Love Is The Darkest Art

Part 33: The New Granger

Scene 54:

Ron Weasley woke with a start. The nightmare had brought him awake so quick he nearly fell out of bed. He'd never dreamed of getting married before, and certainly not to Hermione Granger. Man, that would be horrible, he thought. Me and Hermione, what the hell? I mean she's my friend, but she can be so irritating sometimes.

Part of him didn't want to grasp the dream before it faded. He just wanted to let the images go far away from him as possible. But it had been so vivid, a wedding ceremony on the grounds of Hogwarts. Nearly everyone had been there with the strange exception of his brothers Fred and George. Harry was the best man and Luna Lovegood had been the maid of honor, which to Ron was a whole other nightmare unto itself. He couldn't see how Hermione and Luna had ever become close friends. But stranger than that was the wedding guest at the back of the crowd on the Hogwarts lawn. Draco Malfoy. The Slytherin always had trouble blending in with the crowd, but here he truly stood out. While other boys looked happy, and the girls were in joyful tears, Draco looked....haunted. His eyes held an excruciating sadness that Ron had never seen before, as if he had been banished to a lifetime of loneliness. But what got Ron about this dream was the fact Draco was staring at Hermione, his unhappy eyes unable to look away. And when Ron looked at his almost bride she was looking back at Draco with equal sorrow. And crying. But all girls cry at weddings, Ron told himself. Especially the bride. So why had she released his hand and fought her way through the crowd toward our most hated enemy?

Ron shook his head, and would never know, because he'd jolted awake just as Hermione reached Draco, not to slap him, but to collapse into his open arms. Weasley never understood dreams. Stupid things they were. And so he pushed the thoughts away and went down to breakfast with everyone else. No one, not even Ron himself, realized the first people he tried to look for were a certain Gryffindor girl and Slytherin boy.

For Hermione, the Gryffindor girl in question, the night before hadn't been full of nightmares, but pleasant dreams. In them, she and Draco had been making love everywhere it seemed. The library, the tower, the forest, and even in the midst of herbology class. She had awoke sweating and flustered, instantly glad dreams were private things your friends couldn't see. For in the real world, her romance with Draco Malfoy was still secret, and as for lovemaking, it hadn't progressed that far. They had made out plenty, sure, but never made love. Yet. She smiled at this thought as she passed the door of the astronomy tower on the way to breakfast. Sometimes i just want to run away and make love everyday too, Draco. But first, breakfast, she giggled. If anyone had seen her at that moment they would have thought her as weird as Luna Lovegood, as crazy as Mad eye Moody.

In the Great Hall, she sat down beside Ron and Harry. "Hi guys," she said and belched. Harry nearly spat his oatmeal across the table. Ron looked at her as if she'd just declared herself two hundred months pregnant. Then both boys broke up laughing. Harry looked at Hermione.

"Well, looks like somebody is happy this morning," he declared.

"I am," she confessed.

"So give it," Ron said. "You getting married or something?" Once he said it, he realized how stupid it sounded, but apparently his dream wouldn't leave him alone.

"No," she replied with a slight flush to her cheeks. "I'm spending the holidays skiing!"

Both boys frowned just a little. It was a little bit of a letdown after that glorious man sized belch. Harry recovered first and patted her on the back. "Well, that's great. I've never been myself. The Dursleys would rather I just stay out of sight and under the stairs for Christmas."

No one laughed for they knew it to be true. "I'm going to see if you can spend it at my house," Ron suggested. "I think Ginny has asked mom if Cho Chang can stay over, too."

Harry's head whipped his head around so fast his glasses nearly flew off. "What??"

Ron laughed and slapped the tabletop with his hand.  "Nah, I'm just kidding. Man, the look on your face was priceless!"

Hermione tried to hold her laughter in, but was having trouble. "That was a good one. But seriously Harry, if you haven't noticed, someone placed mistletoe down the back aisle of the library. You should get Cho under there."

Harry looked at her in astonishment. "Hermione!"

"Well, you should," she said with a smile. "Time is nothing to waste, a kiss is everything to taste."

"Oh my, where did you get that from??" Ron was astounded. "Never heard you spout poems before."

"Just because I don't say it, doesnt mean I don't like them."

The wheels started turning in Ron's head. So, she likes poery, but never revealed it to her friends before. What if she likes a guy she's never revealed to her friends before, too? Thinking of his dream, it became obvious it was no mere nightmare; it was a moment of divination.

And then, as if fate were to prove a point, Draco was standing right behind Hermione. "Heard about your Christmas plans, mudlood," he sneered. "Surprised your parents can afford it as they send you to school every year in the same clothes."

Hermione turned. "It's called a school uniform, Fake-O," she replied, sneering back. "I hear your mom and dad vacation alone because you're so intolerable. I'm surprised they ever come back." With a flip of her hair, she grinned wickedly, pleased with herself.

Draco didn't appear pleased at all. "Oh ha-ha, funny. We'll see who's laughing when I'm opening presents and all you get is a sock with a hole in it."

"Wow, brilliant. Sure can tell you're a Malfoy. All socks have a hole in them. Right at the top." She paused for effect. "You know, kind of like your head."

"Ooh," said Ron. "Good burn."

Draco turned his angered gaze on Weasley. "Who asked you?"

Harry couldn't help it. This was too good, seeing Hermione get the best of him. "Nobody asked you to eavesdrop either. And the way Pansy is looking over here, I'd say she certainly didn't ask you."

Draco turned his head to look at the Slytherin table. Not only was Pansy frowning, but so were both Greengrass girls. He scowled right back at them, and then resumed his verbal attack on the Gryffindors. Or at least he would have resumed if Hermione hadn't slid her chair back suddenly, nearly knocking the breath out of him.

"Got to go," she declared. "Time's a wasting." She cast her eye on Draco. "And not in a good way either." She shoved her way past him before he could even respond, and waved at both Harry and Ron as she skipped down the row toward the exit.

Harry and Ron both looked at each other. "Got to love the new Granger," Harry said with a grin.

"Yep," agreed Ron, who looked at the verbally bested Draco. "Wouldn't you say so, Malfoy?"

"As if I ever," growled Draco. The apparently embarassed Slytherin stalked away in an exaggerated huff.

Ron watched him go, thinking maybe he'd been wrong. The dream was just a dream, nothing more. There was definitely no love between Hermione and Draco.

For Draco Malfoy, that's all there was between. He smiled to himself as he glided past his headmaster on his way to his seat. "Malfoy," Severus said, placing his hand on the boy's shoulder. Draco stopped, as the tall man glared down at him. "You know nothing good will come of this," Snape said, in a tone only Malfoy could hear.

"Come of what, sir?"

Snape wanted to laugh, but it came out like a sinister snort. "Your father would wish you'd focus as much on your studies, as you do on...her."

Draco didn't look at his headmaster. To look into the man's eyes would acknowledge the truth. Severus didn't seem to care though, for his message was clear. Stop chasing after a girl, and get back on track, for he was going to be needed in the days ahead...