Tutoring A Dragon

Three

Bathtubs and Secrets

By mid-afternoon Hermione and Ginny had gotten bored of Hogsmeade. They set off to the castle, each with a Ravenclaw Chaser on their arm. Upon reaching the Entrance Hall, a private adieu was held behind a rather large, thick tapestry. Then they promptly entered the Great Hall and marched over to the Slytherin table, where Draco Malfoy was ignoring Pansy Parkinson over a slice of guava pie.

"What do you think you're playing at?" said Hermione loudly.

"What do you mean, you filthy mudblood?" he said, in an incredibly bored drawl, but they could see he was relieved that they had interrupted Pansy, if only for a few minutes.

Hermione glared at him. "Buying me those dress robes! What do you want in return? Because there are very few things that I would consciously do to repay you."

He gave her a once-over. "As if you have anything that I'd want. Except.." he trailed off, leaving Hermione to turn red.

"Except what?" she said, a bit louder.

'Wizards in China could hear her!' thought Draco.

"Except what you've already given me. I'll see you tonight, Granger, same time, same place." He then had the nerve to smirk at her and glide off, presumably to the dungeons.

"Wait, Drakey!" cried Pansy, leaping up to follow him. "Oh, don't run so fast, my love!" they heard her shriek. Everyone at every table but the teacher's and Slytherin's bent over double with laughter. And the teacher's table was debatable.

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Hermione and Ginny sat down at the Gryffindor table across from Harry and Ron. The youngest Weasley and Hermione ignored and were ignored by Weasley number six and Harry.

"Men," said Hermione, disgusted.

"Preach it sister," said Ginny, giggling.

"Men. They think the world revolves around them. Especially certain men. You help them a few times over the years and all of a sudden you're the Homework Girl. Swooping in to save some guy when his grades are going down the tubes. Then when you want to have a day off from helping people left and right, you're out in the cold." Hermione gave Harry and Ron an infuriated look, then proceeded to eat a baked potato piled with cheddar cheese and black beans.

Harry and Ron viewed the mercenary-like precision of Hermione's bites and gulped. They were in deep trouble.

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That night, Hermione pulled on a pair of Muggle jeans and her favorite T-shirt. It was way too small, but she didn't care. It was only Malfoy that she was going to see, wasn't it?

She went down the stairs to the Common Room, sniffed in the direction of Harry and Ron, told Ginny where she'd be, and climbed out the portrait hole.

'Why couldn't he pick someone else to tutor him? Why'd the stupid sod pick me, Hermione Know-it-all Granger, mudblood extroidinare?' she thought angrily as she stomped into the Library.

Hermione pulled her wand out of her bag and whispered a locator spell. "Dirigere Malfoy." A small arrowhead appeared and pointed to her left. She followed it to the Muggle Studies section then canceled the spell.

"Well, well, well," said Malfoy, his feet on the table again. "I see mudbloods are as punctual as they are worthy to study magic--not at all."

"Oh, shut it, Malfoy, or I'll tell McGonagall that you're as dense as a flobberworm and there's no way anyone could ever teach you." She glared at him. "And get your damn feet off the bloody table, while you're adjusting your attitude," she said, pushing his feet off the tabletop.

"Well, aren't you in a vindictive, malicious mood. Maybe you should be in Slytherin, Granger; it'd be a lot easier for you to help me. Your current mood shows you have some of the Slytherin-ish qualities." He smirked at her and made as if to put his feet back on the table, but she cast a quick spell directed at the offending appendages.

"Fustis radix!" Hermione hissed furiously. His feet instantly fell to the floor and stuck there. She smiled briefly.

'Bloody, filthy mudlbood. Stuck my feet to the bloody floor!' thought Draco, angrily.

"Unstick my feet, Granger!" hissed Draco.

"What's the magic word?" she asked idly, rooting through her bag.

"Now," he seethed.

"Wrong answer. Let's get to Transfiguration. Turn to page three-forty-four, if you please."

"When then?" he asked.

"When what? Oh, when will I unstick your feet? Well we should be done in two hours so right around then. Which will be nine-ish. Open up your Transfiguration now, or I will leave you here till morning."

