Dream

Disclaimer: The characters from the Harry Potter universe in this story remain the property of JKR.

~*~

"Ah, I'm glad to see that Miss Granger has deign to grace our class with her presence today," smirked the Professor, not looking up from the text he was expounding to the class. An obviously harried Hermione Granger stumbled in through the Potions classroom, five minutes late. The other four pupils looked up towards the tardy girl at the doorway behind the Professor with looks of commiseration. Even Draco Malfoy, the lone Slytherin, winced in sympathy at the recipient of Professor Snape's acerbic tongue.

"I'm sorry I'm late Professor. I was studying in the library when I forgot the -"

"No excuses necessary, Miss Granger," he looked up to the ceiling, and heaved a dramatic sigh, pinched his eyes, and continued, "I am not interested in your social life, or lack thereof. I doubt that whatever salacious scandals you may have gotten yourself involved in with your ménage a trois pertains to our study of Potions."

He paused, letting the insult sink in. Hermione blushed, and bit the insides of her lips in both anger and embarrassment.

He nodded at the other 4 students in the class, "Nor do I think the rest of the class will be interested in your triad's exploits." He shook his head and returned to the passage in his book, "No, you have wasted enough of our time by your late entry. Explanations will not enable us to redeem the time lost. They are tedious and meaningless. In fact, I daresay it will merely waste even more of our precious time," sneered the Professor, who did not even give Hermione the courtesy of looking at her during his whole soliloquy.

The other students looked from the seated Professor to the speechless Hermione, who, by now was biting on her lower lips to keep the sting from showing on her face. She quickly sat down next to Su Li, the Ravenclaw, who was the only other girl in the S-paper class. With nary a peep, Hermione efficiently took out her parchment and quills, ready to get on with the lesson. No, she will not give Snape the satisfaction by crying in class. She'd learn a lot in the past year partnering various Slytherins in her classes. Revenge was a dish best served cold, Professor, her eyes narrowed on the unsuspecting man.

"By the way, Miss Granger," he drawled, finally looking up into her flashing eyes, "50 points from Gryffindor," he paused, his face carefully blank, "and a detention to be served this evening at 8."

~*~

Potions class was finally over, and the two girls made a swift exit from the cold classroom.

"Hey, wait up!" called Anthony Goldstein, struggling with his satchel and pushing up his glasses. His Hufflepuff housemate, Wyane Hopskin hurried along beside him in order to catch up with the girls who were by then at the foot of the stairs at the end of the corridor.

"Tough break, Herm," Wyane addressed the Gryffindor, "detention with Snape is not how I'd want to spend my Friday night."

Hermione gave him a wan smile and shook her head, "It's not how I envisioned spending tonight, either."

"I say it's ridiculous!" injected Tony, hefting his seam-splitting satchel into a more comfortable position on his shoulder. "He's already deducted 50 points from Gryffindor, that's more than what the other Professors would deduct for tardiness! What's with the detention?"

"Yes, Hermione," nodded Su thoughtfully. "Think, woman - have you done anything which might have triggered Snape's wrath? Did you get into trouble with Harry or Ron again?"

"Honestly, Su," Hermione rolled her eyes, "I really don't know what I've done to offend him. Since the start of the term, Harry, Ron and I have hardly any time for anything!" she sighed. "Maybe Snape's just angry with me for being alive and breathing?" she shrugged.

The other three students chuckled at that.

"Perhaps it's just because Granger here is a Gryffindor," drawled an amused Draco Malfoy behind the little group.

"Malfoy," Hermione turned and lifted her eyebrow at the blond Slytherin in acknowledgement.

"Granger," he tilted his head in reply.

They both snorted and broke into wry smiles.

1995 was Draco Malfoy's watershed year, for in that summer, he became the richest orphan in Wizarding UK.

