Not at All Formulaic

Chapter 6

Malfoy tossed and turned in his bed, muttering softly to himself. He was sweating, the covers were clinging to his wet form, and a trail of drool was slowly sliding down his chin. He was having a nightmare.

*&^%$#@!{(Draco's Nightmare)}*&^%$#@!

"No, Father!"

"Draco, you have failed me again! Malfoys' do not tolerate disobedience and ineptitude, and you have sadly struck out on both."

"Just because I didn't want to sacrifice a poor, defenseless squirrel to the Dark Lord..." began Draco.

"If you cannot kill the simplest of stupid creatures, how are you ever going to kill muggles and mudbloods?!?"

"... while it was watching me with those big, brown, poor, defenseless eyes- wait, what? Kill muggles and mudbloods?!? I couldn't! I'm not heartless! Emotionally stunted, shallow, insensitive, and utterly, utterly self-centered, perhaps, but that's because you and Mother never nurtured me as a child and I was raised by ugly house elves and-"

"Silence! If you will not kill for the Dark Lord, you will not be called my son!"

"But, Daddy-!"

"No! Now, just sit there and whine while I go get the sea bass-"

"Not the sea bass!"

"Yes, the sea bass! Stay, sir!"

In a matter of seconds, Draco was screaming and writhing on the floor, begging his unrelenting, merciless, heartless, despicable, thoroughly evil father to stop pelting him with fish.

*&^%$#@!{(End Draco's Nightmare)}*&^%$#@!

Malfoy shot up in bed, drenched with sweat, the sheets clinging to his wet form, the drool having made it all the way down his neck and crystallizing there (A/N: The authors thinks that is particularly gross, but leaves it anyway; she feels it will help the reader sympathize with Draco and trusts that the reader will be mature enough to ignore the whole gross factor, even if she herself is not). He ran one well-manicured hand through his platinum blond hair (A/N: Of course Malfoys are well-manicured!).

"I hate you, Father," he muttered forcefully under his breath with a good deal of hatred and anger and just a tad bit of angst (A/N: One must have angst for this to be a successful story, after all; Draco is troubled teen).

"Malfoy, are you all right?" asked Hermione, concernedly. "You're looking peaky."

"Don't be a ridiculous mudblood, you *mudblood*. Malfoy's do *not* look peaky," Draco snarled back, trying to keep his eyes on her face and not her cleavage. Hermione's crisp, white, nearly see-through Hogwarts uniform shirt left little to the imagination. And Malfoy had a very good imagination. "Up for a quick shag?"

"What?!?"

"I said, 'I don't want to play tag.' Having hearing problems, *Mudblood*?"

Hermione's brow furrowed. "But that makes absolutely no sense-"

"Let's just go down for breakfast."

Somewhere in the castle, Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling. He decided to see Madame Pomfrey about it.

Hermione tossed her knee-length hair over her shoulder, and somewhere in the world an Herbal Essence commercial played. Harry had given up ever trying to not stare at the beautiful Hermione, and Ron had never attempted it to begin with. But Hermione was not conscious of their pervy eyes... she was deep in thought about something terribly melodramatic and heart-wrenching (A/N: The author is, however, at a loss as to what this might be).

Colin Creevey joined the table and immediately started taking photographs, for, after all, that is all Colin does.

"Hi, Colin," chorus the Golden Trio unenthusiastically.

"Hi, everybody! Hi, Harry! Wow! Nice rack, Hermione!" piped Colin, then took a picture for future reference. He soon left the Great Hall (A/N: Because the author has no more use for him, and he shall probably not make any more appearances in her story; after all, Colin isn't conflicted enough for her tastes).

"Hermione... are you staring at *Malfoy*?" asked Harry incredulously.

Hermione looked confused. Her back was to the Slytherin table. "No, I-"

"Malfoy!!! I hate that bastard!!! You better not be staring at that jackass, Hermione, or I'll hate you too! And don't even think about falling in love with him!" shouted Ron, turning varying shades of red, as was he want.

"But, I never even-"

"Yeah, Hermione. I'm you're friend and all, but that is the one thing I would never *ever* forgive you for. I would immediately turn my back on you and abandon you. So don't you dare fall in love with Malfoy," contributed Harry.

"Why the hell would I-"

"Malfoy?" asked Ginny, catching the end of the conversation. She shrugged. "I'd do him."

Ron turned even more varying shades of red and smoke billowed from his ears, as was his want.

"Malfoy, are you staring at Granger?"

Malfoy looked at Zabini oddly. "My back is to the Gryffindor table."

"Yeah, sure, but if you were," continued Blaise, pushing her long blue-black hair out of her face, "you know that would be really wrong, right?"

"Um..."

"Because you can't fall in love with her. She's a worthless mudblood, and you're better than that. If you did fall in love with her, your life as you know it would change irrevocably. There would be no turning back."

"Okay, but-"

"Unless you're planning on just seducing her. That would be okay. You know, get her to fall for you, sleep with her, then drop her like an anvil on Wile E. Coyote."

"Who is-"

"Just try not to contract any diseases or anything."

Malfoy nodded, then considered his friend carefully. "Weren't you a boy in the last chapter?"

*&^%$#@!{(Sometime later in some random, obscure part of the castle that no one's ever heard of...})*&^%$#@!

Hermione sighed softly to herself. No one understood her. Not her friends, Harry and Ron. None of the girls in her year- how could she possibly relate to those twits? She was all alone in the world. Tears sliding down her cheek, she sang quietly to herself a song that meant a great deal to her and always helped her through the rough times:

"... There was a time when I'd trust you alone,

I'd call you up girl, but you took my phone!

You borrow stuff every time I turn my back.

I can't believe I went out with a KLEPTOMANIAC!

Breaking up is hard enough,

OH WHOA EEH-OHH

Say you have nothing, but I called your bluff!

You got my sweats, my hat, I can't find my cat!

The hardest part of breaking up is getting back

your stu-ee-uaff!"

No one understood her sad song. She sighed heavily again. Would she ever find someone that she could sing her song with?