Gryphon's Wings and Crocodile Tears

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the other original characters and or places in the Potterverse, which was created by the wonderful JK Rowling. I believe that they are owned by Warner Brothers. However, the plot, new characters and or places are mine, mine, and mine! And are subject to copyright by ME!


Chapter 16- Questionable Motives


Draco banished his cronies after class, his was his chance to begin to work his magic on Hermione unencumbered by his sniping housemates. He watched as Harry made some lame attempt to mend the mess he’d helped make; Hermione dismissed him by stoutly refusing to acknowledge that anyone was speaking to her at all. After a few painful minutes Harry finally gave up and left, he was not so naïve as to think that he’d have enough energy to try and convince Hermione of anything when she was in such a mood. Hermione jumped as Draco spoke into the empty room, “They should call him ‘the boy who can’t take a hint’.”


Hermione laughed before turning to see who it was that had spoken, there was some familiar quality to the speaker’s voice, but she could not place it for some reason. “Got that right…” her sentence trailed off and her jaw hung slack when she found that she was having what she could only describe as the beginnings of a pleasant conversation with none other than Draco Malfoy. She never heard him speak in a sympathetic tone it threw her off balance for a moment and she said nothing, she simply stood staring at him as he approached her.


After a moment of silence that felt like an eternity to the stunned Hermione, Draco was standing in front of her lifting his hand to close her jaw. She swallowed; it had been a long time since she’d been this close to him and the last time was the morning that they’d kissed in the corridor outside the Great Hall. For months she’d done her best to rid herself of the memory of how his touch had made her feel, but the delightful tingling that she’d been denying for all these months returned as he tenderly pushed her jaw closed and tilted her head upward to look at her face.


Draco met her eyes as he pushed her chin upward and it felt to him that some thought was itching to be connected to what he saw, but he forced his mind back to the task at hand: getting Granger into his bed. Why had he never seen how beautiful she was before now? ‘It isn’t as though I’ve never had a beautiful girl before. I’m going mental,’ he thought.


Hermione wasn’t sure if it would break the mood if he were to call him Draco, but she was certain that it would break if she called him Malfoy, so wisely she did not address him by name when she spoke. “Why are you being so nice to me? I know you don’t like Harry, but that can’t be all there is to this,” she said in a whisper.


He should have known that she’d discover that his motives were not pure, so he decided to try the same strategy that had worked so well on Professor Moody, the truth. “I’m trying to get you into bed,” he said with a disarming smile. His strategy had worked.


“Well, at least you think enough of me not to bother concocting some ridiculous story, which is more than I can say for my so-called friends at the moment,” she said with a closed expression that Draco could not read.


“I don’t suppose that means that you are willing to accept my offer?” he asked trying to keep his voice cool and remote, imitating her demeanor. This was no easy task when he was also attempting to make himself seem as alluring as possible to her.


“I don’t believe that I’ve heard this offer just yet. I cannot agree to something without knowing the terms of the agreement in question. What do you take me for, a first-year who has never heard of you?”


He smiled. Oh, this was what he wanted, someone who would challenge him at every step and not allow the smallest detail to go undisputed. ‘Her mind is so sharp! It will be fun to break someone who is my intellectual equal. This is going to be a blast,’ he thought. “How rude of me, I didn’t actually ask you did I? Hermione,” the tone of his voice sent a shiver of equal parts of revulsion and arousal up her spine, “Will you come to me willingly or will I have to use my powers of seduction?”


He eyed her hungrily and she succeeded in not rolling her eyes, but only just.


“I already told you that needed to hear the terms of the arrangement before I agree to anything, so name your terms or you’ll never get any closer to me than you are now,” she said her tone conveying an underlying current of irritation that told him it was in his best interest to do as she requested. He knew that Hermione Granger was not one to make idol threats so he outlined his intentions with brutal honesty.


“It’s simple really, you agree that I get to have my way with you for one night. Then any subsequent contact between us shall revert to the way of things before this conversation. Of course I will leave you brokenhearted, even if you do agree to the terms you so vehemently requested, because you are just a girl and no girl has yet been able to resist my charms.”


His arrogant posturing did not have the effect that Hermione had expected that it would have; it actually made him more attractive not less so. Still she resolved that if she did agree to the deal, she would be the exception to his rule that would burst his ego. He needed to be taken down a peg and she would be the one to do it. She decided that she’d accept the deal, but that she’d make him sweat the details for a few days. There was no need to give in too easily, he might suspect her if she did. “I need some time to think about it, “she said turning on her heel and heading smugly for the door.


Hermione had not taken three steps when Draco’s strong hand grabbed her by the arm and spun her to face him. “Perhaps you are just in need of a bit of convincing?” this was less a question then a demand. He shoved her up against the cold stone wall next to the door and kissed her passionately; he could feel her body responding to his touch and felt her knees give out beneath her. He caught her and held her and steadied her until she’d found her feet once more. She looked like she’d been convinced to his eyes, she was pouting at him like a simpering doll.


