Blinded by the Walls | Dramione

Chocolate Production and Umbridge: Malfoy's All-Time Favorite Discussion Topics

A/N: Another update this week, as promised <3

Before opening the door, she took a deep breath and tried to summon her almost non-existent inner Hermione. She thought of some moments of her early years, of them getting almost bit by Fluffy or punching Malfoy square in the face. It never ceased to make her laugh. She had never dreamed of punching anyone before, and it wasn't a secret that she actually enjoyed it. Even the portraits could tell.

She transfigured the chair into a fluffy rug and lay on it. She had seen the laying on-the-floor method during a therapy session in a rom-com she had watched over the summer, and there was something highly inviting about it. Somehow expressing emotions while lying down seemed more comfortable than doing it while sitting. She didn't truly understand the psychology behind it, but maybe it was because people tended to be more defenseless while they lay down. Since the action was often tied to sleep, which is usually when people are in their most vulnerable state, it was hard to be defensive when your consciousness escaped to who knows where.

Her head hurt, though, so she transfigured a napkin in her pocket into a pillow. Much better, she thought, laying her head on the soft surface.

She heard him enter the room and take a seat.

"You should try lying down," she spoke, "It's more comfortable."

"What?" His tone was bitter.

"Transfigure your chair into a bed or a rug and lay on it," she explained.

Draco didn't know where this was coming from, but the oddity of it intrigued him. So he tried it out, transfiguring it into a Slytherin green carpet, and cast a silencing charm while laying on it, so she didn't think that he actually complied with her request, "No thanks," he said, taking off his jacket and playing it to his side. He had never noticed the color of the ceiling before. It was black. He would've assumed that it would be marble white.

She was going to blurt out, 'You're loss,' but she refrained from doing so. Her intention wasn't to irritate him by driving him away with a snarky comment. It was to get him to open up that heavily sealed mouth of his. His mouth proved to be more difficult to break into than the most elite wizarding families' vaults.

"Yeah, I guess it's a stupid idea," she shrugged, which made him raise his brow. He wasn't expecting a comment like that, but he didn't dwell on it much.

His mind kept going back to what had happened earlier today. What was going on with her? She was acting like a mental person–not that she already wasn't one—but this was too much, even for her.

The buttoned up like a nun Granger he had known since first grade barely wore anything today. The change was drastic, and it didn't seem normal. She was obviously trying to get attention, but why now? Male attention or validation had never seemed to bother her before, at least not before the war. He had never even seen her flirt with a bloke from having her nose buried in those damn books all day. Talks and words were going around, some people fancying her, but their desire was never enough to take action. They merely talked about her bum, which he had–accidentally–caught sight of once or twice. The symmetry and curve angle were proportioned to each other, but it was nothing out of this world.

He shook his head, not understanding why his thoughts even lingered on these matters in the first place.

Regret coursed through him, he wanted to hex that McLaggen fucker into oblivion, but that would've not ended well for him. Hexing McLaggen was not why he would end up in Azkaban out of everything. It would ridicule the whole Malfoy family line–not that it wasn't already, but there was no need to add more.

"Everything feels so dull lately," she smiled, lying on her side, "I don't know what I'm feeling anymore. Sometimes I scream when I actually want to laugh, and then I cry and laugh–-and no, I'm not on my period–thank you for not asking. I don't know. It's all so messed up but perfect, grainy, sandy skies, rainbows, and bullshit. I must not tell lies. Of course not. I must tell lies, fuck that pink-dressed whore, with her harem of cats. Those weird plates in her room keep turning round and round, all of them with weird cats meowing on them. They look like they undertook a heavy mutation. She should research Darwin's evolution theory because her cats were weird...."

Draco listened to her with his mouth slightly agape. What the fuck was she on about? He couldn't deal with two mad women on the same day.

He would've preferred dealing with the first one. He couldn't figure out what Granger was feeling. She seemed like she was enjoying herself most of the time, but then that haunting image of her not allowing herself to choke out the water that was engulfed in her lungs came into mind. She seemed ready to die that day, as much as he was, and it didn't matter if it was Granger. No one should feel that way, especially not her, after everything she had done.

He knew that he deserved to die. He was a coward and hurt so many people in the process, but she deserved to live. It didn't matter how much he hated her—he wasn't even sure if he had ever actually hated her—that girl did more than that sodding Potter could ever dream of. They would've died as early as the first year if she wasn't insisting on always finding a loophole and fulfilling that goddamn hero complex of hers.

Granger wanted to die while this girl complained about Umbridge's cat obsession. What a waste of time. He returned his focus to her monologue, curious she was still trailing off about those cats.

"The production starts with harvesting cocoa in a forest. Cocoa comes from tropical evergreen Cocoa trees, which grow in the wet lowland tropics of Central and South America, West Africa, and Southeast Asia. Cocoa needs to be harvested manually in the forest. The seed pods of coca will first be collected; the beans will be selected and placed in piles. These cocoa beans will then be ready to be shipped to the manufacturer for mass production...Cocoa beans grow in pods that sprout off of the trunk and branches of cocoa trees. The pods are about the size of a quafffle. The pods start out green and turn orange when they're ripe. When the pods are ripe, harvesters travel through the cocoa orchards with machetes and gently hack the pods off the trees...Undergo the fermentation processing—"

"Why are you talking me through the process of making chocolate?"

She was so lost in her recital that she didn't even hear him, "They are either placed in large, shallow, heated trays or covered with large banana leaves. If the climate is right, they may be simply heated by the sun," he rolled his eyes, wondering how bored someone must be to not only learn but fucking memorize this. The girl was truly unbelievable, which isn't intended in a good way. He wanted to tell her to shut up, but he couldn't deal with another session of her bickering. Who knows, she would now recite the process of wine-making to annoy his guts, "Then, workers periodically stir them up, so the beans come out equally fermented. During fermentation is when the beans turn brown. This process may take five or eight days...Firstly, fermented and dried cocoa beans will be refined to a roasted nib by winnowing and roasting. Then, they will be heated and will melt into chocolate liquor...."

This had definitely made the list of one of the strangest conversations he'd had in his life. Maybe the spirit of his dead aunt had possessed her and inflicted insanity on her. Then he dismissed the thought. Bellatrix would never be interested in knowing such a thing.

"Lastly, they blend chocolate liquor with sugar and milk to add flavor. After the blending process, the liquid chocolate will be stored...Finally, wrapping and packaging devices will pack the chocolates, and then they will be ready to transport," she stopped to catch a breath. She had memorized this in the summer after second grade and was surprised how she still knew it by heart. The war hadn't taken the making of muggle chocolate out of her mind either. She laughed at her own madness.

"My day didn't go the way I planned," she said after a couple of minutes of silence. If he were honest, he didn't care to know why. He solely wanted to figure out why Granger shared his interest in death. It might have been a momentary urge that day, but he was still compelled to find out. 

A/N: Comments are love. It never ceases to make my day xx