Year Seven:Blindsided

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters or places they belong to the wonderful
J. K. Rowling: It is her world I just play in it.


Chapter 2 – Hermione


Hermione Granger took a deep breath before opening her final Hogwarts letter. She let a squeal of joy escape her lips before darting downstairs to show her parents her new Head-girl badge. Hermione knew that it was most probable that she would be named Head-girl, but she had also seen enough twists in her academic career to know that where Hogwarts was concerned nothing was final until you received official notice. She had been an excellent student from her first day of grammar school and her parents had encouraged her love of learning from that young age.


However, things changed abruptly when she received her first Hogwarts letter. At first her parents seemed to think it a practical joke being played by some unscrupulous party, but then another letter appeared to assure them that it was no joke and that their daughter was a very talented young witch. So it was that her parents began to understand some of the strange things that had happened around Hermione for her first ten years of life.


The Grangers also encouraged their daughter to do the best that she could in her magical studies, this meant embarking on a most curious shopping trip to acquire her books and supplies. Fortunately none of the damage done was permanent, Mr. Granger had accidentally backed into a cage full of fire salamanders and scorched his sweater. The pleasant witch behind the counter smiled and fixed his sweater on the spot with nothing but the flick of her wand. Needless to say, a muggle’s first magical experience can be at best awe-inspiring and at worst horrifying. Fortunately for Hermione, her parents were awed and concluded that Wizarding school would be an excellent use of their daughter’s talents. It did, indeed, prove to be so.


Something else changed those seven years ago, a change that the extended family could not ignore. Instead of speaking about Hermione’s grades, they would change the topic when it was raised at family gatherings. This sudden need to obscure the change in their daughter’s schooling was an unfortunate necessity. The rest of the Granger family would be considered uptight by the standards of conservative medieval muggles. They were not anti-magic, as Harry’s remaining family was, for magic was something too preposterous to even consider taking such a stand on.


Even considering her family’s eccentricities she was not permitted to let her grades slip; for one’s grades, whether in the muggle or wizarding world, determined the occupations one could hold as an adult. Hermione walked back up to her room and crossed to her bureau. She then opened her jewelry box and placed the badge inside until she packed for school in a few weeks.


She was near to tears because she was not permitted to wear it out and about as any other witch would be permitted to do. She knew that her parents had the right end of the argument; it would not do well to upset the balance of her family for a few selfish moments of pleasure on her part. Hermione propped her pillows against the headboard of her bed and sat down, wondering what else could possibly happen to complicate her life further.


Crookshanks took this opportunity to stretch his massive form across Hermione’s legs. He also began to purr loudly and a silly smile graced his squashed feline face. She scratched the mammoth ginger feline behind the ears absently. Her mind had turned to an odd person, someone she never chose to think of, a person she loathed passionately, Draco Malfoy.


Hermione tried in vain to escape from thoughts of that horrible, rotten little snipe. She picked up a book and attempted to shoo him by thinking of Prince Charming, the type of man Draco could never be, considerate and loving. When she closed her eyes to picture her prince, there he was.


Beautiful. That was the only word to describe her prince: tall with thick blonde hair, blue eyes so deep that she could swim in them, and his chiseled physique. All of which beckoned to her. She stood up with a start, sending Crookshanks hissing and spitting across the room and out her door, she’d imagined a man that looked like, no was Draco Malfoy. She was attracted to Draco Malfoy! Of all the disgusting things that could have happened to Hermione Granger that was the worst, the absolute limit. Then the ramifications of this realization began to sink in.


She wanted to kick herself for daring to ask what else in her life could possibly go wrong. Of course, Draco would be named Head-boy. She would have to share a suite with him for ten months. That, in and of itself, would be a bad enough situation, but these last few moments had made a bad situation untenable.


