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Spontaneous Combustion	By : astartelydianna Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 16780 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, I don't own the characters or anything else recognisable and make no money from writing this

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Spontaneous Combustion

Chapter Two: Misplaced Reaction

"You don't love him do you?"

"No," Hermione admitted quietly, "at least not in that way...I tried Luna, I really tried but it just...doesn't click. Merlin Luna, what is wrong with me? Ron is perfect for me and he's a safe bet and he cares about me and I him...why does it feel so wrong? So forced?"

"Maybe you would love someone who isn't so safe?" the oblivious blonde suggested.

Not so safe? Out of all the things that Luna could have picked to say why did she pick 'not so safe'? Why not, someone who does click or someone who doesn't feel wrong? Luna was strange but she usually had a point and she was usually right, so what exactly was her point this time Hermione wondered.

She gave up trying to figure Luna out and settled into her tub, it was wonderful to have her own bathroom. Granted her tub was a lot smaller than the shared one in the prefect's bathroom and the whole room was rather small to boot but she had a sink and a toilet and a tub big enough for herself and she could probably fit two people in here if she ever did have the need so she was quite happy with it.

It was quite nice to have her own room with her own en suite. Her bedroom wasn't quite the full sized living quarters that most of the actual teachers held but was still a big step up from the student's dormitories. She had a fireplace and a small sofa, two large bookcases against the wall to the left of the fireplace and a desk to the right, the other side of the room held her queen sized bed and draws and a closet for her clothes. It wasn't the red and gold that she was used to, instead it was mostly dark wood and deep purples.

Hermione sighed as most of the bubbles had now disappeared from the bathtub and reached for her wand to summon her towel with a quick 'accio'. After wrapping her towel tightly around herself she crossed the room to pick up a second smaller towel to wrap her hair in. Not bothering to further dry herself or get ready for bed, as she often enjoyed doing things the muggle way; she opted instead to sprawl across her sofa with a book. Choosing a charms book that would no doubt have some interesting information that would prove useful for both her apprenticeship and her wizarding degree she rolled onto her stomach and shuffled herself into a comfortable position.

So needless to say when the door knocked about twenty minutes later she was somewhat reluctant to move. Sighing in defeat she went to the door making sure to use it as a shield for her state of dress as she opened it.

"You know if you keep knocking on my door I'm going to think you're actually starting to like me." She said, on seeing Draco Malfoy stood the other side.

"Don't tell me you're hiding someone in your rooms again Granger." He smirked, gesturing to her hiding behind the door.

"No not this evening I'm afraid but I've just gotten out of the shower and wasn't expecting any disturbances, so would you like to tell me why you're here so that you can leave?" she asked.

"Here." He said, holding out a piece of parchment to her. She carefully held her towel with one hand and reached out to take the parchment with the other. Draco raised an eyebrow at her naked arm but said nothing. "Schedule for rounds, I have Looney Lovegood's too; her rooms on this floor but I don't know which one, do you?"

"I think there was a request for help in there somewhere..." Hermione murmured dryly. "Round the corner, the door next to the painting of the unicorns."

Draco nodded his thanks, this being as close to civil and polite as he and Hermione would get and headed down the hallway. Hermione closed the door behind her and headed back to the sofa, no longer interested in her book she sat with her thoughts for a while. The war really had changed them all; their entire generation had been forced to grow up too fast.

After the war during the inquisitions she had finally begun to understand some of the positions people on the other side had been in. Mistakes made by parents when they were young affected their whole family when the second wizarding war came around. Her classmates had been raised to believe that pure was better, that Slytherins were meant to act a certain way.

She supposed that even Harry had been faced with expectations the day he first stepped foot into Hogwarts, people had expected great things of him because of something that happened when he was just a baby. His future had been thrown at him. Any other witch or wizard could have destroyed all the horcruxes and then killed Harry if necessary, she had no doubt that someone could justify the death of one innocent if it meant the end of the darkest wizard in recent history, if it meant saving so many other lives. Instead Harry Potter had been the focus of the attention and he had been fighting Voldemort since he was just eleven years old. An eleven year old boy with barely a clue about his wizarding background or the wizarding world taking on the Dark Lord that so many feared, how was that fair? Not that life was fair she supposed.

If life was fair then the prejudice that caused all that mess in the first place wouldn't exist. If life was fair there would be a lot more people here today.

Still, it didn't do to sit in sorrows for too long. You can reflect on it, remember it, learn from it but you should never live in the past. So Hermione went to bed.

The week went quickly and soon the castle was full of bustle as students were arriving and filling the great hall for the start of year feast. Hermione, Luna and Draco all had seats at the staff table to enforce their status to the students. Headmistress McGonagall had made it clear that she wanted the students to know that the three would be able to take away house points and assign detentions within reason, detention forms would have to be signed by another member of staff and they were only allowed to take a maximum of ten points per student at a time but the students needed to learn to respect them since in the next couple of years all three would be Professors.

