Lust, War and... Love?

The third-period Arithmancy was the only class almost devoid of Gryiffindors. Wonderwitch Granger took it, but no one else in Gryffindor had enough brains for the class. Half of the students in it were Ravenclaws, who were always brimming over with intellect. A couple of especially persistent and studious Hufflepuffs made it to the N.E.W.T. level too. But the rest were Slytherins - Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, and, of course, Draco Malfoy.

Draco stretched his legs under the desk and stared at Granger’s bushy hair in the front row. Oblivious to Professor Vector’s convoluted explanations of numerical relativity of time-space, he was undressing Granger in his mind and savouring the memories of their intimate encounter.

Merlin’s pants, he’d got her laid. The unapproachable, uptight, icy-cold, ivory-tower Granger. Stole her right from under the noses of Potty and Weasel. The shag was so damned good. Her soft lips, her wonderfully responsive body, her lusty voice… The Druidic brew brought out her best and most seductive side. Definitely, Krum was no fool. What a vision she was at the Yule Ball… Believe it or not, she did his Charms homework without a squawk.

Too bad he couldn’t boast his victory, but keeping the matter a secret was a dire necessity. Especially now that Crabbe and Goyle‘s fathers frequented the Malfoy Manor as the Dark Lord’s emissaries. Draco’s position was already complicated enough. Although his father, who always made him feel small in his presence, was locked up at Azkaban, his obsessively paranoid mum and maniacally fanatic Auntie Bella swooped down on Draco like two vultures on each and every occasion. Granger made a huge mistake of following Potter to the Department of Mysteries, which squarely landed her in Lord Voldemort’s blacklist.

Pansy was still here. His cow of a fiancee, whose only merits were that she was perfectly pureblood and not too closely related to the Malfoys and the Blacks. What precisely did that engagement contract state about infidelity?

The bell rang and broke off the train of Draco’s thoughts. He looked at Nott, who sat next to him. Theo was throwing curious glances at him and at Granger too. Did he already get a whiff of a red-hot love affair in the making?

Zabini sauntered to their desk. Daphne batted her eyelashes at him flirtatiously as she passed him on her way to the door.

“She sent everyone’s head spinning with this wacky new hairdo of hers,” remarked Blaise sarcastically. “Was it in the latest Witch Weekly? “

“Show me a girl who doesn’t read that rubbish,“ Theo chuckled. “Seven fail-safe ways to enchant the wizard of your dreams! I bet you won’t find a single girl in here who didn’t try to practice it.”

Blaise looked at Theo with disdain. “Did you ever see Granger reading it?”

“She probably hides it in her huge books, Blaise,” was Theo’s comeback.

“Granger knows better than that,” Draco stepped in. “Bet she knows more about sex than anyone in our year, you both included. Isn’t she a babe?”

“You mean she did it with Krum?” Blaise surveyed Granger who was talking to the teacher.

“Krum or no Krum,“ Draco shrugged. “Look at her more closely - you’d see she’s no plain mouse.”

Theo and Blaise stared at him curiously which amused Draco a good deal. Then the two smart alecks turned their heads in unison to appraise Granger, who was now busy stuffing her books in her bag.

“Pay attention to how she walks,“ whispered Draco in an expert tone. “Boobs, hips, sway, gait - she’s got everything in place. She won’t beg for your favors - she’ll have you beg for hers!”

Blaise and Theo’s eyes were now fixed upon the sexiest prefect in Hogwarts.

“You mean you got a chance to snog her?” Blaise was definitely intrigued. “How was it?”

“Snog?” Draco smirked. “She knows more than that. Snogging is for first-years. If you‘d have known how -”

“Listen, Draco,” Theo interrupted him. “How did you get past Potter and Weasley to date her?”

“First, Potty and Weasel can’t tell a girl from an owl.” Draco revelled in the boys’ befuddlement. “Second, I don’t have to move a single finger to date her. She knows the real thing when she sees it. Do you think Krum was stupid? He‘d shagged quite a few before he met her. And I -”

Slap! Draco gripped his bright red left cheek.Slap! His right cheek turned crimson. A very furious Hermione Granger was now staring right into his eyes.

“You wretched git, stop talking trash!” she hissed. “Enough, I’m going to tell it -”

Draco opened and closed his mouth soundlessly, as Granger bolted to the door. Theo and Blaise were equally speechless. Before his fellow Slytherins returned to their senses, Draco grabbed his bag and darted into the corridor after her.

He caught Granger by her elbow exactly the second she was about to disappear in a girls’ bathroom.

“Slapping has to stop, Granger!” he snarled into her face. “If you tell anyone, I -”

“Bragging has to stop too!” she cut him short.