She should have seen this coming; she remembered how she’d paused to take in the full length of his body the first time she had walked in on him in the Prefect’s bathroom last October. Now that she thought of it, he had paused as well before pulling his towel up. ‘No,’ she thought. ‘That is crazy. Draco Malfoy, of all people, would never be able to look at a muggleborn witch like that.’ She saw no point in getting her hopes up in order to have them dashed by the fact that he just wasn’t wired that way.


Hermione laughed mirthlessly. At least she no longer had to deal with Ron. Ron had broken her heart nearly a year ago when he abruptly decided that Harry was more his type. Fortunately enough for Ron, Harry was far too absorbed with thoughts of Cho Chang to notice that one of his best friends was acting strangely.


As it turned out Ron was glad of Harry’s obliviousness; it is one thing to lose one’s girlfriend and another to lose both one’s girlfriend as well as one’s best friend. Ron had since apologized for hurting her feelings, and though she’d accepted it there was still a great deal of tension between the two of them. Tension that, she knew, would only be amplified by the long train ride to school aboard the Hogwarts Express in a few weeks.


However, Hermione had more immediate concerns than the trip to Hogwarts, for example the trip to Diagon Alley. Every other year, save her first, she had met her two best mates to shop for school supplies and to tell the tales from the first six or so weeks of summer. Even though she missed Harry terribly she decided that it would be easier to get her shopping done early and avoid Ron. Hermione resolved to go to bed early so that she could get a good amount of rest and leave first thing in the morning for Diagon Alley.


She had not been asleep for five minutes before being greeted with a disturbingly erotic dream about Draco:


His strong hands slid gently over all the curves of her body; this awoke in her a passion that set her skin afire beneath his cool fingers. She gasped as he kissed her bare breasts. His flicking tongue lingered a moment on each nipple. Hermione squirmed with pleasure beneath the blond Adonis who clearly wished to have his way with her. She could feel the full length of his hard sex against her leg.


“I want you; I’ve always wanted you,” he whispered into her ear as he thrust his hips against her. Draco kissed her deeply and ran his fingers down her cheek and smiled. (A real smile, not an arrogant smirk. The expression that he wore made him so beautiful that he was nearly blinding.) His hand continued down between her breasts, over her flat stomach, down the outside of her left thigh and up the inside of her right thigh where it paused for a moment that seemed an eternity. Suddenly he pressed his fingers into her. Her heart pounded. She strained to find her breath and instead found his manhood thrust into her hand again and again. She squeezed gently as her hand moved up and down on his enormous…


Hermione opened her eyes and blotted the sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her nightgown and reached for the glass of water she kept near her bed. She couldn’t keep dreaming about Draco this way, she’d wake up more exhausted than before she went to bed. She quietly slipped from her bed and crossed her room to her extensive personal library where she began to search for a spell to calm her dreams.


Once she found a likely spell she realized that she was still an underage witch and therefore forbidden to cast it away from school. She marked the page anyway and added it to the pile of books she would take to school, just incase this problem should not clear up on its own it a couple of days. Hermione knew that she would have to resort to more muggle like method to remedy her problem.


She walked to the bathroom quietly enough not to wake her parents, but not so stealthily that, should one of them be awake, her actions would cause suspicion. Once inside with the door closed behind her she stared at the medicine chest on the wall and hoped that she could open it without giving up her motive with a resounding crash. She cursed to herself as she slid the temperamental old mirror aside. Success! If hanging around Harry had taught her anything, it had been the art of being surreptitious when necessary.


She opened the bottle of her mother’s sleeping pills and slipped one into the pocket of her nightgown. She had read in some medical journal that barbiturates inhibited one’s dreams she could only hope that the study had been right. Carefully she replaced the bottle and slid the aged mirror closed. She then flushed the toilet, not that she’d used it, this was an airtight excuse for why she’d been out of bed at this hour.


Hermione made for the door, then stopped short remembering one of Harry’s favorite sayings: “If you are going to do something wrong, do it right.” Nodding to herself at this strange wisdom she turned on the tap and washed her hands. Her alibi was complete and neither of her parents would ever be the wiser of her adolescent troubles.