Stormy Weather

As soon as they entered the Gryffindor common Room, Hermione turned on her ex-boyfriend, pinning him with a very annoyed icy gaze. "Well?"

Ron shifted a little, then looked her in the eyes. "I'm sorry for what I said before." At least he'd learned not to let things fester for so long. That was one good thing she could say about him.

"You know I'm still really ticked off for what you did to me with Karen, right?" He nodded again, and her opinion of him adjusted from 'ready to hex' to 'not quite as ready to hex'. "I know what I'm doing, Ron," she reminded him as she took a seat before the crackling fire. "I know what I saw, and I will not turn into a Slytherin." He murmured something that was probably 'good', but she wasn't done yet. "I know that you and I have no chance in hell of ever getting back together. You broke my heart, and the trust I had in you. I don't know if you can gain either back right now."

"I know what I saw, too, Hermione." There was that stubborn thrust to his jaw, that could be endearing and annoying by turns.

"Forget it, Ron, please." She shook her head. He was being a prat about this, but not quite as bad as he had been being.

Ron clenched his fists and leaned a little closer to her. "Why? Because it's something you don't want and I'm supposed to just give in to whatever you want?"

"I don't love you." The words didn't hurt the way she'd once thought they would. They just felt right. "Not anymore. I'm sorry, but I don't."

His fists slowly came unclenched as he looked away. "Fine. So you're willing to believe what you saw, but not what I saw. Pretty one-sided, aren't you?" His ears were getting redder and redder with every word. "Besides, aren't you the one who dumped Divination? So why would you believe something that's trying to ordain your future...except it just so happens to be something you want to hear!"

"I didn't say I believed it. I just said that I don't love you."

He wasn't backing down on this one, though. "But you do believe it."

"I don't know what to believe from that. I have no idea who he saw, he won't tell me until the 'time is right'." She was bound and determined to get him to say something to her after the family weekend in spring if nothing else. If it took more than four months for things 'to be right', then she'd have something to say to him, and it wouldn't be very pleasant when she did. "I do know that he's different than I thought he would be. We have some things in common."

Ron tilted his head slightly. "Like what?" The thought that Malfoy could have something in common with someone he knew was a little on the strange side, except of course for both he and Harry being Seekers for their respective teams. But other than that...

"We like the same Quidditch team." Hermione smiled at the thought. I do hope he was serious about teaching me. "And we both love to fly."

The young Weasley almost glared her. "You never told me that you liked to fly!" He really looked upset by that! She just shook her head.

"You never asked." She'd done most of her flying when the boys were off drooling over girls or Quidditch or whatever else it was they were drooling over that week, anyway. It helped her to relax after a hard day of studying.

Ron's near-glare turned into a full glare. "Why should I have had to ask? We're friends, I shouldn't have to ask you everything!"

"It just never came up with us," Hermione reminded him. "He asked me to fly, that's how it came up with me and him."

"So, he gets extra points just because it happened to come up with him and not me? Do you know how stupid that is? If you'd wanted me to know you could've told me. But I just don't count?" The bitterness in his voice was thick enough to spread on bread and eat.

A deep sigh escaped her. Why was this being so hard? "It's not that. I don't know why I never told you and I'm sorry that I didn't, but that's the past. I can't change what happened between us."

"Neither can I." Ron reminded her. "I wasn't trying to. I want to know why you're all over him."

Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at him. "You're going to be upset by this." She waited for a moment, then kept going. "He's a great kisser. And I mean great." He snorted derisively, and Hermione shook her head. "I told that you'd be upset."

"So that's all." Both of them looked over towards the portrait hole as it slid open, revealing Harry clambering in. Hermione gazed back into the fire contemplatively.

"Well, that's why I'm kissing him a lot." It was quite true. Draco's lips might look cold and thin, but there was absolutely no way to describe how they could make her feel.

Ron waved one hand dismissively. "So his personality sucks but he has great lips. I can just see the love there." The sarcasm hadn't gotten any thinner.

"I kind of like being with him too." Hermione considered that for a few moments. "It's kind of hard to explain that, really. I just feel it." She looked back at Ron. "Why did you like being with Karen more than me?" The only answer sent was a casual shrug. "And when she dumped you, did you just expect me to be here waiting for you?"

Ron looked shocked, if not a little hurt, by that. "No, I didn't!" That was unusual, at least for him. Maybe he wasn't quite taking her for granted anymore.

"Then why are you trying to hard to get me back? Because I'm with Draco?" Hermione turned slightly so she could see him more clearly and make sure he wasn't even trying to lie to her.

He shook his head sharply. "Because I saw you!"

Hermione stood up, then accio'd a picture into her hands from her trunk. "Are you all that sure?" He grabbed it instinctively as she shoved it at him, then she looked to Harry. "Want to talk upstairs? I've got some questions about the Family Weekend."

With Harry's agreement, they headed up to her room, leaving Ron staring at the picture, which seemed to have two nearly identical Hermiones looking back at him in it.

