Dolor Draconum

Chapter the Third

Fortunately, Dumbledore didn't attend their Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson. Unfortunately, the news of Hermione's cloning and subsequent lack of clothes meant their prolonged absence was a subject of much discussion. Walking down a corridor towards a noisy class but stepping into a perfectly silent classroom was a particularly unnerving experience.

Hermione promptly took her seat with Ron and Harry, both of whom shot her questioning looks. Draco moved to sit down next to a Slytherin Hermione couldn't remember the name of, but the boy in question covered the seat with his bag. Suddenly, every person sitting alone managed to take up the seat next to them, with books and bags and cloaks and even feet. It was slightly absurd, but the message was clear.

Professor Kelp still had her back to the class, but she'd stopped writing on the board as soon as Hermione and Draco entered. Her back was rigid, and Hermione sighed. She'd never met a teacher so controlled by her class. And yet she didn't say a word to the hostile Slytherins when she turned around and found Malfoy still standing in the middle of the room, looking slightly lost. At least she wasn't wearing the ridiculous cloak this time, though the dress was basically unchanged except in colour.

"Sit, Malfoy," Professor Aurora called. "Anywhere, I don't care. There, there's a seat next to Longbottom." Neville flinched. With a heavy sigh he moved his bag so Malfoy could sit down. "Both of you will see me after the lesson to discuss your lateness and find out what you need to catch up." She raised a hand to stall Hermione's objection. "I know precisely why you were late, but you still need the work."

The rest of the lesson passed slowly. Hermione felt it dragging, but she felt infinitely more sorry for Neville, for whom it must have felt like eternity. He did himself proud though, his fear of Malfoy much depleted by the previous terms 'adventures'. Malfoy didn't bother provoke him, staring into space for most of the lesson and only occasionally taking notes. When Neville saw what Malfoy was writing his eyes widened.

"Say a word and I'll break your jaw so you can never snitch again," Malfoy murmured, his tone of voice alarmingly reminiscent of the speaking clock, bored and emotionless. Neville paled and turned abruptly back to his own notes, smudged and full of spelling mistakes. Professor Aurora's eyes flicked between the two of them as she read, but as usual, she did nothing.

Despite her pity for Neville, the lesson still passed achingly slow for Hermione. Ron nudged and teased her about Draco until Professor Aurora took ten points from their house for Hermione's anger. This delighted the Slytherins, who took it to mean that if they provoked the Gryffindors enough it would be them who were punished, not the Slytherins. Professor Aurora was suddenly as unpopular as Snape amongst the Gryffindors, and the rumour spread.

At the end of the lesson Professor Aurora called Malfoy and Hermione to sit in front of her desk. Malfoy stared vaguely out the window while Hermione did her best attentive-teacher-pleasing look. Professor Aurora responded to neither. She looks more nervous than either of us students, Hermione thought darkly.

"I won't ask what happened to anger Granger so much before you came, and create this sense of lingering guilt in Malfoy, but you can be sure I'll keep an eye on both of you from now on," Professor Aurora began, looking sharply at Malfoy. It actually got his attention, which no other part of the lesson had, and he looked furious. Hermione was staying at him, open-mouthed. Guilt?

"Precisely what are you implying?" he asked coldly. "Do you honestly think I would dream of interfering with such a precocious little mudblood?"

"Ten points from Slytherin," Professor Aurora replied, equally coldly, "for prejudice."

"You can't keep punishing people for feeling," Hermione objected, her pride still stinging for earlier in the lesson.

"Operant conditioning. I explained at the beginning of the lesson, but neither of you were present." Aurora raised an eyebrow. "Students made notes from a psychology textbook I brought with me, which is now in the Muggle section of the library. Before next lesson I want you both to make notes from that book on all forms of conditioning, using my teaching methods as an example when required, and on Privation and Deprivation."

"How long?" Hermione asked, already measuring parchment and allocating time in her mind.

"Up to you. Long enough to learn from. I will be checking you have both done it."

