Hate You, Hate Me

~Chapter 5 - Hate Me~

I hate you, Hermione.

The common room opened to a laughing Granger and friends. Well, actually, Potter and Weasley were laughing. Granger was not. They weren't even paying attention to her. I found that incredibly irritating.

Granger looked up slowly and gave me a slight smile. My heart stopped. I panicked and smiled back, my cheeks turning red. What the Hell was wrong with me? I felt incredibly light-headed, and my face was burning like crazy. It was only Granger, damn it!

"I thought I told you to get out!" Weasley barked in my direction.

I smirked. He was acting as though he had knocked me into the table.

"I believe I'm the only one of us who has the right to kick anyone out of here," I said. "So, you and Potter can get your asses out, now."

"What did you say, Malfoy?" Ron snarled.

"I said get the fuck out of my common room!" I screamed.

I hate how you told me you hated me when I told them to get the fuck out of my common room.

My voice echoed about the room. It sickened me to hear it. I don't know why, but it did. Maybe I was subconsciously thinking about Granger and how she must feel. Not that I should... did care, or anything. Not for a second...

I glanced over to the spot where she had been sitting so I could see her reaction to the words that had burst from my careless mouth. However, she was no longer there. Her stupid orange cat arched its back and hissed at me, and I continued to stare.

My thoughts then turned to Potter and Weasley. I wondered why they hadn't attacked me yet. A hand gripped my shoulder firmly, and I turned to find a fuming Granger. I smacked her hand off and rubbed my shoulder for a moment. Already, I knew too well that she was far stronger than she looked.

"How... dare... you!" Granger growled, her breath ragged and her eyes flashing dangerously.

I shrunk back against the rear of the couch. She was going to slap me again... I could feel it coming. She clenched her fists, and I began to think she was going to punch me instead.

"I have every right to kick them out of here," I snapped when I finally found my voice.

"And I have every right to let them stay," she said, maliciously.

The ones we spoke of, I discerned suddenly, had disappeared. When and to where they had gone, I had no clue.

"You think you're so much better than me, don't you, Malfoy?" Granger said, venomously.

"Of course," I said slickly, feeling a smirk creep onto my face. "You are just a filthy little Mudblood, after all."

Actually, I had not meant to say the word. I had lost total control of my mouth and actions, it seemed. Her eyes narrowed treacherously. My hand slipped into my pocket, and I seized my wand without being detected. At some point, I observed, Granger must have done the same, as her wand was now wrapped tightly in her fingers.

"Well," she said, her voice shaking with anger. "This filthy little Mudblood is going to curse you into next week."

She raised her wand, but I was much faster. I pulled my wand out and screamed, "Expelliarmus!" before she could utter a syllable of whatever she had planned to curse me with.

Granger flew backwards, a sickening look of shock present on her face. She fell to the ground and skidded into the wooden and glass coffee table on which she so often did her homework. Books and shattered bits of glass fell on her head with horrendous thuds.

"Hermione!" I shouted in distress.

I had not wanted to hurt her at all. The spell had been aimed just to disarm the girl, but my fury had somehow gotten the best of my powers and made the spell stronger. I rushed to Hermione's side not sure of what to say to express how sorry I was. I slowly placed a hand on her shoulder, but it was slapped away within a half of a second.

I backed away slightly as she raised herself to reveal a severely brush-burned cheek. Glass from the shattered table had resulted in a few thin cuts across her face. As shards of glass fell from her hair, I raised my wand at once, intent on healing her.

"Stay away from me!" she hissed, quickly crawling away from me.

Hermione tried to raise herself up further using the coffee table, but her hand slipped and her arm was cut by the jagged edge of what was left of the glass.

"Careful," I warned, moving to help her up.

I got her into a leaning position before she punched me in the stomach. Suddenly, I was the one on the floor, and Hermione hovered over me, anger in her eyes.

"I can't believe you!" she screamed. "How could you do that? I should have known better. And I--I was trying to make amends."

"Her- Granger," I mumbled, as I tried to get up.

Had I been calling her Hermione all this time?

"Just stay away from me, Malfoy," Her--Granger shouted as she headed up her staircase.

I watched her go, feeling like she was dragging me behind her. I felt almost violently ill. I knew I had to stop her. I had to make her listen.

I shot up the stairs with lightning speed, grabbing her hand just as it reached the doorknob. She gave a soft gasp. My hand held hers for nearly a minute before either of us really realized what had happened.

"I'm--I'm so sorry, Hermione," I said. "I didn't mean to--"

"Oh, stuff it!" she screamed.

Hermione ripped her hand from my soft grip. I felt like a piece of me went with her hand. Maybe, somehow it did...

