AN #2: I don't own Harry Potter's world and I only write using it for my own development and amusement. However, Caleb Brackner and Danielle Varens are MINE, and I reserve all rights to use them wherever and however I want, which means that no one else has any rights to them. 'Kay. Thanks!
Breakfast was ash.
Well, likely not literally. But it may well have been for the way it felt on Hermione's tongue.
She took another bite.
Nope, still not as delicious as she knew it should be.
Her lack of appetite did not go unnoticed.
"It's not poisoned," Danielle reminded her, glancing up from one of her many romance novels. "You can eat it without grimacing after every bite and feeling around for tacks."
Hermione set down her fork and sighed into her palms.
Danielle put the novel aside expectantly.
"Malfoy walked in on me and Caleb last night."
"OOOOOh...." The blonde recoiled. "And Malfoy's gone to Dumbledore with it?"
"Psh!" The idea hadn't occured to Hermione, but it didn't worry her now that her friend mentioned it. "No. But now Caleb has turned into a sniveling coward."
"Oh...." The younger girl put a sympathetic hand on her knee. "I'm sorry. I know you hoped that maybe he was..."
"Different?" The Head Girl finished with a wry half-smile. "Yeah. But then, I always do, don't I?"
She pushed away from the table and plodded from the Great Hall with her hair in her face.
~*~
"Hermione?" Harry asked, reaching out a hand to touch her as she brushed past him on his way into the Great Hall, but drawing back before he made actual contact. "What's wrong?"
Her silent back offered no response as she continued on as though she hadn't heard him.
Ron grasped his arm.
"Let her go, mate. She's probably just in a mood again."
Harry glanced at Ginny, who shrugged.
"Alright then," he snapped, shaking Ron off peevishly. "I'll be good."
He all but stalked into the Great Hall, his glower deepening when he saw long golden-blonde hair.
"I'll bet you know something about that," he snapped as he took Hermione's vacated seat.
She glared coolly across the top of her book, lips pressed together.
Ginny and Ron exchanged looks as they settled across from the pair.
Even the witch on the cover of the paperback ceased her air-headed posing to eye the two nervously.
"Well?" Harry demanded. He wasn't used to such hostility from his friends. Well, his best friend's friend whom he'd gladly see at the bottom of the Lake.
She slowly turned her head to face him. A beat passed, then two, before an arsenic-sweet smile split her face.
"Harry, I will tell you what that was about once, and only once you grow a pair of balls."
She ignored the affront of the Boy Who Triumphed and returned her attentions to her romance novel.
Ron snickered.
Ginny covered her mouth with her hand.
Harry resembled a thundercloud, the lightning bolt standing livid on his visage.
"Why, you..." he growled, unable to think of something bad enough to call her that she wouldn't take as a compliment.
"Or you could ask Hermione, the one you're so concerned about," the infuriating Frenchwoman suggested, condescension dripping, not bothering to glance up. "That would be innovative."
Ginny and Ron studied their plates, shoulder shaking.
Fine. They were just as bad as she was.
Harry shoved away from the table and stalked from the Great Hall, muttering darkly.
That horrible, awful girl was making his life miserable.
If he'd bothered to look back, he'd have seen Danielle looking over her shoulder, a small smile playing about her lips.
~*~
"Varens."
She stopped cold on the spot, a tension that had previously been absent tightening the tendons in her neck as she slowly turned to face him. The effect was not unpleasant.
Draco thought, not for the first time, that it was shame that she had taken up with Granger and the Gryffindors since her transfer from Beauxbatons. She was, after all, a pureblood, and a beautiful one at that. She was tall, slender, with breasts just slightly too large for her frame, with long wheat-blonde hair and skin bronzed from the Mediterranean sun.
It didn't hurt that she wore her shirts slightly tighter than was strictly necessary.
"Malfoy." She greeted him less than warmly, her slight French accent doing nothing to belay the chill of her attitude. "What do you want?"
He let her see his eyes rake up her body and smirked. He should really trade-mark that expression.
"Well...."
"Oh, please," she rolled her eyes, tossing her head. "Yeah, you stopped to tell me you think I'm wank material. Duh. Old news." Varens gave him a smirk nearly as good as his own coupled with a disdainful scan of his body. "What do you really want, you prat?"
Draco found a new spark of respect for the girl. Noted: Not a pushover.
It was enough for him to be earnest with her.
He turned slightly and offered his arm.
"Walk with me."
She eyed him with suspicion, but slipped into a comfortable escort position, matching his steps as they began to stroll.
"So...."
His lips tugged up at the corners.
"So?" He couldn't resist taunting.
Varens gave him a bored look and the spark of respect was fanned.
"Whatever it is you want, I don't have to help you, you know," she informed him flatly. "In fact, I probably won't."
He shrugged lightly as they strolled out onto the lawn, the sunshine washing over them. It was a lovely Saturday, though hints of storm clouds could be seen at the edge of the Lake.
"I know. But it's not certain until I try, now is it?"
She nodded acknowledgement and the pair fell silent.
Draco drank in the sunshine, the nature, the students playing games as the promenaded past, chattering, studying, but Varens's eyes remained locked on his face, her expression perturbed.
He was much more interesting than another beautiful day.
Only when they came to a rest on a dock on the Lake, far from the other students, did Draco finally speak again, his gaze somewhere across the waves.
"I need you to help me become friends with Granger."
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