Valentine's Day Minus

D minus 4

They met early by some kind of mutual consent told silently during the night. Hermione looked tired. Draco looked rumpled. The library looked like the last shelter from Armageddon.

"Why are so many people here?" Draco asked miserably.

"Snape's set tests in every single class," Hermione told him. "Come on, star Potions student, surely even you knew that?"

Draco paled. "What on?" he swallowed. "For us?"

"Shrinking solutions," Hermione laughed. "Otherwise I'd be on strike today to revise."

Draco managed a weak grin. "So, ingredients," he said shakily.

"What's wrong with you?" Hermione asked.

"Why don't we go down to Hogsmeade, see how much we can get there?" Draco suggested. "There'll be less people too."

"Will you answer me then?" Hermione asked softly.

"What's with you today?" Draco snapped. "All friendly. Potter and Weasley ditched you? Because if you're trying to make the best of a bad job you've got no chance with me." A pause. "I mean I wouldn't be your friend if you paid me."

"I got that," Hermione reassured him dryly. "Though the simpler interpretation's also true."

They made their way to Hogsmeade separately, another unspoken decision. Hermione wondered when they'd developed that ability. There was something suspiciously similar in them. Something that didn't like breaking rules and erred towards the path of least resistance, though they'd still ended up on very different paths. They didn't care if other people hated them for their views. And they probably had some negative qualities in common too, Hermione admitted glumly to herself.

Of course, that didn't stop her from hating him.

The supply shop in Hogsmeade was dirty and cramped. It didn't get a lot of business from the students, and most of the business in Hogsmeade came from the students. Still, the kind of enlarging potion they needed was often used by hard up housewives who wanted as small a vegetable plot as possible but large vegetables afterwards. There had to be a careful balance though, the shopkeeper droned, or the vegetables would end up watery and tasteless. They had to shrink them first, you see, with a shrinking solution, and then, when they were fully-grown, they had to enlarge them again, with an enlargement potion, except-

"Do you have any less common spotted gillyweed?" Draco interrupted.

The shopkeeper replied in the negative, because, you see, it was rare and there wasn't much call for it, except for growing meat - Hermione giggled - and that was most inadvisable, you see, because if they shrank it first the animal wouldn't grow properly, and if they didn't shrink it, you know, it would explode when enlarged. Very careful balance, do you see?

"Yes, we see," Draco snapped. He shoved a handful of weeds and powders under the shopkeeper's nose. "We want these." They were withdrawn, and a handful of Galleons replaced them. "For these. Comprendez vous?"

"-" the shopkeeper was shocked into silence.

And then they were out of the shop and in an almost deserted Hogsmeade. Half of the shops were shut, since it was Sunday anyway, but Draco spotted an upmarket café tucked in a corner and dragged Hermione in unthinkingly.

"I'm hungry," Draco explained abruptly. "And I don't want you asking me stupid questions back at the school, so you can damn well get them all out of your system here."

Hermione sat opposite him with a self-satisfied silence. Draco stared at the menu like it had personally offended him. Hermione's confident air dropped when he wasn't looking at her. Ron and Harry would be in the great hall right now, wondering where she was. If they saw her, they'd think their suspicions confirmed. She glanced at the side of the menu Draco wasn't looking at.

"What's the chocolate cake like?" she asked softly.

"You want the cheesecake," Draco told her.

"I'm in more of a chocolate mood," Hermione said firmly.

A waitress appeared, some species not quite human but close enough to pass in a poor light. Pretty, Hermione scowled internally.

"Two cheesecakes," Draco said, "and two teas."

Before Hermione could object the girl was gone, leaving a faint puff of smoke.

"What is she?" she resigned herself to asking. Well, yelling wasn't going to help, was it, and maybe the cheesecake would be worth it.

Draco shrugged. "Got a bit of harpy in her, maybe," he said unconcernedly. "They clean up nicely with clothes on."

"I thought harpies were half bird," Hermione said.

"I think she's half harpy. The human half," Draco said. "Who cares? She's not human. She's bringing us cake. Sums it up."

