Obscurity

I’ve got the best reviewer’s. Personally I’m all for the jump Malfoy screw school plan. Or Maybe the skip school, screw Malfoy plan. However you want to look at it. Alas Hermione doesn’t know what’s good for her and Malfoy will probably have bruises from when she pushed him off of her so she could frantically get dressed and to the meeting on time. No fun, I know. Actually the “event” is already written, so it’s preordained, like fate.

I went through and fixed some of my grammar mistakes in previous chapters. I just throw ‘ around like crazy and often proof at 2AM. It’s a failing. Spelling mistakes drive me bonkers and so does hard to understand wording. We all have our pet peeves. I’ll consider taking a beta, I’ve had several very kind offers, I just get really impatient to post once I’ve finally managed to write something. I know, I know, patience….I suck at patience.

Required Disclaimer: Obviously I am not the WB or JK. This story is not meant to infringe on the rights or offend any scary corporations and lawyers that could sue my pants off. These characters belong to their creator, I am only borrowing them for a short while, and most likely putting them in positions and situations that would make JK frown. On with the story then...


Rain

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Hermione just knew that everyone could tell what she had been up to. There hadn’t been time to change her clothes, and her knickers were uncomfortably wet now. She couldn’t help but squirm. And her hair must be more mussed than usual. And surely she was flushed. Malfoy of course was as cool and collected as always. Eyes sweeping dismissively over as if she didn’t even exist, lounging with loose limbed grace in one of the squishy armchairs. Occasionally his mouth opened and he would drawl sarcastic comments that brought absolutely no worth to the meeting.

Perhaps he was so casual because he wasn’t expected to contribute to the meeting. Hermione had never had any trouble speaking up in a crowd before. She loved the way that adding her knowledge to the group made her feel. Today she wanted to strangle Mandy Swanson, who was head girl, who kept asking for her input.

“Due to recent events it’s been decreed that all patrolling be done with partners. Shawn and I will be working up a rotating schedule. Right now we think it’s best if we change partners and routes weekly so that things don’t get to stale. We also will need to be beefing up security in other areas. Any ideas? Hermione?”

“We have several events to plan this year and need to divide up labor appropriately. Decorating, Planning, ext. Muggles use planning groups called committee’s and Dumbledore has suggested we try to integrate that approach. Hermione could you please stay after this meeting? I’d like to discuss this with you.”

“The social calendar is a little dull here at Hogwarts and Dumbledore has agreed that we can plan a couple of school dances or events to liven things up. Let’s have everyone think of ideas and meet next Friday to discuss it. Hermione could you organize that meeting with everyone?”

The meeting seemed to last forever. On one hand she was deeply flattered by the head girl’s confidence in her and her obvious enthusiasm to use her skills. On the other hand she was horribly aware of Malfoy, kept catching herself staring at him, and knew that she was butchering her reputation with her shaky inane replies. Finally the meeting broke up and people stood, saying their goodbyes and gathering their things.

Hermione was waiting impatiently for everyone to clear out, this wasn’t a social event, it was a prefects meeting, when she felt him brush up against her back, his scent overwhelming her suddenly. His voice was husky and low in her ear, “Relax Granger, they can’t read minds.”

She started violently and looked around furtively to see if anyone noticed them. By the time she opened her mouth to reply his warm body was moving away. She turned her head in time to see the door swinging shut behind his billowing coal black robes.

She so needed to get a grip. Malfoy was absolutely right. Even if people did notice that something was wrong with her, there was no way that their minds would jump there. Her mind flashed back on earlier, him kneeling between her legs, his hands on her breasts, his tongue in her mouth. She knew she was blushing. She was being silly. Knowing that didn’t change the way she felt one whit.

“Hermione? Are you feeling all right? You seem to be very jumpy and flushed today.”
Hermione gave Mandy a shaky smile.

“I’m sorry Mandy. I’m actually not feeling well. I’m sure I’ll be fine after a good nights sleep.”

“Oh, do you want to do this committee thing at another time?”

