Gryphon's Wings and Crocodile Tears

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


Chapter 4- Lavender and Garnet Caverns


Harry watched Hermione all through breakfast. He was very happy that she seemed much better than she had only the day before, but there was something that just didn’t tally with the way in which she was acting. When she had something to say she usually didn’t let someone else tell the tale, as it would prove to be far too inaccurate for her. Particularly Neville.


Still, he figured that her good mood was far more important than whatever silly little thing she was hiding from him might be. So he decided to let it go, rather that pushing her into telling him something that it was clear that she was unwilling to say at this time.


Besides, if she were happy, it would make it easier for him to make his first move. He grinned, rather stupidly, at her as he contemplated exactly what that move would be. He rested his head on his hand and tried his best to listen to her as he considered what might be the best way to get her into his bed.


Hermione was more than glad that Harry hadn’t chosen to ask for her personal rendition of the event, which had preceded breakfast. She did notice that he was behaving strangely during the meal. He seemed to have an idiotic grin plastered onto his face, and his eyes would glaze over every so often. She hoped that she was the reason for Harry’s, rather blatant, distraction. He was adorable when he stopped trying to be macho. She continued her speech, undaunted by his wavering attention.


Draco finished his food in near record time and bolted to the library nearly as quickly as he’d bolted down his meal. He was nothing, if not a man on a mission. A mission designed to devastate that upstart of a mudblood bitch. He had to research more than just that Dissolving Solution.


Humiliation would not be nearly enough to ruin that one. ‘Just look at her, she’s quite used to being embarrassed by the way she looks. I’ll have to find something better for her,’ Draco thought, as a malicious smile of satisfaction spread slowly across his face; that face was deceptive, it could have belonged to the finest of porcelain dolls or the highest of angels, as it was it belonged to a blond haired demon.


He selected one of the oldest, and dustiest, tombs from the shelf and neatly recorded the best of the spells to break the spirit of that magnificent bitch in his tiny immaculate writing. As it was the weekend, no bells sounded in the castle, as they would during the week. So Draco was a bit startled when he was brought out of his revenge-driven trance by a powerful pang of hunger.


He was not at all used to this feeling and he found it to be acutely uncomfortable. No one had ever let him get so hungry that it had caused him pain. At home someone, usually his mother, had always made sure that he’d been fed, even when his father had expressly forbidden him food as a part of a punishment. Even the poor disenfranchised House Elves had taken pity on Draco and slipped him food when Lucius was feeling particularly malignant.


He could scarcely believe that he had managed to work through most of the lunch period. Even with as dedicated to his studies as he was, he’d never before managed that. He hastily rolled his parchment up and didn’t seem to notice that he’d spilled ink all over the desk, on which he had been writing, as well as down the front of his robes. He stuffed the roll of parchment into his bag without ceremony and tore from the library even more quickly than he had from the breakfast table.


Draco had to fight against the heavy tide of students who were making for destinations far from the Great Hall. He arrived to find that the meal had ended, and the tables were bare. He dropped his bag in shock and a scroll of parchment slipped from it and rolled under the Gryffindor table. It had never occurred to him that they might not wait for him to eat before clearing away the dishes from the long tables that lined the Hall. Draco was affronted, to say the least. Now how would he manage to stop the pain in his stomach? He began to walk sullenly from the room after picking up his bag.


He walked to the large corridor near where he had discovered the “first” meeting of the D.A. last year. He was hungry and had decided to use the Room of Requirement to provide him with the proper sustenance. This room proved to have been one of Draco’s most useful discoveries in his time at Hogwarts; particularly when he needed a place to take the more of the timid young ladies with whom he’d had dalliances this past year.


Sure enough, when he entered the room he found that it was filled with heaping platters full of his favorite foods. He sat at the single chair and helped himself to the sumptuous buffet that now lay in front of him. He rarely found himself dining alone. Of course he was so conceited that he rarely noticed much of the world around him at all, that was until there was nothing around him. The silence was difficult not to notice. He bristled; there was no sense in getting emotional over something as trivial as loneliness. He stiffened his back and continued to eat in silence.


After the fiasco before breakfast, Hermione decided that she was no longer in need of any time in which to collect herself. She was feeling better than she had in ages. ‘To hell with Ron, and his backstabbing whore. I can do better, and get him back at the same time. Harry, here I come,’ thought Hermione as Harry took her hand and led her to out of the Great Hall.


Harry led her out onto the sweeping grounds that she’d spent so much time staring at for the past week or so. He seemed to have something specific in mind and she was too enthralled to put up a fight, had she wanted to.


Harry tingled from head to toe at the first touch of Hermione’s hand on his. He’d finally decided on a way to get Hermione and get Ron’s goad at the same time. He knew where Lav tended to drag Ron on a daily basis, so that the two of them could have some “privacy”.


Lav knew well that going to the most popular make-out spot on the grounds (Garnet Caverns) was an excellent way to avoid any real level of intimacy, while announcing to the entire student body that she’d stolen Ron away from Hermione. It seemed, for a little while anyway, that her plan was flawless…


Harry, with Hermione in tow, marched straight into Garnet Caverns, like a monster into Lavender’s dreams. She tried, but failed to keep her emotions in check when she saw Harry pin HER up against the wall of the cave and kiss her the way she wished that he’d kiss her someday. “That bitch. That-slut. Who does she think she is kissing him like that in front of everyone?” She then added in a whisper, “Harry is supposed to be mine!”


“I know. My two best mates making-out in front of me like that…Wait…what did you just say? Lav, what in bloody hell did you mean by that?”


“I-I said that she’s a bitch for doing this to you, Ron. I told you that she never really cared about you, don’t you see that now?” She was clearly panicking and also digging herself deeper into a hole she would not be able to climb out of by herself.


“Well, then it seems that the two of you have quite a bit in common. Harry warned me about you, you know. I just didn’t want to see it, I wanted…What I wanted doesn’t matter anymore,” he pushed past the slack-jawed from of Lavender and headed for the entrance to the cave. He paused, but a moment and glared at his former best friends wondering how in the hell he’d allowed this gigantic mess to occur.


Hermione was so absorbed in kissing Harry (‘The terribly handsome Harry Potter!’) that she’d not even been aware of what had just transpired.


Harry, on the other hand, took in every word and gesture between Ron and Lav. It was a-hell-of-a-way to teach Ron a lesson, but sometimes he was intolerably obtuse and nothing except for extreme measures could reach him. Harry’s only hope was that this would not cause permanent damage to his friendship with Ron.