When Our Children Fight Our Wars

A/N:
(Sorry for the repost. I had an italics problem, haha.)

Sorry that it took so long to update. I've been extremely busy as of late and it was literally impossible for me to find time to write.
I do hope you like this chapter. I thought it was a bit. . . . . .

Hmm. . .Well, its 'interesting', I'll tell you that much. I hope you enjoy it!
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Chapter Four: At the End of the Day There's Another Day Dawning


Hermione stared at the dirty root in her hand and wondered just why the hell she had even agreed to do this. Blaise was a sadist, she would bet money on it. That was the only logical explanation for this whole predicament. She could have easily done the Potions assignment by herself and she was quite sure Malfoy could have as well, so why had Blaise gone and insisted that they work together?

Truthfully Hermione did know the reason. She knew exactly why he'd done this to Malfoy and herself and, though she could see Blaise's side of this arrangement, the situation still really irritated her.

See, the issue was that Blaise had a thing for a transfer student from France. He was completely in lust with her actually. He'd been making racy references to the girl that made Hermione blush (and Malfoy snicker) for a week and a half now. Naturally he'd use the first paired assignment of the year to get on her good side and into her skirt. . . .But that left Hermione without a partner. So Blaise had come up with this absolutely brilliant plan - so he'd said - and insisted that Hermione team up with Malfoy for the paired project.

It was insane. He was insane. Insane and very, very frustrating to Hermione at the moment because she knew she couldn't just tell him she wouldn't do it. And he knew that too.

Damn Slytherins.


"Hurry up, Granger. I'm exhausted." Drawled Malfoy from across the room.

Hermione frowned, dropped the root into her basket, and turned around to face the souce of her annoyance. He was sitting rather comfortably on a stool in front of a table with his hands rested on either side of him on the table top. He looked the absolute picture of a lazy aristocrat. It made Hermione want to slap him.

"Tired? You're tired? Is that a joke? You've been sitting there this whole time!"

"Tsk. Accusations, accusations."

Hermione merely crossed her arms and raised an expectant eyebrow as she continued to glare at him.

Draco rolled his eyes and raised his left hand to examine his nails in a bored fashion. "I got you the basket." He said in a voice that implied his doing that one obscure, tiny act was the most obvious thing in the world. "You do know what a basket is, don't you Granger?"

Prat. ". . . . .You're so ridiculous. You do know what 'ridiculous' means, don't you, Malfoy?" she retorted, using the same, lazy tone he had. As he opened his mouth to keep the useless banter going, Hermione cut him off. "Come off it, all right? Let's just get the other ingredients and get to my common room."

"Your common room?" Malfoy asked with a hint of what was sounding very much like amusement.

Hermione frowned. She hated when he was amused.

"Yes, Malfoy. Is that a problem?"

"Not unless you're interested in seeing your new favorite boy doing something your first two wouldn't ever be caught doing. . . . .with a girl, anyway. Is it really true that Four-Eyes and Carrot Top fancy each other? That's the rumor I've heard for the past six years and I figured you would kn- "

Draco was silenced as he felt something moist and a bit crumbly hit his face. It took him a shocked moment to come to his senses and realize what had just happened: Granger had just thrown dirt at him.
. . . . .Dirt at him. Draco wouldn't stand for it. He had been decent to her all this time and had even come to regard her as an acquaintence rather than a hated enemy. All he'd done was make a mild joke about the extremely questionable (questionable to him, that is) relationship between her two friends. He hardly deserved a handful of dirt to the face. She was completely mental!


Finally, Draco slowly lifted his head and turned it in her direction. There was murder in his eyes.


xoxo


Hermione glanced at the ceiling, avoiding the glare she knew she was about to receive. When he finally sent it her way, she could practically feel the anger shooting at her like a flaming arrow. She knew she should have been afraid, but Hermione, instead, found herself feeling a strange sort of giddyness.

I just threw dirt at Draco Malfoy! Who in the hell else can say something that crazy?

She chanced a glance at her ex-arch nemesis and bit her lip to keep from laughing.

He looked ridiculous with a huge brown patch of wet dirt still sticking to his right cheek (bits of it had fallen onto his acompanying shoulder as well), clenched fists, and a look so fierce that Hermione was reminded of Ron's 'constipation face' - minus the furious red cheeks.


xoxo


Draco fumed.

