CHAPTER 3
The next morning, Draco woke up feeling refreshed and quite chipper. He got out of his soft, warm bed and drew open the curtains to see exactly what sort of day he’d be up against. Thankfully, it was a bright and sunny day, so that meant he could spend some time outside practicing diving techniques on his new Firebolt, and also maybe fix a little “date” for that night with someone watching from the stands.
Now feeling confident and optimistic, he strode into the nicely built bathroom and opened his cabinet where he kept all of his special hair-treatment and body care bottles of ointment. Thinking that starting the day off with a dazzling white smile wouldn’t hurt anyone, he unscrewed the lid on his toothpaste and spread it out generously on his (obviously) green toothbrush…his sacred morning ritual had begun.
After about thirty minutes he stepped out, fully dressed and groomed, and saw that Granger was nowhere to be seen. Sneering to himself as he pictured her buried in a musty book somewhere in the dank aisles of the library, he slung his schoolbag over his shoulder and made his way down to the Great Hall’s entrance.
The moment he stepped in, everyone went dead silent. Some people who were about to put food in their mouths froze with their spoons or forks still hovering in front of their dropped jaws, while others who were speaking to one another stopped mid-word and craned their heads to keep their eyes fixed on him. Even the teachers ceased motion for a few seconds, their jaws dropping and their expressions turning unanimously into ones of shock. Draco even noticed a small flash of light off to the side somewhere, but figured it was just a ghost passing through or something.
Slightly surprised by the school’s reaction, but still incredibly smug about what he knew was a stupefying personal appearance, he strutted over to the Slytherin table and sat down haughtily next to Blaise whose eyes widened more and more with each passing second.
Draco raised a pale eyebrow superciliously at his best friend who was still looking like a fish sucking on a lemon. “What’s wrong, Zabini? Never seen anything so good looking before? I admit I haven’t either.”
Blaise was just opening his mouth to say something, when the Great Hall’s double doors reopened and as if on cue, all eyes and heads turned towards whoever had just entered: the Granger girl. She seemed remotely surprised at the steady, unified silence before letting her eyes sweep through the Slytherin table until her eyes fell directly on Draco. First, she let an evil grin momentarily grace her face before dropping to the floor on her hands and knees and starting to shake uncontrollably. Scarhead, (that damned heroic bastard), ran over to her and grabbed her shoulders, trying to lift her to a standing position. However, the second he did so, a strong peal of laughter escaped her mouth, and before Draco knew it, Granger, along with the entire school was laughing hysterically, with some so overcome with laughter, they’d fallen right out of their damn seats.
Draco stood up abruptly with his eyes flashing, causing another tidal wave of giggles and snorts to wash over the students, and his angry glare landed on Dumb-Old-Bore, Wienerva McGonagall, and Snape. But if Draco had hoped to gain some sympathy or explanations from any of the old geezers, he was sadly disappointed, because he saw the dastardly twinkle in the headmaster’s eyes, the corners of McGonagall’s mouth fighting to turn up, and even Snape attempt to disguise a short burst of laughter as a cough.
Determined to find out what was amusing everyone so, he stormed up to the portrait of Wickham the Wise and practically growled the password at the chuckling young man. As the portrait swung open, he threw his bag down and sprinted into the bathroom to look at himself in the full-size mirror.
It was then safe to say that had the Fat Lady happened to observe Draco, she would have been proud of his lung capacity, for he held the same blood-curdling yell for at least thirty seconds before falling unconscious at the foot of the toilet behind him.
Hermione sat down shakily at the Gryffindor table, her eyes still watering and her sides still aching from the intense laughter Draco’s face had sparked. Still chuckling a little bit, she dragged a goblet of pumpkin juice towards herself, hoping a gulp of the sweet drink would calm herself down. Slowly, the Hall itself began to quiet down a bit more, but all around her, Hermione could hear the occasional sounds of laughter as everyone relived what had just happened.
Harry, Ginny, and Ron all crowded around her as much as they could (considering they were all sitting at a fairly large table), and immediately, the questioning began.
“Hermione, did you seriously just see what happened?! I’ve never felt so shocked in my life, I think.”
“Oh my god, ‘Mione, I have never seen Malfoy look so NOT cute before! What on earth happened to him?”
“Bloody hell, I think that that image could seriously become my life’s new number one best moment ever! How the hell did it happen though?”
“Guys, guys,” Hermione said as she easily gave them little pushes back into their seats. “If you really want to know, you’ll shut up and let me speak.”
Unconsciously, all three of them leaned their heads in, and Hermione quickly told them that it was she, in fact, who had devised and executed this diabolical incident.