Once the two of them were up in her room, with the door firmly shut between them and Ron, Hermione asked one major question first. "Why won't you tell Ginny?" That got a blush and a looking away and she grinned. In Harry-speak, that meant only one thing. "Ron?"

"Right. That's his sister, and he likes to be protective of her. I know he won't be upset once he gets a chance to get adjusted, but I just don't know if now is the right time to let her know. Or him." Harry had obviously been thinking about this for a while.

"Tell her. I don't think he'd mind, and even so, he can't be more mad at you than he is at me right now." Hermione suggested. He'd probably not be all that upset because of how mad he is at me. He wouldn't want to be mad at both of us.

The Boy Who Lived and Beat Voldemort To A Bloody Pulp sighed. "I'd rather he wasn't mad at either of us, much less both of us."

"There's no changing that we are mad at each other, and to be honest, I'm sort of miffed at you, too." Hermione told him. "For hanging around him more than me when I needed a friend."

Harry shook his head. "You've been with Malfoy more than anyone else, Hermione."

"Only since Christmas Eve. Ron and I broke up almost three weeks before that."

The young wizard sighed. "He needed a friend, too. I can't split myself."

"I know. But it would've been nice to have someone to talk to who knew what was going on. He had you. I had no one." She hardly noticed that tears were dripping down her cheeks until Harry brushed them away, then squeezed her hand lightly. He'd always been one of her best friends, and she was glad that hadn't changed. Then something else occurred to her. "Your aunt is coming to the Family Weekend, or so I've heard. Well, she's been invited at least."

Harry shivered just a little. She knew that things had been getting slightly better between Harry and his relatives, or at least had been since his uncle had died almost a year earlier. Petunia wasn't exactly an angel to him, but she wasn't quite as bitter and bitchy as she had been. Hermione wiped a few more of her tears away and smiled at him briefly. "I seem to be doing that a lot."

"Must be a girl thing," Harry teased, and she smacked him gently. "Hey!!"

She glowered at him for a moment. "I've been under a lot of stress, between staying caught up, my mom, and this whole mess with Ron." When she thought about everything she was doing, it almost felt as if she had the Time Turner again, going over and over and over and over and over.

Harry looked at her worriedly. "What happened with your mom?"

"She has ovarian cancer." Hermione looked away, just catching Harry paling. "They didn't know if they could do the surgery cause she also has a weak heart, but Madame Pomfrey helped out on that part." She glanced out the window and smiled a touch. Draco was down there, hiding behind a tree once he saw that he'd been seen. "You'll want to owl your aunt and let her know about her options for where to stay while she's here. My parents are coming so if they agree, they might be able to pick her up." She looked over at Harry, a touch of worry in her eyes. "I wish I knew why I can't stand being away from him."

He stepped a bit closer to her. "I'm not trying to be insulting, but this is kind of sudden, so...are you really sure that this is what you want?"

Hermione could tell what he was asking. "If you want to know if he drugged me or put a spell on me, he didn't. This is my own free will."

"Are you sure? Would he tell you if he had?"

Hermione nodded quite firmly. "He didn't. I know he didn't, Harry." It was a little hard to explain just how she could be so sure, since she didn't think he'd be all that thrilled to find out it had gotten started for revenge and convenience, but she was honest, at least. She knew it wasn't magic. "Why would he, anyway?"

"Just because we don't know doesn't mean there's not a reason." For a moment he looked so sad and so distant, and she recalled that they hadn't know for years just why Voldemort had been after him, only that he had been. The rough parallels were plain. "After all, his reason could just be the three of us not being the three of us: what's happening now. And like I said, just because we can't think of the reason doesn't mean there isn't one."

"I know." Hermione turned towards the window and stared out, seeing Draco again. A few murmured words and a soft thump told her that Harry had gone and closed the door behind him, but she didn't check. She was watching Draco too much. He had produced his broom from somewhere, and he flew a little, rising above the treetops to come closer to her window.

"Hello." He wore his usual trademark smirk and she nodded back at him.

"Enjoying yourself?" Her sight flicked for a moment to the broom, then back up to him.

"Very much so. And yourself?" He looked so nonchalant as he hovered there, his grip firm and strong. She leaned against the window to see him a bit better.

"Sort of. I talked to Ron and Harry, though with Harry it was more for that Family Weekend in spring." She was definitely looking forward to seeing how her family took Hogwarts. They were so nervous still about the wizarding world she was devoted to.

Draco nodded slightly, his eyes moving past her to look at the room behind her. She noticed him looking a trifle surprised about something and was about to ask what it was. Before she could, though, he looked back at her. "Nice outfit there."

She glanced over her shoulder to see what he was looking at and smiled. "My nightgown? It was a birthday gift from one of my cousins. It's pretty comfortable." It was also a short, silk/lace fantasy that made her very glad at times she had a private room now. She glanced back at Draco, and noticed that his grip on the broom was just a little tighter. "Something on your mind?"

"You might say that." His sarcastic smirk broadened for a moment, almost reaching the stage of true smile, but it failed by a large margin.