"I don't want to hear anymore of your lies!" she shouted.

My breathing became laboured. I didn't know what Granger looked like at that moment for my eyes were focused on my right hand. Empty... There was a scar on the on the skin between my thumb and index finger. It ran to the back of my hand where it became barely visible. I got that scar the day my mother became sick. Or that's what I had been told. I had gone to see her, but as my fingers wrapped around the door handle, my father whacked it, hard, with his staff. That was a long time ago. After that day, I was never the same.

"You are the foulest creature on earth, Draco Malfoy!" Hermione screamed, breaking me from my trance.

I looked up just in time to see her fury as she said the three words I had never expected to hear: "I hate you!"

I hate how I hadn't seen it coming from a kilometre away.

And then she was gone...

She just left. I just let her leave.

I never, ever thought that she hated me. Maybe I had been blind all this time. Perhaps it had been obvious to everyone in the entire school... but not to me.

I had never thought someone could hold such a strong feeling for me. Sure, it was hatred... But, hatred is a very strong feeling. Some people don't understand that. Hate is too powerful word to be used so casually. Though there were many people that used it such a way. I almost wished Hermione was one of those people; only, I knew she wasn't...

The rest of the day was a total blur. I haven't a clue what I did... at all. Being a Saturday, there were no classes, so I couldn't simply look at a schedule to figure out where I had been. This I could not stand. I couldn't stand not knowing what I was doing... what I had done.

I vaguely recalled running into Blaise who was instructing Crabbe and Goyle on how to successfully pull off a Porskoff Ploy while Pansy listened attentively to Millicent Bulstrode moaning about her sick cat. Or perhaps that had been a few days ago...

Sometime near 7 o'clock, I found myself sitting in the great hall staring at a wall. I didn't know how long I had been there, nor did I remember deciding to come here. My un-scarred hand rose and touched my chest. I felt my heart beating rapidly as though I had just finished a brutal game of Quidditch.

And, then I remembered... I had a Quidditch game. Today... no, now. Right now. And if I didn't get to the Quidditch Pitch straight away, I was to be late.

"Damn it!" I screamed, racing out from the Great Hall.

The hallways were mostly empty; everyone seemed to want to see the first match of the year. This was lucky, considering anyone in my way would have been knocked down, if not cursed to bits.

Damn Granger. She was the reason I was going to be late! She was the reason Slytherin was going to lose this game. That stupid Mudblood!

I flung open the giant doors to find the weather storming outside. Somehow, I made it to the Quidditch Pitch in the pouring rain before the game actually started. Of course, this did not make much of a difference. We were still going to lose. I only had 5 minutes to strategize with my team. If I could get to all of them instantly, that is.

And I didn't, of course.

Turning a corner, I bumped into someone. Actually, it was more like fell...

I got up from the ground to see it was not Granger, whom I'd so feared it would be. It was, however, a Mudblood girl. Azura Howell was the new Ravenclaw seeker. She was a black girl in 4^th year. She was quite tall, I noticed, and didn't look at all fourteen.

She stared at me with her bright blue eyes, as though she expected me to apologize for knocking her over. I smirked.

"Out of my way, Mudblood," I said with as much intensity as I would give to Granger.

Azura stood rigid and still as I walked past her. She seemed to be in shock. Perhaps no one had called her that to her face. I found that odd and difficult to believe. She had been around for four years, after all. Someone must have called her that. She must have had some classes with Slytherin, right?

I turned to look back at Azura. She was in the same place where I had left her, clutching her broomstick held in front of her. Still as stone...

Looking at her, I almost ran into another person. This one was Pansy.

"Where have you been, Draco?" she hissed at me.

I rolled my eyes. She acted as though she owned me. It was pathetic. If anything, I owned her.

"None of your business, chienne," I said with full knowledge that she had no idea what chienne meant.

She put on falsely hurt expression as I said this.

"But, Draco, I wanted to give you a good luck kiss before the match," Pansy said, coming over and wrapping her fingers in my soaking wet sweater.

The whistle sounded, meaning there was only a minute left. I wasted not a second more. I raced to change into my Quidditch things, leaving Pansy behind. I almost felt bad for her sometimes. Almost.

I somehow made it onto the field just behind my team. I flew up into the storm staying as far away from the Gryffindor stands as I possibly could. My eyes searched the dark sky for a glint of gold. I wanted to get the match finished as soon as I could.

Suddenly, I noticed Azura flying right towards me. I thought for a second that she was going to hit me, but she swerved at the last second and did something worse. She spit on me.

