A Slip of the Tongue
By Sienna
Chapter Five: Of confrontations (and revelations)
Hermione squeaked and jumped out of her comfy beanbag chair.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded, hands on hips, adopting her best Get-Out-Of-Here expression.
"You tell me," Draco said quietly. He turned to Harry (who had been staring open-mouthed at Draco) and Ron (who had glanced up at Draco and looked back at the chessboard in front of him with a barely-concealed, big, goofy grin). "Potter, Weasley. Mind finishing your game somewhere else?"
Harry and Ron exchanged looks and then looked at Draco. After a moment, Ron pushed his knight forward, and said, "Checkmate." Harry looked devastated. (He had been sure that he could have won, for maybe the second time during all his years of friendship with Ronald Weasley, Chess Extraordinaire with three –or four, well, five, tops- more moves, but now…)
Fortunately, though, he didn't have to go through the agony of seeing his King being bashed to bits, because Ron packed up the board quickly (most reluctantly, of course, because he loved coming first before Harry, even if it was in Chess, although he had done it before hundreds –if not thousands- of times. It was one of the rare occasions where Ron could feel better than Harry, and it was a great feeling, because, honestly, who wouldn't be just a teensy bit jealous if their best friend in the whole world was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, Defeated Lord Vo- I mean, You-Know Who, and whatever they were calling him these days? Ron loved Harry, but coming in second all the time –except during Fifth Year, when he was made a Prefect instead of Harry, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha- could get a bit tiring. But enough about Ron).
"See you later, Hermione," Ron said. (He was still feeling a bit upset about Malfoy's complete lack of timing, I mean, hello, he didn't even have time to gloat about beating Harry, but anyway, he was in a good mood so he decided to be nice) "Malfoy." He nodded at Draco.
"Bye, Hermione. Ginny'll.. call you later," Harry added (still feeling happy about Malfoy's timely arrival. Now Ron couldn't gloat. Take that, redhead boy!) And with that, they both disappeared with two pops. (Or maybe they just disappeared under Harry's Invisibility Cloak; they were both smart enough to know when a good show was coming up…)
Hermione glared accusingly at Draco. "What gives you the right to kicking my two best friends out of my house?"
"We need to talk," Draco said, sliding his hands into his pockets. Now that he was here, it didn't seem like it was such a good idea. What if Hermione really was only seeing him because his mother paid her? What if she said yes, that was what was going on? What was he to do then?
But a Malfoy is a Malfoy, and they always do what they set out to do. (Mostly)
(But if she did break up with him, maybe he could Obliviate her? Pretend nothing ever happened? And maybe he could Obliviate himself as well, while he was at it. But people would ask a lot of questions. Maybe if he said they had been put under a Love Potion? That would always work. Hermione had once told him that some Gryffindor love struck chit, Vomilda Rain, or something, had once tried to give Potter some Love Potion spiked Chocolate Frogs, or something, but Weasley had eaten it instead –serves him right for being so greedy- and had fallen hopelessly in love with the girl, but that was not really relevant to anything…)
Hermione, meanwhile, was gaping at him.
We need to talk. Merlin. Was he about to break up with her? Those were the four single words that any woman would hate to hear. Oh no, oh no, oh no. As annoyed as she was with the git, she loved him (although she had never told him) and she most certainly did not want him to break up with her.
(Besides, it was only polite for him to let her break up with him, and were Malfoys not supposed to be the epitome of.. Well, not goodness, but they had to be aristocratic, and polite, and all the other decent adjectives that aren't too goody-goody. But Draco, as much as he would like to think so, was not really the perfect model of the Original Perfect Malfoy. He had broken at least three quarter of the rules in the Malfoy Handbook: How to Be The Perfect Malfoy - Version Two Point Three (there had been a few minor adjustments back in 28 BC and then some more in 45 AD, and again in 1357), including the whole of Chapter Thirty-Seven: Muggleborns are Below Malfoys. However, Draco had been planning for a while now to make a few more changes in the Malfoy Handbook, so he figured that when he got around to doing that, he would, in fact, be the Perfect Malfoy.)
