Sucker Love

Chapter 9 • Hermione





Chapter 9 • Hermione

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It
really sucked. I thought I was used to working with my hands, growing up with
Muggle parents and everything, but that was crap compared to this. And we
couldn’t cheat either. Snape’s desk – apparently – had a binding charm on it
that practically glued our wands to it and wouldn’t release them until we were
done cleaning everything – I presumed. We wouldn’t find out until we were done
cleaning, either way, and that wasn’t going to happen for a good, long time.

 

Especially
with the Princess Diana that had joined me for detention.

 

Malfoy
couldn’t have displayed his wealth in a better way than when he got his
precious wand taken away. After the welcoming puns and innuendos, he’d
completely switched gears and turned into someone that I never knew had resided
in him – someone I’d never met. He was acting like some rich woman with
fabulous diamond jewelry on every acceptable part of her body who’d never even
looked at dirt in her life let alone cleaned it. That was Malfoy – a rich woman
without his wand.

 

I
shook my head.

 

“Stop
looking so depressed, Alfy,” I said, breaking the silence as I wiped the last,
now-sanitized cauldron clean, “wiping desks isn’t exactly cleaning the bottof sof someone’s mud-soaked shoe.”

 

Malfoy
scowled at me and shook his head, not even allowing himself to answer me. I
smirked. I loved having the last word and the upper hand. He probably couldn’t
decide whether to make a retort to the actual comment or a complaint about his
newly acquired nickname. Oh, yes – that was most definitely what had pissed him
off more. The nickname – which my brilliant mind thought up – was definitely
making detention easier for me, personally, to tackle. We’d been here an hour,
cleaning and taking on separate duties, and a half hour of it was pure
amusement on my part. I’d come up with ‘Alfy’ after realizing that Malfoy was
simply too long and formal to keep referring to my detention buddy as; and
referring to him as Draco was just too weird. It wasn’t as if we were friends.
True, it’d slipped a couple of times in my mind – Draco here and Draco there –
but I’d decided that I was just mentally exhausted from the Gryffindors,
homework, and Potions to think properly when I’d called Malfoy that.

 

So,
Alfy was created. It was weird making a nickname out of a last name, but after
Alfy came to me, I realized that the nickname’s victim would be utterly pissed
and annoyed every damn time that I would call him by it. I knew I had to alert
him of his new name immediately. Ever since, Alfy hadn’t spoken a word to me –
just issued grunts, scowls, and grimaces here and there.

 

Ah,
entertainment.

 

“What
next?” Malfoy asked. Oh, yeah; he’d asked me about Snape’s directions every so
often, just to remain useful and – I assumed – because he couldn’t take the
silence. I, on the other hand, was very comfortable with the silence. It gave
me more windows of opportunity to annoy the hell out of my...victim, I
supposed. He was very much under my mercy here and now; this was what was
different about him – for once, he didn’t act calm and collected like he was on
top of everything. He acted human.

 

“Still
have the filing cabinet,” I informed him, then made a face of disgust. “God,
and this is just the first day of detention. We’ll probably end up remodeling
Snape’s class by the end of the month.” I sighed and looked at my watch. “I
won’t even have enough time to finish my homework.” Well, that was a lie. I’d
already finished my homework after dinner, but I needed time to do-che-check it
and read up on some Transfiguration. Okay, so I’d said I wasn’t such a bookworm
anymore, but I actually liked Transfiguration. And I would have much rather
been in my room, reading Trans-Figure-It-Out Volume II rather than cleaning or
organizing Snape’s stuff – which he most likely touched! Merlin.

 

“Yeah,”
Malfoy piped up, his voice strained as he looked horrifically at the last desk
that he had to wipe; it was crusted with green and blue goop that I could’ve
identified if my life depended on it. I pretty sure that was Neville’s desk.
“Wouldn’t want to cut into your precious book time. Jesus, Granger, do you even
have a life?”

 

I
looked on amusedly at the smart ass as he tried to sanitize Neville’s desk with
the mere of of his thumb and forefinger – his take on how to hold the cleaning
rag properly. Shaking my head, I walked up to him briskly and snatched the rag
from him, immediately getting to the nasty task of de-potioning the abused
desk.

