Chapter Text
THREE MONTHS UNTIL PROM
Terry Boot stood, tugging on his ill-fitting blazer. “Madam Co-President.” He nodded at Hermione then turned a cold, neutral gaze onto Draco. “Mr. Co-President.”
“Treasurer Boot.” Hermione smiled and dropped into her chair.
Everyone in the room stared at Draco expectantly.
“What?” he snapped. “Do I really need to play out this farce? We all know his name and title, and you’ve already acknowledged him.”
“You know full well you need to recognize him so that he can obtain the floor,” Hermione hissed. She held aloft her battered copy of Robert’s Rules of Order, complete with color-coded tabs, and shook it at him with menace.
Draco sighed. He bowed as sarcastically as he could manage — which, technically, as it was a small assembly, should have sufficed — then sank into his seat, spinning his roll-y chair around one full rotation.
Marietta, theoretically his ally, rolled her head back and groaned. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Draco.”
“Out of order, Secretary Edgecomb!” Hermione called, even though Marietta was aiding her cause. Standing ramrod straight before the chalkboard several feet away, Vice Principal McGonagall coughed exactly once, then pierced Draco’s soul with her silent disapproval.
Draco scootched himself back to the edge of the “conference table” — in actuality, a long, weather-beaten dining table with multiple extension leaves, ringed with coffee cup-sized water stains. A battle-hardened veteran of tuna salad sandwiches and half-graded stacks of mediocre history papers, the table that was the spiritual center of Castlemont High’s Teachers’ Lounge lent its weary services to Student Council every Tuesday evening.
Draco rolled one of his sleeves and then the other, carefully, tidily. He took his time, aware of Granger’s avid eyes burning a hole into him. He silenced the strains of “Brown-Eyed Girl” welling up in his mind and replaced them with an image of ants being burnt by a magnifying glass. That’s how she was looking at him. He smoothed the crease out of each cuff for effect, then looked up. “Treasurer Boot,” he drawled.
Terry just skewered him with one of his steely, practice-junior-investment-banker looks.
“I offer the following resolution:
Whereas we consider that Prom is scheduled for May 29th, 1998 and has no theme as of yet;
Whereas we hold the common understanding that innovation and forward-thinking are values to be fostered in our student body;
Whereas it is acknowledged that Prom falls the same week as the birthday of American Hero and aerospace scientist Sally Ride,
Therefore be it
Resolved that the theme of Senior Prom 1998 be a space exploration and galaxy theme;
Resolved that the prom theme be so named Out of This World.”
Padma Patil raised her hand. “I second the motion.” Draco scowled at her. She managed to give the impression that she was mentally flipping him off just by the particular way that she pressed her lips together. Draco made a mental note to practice this move and add it to his playbook, for future employment against Granger.
“Mr. Boot offers the following resolution.” Hermione reread the resolution that Boot had just read, and Draco tugged wearily on his hair. It was nearly 5 pm and his L.A. Looks gel was not holding up. “The question is on its adoption,” she finished primly. “Shall we vote without debate?”
Draco scoffed. “That’s a bit premature. We haven’t even broached the topic of other possible themes, and you want to vote on yours without debate?”
“It’s not mine!” Hermione insisted. “It’s Treasurer Boot’s.”
“Riiiiight.” Draco leaned his chair back as far as it would go and stacked his unblemished Adidas on the table, ankle over ankle.
“Co-President Malfoy.” Vice Principal McGonagall’s clipped voice startled him into nearly falling backward. “Need I remind you that this is where the school staff takes meals? Decorum.”
He flared pink and dropped his feet without apologizing. To apologize would be weak, and Granger was already silently gloating in his general direction.
“Several of us have drafted a prom theme counter-proposal we hope to raise today as well.” Daphne, bless her, commanded the room with her easy grace and diplomacy.
