The Seventh Year (Dramione Fanfiction)

Chapter 6 - Rumours

Disclaimer - don't own characters x
————————————————

'Did you hear? Malfoy and Granger up together after curfew! Who'd have thought?'

Hermione held her books closer to her chest and sped past the crowd of 5th years to her class. She had been trying to ignore the stupid rumours - obviously they were far from the truth. Hermione had no clue who'd started them, certainly Harry wouldn't do that to her, and he'd promised her that he hadn't done it - but completely changed the subject when she'd asked if he knew who had. She'd been going over every possible person for days now, they have to be close enough to Harry that he wouldn't tell Hermione, and they definitely couldn't be anyone from either hufflepuff or ravenclaw. The thought that it could have been Ron was annoyingly wedged in her brain - but surely he wouldn't be so cruel.

"Miss Granger if you are that uninterested you may as well not have come to my class." Professor Sprout chided, waving one hand infront of Hermione's face and holding the greenhouse door open with the other.

"Oh! Sorry Professor!" Hermione stammered, hurrying inside and setting her books down on the nearest table.

A collective shock of whispers made Hermione look up - only to realise every pair of eyes in the room except for the teachers' were on her and the person next to her. She immediately noted that there were no icy grey ones, which could only mean one thing...

~

It was as if Hermione wanted them to assume the pair were together! What, with her waltzing into the greenhouse late and then daring to drop her books beside him. Draco scowled down at her until she finally noticed he was even there. Why else would they have been staring? It wasn't as if Hermione was anything to look at. Draco watched, seething, as Hermione fumbled to move all her belongings over to a different table - by now even professor sprout was watching the scene unfold.

"Aww, help her!" Came a faint whisper from beside Draco, causing him to whirl around and meet the mischievous eyes of Blaise Zabini.

"Why don't you." Draco hissed back, his voice dripping with venom.

"Oh that was a real good one, Drake." Blaise mocked, completely unintimidated by the tone of the blonde's voice.

"Shutup, Blaise." Draco spat, clearly unhappy about giving everyone more reason to create rumours, "Anyway, once this lesson is over i'm going to-"

"Quiet!" Professor Sprout's shrill voice called over the chatter that had erupted, silencing the class.

Mere minutes later, the lesson had gotten underway, but Draco had managed to find an excuse to go near enough to Hermione that he could drop a note in her bag. Although the action was incredibly subtle, there was one pair of eyes that didn't miss it, and no doubt there would be much more to talk about then just the pair choosing desks beside each other that night in the common room.

~

'We need to talk.
      Tonight, 10pm exactly.
  At the owlery.
                                  DM'

Hermione's eyes scanned the page over and over as she tried to assume why he wanted to talk. There were two major reasons, either he wanted to talk about when she'd caught him crying, or (the more likely reason), Draco wanted to yell at her for being so foolish and choosing a table next to his own in herbology. Hermione checked the clock once more-
9:42pm
She decided it would be best to head off now, so that she was there on time, as the note had requested. She also was planning on taking a longer route so that she had time to think about how she could possibly excuse her thick mind for completely blanking that morning and just sitting wherever. One thing was for sure, Draco hadn't called her up to the owlery for a tea party and a peace offering...