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Hermione crawled through the portrait hole to be met by Ginny and a steaming cup of Earl Gray tea.

She inhaled the scent of the tea and sighed. "Oh, this smells heavenly, Gin. I should have thought of this ages ago." Hermione paused to take a big gulp of the piping hot tea and swore when it burned her. "Bloody hell. Anyway, I'm going to go take a soak in the Prefects' bath. Try to relax, you know."

"Yeah, I went there last night. I had to shoo Moaning Myrtle away, though. She hangs out around there a lot lately." Ginny had been selected as a Prefect when she entered fifth year. She had received a new wand and an owl as late birthday present/Congratulations! You're a Prefect! gifts.

"I'll remember that," promised Hermione as she went up the stairs to the girls' dormitory to get her things and Ginny went back to homework.

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"Look at that," said Ron. "She doesn't even miss us. She's fine without us. She just left us out in the cold. Didn't even wean us off her, just let us go cold turkey."

"Well, Ron," said Harry philosophically, "it is partially--mostly, actually--our fault." Ron glared at him. "And yes," Harry went on quickly. "It has to do with the fact that we've been growing apart for a while. Since last Christmas, actually. Haven't you noticed? The catalyst was you joining the Quidditch team. It was just one more thing you and I had in common that she didn't. Our friendship recently consisted of us relying on her for homework help--and that was it. I wish now I hadn't done that," he said wistfully, looking at the stairs with a longing expression.

"Harry?" said Ron out of the blue, after a couple minutes, an odd look on his face.

"Yea, mate?" answered Harry who was watching Hermione come down the stairs as he drank a cup of tea.

"You fancy Hermione don't you?"

Harry sprayed tea all over the couch he was sitting on.

"What makes you think that?" he asked, after he stopped coughing up the tea he had inhaled.

"Well, your behavior, for one. And the way when you hug Hermione, you hold her longer than anyone else, even Mum. And Mum holds onto you for a long time."

"Oh," replied Harry faintly.

"How long have you liked her? When did you notice it?" asked Ron.

"Well," said Harry, burrowing deeper into his couch. "I think since last Easter is when I first started to like her. I started to notice that her hair would smell like vanilla cookies sprinkled with cinnamon. And that her eyes were the most beautiful shade of golden brown. And...other things," he said, blushing.

"Ah, well, you're going to have gorgeous kids," Ron said jauntily.

"Thanks-Wait, Ron, don't you fancy Hermione also?" Harry was slightly confused. Here was his friend, who, had professed that he was in love with Hermione just a few weeks ago, giving his support to a competitor.

"Nah, I knew you fancied her. I pretended to so that you'd admit you liked her, or punched my nose, which ever came first. Though, it would have been nice to give our family a break from the red hair," he said regretful, fingering his flaming hair. "And Ginny is going to be heartbroken when you ask Hermione out-Oops. Oh, sod. Wasn't supposed to say that."

"Why would Ginny be heart ... oh," said Harry, embarrassed. "Does she still fancy me a bit?"

"Just a bit--No, I can't lie to you. She fancies you so much her walls are decorated with photographs that she cut out of the Daily Prophet, or Witch Weekly. She also doodles 'Mrs. Virginia Potter' on anything made of paper or parchment if she has a quill and ink or a pen at hand. She told me she got a eighty-nine percent on a essay because she'd doodled it on the sidelines of the paper. If she hadn't, she would have gotten a one hundred."

Harry was gaping. His head involuntarily turned in Ginny's direction. He saw her hair swish as her head flipped back to focus on her homework. This wasn't going to be easy to ignore. His head turned back to Ron.

"Me and my big mouth," mumbled Ron. "I shouldn't talk at all, really. It just gets me into trouble."

"Ron," said Harry, haltingly.

"Ye-as?" replied Ron, staring into the fire as he bit the end off a big oatmeal cookie.

"Will you help me get Hermione to go out with me? I'll help you get who ever you want. If you want help, that is."

Ron smiled sadly into the fire. "Sure, mate. But I'm afraid that who I want is mostly likely someone else's."