“I didn’t brag! I only complimented your looks!” He squeezed her elbow harder as she attempted to wrestle out of his grip.

“You, self-centered, pompous prat! You tell me to keep it secret and then you go boasting what a babe I am!” Tears appeared in her eyes. “I am not a babe, you understand!”

“What’s so bad about being a sexy kitten, Granger?” he lowered his voice to a husky whisper.

Suddenly his limbs froze and he nearly toppled onto Hermione. The girl gripped him by his elbows to prevent him from smashing his nose on the stone wall.

“Harry - Harry! Ouch - Malfoy nearly fell on me!”

Draco turned his head. Sure enough, Potter was right behind him, his wand about to pierce his neck. The same moment he felt a jolt and was about to crash sideways to the floor if not for Granger digging her fingernails into his stiff upper arms.

“Get off her, Malfoy!” Potter’s eyes were black with anger. “What do you want from her?”

“I’d be happy to if she lets me off!“ Draco sneered. “Ouch! Granger, when was the last time you trimmed your nails?”

Potter grabbed Draco by his collar only to discover that Malfoy’s hand was locked in a dead grip on Hermione’s elbow.

“Harry, please remove your spell now!” demanded Hermione.

“What was it about?” Potter was not relenting yet.

“Oh, nonsense - still the same incident of his wandering the corridors at night last Saturday!”

“Potter, can you talk some sense into her? I fixed her Arithmancy homework, and what am I getting for it?” drawled Draco for the sheer pleasure of baffling Potty and ruffling Granger’s feathers at the same time.

“MALFOY!“ she shrieked and cast a spell on him. He tried to retort with a smart comeback, but all he could do was to open his mouth soundlessly. In less than a second Granger was free of his grip. Draco fell all the way to the floor. Potter attempted to ask Hermione something but ended up facing the closed bathroom door instead.

“Serves you right, Malfoy!” Potter stared at him. “What did you do to her homework?”

How pointless, Potty, since Granger muted me down and good. Speaks tons of your intellect. Anyway, I loved your moronic expression when she shut the door right in your face!

Potty eyed him like a complete idiot for a minute or so. Seeing that Granger wasn’t coming out, and apparently regarding him, motionless and soundless, to be of little danger to her, Potter turned away from Draco and scurried down the corridor. Now Draco had to wait for a fellow Slytherin to pass by him and remove the hexes. A gaggle of third year Hufflepuff girls poured into the corridor from the stairs with an apparent intent to visit the toilet, but the sight of his form under the door stopped them dead in their tracks. They giggled and rushed past him to the stairs to the second floor.

Draco heard the door opening behind him. He turned his head and saw Granger in the gap. She squeezed past his body and waved her wand at him. The spells lifted, but before he had time to say anything she had scuttled off to the DADA classroom.

He scrambled to his feet and walked to the DADA class, determined to have a word with Granger immediately after the class, Potter or no Potter in the vicinity.

******

“I am disappointed at the quality of your homework.” Snape was in his perfectly normal mood, which meant he despised each and every student in the class. “However, two essays truly stood out. I have never seen anything as abominable as these two pieces of gibberish.”

Draco straightened up in his chair. He had a crystal clear idea whose homework Snape deemed the worst. Unless he was extremely lucky and Potter did worse than him.

Snape picked two parchments from the stack on his desk. His eyes swept the classroom. Draco took a note of how tense Granger looked. Next to her, Potter was staring at the blackboard blankly, apparently thinking that Snape meant him.

“First time in the past ten years, a student handed me an essay that was only one-third done. Miss Granger, what compelled you to treat your homework for this class in such a way?”

“I - I don’t know, Professor Snape.” Hermione was very pale now, and Draco felt a little pang of pity for her. “I believe I had a terrible headache that weekend, Sir.”

“Detention, Miss Granger. At seven, Friday night, in my office.”

Weasley and Potter both gazed at their know-it-all friend. Then Harry shot Draco a dirty look, which made him smile to himself. Did Potty suspect him of tampering with her homework?

“Now, Mr. Malfoy, I am not pleased with your level of attention in the class. Which, of course, shows clearly in your latest essay.”

Draco lowered his head to appease the teacher with a display of remorse. “Sorry, Professor Snape,” he muttered.

“Detention, Mr. Malfoy. Report to my office at seven this Friday night, and I will give you and Miss Granger the assignments.”

Draco felt like he had been hit by a Bludger on his head. He glanced at the bushy-haired head and met Granger’s eyes for a second. She was as much baffled as him. Potter and Weasley both threw looks of pure venom at him, which made him wonder if Granger’s bodyguards intended to escort her to the detention and protect her from him.