“No, lets get started though.” Hermione said briskly, finding her concentration vastly improved minus one particular prefect. She sat down at one of the large conference tables, pulling out a pad of muggle paper and an ink pen. Mandy eyed her choice of writing implements uneasily but sat down with her and Hermione found the work to be a delightful distraction.

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The Gryffendor common room was bursting with people, and as was to be expected, full of food and butterbeer. Last night before the start of classes usually meant an impromptu party. He and Harry had skived the goods from the kitchen and were now involved in a very rowdy game of exploding snap. Still Ron was immediately aware of Hermione when she finally came into the room. She’d been flustered and sketchy at the prefects meeting and Ron had been waiting for her to get back so they could talk. He wasn’t pleased to notice that he wasn’t the only one who turned his head when she came in.

He needed to ask her out soon. But every time he even thought about it the words got stuck in his throat and something else entirely popped its way out. Perhaps what he ought to do is just lean in and kiss her. Somehow it had always seemed like he had all the time in the world to get up the nerve, she wasn’t going anywhere. But there was something so different about her this last year. He confident step, the way she held her head up. And the other boys at Hogwarts weren’t blind, despite her know it all attitude; she was quite easy on the eyes.

She ignored them both and dropped her things in a corner. Her delicate hand undid the clasp of her robes, and several buttons before shimming out of them to reveal jeans, a loose top, and sneakers. She seemed completely unaware of the sudden scrutiny as people stared at her. Her curves were one of the big differences in her this year. She’d started developing breasts a few years ago and now they were full and plump, but her hips had just rounded out this year. Those low jeans she was always wandering around in hugged her figure like a glove, even if she did wear those horrible bulky belts all the time. He’d think her little striptease was meant to entice if he didn’t know for a fact that she was completely oblivious to her charms.

She dropped the robes in a silky pile on her things and slid to the floor to stretch. Ron felt his ears turning red as he looked around the room. She wasn’t going to do that here? Was she? Her new hobby was abnormal and really freaked him out, and now she was going to do it in front of everybody! Ron frantically wracked his brain to figure out how to distract her and called her name. She gave him a little wave from her place on the floor, pulling out her wand with her other hand and transfiguring a ladder-back chair into a sturdy looking dangling muggle thing that she called a punching bag. This was so much worse then those stupid elf hats.

She rose gracefully to her feet, pulling her long curly hair into a loose ponytail low on her neck before jabbing out and hitting the bag with her fist. Within minutes she was dancing around the bag, a flurry of punches and kicks. Several people had stopped to watch and Ron was so embarrassed for her that he was considering leaving the room. A particularly vicious kick made the bag spin wildly and she made a frustrated sound when she hit it at an odd angle. When Harry stepped up to hold the bag steady for her Ron let out a curse and stomped away. He didn’t understand why Harry encouraged her in this. Muggle dueling was stupid and useless. It would never do her any good. She was a witch, and a woman. And women were not supposed to act like that.

After a while everyone stopped paying attention and Ron tried to play chess with Seamus. But he was distracted by the thuds and grunts. So not sexy. After a while she finally quit, and Ron felt a moment of premature relief, because she squared off with Harry and they started doing some of that trapping stuff that Hermione was teaching him. They were laughing at Harry’s fumbles and Ron finally gave up on the chess game when Seamus got up to wonder over and watch, along with several other people. With a disgusted look over his shoulder at the small crowd watching his two best friends, while he sat alone at a chessboard, he sighed and went upstairs.

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Hermione was distracted for a moment by Ron leaving, after ignoring her completely for forty five minutes. Really, she didn’t know what his problem was. Harry managed to get his hand around her wrist and pulled her off balance, play punching her in her face. She brought her hand up to deflect the punch, jabbing at his eyes and then sweeping at his foot while he was off balance. He fell heavily and she reversed her grip on his arm, causing him to flip to his stomach, wrenching his arm back and rendering him harmless. Really Harry wasn’t much of a challenge for her, but practice was practice. She let go and stepped back, giving him space to climb to his feet.

