Stormy Weather

Hermione ran for the Great Hall, the new broom in one hand and the card in the other. She could see Draco standing at the doors with his own broom ready, looking at her curiously as she came up. "Whose broom did you borrow?" Draco wondered.

"No one." Hermione paused to catch her breath a little. "I think we should talk before flying." She handed over the card, watching as he read it quickly. "Did you know anything about this?"

The blond shook his head. "I can owl her, though." He sounded just as surprised as she had been when she'd seen it, if not more so. His broom was good, but it wasn't quite as good as this, after all.

"Please. I'd hate for this to be some kind of trick." Hermione touched the broom lightly, shivering. She hadn't flown on it once, but it seemed to quiver in her hand, wanting to soar with her. She knew brooms didn't really have minds of their own, but this just seemed...special.

Draco considered for a few moments. "I can do it now. It'll take a while for it to get there and back, though." Unspoken, but clearly audible, was the hint of 'let’s do it and get it over with'.

"That's fine. We can still go flying afterwards." Hermione wanted to know the answer as fast as she could. In the next thirty seconds would be very nice.

It didn't take very long to get a parchment, quill, and owl, and very soon the message was winging its way towards Malfoy Manor. Draco looked over at her as the owl flew out of sight. "Ready?"

"Ready." As she watched it fly, she remembered something that McGonnagal had told her about. "Oh! I made the exhibition team! It's going to be girls versus the boys, Slytherin/Gryffindor on one side, Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff on the other."

"Congratulations." Draco nodded slightly as they mounted their brooms and headed into the skies. The air whipped all around them both, sending their robes and hair flying this way and that as they soared. Hermione smiled to herself; this was definitely more fun than it had been when she was younger!

She glanced over at where Draco was, then angled her broom closer to him. When he looked over at her, she leaned in just enough and kissed him. Emotions for which she had no kind of name swept all through her and she shivered, almost falling off of her broom. She tugged back some, trying to keep herself balanced. "Maybe we should land for awhile?"

"You're probably right." The two of them landed on the Quidditch field, just as the Ravenclaw team was vacating it. One of them stared at the two arrivals for a while, and that reminded Hermione of something.

"Was it just me or was the whole school staring at us today?"

Draco shook his head. "It wasn't you."

"I think they know what we did last night." Hermione said quietly. "Let them stare. Rumors about us will die down now that Ginny and Harry are finally dating!"

"She's been after him since as far back as I can remember. It's about time." Draco snorted. She wasn't surprised; it had hardly been a secret after all.

"But there will be talk. That leaves us to ourselves, though." She smiled a bit, then looked at him. Something flickered in his eyes. "Something on your mind?"

He said nothing for a few moments, then nodded slightly. "You."

"What about me?"

"Everything." Draco's voice was quiet and firm. Nothing was said for a few moments, then she sat down, patting the ground beside her.

"Anything in particular I can do to help that?" Hermione wondered as he sat down next to her. He shrugged a bit.

"I don't know," A long silence stretched out between them. "I like to think about you."

Hermione smiled a bit as she leaned closer to him. "I've been trying to remember what some of those spells they cast on me were. One of them has been very hard to find."

"Which one?" Draco wondered, frowning as she told him the name of it. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it offhand. He'd probably read it in one of the spellbooks at home; he'd had to memorize quite a few of them.

"I can't find it in any of the books in the library," Hermione fretted, her fingers going through the grass on the pitch. "I don't like that."

Draco nodded; he wasn't surprised at all by her reactions. "I might be able to look it up at home." She nodded slightly, and this time he was the one who saw something flickering through her eyes. "What's on your mind?"

"You." Just as he'd asked her question, now she returned it with his answer. His lips quirked ever so slightly, and she grinned at him. "And last night." The hand of hers that wasn't worriedly moving among the grasses found his hand and squeezed lightly. She was about to lean towards him when the sound of a throat clearing interrupted them.

Professor Snape stood just outside the Quidditch pitch, his black gaze on both of them. "Miss Granger, Mr. Malfoy, Professor Dumbledore wishes to see you both. Immediately."

Draco nodded as he scrambled to his feet, followed by Hermione. The two of them let the Potions Master walk ahead of them until they reached the statue that lead to the Headmaster's office. Snape looked at the gargoyle with a faintly suffering expression. "Jelly Beans."

A giggle escaped Hermione as the two of them stepped onto the revealed stairs, while Draco just rolled his eyes. Dumbledore was definitely too Muggle-fixated.

