A Mandatory Alliance
By: Provocative Envy
OOO
CHAPTER ELEVEN
To: An Analytical Neurotic Who’s Obsessed with Me
Your most recent letter disturbed me. You’ve obviously spent a lot of time thinking about me, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that kind of scrutiny. Listen, I understand that I’m a young, attractive, talented, intelligent, and overall perfect member of the male species, but really; that doesn’t give you the right to practically stalk me. You know my bloody writing techniques, for God’s sake.
On to the last portion of your…outburst. I do not, and will never, love Hermione Granger. In my opinion, she’s like one of those bug-type-things that just doesn’t die. Well, I don’t actually want her dead, but I’m sure you understand. If she just…disappeared for a bit, I wouldn’t mind. I might, in fact, celebrate. But nonetheless, I really do wish you wouldn’t go about writing potentially incriminating letters like that. Lucky for me, the dimwit who found that other one you wrote came up with some completely random bloke in Hufflepuff as the recipient. I’m still not sure how he logically came to the conclusion that Justin Finch-Fletchley was the boy who “loved” Hermione, but it was fire-crotch; perhaps his brain got all addled out of sexual frustration.
Anyways, now that I’ve gotten through all that, I have a favor to ask of you. I’m completely aware that a reasonable person would have already burned this paper, but I’m putting faith in your curiosity about what I could have to say. So listen. I would be much obliged if you were to write a letter to Granger, telling her that you suspect I’m in the throes of depression, or something. Anything to make her feel guilty and shameful and remorseful. Why, you may ask? Simple. She’s threatened to tell the school that I want to be “nice”, which would do irreparable damage to my reputation. And so I’ve decided to prey on her Gryffindor goodness by instilling painstaking self-reproach inside her fragile, fragile heart. I know: I’m brilliant.
And so I beg you to help me in my latest evil scheme. Please? Pretty please? I’ll send you pictures of me without my shirt on. I know that’s an offer you cannot refuse.
From: The Flawless Teenaged Boy-Wonder
P.S. If you write the letter…I’ll let you be on top.
OOO
Hermione had never intended to let this whole mess get so out of hand. Not once had she even considered that being blackmailed by Draco Malfoy could lead to such horrible…complications. In retrospect, she realized that that had been her biggest mistake: she hadn’t bothered to formulate a backup plan. And so there she was, alone and confused, in the back of the dusty, old library.
Oh, she wasn’t completely stupid. She knew that he’d meant to make her question her own judgment so that she wouldn’t destroy his reputation. But he’d sounded so sincere when he’d forlornly told her that it didn’t even matter anymore.
Stop it, Hermione, she ordered herself, grumbling in frustration at her inability to finally get the ultimate revenge on the platinum blonde freak she called her enemy.
“Oh, bother it,” she said loudly, standing up so quickly her chair scraped backwards and attracted the attention of the entirety of the library.
Wonderful, she thought hysterically, now everyone thinks I’m talking to myself..
“Well,” she heard a boy say thoughtfully, “always knew that one would lose it. It was just a matter of time.”
Rolling her eyes at the vast majority of the school’s inanity, Hermione flew from the room in a fit of aggravation, her hair flying behind her and her cheeks flushed bright red from exertion. She stumbled through the empty corridors blindly, the entirety of her thoughts focused on Draco Malfoy. He was so infuriatingly obnoxious, with that superior blonde hair and that evil little smirk. Oh, he just needed to be scalped or something…
“Granger?” came the voice of the One-Who-Needed-To-Be-Scalped.
“Oh, for the love of…what the hell do you want now?” she replied in exasperation.
“Well…you were running and I was going to let you pass me by, but then you stopped without warning and started muttering to yourself and clenching your fists so I thought it would only be right if I offered my assistance in your obvious time of need,” he said in one long breath.
“You’re going to rub this in my face for the next few months, aren’t you,” she guessed matter-of-factly.
