Parlor Of Shadows - Chapter 17

Hermione and Ginny spent the weekend singing and dancing in the Head Girl room. Ginny had potential, she just needed to be properly molded. Monday flew by with Transfiguration, Charms and Arithmancy. Tuesday, however, is when everything became weird.

Hermione was just fine during breakfast. Ginny kept her in conversation so her attention would not drift to Severus. Care of Magical Creatures ended up being a lazy class, since Hagrid couldn’t find the animal they were supposed to be studying, and Herbology seemed to go on forever. The quartet had lunch outside under their favorite tree, and Harry leaned back watching the birds before suddenly jumping up, his memory triggered.

“Oh! Did you catch the story about Lockhart in all the papers, Mione?” Her heart seemed to stop for a moment after he said this.

“Hrm… Oh, yes! That ponce deserved what he got!”

“Yeah, that what we all said,” Ron added as he hung upside down from the tree, his face going darker red and even purple in some places.

“We wanted to go to that place, but Mrs. Weasley kept making excuses.”

“Yeah, I think she was worried we might have a good time. Did you see the set that Violet girl was sporting?” He elbowed Harry as he sat down beside him. “I’d love to get my hands full of thos--"

“RONALD WEASLEY!” came Hermione and Ginny’s unison outburst. His sister smacked him upside the head and the two girls walked off.

“What?” Ron asked Harry with a shrug. “It’s not like they don’t talk about the same thing in private…”

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Hermione left Ginny in the entrance hall as she made her way down to Potions. She was scared shitless, but she arrived early as usual, so as not to arouse suspicion. She sat down and grabbed the first book from her bag, pretending to read.

Severus’ feet clicked on the stone as he walked into the dungeon entrance. He swore he could still smell Min’s perfume, but he couldn’t figure out where on his clothes it was coming from. Turning down a hallway he stopped and crossed his arms.

“Afraid you might forget a word when reciting your textbook answers to my classroom, Miss Granger?”

Hermione fought the urge to casually look up at him and smile out a “Fuck you, Rude!” But her mind stopped that reaction when she looked at him standing there is his proper teaching clothes. She scrambled to her feet and blushed. “Sorry, sir,” she mumbled out.

“20 points for your cheek, Miss Granger,” he smirked at her and began walking off. Her exasperated sigh wasn’t covered up quickly enough and Severus spun around, glaring at her. “10 more points and detention. Tonight at 7.” With that he stormed off and Hermione banged her fist on the wall. This was going to be even harder than she thought.

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Once they were all in the classroom Severus told them that they would be assigned partners. Everyone in the class groaned and Severus smirked at them. He picked up a bowl from his desk and began picking out names. “Nott and… Weasley,” the two both let out an indignant grunt as they walked to an empty desk. “Malfoy and… Granger.”

“Oh, for fuck’s--” Hermione immediately caught herself and slapped a hand over her mouth. Severus scrunched his eyebrows together for a moment and eyed her strangely, before shaking his head.

“Every night the rest of this week, Granger,” he drawled out at her and she lowered her head to hide the anger and the blush as she quickly sat with Malfoy.

“Your mouth seems to be much quicker without those horse-teeth,” Draco whispered to her and chuckled darkly. Hermione ground her teeth and exhaled slowly. She didn’t look up from the cauldron once as she and the blond Slytherin worked on their potion. Draco kept trying to egg her on, but she did her best to hide any reaction. Finally he gave up and concentrated on his cutting. As soon as class finished she was ready to bolt from the room, but she had to fight with Draco over her backpack. Snape took another 10 points off her for misbehavior and Draco let go of her bag with a smirk. She stormed off to her room to get started on her homework until detention.

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She fixed her robe as she finished up her detention. Snape had made her clean under all of the desks while he graded papers and ignored her. She kept her eyes firmly planted on the task at hand and only looked at him when she was finished and he dismissed her. She left the classroom and began walking along the corridor when she saw someone running towards her. She huffed and prepared to take off some serious points from the student when they stopped in front of her and grabbed her shoulders. Hermione’s eyes bugged from her head as she stood staring at ‘Vialette’. Her alter ego was staring back at her in absolute terror and she grabbed ‘her’ by the arm, running through the hidden passageways. She cast a quick silencing spell as the person started squawking and dragged them into her room.

“Who the fuck are you?” she spat viciously as she threw ‘Vialette’ onto the couch and lifted the silencing spell. Her wand was drawn in an instant as the person tried to stand up.

“Okay! OKAY!” She noticed that the voice was really quite strange sounding. It was deep, obviously a man’s voice, but had a strained quality to it.

“WELL?”

“Shit, Granger, what the hell are you playing at?”

Hermione almost dropped her wand. “D-Draco?” When the other person nodded she opened and closed her mouth, only a slight squeaking sound emitting.

“Don’t just stare at me! Help!”

Hermione’s anxiety immediately gave way to giggles, turning into all-out laughter.

“It’s not funny, dammit!” Draco snarled, ‘his’ breasts straining in the robe.

“Yes it is! Maybe now you’ll learn not to steal shit from people!”

“I was just curious as to who the hell you would be turning into! I thought maybe the potion was for Potter or Weasley or something…”

“Uh, Draco, that’s an advanced polyjuice, by the way. If you took that whole vial then the effects are going to last you a couple of weeks.”

“WHAT?”

“Hey! Settle down, okay? I have a counter potion for it!”

“Okay, great. HAND IT OVER!”

“Oh, fuck no. You think I’m just going to let you have it after this?”

“I’ll just go to Professor Snape then!”

“No, you won’t.”

“Oh? And why not?” he scoffed indignantly.

“I can’t tell you that, but if I were you I’d trust me.”

“Not likely, Granger.”

“Or you could just have Professor Snape believing that you were the one who’s been performing at the Parlor of Shadows and that you were the person he was fingering on Thursday night!”

Draco’s jaw dropped and he opened his mouth to make some remark but Hermione gave him a look that said he should just listen to her. “Look, Draco, you’re going to need to take a wizard’s oath if you want out of this. NO BUTS!”

She could see him weighing the pros and cons in his head. He finally threw his arms up. “OKAY, let’s just do this and get it over with!” Hermione performed the oath and grabbed a vial from her bag, handing it to a very uncomfortable Draco. He downed it without question and started to calm down as it took effect. After making sure he was all intact he shot Hermione a look. “Spill it, Granger.” Hermione sighed as she repeated the story again. Draco found it more amusing than she expected and merely chuckled.

“It’s ok, Gr-- Hermione,” he said as he patted the seat next to him. Hermione just looked at him strangely. “Seriously, sit down.” She slowly did and he put his arm around her shoulder. “Look, if this had been a couple of years ago, I’d be freaked and angry, to say the least. I’m really not the asshole I pretend to be, just like you’re not the prude you seem to be.” Hermione gave him a dirty look and he just laughed. “Don’t freak out, I’m just saying. It’s like you calling me a ferret or something. But I have to know: do you plan on telling him who you really are?”

Hermione slumped against Draco. “I do, Draco, I really do. Since you seem to know him better than me, how do you think he’ll react?”

“That’s hard to say,” he said in thought as he absently stroked Hermione’s hair. “I’ve known him for a long time, but he’s never been so taken with anyone. He, uh, sent me several letters about you from there…”

“Really?” Hermione sat up and looked at him with big eyes. Draco just nodded and stood up.

“I had better get going. I’ll come and see you after detention tomorrow and we can talk more then.” Hermione nodded and smiled and waved him off. As soon as the door closed she sighed deeply and rubbed her forehead. “That could have gone so much worse…” she chuckled to herself before heading to bed.