39. Chapter 39: Draco

Whoa whoa whoa... it's been a while, hasn't it? This fic is on the verge of completion, which is why I've updated now rather than later. I'm trying to motivate myself to write by not letting myself start any new fics until this one is finished. Oh, and this is probably going to be the 2nd-to-last chapter unless I go mad and decide to add more stuff. New fics, here I come! x3

Btw, I leeched another idea from Owl Posts by Farangis. Honestly, that fic is starting to grow on me. It gets better every time I read it. x.x"

PS: I take so long between updates that I tend to forget what happened in previous chapters. So if somehow my timeline of events doesn't quite make sense, then just blame my memory problems. I'm also lazy which is why I don't bother rereading my chapters...

& after a surprisingly short amount of time of writing, I present to you...

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10 Ways to Kill Draco Malfoy

Chapter 39

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DRACO

Before I forget, I must say that last night was great. Well, they always said it was the bookish types who were the best in bed. I never used to believe that saying but now I'm having second thoughts.

And it's hard to imagine that it had been Hermione's first time. Either she'd been doing some research or she was a gifted natural.

Ahem. Anyway... moving on.

I open my eyes and stare up at the now familiar white ceiling of the Hospital Wing. Yes, that's right. I'm back here again. For the umpteenth time. I could almost call this place my second dormitory.

I roll over, grimacing as a streak of pain shoots through my head like lightning. I gingerly touch my forehead, where a thick plaster resides. I peel it off and feel the skin. Perfect. Madam Pomfrey may be a fussy old woman, but she sure knows her recovery spells.

At that moment, the door bursts open, and I barely catch a glimpse of the intruder's thick brown curls before they rush over to me and envelop me in a tight hug. "Draco! Are you alright? How's your head?" Hermione screeches in a most un-Hermione-like way.

I decide to play with her a little. "Who are you?" I say, putting on a blank expression. "Where am I? Who am I?"

She stops dead in her tracks. "D-Draco?" she asks shakily. "Do you have amnesia? I'm Hermione! Your girlfriend!" She starts muttering about how it was all her fault that I hit my head hard enough to shake my brain and make me forget everything. Again she hugs me, and plants a kiss on my lips. "It's me. You'd better remember or I'll clobber you until you do."

I am not particularly in favour of a beating so I start to smirk. "Of course I remember you, Hermione. I was just kidding. I don't have amnesia. I'm perfectly fine. See?" I point to my forehead, which shows no sign of ever having a huge cut in the middle of it. "I've just got a headache. That's all. Nothing to worry about."

Unfortunately, Hermione does not seem to care and stares at me with a funny look on her face. Then she grabs a nearby pillow and proceeds to smother me. "Take that! That's for making me worry! Do you have any idea how scared I was after you hit your head and got knocked out? And this is how you repay me for my trouble! By pretending to forget me! ARGH!"

OK, so that was a ill-humoured prank. I'm starting to have trouble thinking of ways to apologize to her due to lack of oxygen. I grab at her arm and she lifts the pillow up, a glare on her face as I take in deep breaths. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry. Just stop trying to kill me. Do you know how much my head hurts already without you helping it?" I lift my hands up in front of my face in defense.

She turns pale. "My bad. I just got... so annoyed." Then she smiles. "You can have the honour of knowing that you're the only one who can make me feel that way."

"Thanks," I say dryly, smiling despite myself. Inside, my ego is inflating like a balloon being pumped.

She drags a chair over from a nearby corner and sits down beside me. "Oh, that's right. Your friends told me to bring you this." She smirked as she brought out a bag containing all kinds of sweets, a few bottles of butterbeer and a copy of PlayWizard. I feel myself going pink, and snatch it off her quickly and place it on the bedside table on the opposite side of where Hermione is sitting. "There's no need to be embarrassed... after all, I have two guys as best friends. You get used to things like that after a while."

I roll my eyes and tactfully go on to a new subject to prevent more awkwardness on my side. "Tell me... how did you get me down here without anyone finding out what we were up to? I mean, I wasn't even dressed when I went unconscious."

To my surprise, she flushed bright red. "I, uh... I had to dress you. Then I carried you downstairs and found McGonagall... and you can work out the rest."

"And she didn't find the fact that we were up alone on the Astronomy Tower strange?" I say, raising an eyebrow in amusement.