Ernie Macmillan cocked his head in interest. “As chair of the Prom Committee, I have a vested interest in thoroughly considering all possible options.” Draco smirked at Hermione, who had most certainly been counting on Macmillan as an ally; she wrinkled her nose back at him.
“Well, we can’t discuss it while we’re supposed to be debating this resolution,” Hermione insisted.
“But it might be relevant to the debate.” Cho, true neutral, smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I agree,” McGonagall said, stepping forward. “Let’s hear it. Not the resolution, just the prom theme idea.”
“It’s classic.” Daphne launched into the shortest version of the pitch they had worked on, looking impeccable in her cropped cashmere sweater. “Elegant. Timeless. A 1950s theme: Those Were the Days.”
An excited twitter rose from certain quarters of the table.
“Those Were the Days??” Hermione’s eye twitched as she spoke. “Seriously? For one thing, we weren’t even alive then! And those were the days for whom exactly? Rich, white, straight men?” She glowered directly at Draco as she leveled this charge.
“It’s a prom theme, Granger.” He flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his black button-down. “It’s not political.”
“Well, that’s easy for you to say. But the personal is political, Malfoy—”
“That’s Co-President Malfoy, Granger—”
“It’s festive,” Daphne offered smoothly. “Fun.”
“It’s regressive,” Hermione spat. “And oppressive.”
“It celebrates our history.” In truth, it was just the prom theme they’d brainstormed that Daphne and Pansy had been most fond of, and Draco was not even very invested in the theme itself, but he was more than willing to spew bullshit if it made Granger erupt.
“I don’t see all that much to celebrate! We should be looking forward, not backward! CHS would be better represented by the Out of This World theme, which looks to the future—”
“And space is also really pretty,” Parvati added. Padma, who had clearly had a hand in the concept, grinned.
“It’s true,” Cho said. “Everything could be really shimmery and moody!”
“Are you ready for the question, then?” Granger asked the table.
“No, we’re not ready for the question.” Draco stood, and fussed with his cuffed sleeve because, for whatever reason, doing this always seemed to make Granger go even redder in the face. “You can’t ask that, unless I’m also ready for the question.”
“Well, how am I to know that you’re ready for the question?” Hermione asked in the tone of someone who neither wanted nor expected an answer.
“Easy.” Draco wished he were still seated so he could spin his chair around for maximum possible annoyance. He turned half toward her instead and leaned casually against the edge of the table instead, anticipating how it would drive her around the bend. “You’ll know I’m ready when I ask it.”
“Well, that’s hypocritical!” Hermione rounded on him, her hair spilling perilously out from its precarious twist, a disheveled nest barely contained by multiple pencils and a baffling number of little clips.
“Would you like to alternate words?” Marietta rolled her eyes. “Perform a coordinated dance? Shall we draft an amendment? Toss a coin to see who gets to say the first word?”
“No!” Draco and Hermione yelled at the exact same moment, and Ernie chuckled.
“So they do agree on something,” he said. Everyone laughed, and even McGonagall covered her mouth with her hand and made a strangled sort of noise.
“Honestly,” Marietta grumbled, “I wish one of you had just won the Presidency outright. Or, ideally, some other person entirely.”
“It’s not my fault that CHS Student Council’s founding by-laws are idiotic.” Ah, yes, Granger’s favorite soapbox. “What kind of foundational governing document doesn’t have a contingency plan in case of an exact tie?”
Probably the kind drafted by public high school students, as they both knew, but Draco was none too pleased with the arrangement himself. They both needed every edge they could get to be admitted to Stanford, and Student Body Co-President was admittedly less impressive than the title of President would have been.
After the prom theme was tabled and the session closed and dismissed, Draco slung his cross-body satchel over his shoulder and hoofed it out to the parking lot. His car was backed into a clutch spot near the building, marked by a metal sign that read RESERVED FOR STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT; Hermione had laminated “CO-” in a matching font and affixed it to the sign. The cause for his haste was the anticipated pleasure of leaning leisurely against the hood of his BMW Z3 and watching Hermione trek all of the way to her rusty tin can Honda out in the far reaches of Parking Lot C.
