Chapter Text
It all started on the train to Hogwarts.
Hermione was sitting in the leadership compartment, waiting for everyone else to arrive. They were supposed to meet first thing to receive their instructions for the year. She wasn't Head Girl, something she'd dreamed of since she started school, because that honor went to a Seventh Year Ravenclaw. No, her presence had been requested, along with an Eighth Year representative from each house, for some other purpose.
She couldn't wait to find out what it might be.
The door slid open after a few minutes, and the last person she expected to see walked through it. Well, walked was a generous term for what he did. Draco Malfoy's gait seemed torn over how it should be. There was a hint of the old swagger, but his movements were almost... apologetic. The result was a strange sort of slinking motion.
He saw her right away and arched an eyebrow. Despite everything he'd been through, he still managed to look as though he thought he was gifting the world with his presence. Some things would probably never change.
"Here already, Granger? Why am I not surprised?" He loped to the opposite end of the compartment, as far from her as possible, and sank into the seat, his robes taking up almost the entire seat beside him.
"If I weren't, you'd have been the first one here, Malfoy." She gave him a bored look and pulled her Ancient Runes textbook from her bag, opening it to the second chapter.
Malfoy snorted. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" She didn't spare him a glance, though she could feel his eyes on her.
After a quiet minute or two, during which she reread the same sentence five times, he cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice held that familiar drawl. "It looks like you're reading a textbook for a class that hasn't even started. We aren't in school yet. Why are you reading your book?"
"I always read ahead." She didn't look up, forcing her attention to stay on her reading. "I want to be prepared, as it's N.E.W.T. year."
She heard him shift slightly in his seat. "I suppose you'll need all the extra help you can get."
Her head whipped up and found him watching her, his gaze hard but slightly playful. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He shrugged. "Not much. Only, if you want to keep your top spot, you're going to have to work extra hard."
"And why is that?"
"Because." He picked at a piece of lint that had floated onto his robes, brushing it away once he got it loose. "As you know, I've always been second to you in the past. But since I've already taken most of this year, I have every intention of rectifying that." He smirked. "Hope you enjoyed your time at the top while it lasted."
Hermione's jaw dropped, and she felt heat creep onto her cheeks. "There's at least one new class, Malfoy."
He made a dismissive gesture. "I'll grant you that I'll need to study for one subject, maybe two. How does that compare to your course load?" He held up his hand and started counting off with his fingers. "There's Runes, Arithmancy, Transfiguration, Charms, Defense, Herbology, Potions—"
"Yes, yes, I see your point." She frowned. It wasn't often that she was rendered speechless, but Malfoy's words had done the trick. It had never occurred to her that she might not take top marks this year. Not that getting the best grades was the most important thing in the world—far from it—but she'd been almost relieved at the mundanity of such a goal for herself. If she'd been honest with herself, though, she hadn't expected any competition for her spot.
Yet Malfoy had a point. He'd done nearly a full year's worth of schooling while she'd been on the run with Harry.
"You'll be spending a lot of your free time reading and doing homework, Granger." He leaned his head back, clasped his hands over his chest, and closed his eyes. "Meanwhile, I'll be relaxing and generally enjoying my last year. And I'll still probably best you." He smirked.
"You think so, do you?"
He didn't even open his eyes. "Granger, I know so. I could take my N.E.W.T.s right now and get twelve Outstandings."
She gaped at him. Even when she felt her best about her performance, she'd never imagined getting twelve Outstandings. Well, maybe in her wildest dreams she'd dared to think about twelve. Yet he had so effortlessly claimed he could get that many right now, even without having actually finished his seventh year.
"I don't believe you. You aren't even in twelve classes!"
He shrugged. "I am, actually. And my scores don't depend on you believing me. I suppose we'll see in the end, though, won't we?" He cracked an eye open and peered at her, a taunting lilt to his lips.
Hermione bristled. If there was one thing she didn't like it was being taunted about her study habits. But to see him so easily dismiss her, to be so confident in his own abilities as to assume that he'd take the top spot from her... Well, it would appear that, despite his ordeals the previous year, he hadn't lost all of his arrogance.
"Yes, it would appear that we will see, Malfoy. We'll all see that, despite your confidence, I will yet remain top of this class." She sat up straighter, looked down her nose at him, and pointedly returned to her book.
"Good luck, Granger. I've already read that entire book, not to mention I've done almost every assignment for the class. But please, do go ahead and tell me how you're going to top me."