Hermione frowned and wondered when she'd given up objecting to little prejudiced comments like that. "Are you going to tell me what's got you all edgy today?"

Draco opened and closed his mouth a few times. Then, "Your fucking boyfriend told my fucking girlfriend that we've been fucking seen together."

"Can I have that without the sexual intercourse?" Hermione asked sweetly.

"Man Weasley speakee to Girl Pansy," Draco said, waggling his head back and forth.

Oh, she hadn't given up objecting to the racism, Hermione realised happily as he palm connected with his cheek.

She opened her mouth to give details of why she'd hit him, but he'd rocked back on his chair and the lack of surprise on his face suggested that he'd been pushing for that reaction anyway. Hermione felt slightly used, but the hot throbbing of her palm was immensely satisfying. It felt good to hit Draco every now and then. Normal.

"I can point to that mark," Draco said, "and prove to Pansy nothing's going on."

"Is that why you're a bastard, to reassure your girlfriend?" Hermione asked coldly.

Draco gave her a long look. "I really wanted you to hit me," he said calmly. "Things are getting weird. I needed to do something to remind me why we hate each other. I had to. You feel it to, right?"

Hermione considered for a second. "Yes," she finally admitted. "Of course, having tea and cake with you here isn't helping the weird feeling."

"And it's not going to get better when this is over," Draco moaned. "You put all these restrictions on me. I won't even be able to have a go at you any more."

"I didn't say me," Hermione pointed out. "Just the others."

"Brilliant!" Draco's face cleared. "Mudblood! I feel better already." He frowned. "No, you definitely included yourself, I remember."

"True," Hermione said, "but I'm finding this just as strange, remember. If this keeps up I might even feel sorry for you."

"You think that's bad? I'm beginning to respect you!" Draco wailed. Hermione blinked at the vehemence of the sentiment before realising Draco was winding her up. Mostly.

Their cheesecake appeared, and they ate, for the most part, in silence. Hermione spoke only once, to admit that she probably did like it better than she would have the chocolate cake. The tea was full of cream and sugar, which Hermione drank with a secret indulgent thrill. Cream. Sugar. The enemies of Good, because they were not only unhealthy, but destroyed the perfect teeth.

She wished she could stop thinking about that conversation. Too much time thinking she was Good and Draco was Bad and if she wanted to be less Good then he would be the person to help her. She smiled at the half empty mug. Well, she wasn't willing to be that Bad yet, so there was hope for her yet.

But then the food was gone and the bill had yet to appear and it was awkward again. Hermione flashed Draco a small smile.

"I'll see you tomorrow to discuss what else we'll need," she told him, "lunch time in the library as usual."

Draco pulled himself back to the here and now from wherever he'd been. Hermione allowed herself to dwell on her curiosity about that for a second as she stood up. He frowned as she tucked her chair neatly under the table.

"Thank you for lunch," she said, smile broadening wickedly.

He glowered at her retreating back, one hand still pressed to his heated cheek, then return his gaze to the empty plate in front of him. As Hermione passed the window she glanced in again to see him biting his lip. He was frowning, Hermione thought at first, but as she climbed back up the hill to Hogwarts she began to wonder if it wasn't more like pain. And she knew from experience that when Draco hurt, he made sure to spread it around.

Night

Pansy was being difficult. Pansy had always been difficult. Still, she'd calmed a bit at the swollen cheek. Draco had forgotten how hard Hermione could hit. Even lying in bed it still throbbed, hot and stinging and keeping him awake. The symbolic serpent embroidered over his head made him want to spit at his misfortunes.

His feelings kept ganging up on him and trying to confuse him. Unfortunate things tended to happen when he let his feelings get the better of him, he'd learnt. Plans tended to go awry when he didn't think them through properly and relied on things working themselves out. Doing things for himself almost always led to disaster. That, he decided, was how he knew he was meant to be at the top of the pecking order. He existed to come up with ideas, then make other people make the plans, then make yet more people carry them out.

