Claiming Hermione

The Tutoring Program Guidelines was an impressive piece of work. Malfoy had designed an entire system that, once put into motion, would run like a well-oiled machine and could be continued for years to come. Even though she had made quite an effort, Hermione couldn’t find a single thing to change or add. She had to concede; Malfoy had done an excellent job. It wasn’t too surprising, really. Despite his petulant attitude and derisive comments, she knew Draco was exceptionally smart. Ironically, his insults were one of the ways she’d come to that conclusion. He certainly wasn’t the only person at Hogwarts that had less than friendly feelings towards her. There was practically an entire house that liked to glare at her every chance they got. But she found that most other people’s verbal attacks were rather pathetic, and well… boring. Draco Malfoy, however, was anything but boring, and their sparring matches of the past, though excruciatingly painful, kept her on her toes. So, yes, he apparently had some activity happening between his ears. She would even go far as to admit that, academically speaking anyway, she thought of him as her only true competitor. Not that she would ever tell that to another living soul.

She scribbled a quick note and stuck it inside the cover and shoved the booklet into her school bag. On her way to breakfast, she made her usual stop in the HCR to pick up her messages. Just before she turned to walk out, she sensed that something was off in the room, though she hadn’t noticed it when she walked in. She surveyed the scene like a detective, checking off the features as she looked them over. The two windows were closed, but the curtains open, letting in the clear autumn light, her desk had a small stack of books she’d checked out from the library, Malfoy’s desk had been cleared of everything except a crystal ink bottle and pristine green iridescent quill laying on it’s side, the bookcase that she had half-filled with her books was… completely full. Her eyes opened wide in astonishment. In the beginning, she resented that he’d started using the room as much as she did, but now she was used to it and the full bookcase caused a strange bubble well up inside her and twist. Malfoy had officially moved in.

Warily, she walked up to the case and ran her finger along the titles he’d added. She was mildly surprised to find some duplicates of her own collection; a well-thumbed Hogwarts, A History being one, but she stood open-mouthed at his collection of muggle books with worn spines mixed in with the wizarding ones: Garcia-Marquez, William Blake, Vonnegut, Tolstoy, Thoreau, Cooper, Tennyson, Whitman. There were even some muggle history books, philosophy, two science books next to the Potions books, and couple authors she didn’t recognize: Nin, Benton. The volume of Thoreau made her quirk an eyebrow. Living simply on meager resources was about as opposite as one could get from the Malfoy way of life.

With that little nugget to keep her mind spinning for a while, she turned to leave and stopped short as she noticed something else. There, on the mantle above the fireplace was a small vase filled with jasmine. Trying to process that, while still spinning over the muggle books, was something akin to running repeatedly against an invisible force field, rebounding and running at it again. She grabbed her bag and made a hasty exit.

It was a shell-shocked looking Hermione that sat down next to Ginny as the redhead was filling her juice.

“Morning ‘Mione.” Ginny said cheerfully.

“Morning.” Hermione replied. Ginny frowned.

“We’ve hardly seen you for ages. Malfoy hasn’t been making you cover his duties too, has he?” She joked.

The mention of the subject already on her mind, brought her out of her daze. “No, Ginny. It’s been fine. He’s actually been doing a lot of work, if you can believe that!” she snorted as though she herself couldn’t believe it. Which she couldn’t.

Ginny shot her a doubtful look, but didn’t say anything. Hermione shook her head, explaining, “I know…but you should see the Tutoring Program that he developed, pretty much single-handedly. We’re presenting it next week and it should be up and running by the end of the month. It’s really quite good.”

A strange look passed over Ginny’s face, but it was gone a moment later. “So, where have you been then?”

“Just trying to keep the prefects in order, I swear some of them need babysitters! Studying for NEWTS, and I need to check up on Padma and Lavender’s plans for the Halloween Masque.”

A wide, shy grin suddenly swept over Ginny’s face and her cheeks turned pink. Hermione chuckled, feeling like she might know the cause.

