Chapter Text
Fifth year began with three problems: the Ministry, Dolores Umbridge, and Draco Malfoy.
Hermione had known it the minute Umbridge had smiled that horrible, sickly little smile at the welcoming feast and was introduced as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor. The smile had been something adults used when talking to small children or particularly stupid dogs.
Since then, the castle had felt different: tenser, somehow, like everyone was waiting for something unpleasant to happen.
Which, Hermione suspected, it would.
Harry was still being called a liar by half the wizard world for what had happened in the Triwizard Tournament. The Ministry was interfering at Hogwarts, and Dumbledore seemed to be losing power as Headmaster. And now their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was openly campaigning for the position of the “Harry Potter is Delusional” Club President, and the most notorious and Dark wizard in history had apparently returned from the dead.
All in all, fifth year started on a remarkably cheerful note.
It was the first day of classes, and Hermione found herself wishing, albeit guiltily, that she had stayed home with her parents instead of returning to school–like apparently many of their classmates did, which struck her as remarkably wise.
Unfortunately, Hermione Granger had never been good at abandoning problems.
And so, here she was, sitting with Ron and Harry in the Potions dungeon, pretending to look over the textbook while really trying very hard not to think about Umbridge, Voldemort, the Ministry, or the increasingly hostile way students had begun whispering when Harry passed by them.
Harry, unsurprisingly, was in a terrible mood.
Ron was in a terrible mood in solidarity.
Hermione was exhausted. All she wanted to do at that point was collapse into bed and sleep for the next ten days, right after Potions.
The dungeon door slammed open and Snape waltzed in like an irritated bat, robes billowing behind him. His eyes flicked over the class and briefly paused on Harry, Ron, and Hermione with the expression of a man who’d discovered something unpleasant on the bottom of his shoe.
“This year, Dumbledore has decided we will try something different,” he began, his tone dropping in disdain.
Hermione already dislike the tone of that.
“We have decided that instead of individual students making their potions, in an effort to increase inter-house unity, one person from each house will match up into partners and you will work together for the rest of the year.”
For a moment, the room sat in stunned silence.
Then it erupted.
Groans. Complaints. Some very audible what the hells and even a daring what the fuck.
Even Hermione felt a flash of dread twist her stomach.
This was a catastrophically bad idea.
She barely had time to manage her own coursework, let alone compensate for another student. OWLs were in a few months. Her Potions grades mattered. The entire arrangement was academically irresponsible.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” Ron muttered next to her.
Harry looked murderous.
Snape raised his voice slightly. “I do not have the time, patience, or inclination to hear your complaints.”
The room quietened immediately.
“I will start listing off partners, and you will relocate to sit with them. You will share your materials with each other, and you will produce one potion.” Hermione felt dread slowly creeping up her spine as he began listing off names.
“Lavender Brown and Vincent Crabbe.”
Lavender made a sound that could’ve been a sob.
“Seamus Finnegan and Blaise Zabini.”
Seamus muttered something in Gaelic that Hermione suspected was not a compliment.
“Ronald Weasley and Pansy Parkinson.’’
Ron’s face twisted in disgust.
“Harry Potter and Theodore Nott.”
Hermione was almost sure Harry hadn't looked that horrified when he'd watched Voldemort's resurrection at the Triwizard Tournament.
She felt a deadly coldness pool into her stomach as the names continued. Who could she be partnered with? Gregory Goyle, Millicent Bulstrode, Daphne Greengrass…that’s all she could think of who were left, although there were some names she didn’t know and couldn’t care less to find out about.
Snape’s eyes finally lifted towards Hermione. For a moment–just a moment–she swore she saw a flash of amusement in his dark eyes and the corners of his mouth fighting a smirk.
“Hermione Granger…”
Hermione braced herself.
“...and Draco Malfoy.”
The roaring in her ears escalated to full-blown explosions.