“All right, now listen,” she began. “Yesterday, while on the Hogwarts Express, Malfoy strutted into the Heads’ compartment just as the train started to move forward, and of course, the twitchy little ferret just has to stumble and smash his big, fat forehead right on my nose. Yes,” she answered to Ginny’s questioning look. “He broke it all right.”
Harry looked particularly displeased with this fact, and Hermione correctly guessed why because she knew of Harry’s encounter with Malfoy in their sixth year, and how the stinking rat had left Harry lying there on the train, bloodied up, frozen, and invisible. She put her right arm around Harry’s shoulders in a friendly manner and then continued with her story.
“So after all this shit happens, involving me pointing my wand at his face and healing a bruise on his forehead that he got from trying to do a damn pirouette, Professor McGonagall enters and gives Draco one of those really hard looks, like ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’. After that, she tells us all the information about Head duties, and so on and so forth, before turning on her heel and leaving. That’s when Boy Idiot decides to make his way over to me and say a few supposedly threatening words. Of course, after all that drama, I decided to avoid any sort of contact with him, because one: I really didn’t feel up to more sparring that night, and two: because people are always off-guard when they think they’ve had an early win.”
Ginny grinned after hearing this, since she knew that this would be when Hermione struck…when her opponent was overly-cocky and delusional. Hermione returned her grin before Harry urged her to keep going.
“Anyways, so I was weighing all the blows I could administer for a good part of the evening while Malfoy thought I was ignoring him, when finally it clicked! What better way to attack an egotistical bastard who thinks he’s the crème de la crème when it comes to looks and grooming than by sabotaging his beauty?”
She paused for a second, immersing herself in the utter perfection of the plan, and then went on, “I stole into the bathroom, which we unfortunately have to share, and I opened his surprisingly unguarded cabinet where he keeps all of his ridiculous beauty products.”
“Go on,” Ron guffawed. “Tell us some of the names you saw in there.”
“Well,” Hermione said as she tried to remember the best ones. “There was ‘Helga’s Hot Hair Helper’ which basically made your hair really sleek and soft. Then there was ‘Dreamy Creamy – The Best Skin Softening Lotion to ever hit the market, apparently. There were others too, including his toothpaste, “Green Ice” and my favorite, ‘Linda’s Lush and Lustrous Lip Lover – The Perfect Concoction You Need to Accentuate Those Lips by Making Them Fuller, Softer, and Smoother!”
By this time, Ron and Harry were howling with laughter, while Ginny just kept shaking her head and chortling.
“Let me guess, ‘Mione,” Ginny said with a wide smile on her red face. “You hexed those ointments and crap so that the effects of your spells would show up only after thirty to forty minutes of use, didn’t you?”
“You bet!” Hermione exclaimed as she slapped Neville, who she knew had been eavesdropping, a high-five.
Suddenly, Dennis Creevey, who took after his brother in every possible aspect, rushed up to Hermione and handed her something from his pocket.
“Hermione, Hermione,” he chirped. “I-I thought you’d want this. I took it just now.”
Hermione looked down at what was in her hands and started laughing crazily all over again. It was a photograph of Malfoy as he was standing in the Great Hall’s entrance, and in it, Hermione saw all the effects of her diabolical plan: his white-blond hair had become splashed with a terrible mix of hot pink and black, making his head look like the skin of a diseased or dying cow, and his skin was dyed a ridiculous burnt sort of brown and green. But the finishing touch was the bright red pair of lips that shone even through the photo’s slightly faded colors….ah, Hermione had really enjoyed sabotaging his ointments. It made her feel deliciously bad.
She turned and gave little Dennis a peck on the cheek, and he left, pink-faced and a little giggly. As she proudly showed her friends the delectable memoir, she felt something nagging in the back of her mind. And that nagging was telling her, that if there was anything she knew about Draco Malfoy, it was that he was not the one to back down in a fight…especially with a Gryffindor muggleborn.
In the days that followed, Draco and Hermione tirelessly plotted and planned against each other. One day it was burning homework, the next day it was a “nude charm”. Draco would torment Hermione to no end, destroying her schoolwork, dropping food and drinks all over her, and placing dead animals all around her dorm. Hermione would retaliate with embarrassing pictures strewn around the school, exploding cauldrons, and voice altercation spells. It went on and on, until Draco finally felt that he needed to start concentrating for the upcoming Quidditch match, and he spoke one of a handful of words Hermione never expected to hear from him:
“Truce?”
Review please. I know you’re all busy, but just a single word or sentence is all I need to keep going. Thanks!
Disclaimer: I own none of this except my own special plot line. J.K. Rowling, lucky woman, owns Harry Potter.
No comments:
Post a Comment