The Prime Princess

Hermione woke up curled around Lucius who was gazing at her with sleepy eyes. She felt so cozy and didn’t regret a thing.

“Hey, beautiful,” greeted Lucius and gave a kiss onto her lips. He looked satisfied and happy and it had nothing to do with Imperius Curse. But something had changed him though.

“Hi,” sighed Hermione and stretched herself, feeling all his warm body against hers. Lucius just kept watching her like he still didn’t believe she was next to him naked and all. She rolled herself onto his chest and stared at him with interest.

“When you became such a romantic?” she asked rather flatly.

“From the day I got a vision of a young witch telling me that I would find the true love of my life. It was the day my fiancée died giving birth to my son,” he answered openly and added: “She was you.”

“Er… Um… What?” stuttered bewildered Hermione.

“It was you who I saw,” explained Lucius and reached a hand to caress her face. “Her image is burned into my memory for all times. Every detail of her… long dark hair flowing in the mist of blizzard, defiant look on fairy face and black dragon-skin hugging every curve with a soft touch of silver fox’s fur on collar. When I saw the bracelet in the jewelry shop, I knew for sure it was you ‘cause she had worn the same piece.”
***
Hermione was in stunned state all the way back to Hogwarts. So it wasn’t Imperius after all but an obsession of some crazed moment seeing hallucinations. He was so fond of the idea that the vision of a warrior-lady had been Hermione that he had purposely bought the bracelet to make it all come true.

She really liked Lucius a lot and she fancied him but hearing him say that he loved her because of some prophesy was just a little too much. Talking about predictions why didn’t I saw that coming like I had seen Draco hit by a Bludger?

“Fuck!” cursed Hermione, stepped trough the gates and marched up to castle. All the romance had been nice and all but going into extremes with love was just stupid! Glancing up at the Bell Tower, she read 3:26 PM.

“Great, I missed Runes,” muttered Hermione, stalked into the Entrance Hall and went right down to dungeons. Common room was empty but Pansy was sitting in VIP Suit’s study and was experimenting with pumpkins.

“Hi, Pansy,” waved Hermione stepping in and tried to sneak right into her room.

“Hi, Mione. I heard you had a date with Mr. Malfoy,” started Pansy enthusiastically and Hermione hit herself mentally.

“Yeah, he wanted to celebrate a successful buyout,” she left out the whole story so Pansy wouldn’t continue. Pansy really was a bit annoyed about the idea of a business lunch. She turned back to her pumpkins and transfigured one of them into a ruby slipper.
***
After school hours Hermione crept back to common room with a note from professor Snape that said she had the clearance to be absent from the last periods. To get it, she had had to brew a working hung-over potion for poor professor. She noticed Vincent and Gregory sitting in one corner and scribbling an essay for History.

“Have you seen Potty and Weasel today?” she asked stepping closer. Both giants looked up and almost had heart attacks.

“Who was that vampire?” pointed Vincent out. Her hand came up to cover the bite on her neck and just chided them away with that idea.

“It doesn’t matter! Where are they?” repeated Hermione her question.

“Um, they should be in Quidditch practice,” answered Gregory thoughtfully.

“Good,” muttered Hermione and turned to walk out of there.

“Wait! You can’t just go and start a fight with them!” yelled Gregory as he and Vincent struggled up and followed her.

“We’ll come too and protect you!” told Vincent proudly.

“And why is that?”

“Cause Millie made us do it or she would really kick our asses,” mumbled Gregory.
***
Red dots flashed in a darkening sky as Griffindor team trained on the pitch. Hermione walked up and took a seat on the stands. She had a notebook taken out as she started scouting for new players in their team. Potter was still the Captain and that sorry ass looser Weasley was a Keeper. So much for improvements!

Something blond came whooshing by and Hermione stared hard at the Beater. And then the next Beater… And then the next… How many of them were there?!

“Bloody Merlin! They have Quinn twins in their team!” yelped Hermione and growled in fury. “When did they arrive from Durmstrang?”

“On 1st September,” told Vincent and watched the blond wraith take down a Bludger from tracks. These two had even bigger reputation as nuisances when Weasley twins ever had. And they were goddamn witches on top of that!