He twitched his foot against the pavement, staring fixedly at the front doors of the school while he waited for her to appear. Sure enough, she bustled out of the building in her ridiculous self-imposed uniform, marching towards him.
“Lovely weather, Granger,” Malfoy called, curling his words into a taunt. “Enjoying your stroll?”
Hermione’s hair, which she had released from the sundry objects that had been holding it up, frizzed out around her set jaw. “Bite me, Malfoy!”
“Where and how hard?” He spoke slowly, savoring his words, cherishing the rage flashing in her eyes.
She raised a middle finger as she approached him and smiled with intense insincerity. “You should know, you’ve done it before.”
“In your dreams, Granger.” With his left hand, he mimed turning a crank as he slowly raised the middle finger of his right hand.
“How mature, Malfoy.” She rolled her eyes and continued to stride by him, propelled forward by the momentum of her unfathomably large external frame backpack. She came to school every day resembling nothing so much as a Catholic school girl who happened to be through-hiking the PCT.
“I’m only matching your tone, Madam Co-President.” He had rehearsed, in the mirror, how to make her title sound as insulting as possible, and remained delighted at the dividends it paid. “You do know that Castlemont doesn’t require uniforms?” This was an old saw, but one of his favorite ways to rib her.
“Studies show they improve focus and achievement,” she said, as though he had not been facetious, as though she had not told him this seven thousand times before.
“Pretty sure that’s only when everyone wears them, Granger.”
“Whatever.”
She paused just at the edge of their shared parking spot — his parking spot, by all rights and in a just world — and turned back to kick the tire of his car with her sad loafers. He smiled when she flinched at the impact.
“We’re supposed to alternate days, Malfoy.”
“Ah, so you value fair play when you’re losing. How convenient.”
Hermione bristled. “I always value fair play!”
He shrugged and smirked. “When it suits you, sure.”
“Tomorrow’s my day, Malfoy!” she yelled, walking backward towards her car.
“It’s my day,” he said. “The schedule ought to have switched after the free day.”
“But we were both here that day anyway.” She paused for a moment, kicking at a pebble. The place where her stockings met her gray pleated skirt, just above the knee, did not particularly interest him.
“But it wasn’t a school day,” he said. “The agreement applies specifically to school days.”
She resumed storming off. “It’s my day tomorrow, Malfoy!”
He just pressed his lips together with a smug little twitch. “We’ll see.”
—<>—
When Draco got home that evening, his mother was out, probably shopping, and his father was at the office late as usual, perpetually caught up in state senate business. He availed himself of some grapes and string cheese and loped up the spiral staircase to his bedroom.
Here his mother’s airy California modern sensibilities made a rare concession to teenage boyhood. The rest of the house was full of white and glass and sunlight, but his room was a gray-walled cavern full of dark green accents: a large and open cavern, relatively tasteful, but something of an adolescent cave nonetheless. It was well-appointed with a king bed (sporting, at Draco’s insistence and to Narcissa’s revulsion, black satin sheets and a forest green comforter) and an overly large television and game systems atop an inoffensive credenza.
Draco opened one of its little doors and fished out his supplies. “Old Stalwart,” he addressed his red button maker, with fondness, as he got it situated on his desk and started up his iMac.
When the design was completed and the little circles printed, he turned with relish to Old Stalwart and began his most soul-soothing ritual: the manufacture of vitriolic buttons.
Nothing sent a wash of focused calm over Draco quite like making propaganda to skewer his rivals. And so he happily set to it over his button maker, biting his tongue in concentration to the point that he eventually came to realize it was poking slightly out of his mouth. Such was his reverie when he daydreamed about taking down Hermione Granger.
