Hermione was getting an uneasy feeling. "Well then?" She eyed the classroom's only exit, depressingly far away with Malfoy still standing between her and it.
"As I said on the train, I have no wish to be charged with assault, even as a minor — such a thing would be unseemly of someone in my position."
Hermione snorted. "But that's okay, because after consulting with my lawyer"—and he said the word lawyer the way other people might say, 'mansion,' or 'diamonds,' or 'five-star luxury cruise'—"I have found a solution."
Hermione gripped her She really didn't like this.
wand
tighter.
Draco cleared his throat. "Just one moment, let me get my occlumency up…" His eyes went in and out of focus. "Ah, there we are. Article 67, clause 4A of the magical crimes and violence act, 1778. The ministry shall maintain and make available a list of spells, the offensive use of which is not considered assault, unless leading to grievous bodily harm as defined in Article 48, clause 1A of the act." Malfoy's smirk turned to a full on grin. "The prank clause." Hermione's mind blanked out. "Prank?" she blinked. "You, Heir Draco Malfoy, of the Noble House of Malfoy, the leading family of the Dark, and the most self important and pretentious person on the planet, are planning to use prank spells?" The last bit was said in utter disbelief.
"The list was quite an eye opener, I must say — Spent a good chunk of the Winter Break reading it through."
Hermione ground her teeth together. "I'm honoured."
Malfoy smirked and produced a slip of paper from the inside of his robe. "Listen to this one — 'foot dangling jinx' — hoists the target up into the air and dangles them helplessly from one foot. Or this one — 'the terrets jinx' — forces the target to intermittently shout out loud expletives for the duration of the jinx." He looked up at her. "Must be quite embarrassing, that one."
Hermione narrowed her eyes.
"And the best bit about all these is that you can only fight back with prank spells of you own, or you're in big trouble, little vassal. How many prank spells does the prim and proper mudblood princess know, I wonder?"
Hermione scowled again. The answer was none and they both knew it.
"Oh, here's a good one," he continued. "Proper place jinx — forces the target to walk on their hands and knees for the duration of the spell. Hah! And this one is my favourite — Maiden's shame jinx, changes the target's hair colour to match their knickers." Hermione froze, horrified.
Malfoy looked up, and smirked. "Only works on witches, naturally."
And suddenly, a bolt of yellow shot towards her and she only just raised a frantic shield in time. Another bolt of yellow splashed into her shield and she desperately pushed more magic into it. Bolt after bolt slammed into it and Hermione knew that if she didn't get out of there soon, her shields would fail and in the cramped and crowded space of the classroom, she'd be unable to dodge and would be quickly backed into a helpless corner.
Heart hammering in panic, she ran straight at and past Malfoy, lunging for the door and fiddling with the door knob, all while Malfoy laughed and laughed and poured spell after spell into her rapidly weakening shields. She yanked the door open and fled down the corridor, closely followed by a howling with laughter Malfoy, still raining spells on her all the way to empty Slytherin common room, filled with smirking students, before she finally barged it to the sanctuary of the girls dormitory and slammed the door behind her, where she collapsed onto her bed and angrily pummelled her pillow with her fists, eyes watering with humiliation, Malfoy's laughter still ringing in her burning red ears.
Minutes passed and she slowly stopped beating up the pillow and instead hugged it to her chest.
"Hermione?"
Slowly her tear stained face rose up off the sheets and turned to the familiar voice.
Daphne stood in the dormitory doorway looking at her in shock.
Hermione sniffed and soon found herself in a comforting, but rather hesitant hug with the other girl.
"What happened?" Daphne asked, shifting up behind her on the bed.
Hermione told her.
Daphne looked furious. "That bastard! What do you want to do about it?" Hermione looked down at the floor. "I… I don't know. Maybe we should ask our lord." Daphne paused then giggled. "No need to do that. We both know exactly what he would do."
Hermione looked up thought about it for a moment. Then her face hardened and she nodded. "Get help, get stronger, get revenge?"
Daphne enough."
nodded
and
smirked.
"Close
For the next few days, the Slytherin common room became a tense borderland, complete with buffer zones and trading ports, while Malfoy passed out wizarding photos showing a panicky Hermione fleeing from a gleeful Malfoy. Harry, as someone who flittered from the Gray to the Dark and back again, had discreetly summoned and burned the photos as quickly as they appeared, and then given Hermione a thick large tome titled The Pranker's Compendium.
For days afterwards, Daphne wouldn't let Hermione out of her sight, for which Hermione was grateful, and which was just as well, because Daphne had pushed out far ahead of him and Hermione in Divination, much to Hermione's chagrin. Neither he nor Hermione had managed to 'open their inner eye', and Harry was starting to suspect it wasn't worth it, considering they had Daphne who had succeeded, and who was already starting to learn the Eye of Kilrogg spell.
But while Hermione might be annoyed about having to watch her back 24/7, which only stressed her out more, considering she already had homework, healer training, muggleborn teaching, and divination, it was nothing to how Harry was feeling right now, as he moved through the school at a casual saunter, occasionally snapping off a homenum revelio, and noticing that his invisible pursuer, who had started occasionally following him a few days ago, and who was almost certainly Dumbledore, was still there.
Losing the man was difficult and time consuming and really starting to cramp his style. Not knowing what the man hoped to accomplish with this benny hill style rigmarole was really getting to him as well.
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