"You can't imagine me in something so revealing, can you?" She taunted him lightly. She was certain he'd never dreamed about her or anything like that, but Lavender and Parvati had definitely thought there was something odd about her having it.

He chuckled just a little. "Oh, I don't know. I'm not having that many problems with it."

"It shows off my tattoo very well." Oh, that was interesting. He'd almost fallen off of his broom. He'd saved himself in time, though.

"Tattoo?" If she hadn't known better, she would have thought there was a flicker of curiosity going through those pale eyes.

"I got it after our fourth year, in the small of my back. It's a butterfly." She grinned teasingly at his expression. "Surprised?" He must have been; he actually admitted to it with a brief nod. "I'll have to write this down: the day a Muggleborn surprised a Malfoy."

He rolled his eyes a little. "I would hope you at least had it done at a reputable wizarding tattoo shop. I've heard stories about those disgusting Muggle places."

"Actually, it was a Muggle place. My uncle did it." She stuck her tongue out at him, knowing it was childish, when he rolled his eyes at her, and was surprised when he leaned closer and kissed her softly once. "It's starting to get dark, and I have a little more homework to finish." She didn't really want him to go, but she did have things to do. "I'll see you around."

"See you, 'Mione," he said softly. She smiled a bit as he pulled back, then turned and started to change for bed. In a few short moments she was curled up with the rest of her homework, and hard at work on her Arithmancy notes.

That nightgown...that tattoo... Draco's thoughts ran in circles as he headed back inside. Before the doors shut behind him, he cast an annoyed glance at the dark blue sky. I wish it were snowing. I could fall into a nice snowdrift right about now.

He ignored the few people he passed until he reached the Slytherin common room and grabbed a set of spare robes. He didn't even pay the slightest bit of attention to Crabbe and Goyle, vaguely recalling having told them not to crowd so close; he didn't like breathing the same air that they did. Not that it mattered; they might leave him alone for now, but they'd be back when he least wanted them around.

There were other things on his mind right now, such as the ice-cold shower he really needed. Once he got into the nearest boy's bathroom, he turned on the water as cold as he could get it, stripped, and ducked himself under it.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy wondered for years afterwards just where that horrific scream had come from in that moment. Peeves wound up taking the credit for it, but no one really believed him.

"It might help if you turned the water to warm," Draco glanced briefly behind himself to notice Goyle there. I didn't know they could go anywhere by themselves. They're worse than the twin Weasels were.

"I don't want it warm." Draco hissed dangerously. He needed this shock to his system after what he'd seen. He turned his gaze back to the frigid water, letting it run all over him, and ignored Goyle very pointedly. He's probably going to say something to Father. Not that I care. I've got other things to worry about than him.

Once he was finally under control again, he turned the water off, dried, and redressed. That should hold me for a while. I wonder if I still have those art supplies Mother sneaked to me last year. I think I want to do a little drawing.

Lucius Malfoy looked up as the owl hooted just before it flew in and dropped the letter it was carrying into a basket. It must be from Crabbe or Goyle. They're the only ones I know who would send me an owl and not be able to tie it to the creature's leg.

He opened up the message and worked his way through the half-literate words carefully. So, this is what Draco has been doing lately.

"What's the matter?" Lucius looked up to see Narissa there, one of the house-elves standing beside her holding a cup of something or other. "That's from one of Draco's friends, isn't it?" He nodded as he handed her the letter, and she read it quickly. "Hermione. Isn't she that pretty little Gryffindor girl?"

The master of Malfoy Manor snorted. "The Mudblood." The Dark Lord might have been gone, but his contempt for all those of non-magical blood remained the same.

"Watch your language." Narcissa reproved him. "I don't permit our son to say that in the house and neither should you."

Lucius rolled his eyes; Narcissa had some of the strangest ideas sometimes. "Very well. The...Muggleborn."

"From what Draco's told me in his letters, she's as smart as he is. She might be good for our son, and if I remember, your parents weren't all that eager to see us married." Narcissa reminded her husband. Lucius sniffed dismissively.

"I doubt she's that good." She was just a Mudblood after all, and he'd say it and think it and believe it no matter what Narcissa decreed.

His wife put the letter down carefully. "We'll have the chance to meet her when we go out there for the Family Weekend in spring. And don't even think about going out there before then." She gave him a cool look. "I know you, Lucius." He simply shrugged and she nodded slightly. "I have some things to do. Coming to bed soon?"

"Of course."

Narcissa smiled seductively at him as she headed into their adjoining bedroom, and Lucius shook his head. She might have odd ideas, but he also loved her for them. That's what I get for marrying the Head Girl of her year. If she wasn't so much a Slytherin, I'd almost say she should have been a Ravenclaw. He quickly penned a letter to go to Draco, not saying who had told him anything, but wanting to know just what was going on with this Granger girl. He sipped absently at the cup the house-elf and left and blinked. "Coffee. I'll be up most of the night with this."

"That's the idea." Narissa poked her head back in and grinned at him. Lucius smiled for a heartbeat, then quickly finished the letter and sent it on it's way. He had a very busy night ahead of him, it seemed, and he didn't want to be late for it at all.