As was their custom, the Malfoys had spent their summer in Chateau Malfoy, an unplottable castle south of France. Whilst enjoying the gastronomic delights of French cuisine, the Malfoys unwittingly developed a fatal case of food poisoning. Draco had only managed to escape death's clutches because he hated the taste of wild mushrooms.

The irony of Lucius Malfoy, Death Eater of Voldemort's Inner Circle, dying by something as mundane as severe food poisoning was not lost on Draco's godfather. For years, the Order of the Phoenix had been keeping tabs on Malfoy senior, hoping to link the man to the various Death Eater activities that Snape knew he had been involved in. Unfortunately, the wily Slytherin always gave them the slip with watertight alibis. With Lucius' unforeseen death, the Order knew that Voldemort's faction had been dealt a great blow - both in terms of finance, as well as that of a strategist, and the result was the uneasy calm of the past two years as Voldemort rebuilt his power base.

Draco inherited the entire Malfoy wealth, held in trust for him until he turned 18. According to wizarding custom, he was placed under the guardianship of his godfather, Severus Snape, until he came of age. Under Snape's watchful eye and mentorship, and removed from the influence of his father's less than savoury philosophy, Draco was finally given the chance to form his own opinions and to think for himself. It was not an easy journey for the boy - the shock of his parent's death both grieved him and left him feeling guilty for living. Moving into Hogwarts forced Draco to grow up - he was no longer the spoilt young master of Malfoy Manor, the Professors at Hogwarts did not tolerate his whims, and the siege-mentality of the castle inhabitants constantly reminded Draco of the on-coming war.

The first half of Draco's 5^th Year was spent in an ambiguous haze - he kept up his façade of aloofness in dealing with his peers, but the futility of his petty bullying rang hollow in his heart. His anger at his loss was profound, but it could not be directed at anyone - not Potter, not Dumbledore, not even the Dark Lord. It was in this haze that in his second Christmas spent apart from his parents, that his godfather brought him a priceless gift - an epiphany and a cause. That Christmas, in Draco's icy chill of loneliness, Snape led him to see a truth: Death comes to all, muggle or wizard, and the separation from loved ones, likewise is the same utter desolation for those who are left behind. With that sobering thought, Draco was able to see the senselessness in his father's philosophy of "purifying" the wizarding society. He was no longer able to see muggle-born wizards and witches as less than human, for their emotional make up were the same as his; neither was he able to subscribe to a philosophy that encouraged meaningless death and destruction to promote its cause. Instead, a new cause, crouched in a typical Slytherin term that appealed to the crafty in him, was born. He would redeem both his beleaguered family name and his House reputation in the up-coming cause.

With his godfather's guidance in their weekly Sunday dinners in the Housemaster's quarters, Draco found refuge in letting his true self emerge, as he learnt the subtle art of espionage. The Snakes' Den still had the eyes and ears of supporters of the Dark Lord, and Draco had to tread carefully so as not to alert Voldemort's supporters of his change in alignment. Draco had little difficulty watching the older students for signs of Voldemort's infiltration, or cultivating the younger ones for the side of Light, as he made full use of his position in the Den as the Housemaster's ward in the new Slytherin pecking order. In order not to arouse suspicion, he continued his baiting of the Gryffindor Three, but this time with greater relish, knowing that his godfather, too, was behind this little scheme.

Therefore, in his 6^th Year, much to his and Hermione's chagrin, they discovered that they shared three NEWTs subjects - Potions, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes together. Like Potions, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes were subjects that few pupils chose to pursue at NEWTs level, so Hermione and Malfoy were forced to spend almost entire days in each other's company. Naturally, Harry and Ron were upset, as they were unable to defend Hermione from the wiles of the evil Slytherin. Naturally, Hermione was not amused by the concerns of her best friends. Naturally, she told the boys what they could do with a kite (Ron: what's a kite?), and she assured them that Honestly, she can very well look after herself, for although Malfoy had taunted them verbally the previous year, he did not so much as let a hex cross their path. Besides, she was a diligent student in her Unarmed Combat class, was she not? And Naturally, in a fit of temper, she demonstrated just what she had learnt from her class on the two boys. Naturally, they kept quiet on the subject after that.