 

“Looked
like you needed some help there, Mary Poppins,” I commented laughingly, more to
myself than him. After all, Malfoy didn’t even know who the hell Mary Poppins
was. I smiled; good. “And of course I have a life. Studying just happens to be
a part of it.”

 

To
my surprise, however, he just grimaced and studied the way I was wiping up the
desk suspiciously. Apparently he didn’t join my once-attempted S.P.E.W. because
he couldn’t have survived without house elves. Wasn’t surprised. “Mary Poppins
didn’t clean, ger.ger. She baby-sat.”

 

This
made me stop my wiping and caused me to gaze at him suspiciously. He stared
suspiciously back.

 

“How
do you know who Mary Poppins was?” I asked, intrigued. I couldn’t believe it;
what it was that I couldn’t believe was yet to be determined.

 

“What?”
he asked me incredulously, his look almost makie pre promise not to tell
anyone. “I read.”

 

That
had to be the funniest sentence I’d ever heard a human being utter. I couldn’t
suppress a giggle. Which – inevitably – turned into a chuckle, then another and
another. After a few minutes, one could truly label what I was doing as
laughing. It was fun. I couldn’t believe that Malfoy was telling me that he
read Muggle books about Mary Poppins. Holy crap. This was great. I had the half
the mind to think of alerting Rita Skeeter. This was just too good. Apparently
he knew what I was thinking. I supposed I wasn’t being that subtle about it. My
laughing ceased at Malfoy’s withering look.

 

“I’m
sorry, Alfy,” I answered automatically, trying to stifle the last of my
giggles. “I’m just surprised – that’s all.”

 

Surprisingly,
Malfoy didn’t answer even though he realized that I was still trying not to
laugh at his Mary Poppins knowledge. All he did was pick up the parchment that
Snape left us and read the Professor’s hurried scrawl. True to my word, the
next task on our list of endless three was to organize Snape’s filing cabinet;
Malfoy headed off to open one drawer.

 

I
guess Iuld’uld’ve reminded him that Snape’s cabinets were magically enhanced;
fourteen drawers in one, to be exact. As he opened just one, numerous boxes of
papers and books popped out at him, causing him to stumble backwards, right
into a clean desk. Luckily, there was no harm done. It wasn’t like we’d just
waxed the desks or anything.

 

“Bloody
hell,” he finally muttered, looking at the still floating sheets of parchment
sail through the air as they made their way down to the floor by means of their
escape-from-the-cabinet journey. I laughed and deposited the dirty rag in a
bucket before coming up behind him and patting him on the back.

 

“I
guess you forgot that Hogwarts is the school of witchcraft and wizardry,” I
noted, giving Malfoy that mock-pondering look. “Who knew, Alfy?”

 

Finally,
after what seemed like forever, Malfoy finally answered. He looked at me
suspiciously – which almost made me laugh all on its own – due to the degree of
which he took himself seriously. Then, the look of annoyance finally seeped
through, as if bee been trying to keep his cool all this time and he just
couldn’t take it anymore. I seriously didn’t know where I got that patience
from; I wanted to just laugh at the entire situation. Malfoy was one big comedy
show. I just wondered if he knew it.

 

“Not
that I’m not enjoying it,” he started dryly, looking at me pointedly and
brug ofg off a stray piece of paper from his robes, “but where, may I ask, did
the Alfy nickname come from?” He threw his arms up in the arm at incredulity of
it all. “I mean...Alfy?”

 

I could
tell that he was suppressing a smile. I knew that Alfy was probably bugging the
hell out of him, but he had to have a sense of humor as well as dignity. This
was probably eating away at him that I so easily stole his pride by degrading
him with a nickname suitable for a golden retriever. I sighed inwardly in
contentment. Good times, good times.

 

“Hey,”
I replied seriously, holding up a warning index finger to show that I wasn’t
joking, “you should be glad it stayed on Alfy.” I crossed my arms over my chest
slowly, taking my time for the point to seep into him – with him raising an
eyebrow all the whi bef before finally nodding my head in an official sort of
way. “Because it could’ve very well been my first idea,” I concluded, raising
my eyebrows at him sternly, “Foy Foy.”