When Hermione’s alarm sounded at 4:45 am on Wednesday, she resisted the urge to snooze by reminding herself that besting Draco was well worth losing an hour and a half of sleep. She rolled out of bed and did a couple of invigorating stretches before jumping in the shower.
Her uniform outfit was laid out on her reading chair. Castlemont didn’t have a uniform policy, as Malfoy felt empowered to constantly remind her, but Hermione came every day clad in a crisp white collared shirt, a tie in CHS red and gold spirit colors, a pleated gray skirt that clipped her knees precisely, and knee-high white knit stockings, which she found less constrictive than tights. When it was cool, she topped it all off with a gray woolen cardigan.
After whispering several empowering affirmations in the full-length mirror and loading approximately fifty pounds of AP textbooks into her enormous pack, Hermione crept downstairs quietly. Both Dr. Grangers were insomniacs who could use every minute of sleep they could get. She grabbed a yogurt cup, a banana, and a spoon and breezed out the door, borne forward under the momentum of her backpack.
Hermione loved the sleepy stillness of glowing dawn that she drove under whenever the ongoing parking spot war was in active battle mode. Yellows and peachy pinks drenched the sky, and she kept her REM tape on at a deferential volume.
She pulled into the designated Co-President spot at exactly 5:30 am. The vast parking lots were all empty; there was one lonely pick-up truck that belonged to Filch, but beyond that, she was alone. It was imperative to determine how early Draco would bring himself to come, so she could be waiting for him nonchalantly on the hood of her Accord when he arrived. Hermione chewed on her thumbnail, considering, wrinkling her nose at the bitter taste of the deterrent topcoat but persisting nonetheless in her gnawing. First bell was at 7:15, and she couldn’t imagine Draco dragging himself here earlier than 6. No one would let them in the building any earlier than 6:45. She set the alarm of her digital watch for 5:55, so she could get set up, then let herself doze in the driver’s seat.
She snapped forward at the harsh beeping, stretching her cramped neck, and then prepared her set-up. She propped her bag at her feet, close enough that she could snatch it up if he made a move for it, though she doubted he would dare or get far; he may be a supposed lacrosse star, but its bulk had made physically stronger boys flinch. She fished out a few notebooks, her AP Physics textbook, and her student council binder, as well as her Discman, with Juliana Hatfield in it, and a little sleeve of CDs. She set the yogurt and banana off to the right side of the hood, with the spoon resting on the yogurt lid. Then she hoisted herself up onto the center of the hood and took out her student council binder. Ideally, she would be casually mid-breakfast when he approached. She could be productive in the meantime, but she wanted to be prepared for a quick transition time.
Fully settled, she began outlining a strategic plan for destroying Malfoy’s backward prom theme.
A couple of teachers had pulled into the lot by the time the sun was fully up. Professor Lupin gave her a quizzical wave from the teachers’ lot, and Hermione beamed at him. She checked her watch: 6:03. Draco was slouching; she’d expected better of him, frankly. With a self-satisfied grin, she pulled back the foil of her strawberry Yoplait and gave it a good stir. She’d managed two slow, decadent bites when his silver Beamer tore around the corner and into the lot, blasting Cypress Hill at a volume inappropriate for the hour.
If he was surprised to find her waiting there, he didn’t show it. There were still no other cars in the student lot, so he pulled a showy, asshole move that jerked his car to a stop, pivoting it sideways before it screeched to a halt before her. He rolled down the windows and smiled grimly at her from behind his largely unnecessary Ray-Bans.
She crossed her legs and took a large bite of her yogurt. “Good morning, Malfoy,” she said with sing-songy self-satisfaction. “6:05. You’re losing your edge.”
“Cede the spot, Granger.”
She snorted. “Why would I do that?”
He honked his horn: first in an obnoxious pattern, and then he just leaned on it. Hermione blithely put her headphones back on and turned the volume up on Ophelia.
