The Accident

So, usually I'm a pretty rational girl. People have even called me smart and brilliant. But I don't feel like either. Because if I was brilliant or even just had a little bit of logical sense, then how could I possibly fall in love with my all-time enemy, Draco Malfoy? Well, it actually started with one of Seamus' spells. You know, one of those that blow up everything. Only this time it had the opposite effect. It bound two people together, and those two people where Draco Malfoy and myself.

It has now been a week since that day. We were sitting in Charms and waiting for Professor Flitwick to tell us, what the day's class was about. Since neither Harry nor Ron had returned to Hogwarts for our seventh year, I have been forced to be with other people. I don't mind really, but I miss my best friends terribly. Luckily I have Ginny, Luna, Dean and Seamus to mention a few. For this class I was sitting with Seamus and Ginny, Ginny is also in her seventh year now. We were just sitting together and talking quietly when Draco Malfoy walked into the room and chose to sit next to me. Out of all places he sat next to me. Of course he didn't do so because he was my friend. He did it only to annoy me.

"So, are you missing your boyfriends?" he asked me. "I bet they are just shagging each other when you're not around."

I instantly felt heat entering my cheeks, but I managed to keep my voice cool as I said, "What's the matter Malfoy? Are you jealous? You probably want to be with them!"

At that Ginny and Seamus started laughing.

"Good one," Seamus whispered and patted my back.

"Yeah, real good," Malfoy said sarcastically. "Real good for a Mudblood."

I just laughed that one of. The word no longer had any effect on me. I was Muggleborn and damn proud of it. That couldn't hurt me anymore.

"Please Malfoy," I laughed and looked into his stormy eyes. "It's getting really old. Why don't you think of something new? Oh no, that's right. You aren't allowed to do that! Your Mommy and Daddy might just spank you for that."

Malfoy slammed his hands onto the table and started rising while saying, "I'll give you spanking."

He actually scared me a little. It was always hard knowing just how far he was going to go. But this time he was cut short by Professor Flitwick.

"Sit down, Mister Malfoy," he said patiently. "We have a lot of work in front of us, if you don't mind." The Professor's pleasant tone probably only made Malfoy's mood even worse, but he sat down none the less. I felt his daggering look on my face, but tuned it out, ready to learn something new and useful.

"Class," Flitwick said tapping his wand against his desk to bring order "today we are going to work with the spell Defodio. Can anyone tell me, what its use is?"

I felt my hand shoot into the air. Of course I knew the spell, I had used it just a couple of months earlier. Professor Flitwick didn't pick me right away, at first he just searched the room waiting for anyone else to figure it out. When nobody did he caved in.

"Yes, Miss Granger?"

"It's used to make a deep gouge in the target of the spell," I answered proudly and heard Malfoy snort besides me.

"Of course she knows," he muttered under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear it.

"Very well," Flitwick said. "5 point for Gryffindor. Have you ever performed this piece of magic?"

During the year were Harry, Ron and I had been out of school, looking for Horcruxes, we had used many spells that no one in this classroom had ever heard of before. I had even made some of my own. When the teachers realised just how much I had learned while being away, some of them had picked up the habit of asking me, if I could do this or that piece of magic.

"Yes, I have," I answered. Flitwick looked at me with raised eyebrows and I sensed his next question. "I used it when Ron, Harry and I were escaping Gringotts on the back of the dragon they had down there. We had to blow our way out, and Defodio was the spell I used for that."

"Very well," the Professor said. "Then you can help me demonstrate it and after that you can walk around and help the others."

I nodded, got to my feet and walked to his desk. Flitwick pointed his wand at the desk and turned it to stone.

"Then let's get down to it," he said enthusiastically. "Make a hole in my table Miss Granger. I will make sure that you don't hurt anybody."

I nodded again and pointed my wand at the stone table.

"De-FOH-dee-oh!" I shouted and a long cut was blown in the table. Flitwick used his wand to keep all the little shards of stone from flying all over the place.

"Very good, Miss Granger, very good indeed," he complimented me. "10 points for Gryffindor."

I heard Seamus clapping and whooping and it made me smile.

"So class," Flitwick said with a stern look at Seamus, who instantly fell silent. "What I want you to do now, is team up in teams of two. The teams will be made according to where you are sitting. Meaning that the two of you are together and the two of you and so on and so forth."

I heard a quill snap and also felt my heard flip. The two last people he had pointed to were Malfoy and Seamus. Malfoy had gotten so mad that he had broken his quill, which was clearly an expensive one.

'Oh, Merlin's sweet pants," I thought to myself. 'This is going to be Hell.'

But there was nothing either of us could do, the Professor made the teams and you just had to live with them. Still, I could help Seamus, since I was co-teacher for the class. So I made their team my first one.

"You ready?" I asked them both but I only looked at Seamus. He opened his mouth about to say something but Malfoy cut in.

"I don't need your help with anything, Granger," he snorted and pushed me aside so he could face Seamus.

I got worried right there. This was not going to be good. But Seamus looked at me and smiled reassuringly.

"Don't worry, 'Mione," he said, using the nickname he had given me. "This is something I'm good at, remember?"

The wicked smile he sent me made me laugh and the knot of discomfort in my stomach eased up a little.