Despite her assurance to the boys, Hermione was wary of tall, blonde boy. They spent their first few weeks exchanging vicious glares, arguing incessantly in class, trading a "mudblood" for a "ferret boy"; it got mentally and emotionally exhausting for both to think up new insults, argue for the sake of arguing, and dealing with the indignation that had arisen thereof. Moreover, they were not making any progress in class because their feuding channelled their concentration away from the lessons to the other party and class discussions would descent into a bitter war of words. In addition, the anger and acrimony clouded their mental frame to the point that made it difficult for each to focus on their studies. Therefore, after one particularly trying afternoon at Ancient Runes, an exhausted Malfoy herded an equally weary Hermione into an unused classroom to put a stop to the feud once and for all.

Hermione did not believe a word the Slytherin said.

In her experience, they were too artful by half and were great prevaricators. Therefore, to convince Hermione, Draco appealed to her Gryffindor sense of honour and suggested that they both draw up and sign a Memorandum of Understanding, which would make it impossible for Draco to abrogate. They had then spent the greater part of that afternoon drawing up their cessation of hostilities that included the following terms:

§ Both Parties shall not, in the presence of the other, insult the other party's person, property, family, friends or heritage in word or deed.

§ Both Parties shall treat the other party with civility, when in the other Party's presence.

§ If partnered for assignments or projects in Potions, Arithmancy or Ancient Runes, both Parties shall ensure that due effort be given to the completion of said assignment.

However, because Draco had deferred to some of Hermione's suggestions, she began to be wary of being trapped by the Slytherin. Of course, the alternative scenario of continuing in their feud did not appeal to her at all, since she knew that on a few occasions, some of her Ravenclaw classmates managed to get ahead of her in class. Therefore, for fear of her academic prowess and her emotional sanity, they both signed the contract, which was to be kept for the entire academic school year.

As expected, when the school heard about the peace agreement between Malfoy and Hermione, Draco had to fabricate a story wherein he was tricked into signing that magical document. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the House one supported), because of the terms of agreement Draco had to abide by, he was unable to vent his frustrations of being deceived by the Gryffindor witch. Ron and Harry celebrated Hermione's brilliance at solving the quandary of taming Malfoy, and because Hermione had promised Malfoy not to reveal the truth about how the agreement was drawn up, she allowed her best friends to remain in the dark.

After that historic day, Hermione found to her surprise that Malfoy was actually an intelligent student who had fascinating insights to contribute in class, by virtue of his wizarding upbringing and social standing. Without being constantly referred to as "mudblood" or spoken of in derision, Hermione found that she was more amenable to some of Malfoy's contributions on certain social and cultural norms for wizards, even those ideas that were biased against muggles. Because their exchanges were cushioned by civility, she was then able to point out to Draco how some of these biases were rooted in historical misunderstanding, without going through the angst of a shouting match. Her own prejudices against the upper echelons of the pureblood wizarding culture was frequently coloured by Ron, and thus, although Hermione would never admit it, she was grateful that Malfoy was able to provide her this insight into a culture that she could never be able to glean from books.

Malfoy, in turn found some muggle ideas fascinating. He had no muggle friends and thus was amazed to learn about Muggle's foray into Science and Technology. He was especially captivated by Hermione's discussion in Ancient Runes: Legends of Travel, wherein she revealed that muggles have already put a man on the moon, and that even as they were discussing Pimpernel Deepdelver's travels to the 5^th Dimension using the Runic set, that there were not only muggles circulating the Earth in satellites out in space, but that American muggles will send a space probe to the planet Mars at the end of that year, and were expected to receive images of the surface of the red planet in the summer of the next year.