Then she took hold of her banana and made pointed eye contact (or tried to — the sunglasses gave him an unfortunate advantage) as she peeled it back from the bottom point, which she knew from lived experience would immediately outrage him.
He removed himself from his car horn and turned to her with a glare, flipping his shades up. “Jesus, Granger. Why would you do that to a banana?”
She held it by the little stem at the bottom. “It makes a handle. Efficient use of design.”
He grimaced. “No one with an ounce of self-respect would eat a banana that way.”
“This way is superior,” she said with conviction. Then she took an overlarge bite off the tip, refusing to break eye contact, and chewed it as sloppily as she could manage.
Malfoy cringed. “Learn some table manners, Granger.”
“I don’t see a table. And you’re free to go.” She waved her banana at the fully empty parking lot around them. He could have parked just fifteen feet further from the school, this early in the day. But they both knew he wouldn’t: he never had, and she never had either. It was the principle of the thing.
“I’m not going until you cede the spot.”
She never would have done it if he wasn’t there, but he was there, so she dipped the end of the banana into the strawberry yogurt, relishing his shudder as she shoved it into her mouth. “Mmmm,” she said with exaggerated enthusiasm, as though she were starring in a commercial for yogurt-dipped bananas.
“You’re a philistine.”
“Ah yes.” Hermione dabbed the pink yogurt from her lip, trying her level best to ooze sarcasm. She had been practicing, refining her vitriol for just such an occasion. “I have no respect for the banana arts.”
“You DON’T,” Draco said sulkily as he fiddled with a massive CD case. He shot her a shark-like smile as he popped a CD in and turned the volume all the way up. A truly terrible song, one Hermione hated with every fiber of her being, blasted from the car. “Desist, Granger. It’ll be less embarrassing for you if you just admit I’ve won.”
She laughed, smug and throaty, though this particular song grated against every single one of her nerves. “You don’t have a leg to stand on, Malfoy. I’m in the spot, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Draco watched her finish the banana, occasionally adding his car horn to the general cacophony, and Hermione willed herself not to burn under his gaze. Grace under pressure. She scraped up the last remnants of yogurt, then sucked on her spoon petulantly.
Draco seemed to be waiting for this moment, because he rustled through his over-priced European man purse the moment she set her breakfast detritus down on the hood.
“Head’s up, Granger.”
She flinched instinctively, holding her hands up as a shield rather than to catch, and was pelted by several small somethings. She peered out from behind her raised arms and found a button on her lap.
“Dear lord, Malfoy, when will you give it up with the buttons?”
“Buttons are an extremely effective way of swaying public opinion, as demonstrated by —”
“Spare me your research.” Hermione reluctantly held the button up and examined it. GRANGER HATES FUN was emblazoned across it in big red letters. One of the buttons that had fallen to the ground simply featured clip art of a space shuttle with a big red prohibited sign over it. She refused to dignify Draco’s smug face with her irritation, so she simply dropped the button to the pavement without comment.
Terry’s Volvo pulled into the lot and Hermione checked her watch. 6:21, which meant Model UN would be rolling in for their brief Wednesday morning meet-up.
The horrible song ended and Draco started it again. Natalie Merchant could not compete with the Bloodhound Gang, volume-wise, but she cranked her Discman volume to maximum and made a show of flipping open her student council binder.
“Just working on some resolutions that will put to bed your foolish attempts at resurrecting obsolete gender role expectations with your prom theme,” she said, aiming for casual even though she was sure veins were pulsing in her neck.
Draco finished affixing two of his asinine buttons to his shirt and pulled a series of absurd leather business notebook sleeves from his satchel. He brandished a very expensive-looking silver pen — one Hermione would sooner die than admit she envied — with a flourish.
He glinted at her, scoffing. From the hateful status symbol of his car, lewd lyrics about having intercourse like animals blasted out and enveloped everything in a 30-yard radius. “It’s almost sweet, Granger,” he said through his stupid rich boy smirk, “that you always think you’re going to win.”
