Retreat - Act I: Occupation

Get lost, Potter!

Thinking it just wasn’t the same. Talking to himself was out of the question.

Besides, he had given up on listening to himself long ago.

Get lost, Potter!

And he was.

~~~*~~~

HOGSMEADE – Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, has been pulled out of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by his Muggle legal guardians. This was announced yesterday at the annual Sorting Ceremony. Prof. Minerva McGonagall, school headmaster, has declined commenting on the matter while the shocking news has sparked new levels of animosity towards Muggle society in the increasingly infected political debate on Wizard/Muggle relations.

“This is nothing short of a disgrace,” says Walter White of the Ministry of Magic, “It is yet another example of why Muggles should not be given any kind of influence over wizarding affairs, even if these Dursley people are the boy’s legal guardians. Legal by whose laws, I ask?”

White is referring to Vernon and Petunia Dursley, the Muggles who were given custody of Harry Potter after the tragic death of James Potter and his wife Lily, Mrs Dursley’s sister.

Despisers of everything magical, the Dursleys reportedly decided to terminate Potter’s magical education when an unnamed wizard lawyer made them aware of their right to do so and the possibility of sending the boy to a place that cannot be found by magical means. Claiming to have acted purely in the best interest of their young ward, the Dursleys have refused to even hint at the present location of the Boy Who Lived to avoid setting journalists and paparazzi on the trail.

Cont. on p.3...

~~~*~~~

1. Moste Potente Monitor

‘Get lost Weasel!’ Draco Malfoy sneered at the fired-up redhead before him. ‘Your hair – deeply and horribly offends my artistic sensibilities.’

But this time, the sneer was naught but veneer. Behind the mask, Draco sighed. His heart just wasn’t in the insults anymore. And where it was, he didn’t know. Missing without a trace; probably partying the night away somewhere warm and sunny in the company of the Patience that had left him years before.

And as for warm and sunny, one didn’t have to look further than the lively Hogwarts lawns to find that. It was a warmly welcoming late summer that had embraced their return to Hogwarts for their seventh year. But, sadly, this was something Draco could appreciate only on an intellectual level. Emotionally, a biting and desolate winter seemed to follow his every grudging step.

Why this was, he did not know. And that he simply couldn’t figure out what had happened to him only made the chill reach that much deeper. It inspired a biting anger surging up from the dreary darkness that seemed to have taken up permanent residence inside his lithe but listless body.

Of course, Draco Malfoy had been angry through most of his school years but this, this was a new kind of anger. The old anger had been burning, passionate, glowing with a bright light that chased away the darkness.

This was the darkness.

Burning light could project itself into piercing glares and cutting words, slicing through Gryffindor nobility and setting fire to the anger of Harry Potter. With that anger lit, matching and opposing his own, a veritable inferno of passion would arise. Such passion fuelled him. The Dragon inside him needed it to keep its flame burning, the flame that chased away the darkness.

Now the darkness had returned, his Dragon curled up at the centre of an all-consuming void. Withering away. No passion to feed on. No fire to breathe.

Alone.

But Draco refused to settle for this as the sole explanation for his chilly mood. His happiness could not depend on Harry Bloody Potter.

After all, there was still Ron Weasley and the deep hatred between their families ought to have been enough to make Draco’s blood boil. But his blood remained as cold as the heart that pumped it.

There was anger. Immense anger. Raging anger and utter loathing.