"I made up an excuse. A lame one, but then again it's not like I stuck around long enough for her to get suspicious." She smiled. "Thanks to someone I'm getting good at making up excuses."

We talk for a while longer, and then she leaves to go to the Great Hall for lunch.

I stare at the ceiling again. Sigh. I should be in the Great Hall with everyone else, but no. Instead I'm stuck in the bloody Hospital Wing. Damn Hermione for surprising me with her declaration of love. It wasn't a bad moment, but I was in a bad place. But I find that I don't feel angry at her at all. After all, she did say she loved me. Which is pretty amazing considering Hermione Granger said it to Draco Malfoy.

Bored, I decide to try getting out of bed. Gingerly I sit up, and am immediately hit with an incredible wave of nausea. I shut my eyes and try not to throw up, and lie back down. OK, bad idea. I sigh again, feeling like an invalid. It's amazing what a migraine can do to you.

With these thoughts in mind, I drift off to sleep, head throbbing all the way.

When I wake up again, I feel someone beside my bed, holding my hand. I rub my eyes blearily, and blink a few times. I turn my head a little and see Hermione slumped in her chair, apparently asleep. I watch her for a while, marvelling at how innocent and peaceful she looked when she was asleep, and then give her hand a squeeze. She jolts awake, and looks around wildly. "It's just me," I say, grinning. "Why so shocked?"

"Oh my God, I can't believe I fell asleep!" she said, shaking her head. "I was supposed to help you get out of the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey said I could. So... think you're up for it?"

"Of course!" I say indignantly. I try sitting up again, and this time the only thing I feel in my head is a slight dizzyness. "Well, I still can't say I'm in great shape but I think I can survive getting out of bed. At least." Hermione leans against the wall and makes no move to help me as I swing my legs over the side and try to stand up. She knows how proud I am, and being helped just to get out of bed would embarrass me to no end.

I mean, I do have an ego to maintain.

I shakily step forward and promptly lose my balance, and support myself with the chair. "Are you OK?" Hermione can't help asking, with a concerned look on her face. I must look pretty damn weak.

"I'm fine," I say, flapping a hand carelessly. "I can do this." As if to prove my point, I let go of the chair and walk around the room slowly. I am pleased to note that my head gets better with every step I take. Good. At this rate I won't have to stagger around in front of everyone and make a fool of myself. "OK... I think I'm good to go." I look at Hermione, who steps away from the wall and walks over to the door, holding it open for me. I head over to where she stands waiting, and stops. She looks at me questioning. "I'm going to hold onto your hand for support," I announce. "Whether you like it or not."

She laughs. "I like it. Go ahead." I take her hand and we walk outside. Finally... out of the miserable Hospital Wing and back into human society. With Hermione's help, I manage to make it most of the way to the entrance to the castle, where I spot Potter and Weasel standing around talking. When they see Hermione, they start to head over to where we are, not looking pleased at the fact that I had a firm grip on her hand. I smirk at them.

Another point to me.

Unfortunately, my head chooses this moment to go crazy and I start feeling really, really dizzy. So dizzy that I have trouble standing up and I topple over, bringing Hermione down with me. She falls on her back and I collapse on top of her, groaning in pain.

Why does this always happen to us?

"MALFOY! Get your bloody ferret ass away from Hermione RIGHT NOW! You're doing this on purpose just to piss me off, aren't you?" Weasley roars, his face red as he tries in vain to lift me up. I yelp in pain as he comes dangerously close to dislocating my shoulder. Harry stands aside, looking amused while Hermione starts laughing. "Hermione! What's so funny?" Weasley asks, looking confused and annoyed. He lets go of my arm and I sigh in relief. One more tug and I was sure that my arm would have come clean off.

Fucking Weasel.

"Ron, don't strain yourself. He's a dead weight," she giggles.

"Hey," I wince. "Its not my fault my head is killing me." I roll off her and lie on my back in the grass for a while as Hermione climbs up. She offers me a hand and I stand up, brushing grass off my jeans.

"Let's get you back to your dorm, alright?" Hermione says, walking ahead by a few paces but staying obviously behind Potter and Weasley. The latter keeps throwing irritated glances at me, which I continuously counter with a smirk. Eventually he starts walking faster to put distance between us and Potter turns around briefly and catches my eye, looking like he is trying very hard not to grin.

Well at least now I seem to have support from one of the Golden-Trio-minus-Hermione-since-she's-on-my-side. I couldn't care less about Weasel, but Potter has a rather large fanbase and it wouldn't do to have them stalking me, trying to hex me in my sleep.