But a Gryffindor is a Gryffindor, and Hermione was as Gryffindor-ish as you could get. Brave, loyal, and really, too smart for her own good (which was more a Ravenclaw trait, but anyway), that was Hermione. So she calmly folded her arms, made sure her mouth was closed (flies could get in, or worse, invisible Doxys, and that would not be a pretty sight, although she did know how to get rid of it, of course, as she'd read all about it) and gazed up at him, a mildly defiant expression on her face.
Draco decided to get straight to the point.
"Do you- How are you?"
Maybe not.
"I'm fine, thank you," Hermione replied. She was a bit shocked and confused, but she managed to keep her voice and expression mild. Like I said, she was Hermione Granger, and a Gryffindor to boot. Nothing is impossible (to her). (Except... Nevermind, let's just stick with nothing is impossible. Hey, she's a witch.)
"So." Draco took his hands out of his pockets and fiddled with his fingers (which also was a Malfoy no-no, as is stated in Chapter Three: The Malfoy Image, Clause 2.75: Fidgeting, including twiddling of fingers, tapping of foot, and any other suchlike manner, is strictly forbidden, as it exudes nervousness, which is not part of the Malfoy Traits or Behavioral Characteristics, as stated in Chapter Two: Malfoy Behavior, Clause 3.79)
Hermione raised her eyebrow impatiently. If he was going to break up with her, he needn't take so long to do it.
"Stop wasting my time, Malfoy," she said.
Draco looked at her. Oh no, he thought, his stomach feeling like it was sinking down, past his stomach, squeezing by his kidneys, and somewhere into the region of his knees (which, incidentally, also broke about three Malfoy rules). She most definitely didn't- wasn't- He took a deep breath.
"Does my mother pay you to go out with me?" he blurted out. (If anyone –usually someone from the Malfoy Behavior Council, M.B.C. for short- had been grading him on his Malfoy Performance Levels, M.P.Ls –taken once every two years- he would definitely have gotten a W, for Weasley, instead of his usual S, for Supreme Malfoy, or, when he did exceptionally well, U -Ultimate Malfoy)
Hermione stared at him. What?
"Well?"
Hermione opened and closed her mouth without saying anything. Draco, fearing the worst, closed his eyes slowly and opened them again (which was a tried and true tactic of hiding one's emotions, or at least it said in Chapter Three: The Malfoy Image, Clause 1.57 in the Malfoy Handbook)
"I'll just… Go then," he started to say, and began to turn away from Hermione's wide-eyed gaze.
"What on earth would give you that idea?" Hermione demanded. Draco turned back to look at her.
"You didn't answer my question," he reminded her. Hermione wouldn't lie, would she? She was a Gryffindor, after all. She was supposed to tell the truth, as honorable Gryffindors should.
"Of course she doesn't!" Hermione thought that maybe Draco Malfoy had gone a little bit mad. What an absurd thing to say! If he was mad, then she'd better think of a way to calm him down (hanging around angry, mad people is never a good idea) and then leave quickly (hanging around mad people is not a good idea).
Suddenly, a beautiful black owl swooped in through Hermione's open window, dropping a letter onto her head. Without taking her eyes off Draco, she wordlessly opened the unaddressed envelope and pulled out a letter.
Draco watched as Hermione quickly scanned the note. Her expression changed from exasperation, then she smirked, and then she looked amused. What was this? Who was it from? Why was someone writing to her!? Was it a love letter from one of her secret admirers? Her real boyfriend? One whom she dated freely? Unpaid?
Hermione looked up at Draco again, watching the array of expressions on his face. Then she looked down at the letter, and after a second of contemplating what to do, silently handed him the piece of parchment.