Hermione sat very still, wondering for a moment if she’d misheard or this was just a horrible nightmare and she’d wake up any minute to her red-and-gold canopy ceiling or perhaps she was dead and this was hell.
Unfortunately, the smug, satisfied voice behind her confirmed otherwise.
“Well,” Draco Malfoy drawled, “this should be educational.”
Hermione slowly turned in her seat, hoping, praying, desperately wishing that this was just a hallucination and really, she was just locked in a closet with a Boggart and the only thing she needed to do was open the door and get out.
Malfoy was lounging against the back of his chair with the kind of lazy arrogance that suggested he believed the rest of the world existed truly for his personal entertainment.
His blonde hair was impeccably tousled and immaculate.
His green-and-silver tie sat at a perfectly askew angle that suggested it had taken effort.
His expression was insufferable.
Hermione suddenly understood why people occasionally committed violent crimes.
“Now,” Snape said, clearly having the most enjoyment he’d had in years, “begin moving.”
Hermione slowly gathered up her things, stewing in anger and frustration. Ron and Harry were seething and looked ready to duel someone, perhaps Snape, but she was too distracted with her own fury to comprehend theirs. She would have rather held their hands throughout the rest of the year and OWLs than spend a minute making a potion with Malfoy, but she knew there was no point fighting Snape–especially if it was Dumbledore’s idea in the first place.
“Granger,” Malfoy sneered in greeting when she dumped her books on the table next to him, and she scowled right back. “Malfoy.”
“This year will start with Hair-Raising Potion,” Snape said, turning his back onto them and pointing to the blackboard. “The basic instructions are written there. If you need more complex guidance, look at your textbook. You will not argue over your cauldrons,” he continued, glaring at all of them. “If I detect even a hint of fighting, you and your partner will each earn a month in detention. If there are problems, solve them outside the classroom. Do I make myself clear?”
Hermione glanced sideways at Malfoy.
Malfoy glanced sideways at Hermione.
This was going to go terribly.
Satisfied with the mumbles of reluctant assent he received, Snape said, “You may begin.”
Hermione gritted her teeth and turned to Malfoy. “I suppose we should start grinding up the unicorn horn and then measure it.”
“If you repeat every instruction to me when we can both read it then we have no hope of ever finishing,” Malfoy snapped, and she bit her lip, fighting her angry response. He was right; all she wanted to do was finish up and get out of here and fighting with him was not worth a month in detention–she had no time for that.
She dragged the mortar and pestle toward her and started grinding up the horn, and Malfoy began weighing the gritty powder on the scales.
“That’s enough,” he said after a few minutes, and she reached out for the next ingredient, pickled slugs.
Malfoy snorted quietly. “Why would you waste time buying those when Weasley could simply throw them up for you?”
Hermione rolled her eyes so hard it physically hurt her eyeballs. “Is that your best insult? Something that happened three years ago?” she muttered, shoving the jar over for him to chop and grabbing the asphodel roots.
“The insults write themselves,” he told her coldly. “You should know, mudblood.”
Another flash of rage went through and she stomped his foot as hard as she could, grinding it down. “Ow!” he snarled, jerking his foot back. “Are you twelve?”
“Only when I’m dealing with someone emotionally stunted,” she shot back, not even looking at him as she stabbed an asphodel root with unnecessary force. “Try not to faint. I know pain is unknown to you.”
He leaned closer, his voice low and venomous. “Careful, Granger. Or I’ll have you scrubbing cauldrons for the next three months.”
She finally looked at him, eyes blazing. “Go ahead, tell Snape the frightening Muggleborn stepped on your foot. I’m sure he’ll dispatch the Ministry for you.”
His lip curled. “You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re pathetic.”
The word landed.
“Pathetic?” he repeated slowly, rolling the word around his tongue dangerously. “I’m pathetic?”
“Yes,” she snapped, stabbing another asphodel root and wishing it was his neck instead. “You’re just an inbred imbecile who struts around repeating whatever your father spoonfeeds you and calls it superiority. It’s embarrassing.”
