Atonement | By : absumoaevum Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 13720 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor to I make any money from this story. These characters are JKR's, I just play with them. |
Chapter 8
A Sunday Smile
Hermione didn’t get a chance to talk to Luna at breakfast. Admittedly, she was very busy watching Malfoy with the Hufflepuffs out of the corner of her eye until the mail arrived with Ron’s reply. A slightly soggy Pig landed in a bowl of fruit between Ginny and Hermione, and Hermione extracted the damp letter from his leg while the little owl helped himself to some cantaloupe.
“What’s that?” asked Ginny, looking at the parchment Hermione was unfolding.
“Letter from Ron,” Hermione answered, but then had to pull the letter up sharply away from the table as another owl carrying the Daily Prophet landed in her breakfast and slopped porridge down her front. Wiping up as best she could, Hermione paid the second owl (which flapped its enormous wings and showered everyone with rain water) and hushed Pig, who was hooting merrily and now covered in porridge. She set the rolled-up newspaper on the seat beside her and resumed opening Ron’s letter.
MALFOY’S IN HUFFLEPUFF?!!
That’s the sort of news you lead with, Hermione! Blimey!
And Luna stood up for Malfoy? Now I’ve heard everything. Wait until Harry finds out. I’d tell him now, only he’s been at the Office since Saturday evening. Going to go mental, he is.
Speaking of slimy gits, did you read in the Prophet about the Malfoy trial? Stupid question. Well, I wanted to give you a heads up that you might be summoned for a statement or something. I don’t know much yet, since the clerks over at the Wizengamot are about as good-natured as a pack of trolls.
Hermione didn’t want to think about having to go to court, especially to talk about things that had happened during the war, but she felt a little twinge of satisfaction that maybe the Malfoys would finally get their comeuppance. She went back to the letter.
I don’t want to wait until October. Maybe we can work something out with old McGonagall so Harry and I can come visit you at school over a weekend or something. I’ll get Harry to send her and owl. She always liked him better.
Sounds like quidditch is going to get along fine without us this year. Tell Ginny that she’s got a Weasley tradition of excellence to uphold, so she better get that Cup.
I miss you, too Hermione. Things aren’t the same without you around.
Love,
Ron
Hermione tucked the letter in her pocket for later and told Pig to head over to the Owlery for the time being and she’d come find him when she had a reply. Pig shot off through one of the high windows, and Hermione noticed the watery gray of the clouds at the ceiling of the Great Hall.
“So?” said Ginny solicitously. “What did he say?”
“He said I might be asked to testify in the Malfoy trial.”
“Oh, lovely. Well, you can tell them all that Malfoy’s a Hufflepuff and everything’s ok now.” Ginny laughed and Hermione smiled in a preoccupied way that made Ginny ask, “What else?”
“He said that Harry’s going to write to McGonagall and ask to see us.”
“What do you think the odds of McGonagall allowing that to happen are?”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” answered Hermione, stealing a glance up at the staff table. McGonagall and Sprout had their heads together. Sprout was smiling as she murmured something to the Headmistress, but McGonagall looked solemn. Hermione guessed they were talking about Malfoy by the way they kept looking down at the Hufflepuff table. McGonagall answered Sprout curtly then got up, folding a piece of paper and slipping it into her robes before she made her way down the aisle between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Ginny and Hermione hurried to look busy eating, but a moment later McGonagall was baring down on them, her lips thin and her spectacles flashing.
“Miss Granger, Miss Weasley, I’ve had an owl from Mr. Potter about you two.”
“Oh really, Headmistress?” asked Ginny a little too innocently.
“Not a chance,” said McGonagall with a meaningful look at both of them. It was obvious to Hermione that McGonagall knew that they knew what the letter was about. “Mr. Weasley and Mr. Potter can wait until October. I dare say they’ve got enough to keep them busy at the Ministry until then.” But the corners of her mouth twitched a little, as if she almost thought of smiling in spite of herself.
