Bad Reputation

The Whore of Slytherin

SIX HOURS EARLIER

Hermione can't remember when she hasn't been hearing about Malfoy's alleged erotic feats.

At first it was just kissing, of course. Girls would whisper about his makeout stamina, a taste like tart green apples. They described how his hands moved under sweaters. And later, claims about the contents of his trousers.

All in good fun, of course. By now, at sixteen, it is widely assumed that, with the help of Silencing charms and Invisibility linens, he spends as much time in other beds as in his own.

The dirty jokes abound. He really is a Slytherin. How his eyes change colors when he's turned on. How he has filthy Latin poetry tattooed on his hip. How he shamelessly puts his mouth down there and spells out a strange sex alphabet similar to Parseltongue.

The rumors about his bits alone take the most magizoological flights. By now, it is no longer just girls who spread rumors. Everyone claims to have taken a bite.

Hermione has calculated that for everyone to be telling the truth about every one of their encounters, Malfoy would have to have screwed someone in every single corner, classroom, and alcove of Hogwarts at entirely unrealistic hours and frequencies, even for a nocturnal and hormonal sixteen-year-old.

Someone is lying. Hogwarts isn't that large. Malfoy has never actually been seen, by an actual eyewitness, kissing or marauding anyone. He barely danced at the Yule Ball. The few times she'd met his eyes, he'd just scowled as if wishing he were anywhere else.

The perception of him as a sexual magician has simply grown on its own over the years, along with the social cachet of a romp with the magician. And to his infinite discredit, Malfoy never tries to correct the impression. He simply smirks as the legend of his sexual prowess spreads through the school, truth or integrity be damned.

He'd even discredited her, this afternoon, when she'd chewed out some Ravenclaw girls who were feeding the rumor mill. "Stop saying those things!" she yelled, to the shock of everyone in the Great Hall. "Half of what you all say about him isn't even mathematically, let alone physically possible. Can't you all find something else to gossip about besides who Malfoy has violated, or been violated by, today?"

Malfoy had scoffed and said something about how she wished she was next. "Stop by for a nightcap, Granger," he'd mouthed at her as if she were the stupidest, most sheltered little novice who ever lived (which she isn't, mind you. Hermione has shared a few kisses and a few touches in her time, and doesn't think she's done at all badly, even if it didn't live up to the hoopla).

All of which makes the boy standing in front of her in a narrow corridor, his hair bone-white in the moonlight, seem more mysterious still.

"Library," she says — her safe space. The Hogwarts library is open at all hours for the benefit of the studious, and she takes advantage of it.

They sit at the table she usually commandeers for study, braced across from each other like attorney and client. She whips out parchment and a quill and holds them at the ready.

"Before I consider how I can help you, I'll need you to be absolutely honest with me about every single facet of the case," she says.

"Done." He clasps his hands piously in front of him.

"Why me?"

A smile tugs at his lips. "You're one of the only people to openly admit to NOT having shagged or engaged in some sort of indecency with me. It made me feel like I could trust you."