She pursed her lips. "Just because you've done last year's assignments doesn't mean they'll be the same this year."
"I still have vastly more experience than you, remember." He gave her a pointed, mischievous look. "So even if they do change, I already know what I'm doing."
The door opened again, and three more people came in, effectively putting an end to their argument. The others were all Seventh Years, and when they saw the two occupants of the car, they stopped talking at once and took seats. The silence stretched for another five minutes as the rest of the Prefects, plus the Head Boy and Girl, and the Eighth Year representatives for Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw filtered in.
Finally, McGonagall arrived and gave them all a once over. She handed out duties to the Prefects, then the Heads, dismissing them when they were finished. When she was left with just the Eighth Year students.
"Now for the rest of you. You were all chosen as ambassadors between the students in your year and the teachers. You're in a unique position this year, as we've never had an Eighth Year class. You'll be given special privileges, but those come with certain responsibilities." She then went on to discuss what lay before them.
Hermione couldn't help it; her gaze was drawn to Malfoy. He was obviously listening, but he kept up the appearance of being entirely disinterested. She supposed it was a kind of defense mechanism, a way to preemptively silence anybody who had anything to say. The whole wizarding world knew that he'd been cleared of charges, but everybody also knew that it was he who had let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, he who had been tasked with killing Dumbledore. They also knew that he hadn't, but the fact that Dumbledore was dead nonetheless made people skeptical of him.
When McGonagall finished, nobody had questions, so she dismissed them and Disapparated, likely to return to Hogwarts. The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw fled from the room as soon as possible. Hermione tried to hurriedly pack up her things.
Malfoy slowly stretched out on the bench, using his robe as a kind of blanket. He looked rather comfortable, ready for sleep.
As Hermione went to leave, he didn't seem to make any moves to follow. "Aren't you going to join your friends?"
"No. I'm quite content here, thank you."
She didn't know what to think or do. Malfoy was going to sit alone in the compartment? Well, it would be a nice, quiet place to study, only he had no plans to do that. "Suit yourself."
"This does suit me. Thank you." His eyes were closed, his hands folded on his chest.
"Looks like I've got the first victory this year, then."
At that, he opened his eyes and looked at her curiously. "How do you figure that?"
"I'm the first to leave this car."
He scoffed and closed his eyes again. "That's ridiculous, Granger. I didn't even try."
"Well, if that's going to be your attitude this year, as you've already basically confessed, then I think my place at the top will be assured." She looked back at him over her shoulder. "Don't you?"
She didn't wait for an answer as she left, letting the door slam shut behind her.
9.5 - INTRO
Draco didn't think much of the interaction on the train. He'd largely said what he did to get a rise out of Granger, and it had worked. He wouldn't have thought anything of it, but apparently the same was not true of her.
There were so few students in Eighth Year that they basically had all their lessons together. In their first class on Monday, Arithmancy, she made it a point to give him a look every time she got an answer before him. And since she was known for raising her hand to answer questions, every time the teacher called on her also earned him the look.
He let her have her fun in that class, but when they got to Defense, he decided she needed her head deflated a bit.
The look on her face when he answered a question before her was priceless.
It made him want to do it again.
9.11 - LIBRARY
"How many pages did you read in the Transfiguration book?" Granger was walking by his table with a full bag of books slung on her back.
"I read almost the entire book last year, remember?" He held up his book, which had many slips of parchment poking out the sides, most well past where they were in the class. "But for tomorrow, I've reread the pertinent chapter. No need to do more."
She stuck her nose up slightly, obviously miffed. "Good luck with that."
Draco shook his head and went back to the book.
9.19 - EIGHTH-YEAR COMMON ROOM
"Have you read any of the supplemental books by Wakefield? They're listed in the back, in an appendix."
Draco watched, amused, as Granger came to where he was reading in front of the fire and plopped down in the chair near his. "You've got me there. No, I hadn't looked beyond the textbook in Arithmancy."
She seemed quite pleased with herself, as she always was when she found an area where she had bested him. "That's too bad, because she wrote some really fascinating theories on advanced Numerology. I can lend you my copy, if you want."
"Sure, Granger. I'll add it to my stack." He turned back to his book, expecting her to go away now.
"What are you reading?"
When he looked up, her eyes were narrowed at the book in his lap, as though trying to figure it out from staring at page one hundred twenty-four. Draco held up the cover.