 

I
knew that woult hit him; I knew he’d crack. I doubted if this new Draco Malfoy
– or even the old one – had ever laughed this hard before in his life. I joined
in. It wasn’t that it was overly funny – although I didn’t want to emphasize
that; it was, after all, my joke. The whole mood just demanded some humor and I
was happy to pde ude us with an outlet. We were both grabbing onto anything
that would support us from falling down of laughter. Again – he and I both knew
that the joke, itself, was weak but I would’ve paid good money to hear anyone
call Malfoy Foy Foy – and being as resourceful as I am, I just went ahead and
did it myself.

 

Wiping
my eyes with the back of my right hand, I expelled another chuckled before
collapsing at the foot of the now goop-less desk which I, single-handedly
tackled just moments ago. Malfoy – at some point or another – had collapsed
right into his latest cleaning mess, questionably important parchment beneath
his feet and ass. I started to wonder how much help he actually was to me if he
kept making a mess out of each of his cleaning attempts; just grammatically
speaking that was an oxymoron. How was it in actual help?

 

“Foy
Foy?” Malfoy finally repeated afeacheach of us got out or last laughs and I
shrugged in justification of the nickname.

 

“Well,
I couldn’t very well call you Malfoy like we were business buddies or
something,” I explained simply. When he opened his mouth to say something, I
held up my hand to cut him off in an effort to show him that I already knew
what he was going to say. “I mean, I know we’d always called each other by our
last names, but...isn’t weird for you?” I grimaced, looking off into space and
imagining the world with people calling each other by their surnames. “I’m
definitely not used to saying, ‘Pass the sponge, Malfoy’. We’re not in class –
so a nickname seemed...appropriate, I guess.” At his strange look – directed at
me – I smirked and added, “Plus, I wanted to piss you off.”

 

A
look that clearly said, ‘Ah’ passed over Malfoy’s face before he smirked back
at me and pick up a piece of parchment randomly.

 

“You
didn’t have to name me,” he paused to contort his features, “Alfy to piss me
off, you know. Handing me that rag was cruel enough.”

 

Leaning
back against the leg of the desk nearest to me, I smiled and crossed my ankles,
still on the floor. “I could tell,” I pointed out, amused. “You were acting
like you’ve never cleaned anything in your entire life.”

 

The
silence and sheepish expression on Malfoy’s face was confirmation enough for me
that he – indeed – never did a single chore in his whole existence.
“Unbelievable,” I half-scolded and half-observed as I threw my arms up in the
air, chancing a glance at the home of the guilty expressions. “You mean you’ve
never had to, like, clean your room or – or even do this?” I asked, picking up
the closest cauldron to me which I, too, scrubbed by myself. “You’ve had
detention with Snape before. He’s never made you clean?”

 

It
was obviously Malfoy’s turn to take over the conversation as he gave me an
unbelieving followed by a superior look. “Please, Granger,” he replied
confidently, “Snape only gave me detentions for show. You know, to demonstrate
that he doesn’t only nail the White Hats.” My eyes widened in astonishment as
Malfoy’s dropped to his evidently expensive robe on which he began
straightening the sleeves. I was about to cut into his beauty time, too, but he
interrupted me before I could start up my questioning once more. “Besides,” he
said with a very official and very familiar superior tone, “whenever I did have
detention it’d be for a half hour – max. And I’d just have to sort potion
ingredients or grade essays or something.” Draco shrugged, “I’ve never actually
broken a rare potion ingredient and got him quiet as pissed.”

 

My
crossed my arms over my chest once more, only this time out of jealousy and
mild rage. “That’s completely unfair!” I observed somewhat huffily, my eyes
probably doing that flashing thing my mom said they did when I was mad. Then,
as Malfoy was nodding along with my statement in agreement – and gloating – my
eyes widened as I realized something. “And that’s why all the Gryffindors got
an incomplete on their Copperdark Potions two weeks ago!” Quickly, Malfoy’s
agreeable nodding ceased and his eyes dropped suspiciously as he returned to
straightening his robe’s sleeves.

 

“I
have,” Malfoy paused and coughed distractedly, “no idea what you’re talking
about.”

 

I
shook my head in irritation and began to stand up, dusting off my butt. I
couldn’t believe it; well, actually I could, but didn’t really want to. Snape
treated Slytherin – and more importantly Malfoy – exceptionally better during
detention than say, me, for example. And he let him tamper with our – my –
essay!