The air shifted between them, hotter now.
“At least I have a pureblood father and family worth listening to,” he bit out.
Her knife stopped mid-stab. There it was. Whatever fragile scrap remained of her self-control promptly took a flying dive out the window. “If ‘by listening to’ you mean ‘currently under investigation for consorting with terrorists’, then yes, how fortunate for you.”
His hand slammed down on the table, making the scales rattle. She saw a few students glance over out of the periphery of her eye and then pretend to be very interested in their potions.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“Don’t what?” she asked acidicly. “State facts?”
“You know nothing about my family,” he hissed.
“And you know nothing about mine!” she half-shouted back. Luckily, it was covered up by Seamus setting his and Blaise Zabini’s cauldron on fire. She dropped her voice. “Except that you’ve decided they’re inferior because they’re not wizards.”
His expression hardened. “You don’t belong here,” he said. “You never did.”
She gave a short, humorless laugh. “I outperform you in every class except this one, and even here we’re neck-and-neck. If merit decided who belonged, you’d be packing your trunks.”
He leaned in close enough that she could smell the mint on his breath.
“You think you’re so clever,” he murmured. “But cleverness doesn’t change what you are.”
All she could feel was her pulse in her ears and her blood thundering. “And what am I?” she asked calmly.
His gaze flicked to her hand, still covered in ink stains from the previous night’s study session in the library. “Temporary.”
That did it.
Before she could stop herself, she shoved him hard in the shoulder. He stumbled back onto the table behind him, knocking over a jar of beetle eyes, and she was vaguely aware of everyone turning to look at them, but she was too far gone to process that.
“You self-absorbed, blood-obsessed coward,” she hissed, advancing on him. “You hide behind slurs because you have nothing else. No talent impressive enough. No mind sharp enough. Just inherited arrogance and a superiority complex.”
Color flooded his cheeks and he reached out to grab her wrist, gripping it tightly. “Say that again.”
“Mr Malfoy, Miss Granger,” Snape’s cold voice emerged from behind them, and she took a deep breath, yanking her wrist out of Malfoy’s grip and turning to face Snape, who eyed them with an almost bored, yet icy, expression. “Did I not say that any fighting was to be done outside this classroom?”
Hermione closed her eyes. Fuck.
“And here I see you two fighting,” Snape continued, peering into their empty cauldron. “I see you haven’t even started your potion–and we’re midway through the class.” He gave them both a derisive look. “You will come back after the rest of your classes together and remake the potion together, and then you will both write and submit a ten-page essay together on the Hair-Raising Potion, its inventor, origin, what each ingredient does, and its uses, by this Friday.”
Hermione nodded, gritting her teeth. At least Malfoy was being punished too–Snape had a long and distinguished history of assigning consequences applied only to Gryffindors. On the other hand, now she would have to spend more time with Malfoy.
She took a deep breath. “Yes, Professor,” she muttered, and she heard Malfoy murmur a similar assent that sounded deeply resentful.
Hermione stared down at the spilled beetle eyes.
Fantastic.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
“I cannot believe Snape,” Harry snarled, throwing his bag down onto the Gryffindor table at lunch and sitting down. “What the fuck was he thinking?”
“It was Dumbledore’s idea,” Hermione said bitterly, poking at her sandwich. Having to remake the potion with Malfoy again in a few hours, and writing a ten-page essay with him, had made her thoroughly lose her appetite.
“What was he thinking?” Ron snapped, shoving a piece of roll into his mouth. “Pansy Parkinson? Seriously? It’s a miracle we made anything besides a toxic cloud. Although I wouldn’t touch our Hair-Raising Potion with a ten-foot pole–it’s more likely to burn someone’s skin off.”
“I had to hold myself back from punching Nott at least three times,” Harry commented darkly, gripping his goblet like it had personally offended him.
“Only three?” Ron asked. “Impressive restraint.”