But no flame.

~~~*~~~

The only thing flaming was Ronald Weasley’s hair, matched in intensity by his eyes as he glared at the insufferable brat before him. Waiting alongside sleazy Slytherins to be let into the Potions classroom, Ron rummaged his brain for a suitable retort to Malfoy’s slur.

‘At least I don’t give dumb blondes a bad name, Malfoy. Some of that bleach must have seeped into your brain if that’s the best insult you can think of!’ Ron looked pleased with himself.

‘I do not bleach my hair, Weasley. You must be projecting your own desire to eradicate natural hair colour onto me. I would have felt exactly the same had I been unfortunate enough to be born a flaming Weasley.’

‘As opposed to just flaming?’ ventured Hermione Granger, making her first contribution to this particular Malfoy/Weasley War of Weak Wits.

Draco and Ron turned to stare at her. They chorused a baffled What?, and spun back to glare at each other to make it perfectly clear that there would be no further verbal cooperation over this particular border of dislike.

‘Too much study muddle your brain, Mudblood?’

‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head—’ said Hermione, moving to touch Malfoy’s hair. The blond lurched backwards, a look of horror marring his usually so perfectly controlled features. ‘—hair about that, Malfoy, dear.’

Backing away still further to evade the advancing hand, Draco collided with Gregory Goyle, who was busy perfecting his habitual standing-behind-Malfoy-looking-tough pose. Then, bumping his head against Goyle’s chin, Draco tripped over his own feet in trying to sidestep this additional threat to his carefully styled hair.

All this left an uncharacteristically stunned Draco held up by a characteristically baffled Goyle and the rest of the students staring wide-eyed at Hermione as she swept past them into the now open classroom.

These rather extravagant changes in Granger’s behaviour, which had become more and more apparent since the beginning of the school year, were quite frankly starting to get on everyone’s nerves. If you couldn’t predict Hermione Granger, resident student genius and library patron, what could you predict?

These were, indeed, troubling times.

Draco straightened his robes, stood up with as much regal air as he could muster, and turned to glare at Granger’s retreating backside, on which Ron Weasley’s incredulous gaze was already firmly fixed.

The two boys managed a simultaneous ‘What was that about?’ before resuming the staring contest they had previously abandoned, both silently daring the other to echo his words just one more time.

However, the next words came from a different direction altogether as a deep and commanding voice boomed out from inside the classroom. ‘Mr Malfoy, Mr Weasley – if you feel inclined to start some poor excuse for a boys’ choir, please do so in your spare time!’

Not one to question the authority of his favourite teacher, Draco sneered one final time at Weasley and then stalked into the classroom, robes billowing and Crabbe & Goyle bumbling behind.

~~~*~~~

As always, Ron sat next to Hermione in Potions and as soon as Snape’s attention was focused on trying to prevent Neville Longbottom blowing up the premises, he leaned sideways, speaking in an urgent whisper.

‘What was all that about?’

‘All that what?’ murmured Hermione, studying her notes.

‘Malfoy’s hair! You almost touched it!’

‘Almost, yes. Which proved my point.’

‘What point?’

She sighed, pointedly. ‘I’m beginning to suspect it must have been something along the lines of “Ron Weasley is incredibly dense”...’

‘You didn’t answer my question! Why would you want to finger Malfoy’s hair?’ Ron whined, a jealous tinge to his voice, scowling and flushing at the ‘dense’ comment.

Hermione moved her head towards his, as if to whisper in his ear, leaned over and scribbled something on his parchment. ‘You got that wrong. It’s supposed to be two drops, not three. Honestly Ron, pay attention.’

Ron found himself, at that moment, having a hard time paying attention to anything but the way Hermione’s hair tickled his chin and the sweet smell of rose-scented shampoo invading his nose.

‘Weasley, Granger, please refrain from cuddling in my classroom.’

