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 17- An Apology, a Ghost and a Reality Check


Ron knew that the most likely place to find Hermione, when she wasn’t in class anyway, was the dusty shelves at the back of the library. He tried his damndest to smooth at least some of the wrinkles that it seemed were a permanent part of this particular set of his school robes. As he neared the double doors of the library he raised his hand to pull the door open and found that his hands were all over dirt and that there was black grime caked under his fingernails. He made a wry face and a noise that sounded nothing short of disgusted; he well knew that his disheveled state was not at all likely to assist him in his quest to win back into Hermione’s good-graces, though more favorably her arms however unlikely that might be. He decided in that short moment that it would be in his best interest to make, at minimum, a cursory attempt at tidying up before he continued to seek her.


As he pushed open the door to the boy’s toilet he was truck by the thoroughly unpleasant whine of the very last person that he wanted to see, Draco Malfoy. Ron not only disliked the malignant attitude of the blond wizard, he also loathed the effect that he had on otherwise intelligent young women of Hogwarts. It seemed to Ron that these unsuspecting women were drawn to him as moths to a flame, blinded to the danger by his physical beauty. He rather liked that analogy, as the moths, the girls, would surely get burnt simply by following instinctual patterns of behavior. Ron was thoroughly galled by the fact that Draco’s caustic attitude was generally overshadowed in the minds young women by his purported good looks. Eventhough Ron had to admit that the blond wizard was better looking than the vast majority of male students at Hogwarts, himself included, there was something in the curve of the blond bastard’s upper lip and the tip of his nose that called to Ron’s mind visions of a rat. Jealousy aside, he had difficulty understanding why the female population of Hogwarts seemed to find a guy with features that resembled a rodent attractive; it didn’t hold with logic, these same girls would undoubtedly shriek and run if confronted with a real rat.


Fortunately for Ron, the bathroom was just busy enough that no one was seeking privacy with regard to what they happened to be speaking about. This afforded him with an opportunity to choose a stall close to Draco and his fellow Slytherin, Blaise Zabini, from which he could overhear their conversation without arousing an excessive amount of suspicion.


“So you finally managed to do it, huh?” Zabini asked in an approving and sleazy tone.


“Well, I haven’t sealed the deal just yet, but I did get the gullible little bitch to agree to let me have one night to do with her as I wish. As you well know, that is more than enough time for me to wreck any women who is foolish enough to come to my bed. She’s the last one in our entire class.” Draco’s smug satisfaction was repulsive to Ron, his stomach turned. Could Malfoy actually be telling the truth? Was there really only one girl that he hadn’t managed to sleep with? It was mind-boggling. Hermione had to be the only one he’d not gotten his claws into, and she absolutely despised Malfoy! She’d never agree to this madness. Ron was livid that Malfoy could lie so publicly and with such impunity, he fought the urge to leap from the stall and throttle him.


“Granger,” Zabini whistled, “I knew that you were good mate, but even I didn’t think that you’d manage to get her. No offence man, but that mudblood hates your guts. She’d as soon curse you as look at you, you know.”


“I get it Zabini, you can shut-up now! Besides, the hate is mutual. And this has got nothing to do with emotions anyway; it’s about sex. You know as well as I do that no woman can resist me and I cannot think of any reason why Granger will be any different from the rest. She’s a girl like any other.”


‘Fool,’ thought Ron who was well aware that Hermione was very much removed from being a typical girl in all aspects of personality and action. Besides, this simply couldn’t be true; Hermione was the last person that would ever agree to sleep Malfoy! The two wizards left the bathroom and Ron exited the stall and made his way back to the sink where he thoroughly scrubbed his hands with hot water and soap. A look in the mirror brought home the realization that his robes looked as though they’d just been pulled from his mum’s ragbag. He pulled his wand out and pointed it at the robes as he tried to recall the spell to smooth the wrinkles. “Iacere.” The wrinkles were gone in the blink of an eye; he smiled and let the toilet bound once for the library and Hermione.


Ron found her just were he’d thought she’d be he now felt a bit guilty about disturbing her. He was on the verge of turning and running as fast as his legs could carry him away from her when she spoke without looking up at him, “Ron, is there something that I can help you with?”


