Alone Together

Gullible Granger

***

Granger had been acting quite strangely over the past couple of days. Draco had noticed she always seemed to be around, not too far from where he was. In the library that was a given, but yesterday she had actually come up to him and had the audacity to snatch the book he was looking at right from his hands. If it were any other girl besides Granger and the scraggly Weasley girl, he would have guessed they were flirting, and gladly played along, but those ones made him suspicious.

Not to mention the book she had grabbed was a dictionary. Granger deciding she needed a dictionary was like a horse deciding to ride a train to get somewhere.

Something was definitely amiss.

She had even stayed on nearly the same page as him. But would the nosy Gryffindor really be that obvious? Maybe she was being so obvious he would think she was being too obvious. If he had learned one thing about the infernal trio was to never underestimate them, or their absurd amount of luck.

But Draco happened to be well mastered in trickery, and possessed almost no morals. Both things he took a fair amount of pride in, as they had served him well throughout his years in Hogwarts. For the most part.

Perhaps he would try a little experiment.

Draco pondered this for a moment, then set out purposefully down the aisles. It had been a while since he had felt this good. He had something to do, well something actually worthwhile. There was an enormous stack of homework cast carelessly onto his desk and Draco had every intention to let it grow.

He headed over to the D section and found a few books on Divination, an idea forming in his mind. Grinning, he flipped through the book, marking random places, and some not-random. He made sure to leave some of his regular school things in his bag to make it more convincing. Draco wanted to frustrate and confuse the insufferable know-it-all as much as possible.

After he had sufficiently marked the books and checked them out, he headed onto the grounds, searching for a particular tree. After about ten minutes he found the one he was looking for. A maple tree. According to the book, "Divination: A Guide to Plant Symbolism", the maple leaf was a symbol of love. Draco picked one up off the ground and put it in his bag.

And for good measure, as he walked back to the castle, he picked up a few random sticks and rocks and put them into his bag. He imagined she would have an interesting time trying to decipher what they meant. Draco snickered as he pictured Granger with all the random sticks and rocks out on her desk, frantically rearranging them.

Once he made it back to the castle, Draco had another stroke of brilliance. He slipped into his Muggle Studies class, the first time he had attended this week. He earned a deadly glare from Alecto, who had been in the middle of lecturing on the lower intelligence levels of Muggles, but nothing more. Quickly, he pulled out a length of parchment and a quill, and began in a flowing script.

"Dearest Draco,"

He had to resist chuckling as he wrote it, for he found himself rather hilarious. Draco could practically feel the heat radiating from the paper, and was certain it could make even the old hag McGonagall blush. With a flourish, he signed the bottom with an illegible signature. Now all he needed was some perfume.

After class, he swiftly made his way through the hallways, looking for a target. There, Draco spotted just what he was looking for. A slightly larger Hufflepuff girl with tight blonde curls, about fifth or sixth year was sitting on a bench furiously scribbling on a piece of parchment.

Draco sat down on the bench a foot or two away from her. Just as he'd thought, the girl smelled of an overly sweet perfume. Only now, his nose was able to detect the metallic tang of her blood hidden under the overwhelming perfume.