Chapter #8The lions in mid-to-late-fall. Not quite winter by: theskin   Draco felt yet another pang of contempt for his duo of tedious henchmen. This was what these dullards had been complaining about ? Seeing the curves of the quirky ravenclaw girl in the mirror, her plump thighs, her dainty feet, the hint of cleavage underneath the sweater... You had to be stupid not to love it.
Though he wasn't exactly surprised at the news that Crabbe & Goyle were stupid either. But in his own way, Draco had to admit he was a little stupid too. Too much quidditch, too much time being Snape or Umbridge's lapdog, too much prancing around relying on his father... He'd fallen behind that deplorable muggleborn Granger. The girl had trained Potter for the Triwizard tournament, held DADA classes for three dozen students, and had aced all her OWLs. He had to admit if there was a single student smarter, more hardworking than him in all of Hogwarts, it was her.
Luckily for him, Malfoy was a Slytherin. He didn't need hard work (the province of Hufflepuffs and muggleborns) or smarts (which he was quite happy to leave to the Ravenclaws) or even the cloying can-do attitude of the Gryffindors. He could just take a shortcut.
**********************************
Minutes later, "Luna Lovegood" was let in by a very helpful Gryffindor third year into the Lion Den, the Gryffindor common room. A rather tasteless expanse of red tapestries and carpet flooring, with an oversized fireplace and gold gilting everywhere. Of course they decorate like Nouveau Riches . Spotting Granger across the room, Malfoy made his way to her in a deliberately Luna-esque manner, with ungainly steps followed by strange dance-like moves. He'd never thought he'd paid this much attention to the girl before, yet somehow he found it very easy to imitate her. The lack of surprise on Granger's face told him this was working. Perhaps he really was gifted.
"Hermione" he said, dragging the H
"Luna, what brings you in our common room ? Looking for Ginny ? I think she's at-"
"Quidditch practice, with Harry & Ron" he replied quickly, proud of his timing. "I was looking for you" He paused and looked in the distance
"..."
"..."
"You were looking for me for ?"
"Oh ? Ah yes, that. I was thinking of wrackspurts. Do you know they—" the look of annoyance on Granger's face was priceless, he'd never be suspected in a million years at this rate. "Anyhow. Ginny told me you're good with practical magic. My father has a friend in Paraguay with a vanishing cabinet, and we have the other one, but they're both broken. I was wondering if you could take a look at this, I know you take runes too" He then handed her a clump of notes, all rewritten in Luna's handwriting (he didn't know how he'd picked that up either. He really must've been some sort of genius all along at things like this)
Hermione frowned as she looked through the notes. She looked both puzzled and pleasantly surprised.
"Luna, that's actually pretty decent magicogonometry you've got going on. Especially for a fifth year"
Draco pursed his stolen lips "Maybe, but i'd prefer to spend more time looking for crumple-tailed snorkacks"
"Weren't they crumple-horned ?" Asked Hermione, cursing herself for getting into the subject
"Different ones. The crumple-horned are native to here, the others could be in. Uh."
"In Paraguay"
"Right"
"Right"
Hermione was staring at the notes intently now, with the look of a cat lovingly eyeing a mouse.
"Tell you what, come back on Thursday and i'll have the whole instructions laid out for you, but in the meantime..." At that, she jotted down four short lines in runic on a slip of paper. "This should keep your father busy until then, he forgot to delineate the range of the vanishing point, and there are standard safety runes lacking. The rest... Well, if you could write this much, you'll probably understand it"
"Thanks Hermione. My father will hear about this" said "Luna" with a chipper smirk. "Guess i'll see you in a week. Don't approach me until then, i'll be allergic to cats for the following week. Part of the usual cronopios treatment. You understand"
"Never will" said Hermione, already back on her notes.
"Luna" made her way to the door. (s)he still had two good hours left of transformation. (s)he'd won. But an urge stopped her in her tracks. (s)he bit her lip.
"Actually" said the fake Luna, returning to Hermione, splayed in her armchair "i just realized it'd be very rude not to thank you for your time. Can I borrow some of your hair to weave you a wrackspurt ward ?"
The look of disgust mixed with affection was evident on Granger's face. By Merlin, Malfoy had rarely enjoyed himself this much. But he still wanted that hair.
"I'll add in a flower and a pearl or whatever if you want it to look nice. I guess you could have it as a bracelet instead of tying it around your nose" (s)he added, trying her best not to cackle.
Granger rolled her eyes for a second, then took a pair of scissors in her pencil case and cut a small length of hair at the nape of her neck. For some reason, the view of the mudblood's neck, the way she'd moved during that brief instant, her fingers laying in her stolen hand as she gave him a lock of hair... Draco was flustered. Though he reasoned it probably was Luna's body acting up. Strange girl body. Probably hormones. He faintly realized that somewhere out there, time had elapsed and that someone's body was blushing terribly in the face parts. And that someone else (Granger) was looking very intently at her. Feeling too awkward to say anything meaningful, "Luna" scampered off with a measly "Seeyouonthursdaybye" and headed for the door, where she bumped into...   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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