“I always DO win!” Hermione’s neck was sweating and it wasn’t even 7 am. She balanced the binder on her lap and reached up to twist her hair into a haphazard knot, into which she jabbed three pencils.
She felt Draco’s eyes on her and looked up. He didn’t look away, and was quiet for once. She watched him swallow as he watched her, his pale hair luminous in the morning light. Her face felt like it might catch fire, and she scraped her brain for something, anything, that she might rail against him about.
A loud honk, NOT from Draco, disrupted the abysmal song, and Hermione shook herself back into the parking lot, where more students were beginning to pull into the spaces. Draco’s flashy braking had landed him diagonal across the lane, where he currently blocked traffic from both directions. A line of impatient students had formed behind him.
“The longer you wait, the further back you’ll be.” Hermione couldn’t resist it, even though it made her sound like a know-it-all, even though she knew that the game was largely psychological for both of them. It wasn’t about the parking spot so much as it was about winning, which is to say it was about making the other party lose.
“I’m not leaving. I’m waiting for you to cede the spot.” He leaned on the horn with his elbow again. A steadily growing number of students picked their way through the lot. Harry waved at her from a couple rows over, his lacrosse gear slung over his shoulder. Ron was right behind him, shooting her a smile and a little salute. Draco either didn’t see them or didn’t care. “It’s my day.”
She rolled her eyes heavenward. “It’s NOT your day, as we discussed yesterday. And how convenient,” she hissed, “that now you want to abide by the spot-sharing schedule, after you’ve illegally occupied the spot for four consecutive school days.”
“Technically, only two of them were illegal.” Draco started Bad Touch again and began honking his horn to its rhythm.
The last time she’d been this angry, she’d run over his foot with her car. Just a little bit! And it had been an accident. In fact, more often than not, her rage ended in his injury. So even though she was extremely riled, she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her snap.
Hermione consulted her watch: 7:01. Students were streaming into the school now, tumbling out of their carpools and yellow school buses, chatting and laughing. There was a bit of a kerfuffle as the cars honking at Draco gave up on him entirely and slowly extricated themselves from the lane. Theo Nott unfolded himself elegantly from his brown Mercedes. He leaned against his car for a moment, taking them in, and then he winked at her. Unsure how to respond to that, she squinted towards the school and made out the dim figure of Vice Principal McGonagall hustling towards them across the lot.
Hermione grinned triumphantly.
“Mr. Malfoy! What do you mean by this!?”
McGonagall planted herself between the two of them and gave him her most severe look.
“It’s my day, Vice Principal McGonagall.”
“It’s NOT his day—”
“I don’t care whose day it is! Turn off this insufferable noise!”
Reluctantly, Draco reached towards his stereo. For the first time in nearly an hour, Hermione’s ears relaxed.
“Mr. Malfoy, I shouldn’t think I’d have to tell a Student Class President—”
“Co-President!” Hermione couldn’t stop herself, and McGonagall’s answering glare indicated that she was also on thin ice.
“—Co-President,” she went on coldly, “how to comport themselves. Park.”
Hermione tried to repress her childish grin by looking down at her shoes, which was a shame, because it deprived her of the opportunity to watch Malfoy sulking.
“Now, Draco!”
Reluctantly, he pulled his car straight and began the long drive back to Parking Lot C.
“First bell is in five minutes, Ms. Granger.” McGonagall’s voice held a tone of warning.
“Yes, Ms. McGonagall.” Hermione began slowly packing up her stuff as the vice principal walked away. She picked up all three of Malfoy’s vile buttons and slid them into the front pocket of her backpack.
She cast a glance towards the far lot. There were only stragglers left now, and she thought she could hear Malfoy’s car door slam as he stepped out. It would almost be worth being late to homeroom to wait on her car and lord it over him as he passed. Almost. She wasn’t going to spoil her perfect attendance record over him.
With one last longing look over her shoulder, she headed in.