Gryphon's Wings and Crocodile Tears

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters or places they belong to the wonderful J. K. Rowling: It is her world I just play in it.


Chapter 9-Covert Operations


Hermione thought that her friends had been acting particularly strange over the past five weeks or so, but try as she might she could not fathom why they’d been acting so very odd. It was not at all comforting to have a conversation take an awkward pause whenever you walked by. She hated the fact that they were talking about her in some capacity and would not inform her as to the what or the why of the situation at hand. Needless to say, Hermione Granger, was not at all accustomed to missing things going on around her, this was becoming more than merely vexing.


Ginny, in particular, had been uncomfortably distant since Ron’s apology. Hermione was sick of the repugnant scent of deception that it seemed hung thick in the air around her. She spotted Ginny curled up in corner of the library, chatting more animatedly than she’d seen her in months with a gaggle of other fifth year girls. ‘Ha!’ thought Hermione, ‘There will be no escape for her now.’


With the air of looking for some ancient and dusty tomb she prowled the stacks of books, in an amazing impression of one so dedicated to her quest that nothing could break her determined distraction. She knew that even if Ginny was hiding something from her, she’d not flee from a, so obviously distracted, Hermione. She was, of course, correct.


Halfway toward her goal she aborted her original plan and settled for something much more subversive. When one’s enemy was practicing discreet tactics, it was prudent to adopt them for one’s self as well. She shook her head almost imperceptibly; perhaps it wasn’t the best of ideas to have read Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War, over the summer. Now that she thought about it, she’d probably developed a rather unhealthy obsession with his teachings. Particularly after she’d connected Dumbledore’s use of Snape in the Great Wizarding War, that still raged outside of the walls of the grounds that surrounded Hogwarts Castle, with his teachings.


Hermione passed by the stack of books where Ginny and her gang of girls were talking so ardently about the very something that they’d been fighting to conceal. Hermione made sure not to look up as she drifted by the group. It was only Ginny’s unperturbed greeting that made her glance up at her “friend”.


“Hermione,” Ginny said so brightly that it was binding, “How are you?”


“Unhg? Oh, hey Ginny. Yeah, I’m fine just looking for some blasted book for an essay…” she let her words trail off as she wandered away from the lot of them in mid-sentence. That was the best way to sell the distraction she was going for. She waded off into the stack three rows from where Ginny sat. There she waited for them to resume their gossip before sneaking, ever so stealthily, back to the row next to hers.


When Hermione had placed herself in earshot of the unhushed and unapologetic voices coming from the next rank of text and leather she promptly sat down and selected a manual on Transfiguration, which she opened. She culled her favorite quill and a bottle of ink from her bag and, seemingly, began to copy relevant information to a roll of parchment. In reality she was copying all of what she overheard from the herd of girls in the next echelon of books.


Hermione had long ago developed a rather uncanny ability to write exceedingly fast and dispassionately, no matter what she heard. This was the only reason that she’d managed to remain alert during the dreadfully boring lessons of the History of Magic teacher, the ghostly Professor Binns. The discussion broke up sometime later; in that curious state of mind it was difficult for her to gage the passage of time. From the length of the scroll she’d copied it hadn’t been that long. A sudden and unexpected sneeze nearly blew her cover.


“CA-HACHOO!”


Ginny jumped and peered through the shelves with an accusatory mask upon her face. Fortunately for Hermione, she looked only at eye level, not down at the floor where Hermione lay, nearly flattened by the force of the almighty sneeze.


Hermione heard the laughter of the group of girls and decided to take the opportunity to slink into a corner of her own and pretend to study until they’d left the library. She arrived at the table of her choice just as the last of the fifth year girls were exiting the door, Ginny among them. Though she was burning with anticipation she dared not open the scroll until she was in a private place, if this was as bad as she suspected she’d be in need of privacy. After a few moments of trying desperately to calm herself, she gathered her belongings and headed for the Gryffindor common room.


Ron was paging through all of his scrolls trying to find ‘that blasted essay for that rotten son of a privy-full of sour Manticore’s milk’, that was Severus Snape. He’d searched high and low for that damned bit of parchment. His belongings were strewn across the tops of three tables in the library. He opened, yet another, roll of parchment and stared at it strangely. It was written in tiny and immaculate script that put his large, untidy scrawl to shame. It clearly did not belong to him, but as he had no inkling as to whom it did belong to, he re-rolled it without bothering to take in the contents of what was written on it.


After another half an hour, Ron gave up on finding the essay and resolved that he’d start writing another tomorrow. With much commotion he gathered his mess of belongings and made his way to his room, he wasn’t feeling very well since Harry had conned him out of telling Hermione the truth.


Draco paged through his journal of sexual exploits and lay back with a smirk widening on his angelic face. There were only two girls in his year that he’d not managed to lure into his bed as yet. ‘As yet’, that was the operative phrase when one was speaking of the sensual arts and Draco Malfoy. He was confident that given the proper amount of time that there was no woman that he couldn’t have in anyway and everyway he wished.


He was God’s gift to the female population of Hogwarts, or at least those who were sixteen or over, one had to set limits. He was the very picture of male perfection, tall with soft flowing blond locks, eyes of a deeper blue than the deepest ocean, and the chiseled, statuesque body of a living Adonis. Perfection incarnate: living, breathing.


Only Mandy Brockelhurst, of Ravenclaw, a bookish but not undesirable girl who kept to herself most of the time and Hermione Granger remained. Of course Mandy would be no trouble at all, she might just keel over on the spot when he showed an interest in her. He’d have to be a bit more careful with her than he’d been with most of the others. She was definitely a case where he’d have to use the Room of Requirement.


Draco’s thoughts did not linger on Mandy; they turned to Hermione with a speed that Draco would have found unsettling had he realized it. As it was he did not. He stripped down to his skivvies and admired his fine form in the full-length mirror in his room. He was glad he was a man; else even he could not resist his own charms.


He lay down on his bed still thinking of Hermione. There was something about her that aroused him in a way that no other woman had. He told himself that it was not an attraction to her, but to the idea that he could and would break someone possessed of so strong a spirit. It was this lie, tiny at its inception, which would grow to betray him all too soon.