Granger arched an eyebrow at him, not rising to the bait.
“So, I’m just expected to stack your ridiculously overblown ego, then?” she asked, seeming exasperated by, but resigned to the task.
“Fine, whatever. You’re clever.”
Draco couldn’t help the morphing of his grin into a full-blown, toothy smile.
“Really? Do tell, pet. Just how sly and intelligent do you think I am?”
His partner gave him a flat stare.
“Cunning enough to maneuver me into this game, hoping you’d be able to fix it so we could be together so you could attempt to humiliate me tonight, but not wise enough to research the cards you’ve been playing with enough to know the spell on them wouldn’t allow such a thing. So, you’re cagey and devious, Malfoy, but not what one might call ingenious.”
Okay, that wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting.
Clearly, she was going to insult him every time she had to praise him.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
What a way to spend the next twenty-five minutes!
“Moving on,” he grumbled, feeling a bit deflated by the fact that he knew these were her totally honest feelings about him, as the cards wouldn’t let her lie.
It bit to think she was judging the entirety of his intellect solely upon this one minor, flawed expedition this weekend.
Obviously, she was forgetting the other dozen or so schemes he’d concocted over the years that had been stupendously successful at wanking her off.
“As compliments go, that one sucked. You’re terrible at the game of flattery. Try harder.”
As he’d expected, that definitely seemed to get under her skin.
Good, he thought, now she’d have to take the game a mite more seriously and would have to dig deep to come up with some way to succeed at the card’s requirements.
No more flippant backhanded compliments from that sharp tongue of hers.
Feeling confident that he’d manoeuvered her into a corner where she’d have no choice but to genuinely appreciate him, Draco gave her some space and lazily lifted his wand, pointing it at the ceiling.
Concentrating on non-verbally changing its color from white to red, then green, then blue, then yellow, and back again to red, he focussed on that task while Granger gathered her thoughts.
Oddly, it seemed as if the magic of the room was struggling to keep up with his commands the faster he cast, because it kept defaulting to white between each colour modification and it seemed to pause a few moments before obeying his will.
Were his incessant demands to alter the environment too great on the room’s magic, overloading it, or was the room’s magic shoving back at him, finding his eccentricity a waste and preferring a minimalist design instead?
Either way, it was a fun challenge and he amused himself with pushing the room’s magical limits while his Hermione thought up her next tribute to his greatness.
“All right, I’ve got another one,” she said, breaking the stalemate by taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
“You’ve got the makings of a natural born leader…although you might want to work on learning how to be gracious and respectful to your minions, because you’re terrible to them.”
He barked a laugh at her audacity.
“Minions? Is that how you see my friends?”
“Crabbe and Goyle worship you,” she reminded him.
“Yet you mistreat them all the time, insulting them and getting them into trouble. That’s not what a friend does.”
Now she was treading into territory best left alone.
“You know nothing of Slytherin politics, Granger. My house isn’t like your touchy-feely, hearts-and-rainbows one where everyone holds hands and sings songs together. What I have always done to Crabbe and Goyle was so I could protect them. They’re too dim-witted and just vindictive enough not to end up on the wrong side of the law someday. I kick them around to keep them in line, but give them a place of importance so they don’t feel like common whipping dogs either. The first few years, just the protection of being associated with me, with my name and my father’s reputation, also kept them from ending up some seventh-year’s bitch in the men’s showers late one night. And yes, Granger, that kind of thing happens—more frequently then you probably ever assumed,” he replied to her gasp of disbelief. Follow the newest chapters on novelping dot com.
“Don’t be so naïve.”
He glanced at her with a deep frown, having thought her more sophisticated than this and disappointed to find that she wasn’t.
“Basically, I keep my friends safe in a hierarchy they can fit comfortably within, so no one will take advantage of them and so they’ll stay out of serious trouble,” he reiterated.
“In return, they do me favors and accept my authority.” He sneered at her now, irate that they’d even had to go here at all.
Slytherin’s house dynamics were a private affair, and he hated airing their dirty laundry to outsiders.
“But then, I don’t suppose you’d understand that type of power structure, seeing as how you come from the ‘hippy flowers and sunshine’ house.” She was silent a moment, contemplating all he’d laid at her feet.
“You know, I never thought of it that way before. It’s the law of the jungle in Slytherin, then: to kill or be killed?” She shook her head, her riot of long curls shifting down her back.
“How very sad for you all.”
Ire crept into his belly, ruining his mood.
“Judging my house again? How sanctimonious you are, Granger! But then, it’s common for Gryffindors to be so arrogant…and woefully unsophisticated about how the world really works!”
“Cynic,” she accused.
“Idealist,” he threw back.
They both sighed.
This was clearly not something they were going to come to agreement to anytime soon, if ever.
“Next,” he growled, hating this game all ready.
This wasn’t turning out to be nearly as much fun as he’d hoped.