“Yes?” she asked with a knowing smile.

“Harry asked me last night.” She replied quietly.

“Oooh Gin! I’m so happy for you!” Hermione squealed throwing her arms around the blushing girl. And she was happy for her. And for Harry. Ginny’s crush on her best friend was almost epic and Hermione had tried to council a young, lovesick Ginny as to how to handle her embarrassing feelings. Ginny put her crush on hold, dated other boys, and slowly she and Harry became friends. Hermione suspected that spending so much time together on the Quidditch pitch had been instrumental in growing Harry’s affections. Ginny was a rocket on a broom and even her tongue-tied bashfulness around Harry all but disappeared on the pitch. She was a lively firecracker who could out-fly, out-maneuver, and out-back talk almost everyone on the team. Harry really had no choice but to fall for her.

“Oh, ‘Mione, you’re coming to Hogsmeade with us this Saturday, right? We’re going to a new shop that opened for out costumes, and you just have to come!”

As she was about to reply, a bouncy Lavender Brown and a sheepish looking Ron sat down across from the two girls. “Oh, Hermione, you’re going to love Coscoutre! It has EVERYTHING! I think I want to go as a bird. God, I can’t wait! Ron’s going as a panther.”

Hermione really wanted to point out that cats eat birds, but for the sake of her other best friend she held back. She was glad for Ron, even if Lavender sometimes grated on her nerves. Ron seemed truly happy and comfortable, for once. There had always been an unspoken expectation that eventually he and Hermione would end up together, but as they got older, his nervousness around her prompted a tendency to say stupid things that resulted in one too many heated arguments. It was obvious now that they weren’t a good match, but in Hermione’s mind, it was hard to undo the years of expectation.

“...and after that we’re going to go The Three Broomsticks for lunch. And then, we’re going to walk around a bit.” Lavender finished just as Harry sat down, looking sleepy and disheveled.

His greeting was little more than a mumbled “Hey” and he immediately started filling his plate. Hermione sighed at her still empty plate and followed his lead. Spending a whole day with two happy couples was not exactly high on her list, but it had been a really long time since she’d spent any real time with them and she did need a costume. Even if no one asked her, which was likely, as Head Girl, she still had to go. I’ll go to the stupid dance and I’ll have a great time and who cares about any of it anyway! She lifted her chin and bit into her toast.

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The Golden Trio had apparently become a quintet and Draco eyed the group walking ahead of him on the path to Hogsmeade with a mask of indifference. It was a blustery day and the chilly wind couldn’t make up its mind which direction to blow so it just kept whipping around on it’s self frantically. Pansy, Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle were talking animatedly and Draco was doing a good job of tuning them out, which none of them seemed to mind. After the incident with “The Knee”, as he called it, he decided that he needed to spend more time in the company of his old companions, so he joined the Slytherin table the next morning and opened the day with a steady stream of insults and snarky comments, mostly centering on the much loved topic of Weasleys. The Slytherins didn’t skip a beat at his reemergence from solitude and joined in the berating instantly.

Draco pushed his hair out of his eyes only to have it reappear a moment later. Up ahead of him, it seemed that Granger was having was a similar problem and every ten seconds or so, she’d toss the long mass of curly hair over her shoulder. After an agitated couple of minutes of watching the curls swirling back and forth over her shoulder, Draco decided that he absolutely hated those curls and wished he could cast a Petrificus Pilarus so the damn things would stay put. The Boy Wonder’s hair, however, looked like it was born in this weather. Since his father’s incarceration, Draco had spent a good deal of time thinking about Harry Potter. Draco was one of the few people that knew what Potter was up against and what he had to do. While Draco hated Potter vehemently for…well, there were a million reasons, in a tiny crevice somewhere inside him, he really hoped Potter would win and kill Voldemort.

