o7. Duties

"Blaise, I do think that you need a trip to the hospital wing," announced Draco.

Blaise looked at him with a sheepish grin on his face. "No, I'm sure I can cast a spell for my–"

"I insist," Draco said, and many people got the feeling that icy water was being poured down their backs. Blaise felt like it had snowed ten feet and he'd fallen asleep outside.

"… then, I'll be off… alone…" Blaise chirped hopefully (as chirpily as one can, with a broken nose and an angry Slytherin), making for the door.

"It's quite all right," Draco said faux-pleasantly, catching up to him easily.

"No, no, really, I can–" Blaise broke off his squeaking when he saw Draco's… 'grin'. "Um, very nice… teeth… you've got there."

"You may admire them on our way to the hospital wing."

Blaise gulped.

o

"It was Pansy's idea," Blaise said quickly, delegating the blame nicely, when he was settled into a bed and Draco looked at least a little calmer.

"What?!" Pansy protested. "You were the one who suggested it when Astoria came."

"Yeah, but you made the idea properly."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Shut up!" Draco finally yelled.

Pansy stuck her tongue out at Blaise, who was suddenly blind to her.

"Anyway, I didn't mean it. You lot got so… so worked up about it. He didn't have to punch me," Blaise complained.

"What the hell? Do you think this is all a joke?" stormed Draco, pacing up and down as Madam Pomfrey went to look for some bandages. She could have very easily summoned them, but the old matron knew it was best to be out of sight when wizarding students were angry. After all, getting one's hair turned into teal straw twice is quite enough for a lifetime, thank you very much.

"Well, I thought you would catch on, didn't I?"

"If you're going to act, don't act so sodding… well."

Blaise smirked. "It was surprisingly easy to get mad at you."

"You were supposed to defend her, obviously," Pansy said, and this time it was her doing the drawling.

The accusation stung. So, instead, he snapped, "Why would I want to do that?"

"Because you fancy her," said Pansy in the same matter-of-fact tone.

Draco gritted his teeth. "I. Do not. Fancy. Granger." (He said this keeping his teeth gritted-ed, which was quite a feat on it's own.)

"Maybe not yet, but it's happening," she said, refusing to believe him.

"What, you know what it feels like to fall for Granger?"Draco said sarcastically.

"Well–"

"I know what this is," he suddenly declared.

"You do?"

"Yes, I do. I've stopped being such a git to Granger, and you lot think it's because I fancy her, don't you?" Draco said.

"Exactly!" Blaise chimed obliviously. Pansy had a sudden gut-reflex to slap her forehead. Like the way your knee goes up when you hit it.

"Granger is still a Mudblood, and nothing has changed," he said callously.

"Then why were you doing… doing – what were you doing?"

Draco didn't reply.

"Astoria said that you were… horny?"

"She said what?!" Pansy spluttered.

Draco choked.

"I thought – it was a–a – something innocent, not… uh–" said Pansy, trying not to imagine Draco attempting to do Granger mischief in the hallways.

"Astoria is going to–"

"– it's bad enough that you fancy her –"

"– it wasn't –"

"Oh, no, wait. She said he had horns," Blaise said off-handedly.

"That makes more sense," Pansy breathed.

"Why?"

"He's too much of a girl to get horny."

"Oh, I'd never thought of that. Absolutely," Blaise agreed enthusiastically.

Draco had been, quite quietly, making his way over to the side of Blaise's bed. A bedside table sat, guess where? On the side of the bed, and on that, sat a glass of water. He picked it up, ignoring Blaise's protests of how he would have to take his medicine dry, and pretended to drink it.

Pretended being the keyword.

"I'm so sorry, Madame Pomfrey," called Draco, "I appear to have slipped."

"What – oh, dear!" the nurse exclaimed, as she hurried out from behind a curtain and was greeted by a rather damp Blaise. "Well, please make sure that you don't slip again, Mr. Malfoy," she said, with just a hint of suspicion.

Plastering the most genuine expression on his face (looking a lot like Peeves, but no one need tell him that), Draco said, "I'll be sure to watch my step next time."

"He threw the water at me!"

"Now, now. Don't fight."

"I wasn't –"started Blaise, then he stopped, sighed angrily and flopped back onto the bed. "Bloody unfair," he muttered.

o

While Hermione attempted to make her face return to normal, Ron held out a handkerchief to her and decided that why yes, indeed, the wooden tables do actually have a very nice finishing.

"Even though I shouldn't say thank you for punching a student in the face, thanks Ron, Harry," she said, and had somewhat succeeded in her goal of returning to normal.

"'S all right," replied Harry, turning slightly pink. He thought of mentioning that his hand hurt now, but figured that that would taint the current manliness of his position.

"I'm going to go check up on Zabini," she sighed, after a prolonged Moment of Silence.

To his credit, Ron tried to not look so genuinely shocked. "Why?"

"Duties of a Head Girl, and teacher."

When she'd left, Ron turned to Harry with a forlorn look. "Bloody duties. Duties to her mum. Duties to her dad. Duties to her books. Duties to her studies. Duties to the school. Duties to her cat. Duties of a student. Duties… duties of being Hermione. She should just off and marry them, shouldn't she?"

"There wouldn't be enough fingers for all the rings," Harry pointed out, rather unnecessarily.

They had missed the death threat hanging on her words.

o

"Oh, brilliant. Now the entire room's infected," said Draco, as she poked her head in.

Hermione scowled at him. "Piss off, Malfoy," she said.

"I was joking," he drawled. Annoyingly. Infuriatingly. Frustratingly. Irritatingly.

"I'm here to talk to Zabini," she said in a business-like tone.

"Don't wanna."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't want to talk to you," Blaise articulated.

"You had an awful lot to say just now, didn't you?" she snapped.

"Yeah, well, that was just now."

"'That was just now?'" Hermione asked incredulously, "So now it's all fine and dandy?"

"… ye-es."

"No," she said finally, "I refuse to be at the end of your petty Slytherin mood swings. Just now, I was too shocked by your bloody gall to reply, but now…"

Draco watched as Granger took a deep breath, and knew to duck and cover. He slinked into the shadows, safely out of sight, while the Granger-wrath was unleashed.

"How dare you disrupt the class like that! You bloody inconsiderate piece of snake's crap, I'm going to deduct twenty points for misconduct and being a worthless git to basically – basically everyone and–"

"Twenty points? And what about you, for being late?" Blaise interrupted angrily.

"Like you would've preferred having the lesson for an hour over having free time with your friends!" she shot back. "You think I really want to teach – teach morons like you who can't tell a red piece of plastic from a green piece of plastic?! I'd completely prefer it if you weren't in my Monopoly class, but there's nothing I can do about it, so if you've got such an issue with it then ask Dumbledore yourself or you can just bloody well shut up."

Blaise's mouth opened and closed.

"Yes, that's a good job," Hermione snorted, and then walked away.

"Draco," Blaise said slowly, "this is all your fault."

an; Yes. This is so short compared to the other chapters - I'm very, annoyingly, glaringly aware of that. It's also incredibly forced. And the last chapter was way too dramatic, wasn't it? Overbearingly so? I can't tell. Honestly. Ugh. Please tell me.

So, I'm just going to give you guys this half-a-chapter for now. Would you prefer if they came in shorter (like these) updates, but more frequently, or the usual ones, but... obviously, less frequently?

And thank you so much for all your reviews! 80 in 6 chapters! That's... I would whistle, but a) I can't, and b) you wouldn't hear it/care. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside and gives me the delusion that I'm popular, which would make me happy, which would make me write faster? Gettit?

/begging.