"'A Tale of Two Cities!'" She looked at him, astonished. "But that's a Muggle book!"
He shrugged. "It was in the Muggle Studies classroom. The teacher encouraged us to expand our horizons a bit, remember. It looked interesting, so I checked it out."
She looked for a moment as though torn about how to respond, and he knew her head must be spinning in conflicting circles.
On one hand, he had intentionally chosen a Muggle book and was clearly enjoying it enough to read it during his free time. She was likely also scandalized because he wasn't studying. And, finally, she was surprised to find she wanted to discuss the book because she had read it already.
He watched her struggle through her responses with growing amusement.
When she'd gone through all her stages of thought, she pursed her lips and hummed. "I haven't read it. May I take it when you're done?"
"I have to return it to the Muggle Studies library in two days. But I can wait and do that with you so you can take it immediately."
She beamed at him. "Thank you, Malfoy! I'll, um, leave you to it, then."
9.21 - HERBOLOGY
"Did you see my Dittany plant, Malfoy?" The smug grin on her face told him everything he needed to know.
"Let me guess. It's a quarter of an inch taller than mine." He put an extra dose of I don't give a rat's arse into his tone, but she either didn't catch it or chose to ignore it. In the weeks since school started, she had taken to comparing their work in everything, and it didn't look like this need for comparison and choosing a "winner" would go away any time soon.
"Three quarters, actually." She peered up at him, expecting him to make some reply.
"And how many buds are present?"
At that, she frowned slightly. "Three. Yours has five. But I'm not sure the shorter stature will be adequate for the weight of so many buds once they turn into flowers.
He shrugged and went about his task of repotting a collection of nightshade blooms for Professor Sprout. "Time will tell. I suppose that puts this class at a draw, though, doesn't it?"
She pursed her lips and glanced toward the table where their plants were kept. "I think mine has more leaves."
"I'm surprised you didn't count them already."
Without another word, she left, probably to count the leaves of their respective plants.
10.11 - HISTORY OF MAGIC
"What did you score on your quiz?"
Draco knew the question was coming, and he was more than ready for it. "I got them all correct. How did you do?"
Her cheeks went pink, and she looked back at her own results. "I missed one."
"Oh, that's too bad." He said it cheerily, his demeanor the complete opposite of his words. "You're welcome to look at my paper if you want." He held it out in front of her, dangling it like a carrot on a stick. He knew she hated to get any questions wrong, but surely she wanted to know what she had missed.
"Fine." She snatched his quiz from his hand and glared at him before eagerly searching the parchment.
Draco crossed his arms and waited. He knew that, to her, it didn't matter that he was hungry and wanted to get to lunch; what mattered most was that she understood the correct answer, and why he had gotten it right and not her.
Without a word, she held it out to him and started walking. After two steps, she was also talking. "I don't think you should have gotten full credit on that one. You left out the part about why the Goblins were so angry with the house-elves. It was a crucial detail in understanding why they reacted the way they did."
"I touched on it, but no, I didn't go into a lengthy answer because it was a quiz and we only had ten minutes." He shook his head and stuffed his quiz into his bag. It amused him that she winced upon seeing him treat the parchment with so little care. "But I can tell you that Goblins, as a general rule, don't like it when they don't get their way. They're motivated by treasure, and they can't understand why some beings aren't. To a house-elf, a vault full of gold doesn't matter, so they couldn't be swayed the same way most other magical creatures could. I remembered this section of the book from before because I remembered how little all our wealth and expensive, rare things meant to the house-elves. Oh, sure, they treated everything with care, but that's how they are. And it made me think, since they're so happy in their simple lives, it must mean something. Satisfied?"
She blinked at him in surprise. "Oh. I... yes. I knew that. Not for the same reasons, obviously. I don't know what I was thinking."
"It's okay, you know. You're only human, Granger." He winked and left her standing in the hallway.
It was tedious, the way she checked everything they did and compared them, but he was definitely growing used to her nearly constant chatter over this or that. In Runes, it might be how many pages they successfully translated or how many mistakes they made. In Potions, he had to be careful to chop his ingredients to the exact specifications listed or she'd give him the look he'd begun to associate with her.
She would peer at his work as though supremely interested, and if she saw that hers was superior, her eyes would widen slightly, and the corners of her lips would turn up. She'd give him a condescending smile and tell him he'd done a good enough job. If his work was better, she'd purse her lips and silently retreat to her side of the table.