“Right,” snarled Hermione, “Gotta struck those two down or get a better game plan.” She looked up again and saw two Bludgers scurrying at them. One hit a row beneath them, sending splinters of wood flying, and the other almost took Gregory’s head off.

“Not again!” whined Hermione as Bludgers came like cannonballs targeting the three of them. Hermione jumped up and pushed Gregory out of the way but the damn thing struck her left hand. Something broke with a crack and she screamed in pain.

Sitting up again, she looked at her hand and was relieved that her wand in her sleeve had stopped crushing her bones but the wooden stick had broken in the impact. That was a minor problem. The major one was that her pinky was smashed and bled. The sight of blood made her woozy and she fainted.

“Mione!” shouted Vincent and shook her with no reveal.
***
Vincent carried unconscious Hermione into Hospital Wing, Gregory following them. Draco was still there from the morning’s accident and eyed her curiously. He asked Gregory and Vincent come to him and demanded them to tell the story about her.

After the two giants had left, Draco surveyed the coast and when it was clear, he hopped down from bed and darted to Hermione. Madam Pomfrey had put her hand into splints.

“So, both of us can’t play against Ravenclaw,” growled Draco and sat down onto the edge of her bed.

“Actually you are wrong. I’m right handed, you dimwit, and I’m better at hands-free style than you are,” mumbled Hermione awakening from her slumber. Draco stared her furiously and spotted a bite mark on her neck.

“You little whore, you’ve been shagging with Zabini!” roared Draco and grabbed at her throat to get a better look.

“Have you totally lost your mind?” she fought free from his grip and slapped hard across his face.

“Well, yes, now that you mention it!” retorted Draco.

“Argh, I haven’t been shagging with Blaise. He’s just my friend. He is your friend too!” she shouted and pushed Draco away from her.

“Not anymore.”

“No one would be after you almost kill them. I could get you expelled for that!” threatened Hermione and flashed him her scariest looks.

“No, you wont!” he barked and pulled out his wand but Hermione was quicker seeing his Obliviation spell forming before it was shot.

“Tempus Katalepsis!” a screaming pain surged through her and Hermione collapsed.
***
The Hospital Wing was quiet at night. Madam Pomfrey finished her last check on her patients and retired to her quarters. When the door closed behind her, Hermione opened her eyes.

Why was it so hard to reason with Draco? He had acted so weird around everybody that it made her think he finally had really gone crazy. Hermione took a calming breath of air and stared the moon-lightened room. Two long rows of beds ran beside walls with only some occupants. She hadn’t drunk her Sleeping Potion because a murderer and a rapist lay few beds from her. He wasn’t a convict yet but in her eyes he was already condemned and that was quite a good reason to despise and loathe him. So she had a foresight and at that moment she was glad she had it. Screw Trelawney! Her power was far greater than interpreting tealeaves! Yep, she was the best!

Hermione heard bedsprings creak and she went rigid pretending to sleep. Soft thuds of bare feet came across the floor and Hermione gritted her teeth as they came to stop in front of her. She scented heavy cologne of pricey brand.

‘He’s awake!’ screamed Hermione inside her head and wished she still had her wand tucked under the pillow but it was busted in half and useless. Next she figured that she could just beat the crap out of him with bare hands if he tried something.

“Hermione,” he whispered in a velvety voice and she froze from the use of her name. ‘So he plays with his pray first and then kills?’ growled Hermione but forced herself to be quiet. A rough hand came to caress her face and she swallowed a flinch of his touch that disgusted her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to kill Blaise, just to teach him to keep away. I had a time-lock on those spells,” Draco apologized to relieve his stings of conscience. He didn’t expect her to hear him, only needed to hear himself say those words to her.

‘I am not buying this, you bastard! I saw him dead! Don’t touch me or I’ll bite your hand off!’ roared Hermione in complete state of stillness. She didn’t want to provoke him again although it was temping to get a reason to smash his head into concrete.

“Sweet dreams,” he purred and kissed lightly her forehead. His lips were soft, warm and very confusing. Draco retreated to his cot and crawled under sheets and blankets. Hermione opened her eyes again and stared furiously at the opposite wall.

‘This lying git is not getting under my skin with his mushy stuff! How dares he to come to me and say all those things? To whom he thinks he is?’ growled Hermione and strangled slowly her pillow to death. She was blinded with outrage that she didn’t notice when she had fallen asleep.