Does she. . . . .Does she think this isfunny?!

He couldn't believe her! First she throws dirt at him, then she stands there wanting to laugh about it? Was she asking for him to forget she was a girl and pummel her? Because that's surely what it seemed like she was doing. Draco closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to calm himself down. He wasn't so sure he could handle this for much longer. He knew that the anger he was feeling was a bit irrational, but he was simply itching to let it out. And it wasn't even the fact that she'd thrown dirt at him. That was just what set him off. He wasn't exactly angry with her. . . .much. He was actually extremely livid with himself.

Granger's little dirt trick was just a side dish of anger compared to the buffet of emotions he was feeling about himself.

In these few weeks since they had all returned to Hogwarts, Draco had realized that not only was Ranger hot, she was witty and clever and passionate and strong and. . . .the list went on and on. The point was that he'd finally come to the conclusion that she was a wonderful person whose company he actually didn't mind very much. This, of course, infuriated him. Draco had never wanted to know these things about her, never wanted to like her, never wanted to want her, never wanted to become comfortable with her, and, bringing himelf back to the present, he certainly hadn't wanted to be pratically covered in dirt because of her. It was unacceptable. All of it.

After pulling himself together and calming down considerably, Draco smirked. He wasn't just going to sit there and take all this Granger shit swirling around inside his head. He was going to let it go - at least for now - and throw it back in her face.

The dirt, that is. Throwing his mixed feelings in her face would be strange, indeed, since she had no idea he was harboring them. Besides, it was better for both of them if she didn't know. Hate was a safer game to play than lust or even love.

Especially love. Draco thought to himself bitterly. He was suprised out of his thoughts when Granger began to giggle. His smirk was replaced by a bemused expression and for a moment, he simply stared at her.


xoxo


After a few seconds of staring at Malfoy, Hermione could hold it in no longer. She burst out laughing, bending over slightly as her arms instinctively wrapped around her middle, anticipating the hurt that would soon be there from laughing too much. She giggled uncontrollably for a good minute or two before she was hit with what she instantly recognized as dirt.

Immediately her laughter ceased.

"How dare you!" she shrieked before lifting her head to glare at Malfoy. She was ready for an all-out Insult War, but was caught off guard by the mirth in his eyes and the air of playfuness about him.

There he sat, looking at her with a look of feigned innocence as he dug his hands into his pockets and glancing around the room, whistling a little tune that reminded Hermione of those cartoon characters who always pretended to be doing occupied when they were almost caught doing something bad.

Why is it always whistling? she wondered to herself as she stared at the blond wizard across the room from her.

When he finally met her gaze and stopped whistling, he smirked. He wasn't smiling - yet. But he wanted to; she could tell.

"You started it, Granger." He said with a shrug.

"And I'm going to end it, too!" she said with a light laugh, digging into the nearest empty pot, then hurling a handful of dirt in Malfoy's direction. To her dismay he had anticipated this and had started running towards a taller plant for protection.

Oh, this is so not over. she thought to herself before laughing silently, throwing down her bakset, and running behind a nearby table for her own safety. She didn't even stop to try and analyze this situation. Yes, she was about to have a dirt war with Malfoy; yes, she was about to break the rules and trash a classroom; and yes, she was aware that she and Malfoy had never been on excellent terms. But did she care at the moment? No.

All she cared about right now was letting off some steam, and having a bit of fun with a potential friend in the process.


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Thirty minutes later. . .

Draco peered through the giant blue leaves of whatever plant he was currently hiding behind and watched as Granger began to charm piles of dirt into what were probably going to be homing dirt-balls. He grinned, appreciating her cleverness. It was strange how a mere half hour ago, he had been furious that she'd dared to throw anything at him - especially dirt. Now he was covered it it and planning his next throw like there was nothing else more important in the world.

If Draco wasn't having so much fun letting out six years of petty hatred out, he'd probably be focusing on said hatred. . .and not on the way Granger's bottom lip disappeared into her mouth whenever she was thinking - or laughing - too hard. It was almost impossible for him not to notice this little habit of hers because it was seductive and innocent at the same time. The innocence of it was probably what made it all the more appealing, he realized.