That was another thing—she always sat near him. It was odd at first, and he'd marveled at it. Granted, nobody was exactly clamoring to sit with him in most classes. The few he had with Theo, she sat on Draco's other side, undaunted by what his friend might think.
For his part, Theo hadn't mentioned what was going on with Granger, and Draco was grateful for it. He knew his friend was only biding his time, waiting for the right moment to bring it up and... what he would do, Draco couldn't begin to speculate.
10.30 - TRANSFIGURATION
"Well done, Miss Granger. Ten points to Gryffindor."
Hermione swelled with pride, and she couldn't resist sending Malfoy a gloating look. To her extreme annoyance, he was simply smirking in her direction. He chuckled and shook his head, looking away when their eyes met.
The assignment for the day was to turn a rose into a bat, and she did an excellent job, earning another ten points for being the first to achieve the assignment. Malfoy was right behind her, but instead of seeming upset that she'd beaten him yet again, he merely gave her a nod, then went about repeating his performance.
It annoyed Hermione to no end that he still seemed indifferent to his schooling. He wasn't the least bit upset when she beat him at something, and when he came out on top, he never let it go to his head. Perhaps it wasn't indifference, but rather a lack of competitive edge that bothered her. She'd expected him to fight hard to beat her, but instead he seemed content to simply do his best, with no regard for her.
Later, she was pacing a rut in the stone floor of the Gryffindor common room. Ginny had just finished a game of chess with Seamus—which she won—and she grabbed a butterbeer and sat down to watch Hermione.
"What's gotten into you?"
"Oh, it's just Malfoy. He's so infuriating."
"Uh-huh." Ginny set to work putting away the chess pieces.
"I don't understand why he won't be serious! Why is he so flippant about everything? It's like he doesn't really care about any of this!" She flopped down on the sofa with an exaggerated huff before looking at her friend, who was gazing at her with a funny expression. "What?"
"What's going on with you two, anyway? Everyone in your year and mine knows about your little feud." She finished putting the game away and moved to sit closer to Hermione. "Clearly, you fancy him, right?
Hermione gaped at Ginny. "Excuse me? Fancy—Malfoy? Have you lost the plot? What on earth would make you say such a thing!" Her cheeks flushed against her will at the ridiculous question. It made her feel extremely strange, rather warm around the edges.
"Oh, don't play it like that. Everybody can tell there's something going on. So, what is it? Is this ultra-competitive thing a cover for some torrid love affair? Is it some weird form of foreplay? You get all hot and bothered at each other during class, then shag it out later?" Ginny's eyes were wild and bright.
"No! Absolutely not." Hermione pushed up from the sofa. "I can't believe you'd say such a thing! Malfoy had the audacity to suggest that he would beat me for the top spot this year. I'm simply going to prove him wrong. I suppose this little one-up-manship thing we're doing might seem strange to everyone else, but it's certainly not a cover-up!"
Ginny held up her hands in defense. "Alright, if you say so. Personally, I wish it was a cover-up and that you'd get it out of your system so the rest of the school doesn't have to suffer through it. You should just kiss him and put everyone out of their misery."
Hermione's cheeks now burned, and it took a few deep breaths before she felt ready to speak. "Ginny, I'm only going to say this once. Draco and I are nothing. We are only competing for the top spot in the class this year. That's all. He's made it clear that I have something to prove, and I intend to do just that."
"Yeah, sure, I believe you." She smiled wide, a clear sign that she was lying.
"Gin!" Hermione threw a pillow at her. "Malfoy is... completely out of the question."
"Ah-ha!" Ginny pointed a finger at her. "So you admit you've thought about it!"
"No. I haven't. But since you're forcing me, I think it's obvious that the very idea is absurd. And that's all I'm going to say about that. Goodnight." Hermione didn't wait for Ginny to say anything, but she heard her friend laugh all the way to her room.
11.7 - ALCHEMY
There was something very distracting about the way Granger stirred. Draco had been trying for weeks to figure out what it was. It wasn't bad enough for him to completely lose his focus, but he'd been watching her, trying to figure out what was so... off. The heat from the cauldron tended to make her hair wilder than usual, and the glow from the fire beneath it had a tendency to make her cheeks flush. Those things separately wouldn't have caught his attention, and even together, it wasn't quite enough.
Yet, week after week, he found himself distracted.
So much so that he'd nearly ruined his work a few times, but he'd caught himself just in time.
