Hermione had cooled down enough to think sensibly by the time she had reached the Great Hall, and had thought better than to tell everyone about Malfoy’s boxers. Malfoy. She called him Malfoy. She never addressed him by his first name.
Hermione vowed, though, that if he dared to mess with her again, she would tell without hesitation. Something seemed peculiar about Draco’s behavior since school started, and until she knew it was nothing, she didn’t want to add on extra stress for him to deal with, that is, not yet at least.
Unfortunately for Ron and Harry though, Hermione was still burning red when she sat down beside them for breakfast. They knew Hermione’s routine now, though. She would come down almost every morning, frustrated with Malfoy. She sometimes screamed of how infuriating he could be. So, the two of them were expecting the same kind of attitude today, and they were right.
“I hate that Malfoy! Uhhhh! He can be so INFURIATING! Will he let me have one nice, quiet morning? No! He has to ruin it with his arrogance and conceit! I just want one nice morning!!! Is that too much to ask?”
Harry and Ron didn’t even bother to ask what happened this time. They knew Hermione. She would calm down in time for their first class.
Hermione grumpily sat down and started nibbling at her food, not saying another word to either Harry or Ron. Harry and Ron followed her example and they had a quiet breakfast.
Meanwhile, Draco had fixed up his appearance (wearing different boxers, mind you). Then he went down to breakfast, thinking about this morning’s argument. How humiliating on his part. Though he knew Hermione had ultimately “won” that argument, he found himself smirking and boosting his ego with how wonderfully he turned around things. If I could only see her face again when I began to change! How hilarious was that!
As for Hermione telling everyone about what happened, he knew it wouldn’t happen, at least for the time being. As he entered the Great Hall, he glanced at Hermione and confirmed his guess. She was too angry at him to go and humiliate him right now.
This brightened his mood considerably. For a moment, he even thought his head was no longer hurting. Then it all came back with the sound of one voice. Pansy Parkinson’s.
“Draco! Oh, Draco!”
Draco groaned out loud. He had forgotten to add her onto his problem list. He never liked Pansy. At first, he just found her visually appealing. Even that had gone away now, though. He just used her popularity now. She was fairly popular, and of course he was too. The one problem in this arrangement, though, was that he had to put up with her. His usage of her was mistaken for true affection in Pansy’s eyes.
His first reaction was to find a place to hide. Then, he realized eyes were watching him as Pansy rushed over. He could do nothing but put up with her. Pansy rushed up to him and cried,
“Drakey-poo, I have a huge problem.”
Draco’s initial thought: You can say that again. Every time she said she had a problem, he had learned to ignore her. Her problems were things like breaking a nail, wearing the wrong shade of make-up, not finding a piece of jewelry, etc. He wondered if she was so dumb that she forgot she could do magic.
So today when Pansy had said this, Draco just shrugged her off and began walking towards the Slytherin table for breakfast. Pansy, not realizing this, continued,
“Oh, Draco sweetie! Blaise is saying that we’re not really a couple and that you don’t even like me. We have to go prove him wrong.”
At this, Draco turned red with irritation. Though a lot of the Slytherins weren’t smart enough to realize Draco didn’t like Pansy, Blaise was one of the exceptions. So, he purposely put Draco in positions like these just to force him into showing affection towards Pansy. Draco had threatened him about this before, but Blaise didn’t care. Draco ended up having no choice but to show affection towards her to keep his popularity high in effect.
And Pansy, she was so gullible as to fall for it every single time. Usually, Draco just snogged her, which he never had much of a problem doing. Today was different, though. He didn’t want to snog Pansy. He didn’t even want to be near her. He was having a bad morning as it was. He didn’t need Pansy to make it an all-time low.
Pansy had realized he had stopped and came extremely close to him, close to the point where even Draco stepped back. She batted her eyelashes and said,
“Oh Draco, you have to make him stop! Let’s go over there and prove it to him right now!”
Draco had a determined look on his face. Ignoring the second comment, he replied,
“Oh, I’ll make him stop. I’ll guarantee you that.”
And with that, Draco stormed over to Blaise to give him a piece of his mind, with Pansy following, squealing in delight of getting to snog Draco so early in the morning. How wrong she was, though. How wrong she was.
Hermione had just finished her plate of food when she looked up to see that many people were staring in the direction of the entrance to the Great Hall. Her eyes followed in that direction to see the scene of Pansy talking to Malfoy about her so-called “problem”.
She was talking loud enough for almost anyone to hear, as was Draco. Harry and Ron had looked at Hermione inquisitively too. She pointed in Malfoy’s direction. When Hermione heard that Draco was going to give Blaise a piece of his mind, she jumped up to intervene. Harry and Ron gave her a warning look. She in turn glared back. She was Head Girl and it was her responsibility to prevent events such as these from occurring.
Blaise had been watching the conversation between Draco and Pansy with great amusement. So when he saw Draco storming over to the Slytherin table, he thought Draco was just peeved that Pansy was being her annoying and complaining self. He had no idea that Draco was eying him like prey.
Draco stormed over and grabbed Blaise by his shirt and lifted him off his seat at the Slytherin table. When Blaise looked in Draco’s eyes, he saw venom. At this Blaise flinched and began to tremble. He had gone too far and now Draco was going to carry out his threat. He was going to be beat up Zabini in front of everyone!
Draco held his grip on Blaise even tighter, lifted him into the air, and was about to punch him in the face with his other arm, when he felt a firm hand from behind him grab his fist. He would have never guessed who it was.
Draco turned around to see who had dared to interfere. It was Granger. At this Draco let go of his grip on Blaise in shock. Blaise crashed to the floor. It took Draco a while to come back to his senses. He was enraged now.
“What do you think you’re doing, you filthy Mudblood? Blaise had this coming to him, so would you move your filthy hand off mine so I can give Blaise what he deserves.”
Hermione did not even flinch. His venomous glare meant nothing to her. She glared back with equal loathing. She swore she even saw him flinch for a second. She raged back.
“What do you think you’re doing, Malfoy? You’re a Head Boy, for crying out loud. Get your act together and stop acting like a dunce. If Blaise deserves something, give him detention. Don’t beat him up! Are you that stupid?”
Draco was not expecting this response. And he hated to admit it, but she was right. Ignoring her, he turned his back on her and faced Blaise again. He was trembling from head to toe.
“Blaise, I’m assigning you three detentions. I’ll let you know by the end of the day when each will be and who you’ll be doing it with.”
Blaise couldn’t help but murmur, “Thank you.” in Hermione’s direction. She nodded in acknowledgement.
Draco knew this whole thing had created a scene in the Great Hall. Luckily, all the teachers weren’t present during the event. Draco was still angry about what happened, with Pansy, with Blaise, and with Hermione. He shouted at all of the students in the Great Hall.
“What are you looking at? Get back to eating and then GET OUT!”
This had done the trick. The silence that had prevailed in the Great Hall during the scene was refurbished with the chatter of students. They had all gone back to their food, no doubt talking about what had just occurred.
Harry and Ron were two of the few who ignored Draco’s comment. They looked in disbelief at Hermione. Hermione had stood up to Draco. This was almost as good as her slapping him in the third year!
Draco turned back to Hermione now. She looked the same as he had left her a minute ago, strong, determined, blazing. He spoke in a quiet, but cold voice,
“Now that you’re done doing your duty, could you give me the peace of having breakfast alone?”
Hermione knew with this comment that she had gotten to Malfoy. She had won both arguments of the day, meaning double the satisfaction. She left him to begin his breakfast, walked over to the Gryffindor table to pick up her bag, and left the Great Hall, with Harry and Ron following silently.
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