Please Be There If I Remember

Chapter Twenty-Three: Essays

A/n: Just to warn you that I know nothing about the actual goblin history or even the stuff about house-elves, so I just made most of this stuff up as I went. It's not really important to the plot or anything so just take the 'info' with a grain of salt. Also, this is a Hermione chapter so we finally get a proper appearance from her <3 (I like to think that Hermione sees this as a perfect opportunity to make Draco a better person because she would totally do that.)

Draco was bent over his essay, furiously scribbling over the parchment with so much fervour he was surprised it hadn't been ripped to shreds. He had, in fact, already accidentally torn a line into it once he really got going on his topic and hastily mended it with a reparo charm, grumbling at the fact that he lost his train of thought.

He was sitting in the library after deciding that the common room was growing too cold as the snow began to fall outside. Everyone in his dorm had to continuously pour warming charms over themselves and the fireplaces in the common room burned and sizzled all through the night as if it hoped to counteract the cold chill that was slowly and steadily creeping into the dungeons.

Theo had said that this happened every year, and after the first initial cold shock as a first-year, you started to get used to it. Draco had only muttered and whined in response, spouting something about how this basically was his first year at this point and that he should have been warned beforehand.

Blaise had simply laughed in his face and that was the end of that.

His obnoxiously red hair faded over the next few days until one morning, four days after that horrid night, Draco's head was back to its normal platinum blond. He silently whooped and cheered, finally walking into the Great Hall in the morning with a genuine smile on his face instead of a tired frown, even winking to Potter at the Gryffindor table who seemed to choke on his pumpkin juice and almost fall out of his seat which Draco thought was very unprofessional of him.

He merely chuckled softly to himself, his good mood growing even larger. It had been effectively dulled, though, once he walked into Binn's class and had to sit through that horrid long voice of the ghost, droning on and on about some goblin war or another. He would deny it later, but Pansy swore that he had slept through the entire class.

With a roll of his eyes at the essay that he now had to write for that very subject, Draco groaned and brought his head down to the desk below him. Being careful not to smudge the drying ink on his parchment, he moved it out of the way and then had his long-overdue bout of sighing into the table and muttering obscenities under his breath and into his hands so Madam Pince wouldn't hear and kick him out.

He lifted up his head when he felt a presence slip down into the seat beside him.

"Good Afternoon, Malfoy," Hermione said, pulling out her books from her bag.

Draco inclined his head at her. "Hermione. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

If the girl was surprised, she didn't show it. She simply took out her quill and gestured towards her half-written history essay.

"Thought you might want some help on that, seeing as you were...very adamant about certain parts of Professor Binns's teaching style."

He almost snorted but blinked it back when he realised that she had heard him complain about one of the teachers.

"I'm not quite sure why they thought having a ghost who is barely aware of his own surroundings would be a good fit for teaching students," Draco stated lightly.

Hermione hummed agreeably, her eyes focused on something else, but her attention clearly attuned to Draco's every move.

"So. Memory loss?" She questioned, still not looking at him.