“Tell me about it,” Neville said miserably from across the table. “I’m bad at Potions on my worst day, and having Goyle right behind me, breathing down my neck unhelpfully, didn’t help matters at all.”
“Okay!” Hermione exploded. “I have it the worst out of all of you. Parkinson, Nott, Goyle? Incompetent, annoying, mildly flammable–but manageable,” she hissed. “I have to spend the rest of the year with Malfoy. And think about my OWL grades!”
They all gave her sympathetic looks. “You’re right, Hermione,” Harry said, reaching out to pat her on the wrist. “You do have it the worst. I can’t believe Snape didn’t give you detention though.”
“This is worse than detention,” Hermione scoffed. “I would rather be scrubbing cauldrons for a month than spending several hours in a row with Malfoy.”
“You should just shove him in one,” Ron suggested, stuffing more bread into his mouth.
Hermione considered it.
Briefly.
Unfortunately, murder was still technically illegal.
“What did you think about Umbridge’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class?” Harry asked, changing the subject.
Hermione paused, her fork halfway to her mouth. “I think,” she said carefully, “that she is dangerously unqualified.’’
Ron snorted. “That’s putting it nicely.”
“She assigned us chapter one,” Harry said. “We didn’t even touch our wands.”
Hermione’s mouth thinned. “I noticed.”
“She said we won’t be doing any practical defensive magic,” Neville added, leaning forward. Hermione let out a sharp breath through her nose. “Of course she did.”
Harry looked at her sharply. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“I read ahead,” she said stiffly. “The entire textbook…it’s Ministry-approved theory. Not even advanced theory. Just…definitions. Technicalities. Legal phrasing.”
Ron blinked. “Legal phrasing?”
Which was, Hermione reflected, exactly the kind of reaction one would hope for when explaining that their Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum had been replaced with government paperwork.
“Yes,” she said, irritation rising. “It’s a pamphlet designed to avoid liability. ‘In the unlikely event of confrontation…’” she mimicked in a saccharine voice. “As if Dark wizards schedule appointments.”
Harry huffed a humorless laugh. “She corrected me,” he said quietly. “In front of everyone.”
“She called you unstable,” Hermione corrected. “She’s trying to undermine you. If she convinces enough students you’re lying, then everything that happened last year becomes…debatable.”
Ron scowled. “It’s rubbish.”
“Yes,” Hermione snapped. “It is.” She shoved her still-unfinished plate away, appetite fully gone now. “And she smiles while she does it.”
That was what truly unsettled her. The giggle. The dim cardigan. The way she spoke to them like they were dim children.
Lockhart had felt ridiculous. Umbridge felt…intentional. And Hermione didn’t like that at all.
Harry leaned back in his seat. “So we just sit there all year and read?”
She hesitated. “For now…yes.”
Ron groaned. “Brilliant.”
But Hermione’s eyes remained distant. Because even as she said it, she didn’t entirely believe it.
She was still deliberating about Umbridge and the new DADA class as she made her way to the Potions classroom at eight that evening, half-heartedly chewing on a piece of shepherd’s pie.
Malfoy was already there, his tie off, cuffs rolled up to his elbows like he was about to be performing surgery instead of making a mildly volatile potion, and his collar open at the throat like he was about to be on the cover of Witch Weekly or something. Snape was nowhere to be seen, but the ingredients and cauldron had already been set up for them.
Hermione swallowed the last piece of shepherd’s pie, which now tasted faintly like resentment, and silently started getting things ready. He began doing the same.
For the next two hours, the only things they said were:
“I think we can add the asphodel now.”
“Stir faster.”
“Clockwise.”
“You’re too close to the flame.”
It was the most civil interaction they’d ever had, and eventually, an acceptable Hair-Raising Potion sat cooling in the cauldron. Hermione still firmly maintained she could’ve made a much better one on her own, and without half the strife.
She winced when she realized their punishment was only half-finished.
She stared at the vial like it had personally offended her. Malfoy corked it and set it down on Snape’s desk with clinical precision. “Acceptable,” he said coolly.