Harry always took her winning good naturedly, he seemed genuinely glad that she was good at this and it seemed to make her feel better. Her friends from the Dojo made Harry decidedly uncomfortable though and he had never trained there, though he had walked with her several times. The place she had found did not cater to the rich. It was a small out of the way place and the students there were troubled kids, who had reasons for wanting to learn to fight. He was a good friend to her, doing this with her. He had no real passion for it and it was sweet of him to train with her.

But she could tell he was getting tired so she excused herself, changing the bag back to a chair, and scooping up her stuff. Her roommates were still down here so she would have some quiet time in her room to do a few scholastic things before her run. She wanted to look through her potions notes from last year, and scan through the book before her first class with Snape. His class was always a challenge and everyone went on and on about how brutal the advanced potions class was. She also had been working on transfiguration all summer but wanted to reread the first chapter of her text to make sure she was as ready as possible. She wanted to stay as busy as possible so not to dwell on the insanity at the shack.

Her room was as expected; warm, cheery, and empty. She neatly put her things away before getting out her laptop and sitting crosswise on her bed. It had taken her ages to make the thing work in magical circumstances and it still wasn’t quite right. Her wireless internet simply wouldn’t work. She supposed that those security measures were necessary. After all there was a reason that all communication was watched in and out of Hogwarts. It was supposed to be one of the safest places to be. But communication by owl with her mother was tedious and slow.

So the small blinking letter at the bottom of her screen declaring that she had mail was completely unexpected. Maybe her laptop had somehow gotten turned on during the train ride and had uploaded some messages. She clicked on the envelope and waited impatiently for the page to load. She had one new message from silverphoenix.

Dear Miss Granger,

I am suitably impressed by your extensive charm ability. You should note that you are the first and only student to ever override the schools magical interference to make a muggle electronic devise work properly.

I appreciate your reluctance to breach the communication barriers as well. It shows excellent judgment. As you are aware, security at Hogwarts is a very high priority and I acknowledge your respect for that. If for some reason you do have a pressing need to communicate outside the school please let me know and we can either lift the barrier temporarily or use traditional methods.

As impressive as this accomplishment is, discretion is necessary. If the word was to get out about your laptop, we would have hundreds of diligent students attempting to duplicate your feat. One small bubble as you have created does not disrupt our security wards; several would be more difficult to control. At my request please keep your laptop put away except when you are alone.

Albus Dumbledore

Hermione read it over several times, her mouth hanging open. Nothing got by him. Yet still he thought that she had not connected to the internet out of respect for security, not because she didn’t know how. She was suddenly deeply grateful that she hadn’t figured it out. She was also deeply flattered by his compliments. The only student? Surely he must be mistaken, but he had known the minute that her laptop was on his grounds, so surely he would have known if anyone else had…

She moved it to her saved documents and pulled up the potions notes she had scanned in over the summer. So much for using her laptops in classes. She was looking forward to debating the rules with Snape in the morning, because she had known he would protest. She tried to immerse herself in her studies but her thoughts kept drifting. She thought about going to the library and finding some new material but decided to go for her run early, clear her head.

The night outside was cool and crisp, the packed dirt firm beneath her trainers. Hermione breathed deep and even as she ran at a steady ground eating pace. He had the most beautiful eyes, a silver grey storm. His lips tasted so good. Was she really going to go all the way with him? Would she have stopped him? Would he have stopped? Like before when he told her it was enough. And what was he doing kissing her like that anyway, even if she had wanted him to. Even if she had let him undress her without a hint of protest.

She rounded a corner, feeling the burn in her legs, ignoring it, breathing evenly.

His shoulders and chest had been rock hard under her hands. Solid as a rock. Subconsciously that’s how she saw him. Solid. Dependable. If he wasn’t such a prat to everyone. Oh God. If Harry had known what she had been doing earlier today he certainly wouldn’t be happy. And Ron would go absolutely ballistic. All of the Weasley family would be disappointed. But when she was with him all of that faded into the background.

Like he was the only person in her whole world.