It was something about her mouth, maybe; he seemed highly attuned to it. Whether she was smirking at him or frowning, pursing her lips in displeasure or biting them in concentration, his gaze was inevitably drawn to her lips.
It was most inconvenient.
"Your solutions should be a clear red at this point. I know this isn't Potions proper, but a specific branch of the subject. Very few people can achieve this particular brew, which is why we spend so many weeks doing the same thing." The Alchemy teacher made his pronouncement—ruddy useless, Draco thought—and then began circulating throughout the room.
When he reached their table, he peered into Granger's cauldron. "Your potion looks lovely, Miss Granger. Your shade of red is a tad on the yellow side. Not much, but you're getting very close."
She beamed at his praise, sending Draco a triumphant sideways smirk.
"Mr. Malfoy. You are nearly there. Your shade of red is perfect, but there's a hint of cloudiness to it." He clapped his wrinkled hands together in delight. "I've never seen one student reach this stage at this point in the year, much less two! I say, I wonder if there's something about this table this year. Well now, carry on."
Draco frowned into his nearly perfectly translucent potion.
"I think I noticed you overfilled your miniscule silver spoon with moon powder. Just a tiny bit. I think the cloudiness is a few particulates that couldn't fully dissolve as the solution was saturated." Hermione gave him a tiny smile, then went back to her cauldron.
"And I think when you weighed the fluxweed seeds, you saw your scale read true but at the last second, when you looked away, a tiny amount fell from the tip of your finger onto the pile." He shrugged. "I noted it, but didn't think it would matter. And maybe that wasn't it. I can't be sure."
Hermione nodded, her eyes darting to the bottle that contained the ingredient in question. "I'll be more careful next time."
11.11 - LIBRARY
"How many problems have you worked today?"
He ignored her because he was in the middle of a series of complicated calculations and he couldn't risk losing his train of thought.
When he finished, he looked up to find her still there, waiting. "What did you want, Granger?"
She rolled her eyes and pointed toward his work. "How many problems have you worked through?"
He glanced at the book. "Twenty-three. Why?" It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how many she'd done, but he had resolved long ago not to play this game with her. He'd answer her questions, but he wouldn't encourage it.
"I've done twenty-five." To his surprise, she frowned. He'd have thought she'd be pleased to have done more than him.
Then, to his great and utter astonishment, she set her things on the table and sat down across from him. "I'm not sure about number seventeen. Do you think we could compare work?"
He had a feeling he ought to say no, as it would probably fall into the category of encouraging her in this strange game, but she was already pulling out her parchment and opening her book.
"Right. Sure. Seventeen, you said?"
It was the first time she'd stayed after accosting him in the library.
But it wouldn't be the last.
11.24 - DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS
"Did you see my reaction time?" She was beaming at him, having just cast a series of complicated spells resulting in a Stinging Hex landing on his arms.
He was still rubbing the spot a moment later when their teacher called them to stop. "I felt it too. Bloody hell, that hurts!"
She was utterly elated over her small victory and practically pranced back to her seat.
Draco took his time, the spot still smarting. The pair of students sitting at the table behind the one he shared with Granger were whispering, and they must not have noticed him approaching.
"He always seems to let her win."
"He never makes mistakes like that with anybody else."
"That's what I'm saying! I don't think they're mistakes!"
"If he's letting her win, it's because he wants in her knickers, you know it is."
"Please, like she'd let anybody near her knickers, let alone him."
"They're awfully chummy this year though, haven't you noticed?"
"I'm not sure I'd call it chummy. More like… there'd be lots of angry kissing."
"She seems completely oblivious, though."
"Yeah, I don't think she returns his feelings."
"Well, if he's broken hearted over it, he's welcome to come my way. I'll be happy to help him forget Little Miss Perfect."
The girls dissolved in a fit of giggles, and Draco continued to his table in a state of shock, barely hearing another word the teacher said.
His shock continued until he spoke to Theo, relaying the conversation he'd overheard, expecting Theo to laugh with him and assure him that nothing could be more ridiculous.
Instead, Theo peered at him with an uncomfortable half-smile. "Listen, mate. I'll be straight with you. Almost everyone thinks there's something between you two."
Draco's jaw dropped. "What? Why?"
Theo rubbed the back of his neck. "Shall I start with how much you two talk? In class and out? Or maybe it's that you always sit together except at meals. You even study together most evenings in the library. What did you expect people to think?"