Draco could not afford to dwell on the two morons for too long: he had to devise a way to let Granger know that he wanted a word with her. Sending a note by air was out of question, since it was guaranteed to provoke Potty and Weasel. Besides, he had already let himself down with Snape, and he needed no more incriminating acts in his class.

“Now, I shall see how well you have mastered the nonverbal basic defense spells. I will call students in pairs and each pair will demonstrate their skill in front of the class.” Snape firmly seated himself at his desk. “Mr. Goldstein and Miss Parvati Patil, please.”

Anthony Goldstein strode to the front, and Parvati, with an affronted look, joined him there. She managed to hex him with a neat hair-trimming spell, which Goldstein failed to deflect. His hair more than an inch shorter on the left side of his head, he traipsed back to his seat under Snape’s gloomy stare.

“Miss Parkinson and Mr. Weasley, please.”

Weasel knocked Parkinson down on the floor on his third attempt after Pansy hit him with a swelling spell twice on his nose. Snape sneered at him as usual, and sent them both back to their seats.

“Mr. Malfoy and Miss Granger, please.”

That was it! Draco crumpled his note into a ball and left it on his desk. He paraded to the front and turned to face Hermione. She looked calm, and he saw resolve in her eyes. Merlin, wasn’t she a heck of a witch?

“You go first, Granger,” he bowed his head slightly. A quick smile crossed her sexy lips.

His small gesture had a big impact on her two goons, who were now glaring at them with their eyes wide as saucers. Weasel even stopped rubbing his now pear-sized nose.

Protego! Draco thought just in time to block her Stunning Spell.

“Your turn, Malfoy,” Hermione said clearly and the same moment the ball of crumpled parchment hit her on her face. It stuck to her cheek despite her embarrassed efforts to peel it off. The Slytherins in the class sniggered.

“Concentration, Miss Granger!” Snape hissed at her. Malfoy cast one more nonverbal spell, and the ball rolled down her robes and disappeared in her pocket. She tried to pull it out, but it did not budge.

“Keep the souvenir, Granger, “ Draco smirked.

“Ten points to Slytherin. You must practice your spells better, Miss Granger.” Snape was his usual nasty self.

Flustered, Hermione walked past Draco to her seat.

“Read the note when you sit down,” Draco whispered to the mane of brown hair as it swept by his side. The deed was done. Draco strolled back to his desk, very pleased with himself.

******

Hermione fingered the crumpled parchment ball in her pocket: it was not glued to the inside of her robe anymore. Nevertheless, she did not risk unwrapping it until the class was over and she was in the corridor safely out of her friends’ sight.

Granger,

We need to talk. Library, the same place, 4:30 pm. No slapping.
Love you,
DM

P.S. You’re hot!

Brief, down to business and perfectly infuriating, Hermione thought. A typical Malfoy, the curse of the whole Hogwarts. She must tell him to stop adding his heinous compliments in the end. The clever Slytherin put them in to make sure she’d never let Harry and Ron see his missives.

Hermione’s first impulse when she read Malfoy’s note was to ignore it. But skipping the meeting would not help her problems, and her relations with Malfoy hardly needed to get more strained. The best Hermione could do was to talk him into putting off the next intercourse at least till after the detention on Friday. She simply was in no shape for it at the moment. She remembered him holding her by her elbow, and had to admit that she hardly detested their small body contact. In fact, she felt a mild desire to draw closer to him. Thankfully, it was far from overwhelming, and her mind was not barraged by erotic fantasies yet. Hermione took a deep breath and turned into the corridor leading to the library.

While walking through the hallways, Hermione kept pondering her situation. To her disappointment, Dumbledore was not present at the meals in the Great Hall, and neither was he in his office. Hermione briefly considered going to McGonagall but the teacher’s austere demeanour during the Sex Education seminar did not exactly invite confessions. Dumbledore would be far less likely to question Hermione about her personal life. She resolved to wait until the Headmaster was back in the castle to tell him about Malfoy‘s Dark Mark in private.

Malfoy was already at their favourite table behind the bookshelves in the farthest corner. He was so immersed in his books, he did not even raise his head when Hermione plunked her bookbag on the table and took the seat across from him.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Malfoy.” The answer was silence.

“Malfoy, I guess, I’d better go and do the homework together with my friends in the Gryffindor Common Room!” Irked, Hermione rose from her bench.

“Just a second, this book is terribly interesting. Getting passionate, are we?” Draco lifted his arrogant grey eyes at her and grinned. “I’m re-writing the essay Snape gave us detention for.”

“What do you want to talk about?” Hermione sat down.

“Well, just thought it’d be nice to do some homework together again,” Draco drawled, admiring her expression of complete and utter indignation. “By the way, there’s plenty of a room for us to cuddle here on the bench.”