Hermione looked scandalised.

"It's not in our NEWTs," Malfoy said sulkily. "You haven't taught us anything that will actually be in our NEWTs yet, or of any use whatsoever in the real world."

"I felt, and Dumbledore agreed with me, that it would be of use to understand other people's motivations. Don't worry, we'll have finished this part of the course in a few weeks. I will move on to some of your curriculum topics until Christmas, and then we'll focus on Leglimency and Occlumency. You'll be pushed for time, but you're a bright class, on the whole."

Hermione fought her contempt, but Malfoy didn't. As a general rule, teachers who felt they had to explain themselves to students weren't confident in what they were doing. If she was holding out for universal popularity, she'd be waiting a long time. Really, Hermione told herself, it's the worst possible job for her, with her 'talent'.

Professor Aurora went on, "When you know how Voldemort operates, how he lures people in, you will know what to look out for. 'If know your enemy and know yourself you need not fear the result of a thousand battles'."

"Malfoy already knows," Hermione muttered, "his father's in prison for being a Death Eater."

"Are you fishing for a detention, Miss Granger?"

"No, Professor Aurora."

"Good. You are both dismissed."

* * *

Professor Aurora wasn't the only one asking questions about why Hermione had been in such a bad mood after getting changed. When Pavarti Patil came up and asked if it was true, had Malfoy really tried something, Hermione began to wonder whether she had overreacted. She had asked him to stay in the corridor and he had deliberately ignored that, but when people were wondering if he'd tried to rape her...

The climax came when she overheard Dean Thomas comment to Seamus, "I bet Hermione's blowing it out of proportion. I mean, if he looked, you could hardly blame him, could you? I hadn't realised how, how she'd 'grown'. Not because she wasn't always okay looking, it's just I still think of her as eleven, you know? Like I still think of you as short, but you're taller than me these days. And, well, if Malfoy, you know, 'touched', well, we all hate him anyway, don't we?"

"Draco Malfoy didn't touch me!" Hermione shrieked. The common room fell silent. "I was... I was angry about something else."

"What?" asked Ron, who'd been horrified when he heard the rumour and had been regretting his teasing so much he couldn't look at Hermione.

"I'm not going to tell you," Hermione snapped, aware of how lame it sounded. "Draco Malfoy is going through a bad time, and all you can do is spread rumours about him! And me! If he'd so much as looked he wouldn't have been able to reach Defence Against the Dark Arts, he'd be too busy being a slug!" Hermione stormed out of the portrait hole, pausing only briefly to grab her bag.

"She has a point," Ginny chuckled. "Honestly, you really think Hermione would have just left off with being angry?" An uneasy laugh echoed around the room.

"Do you think we should follow her?" Ron asked Harry. "I mean, I kinda owe her an apology."

"Let's leave her alone to cool down," Harry suggested. "You know she'll be in the library, we can go and find her later."

He was right, too, Hermione had gone to the library. She wandered around, looking for the Muggle section, determined to do something constructive with her time. She decided against going to ask for help finding it, she had plenty of time. She was also a little embarrassed that after spending so much time in the library she hadn't known there was a Muggle section.

Eventually she stumbled across it, dusty and forgotten, tucked away against a wall. It was distinctly uninviting, and Hermione hovered for a moment to check she'd found the right section. It was L shaped, so that she couldn't see around the corner, hooked around a small room that Hermione later recognised as one of the bathrooms on the fifth floor. To her dismay, books had been piled onto the shelves any which way, as and when they arrived in the library. Ideally, this would mean the textbook she wanted was right near the entrance, but no such luck.

In her frustration Hermione began to sort the books, finding them to be two rows deep in some places while other shelves were conspicuously empty. Books on medicine and Muggle history were put to one side, old stories books and plays to another. Slowly, she made order of the chaos. It had been a while since she'd been forced to recall the Dewey decimal system, but lo and behold, the last book she picked up to slot away contained a complete account of it. She looked at the cover for a moment, choosing amusement over frustration with a bit of effort. And just to check she was right, because if she wasn't she'd have to do all this again and then she'd never get around to the homework, she skimmed through the slim volume. It was ancient, she realised. Untouched for years. And besides, only the muggleborn children would recognise the system. Well, she thought, they obviously won't, but they're the only ones who might.