Merlin, there she goes again. he thought to himself as he watched Hermione bite her lip in frustration as one of the intended homing devices floated up into the air a few feet, then plummeted to the floor. Her brow furrowed in determination then as she turned towards the other balls of dirt and began casting random charms on them that he couldn't hear. A few tendrils of hair had gotten loose from the bun she had put her hair in earlier that day and framed her now flushed cheeks that were smudged with dirt. She looked bloody fantastic.

She doesn't even know how gorgeous she is, does she? Draco wondered to himself in amazement. That's insane. Bloody insane. I ought to go over there and tell her what a right foul tease she is. . . . . .She really has no clue at all.

And that was a unexpcted turn-on for Draco.


Wait. What am I. . . . ? Oh, fuck it. I gave in when I didn't kill the bitch for throwing dirt in my face. Granger's hot and there's nothing that hating her is going to do about it. Hell, she's even got a fun side!

As he was thinking this, Draco picked up a noise coming from the hallway and froze, dropping the dirt he'd just picked up: footsteps.


"Granger!" he hissed, hoping she would hear him.

When she raised her eyebrow and smirked, preparing to set a dirt-ball after him, he shook his head and pointed to the door. He watched as she stopped and listened and saw when she froze in place just as he had done. Once he knew she understood, he got up to his feet and started flinging charms around the room in an attempt to tidy up.

"Wait, why were you whispering? We cast Muffliato and locking charm, remember?"

"No time for talk, Granger. Clean." He said urgently as he continued to run around the room, frantically charming all cracked pots and dirty floors. He was vaguely aware that Granger was doing the same thing, but didn't spend any time worrying about it. She was perfectly capable of not breaking anything with a mis-casted spell.


After about 45 seconds, the two of them were both running towards the place where Hermione had dropped her basket of potion ingredients. The footsteps were dangerously close now. Hermione whispered the release of the Muffliato just as Draco was muttering the spell to unlock the door; both were still running at the basket and coming from different directions. Just as the door was being pushed open, they collided and landed in a heap of tangled limbs on the floor.

Shit.

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Ten minutes earlier. . .


Blaise smiled to himself as he stepped out shower and began drying himself off. Things had gone well with Danielle (the exchange student) and he was more than pleased with her willingness to work with him. In more ways than one.

She was a good release, but wasn't anything spectacular, really. Hermione seemed to think Blaise was obssessed with her or something of the sort, but this was not the case. He let her think so, though, because he didn't see the point in telling her that his senses were a bit dulled to Danielle's type since he had had many girls like her over the years. Good looking in that semi-exotic way, appropriately coy, easy in the "get her into bed" sense of the word, and a decent shag. Nothing extraordinary at all. The one unusual factor to Danielle was that she wasn't stupid. She was actually pretty decent at Potions, which was a nice plus because Blaise had been expecting the whole work load to be on him.

Sighing, Blaise buttoned up the last of the buttons on his deep green thermal shirt and started towards the staircase that would lead him down to his common room. He figured that he would go and check the temporary Herbology classroom (the greenhouse was undergoing construction left over from an attempted attack on Hogwarts during the war) for Draco and Hermione. There was no way they would have gotten anything done yet. Not with their constant bickering. Perhaps he could lend a hand. He had been planning to all along, after all.


Blaise walked through the school, unafraid and in silence. He found such peace at school. It was familiar, unlike the place his mother had taken him over the summer to avoid the war. He had not been allowed to leave the house and the windows were charmed so that he could not see what was truly outside. It had been very unsettling. The most unsettling factor, however, was not knowing what was happening outside that house for months. He hadn't known who had died or what had happened until after it was all over. Until Draco had told him all he'd needed to know and Hermione had told him all that he didn't need to know, but wanted to. Hogwarts offered Blaise the security of familiarity and of knowledge. He was definitely glad to be back.

As he came to the corrider in which the Herbology room was located, Blaise slowed down a bit and listened intently for any sign of noise. There was nothing.

They casted a silencing charm? How clever. I suppose they knew what a ruckus they'd cause. . .

He was at the door now and he took a deep breath, bracing himself for what he was about to witness because he had left Draco and Hermione alone for almost two and a half hours. Whatever he was about to see - or hear - was definitely not going to be pretty.

Oh, how suprised he was when he did open that door.



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A/N#2:
So was that random or what? Haha.
As usual, let me know what you think of the writing.

I might do a repost of this chapter because there are bits of it that bother me. So that's just a head's up.

The chapter title comes from the song At The End of the Day, from the musical Les Miserables.


Thanks for reading!