Cuddling ceased, as did talking.

~~~*~~~

Not that any real cuddling ever occurred, in class or elsewhere. Hermione frowned as she thought about what she had come to think of as the Ron Situation. A Situation grown from an infatuation through expectation, frustration and now, finally, desperation.

She had sowed the ground with hints, watched them grow to seductive innuendoes, rolled out the proverbial red carpet and – nothing. In matters of the heart, Ron was dense enough that she had begun to suspect he should be classified as a new, elusive and extremely heavy natural element, a great scientific discovery.

Not that she currently cared about any discoveries save the one which involved Ronald Weasley, Adorable Daft Redhead, daring to venture out into the uncharted straits of Wooing Hermione. It looked as if he would never get around to asking her out the way things were not going.

Had she seen this Situation coming at an earlier stage, she would have been the one to pose the question. But now things had come to a point where she felt that she had made it so perfectly clear she fancied him that approaching him now would just seem desperate.

After all, he might not be as interested as she had thought. Maybe he was just curious: “What would it be like to date one of your closest friends?”

No, she couldn’t ask him out. That path was behind her. If he said no or broke up with her after just a few dates...

No. No. Better to wait.

Better to slowly approach the breaking point.

Better to...

Get away?

Scream?

Both?

Indeed, the Ron Situation was becoming intolerable, but it was not, alas, the only one. Another Situation weighing heavily not only on her mind but quite often in her arms was the School Situation, complete with Heavy Textbooks galore.

The very idea of Hermione regarding her academic endeavours as a Situation in the same league as the Ron Disaster was a strong indication that things were seriously amiss in Hermione-land. Something was rotten in the state of Granger. Something was also moulding in her bookshelf but she could not be bothered to find out what it was – and that was perhaps an even more pungent reminder of just how infected the whole business had become, when she didn’t even take proper care of her precious books anymore.

She feared she had simply been saturated by schoolwork and the vast amounts of knowledge she had devoured throughout her Hogwarts career. Half expecting to find herself going mouldy next, she felt she had somehow turned into an old woman at eighteen.

And realising what was expected of her did nothing to lighten her spirits. On leaving school, she might well be forced to fight a bloody war, for the Ministry or for her friends, but she knew that eventually she would return to Hogwarts. So much knowledge, such a sucker for rules and such a deep desire to make others desire learning as much as she did. Of course she would be offered a teaching position. Naturally, she would accept. Maybe out of a sense of obligation.

After all, what else could the Heiress of McGonagall do?

There were, of course, no blood bonds. Hermione Granger was the heiress of who and what Professor Minerva McGonagall was and represented rather than the bloodline from which she was descended. Of course, this was nothing official, nor even something the professor had ever hinted at. Hermione knew this as she knew most everything else: Through the study of books.

Obscure books on Hogwarts history had revealed that it was traditional for teachers to pay extra attention to, and tutor, students in whom they saw the potential for filling the teaching position they would one day, inevitably, leave vacant.

Professor McGonagall had been paying particular attention to Hermione Granger since their very first year. It was all so obvious.

It was all so awfully apparent and Hermione felt like a shopkeeper’s daughter, having no choice but to continue the family business. Or a princess destined since birth to rule a country. Whichever way you looked at it, Hermione was due to remain a part of Hogwarts for as long as she lived. Somewhere along the line of overzealous studying, she had lost control of her own destiny.

But Hermione Granger needed to be in control. She craved control.

It frustrated her that even though she might accept a future as a Hogwarts teacher simply because she genuinely wanted it, the rest of the world would see it as her following a pre-paved path, becoming what they had always known she would become. No surprises there.