 

“Very
convincing, Malfoy,” I assured him sarcastically before walking over to him and
starting to pick up pieces of parchment and documents on the floor. I didn’t
want to think how we were going to organize all those drawers. I grimaced.

 

“Okay,
okay, you caught me, Granger,” Malfoy replied, interrupting my worried thoughts
briefly with his knowing smirk and guilty eyes, “I admit it. But if I may, in
my defense, I gradll tll those essays the day of the Full-Body Recoil Potion.”
He gave me a knowing look, urging me to reminisce with him about what happened
that day.

 

A
wide grin instantly appeared on my face as I remembered that particular Potions
class. “Oh, yeah,” I acknowledged, still smiling before I looked over to Malfoy
to signal that I remembered the event; I instantly grimaced. “Oh...yeah,” I repeated,
with a little more sympathy this time for the other party involved in the
conversation. “That was...” I struggled for words that wouldn’t reveal my
actual humorous opinion on the event, “interesting.”

 

“Yeah,”
Malfoy agreed sarcastically, briefly narrowing his eyes at me, “being rebounded
off the ceiling, floor and seven different cabinets repeatedly really was
very,” he paused, mocking my own hesitation while looking for a descriptive
word, “interesting.”

 

I
winced at his blunt description. Of course, I’d be pissed, too, but that didn’t
really make up for the two hours I spent ‘completing’ my essay that night that
I got it back. That fueled more fire within me. “Well, whose fault was it that
you took entirely too much of the potion than you were supposed to?” I
inquired, smirking victoriously. “You were only supposed to drink about a
teaspoon – enough to push off the ground, touch the ceiling and come back
down.” I spread my arms in explanation as I added, “You practically drank the
whole cauldron.”

 

“Nowhere
near the whole cauldron,” Malfoy answered promptly, before sighing irritably
and rolling his eyes. “Besides, you can’t tell me that you didn’t know Potter
was behind that whole thing; standing by my table suspiciously for half the
class, apparently adding more and more of the potion into my vile.” Another
pointed, ‘Give up the honesty’ look was sent my way.

 

I
winced again. I couldn’t help it – I’d actually devised the whole plan. And
Malfoy’s guilt-trip-y look wasn’t helping. I slid, involuntarily, into a
sheepish expression that betrayed my next words. “I’m not giving up any names,
Malfoy.” Hey, at least I didn’t completely crack like an egg; Ron always did
say I was an astonishingly bad liar. I never really believed him – until now.
Then I opted to raise an eyebrow. “Besides, why didn’t you just give Harry an
incomplete instead of everyone in Gryffindor?”

 

“You
mean you didn’t see the crowd of red and gold cheering me on as I became a
life-size Snitch in the classroom?”

 

I
looked down. “Right,” I agreed lamely, rubbing the back of my neck, “still not
giving up any names.”

 

“That’s
okay,” he replied, half-smirking now, waving his hand at me a gesture of truce,
“I know the names anyway.” I stuck out my tongue out at him impulsively and he
stuck his out back at me – only I could it had a bit more suggestiveness in it
than mine did. I shook my head. He was such a...guy. I supposed I’d just quoted
many a female in saying that, but thought them wise words anyhow. “Speaking of
names,” Malfoy cut into my thoughts, probably trying to slyly change the
subject before I realized how full of innuendo he meant his gestures to be.
Male. “It’s back to ‘Malfoy’ now? What happened to Alfy?” he asked amusedly and
I raised an eyebrow, wondering why he’d actually want me to return to that
nickname – not that I minded. “Hopefully got blocked out of your memory and
will never be used again, yes?”

 

I
laughed, sticking some pieces of parchment back into the cabinets and sighing
irritably. “You wish,” I replied, scratching my head while trying to figure out
what kind of twisted order Snape might want his papers in since nng wng was
even labeled, “Alfy.”