He hadn't really thought everything through this time, he admitted to himself. There was a lot he hadn't foreseen. There was that time restriction which had him really worried. He couldn't fob Pansy off any more after Valentine's. That was his last chance.

Pansy was getting impatient. He'd foreseen that, but he hadn't foreseen how much he'd be repulsed by it. She just seemed so desperate. She wasn't that pretty, Draco knew, but then, he wasn't exactly going to win any awards himself, if he was brutally honest. If he wanted sex, it had to be a Slytherin. He was pretty much universally reviled by the other houses. He didn't care, their opinions didn't matter, but wouldn't life be sweeter if the sorting hat threw a few stunners into Slytherin. Anyway, Pansy wasn't bad, and she came from a good family, and she understood the meaning of expensive anything.

But she was desperate and needy and on an intellectual level with Longbottom. And being told every day that he ought be having sex right now this instance appealed to his stubborn side. On the other hand, he was very much a teenaged boy and sex pretty much consumed his mind when nothing was distracting him.

And then there was this deeply irritating problem with Hermione. In that she was attractive. And unobtainable. He'd never been deprived of anything.

So what if I'm spoilt? he though fiercely. I can't have her, therefore I want her. So when I get her, I will cease to want her. Thus, when I have my dick back, I'll obtain her.

It did occur to him that resolving to seduce his worst enemy was perhaps not the brightest decision of the day. And Hermione wouldn't take kindly to the idea either, he was sure. This was going to be one of his badly thought out plans again, like killing Potter. He'd been lucky not to get expelled, but the evidence hadn't been completely conclusive. He'd always have supporters. So perhaps no sleeping with Hermione. She was a mudblood and a Gryffindor and so tantalisingly unavailable it made him horny. So what if he hated her? This wasn't about that. This was about being denied something.

Some days he got tired of being, as Hermione had put it, a 'snitch'. It made him popular among his fellow Slytherins, because naturally any rule breaking Gryffindor or Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff deserved precisely what was coming to them, but being loathed by everyone who wasn't Slytherin could be a little claustrophobic some days. Of course the other houses were Inferior, and one did not mix with ones Inferiors. And they were Bad in ways no Slytherin could ever be, because the rules didn't apply if you were Superior. To explain it to anyone outside of Slytherin would be ludicrous, but it wasn't arrogance. Slytherins were ambitious. They got the top jobs. In a few years he, and most of his class, would be in superior positions to their schoolmates. Might as well get into the mindset now, right?

There was a certain attractive notoriety you could earn by breaking a few rules. He'd boasted to Hermione that he was Bad. He wasn't, but he thought about it rather more than he probably ought to. He had a fantasy that he'd never commit to paper. He was a wizard in the Muggle world. He wore Muggle clothes to disguise his identity, and knew how to imitate them precisely. He rode a motorbike bewitched for flying, like that felon Sirius Black, and wore clothes than made women faint and men reach for their wands in jealousy. He had to keep his magical powers a secret, until he encountered some witch working for the other side. There would be lust and passion and no possibility of romance, due to irrevocably different personal beliefs, and sometimes she died, but for a while he had something dangerous and secret and daring and he was a hero whose tale would ever be told. Not like Potter's.

Draco sighed and rolled over. Normally at this point the witch would have a face, and, more importantly, the body of a veela, but he had to steer his thoughts away from that. He wanted to touch himself but was it so incredibly upsetting. He ached to touch. He ached to be touched. God, Pansy, why did you have to keep pushing like this? Why did you have to be so desperate and lustful and so good at grinding?

Draco kicked off the covers and sat up in bed. He was tired. He had to be, to have thought like that about Granger. He didn't want to be that infamous. Maybe he'd just cheat on Pansy at a later date. Or dump her and find someone else for Valentine's. Someone attractive, and smart, and less needy. Maybe a Ravenclaw. No, that would be too smart. Draco firmly believed that you should never date an equal. They were too demanding.

He stared at his feet, pale beneath the grey silk of his pyjamas. It really sucked right now to be Draco Malfoy. He needed a cold shower.