"Something wrong?" Hermione asked Draco trying to hide her smile.

"How it that even allowed in public? It's disgusting." Draco muttered, referring to Professor Trelawney's unique table manners. "It makes me wish I was sat at the Slytherin table where I don't have a clear view of it."

"Just don't look." Hermione replied, trying her hardest to keep a straight face. "Luna is it weird sitting up here when your classmates are down there?"

"A little." Luna smiled. The two witches struck up conversation for most of the celebrations leaving the blonde wizard mostly sulking on the end of the table. Hermione reflected that it was much like a former Slytherin sitting in that very spot, perhaps being miserable was a Slytherin trait too?

This became the pattern for most meal times even when Luna and Hermione did sometimes involve Draco in the conversation because they felt slightly guilty he never said much and generally seemed to prefer to sit in silence. In fact considering that they were both spending so much time working on potions they had managed to not run into each other at all so far and even though one of her two patrol shifts a week was at the same time as him she hadn't seen him then either...clearly he was doing a very good job of avoiding her as he promised.

That was until Sunday afternoon when Hermione went to finish the wolf's bane potion for Professor Lupin.

"Bugger!" a voice exclaimed from the workroom next to the potions classroom. Hermione stuck her head around the door, to find Draco swearing at a furiously bubbling potion.

"At least you didn't blow anything up." She piped up.

"Oh shut up Granger!" he snapped. She narrowed her eyes at him and entered the room to glance into his cauldron.

"At least it's salvageable..." she said, before heading towards her own cauldrons on the other side of the room.

"Yes but it'll take a whole day to neutralise the damage and then I have to start today's changes all over again." He muttered. "I wanted it finished today."

"Well...you could substitute in a pinch of peppermint, I'm not sure how much exactly since I've never done it with this particular brew but if you did it a little at a time you could neutralise the reaction without having to go back and do anything again," She suggested, biting her lip. "but there is the risk that if you use too much peppermint you may have to start over completely."

"What are you doing?" he asked her.

"I'm bottling this for Professor Lupin then I'm finishing the burn salve." She replied.

"I'll do the burn salve then. You fix this." He said matter-of-factly, before marching over to one of her cauldrons to take over.

"I think there was a please and a thank you in there somewhere...or at least a question perhaps." She muttered, putting a stopper on the last bottle of wolf's bane before stomping over to his bubbling brew.

After about twenty minutes of brewing in silence Hermione had fixed Draco's potion and finished it and he had nearly finished hers also.

"Maybe Professor McGonagall didn't have such a bad idea when she suggested working together." Hermione observed. Draco's head snapped up instantly and glared at her.

"We are not working together, we are not buddies Granger, got it?" he growled, stalking up to her until he was staring down at her threateningly.

"Seriously what is your problem Malfoy? I'm not implying we're best friends!" she retorted. A moment later he grabbed her arms and backed her forcefully against the workstation behind them, his fingers bit into her skin but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing that it hurt her.

"Just because we're not on opposite sides anymore doesn't mean we have to play nice got it?" he told her harshly. "So when I'm here you'd better not be and if you're here I'll do the same." He abruptly released her arms and turned away from her striding quickly from the room.

Hermione's hand fumbled to grasp the worktop behind her for support, for one moment he had terrified her. She had actually thought he would hurt her, properly hurt her rather than just grab her arms too tight... After all his Aunt... She shook that thought from her head, there was no use thinking about that. She straightened herself and pushed away from the worktop to head back over to her cauldrons across the room. As she walked she noticed something that scared her more than Draco's threats; not only was her heart rapidly hammering away in her ribcage which was to be expected after a bit of a fright...but there was a damp feeling in her underwear that hadn't been there before.

She shuddered at the thought...surely not. She couldn't be attracted to Draco Malfoy, he was an arse! The more she thought about it and analysed it the less it made sense. She knew Draco was good looking enough, but she'd never been attracted to him since his horrid behaviour had kept him firmly in the arsehole category. He was still horrid to her, so what was new? Why now did she feel so turned on? Was she going completely insane?!

The worst part was that as she set about finishing her burn salve and gathering it into jars Luna's words kept echoing in her head; "someone who isn't so safe". Insane, totally insane...she was over thinking this; she just needed to ignore it. Yes, that was the best course of action in this situation; ignorance...except Hermione Granger didn't like to be ignorant about anything.

Author's Notes: Another slow chapter I know but it's kind of necessary. Hopefully if I can get the chapters out quickly the good bits will be here soon enough.
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Spontaneous Combustion