"Ah, come in." Dumbledore motioned for the two of them to sit as they arrived in his office. "I have heard some very serious rumors about the two of you."

Draco looked as innocent as it were possible for him to look right now. "Rumors?"

"What happened last night?" The Headmaster got right to the point. Draco met his blue eyes with his own gray-steel ones.

"It's personal." The staff here had no right to pry into his personal affairs! It wasn't their concern!

The old wizard didn't flinch from the Malfoy gaze for so much as a heartbeat. "If there were rules broken, then it is no longer personal. Was Miss Granger in your room last night?"

Draco had always heard that no one could lie to Albus Dumbledore. Now he understood why they said that. Those eyes seemed to be boring into his very soul, unnerving him more than anyone ever had. "Yes."

"Miss Granger, I fear I must deduct fifty points from Gryffindor." The Headmaster said after Draco's admittance. Hermione could feel the blood draining from her cheeks as he looked at a sudden image of the hourglasses that tallied the house points. "However, there is another instance which I wished to talk to both of you about."

"Which is?" Draco wondered. What else was going on? He couldn't deny that hearing the deduction was nice, but what else could they have done?

"Your time away from Hogwarts. There are points to be placed there." Dumbledore's merry blue eyes shifted from one to the other of them. "Each of your houses is awarded fifty points for your deeds done in saving the other's life." He smiled as Hermione lit up; that would at least leave them right where they'd been before! "And for the last...Miss Granger, I understand that you've been searching for the effects of a certain spell."

She nodded quickly. "I've looked all through the library and nothing's there."

"It should be in here." The Headmaster handed a slender book over to her. "Please return it to either Professor McGonnagal or myself when you are done with it."

"Thank you, sir!" Hermione clasped the book closer, her fingers caressing the leather bound spine happily. Her answers were so close...

The white-haired old wizard nodded slightly. "Also, please remember that Friday we have a meeting about the exchange. It is in less than a fortnight, as I'm certain you recall." He glanced over at a clock on the wall, and nodded. "As it is, it is nearly time for dinner." Indeed, one of the hands was clearly marked 'Let's eat!!'

"Thank you, sir." Draco nodded politely at him. Hermione was impressed; she certainly wouldn't have thought that the boy she'd met seven years earlier would ever be polite to someone he'd referred to very often as a Muggle loving fool.

Then again, they are tied with us in points right now, and he probably doesn't want to lose any. She stood up and nodded her own farewell. "We'll see you there."

As the two of them headed for the Great Hall, Hermione glanced over at him. "You're looking fairly smug at the thought of being tied with Gryffindor."

"Why shouldn't I be?" Draco grinned a little. "We can get ahead of you in our next potions class, after all. Maybe we'll finally win this year."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Who knows...maybe Goyle will screw up somewhere and lose you another hundred points or so?"

A flash of competitiveness surged in his gray eyes. "He'd better not." There was no doubt he'd issue some kind of reprimand to his lackey if that happened.

"I'll see you at dinner." Hermione nodded as she headed up towards the tower, and he headed for the dungeons. This dating a Slytherin thing wasn't so bad.

Of course that probably would've been hard to really explain to Ron and Harry, who she met almost as soon as she entered the tower. Without speaking or doing more than just nodding hellos, they followed her to her room.

"Hey." She turned to see Ron staring at her new broom as she went to put it away. "Where'd you get that?"

"Draco's mother sent it to me." Hermione told him, hanging it in the closet. Ron looked as if he were about to start drooling at any second, then began to rattle off stats just as fast as Lavender had. She chuckled a little. "I know all that." She shook her head a little. "Dumbledore fined me fifty points for being with Draco last night." Both of them stared at her with twin expressions of shock. "And we gained some because of what happened while we were captured."

"How much?" Ron asked, fidgeting slightly at the same time. Gryffindor had been winning so consistently, they just couldn't screw up now!

"Fifty, but Slytherin also gained the same amount." She rolled her eyes as the redhead groaned depressively. "Well, Draco did save my life, too!"

Her friend didn't look all that thrilled. "I know, I know."

"We're tied." Hermione reminded them. "So no more screwing up."

Ron shot her a quick look. "That goes for you too, you know."

"I'll be careful." Hermione promised, then grinned. "I won't get caught next time." She could see them both shuddering and burst out laughing. "Just kidding. Next time will not be for a long time. Let's get to dinner. I've got a lot of homework to do tonight, and I want to get an early start on it."