"I—"
"Maybe it's because you spent almost the entire trip to Hogsmeade with her, trying to find some obscure book to prove one of you wrong. Or the time when—"
"Theo, I get how it might look. But... It's not that. At all." A fleeting image of him and Granger, side-by-side in the library, closer than they'd ever sat in reality came to mind, but he banished it. His mind had been doing things like that lately, and he didn't appreciate it.
"Really?" Theo looked at him in disbelief. "Blaise asked her out."
Draco deliberately kept his expression neutral. He didn't care, not one bit. Granger could date whoever she wanted to. It wasn't his business at all.
"She said no." Theo smirked. "Said she didn't feel that way for Blaise. He said he was going to try again, tell her that he wants her to give him a chance. That maybe if she spent time with him, she'd change her mind. Well, his argument seemed to work, because she changed her mind! She's going with him on Saturday to Hogsmeade. Guess you won't get to spend the day with her."
"I wasn't going to," he muttered stiffly.
"Right." Theo drew out the word. "You're perfectly fine with Blaise spending the day with Granger."
"Perfectly." He stood and grabbed his bag. "This has been very helpful. I wish them the best. But I've got some studying to do."
He could practically hear Theo's smirk as he left the room.
12.5 - RUNES
Granger was now sitting with Blaise, and Draco didn't care a bit. Nope, not one tiny little sliver of a morsel.
She was bent over her parchment, scribbling frantically beside him, her brow furrowed, eyes screwed up in concentration. Draco had been done for two minutes, but he lazily continued writing to make her think he was still working whenever she shot furious glances over at him.
Just when he noticed her nearing the end, he made a show of setting down his quill, capping it, and stretching languidly. He'd done this same translation the year before and remembered it well.
Blaise was not even trying, so focused was he on Granger. Their "date" had gone well enough, according to Blaise, who thought it amusing to regale the common room with story after story of his time with Granger whenever Draco happened to be present. As though it mattered to him what Blaise and Granger had done.
He and Theo were both ridiculous, but there was one thing that was becoming blatantly obvious: Blaise was making a show of whatever was going on with Granger solely for Draco's benefit. He wasn't even sure Blaise liked Granger, but he'd gotten it in his head that he wanted her to like him. Draco couldn't help but wonder if it was related to him, but that seemed like a stretch. Blaise wasn't usually petty or vindictive.
But it was awfully curious.
And Draco definitely didn't care.
Granger did, though, when she noticed he was finished. Her eyes darted from the parchment on his desk to his capped quill, finally dragging her gaze to meet his. He affected an especially bored expression, which he knew only made her more angry.
He was not disappointed.
She looked down at her translation as though disgusted with it, then finished it slowly, deliberately.
Draco turned his in just before her, a playful glint in his eye. "Finally done, Granger?" With a wink, he left her standing there gaping after him.
12.19 - MUGGLE STUDIES
"What do you think of that?" Granger slammed her midterm test down in front of him with a triumphant look on her face.
Draco lazily pulled the sheet toward him and glanced at the top. She'd scored over a hundred.
"Congratulations, Granger. You got top marks in a subject you're very familiar with, since, you know, you grew up Muggle." He slid the sheet back to her. He really didn't care too much how he did in this class, and she consistently bested him.
At least she wasn't still with Blaise.
He'd grown tired of her, or something, after only a few weeks. Draco still suspected something wasn't quite right with that whole situation. Granger hadn't even seemed all that upset after. For all he knew, she might be devastated and privately a mess, covering her pain with boldness and a renewed determination to defeat Draco in everything she possibly could.
He was looking forward to a break during the Christmas holiday. Granger was relentless in her efforts, and if she had slackened slightly during her weeks at Blaise's side, then she had redoubled her efforts since things ended.
Granger took her usual seat beside him, sitting tall and proud as though she'd cured Lycanthropy and not simply beat him on a test—which she usually did in this class.
"I scored ninety-four percent." He showed her his paper, beating her to the punch of asking to see it.
"Oh, that's very good, too." She gave him her favorite condescending, pity smile.
Yes, by now he had catalogued all of the ways she looked at him. There was the condescending pity when she beat him. Not to be confused with pure pity, reserved for when she smashed him. When they were very close and she barely edged him out, he'd usually get a pat on the arm and a sigh, accompanied by a gentle pursing of her lips, as though she'd been right there with him the whole way and it had been luck that had put her ahead.