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As Hermione sank so that her ears were covered in the gigantic golden bath tub, she sighed. All of the stress of school, tutoring, her friends, and her parents floated away. She dived to the bottom of the pool and sat there, Indian-style for a minute. Hermione smiled, remembering how she used to do this at public pools when she was small, to scare her parents.

Suddenly, she heard a splash of displaced water the signaled someone getting into the tub. She surfaced, only to screech and sink lower in the water then she had been.

"Malfoy! What are you doing here? Don't you knock at all?" she screamed at him.

Draco was disturbed from his inner revelry by a shriek from the other end of the tub.

"What the hell!" he roared. His eyes lowered to look at Hermione. "Granger, get out now!"

"No! I was here first. And you still have to answer my questions," Hermione said obstinately.

Having been trained all his life to hear what someone said even if he wasn't paying attention, Draco recalled her questions.

"Taking a bath, Granger, in case you hadn't noticed. No, I don't knock, having grown up where I had my own bathroom, and no siblings, so I never learned the concept of knocking." Draco glared at her, though secretly he was amused. Granger had the most amusing way of over-reacting. "What are you doing here?"

"Obviously I am--was--taking a bath, Malfoy," said Hermione huffily.

"Oh, well, it looked like you were trying to drown yourself, but we all clean ourselves different ways," said Draco cheerily. "Now my grandfather's cousin, he would scrub himself with a-"

"As much as I would like to know how your family became one of the most eccentric--that's the nice way of saying crazy, Malfoy--wizarding families in England, now is not the time," Hermione said loudly, to cover up whatever Malfoy had said about his grandfather's cousin. "If you will turn around, I'll get dressed and get out of here."

Draco smirked. "Maybe I don't want to turn, Granger. I could learn a lot from not doing y-erm, what you tell me to."

"Ha, ha, sodding ha, Malfoy. Turn around."

He turned, and she put on her leopard print pajama bottoms and a spaghetti-strapped white shirt. She stuffed her shampoo, soap, and other stuff into her bathroom bag.

"Can I turn yet?" whined Draco.

"Stop being such a baby, Malfoy. And, yes, you may turn."

He turned, a smirk on his face. But when he saw her, it melted off his face.

'When did Granger become so...curvy? Igh, STOP THAT Draco, think snakes, think snakes.'

"Nice outfit Granger. It's so....Muggle-esque. Suits you."

Hermione rolled her eyes at Draco.

'Stuck-up, pretentious prat,' she thought. 'Well, with a father like his, who's suprised?'

"See you tomorrow, Malfoy. In Herbology."

Hermione fled from the Prefects' bath and vowed never to go back unless it was the holiday's and Malfoy was at home.

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As he sank back into the tub Draco thought about the transaction he had just had with Hermione.

'Interesting. Granger uses the Prefects' bathroom. Oh, wait, she is a prefect. I'd forgotten. Maybe missing all those meetings to go and snog with Blaise wasn't the best idea.' He dove down to the bottom of the pool, then came up and started to swim laps.

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Unbeknownst to Draco, a certain lonely ghost was watching him from the drain. As she told Hermione the next day when she came into Myrtle's bathroom, she was impressed.

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"He's not very smart, if he didn't notice me," giggled Myrtle. "Harry noticed me before he got out of that tub when he went in there in his fourth year, but Draco didn't, so I saw it all." She bent in half, giggling.

By lunch, everyone knew about what happened the previous night in the bathroom, due to Hermione "accidentally" mentioning it to Lavender and Pavarti after Transfiguration.

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"What the hell were you thinking?" hissed Draco at Hermione, as they were leaving Potions that after noon.

"What do you mean, Malfoy?" she said, coolly.

"You bloody well know what I mean, mudblood. Spreading around what Myrtle-" at this, he turned red "-told you. About what she saw."

Hermione gave him an infuriating once-over. "From what I hear, you shouldn't be ashamed, Malfoy. And I can trust my source, she saw it all." Hermione gave him a syrupy-sweet smile and walked away with Harry and Ron, who were laughing their heads off.