“Well, duh. What did you expect? I need to do something to make your slandering of my reputation seem a pathetic bout of bitterness and jealousy,” he pointed out reasonably.
“Why would I ever be jealous of you? The bitterness I can understand, since you did after all make those poor house elves clean up your mess in the kitchens.”
“Actually, Granger, I cleaned it up after you left,” he mumbled, not meeting her eyes as he spoke.
“Oh come off it, Malfoy. You’ll always be a stupid prick with--what did you just say?” she asked in bewilderment.
“I said that I cleaned it up after you left. It didn’t seem right to leave the kitchen like that…”
“Oh my God,” she breathed, eyes wide. “You…you…you did something nice, Malfoy. Something charitable and good and…and…kind.”
“I did not,” he immediately refuted.
“Yes you did!”
“No I didn’t”
“Yes you did.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“This is horribly childish.”
“Well it seems to happen every time we speak to each other so maybe we should just...stop talking.”
“Think I haven’t tried avoiding you for the past six years? It doesn’t seem to be working anymore. We literally run into each other every few hours,” Hermione said wearily, smiling wryly at the boy who she really had managed to transform.
“Yeah, well you’d laugh for hours if you heard my pen pal’s theory on our rivalry,” he sighed, not noticing Hermione’s sudden stiffening.
“Your pen pal’s theory?” she repeated.
Oh, shit, Draco thought, wincing as he realized his mistake.
“Uh, yeah, she, uh, thinks that, uh, we, uh…hate each other.”
“Good try, Malfoy. That letter Ron found was meant for you, wasn’t it? And you…you were going to play it off on poor Justin. All so you could get some kind of petty revenge on me. I really shouldn’t have put it past you,” she said sadly, shaking her head as he stuttered an excuse.
“Granger…I didn’t mean it like that…I just--”
“Why do you care what I think about it, Malfoy? It’s never bothered you before that I think you’re a nasty little jackass. Why the change of heart?” she inquired curiously, baffled by his insistence that he had meant no harm.
“I don’t care about that,” he answered flippantly. “I just don’t want you to tell people about my bargain with you. God only knows what you’d say if you were questioned. Probably make up something about my sexual disorientation which led to my desire to become wholesome and whatnot.”
“You’ll never change, will you?” she said quietly after a beat of silence, her face solemn with regret. “You’ll always, always, be the same self-centered prick whose interests lie only in how far he can get in life.”
“And what’s wrong with that, pray tell?” he snorted, crossing his arms over his chest and smirking.
“What’s wrong with it is that you don’t stop to think about the people you’ve literally trampled over to get to where you are. Nothing you do benefits anyone but yourself, and for that reason alone it won’t ever matter how wealthy you become, or how powerful. You know why? Because you’ll never get an ounce of respect. Think people will care that you own a quidditch team, or can afford to buy a dragon farm? Oh, you’ll certainly have notoriety. But never respect. And without that, you can never be truly happy.”
“Quit preaching at me, Granger,” he said nastily, barely even flinching at the disgust in her voice. “You’ll be begging to be in my inner circle when I’m rich, famous, and fabulously powerful.”
“No. I won’t. And the people that will be begging to be in your inner circle won’t ever be worth the effort expended to remember their fucking names. Which I doubt you’ll do anyways,” she responded shortly, turning on her heel and walking swiftly down the hallway.
OOO
Draco stood there, alone, for a long time. He reflected on what she had said to him, and, much to his surprise, he realized that the strange, gnawing sensation in his stomach was guilt. He shouldn’t have ever used a lie to blackmail her into staying quiet; that was a new low, even for him.
But he still couldn’t get over how condescending she’d managed to be when denouncing the entirety of his lifestyle. She’d made him feel pathetic and useless, a pitiful creature who could never even be worthy of her attention.
She’d made him feel as if he deserved it.
Which could only mean one thing: he’d never deserve her. And it was then, probably too late, that the truth dawned on him: he’d always wanted to deserve her.
OOO
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