same was attempted with Draco, it often took weeks before anyone would suspect that Ron's sudden, mysterious outbreak of Giggle-Pox had anything to do with the brief, heated exchange he had shared with Draco more than a month before.
Feeling her dislike of Draco increase exponentially, Hermione folded her arms and finally stared at him.
He sat with his legs crossed, hands resting primly on his knees. On any other boy, the pose might have looked effeminate, but on Draco, he simply looked contained.
Warts, Hermione decided, with a mental nod. It would have been easier to put him in his place if he weren't so attractive. What he needed were few strategically located warts. An overhanging brow and a potato nose wouldn't have gone astray either.
But of course, Malfoy didn't have warts, or spots or blemishes, or any handy physical deformities. She knew this because she had had the time to peruse his body at her leisure. He was six feet and two inches of smooth, white skin. The kind of skin that looked and felt like cream silk in firelight. Girl's skin, except that it was tightly stretched over lean, undeniable masculine muscle.
At some point over the course of the previous year, Draco Malfoy had made the inevitable trek from boyhood to manhood. Oh, there were still vestiges of his boy-self, if one cared to look for them. The almost surly pouting of his lips, for example, or the delicate flush of his cheeks when he physically exerted himself. His hair had not darkened, as was the case with many other light-haired boys. It was still a shade of blond so bright as to be nearly platinum. Hermione suspected this had more to do with his breeding, rather than any late physical development.
Other parts of him were undeniably adult. Hermione might have been slightly in awe of the way he handled himself in intimate situations, save for the fact that she had expected no less from him, even if he was only eighteen. There was nothing ordinary about Malfoy, and it was her greatest regret that it had been this very trait that had possessed her to make what unequivocally qualified as the biggest fuck up of her young life.
The silence inside the carriage was now nearly physically painful. If she wriggled any more in her seat, Hermione thought she was liable to develop calluses on her arse.
Malfoy hadn't so much as shifted since the journey had started. He might have been carved of granite, such was his stillness. A particularly deep pothole in the road jarred her into sitting up a little straighter in her seat. She was hot, clammy and irritable.
No. This silence was not going to do at all.
"How long since you've been home to visit?" she asked, the words rushing out of her mouth before she had time to filter out any unintended meaning.
At first, it seemed that he was content to ignore her, but then he responded. "Since Halloween," he said, his eyes still fixed on what was outside the window.
"That's nearly eight months."
"The Mudblood can do arithmetic. Will wonders never cease?"
Hermione didn't know whether to be insulted over his use of the detestable word, or over the fact that he didn't seem to put much heart into it at all. Truth be told, he hadn't used that particular insult on her in a number of years. It never had the effect on her that it did on Ron, and Malfoy was nothing if not effective.
She sighed. "I was wondering when I'd hear that word again."
"If you don't want to hear it, then don't give me cause to use it," he told her. "While we're on the topic, I'll remind you to keep your mouth shut around my father. I'll do the talking. Speak only when spoken to. Try not to look him in the eye, if possible. I realise it might kill you to do so, but don't ask anything. In fact, don't say anything. Try and be respectful and we'll have little trouble."
Hermione snorted. Now this was insulting. "And here I thought the Pope resided at the Vatican."
He finally looked at her. The breeze that had been blowing through the open window caught the long fringe of his hair and carried it across his forehead. He impatiently brushed it away. "What did you say?" he asked her, his eyes narrowing.
"Nothing. Nothing you'd know about," she muttered absently.
"I know what the fucking Vatican is," he snapped, unexpectedly reverting from disinterested to angry.
Hermione startled slightly, feeling