Helga, which was in a small town on the edge of Wales. Order members were currently trying to plan an expedition to the site without attracting too much attention to themselves. Hermione could tell from Harry’s attitude that he was excited but somewhat apprehensive to begin his search and eventually end the war.

They were sitting down to breakfast on the first Friday of October and Hermione was scanning the front page of the Daily Prophet, tuning out Harry and Ron’s quidditch talks. She looked up when she noticed them go silent, and was annoyed to see them staring expectantly at her.

“What?’

“Any Death Eater news?” Ron asked her, for about the tenth time that week, and hundredth time since school started. However, on each occasion her answer was the same, except for yesterday when she had told him to read the bloody paper himself if he wanted to know. It was strange being in the middle of a war and at the same time, there was no fighting. No one had seen any signs of the dark wizards since the beginning of summer. They had arrested a man who worked at the ministry in the department of magical law enforcement, who was suspected of being a spy for Voldemort, but all the newspaper had said on that occasion was the he was sentenced to twenty years in Azkaban and that he had “gone quietly.” At times Hermione wondered if Voldemort had given up, but when she voiced this opinion to Harry, he pointed to his scar and said “I’d know.”

Hermione now actually looked forward to the double potions classes that ended the week. She and Malfoy were excelling above their classmates, which was just the way she liked it. Their latest potion, Essence de Gras, a weight loss solution, had earned them top marks. Today they were spending the period doing research on their next assignment. Professor Figg now wanted them to invent their own potion, or at least attempt to. Hermione was searching through her book of 1,000 Magical Herbs and Fungi, while Malfoy was just randomly spouting ideas.

“What about something to make every single one of Eloise Midgen’s pimples pop at once. That one on her chin has been there all week just yearning to be popped. It was calling to me Harry! Oh I so want to pop them!” Hermione couldn’t believe what was coming out of Ron’s mouth, it was disgusting! The whole class got quiet for a minute, before every single one of them burst out laughing. Even the teacher was stifling a laugh that he tried to turn into a cough as to not offend anyone. Hermione was torn between laughing at the strangeness of Ron’s confession, and cursing him for being mean towards poor Eloise.

“That might be the best idea Weasel ever had. He could sell tickets to the show and buy something decent to wear for once.” Ron didn’t hear Malfoy’s latest insult, which was fortunate because Hermione wasn’t in the mood to break up a fight between her boyfriend and new ‘acquaintance,’ which was the best word she could think of to describe the odd relationship between herself and the Head Boy. They were definitely not friends by any means. Malfoy was always making sarcastic comments toward her and combating her opinions. For some unknown reason, she actually enjoyed having these kinds of conversations with him. They kept her on her toes and left her satisfied whenever she was able to come up with a witty retort. The ruder the better, but they never took the mean comments seriously anymore. It was more like a game to them than anything else. They had even laughed together at some of the ridiculous notes students were sending through the boxes. Not one had been important enough to send to the headmistress, and they were starting to regard this duty as a joke. Most were just complaints about other students that included but were not limited to: “my roommate smells funny,” and “I have hair in odd places, maybe someone put a spell on me.”

By the end of class Hermione still couldn’t think of what to create. Malfoy had suggested a potion to make all female underwear edible, one to turn first-years blue, and one to make clothes disappear on the drinker if they looked better naked. Hermione just rolled her eyes at his ramblings and shook her head, gathering her books and heading out the door with Ron and Harry.

Later that night, Hermione and Ginny found themselves sprawled out on their stomachs, poring over magazines they had scattered across the head common room floor. Ginny kept nagging at Hermione to pick out a costume for the party, who finally gave in after the redhead followed her back to her dorm with a box full of the ads. Hermione could see the top of a blonde head on the couch that faced the fire, but he didn’t move to leave when the girls arrived, so she just let him be.

“You and Ron should go as some kind of couple themed costumes. Like Batman and Robin or something.”

“Robin was a boy, Gin.”

“Physically yes, but you could pull it off.”

“Gee… Thanks… It doesn’t matter though, I have to go with Malfoy.”

“No way! That is so unfair. I mean I kinda get why you have to partner him in class, but the biggest social event of the year and you have to have ferret boy as your date? I would protest. OOO Ron is going to be so mad!”

“You do realize I can hear you, Weaselette? Don’t be jealous that Granger gets to take a real man to the party. I’m sure Potter will go through puberty some day.” Draco spat in a tired voice. He must have been sleeping, and Hermione felt kind of bad for waking him.

“Oh go eat a skrewt, Malfoy.” Ginny angrily replied, before turning back to the magazine she was browsing.

“Oh look at this one, it’s Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, and they have a lion, tin man, and scarecrow costume to go with it!” Hermione pointed excitedly at the picture.

“I’ve never heard of the wizard of Oz, do you know if he went to school here? I could look him up.”

“He wasn’t a real wizard, it was just a movie. Dorothy tries to get home and meets a scarecrow who thinks he has no brain, a tin man, and a lion on her journey. There’s also a witch who tries to kill her. It used to be my favorite when I was little.” Ginny was still staring blankly at her, and instead of explaining all about muggle movies she decided to move on to a different costume book and not say anything.