Nothing was ever surprising about predictable old Hermione Granger. Predictable and losing control at the very same time. It angered her. If she was losing control of her life, why couldn’t she at least do it spectacularly and not in that quiet, understated way which everyone had come to associate with her?

Her favourite teacher, Minerva McGonagall, saw Hermione Granger as her successor and Hermione found herself both flattered and shattered by this fact. She knew her reaction was silly and illogical but this did not make her any less upset, or any less inclined to simply run away. The answer to this problem was not to be found in any book, however obscure, and Hermione just didn’t know what to do, or where to look.

Another who seemed to search for something unplottable was the mysterious Mr. Malfoy.

In keeping with the overall theme of her seventh year at Hogwarts, Hermione had a steadily expanding and rather disturbing folder in her mind labelled The Draco Malfoy Situation. Like its two siblings, this was a Situation she could gladly have done without, but one she could not ignore, not least because of its ties to that Other Situation, the Big One.

In the past, Hermione had seen Draco Malfoy as merely an annoying, occasionally dangerous, school bully who would not leave Harry and his friends alone. One late evening shortly after the Sorting Ceremony, her viewpoint shifted. Irrevocably.

That evening, she started taking an interest in the person behind the Malfoy mask.

Still a prefect in the year she had turned down the Head Girl position, Hermione walked alone down a deserted hallway that night and heard the unmistakable sounds of bullying up ahead. Hurrying towards the hallway whence the agitated voices came, Hermione had heard the unmistakable mocking voice of Draco Malfoy cut through the commotion, bringing it to a sudden end.

‘QUIET, you intellectual toddlers!’

Hermione slowed her steps. Malfoy too was a prefect and one known for his vicious attitude towards others stepping in when he was Handling a Situation. He took great personal pride in being able to Handle Situations on his own. How ironic, Hermione would later reflect, that he would prove so inept at handling his own.

Malfoy’s voice was cold, drawling, and punishing.

‘Just arrived at Hogwarts and already you’ve set out to prove that you should be sent back home on the first train out of here! Is that what you want, you miserable little mongrels?’

Shifting into something more appropriate for covert surveillance, Hermione padded forward to the corner of the hallway. She felt no desire to disturb Malfoy unless it became clear that he couldn’t Handle the Situation but she still needed to actually see what was happening.

Five first-year Slytherin boys were backing away from the towering figure of Malfoy, shaking their heads and muttering half-hearted excuses. Some steps behind the Slytherin prefect stood yet another Slytherin first-year, a young boy with tousled blond hair, robes rumpled and ripped, his eyes wide and lips trembling, books pressed against his chest.

Hermione cringed at how quickly she deduced why this young boy had come to be the object of the other boys’ need to lash out, their need to bully, to assert themselves, to prove themselves. To secure a permanent position within the male power hierarchy of Slytherin house.

The boy was, to put it bluntly, pretty and timid in a traditionally feminine way.

He was a sissy-boy.

That Hermione herself would classify him as such on first sight greatly disturbed her feminist sensibilities. It was tangible proof of just how deeply the male-female binary opposition permeates human culture. (She really shouldn’t have taken that optional Feminist Studies course during the summer. Ignorance would, for once, have been bliss.)

Malfoy drifted forwards, glaring at the frightened boys. Hermione shivered as she realised how much the fair-haired boy reminded her of Severus Snape at that moment; eyes cold and demanding, robes flowing around him like ghostly smoke rising from the pits of Hell.

If there was anyone Professor Severus Snape favoured and paid special attention to, it was Draco Malfoy. Was he the Heir of Snape? She hoped not.

At the time, she had hoped Malfoy was not the Heir of Snape because she did not care to envision a future of working side by side with a bigoted Malfoy. But after that night, she hoped Malfoy was not Heir of Snape for Malfoy’s sake. Snape was a broken man, bitter and tormented. It seemed Malfoy was heading down that same path and Hermione found herself wishing he would find himself a lighter track to tread.