 

The
aforementioned Alfy just sighed and shook his head – with a bit of humor – as
he, too, returned to trying to file and organize Snape’s papers; something that
didn’t require getting his hands dirty. Christ, he was such a girl. I
immediately realized that I’d called him a complete guy and such a girl all in
a time period of five minutes – not even five. Perhaps, three. I grinned;
wouldn’t Malfoy be proud. I snuck a glance at him and realized that he’d been
looking at me – for some unknown reason – with an unreadable expression on his
face. How surprising. I supposed that the regular – or as regular as he could
get – Malfoy was back; unreadable and calm. Oh, well; the human phase was
enjoyable while it lasted.

 

He
made a show of reading the piece of parchment which he was holding upside-down,
then cleared his throat and snuck another glance at me, confirming that I was
looking at him as well.

 

“So,”
he began, breaking the awkward, questioning silence, “does that mean that I get
to make up a nickname for you?” That question took me by surprise. I tried not
to show it by looking down at the book which I’d pulled out by accident, wondering
what it was doing in a filing cabinet full of...well, files. I supposed that he
just wanted to piss me off, too, so he joined in on the nickname distribution
hour.

 

I
decided to go with a non-chalant shrug. “Preferably not,” I specified, sounding
distracted as I pretended to read the pages of my newfound book, “but no onestopstopping you. I mean, I – ”

 

“Well,
as long as no one’s stopping me,” he interrupted, already looking up at the
ceiling with his thinking face on. He glanced back at me briefly with a smirk
on his face just to see what my reaction would be. On cue, I graced Malfoy with
one of my ‘Knew you were going to do that’ looks before going back to the book
in my hand and raising an eyebrow. I knew that the text I was reading had
nothing to do with Potions and one look at the cover had me wondering what
Snape was doing with a book called Soul Dancing: Your Inner Ballerina. Merlin,
how I didn’t want to know.

 

I
put the book back – far back in there – and picked up another set of papers
when I heard him.

 

“Hermy,”
he finally announced, looking at me with twinkling, merry eyes, hoping to
record my reaction. I merely raised an eyebrow and shook my head at him.

 

“Amateur,”
I replied swiftly, placing my right hand on my hip as I sifted through the
papers in my hands; Lord they were boring. Why the hell Snape even kept this
shit, I couldn’t explain to save my life.

 

“Beg
pardon?” Malfoy asked, confused at my reaction. I shook my head once more and
tossed the folder of wrinkled parchment on the desk beside me.

 

“There’s
already a considerably short giant residing in the Forbidden Forest, just
there,” I began, pausing to point to the only windows in Snape’s class, hoping
the Forest was actually in that direction, “who has called me Hermy since Fifth
Year.” I shrugged at his eyebrow raise; not like I could explain the giant
situation any more than that. There was a giant who called me Hermy. Period –
end of story. “Be more original – use my last name. I don’t know. I’m against
this all the way, so my suggestions end there, buddy.”

 

Malfoy
smiled – actually sort of smiled – at my humor before wagging his finger at me
and letting his head follow suit. “Nah,” he disagreed, “your first name at
least has hope for a nickname. How am I to shorten Granger? Granny?” I
shuddered. “Thought so,” he agreed and went into another pondering mood. I
chuckled a bit at his dedication to this then frowned, realizing that he wasn’t
even pretending to look through the filing cabinet drawers like I was.
Although, I had to admit, my looking through every one of Snape’s weird written
records didn’t really help with the actual organizing.

 

“Okay,”
I said, finally taking initiative on this situation that was clearly going to
hell, “just put all the papers away neatly. That’ll count as organizing.” I
nodded, lifting the most recent folder I had in my hands from the desk where I
deposited it and stuffing it back in the cabinet. “And then, hopefully, we’ll
get our wands back and get the hell out of here.”

 

Malfoy,
although still barely responsive and in his thinking-of-a-nickname-for-me
stage, nodded in agreement that that was the best way to go and began sticking
parchment into random openings in between the files still in the cabinet. This
went on for a few minutes with me stealing a few glances at the thoughtful
Malfoy here and there. I didn’t know why he was putting so much effort into the
name; did pissing me off with some annoying word scrabble really mean that much
to him?

 

I
shrugged. Probably.

