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“And Mr. Malfoy…” Snape drawled, taking his time surveying the classroom. “You’ll be paired with… Miss Granger.”
Hermione’s head shot up from the notes she’d been reviewing on their upcoming paper—six feet of parchment on the care and hatching of an Acromantula egg. Hagrid had found them abandoned in the Forbidden Forest, and Snape was making his NEWT students pair up to care for them for the six to eight weeks it would take them to hatch. She turned to look at the blond prat at the back of the classroom; Malfoy was giving Snape the sort of glare he usually reserved for Harry.
Harry caught her eye, his expression clearly telegraphing his paranoia about this particular pairing. She tried to telegraph back that it was fine. Everything was fine.
She’d make sure of it.
Hermione arranged her face into something she hoped conveyed mature indifference rather than barely suppressed rage. Malfoy had been off all year—sullen, solitary, and clearly behind in his studies. What was Snape playing at, putting them together? She was doing eight NEWTs! She didn’t have time for this!
She took a deep breath. She could survive six to eight weeks of Draco Malfoy.
Probably.
Gods, she hoped it wouldn’t be eight.
The bell rang, and students shuffled forward to collect their eggs and lab books. Hermione stepped up to get hers—theirs—repressing a shudder as she closed her hands around the leathery egg. It was feverishly warm. She looked for Malfoy in the crush of students heading toward the door. A flash of platinum blond disappeared around the corner.
The absolute git was making a run for it.
Hermione cradled the egg in one arm, snatched up their lab book, and stalked after him. He was moving fast—damn his unfairly long legs—and after thirty seconds of weaving through the crowd, it became clear she couldn’t catch up.
“MALFOY!”
He halted so abruptly that a fourth-year Hufflepuff stopped short to avoid crashing directly into him, causing an immediate pile-up. He turned slowly, letting the crowd flow around him, as passive and unbothered as a boulder in a stream.
“What?”
“Excuse me?” Hermione’s voice was shriller than she would have liked. She cleared her throat. “You bolted from class before we could discuss how to handle our murderous spider baby.”
She shoved the lab book at his chest. He raised an eyebrow as he took it.
“It’s an egg, Granger. We’ll just switch off every few days.”
Hermione scoffed. “Oh, brilliant. I suppose I’ll just take the first few days, and then you’ll vanish, sticking me with all the work. Never mind that it needs constant temperature regulation, and to be turned every four hours, and that Snape said he’ll dock points if it’s left unattended, and that I’m doing eight NEWTs and am eyeballs deep in a special brew for Slughorn—”
“Good gods, do you ever stop talking?”
“If you expect me to write this paper by myself while you swan about—”
“I don’t, okay?” Malfoy’s gray eyes flashed. “I’m not one of the gormless losers you usually surround yourself with. I can handle a bloody egg.”
Hermione gave him her sweetest smile, the one that made Ron nervous. “Brilliant! Because I’m due in the potions lab five minutes ago, and the temperature down there would probably cook our darling spawn.”
She held the egg out. After some awkward juggling with his bookbag, he took it, eyeing it like it was about to explode. Which, with her luck, it might.
“Right. We’ll meet in the library tomorrow after dinner to switch off.”
“Fine,” Malfoy agreed, holding the egg gingerly.
Hermione noticed, not for the first time, that he looked peaky. More than usual, which was saying something for someone whose complexion typically tended toward “Victorian ghost.” But that wasn’t her problem.
“Okay,” she said briskly. “See you tomorrow.”
— O —
“MALFOY!”
Hermione marched across the Quidditch pitch, eyes darting between the solitary green-robed figure flying above and the empty stands, frantically scanning for their egg.
“MALFOY, YOU COMPLETE WALNUT!”
He stopped mid-barrel-roll, then loop-de-looped toward the ground with unnecessary flair.
“Did you just call me a walnut?” he asked, hovering next to her. He was windblown and damp from the drizzle. And the idiot had clearly not cast an Impervius Charm, given the state of his hair.
She couldn’t believe he’d be this thoughtless. They’d been trading off care for Specimen A for two weeks, and now—at an absolutely critical time for its development—he was flying around in the freezing cold, exposing their egg to utterly odious conditions.
“Where’s the specimen, Malfoy?” she snapped.
“She’s fine, Granger, calm—”
“Calm down? Calm down?” she squeaked. “It can’t be out here in this weather! It needs constant temperatures at this stage, and low light, and–and–not to be sitting outside in the fucking rain.”
She actually stomped her foot; no one brought out her childish side quite like Draco Malfoy.
“Obviously, I didn’t bring her out here,” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes. “I got a babysitter.”
“You… Pardon?”
“A babysitter,” he repeated slowly. “It’s when you pay someone to watch your child, or in this case egg, while you’re busy.”
“You left our specimen, whose successful hatching is worth a full eighth of our grade, with a stranger?”
Malfoy looked at her like she’d just suggested they feed the egg to the Giant Squid.
“Of course not! She’s with Blaise. He’s watching his egg anyway, so it’s like a playdate.”
Hermione stared at his extremely punchable face for a full ten seconds before she could speak again.
“You said she.”
Malfoy’s cheeks, already pink from the cold, flushed further.
“It just… feels like a girl. I can’t keep calling it Specimen A, or whatever, and its energy’s very… feminine.”