‘I won’t pull any points this time since, after all, you’re Slytherins—’

Oh, Snape would be proud.

‘—however, I do suggest you make yourselves scarce before I turn you all into tangerine toads.’

In a matter of seconds, they made themselves severely scarce; not a toad, tangerine or otherwise, in sight.

So, this was how Draco Malfoy, Slytherin prefect, Handled Situations. Simple bullying.

Effective? Yes.

Constructive? Hardly.

Hermione hissed in annoyance.

Malfoy turned to the shivering boy behind him. Would he comfort him? Would he redeem himself by dealing more competently now that the bullies had been scared off? No, of course not. Malfoy was an utter ass; and at that very moment, he set out to prove her right.

‘Oh, stop whimpering!’ Malfoy sounded agitated and impatient, as if the boy’s miserable state was a personal insult to him.

The boy stopped sniffling. Hermione resisted an overwhelming urge to leap forward and claw Malfoy’s tongue out.

‘If you whimper, they win. If you cry, you’ll only give them tears to feed on.’ Malfoy crouched down before the frightened boy and his voice softened to just above a whisper. ‘If you show yourself weak, they will pounce on you and pound you down, down, down until you cannot get up again.’

He grabbed the boy’s shoulders, leaning forward. ‘They see weakness in who you are.’ He enunciated his next words with careful precision. ‘Your only chance is to hide.’

Malfoy got up, moving in a slow circle around the first-year. The boy clutched his books tighter and tighter to his chest, mute with fear.

‘Hide who you are. Hide in plain sight.’

In the shadows, Hermione agonised over whether or not to step in, to take charge. Mesmerized by the scene enacted before her, she wanted to hear where Malfoy was heading with this strange soliloquy.

A soliloquy that seemed strangely rehearsed. Ruminated on. Performed with an intense rapture she had seldom seen in the young Malfoy. At least, not since—

‘Strike before you can be stricken! Push first and have them push back! Trick, kick, and Make. Them. Lick. Your. Boots! Gain the upper hand and swat them like flies!’

Malfoy took a deep breath, staring into space. The boy sniffled.

Malfoy whirled around to face the younger Slytherin, eyes blazing.

‘ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME, YOU PATHETIC LITTLE PANSY!?’ He shoved the boy against the wall. The books thudded to the floor.

Hermione crouched low, muscles taut, ready to attack at any further signs of abuse.

None seemed to be forthcoming. Malfoy bent down to stare at the boy and spoke in a calm, cold, steady voice. ‘You’re a Slytherin now. Be a bitch and you will be revered. Be nice and they will exploit your every weakness. Act like a complete bastard and you will be all right. Acting – should come naturally.’ His mouth twisted into what, in another facial context, might have been called a smile.

For the first time, the boy found his voice. ‘But I’m not... I can’t...’

Malfoy closed his eyes, sighed, and opened them again. ‘No, you’re too much of a sissy-boy, aren’t you?’ His trademark sneer was answered by a scowl from the boy. ‘Why did I even bother? You’re nothing but a second-rate little ponce.’ For the second time, he shoved the boy against the wall. But this time, the boy, tears of betrayal in his eyes, lunged at the prefect, arms flailing, clawing, beating.

‘Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!’

Face blank, Malfoy stretched out his arm, pushing the boy back effortlessly.

‘True.’ Malfoy’s voice had a strange sing-song quality to it. Taunting. ‘But what are you going to do about it?’

Short arms made futile attempts to reach Malfoy’s stony face.

‘You can’t do anything to me.’ Malfoy thrust the boy backwards with such strength that the tiny first-year fell over, landing painfully on his books. The older boy stood up. ‘Yes, I’m a bastard. Yes, you hate me.’ He loomed over the younger boy. ‘No, don’t even think about trying to get even with me. You can’t. Get even with people your own age, if you can manage that, you little wimp.’ And with that, he left.

Hermione watched as the boy gathered up his books, muttering dark curses (all of them sounding mightily misplaced in the child’s cherub mouth). She wondered if she ought to try to console the first-year but decided against it, convinced that suddenly appearing by his side would not be helpful at this point.

She set off after Malfoy.