“Oh, Malfoy, how I hate your clowning,“ groaned Hermione. “We’re stuck in this impossible situation, and all you do is make fun of it and of me too!”

“Granger, why do you have to be so negative after such a gorgeous night?” Draco smirked at her, and turned a page in his book. “What we need to do is to figure out how to do it again tonight.”

“To do what?” Hermione had a hard time taking his brazen words in.

“Enjoy the effects of the potion, what else?” Malfoy was now blatantly appraising her chest across the table. “Did you put on a different bra today?”

Hermione had to restrain herself from smacking him with her bookbag on his abominable blond head.

“First, I am not that horny yet to hop into bed with you today,” Hermione spoke slowly, with barely contained fury in her voice. “Second, if we don’t want to be caught, we must do it as seldom as possible. I suggest that next time we do it after the detention on Friday.”

“I see. One more detention is in order for us both. Or maybe even two.” Draco stretched his arms behind his head.

“What makes you think so?”

“It’s that simple. Neither of us would last four days and keep his mind clear and sharp. The next DADA homework is due on Friday, and this time Snape gave us a horrendous essay topic. So he’ll happily grant us detention on Monday. Throw in more botched homework for other classes. I wonder if McGonagall would give us a joint detention too.”

Malfoy had a point, Hermione had to admit to herself. The thought of the imminent act with Malfoy made her feel miserable. She studied the scratches and dents in the tabletop for a few minutes.

“Draco… Draco, I just can’t do it tonight.” Her voice was barely audible. “Or even tomorrow…”

“Why?” His smirk disappeared.

“I - I don’t know what to do about it. I mean, I probably ought to go to Madam Pomfrey, but then I’ll have to tell her what happened.”

Draco swiftly moved onto the bench next to Hermione. Something wasn’t right, he thought. He could see the despair in her eyes. The last thing he wanted to happen was her going to the hospital wing and laying it all in the open to Madam Pomfrey.

“Tell me what’s wrong, Hermione.” He contemplated giving her a bear hug, but the sound of Madam Pince’s feet shuffling behind shelves made him discard the idea on the spot.

“It - it …” Hermione hid her eyes from him. “It - it hurts me to pee. After we did it last night, it hurt me all day today.”

Draco‘s heart sunk. What if they had done some bad damage? He had to think up something to prevent her from confessing it all to Pomfrey.

“Ah…It hurts me to pee too,“ he lied. “ What if we look it up in medicine books? I‘m sure there should be a fix for it. I don‘t really want to go to St. Mungo‘s once they find out about the potion thing.”

“It hurts you too?” Her face now bore an expression of a grave concern. “We definitely must find it out. And we absolutely must refrain from sex till we fix it! But they have no books on sex here - I‘d have to buy one by owl order service.”

“Oh, yes. I guess, I‘d need to order a book too.” Draco realized he landed himself in a trap square and good. The only thing he could hope for was that the owl order service was speedy enough. “I think I saw the catalogues by the librarian’s desk.”

******

“Professor McGonagall, I must report that the students are getting completely out of hand!” Filch’s voice was shaking with righteous disgust as he thrust a sizable volume upon McGonagall’s desk. “In the old times a student would be expelled from Hogwarts for bringing anything like this here!”

McGonagall surveyed the book cover in front of her. Its title, What Every Wizard and Witch Need to Know about Safe and Healthy Sex, shone in bright gold on a demure dark blue background. Under it a picture depicted a very cutesy-looking couple, the collars of their robes buttoned up to their chins.

“Mr. Filch, am I correct this book was supposed to be delivered to Miss Granger in my House?”

“Yes, and I intercepted it in the owl post today. The impudent girl needs to be taught a lesson!”

McGonagall flipped through the book pages.

“I don’t see anything offensive in this. This is a purely educational book on an important aspect of the relationships between sexes. Miss Granger is old enough for it. I trust her to be discreet about subjects like this.”

“But - but this is absolutely licentious!” Filch pointed to a picture depicting reproductive organs.

“I am sorry, but you are so behind the times.” McGonagall closed the book shut and directed it with her wand towards a bookshelf in the back of her office. “I’ll handle it, Mr. Filch. What’s that book in your hands?”

“This was ordered by Mr. Malfoy in Slytherin. I had never seen anything so obscene!” Filch was beside himself at McGonagall’s lack of sympathy.

McGonagall took the other book proffered by the caretaker. The Magical Joys of Kama Sutra. An oriental-looking couple was writhing under a brightly colored blanket in the picture on its vivacious red cover.

“I’ll pass it on to Professor Snape. Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention, Mr. Filch.” The book followed the first one to the same shelf. With her usual curt nod in the caretaker’s direction McGonagall made clear that the conversation was over.