This Is War

Helping a Slytherin

Two days had gone by. Two days. As in forty-eight hours, two-thousand and eight-hundred and eighty minutes, and Merlin only knows how many seconds. At the juncture of being stuck in someone else's body, not even Hermione Granger could take the time to calculate the precise math. The thought of that time lost just caused a dagger of depression to penetrate her.

Alas, there she was after two days of feigning to be the Slytherin Prince. She sat in the Slytherin table, a plate of untouched food, a sprawled book by her goblet of Pumpkin Juice, and Theodore Nott and Daphne Greengrass in front of her.

"I'll get them, I swear it," Nott growled menacingly, his blue eyes narrowing into slits as a few of his house-mates smirked at the black-eye that he was sporting. The murmurs of his latest fight were still being spoken about especially loud to show him no mercy. "I'll start with Finnegan and Weasley, and then I'll get these idiots."

In her unfortunate disguise as Draco Malfoy, Hermione stared with blank and irritated silver eyes at Nott.

Nott turned to Hermione with a scowl. "Don't look at me that way, Malfoy," he huffed. "You know you'd be planning to retaliate if that Half-Blood and Blood Traitor did this to you," he pointed at his bruised face. "I don't care about getting in trouble with our dearest Headmistress. I'm getting them back."

Despite her efforts to remain as Malfoy-centric as she could, Hermione felt herself scowl with a parental expression, the same she used on Harry and Ron every time they got out of hand. "You're going about like this was an unfair fight, Nott," the tone she used was an annoyed one. "The only reason why Finnegan decided to throw his fists around was because, yet again, you decided it was appropriate to push Parvati Patil. Now, if you hadn't attempted to throw an Unforgivable, Ro—Weasley wouldn't have jumped in. And even then, he didn't do anything but disarm you."

Not moved by that scolding look on Malfoy's face, Nott just continued to glare, dropping his fork and pushing away his plate. "If I didn't know any better, Draco, I'd say you were siding with the Weasel," he snapped. Before the boy across from him could say anything to his previous comment, however, Nott rose from the bench. "And believe me, mate, you wouldn't if you knew what I did."

Hermione creased her forehead, remaining silent as Nott stalked away from the table. What did that even mean? Was there something happening among all these Slytherin boys that Malfoy hadn't let her know about?

With a clearing of her throat, Daphne Greengrass looked up with her dark eyes at the boy before her, unknowingly interrupting Hermione's musing. "Odd," she said, her gaze narrowing.

"What's odd, Greengrass?" Hermione asked the girl, making sure to pull on Malfoy's favorite uninterested stare.

"You," Daphne replied straightforwardly. "You're much more logical than what I can remember, Malfoy. And the fact that you didn't sit there and plan attacks of revenge on those Gryffindors for Nott's sake, I'm impressed by." She smiled; the act appeared strange on her always serious expression. "It's just nice to know there's someone else not wasting their time with stupid, childhood grudges when we're at war."

Feeling a little taken aback, not knowing if she should be concerned that she wasn't passing off as Malfoy the way she should, or that she should be concerned that she actually found that Daphne Greengrass was rational herself, Hermione kept her blank stare. "You talk a lot about that, Greengrass. Why?  Why do you suddenly have no hatred for anyone else? Why did you allow Parkinson to call you a Blood Traitor the other night? Surely someone like you has something up her sleeve."

Daphne's dark eyes became impossibly darker, silence looming between both of them. As the Slytherin kept quiet for a moment, Hermione felt a little satisfied that she managed to stun someone the way Malfoy always had.