~~~*~~~

Malfoy was approaching the central stairwell when Hermione caught up with him. Seeing the stairs moving, she slowed down, expecting Malfoy to do the same, and prepared to give him a piece of her furious mind.

Malfoy, however, did not seem inclined to stick around. Picking up his pace, he continued down the moving staircase and, after a moment of disbelieving shock, Hermione scrambled after him.

The staircase was in mid-swing when Malfoy reached the final step. Taking a quick look down, he jumped off, Hermione uttering an unheard exclamation before she too made the leap, unwilling to lose track of her quarry.

Malfoy landed with catlike grace on yet another moving staircase.

Hermione touched down silently a few steps behind him.

Oblivious of his pursuer, the Slytherin jumped onto the railing, sliding downwards. His stealthy follower ran down the stairs behind him, cursing mentally. What was that git doing? Trying to kill himself?

Should she give him a push?

Needing no added impetus, Malfoy sailed into the torch-lit emptiness, landing with Errol-like antigrace on the next staircase.

Now, it was Malfoy’s time to curse.

Whether due to Malfoy’s mishap or common sense making a late and inappropriate appearance, Hermione faltered as she dashed madly down the final steps. The result was a poorly coordinated jump – not one of the leisurely leaps she was accustomed to performing during circumstances such as these. Or rather, circumstances mildly similar to the current Malfoy-instigated madness.

Whatever the reason, Hermione not so much sailed into the torch-lit emptiness as she paddled in a highly disordered and perplexed manner into a stretch of annoyingly empty air.

Survival instinct set in when her conscious mind decided to abandon her to fly off and perch on a reassuringly solid ledge.

Sorting out her flailing extremities, Hermione used the foremost two to claw onto the final step of the moving staircase. Her body-abandoning mind watched (with a bemused sort of attachment) the body which it was (if not physically then at least emotionally) attached to, being in danger of quickly becoming rather terminally uninhabitable due to its dangling above a very disagreeable precipice of the bloody near bottomless variety.

This time, Malfoy could not fail to notice her. And should he have turned spontaneously blind he would have had to also turn stone deaf not to notice the penetrating screech that had accompanied her impromptu acrobatics.

He leaned over the edge, peering down at her, eyebrows aspiring for a more elevated position.

‘Hel-lo?’ He tilted his head to one side. ‘Were you following me?’

Reproachful yellow eyes glared up at him. Do something, you utter git!

‘Need a hand?’

No, I need a chunk of lead tied to my hind legs so that I’ll reach the floor quicker and leave a really BIG red stain. Honestly.

Malfoy stretched out his arm to her.

Finally.

Not about to wait for any formal invitation, Hermione sank her claws into Malfoy’s arm, inspiring him to pull her up with greatest expediency. Not so much due to any acute anxiety about her safety as his being acutely aware of a pressing need to pry her off his aching arm.

Though somewhat reluctant to let go of the git’s arm, Hermione soon found herself in Malfoy’s lap with the Slytherin gazing down at her.

‘I don’t believe we’ve met, have we? That’s— unusual. Crookshanks usually introduces me to all new arrivals…’

Hermione made a mental note to have a serious meow with Crookshanks once she got back to the Gryffindor Tower.

‘…especially the ladies.’ Malfoy smirked. ‘But perhaps he’s done you already.’

Make that a very loud Meow.

Malfoy began to absentmindedly stroke Hermione’s orange-brown fur and she found herself, much to the chagrin of her newly returned Conscious Mind, purring and rubbing herself against his torso. Animal instinct told her this was the way to go with simian individuals when hungry (and her stomach and palate did at this point express rather a violent craving for Consolation Eating to calm her frayed nerves).

Of course, Human Hermione would never stoop to such underhanded methods (manipulating Ron using her female charms didn’t count) but Cat Hermione would use her feline charms at the drop of a hat. Or, even better, at the drop of a lamb chop.

Professor McGonagall had, at the very beginning of Hermione’s Animagus training, tried to explain to her the futility of attempting to suppress fundamental cat instincts, but Hermione had initially chosen not to believe her mentor, insisting on behaving like a responsible human also when in her new feline form. This decision brought with it several unfortunate results – one of them being constantly worrying about her apparent nakedness (Did short fur really count as proper clothing?).

Eventually, Hermione had embraced her new catness and these days she even enjoyed the occasional raw mouse as a light snack between meals. On the other hand, it was things like that (the McMouse snack) that made her wonder if her embracing her catness wasn’t really more a matter of the catness sinking its vicious claws into Human Hermione, purring happily as it pulled her into the murky depths of feline decadence.

However, currently being of a feline disposition, she quickly turned her attention back to the business at paw.

Food.

And Malfoy.

And food.

Possibly a combination. Malfoy optional.

Though considering the way he gently stroked her head, she might be forced to reconsider that last bit.

Pressing into his hands and leaning back, she opened her eyes slowly - until the world came into focus again, at which point her eyes tried run off without her.