At the start of their 7^th Year, the habits of behaving civilly with each other was so ingrained, that neither of them thought to sign another contract. By then, the school was used to seeing Draco treating Hermione with civility that it was no longer out of character for the Slytherin. In fact, many younger boys started emulating Draco's courtly manner, when they saw how their female schoolmates seemed to be taken by his aristocratic air.

"So, what did the good Professor want with you?" she eyed the boy, speculatively. "Should I be thanking you for his foul temper?"

Malfoy shook his head, "Hardly. No, it was just some Slytherin housekeeping matters." He then looked at the girl with curious glint and a half-smirk, "Although... I must agree with Su. It's not like Snape to issue detention to 7^th Years. Whatever you have done must be quite serious."

On that ominous note, the five ascended the stairs to get to their common rooms.

~*~

The cheek of the boy! Approaching him after class ended and asking if he was feeling all right. Yes, I'm just fine and dandy, thank you very much!

Normally, it would please him to note Draco's perspicacity, but on this occasion, it irritated him that his odd behaviour was so easily picked up by the boy. Damn!

She was late for class. And he had given her a detention. Fool!

Why was a detention necessary? He did not give detentions to the 7^th Years unless the offence was extremely serious. And being 5 minutes late for class did not constitute a serious enough offence that warranted a detention. Not even by his strict standards.

What had made him issue that detention? Was he out of his mind? What had he hope to gain? It was foolishness - pure and simple.

He scrubbed his hand over his face and let his anger out with a groan. His judgement was compromised by the dream he had last night.

When he got to the Great Hall for breakfast that morning, his eyes had involuntarily sought out the brunette seated beside the fiery-haired Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. However, not once during his surreptitious spying did she look towards him. When Potter came to the Head Table with Miss Zabini, she'd looked up to grace her friend with a wave and a smile. Nothing in her manners indicated that she was even aware of him.

But what had he expected? A fairy tale plot device wherein she shares his dreams? Was he so desperate for human contact, for human understanding and comfort, that he would consider his student, this child as a potential for something more? What had he hope would develop? That she would absolve him from the guilt he carried? That she would bring light to the darkness which abided in him? For that matter, why should he fixate on her? For all he knew, his dream wraith might take on the form of Minerva tonight. No, not Minerva, he shuddered, that would truly be a nightmare!

He had shaken his head, feeling a little disappointed at his maudlin self for this sign of weakness. Clenching his fist, he had resolved to put the matter of his dream aside and concentrate on getting through his Friday lessons - a trying 4^th Year Slytherin and Gryffindor class after breakfast, with a free period that led up to lunch. After lunch, he had 2^nd Year Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, followed by the S-paper class.

The S-paper class with Miss Granger and four other pupils.

Well, he was prepared to teach her. What was the worst that could happen? It was not as if his dream wraith was Miss Granger herself. And with that thought fortifying him, he had looked forward to the final lesson of the day with a mix of anticipation and trepidation.

He had intended to sweep into the classroom with his usual aplomb and launch into the day's lesson, totally ignoring the Gryffindor, but Miss Granger did not co-operate.

No. She just had to be late for class. Forcing him to take notice of her. Forcing him to penalise her tardiness with a deduction of House points. Forcing him to remember the comfort he'd felt with her in his arms. Forcing his momentary lapse into a cloud in which he allowed himself to issue her a detention so that they could be alone. Perhaps to explore the possibilities --? Damn you, Severus!

What are you on about, man? Stupid, stupid, stupid! That's what it is! He censured himself. You were obviously not thinking! What possibilities? Merlin! A dream wraith that comforted you is only an illusion created by your own depraved mind! Damn you, Severus! She's your student!

"Four more hours until detention with Miss Granger. A fitting punishment," he shook his head grimly. The thing was, he wasn't quite sure who was going to be punished that evening. He certainly felt as if he was the one being punished for giving her a detention - punished for a weakness in hoping for a dream come true, punished for pursuing the illusion of a dream wraith.

There were still four hours to figure out what he wanted her to do for detention.