“How’d you now it was me?” Ron asked dumbfounded, as she’d not look up since he’d entered the library. She sighed as he set her quill down on her blotter and looked up at him for the first time her dark eyes held the slightest hint of amusement at his question.


“Ron, I’ve known you for what? Nearly six years. You couldn’t sneak up on me if you tried. I know the way you walk, the pattern of sounds that your feet always make when walk. Every person’s pattern is unique, even Patsy and Parvati’s footsteps sound different.” She smiled at his confused look.


He decided not to press the matter and to get to the point of his interruption. “Hermione, there are some things that I have to tell you.” She gestured for him to take a seat opposite her before continuing. “It’s all my fault. Everything. If I had half a brain things wouldn’t be so messed up. If I had only give you a chance to explain the things would be perfect. I’ve been a real prat and I’m sorry that I ruined your life Hermione. Is there anything that I can do to repair our relationship?”


Hermione laughed. “Not everything was your doing, unless you’ve been using unforgivables on Harry and Ginny for months, which I doubt that you have been; you’re not the type. And I’ve already forgiven you, in case you forgot. As for what you can do to make thing better between us, just be yourself and act like you’re my friend again.”


“Ok…” Ron said uncertain if that meant that he should tell her of the conversation that he’d overheard in the boy’s toilet moments earlier. Hermione knew him well enough to ask him why he was hesitant to say what he obviously thought he should. “Well…I…I just heard Malfoy talking in the boy’s and I wanted to tell him not to tell lies about you, but he was gone before I could say anything.”


Hermione’s eyes went wide for a split second; she hoped that Ron hadn’t noticed. “Really what was he saying about me?” she asked trying to sound curious and irritated not as though she already knew.


“That you had agreed to sleep with him and that you were the only girl in our year who hadn’t. That doesn’t sound like you at all. I know how you feel about sex, its love or nothing for a girl like you. And I know that you don’t, could never, love him.”


“You’re right. That doesn’t sound like me at all. You know me better than anyone, save Harry, if you don’t think I would then why sweat it? It is just Malfoy, we all know how much he likes to lie,” she said deftly avoiding giving Ron a direct answer or lying to him.


Ron asked again, just to confirm where he thought she stood. “So it’s a lie?”


Hermione did not answer him verbally; she just made a face at the redheaded wizard. Ron took this as her saying that she wouldn’t ever do such a thing and seemed satisfied enough to leave her. He headed for the Gryffindor common room.


He climbed through the portrait hole and ran up to his dorm room to get his things for the class after lunch. He dumped the box of scrolls he kept next to his bed out on the neatly made bed. He picked up the essay for Divination and his hand paused over the odd scroll that he’d found many months earlier, but had never opened. He cracked the seal and was shocked to find that the Malfoy family seal was embossed in the parchment. What followed was a list of things that Draco intended to do in order to ruin Hermione’s reputation, grades and the rest of her life. He wasn’t at all surprised by this, but decided that she had to see it for herself. He shoved it into his bag and left the dorm and common room bound for lunch.

By the time Ginny made her next appearance at the Gryffindor table she was looking ragged and it was obvious that she’d lost a substantial amount of weight, her normally rosy complexion had taken on a more gray-puce tone. She looked as though she’d been suffering from a long-term illness, the shine had left her hair and her fingernails had not grown; this was a sure sing that she was not receiving proper nourishment. She walked with an affected limp, though she was not in any physical pain, this was purely an attempt to garner sympathy.


She was so far removed from the cheerful and boisterous young woman that Hermione had known that at first the brunette took no notice of the waif who was perched on the bench at the far end of the table at lunch. One might have thought to look at Ginny that she might take wing if frightened, for her mannerisms now suggested birdlike skittishness.


Upon coming to the realization that this was indeed Ginny, Hermione had suddenly lost all will to inflict pain on her friend? The only emotion that was swirling in her head was abject pity. She shook her head in an attempt to clear away any feelings of guilt. It was not her fault that Ginny and Harry had done such a despicable thing to her; she’d not been the cause of Ginny’s pain and sorrow. Still, there was something in the sunken cheeks and dead eyes of the redhead that belayed some greater misfortune had befallen her since last they’d spoke. Hermione burned with curiosity, what was it that could break Ginny? The more that she thought about it the less she thought that she wanted to know what had happened, not for a lack of caring, but for fear that it might ensnare her too.