"Class, listen up again," Flitwick voice sounded. "Transform you desk into stone, I know you can do it, because I have spoken to Professor McGonagall. Then in your teams one of you uses the spell and the other makes sure that no splinters hurt anybody else, just as Miss Granger and I did."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow and his upper lip curled into a mocking smile, when he pointed his wand at the table and turned it into stone without a word. I have to admit that I was very impressed. Of course I would have been able to do the same thing, but it was really advanced magic to use a silent transfiguration spell.

"Since you're so good at this," Malfoy said to Seamus, still with the mocking smile "then I'll let you go first."

Seamus just made an ugly face at Malfoy, laughed and picked up his wand. He pointed it at table behind which Malfoy and I were standing and he said, "De-foh-DEE-oh!"

I knew it had gone wrong just then. The table suffered no harm whatsoever and nothing else had been blown up, as it was Seamus' specialty. Actually there wasn't any sign of harm anywhere. Until Malfoy lifted his hand to cover his yarning mouth. My hand followed it against my will, as if a string was conjured between his left hand and my right one.

"Don't do that, Granger," he said. "I am capable of covering my mouth without your help."

"I didn't do it for your sake, Malfoy," I said through clenched teeth and pulled my hand away from his mouth. His hand followed mine and almost sent Malfoy flying right into me.

"What's going on here?" he said and tried to pull his hand back, but mine just followed it. Our wrists were glued together.

"This is not good," I whispered.

Malfoy stopped struggling and our joined hands fell to our sides.

"You can say that again," he noted. "What do we do now?"

"'Mione, I'm so sorry," Seamus said and looked quizzically from our hands to his wand. "This is a first."

"Well, let's just be glad that this is what happened and not the usual," I said and slightly pulled at my hand. Malfoy's followed.

"There is nothing you can say, that will make sticking together with a Muggleborn feel better," Malfoy said with a snarl.

"Actually, Seamus has a habit of blowing things up, so I'd say that this is to be preferred," I noted with an icy tone. Malfoy's face went white and his mouth fell open.

"That does actually make it a little better," he said, as he realised just how close he had come to being able to fit into a shoebox. "But what do we do?"

"Pomfrey or Flitwick?" I asked him.

"Pomfrey," he answered and started walking towards the door pulling me after him. I tried to get him to stop by putting my heels against the floor, but he was way too strong for me, and he simply kept pulling.

"Seamus," I called over my shoulder "tell Flitwick what happened and where we have gone. We'll probably be back soon."

He smiled and waved at me.

"Slow down, Malfoy," I hissed at him, when my attention went to him again.

"I will not," he said and kept pulling me. "Now shut up and walk faster. I don't intent on carrying you. It's bad enough that our wrists are touching."

I sighed and gave in. It was very hard keeping up with him. His stride was long and furious; his legs were also a lot longer than mine. Sometimes I almost feared that my arm was going to fall off, but I made it to the Hospital Wing in one piece.

"Oh my, children!" Madam Pomfrey exclaimed when Malfoy burst in through the door dragging me after him. "What's the matter?"

"We're stuck!" Malfoy said through clenched teeth and raised his arm. Mine followed straight after. "Look!" He shook his hand and mine did the same.

"How did this happen?" Madam Pomfrey asked as she examined out joined hands. I looked at Malfoy, waiting for him to answer the question but he was clearly too mad to say anything more.

"Seamus Finnigan had an accident when we were practicing the Defodio Charm," I explained.

"That's very strange," Madam Pomfrey muttered to herself. "I've never seen anything like this."

Those words made Malfoy's tongue functional again.

"What?" he almost spat out the word. "But you will be able to make it go away, right?"

"I'm not sure," Madam Pomfrey mused. "I'm afraid you'll have to stay here in the Hospital Wing for the rest of the day, so I can try different things out on you."

And then my heart fell right into the pit of my stomach. I was tied to Draco Malfoy and it looked like I would be stuck like that for a while. Besides me Malfoy sighed and threw his hands in the air in frustration. Mine followed his and made him look nastily at me.

"This is all your fault Mudblood," he hissed at me with narrow eyes when Madam Pomfrey wasn't listening. "And I'll make you pay, one way or another."

Once again I only felt the need to laugh it off. The situation was so bizarre that I couldn't take it seriously. I simply started laughing uncontrollably, holding my hands against my stomach when it started hurting. But as soon as Malfoy's hand also touched me the giggling fit was over.

"Sorry," I whispered and looked at his face from the corner of my eye.

To my immense surprise, he was smiling. And not a mean or nasty smile but a real and genuine smile. When Madam Pomfrey returned her attention to us, his smile fated quickly and he was once again the annoying, mean kid he had always been. But I still couldn't forget the smile. It had made him look so beautiful.

"I have pushed two beds together for you," the nurse said with a smile. "You can go sit down there, if you want."

Okay, that was really not what I wanted. I was forced to be alone with Draco Malfoy for the rest of the day, and to top it off, we even had to share a bed. I glanced at Malfoy's face again and saw contempt in his every feature. Great, he had the same thoughts as I did. The day was going to be really interesting. And we hadn't even had lunch yet.