Once in Hogsmeade, the five Gryffindors darted down a side street while the Slytherins kept on, Quality Quidditch Supplies first on their stop. Draco bought twelve broomstick-servicing kits for his team hoping to start the season off right, and arranged for them to be delivered. Goyle and Crabbe both purchased some polish and Blaise flipped through Which Broomstick, while Pansy tapped her foot impatiently.

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Lavender hurried excitedly passed Hermione with her arms overloaded with costumes. She and Ginny were camped out at the back of the sleek new store, trying on all manner of dresses and costumes. Ron and Harry had managed to make their choices quickly and ducked out to visit Zonko’s where they would all meet when the girls were done. There went her intention to spend the day with her best friends. Hermione fingered a low-cut scarlet beaded dress with a wistful look. A red and silver feathered half mask hung by its ribbon the hanger.

“You would ruin that dress Granger. What a shame that would be as it’s such a lovely costume. Surely they have a potato sack somewhere in here that would be more fitting for you. It might even come covered in mud and you’ll feel right at home.” An acidic voice snarled over her shoulder into her ear.

Hermione whipped around to find Blaise Zabini and his merry band of miscreants standing behind her sneering at her and laughing at Blaise. Hermione resisted the urge to check the location of Ginny and Lavender and stared right into the cold glittering eyes of Blaise. Taking a page from Draco’s book, she adopted her best bored look and brought her hand up to stifle a small yawn keeping her gaze firmly on his. She lazily put her hand on her hip, cocked her head and raised a brow, as if to say Are you done yet? without saying anything at all.

Draco thought it best to stand back and let this unfold without him. As Head Boy he didn’t really have the leeway to torment the Head Girl and with the events of the last few months, he didn’t really have the drive to. Blaise, however, seemed more than willing to pick up the pursuit, and he snarled with indignation at her, “You uppity little swot! Why bother wearing a costume at all, that rat’s nest will give you away instantly. And besides, no one wants to hang out with a shriveled up prude. Even your little boy toys have finally managed to pitch you. Maybe you should have spread your legs for them sooner and they’d still be here to pity you.”

In his well-practiced posture of indifference, Draco stood at the back of the group listening to Blaise lay it on. While he didn’t think Blaise’s quips were brilliant by any means, the particular brand of vehemence in the boys voice was familiar. It was his voice, the one he used for the Gryffindor Super Stars, and especially for Granger. An unexpected feeling of possessiveness set up house in his gut. Draco wasn’t really sure he liked Blaise taking over his job of tormenting Granger. After all the years of relentlessly attacking her parentage, her appearance, her insufferable know-it-all personality and her pathetic bleeding heart, Draco kind of felt like he’d staked some kind of claim on her. Zabini could go find his own mudblood to pick on, Granger was his!

A lazy drawl from the back of the group interrupted Hermione’s retort, “Can we get on with it, spending even more time with Granger is not on my to-do list today.” Hermione narrowed her eyes at him momentarily, then turned back to Zabini with a unnaturally bright smile on her face.

“If you keep it up Blaise, I might think you like me. You know what they say about little boys trying to win a girl’s heart. But don’t worry, you have a special place in mine.” She gave him a saucy wink, turned on her heel and walked to the back of the store where Ginny was just wiggling out of a green and blue sequined dress.

Draco had to stifle his laugh. He felt bizarrely proud of her and turned away from a gob smacked Pansy and Blaise to hide his twitching lips and the amusement dancing in his eyes. Good girl, Granger!

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Hermione’s heart was returning to its natural rhythm as she sat on a bench in the back of the store while Ginny and Lavender debated over their top choices. This was so not Hermione’s thing! And she was thinking exactly that when a glimmer of silver caught her eye. She walked over to the rack closest to the far wall and flipped her way to the fourth dress on the rack. Hermione smiled and was filled with a defiant happiness. She’d found it and it was perfect! Before the girls came out, she hurried to the register, paid for the costume and arranged for delivery. She didn’t even care that she was going alone.


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