Then there were the looks when he came out on top. Pursed lips, frowns, scowls—he knew them all well. He knew her tsks, her huffs, her heavy sighs. He knew just how angry she was by the shade of red on her cheeks. If she got particularly livid, the red would creep down her neck and onto her chest, but it was best if he didn't notice when that happened.
The worst was when she got upset; thankfully, that didn't happen too often. She'd go very quiet, and she'd barely speak to him for the rest of the class, if not the full day. But he never intended to really upset her. Tease her, sure. Needle her, absolutely. Do his absolute best to fluster her? Most assuredly. Flustering her, seeing her get all worked up, breathing heavily and red in the face, was something he'd come to delight in. Any chance he got to do it, he took. But intentionally try to hurt her? Never.
On the occasions when she did get upset, it wasn't because of him—at least not directly. She was usually upset with herself, and she always rebounded with a vengeance to crush him at the next possible opportunity.
He didn't really like thinking about how well he could read her expressions, or how he had come to know her moods. It felt a lot like knowing her.
1.14 - LIBRARY
"Did you see the notice board?"
"No." Draco held up a finger to indicate that she should wait while he finished writing out his thought. When he completed the assignment he'd been working on for two and a half hours straight, he held up the parchment and reread the last two paragraphs. He was satisfied, but he'd want to give it another pass before calling it done.
"Now. What were you saying about a notice?"
"There's one in my common room, I've just seen it. There's a panel coming from the Ministry to award prizes to Seventh and Eighth Year students who achieve excellence in each subject, plus a grand prize to the top student! That recognition comes with a guaranteed internship anywhere in England for almost anything! Oh, and a cash prize, but I don't much care about that."
"Are you telling me you want to win? I'm shocked. That's so uncharacteristic of you." He smirked.
She ignored him. "Don't you want to win? I mean, it's extremely prestigious. They've never had this award before, at least not in the last fifty years. I looked it up."
"Of course you did." He folded his arms over his chest and watched her unpack her things for studying. He'd seen it so many times he could have done it for her.
"Aren't you going to try for it?" She finally looked at him, probably after sensing his reserve.
He shrugged. "What's to try for, really? I'm going to do my work, like always, and what happens, happens. I think it might be wasted on me anyway, since I'll probably be shunted off to the family business no matter what I score on my N.E.W.T.s."
It was the first time he'd told her even a hint of what awaited him after Hogwarts. It was one reason he was trying to enjoy himself this year. It didn't really matter what scores he earned because he was expected to work for his father. He wanted to do well mostly for his own sake, but also because his parents expected him to. He had never understood why it mattered, when he wasn't going to use much of what he learned, but he hadn't worked up the courage to ask.
"You have to apply for it. There's something of a practical portion in front of a panel of judges." She stopped in the middle of her bustling and looked him in the eye. "You should really do it."
He scoffed. "Why? So we can have something else to compete for?"
"Well. Yes." She blinked at him. "But why wouldn't you want to try for it? Surely your parents would be proud—" She broke off, her voice cracking alarmingly.
Draco whipped his head up to look at her, but she was busy rooting around in her bag and he couldn't see her face. He didn't know what to say but he could tell she was upset, about what, he didn't know. Just like when she was dismayed over schoolwork, he didn't like seeing her troubled now. In fact, this was worse because he had no clue what was wrong.
He wanted to give her some time to think so he considered the idea of signing up. The only thing that made him even halfway interested was the idea that maybe if he did it, if he actually managed to beat Granger and win, his parents might realize that he had bigger ambitions than working for his father
He felt stuck no matter what, though. As the only child and the sole heir of both the Malfoy and Black lines, he felt a huge responsibility to do his part for what was essentially his legacy. He would inherit everything someday, so even if he was allowed to follow his own path for a while, he'd eventually have to give it up.
Unbidden, a thought came into his head that possibly his child could take control directly from his father, and a well of hope sprung up inside him.
He'd just need to worry about the family part, but it could wait. He was in no hurry to think about that.
"You know, I think I will try for it."
When she looked at him he ignored the way her eyes shone, as though she'd been fighting tears.
"I mean, I definitely need something else this year. I'm finding classes to be just too easy. I feel like I could do them in my sleep." He didn't, of course, but he thought teasing her might help get her out of whatever unpleasant place she'd been the last few minutes.
It seemed to work. She gave him a small smile, then finally sat down across from him.
"Excellent. Because I already signed you up."