Silver and Gold // Dramione

Christmas Traditions

(This is your smut warning)

6th Year, December 24th

The next few days worked in an expectant rhythm.

The morning after the conversation with Dumbledore and Professor Snape Draco didn't leave his room until well past tea time. Hermione didn't push, but did leave tea outside the door occasionally and knock to let him know it was there. When he did come out around half past two in the afternoon, he didn't say much. He sat in the seat by the window and read through their potions textbook, Hermione guess he must have read it three times over in the past few days.

That was how most mornings went; tea around lunchtime, Draco would go sit and read by the windowsill and sometimes Hermione would join him. But she never attempted to sit back in his lap like she had that night. He seemed served, and sort of distant. Perhaps he had considered what had happened to be a fluke. A wild mistake between the two of them that he regretted immensely. So she didn't push her luck, or his temper for that matter.

Shortly after noon the pair of Senior Prefects would venture down to the Transfiguration Professors classroom for their training. The first day Professor McGongaell had them practice their protective and defensive magic on dummies, and then each other. That went as well as to be expected- Malfoy ended up on his ass more than once, and Hermione's robe was on fire near the end. McGonagell promptly ended the session after that and Draco was certain he saw the old witch roll her eyes as they were leaving. He apologized her to, it had been an accident. An 'incendio' mend for the dummy to her left. She accepted the apology and dropped the subject.

The next day it was ward magic. Not a blood ward, or even a strong ward for a portion of the castle. They practiced poured warding on the classroom in case of an emergency. The magic was stronger with two wands, not one, and Hermione wondered that day if Draco and Aurie's magic would be stronger together. She didn't ask, and neither did Draco as McGonagell was still unaware of that situation for ill-advised reason.

The day after that was organizational. The two of them had to sift through the prefects notes from the previous term. Draco and Hermione had fallen into a system of alternating weeks since October. Where Hermione had week A and Draco had week B. It worked well ,and there were never any issues with their repostings - the fifth year prefects were other story. It seemed favouritism was at play with year, as well as specifically targeting Slytherin for petty inconveniences. The task of organizing and marking issues in the reports ending up taking two full sessions, one without McGongell present.

The last day before they got a break for the Christmas Holiday's was in the Great Hall. McGonagell had gotten every student who was staying over christmas in the Hall as a sort of test of the Senior Prefects abilities to cast single and multiple wards. Draco noted that there may have been less than thirty students in the Great Hall, many of them younger than fourth year.

McGonagell had them come up in small groups and had Draco had Hermione cast joint and plot wards over the them. They were small glowing bubbles of pale blue light that could deflect a number of standard hex's and jinx's. The other groups were then tasked with testing the Senior Prefects wards by casting said hex's and Jinx's at the students under their protective shield. That went over a few times before the system was changed.

Then Draco and Hermione were instructed to create multiple protective wards, of the same caliber and strength, over multiple groups. They had to also monitor if a student ran from one bubble to another, and keep the ward on them as they moved through the Hall. That task proved more difficult than the former, and at least two students had minor stinging hex's put on their ankles throughout the duration of the training.