“I think you should go as Dorothy, and Weasel can be the scarecrow since he’s got no brains.” Malfoy sneered from the other side of the couch.

“And you could be the tin man, since you have no heart. Actually you’re kind of a coward as well. I wonder if they sell any mutant tin lion man costumes.” Malfoy let out a loud fake laugh, that he ended after a second.

“You are hilarious Granger. Seriously. Too funny. Not.” Hermione just rolled her eyes and returned to the page she was looking over. Ginny was watching the exchange between the two Heads with interest.

“Aren’t you going to at least try to throw a curse at him after that? He totally mocked you out and you just shrugged it off like it was nothing. This is MALFOY! Why not make him pay for being well… him!?”

“He’s not worth it,” Hermione replied flatly. She could tell Ginny didn’t completely buy it, but she wasn’t ready for the storm that would come if her friends found out about her and Malfoy practically getting along. She was already worried about what Ron would say when he found out that she was expected to go to the party with Malfoy. Ron was busy with quidditch so they hadn’t had a chance to really go over the plans for Halloween, and Hermione wasn’t in a hurry to bring it up.

“Oh I like this one! It’s Lou Befner, the inventor of Playwiz, and a Playwiz bunny! That would be perfect for me an Harry, don’t you think?”

“Err… that costume doesn’t leave much to the imagination. You can practically see her butt in the picture!”

“Yup, it’s perfect. Harry will love it.” Hermione just shook her head and watched Ginny tear out the order form in the back of the magazine. So far the Dorothy costume was the only one she could find that wasn’t completely revealing. She supposed a Hawaiian girl was tame compared to some of the skimpy costumes they had for sale. Ginny left after insisting that Hermione have something picked out by the next day, so they could shop for accessories during the Hogsmead visit on Sunday. Malfoy got up from his spot on the couch to look down at Hermione and the magazines that were haphazardly lying all over the previously clean floor.

“We should go as those ones; A pirate and his wench. I get a sword and you get to give me drinks. That’s settled then.”

“I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing something as flimsy and degrading as that. I think you should go as the scarecrow and I can be Dorothy. Or we don’t have to wear themed costumes at all, it’s not really necessary.”

“We could just go naked as Adam and Eve.”

“Adam and Eve wore leaves or something, I’m sure of it.”

“Ok then beer wench and pirate it is!” He grinned evilly, picking up the magazine and tearing out the order form.

“I will not… I refuse. You can order it but it will just be a waste of your money.”

“Well I have money to waste. What if we make a bet. If you win I’ll go as the scare man or whatever. But if I win, you have to be my wench and get me drinks all night when I call on you.”

“And what will you do for me if I win?”

“I’ll try not to make Weasel too jealous,” she just glared at him. “Err… I’ll let you use the bathroom first for a week as long as you don’t make a mess in there.” That offer was tempting. Somehow Malfoy always managed to beat her to the shower, and took forever, to the point that she had missed breakfast twice already.

“Deal. What are the stakes?”

“How about the quidditch match. Gryffindor wins you win. Slytherin wins, I win. Ok?”

“But you’ve never beaten Harry. Do you want to be the scarecrow or something?” This was too easy, she couldn’t lose. She just didn’t get why Malfoy chose to bet on that of all things, unless he wanted her to win.

“Just make sure you shave your legs, people will get to see a lot of them in that wench costume.”


*****


“GO HARRY GO!!!” Hermione yelled from the stands at the first match of the season. The score was 50 - 30 to Gryffindor. Ginny had scored 4 of the 5 goals, and Ron was playing quite well, having saved over ten goals already. Harry and Draco were neck in neck, speeding towards the snitch in a spectacular dive. Hermione was squeezing Neville’s hand and he was cringing from the pain, but she paid no attention. They were almost at the ground, their broomsticks barely grazing the neatly cut grass as they pulled out of the dive simultaneously. They both reached out for the tiny golden ball. Hermione was screaming so loud her voice was cracking.

The whistle blew and the fans stood up and cheered excitedly. The players were flying towards the ground, creating a sea of maroon and green robes.

The game was over.



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Today was a very good day for me. Jordin won American Idol (I’m glad that she won but sad the show is over now) and I popped out another chapter. Oh and Pirates of the Caribbean comes out tomorrow night… well technically tonight. I used the pirate costume in honor of it. It seems like this summer is the summer of sequels, but I am kind of excited. Anyways, thank you very much to those who reviewed, I hope you like this chapter and that Draco isn’t too out of character. I am torn between wanting them to get along and love each other already and fight all the time like they do in the books. So I chose this as my happy medium. I am going to take a little more time with the next chapter because I want it to be good and long, and maybe I was hoping I might get more reviews that way. I can see that a lot of people are reading my story, but it seems like only my loyal few * I love you guys* are reviewing. Even if you read it and think its poop you can still review and tell me why you think so. I want to improve as a writer and reviews are the only way I can, since I feel weird telling anyone I know that I am writing a sexy Harry Potter story.

Please read and review : )