"It' s the heat, Ron," Hermione said, tiredly. "I' m fine, really. Just run down."
They arrived at the edge of the forest, where a faint trail began and winded deeper into the trees. It wasn't so much a pathway as a well-trodden dirt track that Hagrid and Fang took whenever they ventured into the forest. Hagrid had in fact shot down the delivery macaw not far from where they stood.
"We'll split up. You two take the top of the path, Weasley and I will stay on the bottom end," Millicent barked. "If there are no objections?" It wasn't really like she was giving them options.
There were no objections. Ron gave Hermione a reassuring look as she and Malfoy set off ahead.
It took her ten minutes to locate her first batch of Tangleweed. Malfoy walked silently beside her, no doubt waiting until they were well and truly beyond eavesdropping distance before speaking his mind. They were relatively deep in the forest, deeper than most students would have ventured during school hours.
With any luck, a female Centaur would gallop out of the trees, declare Malfoy to be a too tasty mortal morsel to pass up on and take him away, Hermione mused. The thought was actually rather funny and she stifled a snort of amusement, while Malfoy gave her a suspicious sideways glance.
She ignored him. The Tangleweed was her main concern for the moment.
Despite its preference for warmer climates, the Tangleweed appeared to have little liking for sunshine. Juicy, fat tentacles lay in a deceiving, placid mess on the ground, but as soon as Hermione approached, they whipped into the air with a faint hissing sound, no doubt alerted to her presence by the vibrations of her footsteps.
The creature resembled cacti, for the most part, and was a rather pretty shade of violet, with deep purple barbs that were oozing a thick, white sap.
It was a small, juvenile batch, and Hermione had no problems subduing and then uprooting it. The thrashing of the creature in her gloved hands was quite unpleasant, though, and she grimaced.
"Have you written to Borgin yet?" Malfoy finally spoke. He was lounging against a tree, watching the last struggles of the dying Tangleweed with a detached expression.
Here we go.
"I' m going to, very soon. I' m justI just have to plan a bit more first. I' ve been doing some reading." Even to her own ears, her voice sounded small and subdued.
Malfoy made an exasperated, overly-dramatic sound.
"What?" she snapped.
"Give me the bloody contact and I'll arrange it myself. We'll have this cursed spell undone in one visit, and at half the price."
"I'm not giving you the address, Malfoy. Your father gave it to me because he probably doesn't trust you to initiate the meeting without mucking it up." The Tangleweed had finally stopped its thrashing and Hermione gladly tossed it into the bucket.
Malfoy seemed to have located some previously undiscovered internal reservoir of patience. He actually sounded polite when he next spoke.
"Only because my father knows that Slytherins are in the habit of snooping around each other's belongings. Blackmail is the oldest trick in the book. Even the first years know that. My situation is precarious enough without giving some ambitious housemate a reason to start rumours."
Hermione thanked God, for the umpteenth time, that she had been Sorted into a House where the first years were more concerned with the correct and precise placing of Dungbombs for maximum effect, rather than internal power struggles.
"I' ve made a draft," she finally admitted. Actually, she had made a dozen drafts, but he really didn't need to know that.
He raised a hand to his chest in mock surprise. Hermione noticed he wasn't wearing the gloves Lupin had provided. Probably because he wasn't intending on doing any work, the wanker.
"Goodness, a draft. Don't you ever do anything without planning it to death first?"
"Fuck off, Malfoy."
He quit grinning. Now he was thinking, which was frankly worse. "Tell me honestly, Granger. Do you really regret what happened?" There was a telltale twinkle in his eyes which told her he was baiting her.
Hermione went red to the roots of her hair. Her embarrassment was tempered by the fact that she could feel his gnawing anxiety. It was balled up deep inside him, neatly obscured behind his colossal ego. She wanted to hit him in the head in the hopes of shaking free any threads of decency and compassion.