She wanted it to be him. She realized, pushing herself faster, stretching out her legs for a final sprint. When she thought about making love it was always Malfoy in her half formed picture. Maybe not tonight, but eventually she would be ready and she wanted Malfoy to take her there. Show her what it was like. Really she couldn’t picture anyone else. Finally completely winded and unable to control her breathing Hermione stumbled to a halt, bracing her hands on her knees and taking ragged breaths. After a few minutes she began to walk slowly, cooling off. Now that she had stopped running her legs felt rubbery and weak, but she felt tired and relaxed.

She felt more than saw him fall into step at her shoulder. They walked silently together under the boughs of overhanging trees through the shadows. By unspoken agreement she followed his lead when they veered off the path onto the grass and finally arrived at a small out of the way courtyard, very seldom used, but neatly kept. He picked a large tree with spreading roots and whipped off his cloak to lie on the ground at its feet. She sat down delicately and accepted the ripe apple he handed her, the sweet juice quenching her thirst. He picked another for himself before settling down next to her, one leg bent, the other strait, leaning up against the tree trunk.

It was a comfortable sort of silence, one that she was surprised to share with him. She ate her apple quickly, tossing the core, and then redoing her ponytail, much of it having escaped during her run. “You didn’t used to run.” He commented, taking another slow bite of his apple.

“I took it up this summer.” She leaned back on her hands, letting her hair fall away from her sweaty neck and stared up at the stars. The breeze felt good on her flushed skin. That was the funny thing about Draco Malfoy. Even with her stomach doing insane acrobatics and her heightened awareness of every nerve on her body, somehow she just felt comfortable in his presence.

“You’ve got potions in the morning?” She nodded dreamily, considering laying back, tracing the centaur in the sky with her eyes. He tossed his apple core over his shoulder and stretched out on one arm, crossing his legs at the ankles. “What did you think of Borgitrovisties essay on altering switching elements?”

“Completely ludicrous. I mean honestly he would be violating at least fifty ministry laws and the whole premise is immoral. Not to mention I’m not sure the whole idea is plausible. Bluestrang grass? It hasn’t even been proven to have magical properties.”

They debated.

Hermione was in her element, lying back, head to head with him. They discussed several political figures, potion theory, and her half formed views on wandless magic. It had been a long time since she had been mentally challenged in conversation. Her father used to debate with her all the time, and still did over muggle issues, but he had no idea about her world. She had really missed being stimulated this way. And soon it was late. Hermione gasped at the time blinking back at her from her watch and scrambled to her feet, tossing her mop over one shoulder.

Draco was much more leisurely, climbing to his feet slowly, stretching languidly. Hermione found herself riveted by his flexing muscles. He draped his cloak over one arm and reached for her suddenly, grasping her hand and tugging her forward into his space. His lips brushed gently over hers and then he released her. “You’ve got to relax a bit Granger. You get really stressed about things.”

“I have a lot to be stressed about!” She snapped, resisting the urge to touch her lips. She was so confused when he acted like this. Like he was her boyfriend. But tomorrow he would be laughing at her humiliation in potions along with the other Slytherin idiots. “It’s two in the morning, I should have been abed ages ago.”

He pulled her body close to him then, slipping an arm around her waist and brushing a kiss against her temple. “You’re lips taste like candy, and you smell like sunshine. I shouldn’t be here with you.”

“But you are here.” She whispered back inanely. His scent wrapped around her like a cocoon. Warm and clean and expensive cologne.

“So are you.” His hands swept up her back and back down, and he nibbled on her ear for a second. “Let’s get you to bed.”

He gave her nudge to start her walking and fell into step with her. “You haven’t figured out how to break my vanishing charm yet.”

“No. I haven’t had time.”


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A little note about Ron’s behavior in this chapter. First off these are his private thoughts, not something he shares with anyone. He doesn’t think in his head that Hermione’s perfect. I think she is annoying to him but he wants her anyway. And lots of guys are uncomfortable with physically strong women. I’m trying to portray how unsuitable they are for each other. I think that Ron is obsessed with appearances and cares very deeply what people think. Not that he’s a bad person or anything, just not a good fit for someone like Hermione.