Hermione knew that he was looking to attain the upper hand so she thought it was best to allow him to think that he’d gained control over the situation while she remained two steps ahead of him. To sell him on the idea she decided to look like the dazed little poppet that he fully expected that any woman under his influence would become. Of course she suspected that he was looking for a challenge, so she wiped the look from her face before exiting the dungeon. Without a backward glance she said quietly, “Tomorrow night, the Room of Requirement at eleven thirty. If you’re late you lose your chance at me forever.”


Draco smiled; he had correctly predicted her behavior. She clearly had no head for strategy. “Until tomorrow night, you filthy little beast,” he said aloud the words echoing in the empty corridor.


As Harry left Potions he could hardly believe what he’d heard; Hermione, “little Miss Rules and Fairness,” was treating him worse than Snape had during the pat five and a half years! ‘Oh well,’ he thought, ‘Leave it to a woman to overreact. I would have to deal with both of them being on the rag at the same time. I mean look at the two of them: Hermione the Petty Tyrant and Ginny the Coward.’ A moment later, after he had considered his own reaction to Hermione’s anger he was forced to reconsider his judgment of Ginny, even he’d jumped when Hermione had rounded on Blaise Zabini a few scant moments before.


He let a spate of ironic laughter slip through his parted lips; only weeks, possibly days ago he’d have given his right arm for the privilege of being able to watch Hermione give any of the Slytherins a verbal dressing-down, but now he was almost starting to sympathize with them. “When you start feeling bad for Slytherins you know that you’ve gone completely mental,” he said to the empty corridor around him. It was a first for Harry that he had no one around him, not one stalwart friend on whom he could rely. A twisted part of him was more than happy to be “persona non grata,” as there was rarely a time that he could recall since starting at Hogwarts when he’d simply been left in peace.


He was not prepared to face the reality of his situation that being shunned was not at all like being left in peace, though they produced the same outcome: him all alone. Not that he’d have cared that he was a social pariah at that moment, because for the first time in his life as a wizard he no longer felt that like he was some rare beast that had been caught in far off land and put on display in a zoo for the amusement of the Wizarding World. His relief at no longer being the center of attention quickly faded, as the days went by the change became more and more difficult to deal with; he’d not realized how much he’d come to depend on the fame that even he never felt he’d earned. The absence of the little gestures, both physical and verbal, left a strange void in Harry’s day. The subtle smiles, winks, nods and occasional pats on the back were things Harry sorely missed these days.


In a moment of desperation Harry was forced to take an introspective glance to assess the situation and he did not like the conclusion that he drew, ‘This must be why people like Malfoy hate me and it certainly explains why my best mate was so keen to turn from me so quickly. I really didn’t do anything, I just laid there while my mum got killed.’ The thought was a dizzying one indeed and he pushed it away in an act of self-preservation, ‘No, that can’t be it that would imply that slime like Malfoy had feelings and a heart. That he could feel pain rather than just inflict it on others.’ Ron’s actions and motives were conveniently not a part of Harry’s all-to-perfect reasoning.


Ron looked, to all eyes that laid on him, as pleased as a cat with a bowl of cream that Harry was finally being made to suffer in a manner befitting his mistreatment of Hermione. All his months of deception and avoidance had finally caught up to “the Bastard,” as Ron was currently styling his former friend.


It took all of his strength not to throw his joy into Harry’s face when their eyes met across the common room one night about two weeks after the duplicitous dealings had been brought to light. The redhead offered a few choice gestures that had “the Bastard” scowling and muttering profanities all the way up the spiral staircase to his dorm room.


He laughed at the newly helpless Harry and how until this moment he was not at all sure of the existence of Karma, but presented with such clear evidence it was obvious that it did in fact exist. That thought gave the young wizard a moment’s pause as he considered the whole situation from the position of an outsider and he was suddenly struck with a powerful sense of guilt. This entire mess could have been avoided if he’d have had the sense to listen to Hermione, not that bitch Lavender. The world would have been perfect were it not for his quick temper and rash knee-jerk reaction to unpleasant news; he would still have Hermione and Harry would still be his best mate, his stomach contracted painfully at this truth.


Was his vindication a bit premature? How could Harry and Ginny be bearing the brunt of Hermione’s anger when he was the sole party responsible for the creation of the situation in the first place? He could attempt to blame Lavender, but blame is a terribly messy thing to place on another person, some was bound to get on him as he tried to put it on her so he decided in that instant to accept full responsibility for Hermione’s hurt feelings. He resolved to do his best to rectify the problem that he’d created without a verbal apology, which he wisely surmised would serve only to alleviate his guilt and would also cause Hermione undue pain, ‘More undue pain, that is,’ he thought with a shake of his shaggy red head.


He had to find her and do something to atone for his abominable treatment of the dearest friend that it was likely that he’d ever have. He pushed himself up from the table by the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room and exited the portrait hole bound for the library and not coincidentally Hermione.