He narrowed his eyes and looked down, and he recognized his mother's neat, elegant cursive immediately (although it might have been the big bold Malfoy crest on the top of the parchment, which was also scented, that had given the identity of its sender away at once).
Dear Hermione, it said.
I'm terribly sorry, but earlier today, when Draco and I were having a little disagreement, I told him that I pay you to go out with him. I think he believes me. If he comes looking for you, he might be a bit upset, as you know how he can get, so I am just warning you before he comes and throws a tantrum.
Oh, and I do hope you will be able to attend the dinner party at the Epworth's this Saturday at 7 o'clock. If Draco hasn't apologized for whatever it is that he's done, you can come as my guest. If he has, then he'll ask you, I'm sure, and then Maria Epworth might stop attempting to seduce him. I assume he has told you about her?
See you then, dear.
And I apologize for putting the idea into his head. He was extremely infuriating and I could not think of anything else to say.
Narcissa
Draco stared at the letter. His mother had made a joke at his expense to his girlfriend! 'And you know how he can get'! What did that mean? And she said he would throw a tantrum! What did she think he was? And! She had called him 'extremely infuriating'! He glared at the letter and considered burning it (or maybe jinxing it and sending it back to his mother? Meddlesome woman!) before feeling Hermione's gaze on him.
He looked up at her for a few moments, before sighing, and saying wearily, "You aren't being bribed, blackmailed maybe, by anyone to pretend to like me? You like me, at least, a little bit?"
Hermione was sure, then, that he had gone crazy. The letter from his mother (funny woman) had just explained everything. "Draco," she said slowly. "No, I am not being bribed or blackmailed to go out with you. I don't like you a little bit."
Draco's mouth fell open in hurt, shock, anger. So she wasn't being bribed or blackmailed, was this some sort of joke to humiliate him or what? She didn't even like him a little bit? And he loved her more than anything else in the world and she didn't harbor a teeny, tiny speck of affection towards him?
"I love you," Hermione concluded, tugging nervously on each one of her fingers with her other hand, as she met his eyes, hoping for a positive reaction. She'd never told him that before.
Draco was still plotting murder in his mind and wasn't paying much attention.
(He was thinking about Chapter Forty-Seven: Malfoy Vengeance, Clause 5.5: Mild torture methods (untraceable), but he didn't really feel like torture Hermione, he really loved her, although she didn't like him at all. His mother, on the other hand, was a different matter altogether. Anyway, she could figure out how to get rid of the curses or whatever it was he used on her quite easily, as she was a Malfoy (and also a Black) and knew the Malfoy Handbook back to front. She didn't follow it much, though, but surely she knew that Hell hath no fury like a Malfoy scorned? It was in Chapter One, for Merlin's sake! But there was nothing in the book about a Malfoy scorning another Malfoy, although it was probably an unwritten rule that Malfoy injustice against another Malfoy was strictly prohibited. But she was his mother, though. And it did say in the handbook that a Malfoy might be the most important thing in the world, but nothing was as important as another Malfoy)
"I-what?" he asked. Hope surged through his (pureblooded) veins.
"I love you," Hermione repeated, seeming a bit more confident now that she had said it before. "And no one's paying me to go out with you."
Without another word, Draco pulled her into a tight embrace and buried his face into her hair. "I love you too," he said, his voice muffled. "And I'm sorry about the house elves. And insulting Crookshanks," he added as an afterthought.
Hermione smiled into his shoulder.
A/N: I loved making up the Malfoy Handbook. I should have thought of a better title, but I am fresh out. Does anyone have any suggestions? Tell me and I'll change it. And I loved making up the Chapters and the Clauses. It was fun.
I have a feeling that there are a lot of mistakes in this chapter, so if you guys could let me know, I'll get onto it.
Thank you to everyone for reviewing. Hugs for all! Hope you had a great weekend, and aren't dreading Monday, like I am. School is such a drag. Christmas is coming up.
Xx
Sienna