A Forbidden Birthright

Chapter Twelve

The next day at school, Hermione began to set the plans for her dinner party, seeking out Ginny in between classes and telling her about her birthday arrangements. She didn't mention, of course, the truth about Caspian. That knowledge was to stay between her, Nikolai, and Draco, even if Draco thought it was only the two of them who knew. Ginny was delighted by the idea, excited that Hermione had decided finally to celebrate her twenty-eighth birthday. Until her conversation with Nikolai the day before, Hermione's only intention was to go out to a pub with Ginny. She didn't feel as though there was anything particularly special about turning twenty-eight, and it was only a reminder that she was now two years closer to thirty- and still unattached.

Hermione wasn't opposed to marriage, or children. In fact, she greatly desired a family, but it was a want that seemed to be less important now than her career, and balancing a family and all the writing she had to do, as well as teaching, seemed like a lot to handle. This reassured her that being a single woman was perfect for her at the moment. Her mother, however, never failed to worm in a question about Hermione's love life- or lack of one- into their conversations. She was almost prepared to tell her she had started bedding a woman just to get her to shut up.

Towards the end of the day, after finding Hagrid out by his hut and telling him she was planning a get-together for her birthday, she finally ran into Draco in the halls before the last class on her schedule. He wore a particularly austere expression on his face today, and his hair was unusually mussed and out of place. She almost liked him better this way. Somewhere in the back of her mind, amidst her dislike for him, an intrusive thought about how it would look mussed by her own hands filtered to the front; she shook it off, mortified.

"What's the sour face for?" She taunted.

He responded with a glare and a clench of his jaw before saying tightly, "It seems some of my students found it amusing to attempt to pull a prank on me today."

"Are they still alive?" Hermione asked, half serious, half joking.

"Barely," he said thinly. "It was everything I could do not to use a transfiguration spell on them."

"What was the prank?"

"They tried turning my clothes inside out. Why they would risk something so stupid is beyond me. It's not even a good jinx," Draco replied. "So I used the langlock jinx on them."

"They won't be able to speak," Hermione objected, thinking of all the answers they'd miss in class.

"Yes, that is the point of using a jinx that causes one's tongue to adhere to the roof of their mouth. The silence is," he closed his eyes briefly, "blissful."

"Malfoy, you have to reverse it. They have to be able to speak."

"This is a school," he retorted, scowling. "They should learn themselves. Isn't that the point? They're lucky I didn't hex them."

She didn't bother trying to correct him. Malfoy would do as he pleased and anybody trying to change his course would only be ignored. If any of his actions caused actual harm, then she or another teacher would step in. This was relatively harmless, perhaps a bit unethical, but less so than a transfiguration spell. She wondered if he had been inspired by the memory of being turned into a ferret.

Glancing around, she took him by the elbow and pulled him into a shadowed corner of the corridor, out of the way of rushing students and teachers. Voice lowered, she said, "I've had an idea. About Caspian."

His eyes narrowed at his name and he said, "I did not think you to be so half-witted as to mention his name here." Then he sneered. "Do you want to be caught? Is that it?" He leaned forward, a glint in eyes as he whispered harshly, "Does that excite you?"