“Damn it all!” Hermione swore under her breath. How in the hell could she possibly be feeling pity for that evil little snipe? Yet she knew that there was no hope for it, she was nothing if not the “mother hen” of her circle of friends. She sighed, angry at herself for being so thrice-blessed selfless and stood to make her way to Ginny’s side to see if there was a way to assist her friend. She fumed under her calm exterior at the idea that Ginny could still be a friend; she’d assumed that she’d been permanently relegated to her list of enemies. A sad realization hit her as she made her way down the long table to the shrinking form of the redhead: permanence was a persistent illusion, a game that humans played for a feeling of security.


Somehow she’d managed to come within ten feet of her quarry before both were disturbed by an outburst from the right. Harry had leapt to his feet and began a vigorous verbal assault on her authority as a prefect. Luckily before Hermione could even begin to formulate a plan as to how to deal with the situation that was unfolding in front of her, she was saved from having to make any decision at all by the swift arrival of Professor McGonagall. Hermione smiled, McGonagall was a witch known for her uncompromising sense of fair play and adherence to school rules was letter perfect; Hermione held her in very high esteem, for she had earned a great deal of respect in the eyes of the wizarding community.


Harry’s ire was not to be contained by the sudden appearance of a teacher and he continued to sling vile insults and digs at Hermione’s qualifications for the job of prefect. After two minutes, in which it seemed to Hermione that Harry did not even pause for a breath, it became clear that McGonagall had had enough, “Silencio!” she cried over the staccato tenor barks that were Harry’s complaints. There were a few comical seconds when it might have appeared that Harry’s voice had simply failed him and he stood with his lips moving like those of a fish who suddenly found itself on dry land.


Not surprisingly Malfoy took this opportunity to make a spectacle of Harry’s misfortune, before Harry had finished trying to yell unsuccessfully Draco had concocted a little ditty with which he would torture Harry for days if not weeks and he’d begun chanting it softly. Gradually it gained in volume and intensity until the whole of Slytherin was singing along gleefully.


Hermione did not need to be told who the mastermind behind the wicked little rhyme was she turned her head and fixed him with a look that made the young wizard blanch and cease in his jubilant singing. The look told him to stop if he still wished he to keep to the agreement that they’d forged earlier in the dungeons. He told himself that the only reason for his obsequiousness was so that he could complete his collection of willing, and not so willing women. Draco conveniently did not view this interaction as Hermione having power over him; he was chilled by the eyes that held his. ‘Something, something familiar,’ he thought, now it was his turn to gape at Hermione dumbly.


McGonagall led Harry from the hall by the shoulders to “discuss the validity his interesting claims” in her office. Hermione sighed, as he was led away quietly, not that he’d any choice in the matter. She looked toward the place that she’d last seen the much diminished Ginny and was saddened, but not at all surprised to see tat she’d fled in the commotion of the past five minutes. ‘At least Draco had the good sense to shut up, if he got a detention it would probably be set for tomorrow night,’ she thought. How odd that Draco was choosing to exercise common sense and Harry was not, well now she thought that anything was possible!


When Draco finally shook off the strange reverie that had settled over him the trouble had been cleared away and the hall was beginning to empty. He cursed unintelligibly and proceeded to push his way out of the hall in true Malfoy fashion.


Hermione noticed that when the commotion had stilled that her elusive quarry had taken advantage of the chaos to slip away unnoticed. She grunted in frustration. Suddenly Ron was at her elbow insisting that she read the piece of parchment in his hand. She took it and skimmed in as the hall emptied. ‘So this is his game,’ she thought, ‘well he’ll not get the better of me.’ She then asked if she could keep the parchment, as it might be useful to her at a later date. Ron seemed pleased that she’d not simply shrugged it off as unimportant and he was glad to see it in her hands. There was noting more that he could do to help her at the moment so he headed to Divination.