“That’s the highest praise you’re received, I assume,” she muttered. He ignored that.
Silence settled again, but heavier now that the potion was done. The dungeon felt different at night; colder, darker, shadows stretching across the walls.
Hermione exhaled slowly, already tired. “The essay,” she said flatly. Malfoy leaned against the worktable, folding his arms. “Ten inches on parchment, I believe.”
“Yes.”
He gave her a thin, assessing look. “You’re going to write it anyway.”
She bristled. “Excuse me?”
“You’ll go back to the library,” he continued evenly, “research the inventor, list the properties, explain the stabilizing reaction of powdered unicorn horn with asphodel infusion, and then you’ll write something insufferably thorough and technically flawless.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And what do you plan on doing?”
He shrugged. “Contributing.”
“How delightfully vague,” she snapped.
“It’s intentional.”
“You think I’m doing this alone?” she asked coldly.
He tilted his head. “You prefer failing?”
“I prefer fairness.”
A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Go ahead, then. Assign me something.”
She hesitated. Because he wasn’t wrong. She absolutely would end up writing most of it if she didn’t intervene now. And she loathed to admit it, but he wasn’t Harry and Ron. He was fully capable of writing a decent essay without her looking over his shoulder.
“Fine,” she said, her voice clipped. “You can research the inventor and the origin. Primary sources if possible. I’ll do ingredient applications and analysis.”
He didn’t argue, just nodded.
She frowned suspiciously. This was too easy.
“You grind asphodel too finely,” Malfoy said flatly, not looking at her as he began to clear up their worktable. Her head snapped up. “I do not.”
“You do,” he said, adjusting the flame beneath the cauldron. “It thickens too quickly and burns if it’s powdered.”
“It’s within acceptable range.”
“It’s sloppy.”
She froze. “Sloppy?”
“Yes.”
Hermione stared at him, incredulous. “You don’t get to shove slurs at me five hours ago and then critique my technique.”
He didn’t even flinch. “Your technique was sloppy before I insulted you.”
She stepped closer. “You’re insufferable.”
“And yet,” he said coolly, “the potion didn’t explode.”
“Because I corrected your stirring speed!”
Malfoy let out a short, humorless breath. “You didn’t correct it. You panicked and then overcompensated.”
Her hands clenched at her sides. “I was not panicking.”
“You were breathing like you ran up the steps of the Astronomy Tower.”
“At least I don’t treat every minor fluctuation like a catastrophe.”
“At least I notice them.”
The air between them went tight again; not explosive, but charged.
Hermione grabbed the ladle a little too forcefully. “Next time,” she said coldly, “feel free to announce your criticism before the final stage.”
He finally looked at her then. “Next time,” he said slowly, “don’t assume I need your supervision.”
“I don’t supervise,” she snapped, despite knowing she had, and she hated that he’d noticed.
“You micromanage.”
She laughed disbelievingly. “You’re unbearable.”
“You shoved me into a table,” he reminded her coolly.
“You deserved worse.”
“Probably,” he said, without hesitation.
That stopped her. Not because it was kind. Because it wasn’t defensive. He simply sounded…certain.
“Tomorrow. Library,” he said, his voice clipped. “Seven. I’m not failing because you’re unstable.”
She turned slowly, re-contemplating the whole "murder is illegal" thing. Really, how illegal was it? “Say that again.”
“I said,” he replied smoothly, slinging his bag over his shoulder, “I’m not failing.”
They glared at each other from across the room. She had to admit though, he had a point. She didn’t want to fail Potions either, and unfortunately, the only way through that was through–she deeply regretted it–Draco Malfoy.
“Seven,” she agreed, before grabbing her bag and making her way to Gryffindor tower, already dreading the next day.
Hermione went to sleep that night firmly believing Draco Malfoy was the last person at Hogwarts she’d ever willingly associate with.
Malfoy, she suspected, felt much the same.
She would later reflect that this assumption had been…optimistic.