Anger instantly exploded in me. I turned, ready to chase after her and knock her off her bloody broom when I heard laughter in my ear. I turned my head to find that I was much closer to the Gryffindor stands than I thought. They had seen the whole thing, and they were laughing at me. Hermione was laughing at me.

Hermione hated me. She stood there, soaked to the bones, laughing. Her hair was plastered against her face, which seemed awfully pale in the rain. She was lovely, she truly was; the girl who hated me. Lovelier than any girl alive. Then all of a sudden she stopped laughing and covered her mouth with her hand.

Hermione hated me. I felt so ill. Maybe it was from the icy rain that fell upon me. But, somehow, I knew that wasn't it. It was Hermione.

Hermione hated me. And it hurt.

I hate how I let it hurt me so.

"Draco!"

It was Hermione's voice I heard as I fell. I had been hit in the back with a bludger. I saw her face hanging over the stands. Many others did it as well, but I only saw her. I only saw her pained and panicked expression as my body hurtled towards the ground. I saw Hermione pull out her wand--and then I hit the earth.

I had hit the ground with not nearly as much force as I should have. I was still conscious, somewhat. Everything was blurry, including my hearing. I just lay there, knowing no one would come to my aid. No one gave a damn. Dumbledore hadn't run from the stands to save me like he would have for Potter.

No, I was alone. And I realized at that moment that I always would be.

But as my vision worsened, I heard approaching footsteps. They sounded like echoes. I was able to lift my head just enough to see her for a second. Granger? Granger was coming to save me. Hermione was coming to save me.

I chuckled, sounding almost insane as she sat down beside me.

"Hermione," I whispered through my laughter.

"Ass," Hermione said in a voice very unlike her own, before she kicked me in the head... hard. And all went black.

________________________

I awoke in the Hospital Wing to Blaise's smirking face. He was still wearing his Quidditch robes, which left the impression that he had come to see me shortly after my crash landing and had not left since.

"Still alive?" he asked.

"Barely," I croaked.

"Oh, suck it up, Malfoy!" Blaise said, kicking the bed.

I did the opposite. I coughed it up. Blood...

"Holy shit," I said.

"Pomfrey said you'll be fine," Blaise said, rolling his eyes. "The blood's just a reaction to the potion she gave you."

"What did she use?!" I snapped. "Interemorragia?"

Blaise laughed. "No, no... it's something new. Silesk, it's called. It's supposed to-"

A fresh bit of blood came up my throat, and Blaise pulled out a shining silver bowl from one of the cabinets nearby.

"What am I, then?" I coughed. "Your test subject?"

"You're just not handling it very well - obviously," Blaise said, tossing the bowl to me.

I peered inside to see how badly my face had been marred by the whole ordeal. Only when I looked in, it was not my reflection that I saw.

I hurled the bowl to the ground.

"Damn Granger!" I shouted at it in frustration.

Blaise laughed.

"Still on about her, eh?" he said, amusement obvious in his voice.

I felt my face heat up.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, that's what it was about earlier," Blaise said. "Your anger, that is."

I frowned, realizing I had no idea of how long I had been out.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Around two," he answered as he idly fiddled with his wand.

"And they let you down here?" I asked.

I then remembered that Blaise had recently taken a job as Madame Pomfrey's assistant. He was well qualified, probably even more so than Pomfrey herself... who seemed to have taken to using her current patients as test subjects. Blaise had always been one of the only people to do better than I did with potions, I often joked that he would be the next Potions teacher, and healing potions were his speciality.

"Pansy's mad at you," Blaise said, ignoring the question.

"Yes, I left her to change," I said, rolling my eyes. "Big deal!"

"No, no," Blaise said, chuckling. "She's mad that you called her Hermione."

"When the Hell did I do that?" I shouted.

"You have no feelings for that Granger whatsoever, right?" he asked, again ignoring me.

"Of course not!" I said.

But even as I answered, I felt that overwhelming sick feeling from the Quidditch game return. I saw Granger, soaking wet, laughing once again. And that hurt...

"Well, then," Blaise said. "Why were you saying her name, eh?"

"What?" I asked.

"You were moaning it in your sleep," Blaise said, falling into a fit of laughter.

"I was not!" I shouted, although I had no way of knowing if it was true. "I don't care about that filthy little Mudblood one bit!"

Blaise stopped laughing and gave an evil smile.

"Then you'll help me play a trick on her then?" he asked.

"Of--Of course," I stammered, feeling my heart shatter into more pieces than the glass from the table.

"I want you to get Granger to fall in love with you," Blaise said.

"What?" I asked, stunned.

"Break her heart, Draco," Blaise said. "Ask her out. I dare you."