The Purist / DRAMIONE (COMPLETE)

Deleterious Delegations

Despite being absolutely exhausted by the increasing workloads set upon them in preparation for their OWLs, and the completely non-existent free time, Hermione was finding that she was seeing Draco more and more out of lessons. It started as quite an irritating thing: Hermione would retreat to the library after tiring lessons, content to settle down and work, when Malfoy would enter and glare until he finally left again. But then Hermione became increasingly aware that his continual coming to the library must have some reason. She had grudgingly noticed that he was almost always behind her as she came first in the year, and that he rarely, like her, ventured outside to get a break from work (he was extremely pale), but she also found that he had a routine. Before school and after school he would visit the library, but at break and lunch, he would rest or relax with his gormless friends: Crabbe, Goyle, Millicent Bulstrode, Daphne Greengrass and Pansy Parkinson.

The day before Halloween, the students competing or hoping to compete in the Triwizard Tournament arrived from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. Durmstrang appeared out of the lake in a sunken ship and Beauxbatons nearly squashed the lookers-on with their giant powder-blue carriage and drawn by a dozen palomino horses, each roughly the size, and probably the weight, of an elephant. It seemed that Ron, instead of being curious about the different schools and their cultures, was only intrigued by the fact that Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian Seeker, was a Durmstrang student. Hermione privately thought that this fact ought to put him off; Durmstrang were rumoured to be deeply intertwined in Dark Magic, but instead Ron just ogled him.

As the Hogwarts pupils paraded back inside, the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs saw, much to their displeasure, that neither of the two schools had settled at their tables, however Durmstrang were sat with the Slytherins (proving the rumour about Dark Magic), looking thoroughly interested and in some ways impressed with the interior of Hogwarts, and the Beauxbatons had ungraciously occupied the Ravenclaw table, spreading a vibe of clearly not wanting to be there. Ron showed his incompetence and complete disregard of foreign cultures when he asked what the bouillabaisse was and then proceeded to ignore it, only feigning his interest again when one of the Beauxbatons' girls came over. She asked whether they had finished with it (Ron went purple) and Harry gave it to her, leaving Ron looking like an idiot.

"She's a Veela!" He said hoarsely to Harry.

"Of course she isn't!" Hermione told him rather tartly. "I don't see anyone else gaping at her like an idiot!"

She was saying it to embarrass Ron further, they both knew that; the girl had attracted lots of attention, particularly from boys as she glided back to her table.

After an introduction to the Triwizard Tournament by Mr Crouch, and a deadline set by Dumbledore for students of age to compete, Fred and George were thinking up ideas to get in. Their firm favourite was an Ageing Potion which Hermione impressed upon the both of them the fact that pupils under seventeen surely hadn't learnt enough, which George quickly dismissed.

"Speak for yourself," he said shortly. "You'll try and get in, won't you, Harry?"

Ron, however, wasn't listening. He was idly working out where Krum was and where he would be sleeping. Hermione felt like saying that Krum, an international Quidditch player as Ron kept insisting, wouldn't want to sleep in a packed dormitory with five boys who were more than two years younger than him, undoubtedly smelly and most definitely immature.