Hermione’s mouth fell open, just a bit. Was he for real? “You think our deadly spider egg has feminine energy?”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he deflected.
She narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing out here? I thought you quit Quidditch.”
“I did.” He shifted a bit on his broom. “I just… like flying. Needed it.”
Hermione studied him. Their egg handoffs were usually quick and perfunctory, the notebook being their primary source of communication. This was the first time she’d really looked at him since the paper was assigned. He looked… stressed.
“Fine,” she said finally. “But tell me next time. We’re supposed to be partners.”
He nodded, looking a little surprised.
“Okay.”
— O —
“Malfoy,” Hermione whispered.
He was slumped in the same remote corner of the library where they’d been meeting for the past four weeks, arms wrapped protectively around their egg, dead asleep. The dark circles under his eyes were getting worse every week. She almost felt bad waking him.
“Malfoy,” she tried again, poking his shoulder with her wand.
He jerked awake so violently that Hermione jumped back.
“Christ, Malfoy, are you okay?”
He blinked up at her, confused and rumpled, lines on his cheek where it had been pressed into his jumper.
“Sorry, ‘m fine,” he mumbled, voice rough with sleep.
“You look like shit,” she said, sitting down.
He huffed a laugh. “Charming as always, Granger.” He leaned back, stretching his arms overhead and exposing a sliver of flat, surprisingly muscled stomach. “I just need some sleep. Don’t worry, with my bone structure, I’ll bounce right back.”
Hermione frowned. Something was definitely wrong with him. But surely, if Harry’s paranoid theories were right, Dumbledore or Snape were handling it.
“Well, listen,” she said, reaching for the egg. “Why don’t you let me take it tonight?”
“No, you don’t have to do that,” he said quickly, tightening a large hand around the egg. “You were up with her last night. It’s my turn.”
“Sure, but you look like death. You obviously need sleep.”
“But you have that Arithmancy presentation tomorrow,” he protested. “And I’ve already got her nest all set up in my room.”
“You made it a nest?” Hermione heard herself ask.
He flushed, not quite meeting her eyes.
Hermione stared at him for a long moment. Draco Malfoy, who sneered at nearly everything, was making nests for his gendered Acromantula egg.
“I insist. I need you in peak condition if we’re going to get this paper done.”
“Yeah?” he asked hopefully.
“Yeah. You can owe me. And by that I mean your essay draft better be spectacular.”
He grinned. “It’s a deal.”
— O —
Hermione checked her watch for the twelfth time since she sat down in the library. Malfoy was twenty-three minutes late.
Six weeks ago, she wouldn’t have been surprised, but she’d learned a lot about him since then. Like that he was a meticulous note taker. And that he didn’t sleep much, based on the detail and neatness of his overnight logs. And that he was never late to meet with her. Well, apparently not never. She huffed.
Unless… oh gods. What if the egg was hatching? Or worse, what if he’d fallen asleep and the egg had hatched and he was being eaten alive by a baby acromantula?
She quickly gathered her things and headed into the corridor, walking toward the dungeons with determination. She’d made it halfway when she heard running footsteps, and then Malfoy came careening around the corner from the wrong direction entirely—from upstairs, not down. He looked a mess: no tie, shirt untucked with sleeves rolled up, hair shockingly untidy. He was clutching their egg under one arm like a Quaffle.
“I’m so sorry, Granger, I completely lost track of time—”
“Oh my gods, Malfoy, what happened?”
A deep gash across his hand was bleeding profusely.
“Oh.” He paled as he looked at the dripping blood. “I… must have cut it again.”
“Again?”
She glanced around the empty corridor and then grabbed his wrist, dragging him into the nearby girls’ bathroom. She tugged him over to the sinks and shoved his hand under the tap.
“Why are you bleeding? What were you doing?”
“I have dittany,” he said hollowly, staring at his hand. “In my pocket.”
Hermione looked expectantly from his bleeding hand to the egg he was still clutching protectively in the other. He continued staring, mesmerized, at the blood swirling down the drain. He was clearly incapable of problem-solving at the moment.
“Oh, honestly.” She stepped closer, sliding her hand into his trouser pocket. She could feel the heat of him through the fabric, and his sharp intake of breath made her acutely aware of how inappropriate this was. Her fingers closed around a small glass bottle, and she pulled it out, unstoppering it with her teeth and pouring it over his hand.
They both watched as the skin knitted together until it was pink and shiny. She sighed with relief.
“That was kind of hot,” Malfoy said.
Hermione looked up to meet his eyes in the mirror. He was smirking. The git.
“The part where I was rummaging around in your trousers?”
He snorted. “Unstoppering that bottle with your teeth. Very action hero of you.”
“Malfoy, why do you carry a bottle of dittany?”
She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard.
“I get hurt a lot.”
“Doing what?”
He shrugged.
She sighed. She couldn’t do this. They were almost done with their paper, and then she wouldn’t have to talk to Draco Malfoy ever again. She didn’t have the capacity to care about whatever was going on with him.
And yet…
The way he was looking at her—lost, pleading, like he was barely holding himself together—made the words tumble out before she could stop them.
“I could help you,” she said softly. She wasn’t even sure what she meant. How would she help?
They stared at each other, the only sound the quiet dripping of the sink and their breaths.
He turned his hand in her grip and squeezed her fingers.
“Okay.”