Hermione nodded, and Ginny rolled her eyes as McGonagall swept out of the Great Hall past the Hufflepuffs, who had gotten to their feet en masse and were totting their broomsticks out into the Entrance Hall in the direction of the great front doors.
“Told you!” said Hermione.
Ginny shrugged. “So, what about that Potions homework?”
Hermione walked back to Gryffindor tower with Ginny and agreed to help her with her Potions essay for Slughorn on the use of salt in poisons in exchange for the password to the Prefects’ bathroom, which turned out to be “Terrycloth”.
One extremely long roll of parchment later, Hermione was feeling very ready to soak in a bath before lunch, but Vicky met her in their dormitory and invited her to the first meeting of the Gobstones club.
“It starts in a few minutes,” she told Hermione excitedly. “Do you want to come?”
Hermione tried to think of a polite way to refuse. She’d never been much for wizarding games, and Harry and Ron would have laughed at the thought of joining the Gobstones club, but they weren’t here and she had no real excuse.
In the end, Hermione told Vicky she would meet her in the common room. After dumping her books out of her backpack and replacing them with ink, a quill, and some parchment (she decided she’d reply to Ron’s letter if things got slow), she grabbed a sweater and headed down to the common room to find Vicky.
Vicky, it transpired, had convinced Ginny to join them as well. Jason Swann and Roderick Seaton, both in their seventh year, were also in the Gobstones club, which met in one of the unused classrooms on the ground floor. They all traipsed down the many flights of stairs together, laughing as Jason tried to explain the rules of Gobstones to Hermione.
“We like play Jack Stone, which is where after four snaps your Gobstone must be the one closest to the Jack Gobstone at the center. Understand?”
“No,” said Hermione. Everyone giggled.
“Ok, well a snap is like your turn to get a gobstone closest to the Jack Stone in the middle of the rings. Each player gets four turns to get a gobstone closest to the Jack Stone, and the loser gets… well, they get sprayed in the face with this gross liquid from the Jack Stone.”
“Ah ok. So sort of like marbles, then?” asked Hermione.
Jason furrowed his brows at her. “What’s ‘marbles’?”
“It’s a muggle game,” Hermione said, but when everyone continued to look puzzled, she added, “Nevermind.” She changed tacks. “And there’s a Gobstones team for each House?”
Roderick answered this question. “Yeah, and we play each other every year for the Gobstones Cup. It’s not nearly as popular as the Quidditch Cup, but not everyone’s good at quidditch.”
“I sympathize,” said Hermione, now at the grand staircase.
The front doors groaned open with a rush of rain-soaked wind just as Hermione and the others reached the bottom of the stairs. It was the Hufflepuffs. By the look of their mud-stained clothes and the sound of their squelchy footsteps echoing around the Hall, they had indeed been out at the pitch. And there, broomstick slung over his shoulder, his waterlogged long-sleeved shirt hanging heavily off his shoulders, his boots splattered with mud, was Malfoy. Was there no escaping him?
He was talking over his shoulder to a tall, wiry boy who snorted with laughter then sobered as he pointed at where Hermione and her little group of Gryffindors stood watching them.
“Hey Weasley!” called Cadwallader, sauntering up to the center of the Hall, halfway between the Hufflepuffs and the Gryffindors. His smile was easy, but his were shrewd. Hermione remembered seeing him as Chaser on the Hufflepuff team a few years ago, then had to stifle as giggle when she thought of Luna having misidentified him as “Bibble – no, Buggins” during her one time as quidditch commentator.
Ginny nudged Hermione and Jason out of the way and walked up to meet Cadwallader as some Hufflepuffs closed the great oak doors against the deluge outside. She had the good sense to stop a little ways from Cadwallader so she wouldn’t have to crane her neck to look him in the eye.
“Hey!” she said confidently, though the top of her head barely reached his shoulders. “See you got Captain this year.” She nodded at the Captain’s badge pinned to his pullover.
“I heard you did, too. Well done!” said Cadwallader.