Once they were down in the Great Hall, Hermione found her attention drawn inexorably to the Slytherin side of the room. He's not there. That was something unexpected. She'd never really known him to miss a meal without a reason. She was just starting to wonder where he was, when he walked in, followed by Crabbe and Goyle just as he always had been. I wasn't worried about him. Really I wasn't.

Hermione barely paid attention to the hum of conversation all around her. The only thing she was really thinking about was the book that Dumbledore had given her, and she made her way back to her room to it as swiftly as she could. I should be doing my homework, but I have to find out.

She paged through it carefully, reading each spell to see if it matched anything in her memory. Almost an hour had passed before she stopped and stared down at one particular entry. I have to talk to Draco. The Muggleborn witch scrambled to her feet and ran to find him, dodging everyone and anyone who got in the way before she saw a familiar flash of pale hair.

"Draco!" Hermione pushed Crabbe and Goyle aside and seized his arm. "We have to talk. Now." Something of her panic must have transmitted itself to him, as he dismissed his goons and headed outside with her. Once they were out of earshot of everyone, she opened the book and pointed. "That's it! That's the spell!" He leaned over to read the description of it as she continued. "That protection spell we used, it's not compatible with this. Which means it wouldn't have worked!" She stared into his eyes. "I might be pregnant."

Draco frowned in thought, considering what he knew of female biology. "The odds are highly against it." After all, how many girls got pregnant their first time? None that he knew. Of course they'd all used the proper spells against it.

"Not if I started my cycle today."

He nodded slowly. "We need to ask Madam Pomfrey." Without another word the two of them headed up to the hospital wing, ignoring the looks from people of all Houses as they walked together.

"Madam Pomfrey!" Draco called to the nurse as they entered. "We may have a problem."

The mediwitch listened as the two of them described the exact situation and why they feared what they did. She nodded slightly once they were through, then pointed to the nearest bed. "Sit, Miss Granger."

Hermione settled herself in, glancing nervously at Draco at the same time. Madam Pomfrey came over before they could even begin to mutter anything to each other, a cup held in one hand and her wand in the other. "Drink this." the mediwitch told her sharply. Hermione eyed it for a moment; whatever it was, was thick, green, and reeked of rotten oysters. "Drink it."

There was no denying that tone of voice. Hermione gulped it all down, and started shivering even before she had finished it. The nurse just watched her calmly, keeping track of the time until five minutes had passed. Then she pointed her wand at Hermione's stomach and whispered something under her breath. A small point of white light appeared at the tip of it, glowing brightly enough to cast shadows for a moment, then went out.

"Not pregnant." Pomfrey declared, extinguishing the light. Draco looked at her in surprise.

"Are you certain?"

"Mr. Malfoy, I am. Has anyone told you how hard it is for someone with Veela blood to impregnate someone without Veela blood?" The nurse looked at him as if he were a student who had particularly failed an exam of some kind, rolling her eyes slightly as he shook his head. "You have just enough Veela blood in you so that you have approximately one chance in two thousand to impregnate a human who doesn't have it. The odds can be raised if certain foods, spells, or potions are used beforehand. But for now, you are not in any danger of becoming a teenage father."

Hermione listened quietly; she wasn't all that surprised to find out that the Malfoy family had nonhuman blood in it. They did look somewhat veela-ish, after all. Not to mention that despite having something of a resemblance to his ferret Animagus form, Draco was one of the most popular boys in school. Veela attraction. I hope when he does want to have kids, he can do it. With whoever he wants to have them with.

"Thank you." Draco's thanks almost seemed forced and distant. Something told Hermione that he hadn't really known about the problems he could have siring another generation of Malfoys, and she rather liked the thought of having been there when he did.

"I won't mention this to anyone." Pomfrey continued, looking at Hermione. "Your other injuries need to be re-examined at any rate. Thank you, Mr. Malfoy, for bringing her for her check-up. Now you're free to return to your homework."

"See you in class," Hermione told him as he started away. She would have said a lot more, but she had no time as the nurse started to run a battery of magical tests on her.

"You're doing very well," Pomfrey told her once it was all over. "Clean bill of health."

"Thanks." Hermione could honestly say she hadn't felt better in her life, except for the definite need for some butterbeer to take the taste of the various potions Pomfrey had made her drink out of her mouth. "Can I go now?"

"Of course." Pomfrey showed her out and Hermione headed back to Gryffindor Tower.

Thank goodness that's over with. Finally.