The dust was terrible and blew out in a neat cloud as she closed the book. She sneezed. There was a deafening absence of sound.

Hermione frowned at the closed book. In this corner of the library she shouldn't have been able to hear anything anyway, so this awareness made her wonder what she had been listening to. As she put the book back onto the shelf her stomach knotted. Had someone been watching her? What would they think of someone who reorganised library shelves for no apparent reason?

No, she reasoned, the sound definitely stopped. Which means that whoever or whatever was making it didn't know I was here.

When it began again she stood stock still and listened. The first thing that came to mind was someone chewing with their mouth open, which made Hermione frown. If one wanted to eat in the library, this would be a good corner for it, but really, what cretin would eat here? The sound of saliva was occasionally broken by choked silences, which puzzled Hermione completely. It was the silence of someone trying not to make a sound when part of them really wanted to, like they were trying to cry in silence.

Hermione's eyes widened. She edged to the corner of the shelves and looked around. A boy was sitting with his back against the shelves, holding a textbook in front of his face. Hermione frowned. That was the book she needed. A pale hand occasionally reached out and helped itself to a small pile of chocolate next to the boy's legs.

Realisation hit Hermione like a ton of bricks, and she gave an involuntary gasp. There was only one other person who needed that book, to her knowledge. Malfoy began to lower the book, his distinctive white-blond hair coming into view, looking for the cause of the gasp. Hermione jerked back behind the shelves, praying he hadn't seen her.

Hermione could feel her lungs heave, the adrenaline pumping round her body demanding air, but she held her breath instead, trying to stay absolutely silent. Please don't let him check if anyone's here, please don't let him check if anyone's here, she thought desperately, as if merely thinking it would stop him from coming. Maybe it did, because after several tense seconds she heard the sound of chewing start again and she breathed again in a great whoosh of air.

Now the panic was abating she wondered what to do. She couldn't just leave him there, crying and eat chocolate. And she did need that book. Maybe if she went and asked for it, he might let her help him.

Help him? Why on earth would she want to help Draco Malfoy? She had been furious with him earlier. But try as she might, she couldn't summon that anger back. Not even when she thought of every cruel thing he'd said, every mean-hearted thing he'd done... He was crying, and her instinct screamed out to help him.

Perhaps she could go and get someone? Who was he friends with? Oh yes, Crabbe and Goyle. She wasn't sure what was going on there, since the three had been getting on fine at the end of the previous term, but they were obviously avoiding him now. So not them then. Besides, they didn't exactly strike her as particularly compassionate. She couldn't imagine crying onto Crabbe's shoulder or pouring out secrets to Goyle, not even when she tried to force them into the places Ron and Harry had found in her life. Come to think of it, she probably wouldn't go to Harry and Ron if she needed a shoulder to cry on. She'd be more likely to track down Ginny to talk to.

So a girl then? Pansy Parkinson? Hermione's stomach curled at the thought, but the girl had always fluttered around Draco. Occasionally she had claimed to be his girlfriend, but if that was how Draco treated his girlfriends then Hermione felt almost sorry for her. He didn't seem to care either way about her, tolerating her so she could stroke his ego. Again, probably not someone he'd want to talk to if he was upset.

Maybe... maybe Snape. Hatred, anger and a modicum of shame danced through Hermione at the thought of having to actively look for him after the day's lesson, but he seemed the most likely person Draco would talk to. Of course, he didn't share her love of teachers, but he had always seemed to like Snape, who at least wasn't freezing him out like his house seemed to be. But would Draco really want to talk to a teacher? It seemed a bit daunting.

"Are you going to stand there all day?" a soft voice drawled.