Malfoy’s face was distorted. Of course, it was upside down but, still, there was something clearly not right.

It wasn’t Malfoy. Fighting back an urge to run off in search of the boy (bigoted bastard that he was), she realigned her head to take a proper look at him.

Malfoy was smiling at her.

Not leering. Not smirking. Smiling. And it completely unbalanced her, despite anything people might say about superior cat balance.

She felt dizzy.

It was a nice smile.

‘Care for some food, ladycat?’

The deep rumbling noises rising up from her bowels were highly embarrassing.

Truthful, but embarrassing.

Expecting no more eloquent answer, Malfoy lifted Hermione onto the stairs, stood up, and walked off.

Expecting her to follow him. Just like that. How very Malfoy.

Oddly enough, this was strangely reassuring after the shocking smile she had just witnessed. Feeling reassured and starving, she followed him.

Not that it had anything to do with eating, of course. She just wanted to get to the bottom of Malfoy’s strange behaviour.

...

Right.

~~~*~~~

One thing Hermione did get to the bottom of quite quickly was Hogwarts itself. Or to be more precise: the Hogwarts school kitchens.

The kitchen elves seemed unsurprised by Malfoy’s late-night visit and quickly went about meeting his demands for food.

Nor did they seem at all surprised by the fact that there was a cat accompanying him. In fact, one of the elves went as far as to comment on the strangeness of there not being more cats. This particular elf was Dobby, old friend of Harry Potter’s and former property of the Malfoy estate, and the comment earned him a pointed slap (slaps tend to be rather pointed when the person doing the slapping is handling large kitchen knives) by his wife, Winky. Such things were simply not commented on in front of the masters. It jus’ wasn’ right. Meaningful glare. Dobby obediently banged his head on the table, crying Bad Dobby, Bad Dobby; all the while glancing towards Winky to see when (and if?) she felt he might possibly have had humiliated himself enough.

To Hermione’s great surprise, it was Draco Malfoy who decided that enough banging was enough banging and, quite frankly, this incessant banging should cease so that he could perhaps have his food served sometime before the next millennium, thank you very much.

Hermione wasn’t sure whether this should be considered a display of commendable human (even humanitarian, though that boggled the mind) qualities on Malfoy’s part or if it was simply yet another display of what a Big Spoiled Brat he was.

She pondered this as a roasted salmon was placed before her on the table, at which point she ceased pondering and focused on devouring the delicious dead fish before it had any chance whatsoever to be suddenly resurrected and escape her food-deprived existence.

You just never knew what might happen in a place like this.

For example, you never knew when one of the slimiest gits on the planet might ask you out (or, rather, down) for dinner, and you actually found yourself accepting his offer.

Even if it was with a meow.

~~~*~~~

Nothing more was said that night. Malfoy (unusually subdued) and Granger (unusually small and furry) ate their food in silence and, some considerable time later, parted ways in the main hall on their way up from the kitchens.

Nothing more was said. But the silence carried meaning.

Nothing needed to be said. After all, as far as Malfoy knew, Hermione’s conversational skills extended to purring or sounding like a rusty hinge in need of gratuitous oiling.

However, unsaid somethings floated around Malfoy’s head like fireflies around a bright light at night. His mind seemed filled with so many disturbing thoughts that they flowed over and spread around him like ripples of confusion. Draco Malfoy, who always acted as if he owned the world and could be neither be bothered by or with anyone nor anything, was confused.

Of course, Ron had always claimed that Malfoy was disturbed, but what Hermione silently witnessed that night (and the many nights thereafter) went deeper than surface sliminess and general gittishness. Malfoy had Issues, with a capital I. He was a mystery and Hermione liked mysteries.

Which was not to say she liked Malfoy. After all, she liked solving crosswords but she didn’t feel obliged to be nice to them afterwards.

In short, Hermione spent many a night with Draco Malfoy because he fascinated and intrigued her, like a puzzle waiting to get laid. Or – to avoid any lewd connotations – a crossword waiting to be solved.

Besides, he provided snacks.