“Thanks. You, too.” Hermione knew that the congratulations were genuine, but both Ginny and Cadwallader’s tones were cool bordering on icy.
“How’s the Gryffindor team this year?” Cadwallader asked. “You had tryouts yesterday, right?”
“That’s right.” Ginny shook her long red hair back and put a hand on her hip. “I’d say we’re unbeatable.”
“We’ll just have to test that theory,” Cadwallader replied with a cocky grin.
“I look forward to it.” Hermione could almost feel Ginny’s eyes narrow. Her voice was all challenge, all bravado. She wasn’t going to let Cadwallader intimidate her, even if he had the whole of Hufflepuff standing defiantly behind him.
“Well, see you on the pitch,” said Cadwallader. He let his broom fall from his shoulder and caught it smoothly as he turned to leave. The rest of the Hufflepuffs followed him past the marble staircase to the smaller one leading down to the basement, leaving only muddy footprints and the smell of damp clothes behind.
+++
“I can’t wait for the quidditch season to start,” said Ryan, pulling on a fresh shirt while simultaneously trying to rummage around in his trunk for socks.
“You’re not on the team yet,” Prescott reminded him as he toweled his arms dry.
“Well, I can’t wait for tryouts then,” amended Ryan sourly.
“That’s more like it.” Prescott smirked and grabbed the sweater off his bed. He tugged it over his head and pinned his Captain’s badge to the front.
Draco was tying his shoes when James opened the barrel-round door to the dormitory. He sauntered over to his trunk wearing only a fluffy pink towel around his skinny waist and another twisted up around his hair. Ryan laughed and said, “Hey, James. I like your new hair-do!”
James smiled wryly, but didn’t take the bait. “It’s a zoo in there,” he said instead, and Draco knew he was talking about the Hufflepuff boy’s bathroom. Everyone was trying to shower and get out as quickly as possible before lunch. As it was, he’d had to wait a long while for a free shower stall and by the time he’d left, some of the four-year boys were complaining about all the towels being gone. Draco wondered where James had gotten his two pink towels, but decided he’d rather not know.
“So,” Prescott said, “Anyone seen Smith?”
The mood in the room changed at once. They were all still upset about Smith’s behavior the night before.
“I saw him at breakfast,” offered Justin, who like Draco was fully dressed and sitting on his bed to wait for James, Prescott, and Ryan to finish.
“I mean after that,” said Prescott. Draco looked around the room. Everyone was shaking their heads.
“That’s slightly ominous,” muttered Ryan, then he said, “James, do you think you could pick up the pace a bit?”
“Yeah, sorry!” James pulled off the towel around his waist with a flourish and everyone hurriedly stared in another direction.
“James can’t help he’s so slow,” said Draco, who was gazing fixedly up at the rod of his four-poster, “It’s a Hufflepuff thing. You’re all a bit slow.”
No one laughed. After a second, Draco looked around. They were all staring at him with slightly wounded expressions. James had stopped pulling up his trousers to glare at Draco. Justin didn’t meet his eye.
“What?!” said Draco. They’d been joking around a minute ago. What had he done?
“We’re slow, are we?” said Ryan with a raised eyebrow.
Draco opened his mouth to defend himself, closed it, then tried again. “It was a joke!”
There was a very strained moment. Prescott said, “You’re a Hufflepuff now, too, Draco.” He gave Draco a meaningful look that said very plainly that he’d crossed a line.
“Ok, yeah. You’re right. I’m sorry, guys.” Draco dropped his gaze to his shoes. “Old habits die hard.”
More silence. Then Prescott said, “James. Today!” which broke the tension.
James made an impatient noise. “I’m going, I’m going!” Draco heard a zip as James fastened his trousers. “You can’t rush perfection.” They all laughed a little too jovially to cover up the awkwardness.
Prescott’s sneakers appeared in Draco’s line of vision. “Hey, Draco,” he said quietly as the rest of the boys prepared to leave, “Don’t sweat it. Come on, I’m starving.”
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