 

Down
to the last pile of parchment on my side after another few minutes of silent
stacking, I decided to just collect it all in one handful. That was definitely
a mistake on my part because my dropping the pile of paper and scattering it
all on the floor in a double layer didn’t exactly save the time that I wanted
it to. Malfoy had come into my line of vision, unexpectedly, as I was busy
gathering the sheets of beige and white and helped me collect them – still
saying nothing and possibly thinking of my nickname. Although I wasn’t sure anymore.
He was concentrating awfully hard.

 

Then,
he returned back to his pile on the floor, which had dwindled quite a bit as
well, and the silence dominated the classroom once more. I sat in a nearby
desk. I helped Malfoy with some of his papers. I sat on the floor. This silence
was nothing like the silence earlier when I was bugging the hell out of Malfoy
and had the control. This time I was in suspense. Checking my watch, I was only
half surprised to see that it was already eleven-thirty. I shuffled around the
classroom a bit more, than yawned and was pleased to see that in time with my
yawn, Malfoy had put away the last of his papers in the filing cabinets
appropriately. He was still pondering something deeply, however. I scowled.
Stop the damn thinking, already! I never thought I’d catch myself thinking that
about oy…boy…but I did.

 

“So,”
I finally said, attempting to liven up the still mood a bit. It wasn’t like
mood needed cheering – the silence didn’t make the room morbid or anything –
but I definitely felt that someone needed to talk.

 

“Yeah,”
Malfoy finally responded, walking over to Snape’s desk where the wands rested
just as each of us had left them. It didn’t look like anything had changed
about them, but when Malfoy picked up his own, it didn’t stick to the desk like
it did when I tried to remove it at the beginning of the detention. He smiled
victoriously at me as he tossed me my own wand as well and I returned the
smile, glad that he was animate again. “Thank that old bat Merlin that we get
to leave this place.”

 

I
chuckled. “For tonight, anyway.”

 

“Don’t
remind me,” Malfoy grumbled, reminding me very much of a five year-old that
just got his cookie privileges revoked. I simply shrugged and began heading
towards the classroom’s exit.

 

I
almost out the door when his voice stopped me. He had a way of doing that to me
– alerting me almost.

 

“Mya.”
That was all he said as I turned around and stared at him questioningly. His
eyes showed nothing but glints of emotion that I was open to guess upon. There was
that unreadable crap about him again. He, on the other hand, chose to display
an emotion – unlike his eyes – and although it was a very common emotion for
him, I was glad. He smirked. “That’s your nickname.”

 

I
frowned. “How’d you get Mya?”

 

He
shrugged a shoulder casually, catching up with me in distance, which only
caused to take a step forward. “Don’t know. Just came to me.” He was silent a
bit more then added, “Besides Mina didn’t work.” I raised an eyebrow; why
didn’t Mina work? “Yeah, I thought of Mina from Hermione first,” he explained,
letting me in on his logic system just a little bit, “but I couldn’t call you
that. My ex-girlfriend’s name was Mina and that’s be just too...” he trailed
off, “weird.” I nodded, although I had to wonder how – with all his recent
‘experiences’ – there were any female names left for him at all to be
comfortable with that didn’t belong to his past girlfriends as well. “Then, I
thought of Mia, but you don’t look like a Mia, so I arrived at Mya.”

 

I
twisted my face into an expression of pondering, just like he’d done, oh, about
a half hour ago. “I look like a Mya?”

 

Malfoy
smirked again. “No,” he replied swiftly, “but I sure as hell don’t look like an
Alfy, so it’s pretty much even with us, isn’t it?”

 

I
chuckled at his reference to Alfy. “Fair enough,” I agreed and headed towards
the exit of the classroom again.

 

I
was out in the hallway when Malfoy’s voice invited to look back at him once
more.

 

“Mya,”
he called softly, testing out his newly created nickname on his tongue. It
sounded kind of...elegant and porcelain-like coming from his mouth. “See you
tomorrow.”

 

I
bid him one last smile and a nod. “See you tomorrow, Alfy.”

 

And
we part
&
 

I
wondered why Malfoy picked Mya as my nickname. He said it was because I didn’t
‘look like a Mia’ and because his girlfriend’s name had been Mina but Mya
wasn’t a bad name at all. Nothing awful compared to...I grinned as Alfy came to
mind. No, Malfoy’s nickname definitely didn’t match my pick for him.

 

And
– although I’d never admit it to him – I liked it.