Obliviate : A Dramione fanfiction

01.

"Let's do this fairly, by picking names out of a hat to see who shall be partnered with whom for this thesis project." Ron Weasley gave Hermione Granger a hopeful look. He only wants to be my partner so he doesn't have to do any of the work; a spiteful thought came over Hermione. But what if he actually likes having my company? The romantic side to the muggleborn argued, but she had already brushed off those thoughts and was trying to focus on the task at hand.

"Ah, Seamus and Ron. Once your name has been called, you may leave to go and start the project." The ginger haired boy gave a last longing glance at Hermione before taking his leave.
"Who's next, I wonder?" Professor Flitwick's petit hand went into the black hat, drawing out two more slips of paper reading the names: "Miss Parkinson and Miss Granger!" The two girls both rolled their eyes. "Run along now, you two." The Professor dismissed the two of them, the latter catching Draco Malfoy staring at her; she narrowed her hazel eyes at him as his gaze darted away.

After finding all the good communal study spots were impressively occupied, including the Great Hall and the Gryffindor common room, Pansy once again rolled her mud green eyes and harrumphed "Come on then," leaving Hermione to almost be attacked by Miss Parkinson's coal coloured, rough hair.

The Slytherin girl halted, swishing her hair once again to face the Gryffindor. "'Cause this is my House common room you're going to be entering I'm not afraid to take precautions with a mudblood Gryffindor entering the sacred hallows of the Slytherin House," Pansy took on an even haughtier look than usual as Hermione repressed the urge to call out the pig nosed girl. Hermione rolled her eyes, making it obvious she did not care for the House proud speeches. Smirking, Pansy Parkinson whipped out her wand and whispered "Petrificus Totalus!" before obscuring Hermione's vision all together and casting Wingardium Leviosa. On the way (Hermione hoped they were still on track and Pansy wasn't going to ditch her in one of Filch's broom cupboards :/), Hermione wished Flitwick had just paired her with Ron. He may be tiresome at times, but at least he wouldn't pull something like this on her; sometimes Hermione felt the prejudice against Slytherin was all a case of misunderstanding and then her Slytherin partner went and did this to her! Now they were in the penultimate year of Hogwarts, Hermione thought of how childish Pansy must be to take pleasure out of doing this to a fellow pupil.

Without warning, Hermione fell from her floating position, ears full of the laughter of others – did she hear the snap of a camera? Glaring up at Pansy, Hermione brushed herself off, holding in her hatred for her Charms partner for work's sake. "Let's just get this done, then we won't ever have to speak to each other again," Staring her out, still smirking, Pansy dropped their combined notes so far onto a mahogany table.

For the next hour, the two girls remained peacefully dedicated to their work; Hermione had never known how ferociously Pansy studied – she had seemed, for the time being, to put aside their blood/ House differences and her company was quite pleasant.

"I just remembered: I made further notes on this last week, but I lent them to Draco."
"Don't loose your train of thought – I'll go and grab them," Hermione stood, grateful for the excuse to move about, having her legs start to succumb to pins and needles.

The Slytherin common room was not unlike that of the Gryffindor common room; instead of the usual hearth, the Slytherin's fireplace was full of surprisingly comfortable emerald flames, a few turquoise and blue hues thrown into the mix. The high backed chairs and the poufs clustered about the round tables were a mix of green and mahogany, replacing the scarlet and chestnut. The walls had a thatched pattern, made up of all the hues of green – Hermione never knew there could be so many different colours that /were classified and generalised as being just the one colour/ made up just one colour. High windows peered, not into a landscape, but to that of murky darkness. (Hermione had revised Hogwarts: A History so many times that she knew that the Slytherin common room was situated under ground, in the Black Lake but she hadn't really taken note of her surroundings.) Peering out of the cross-hatched window, the Gryffindor jumped back at the sudden appearance of the Giant Squid (fabled to be Godric Gryffindor in his animagus form, but even the lateral thinking Hermione dismissed that tale to abundance of time). The Squid in question seemed to be looking curiously at Hermione, black eyes narrowed, as if to say "You don't belong here".

One thing that was definitely different to the layout of the Gryffindor common room was the location of the dormitories - where Gryffindor's were up a small flight of stairs, the Slytherin's were down a small flight of stairs, doors situated at either end of the small corridor, and to Hermione's eye, unmarked of gender specification. Pansy had said to take the door to the left, third bed from the door. Knocking before entrance, the absence of an answer told Hermione there was no on in there; following Pansy's instructions, Hermione found her previous notes left Draco's bed, along with a folder. Not sure if the folder held further relevant notes, Hermione decided to investigate. But upon opening the folder, she found dozens upon dozens of crumpled papers – letters, it seemed written to...to her. Beginning to decrypt the impressively looping handwriting, Hermione heard her name being called by her work partner; she shoved the letters back into the folder, and the folder into the folds of her robe before returning to Pansy, trying to push astounded thoughts of who had written the letters (surely not Malfoy) and why they were in existence to the back of her mind to constantly ponder over.