Of course, much of his fans are also my devoted followers. So I suppose it doesn't really matter anyway, no matter which way things go.

By the time Hermione and I get to the dungeons, I feel well enough to walk without some form of support. I tell her as much and she nods, backtracking to where her friends are waiting for her at the entrance to the dungeons. I slowly stride my way to the Slytherin common room, and head inside.

As soon as I show my face, the whole room goes into an uproar and everyone crowds around me. The girls simper and ask if I'm alright, while the guys pat me on the back for spending a night on the top of the Astronomy Tower, which, as everyone knows, is the place where nobody goes to watch the stars. At least not the ones in the sky. I throw them all off, and crawl into the boys' dormitories and into my bed. A few minutes later, Blaise comes in.

"So, Draco, how was it?" he asks, smirking.

"How was what?"

"Stop playing dumb. You know what I mean. How was Granger?"

I chuckle. "Great. Not that you'll ever find out how great, of course."

He wrinkles his nose. "I swear, the things you come up with these days... why would I ever think of going after a Gryffindor? Especially one like her."

"That 'her' that you're talking about is way better than those random chicks that you pick up anyday," I drawl, turning the other way to signal that our conversation was over.

There is a pause as Blaise gets over the initial shock of being ignored. Soon enough, he picks up where he left off again, and I find myself grimacing into my pillow. "And by the way, did you hear about Pansy?"

"What about her?" I say wearily. "This better be good, or I'm gonna rip you a new asshole tomorrow morning."

He seems to tremble a little at this but ploughs on. "Well, this happened about a week ago, but she's got something going on with Weasley. Weasley," he repeated, as if to clarify his point.

Pansy Parkinson and Ron Weasley? That's impossible.

Well, apart from the time when she was let loose in the Gryffindor common room and wrecked havoc on his spine, but that was typical Pansy. She would have done the same to any other guy. Weasley was just the only one stupid enough to stay with a 5 metre radius of her when she was in one of her moods where she is determined to massage someone. Anyone.

Seriously, I thought Blaise could come up with more believable things to hold my attention.

"Alright, Blaise, you better cherish your last night as a guy with only one asshole," I say sleepily. "See ya tomorrow."

He thumps me on the back. "I'm serious, Draco! Didn't you notice how Pansy wasn't all over you the moment you got in the common room, like she normally would be? She told me she was going to go look for Ronny-darling." He smirks. "I think you've got competition, Draco. If you're not careful Pansy's gonna go to Weasel's side."

Hmm. That was quite strange how I wasn't being strangled by Pansy the moment I entered the room. I'm starting to find this idea slightly believable. Everyone knew that Pansy would never give up a good chance to molest me, especially in public. It was unheard of for her to throw away such a chance. However, if she was pursuing a new target... that would explain it.

I start to laugh. "Oh, God. I almost feel sorry for Ron. He's going to get more of those massages if he's not careful. Honestly, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes anytime soon..."

Blaise seems relieved that I finally believed he was telling the truth. That, and the fact he now could have more time as a normal human being instead of a mutilated freak. "Yeah, I gotta agree with you there."

"Anything else?" I ask, covering a yawn with my hand and turning around again so that my back was towards him once again.

"Not really. Goodnight, Draco," he says with a shrug, and leaves.

I grin as he shuts the door. Now Weasley'll get a taste of what I had to go through all these years at the hands of Pansy. Sure, she was pretty hot, but I swear she had a brain the size of an ostrich's and not nearly as functional. Or maybe it was just taken up with too many lecherous thoughts. Well, at least she'll distract him from trying to steal Hermione from me. I suppose Pansy could be helpful sometimes, when she put her mind to it.

I think I'm going to enjoy the next couple of days, or maybe even weeks.

Very, very much.

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Wow. That was a fast chapter, for me. XD OK, OK, it was kinda short but this is the 2nd to last chapter after all.

It seems like there's going to be more about Ron and Pansy, isn't there? Sadly I don't feel like writing about their 'blossoming relationship' so I'm just gonna leave it at that. And this way he'll earn more sympathy from you readers. :D -Evil laugh-

Review and I'll pump out the next chapter ASAP! Heheh. Oh, and if you read my manga I'll update even FASTER. My manga can be found via my profile. It's my homepage. -Shameless promotion-