Where Your Eyes Linger

Chapter 3

Draco knew he had no excuse this time. He'd already gotten his seat, and it was full. Still, that didn't stop him from walking around—with Crabbe and Goyle to lessen any suspicions, of course. When he finally found Hermione, he made a point not to notice her.

"Well, look who it is," he drawled. "Potty and the Weasel."

Malfoy tried his best to sneak glances of Hermione without her notice, but as her eyes were practically boring holes in him, he could barely even take in her bushy hair. He was so distracted that he barely even remembered the insult he gave Weasley, something about gold and his mother. However, when an odd noise made itself heard, Draco finally spotted the fourth person in the compartment. When he discovered it was a teacher, he immediately tried to back out as quickly as possible.

With one last look at Hermione, he, Crabbe and Goyle left.

"Why did you leave, Malfoy?"Crabbed asked when they were out of earshot.

"Obviously because there was a teacher. Do you expect me to get a detention the first week of school?" Draco explained in a strained voice.

"But he was asleep," Goyle said.

"And you don't think Weasley would get violent and would somehow wake up the professor?" Draco said, sighing at Goyle's severe lack of intelligence.

"Well, did you see that Mudblood Granger? You didn't say anything about her," Goyle said, the mention of Hermione making Draco's heart skip.

"Yeah, you always come up with the best things with her," Crabbe agreed.

"Maybe I don't care for talking to Mudblood filth like her," Draco said as casually as he could.

Crabbe and Goyle made similar grunts of disappointment. Fortunately for them, the fainting of one Harry Potter would be enough to amuse them for the whole year.

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"...you great ugly brute." Hermione turned just in time to see Malfoy on the ground, red visible on his robes. She heard the scream he'd made and knew she would laugh about it later, but without knowing how badly Buckbeak had attacked him, Hermione feared for Draco's life.

In order to see the wounds better, Hermione ran to help Hagrid by holding the gate open. Looking towards the castle to hide her anxiety, Hermione waited patiently for Hagrid to pass. When he did, she was both relieved and angry to see that it was just a scratch. She glared at Draco before rejoining her classmates.

Pansy seemed on the verge of tears , and seeing this made Hermione get a very odd feeling in her stomach. Being the logical girl that she was, Hermione tried to figure it out, but came up blank. To hide her confusion, she returned to Harry and Ron, who were laughing at Draco's scream, as she predicted.

As they headed to their next class, Hermione kept thinking about all the blood on his robes. Maybe she'd seen wrong or misjudged the depth of the scratch. It could have been really bad.

Finally she had to ask, "D'you think he'll be alright?"

She realized when Ron mentioned Hagrid that she had been focusing on the wrong thing. And she also had the feeling that whatever caused this odd thought process was directly linked to that feeling she had about Pansy. She just had to figure out how to connect the dots.

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Draco decided that if he was going to be wounded, he might as well milk it for all that it was worth. With this wound, he had effectively cancelled a Quidditch match, fired the oaf they called a teacher, and pleased his father all in one. Plus, with the ease at which everyone believed things in this school, Draco could still make the story into something that made him sound heroic and see where that got him. Yes, this injury was turning out to be a perfect opportunity.